THE DEATH RUNNER

Mi Ling Coen and her father, Tung Wu Chiang, were walking down Chesterton Street in the town of Percival in the Victorian Countryside. They had just been to see Tung Wu's older sister a grief counsellor, to help Mi Ling over the loss of her husband Barry Coen, who had committed suicide on their wedding night; before they could even consummate their wedding.

They were walking back to Tung Wu's car when they saw a strange flash of white light whoosh past on the opposite footpath.

"What the...?" said Tung Wu, a tall, powerfully built man, in an expensive checked three-piece suit. Not at all the Western world's clichéd image of the tiny Chinaman in a coolie hat.

As they watched, the white flash raced across toward where four teenagers were talking, laughing, drinking Pepsi from a shared two-litre bottle.

"No, no, no way!" said a green-haired Goth girl. Stopping as her head suddenly shot off her neck, and flew into the garden of a neighbouring home.

"What the fuck," said her older brother. Not believing his eyes as his sister's headless body gushed blood for a second before falling to the concrete path.

"Rhianna!" he shrieked. Suddenly silenced as his own head flew off into the same garden, landing only centimetres away from Rhianna's head.

"Holy shit, run," shouted the other girl, a brunette with a Veronica Lake-do covering completely her left eye.

She started running down Chesterton Street even before Ethan's body hit the ground. Abandoning her boyfriend Bertie in her desire to stay alive.

"Harry!" Bertie shouted to his girlfriend, Harriet. Then his body was cut cleanly into two, the top half falling to the gutter first before the lower half fell to the concrete footpath.

Harriet-Harry had almost reached the corner of Cochran Drive. When the white streak flashed after her, cutting off her legs in one strike, so that she could no longer run.

In desperation, blood gushing from her leg stumps, she tried pulling herself along the concrete with her hands. Until the white flash removed first one arm at the shoulder; then the other.

"Oh please, just kill me now," cried Harriet, not wanting to live as a quadruple amputee.

Obliging her, the Death Runner sliced her head in half to the shoulders, vertically.

For just a second, the creature stopped long enough for Mi Ling and Tung Wu to see the figure of a tall, lean Ninja, dressed all in white. Instead of the traditional black.

"The Death Runner," said Tung Wu. He pulled his daughter down with him as they hid from view beside his brand new red-and-white striped Citroen C5 Aircross.

Then the Death Runner streaked away, seemingly at the speed of light, a mere white blur again.

They waited a few minutes before Tung Wu risked looking up. Seeing no sign of the Death Runner he ching-chinged his car door open and they climbed inside. Despite his desire to get Mi Ling to safety, Tung Wu sat in the car and rang through to Donald Esk.



"Hello?" said Don, a local police officer, tall, powerfully built with brown hair cut into virtually an early Beatles mop-top look. "Oh Tung Wu, how is Mi Ling getting on? Is the therapy doing any good...?"



At Deidre Morton's boarding house in Rochester Road in Merridale, Terri Scott, her boyfriend Colin Klein, Natasha Lipzing, Freddy Kingston, Tommy Turner, and Deidre herself were enjoying a scrumptious and very generous breakfast.

"This is excellent, Mrs. M.," said Terri, a beautiful thirty-something blonde, and a local police sergeant.

"Yes, it is," agreed Colin. A tall redheaded English reporter, currently enjoying his long service leave in Australia, while hunting down - with much success - local Aussie myths and legends.

"Indeed," agreed Tommy Turner, a short, fat blonde man who had been married and divorced six times. "None of my exes could cook a quarter this good. If they had, I might still be married to them."

"I thought they all divorced you?" said Freddy Kingston, a short, chubby, balding man.

"Technically," agreed Tommy, "but I might have been nicer to them if they'd had a clue how to cook ... or knew what the term conjugal rights meant."

"Oh," said Natasha Lipzing, a puritanical spinster, clearly shocked.

"Indeed Natasha," said Deidre Morton, a short chubby, sixty-something brunette. "I'll have no smut spoken in this house."

"What smut?" demanded Tommy. "I just pointed out that they were all cold bitches, and none of them could cook worth a damn!"



They were still arguing about what qualified as smut, as opposed to simply saying the truth, when there came a hammering at the front door.

"I'll get it," said Colin and Terri together. Racing each other to the front door.

