BETTER NOT FEAR THE REAPER

An old lady starts wandering through the forests around G.H., and people start dying

         Verse 1:
         All our times have come
         Here, but now they're gone
         Seasons don't fear the Reaper
         Nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain
         
         Chorus:
         (We can be like they are) Come on, baby
         (Don't fear the Reaper) Baby, take my hand
         (Don't fear the Reaper) We'll be able to fly
         (Don't fear the Reaper) Baby, I'm your man
         La, la, la, la, la
         La, la, la, la, la
         
         Verse 2:
         Valentine is done
         Here, but now they're gone
         Romeo and Juliet
         Are together in eternity (Romeo and Juliet)
         40,000 men and women everyday (Like Romeo and Juliet)
         40,000 men and women everyday (Redefine happiness)
         Another 40,000 coming everyday
                   - (Don’t) Fear the Reaper, Blue Oyster Cult
         

         Wednesday, 24^th September 2025

         At BeauLarkin High School, in the Victorian countryside, they were planning to go on a camping trip. At the front of the stadium, three teenage girls were looking bored.
         “Why can’t we just go already?” asked Dandelion, Dandy for short, McKenna, a tall, honey blonde, fourteen-year-old.
         “You said it, Dandy,” said Caitlyn, Katy, Lawson, also fourteen, a raven-haired beauty, “the buses are already outside waiting for us.”
         “You know Mr. Williams,” said Morticia, Tisha, Waitlynn a tall leggy redhead, “he loves the sound of his own voice.”
         “I don’t know why, he has such a thin, reedy voice,” teased Dandy and the three girls had to cover their mouths as they giggled.
         “Have you girls got your permission slips?” asked Boris ‘Pizza-Face’ Anderson, a tall geeky boy who fancied all three girls.
         “Yes, Pizza Face,” said Dandy, and the three girls took out their permission slips.
         “Ah, you may tease me,” said Pizza face, “but you are all so hot for me.”
         “Ooh!” said Dandy and Tisha.
         “So, are not,” corrected Katy.
         Turning toward the stage, where Mr Williams, and other teachers were standing, Dandy shouted, “Get on with it.”
         Unfortunately there was a sudden lull in the crowd noise, just as she shouted.
         “Thank you, Dandy,” said Larry Williams, making the girl blush, and everyone else snicker.
         “Sprung badly, hot stuff,” said Pizza Face.
         “Why must you sit near us?” demanded Tisha.
         “Because you’re all hotter than a blast furnace in hell.”
         “Yes, we know,” admitted Katy, “but you are so not.”
         Clapping his hands to get their attention before the two hundred students started nattering again, Larry Williams, a tall, fifty-something man with short black hair and glasses said:
         “All right, we are almost ready to go.”
         “Thank God,” said Dandy, again during a lull in conversation.
         “But before we do, what is the most important thing to know about nature, before going camping?”
         Tisha stood up and put up her hand.
         “With a due sense of trepidation, Tisha?” said Larry.
         “According to my Uncle Bob, Mother Nature is just the Grim Reaper in drag. She’s an evil bitch and she wants to kill us all.”
         “Yes,” agreed Mr. Williams, “very good. So everyone remember that when we’re out in the forest. Trust nothing and assume, as Tisha said, ‘Mother Nature is just the Grim Reaper in drag. She’s an evil bitch and she wants to kill us all’,”
         “On yah, Tisha,” said Katy.
         “I wouldn’t mind being on you, Tisha,” teased Pizza Face.
         “Ooh!” said Dandy, Katy, and Tisha together.
         
         Over in the police station in Morcambe Street in Lenoak, Terri Scott and company were enjoying some raspberry lamingtons and tea or coffee provided by Deidre Morton.
         “These lamingtons are fabuloso, Mrs. M.,” said Sheila Bennett. At thirty-six, Sheila, a Goth chick with black-and-orange striped hair, was the Chief constable of the area from BeauLarkin to Willamby.
         “Mmm, divine,” agreed Terri Scott. The same age as Sheila, Terri was an attractive ash blonde, Senior Sergeant of the area, and was engaged to be married to Colin on December 10^th.
         “Lovely and fluffy,” said Colin Klein. A tall, redheaded Englishman, Colin had worked as a top London crime journalist for thirty years, before retiring to Glen Hartwell, and getting employed by Terri.
         “I’m gonna miss your heavenly treats when I go to Melbourne for my final police exams,” said Suzette Cummings. A seventeen year old, with long raven hair, Suzette was only a police cadet.
         “You’ll only be there a few days, honey, before returning to us,” said Deidre Morton, a short, dumpy sixty-something brunette, who had trained as a cordon bleu, she had never been married, but had adopted the Mrs. After inheriting the boarding house where Sheila, Colin, and Terri all now lived.
         “Assuming I pass my final testing,” said Suzette.
         “Relax, anyone can pass the police exams,” assured Sheila, “even I did.”
         “I thought you cheated off Terri,” reminded Suzette.
         “You’re never gonna let me forget that, are you?”
         “No,” teased Colin, Terri, Deidre, Suzette, and Paul Bell.
         “I may have cheated on my original exam,” admitted the Goth chick, “but I breezed through the make-up exam which Col, Tare, and Mrs. M. nagged me ... I mean encouraged me to take.”
         “Well, you passed it,” teased Terri.
         “You told me I breezed through?”
         “I was being kind,” said Terri before giving it away by laughing, “okay you did breeze through the make-up exam.”
         “I thought so,” said Sheila, glaring at Terri for a moment, before also giving it away by laughing.
         
