THE LILY WHITE BOYS

Bulam Bulam was a grey-haired elder of the Gooladoo tribe, outside the township of Harpertown in the Victorian countryside. Although he lived in a lean-to in his tribal village, he owned and worked a small grocery shop in town.

An early riser, he had been up for hours. As he restocked the shelves of his shop, he could hear footsteps above, although it wasn't yet 6:30 AM. He knew that his boarder, Colin Klein, was also an early riser and did not bat an eye at the sounds from his spare bedroom.

He was busily stocking the shelves with chocolate bars a few minutes later when he heard running feet outside. Followed by a curse as the front door refused to open.

Bulam Bulam walked across to say that they weren't open yet, then saw that it was his young grandson, Bobbie.

As he opened the door the exhausted youngster, eleven next June, almost fell in through the shop door.

"Grandpa," Bobbie croaked, gasping for breath.

Pulling a chair across towards him, Bulam Bulam said, "Slow down Bobbie, sit down and get your breath back then tell me your news."

For a couple of minutes, Bobbie gasped, until his breathing slowed enough for him to say: "White folks coming!"

Hearing footsteps at the back of the shop, the old man looked across as the tall, thin, redheaded figure of Colin Klein appeared from the steps leading upstairs."

"What was that?" asked the redheaded reporter.

"White folks coming down the street."

Bulam Bulam and Colin Klein exchanged puzzled looks.

"You've seen white folks before, Bobbie," said the reporter. "Me for starters."

"Then there are the eighteen million white folks who had the good sense to vote against Black Apartheid at Anthony Albanese's recent V For Defeat referendum," insisted the old man.

Looking frustrated at the two adults's obtuseness, Bobbie said: "Not ordinary white folks. White white folks."

"That explains everything," said Colin Klein and the two men laughed.

"Well come and see for yourselves," said Bobbie, indignant at their scepticism.

Before they could answer, the child walked across to open the front door but did not step outside. After a few seconds, the two men followed him. He backed up to let them see out, without having to risk going outside.

Out in Chappell Street, on the concrete footpath, Bulam Bulam and Colin Klein saw what they first took to be a half a dozen concrete statues, roughly modelled into the shape of men.

"How the Hell did they get there overnight?" asked Bulam Bulam.

"You got me," said Klein. Then before he could say any more, one of the concrete men suddenly started to lurch forward,

Colin Klein didn't want to say it, so he was relieved when Bulam Bulam said: "They're walking!"

"In a manner of a fashion," agreed Klein as the creatures all started to lurch forward like zombies in a B-picture.

"That's not possible," said the Elder, then corrected himself: "But it certainly is happening."

"Told you so," said Bobbie from behind them, feeling vindicated after their mocking earlier.

As they watched they saw the short potato-like figure of Thomasina Madigan, formerly matron, now Nurse in Charge on her shift at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.

Seeing the two men, Thomasina waved, then saw Bobbie hiding in the store, "Hello, Bob ..." She stopped mid-word and looked down in astonishment.

"Look out Miss Madigan!" called Bobbie. Too late. As they watched, the portly woman seemed to be suddenly getting shorter and shorter.

"What the...?" said Klein, and the two men raced across the small lawn to look over the metre-high yellow brick front fence.

"How...?" asked Bulam Bulam.

As they watched Thomasina Madigan was sinking into what should have been a solid concrete footpath.

It hasn't been repaved recently, has it? thought Colin Klein. Then as Thomasina Madigan started screaming, he saw that the dirty white path was rippling like waves at the beach.

Thomasina Madigan screamed and started to struggle unsuccessfully to pull her feet out of the now watery concrete.

The two men started to jump the fence, to help her, but behind them, Bobbie shouted: "Don't jump onto the concrete, you'll sink too."

Even as the boy spoke, they started to hear men and women screaming. Looking back they saw seven or eight other Harpertownians starting to sink into the impossibly liquid concrete.

"Help me, pleaaase!" shouted Thomasina Madigan, and the two men jumped up onto the brick fence, hoping against hope that it would stay solid. They sidled as quickly as they dared across to the next fence, then the next, before they could reach the portly woman.

Trying his best not to fall and be devoured by the concrete, Colin Klein, leant out to grab Thomasina Madigan's right arm. Bulam Bulam grabbed her left, and the two men heaved with all of their strength.

