THE DARK RIDER

Tina and Virgil de Lyon were driving along a dirt road a few kilometres outside Lenoak in the Victorian Countryside. On the Glen Hartwell to Willamy line.

In the backseat sat their twelve-year-old daughter Jacqui, a tall, for her age, leggy ravenette who always wore cut-off jeans, and pastel T-shirts with the insignia of her favourite rock band, The Devil's Advocates.

Listening through her headphones attached to an MP3 player Jacqui sang along:

"I'll have a black, black Christmas

"And an unhappy New Year

"How can I think of Christmas things

"Without my baby near,

"I'll have a black, black Christmas

"A black, black Christmas

"Dah doo dah doo dah dah."

"What is she singing for Christ's sake?" asked Tina, a short, dumpy ravenette, fifty-something.

Pulling off her headphones, Jacqui said: "Black Christmas, by The Devil's Advocates."

"The Devil's Advocates?" shrieked Tina.

"It's her favourite band," said Virgil, a short, but muscular used car salesman.

"Why do you always stand up for her?"

"Because she's daddy's little girl. Aren't you pumpkin?"

"Yes, Daddy," she said, taking off her seat belt just long enough to hug him.

"Get your seat belt back on!" shrieked Tina.

"Yes, mummy dearest."

"And don't call me mummy dearest, it makes me sound like that evil woman ... what was her name, Bette Midler?"

"No, Mummy."

"Bette Davis?"

"No, Mummy."

"You're not gonna help me at all, are you?"

"No, Mummy."

"You hear that, Virg, she's cheeking me again."

"What cheeking you ... so she doesn't know Joan Crawford's name, she's from a few generations later."

"So what, I remember Joan Crawford."

"No, you don't," said Jacqui: "You thought she was Bette Midler, then Bette Davis. You'd probably would have guessed Marilyn Monroe next. But at least I've heard of her. Marilyn Monroe is cool!"

"Now she's really cheeking me!" insisted Tina.

"No, she's not! Are you honey?"

"Of course not, Daddy."

"She'll say anything to get in good with you. It's only me she cheeks, why is that?"

"Because I'm daddy's girl ... daddy's girl ... daddy's girl," sang Jacqui. Imitating Adam Sandler in Hotel Transylvania.

"Now she's cheeking me for sure," said Tina, taking off her seat belt to turn around to slap Jacqui.

"You leave her alone," warned Virgil: "She's a good girl."

"Thank you, Daddy," she said, before singing again: "Because I'm daddy's girl ... daddy's girl ... daddy's girl."

"That rotten little...!"

"Watch what you say about my little girl!" warned Virgil, just before the night black motorcycle whooshed past them.

"What the Hell was that?" shrieked Tina: "A jet?"

"No, the super coolest motorbike of all time," enthused Jacqui.

"Those death traps?"

As she spoke the bike zoomed past them again in the opposite direction.

"What's that idiot doing?" asked Tina, alarmed.

"He's showing us how cool he is compared to this rattrap on wheels that we're in," said Jacqui.

"Rattrap on wheels?" snapped Tina: "This is a BMW we're in."

"Yeah, but a very old one. It's only Daddy's good driving that keeps it on the road."

"Oh, daddy's good driving? What am I then, ballast?"

"Yeah. Just lean a little bit more to the left please."

"Oh now she's cheek...!" said Tina, as the Dark Rider zoomed back on the left side of the car this time.

Swinging a long steel chain, he smashed in the front passenger seat window, making Tina shriek as she was covered in tiny nodules of glass when the protective glass disintegrated.

"Aaaaaaaah!" shrieked Tina and Jacqui as one.

"Don't worry, Jacqui honey, I'll get us out of this," said Virgil.

"Jacqui? What the Hell about me...?" asked Tina.

Her last thought, as the Dark Rider returned. He swung his chain again. This time it wrapped tightly around Tina's chubby neck.

As he took off, he ripped her head clean off her neck, taking it with him, and letting it roll across the gravel road.

Making Jacqui scream and faint, and Virgil almost rolled the car.

"Holy Shit!" said Virgil as the bike raced in front of them again. He looked back to see that Jacqui was all right first, then looked across at the headless corpse of Tina.

Clutching the steering wheel, he aimed the BMW straight at the Dark Rider and raced toward him.

The Dark Rider turned around in time to see the approaching car. He smiled a grim fleshless smile from his skeletal face and waited for the car.

Which passed straight through the Dark Rider as though he was not even there.

Too late Virgil saw what had happened and slammed on the brakes. Not fast enough to avoid crashing into the aluminium crash rail, and straight through it, till the car was more than halfway over the edge.

Virgil struggled with his seat belt, unable to take it off.

Finally, he took a bottle of Mountain Dew spring water from the gap between the front bucket seats, took the cap off, and splashed the contents into the back seat, across Jacqui, waking her up.

