NIGHT FEEDERS

The Johanssens were driving their ancient VW Ute down a dirt lane on the way to Briarwood on the Glen Hartwell to Willamby line, in the Victorian countryside, late one evening in December.

"Look out," cried Tanya a forty-five-ish mildly-pretty redhead as something raced out in front of the car.

Suddenly there was a thump as they hit whatever it was. When her husband Hewitt, or Huey as he preferred to be called, gave no indication of stopping, Tanya shrieked:

"For God's sake stop, we hit something!"

"Probably it's just a wallaby."

"I don't care if it's a three-legged numbat, we can't leave the poor thing dead or dying because we ran it over."

"Because it raced out in front of the car," corrected Huey.

"Hewitt!" she said, knowing that he hated his first name.

"Yes, Tan," he said, retaliating.

"Don't call me Tan!" she said, as she opened the door and slid down to the ground to look around for whatever they had hit.

Using his military-style torch Huey flashed it round the forest land, not far from the road. Normally there was a sweet smell of pine and gum trees in the air around Briarwood. Today there was an obnoxious smell wafting through the breeze.

"What is that pong?" demanded Tanya.

"I thought you dropped one," teased Huey.

"Don't be disgusting," said Tanya.

"Okay, it's the breeze from the Yannan River in Glen Hartwell," said her husband. "Often known as the local sewerage farm. We're probably lucky we're not getting acid rain as well."

At that moment, they heard a screech behind the VW Ute. Going back they saw the creature that they had hit, lying on the road, bleeding.

"What the Hell is it?" said Huey.

"You were right, it's a wallaby," insisted Tanya. And indeed the creature did have the same basic kangaroo-like shape of a wallaby.

Except that its short front legs had lethal-looking fifteen-centimetre-long claws and it had rows of long, shark-like teeth, in a bird-like beak. Also, yellow-brown scales.

"No, I wasn't, wallabies don't have teeth like those," said, Huey, stepping back as the Night Feeder opened its yellowy, snake-slit eyes as it panted for air.

"And they don't have scales," conceded Tanya. Wondering which was the strangest, her saying that Huey was right, something that she made it a habit to never do? Or Huey saying that he was wrong? Something which he made it a habit to never do.

"They certainly don't have yellowy snake eyes," said Huey. "I think we should get back into the Ute."

"I think you're right," said Tanya, backing away.

As they turned, the powerful flashlight beam picked out dozens more of the metre-high reptilian creatures, ringing the car.

"Get into the Ute!" shouted Huey as the creatures started slowly approaching them.

"I can't climb up," said Tanya, always having always had trouble with the ultra-tall base of the oversized utility truck.

"Use the step," shouted Huey leaping up into the driving seat.

Reaching under the front seat of the Ute, Tanya lifted out a plastic step, placed it on the ground, and stepped up.

"Now how do we get the step up?" she asked.

"We don't," said Huey: "We leave it there and 'piss off double quick smart', as our sergeant used to say when we were retreating in 1991 in the Gulf War."

So saying he turned over the engine, which rrr-rrr-rrred several times, before finally turning over.

"Thank God," said Huey, seconds before the Night Feeders raced forward and swarmed all over the Kombi Ute.

"Get us out of here!" shouted Tanya.

She couldn't believe her eyes as a Night Feeder started chewing its way through the front of the truck.

"Quickly, before they get through to us!"

"How the Hell can they get through metal to get to us?" asked Huey seconds before two Night Feeders chewed out the back tyres and the VW Ute crashed down onto its back axle. Crushing in the head of one of the metre-high creatures as it crunched down.

"Get us outta here!" Tanya shrieked.

"How? We've got no back tyres?"

Soon they had no front tyres either as two more Night Feeders chewed out the front tyres. This time both creatures were crushed to death as the Ute crashed down. However, with dozens more swarming on and around the VW, it wasn't much comfort to Tanya or Huey Johanssen.