As they tugged Thomasina Madigan continued to scream, and at first the suction of the concrete seemed too strong for the two men. Then gradually they pulled her back with so much force, that all three of them fell onto the front lawn.

"Why is she still screaming?' asked Bulam Bulam. Then looking down they saw that her legs from the knees down were dirty white. Taking a rag from his pocket the Elder tried to wipe the concrete off of her legs, but ...

"They're concrete!" said Colin Klein, as they stared in horror. Thomasina Madigan's lower legs had indeed somehow hardened into solid concrete.

"I'll go ring for an ambulance," said Bulam Bulam, relieved to leave the sight of those concrete legs, which only minutes before had been flesh and blood. The old man had to climb across two fences before he could go inside to get his mobile phone -- just relieved that a new phone tower in Glen Hartwell meant that the area finally had good mobile reception.

Outside Colin Klein left Thomasina Madigan long enough to shout to the other people sinking into the concrete path: "Get off the concrete!"

A young woman carrying a baby girl managed to fall more than run off the consuming concrete, onto the bitumen road.

Let's hope that won't swallow her too... Klein thought. But the young mother climbed unsteadily to her feet and staggered down the road toward the imagined safety of her home a kilometre away.

Behind him, Colin Klein heard an angry mumbling. Looking around he saw that three of the concrete men were slowly shaking lily-white fists at him. Unable to form actual words, nonetheless their facial expressions made it clear that they were angry at the two men's interference. Angry that they had saved Thomasina Madigan. Somehow he needed her to sink out of sight within the concrete.

The other five people sinking into the watery concrete could not be saved. Two of them had stopped screaming as their heads went down below the footpath. The other three were merely mumbling now, on the point of death as they had sunk into the concrete passed their navels. Soon they stopped mumbling as they died, more than half solidified into concrete.

By the time they heard the ambulance siren in the distance, all three of them had vanished below the concrete too. The last to go was Tom Hinkley's collie Ranger, an eighteen-year-old dog with one blue eye and one brown. The dog gave one last half whining yelp, then vanished from sight, alongside its owner.

"Poor Ranger," said Bobbie, having risked fence-walking to see if he could help with Thomasina Madigan. To a child the death of a beautiful dog seemed somehow worse than the deaths of five people, plus the mutilation of the fifty-something nurse.

As the ambulance siren grew loader Bobbie said: "The concrete, it's not rippling anymore."

Looking up for a moment Colin Klein saw that the boy was right. Then hearing sloshing sounds behind him, the reporter looked around and saw that the Lily White Boys were lurching away at the sound of the sirens.

Soon a second siren was heard, growing louder as the ambulance pulled up near where Klein and Bobbie signalled for it.

"What happened?" asked the driver after the two paramedics leapt out of their vehicle.

"See for yourself," said Bobbie, pointing at Thomasina Madigan's white lower legs, The nurse had passed out by now, so was no longer screaming.

"Her legs are all white," said the female paramedic, wondering what all the fuss was about.

"Take a closer look," suggested Colin Klein, and the two paramedics climbed the short fence into the small garden.

"What the ...?" said Vanessa, the female paramedic, as she examined Thomasina Madigan's lower legs. "They seem to be...?"

"They've turned into concrete," said Klein. "She was shrieking like a banshee until she passed out."

"Can you help her?" asked Bobbie as a pale blue police Ford Fairlane stopped beside the ambulance.

"We'll take her to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital," said Vanessa. "They'll have to amputate both of her legs at the knees."

"Then how'll she walk?" asked young Bobby.

"They'll have to attach prosthetics."

"What are those?"

"Artificial legs," explained Colin Klein.

"What's going on...?" began Paul Bell, police chief of Harpertown. Then he stopped and stared at Thomasina Madigan's lower legs. "What the Hell happened to her?"

"You ain't gonna believe it," insisted Bobbie.

Colin Klein walked warily across the fence, even though the concrete was now safe -- Paul was standing on it without sinking. As he walked he said, "You'd better follow us into Bulam Bulam's shop."

"You ain't gonna believe it," repeated Bobbie. As the child spoke, his grandfather appeared in the doorway of his stop.

"I rang the police as well," said Bulam Bulam, stating the obvious.

After a moment's hesitation, leaving Thomasina Madigan to the two paramedics, who were stretchering her into the rear of the ambulance, Paul Bell started down toward the small grocery shop.



As Bobbie had predicted the tall, rangy policeman did not believe their story:

"Lily White Concrete men, the footpath rippling like water?"

