BLACK CHRISTMAS

Yetis are terrorising G.H., while Terri Scott is on her honeymoon!

         10 December 2025

         The large orange and yellow campervan slowly meandered up Mount Peterson just outside Glen Hartwell, in the Victorian countryside.
         “Here we are, fellow campers,” said Duggan Mainwaring, a short, balding, raven-haired accountant, in his late thirties, to his long-suffering family.
         “Here we are, where?” asked his wife, Hyacinth, a tall leggy blonde of thirty-seven.
         “At Mount Peterson, also known as Haunted Mountain.”
         “I know I’m going to regret this,” said Lorelei, a tall, leggy ravenette, aged sixteen, nicknamed Lori, “but why is it called Haunted Mountain?”
         “I don't know, but it's always been called that in my lifetime. Back in the 1990s a mansion built in the 1840s by convict labour suddenly slid down the mountain, shattering to pieces at the base of Mount.”
         “Well, that’s what you get for using Jerry-builders,” teased Violetta, a.k.a. Vie, a short, fourteen-year-old blonde.
         “You tell him, sis,” teased Ivy, a thirteen-year-old strawberry blonde.
         “Don’t tease your father, girls,” chided Hyacinth with a broad grin on her face.
         “Ah, my beloved, I know that all my four girls love teasing me,” said Duggan good-naturedly.
         “It’s a long time since I’ve been a girl,” corrected Hyacinth.
         “You’ll always be my best girl,” said Duggan, making his beautiful wife blush deeply.
         “Then what does that make us?” asked Ivy, as her father stopped the camper halfway up Haunted Mountain.
         “My equal second-best girls.”
         “So it’s a three-way dead heat for second?” asked Lori.
         “Can you have a dead heat for second?” asked Vie. “I thought dead heats had to be for first place?”
         “Trust my beautiful, pedantic girl, to know such stuff,” said Duggan climbing out of the camper.
         After seconds, which seemed like minutes, Hyacinth and the three girls followed their husband or father out of the camper.
         “Don’t worry girls; in no time at all we’ll have the Barbie out, cooking our lunches.”
         “You know I’m a pescatarian,” reminded Vie.
         “Don’t worry, honey, we’ve brought plenty of fish with us,” said Duggan.
         Going to the side door of the camper, he slid it open, reached in and lifted away the seating nearest the cabin to reveal a large freezer unit. Inside was a multitude of fish, chops, steaks, and drinks surrounded by kilograms of crushed ice. He took out some meat, two pieces of mackerel, a bottle of red wine, and three cans of zero-sugar cola.
         “Pepsi Max for Vie, Pepsi Zero caffeine for Lori, and Zero caffeine Coke for Poison Ivy,” he said, handing out the drinks.
         “Hey, don’t be sarky, Dad!” advised Ivy.
         “Just teasing, my beautiful girl,” said Duggan with a grin.
         “I knew we should never have let him watch those Batman animated movies,” teased Lori.
         “There’s nothing wrong with Batman animated movies,” insisted Duggan, as he started to place the meat and fish on the BBQ, which had been set up by Hyacinth.
         “Yes, it keeps him off the streets,” teased his wife.
         “Something tells me, my four beautiful girls are teasing me again,” said Duggan with a broad grin. “If you girls don’t mind spreading some bread, we can have steak, or fish sandwiches.”
         “Fish sandwiches?” asked Ivy. Nonetheless, she hurried across to help her sisters spread Meadow Lea onto ten slices of Helga’s wholegrain bread.
         
         Over in Blackland Street, Glen Hartwell, stood St. Margaret's church. Founded in 1838, one year after Glen Hartwell, and three years after the state of Victoria, St. Margaret's was one of the centre points of the Glen. It had large spacious lawns, twenty concrete steps led from the footpath to the large polished red gum double doors. Inside, the floors were more traditional polished teak, with red felt-lined wooden pews, plus more than life-size plaster statues of Jesus, the Stations of the Cross, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles lining the walls and the rear of the small stage upon which Father Thomas conducted his sermons.
         At the rear of the stage was a three-metre-tall statue of Jesus on the cross, surrounded on each side by white plaster angels.
         Usually half full for mass, today the church was full to capacity, with many people forced to stand, for a special double wedding.
         At the pulpit, Father Montague asked, “Do you Theresa Wilhelmina Augusta Eleanor Scott take this man to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
         “Wilhelmina Augusta?” asked a voice in the audience. A tall, athletic Goth chick, with orange-and-black striped hair, Sheila Bennett was the Chief Constable of the BeauLarkin to Willamby region. Normally dressed in uniform with trousers, today she looked, and felt out of place wearing a long green dressed, leant to her by her mother.
         Ignoring the interruption, Terri, a tall leggy ash blonde in her mid thirties, and Sheila’s boss, said, “I do.”
         Looking at the groom, a tall, redheaded Englishman, Father Montague asked, “Do you Colin Montgomery Churchill Klein take this woman to be you lawfully wedded wife?”
         “Montgomery Churchill?” asked Sheila, receiving a shush from her mother
         “I do,” said Colin, smiling despite himself at Sheila’s surprise.
         “Do you Eunice Eloise Martha Grayson, take this man to be you lawfully wedded husband?”
         “I do,” said Eunice. An Amazonian brunette with a long ponytail in her later thirties, Eunice looked much younger as she grinned like an excited schoolgirl after her first kiss.
         “Do you George Thaddeus Horatio ....”
         “Thaddeus Horatio?” piped in Sheila despite an elbow in the ribs from her mother, Gwendolyn, Gwen, a tall raven-haired woman in her late fifties.
         After glaring at the Goth chick for a moment, Father Montague began again: “Do you, George Thaddeus Horatio duBois, take Eunice to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
         “I do,” agreed George grinning like the proverbial cat that got the cream.
         “Then by the power invested in me by God, and the state of Victoria, I now pronounce you Colin and Terri, and Eunice and George, Man and Wife.”
         “Shouldn’t that be men and wives?” piped in Sheila, receiving another elbow in the ribs from Gwen.
         “Shush,” said Cedric, one of Sheila’s three older brothers.
         “Ouch,” protested Sheila, as the men raced forward to have their turn at kissing the brides.
         “You may now kiss the brides.”
         