"Ah-ah," said Jacqui, thinking at first that she was drowning. "What's happening?"

"You have to get out of the car, pumpkin."

"With that maniac out there?"

"The car's about to go over the edge, honey."

"Daddy, you've gotta get out of the car!"

"I can't honey, the seat belts stuck somehow. But before I die, I need to know that my beautiful little girl is all right."

"Yes, Daddy," said Jacqui. She leant forward to kiss him goodbye, but as the car started to go over the edge, she shrieked and pulled open the door of the car and leapt out.

Seconds before the car went over the edge.

"Daddeeeeeeee!" she shrieked as the car went over.

"Don't worry, Hotstuff, said the Dark Rider, you and me, are gonna have some fun. He made his teeth chatter like joke teeth. But there was nothing funny about it.

Squealing, Jacqui turned and raced back down the road the way that they had come.

"Gonna get me some real fine arse!" said the Dark Rider as he revved his bike, then started off down the dirt road after her.

Squealing as she ran, Jacqui raced around a mountain corner and almost ran into a Mac Truck. She just had time to leap aside as the truck whooshed past her.

Seeing the twelve-year-old girl leap to the gravel, the driver pulled up to see if she was all right.

Seeing the Mac truck, the Dark Rider cursed, then turned and rode his bike straight off the edge of the cliff and kept riding across the firmament until he reached the roadway five kilometres ahead of Jacqui and the truck.

"What's the matter, honey?" asked the driver, Bradley Crane.

"Some maniac on a motorbike just murdered my poor Daddy," she said stopping to cry against Brad's shoulder. Forgetting to mention that her mother was also killed.

"What?" asked Bradley. He listened with shock as she told him what had happened. This time she remembered to mention her mother's beheading.

Astounded he picked her up and put her into the cabin of the truck, then ran across to the edge of the road to look down on the shattered remains of the BMW. Although it hadn't burst into flames, the car was little more than twisted shards of metal, and no one could have survived in that.

Sighing, Bradley ran back to the Mac, climbed back in, and said: "I'm sorry, honey." He lifted his CB handset and said: "Breaker, breaker...."


Over at Deidre Morton's boarding house in Merridale, Deidre was laying out an immense breakfast for her guests as she liked to call her boarders: Colin Klein, a redheaded reporter from England, spending his long service leave hunting down Australian myths and legends -- and doing superbly at it in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby region. Terri Scott was a beautiful blonde, thirty-something policewoman in the local area. Sheila Bennett, an orange-haired Goth chick, around the same age, had just been promoted to Chief Constable of the area, making her answerable only to Terri. Freddy Kingston, a short, fat balding retiree, a big science fiction fan. Tommy Turner, a reformed alcoholic - of no choice of his own --, a short, fat retiree with long blonde hair. Natasha Lipzing, a seventy-year-old, tall, thin, grey-haired woman, who had spent the second half of her life at the boarding house. She was a huge fan of murder mysteries and true crime magazines and liked to be kept up to date on any ongoing murders in the area.

There were also two short-term guests. Millie and Michael Lovejoy, who were enjoying their long service leave in Merridale.

Mrs. Morton was famous locally for her superb meals and extra generous proportions.

"This morning," said Deidre Morton: "I've got fried ham and eggs, mashed potatoes, mashed pumpkin, pancakes, cheese omelettes, sausages, and also toast and your choice of jam, marmalade, or vegemite."

"Now let's see," said Sheila Bennett. She piled a cheese omelette on her plate, then a large pancake with margarine and sugar sprinkled on it, then a beef sausage, some bacon, two fried eggs, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin then stopped and looked puzzled.

"What's wrong?" asked Colin.

"I think I've forgotten something?" she said.

"Sheils, you haven't forgotten anything, except your diet," said Terri Scott.

"How dare you," said Sheila. Getting stuck into her delicious and abundant breakfast, as everyone else laughed.


When they were finished, Deidre said: "I've got some homemade jam Roly Poly Pudding for dessert.

"Has it got any rum in it?" asked Tommy Tucker.

They all turned to stare at him in amazement and horror.

"Please tell us that you're kidding?" asked Deidre.

"Remembering we've just eaten our breakfasts," said Colin Klein.

"And Sheils is eating for two," said Terri.

"Sheila is pregnant?" asked Natasha Lipzing.

"No, she's just eating for two."

"Ha-ha, it is to laugh," said the orange-haired Goth policewoman.

Mrs. Morton handed them out bowls of Jam Roly Poly Pudding. Then with due trepidation gave Tommy Turner a small glass of rum.

He took a small sip of the rum, then to the horror of the others, poured the rest over the pudding.


They were relieved when Donald Esk and Stanlee Dempsey turned up before they had finished eating their pudding. Both sergeants of police in the local area. Stanlee was a tall, muscular raven-haired man. Don Esk a giant of a man with medium brown hair, cut into a Beatles' mop-top cut.