Crunching, and seeming eating, the metal and wooden slats in the tray of the Ute, the Night Feeders tore the tray into something akin to tinfoil in their quest to reach the married couple.

"We're safe until they finish with the tray," said Huey wrongly. The feeder chewing through the front of the Ute, reached in with its birdlike beak and chewed straight through the steering column.

Which might have sent the car careening down the road if the feeders hadn't eaten the wheels along with the tyres, leaving them flat on their axels.

Ripping away the steering column and dropping it outside the Ute, the Night Feeder stepped into the van headfirst, forcing Tanya and Huey to climb up onto the seat of the Volkswagen.

"Now, would be a good time to start praying," suggested Huey, a lapsed Catholic, who had just found God again ... Too late to save him.

"Our father, who art in Heav ... Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!" said Tanya, her prays turning to a scream as the feeder leapt up, grabbed her by the right foot, and tried dragging her out through the hole in the front of the Ute.

With one leg bent to the left, the other facing forward, her left leg was torn away from her body, making her shriek and then pass out as the Night Feeder tried to pull her through the front of the VW.

"Let her go, you monster," said Huey, for the first and last time in his life deciding that he was opposed to gun control. Although he would have needed a dozen Uzis to have any hope of surviving the attack by the Night Feeders.

He started to reach for Tanya, but the window behind him imploded as a feeder slammed through the glass, to grab him by the neck and try to pull him out through the rear window.

With Tanya's left leg ripped off, the feeder managed to get her partway out of the Ute and started to eat her feet first. Then two other Night Feeders raced over and began to tear at the tin front of the Kombi Ute to make more room to pull the dying woman out of the utility truck.

Soon a fight broke out between the three feeders as to which would eat Tanya. Pecking with their toothed beaks, kicking each other with their back feet, and clawing with their fifteen-centimetre-long claws on their front paws.

While they were fighting, three more feeders grabbed Tanya and pulled her off the roadway toward the pine and eucalyptus forest.

Realising that they were about to lose their meal, the first three feeders joined forces to race across to attack and kill the second three feeders. They then began consuming Tanya Johanssen from three places at once.

As she started to awaken, one of the feeders chewed out her throat. While another chewed open her skull, to get at her juicy brain. Which led to another fight between the three metre-high reptilian monsters. Which allowed a fourth feeder to race forward, grab her brain, and take off like a roadrunner down the middle of the road.

Shrilling in anger, the first three Night Feeders took off after the fourth, forgetting about Tanya's corpse. Allowing half a dozen other feeders to race over and start hurriedly chewing apart and swallowing the dead redhead. Hoping to finish before the first three reptiles returned.

In the VW Ute, the feeder had devoured Huey's head and neck, having to reach into the Ute to keep eating, since his shoulders were too broad to pull out through the small rear window. So it settled for leaning into the cabin to devour his shoulders and arms.

It stopped to screech in rage as three more feeders entered the cabin through the hole in the front. One of them started devouring Tanya's left leg. A second started on Huey's right arm, which had fallen off after the first feeder had chewed away his shoulder. The third started eating Huey's feet and legs.

Shrieking its rage, the first Night Feeder squeezed into the cabin and started attacking the other three. Soon regretting its actions, since the other three feeders teamed up and attacked the first bird, killing and eating it. Before returning to devouring Huey.

In the distance the first three feeders finally caught up with the one that had stolen Tanya's brain, However, it had eaten the brain while running. So they took out their revenge on it, by killing the feeder and devouring it.

Reversing direction, they raced back toward Tanya's corpse, shrieking in their rage, as they saw that the other six feeders had stripped it bare, leaving nothing but the skeleton, pancreas, and one kidney.

Screeching in rage, they ran after the other six feeders, killing two of them. Before the other four turned on them and killed two of their number.

After shrieking at each other for a while, the five remaining Night Feeders settled in to eat the four which they had killed.

Inside the Kombi Ute, Hell had broken out as a dozen feeders were now in the cabin devouring Huey, Tanya's left leg, and occasionally each other. Determined to get their fair share or get eaten trying to get it.

