THE ONCE-WERE CHILDREN

Friday, 27 October 2023

Debbie Huntington was driving her pink Volkswagen Beetle late that night, not far outside of BeauLarkin township in the Victorian countryside. Fatigued and desperate to get home after a business meeting in Glen Hartwell which had run well over time.

The attractive forty-something woman with pixie-cut red hair was proud of her advancement in her company. The first woman in its one hundred and twenty-year history to reach the level of assistant branch manager. Even if the branch was only in Glen Hartwell. Not Melbourne, Sydney, or Brisbane. Or New York, London, or Tokyo, she thought.

"Still, a promotion is a promotion," said Debbie aloud. Taking her eyes off the road for just a few seconds to pat at her hair, while checking her makeup in the mirror.

When she looked up again, she saw that she was about to run down three shabbily dressed children, standing in the middle of the road. Almost as though they were waiting for her.

That's ridiculous, thought Debbie as she spun the wheel wildly, almost losing control of the car. Fortunately, she had just had the Beetle serviced so that it had four new tyres and great gripping power on the road. Nonetheless, she thought for a moment that she was going to roll the car. Or worse run over the children. None of whom had screamed, or even moved from their spot in the middle of the road.

They must be dazzled by the headlights, she thought in a panic, finally managing to stop the car, without hitting the children. And without crashing.

As she sat panting in the motionless car, now facing back to Glen Hartwell, the three children finally started to move. Walking slowly, seemingly casually, toward her.

"Hello," they said tonelessly. Then before she knew what they were planning, the oldest child, perhaps ten, had opened the right back door to the Beetle and ushered the two younger ones, perhaps four and seven into the back. Then before Debbie could say anything, the oldest girl -- only the four-year-old was a boy -- had climbed into the car and slammed the door.

"Hello," said Debbie, wondering why she was so nervous of three small children. The two girls were very pretty, the boy quite plain. But for some reason, she could not make out their eyes, which seemed to be just blank circles above their noses.

"You really shouldn't climb into a stranger's car," she said. "For all you know, I could be a masher. Someone who hurts small children."

"We like you," said the seven-year-old in a low droning voice. "My name is Archibald."

"That's a nice name," said Debbie, thinking, Yuck.

"I'm Cerille," said the oldest girl.

"I'm Lorissa," said the middle child.

Flustered, Debbie said, "Well, thank you. I like you too. My name is Debbie."

”Can we go home with you?" asked the ten-year-old girl, in the same toneless voice as the middle children.

"What?" asked Debbie startled by the suggestion. "Why, of course not."

"Why not?" droned the small boy. "We like you."

"Well, thank you, but your mummy and daddy must be worried about you. Being out so late." She looked at the dashboard clock and was surprised to see that it was after 2:00 AM. Oh, goodness, she thought, I shouldn't be out so late either.

"We don't have any mummy and daddy," droned Lorissa.

"You poor things," said Debbie, trying to think of any family group home or orphanage in the area, where they might have strayed from. However, she was too tired to be able to think straight.

"We like you," said Cerille, the oldest child. "Can you take us home and be our mummy?"

"Why ... I suppose I'll have to take you home tonight. But I can't just keep you."

"Why not?" asked the Archibald.

"Because you're not mine."

"We could be," insisted the four-year-old. "We like you."

"Thank you, honey," said Debbie, wondering why she felt nervous around three small children. She had never married, or had children, something she had always regretted, and thought, If they don't have parents, maybe I could adopt them.

Forty minutes or so later they had pulled up at her two-bedroom white weatherboard house in BeauLarkin. She had always had a second room just in case she met someone and they started a family together. Maybe this is my new family? she thought as she led them to the bathroom first, before taking them to the spare bedroom.

We could be very happy as a family, thought Debbie. One of her last thoughts, before the Once-Were Children slaughtered her. Tearing her limb from limb and virtually painting the spare bedroom with her blood.

Her very last thought before dying was: They'll have to get a new assistant manager at the Glen Hartwell branch now!


Monday, 30 October 2023

Three days later, when Debbie did not turn up for work on Monday, her Manager, Larry Perkins, tried ringing her home, then leaving his secretary in charge at the office, he drove around to Debbie's home in BeauLarkin.

He found her Volkswagen Beetle at home, but no one answered his loud knocking at the door.

Looking about the small town, he thought, She might have left her car at home and gone shopping on foot. But why on a work day?

Deciding that something must have happened to her, he went around to her neighbours to ask about her. None of them knew if she was home or not. But one old lady, Rosey, had a spare key to Debbie's home.

"She locked herself out once and had a Hell of a job getting back in. So, she asked me to keep a spare key," said the old lady.

"Although I told her at the time, that she should keep her key on a lanyard around her neck," she added, pulling a dirty-looking pale blue lanyard from under her dress. On the lanyard were three rusty-looking keys. "I never take my lanyard off not even when bathing."

That explains their rusted state, thought Larry. Taking Debbie's spare keys, he returned to her white weatherboard house, and let himself in, followed by half a dozen nosey neighbours.