"Come in, come in," welcomed Terri: "You've just saved us from a fate worse than death."

"Being raped?" asked Stanlee.

"Worse," said Sheila: "Watching Tommy eat his jam ala rum Roly Poly Pudding."

"He puts rum onto absolutely everything," said Natasha: "When he's not putting it into a sandwich."

"What's wrong with sandwiches?" demanded Tommy.

"Fried potatoes and pumpkin sandwiches?" asked Colin.

"Why not?" demanded Tommy.

"Looks like we got here just in time," said Don.

"Can't you arrest him for having criminally bad taste or something?" asked Natasha.

"Not yet," said Terri: "But Premier Jacinta Allan is talking about it." Then to Stanlee and Donald:

"So what has saved us from having to watch Tommy's ghastly gastronomic gluttony?"

"She's stuck in G-mode," said Sheila.


Forty minutes later they arrived at the site of the killings, as Ed Bussy, the local car repairer and wrecker was winching the tattered remains of the de Lyons BMW up to the top of the road.

Paul Bell had already taken statements from Bradley Crane, the truck driver, and Jacqui de Lyon, and had allowed Jacqui to be taken to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital on Baltimore Drive.

Bradley repeated his statement to Terri and the others, then Paul read out Jacqui's statement.

"A skeletal-faced rider, in all black leather, riding a black bike...."

"She's fairly certain it was a Harley," cut in Paul.

"Wielding a steel chain, managed to behead her mother and force her father off the mountain road?"

"That's what she says," said Paul, tentatively adding: "She also says she saw the rider drive his bike off the edge of the cliff and ride it through the air for a few kilometres."

"Well, why not?" asked Terri: "If Mary Poppins can walk up the smoke from a chimney, why shouldn't a skeletal bike rider be able to ride through the sky?"

"Unfortunately, the driver did not see the bike rider, let alone his airborne ride," said Paul.

"You do surprise me, mate," said the blonde policewoman.

She got Bradley Crane to repeat his account of things, then taking his name and number, sent him on his way."

As the wreck of the BMW finally reached the top of the cliff, two ambulances arrived to take away the corpses of Tina and Virgil de Lyon.


Having gorged themselves silly on Deidre Morton's superb repast Millie and Michael Lovejoy set out for a long walk into the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest outside the town.

They had walked nearly two kilometres, further than they had intended when they heard the buzzing sound from a distance.

"What is that?" asked Millie, a tall thin brunette, who at best could be described as mildly pretty. "Wasps, do you think?" Millie hated wasps and preferred bees. At least bees give honey! she thought: Wasps are nasty things, that attack for no reason.

As the sound got closer, though, it started to sound less like bees or wasps, and more like some kind of machinery.

"It can't be motorcyclists out here in the countryside, can it?" asked Michael, a tall dark blond man with hints of grey on his temples. As though motorbikes were banned in the Australian bush.

"I shouldn't..." began Millie, shrieking as the biker, rode past Michael swinging his chain. The chain wrapped around Michaels's legs and the biker took off at great speed dragging the middle-aged man screaming behind him.

"Michael!" screamed Millie, running after them. Never considering that she had no chance of catching up with a motorbike going flat out. Even if she had been wearing appropriate shoes for walking through the soft carpet of gum leaves and pine needles. Which she wasn't.

When she fell over for the second time, the motorbike and Michael were long gone.

"Michael!" she shouted starting to cry, as she lay on the forest floor. Finally, she got to her feet and started walking in the direction that the biker had gone. Not wanting to live if Michael was dead.


It was nearly an hour before she found the mutilated corpse of her husband, his head and neck having been crushed beyond recognition by the chain that had been used to whip him to death.

"Mi ... Mi ...Mi ... Mi ... Michael," she cried, clutching his ruined head to her bosom.



A few minutes later she heard the revving of the motorcycle as the Dark Rider returned for her.

Seeing her kneeling, her white blouse now coloured red by her dead husband's blood, the skeletal bike rider said:

"How touchingly obscene."

He revved his bike, rode at Millie, and wrapped the chain around her neck. He accelerated through the bush, dragging Millie Lovejoy along behind him. The chain strangled Millie to death long before her head came out of its socket with a loud 'fillolop' noise, as her head came away from her body.


Back at Deidre Morton's house, they were waiting for the Lovejoys to return before starting dinner. But by 12:30 PM they had to start or risk the food going cold.

"Where could they be?' asked Natasha Lipzing, sounding very worried.

"Probably lost in the forest," said Freddy: "I'm sure they'll turn up before much longer."

"I hope not," said Tommy: "Mrs. M. has made another rum trifle for dessert, and if they don't turn up in time, I can have their shares."

"No, you cannot, you greedy wretch," said Deidre.