"That's right," said Colin Klein."

"Then five people started sinking into it?"

"Plus Ranger," insisted Bobbie.

"Five people, plus Ranger," corrected the policeman.

"Seven," corrected Bulam Bulam. "You're forgetting Thomasina, whom Mr. Klein and I managed to pull out. Also, Hetty Madigan fell out onto the bitumen road, saving herself and her little baby girl."

"Doris," informed Bobbie.

"So Hetty Madigan will back up your craz ...your story?" asked Paul Bell writing on his computer tablet.

"Unless she's too hysterical from terror," agreed Klein, looking round at the sound of the ambulance finally taking off.

"Okay, let's go talk to her."



When they got to the Madigan farmhouse, just outside town, however, Hetty Madigan was not there.

"Dave took her to the hospital," explained her mother. "Don't know what happened but she was raving and ranting about the concrete path trying to eat her."

Paul Bell almost dropped his tablet in shock but managed to hold onto it with his left hand. "The concrete path tried to swallow her."

"That's what she said. Said it swallowed Tom Hinkley and Ranger."

"Also the Burnhams, Willie Smythe, and Sarah Collingwood," added Bobbie.

"Well, first I have to speak to Hetty, at the hospital," said Paul Bell, "then go look for the Burnhams, Willie Smythe, Tom Hinkley, and Sarah Collingwood."

"And Ranger," added young Bobbie.

"And Ranger," agreed Paul.

"You could try digging up the concrete," suggested Bulam Bulam. "You might find them there."

"Or at least concrete statues that used to be them," suggested Colin Klein.

"Before I start digging up the footpath, let me just confirm that they're all missing first."



Across town at Martello Street Hilly and Denny Mulligan were hosting a small wine and cheese tasting party for themselves and five close friends. They called themselves the Grey League since usually not one of them was below the age of eighty. Except for Hilly, the baby of the group, who was a mere seventy-eight. Although this time twenty-something Adele Trumper had joined her parents, Victor and Daisy, to see what all of the fuss was about.

"We've got some great cheese for you to sample," joked Denny Mulligan.

"Can the crap," said crotchety Bill Munroe, at ninety-two, the oldest of the group. "Forget the cheese, let's get to quaffing the wine."

"Quaffing?" asked his wife, Valerie, a blue-rinses lady of eighty-eight. "You can be so common sometimes."

"Cut the nagging, young lady," teased Bill, making them all laugh.

They had been drinking, and to a lesser extent enjoying Colby cheese on Ritz cracker biscuits, when Valerie noticed her husband staring at the floor beside the hearth.

"What are you so engrossed in?" she asked.

"The floor is rippling under the carpet," he answered.

Looking around, she saw that he was right. A section large enough to be a domestic cat was pushing up through the carpet. "Oh, my God, I think you've got rats under your floorboards," said Valerie.

"Or the boards themselves have started warping something shocking," added Bill Munroe

"Not possible," insisted Hilly. "Ronnie and Dave, our kids, had the place refloored ten years back. Dug it up completely, and replaced it with a solid concrete floor."

"Concrete can't warp," insisted Denny. Yet as they both looked around they saw that the carpet over the concrete wasn't so much warping as rippling.

"What the heck," said Hilly, never one to take Heaven or Hell in vain.

"What the Lord is going on?" asked Denny, getting a hard lock from his wife for blaspheming.

"It's got to be rats under the carpet," insisted Valerie Munroe, the nearest to the disturbance, starting to look as though she wanted to leave immediately. A decision that would have saved her life.

"Rats?" repeated her husband, Bill. "How the Hell could rats get under the carpet when there's a concrete floor?"

"Language, please," said Hilly, starting to become as nervous as Valerie now.

"Well, there's definitely something under there," insisted Denny Mulligan as the carpet near the hearth continued to writhe and buck with a life of its own.

"There can't be ..." started Bill, stopping as with a loud ripping sound the carpet began to tear. At first slowly, the tear soon raced from one end of the room to another, although no one could see what was causing it.

Then a tear started in another part of the carpet, then another, until most of the carpeting in the living room had been ripped to shreds.

"What the Hell," said old man Monroe, not getting rebuked this time. Without fear, he got up and walked across to the hearth, where the first tear had started,

"Don't!" cried Valerie.

Unperturbed, Bill lifted the torn segment of carpet to reveal...

"Nothing," he said puzzled, "there's nothing bloody well there except hard concrete."