Finally, when even the two skeletons had been devoured the reptiles fought their way out of the VW Ute, then ran off like overgrown roadrunners screeching occasionally to announce their presence. Silencing the wildlife for kilometres around.


At breakfast the next morning they were sitting around in the yellow walled dining room, waiting for Terri Scott to stop talking to her boyfriend, Colin Klein, in Sydney before eating.

"Bye, honey," said the beautiful thirty-five-year-old blonde hanging up the receiver. Terri was the Senior Sergeant in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area.

"How'd it go?" asked Sheila, a thirty-something, orange-haired Goth Chick; the Chief Constable and second-highest ranking cop in the area.

"Looks like they'll commit him," said Terri, talking about Australia's corrupt prime minister who had recently been indicted and forced to stand down.

"I knew Albanese was loony," said Natasha Lipzing, a tall, thin grey-haired woman. At seventy years of age, the oldest tenant at Mrs. Morton's boarding house.

"No, she meant that the committal hearing will go ahead," said Freddy Kingston. A short, bald, obese retiree, enjoying his retirement in the countryside.

"Oh, I see," said Natasha: "Well, I still think he's loony. Trying to disenfranchise 96.6% of Aussies!"

"I'm with you, Nat," said Tommy Turner, a short, blonde-haired semi-reformed alcoholic.

"Don't call me 'Nat'," she insisted: "It's Natasha or Miss Lipzing."

"Or, hey you!" teased Sheila.

"Sheila you used to be a good girl," said Natasha: "You're getting to be as cheeky as Tommy."

"We're a bad influence on each other," Sheila and Tommy both said. Laughing afterward.

"Never a truer word spoken," said Terri, laughing.


They were halfway through their breakfast when a knock came at the front door.

"No a'en?" said Sheila with a mouthful of scrambled eggs. She hurriedly wolfed down her food and started spreading some toast with margarine and then vegemite.

Going to the front door, Deidre Morton said: "Donald, Stanlee, please come in."

"I ew iy," said Sheila scoffing her food as fast as possible.

"Has Sheils invented a new language?" asked Natasha.

"Yes," said Terri: "It's called gobbledegook.

"Ow air ew," said the orange-haired Goth chick.


A minute later Deidre returned with two local police sergeants, Donald Esk, a tall muscular, brown-haired man with a large scar down the left side of his face, and Stanlee Dempsey, a tall raven-haired man.

"Why must you blokes only turn up when we're eating?" demanded Terri Scott.

"It's not our fault if you lot spent a lot of time porkin'," said Stanlee.

"Wha ya me?" demanded Sheila fast-feeding herself some more scrambled eggs.

"There's irony in there somewhere," said Don. Then to Terri: "There's been a couple of whacky killings last night."

"In this area? There's a first for you!" teased Tommy Turner. The Glen Hartwell to Willamby area was infamous for whacky, spooky, and even supernatural killings going back to the early 1980s.

"So fill us in?"

"Birds," said Stanlee.

"In this country, we prefer to be called chicks or sheilas," teased Sheila.

"No, dingleberry, the Johanssens's Kombi Ute seems to have been torn apart by some kind of oversized roadrunners," said Don: "With a chance that Tanya and Huey were eaten alive."

"A chance?" asked Terri.


Forty-eight minutes later they were at the site of the wreck.

"As you can see," said Elvis Green, the local coroner, nicknamed after his idol Elvis Presley: "All we've got left are a ripped apart Kombi Ute, some blood stains. And some very unusual bird skeletons."

He took them across to some of the dead Night Feeders.

"Jesus, what are those?" asked Terri.

"Well they're as big as wallabies," said Elvis: "But with feet designed for running, not hopping. But, as you know I'm not a wildlife biologist."

"But we know someone who is," said Sheila.

"Collect up all the ... for want of a better term, bird skeletons," said Terri: "Trying not to damage them, and take them around to Mitchell Street."