"Well, if you'd just give me my bottle of rum instead ..." He stopped as an idea struck him: "Wait a minute, I hope you haven't been using my rum to make a trifle for everyone."

"Except me," said Natasha: "I love plain trifle."

"Well?" demanded Tommy.

"Well..." hesitated Deidre: "You had so much of it. So it seemed a waste of money to buy more."

"That's stealing!" insisted Tommy.

"Then call the cops," teased Terri.

"We're strictly see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil, when it comes to Mrs. M.'s delicious cooking," added Sheila Bennett.

"You'd sell out just for some wonderful cooking?"

"Yep," said Terri, Sheila, and the others as one.

"I could always make whisky trifle next time?" suggested Deidre.

"And whose whisky would that be?" he demanded.

"I refuse to be interrogated in my own house."


When lunch had finished and the Lovejoys still had not returned, they collected Bulam Bulam an Aboriginal Elder and pro rata tracker for the police, and started into the forest looking for the lost couple.

After about ninety minutes they tracked down what they assumed to be the remains of Michael Lovejoy, although with no head remaining, it was impossible to say for certain. Jessie Baker stayed behind to wait for the ambulance after ringing through to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

The others set out after the second bike trail and soon found the body of Millie Lovejoy, followed not long after by her head.

"Whoever, or whatever it is certainly plays rough," said Colin Klein.


An hour later they and the two bodies were at the Glen Hartwell Hospital, and Jesus Costello and Jerry Green were able to start doing an autopsy.

Jesus, pronounced 'Hee-Zeus', was head surgeon and chief administrator at the hospital. Jerry "Elvis" Green, the local coroner, was nicknamed for his devotion to Elvis Presley and long dyed-black sideburns.

When they were finished they were able to confirm that both of the Lovejoys had been killed with a metal chain.

"Strong enough to bash Michael Lovejoy's face to pulp, and to pull Millie Lovejoy's head straight out of its socket," explained Jesus.

"And the de Lyons?" asked Terri Scott.

"No sign of any injuries sustained by Virgil de Lyon, other than from the car going over the cliff," said Elvis. "But Tina De Lyon had her head pulled off by a metal chain also."

"So apart from the skeletal bike rider, all of young Jacqui's story pans out?" said Colin Klein.

"Exactly," said Jesus: "If we were anywhere else in the universe, I would discount the skeletal biker as a child's fantasy in an extreme stress reaction."

"But in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby region," said Elvis: "We all know that anything is possible. And not just to a Possible."

When they all stared at him, he explained: "That's what they say in the cartoon show 'Kim Possible': Anything is possible to a Possible."

"We have possibly got a skeleton riding around killing people with a chain," said Sheila: "And our coroner is in his second childhood. What chance have we got?"

"How dare you," said Elvis: "Plenty of adults watch animation these days. If you don't like sports or those shithouse so-called reality shows, what else is there to watch?"

"He's got you there, Sheils," said Colin Klein.


The Biker Lounge was situated on Williamstown Road, just outside Brooklyn. Despite the name, anyone was allowed to eat or drink there, as long as they could pay. But that night a dozen bikers from a local club were sitting there.

Hearing the zoom of a bike approaching Leo Tomlinson, a sixty-year-old bald biker for more than forty years said: "Looks like it's gonna be thirteen tonight. Unlucky for some."

The others laughed, unaware of just how accurate his words would turn out to be.


The Dark Rider stopped at the bike rack and got off his night-black bike. But instead of going inside, he took his steel chain and went to work smashing the other motorbikes to pieces. He shattered the windscreens, slashed the tyres with what looked like a broken-off sword, and hammered their fuel tanks with the chain. Not needing to worry about a stray spark igniting the petrol, since he was already dead,


After a while, Leo Tomlinson said: "What the Hell's he doing out there?"

Going across to the window, he looked out, but in the night darkness, still could not see. So he opened the door to the lounge and immediately heard the sound of smashing.

"He's smashing our bikes," shouted Leo, and all twelve bikers raced out to stop him.

"You are so dead!" shouted Coleman "Cole" Jacobs, a short, muscular biker, with long ash blond hair.

"Yes, I am," said the Dark Rider truthfully. He started to cut up their bike seats and back padding with his broken-off sword.

"You ani..." shouted Leo stopping just short of the Dark Rider, as he saw his skeletal face. "Mate it's too late for Halloweenie." Leo always said Halloweenie, not Halloween, despite (or perhaps because of) his wife correcting him numerous times.

Then as the rider chattered his teeth, Leo's blood ran cold as he realised that the Dark Rider was not in costume. Leo turned to run, too late...

The rider swung his broken sword, and cut off Leo's head with one swing.

"Next?" said the rider.

"I'll give you next," said Cole Jacobs charging the Dark Biker, only to have his head crush in with a single swing of his steel chain.

Two more bike riders charged him.

The Dark Rider slammed his chain into the face of one, ripping off his nose, shattering most of his teeth, and destroying his chin and jaw.

The second, he casually stabbed in the chest with his sword, continuing to rip and slice, long after the bloke was dead.

At this point, the other bikers turned tail and raced back toward the Biker Lounge and its imagined safety.

Remounting his night-black bike, the rider raced after them, swinging his chain left and right smashing in the skulls of three of them before the other five managed to reach the inside of the lounge.


"Is there a back exit?" asked one of the bikers Kevin "Red" Foley, nicknamed after the country singer.

"No," said the manager, Tony Malanese: "Why would you need one?"

"Because the Devil is on our tail," said Red, terrified.

"What?" asked Tony, going outside to watch, despite desperate warnings from the five bikers.

The Dark Rider was riding around and around swinging his heavy chain left then right, smashing to pulp the remains of Leo Tomlinson and the other six bikers.

"Holy shit!" said Tony.

Hearing the voice, the Dark Rider turned and started to roar his bike across to the Biker Lounge again.

"Jesus!" shouted Tony, half blaspheming and half praying.

The rider, swung his bike around in a wide circle, to take a run up toward the lounge.


Inside the bikers were huddled near the counter near the back of the lounge as, with a roar the Dark Rider crashed through the left-hand side window, landed on a round, wooden table, which collapsed under him, and roared toward the back of the lounge. Swinging his chain like nun-chucks he smashed in the skulls of two more bikers.

Then hit the counter, which slammed backward shattering the legs and lower abdomen of the Dolly Parton lookalike serving behind it, making her shriek a Dame Nellie Melba-style high note before dying.

Swinging the bike around the Dark Rider said, "I bet the real Dolly Parton couldn't hit a high note like that?"

He revved his bike and roared toward the front of the lounge again, swinging his heavy chain left and right again. He shattered Tony's upper right arm but missed Bertie Spooner, who fainted, falling backwards, at just the right moment.

Then as Lonnie Heath raced outside, the Dark Rider spun to the left and roared out through the left window, only leaving the glass door unshattered. Until he span to the right and smashed both panes in the door, just for the Hell of it before he roared after Lonnie Heath.

Lonnie almost made it to the road a hundred metres from the lounge, then the rider caught up and wrapped the chain around his neck. Then taking off again the rider sped down the road until the 'fillolop' sound told him that he only had the biker's head on the chain. He swung the chain like David's sling and hurled the biker's head a hundred metres down the highway.

He considered going back to the Biker Lounge for Tony Malanese and Bertie Spooner, then decided against it. "Twelve's my lucky number," he said, making that up to suit the occasion.

He pulled in front of a semi-trailer laden with Holden Commodores. As they reached the open road and the safety rail vanished, the rider rode straight off the road and off into the sky.

"What the fuck?" asked the semi-driver. Realising, too late, that he had followed the biker. He slammed on the brakes, but could not stop before the eighteen-wheeler roared off the edge of the cliff...

Spiralling into space, spewing out Holden Commodores left and right, before the semi-trailer itself smashed to the bottom of the ravine beneath the hillside road and burst into flames.

"Yee Haw!" said the Dark Rider. As if he were in a Western movie as he rode back the way he had come, passing over the burning eighteen-wheeler.


Over at Deidre Morton's boarding house, they had finished eating their tea and were getting ready to go to bed. When Jessie Baker and Stanlee Dempsey turned up to tell them of the massacre at the Biker Lounge off Williamstown Road.


An hour later they turned up at the slaughter site to see the parking area full of ambulances, as Jesus Costello and Elvis Green tried to make sense of what had happened not long before their arrival.

"This time there are two survivors who confirm a story very similar to Jacqui de Lyon's," said Jesus.

"Right down to the skeletal warrior with a thick steel chain and now it seems a sawn-off sword of some kind," added Elvis Green, the coroner.

"He's got a sword as well now?" asked Terri Scott: "Jesus, that's all we need."

"It took him, best guess five to eight minutes to slaughter twelve people," said Derek Armstrong a black weight lifter-cum paramedic. Which had earnt him the nickname, Strong Arm: "Based upon what Tony Malanese and Bertie Spooner told us."

"The way they described it," said Cheryl Pritchard, a tall 60-plus paramedic: "The way he rode the bike was just like scenes from a 'World's Stupidest Stunt Men' Video."

"Ooh I love the 'World's Stupidest Stunt Men' Video series," said Sheila Bennett: "I don't suppose that there's any CCTV footage of it?"

"Yes there is," said Stanlee Dempsey.

"But you're not keeping a copy of it," said Terri.

"Oh," said Sheila, as they started across toward the Biker Lounge to watch it.

Half an hour later they had watched and seized the video, Terri being careful to hold onto it so that Sheila had no chance to copy it.