"There must be something," insisted Hilly Mulligan, getting up to go across to look at the concrete near the hearth. But there was nothing that she could see, except concrete. Sighing, she said, "Our beautiful carpet, torn to shreds."

"Yes, but by what?" asked Denny, going across to another exposed part of the concrete floor. "Nothing except solid con...."

He stopped mid-word, as the concrete he touched was anything but solid. "It's still wet ... the concrete." To prove his point, he stuck his right index finger deep into the damp concrete floor."

"Don't be ridiculous, it was laid ten years ago," insisted Bill Munroe. Bill was always happy to argue, about almost anything with almost anyone.

Then to his astonishment, he noted that his shod feet seemed to be sinking into the concrete, forcing him to concede: "Hey, you're right Dennis, it is soft to the touch."

Denny glared at Bill, who knew very well that he hated to be called Dennis.

"But that's ridiculous, how could it be?" said Valerie, getting out of the armchair, with some difficulty. Her arthritis made low chairs difficult to rise from. She walked across to another patch of exposed concrete and touched it tentatively with the toe of one shoe. When the concrete seemed solid, she walked upon it, then jumped on it, to the extent that an eighty-eight-year-old arthritis sufferer can jump.

"See," she insisted, it's perfectly ..." She stopped as her feet suddenly sank a centimetre into the rapidly liquefying concrete.

"But I don't understand," said Valerie, too innocent of the very real danger that she was in to even think to step away.

"You're sinking," said Hilly, stating the obvious.

"It's only ..." started Valerie, but then she suddenly sank into the concrete past her ankles

"Help me!" cried Valerie struggling furiously against the concrete which continued to suck her down.

"Don't worry, Val, I'm coming," said her husband. But as he tried to walk across to her, he discovered that his own feet had sunk in to the ankles.

"I'll save you," said Denny, only to find that he could not pull his index finger out of the concrete near the hearth. In fact, as he attempted to pull upward, the concrete suddenly pulled him downwards, forcing him onto his knees, which like his right hand soon became stuck within the soft concrete.

"This is impossible," insisted Hilly as her own feet started to sink. And were soon past the ankles.

"Help me!" cried Valerie, now starting to scream as she had sunk well past her ankles, halfway to the knees. Like Thomasina Madigan she started to scream in agony, as beneath the concrete floor her legs had started to solidify, turning from flesh into concrete.

"What is it, Val!" shouted Bill Munroe, unable to run to help her due to his own predicament. But as he continued to sink into the concrete floor, and his legs began solidifying, Bill was soon screaming too.

The other three people in the room, Daisy, Adele, and Victor Trumper, might have survived had they stayed seated and lifted their feet off the now rippling concrete since they had not yet started sinking.

Instead, Victor Trumper shouted: "Follow me!" And the three Trumpers leapt to their feet and tried to run to the safety of the front door.

None of them got more than a metre from their chairs, however, before they started sinking into the concrete also.

"Help me, honey!" cried Hilly Mulligan, however, on his hands and knees, her husband Denny had already sunk below the level of the floor, and was soon followed by Valerie Monroe. Whose hellish shrieking ceased as soon as her mouth was below the floor level.

"Our Lord, who art in Heaven," prayed Hilly aloud, not certain what was happening, but certain that if she prayed the Lord would come to her aid.

Even though after the great flood Jehovah/Yahweh had promised never again to interfere in the workings of humankind. A promise that the Lord kept as Hilly and Bill had soon sunk to the level where the solidification of their legs forced them to start shrieking like coyotes howling at the moon.

"There must be something that we can do!" insisted Victor Trumper. Yet, even as he spoke he realised that they were all doomed.

"Oh shut up!" Adele shouted at Hilly and Bill who still wailed in pain and terror.

Hilly luckily passed out. But poor Bill Monroe could only shriek louder and louder, as he sank deeper and deeper into the concrete floor. His agony increased exponentially as his legs, crotch, abdomen, then chest all hardened, changing from flesh and organs into solid concrete.

Hilly sank, still unconscious, down below the floor level, feeling no more agony in her last few seconds of life. But Bill Munroe continued to wail in excruciating agony and relentless terror. Finally his mouth, then his entire head had sunk below the level of the floor.

As all but the Trumpers had vanished from sight, the Lily White Boys suddenly revealed themselves, rising up slowly from the concrete floor.

"What the Hell," said Victor, causing his wife and daughter to look around at where he was staring.