"Okey dokey," said Stanlee and Donald, as Jessie Baker and Drew Braidwood, two more local cops arrived to help out.

Drew a tall lanky blond man, a local constable; Jessie Baker a huge hulk of a man with rust-red hair, a local sergeant.


Back at the police station, they were taking the 'bird' skeletons into the security lockup for safe keeping.

At the same time, Terri Scott rang through to the Melbourne Wildlife Safari Park and asked for Totty Rampling: "Guess who this is?"

"Santa Claus?" asked Totty.

"No, but I do have a wonderful present for you if you've been a good girl this year, little Totty."

"Yes, Santa, I've been a good girl," said Totty.

"Well," said Terri going on to tell the wildlife biologist what they had for her.

"Oh, please Lord, don't let this be a cruel joke," said Totty Rampling.

"It's not, girl," said Terri. They talked a little longer then Terri hung up."

"So, is she coming?" asked Sheila.

"She said something about flapping her arms and flying here if there are no trains," said Terri.

"So she's a little keen then?" asked Jessie Baker.

"She said something about all her Christmases coming at once," added Terri.

"Christmas comes but once a year

"And thank God, it's bloody dear,

"Totty Rampling's coming here

"It's Christmas time again!" sang Sheila Bennett.

"Sheils, I didn't know you couldn't sing," said Stanlee.

"Ha-ha, it is to laugh," said Sheila before sticking her tongue out at him.


During the day Paul Bell, Drew Braidwood, Stanlee Dempsey and a gaggle of pro rata policewomen had been scouring the area looking for the missing couple.

Finally, they called in their pro rata Aboriginal tracker and close friend Bulam Bulam, an Aboriginal Elder to try tracking them. But after a half an hour he announced:

"No tracks anywhere to follow. Either they flapped their arms and flew away, or they were devoured bones and all on the spot."

"That's what we feared," admitted Terri.


By the end of the day they had placed a dozen or so skeletons, three of them more-or-less complete in the backroom. And Terri had received Elvis's report which read: "Tanya and Huey Johanssen missing. Blood found at the site matches their blood types."

"Tell him next time not to baffle us with so much detail," said the orange-haired Goth Chick.

"Sheils, he told us everything that he could without having anything except a few blood stains to go on."

"That's his excuse for everything!"


That night the Noulla Noulla Aboriginal tribe was holding a joint corroboree. Usually, they had male-only corroborees or female-only corroborees. But on special occasions like this, they had joint corroborees of both sexes.

"The omens have been bad lately, oh Great Waramurungundju: Mother Who Made Us All! Please help us defeat the omens of injustice coming our way." As she chanted the young women and men of the tribe danced around muttering

Mother Who Made Us All was the most ancient of all Australian Aboriginal creator-destroyer Gods, who was said to pre-date the Dreaming Time. And was only to be called in extreme emergencies. Such as this. The omens had predicted the annihilation of the entire tribe, and very soon.

As the dancing and chanting continued, a dozen or so Night Feeders waited in the forest just outside the small village in astonishment. Watching the strange people performing their strange rituals. There were nearly sixty people in the tribe, including pregnant women and babies, enough to feed over a hundred Night Feeders.

While the corroboree continued, more and more Night Feeders turned up, until there were fifteen, then twenty of them. Then twenty-five, thirty-five, forty of them.

"Please help us Great Waramurungundju: Mother Who Made Us All!" shouted the leader of the tribe, a tall, grey-haired female elder, who had taken over from her husband when he had died recently.

Soon there were fifty, sixty, seventy, then eighty Night Feeders watching the Aboriginals dancing and chanting while the tribal leader called upon Waramurungundju: Mother Who Made Us All.

Soon there were a hundred or so Night Feeders, the entire herd. So they decided that it was time to attack.

Screeching fit to chill the marrow in your bones, the Night Feeders raced forward to attack the tribe. Two feeders attacked the huge belly of a pregnant lubra, chewing it open to eat her two eight-month fætuses, before starting to devour the screaming lubra herself.

