[Graham King]

In summer’s dusk, not far underground they wait – attentive. In the valley below, the farm quietens. Eventually their scouts return: “Lights out, all abed, no sounds from house - bar snoring.” Dog too dozes, half-out of his kennel this warm night. Five specialists are sent onward, approaching carefully upwind against gently flowing sultry air. Soon comes their well-rehearsed collective pounce, grasp and bite; from under that muffling grip, only a brief choking sound and warm trickle escape. Dog has been despatched.
Summoned now from their tunnels, massed forces shuffle downslope, under fitful clouds and moonlight: a battalion paralleling the sky, striped and silent.
The strict Darwinian outcome of Man’s long persecution now emerges. Unwittingly he has crafted them, his nemesis, by leaving alive only the most evasive, deepest-digging, tenacious of their species: a brooding intelligence, accumulating. Finally, across England’s counties, timed to this historic moon, Badgerkind attacks.