First one, then two, then three, four, five, six of the living statues rose up from the concrete floor.

"This is impossible!" shrieked Daisy Trumper, making the concrete fiends grin evilly, as though somehow their existence depended upon the terror and agony of those whom they sucked down into their concrete world.

"Who are you? What are you!" shrieked Adele, making the Lily White Boys grin until their heads seemed to split open like flip-top boxes.

"You're devils from Hell, aren't you?" demanded Daisy. But the puzzled look that the creatures gave her made her realise that she was wrong. Whatever the Lily White Boys were they were not devils. Wherever they came from it was not Hades.

"Then what...?" began Daisy, her words turning to screams as her own legs, sunk to the knees and started to solidify, bringing with them horrendous agony. At a level that very few people are ever unlucky enough to experience. And which no one could be lucky enough to survive through.

Soon, as the Lily White Boys continued to grin evilly, all of the Trumpers had sunk past their knees. And they were all shrieking their lungs out. Poor Adele's heart gave out under the agony, and with a gush of blood from her mouth, the young woman died. Victor and Daisy were too close to insanity to notice, let alone care that their only child had died before them. Had died in her early twenties.

But the Lily White Boys noticed and were unhappy. Having died before passing into their concrete realm she was of no further use to them So Adele's corpse stopped sinking. It stayed there, concrete below the floor to the navel, flesh and bone above the navel.

The Lily White Boys snarled, as best they could, in anger at having been robbed of this one prize. But still, having taken five people earlier in the day, and six at the wine and cheese party, they felt refreshed, and sated.

Leaving the top half of Adele Trumper above the floor, the Lily White Boys sank back into their concrete world. The concrete stopped writhing and solidified. Leaving nothing behind to tell of what had happened......

Except for the shredded carpet. And the top half of Adele Trumper's body sticking up mysteriously out of the concrete floor.



At the hospital, Paul Bell, Bulam Bulam, and Colin Klein (who had both insisted upon going with him), were unable to talk to Hetty Madison.

"She's well past knowing who she is, let alone talking," explained Jenny Huntley the Nurse in Charge on this shift.

"Did she say anything?" asked Klein.

"Just ramblings about concrete men, trying to suck her down into the concrete."

Glaring at Colin Klein for stealing his thunder, Paul Bell started at the nurse's words. "Concrete people trying to pull her down into the concrete?"

"That's what she says," said Jenny with a broad grin. "Ridiculous isn't it? The poor thing has completely lost her marbles."

"Not necessarily," said Colin Klein as the nurse ushered them across to the elevator, then escorted them out into Wentworth Street.



When they reached the small white weatherboard building that housed Harpertown's police station, on Rushcutters Road, they noticed a number of cops swarming around outside.

"I wonder what's going on?" said Paul Bell, driving the Fairlane across to the front door.

"Don't bother getting out," said Andrew Braidwood, a tall gangly fair-haired man in police uniform.

He climbed into the front passenger seat, and said: "There's something you need to see."

"What is it?" asked Paul Bell restarting the car's engine.

"I'd rather you saw for yourself," said the fair-haired officer. "I don't want you thinking I've gone batty. Over to Hilly and Denny Mulligan's place at Martello Street."



Less than ten minutes later they were standing inside the lounge room at Martello Street, staring at the shredded remains of the carpet.

And at the top half of Adele Trumper's corpse, protruding up inexplicably from the concrete floor.

After a moment's hesitation, Paul Bell reached down to touch the concrete around Adele.

Standing up again, he said: "Solid as ... well as concrete. So how the Hell did she get like that?"

"And where the Hell are the other six?" added Andrew Braidwood. "According to neighbours there were seven people in here: Adele, Daisy, and Victor Trumper. Bill and Valerie Munroe. Plus Hilly and Denny Mulligan."

"Did they see what happened here?" asked Colin Klein, drawing a sharp look from Paul Bell.

"No. They heard shouting and at first thought it was just an argument." To Bulam Bulam and Klein, Braidwood said: "Bill Munroe would have an argument with God himself, he liked arguing so much.

"Well, anyway, by the time that they came to investigate, having to break in, this is all they found," pointing at poor Adele Trumper.

"Well, is it time to dig up Chappell Street yet?" asked Bulam Bulam.

With a frustrated sigh, Paul Bell said: "Yes, it's time to dig up Chappell Street."



An hour later they were back in Chappell Street, near Bulam Bulam's grocery shop, watching as half a dozen public works men used pneumatic drills to dig up the concrete, then shovels to dig through the clay underneath.

"Found something," said one of the diggers as his shovel clunked against something hard.

Ten minutes later they had dug up three of the petrified victims: Willie Smythe, Ton Hinkley, and his collie dog, Ranger.

"Poor Ranger," said Bobbie as though not noticing the remains of Smythe and Hinkley.

"Poor Willie and Tom," added Bulam Bulam.

An hour more and all of the petrified victims had been unearthed.

"What do we do now?" asked Andrew Braidwood.

"We send these five ..."

"Plus Ranger," insisted Bobbie.

"We take these five, plus Ranger," Paul corrected himself, "around to the coroner in Glen Hartwell. Then we go dig up the floor in Hilly and Denny's lounge room."



Twenty minutes later, Andrew Braidwood was taking the petrified corpses to Jerry Green, the local coroner in Glen Hartwell. While Paul and the other three stood around as the public works men broke up the floor in the Martello Street lounge room.

"Be careful around her," ordered Paul Bell, as they started drilling around Adele Trumper's half corpse protruding above the concrete, as though somehow, even in death, their pneumatic drills could harm her.



Over at Dien Street, Glen Hartwell, the coroner Jerry "Elvis" Green - nicknamed due to his devotion to Elvis Presley, plus his long black sideburns, stared at the six "statues".

"What am I supposed to do with five life-sized statues?" demanded Jerry.

"Plus Ranger," added Andrew Braidwood.

"All right, plus Ranger," Jerry added.

"They're not statues," insisted Andrew. He quickly related to the coroner what had happened in Chappel Street Harpertown.

"Oh, I see," said Jerry. Less sceptical than Paul Bell had been, due to a number of "impossible" things that Jerry Green had seen in and around Glen Hartwell during his forty-plus years as local coroner.

"So how do you perform autopsies on them?" asked Andrew Braidwood, thinking aloud.

"Normally I'd use a scalpel, but in this case, I'd better get a hammer and chisel," said Jerry.



After another ninety minutes, they had dug up the five-and-a-half petrified corpses and Paul Bell made preparations to ship them to the Glen Hartwell morgue.

"Jerry Green is gonna curse me when this lot arrives," said Paul.

"He's probably already cursing you for the first five," said Colin Klein.

"Plus Ranger," insisted Bobbie.

"I'd better arrange for the council to fill in the Chappell Street footpath," said Paul, reaching for his mobile phone.

"Don't you need it for evidence?" asked Bulam Bulam.

"No, I've had plenty of pictures taken," said Paul. "And for obvious reasons, this case is hardly likely to go to court."



Over at Dien Street, Jerry Green had made a startling discovery. The corpses were not entirely petrified. In the centre of four of them he found some material that had not yet petrified.

"What the Hell?" said Jerry.

"According to Bulam Bulam and Mr. Klein the concrete men were scared off by the approaching sirens," explained Andrew Braidwood. "Maybe they had to be there for the process to completely take effect."

"Maybe," agreed Jerry.

When Paul and the others arrived at the morgue, Jerry showed them what they had found, and then began examining the second group of petrified corpses.

Hours later, he was able to establish that the second group was solid all the way through.

"This seems to confirm your theory," he said to Andrew Braidwood, before repeating the theory to the others.

"It makes sense, I suppose," said Paul Bell. "If anything about this case makes any sense."

"So how do we tackle these concrete men?" asked Andrew Braidwood.

"Shooting them won't help," said Paul thinking aloud, "besides ricochets could kill bystanders, or people stuck in the concrete."

"What about blowing them up?" suggested young Bobbie, refusing to be seen and not heard no matter how many times it was suggested to him.

"Too dangerous," said Colin Klein, "innocent people could be hurt in the explosions. Not that they aren't being hurt already. And clearly concrete doesn't burn."

"Unless you throw it into the sun," corrected Bobbie.

"Unfortunately, my arm isn't that strong," teased Paul Bell.

Behind them, one of the public works men, who had helped transport the second batch of "statues" to the morgue suggested: "Throwing more cement at them might help. You already said they had trouble moving. Adding more cement should harden them, and possibly kill them off."

They thought about it for a while before deciding that since they had no other ideas, they would try throwing cement at the Lily White Boys ....

"But how do we get bags of cement to the right place at the right time?" asked Andrew Braidwood.

"We'll have to carry a few bags in the boot of each of our cars, and patrol the streets constantly, doing double shifts if necessary," suggested Paul.

The phone on the wall suddenly rang.

"Hang on," said Jerry Green going across to the phone. He spoke into the receiver for a moment, then said: "Well here's your chance, they've been spotted at the railway station in Torres Street."

Looking at the darkening sky through a window, Andrew asked, "Where do we get bags of cement at this hour."

"From our depot," said the helpful public works man, George. "It's five minutes drive from here."



Despite the failing light, a crowd of people waited on the platform at the Torres Street railway station. Many of them to catch the train to Sale a couple of hundred kilometres away. The rest to welcome friends and family from Sale, or Melbourne, or beyond.

"How long have they been here?" asked a matronly lady, pointing with a parasol toward six "statues" standing at the other end of the platform.

"Who?' asked the station attendant turning to look. "What the Hell...?"

He started to walk down the station but soon found that his feet had become too heavy to lift.

As other people tried walking or heard splodging sounds from their feet, a tall Scotsman said, "Hello, the platform is all sticky."

"How can it be?" asked the lady with the paroles, trying to walk forward, but finding her feet stuck to the concrete.

"What's happening?" she asked, as more and more people found that they were stuck, or worse sinking into the formerly solid concrete platform.

"This can't be happening!" shouted a hysterical youth, and soon all fifty or so people were struggling against the pull of the liquefying concrete.

Some sank slowly, and a few managed to drag themselves off the platform with lumbering footsteps, until reaching the bitumen path outside the railway station. But more than forty had sunk too far too fast, and were unable to move, Except downwards, where they were inexorably being drawn.

The fastest sinking soon began to scream in pain and terror as their lower legs began transforming into concrete. Some had sunk to the navel and were reduced more to gibbering than screaming.



At the depot in Riordan Street, one of the public works men, used a shovel to break the chain around the chain link gates, then again on the lock to the wooden supplies room.

Ten minutes later two police cars and two civilian vehicles had their boots full of large bags of cement.

"Okay, let's go," said Paul Bell as they started the cars and roared around to Torres Street.

As Andrew Braidwood turned on the siren in the second police car, Paul called across, "Turn that damn thing off. We don't want to scare them away like last time.

Chagrined, feeling the fool, Andrew Braidwood did as instructed.



Five minutes later they reached the Torres Street railway station where eleven people stood outside on the bitumen, shaking in terror but relatively safe. Inside the station a dozen people had sunk from view beneath the concrete platform. Another dozen had sunk to their knees and were shrieking in pain and terror. The rest were sinking more slowly. Most were not yet past their ankles.

Departing the vehicles as quietly as possible, the ten adults and one boy looked about the platform in silence.

Finally, it was young Bobbie who spotted the six Lily White Boys standing in the dark at the other end of the long platform.

"Over there," whispered Bobbie, and the ten adults looked around.

The public works men had already taken most of the cement bags out of the boots of the cars.

"Everybody grab a bag," whispered Paul Bell, although Andrew Braidwood and a young policewoman, Sheila, walked over to try to calm down the eleven terrified people on the bitumen pavement.

The other eight adults walked across, to pick up, with difficulty, the heavy cement bags. Then slowly they crept down the outside of the chain link fence to where the cement men stood grinning idiotically as they revelled in the terror and agony of the people on the platform.

As they approached the Lily White Boys, Colin Klein asked: "How do we open the bags?"

One of the public works people produced a small, sharp trowel, and they soon had all of the bags opened.

"Now comes the hard part," said Paul Bell, as they all struggled to lift the bags high enough to throw over the chain link fence at the concrete men. Who fortunately were still too engrossed in watching their dying victims to notice the eight men and their deadly cargo.



Around at the Dien Street Morgue, in Glen Hartwell, Jerry Green had managed to identify most of the first set of statue-corpses due to medical records emailed to him from the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital. But it seemed that Daisy Trumper had never been to the G.H. & D. (as locals called the hospital), so he had to try to contact her next to kin to see if they knew what doctor or hospital she had attended.

"I'm sorry, you couldn't possibly identify the corpse, so there's no point coming down here," he said to her sister after the local police had broken the news to them. "I just need to know where she went for medical attention?"

"Into Sale. That's where we come from, so she always went there."

"Two hundred kilometres?" queried Jerry.

"She always took a book with her, and would make a day's outing out of it," said the sister, having to stop talking as she started to cry.

An hour later Jerry had the information that he needed and was able to confirm that the last corpse statue, in group one, was Daisy Trumper.



"On the count of three," said Paul Bell. And, after the count, all eight men hurled their split-open sacks of cement as best they could over the chain link fence toward the six Lily White Boys standing gloating on the concrete platform at the Torres Road railway station.

A lot of the cement blew back at the men, doubling all eight of them up with coughing fits. But enough of it landed on the concrete-men, so that, startled, they looked around and noticed their attackers for the first time. But as they started to lumber toward the chain link fence, the added cement began to take effect and four of the six Lily White Boys became rigid, their previously leering faces now frozen in terror.

Two of the Lily White Boys had been missed or did not receive enough of the cement to freeze them. They quickly chose to sink down into the concrete platform. Which turned out to be a mistake, since the platform began solidifying again, trapping them inside stronger concrete than they could ever escape from.

"What do we do with these four?" asked Colin Klein.

To the public works people, Paul Bell asked, "Does your depot have sledgehammers?"

"You bet," said George, "plus a couple of Spaulding hammers."

"Well let's go get them, plus the pneumatic drills, to break them up."

"What about the people on the platform?" asked Colin Klein.

"You and Bulam Bulam help Andrew and Sheila to do what you can for them," said Paul. "The rest of us will go get the equipment."

So agreed, while most of them got into the cars and drove away, Colin Klein, Bulam Bulam, Andrew Braidwood, Sheila, and Bobbie tried to do whatever they could to help the people on the platform.



Within an hour they had dug out the seventeen people still alive on the platform (two of whom would die later), and they were starting to transport them to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital. Some by ambulance, others were ferried by police car. All would need their feet amputated, and most part of their legs as well.

The twelve survivors standing on the bitumen footpath were to be taken to the hospital also, requiring the three local ambulances and four police cars to race back and forth between the hospital and the Harpertown railway station.

All the time two of the police, plus Bulam Bulam had been watching the four frozen Lily White Boys.

"How's it going?" shouted Paul Bell as he and Colin Klein started down the long platform toward them.

"So far no movement at the station," said Bulam Bulam, trying without success to lighten the atmosphere a little.

As they reached the Elder, Colin Klein said, "Twenty-nine survivors confirmed so far."

"That's great news," said Andrew Braidwood, almost smiling, until Paul Bell said:

"And best as we can calculate about twenty-two vanished into the concrete."

"Oh," said Bulam Bulam.

"Not as bad as it could have been," said Klein. "But that's about all that you can say about it."

They stood back to watch as George and the other public works men began to chip at the concrete statues with pneumatic drills or Spaulding hammers.

Ninety minutes later the creatures had been dismantled and taken away in burlap sacks to be buried somewhere very deep.

"Well, that's a good job finished," said George, clearly fatigued after the long hard day.

"Not yet," said Paul Bell. "I want the concrete where the last two creatures sank torn up and destroyed before any of us leave tonight. Then tomorrow I'll want all the concrete on this platform taken up. To find the remains of the people who sank into it. And to stop creatures like this ever coming back. Harpertown is going from concrete paths to good old reliable, safe bitumen."

"Isn't bitumen an oil-based product?" asked Klein. "How safe is that?"

"Safer than concrete," insisted Bell. "Since these creatures were unable to effect it."

"I suppose so," agreed the reporter.



Three days later the platform had been dug up, the last two Lily White Boys had been located, and twenty-three solidified corpses had been sent to Jerry Green in Dien Street Glen.

Over the next year or so all of the footpaths in Harpertown would be dug up, the concrete replaced with bitumen.



At the doorway of the grocery shop in Chappell Street, Bulam Bulam and Bobbie were seeing off Colin Klein, who, suitcases in hand, was walking across the planking over where the concrete footpath had been removed.

"You going back to England now?" asked Bulam Bulam.

"No, only as far as LePage."

"That ain't far at all," said young Bobby.

"I've heard that they've discovered natural tar pits, like the famous La Brea tar pits in America," said Klein, "just outside LePage."

"Hey, maybe we can come with you to see them," suggested Bobbie.

"That's a great idea, Bobbie," said his grandfather.

"I'll ring you from LePage to arrange a time and date," agreed Colin Klein walking across to put his suitcases into the boot of his rental car.



THE END

© Copyright 2023 Philip Roberts

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia