THE BONE COLLECTOR

Marilyn and Madison Hollister were walking through the sweet-smelling pine and gum forest a couple of kilometres outside of Perry township in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area of the Victorian countryside.

Marilyn, named after the Divine Miss M., was a platinum blonde like her namesake, gorgeous other than a slightly crooked nose, and similarly built to the 1950s sex goddess. Madison, or Maddy, was a tall, handsome man of mixed Asian and Greek ancestry. He hoped to become a movie star so that after their honeymoon in the Glen Hartwell area, they were planning to move to Melbourne in the hope of him breaking into Neighbours or Home and Away. Sadly he would not live to get his wish.

Newly married, they were holding hands as they walked along. Stopping from time to time to kiss and cuddle.


Colin Klein, his girlfriend Senior Sergeant Terri Scott, Chief Constable Sheila Bennett, and four other people were sitting down to breakfast at Deidre Morton's boarding house on Rochester Road in Merridale.

They had barely started eating when the telephone on the wall rang.

Deidre got up to answer it, then held the phone out to Colin, saying: "It's for you. From England."

Colin Klein, a redheaded journalist from England spoke on the phone for nearly ten minutes, at one stage saying" "Twelve." Then again, "Double-time."

Finally hanging up, he returned to the breakfast table and said: "That's my Editor in Chief. With that idiot Anthony Albanese being indicted for grand electoral fraud, and taking backhanders from Qantas to keep Qatar Airlines out of Australia, he has had to stand down as Aussie Prime Minister."

"It's about time," said Natasha Lipzing, a tall, thin grey-haired woman of seventy. Who loved murder mysteries and true murder magazines. "The man's an idiot!"

"Retarded if you ask me," said Freddy Kingston a short balding retiree, who loved science fiction and particularly Doctor Who.

"He's certainly the most evil prime minister Australia has ever had," said Tommy Turner, a short, blond-haired recovering alcoholic - with the unwanted help of Deidre Morton, who seized his stash of alcohol. "Taking over from Tony 'The Evil' Abbott."

"And undoubtedly the most insane politician in Australian history," said their landlady Deidre Morton, a short dumpy brunette, who could have been a celebrity chef. "Taking over from Crazy Joh Bejelke-Petersen."

"I think all of Australia, and the world, knows Anthony Albanese is insane," said Terri Scott a beautiful blonde policewoman, head cop of the area. Thirty-five and dating Colin Klein. "After his evil V for Defeat Referendum when he tried to disenfranchise the ninety-six-point-six Percent of Australians with no Aboriginal blood. So that we would have been little more than slaves to the three-point four percent of Australians with Aboriginal blood."

"So anyway, Col.?" asked Sheila Bennett, a tall orange-haired Goth chick, with fifteen years of experience in the local constabulary: "What's your big news?"

"My Editor-in-Chief wants me to fly to Sydney for Albanese's trial, and hopefully conviction."

"But you're on long service leave?" said Terri.

"Yes, but the paper has no one in Australia. So he's offered to make up the time on my long service leave, plus two bonus weeks, plus pay me double-time for each twelve-hour day. Even if I don't work that long."

"Whacko," said Sheila: "I'd be down the pub ten hours a day, working two hours a day."

"You're forgetting that it's Sydney. The only beer that they're got is Tooth's and Tooheys, both of which taste the way that I imagine donkey piss would taste - if the donkey piss had gone off."

"So when are you leaving?" asked Terri.

"As soon as possible. If you can ring through to Glen Hartwell to hold the train for a police emergency, I can quickly pack, then get there in time."

"Wouldn't that be lying though?" asked Natasha Lipzing.

"Yeah, that's what makes it so much fun," said Sheila grinning broadly.

"Okay," agreed Terri, going across to ring the Glen Hartwell Railway Station. While upstairs Colin and Deidre Morton packed two suitcases for him as quickly as possible.


When they reached the Railway Station in Theobald Street, Glen Hartwell, however, the train had not yet arrived.

As they raced into the station the porter said: "No need to hurry Miss Scott. The train struck a car just outside Sale. Some idiot tried to beat the train. So it'll be a good two hours late at least."

"Ouch,' said Sheila Bennett. "Was anybody hurt."

"No, the idiots leapt out of the car at the last second. But their new Cadillac ended up looking like so much shredded aluminium foil apparently."

Going into the waiting room, Terri said: "I'll miss you."

"Me too, babe," said Colin giving her a wet sloppy tongue kiss, while groping her behind.

"Ooh oldie snogging!" said Sheila.

"How dare you Sheils, you're as old as me," pointed out Terri.

"But thirteen years younger than pops there."

"How dare you!" said Colin and Terri together.


Marilyn and Madison continued to stroll along, occasionally stopping to pick flowers to make into a daisy chain, even though it is illegal to pick Australian Native Flowers in the countryside.

"Do you think it's time to stop for our little picnic?" asked Marilyn.

"Why not, honey?" he asked.

They laid out a yellow and green blanket to lie on. Supposedly in Australian green and gold, but in truth, the green was too light, almost puce. And the 'gold' was really yellow. Still, it was comfortable to sit on, with a carpet of pine needles and dried gum leaves beneath them.

Maddy inhaled and said: "I love that sweet eucalyptus smell of the Australian countryside."

"Yes, darling," agreed Marilyn starting to unpack their picnic basket: "I know it's a cliché, but have a hard-boilt egg to be getting on with."

"Thank you, darling," he said. He peeled the egg, applied a little cracked pepper, and then started to eat it.

"G'Day," said a local farmer, wheeling a wheelbarrow. "Boy that looks good."

"Would you like a hard-boiled egg?" asked Marilyn, generously holding one out to the fifty-something man.

"Most generous of you," he said. He took off his dirty work gloves, placed them in his barrow, then took the egg and started eating it.

"Feel free to join us," offered Maddy, unaware that the kindly old farmer would soon kill him.

"Most kind," said the man sitting on the puce and yellow blanket.

They ate together for twenty minutes or so. Then Maddy struggled to break off a turkey leg from a half-devoured bird.

"Here, let me," said the Bone Collector. He reached into his wheelbarrow and took out a long boning knife. Reaching across, before Marilyn or Maddy knew what he was planning...

He slashed Madison's throat with it.

"Sharp, isn't it?" he said.

"Aaaaaaaah!" shrieked Marilyn, running in what she hoped was the direction of Perry Township. After a short distance, she had to stop to throw up, then continued staggering through the forest.

"That's my party piece," said the Bone Collector: "It always gets them."

Slowly, but carefully, he began cutting open Maddy, trying his best not to damage the organs as one by one he had carefully removed all of Maddy's bones. From Skull to toe bones. All of which he placed in his wheelbarrow, along with the boning knife.

"The knee bone's connected to the skull bone,

"The leg bone's connected to the backbone," he sang, basing his version upon the position of the bones in the wheelbarrow.

He wheeled the barrow through the forest for twenty metres or so, then a strange, localised fog swirled up, no more than two metres tall and a metre-and-a-half wide.

He wheeled his treasure through the fog doorway and vanished from our world. And reappeared in his world, where the sky was a pretty pink, the grass was yellow, and many animals had flowers or other plants growing out of them.

"The knee bone's connected to the skull bone,

"The leg bone's connected to the backbone," he sang again as he stopped before a vast, half-built house of bones.

Carefully bonded together, the house was made up of rib bones, arm and leg bones, and back bones. With the skulls, toe bones, and finger bones reserved for special ornamentation around the doors and windows.

A cobalt blue toad, called a frode, with a lily growing out of its back roared as it hopped past, not wanting to get too close to the Asthi Mahal, the bone palace.

Mixing up mortar using cement, crushed bones, and pale orange water, he began lovingly sticking the bones in place singing:

"The knee bone's connected to the skull bone,

"The leg bone's connected to the backbone,

"The femur's connected to the coccyx,

"The shoulder bone's connected to the metatarsal bones ...

"Let's call the whole thing off," he sang again.


Over at Deidre Morton's boarding house in Rochester's Road in Merridale, they were just settling down for another scrumptious and plentiful meal ... When Jessie Baker, Donald Esk, and Lisa Williams turned up.

Seeing the beautiful shapely blonde, Sheila Bennett said: "Something new has been added!"

"Lisa and I were having lunch in town, when Jessie came in and spoilt things for us," explained Don, a tall muscular, man with dark brown hair in a slightly grown-out Beetles' mop-top look, with a large scar down the right side of his face.

"We know the feeling," said the orange-haired Goth chick. She looked down longingly at the delicacies on her plate.

"Trust me, you'll be grateful that you never had lunch, when you hear Marilyn's story," said Jessie Baker, a tall muscular police sergeant, with rusty red hair.

"Can you reheat it for us later, Mrs. M.?" asked Terri.

"Of course, dear," said Deidre.

"Except for the rum Roly Poly Pudding, I get your share of that," insisted Tommy Turner.

"You greedy wretch," said Mrs. Morton: "You do not!"

"Rum Roly Poly Pudding?" said Natasha Lipzing: "God save us from Philistines."

"Hey, leave religion out of this," said Tommy.


A short time later, they were at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, talking to Jesus Costello, and Elvis Green. Jesus, pronounced 'Hee-Zeus', was the chief administrator at the hospital; Elvis, named after his idol Elvis Presley was the local coroner.

"King, Lord," said Sheila by way of greeting.

"It's pronounced Hee-Zeus," said Jesus, getting tired of the Jesus jokes at his expense.

"Gesundheit," said Sheila.

"I've never heard that one before," said Jesus, not remotely amused.

"Really?" asked Sheila.

"Listen Abbott Carstealer, could you please let the grownups talk?" asked Terri. Then to Jesus: "So what's the sitch, to quote Kim Possible?"

"I knew you'd like Kim Possible," said Elvis a lifelong animation fan.

He took them into where Marilyn Hollister was lying in bed sedated, being attended to by a gorgeous platinum blonde nurse, Topaz Moseley. Standing by the bedside he related Marilyn's story.

"Have we got anyone on this yet?" asked Terri, the head cop in the area.

"Stanlee Dempsey, Paul Bell, Drew Braidwood, and Bulam Bulam are trying to locate the body," said Jessie Baker: "Since Marilyn was too hysterical to give us directions. We just know it's a couple of Kays outside Perry."

"But that covers a lot of ground," said Don Esk. Still with Lisa Williams clinging to his arm.

When Terri glared at him, he said: "What? You take your boyfriend Colin with us on cases, and he's not a cop."

"He's got you there, chief," said Sheila. Receiving a glare from Terri.


They had just returned to their cars outside the hospital when they received a call from Stanlee Dempsey saying that they had found the corpse of Madison Hollister. Including the approximate longitude and Latitude to get there.

Three-quarters of an hour later, they were all standing around the deboned carcase of Maddy Hollister, trying to make sense of what they saw.