Their next trip was to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital to talk to Tony Malanese and Bertie Spooner.

Tony was still sleeping having his arm set in six different places. It would be a couple more hours before they had finished. Then the morning before they would be able to interview him.

Bertie Spooner at first refused to say anything, not wanting them to think him loony, but they arranged with the hospital to play the CCTV footage for him.

He became excited and agreed that's what he had seen.

"It really is like an episode of the 'World's Stupidest Stunt Men' Videos'," said Sheila Bennett.

"And you're not getting a copy," said Terri forcefully: "These are real people, really being killed; it's not something to watch at home for fun!"

"Yes," agreed Sheila, still a little disappointed.


Westmoreland and Wilhelmina had once been thriving towns. Then after some disaster c.1978, the two towns had been deserted en masse. However, due to Australia's super-inflation in house and land prices from the 1990s to the present day, the properties had become far too valuable to leave empty. So local property sharks such as Willy Williamson deceased, Tabitha Gould, and Jefferson Heaney had bought up the land in both towns and had made themselves multi-millionaires at the expense of the rubes in Melbourne. They refurbished houses for which they had paid $200,000 or less, reselling them to people who wanted to get back to nature for between eighty hundred and fifty thousand and one million dollars each..

For the last twenty years, more and more people had been moving out to Westmoreland and Wilhelmina on the Glen Hartwell to Willamby line. And more and more millions had been pouring into the bank accounts of the property sharks.

"Rubes paying us millions," said Tabitha Gould, a beautiful blonde with a lithe figure, long legs, and short hair, clinking champagne glasses with her co-conspirator Jefferson Heaney, a tall thin but wiry man with dark brown hair, slightly longer than Tabitha's. The two entrepreneurs laughed at their cunning and the gullibility of the city-slickers whom they had been out-slickering.

Not that Tabitha Gould or Jefferson Heaney cared. As long as the rubes kept pouring cash their way.

"More champagne darling?' she asked.

"No darling, but I could fancy some K.U.N.T."

Puzzled, she asked: "Is that a new cocktail, darling?"

"Yes, darling," agreed Jefferson: "It involves my cock, and your tail."

Laughing so hard that she almost swallowed her champagne down the wrong way, she said: "Well, you should have said, darling. I've been as horny as a toad for an hour now."

She put down her champagne flute, undid her dress, stood up, and wriggled out of it, letting it drop to the ground to reveal her in her sexy, sheer black undies.

"Your turn, darling," she said.

"Fair enough," he said. Pushing the coffee table out of the way, he reached across to drag her, laughing down onto his lap.

"That's not what I meant, darling," she said.

"Oh I see, so you want me naked too?" he asked, as though surprised at the suggestion.

"Yes, darling," she said, struggling to her feet to start undressing further. Bending forward so that her perfect bubble butt was pointed at him.

Unable to resist, Jefferson gave it a hard slap, making her squeal and jump."

"You perfect beast," she said.

"Well, if you keep pointing that scrumptious-looking thing at me, it might not be K.U.N.T. that I sample tonight," he teased.

"You really are a beast," she said, careful to back away before undressing anymore.



A few minutes later they were both naked, making love in the missionary position. Tabitha wisely decided that it might not be safe to try doggy-doggy.

They were humping away when they heard the buzzing in the distance.

"What is that, darling, a plague of locusts?" asked Tabitha.

"Don't tell me you're converting to Christianity now?" asked Jefferson sounding horrified at the idea.

"How dare you darling?" said Tabitha: "I've always been a Christian. I just don't pray, go to church, read the Bible, or watch any of those ghastly religious films or documentaries."

"But other than that you're a Christian?"

"Of course, darling," she said.

While they were talking the buzzing in the distance had started to take on a mechanical sound, as it rapidly approached their two-storey love nest.

"Oh damn," said Tabitha, squirming out from under him: "I think it might be some of those motorcycle hoon chappies."

"What, out here in the countryside, darling?" asked Jefferson in disbelief.

Dressed in nothing but black stockings and suspender belt, Tabitha trotted across to the window to look.

Seconds before the Dark Rider whooshed through the front door, which just missed Tabitha and soared over Jefferson who was lying face down on the sofa. Still hoping that she would wriggle her way back under him so that they could finish what they had started.

The door flew well into the room crashing through the banisters to block off the stairs to the first storey.

"What the Hell?" cried Jefferson turning round and sitting up.

"Aaaaaaaah!" shrieked Tabitha, racing out into the sweet-smelling eucalyptus forest a few kilometres outside of Wilhelmina township. She raced off into the woods screaming, having no clue which way led into town.

Ignoring the hysterical blonde, the Dark Rider whipped the chain around Jefferson's neck and took off around the ground floor a couple of times. Then headed off into the forest, taking an already dead Jefferson Heaney with him.