         “Okay everyone,” said Larry Williams as they piled off the buses an hour’s drive into the countryside, “what’s first now we’re here?”
         “We have an early lunch,” said Dandy McKenna hopefully.
         “Good guess, but no. First we have to set up the tents to sleep in over the next two nights.”
         “Damn,” said Katy Lawson under her breath.
         “Can’t the boys do that, while we eat lunch?” asked Tisha, Waitlynn.
         “As long as we can share tents with you,” offered Boris ‘Pizza-Face’ Anderson, causing the boys to snicker, and the girls to ‘Ooh!’
         “On second thought, we’ll set up our own tents,” said Dandy.
         “Good idea,” seconded Tisha.
         “Now, the question is ... How?” asked Katy.
         
         “Don’t worry,” said Eloise Mawson, the girls English teacher, a tall, busty redhead in her late thirties, “the teachers will help you, if you had any difficulties.”
         “Wouldn’t it be faster, if the teachers just set up the tents for us?” asked Dandy more from hope than expectation.
         “Good try, Dandy,” said Eloise, “but you’re not out here just to skive off from school. You’re also here to learn basic woodsmanship.
         “But we’re girls, not men,” insisted Tisha.
         “All right, basic woodsgirlship,” said Eloise with a laugh.
         “In other words, unless you want to share your tents with us,” said Pizza Face, “you have to set up your own tents.”
         “Ooh!” said Dandy and most of the other girls.
         “You have to learn the facts of life eventually,” said Pizza face with a broad, toothy grin.
         “Ooh, not from you,” said Katy, “I’d rather find out on my wedding night, many years from now, than learn from you.”
         “It doesn’t hurt to get some experience first,” said Pizza face with a broad, shit-eater grin.
         “Ooh,” said every girl, plus the female teachers, in the camping area.
         It was after 1:00 PM when the tents were finally all up, with the teachers having had to do most of the setting up for Dandy, Katy, and Tisha. Finally, Larry Williams announced:
         “Okay, we can stop for lunch now.”
         “About time,” said Dandy, caught out again as everyone else stopped talking just as she said it.
         “Thank you, Dandy,” teased Eloise Mawson.
         “Why does everyone always shut up, just as I’m about to speak?” asked the honey blonde.
         “Because no one else talks as much as you,” said Yasmin Hashmi, a fifteen-year-old Muslim girl.
         “That it so not true,” insisted Dandy as everyone else snickered at her expense. “Shut up!”
         “Now calm down, and eat your sandwiches,” offered Eloise. As they all took out their sandwiches and accepted small plastic bottles of flavoured milk, she added: “Tomorrow you can only eat what you can forage in the jungle.”
         “What?” demanded two hundred shocked teenagers.
         “You heard her,” said Larry Williams with a broad shit-eater grin, before taken a bite of his smoked salmon sandwich.
         “I bet that’s not Vegemite and cheese,” said Dandy, again just as everyone else shut up to eat. “Oh, come on.”
         “Told you she talked more than everyone else,” teased Yasmin.
         “No, it’s smoked salmon,” said Eloise, “when you girls leave school, get a job and start earning money for yourselves you can have smoked salmon sandwiches too.”
         “If I said I’m a vegan, could I have a smoked salmon sandwich?” asked Tisha.
         “No, because I’ve seen you chowing down on steak sandwiches.”
         “She used to be my favourite teacher,” muttered Dandy, careful not to say it too loud this time.
         “Give me the good old days, when women just got married and had babies and their husbands went out to work, earnt money, then spent it on them,” said Katy.
         “Now Caitlyn, did equality of the sexes pass you by somehow?” teased Eloise.
         “I’ve got nothing against equality of the sexes,” insisted Katy, “as long as women don’t have to work for a living after getting married.”
         “If you marry me, you’ll never have to do anything again,” offered Pizza Face, “except at night when we’re in bed together.”
         “Ooh!” said all of the girls and women as one.
         “Maybe working for a living wouldn’t be so bad after all,” said Tisha. “Anything would be preferable to marrying then having sex with Pizza face.”
         “Morticia, don’t be rude!” chided Eloise: “His name is Boris.”
         “Pizza Face,” said all of the kids, except Boris himself.
         “Kids!” corrected Larry.
         “What?” demanded all of the kids, except Boris.
         “Go back to eating your sandwiches,” instructed Eloise, “remember tomorrow you’ll be down to yams, Witchetty grubs, and anything else you can find.”
         “Yuck,” said all of the kids, including Boris.
         After they had finished eating, Larry asked, “Okay, who wants to go and gather some firewood?” When no one answered, he explained, “That was a rhetorical question.” When, still nobody answered, he added, “That means we’re all going to hunt for firewood.”
         “Yippee,” said Eloise, getting glared at by two hundred-odd teenagers.
         “But it’s twenty-five degrees,” insisted Dandy, “why do we need firewood?”
         “Because it’ll get below freezing point in the evening,” said Eloise.
         “Couldn’t we just go home again tonight, then come back again tomorrow?” asked Katy.
         “Or not,” added Tisha, “school work is starting to look good compared to this.”
         “Now, now girls,” said Eloise waving her hands at the three girls, “shoo, shoo, shoo.”
         “What does that even mean?” asked Dandy.
         “It means we’re all going to have fun, hunting for firewood in the forest,” explained Larry.
         “I wouldn’t lay odds on that,” said Katy, whose father was a bookmaker.
         “Okay, chop-chop,” said Eloise clapping her hands hard as the students reluctantly paired off to head off into the forest.
         “Can I walk with you, Yasmin?” asked Lavender Green, a tall strawberry blonde and close friend of the Muslim girl.
         “Sure, Lav,” said Yasmin, taking one of her friend’s hands in hers.
         Yasmin and Lav wandered off into the sweet smelling wattle, pine, and gum forest, occasionally picking up fallen branches, after carefully checking them for spiders or other creep crawlies.
         “Ooh, that’s one’s got a big spider on it,” said Lavender, and the two girls backed away from the blue gum branch.
         “Should we crush it?” asked Yasmin.
         “What if we miss, and it gets onto our shoe?” asked Lav.
         “Ooh,” said the two girls.
         “Anyway, I think we’ve got our fair share of firewood,” said Yasmin.
         “More than our fair share,” insisted Lav.
         The two girls turned back the way which they hoped would lead them back to the base camp, and almost collided with the small, dumpy, grey-haired old lady, wearing curlers and a long, grey dress watching them.
         Going across to her, Yasmin asked, “Can we help you, madam?”
         “Yes, I’m afraid I’m lost,” said the woman in a fragile voice.”
         “Let us help you,” offered Lav, grateful for any opportunity to drop the firewood, which she still feared could have spiders or other creepy crawlies hidden in it.
         “Thank you,” said the old woman. She took the twso girls by the arms, gripping with surprising strength.
         “Hey, lady, you’re stronger than you look,” said Yasmin.
         “So, like where do you come from?” asked Lav.
         “I live in a little cabin about halfway between here and Bromby,” said the little old lady in her frail, cracked voice.
         “Wow, that’s like four or five Kays from here,” said Lav as the old lady started leading them deeper into the forest, until they are lost too.
         “Like, I think we’re lost too,” opined Yasmin.
         “Don’t worry dearies, I think I know the way from here,” said the old lady, careful not to release the two teenagers from her strong grip.
         “So, like do you need our help anymore?” asked Lav, started to feel afraid as the deathly strong old lady dragged them along.
         “Of course, dearies,” insisted the old lady, “you wouldn’t want me to fall over in the forest and die of malnutrition would you?”
         At the moment, I wouldn’t mind, thought Yasmin.
         “That’s no very nice, deary,” said the old lady, making Yasmin wonder if she had spoken aloud.
         Finally stopping, she asks, “Do you girls know what is the most important thing to know about nature, before going camping?”
         Lav puts up her hand and said: “According to Dandy’s Uncle Bob, Mother Nature is just the Grim Reaper in drag. She’s an evil bitch and she wants to kill us all.”
         “Yes,” agrees the old woman now in a strong voice.
         As they watched in mounting horror, the old lady started to transform, into a swirling grey misty. When the mist finally cleared instead of an old lady, before the two girls stood a skeleton in a long black robe and hood, carrying a scythe.
         “Oh, my God, it’s true!” screamed Yasmin, turning to run back the way that she hoped the camp site was.
         “That’s right, dearies,” said the Reaper, in a deep male voice.
         The Reaper swung the scythe, which passed straight through Lav, as though she was a ghost.
         “Aaaaaaaah!” screamed the girl, as her soul rushed out of her body, and vanished up into the sky to float away.
         Already dead, Lavender’s body fell to the thick coating on pine needles and gum leaves which blanket the forest floor, spraying up leaves and needles.
         The Reaper, grinned for a moment, then started through the forest after Yasmin, who is screaming and running.
         “You can’t outrun death!” cried the Reaper as he pounded through the forest after the terrified girl.
         Although still a long way behind the teenage girl, he swung his scythe at her, hoping the swish would terrify the girl into falling.
         The scythe passed through a huge old-growth Blue Gum, which instantly withered, and crashed down into a pile of matchstick sized pieces, as though termite riddled.
         “You can’t outrun death!” repeated the Reaper.
         I can bloody well try! Thought the terrified girl!
         “Try all you like, you are doomed to failure,” insisted the Reaper: “Doomed!” he repeated to terrorise the fleeing teenager further.
         Hearing the crashing of the tree, the girl tried to run faster, but she knew that the Reaper was catching up on her.
         He swung his scythe again and again, and two more great trees were reduced to termite fodder.
         “You can’t outrun death!” repeated the Reaper, as he finally got within range and swung the scythe straight through the girl.
         Yasmin whimpered, and then fell to the forest floor, her soul fleeing her dead body, in a puff of smoke, whooshing up into the sky, before the Reaper could scythe it also.
         For a moment the Reaper stood, staring up at the girl’s departing soul, sad that he had failed to reaper it also. Then he turned and smoke covered his form, revealing the innocent-looking little old lad, when finally it cleared.
         “Oh, dearie, you seem to be dead,” said the old lady with a chuckle, before turning to head back into the forest.
         
         “Now where the Hell are Yasmin and Lavender?” asked Larry Williams, the head teacher as they finally finish setting up tents and collecting firewood.
         “Skiving, knowing them,” said Dandy, and all the students tittered. Having never liked the two girls she was pleased to be able to get them back for all the times that they had accused her of skiving.
         “Possibly,” said Larry sounding doubtful. He resisted the temptation to say that he would find that easier to believe about Dandy and her girlfriends, “Well, I guess we’d better go find them.”
         Three teachers and a dozen students set off into the forest, calling, “Yamin? Lav?” repeatedly as they wander further and further from the camp site.
         “Lavie,” called out Dandy.
         “Don’t call her that,” chided Eloise, “she doesn’t like it.”
         “I know, so I thought if she was hiding out here for some reason, it would bring her running toward us.”
         “Lavie!” shouted Dandy, this time with Katy and Tisha giggling as they joined in the chant.
         Shaking her head, Eloise avoided telling off the girls again.
         “Lavie!” chorused all of the teenagers in the search.
         “It sounds like they’re calling to a toilet,” said Larry Williams, shaking his head ruefully.
         
         It had gone 5:00 PM, and Terri Scott and the others were looking forward to knocking off in half an hour to return to the Yellow House where they lived, to tuck in to Deidre Morton’s wonderful cooking for tea.
         “Just half an hour to go,” said Terrie looking at her wristwatch.
         Seconds later her mobile phone rang.
         “Oh, why do they always ring just as we’re contemplating scoffing down Mrs. M.’s divine tucker?” protested Sheila Bennett.
         “We don’t know that it’s work related,” insisted Colin Klein.
         “It’s always work related,” insisted the Goth chick, “nobody ever rings us, unless it’s work related.”
         “That’s not ....” began Colin, stopping as he failed to recall the last time that they had received a non-work related call on Terrie’s phone.
         Terri talked on the phone for a few minutes then disconnected.
         “Well?” demanded Sheila.
         “It’s work related.”
         “Told you!” said the Goth chick.
         “We’ll have to ring Louie Pascall to pick us up in his Bell Huey, we have to go within a few Kays of BeauLarkin,” said Terri, then to the raven-haired teen, “feel free to sneak off early, Suzette.”
         “Can’t I come too, to get some work experience?”
         “From what Larry Williams said, it’s pretty gruesome.”
         “Oh, then I might sneak of home.”
         “Nothing is too gruesome for this Goth babe,” boasted Sheila.
         “Yes, but Suzette is only seventeen,” reminded Colin, “she hasn’t beaten up as many werebison, weremoose, lamia, or God knows what else that you have.”
         “That’s true, but then not many people have,” agreed Sheila. “Give me a monster, no matter how scary, and I’ll duke it out with the beasty.”
         “Unless it’s a Daddy Longlegs,” teased Colin.
         “Hey, fear of spiders is natural!” insisted Sheila.
         “Natural,” agreed Suzette.
         “They have eight legs ... eight legs!”
         “Eight legs!” agreed the raven-haired teenager.
         
         An hour later Terri, Colin, and Sheila arrive at BeauLarkin, where air ambulance choppers have already landed with Jesus, Elvis, Tilly and various medics.
         “Yeech!” said Sheila, looking at the corpse of Yasmin Hashmi, which looked as though it could dissolved into dust at any second like a vampire in a horror movie. The corpse was a cheese cloth yellow, and looked as though it had somehow had all of the fluid drained out of it.
         “How long was she missing before you found her like this?” asked Terri.
         “Half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes,” said Eloise Mawson, who looked as though she could faint as any second.
         With Terri’s help, they led the English teacher across to one of the air ambulance choppers.
         After taking the crime scene photos with her mobile camera, Sheila asked, “Did you say there were two corpses?”
         “Yes, the other one’s a few hundred metres deeper into the forest,” said Larry Williams.
         He looked reluctant to go back there. But finally he led Sheila into the forest where the remains of Lavender Green was waiting, where Elvis Green and Tilly Lombstrom were waiting.
         “Pelvis, Tils,” said Sheila, before taking the crime scene photos.
         “Sheila,” said Elvis, the local coroner, nicknamed due to his devotion to Elvis Presley.
         As the medics started examining Lavender, as best they could, wary of her dehydrated corpse falling to pieces, Tilly, a tall, shapely, fifty-something brunette said, “According to the Head Master she was only missing for forty-five minutes or so.”
         “Maybe an hour,” amended Larry, ‘but certainly no more.”
         “So what could dehydrate someone so thoroughly in an hour or less?” said Elvis, thinking aloud.
         “Other than the Sun, you mean?” asked the Goth policewoman.
         “Frankly if the sun wasn’t neary a hundred and fifty million kilometres away, and she’d been missing a lot longer, I’d consider it,” admitted Tilly.
         “Then there are those,” said Larry, turning he shone his torch upon one of the trees which had withered and collapsed into termite fodder.
         “Wow,” said Sheila, “I wonder how long it took to get into that condition.”
         “It was perfectly solid a week ago, when some of the teachers came to find a good place to take the kids camping,” said Larry.
         “Jesus what could reduce a tree to that in a week or less?”
         “I’m guessing, whatever could reduce two girls to this state,” said Elvis, pointing at the remains of Lavender Greene, so relative of his. “The poor little bitch. She had so much life ahead of her!”
         “It’s not like you to get maudlin,” said Tilly, looking across at him.
         “Maybe it’s because she has the same surname as me. Or maybe I’m just getting to old for this job?”
         “Nonsense, Pelvis, you’ll outlive us all,” said Sheila, trying to cheer up her close friend.
         “Maybe,” he said, looking at the Goth chick with sad, brown eyes.
         After the medics had finished examining the two corpses as best they could, the paramedics struggled to get the corpses onto stretchers, without them collapsing into mounds of dust.
         “Damn it, our last case ten days ago concerned teenage girls too,” said Elvis, failing to come out of his mélancolie.
         “Yes,” began Sheila, not knowing how to continue.
         The Goth chick was rarely lost for words, but this time she hesitated, not wanting to upset the coroner any further.
         “Don’t worry, Sheils, I’ll get over it once we find out exactly what happened to these two poor girls,” said Elvis, “and punish the bastard or monster that did it.”
         Monster is most likely in the Glen Hartwell area! thought the Goth chick, careful not to say it aloud.
         Back at the site of Yasmin’s death, Terri said, “We’d appreciate it if you could do the autopsies first thing in the morning.”
         “Like Hell,” said Elvis Green, “I’m starting tonight, as soon as we get back to the Glen Hartwell hospital.” He sighed, then added, “Why are the villains all picking on teenagers now?”
         Terri started to say that it was only the last two cases which had involved teenage girls being murdered. Then seeing Sheila shake her head, wisely the ash blonde kept the thought to herself. Instead she said:
         “Thanks, Elvis.”
         They waited until the corpses had been taken away in the air ambulances, then Terri, Colin, and Sheila returned to Louie Pascall’s Bell Huey.
         Seeing their glum faces, Louie asked, “Pretty bad was it.”
         “Two teenage girls had the life sucked right out of them,” said Colin.
         “Although God only knows how?” said Terri as they climbed into the chopper.
         “Poor Elvis is taking it very badly,” explained Sheila, “he was talking about retiring.”
         “Who, Elvis?” asked Louie, shocked: “Never, they’ll find the old bugger dead, collapsed over his autopsy table one of these days.”
         “That’s what I always thought,” admitted Sheila, “but I’m not so certain anymore.”
         
         Back at the campsite, the teachers arranged for the children to be bussed back to their homes, to the delight of Dandy, Katy, and Tisha, saying, “Maybe we’ll try again, closer to Christmas.”
         Don’t bother on our account, thought Dandy, careful not to say it aloud.
         
         Rebecca Love and Courtney Hodges were walking hand-in-hand in the forest a kilometre or so outside Briarwood township.
         “Like this is so romantic,” enthused Rebecca, Becca, a tall, busty blonde in her early twenties, a born city-slicker.
         “You said it, angel,” agreed Courtney, twenty-eight, a tall, blonde with a brutal crew-cut. In truth she hated the countryside, which smelt like manure to her, but she loved Becca and would tell any lie to keep her fiancé happy.
         “Like you know there is a church, St. Mary’s I think it is, in Blackland Street, Glen Hartwell, maybe we could get married there before returning to city life in Melbourne.”
         “If that’s what you want, angel,” said Courtney leaning across to give Becca a wet, sloppy kiss, although she thought: Out here in Hicksville the pastor is probably too homophobic to marry two women!
         “Wow, that would be fabuloso,” the beautiful brunette enthused. “Smell that sweet country air.”
         To Courtney, however, the smell of pine trees, wattles, and eucalyptus was just the stink of the countryside, although she would never admit that to Becca for fear of hurting the wiman she loved.
         As they walked along, Courney carried a picnic basket and a rolled up blanket under her right arm, so she could hold Becca’s right hand in her left.
         “I’m getting a little tired,” said Becca, “could we stop here to have our picnic now?”
         “Whatever you want, angel,” said Courtney, unable to ever say no to the woman she loved, even though at a little to 5:00 it was early to stop for tea.
         Reluctantly releasing Becca’s hand, Courtney laid out the blanket, after checking that the ground hand no rocks, or anything sharp on it, then placed the picnic basket onto the blanket, before helping Becca to sit, making sure to sit close to her love.
         She reached into the basket to take out plates of chicken sandwiches, green salad with diced tomatoes, and coleslaw, as well as a bottle of Deep Woods Estate Reserve Chardonnay 2023; although it cost over seventy dollars a bottle, it was Becca’s favourite, and Courtney did not mind paying to please the woman she loved.
         “Oh, I just love green salad with tomatoes and cucumber slices,” Becca enthused as Courtney opened the wine, and poured them each a glass.
         “I know, darling, that’s why I was careful to bring plenty of it.”
         “Oh, you are so good to me,” said Becca. She leant over and gave Courtney, a wet, mayonnaise-covered kiss.
         Blushing in delight, Courtney helped herself to some coleslaw, then a half chicken sandwich.
         “This is so scrummy,” said Becca, she finished her green salad, took a swig of the delicious wine, and then picked up a half chicken sandwich.
         They ate and drank until they were full and sleepy. After clearing the remains into the basket, Courtney lay down on the blanket for a nap.
         “This is so creamy,” said Becca. She lay next to Courtney, putting her head on the other woman’s chest.
         Although Courtney would have like to make love to the beautiful brunette, she knew that Becca would never agree to it outside, even though there was no one about. And Courtney did not want to get pushy, for fear of losing the woman that she loved. So, instead, she placed one arm around Becca’s head, and soon the two women were sound asleep.
         Half an hour later, Courtney assume she was dreaming, as she heard a frail old woman’s voice say, “Wakey wakey, eggs and baccy.” Reluctantly she opened her eyes and saw a short, dumpy, grey-haired old lady, wearing curlers and a long, grey dress standing nearby, watching them.
         “Sorry, was that you?” asked Courtney, rubbing the sleepy-stuff from her eyes with her knuckles, careful not to let Becca’s head fall from her chest.
         “Huh, what is it Court?” asked Becca, shivering a little, since the cold had started to move in for the evening. Sitting up, she noticed the old lady, “Hello, I’m Rebecca, but most people call me Becca.”
         She held out her right hand, and the old lady took it and shook it with surprising strength.
         “Just call me Mother,” said the old lady, before shaking hands with Courtney also.
         Shivering a little also, Courtney climbed to her feet, and then helped Becca up also.
         “I wonder if you could help me?” asked the old lady. “I’m lost, and can’t find my way out of the forest.”
         “Well, we’re strangers here,” said Courtney, “Melbournians here for a couple of weeks holiday. So we probably can’t help you.”
         “Nonsense, Court,” insisted Becca, “we’re only a kilometre or two outside Briarwood where we’re staying, so we can walk you back there, then you can get help from the police to get back to your own town.”
         “Leroy,” said the old lady, having to think fast.
         “Who is here, your husband?” asked the brunette.
         “No, deary, I come from Leroy township.”
         “Wow, they have fascinating names for the towns out here,” said Becca as she walked across to take the old lady’s left arm to help her.
         “Yes, I suppose they do,” said the old woman, gripping the brunette’s arm with surprising strength.
         Reluctantly, after scooping up the wicker basket and folding up the blanket, Courtney went across to take the woman’s right arm.
         “You are both so kind,” the old lady enthused, as they started walking back the way that they had come over an hour ago.
         They were perhaps halfway back to Briarwood, when the old lady suddenly asked, “Do you know what is the most important thing to know about nature before going walking in the forest?”
         “No, what?” asked Becca.
         “Mother Nature is just the Grim Reaper in drag. She’s an evil bitch and she wants to kill you all,” explained the old lady.
         “What?” asked the brunette, startled.
         By way of explanation, the old lady threw both of the young women to the forest floor with such unexpected strength, that clouds of dried gum leaves and pine needles flew up over them, into their mouths and noses, making the two women snort and cough.
         “What the ...?” asked Courtney, almost choking on detritus.
         “I said, Mother Nature is just the Grim Reaper in drag. She’s an evil bitch and she wants to kill you all.”
         So saying the old women held up her arms and smoke started billowing from her body, totally concealing her for a few seconds. When the smoke finally cleared, instead of an old lady, a tall skeletal figure stood draped in tradition Grim Reaper’s black robe and cowl, carrying a shiny-bladed scythe.
         “You two should have stayed in Melbourne, where you belonged,” said the Reaper in a deep male voice, “you might have lived long enough to get married.”
         “What the Hell?” asked Courtney, finally clearing her throat and nostrils enough to roll over, to stare in horror at the figure standing before them. “If this is some kind of weird country bumpkin joke ...?”
         “No joke, Courtney,” said the Reaper, swinging its scythe at the crew-cutted blonde.
         Courtney ducked just in time and the scythe swung millimetres over her, and passed through an old-growth pine tree, which instantly withered, and crashed down into a pile of matchstick sized pieces, as though termite riddled.
         “Holy shit!” said Courtney, swearing for the first time since meeting and falling head over heels for Rebecca.
         “What is it, Court?” asked the brunette. She rolled over and stared at the Reaper glaring down at them. Unable to believe what she was seeing, she rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, hoping to clear her vision, and then asked, “Who are you.”
         “I have been known by many names down the millennia: The Greeks called me Thanatos, the Egyptians Anubis, the Hebrews Azrael: The Angel of Death, the Romans Mors, the Norse called me Hel or Hela, the Hindus Yama or Mrtyn, the Mesopotamians called me Ereshkigal. I have also been known as Hades, Osirus, Charon, Mot and so on. But today, most people just call me the Grim Reaper.”
         “If that’s meant to be a joke, it is so not funny,” insisted Rebecca.
         “It’s no joke, honey,” said Courtney, she pointed to the matchstick-like pieces which had recently been an old-growth pine tree.
         “Oh, my God, what happened to that?”
         “That freak happened to it,” said Courtney, pointing at the Reaper, “now run for dear life back to Briarwood.” When the brunette hesitated, she shouted, “Run, angel, run!”
         Finally Rebecca started running through the forest toward Briarwood as Courtney shouted, “Hopefully I’ll join you there soon. If not, please don’t ever forget me!”
         So saying the crew-cutted blonde picked up the empty wine bottle and hurled it at the head of the Reaper. Taken by surprise the creature failed to duck, and the empty bottle connected with a resounding crash.
         “Yes,” cried Courtney, hoping the creature’s skull had cracked. But then the shattered remains of the bottle fell to the forest floor, leaving the Reaper undamaged but enraged.
         “You dare to attack death itself?” demanded the Reaper in a deep male voice.
         “I’ll kill death, if I have to, to save my beloved Becca,” said the blonde.
         Taking two empty plates from the wicker basket, she hurled them both at the creature. The first sailed well over it, the second connected with a loud crash with the Reaper’s skull, but again, after the plate fell to the ground, the monster was undamaged.
         “You can’t harm death!” bellowed the skeletal figure.
         "According to H.P. Lovecraft I can, in the Call of Cthulhu, he said, ‘That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die’.”
         “He meant that the dead can sometimes return … not that you could kill death itself!” bellowed the Reaper.
         “Maybe, maybe not,” said Courtney.
         She hurled two salad bowls at the Reaper, both connected with a crash, but again, without hurting the creature. Next she hurled a handful of knives and forks.
         “Stop this foolishness!” ordered the Reaper.
         “No way,” said Courtney, before hurling the wicker basket at the skeletal figure.
         Finally, all she had left to throw was the picnic blanket, which she hurl. Raising its scythe, the Reaper slashed the blanket, which decayed instantly into a rotting mess.
         “Did you really think that you could kill death?” demanded the Reaper closing in on the crew-cutted blonde.
         “No, of course not,” admitted Courtney, “but I delayed you long enough for Becca to get back to Briarwood, she’s a fast runner, she almost qualified for the Australian running team at the 2024 Olympic Games.”
         “What?” screamed the enraged creature.
         Courtney did not even bother to run as the Reaper swung the scythe at her. “I love you, Becca!” she shouted, her words turning to a scream as the scythe passed straight through her as though she were mist.
         As with Yasmin Hashmi and Lavender Greene earlier, Courtney’s soul raced up from her body like smoke from a fire, hurrying upwards before the Reaper could scythe it also.
         Despite Courtney’s words, the Reaper started at a run back toward Briarwood, hoping that it still might be able to overtake Rebecca before the brunette reached the safety of the town. However, it reached the outskirts of Briarwood without spotting the fleeing woman.
         “Damn these humans and their sentimentality!” cried the Reaper before turning to start back into the forest.
         After a hundred metres or so, smoke started billowing off the reaper, and when the smoke cleared the small, dumpy, grey-haired old lady, wearing curlers and a long, grey dress was there, running just as quickly into the forest.
         “Darn that scheming bitch!” said Mother Nature as she ran through the forest. “Sacrificing herself for love ... that is one of the human qualities which I hate the most!”
         
         So terrified was Rebecca Love, that she almost ran straight past the Atticus Hotel at 133 Sebastopol Street. Then skidding to a stop almost fell to the ground. Crying as she ran, she sped into the reception area of the hotel, said, “Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney dead!” then collapsed into the arms of the owner of the hotel, Atticus Papadakis, a tall, distinguished-looking man with a vague resemblance to Caesar Romero.
         “What the heck is going on here?” asked Mabel Hollander, a nose, blue-rinsed old lady in her seventies.
         “Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney dead!” repeated Atticus.
         “What?” asked his Wife Angelina ‘Angel’, a beautiful blonde Greek with a perfect hourglass figure.
         “That’s all she said, before fainting.”
         “A likely story,” said Mabel, who was never above starting trouble, “you’ve never been able to keep your hands of good-looking female residents.”
         “Shut up!” said Angel and Atticus, making the old busybody blanch and head off to the TV room.
         
         Having finished one of Deidre Morton’s delicious dinners, Terri, Sheila, Colin and the others were all seated at the yellow floral sofa in the lounge room looking through the TV Guide.
         “So who wants to watch one of my ‘World’s Stupidest Stuntman DVDs?” asked Sheila hopefully.
         “Me!” said Tommy Turner, a short blonde alcoholic, with as bad taste in DVDs as the Goth chick.
         “No thank you!” said Natasha Lipzing, a tall lean, grey-haired woman of seventy-one.
         “You could always go to your room to read one of your silly mysteries,” suggested Tommy.
         “Why should I be banished to my room, because you and Sheila want to watch drivel?”
         “It would solve the problem, Nat,” said Sheila.
         “No it wouldn’t,” insisted Freddy Kingston, a tall, balding retiree, “since none of the rest of us want to watch that guddle.”
         
         “Not bloody likely,” said Terri Scott.
         “I second the emotion,” said Colin Klein.
         “I tried watching it with you last year,” reminded Natasha, “but it didn’t make any sense. It was just a collection of very stupid men and women, doing incredibly dangerous, stupid stunts, for no discernible reason at all.”
         “That’s it, exactly,” agreed Sheila, “now who wants to watch it?”
         “No!” cried everyone except Sheila and Tommy.
         “Damn,” said the Goth chick, then, “don’t we have an agreement that Tommy and I can watch it on Thursday, even if no one else wants to?”
         “Yes,” conceded Deidre Morton, “but this is Wednesday.”
         “Damn these seven-day weeks,” said Sheila, “I’ve been saying all my life that we could do without Wednesday.”
         “A six day week would make much more sense,” agreed Tommy.
         “Nice try, you two,” said Natasha, “but anyway you cut it, this is still Wednesday, and you two Philistines have been outvoted.”
         “Hey, there’s one of my favourite operas on SBS,” said Terri.
         “As long as it’s not Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries,” said Colin and Sheila together. [See my story, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’.]
         “No, it’s Mozart's ‘The Marriage of Figaro’.”
         “Ooh, that’s a great one,” said Natasha.
         “Anything is better than ‘The World’s Stupidest Stuntman,” said Deidre.
         “Agreed,” said Freddy and Colin as one.
         “Maybe we could have an opera night every Wednesday,” suggested Natasha, “if Sheila and Tommy have a “World’s Stupidest Stuntman’ night every Thursday.
         “What?” demanded Sheila.
         “Then Sheils and I would have to go to our rooms every Wednesday,” protested Tommy.
         “Then you would know how we feel every Thursday,” insisted Natasha.
         “Damned Opera,” muttered Sheila, “haven’t you heard that Elvis swept all that kind of crap away in 1956?”
         “Not in this house,” said Terri smirking. Until her mobile phone suddenly rang.
         “Oh, please God, let it be work related,” prayed the Goth chick.
         “You normally complain when you get work related calls during meals or TV time,” pointed out Freddy Kingston.
         “Not of it means getting out of watching opera!”
         After talking on the phone for a couple of minutes, Terri disconnected and said, “You’re in luck Mad Goth chick, that was Atticus Papadakis, over at Briarwood, it seems one of his guest just rasn into the hotel lobby, muttering, ‘Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney Dead!’.”
         “I must admit, babe, that that was the last thing I was expecting you to say,” said Colin as the three cops stop to depart.
         “Thank you, God, I owe you one,” said Sheila as they exited the Yellow House.
         “Don’t blaspheme, dear,” Deidre called after the Goth chick.
         Forty minutes or so later, they arrived at 133 Sebastopol Street in Briarwood, where an ambulance, two paramedics, a nurse, and Jesus Costello were all waiting for them.
         “We’ve given her a light sedative already,” said Jesus as they walked into the hotel, “but you should still be able to talk to her. We’ll zonk her out completely once you’ve finish.”
         Up in the blue-walled bedroom, where the Papadakises had taken Rebecca, they found the brunette sitting up in bed, but with a slightly glazed look in her eyes.
         Going across to the bed, Terri said, I’m Terri Scott, the top cop around here.”
         At first Becca seemed not to hear her, by finally she looked round at her and said, “Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney Dead!”
         “What old woman?” asked Colin Klein.
         “Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney Dead!: repeated the brunette.
         “Grim Reaper?” asked Sheila Bennett.
         “Old woman, Grim Reaper, Courtney Dead!” repeated Becca
         The three cops considered this for a moment, then Terri said, “Who is or was Courtney?”
         “Courtney Hodges, we were engaged to be married as soon as we got back to Melbourne?”
         “But the old woman killed her?” asked Terri.
         “No, the Grim Reaper. He appeared to us first as on old lady, who claimed to be lost in the forest, then he transformed into his true form.”
         “And he killed Courtney?” asked Colin.
         “She sacrificed herself to allow me to get away,’ said Becca going on to tell them everything that had happened.
         After they had finished, Sheila recording on her mobile phone everything that the brunette had said, Jesus injected Becca with stronger sedatives, then the paramedics transported her outside.
         “So what’ll we do now?” asked Colin Klein as they returned to Terri’s blue Lexus outside the hotel in Sebastopol Street.
         Taking out her mobile phone, Terri said, “We can’t wait till the morning, in case Courtney is still alive, so I’m calling Louie Pascall to bring his Bell Huey with flood lights, so we can hunt for her. Becca said it was only a kilometre or so from the hotel.”
         Forty-five minutes later they were soaring above the tree tops with Louie’s floodlight lighting up the forest like day. After a while, Sheila in the shotgun seat said, “There’s something down there, but I can’t see what.”
         “Can you take us down?” asked Terri.
         “No sweat,” confirmed Louie, “there’s a clearing perhaps twenty metres from whatever it is.”
         When they were on the ground they saw the withered, dehydrated state of the woman’s corpse.
         “Becca said Courtney was only twenty-eight, didn’t she?” asked Colin.
         “That’s right,” confirmed Terri.
         “Well whatever is killing them, an old lady, the Grim Reaper or whatever, it certainly sucks all fluids out of them as well as killing them?”
         “The Grim Reaper?” asked Louie overhearing them.
         “In Glen Hartwell, anything horrible is possible,” reminded Sheila.
         

         THE END

         © Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

         Melbourne, Victoria, Australia