"What the Hell is that?" asked Lisa Williams, making the mistake of going over to have a look: "Oh God," she said, flushing white as the Cliffs of Dover.

"Don't you dare throw up upon evidence!" said Terri.

Instead, Lisa fainted, conveniently falling backward, not forward onto the deflated remains of Maddy, landing softly upon the bed of sweet-smelling pine needles and gum leaves.

"Honey," said Donald racing across to her.

"Take her back to her home and stay with her," ordered Terri: "Play the Hokey Pokey with her for all I care, just never bring her to a murder site again."

"In fairness," said Don picking her up: "We were having lunch together when Big Red came and interrupted us."

"Yes, I hate it when I'm playing the naked hokey pokey with someone and we get interrupted," said Sheila Bennett.

"Sheila!" said Don, Terri, and Jessie.

"And don't call me Big Red!" shouted Jessie Baker.

"Why not?" asked Sheila: "You're big and you're red."

"She's got you there," said Bulam Bulam, the grey-haired Aboriginal tracker who had located Madison Hollister.

Looking over the boneless, deflated, corpse Sheila said: "I'm glad I didn't have lunch now."

"I bet that's something you never thought you'd hear Sheils say," said Terri, drawing laughter from everyone except Sheila.


Having finished mortaring Maddy Hollister's bones into the Asthi Mahal, the Bone Collector stood back, to have a look at his handiwork.

"It's getting there, getting there," he said.

He went across to his wheelbarrow to check that the boning knife and other weapons were still there, then started walking back the way that he had come.

Like before, an oval-shapen smoky doorway appeared and he walked out of the pink-skied, yellow-grassed world he came from and back into our universe.

"The knee bone's connected to the skull bone,

"The leg bone's connected to the backbone,

"The femur's connected to the coccyx,

"The shoulder bone's connected to the metatarsal bones ...

"Let's call the whole thing off," he sang again.

"These Earthlings come up with some strange, but interesting songs," he said to himself as he pushed the wheelbarrow along.

He started singing again:

"In Dublin's fair city

"Where the girls are so pretty

"I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

"As she wheeled her wheelbarrow

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.'


"She was a fishmonger

"And sure 'twas no wonder

"For so were her father and mother before

"And they both wheeled their barrows

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh...'"

He stopped singing as he heard giggling ahead of him. He crept forward and saw four small children running around playing.

Children are no good to me, he thought. Not that he had any compunctions against killing innocent children. It was just that their bones were too small to be of any use to him.

"Come alone kids, we're heading home, cried their mother from the front seat of a Range Rover.

The Bone Collector sneaked around to see if she had her husband with him. She was a petite blonde, her bones too small to be any use. Instead, she had her 'wife' an even smaller woman with her.

"Damn!" whispered the collector. Not because he was homophobic, but because men's bones were usually larger than women's. Why couldn't they at least have been two-metre-high Amazons! he thought dismayed.


They arrived back at Mrs. Morton's straight after watching the autopsy on Madison Hollister.

"Oh, you must be famished," said Deidre Morton: "Would you like me to warm up the Jam Roly Poly ... without rum on it?"

"What's wrong with Jam-and-Rum Roly Poly Pudding, asked Tommy Turner.

"No thanks..." began Terri Scott, before being interrupted by Sheila Bennett, saying:

"Yes please, Mrs. M.. A large portion please."

"You might as well have it all," said Deidre, after reheating it: "If Terri doesn't want any."

Terri shook her head, so Deidre piled a large portion into a supper plate and smothered it with custard.

"Hey, how come she gets a double portion and I couldn't?" demanded Tommy.

"For one thing she doesn't drown hers in rum," said Deidre.

"For another thing, she's not a greedy pig, like you," said Natasha Lipzing.

"That's debatable," said Terri: "How can you eat that after what we just saw?"

"I didn't get any lunch," said the orange-haired Goth chick, getting stuck in with delight.

"She'll end up the Roly-poly one," said Terri.

"Gee nuff," said Sheila.

"I hope you didn't just tell the number one cop in the area to get stuffed, Sheils? Or I'll reduce you from number two cop to just number two!" said Terri.

Looking down at her bowl, Sheila continued to eat the Jam Roly Poly Pudding in silence.


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'


"She died of a fever

"And no one could save her

"And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone

"But her ghost wheels her barrow

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'."



The Bone Collector used his fog doorway to jump again and this time ended up in an aerobics studio in Henry Street, Pettiwood.

"Sweaty Jayne's Aerobics Salon?" he read: "How could they get any memberships with a name like Sweaty Jayne's?"

Then he saw a photo of Sweaty Jayne, a gorgeous muscular blonde with breasts that made Pamela Anderson seem flat-chested.

"Oh, that's how," he said as he wheeled his barrow down the salon corridor, passing a number of rooms.

Before seeing a room where Sweaty Jayne herself was teaching a class of mainly men. She was just as gorgeous in real life, just as chestalicious, and just as Amazonian. A big-boned blonde, at least two metres tall.

I wouldn't mind climbing up to that, he thought: If I didn't need her bones for the Asthi Mahal.

He waited till the aerobics class was finished and the men had left, then wheeled his barrow into the room.

"Sorry, the class is o..." said Sweaty Jayne, stopping as he slit her throat.

"Aaaaaaah!" shrieked a short brunette in the corridor, passing just in time to see him slaughter the blonde Amazon.

Hearing the scream, two muscular men, also instructors (Sweaty Jayne had found that she only attracted male customers, so had brought in some hunks to get in the women) raced into the studio.

"You bastard," cried one man, looking like a young Arnold Schwarzenegger, seeing what the Bone Collector had done.

At the other end of the room, the collector lifted Sweaty Jayne in the barrow and started walking down the room. After a few seconds, the fog door appeared and he wheeled his barrow through it.

"Oh no you don't," said the Arnie lookalike. He raced across to leap through the doorway, but only got through to the navel, before it vanished, cutting him in half. Leaving the lower have in our universe the upper half in the pink-skied, yellow-grass world that the collector came from.


"Bonus! Score!" said the collector, as he saw the muscleman's upper half appear in his realm.

As he started to carve up Sweaty Jayne, a cobalt blue frode with a lily growing out of its back crept up on an orange tree stump, behind a multicoloured butterfly, the size of a baseball catcher's mitt.

Spinning around, the butterfly whooshed out its tongue to plop onto the toad's head and reeled it in, slowly devouring the toad mouthful by mouthful as the toad roared in terror. Then letting out a burp, that sounded more like a fart, the butterfly flapped its wings, flying away with difficulty, almost falling out of the air a couple of times.

Having finished deboning Sweaty Jayne, the Bone Collector walked across to start on the upper half of the Arnie lookalike.

"Some good bones here," he said aloud, stopping as he heard moving in the yellow undergrowth.

He spun round in time to see something the size of a terrier, but looking like a zebra. Other than it's shark-like fangs, sneaking up on him.

"A zood," he said," sneaking around to take a short-handled spade from his wheelbarrow.

Swinging the spade at it, he said: "Get outta it."

The zood stood its ground, continuing to watch him. sizing him up for a possible meal.

The collector swung the spade again with no reaction. Finally, he charged the zood, slapping the ground with the spade, until at the last possible second the zood spun around and raced back into the undergrowth. But not going far. It continued to watch the Bone Collector as he mixed up another load of bone mortar and affixed the new bones to his Bone Castle.

"I know you're still watching me," said the collector. He tried not to turn his back on the zood as he piled the one-and-a-half deflated corpses into his wheelbarrow and then raced forward.

Finally, the zood raced off, roaring like a lion as it went.

After a few seconds, the fog-like doorway opened again...


And the Bone Collector was back in Sweaty Jayne's Aerobics Salon, on the left-hand side.

On the right-hand side were Terri, Sheila, Jessie Baker, Stanlee Dempsey, Topaz Moseley, Elvis Green, and Jesus Costello. They were studying the lower half corpse of the Arnie Lookalike.

Hearing the sound of the wheelbarrow they spun around as the Bone Collector emptied out the one-and-a-half boneless corpses onto the gym floor.

"Sorry to disturb you," he said: "Just brought you a little gift. Merry Christmas!"

"Stop him!" called Terri. She, Sheila, Stanlee, and Jessie all pulled out their guns, too slowly.

The collector raced toward them until the foggy door appeared again and he passed through it.

As he appeared back in his world, three bullets passed through the doorway, just before it closed. They missed the collector but killed the zood, which had been creeping up behind him.

Spinning round at the gunfire, he saw the dead zood, and smashed its head in with his spade, just to be on the safe side.

"Thank you!" he shouted to Terri and the others. Although the doorway had already closed.


"So that's the maniac?" said Sheila.

"Does this place have CCTV in this room?" asked Terri.

"You betcha," said a tall blonde bodybuilder who had been the wife of the Arnie Lookalike. Still did not realising that it was his husband who was dead.


As they watched the first CCTV footage, the blonde bodybuilder fainted as he saw his husband cut in half by the dimensional doorway.

Stopping the video, they waited while Derek Armstrong and Cheryl Pritchard, two paramedics struggled to get the bodybuilder onto the stretcher. Finally needing help from Stanlee Dempsey, Paul Bell, who had just arrived, and Jessie Baker.

Strapping him onto the stretcher, Cheryl said: "We'll have to come back for the other two." However, as they were leaving another ambulance arrived to help out.

Then they went on to watch the rest of the CCTV footage.

"Seeing the Bone Collector's face on, Terrie said: "We'll need at least a hundred copies of that to nail them around the local towns and warn them a maniac is on the loose."

"Presumably not mentioning that he debones his victims, then escapes through a doorway, possibly into another dimension?" said gorgeous Topaz Moseley.

"No, that could panic them just a tad," said Sheila Bennett.


Back in his own dimension the Bone Collector went into the Asthi Mahal to consider. Feeling safe even from zoods in there, since nothing else had ever dared venture into his bone palace.

"Should I move to another country or continent even?" he thought aloud. But the problem was that he didn't know if humans around the world had the same bone structures. He had seen some two-and-a-half metres tall humans, dressed in strange uniforms. Other adults were barely a metre tall. Is there more than one intelligent hominid species on Earth? he wondered. The one-point-eight-metre-tall Victorian males' bones had matched perfectly with bones from other planets that he had collected. But he didn't want to turn his life's achievement into a hideous mishmash of unmatching bones.

"No, it just won't do," he said: "The Asthi Mahal must be perfect in every detail. So I'll stick to this area, but try other townships!"


When they returned that evening to Deidre Morton's boarding house, Natasha Lipzing said: "Well, do tell, you know I love Who Dunnits."

"This isn't a Who Dunnit, so much as a What Dunnit," said Terri. As they sat down for tea, she went on to give an eager Natasha a run down on what had happened so far.

"A dimensional wormhole," said Freddy Kingston, a big science fiction fan. "He's gone through a dimensional wormhole into a parallel universe to escape."

"Thank you, Doctor Who," said Deidre Morton: "I'm sure they don't need your help to solve the case."

"Ooh, she's getting quite sarky-funny, isn't she," said Sheila Bennett.

"Yes, Sheils, she's been hanging around you too much," teased Terri Scott.

"Well, if you don't want my help," said Freddy sulkily.

"We don't!" shouted everyone else at the dining table.


Todd Hunter and Loni Pullman, both fourteen, were sitting on the grass in Todd's backyard, kissing and snogging. Loni's blouse was open and Todd had his hands in her bra feeling her tits as she had a hand down his trousers stroking his cock.

They were just getting into some serious action, possibly to go all the way, when a smoke doorway opened before them and out stepped the Bone Collector, pushing his wheelbarrow.

"Pardon me, children," he said.

"Oh, my God, you're him," said Loni, quickly buttoning up her blouse, almost trapping Todd's hand inside her bra.

"I'm who?" asked the Bone Collector.

"Him," said Loni. She took a folded-up piece of paper from her blouse pocket and tentatively passed it to him.

Puzzled, he opened the paper and saw a poster warning people to avoid him.

"So, I am," he said: "But don't worry you're both too small. I need big-boned people. Adults mainly."

"What about an oversized seventeen-year-old?" asked Todd.

"You mean, Seymour?" asked Loni.

"Possibly," the collector said tentatively.

"Seymour Monroe is a bully at our school, he terrorises us and our friend," said Loni. And he's one point nine metres tall. And built like a brick chicken house."

"That sounds ideal," said the Bone Collector.

"Follow us then," said Todd, standing then helping Loni to her feet.

They led him through the sweet-smelling gum-lined streets of Westmoreland, until reaching Cockerall Road. With trepidation, they led the Bone Collector down the side of the yard, until reaching the back room. The window was closed and locked, despite it being a warm, balmy night.

"How do we get him out?" asked the collector.

"Stand out of sight on the left-hand side," said Loni, positioning him. Then she and Todd picked up handfuls of mud from the garden outside the house.

They went over and hammered on the window, until Seymour Monroe, a huge ape of a boy slammed open the window and said: "What do you two geeks want at this hour?"

"This," said Loni, and they both threw their mud into his face.

"You two dweebs are so dead," said Seymour leaping out of the window.

Squealing to keep his attention, Loni and Todd ran within centimetres of where the Bone Collector was hiding in the dark.

As Seymour raced by, the collector used the boning knife to slit the bully's throat.

Hearing him collapse onto the grass Loni and Todd stopped running. Todd Hunter asked: "Do you need any help getting him into your barrow?"

"No thanks, I can manage," said the Bone Collector.

"Bye," they both said, waving and then running off.

"What nice kids," said the collector, waving after them: "And they say children are all delinquents these days!"

He started running down the driveway until the smoky doorway appeared and he raced through into his own dimension.


"Yes, two really nice kids," he said as he started to cut open Seymour Monroe to carefully remove his bones, which he piled carefully into the wheelbarrow. Singing:

"In Dublin's fair city

"Where the girls are so pretty

"I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone

"As she wheeled her wheelbarrow

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!'



"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.'


"She was a fishmonger

"And sure 'twas no wonder

"For so were her father and mother before

"And they both wheeled their barrows

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh.'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh...'

When he had finished, this time he played safe. Picking up the deflated corpse, he raced forward to open the smoky dimensional doorway. Then pulled up sharply, tossing Seymour's remains through the doorway before it could close up again.


Margaret and Clark Monroe were sleeping in the master bedroom of their house in Cockerall Road Westmoreland when something heavy fell on top of them with a sloppy, squishy sound.

"What the Hell?" asked Clark. Switching on the bedside light, he stared at the thing on their bed uncomprehendingly.

He suddenly recognised their son's deflated face, just as Margaret started shrieking.


"Alive, alive, oh," sang the Bone Collector and he mixed up the bone mortar to extend the Asthi Mahal.

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'



"She died of a fever

"And no one could save her

"And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone

"But her ghost wheels her barrow

"Through streets broad and narrow

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'


"Alive, alive, oh

"Alive, alive, oh

"Crying, 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh'."


Having found nothing fit to watch on TV (in the countryside TV is either more pathetic than it is in Melbourne), Terri and the others staggered off to bed.

Seeing Sheila yawning, Terri said: "Tired, Sheils?"

"No bored shitless by the crap on TV." She yawned again, then added: "All right tired as well, but the crap on TV certainly doesn't help."

"Fair enough," said Terri as they walked up the stairs to the first storey.

"You should read Doctor Who novels instead," suggested Freddy Kingston.

"No, a nice juicy murder mystery is what they need," insisted Natasha Lipzing.

"How about some supernatural horror," suggested Tommy Turner, holding up Bram Stoker's Dracula.

"No thank you," they all said at once.

"We've been getting way too much supernatural horror around here in real life," said Terri: "Without reading about it too."

"Suit yourselves, your loss," said Tommy.


As it started to grow darker in his world, the pink sky turning to a milk chocolate brown, the Bone Collector decided to retire for the night. With the zood dead, it was probably safe to stay up longer. But he decided not to take any chances.

Going into the Asthi Mahal he opened a large can of what looked like bright orange jelly beans, counted out twelve, and chewed them one at a time.

He then went to the rear room to lie down on what looked like a tiger skin hammock, which after getting into, he hefted up closer to the ceiling. Although no other creature, to his knowledge, had ever entered his bone palace, he did not believe in taking chances.


Over at Mrs. Morton's boarding house, Sheila had just fallen asleep, while Terri struggled to sleep in the heat.

It was about an hour after they had gone to their separate rooms, that Deidre Morton tapped on Terri's door, then Sheila's to tell them that they were wanted downstairs.

Staggering down in her nightie, still half asleep, Terri picked up the phone and said: "Yes?"

"Ah, chief," said Stanlee Dempsey, standing in the room beside her.

"Yes, Stanlee."

"Chief, I'm in the room with you, you can put down the phone."

Looking around bleary-eyed she could finally make him out standing there. "Goodbye," she said into the phone hanging up.

"Chief, have you been getting stuck into the Rum Roly Poly Pudding again?" asked Stanlee.

"No, I've been trying to get to sleep in this monotonous heat and had just managed it when the phone rang."

"Chief, nobody rang, I knocked on the door."

"Then why didn't you phone?" she asked.

"Wait here a sec., chief," he said. Going into the dining room for a moment Stanlee returned with a pitcher of water. Aiming carefully he threw the water into Terri's face.

Startled, she finally woke up fully, saying: "Thanks, I needed that."

"What's going on?' asked Sheila who had thought to dress before coming down.

"There's been another one," said Stanlee: "A seventeen-year-old boy named Seymour Monroe.

"Let's go," said Terri.

"Chief, you'd better get dressed first," suggested Stanlee.

At that moment Deidre Morton appeared from upstairs carrying Terri's uniform.

"If you'd care to wait outside," said Mrs. M.: "Sheila and I will help her to dress."


A little over half an hour later they arrived at the Monroe household, in time to see Derek and Cheryl leading Margaret Monroe over to an ambulance.

Inside they found Jesus Costello and Elvis Green, both yawning like them, as they examined the teenager's deboned skin.

"Just like the others," said Jesus: "Except this one is a teenager."

"A big teenager though," said Elvis, not sure if that was important or not.

As a second ambulance arrived Elvis and Jesus went with it after they had loaded Seymour's deflated corpse into the ambulance.

Then they went down to examine Seymour's bedroom.

"Fingerprints on the window sill," pointed out Jessie.

"Well, photograph them," said Terri.

Sheila leant her head out the window, careful not to smudge the prints, and said: "Footprints outside the window. Large ones though, so they're probably his. Hey wait a minute, what's this?"

Spinning around Sheila raced out into the corridor, then headed down toward the front door.

"Sheils!" called Terri, finally running after her second in command. She finally caught up as Sheila stopped on the grass a metre outside the window. "What is it?"

Sheila pointed her flashlight on some handprints in the mud of the small flower bed beneath the window.

"Handprints?" said Terri.

"Far too small to be Seymour's or the Bone Collector's," pointed out Sheila.

"There was some mud on his face," said Stanlee Dempsey, panting from chasing after them.

"How much mud?" asked Terri.

"Enough mud to have come from those child-sized hand prints," said Stanlee, pointing.

"Then get them plaster cast," said Terri: "And also the footprints; although they're probably Seymour's."

"Will do, chief," he said running to get some plaster of Paris mix out of the boot of one of the police cars.

Thinking aloud, Terri said: "If kids chucked mud in his face, and he came outside and got slaughtered...?"

"Then the kids had to be working with the Bone Collector," Sheila finished for her.

"Yes," agreed Terri.


Early the next morning the Bone Collector started to step out of the bunk bed, then wisely decided to check under it first. Snarling up at him from under the bunk was a terrier-sized, zebra-like zood with a great array of shark-like fangs.

"Want me, do you?" asked the collector. He tugged on both cords of the bunk hard, and the bunk bed crashed down before the zood had time to react.

The zood roared in agony as its bones were shattered.

To be on the safe side though the Bone Collector raced across to pick up his spade and began whacking the zood through the tiger skin of the bunk bed.

Finally, the zood stopped moving and roaring. The collector hesitantly lifted the bunk. Then to be on the safe side he whacked its head until it was reduced to a sloppy paste.

Lifting the still twitching zood by its horse-like tail, he raced forward, just long enough for the foggy doorway to appear. Then stopping just in time with a bit of a stagger, then hurled the shattered zood through the dimensional doorway.


Terri and the others were sitting around yawning at Mrs. M.'s breakfast table early the next morning.

"I've prepared something special for you this morning," said Deidre Morton.

Even as she turned to put the food onto the table the crushed zood crashed down onto the table startling everybody.

Mrs. Morton ended up sitting on Sheila's lap.

"I'm terribly sorry dear," said Deidre. Standing, she returned the food to the oven before turning it off.

"That's not what you said we were having," said Natasha Lipzing staring at the bloody zood.

"No, Nat," said Deidre, wondering whether her oldest boarder had started to go funny with age.

Standing, Terri and Sheila stared at the dead zood.

"Do you think it's a challenge of some kind?" asked Sheila.

"Or he was just getting rid of his leftovers," said Terri.

"But where did it come from?" demanded Natasha Lipzing.

"From a dimensional gate from another universe," insisted Freddy Kingston.

"Listen Captain Kirk..." began Deidre Morton.

"Actually I think he might be right for a change," admitted Terri Scott.

"What say we pack it in dry ice, and send it to Totty Rampling at the Melbourne Wildlife Safari Park?" suggested Sheila.

"Considering how excited she gets by any new animal discoveries," said Terri: "She'd probably consider it an early Christmas present!"


The Bone Collector had to untie his hammock and replace it with a new one since the zood blood had clotted so quickly. Once he had finished, he searched the area for any more zood, careful to carry his spade and boning knife with him at all times. Then he mixed some new bone mortar and finished using up the last of Seymour Monroe's bones.

"Still less than half finished," said, clearly dissatisfied with his labours so far: "I must try to get another one, at least, every day."

Then he remembered the posters of himself stuck all over the local townships.

"Shit!" he said, wondering how to get around it.


Terri Scott rang Totty about the zood, and was almost deafened by her excited squealing over the phone."

"Tell me this isn't a joke?" pleaded Totty over the phone.

"It isn't. So do you want us to send it to you?"

"No, get it on ice, and I'll be down there by tomorrow morning."

"But it's very dangerous down here at the moment," insisted Terri.

"When isn't it? I'm a comin' girl," said Totty hanging up.

"I never fancied Totty as a squealer," said Sheila.

"You've obviously never seen her as excited as she was when I explained what we had for her," said Terri.


That day, they went back and forth between the Glen Hartwell Hospital, where the zood was refrigerated, and the Mitchell Street police station. As well as printing up more flyers of the Bone Collector to nail them up around the various towns.

By nightfall, they were exhausted but relieved that no new deboned corpses had been discovered.


They rose early the next morning to have a quick breakfast, then set off for Theobald Street, Glen Hartwell Railway Station, to meet Totty, a beautiful, leggy brunette from the Melbourne Wildlife Safari Park.

"So where's my old beau?" teased Totty.

"Chasing a scoop over the Albanese indictment."

"Oh, he'll get off," said Totty: "Look at the way the A.L.P. whitewashed things to let Carmen Lawrence get away with murdering poor Penny Eastman. They'll do the same thing with Albanese, the bastards!"

"Probably," agreed Sheila, as they helped Totty with her luggage, while they headed for Terri's police-blue Lexus."


Half an hour late they were at the Glen Hartwell Hospital examining, the zood.

"Oh, you destroyed the head," said Totty.

"It came through that way," insisted Terri.

"Came through? From where?"

"We're not quite sure. We've got a killer who debones his victims, leaves the bodies, and takes the bones. Then vanishes into either an alternative dimension, the future, or primordial past for all we know," said Sheila.

"Sheils, is this one of your whacky goofy misguided attempts at humour?" demanded Totty.

"No," said Terri.

"What're you mean 'whacky goofy misguided attempts at humour'?" demanded the orange-haired Goth chick.

"Sorry, Sheils, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em."



An hour later she had finished the autopsy and said: "What are the odds of me getting some tucker around here?"

"We were just about to go to Mrs. M.'s for lunch," said Terri: "I'm sure she'd be glad to have you back for a few days."

"What about Natasha?" asked Totty: "Has she forgiven me yet for leaving Colin at the altar?"

"No," said Sheila with a laugh: "But we'll sit you well away from her."

"Well ... all right then," said Totty. She left her equipment at the hospital, and let Sheila and Terri carry her suitcases.


The Bone Collector was getting ready to hunt another human, when he sensed movement behind him. He raced forward, then as the doorway opened he leapt aside at the last second. And watched a male zood rush through the doorway. Which then slammed shut behind it.


By one o'clock they were all stuffed, having just finished one of Deidre's divine and plentiful meals.

"I could not eat an olive without exploding like that bloke in The Meaning of Life," said Totty rubbing her full, slightly aching belly.

"Yes it was another gastronomical triumph Deid..." said Natasha as another zood, this time a live one dropped from the ceiling to land on the dinner table.

Screaming in terror, they all pushed back their chairs and leapt to their feet. Sheila and Terri pulled out their revolvers and aimed them at the zood, careful not to shoot anyone across the table from them.

"Don't shoot it in the head! Don't shoot it in the head!" shouted Totty Rampling.

Hearing her voice, the zood suddenly charged the leggy brunette!

"Aaaaaaaah! Shoot it in the head! Shoot it in the head!" shouted Totty racing up the stairs toward the first storey.

The zood had only reached the third step when Terri and Sheila managed to kill it.

"Is everybody all right?" asked Terri as they went across to examine the zood.

"In other words put up your hand if you're dead," said Sheila.

"Don't say that, Sheils," said Terri: "All we need after all of this is a zombie invasion."

"Is it dead?" asked Totty, sneaking her head back around the corner at the top of the stairs.

Sheila gave it a hard kick without it reacting, then said: "Yep." Then to Terri: "Nice shootin' pardner."

"Did you save me the head?" asked Totty creeping back down the steps.

"You were just shouting at us to shoot it in the head!" said Terri.

"That was a panic reaction," insisted Totty: "All wildlife biologists have them sometimes when attacked by alien monsters. Now who's gonna bag up that thing for me so that I can take it to GH&DCH?"


Forty-five minutes later they were at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, watching as Totty tried to make sense of the 'complete' zood, while Elvis Green, the coroner, examined the headless zood.


In his own dimension the Bone Collector was adjusting his bio-settings so that the next time he dimension jumped, it would not be to the place where he had dropped the two zoods. In case the second one was still alive there.

A yellow centipede the size of a boa constrictor scuttled past him. But unlike the zood, they were harmless and only ate the metre-long white earthworms that inhabited the greenish soil of the planet.


He knew he should play it cool for a while, but desperately wanted to finish his bone palace - the Asthi Mahal.

So running forward he ran through the dimensional doorway as it opened up again.


And landed in Chicago in 1929. Two mobs were trying to wipe each other out with submachine guns. So he waited till the Chicago typewriters had done their work, then one by one transported a dozen or more bodies back to his own time.

"Talking about lucking out," he said, as he undressed the first corpse and started to debone it. He crushed up the fingers to use to make bone mortar and mortared the first set of bones in place, before starting deboning the second corpse.

It was almost dark, by the time that he had deboned the fourteen corpses. He opened a portal long enough to throw back their clothes and six of the corpses but left the rest to do tomorrow.

This time he took a short-handled spade and tied it to his hammock, before raising it out of reach of zoods, or other beasts, now that he knew the braver ones would come into the bone palace when he was in there.

But first, he consumed twelve more of the bright orange pellets.

"Yum! Yum!" he said.


As Terri, Sheila, and Totty entered Deidre Morton's boarding house, they were met by an excited Natasha Lipzing.

"Look what I've got!" she enthused, holding up the latest issue of Gore Monthly.

"Sorry, Natasha, but we see too much gore on the job," said Terri, trying to push past her.

"No, no, you must read this article."

Reluctantly, Terri took the magazine and read aloud: "The Chicago Deboning Murders. In Chicago in July 1929, after the Italian and Irish mobs engaged in a bloody shootout killing nearly twenty people, fourteen of the corpses were discovered naked, with all of their bones expertly cut out and removed. To this day no one can explain how or when it was done..."

"What?" said Totty and Sheila together.

The three of them crouched together to read the whole story.

"It can't be the Bone Collector can it?" asked Totty.

"And if he's moved to another country and another time, how the Hell do we catch him?" asked Sheila.

"We can call in Interpol for overseas murders," pointed out Terri: "But unless they know Doctor Who, even Interpol can't travel back and forth through time!"


Although satisfied with his extremely good luck the day before, the Bone Collector was wary of returning to Chicago in 1929, in case he landed between the machine-gun fire and got killed.

Then who would finish the Asthi Mahal? he thought: No I have to go back to Glen Hartwell, whether I like it or not!"

December 1994
Danny "Bear" Ross Chief cop of the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area, and his deputy, Chief Constable Terry Blewett were busily putting up Christmas decks, even though it was still more than three weeks away.

"So, tell me again," asked Terry, a tall wiry man with long black hair: "Why are we decking the halls so early?"

"Because," said Bear Ross, so nicknamed because of his great height and huge barrel-like chest: "We might be too busy with cases later in the year. So while we've got some spare time, we're putting up the decks..."

"And the reason to put them up in a police station is so that any criminals can have a warm, homey feeling?"

"Yes, although I recognise the sarcasm in that question."


In his own dimension the Bone Collector was adjusting his bio-settings again, to appear before his earlier killings in the Glen Harwell to Willamby area so that the next time he dimension jumped, no one would have ever heard of him.

"A single month should do it," he said.


"Deck the halls with Buddy Holly,

"That'll be the day...

"The day that I die..." screeched Bear Ross, like all of his family tone deaf.

"Chief, I don't think those are the correct words to that song," said Terry Blewett shuddering at Bear's horrible attempt at singing.

"They're the words my family always sings."

"So all of your family are mad ... not just you?" asked Terry. "Don't take this the wrong way, Bear. but as much as I love Buddy Holly ... I hate your singing even more. And I use the term singing in its loosest possible sense."

"Everybody's a critic, these days," said Bear Ross.

Then a swirling fog appeared between the two cops and the Bone Collector stepped out.

"Who the Hell are you?" demanded Terry Blewett.

"More to the point when the Hell am I?"

"In the Glen Hartwell police station in Mitchell Street," said Bear Ross.

"No, I said when?"

"Christmas 1994, of course."

"Damn, I overshot by a few decades." Looking at Bear Ross's huge frame, he said: "Oh, well, you'll certainly do."

Picking up his boning knife he advanced toward Bear.

Then Terry Blewett shot him in the back three times.

"Jesus, Allah, and Squaznik," said the Bone Collector. He managed to stagger back into his own dimension, then fell over and died.

Three hungry zoods raced forward and began to devour his corpse. Nearby waited a cobalt blue frode with a lily growing out of its back. Hoping to finish off anything left over by the zoods.

December 2023
Passing a three-drawer metal filing cabinet, Sheila asked: "Hey what's this folder, marked 'Not To Be Read'?"

At first Terri looked puzzled, then suddenly her memory changed and she said: "That's the file that Danny Ross said never to read."

"I don't remember... " started Sheila, then her memory changed and she did remember. "Oh, yeah. I wonder what's in it."

Putting down her cuppa Nescafe Decaf she opened the folder.

"Sheils what part of never to be read, don't you understand!"

"The part about Terry Blewett killing the Bone Collector in December 1994," said Sheila.

"What?" asked Terri, pushing back her chair to stand up and take the file from Sheila. She read the encounter between Bear Ross and Terry Blewett and the Bone Collector three times then handed it back to Sheila.

"Well I'll be buggered with a pitchfork," said Terri.

"Ouch," said Sheila: "It does say he said he overshot by a few decades. So does that make him our Bone Collector?"

"We'll know if there are no more deboning killings,"


Over in the Bone Collector's dimension, the three zood, had stripped his carcase down to a skeleton. After they left, the cobalt blue frode hopped over and started to crunch upon his bones.

Over the next few months, the frode would be well fed, as it slowly devoured the Asthi Mahal, the Bone Collector's life's work!

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