"Debbie," he called as they started searching her room. They found her bedroom, looking pristine, the bed made up.

"Either she didn't sleep here last night, or she made her bed before leaving," said Larry. But leaving for where, since she didn't get to work? he thought.

"What is that peculiar smell?" asked Rosey, wrinkling up her nose, as she wandered down to the spare bedroom. She opened the door, switched on the light, then shrieked and fainted.

"What the ...?" said Arnold. He raced down to help the old lady up. Looking into the bedroom, he shrieked like a banshee and almost fainted too.

With his head swimming a little, he managed to resist fainting, by pulling Rosey back out of sight of the terrible blood-soaked bedroom.


BeauLarkin is a tiny town of just over two hundred people, plus assorted farms outside the town. The grocery shop-cum-post office-cum-National Bank branch only survived by selling bulk orders of seed, grain, cattle-, sheep-, and dog food to the neighbouring farms. Forty-odd years ago, in 1978, the small police station had closed. So now Sergeant Leslie Harrison from the LePage Police looked after The Beau as locals call it, sometimes assisted by Paul Bell and Andrew Braidwood from Harpertown.

Today, all three of them were in The Beau, investigating the murder of Debbie Hutchinson. Along with Aboriginal Elder Bulam Bulam, who lived in his local village, but ran the grocery shop in Harpertown. Today he had been employed pro rata as an Aboriginal tracker, in the hope that he could lead them to the killer or killers.

"This, on top of that other business," said Leslie Harrison. Referring to at least eleven disappearances of people in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area over the last few years.

"Do you think we have a serial killer in the area?" asked Andrew Braidwood, a tall thin man with long stringy blond hair.

"Oh don't even suggest it," said Paul Bell.

"The press is calling him the BeauLarkin Slasher," pointed out Andrew.

"The what ...?" said Leslie, a tall, wiry man with raven black hair. "We haven't found any bodies, or body parts of the missing people yet. How can they just call him a slasher? Assuming that he even exists and that the people haven't just wandered off."

"They include two small children," said Bulam Bulam, trying, without much success to pat down his snowy white hair.

"Children do run away from home sometimes," insisted Paul Bell.

"They were only four and five years respectively," said Andrew.

"So they got lost and ..." Paul left the sentence hanging, not wanting to suggest that they had wandered off and died out in the surrounding forest somewhere.

"BeauLarkin slasher," said Leslie contemptuously.

"Well, they called Peter William Sutcliffe the Yorkshire Ripper," said Andrew Braidwood, "and he used a hammer and chisel."

Ignoring him, they continued, careful to wear plastic covers over their shoes, to investigate the blood-strewn bedroom. There had already been hundreds of photographs taken, and the pathologists had examined Debbie Hutchinson's remains. Not so much a body, as body pieces, since it had been ripped apart.

"Could a lion or other big cat have done this?" Paul Bell wondered aloud.

"No," said Jerry Green the sixty-plus coroner, whose long black sideburns and devotion to the King of Rock and Roll, had earnt him the nickname Elvis. "I've found some small child-sized footprints. So she was either killed by children or midgets."

"Vertically challenged persons is the politically correct term," teased Bulam Bulam.

"Well, whatever, it certainly wasn't big cats," insisted Jerry. "Actually the footprints look a bit strange, we'll need to put them online and run them through Victoria Police's fingerprint database."


Tuesday, 31 October 2023

The pervo, Peter Williams, was wanking himself with his left hand while drooling over naked pictures of young children, which he had downloaded from the Dark Web.

"God, I'd like to choke this little honey with my big cock," he said lusting after a three-year-old blonde girl, sitting naked in a nearly empty bath on the PC. He had almost reached his climax, when a gentle knocking came upon his front door.

Hurriedly pulling his trousers up, he got up from his computer chair, almost toppling the chair, as he often did when standing too quickly. "Stupid chair," he said, as he headed for the front door, calling out, "Hang on, I'm coming," as he walked through the one-bedroom house. Well, I almost was, he thought.

Turning on the inside light he opened the yellow wood door and almost came in his pants as he saw three attractive little children, the oldest a girl of perhaps nine or ten, standing in the shadows at the bottom of the five brick steps outside.

"Oh Jesus," he muttered unable to stop his cock from rising.

"Trick or treat," droned the oldest child. Although none of them were in Halloween costumes. Unless you counted as costumes the dirty-looking rags that the children wore.

"Come inside and I'll trick you all, then I'll get the treat," said the pervo. Not knowing that he was the one who was being tricked and that it would be no treat for him.

"We like you," said the middle girl, as they walked up the stairs, keeping their faces averted from the pervo as they entered his house.

Maybe they're ugly, he thought, But who cares as long as their little bodies are tight and sweet?

As they walked passed him, the middle girl repeated, "We like you, I'm Lorissa."

"I like you too, Lorissa," he said, trying to keep the lust out of his voice.

"Can we have a shower with you?" asked the oldest child, almost making the pervo cream himself. "I'm Cerille."