         “Now isn’t this better than being indoors watching telly while eating your food?” asked Duggan Mainwaring, sitting on a deck chair holding a thick steak and cheese sandwich in one hand and a can of 4-X in his other hand.
         “Nope!” said Vie, Lori, Ivy, and Hyacinth as one.
         “Besides who says telly anymore?” demanded Vie.
         “I do,” insisted Duggan unrepentant.
         “Your father comes from a different generation,” explained Hyacinth.
         “I’m only two years older than you, Honey.”
         “Although he acts like he’s two decades older,” insisted Ivy.
         “Yeah, Mum, you might not be cool, like us,” said Lori, “but you’re not a total nerdmeister, like Dad.”
         “Thank you ... I think,” said Hyacinth.
         “Nerdmeister,” protested Duggan, “is that even a word?”
         “Like duh!” said Ivy, as though that explained everything.
         “Like duh, what?” protested Duggan, proving that he was a total nerdmeister after all.
         Before the three girls could think up a reply, the three, tall, manlike creatures appeared from higher up Mount Peterson and started rapidly toward the Mainwaring family.
         Seeing the three creatures, Vie said: “Look at those nerdmeisters ... wearing thick white coats in this weather.”
         “I hope that’s not real fur they’re wearing,” said Ivy, “don’t they know fur is murder.”
         “Just like meat, I suppose,” teased Duggan, before taking a large bite out of his steak sandwich, umm-umming as he ate it.
         “Dad!” protested Ivy.
         “If fur and meat are both murder,” Hyacinth asked her pescatarian daughter, “how come eating fish isn’t also murder?”
         “Mum you really are a nerdmeister after all!”
         “I don’t know,” teased Lori, “Mum makes a good point.”
         “Yeah,” agreed Vie, “that poor fishee you scoffed down was once a living, swimming creature.”
         “Ah shut up!” said Ivy, spinning round to look up the mount as one of the approaching figures suddenly growled like a bear. “What the Hell?”
         As the creatures approached within fifty metres, Hyacinth said, “My God, I think they’re polar bears.”
         “We don’t have polar bears in Australia,” pointed out Duggan, “we have penguins. Polar bears are at the North Pole.”
         But as the creatures continued to approach them, he started to have his doubts: “Maybe we’d better pack up, before they reach us, just in case.”
         “Fuck packing up,” said Hyacinth, swearing in front of her daughters for the first time, “just get into the campervan, girls.”
         Squealing in terror, Ivy, Lori, and Vie raced toward the orange and yellow campervan.
         As the creatures approached, it became obvious that they did look a bit like polar bears, although with surprising human faces. Excited by their flight, the three creatures, still growling bear-like, raced forward to grab Duggan and Hyacinth before they could flee to the safety of the van.
         “Get away, you monster!” cried Duggan in fear, more than anger.
         He made the mistake of punching in the stomach the creature that had grabbed him. Roaring in rage, the Yeti swiped across Duggan’s head with its long, ursine claws, literally ripping Duggan’s face right off his head, leaving behind a bloody death mask, like a grinning skull.
         Ignoring the screaming skull, the Yeti greedily devoured Duggan’s face, then began using its powerful teeth to crack open the small man’s skull, to get at his juicy brain; which it devoured with glee, putting Duggan out of his agony.
         Held in a bear hug by a second Yeti, Hyacinth fainted, leaving her defenceless as the creature ripped away her shorts, T-shirt and underwear, leaving her naked. Then, holding her almost lovingly, the creature started to lick her face, neck, then generous breasts, before moving down to lick her navel, thighs, then moving up again to give her the cunnilingus which her husband had refused to provide in their nearly twenty years of marriage.
         Screaming in orgasm, Hyacinth awakened to find herself laid prone on her back by the Yeti, legs spread-eagled as the monster moved forward with the intention of raping her.
         “No, you monster!” cried the raven-haired woman, beating at the Yeti’s chest with her fists.
         Ignoring the futile pummelling, the creature smiled a very human shit-eater grin as it lunged forward, making Hyacinth shriek and faint again as the first few centimetres of the creatures massive penis plunged through her outer-, then inner labia, to start to plunder the delights of her vagina.
         Grunting more like as pig, than either a man, or as polar bear, which it still vaguely resembled, the Yeti began thrusting furiously at Hyacinth’s tight vagina, determined to make full penetration, if it killed her. At first it appeared that the creature would be frustrated, as the raven-haired woman’s entranceway refused to cede ground. But finally, by brute strength, the Yeti began to split wider her vagina, making bloody flow, which acted like a lubricant to allow his manhood to seep millimetre by millimetre into the prone woman’s damaged vulva.
         Ignoring the chomping sound behind it, as the other two Yetis continued devouring the corpse of Duggan Mainwaring, the creature continued thrusting forward with all of its three-metre tall strength. Slowly millimetre by millimetre, then centimetre by centimetre, the hairy white penis began cutting its way deeply into Hyacinth’s unconscious body, until finally the creature roared its triumph, as his pubes finally pressed hard against the dark-haired woman’s Mons, as he achieved full penetrate of his twenty-centimetre-plus penis.
         Roaring in delight, the creature tried to withdraw, only to find that the woman’s vagina now clenched his manhood like a vice, and he was unable to withdraw. Roaring now in rage and frustration, the Yeti stood up, in the hope of pulling himself out of the woman’s tight entrance. Instead he lifted her lower body off the lush grass that it had been lying upon. Now frantic, the creature grabbed the woman’s wide hips sadistically and pulled with all of his might. At first without success, then with a loud plop, his penis pulled free.
         Taken by surprise, the Yeti fell over backwards on the long grass, making his companions roar with laughter. After growling his displeasure at them, the creature leapt between Hyacinth’s thighs again and was soon thrusting his penis, at first slowly, then more rapidly, in and out of her vagina, ripping and rending as he took his pleasure without regard to her survival.
         After what seemed like hours to the three crying girls inside the campervan, the Yeti finally ejaculated into his victim’s body, bellowing in delight as he came. After wiping his dripping penis upon the remains of Hyacinth’s T-shirt, the creature walked across to see if there was anything left of Duggan Mainwaring to eat.
         At first the second and third creature tried to defend their kill from the new comer, but then seeing Hyacinth’s prone body lying upon the long grass, they abandoned the remains of the husband, to lope across to have their turn raping, then sodomising the unconscious woman.
         “Oh God, Mum!” cried Ivy, deciding that the relentless raping of her mother was worse than the quick killing and devouring of her father.
         
         It was nearly 2:00 PM and the reception was in full swing. Although held at the Glen Hartwell Town Hall in Boothy Street, Deidre Morton, as the best chef that side of Melbourne, had prepared the food. The two brides were being twirled around the dance floor, while the men took turns boozing.
         “So what’d you sign your married names as?” asked Sheila as the three women relaxed between dances.
         “Eunice Grayson-duBois,” said the Amazonian brunette.
         “Terri Klein,” said Terri, “but you can still call me Chief.”
         “Ha-ha, it is to laugh,” said the Goth chick.
         “What’ll it be?” asked Donald Esk, a tall ruggedly build sergeant with short brown hair, acting as the barman.
         “Extra large brandy,” ordered Tommy Turner, a short, blond, dumpy retiree, who did his best at every opportunity to leap, not fall, off the bandwagon.
         “Make that a small, lemonade shandy,” corrected Deidre Morton. A short, dumpy, sixty-something woman, Deidre owned the Yellow House boarding house where Tommy lived, and had confiscated his stash of alcohol, to force him onto the wagon.
         “Extra large brandy,” slurred Tommy.
         “A small, lemonade shandy coming right up,” said Don reaching for a glass and a bottle of lemonade.
         “Hey, hey, hey,” cried Tommy, “who you take orders from, me or Deidre?”
         “Deidre, of course,” said Don as he poured a less than generous amount of Victoria Bitter into the lemonade.”
         “Coward,” accused Tommy, swaying a little as he reluctantly accepted the shandy.
         Even over the sound of music playing, the guests could hear the loud whir-whir-whir of rotors approaching.
         “That sounds like our ride,” said Colin Klein, walking across to confiscate Terri from a disappointed Stanlee Dempsey, a tall, bull of a man, with raven-coloured hair.
         “My loss, et cetera,” said Stanlee as the ash blonde was whisked away.
         “Come on, babe,” said George, also whisking Eunice away from Jessie Baker, a huge redheaded police sergeant under Terri’s command.
         “Yours to obey, honey,” teased Eunice as the two couples and a score of partiers headed out into Boothy Street as the Bell Huey began landing in the middle of the wide street.
         “Where to first?” asked Donald Frazer, a tall heavily built man, with blond hair, and a ginger moustache; the local Mayor and close friend of both couples.
         “First to Melbourne to board Eunice is My Honey, our Yacht,” said George, helping his wife into the backseat, “then wherever the currents take us over the next two weeks.”
         Drawing Don close, Terri whispered, “You have got my mobile number, in case Sheila makes a pig’s ear of things while we’re away?”
         “I’m sure Sheila will be fine being in charge for two weeks,” said Don, but then after a second’s hesitation, “but just in case, yes, yes I do.”
         Terri heaved a sigh of relief, and then allowed her new husband to lift her into the chopper.
         Waving goodbye as the helicopter ascended, Sheila Bennett said, “You know what this means?”
         “You get to terrorise Glen Hartwell for two weeks,” teased Suzette Cummings, a short seventeen-year-old, with long raven hair. A trainee, Suzette would be leaving for Melbourne in a week to take her final police testing.
         “I prefer to say, I get to use my authority for two weeks, in lieu of Terri’s softly, softly approach.”
         “In other words, you get to terrorise Glen Hartwell for two weeks, while Terri is away,” said Paul Bell. A recent retiree from the force, Paul had agreed to work pro-rata for the force until Terri and Colin’s return, then until the end of January.
         “All right, everyone back to the booze-up,” slurred Tommy Turner, staggering back toward the town hall.
         “Everyone who’s not a cop,” corrected Sheila, “they finally finished rebuilding the Mitchell Street Station last night. So we have to move everything from Morcambe Street.”
         Despite looking peeved at the order, most of the local cops were relieved. After the larger Mitchell Street, Glen Hartwell Station had been destroyed by a plane crash in the area a few months back, they had had to cram into the tiny Morcambe Street Station, where Terri and Sheila had worked before both being promoted to top-cop status two years ago. [See my story, ‘The Writer’.]
         
         Ivy, Lori, and Vie Mainwaring were unable to stop crying, inside the campervan, as the Yetis ravished their mother, then began to devour her, breasts and buttocks first. After what seemed to the crying girls like hours, the three polar bear-like creatures had finished their orgy. Instead of returning up Mount Peterson, as the girls had hoped, however, the three creatures strode man-like across to the campervan and started peering in through the windows. Either remembering the three girls running for cover earlier, or smelling their scent.
         Trying their best not to scream, the three girls lay flat upon the floor in the rear of the camper, hoping that they were out of sight of the monstrous creatures.
         Finally, not fully satisfied, the three Yetis began rocking the camper from side-to-side. After a few minutes, growing weary, and catching no sight or sound of life within the van, the three creatures reluctantly turned and scampered back up the mountain, to start down the other side.
         “They’re ... they’re gone,” said Ivy between sobs.
         “So ... so what’ll we do now?” asked Vie.
         “Now we keep our fingers crossed that I can drive this thing back to Glen Hartwell,” said Lori, as she climbed into the front seat. “I passed my test weeks ago, but so far I’ve only driven a mini minor, and Uncle Dan’s Cortina.”
         As her sisters climbed into the cabin beside her, Lori risked turning the key and putting the campervan noisily into gear.
         
         With a dozen cops, plus various friends helping them out, plus removalist Oliver Burnside, a tall, burly, grey-haired man who looked a decade older than his fifty years, they managed to get every moved, if not put into correct place by 4:30.
         Sheila stood by the huge blackwood desk near the front of the office, looking around the new station approvingly. Nearly double the size of the old station, it had a massive front room, plus a walk-in-cupboard sized armaments room, a sizeable evidence cupboard, eight ordinary cells, and three high-security cells with solid iron doors, plus separate toilets for men and women, unlike previously.
         “It’s more of a powder room, than just a loo,” said Suzette Cummings approvingly after looking inside the Ladies.
         “All of which brings us to an important point,” began Sheila.
         “No!” said Suzette, Paul Bell, and Stanlee Dempsey together.
         “Let me finish what I was saying!” demanded the Goth chick.
         “No!”
         “As I was saying ....”
         “No!”
         “As the acting, temporary, unpaid Senior Sergeant of the BeauLarkin to Willamby area ....”
         “No!”
         “Let me finish, damn it!”
         “All right,” said Suzette.
         “As the acting, temporary Senior Sergeant of the area I need to know where you have hidden the bazooka?”
         “No!” said Suzette, Paul, and Stanlee again.
         “Are you forgetting that I am the acting, temporary Senior Sergeant of the area ...?”
         “No, Marm!”
         “Then why won’t you tell me where the damn bazooka is hidden?”
         “Terri ordered us not to under pain of being fired,” explained Suzette.
         “She’s on hols. at the moment, plus as acting, temporary Senior Sergeant of the area, I countermand her order.”
         “No, Marm!”
         “Besides, she can’t afford to fire anyone; we’re understaffed as it is.”
         They all considered this for a moment, before saying: “No, Marm!”
         “Terri has ordered us not to tell you, unless we’re under monster or maniac attack.”
         “It’ll be too late by then,” insisted Sheila. Then to Paul Bell, “Anyway I thought you retired last week?”
         “I agreed to stay on pro rata until the end of January when Drew retires.”
         “Wouldn’t it have been easier to defer your retirement?” asked Suzette.
         “Yes, but I get paid a hundred bucks a day more on pro rata rates.”
         “You scrounge,” teased Stanlee.
         “Insult me all you like, mate, as long as I’m getting paid more than you.”
         “So back to the bazooka,” began Sheila.
         “No!” said Suzette, Paul, and Stanlee together.
         “Anyway, shouldn’t we be out on patrol?” asked Stanlee.
         “I thought we could stay in today and enjoy our new, roomier police station,” suggested the Goth chick.
         “Anything would seem roomy after Morecambe Street,” said Suzette.
         “Yeah, but everything is new and improved here,” said Sheila. “We have a larger loo, now with male and female sections, three extra cells for crims, three high security cells, instead of one, a separate tea room, so we don’t have to be bugged while drinking, and the weapons store is large than Mrs. M.’s lounge room.”
         “There’s even room for parking behind the station now,” reminded Paul.
         “All the more reason to spend a day in, revelling in our new abode.”
         “Did she say abode, or commode?” teased Paul.
         “Except, that Terri did insist that we have to patrol every day, and said she cannot be overruled because you want a day inside,” explained Suzette.
         “She knows me too well,” complained Sheils, as the four cops headed outside to get into Terri’s police-blue Lexus GX. “Oh well, I’ll just have to settle for drag racing in the Lexus.”
         “Except,” said Paul climbing into the back of the car, “Terri said you weren’t allowed to drag in her Lexus, unless you were being chased by Glen Hartwell’s latest monster.”
         “Damn that blonde, she thinks of everything,” grumbled Sheila, placing a CD into the dash of the car:
         "I'll have a black, black Christmas
         "And an unhappy New Year
         "How can I think of Christmas things
         "Without my baby near?
         "I'll have a black, black Christmas
         "A black, black Christmas
         "Dah doo dah doo dah dah."
         “Let me guess,” said Suzette, “the Devil’s Advocates have re-released their Black Christmas CD?”
         “Yes and no,” said the Goth chick, “this is Black Christmas 2^nd Edition. It also has the best tracks from their Christmas Carol Blues, Blue Christmas, and Long, Tall Steeple CDs. This way I don’t have to keep swapping the CDs; twenty-eight great tracks on one CD.”
         “Yippee,” said Suzette, without sounding enthusiastic.
         They had almost reached the end of Mitchell Street, heading toward the northern end of Glen Hartwell, when the Mainwarings’s orange-and-yellow campervan roared into the street, forcing Sheila to spin the steering wheel, reversing the Lexus, to avoid a head-on collision.
         “What the Hell?” demanded the Goth policewoman.
         “Isn’t that Lorelei driving?” asked Paul Bell, as the campervan roared past them, continuing on toward the Mitchell Street Station.
         Starting the Lexus again, Sheila started after the campervan, arriving at the police station just as Lorelei, Violetta, and Ivy raced into the station.
         
         “Hello, anyone here?” shouted Lori as the three girls raced into the unoccupied front office.
         “There’s no one here?” said Vie, seconds before the door opened behind them and the four cops raced into the office.
         “What’s wrong, girls?” asked Suzette.
         Spinning round in surprise, Lori said, “Three polar bears just ate our Dad on Mount Peterson.”
         “And raped to death Mum, before eating her too,” added Vie.
         Then the three teens fainted.
         “Damn,” said Sheila, as they all raced across to help the girls, “with all the additions to the station, they forgot to give us couches for fainting victims to lie upon.”
         While Sheila, Paul, and Stanlee each picked up one girl to carry her across to the chairs before the blackwood desk, Suzette rang through to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital.
         
         Ten kilometres or so outside Westmoreland township stood Mount Hargreaves – the third largest mountain in Victoria, and the fifth largest in Australia, with sheer sides for the first few hundred metres.
         “Wow!” said Maureen (a.k.a. Mo) Murchison, a forty-something, athletic redhead, in awe and a little fear, gazing up at the sheer sides. “Has anyone actually ever scaled Mount Hargreaves?”
         “Of course,” insisted her husband Douglas, Dougie, a short, strong forty-five-year-old.
         “They reckon Ernie Singleton over at East Merridale climbed it, with the help of some pro-climber from New South Wales back in the 1980s,” insisted Dougie’s older brother, Otis, a tall, gangly, forty-seven-year old, dark-haired man who could climb like a mountain goat. He had climbed every other mountain in Victoria, and hoped to make it a clean sweep today by managing Mount Hargreaves.
         “Great, but has anyone scaled it in the last forty-odd years?” asked Otis’s wife, Lucretia, Lucy, a tall athletic blonde, but inexperienced at mountaineering.
         “Relax, babe, I’ve never got you killed yet, have I?”
         “When he says ‘relax, babe’, I know I’m in trouble.”
         “Besides, you can only kill someone once,” pointed out Mo.
         “Come on Mo, honey, it’ll be a doddle,” insisted Dougie.
         “I know we’re in trouble when he says, ‘it’ll be a doddle’.”
         “Relax, girls,” said Otis, walking across to where a piton projected from the side of the mount, “see, here’s proof that Ernie, or someone else, once climbed the mount.”
         “But how far up the mount did they get, before falling to their death?” asked Mo.
         “And I hope we’re not going to use those rusty, forty-year-old pitons to make our climb?” asked Lucy.
         “Come on babe, how stupid do you think we are?” asked Otis.
         Looking at Mo, Lucy said: “I am so tempted to tell him.”
         While the two women laughed, Otis and Dougie scouted around for a good place to put their own first piton.
         “Don’t want it too close to Ernie’s trail, in case his pitons have weakened the side of the mount there.”
         “I guess he’s not as stupid as I thought,” teased Lucy.
         Ignoring the chortling of the two women, their husbands found a likely spot and hammered in their first piton to begin the perilous climb.
         “Remember girls, only the first two-hundred and fifty metres or so are sheer,” assured Dougie, “after that it’s easy peasy.”
         “As long as we don’t fall to our deaths in the first two-hundred and fifty metres or so,” muttered Mo.
         
         An hour or so later, Sheila Bennett, a dozen or so police, and two ambulances and their crews were at the site of the slaughter of Hyacinth and Duggan Mainwaring, halfway up the side of Mount Peterson.
         “Yeech!” said Suzette Cummings, trying not to get too close to the two corpses.
         Sheila Bennett took the prerequisite crime scene photos, then Jesus (pronounced Hee-Zeus) Costello, and Tilly Lombstrom did their best to make sense of the corpses: Duggan little more than a skeleton, Hyacinth only partly devoured.
         “Looks like they preferred male flesh to female,” said Jesus, a fifty-something man, head surgeon and administrator at the local hospital.
         “From what the girls said,” explained Tilly, a tall, shapely brunette in her early fifties, and Jesus’s chief assistant, “two of them ate most of Duggan, while the third raped poor Hyacinth. Maybe they were all full before finishing her off.”
         “Could be,” agreed Jesus.
         While the two doctors were examining the remains, Sheila ambled across to talk to the paramedics standing by.
         “Strong arm, Chezza, how’re they hanging?”
         “Mine are firm and up thrusting,” said Cheryl Pritchard, at sixty-five, the senior paramedic of the area.
         “Same here, babe,” said Derek Armstrong. A black American by birth, Derek had spent the last twenty-six years as a paramedic in Glen Hartwell, and had been dating Sheila for over a year. Squeezing her behind, he asked, “How are yours hanging, Sheils.”
         “Feel for yourself if you like.”
         “Here, here, we’ll have none of that on duty,” teased Cheryl. “So how’s your first day in charge, Mad Goth chick.”
         “It was going great guns, until Vie and the girls burst in to tell us what had been done to Duggan and Hyacinth. Apart from being in charge for the first time, we also moved into our rebuilt, much larger station in Mitchell Street.”
         “Makes a change from that pokey place in Morcambe Street,” offered Cheryl.
         “So what’s happening to Morcambe Street?” asked Derek, still squeezing Sheila’s bottom.
         Looking around first, to make certain they were not within hearing range, Sheila said: “Terri said she might place Alice Walker and Wendy Pearson there permanently. But I’ll wait for Terri to return so she can tell them.”
         “Very wise,” said Cheryl, “that way they can’t hold a grudge against you.”
         “Exactly.”
         “Well, I think we’re all done here,” said Jesus.
         “You can take the corpses away now,” called Tilly.
         “Gotta go, babe,” said Derek, giving Sheila’s behind one last squeeze before he and Cheryl grabbed a stretcher to start across to the corpses.
         Following them over, Sheila asked, “So, what’s up, docs?”
         “Please tell me she’s not really in charge of Glen Hartwell for the next two weeks,” teased Tilly.
         “Actually, I’m in charge of the whole area from BeauLarkin to Willamby, including Glen Hartwell.”
         “Uh-oh,” said Jesus with a broad grin, “we can only hope that Terri and Colin decide to cut their honeymoon short.”
         “Don’t be like that, Lord,” teased the Goth policewoman, “this is my first case as head honcho.”
         “I’ve told you many times before, Mad Goth chick, it’s pronounced Hee-Zeus.”
         “Gesundheit!” teased Sheila.
         “So, have you had time to consider your verdict?” asked Alice Walker, a forty-seven-year-old brunette, coming across to them. An amateur weight-lifter, and gym mate of Sheila, Derek, and Cheryl, Alice was a tall, attractive widow.
         “From what we can tell,” said Tilly, “they might well have been eaten by polar bears as the girls claim.”
         “Certainly we have found white animal hairs upon and around poor Hyacinth,” said Jesus.
         “Including in her vagina?” asked Sheila.
         “And the anus,” added Jesus, “it seems they couldn’t wait to take turns on her.”
         “Ouch,” said Alice with feeling, instinctively rubbing her own behind.
         
         “I hate to sound like the kids, when we’re going on vacations,” said Mo, dangling precariously from the side of Mount Hargreaves, “but are we nearly there yet?”
         Unable to resist laughing, Dougie said, “Don’t worry, baby, we’re almost at the halfway mark of the sheer section.”
         “I knew he was in trouble, when he said ‘Don’t worry, baby’.”
         “Tell me when we’re past the halfway mark, so I can throw up,” teased Lucy.
         “Better not, babe,” said Otis, bringing up the rear, as a reassurance to the two women, “might splatter me.”
         “I’ll take that chance, babe,” teased the blonde, making them all laugh.
         “Ouch,” said Otis as they kept slowly climbing the sheer section of the mountain, with Duggan continuing to hammer in pitons from time to time.
         In the end, they were surprised when they finally reached the rocky tor that overhung the sheer section.
         “Be there in minutes, and then we can rest,” assured Duggan, climbing onto the level section.
         He helped the two relieved women onto flat ground, but was not needed to help Otis, who leapt jack rabbit style straight onto the rocky tor.
         “Told you I could climb like a mountain goat,” said Otis, beaming broadly at the two women who were both gasping for breath.
         “Now what?” asked Mo, not sure if she wanted to continue up the more readily climbable section of the mountain, or to start down again.
         “Now we have a twenty minute rest, including having an energy drink and energy bars,” said Duggan opening his backpack.
         “Then it’s onwards and upwards, ladies,” added Otis. Hearing them moan their protest, he assured, “Don’t worry, the rest of the mount can be climbed quite easily.”
         “It’s that word ‘quite’ that I’m worried about,” said Lucy, taking an energy bar and a bottle of blue energy drink from her backpack.
         
         Over at the morgue in the basement of the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, Sheila, Suzette, and the other cops were kibitzing while Jesus Costello, Tilly Lombstrom and Jerry ‘Elvis’ Green were performing the autopsies upon Duggan and Hyacinth Mainwaring.
         “Well, there’s not much to be said about poor Duggan,” said Elvis, a tall, dark-haired man with long, black sideburns, the local coroner, now close to retirement age, “since there’s little left except bones ... but he’s certainly been eaten by some kind of animal or animals.”
         “So we can rule out crazed cannibals in mink coats?” said Sheila.
         Not bothering to acknowledge her sarcasm, the coroner said, “But I’m damned if I can say what kind of animals could have caused these bites.”
         “They could be polar bears for all we know,” admitted Jesus, “frankly we’re not experts on animal dentations.”
         “But I know someone who is,” said the Goth chick.
         “Totty Rampling,” said half a dozen people as one.
         “Er, yes,” admitted Sheila. Taking out her mobile phone, she rang through to the Melbourne Wildlife Safari Park and asked for Totty Rampling. “Guess who’s now in charge of the police from BeauLarkin to Willamby, Tots?”
         “Oh, no, don’t tell me you finally drove poor Terri insane and she had to be shipped off to Queen’s Grove Sanatorium?”
         “Ha-ha, it is to laugh,” said Sheila: “Terri Klein, as she now is, and Colin are off on their honeymoon cruising around Port Melbourne for the next two weeks. Didn’t you get an invite to the wedding?”
         “Yes, but I couldn’t make it.”
         “Well, hopefully you can make it now? We have an unknown animal species that needs cataloguing.”
         Holding the phone away from her ear as Totty squealed, Sheila said to the others in the morgue: “I think that’s a yes.”
         
         It seemed to take forever for the Murchinsons to reach the summit of Mount Hargreaves; where they saw what they took to be three very tall men wearing white fur coats.
         “How the Hell did they beat us up here?” asked Dougie.
         “Maybe they’re hillbillies, who live up here,” proffered Otis.
         “Firstly, this is a mountain, not a hill,” pointed out Lucy.
         “Secondly, we don’t have hillbillies in Australia,” finished Mo.
         “That’s not important,” insisted Otis, “the important thing is that I have now scaled every mountain peak in Victoria.”
         Not that he would live to boast about it:
         Hearing their voices, the three three-metre tall Yetis turned and saw the four humans. Growling like the polar bears which they vaguely resembled, the three creatures raced up the mount from where they had been a few metres beyond the peak.
         “Oh my God, what are they?” asked Mo.
         “They’re certainly no hillbillies,” admitted Otis.
         Seeing the two women, the Yetis raced across to grab them and quickly ripped away their clothing, gazing lustily at their nakedness in a very human way.
         “Hey leave her alone, you freak,” shouted Otis, racing across to the Yeti that was holding Lucy.
         Snarling in anger at his interference, the Yeti, grabbed Otis by the neck with one hand, and then broke his neck with a loud snap.
         “Otis!” cried Lucy.
         Ignoring the busty blonde struggling against its grip, the Yeti picked up her husband with one hand and hurled him a hundred metres straight outwards, over the side of Mount Hargreaves.
         “Otis!” shrieked Lucy again before fainting. Although her husband had been dead before being thrown off the mountain.
         “Otis!” shrieked Dougie as his brother plummeted off the mount.
         As though infuriated by his shrieking, the third Yeti raced across to grab Dougie and hold him in a bear hug, gradually squeezing him harder, and harder, until, with a loud snapping of bones Dougie’s back broke, making him scream, then pass out.
         Snarling in satisfaction, the Yeti effortlessly lifted Dougie and threw him over the edge of the mountain.
         “Dougie!” shrieked Mo, before fainting.
         Going across to the two women, the third Yeti was snarled at by the first two, and reluctantly accepted that he had to wait his turn as the first two started to rape and fondle the two women.
         As before, the two creatures struggled to penetrate the two women with their oversized penises, however, using brute force, they finally managed to force their organs inside the women, then began thrusting, at first with difficulty, then more easily, as they began to tear open the women’s vaginas, allowing them more easily to accommodate them.
         Awaking, screaming, Mo tried beating the Yeti off her; however he easily held her two hands above her head while pawing her breasts with one hand, and thrusting brutally in and out of her.
         “You bastard! You bastard! You bastard!” shrieked Mo, until blessedly fainting again.
         Lucy was lucky enough to stay unconscious throughout most of her rape, until, the Yeti ejaculated mightily inside her, burning her womb and shattered vagina.
         “Get off me you fu ...” she shouted, her words fading to tears of agony and embarrassment.
         Finishing with her shattered vulva, the Yeti spun the blonde over and began pawing at her generous backside.
         Seeing that he intended to have a second turn raping the blonde, the third creature raced across, snarling, to push the ravisher off the battered blonde.
         Snarling its anger at the interruption, the second Yeti rose to its full three-metre height attempting to cower the third Yeti. However, nearly three-and-a-half metres tall, the third Yeti reared up too, snarling and bearing its lethal claws at the second Yeti.
         As the Yetis faced off, Lucy tried to drag her naked body away from the two creatures, but every millimetre of movement sent rockets of pain through her genitalia, and she had nowhere to go. The blonde realised that without the two men, she had no chance of descending the mountain to safety, even if she could escape while the two Yetis were fighting.
         Too soon though, the second yeti backed down and scampered away, leaving the third Yeti, to struggle to penetrate Lucy’s generous backside with his hairy manhood.
         “Aaaaaaah!” screamed Lucy as the creature started pressing at her sphincter with the glands of its penis.
         She shrieked again as the first few millimetres penetrated into her body, before, thankfully, she passed out as the monster almost ripped her buttocks off her body with its powerful hands, as it tried entering the smallest orifice in her body, with its massive member.
         Rebuffed from sodomising Lucy, the second Yeti went across to where the first Yeti was raping Mo for the second time. As the third creature approached the redhead, the first Yeti snarled at his competitor for a while.
         With less confidence than previously, the third Yet snarled back, then finally, reluctantly, the first Yeti rolled Mo over onto her side, so that the second Yeti could join in, assaulting the redhead’s rectum, while the first Yeti continued to abuse her torn and bloody vagina.
         Finally the two Yetis managed to thrust in sync as they continued fucking and sodomising Mo together. Both Yetis were growling loudly, but now from lust and satisfaction.
         With great difficulty, the third Yeti had managed to fully penetrate Lucy’s rectum, and, with difficulty, had started thrusting in and out, until finally he ejaculated. Then, despite his penis being soiled with faeces and blood, he rolled the supine woman over and began fucking her vagina.
         Fortunately both women would die from their injuries, and not have to live with the memory of what had been done to them.
         

         11 December 2025

         A little before nine o'clock the next morning, Sheila Bennett, Suzette Cummings, and Paul Bell were at the single platform of the Glen Hartwell Railway Station in Theobald Street to await the arrival of Totty Rampling. Half an hour later, the steam train, virtually always late, finally appeared in the distance.
         “Will blunders never cease?” teased Paul Bell: “The damn train is less than half an hour late.”
         “Legend has it that it once arrived a couple of minutes early,” said Suzette, “but frankly I don’t believe it.”
         “Legends by nature are things that probably never existed, like unicorns or vampires,” said Sheila. “So the term living legend is nonsense, if it’s living, it definitely exists.”
         “Haven’t we tackled both vampires and unicorns this year?” asked Suzette.
         “Not unicorns yet, but vampires,” corrected Sheila. [See my story, ‘Vamps’.]
         “You can fight a herd of ravenous unicorns next year, after I’ve finally left the force for good,” said Paul.
         When the train pulled into the station, fifty or so people alighted. One of them was a tall, leggy brunette, in her mid-thirties, who looked around the station for a moment. Then spotting Sheila and the others, she strode across to them, carry two large suitcases.
         “Tots!” cried Sheila throwing her arms around the brunette, almost crushing her in a bear hug.
         “Let me take those,” said Paul, grabbing the two suitcases.
         “Thanks, oomph,” said Totty, “pleased to see you too, Mad Goth chick, just don’t break my back.”
         “We’d ask how they’re hanging,” teased Paul, “but I can see yours are hanging well.
         Between laughter, Totty said, “Thanks for noticing.” Then as they climbed into Terri’s police-blue Lexus: “So, what have you got for me at the morgue this time?”
         “We’ve had a woman raped to death, and then eaten, and her hubby half eaten,” said Suzette.
         “Either by hairy cannibals in mink coats, or some kind of polar bear wannabees,” added Sheila.
         “To misquote the Americans,” said Totty, “only in Glen Hartwell!”
         
         An hour later they were all at the morgue in the basement of the hospital. Totty examined the remains of Hyacinth and Duggan Mainwaring, and then studied the long white hairs found on and around the corpses, through a microscope.
         After a moment the brunette looked up and said: “Well, we can rule out hairy cannibals in mink coats ... these are definitely animal hairs. How large did the Mainwaring girls say the creatures were?”
         “At least three metres,” said Jesus Costello, “but understandably they were in deep shock, so may have exaggerated.”
         “Polar bears can grow to three metres in height standing on their back feet. But these don’t quite look like polar bear hairs. Did the creatures run on all fours at all? Polar bears will stand on their back feet to intimidate, but like all bears usually travel on all fours.”
         “Nope,” said Tilly Lombstrom, “according to the girls the three creatures all walked effortlessly on their back feet only.”
         “Effortlessly? Bears are usually clumsy when they walk on two feet.”
         “The girls insisted they walked as casually on two feet as humans,” said Elvis Green.
         “Then whatever we’re dealing with, they’re not Yogi’s relatives.”
         
         Ten kilometres outside Westmoreland where they lived, Jessie and Johnny Johnson stopped near the base of Mount Hargreaves to get their breath and have an energy drink.
         “Now that’s what I call a bracing ten Kay run,” said Jessie.
         “We’re only half finished, babe,” said Johnny, “we still have to get back to the West.”
         After finishing the scarlet energy drink, he stood up, stumbled, and almost fell on top of the remains of Dougie Murchinson.
         
         An hour later, Sheila and company were at the base of the mountain, along with Jesus and co., and all of Glen Hartwell’s six ambulances, plus their crews. Johnny and Jessie Johnston were being treated for shock by Tilly and Jesus, aided by two nurses, Leo Laxman, and Topaz Moseley.
         “Laxie, Tops,” said Sheila walking across. “I’ve taken the crime scene photos, and Suzette and the others have circled the mount without finding Maureen or Lucretia.”
         “Have you checked their house?” asked Leo, a tall thin Jamaican by birth.
         “Rang through but no answer,” said the Goth chick.
         “Once you’ve shifted Dougie and Otis, we’ll go round to their houses in Westmoreland. They share adjoining Villas there.”
         “And if they’re not?” asked Topaz, a gorgeous platinum blonde in her early thirties.
         “Then we’ll have to hire Louie Pascall to take us up the mount in his Bell Huey.”
         “I thought choppers couldn’t fly to the top of mountains?” asked Topaz.
         “Whoppers like Everest, no,” admitted Sheila, “the air is too thin up that high. But Mount Hargreaves is tiny by Everest standards. So the chopper should handle it”
         “Yeah, okay,’ said Jesus, “you can take them away now.”
         “Strange,” said Tilly, “no eating of the corpses?”
         “In which case they could have just fallen climbing the mount,” suggested Suzette.
         “In which case Maureen and Lucy could be clinging to the rope, too high up for us to see,” said Sheila, thinking aloud. “Okay, Stanlee, Jessie you two head round to their villas at 19 and 21 McCardinal Street, Westmoreland. I’ll ring for Louie now.”
         Taking out her mobile, the Goth chick started to ring as Stanlee Dempsey and Jessie Baker headed off.
         Not quite twenty minutes later, they heard the whir-whir-whir of the chopper approaching. By then Jessie and Stanlee had rung back to say that there was no sign of the two missing women at McCardinal Street.
         As the chopper began descending, Sheila said: “Alice, you come with me in the chopper, everyone else wait here.”
         As they climbed into the Bell Huey, Sheila riding shotgun, the Goth chick explained their dilemma to the pilot.
         “Jesus!” said Louie: “Let’s hope they’re up on the rocky tor, it’s about two hundred and fifty metres up. I might be able to land there. But God knows how we’ll help them if they’re on the side of the mount.”
         “You can lower us on a rope to get them if necessary,” offered Alice Walker.
         “Let’s hope that isn’t necessary,” said Louie as he started the helicopter slowly up the mountain.
         
         Don and Mark Blythe walked across the back paddock of their station, to where their sheep were housed.
         “Slow down,” complained Mark, limping due to lameness in his left leg due to falling from the back of a Land Rover forty years ago, while night shooting.
         “Whatever you say, bro.,” said Don, a short and dark-haired man like his brother.
         Don had never been keen on hard work, and almost resented having inherited a half share in his parents sheep station, since it meant having to do half of the work.
         Having had a problem with foxes raiding their flock lately, both men, in their mid sixties, carried double-barrelled shotguns. They were perhaps fifty metres from the sheep pen, when the hysterical bleating started.
         “Bloody foxes after our sheep again,” said Don, taking off, leaving his brother behind. Although not keen on hard work, Don loved shooting things, which was the only reason he stayed in the country, where you were allowed to have shotguns, unlike in the big smoke.
         “Wait up,” called Mark, crying out as his damaged leg twinged as he attempted to run.
         “Not bloody likely,” called back Mark without slowing.
         At first he did not notice the three large shapes standing in the sheep pen, as he was expecting to find foxes at ground level. Finally he looked up and saw the three Yetis.
         “Holy shit!” cried Don, firing both barrels of his shotgun, without even aiming.
         “What is it?” asked Mark, stopping to stare as, finally catching up; he saw the three polar-bear-like creatures. “What the fuck are they?”
         “Yowies, of course,” said Don, as though that were a logical answer.
         Reloading he fired both barrels again, this time hitting one of the Yetis in the chest.
         Shrieking in agony, the creature turned and ran away. After a moment’s indecision, not wanting to miss eating the sheep, the other two creatures turned and ran after the first.
         “Come back here, you sheep stealing Yowies!” shouted Mark, firing both barrels of his shotgun after the rapidly retreating figures.
         Although the buckshot fell well short, the Yetis screeched in anger and fear as they accelerated out of gunshot range.
         
         At Mount Hargreaves, the helicopter had almost reached the rocky tor, two hundred and fifty metres up, without locating Maureen or Lucretia Murchinson.
         “They must be on the overhang,” said Louie hopefully.
         In seconds they were above the overhang, and could see the bloodied remains of the two women.
         “Can you land here?” asked Sheila.
         “No, their bodies are in the way. But I can take us down to a metre and a half from the tor, if you two are willing to jump down.”
         “Will do,” said Sheila and Alice as one.
         A minute or so later, the two athletic policewomen were on the overhang, examining the bodies. Sheila took the crime scene photos and then rang through to the air ambulance to send two choppers to collect the corpses.
         “There vaginas are torn apart,” said Alice, “and coated in white animal fur like before.”
         “So it’s the same man-like, polar bear-like creatures as before,” posited Sheila seconds before her mobile phone rang. Taking out the phone, she said, “Sheila Bennett here,” then listened for a couple of minutes before calling off. “That was Mark Blythe over at Merridale; he says his sheep were just attacked by three snow-white Yowies.”
         “Yowies?” asked Alice: “Well, that’s as good an explanation as any. “Except Yowies are supposed to be peaceful creatures, aren’t they?”
         “Strangely enough my knowledge of Yowies is minimal, since they’re mythical,” said Sheila: “Do you mind staying here, until the air ambulances arrive, while I go to the Blythe Sheep Station.”
         “Sure thing, Chief,” said Alice, as Sheila signalled for Louie to drop a rope ladder for her to climb back up to the chopper.
         
         As the helicopter approached the sheep station, they saw Mark Blythe waving to them. As the chopper descended he shouted: “We shot one of them. Don’s following the blood trail.” He pointed the way, and Sheila nodded, and then instructed Louie to follow it.
         “No sweat,” said the pilot, “I can see the trail from here, it’s losing a lotta blood, whatever it is: Yowie, ape-man, or polar bear.”
         They soon reached Don Blythe, and landed momentarily to take him aboard, then took off after the blood trail again.
         It was not long before they saw the large, polar bear-like figure lying in a pool of its own blood upon the blanket of pine needles and gum leaves which blanketed the forest floor.
         “That’s it,” said Don pointing, as though the other two could not see it.
         “I’ll circle around first, to see if the other two are around, before landing,” said Louie.
         Ten minutes later, they landed and approached the creature warily.
         
         Over at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, Jesus, Elvis, Tilly, and Totty were still trying to make sense of the deaths of Duggan and Hyacinth Mainwaring, when they received a call that air ambulances were bringing them the remains of Maureen and Lucy Murchinson.
         Hanging up, Jesus said, “The air ambulance is bringing over Maureen and Lucretia. It seems they were raped to death like Hyacinth.”
         “And the white furs?” asked Totty Rampling.
         “Swathed in them, according to the pilots.”
         
         Standing beside the dead Yeti, Sheila watched as Oliver Burnside used a heavy-lifting winch, to transfer the carcase into his removalist van.
         “This must be your biggest one yet, Sheils, you should have it stuffed,” teased Oliver.
         “I killed it, not her,” boasted Don Blythe.
         “Besides, I think Mrs. M. would freak out if I tried to get that mounted on my bedroom wall,” said Sheila.
         “You could ask her about hanging it on the lounge room wall,” teased Suzette Cummings.
         Ignoring the raven-haired teen, Sheila asked, “Has everyone got shotguns and plenty of cartridges?”
         “Yes!” chorused a dozen cops, plus Don Blythe, who they had reluctantly agreed to allow to take part in the search for the surviving creatures.
         “Okay, if we don’t find them today, we’ll bring in Bulam-Bulam tomorrow,” said Sheila, referring to a close friend, an elder at the Gooladoo Tribe outside Harpertown, who also acted pro-rata as an Aboriginal tracker when needed.
         
         They had barely started the autopsies upon Maureen and Lucy Murchinson, when a hammering came at the steel door leading to the outside of the hospital.
         Pressing a red button to start the ramp lowering outwards, Jesus Costello called, “Yes, who is it?”
         “Special delivery for Totty Rampling,” called Oliver Burnside as the ramp lowered toward him.
         “For me?” asked the brunette in surprise. Then as the ramp lowered, and she could see the dead Yeti in the rear of the van, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeh!”
         She jumped up and down and clapped her hands from excitement.
         “Sheila warned me that might be your reaction,” said Oliver as he started using the trolley winch to move the carcase down the ramp into the morgue. “Where do you want it?”
         “At the back of the room,” said Jesus pointing, not looking as excited as Totty as the three-metre-tall carcase was wheeled into the already-crowded morgue.
         “What the Hell is that thing?” asked Oliver Burnside.
         Totty examined the animal-like carcase, and the man-like face for a moment, before saying, “I think it’s a Yeti.”
         “A what?”
         “It’s more commonly called an Abominable Snowman,” explained Tilly Lombstrom.
         Before anyone could stop her, Totty quickly clicked off half a dozen photos with her mobile phone.
         “Hey!” called Oliver: “Sheila said not to let you take any photos of it!”
         “Too late,” said Totty with a broad smile, “I’ve already taken them, and sent copies to a colleague of mine at the Institute for Yeti Research in U-Tsang Province in Tibet.”
         “Shit will fly,” said Oliver.
         “In Glen Hartwell, anything is possible,” conceded Totty.
         

         12 December 2025

         Bulam-Bulam was a tall, thin, 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. He also worked pro-rata as an Aboriginal tracker when needed, and was a close friend of Terri, Colin, and Sheila.
         On the second day of the hunt for the Yetis, Sheila, Donald Esk, and Stanlee Dempsey were in the lead vehicle, a rusty old green Land-Rover, as they drove through the forest of wattles, pines, and blue-, red-, grey-, and lemon-scented-gum trees, Sitting upon the bonnet of the Rover was Bulam-Bulam, leading the way, following footprints which only he could see, through the thick carpet of pine needles and gum leaves which blanketed the forest floor.
         “Can you see anything yet?” asked Stanlee.
         “All I can see is Bulam-Bulam’s big, black bum,” teased Sheila.
         “Big?” demanded the Elder.
         “I’m sure she meant your petite, black posterior,” soothed Don.
         “That’s better,” teased back the Aborigine.
         They continued to follow the tracks for nearly three hours, and were preparing to stop for lunch, when Bulam-Bulam called out:
         “Cave up ahead.”
         Stopping the vehicles, they alighted and saw that they were near the base of Mount Abergowrie, a kilometre or so outside of Glen Hartwell. At the base of the mount, facing them was a tall cave.
         “How tall is that opening?” asked Sheila.
         “At least four metres,” replied Stanlee.
         “So easily big enough to take two three-metre tall polar bear-like, man-faced creatures,” said Sheila, thinking aloud.
         “Absolutely,” agreed Bulam-Bulam, stepping back, as a bear-like snarling emanated from within the ivy-sided entranceway.
         Taking out her large, military-style torch, Sheila shone the torch into the cave.
         As the huge, white Yeti was suddenly lit up, snarling its rage, the creature raced out of the cave, toward the pursuers.
         “Here it comes!” cried Don Blythe.
         Dropping her torch, which was tied by a chain to her belt, Sheila swung up her shotgun and, along with a dozen other people, including Don Blythe, she opened fire upon the charging creature.
         For a moment, the Yeti appeared to be impervious to shotgun fire, as it continued within a metre or so of the Goth policewoman. Then, finally, it fell face forward upon the pine needles and gum leaves on the forest floor.
         “Wow, I thought I was done for there,” said Sheila, trying her best, without much success, to smile.
         “Two down, one to go,” said Don Blythe, charging forward to lead the search for the final Yeti inside the cage.
         “Take a care!” warned Stanlee Dempsey, as the cops charged after Don, hoping to kill the third creature before it could attack the adrenaline-fuelled sheep farmer.
         “Don, slow down!” cried Sheila, running into the cave.
         When they caught up with Don Blythe, however, there was no sign of the final Yeti.
         “Damn it!” cursed the sheep farmer, who had been looking forward to gunning down the third creature: “No sign of it.”
         “Think yourself luck,” chided Sheila, “if the damn thing had been in here, it would have killed you before we could reach you.”
         “Next time, let us lead any charges!” seconded Stanlee.
         “Yeah, you’re only here under suffering,” teased the Goth chick.
         “Don’t you mean ‘sufferance’?” asked Bulam-Bulam.
         “No, we’re all suffering because this clod insisted upon coming with us,” insisted Sheila.
         “How dare you!” protested Don, as they exited the cave to return to their cars.
         
         Eugene and Leilani Hummerman had just finished a large picnic meal, and were feeling drowsy, not helped by the two bottles of white wine that they had consumed with their repast.
         “Boy, I could sleep for a year,” said tall, willowy Eugene, lying back to sleep upon the black and white, Collingwood Football Club, in the forest a few kilometres from East Merridale.
         “Don’t lie in the coleslaw,” warned Leilani, a tall classically beautiful woman of Hawaiian ancestry.
         “I’ll lie in the coleslaw if I want to,” teased Eugene, careful to move it away before lying fully down.
         “It’s your funeral,” said Leilani with a laugh.
         Soon husband and wife were both sound asleep, despite Eugen snoring like a draught horse.
         A hundred metres or so from the sleeping couple, the remaining Yeti, listened to the draught-horse-like snoring with a little trepidation, he knew that one of his companions had been killed, and was wary of this growling, snorting noise.
         Finally, smelling Leilani and ready for sex, the creature curbed its fear enough to creep toward the sleeping couple, doing its best, without much success, to minimise the crunching of pine needles and dry gum leaves underfoot, as it crept toward the couple.
         For a moment, the Yeti leant across the sleeping couple, then, ignoring Eugene, it picked up Leilani almost delicately, leant her across his left shoulder and turned to carry her back toward the cave in the base of Mount Abergowrie.
         
         Despite starting to lose hope of finding the remaining Yeti that day, Sheila Bennett and the others continued to follow the Yeti footprints, that only Bulam-Bulam, perched upon the bonnet of the lead vehicle, could see.
         “We’re getting close now,” said the Elder, and as he spoke they saw the approaching figure of the Yeti, carrying the sleeping figure of Leilani Hummerman across his left shoulder.
         Excited by the beautiful Hawaiian-Australian woman, the Yeti had a massive erection, from imagining what he was going to do to her. He was smiling broadly, in a very human way, until seeing the police cars approaching him.
         “Target in sight,” called Bulam-Bulam jumping down from the bonnet of the slow-moving vehicle.
         In seconds a dozen police, plus Don Blythe, had climbed from the vehicles, checked that their shotguns were loaded, then started toward the three-metre-tall creature.
         “Put her down!” shouted Sheila.
         Although not understanding the Goth chick, the creature threw the Hawaiian-born beauty aside, snarled, and started running toward the advancing police.
         Seeing Leilani starting to rise, not knowing what had happened, Bulam-Bulam shouted: “Stay down, we’re about to start shooting.”
         Doing as instructed, Leilani, lay on her stomach, covering her head with both hands.
         Still snarling from anger and frustration, the Yeti continued charging the approaching police.
         “Die, you fucker!” shouted Don Blythe, discharging both barrels of his shotgun into the oncoming beast.
         When the Yeti staggered, but did not go down, Sheila shouted, “Everyone, fire!”
         As shot after shot struck the creature, its white fur was soon coated red by its blood. The creature bucked and weaved as though having a fit, then, with one final growl, it fell backwards onto the carpet of dry pine needles and gum leaves.
         After the shooting had stopped, Leilani finally risked rolling over and sitting up.
         “What the Hell is that thing?” she asked, seeing the Yeti corpse.
         “That, Leilani, it the sixty-five trillion dollar question?” said the Goth policewoman.
         “What about Eugene?” asked Stanlee Dempsey: “Is he out here somewhere?”
         “Oh, my God!” cried the Hawaiian-born beauty.
         She looked about herself, not sure where she was; however, Bulam-Bulam had already started at a run back the way the Yeti had come. After a moment, Leilani, Sheila, and the others started after the old man, who, despite his age, was able to outpace them all.
         Finally, they reached the picnic sight, where Eugene Hummerman was still sound asleep.
         “Oh my God, is he ...?” began Leilani, stopping as she heard his draught-horse like snoring. “No, he’s slept through the whole damn thing. I told him on our wedding night, in which I got about an hour’s sleep....”
         “Ho-ho,” said Sheila with a smirk.
         “No ... because of that machine-gun-like snoring of his,” explained Leilani. “Anyway, I told him he would sleep through his own death ... and he almost did.”
         Taking out her mobile phone, Sheila rang through to Oliver Burnside at the Glen Hartwell Hospital: “This is Sheila, we’ve killed the last one ... Did you manage to stop Totty ...?”
         To the others, she said, “Shit, Totty took photos and sent them off to the Institute for Yeti Research in U-Tsang Province in Tibet.”
         “Relax,’ said Bulam-Bulam, “no one will believe we had Yetis in Glen Hartwell.”
         “Yeah,” agreed Stanlee, “it is so easy to produce photofit pix of Yetis or God knows what else nowadays.”
         “Good thinking,” said Sheila. Then into the phone, “Kill Totty if she tries to take that creature, or any part of it, back to Melbourne.”
         “Got ya, Sheils,” said Oliver.
         
         “Was that Sheila?” asked Totty, reaching for a scalpel.
         “Yes, and she instructed me to kill you, if you try to take the Yeti, or any part of it back to Melbourne,”
         “Oh, damn that Mad Goth chick!” said the brunette, reluctantly putting down the scalpel.
         
         Back at the Mitchell Street Police Station in Glen Hartwell, Sheila said, “Well, I guess I successfully took care of my first case as temporary, acting, unpaid Senior Sergeant. So, how about we celebrate, by breaking out the bazooka and shooting down some old-growth gum trees?”
         “No!” cried Stanlee Dempsey, Jessie Baker, Suzette Cummings and half a dozen others in unison.
         “Ah, you spoil sports!”
         

         THE END

         © Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

                   Melbourne, Victoria, Australia