Opening the door, they saw Donald Esk and Jessie Baker - a tall, well-muscled redheaded policeman -, standing there.

"'Ello..." started Donald.

"Don't bother," chided Terri, "we've both heard your pathetic English Bobbie accent before."

"Well, if that's how you feel," said Don. He went on to tell them about the four teenagers slaughtered in Chesterton Street in the nearby town of Percival.

"Mi Ling and Tung Wu, saw it?" asked Terri.

"Yes, they had just seen Tung Wu's sister, a grief therapist, when it happened," said Jessie. "They just ducked down behind Tung Wu's Skoda in time not to be seen."

"Actually he has a Citroen," corrected Don.

"Much the same difference," insisted Jessie. "They're both basically peddle cars for adults."

"How dare you," said Don, as they headed out the front door. "I love Citroens. Citroens are cool."

"What about Skodas?" asked Colin Klein. "Are they cool too?"

"No, they definitely are peddle-cars for adults."



At the scene, they found Elvis Green, the local coroner, a lifelong Elvis Presley fan examining two of the victims.

The other two were being examined by Jesus Costello (pronounced 'Hee-Zeus'), the administrator and chief surgeon at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

"Well the injuries seem to confirm that they were killed by something akin to a Samurai sword," said Jesus, standing up. Signalling for Cheryl and Derek, two paramedics who took the green-haired Goth girl's body, and separated head, to the first ambulance.

"I agree," said Elvis Green.

"We'll be back for another one soon," said Cheryl, a tall, well-muscled thirty-something with badly dyed carrot-coloured hair. She self-dyed her hair, and changed the colour almost as often as Mollie Sugden had done in Are You Being Served. Although her colour choices weren't quite as exotic as Mrs. Slocomb's had been.

"You wanna drive?" asked Derek, a tall, athletic black paramedic, placing the decapitated corpse reverently into the back of the ambulance.



"So what did, you see," asked Terri as she and Colin sat in the back of Tung Wu's Citroen.

"The Death Runner," said Tung Wu.

"The what now?" asked Colin.

"The Death Runner," repeated Tung Wu, an expert on oriental myths and legends. "According to ancient Japanese legends, the Death Runner was expelled from Ninja School for some indiscretion. Outraged he hunted down and slaughtered all of his teachers and then fellow students. Running at them with phenomenal speed that no normal human being could ever match.

"But not satisfied, he continued to hunt down and slaughter people. First in the orient, then in Europe, Russia, the United Kingdom, the Americas and finally, now it seems, Australia."

"When did his killing start?" asked Terri.

"Nearly two thousand years ago," said Tung Wu, "when Jesus Christ was still alive."

"And the fact that he's been going for nearly two Millennia, means that he's eternal?" asked Colin.

"Yes, although no one knows why. Some say he made a pact with the Devil so that he could get revenge upon those who had wronged him. And that if he ever stops running for more than a few seconds, the Devil will come to claim his soul."

"So there is one way to stop him...?" asked Terri.

"Two actually," said Tung Wu. "Like the Cybermen on Doctor Who gold is poison to him. Golden bullets, golden swords, or knives, or even golden pellets thrown at him can harm him."

"That sounds like an expensive way to kill him," said Terri.

"Yes," agreed Tung Wu. "Especially since, unlike the Cybermen who helpfully shamble along at a slow pace, giving you a clear shot at them, the Death Runner whooshes by, sometimes leaving sonic booms in his wake, as he breaks the sound barrier."

"Admittedly not as helpful as the shambling Cybermen," agreed Colin Klein. He asked Terri: "So is this one of the ring through to Russell Street in the hope that they will fund it cases? Or is it more of a keep Russell Street in the dark, so that they don't have us all locked away in a nuthouse cases?"

"Um," she said, thinking: "At this stage, I'm going with option number two."

"I'd advise it," said Mi Ling, "I saw the creature clearly in its white Ninja suit when it stopped for a few seconds. Yet I still don't believe it."

"White?" asked Terri: "I thought Ninjas wore black?"

"Usually, yes," agreed Tung Wu. "But whereas in the west your mourning or death colour is in black; in the orient white is our mourning or death colour. The Death Runner is permanently in mourning for all of the thousands of people whom he has murdered in the last two thousand years. And for the many thousand more that he will kill in the Millennia to come ... if he cannot be stopped."