Turning the bike left, the rider started off after Tabitha, dragging Jefferson until a 'fillolop' noise told it that it no longer had the land shark's body with it. Just his head.

He stopped to unwind the chain and released the head, which he kicked into the distance saying: "A goal ... oh no, it's only a behind, dammit."

Revving his night-black bike again, he turned the headlights on full, then started after Tabitha.


Hearing the buzzing coming nearer, Tabitha changed direction, going off at a tangent to the left. Unbeknown to her, now running in the correct direction to reach Wilhelmina township. Assuming that she could outrun the Dark Rider for two kilometres?


The Dark Rider had found her trail and almost roared past the point where she had turned left. He braked sharply, almost falling off his bike, and turned left to follow her.

"That cunning K.U.N.T.," he said, as though he had heard her conversation with Jefferson Heaney earlier.


Tabitha Gould was racing for her life, when she heard the motorbike gaining on her and knew that she was dead. Out of energy, and not used to any physical activity, except for sex, all she could do was totter along panting at every step. Knowing that soon the rider would be able to follow her by the sound of her panting alone.

Finally, he roared into view and roared straight past her. Breaking sharply so that again he almost fell, he turned back toward the beautiful land shark.

"Well aren't you a hottie," said the rider: "It almost seems a pity to kill you ... Almost."

Gazing at her naked splendour, which she was too scared to even try to hide, he said:

"I'd be tempted to bone you ... Except that all I've got is bones!" He laughed at his own joke, as Tabitha started to cry.

"Don't cry little K.U.N.T," he said: "Cause now you're gonna die."

He hurled the chain around her neck and took off at high speed, soon 'filloloping' her head out of its socket.

Leaving her body behind, he slammed her beautiful silently screaming head onto the front of his bike as a new hood ornament.

"Much sexier than my old hood ornament!" he said as he roared away deeper into the forest.


They had barely finished breakfast at Deidre Morton's boarding house in Rochester Road in Merridale when Jessie Baker and Donald Esk came calling.

"How do? How do?" said Donald Esk in the worst-ever impersonation of a British Bobbie.

"Don't worry, honey," said Terri to Colin: "I'll hold him while you beat him up."

"Or if you prefer," said Sheila: "You can hold him while I beat him up."

"So, other than to annoy me with a bad attempt at a British accent?" asked Colin: "Is there any reason for your noxious presence this early in the morning."

"Yes," said Jessie Baker: "Two knobs have gone missing out at Wilhelmina."

"Door knobs?" asked Terri.

"Or men's knobs?" asked Sheila getting shocked looks from Deidre Morton and Natasha Lipzing.

"Two local land sharks who helped rebuilt and pillage Westmoreland and Wilhelmina," said Don.

"English is a curious language isn't it?" said Natasha: "That you can rebuild and pillage at the same time."

"All right, in monosyllables Tabitha Gould and Jefferson Heaney have mysteriously vanished. They were due to meet two suckers ... customers to sell them at greatly inflated prices villa homes in Wilhelmina," said Don. "When they didn't arrive, knowing that the two leeches would never miss a chance to suck the financial blood out of their victims, their sexy secretary Lisa Williams rang us."

"How do you know she's a sexy secretary?" asked Sheila as they got up and headed outside.

"We called at their office," said Jessie: "And she's in the Vah vah vah voom category. Right up there with Topaz Moseley the new nurse at the Glen Hartwell Hospital."

"Vah vah vah voom?" said Terrie as she threw her car keys to Sheila: "Did we just time travel back to the 1940s?"


Forty minutes or so later they were at the two-storey house that Tabitha Gould and Jefferson Heaney had been making whoopee at the night before."

"That's an interesting way to hang a door," said Colin Klein. He pointed to where the front door was halfway up the steps to the first storey, instead of being in the doorway.

"You know what these Nouveau riche prats are like," said Terri: "Anything to be different."

After taking photos they removed the door and checked upstairs without finding the missing property sharks.

Downstairs they discovered the missing couple's clothing.

"Looks like they were making whoopee before whatever happened, happened?" said Colin.

"Vah vah vah voom?" said Sheila.

"All right, let's get Bulam Bulam to start a search for them," suggested Terri.


An hour later they found the body of Jefferson Heaney, minus its head.

"Well, this looks familiar," said Colin, checking out the chain marks around the neck.

"Yes, our biker fiend again," said Bulam Bulam.


A short time later, in a different part of the forest, they tracked down Heaney's head, sitting upon a strange-looking pile of earth, like a large unmarked grave.

"I think we'd better have this dug up, to see what it contains," said Terri. She phoned to arrange for the Department of Building and Works to send out some men with spades to dig it up.

In the meantime, they managed to track down the headless body of Tabitha Gould.

But by the time that the Building and Works people, four men and three women, had arrived they still had not found Tabitha's head.

