“NYPD Officer’s Cat Missing for 2 Years Found, Returned by Zombie”

Welcome to the story that every journalist you follow is either gleefully writing a headline for or fuming that they can’t write about.

Times Scare is a year round haunted house that operates out of 229 West 42nd street, about half a block from Times Square, New York City. Jeremy Zelkowitz, a Brooklyn native, makes his living under layers of makeup as a promotor for the venue. He walks around Times Square dressed as a zombie, “The Times Square Zombie,” and tries to get folks that one half-block over to Time Scare. Last weekend, however, he encountered somebody who need a bit more help than your average dazzled tourist. He spotted a distressed stray cat, trying to escape the noise by darting into various storefronts.

According to Zelkowitz, the cat then darted on and off of the road interrupting traffic. That’s when he and a friend decided to help and took the curious cat to nearby BluePearl Veterinary Partners specialty and emergency hospital in Manhattan on 55th Street.

Once at BluePearl, doctors used a microchip scanner and were able to determine the cat, named Disaster, belonged to Jimmy Helliesen, a Long Island resident and New York City Police Officer.

Disaster was one of the first cats that Helliesen, now a long-time stray fosterer, ever brought home, who clawed through a screen window in his Long Island house and ran away, never to be seen again. At least, until a zombie brought him to the vet. As the BluePearl Veterinary Partners’ press release says: we may never “know the full story of where Disaster spent the past two years or how he got from Long Island to Manhattan.” But now I know what cat I want on my side in the zombie apocalypse.

(via Radiolab on Tumblr.)