"A white-clad Ninja mourning for his own victims?" asked Elvis Green as they watched him and Jesus perform autopsies upon the four slaughtered teenagers.

"Apparently," said Terri. "It sounds insane ... but it's what Mi Ling and Tung Wu insist. And we've known them both long enough to trust them implicitly."

"It's a pity that they couldn't get pictures of it," suggested Annie, the Nurse-in-Charge an attractive blonde.

"A bit hard to do, when the thing runs fast enough to leave a sonic boom in its wake," said Colin: "That's like trying to photograph the passing scenery from a bullet train."

"Actually an idiot mate of my granddad did that from an early bullet train in Japan in the 1970s," said Terry: "And when he came over to show the slides to my grandparents all they saw were incomprehensible streaks of colour. It never occurred to the drongo that since they were travelling at over three hundred kilometres an hour, the pix might be a bit streaky."



The four members of the Dougherty family were sitting upon a large yellow and black striped Richmond Football Club picnic blanket, on the banks of the dirty, grey-brown waters of the Yannan River, in Glen Hartwell, having their lunch. They were munching away on hard-boiled eggs with pepper and just a hint of salt in the case of the three-year-old girl, Cleo, who refused to eat anything without salt added.

"Would you like," began Sharon, the mother, holding up a chicken leg. Only to see the drumstick disappear, along her hand. From the stump of which blood gushed out soaking Cleo and her six-year-old brother Mikey, plus most of the food on the blanket.

"Hey," called out Cleo, not yet noticing what had happened to her mother.

Then her brother Mikey's body from the navel upwards, suddenly slid onto the grass, beside her, before the lower half fell over backwards on the grass.

And Cleo started screaming. Until the Death Runner cut her in half vertically, from head to crotch.

"Kids!" screamed their father, Alphonse. He started to rise until his legs were amputated at the crotch, taking his scrotum and most of his penis off at the same time.

He'll never suffer from another urinary tract infection, thought the Death Runner. He went on to behead Alph as he fell forward on the Richmond Football Club blanket.

"Alph! Cleo! Mikey!" shrieked Sharon. Although she could see with her eyes that her left hand had vanished, her brain still refused to register the information yet.

"Alph!" she shouted again, starting to rise.

Until the Death Runner cut her off just above the knees, then amputated both of her arms at the shoulders. Before cutting of her head at the nose.

Angry at himself, since he had meant to cleanly cut through her neck, he spun around and slashed his samurai sword against the trunk of a giant red gum tree. Having to zoom away as the tree slid apart, with the top ninety-nine percent of the tree rolling down, the bank, crushing the Dougherty's' mutilated bodies, before splashing into the murky brown-green waters of the Yannan River.



At Deidre Morton's boarding house in Rochester Road Merridale, Terri Scott, Colin Klein, Natasha Lipzing, Freddy Kingston, Tommy Turner, and Deidre Morton were climbing their way through one of Deidre's mountainous, and delicious lunches.

They had almost finished when Don Esk and Sheila Bennett turned up to notify them of the massacre of the Dougherty family upon the banks of the Yannan River.

"Not much of a place for a picnic lunch," said Sheila, a thirty-something, fifteen-year veteran cop from the local area. "Frankly outside the nearest sewerage farm would be less stinky."

"You're not wrong there," Terri.



Twenty-eight minutes later they were watching Jesus Costello and Elvis Green examining the hacked and crushed remains of the Dougherty family.

"He really made a mess of them this time, didn't he?" said Terri Scott.

"He only did the hacking," said Elvis. "The tree did the crushing."

"Tree?" asked Colin.

Elvis pointed to the great red gum floating in the murky waters of the Yannan, then across to the forty-centimetre-high stump just past the killing field.

"What? He chopped that down?" asked Sheila. "It must have taken a lot of time."

"Best that we can tell he did it with a single slash of his samurai sword," said Jesus.

"What!" said Colin, Terri, Dom, and Sheila as one.

They went across and examined the shiny scarlet stump of the red gum.

"So that's why they're called red gums?" said Colin.