Pointing at the pile of broken ground, Terri said: "Get a diggin'."

"Yes ma'am," said one of the men, almost whacking himself in the head with his spade, as he saluted her.


In a fairly short time, they found a rusted-out black motorbike, and a leather-clad skeleton, with a steel chain around its neck.

"Is this the Dark Rider by day?" asked Sheila.

"Or maybe this is his corpse, and what has been killing is his ghost," guessed Colin Klein correctly.

"I think it's time we talked to the sexy secretary," said Terri: "What is her name?"

"Lisa Sexy-legs," said Don: " I mean Lisa Williams."

"Vah vah vah voom?" said Sheila.

"Would you please stop saying that?" asked Terri, to mutterings of support from the others.


"Lisa," said Terri as they entered the Benedict Street office of the two property sharks.

"Yes," asked Lisa Williams, a tall gorgeous blond who looked about eighteen, but was probably a decade old. She wore a black and white striped mini skirt which left little to the imagination, and a pink blouse.

All right, so she does have sexy legs, though Terri. She introduced herself and explained that they had found the remains of Jefferson Heaney and Tabitha Gould.

"Except for Tabitha's head," added Sheila.

"Oh God," said Lisa, racing to the Lady's to throw up. Finally, she returned looking as white as chalk.

"We also found the skeletal remains of a leather-clad bike rider," added Colin Klein.

"Oh," said Lisa. Looking even paler if possible.

"Well?" asked Terri.

"I can't recall his name," said Lisa" "But after Jeff and Tabbie bought up thousands of hectares of land cheaply, he claimed that they had cheated him and would take them to the small claims court.

"It went on for months, then he simply vanished, so the matter was settled."

"How long ago was this?" asked Colin Klein.

"Eight or nine years ago. I had just started working for them at the time."

"Could you track down his name for us," asked Terri.

"It should be on the computer," said Lisa.

It took her about ten minutes to track down the newly rediscovered biker.

"Nicholas Hoyt," read out Terri.

"He preferred to be called Nikki," remembered Lisa.

As they turned to leave, Donald Esk leant across the counter to start whispering to Lisa. Realising that he was not with them, Terri looked back and said:

"I hope you're not trying to pull that sexy secretary while we're still on duty?"

"Sorry, boss," said Don. Then quietly to Lisa, "I'll call you later." She slipped him a card with her phone number on it.

Seeing Terri glaring at him, he pocketed the card and said: "What? Men have their needs, you know."

"Vah vah vah voom?" said Sheila.


It took a while to track down relatives of Nikki Hoyt, to verify by DNA testing that it was him. Finally, they managed to prove that it was.

"So what do we do with the corpse now?" asked Colin Klein after Jesus Costello and Elvis Green were through with it.

"What do you do with any corpse?" said Terri: "We bury the poor sod."


Four days later Mary Hindmarsh and Eli Ellison, two cronies of Tabitha Gould and Jefferson were eating a picnic lunch in the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest outside Westmoreland.

"What is that accursed buzzing noise?" asked Eli, looking around for a bee or wasp hive.

Gradually the noise got louder and started to sound more like machinery.

"It's either a chainsaw or a motorbike," stated Mary, a short curvaceous brunette in the Jane Russell style of curviness.

"Motorbikes out here?" asked Eli, a tall handsome Hellenic type: "I thought those death machines were banned in the countryside."

"No, but they certainly should be," agreed Mary.

Suddenly the Dark Rider roared into view, chattering his teeth to terrify the picnicking couple."

Leaping to their feet, they ran screaming back to their Ferrari, which they had parked way too far away to be able to get to in time to save themselves.

"It's Dying Time Again, You're Gonna Leave Me," sang the rider in a lame imitation of Buck Owens.


Over at the Shady Rest Cemetery on the border of Glen Hartwell and Westmoreland, Terri, Colin, Sheila, and the other local cops, stood at Linlithrow Street a little away from the Hoyt family whose loved one Nikki's coffin was being lowered into the grave.

Each of the Hoyts threw a handful of grave dirt onto the coffin. Followed by Colin, Terri, and the other cops. Then Elvis Green, Lisa Williams, who had turned up with Donald Esk, and Jesus Costello.

As they started to fill in the grave, Father Leon read out: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Mary Hindmarsh and Eli Ellison were less than two metres ahead of the Dark Rider, who started to swing his chain ...

Then suddenly vanished.

Unaware that they were now safe, the two land sharks raced on until gasping for breath, they had to stop. Looking round they saw that they were alone.


After the service, Terri went across to the Hoyt family and was embarrassed when the entire family insisted on hugging her, one after the other.

"She's lucky they're not Greeks or Italians," Colin whispered to Sheila: "Otherwise there could be two hundred people standing in line to hug her!!"

"Vah vah vah voom?" said Sheila Bennett.

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