"Maybe later, Cerille, " he said, wondering as he said it, why he was delaying. He led them into the large kitchen, then reached into the cupboard under the sink and took out three bags of assorted lollies, thinking, Halloween is perfect for perverts.

Dropping the three bags of sweets onto the kitchen table, he picked up the middle girl and sat with her on his lap. Holding her by the crotch and pulling her back onto his erection. Usually, children pulled forward when he did that. But the little girl did not protest or even seem to notice his erection under her.

Seeing them looking shyly down almost as though hiding their eyes from him, he said, "They're for you. The bags of lollies."

"Thank you," the three children droned. Each picked up a bag of lollies but made no effort to open them.

"Can we have a shower with you?" asked the oldest girl, making the pervo almost pant aloud from lust.

"Of course, you can," said the pervo, over his initial inexplicable reticence. Carrying the seven-year-old, his hand now inside her panties, he led them down to the bathroom.

Putting down the middle child, he said: "You can't take a shower with your clothes on."

Without argument, the children took off their clothes.

No longer nervous, the pervo took off his clothes, revealing his rampant erection. "That's my love for you three angels."

"We love you too," said the middle child, taking his penis completely into her mouth.

The pervo almost came at once. But then started screaming as the seven-year-old bit down hard.

"No, not your teeth, only your tongue!: he shrieked.

But ignoring him, Lorissa bit down even harder until she had severed his manhood at the hilt. She swallowed his meatus in one gulp.

"That was delicious," said the seven-year-old girl. Smiling in delight while blood shot from the penal stump, splashing all over her. Squealing in delight she started rubbing his blood all over herself, laughing and doing little dances.

"I get his testicles," said the ten-year-old, as too stunned to protest, the pervo collapsed to the bathroom tiles.

Cerille knelt down to take his scrotum into her mouth and began to chew with razor-sharp teen, making him scream even louder.

"It'll be all over soon," said the four-year-old boy grinning at the pervo, like a happy child smiling at its family.

Finally, once his testicles had been reduced to mince, the girl chewed his scrotum right off, growling in delight like a bear as she chewed and chewed.

"Aaaaaah!" screamed the pervo as his life's blood fountained from his mutilated genitals, painting the three Once-Were Children scarlet. "Help me!"

"You're beyond help," said the boy, still grinning cheerfully. "You'll be dead soon."

As the pervo screamed, the three children basked in his blood gushing across their naked bodies. They painted themselves with it, singing and dancing in the large bathroom as the pervo lay upon the grey-tiled floor.

They continued laughing and dancing until he was dead. Then the two girls squatted over his corpse and peed all over him.

They cleaned themselves in the shower, then got dressed again.

"We really did like you," said the four-year-old boy.

"We enjoyed tricking you," said Lorissa."

"And your scrotum was a treat," said Cerille, the ten-year-old, licking her lips.

They put their rags and holey shoes on and headed out of the bathroom and down the corridor toward the front door. Not bothering to collect the bags of lollies from the kitchen table.

They had not wanted the lollies, their digestive systems could not have handled them. They only liked to eat meat.

Preferably human meat!


Monday 13 November 2023

Living alone in an otherwise deserted cul-de-sac, it was nearly a fortnight before Peter Williams's body was detected. When, his landlord came to demand his rent, which was five days late.

"No account hippy," said Hiram Maynard, a crotchety old man over ninety, who looked at least a hundred. He carried a long oaken walking stick, as much to whack people who got in his way, as to walk with. He had been fined and threatened with gaol a number of times down the decades for common assault.

Raising the walking stick, he wrapped loudly on the wooden door with the curved head of the cane.

"Come on you, cheap bastard," cried the old man knocking again. "Think you can cheat me out of my rent do you?"

Unbeknownst to Peter Williams, the old man knew of his sexual proclivity toward children. But instead of refusing to lease to him, he had used it to extort a higher rent out of the pervert. Sixteen hundred dollars a month for a rat-trap of a one-bedroom weatherboard house in the cul-de-sac. After all, no one else would ever rent to him, since someone, possibly in the police force, kept telling his landlords about his history of inappropriately touching children, and his three stints in prison for it. Hiram had acted shocked, when told over the phone, but had ignored it, instead hiking the paedophile's rent and saying nothing to him.

Finally, when no one answered he used his spare key to let himself in. By law, he was not supposed to use it, unless the occupant did not answer for a pre-arranged house inspection. But the cunning old man had prepared for that by typing up a predated house inspection letter, to leave in plain sight on the kitchen table.

"Williams, where the Hell are you?" called the old man, walking into the tiny jaundice-yellow walled corridor. He checked out the bedroom on the right. The bed was made up, and no sign of life. On the left, the lounge room was also uninhabited. As was the Kitchen.

He continued down to check out the small wash house before turning to the last room, the bathroom. He was almost overwhelmed by the stench when he opened the door.

The toilet must be blocked, he thought, until he turned on the light and gasped at the state of the blood-soaked room. It was only as he started forward that he found Peter Williams's decaying corpse, by falling over it.

"What the...?" he said, rushing to the toilet to throw up, then staggered out into the corridor, slamming the bathroom door in an attempt to keep the stench in there.

"Oh, my God," he said staggering back toward the kitchen. After breathing heavily for a moment to calm himself down, he took out his mobile phone and rang Leslie Harrison at the LePage police station.


Half an hour later Leslie, Paul Bell, Andrew Braidwood, Jerry Green, and Bulam Bulam were draped in blue plastic coveralls, wearing Covid face masks as they tried to withstand the stench in the bathroom.

Hundreds of photographs had been taken and they had examined the blood-painted room as minutely as possible.

"Got something," said Jerry, pointing to a clear child-sized bloody fingerprint on the wall, not far from the door.

"A child's print," said Paul Bell.

"Poor Peter Williams," said the Aboriginal Elder.

"Bugger Peter Williams," said Paul, "he was a known pervo, who had been gaoled a number of times for inappropriately touching children. If it was children, there's poetic justice in him being slaughtered by them."

"Certainly it would seem to be the same psycho, or psycho children who slaughtered poor Debbie Hutchinson."

"Monsters," corrected Bulam Bulam.

"All right, monster children," said Paul.


Back at Jerry's morgue in Dien Street, Glen Hartwell, they continued to stand around, as Jerry Green looked at an enlarged photo of the bloody print.

"Hmmm," said Jerry Green, "whether it's your monster kids or not. This print is unusual, it's not like any human fingerprint I've ever seen. Or chimps or monkey prints for that matter."

"Then what kind of a print is it?" demanded Leslie Harrison.

"As I said, it's not like any print I've ever seen," said Jerry. "Don't let the UFOlaloonies see it, or they'll be convinced that it's from an alien."

Without smiling, Paul Bell asked: "Is it?"

Also not smiling, Jerry said: "I don't know."

Looking horrified, Bulam Bulam said, "No it's from the Once-Were Children."

"The whosits whatsanow?" said Leslie Harrison.

"The Once-Were Children. White society calls them black-eyed children," said the grey-haired Elder. "They are an ancient legend predating Aboriginal habitation in this continent. They are a First Nation legend borrowed by my people."

"I thought Aborigines were the First Nation," said a puzzled Andrew Braidwood.

"No, my people are the Second Nation. We emigrated to Australia across a land bridge from Malaysia, about eighty-thousand years ago. The First Nation, whom very little is known about today, came to this continent about two hundred thousand years ago.

"The First Nation and Second Nation warred against each other for centuries, before the First Nation were finally wiped out by my people. The Second Nation incorporated many of the First Nation's legends, rituals, and even the food they ate, into our own culture. Including the legend of the Once-Were Children.

"Children with black spaces instead of eyes, who wander the roads and highways, hoping to lure motorists into letting them into their cars, before tearing the motorists limb from limb.

"Others say that they will knock at people's doors, especially in country areas, or small back streets, at any time of day and night, asking if they can come inside."

"Which in the pervo's case he was only too happy to allow," suggested Leslie.

"Yes, pervos would be very susceptible to them. Also mature spinsters, young parents, or real children,' added Bulam Bulam.

"Am I the only one," said Paul Bell, "who is surprised that we haven't met Colin Klein yet in BeauLarkin."

"He said he was leaving the area," said Andrew.

Colin Klein was a redheaded reporter from England who had been involved in two other supernatural mysteries earlier that year in Harpertown, then LePage townships.

"Actually, he promised to leave Harpertown and LePage," corrected Bulam Bulam. "Not necessarily the entire Glen Hartwell to Willamy area."

"Oh, God, that's right," remembered Leslie Harrison.

"Actually, I thought I saw him in The Beau earlier today," said Bulam Bulam. "I called out to him, but he mustn't have heard me."

"Oh, please tell me you're joking," said Leslie, "that man is some kind of a monster magnet. They crop up wherever he appears."

"How dare you, that's a vicious slander," said a tall, redheaded man of forty-eight walking into the back room of the morgue.

"Mr. Klein, how unexpected to see you," said Leslie, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

"So, what have we got here? All I've heard is you've got two bodies savagely ripped apart, as though by wolves or something," said Colin Klein.

"Actually we thought of tigers or big cats," said Andrew Braidwood.

"But we've ruled them out now, and are going for Once-Were Children," said Paul Bell.

"Well, that explains nothing," said the reporter.

Bulam Bulam quickly filled him in upon the Once-Were Children legend.

"I've heard of black-eyed children," said Klein.

"Once-Were Children is the correct name," said the Aboriginal Elder. "According to legend they once were human children, until a witch-like Dream-Time monster transformed them into the Once-Were Children."

"I can see a Pixar animated movie in that," joked Colin Klein.

"Not with the level of violence these things show," corrected Leslie Harrison. They literally rip their victims to shreds, virtually plastering the room with blood. And in the latest case chewed the genitals off a man. And presumably ate them, since we found no trace of them anywhere in the house. And we did check to see if they had been flushed down the toilet, or dropped into a rubbish bin."

"Ouch," said Klein, "maybe Pixar would pass on it."

"So, Bulam Bulam," said Paul Bell, "we're paying you as a tracker, so let's find out how good you are."

"All right," said the old man as they departed the morgue.

They started at Debbie Hutchinson's house. But the tracks just led to Peter Williamson's rental house. After stopping for a quick lunch, they started again at the pervo's house, and were soon heading out toward the farming area.

"Could be heading towards one of the farmhouses?" said Leslie Harrison.

"Or perhaps the road leading passed BeauLarkin," suggested Andrew Braidwood correctly.


A few kilometres from Colin Klein and the others, Bessie and Arnold Waidlow, were adjusting the canvass on the back of their Ford Ranger Ute to hide the corpse of the beautiful redheaded woman. They had picked her up a few kilometres back and had murdered her, and were driving her back to their small farm outside BeauLarkin, ready to bury her alongside all of the others that they had picked up, one or two a year, for more than fifty years now.

"We're getting too old for this, Father," said Bessie. They had started calling themselves Father and Mother forty-odd years ago, despite never having had any children.

Looking shocked, Arnold said, "We'll never be too old for killing, Mother. If we are, that's when I want to die." Unaware just how prophetic his words would turn out to be.

They climbed back into their Ford Ranger and had barely started down the road again when they noticed three raggedy children wandering along the verge toward them.

"Ho ho," could we get four in one night, Mother," said Arnold, stopping the Ute again.

"Don't be greedy, Father," she replied. "Although they are pretty little things. It would be lovely to slaughter them and add them to our collection."

"They'd get us past eighty," said Arnold. "The redhead in the back makes seventy-nine."

"Ooh, that'd be wonderful, Father," said Bessie climbing out of the Ute, as Arnold said: "You approach them, Mother, children will be less wary of a woman."

"Hello, little ones," said Bessie, bending over to talk to them. Putting on her best caring older woman act.

"We like you," said the ten-year-old girl.

"Well, I like you too honey," said Bessie.

"Can we come home with you?" asked the seven-year-old girl.

"Don't you have any parents?" asked Bessie.

"No, we're all alone in the world," said the four-year-old boy.

"Can we come home with you?" repeated the middle child. "I'm Lorissa."

Unable to believe her luck, Bessie said, "Of course you can, honey."

She shepherded them over to the Ute, where Arnold sat, looking impressed. Good old Mother, he thought, she always did have a way with children. He almost laughed out loud, thinking, A brutal way!

As they climbed into the Ranger, the other two introduced themselves.

"Hello," said Bessie. "I'm Bessie, and my husband is named Arnold. But you can call us Mother and Father."

"Good," said Cerille, "we're looking for a mother and father." Bessie and Arnold couldn't help grinning evilly, Bessie thought, You've found a mother and father, but not the kind that you were looking for.

In minutes the three children were in the back seat of the Ute, the Waidlows in the front.

"We like you," said the Cerille, the pretty ten-year-old looking downwards, as though hiding her eyes.

"We like you too, honey," said Bessie, noticing that all three children were looking down as though hiding their eyes. Shy, she thought, well wait until we get them home, they'll have something to be shy about.

"Let's go, Father," said Bessie, and with a lecherous grin, Arnold started the engine, and they were soon driving down the road, heading for the Waidlow farm outside BeauLarkin.

"We like you," repeated Lorissa.

"Why we like you too," said Bessie, irritated by the three children, but wise enough not to show her irritation until they had the brats safely locked inside their farmhouse. I wonder if Father would let me kill the little shits without any help from him? she thought, smiling her most loving smile at the children.


Inside the house, Arnold Waidlow disappointed Bessie, by taking the hand of ten-year-old Cerille to lead her into the killing room. A bedroom soundproofed, with no widows, and a hermetically sealing door. Leading the oldest child along he said, "You look after the other two, Mother. While I play a special game with Cerille."

Seeing his trousers tented out, Bessie smirked knowing the special game that he had in mind for her.

"Oh good, I like games," said Cerille. Smirking, knowing the game that he had in mind, and thinking, This time I get to eat his cock as well as his nuts!

"I'm sure you'll love this one," smirked Bessie. Leading the other two Once-Were Children into the kitchen, she asked: "Who wants lemonade?"

The two children looked at each other, then the boy said, "We don't like lemonade."

Surprised Bessie asked, "Then what about Coke or Fanta?"

Again looking at each other first, Lorissa said, "We don't like Coke..."

"Or Fanta," added Archibald.

"Then what about some lovely lollies? We have a few bags left over from Halloween."

"We don't like lollies," said" Lorissa and Archibald together.

"Then what the ..." said Bessie getting control of herself. "Then what do you like, dears?"

"We like meat?" said the seven-year-old girl.

"You like meat?" asked Bessie. "Surely you eat vegetables as well?"

"No, we don't like vegetables," said the boy.

"Our digestive systems can't handle vegetables," explained Lorissa. "We only like meat."

Puzzled, Bessie went across to the large fridge and realised that she had forgotten to defrost the meat for their dinner that night.

"How about a cheese and tomato sandwich?" she asked.

"We don't like cheese," said the girl.

"We don't like tomatoes," said the boy.

"And we certainly don't like sandwiches," added Lorissa.

"You just like meat?" asked Bessie.

"Yes," said Archibald.

"Especially human meat," said the girl casually.

"Human meat," said Bessie, laughing. Until she realised that the children were not even grinning. "You can't be serious."

"Oh, yes, we are," said the girl, and the two children stood up and advanced upon the elderly woman.

They're only children, she thought, but as they opened their mouths to reveal long pointed teeth, Bessie backed away into the lounge room. Then tried to run to the front door. However, the two children caught her and dragged her to the ground, to begin eating her alive.

"Help me!" shrieked Bessie forgetting that the next farm was three kilometres away.

"A bit saggy," said the boy as they ripped away Bessie's top to reveal her opulent breasts.

"You're too fussy," said the girl starting to devour Bessie's left breast. "They're quite delicious."

So the boy leant down and started dining on the old woman's right breast.

"Help me!" shrieked Bessie Waidlow, not realising the brutal irony, after all the people that they had slaughtered over half a century in this house. All of whom had cried for help as they were being tortured and slaughtered. Sometimes raped -- although not as often in the last twenty years as before that. Now it was Bessie's turn to cry for help ... without receiving any.


In the hermetically sealed room, the ten-year-old girl had given Arnold Waidlow the blowjob of the century. Unlike Lorissa, who had swallowed the pervos manhood whole, Cerille, was careful to chew each bite the prerequisite thirty-two times, before swallowing. Then she chewed his scrotum off, devouring it, followed by his chewy testicles.

She had undressed first, at his request to play his "game" so that her clothes were not saturated in blood. The way that Arnold and the torture room were.

"This is a nice game," said the girl, between chewing her food.

"Please, help me," pleaded Arnold as his precious life's blood poured out painting him and the girl red.

"Why would I do that?" she asked. "You planned to rape then murder me. Just like that awful pervo who we killed."

"Peter Williams? You killed Peter Williams?"

"Of course," said the girl. "But I only got to eat his nuts. Greedy Lorissa ate his cock. And she didn't even chew. She just swallowed his meatus whole. The greedy girl."

But Arnold Laidlow had passed out without hearing her. And would die without regaining consciousness.


In the lounge room, Lorissa and Archibald had finished Bessie's large breasts and were now devouring the cheeks on her face. After examining them, they had decided that her backside cheeks were just too yucky to eat.

"I wonder how Cerille is getting on?" asked the boy, Archibald.

"I bet she ate his cock and nuts as well," said Lorissa sounding peeved.

"Well, you scoffed down the cock of that pervo without sharing," said Archibald, defending his older sister.

"It was my turn," insisted Lorissa.

"Well, this time it's Cerille's turn," said the boy. "Anyway, we'd better go and check on her."


Ten minutes later the three of them were standing in the Laidlow's shower together, washing off Bessie and Arnold's blood.

"Mother and Father were delicious," said Cerille, and the three of them snickered.

"Should we stay here for a few days?" asked Lorissa. "There's plenty more of them to consume yet."

"No, they're both old and wrinkly," protested Archibald.

"Yes, we can get some fresher meat in town," said Cerille as the three Once-Were Children dried off. After redressing, they headed toward the lounge room.

"What are we doing in here?" asked Lorissa.

"We need to dig up one of their victims before we leave," explained Cerille. "So that the police can find the others and work out how evil Mother and Father were."

"Then they won't be angry at us for eating them," suggested Archibald.

"Exactly," said Cerille, and they started hunting around the drab lounge room, whose sofa and lounge chairs were grey and worn with age.

After a few minutes, they discovered that under the large rug in the centre of the room was a hatch door. Lifting the hatch, they descended onto the earth and began digging with their bare hands, until locating two grinning skeletons.

"That should do," said Cerille, and they climbed back into the lounge room.

They wiped their hands clean on the musty sofa, then headed toward the front door.

"All right, let's go into town," set Cerille and the three of them started out on foot back the way that they came. Even if they had known how to drive the Laidlow's Range Ute, they had no need for it. A few kilometres walk was nothing to the Once-Were Children.


Slowly Bulam Bulam followed the footprints, until they reached a badly paved road. They followed the children's tracks until they suddenly doubled back for no obvious reason. Then disappeared.

"What the Hell happened to them?" asked Paul Bell.

"They can't have just vanished," said Colin Klein, the redheaded reporter.

"They didn't," said Bulam Bulam. "They got into a car." He pointed out where a set of car tracks had got heavier where the foot prints vanished.

"All right, let's keep going," said Leslie Harrison. They climbed back into their vehicles, with the Aboriginal Elder, leading in his Land Rover.


It was an hour later before they reached the Laidlow farm. Climbing out of the Rover, Bulam Bulam went across to examine the tyres of the Laidlows's Ford Ranger Ute, then said: "These tyres are the ones of the vehicle that picked them up."

"Then let's go inside," said Leslie Harrison. He withdrew his handgun from its holster, then started to lead the way. After calling out without answer, a number of times, they broke down the door to the farmhouse and stumbled into the corridor.

Sticking together they found Bessie Laidlow's partially devoured corpse in the lounge room. Along with the still-grinning skeletons below the floorboards.

"Surely they don't bury their victims afterward?" said Andrew Braidwood. "I thought that they were nomadic?"

"No," said Paul Bell. "I think we've just found the BeauLarkin Slasher. Or slashers."

"An elderly couple," asked Colin Klein doubtfully.

"Well, it wasn't the Once-Were Children," insisted Bulam Bulam. "They never stay in one place for long. And they certainly never bury their victims!"

"Please let there be just those two corpses down there," said Leslie Harrison. In fact, when they were all dug up there would be seventy-nine corpses, including the redhead who was still in the tray of the Laidlow's Ute. Poor Leslie would take early retirement under the stress of the BeauLarkin Slaughter House, as the yellow news media would christen it.

"Well, let's keep going," said Leslie, now with a deep sense of impending doom. "We still have to find the three Once-Were Children."

A few minutes later, they discovered Arnold Laidlow's corpse in the torture room, but no sign of the three children.

Looking around at the torture devices on the wall, Colin Klein said: "This seems to confirm that between them they were the BeauLarkin Slasher.'

Staring at the castrated corpse of Arnold Laidlow, Paul Bell said: "But this time it was the Laidlows who got slashed."

"There's a sick justice in this somehow," said Andrew Braidwood. Unaware that he would soon be Sergeant of Police in LePage after Leslie Harrison's early retirement.


Tad Tucker was serving someone who needed stamps, at his grocery shop-cum-post office-cum National Bank branch in BeauLarkin. Looking past the row of canned goods running down the centre of the shop, he saw three small children. The oldest, no more than ten.

"I hope you kids aren't stealing lollies," said Tad.

"We don't like lollies," said the oldest child. "We only like meat."

"Then you were out of luck on Halloween recently."

"Yes, a man offered us bags of lollies," said the middle child, "but we don't like lollies."

"I see," said Tad, puzzled, having never encountered children who didn't like sweets before. In fact, he had had a problem with kids trying to steal lollies from the back of the shop recently. "Are you sure, you haven't taken any lollies?"

"You can search us if you like," said the ten-year-old girl, and they all started to take off their clothing.

"No, no, that won't be necessary," cried Tad, wondering what people would think if they came into his shop and found three naked children. The oldest a girl of no more than ten.

"Well, all right," said the four-year-old boy," sounding disappointed as they put their rags back on.

"Do you have any meat that we can eat," asked the oldest child.

"How much can you afford," asked Tad, going across to the central aisle where they stood.

"We don't have any money," said the middle child.

"Oh, are you orphans," asked Tad, feeling sorry for them.

"Something like that," said Archibald.

"Oh, I see," said Tad. "Well, I guess I can let you have something."

"He took a couple of tins of cooked meat from the aisle, some cheese, and plastic cutlery to eat with. Pulling open the ring tabs on the cans, he held out the supplies, and said: "Help yourselves."

"We don't like cooked meat," said the middle child.

"You like your meat raw?" asked an astonished Tad. "What, like steak tartare?"

"No, we like human meat," said Cerille.

"Human meat," said Tad. He almost laughed, but seeing their deadpan expressions, realised, "damn, you aren't kidding, are you."

"We never kid," said the four-year-old boy.

"Well, you'd better follow me to the back of the shop," said Tad, leading the children to his lockable goods store.

"In you go," he said, holding the steel door open for them.

After a second's hesitation, the children walked in.

"Can we eat your body?" asked the oldest child.

"I'd like to chew off your cock," said Cerille.

"Don't be greedy," cried Lorissa, "it's turn to eat the cock."

"Not in a million years said Tad, as he slammed then locked the steel door.

"Let us out, we want to eat you!" cried Lorissa.

"I repeat, not in a million years," said Tad. Turning, he walked back to the front of the shop, leaving the Once-Were Children banging futilely upon the steel door of his goods store.

Picking up his mobile phone, Tad rang through to Leslie Harrison, and hesitantly told him about what had happen.


"Holey, Jesus, Tad Tucker has captured them," Leslie said to the others.

"Captured whom?" asked Colin Klein.

"The Once-Were Children. He has them locked in his goods store."

"We'd better go get them, then," said Paul Bell.

"Make sure you take your guns," suggested Klein.

"We always do," said Leslie a crack shot, patting his holster on his right hip.

"Guns won't stop them," said Bulam Bulam. "You need to use animal tranquilisers. Enough to put down an elephant for each child."

"Well, let's go get three shots of animal tranquiliser," said Colin Klein.


They went to a local vet in Upton first to get the tranquilisers, then the men headed around to Tad Tucker's store in BeauLarkin.


At the shop, Tad Tucker welcomed them heartily.

"Thank God," said the old man, "I was starting to think that they would bash their way out of my good store."

"Yes, they seem to be making a good job of it," said Bulam Bulam over the sound of hammering at the rear of the shop.

"For little children, they've got strong arms," said Tad. Lucky enough not to have found out just how strong the Once-Were Children really were.

"They're not children. At least not human children," said Paul Bell, making the shopkeeper stare at him.

Bulam Bulam quickly filled him in on the legend of the Once-Were Children.

"You're joking, right?" asked Tad. But seeing the stern looks on the faces of the other men, he realised that it was no joke.

At the back of the shop, Andrew Braidwood unlocked the goods store, then pulled the door open and stood aside to give a clear shot to Leslie Harrison who put the first dart into the gun.

"Aaaaaah! shrieked ten-year-old Cerille, snarling like a tiger, holding her fingers up like claws. "We like human meat. We are going to eat you all!"

Leslie shot her in the chest with the dart gun, hoping it wouldn't stop her heart.

At first, it looked as though the tranquiliser had failed. The girl looked down at the dart sticking out of her chest in obvious surprise. But stayed on her feet.

"They don't... " began Paul Bell, then the girl collapsed to the floor.

"We'll kill you!" snarled the middle child, Lorissa, holding her fingers up like claws.

Leslie shot her too, and after a moment, she collapsed on top of Cerille.

The youngest child, seeing what had happened to the girls, stayed in the goods store, hidden behind boxes.

"What'll we do now?" asked Colin Klein.

"Carefully pull the girls away from the door," said Leslie.

Paul Bell and Klein hurried to do as instructed.

"Shut and lock the door," instructed Leslie, and Andrew Braidwood did as instructed.

Taking two tiny pairs of children's handcuffs that had been sent from Russell Street Police Station in Melbourne, they hurriedly cuffed the two girls, with their hands behind their backs.

"Now get them into the back of one of the cars," ordered Leslie.

"What about the last one in my goods store?" asked Tad.

"Let's get these two shipped to Russell Street first. Then we'll get the third one out of your store.

"How do we get them to Melbourne?" asked Bulam Bulam. "Today's train has already left, and we can't wait till tomorrow."

"No, I called to have it delayed," said Leslie.

Looking at his watch, Andrew said, "Shit the passengers will be pissed, it's nearly ninety minutes late."


Half an hour later Andrew Braidwood and Paul Bell were on the train with the two girls, starting the six-hour trip to Melbourne.

"Oh, aren't they the cutest little darlings," said a plump old woman, wearing what looked like a multicoloured plastic shower curtain. Pointing at the two girls without noticing that they were handcuffed.

"Killers," said Paul, using modern Aussie slang for wonderful.


Back at the grocery store-cum-post office-cum-National Bank branch in BeauLarkin, Leslie Harrison, Colin Klein, Bulam Bulam, and Tad Tucker sat on deck chairs, waiting outside the goods store. From which came pounding upon the walls.

Leslie stood up and listened at the door. "The hammering is coming from the left of the door."

He strode across to pick up the dart gun, then said to Colin Klein: "Open the door as quietly as possible."

Doing as instructed, the journalist sneaked across to unlock the door. Then waited to see if the hammering continued. When it did, he pulled the door open a fraction. Just enough for Leslie Harrison to sneak into the goods store and look round to the left of the store.

Seeing the youngest Once-Were Child, Archibald, he fired the dart gun, making it screech and fall off the cardboard box that it had been standing on.

He waited half a minute, to make certain that it was unconscious, then sneaked across to quickly cuff its hands behind its back.

Seeing the razor-sharp teeth, he said aloud, "Maybe we should have got muzzles from the vet as well."

"Good idea," said Tad Tucker, as Leslie carried the boy-shaped monster out into the shop proper.

"This one you'll have to hold overnight until tomorrow's train," said Bulam Bulam.

"That's true," said Leslie taking the creature back into the goods store.

"Not my goods store," said Tad Tucker.

"We can't keep it in the holding cell at LePage, it could sneak out through the bars," said Leslie.

"He's right," said Colin Klein. "This place makes the perfect prison. Especially with it handcuffed."

"Well ... all right," said Tad Tucker reluctantly.

"Now, Mr Klein," said Leslie Harrison. "Hopefully you've had your fill of this area, and plan to move interstate. Or better yet, back to England."

"Actually," said the reporter. "I've got a little business in Merridale first."

Hanging his head in frustration, Leslie said: "Well, at least that's Stanley Dempsey's area, not mine."

"Yeah," agreed Tad Tucker, "but with the sort of disasters Mr Klein brings around, Stanley might need help from you, Paul, and Andrew."

"How dare you!" says Colin Klein. "I don't bring around disasters ... they just sort of seem to follow me."

"Oh, God," said Leslie.

"I repeat, how dare you," said Klein, smiling despite sounding offended.

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