"They're only that gleaming red if they've been polished," said Sheila, the daughter of a carpenter. "So he must have had one Hell of a strong, and one Hell of a sharp blade to cut it that shiny in one slash. Blue gums are just as pretty when buffed up but with dark blue wood."

"Hopefully he'll cut one of those down for us soon so that we can see," joked the redheaded reporter.

"Don't think he won't," said Terri.

After a while, Elvis and Jesus signalled for the ambulance crews to come and take the bodies away to the Glen Hartwell Hospital for further examination.

"You coming with us?" asked Elvis. Colin and the police officers headed across to their cars to follow the ambulance to Baltimore Drive, Glen Hartwell.



"So you need gold to kill this thing if you can get close enough?" said Jesus Costello, while performing an autopsy upon little Cleo Daugherty. He sighed and said: "A cute little thing. A tragedy."

"All murders are tragedies," said Sheila Bennett.

"You're not wrong there," agreed Elvis Green.

"Do you know somewhere we can get some gold?" asked Colin Klein.

"Maybe," said Jesus.

"If you're thinking of the old mines in Wilhelmina," said Terri Scott: "Firstly, they were worked out a hundred years ago. Secondly, we don't have time to become miner forty-niners."

"I bet you've always wanted to say that?" teased the redheaded reporter.

"Ever since I first heard the expression when I was about six years old," she said: "But strangely enough, until now it has never seemed to come up naturally in conversation."

"How strange," said Donald Esk, making them all laugh.



In the car park of the Glen Harwell Mall the Death Runner zoomed in, cut in half an elderly lady as she was climbing out of an ancient puce green mini minor. Then after a second's hesitation, he cut the Mini in half as well. Before racing on to cut down a dozen people as they were climbing out of their cars. Cutting in half a few of the cars just to add to the terror.

Seeing a coach, waiting in the bus-only loading bay, he zoomed across and up the stairs beheading the driver without stopping. Then stopped, disappointed to see only four elderly people aboard the coach. Nonetheless, he whooshed down the coach, slaughtering them all, before racing outside and across to where a heavy truck was being unloaded.

He decapitated and cut in half the three delivery men, then for luck, cut the six tyres (four at the back, two at the front) through just below the axles. Causing the truck to fall, and then roll over to the side, crushing six people.

"Help me, I'm being crushed," called an elderly man. The only one of the six not killed outright. The Death Runner, helped him out of his misery, by cutting off his head at the neck.

He then zoomed on, cutting in half three pregnant women, killing their unborn babies as well. He then raced into the store, which was still being repaired after a semi-trailer had recently crashed right through the central aisle and into the rear storage area.

He slaughtered the manager, Tim Wilde, and three checkout girls, before charging down the aisle, too fast to be seen except as a white blur.

"What the Hell is...?" began a huge, muscular man as he and his wife were cut in half at the waist. Their son had the top half of his head amputated.

Damn, thought the Death Runner without slowing, another clumsy death. He made up for it by cleanly decapitating four nuns standing together, trying to decide whether to buy baby corn in a can or corn on the cob. They ended up enjoying neither.

He swung his samurai sword at two school girls, missing one as she bent down to tie up her shoelaces. Decapitating the other, whose head fell at the feet of the other girl, making her scream, and then faint.

In the fruit section, a woman was holding up a five-kilo sack of apples. He cut them both in half. The woman's upper half slid to the floor, along with five kilogrammes of apples, which scattered every which way, tripping people, and saving their lives as they fell under the swinging sword.

Having avoided falling on the apples himself, the Death Runner, raced toward the front of a store, decapitating three members of a family of four. Leaving behind the nine-year-old son to shriek like a he-banshee as the Death Runner ran out into the car park again.

He headed toward the front entrance of the car park and raced out along Boothy Street then out into the neighbouring forest.



"So where's this unknown gold mine?" asked Terri Scott as the two surgeons finished up the autopsies.

"It's not a gold mine," corrected Jesus Costello. "It's my life savings: two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I've got it in gold."

"How many bars is that?" asked Colin.

"Standard Fort Knox-sized bars ... about one-third of a bar," said Jesus. A twelve point four kilo sized bar is now worth around three-quarters of a million dollars."

"Thanks for the offer," said Terri, "but we can't risk flushing your life's savings away."

"My job is saving lives," insisted Jesus: "If I have to flush my life savings to do that then que sera sera."



They were still debating whether they could let Jesus give away his life savings when they received a number of panicked phone calls from the handful of survivors at the Glen Hartwell Mall.

"Gotta go," cried Terri after telling them all about the massacre.



Thirty-five minutes later the ambulances and police cars started to roll up to the Mall.

"So what the Hell do we do now?" asked Terri, frustrated: "The G.H. Hospital doesn't have room for all these people."

"We're already shipping most of our non-urgent cases down to Sale or Melbourne to make room for the new ones," said Jesus Costello as they started into the chaos that was the Glen Hartwell Mall.



Lily and Percy Thomas were driving down Williamstown Road, on the way to Percival, when Lily said:

"Some idiot is coming up on us fast from behind."

"What's he driving?" asked Percy, never above a little bit of street racing.

"Can't tell, it's not like any car I've ever seen, it's all a blur."

"Must be one of those fucking bikers," said Percy: "Bike riders think they own the road and can cut off anyone they want."

"So do you," pointed out his wife correctly: "Now don't go getting us killed in one of your stupid road rages."

"What stupid road rages?" he demanded: "I never road rage. But if he thinks he's passing me, he's got another thing coming."

So saying, he shifted up and got the car up to eighty kilometres an hour, then ninety, then a hundred in rapid fashion.

"You're gonna get us killed!" whined Lily, unaware of exactly how right she was.

"Nonsense," said Percy: "But if he thinks he's passing us, he's outta his mind."

"Well, he's still coming up fast," said Lily, regretting it as soon as she had spoken.

"Oh yeah," said Percy. He planted his foot and got them up to one hundred and ten, hundred and twenty, then thirty, then forty."

"Slow down," whined Lily, more terrified of her husband than of anyone trying to cut them off.

"Is he still behind us?"

"Yes, if anything a little closer."

"Okay," said Percy shifting up again, he took them to one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, then one sixty, one seventy, one eighty. "That oughta leave him in our wake."

"Nope, he's still coming up fast."

"What?" said Percy, well this thing can do three hundred and twenty Kays an hour. Let's see how fast the bastard can go."

So saying he took them up to two hundred kilometres an hour, then two-twenty, two thirty, two forty."

"Those bikes can go fast, but I bet we've left him in our dust now."

"No, he's still catching up. But for God's sake slow down before you get us killed, and let him pass!"

"Never!" shouted Percy, hunching over the steering wheel, like Goofy in a Disney cartoon about road rage. Shifting up again, he took them up two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, then two-sixty, two-seventy, two eighty. Confident that at last, they had left him behind.

"Eat my dust punk!" shouted Percy.

"Slow down pleeeeaaaase!" whined Lily.

"Never! Let's see the punk match that."

This time Lily was smart enough not to answer, so Percy had to lift his eyes up to the rear-view mirror.

"What?" he said. "The bastard's still catching up. Well, let's take it all the way."

"Percy no!" pleaded Lily.

Percy shifted up all the way and took them to two hundred and ninety kilometres an hour, then three hundred, then three ten, then three twenty, then three twenty-three-point-two kilometres an hour. As fast as the Ferrari would go.

"He's still catching up," whined Lily. "Slow down for God's sake, before you get us killed."

"Never!" said Percy. "He might be going fast, but he'll never get past me, I'll swerve from side to side to stop him."

"At three hundred and twenty Kays an hour?" asked his terrified wife: "You really will get us killed."

"Sooner that than let the bastard get past us," said Percy making Lily think:

Oh God, he's finally gone insane with road rage.

Despite their insane speed, the Death Runner rapidly overtook them, easily passing the Ferrari, in the process cutting the roof off the luxury car with one swipe of his samurai sword.

"Percy!" shrieked Lily, thinking for certain they were going to roll over and be killed.

But somehow Percy managed to keep control of the car. And as sanity started to return to him, he eased on the brake. Careful not to spin the car, till they were down to three hundred kilometres an hour, then two hundred, then one hundred, then finally ten kays an hour before stopping altogether.

The Death Runner had raced well past them. Then he stopped for a couple of seconds, just long enough for the Thomases to see him, and to see that he was on foot.

"What?" said Percy: "What happened to his bike?"

"He was on foot all the time?" said Lily.

"Don't be ridiculous. Even Cathy Freeman could never run at over three hundred kilometres an hour," said Percy.

Then the Death Runner raced back toward them, swinging his samurai sword. The second swing took out most of the front windscreen as well as decapitating poor Lily Thomas.

"Lily!" shrieked Percy, trying to start the Ferrari again. However, the next pass of the Death Runner took off the rest of the windscreen front and rear, along with Percy's head this time.

Then back and forth he ran each time hacking away more of the luxury car. Plus slicing off a little more of Lily and or Percy.

Until the car and its passengers were reduced to small bloody shards lining Williamstown Road.



At the Glen Hartwell Mall, they had taken everyone to the hospital and had called in as many auto repair shops as they could locate between Sale and Willamby to take care of the vehicular remains.

"Poor Tim Wilde," said Terri Scott: "He survived the Misery Seeker driving everyone to commit suicide. But he couldn't survive the Death Runner's sword."

"What will happen to the mall now?" asked Colin.

"They'll probably shut it down," said Elvis Green, the coroner, as he climbed into the last departing ambulance. "It attracts too much chaos, just like Mr Klein there."

"I am not a monster-magnet!" shouted the redheaded reporter, no longer seeing the funny side of their teasing.



They had barely started the latest sumptuous lunch at Deidre Morton's house in Rushcutters Road when Jessie Baker and Sheila Bennett (an orange-haired Goth woman who was a fifteen-year veteran with the local police) turned up to tell them about the slaughter of Lily and Percy Thomas out at Williamstown Road.

Quickly spreading two slices of bread, Colin Klein lumped a large steak between them to eat in the car as they drove to the carnage.

"That's all right for you," complained Terri, getting in behind the wheel of her police-blue Lexus: "But as the driver I need both hands on the wheel."

"Yum, yum, this is delicious," teased Colin.

"Shut up!" ordered the blonde, starting the car.



Half an hour later they were at the murder site at Williamstown Road, trying their best not to throw up at the sight of the carnage.

"Gee, I'm sure glad that I didn't have a steak sandwich before coming here," teased Terri.

"Shut up," said Colin, feeling more than a bit queasy.

"Is this the Thomases's Ferrari?" asked Terri.

"The brand plaque says that," said Jessie Baker holding it up. "Well, actually this part says 'Ferr', but I'm guessing that's short for Ferrari."

"Those things can go pretty fast can't they?" asked Sheila.

"This model can travel just over three hundred and twenty Kays an hour," said Donald Esk.

"So this Death Racer can run down a three hundred-plus Kay an hour sports car and chop it to shreds, along with its occupants?" said Sheila.

"That's about the size of it," agreed Don.

"Even if we see the thing, how the hell are we supposed to stop it?" asked Terri Scott.

"Now that really is the sixty-four million dollar question," said Colin as Ed Bussy arrived with his tow truck only to find nothing to tow.

"What the...?"

"We'll have to pick out the human bits first," said Terri, "then you'll need a bucket and a shovel to take care of the car bits."

"What a waste of a beautiful car," said Ed Bussy, shaking his head in disgust. More upset about the destruction of the luxury car than the destruction of Lily and Percy Thomas.



At Deidre Morton's boarding house, Terri really got stuck into the delightful cuisine, starving after missing lunch.

"Hopefully, I'll get to finish my meal this time," she said between mouthfuls.

"Surely even a mass murdering psychotic killer takes the nights off?" asked Natasha Lipzing.

"Strangely enough, no, not always," said Colin Klein eating more slowly than Terri.

"Now come on Mr. Klein," said Deidre Morton: "Eat up. Follow Terri's fine example."

"I didn't get any lunch," pointed out Terri between mouthfuls.

"You poor thing," said Deidre, "you both need feeding up."

"Need feeding up," agreed Natasha Lipzing.



At a little after 8:00 PM the red-striped, white Cessna Skyhawk was coming in for a landing at a small private runway owned by a corporate bank, a few Kays outside Glen Hartwell.

"Look out Robert, there's something on the runway," cried his wife Jessica Murphy.

"Don't be daft Jess," he said: "How can there be? It's a private runway owned by the bank. Only two staff in operation, and as dumb as Ned and Tolli can be, I'm sure they're not dumb enough to stand on the runway when they're expecting a landing."