Other feeders raced forward to rip out the Achilles' tendon on the warriors to stop them from running for their spears. A couple of young bucks managed to get their spears and killed a few of the metre-tall bird-like reptiles, before being overrun and eaten alive by the feeders.

A few feeders followed the example of the first two ripping the fætuses out of the bellies of pregnant lubras, before eating the squealing mothers too.

Some feeders raced across to rip the throat out of fat or elderly lubras with enormous breasts. They devoured their breasts first, before moving on to the brain, the neck, and then the rest of their bodies.

"Oh, Great Waramurungundju: Mother Who Made Us All!" shouted the leader of the tribe. Before being dragged down by four or five Night Feeders which used their shark-like teeth to rip her to pieces. Greedily devouring her succulent body.

Children tried to run away screaming, but the feeders easily ran them to the ground, eating them alive. They ate babies in home-made cots, and even ate a few dingo-cross dogs that tried to run away, but were no match for the speed of the Night Feeders.

Shrieking in delight the feeders pecked at men and women alike, devouring them down to the bones, Then heartily crunching upon the bones too.

After nearly two hours of gluttony, all sixty men, women, and children were dead. And with them the Noulla Noulla tribe, which had dated back over fifty thousand years.

Screeching their delight, the Night Feeders took off into the jungle, no longer able to run fast, weighted down by their gluttony. Until dropping massive bursts of their disgusting, pungent guano, then they were finally able to head off like metre-tall roadrunners.

As they screeched, the night forest went silent for kilometres all around other than the cries of the Night Feeders. Everything else terrified of the born killers.


Straight after breakfast the next morning, Terri Scott and Sheila Bennett went via Terri's police-blue Lexus to the Glen Hartwell Railway Station in Theobald Street to await the arrival of Totty Rampling. A tall leggy brunette obsessed with everything animal-related.

Finally, half an hour late, the train arrived at 9:30 AM and off stepped Totty. Terri and Sheila raced across to help her with her luggage. They remembered not to touch her black instruments case, which she never let anyone else touch.

"All right Santa Terri," said Totty: "Take me to this wonderful Christmas Present that you promised me."

"Have you been a good little girl?" teased Terri.

"Yes, I have been, Santa," said Totty as they walked out to Terri's blue Lexus.

"Try not to back into any other cars, Sheils," warned Terri.

"Look, I've only done that four times now," said Sheila, backing into a parked Morris Minor: "All right, five times."

"Is she off her training wheels yet?" teased Totty.

"I doubt that she ever will be," said Terri getting out to exchange insurance details with the other driver.


Half an hour later they were at the Mitchell Street Police Station in Glen Hartwell. Totty was ecstatic as she looked through the partial, and near-complete skeletons.

"You've given me my best present ever, Santa," said Totty.

"So does this mean we don't have to buy her anything?" asked Sheila, as Bulam Bulam walked into the station.

"Howdy Doody, mate," said Sheila, hugging him.

"In English, we say hello," said the grey-haired Elder.

"He's got you there, Sheils," said Terri also hugging him: "So what can we do for you, mate?"

"A local tribe of my people has vanished."

"An entire tribe?" asked Terri.

"All sixty or so of them. I went to see a friend of mine, at the Noulla Noulla tribe, but no one was there."

"Could they be on walkabout?" asked Sheila.

"No, they wouldn't take children, pregnant women, married couples, or the elderly on walkabout. Walkabout is a way to stop inbreeding, by small tribes meeting up in large groups. Native tribes in this country never had more than a hundred members and usually not much more than fifty, so inbreeding was a real danger. So eligible men from one tribe are paired with eligible women of a compatible animal symbol from another tribe, and then they return to their own lands with the newly married women joining their husbands' tribe.

"Besides, they have left all of their weapons, spears, knives, woomeras et cetera behind. Walkabouts can mean walking hundreds of miles. With dingoes and other things out there, you would never set out on a walkabout without taking your weapons."

"Plus you'd need them to kill food along the way," suggested Terri.

"Yes," agreed Bulam Bulam.


When they reached the Noulla Noulla tribal ground it looked exactly like the sight of the wreckage of the Johanssens' VW Ute. Except this time there was no ruined Ute. But there were three complete Night Feeders speared to death.

"Whack-oh the Diddley-oh," said Sheila: "Totty will do somersaults when she sees these."

"I'm afraid the day will soon come when we'll have to lock Sheils away in the nuthouse," said Terri.

"Yes, once they break out into Chips-Rafferty-itis, they don't have much time left," said Bulam Bulam.

"I'm going to ignore your sarcasm," said Sheila, removing the spears from the feeders. She then took the Night Feeders one by one to put in the boot of the police-blue Lexus.


"Totty will squeal like a schoolgirl when she sees these," said Sheila as they started back to Mitchell Street.

"Betcha five bucks she doesn't," said Terri

"You're on, Chief," said Sheila

As they set out a stray Night Feeder watched them taking away the corpses of its companions. Then after a moment, it set out to slowly follow them back to the police station in Mitchell Street Glen Hartwell.


"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeh!" squealed Totty in delight when she saw the first of the Night Feeders.

Holding her hand out, Sheila said: "Told ya! Five bucks please, chief."

Glaring at Totty, Terry handed over the purple plastic note. To Totty, she said: "There are two more in the boot."

"It'd be best to take them to Glen Hartwell Hospital to keep them on ice," suggested Totty.

"Good idea," said Terri. She smiled as she indicated for Terri to carry the Night Feeder back out to the boot.

"Maybe Sheils and you should go to GH&DCH in the Lexus, while Bulam Bulam and I can round up a posse and head back to the Noulla Noulla region to see if we can track these things down.

"Good idea," said Totty.


The Night Feeder, having been joined by a dozen or so more feeders, waited outside the police station. When Totty and Sheila came out of the station and went to the car from which they could smell the three dead Night Feeders, the feeders took off after the blue Lexus.

Except for the original feeder, which stayed to see what was going on in the police station.


Terri took out her mobile phone and managed to round up Jessie Baker, Stanlee Dempsey, Paul Bell, Drew Braidwood, and Donald Esk. They arranged to meet at the police station and then set out for the Aboriginal reservation. Donald Esk agreed to bring his three tracker dogs with him. Three Alsatian crosses, named Slap, Tickle, and Rub.

"Slap, Tickle, and Rub?" asked Terri, as Don and his dogs arrived at Mitchell Street.

"Well, I had to think of a third name, and that was all I could come up with." He hesitated, then said: "You're not gonna let my dogs get eaten this time, are you?"

"They weren't eaten last time," pointed out Terri: "They were frozen to death."

"Don't split hairs with me, chief," he said, giving Rub a pat, followed by Slap and Tickle: "I still miss Thomas and Rufus."

"Sorry, I'll do everything I can to see that they aren't hurt this time. But how can I guarantee anything?"

"I guess that will have to do."

After the others arrived, they started for the Noulla Noulla reservation. Unaware that the Night Feeder was following them.


At the area, now joined by the coroner, Elvis Green, they started to try to make sense of the site. There were blood stains everywhere, but the only corpses were the three Night Feeders that they had already sent to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

Leaving Elvis and Stanlee Dempsey to stand guard in case the feeders returned, Terri and the others set out to try to track the reptiles, with Don Esk holding Slap, Tickle, and Rub in tight rein. Afraid of losing them as he had with his last two tracker dogs.

"So how are you and Lisa getting along?" asked Terri, as they started off.

"Like a house on fire. We're talking about moving in together," said Don.

"Oh..." said Terri, stopping at the sound of rustling ahead of them.

For just a second the Night Feeder appeared in sight, then raced off too fast for their bullets to get near it.

"Stop wasting ammunition. And let's get after it," ordered Terri, then to Don: "Hold your dogs in check."

"Gotcha, Chief," he said as they started after the metre-high reptile at a run.

"We'll never catch it," shouted Paul Bell, a tall wiry raven-haired man.

"We've gotta kill it," said Terri running with all of her might. Wishing that she had followed Sheila's example of working out at the local Gym every Saturday.

Despite his best efforts, Don Esk struggled to hold onto the leads of the three dogs. And finally, Tickle managed to escape his lead and set off at a run after the Night Feeder.

"Tickle, heel!" shouted Don to no avail. "Heel dammit."

As he started running, the other two dogs escaped their leashes and took off after Tickle.

"Slap, heel! Rub, heel!" he shouted running like a madman trying to catch up with them.

After they had been running for a kilometre or so, strangely the Aboriginal Elder, Bulam Bulam, seemed to be the least out of breath and was eventually leading the charge.

"How do you do it at your age, Bulam Bulam?" asked a very winded Donald Esk.

"Proton energy pills," he joked: "Like Roger Ramjet."

"Wouldn't those irradiate you?" asked an exhausted Terri.

"They don't seem to hurt Roger Ramjet."

They were on the brink of stopping when they heard a dog squeal and then running footsteps coming their way.

"Hold your fire in case it's my dogs," said Don. Guessing correctly as it turned out, since Slap and Rub came running out of the forest and raced across to hide behind their master, whining in terror, but looking unharmed.

Putting their leashes back on, Don said to Paul Bell: "Take them back to my truck."

Normally the dogs would not let themselves be led by anyone except Don. But this time they were only too willing to go with Paul, away from the Night Feeder.


After another ten minutes, they reached a small clearing, where Tickle stood bleeding from the stomach but facing off the Night Feeder. The dog barked and the Night Feeder roared.

"Can you call it back?" asked Terri.

"I'll try," said Don: "Tickle Tease, Tickle, come to Daddy! Heel Tickle Tease!"

Slowly the dog backed up toward Don, without taking its eyes off the Night Feeder. When the dog was far enough away, Terri fired three shots at the reptile. The first went wild. The second ricocheted off its steel-hard beak. The third hit it right between the eyes and the feeder leapt into the air, then came down with a crash, dead.

"Picked it up, Drew," Terri ordered Drew Braidwood.

With some hesitation, he went over, kicked the dead Night Feeder a couple of times then picked it up.

Taking off his jacket, Stanlee wrapped Tickle in it, then picked the injured dog up, saying: "We've gotta get him to the vet.

"Let's go," said Terri, leading the charge back to the cars. Until once again Bulam Bulam took the lead.

"Gotta get me some of those proton energy pills,: gasped Terri: "I don't care if they are illegal!"


At the reservation, Stanlee and Elvis looked around as Bulam Bulam led the others out of the forest.

"Drew can you drive my Ute, while I hold Tickle, to take him to the vet?" asked Donald Esk.

"Sure thing, mate," said Drew Braidwood climbing into the driver's seat.

"The rest of us might as well head to the hospital, to see how Totty's getting on," suggested Terri.


At the hospital, the twelve Night Feeders looked for a way in. Finally, they attacked and slaughtered two orderlies, then raced en masse in through the ambulance entrance. Then they headed through the hospital, relying upon smell to track down the corpses of their confederates.

As they sneaked past the reception desk, a slightly gaga old lady saw them and asked: "How long have you been keeping chooks in the reception area?"

"We haven't, Thelma," said the night nurse without even looking up.

"Well, they looked like chooks to me," insisted Thelma: "A little on the big side maybe, but good layers by the looks of them."


The Night Feeders continued down the corridor, following their dead companions by smell.

"There are turkeys running down the corridor," said Lennie, more gaga than Thelma.

"Sure there are Lennie," said Topaz Moseley, a gorgeous platinum-blonde nurse. "Now come and take your medicine."

"I know it's almost Christmas, but turkeys in the corridor?" said Lennie. He went over to take his tablets, then sat down on the bed and pulled the blankets up over himself.

"Don't worry, we'll kill them and have them for Christmas dinner," said Topaz.

"Don't like turkey," whined Lennie: "Prefer roast ham."

"All right, we'll get you some roast ham."


The Night Feeders had almost made it to the main elevators when they were spotted by a cleaner.

"Get out of here, turkeys," he said, hitting one of them with a metal vacuum cleaner hose.

Spinning around the feeder grabbed the tube and chewed straight through it.

"What...?" cried the cleaner. Running away he smashed in the glass of the nearest emergency button and pressed the red button setting off alarms, which could be heard all over the hospital, including in the freezer unit where Totty was examining the feeder carcases.

"What is that sound?" asked Totty, irritated by it.

"I'll go check," offered Sheila going outside to find pandemonium, with nurses and patients running every which way. Looks like a St Vitas' dance contest, she thought.

Then Topaz Moseley came running, screaming down the corridor with three Night Feeders chasing her.

Pulling out her handgun, Sheila let the blonde nurse run past her, then fired three carefully aimed shots, killing all three of the Night Feeders.

"Run to the freezer room, and keep the door shut," Sheila shouted after Topaz. She reloaded her gun and set out through the hospital, shooting dead any Night Feeders she encountered, helped by the arrival of Terri and the others.

"Thank God," said Sheila as she rounded a corner in time to see Terri shoot dead two feeders.

After a careful search through the hospital, they managed to kill all of the reptiles.

"How the Hell did they get in here?"

"They must have followed Totty and Sheils to devour their dead colleagues," guessed Jesus correctly.

"You're giving them way too much credit," insisted Totty: "These things are some kind of miniature dinosaurs. They don't have that much intelligence."

"Don't bet on it Tots," said Terri.

"Tots?" asked the wildlife biologist.

"That's your new nickname, Terri and I devised for you," explained Sheila.

"Well, it's better than toots," said Totty.


After that, Terri had no choice but to ring through to Melbourne for assistance.

A team of nearly a hundred marks people were sent down, and over the next twenty days or so gradually hunted down and shot all of the Night Feeders.

"Nice shootin', Tex," said Sheila after a marksman shot down a feeder from over a hundred metres away.

"Sheils would you stop saying that every time someone shoots down a monster in this area?" said Terri.

"That's something that you would probably never hear said in any other part of the world," said Sheila.

"No, but it's a disturbingly common expression in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area."

Gradually they killed off the last of the Night Feeders and took the last of the carcases to the Glen Hartwell hospital.

"Wait till I write my paper up ... or possibly even a book," enthused Totty Rampling: "I'll be world famous."

"Afraid not," said the head Melbourne cop: "Our orders are to take all of the carcases to Melbourne for incineration." Picking up her files, he added: "And all evidence that these things ever existed."

"Oh," whined Totty: "But I wanted to be world-famous."

"Someday you may be," he said: "But not by starting an Australia-wide panic."

"He's right, Tots," said Terri. She arranged to hand all of her own files over to the Melbourne cops also.


Over at Deidre Morton's, they were having a roast ham, with Christmas extras, even though there were still seventeen days till Christmas.

"The Christmas tree is burning

"Dark clouds rise overhead,

"There ain't much Christmas cheer in town

"Now that Santa Claus is dead," sang Sheila Bennett.

"What in the world is she singing now?" asked Natasha Lipzing.

"Grey Christmas," answered Sheila: "It's the B-track on the Devil's Advocate's huge worldwide hit, Black Christmas."

"You had to ask," said Terri with a laugh.

"Yes, I'll know not to next time."

"It's a grey, grey Christmas

"With Santa in the ground,

"There ain't much joy around the world

"The Christmas tree has fallen down."

"Sheils, can I ask you not to sing?" asked Terri.

"You want me to go back to Black Christmas?"

"No, I want you to never sing again in my presence."

"Oh, a critic, eh!"

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