"Well, something's down there, something white."

"Probably a sheep escaped from someone's farm. Don't worry the propeller will slice it to pieces."

"You're all heart," said Jessica.

"What are you complaining about? We can have lamb chops for supper."



On the runway the Death Runner was keeping pace with the Cessna until it was low enough for his Samurai sword to slice off the front guide wheel, then the rear landing wheels.



"What was that?" demanded Jessica, hearing the shearing sounds.

"What was what?" demanded Robert. "Jeez, you're jumpy tonight babe. I've made a hundred night-landings before."

"Let's hope we both survive the one hundred and first," said Jessica prophetically.



Beneath the plane, the Death Runner reached up and slashed the plane down the centre.



"What was that?" demanded Jessica Murphy.

"Damned if I know," said Robert, as worried now as his wife. He tried to take the plane up again but suddenly had no controls.



Beneath the plane the Runner saw the plane starting to rise again, so he raced back to cut the tail section right off the small plane. Cutting through the rudder controls as well.



At the crash, as the tail section fell off, Jessica looked out the window and then cried: "Oh god the tail section fell off!"

"Then we gotta land," said a terrified Robert Murphy: "We can't fly without that."

With no rudder controls, all Robert could do was reduce speed to the engines, hoping that they could survive the landing. Unaware that they had no wheels.



The Death Runner decided that it was time to end things. He raced across to slash the left wing off the plane, spilling plane fuel across the runway. Then raced around to slash off the right wing also.



Seeing the right wing fall off, Robert Murphy started to pray. Unaware that they already didn't have a prayer.

As the wheel-less plane touched down, it started to somersault, flipping end to end and then left to right.



Behind the plane the Death Runner raced forward to start chopping it into cross sections, being sure to chop Jessica and Robert Murphy into cross sections as well.

Then, as a spark ignited the spilt fuel, the Death Runner took off at a blur, to watch the carnage from a safe distance.



"Jesus," said Tolli in the control tower, "I think the Murphys are in trouble."

"You think?" asked Ned sarcastically as the light aerocraft exploded.



It was nearly 9:00 PM by the time that the Glen Hartwell volunteer firefighters got the fire under control at the private runway. While Terri Scott, Colin, Sheila Bennett, Jessie Baker, and Donald Esk stood around watching.

"Looks like he's done it again," said Sheila, running a hand through her orange and black hair.

"Yes," agreed Terri: "I think it's time that we got some expert advice on the Death Runner."

"From Tung Wu?" asked Colin.

"Who else," said Terri. Leaving Sheila, Jessie, and Paul Bell in charge at the crash site, she drove her Lexus around to Cochran Drive in Percival town.



A little later they were sitting around after apologising for arriving just as Tung Wu, Mi Ling, and Swan Li were getting ready to go to bed.

"That's all right," said Tung Wu: "As long as you have a good reason ... otherwise get out."

Laughing Terri said: "Actually we need your help to defeat the Death Runner. Specifically, can he be defeated? And if so, how? We weren't able to come up with any gold to throw at him."

"If you can defeat the Death Runner in a race, he will leave and not kill again for a hundred years."

"But what can defeat him?" asked Terri: "He ran down a Ferrari doing three hundred and twenty kilometres."

"An SR-71, maybe," said Colin Klein.

"The Death Runner can travel around the world in a single day," pointed out Tung Wu.'

"So can an SR-71," said Colin: "Back in the 1990s the U.S. Air Force used to have SR-71s zoom down to Australia in your night. They'd whoosh around Aus for eight to ten hours doing tests of all kinds, then zoom back to America by their night.

"This set off the UFOlaloonies big time. To this day, thirty years later you get books and documentaries about the 'inexplicable' lights zooming around Australia by night in the 1990s."

"Well, let's get in touch with the RAAF and see if they can send us an SR-71," said Terri.



The next morning the SR-71, which was piloted by old friends of theirs fifty-something pixie cur brunette Jennifer Eckles, and her twenty-something daughter, Barbara.

"Barbara, Jennifer," said Terrie, giving them both a hug: "I see you've both moved up in the world."

"Yes," agreed Jennifer: "Helicopters are great, but the blackbird is superb."

"I hear they were haunting Australia in the 1990s?" teased Terri.

"Well, the U.S. has never officially admitted to that," said Jennifer: "So you'll have to ask them."

After the social talk, Terri went on to explain the problem to the two women, who had helped them on other cases involving the supernatural. So they were not as sceptical as you might expect.

"Well," said Jennifer: "The first thing we'll need to do is extend this runway by a couple of kilometres, if it's going to be a road race."

"Can you really beat it?" asked Sheila Bennett.

"If we can't in the blackbird," said Barbara Eckles: "Then nothing can. So fingers crossed. But first the runway extension."

"We've got the Department of Building and Works coming in,' said Terri.

Even as she spoke, they heard the sounds of engines and turned to see half a dozen vehicles, including two bulldozers driving into the airport."

"Well, let's get out of their way," said Jennifer. "We've heard stories about the remarkable meals that your landlady makes for you."

"How did you hear that?" asked Sheila.

"I told them over the phone, as an extra incentive to get them to help out," explained Terri, as they headed across to the cars to start back to Deidre Morton's boarding house. Where Barbara and Jennifer would stay for the next ten days until the runway was completed and the concrete dried.



As they sat down Deidre Morton said: "My, my you're both all skin and bones."

"All skin and bones," agreed Natasha Lipzing.

"But don't worry, we'll soon get you all fed up."

"All fed up," agreed Natasha.

Deidre piled their plates full of roast lamb, baked potatoes, roast pumpkin, baby carrots, beans, peas, baby corn, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and three or four other vegetables."

"Tuck in," said Deidre.

"You'd better do as she says," warned Colin Klein. "Nobody's allowed to leave the table until their plate is empty."

"Well, I don't like to see good food go to waste," said Deidre: "And you're all so thin."

"All so thin," agreed Natasha Lipzing.



Ten days later the concrete had hardened enough and things were ready to go. To make certain that the Death Runner would come to the newly built runway, Terri and the others had arranged for everyone at all the towns from BeauLarkin to Willamby, and from Westmoreland to Brooklyn to camp out for a few days beside the runway, so that if the Death Runner wanted to kill anyone he would have to come out there.



It was on the second day, around noon that the Death Runner finally turned up, looking puzzled at the crowd of a few thousand people lining the new runway.

"Oh, you're here at last,' said Terri Scott, making the Runner look even more puzzled. "We've arranged a little race for you."

"We hear that you cannot resist a good race. Winner takes all," said Colin Klein. If we win, you vanish for a hundred years."

"And if you win, you can kill all of the people here," said Terri. Hoping that she had not just signed the death warrants of three thousand people.

"Excellent," said the Death Runner as the SR-71 landed vertically just behind him.

"Hope you don't mind a plane?" asked Colin.

"Not at all, as long as it stays on the ground."

"Until it reaches the end of the runway two kilometres away, then it will have to take off," pointed out Terri.

After considering for a moment, the Death Runner said: "Agreed."

The Runner and the SR-71 lined up together at the starting line. Then as everyone covered their eyes, Terri said, "When I blow the horn."

She raised a red air horn and pushed the button.

As it shrieked, the Death Runner raced to an early lead, the plane not far behind him.

"Jesus!" said Colin who had not thought to cover his ears.

"What...?" shouted Terri, also a little deafened.

As the race went on the Runner remained in the lead past the quarter kilometre mark, the half kilometre, three-quarter kilometre mark, and then the halfway mark.

Christ, I hope I didn't kill three thousand people with this idea? thought the blonde policewoman.

As they reached the one-and-a-quarter kilometre mark the SR-71 began to catch up, until by the kilometre and a half mark it was only a metre or so behind.

By the one and three-quarter kilometre mark the plane and the Runner were level pegging. Then metres short of the two-kilometre mark the blackbird zoomed past the runner, forced to take to the air as the runway ran out.

"Nooooooo!: shrieked the Death Runner, dropping to his feet, and dropping his samurai sword, which faded out of existence seconds before hitting the ground.

Seconds later the Death Runner began to fade away, to vanish until 2123 AD.

"Hopefully that's the last that we'll see of him in our lifetimes," said Terri.

"Fingers crossed said Mi Ling," crossing her long slender fingers, making Colin, Terri and the other cops all laugh.

THE END
© Copyright 2023 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia