THE JERSEY DEVIL

legendary New Jersey monster stalks Glen Hartwell

         The Oakfield family were in their tomato red 1988 Holden Commodore VL around five PM on the afternoon of Friday the 27^th of February 2026, heading toward a picnic spot they had discovered about eight kilometres outside their home town of Wilhelmina in the Victorian countryside.
         “Ah, now isn’t this the life, kids?” asked Brandon ‘Bran’, forty-seven, a tall balding blond man, lean yet wiry.
         “If you mean freezing our bums off by going camping in the middle of winter, then yes,” said Astrid ‘Ass’, sixteen, a short busty redhead.
         “Now come on Ass, I know February has been cooler than expected this year,” admitted Augusta ‘Gus’, forty-four, a tall, busty raven-haired woman: “But it is still officially the last month of summer in Aus.”
         “And they do predict that March will be much warmer,” said Nathan ‘Nate’, fourteen, a tall, raven-haired teen with his mother’s facial features.
         “Who is this mysterious ‘they’ that you’re talking about?” asked Beatrix ‘Bea’, thirteen, a short blonde girl, facially like her father.
         “The incompetents at the Bureau of Meteorology, of course,” said Bran, making everyone laugh.
         “Very funny, Dad,” said Nate, “you know I’m hoping to work for the Bureau of Meteorology when I leave school?”
         “Well, you’re halfway there already,” teased Ass.
         “Yeah, you’re already incompetent,” added Bea.
         “I’m not afraid to thump you, little sister, if you get too sarky.”
         “There will be no thumping of girls in this family,” insisted Gus.
         “But we can thump him, right?” asked Ass.
         “No, there will be no sibling thumping in this family,” insisted Bran.
         “Can I at least sting him?” teased Bea, making a buzzing sound.
         “There will be no stinging, biting, or thumping of siblings in this family,” insisted Gus.
         “But kicking is all right then?” teased Ass.
         “No!” said Bran.
         “So, it’s just spitting and throwing stones and things at him?” asked Bea.
         “There will be no brutality of any kind toward your brother or sisters as the case may be,” insisted Gus.
         “Actually, I have often wondered whether Nate is a boy or a girl,” teased Ass.
         “Well, he does have Mum’s face, suggesting he’s a girl,” agreed Bea.
         “Or at the very least a sissy boi,” said Ass, making the two girls cackle like the witches in Macbeth.
         “There is nothing sissy boi-ish about your brother,” insisted Gus: “He is a manly young man.”
         “A she-man more like it,” said Ass, making the girls chortle again.
         “Are you sure I can’t thump them both just once, Mum?” asked Nate.
         “Weeeell?” teased Gus.
         “Mum!” cried Ass and Bea.
         “Okay, just one thumping each,” teased Gus.
         “All right,” said Nate, only to find himself being attacked full out by his two sisters: “Help, Mum, the two of them together are stronger than me.”
         “Girls, leave your brother alone,” insisted Bran: “As your mother said earlier, there will be no brutality of any kind toward your brother or sisters.”
         “Didn’t realise how strong we are, did you,” teased Ass.
         “The days of girls having weak and feeble bodies are long gone,” boasted Bea.
         “If you ask me, they’re the she-males in this family,” teased Nate, only to find himself under attack from the two girls again.
         “Girls, girls stop at once,” insisted Gus: “It’s not lady-like to beat up your poor brother.”
         “Maybe not,” admitted Ass: “But it sure is fun.”
         “You said it, Sis,” said Bea and the two girls did a hi-five in front of Nate.
         “Trust me, they’ll be Olympic weight-lifters when they grow up.”
         Again the two girls attacked their brother, forcing Gus to intervene, slapping them both across the ears.
         “Mum, you shouldn’t take sides in a domestic dispute,” said Ass.
         “Nowadays they call it violence against women,” reminded Gus.
         “If you ask me, it should be called violence by women,” complained Nate making everyone in the car laugh.
         
         Over at Glen Hartwell, at the Mitchell Street Police Station, they were welcoming a new-ish recruit to the fold: Hildegarde ‘Hilly’ Hindmarsh.
         “Well, you all know Hilly,” said Terri Klein, a tall attractive ash blonde in her late thirties, and Senior Sergeant of the area: “She’s been a pro-rata police woman for the Glen Hartwell Police for just over thirty years now.”
         “And it’s definite that when I reach retirement age, I can go back to being a pro-rata policewoman?” asked Hilly, a tall, buxom, Nordic blonde aged fifty-eight, who never went through police college.
         “Yes,” assured Sheila Bennett a thirty-seven-year-old Goth chick with black-and-orange striped hair; the Chief Constable of the local area: “The Assistant Commissioner banged his head upon his desk a couple of times, and then said, ‘Anything to shut you up!’”
         “He did not!” protested Terri: “He said ‘Anything to get you off my back!’ Then he started crying.”
         “You really have broken that poor man, babe,” teased Colin Klein, a fifty-year old Englishman married to Terri.
         “It’s not my fault!” protested Terri.
         “Oh yes it is!” teased everyone else in the front room of the police station.
         “I’m starting to think that I let my minions get away with too much these days,” teased the blonde: “Maybe you should all go back to calling me Chief.”
         “Does that include me, babe?’ teased Colin.
         “Hey, I love the Minions,” said Sheila: “Especially Kevin, Bob, and Dave.”
         “So when are we going to actually do some work today?” asked Alice Walker, an Amazonian brunette, who spent most of her Saturdays at the Muscle-Up Gym along with Sheila.
         “I thought we were going to take the day off, to celebrate Hilly becoming fulltime?” suggested Suzette Cummings, a short eighteen-year-old computer genius with long raven hair.
         “That sounds good to me,” said Wendy Pearson, a forty-something blonde.
         “Hey, great,” said Sheila: “I can spend the day playing ... I mean practicing with the bazooka outside town.”
         “On the other hand going to work sounds pretty good too,” said Suzette.
         “Agreed!” said Alice, Wendy, and Hilly in unison.
         Looking peeved Sheila said, “Did Terri tell you that she’s planning on posting Suzette and Hilly permanently out at Morcambe Street, Lenoak.”
         “What?” asked Suzette.
         “In that pokey little office?” asked Hilly.
         “Actually it’s not definite,” placated Terri, glaring at Sheila: “But we are supposed to have two officers permanently posted at Morcambe Street.”
         “Maybe we could start a rota system,” suggested Colin: “Where each of us spends one or two day a week out there?”
         “That sounds better,” said Hilly.
         “Or, I could just post Stanlee Dempsey and Jessie Baker out there fulltime,” teased Terri, making everyone laugh.
         “Hey, I thought I was the evil one here,” complained Sheila.
         “Not evil, just a little girl in a huge woman’s body,” corrected Suzette, making everyone laugh.
         “I’ll settle for that,” said the Goth chick as they headed outside.
         
         The Oakfield family had set up two two-person tents and a single-person tent for Nate, and then set about making a barbeque tea, in the countryside outside Wilhelmina Township.
         “Ah, you can’t beat the old Webber,” enthused Bran.
         “You mean the brand new Webber,” corrected Gus: “I gave it to you for a combined Christmas and birthday present.”
         “Ah, you can’t beat the brand new Webber,” corrected Bran.
         Sitting upon the bonnet of their tomato red Holden Commodore VL, Ass said, “As long as you can’t beat it for cooking time.”
         “Yeah, we’re starving already, Dad,” insisted Bea: “Setting up the tents really wore us out.”
         “For the first time ever, I agree with the girls,” said Nate, careful to keep out of striking range, in case they decided to attack him again.
         “Actually, your father and I did most of the work setting up the tents,” corrected Gus.
         “We helped,” insisted the three teens.
         “You helped about as much as Donald Trump helps world peace by threatening to invade every other country under the sun,” said Gus.
         “We helped a little,” insisted Ass, moodily.
         “That’s more than Donald Trump has ever done for world peace,” seconded Bea.
         “They’ve got you there, Mum,” teased Nate.
         “Hey, that’s the second time ever that he’s agreed with us,” said Ass, making the whole family laugh.
         “Well, I’m glad you kids have stopped fighting,” said Bran as he flipped over some steaks upon the Webber BBQ.
         “So am I,” said Nate: “They hit hard; they could become female boxers, if they ever grow up.”
         “Let’s get him!” teased Bea, pretending to start after her brother.
         As Nate started running into the forest, Gus called after him, “She was only teasing.”
         After a second’s hesitation, Nate returned, careful to stand close to his parents.
         “Anyway,” teased Ass: “If you’re planning to work for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, you’re gonna have to get used to people threatening to beat you up.”
         “That’s true,” agreed Bran: “At one stage they were talking about taxing us for the information that the Bureau of Meteorology gives us. Then when someone suggested that they should have to pay us when they get it wrong, they stopped talking about it, cause they realised that they’d soon be bankrupted by all of their mistakes.”
         “Dad, don’t exaggerate!” said Nate, gladly accepting a steak sandwich from his father.
         “It’s true,” seconded Gus; not knowing whether it was or not.
         “Sounds about right to me,” agreed Ass.
         “Absolutely,” said Bea as the two girls climbed off the bonnet of the car to go get steak sandwiches also.
         “About time, Dad,” said Ass.
         “I could always give it to your mother, and make you girls cook your own,” teased Bran pretending to take back the sandwich.
         “Dad!” cried the short busty redheaded girl.
         Snatching back the sandwich, she raced across to leap backside first up onto the bonnet of the Commodore VL, only to have the alarm start blaring.
         “Dad, why did you even lock the car when we’re alone out here?” demanded Bea, dripping tomato sauce over her T-shirt, which read Hot Chick, as she held her hands up to her ears.
         Bran took out his keys to switch off the alarm to everybody’s relief.
         “In fairness to Dad,” teased Nathan, “he didn’t realise you two heffalumps were going to toss your huge bums onto the bonnet.”
         “Let’s get him!” shouted Bea.
         “Nah, too hungry,” said Ass: “We can always get him after eating.”
         “Good idea,” agreed Bea.
         She raced across to leap backside first upon the Commodore’s bonnet, only to have the alarm start blaring again.
         “Dad!” cried the two girls.
         Sighing, Bran turned off the alarm again before making a steak sandwich for Gus, then one for himself.
         “Wow, what was that?” asked Nate as something yellowy-brown zoomed past the edge of the clearing.
         “A kanga by the looks of it,” said Gus.
         “It was a strange looking roo then,” said Bea: “It looked like it had a horse’s head.”
         “Kangaroos’s heads do look a bit like horses’s heads,” said Bran: “Only much smaller, of course.”
         As the Jersey Devil raced past, a little closer this time, Ass said, “No that thing’s head looks about the size of a horse’s head.”
         “Maybe it is a type of horse or pony,” suggested Gus.
         As the creature whooshed past them again, Bea said, “I doubt it; even Phar Lap couldn’t run that fast.”
         “Then what the Hell was it?” asked Nate, sounding a bit panicked.
         Finally deciding that it had played with them enough, the Jersey Devil raced into their campsite and stopped still so that they could see it clearly.
         “What the Hell is it?” asked Gus staring at the bizarre animal.
         The creature was a bipedal kangaroo-like creature with a horse-like head, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, legs with cloven hooves, and a thick tail. It is also had a strange elongated body.
         “I repeat, what the Hell ...?” began Gus, dropping her sandwich as she covered her ears with her hands when the bizarre creature let out a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.
         “Jesus!” cried Ass almost passing out from the shrill screaming.
         “Let’s get into the Commodore!” shouted Bea to make herself heard over the blood-curdling screaming.
         Easing off the bonnet of the car, so not to startle the creature, Ass and Bea sneaked around to the back left door and tried the handle.
         “Dad, unlock the fucking car!” cried Ass, swearing at her father for the first and last time in her life.
         Bran took out his keys and pip-pipped the car to allow the girls inside.
         Screaming even louder at the pip-pipping, the Jersey Devil raced toward Brandon Oakfield, before leaping into the air to kick him in the stomach with its two cloven heels, making the tall balding blond man scream almost as loudly as the monster had done, as it shattered his pancreas.
         “Jesus Christ, let me die now!” cried Bran, unable to bear the horrendous agony of a shattered pancreas.
         As though understanding his words, the Jersey Devil kicked him again and again, making Bran scream louder and louder each time, until finally his eyes rolled back into his head and he stopped screaming.
         “Brandonnnnnnnnnnn!” screamed Augusta, realising that her husband had just died before her eyes.
         Hearing the scream, the Jersey Devil raced across toward the tall, busty raven-haired woman.
         “Mum!” shrieked Nate, leaping in front of his mother.
         Shrieking its ear-shattering scream, the devil leapt up and kicked the tall, raven-haired teenager in the stomach shattering his pancreas on the left and his appendix on the right.
         “Nathaaaaaaaaaan!” cried Gus as her son fell to the carpet of pine needles and gum leaves, shrieking louder than the monster.
         As she started to race toward him, the Jersey Devil raced forward, grabbed her in its short but powerful arms, spread wide it large batwings, and took to flight, carrying the screaming woman away with it.
         
         “Ah, isn’t this a beautiful day,” said Terri as they drove through the Lemon-Scented gum tree line street, looking for wrongdoers, or people who needed assistance.
         “Yes, it must be six days ...” began Colin, stopping as his wife slammed a hand across his mouth.
         “Don’t you dare say it,” warned Sheila.
         “I was just going to say,” mumbled Colin through Terri’s hand, “it must be six days since we’ve had such a warm, sunny day.”
         “Oh,” said Terri, taking his hand away.
         “Or since our last monster attack,” he hurried to add.
         “You had to say it, didn’t you?” asked Alice Walker.
         “Had to say what?” asked Hilly Hindmarsh.
         “That it’s six days since we tackled the Mothman,” said Sheila: “Whenever he shoots his big yap off like that, our next monster turns up.”
         “Superstitious nonsense,” scorned Colin.
         “We used to call him the Monster-magnet, until he started to sulk about it,” teased Sheila.
         “I did not sulk,” said Colin testily, “and me saying that it’s been nearly six days since the Mothman attacks cannot possibly ....”
         He stopped as Terri’s mobile phone rang.
         “Make that cannot probably,” corrected the redheaded man as his wife talked on the phone.
         Disconnecting, Terri said, “That was Beatrix Oakfield, over in Wilhelmina. She says that her father and brother have just been killed, and her mother carried off, by a flying kangaroo with a horse’s head.”
         “I really did not expect her to say that,” said Hilly as Terri hurled the portable siren up onto the roof of the snow white Jeep Cherokee.
         “As they say, only in Glen Hartwell,” said Sheila accelerating the Jeep to speed toward the camping site: “One good thing about mobile phones, you can track people easily, thanks to their GPS location.”
         Forty-eight minutes later they reached the campsite where two Air Ambulance choppers had already arrived to take Beatrix and Astrid Oakfield to the Glen Hartwell Hospital.
         Sheila took the crime scene photos of the corpses of Brandon and Nathan Oakfield as two land ambulances arrived to take the corpses.
         “So what’s next, babe?” asked Colin.
         “Eventually we need to interview Beatrix and Astrid,” said Terri: “But first we need to follow the flying horse, in case Augusta is still alive.”
         “Flying kangaroo with a horse’s head,” corrected Hilly.
         “Good girl,” teased Sheila: “She loves it when people correct her.”
         As the corpses were being loaded aboard the ambulances, Terri took out her mobile to ring.
         “I’ve called for Louie Pascall to collect us in his Bell Huey,’ said the ash blonde: “We’re more likely to find her in time that way. Alice, you take the Jeep back to Mitchell Street, while the rest of us go in the chopper.”
         Thirty minutes later, all except Alice were in the five-seater helicopter following a very faint blood trail away from the campsite.
         “If we lose it we’ll have to go to Harpertown to pick up Bulam-Bulam to trail the flying kangaroo with a horse’s head,” said Terri.
         “Yes, old Eagle-Eyes never misses a thing,” said Sheila, a close friend of the Aboriginal Elder.
         Using the floodlight beneath the helicopter they continued to search until nearly midnight before deciding to give up for the night.
         “Tomorrow we’ll try again with Bulam-Bulam as a lookout,” said Terri as Louie dropped them of at 57 Rochester Road in Merridale.
         Terri said to Alice Walker, “You’ll have to give up your spot in the chopper to Bulam-Bulam tomorrow, so how about you and Hilly have the first day at Morecambe Street Station, Lenoak?”
         “Oh, really, Chief,” whined Alice.
         “It’ll only be for one day. The station will be closed Sunday, and I’ll send Stanlee Dempsey and Jessie Baker out there for Monday and Tuesday.”
         “Oh, all right,” whined Alice, “do you want me to break it to Hilly.”
         “Okay,” said Terri, sounding relieved.
         
         Early the next morning the Cribbins Family were heading for a day’s fishing at the Yannan River, outside Pettiwood where they lived. Their mother was driving the family’s brand new deep blue Land Rover Defender 130; the extended version with three rows of seating, comfortably accommodating up to eight people.
         “How come Mum is driving instead of Dad?” asked Devin ‘Dev’, thirteen, a tall blond boy, with his father’s tendency to run to fat.
         “So Dad can get blotto, drinking like a fish all day without killing us on the way back,” teased Cherylyn ‘Chezza’, sixteen, a short brunette with a perfect behind, but virtually no breasts.
         “Your Dad doesn’t get blotto,” corrected Elvira ‘Elvie’, thirty-nine, a tall, busty blonde, with a perfect heart-shaped behind.
         “No, he just staggers around a lot, projectile vomiting, and falling over all the time,” teased Dita, fourteen, a tall raven-haired girl with her mother’s near-perfect figure.
         “Do not, young lady,” teased Stanford ‘Stan’, forty-two, a tall, obese man with short curly brown hair, deliberately slurring his words to sound drunk.
         “Told you,” teased back Chezza.
         “Don’t encourage them, Stan,” said Elvie: “They’re cheeky enough without you egging them on.”
         “Are not cheeky, Mum,” said Dita also slurring her words to sound drunk.
         “I told you so,” teased Elvie: “Drunk at your age, young lady.”
         “Am not dunk,” teased Dita slurring her words again.
         “I told you, you encourage them and they get sillier and sillier.”
         “Do not!” insisted Dita and Chezza.
         “Ah, they’re both their Dad’s girls, aren’t you girls?” said Stan.
         “Before we answer that,” said Chezza: “Who buys our Christmas and birthday presents, you or Mum?”
         “I do,” said Stan.
         “Yes, we’re Daddy’s girls,” cried Dita and Chezza in unison.
         “Bribery now, Mr, Cribbins,” teased Elvie: “First you lead them astray with your goofiness, then you bribe them to be Daddy’s girls.”
         “Yep!” said Stan, Chezza, and Dita.
         “The worst bit is that none of them are even ashamed,” teased Dev.
         “That’s true,” agreed Elvie.
         “Actually your mother is driving since I will be doing the hard work later of catching fish in the Yannan River for our breakfast,” explained Stan.
         “So we’re not gonna eat till you cat some fish?” asked Chezza.
         “That’s right,” agreed Stan.
         “We’ll starve to death by then, Dad!” protested Dita.
         “Have some faith in your old man,” insisted Stan.
         “Yes, have some faith in the old man,” teased Dev, making everybody laugh.
         
         Bulam-Bulam was a grey-haired Elder of the Gooladoo tribe, outside the township of Harpertown. Although he lived in a lean-to in his tribal village, he owned and worked a small grocery shop in town. An early riser, he had been up for hours, restocking the shelves of his shop. He had just opened a large box of Cherry Ripe bars when he heard the whir-whir-whir of rotors outside in Chappell Street. Leaving the box unattended on the front counter, the Elder went outside onto the concrete footpath as the blue and white Bell Huey landed in the middle of the street.
         “It’s a bum rap coppers, I ain’t done nothing,” teased Bulam-Bulam, in his worst possible Jimmy Cagney accent.
         “If that’s supposed to be Jimmy Cagney, don’t give up your day job,” shouted Terri Klein.
         “Me middle-aged mate,” cried Sheila leaping out of the helicopter to race across, lift up the Elder and swing him around.
         “And a dosey doe and put him on the ground!” cried Colin.
         “Glad to meet you too mad Goth chick,” teased Bulam-Bulam walking across to the helicopter: “I assume you need my help with tracking again?”
         “No we just parked here to block the traffic,” teased Colin.
         As they climbed into the helicopter, Sheila asked, “One thing I’ve been wondering about, mate, you say that you’re middle-aged at sixty-six, not old?”
         “That’s right, since sixty is the new forty,” he agreed as the chopper lifted off.
         “Then how come you’re an Elder of the Gooladoo Tribe? Shouldn’t you be a Middle-Ager?”
         “Don’t even try to think up an answer,” suggested Terri: “Sheils could drive you crazy if you let her.”
         “I’m just wondering,” insisted the Goth chick: “If he’s only middle-aged, he should be a Middle-Ager, not an Elder.”
         “I think you’re right,” agreed Bulam-Bulam, “best not to even try to think up an answer to it.”
         
         Over at the Yannan River the Cribbins family had reluctantly set up tents and set up the Webber barbeque, while Stanford sat on the edge of the river fishing.
         “After all of this hard work,” whined Chezza, “Dad probably won’t catch us anything to eat.”
         “Yes, and we’ll starve to death,” agreed Dita.
         “Not with all that excess fat that you’ve both got on your bums,” teased Dev.
         “How dare you?” demanded Chezza.
         “We both have perfect heart-shaped butts,” insisted Dita.
         “You’re the one with the huge, flabby bum, not us,” insisted Chezza.
         “Sticks and stones, girls,” teased Dev: “Sticks and stones.”
         “Let’s go get some sticks and stones to hit him with,” said Chezza.
         “Good idea, Sis,” agreed Dita.
         “There will be no hitting anyone with sticks and stones, or anything else in this family,” insisted Elvie.
         “Why not, you threaten to whack our bums with sticks sometimes,” said Chezza.
         “Only when you’re being cheeky little bitches.”
         “How dare you?” protested Dita: “We are never cheeky little bitches.”
         “Seriously, you really believe that?” asked Elvie between laughter.
         “I think she meant that they are ever cheeky little bitches,” teased Dev.
         While mother and son guffawed, the two girls glared at them.
         “Nah-ah!” said Dita and Chezza.
         “Why don’t you girls go see if your Dad has caught any fish,” suggested Elvie.
         “Oh, all right,” sulked Chezza as they started off toward the river.
         “Mum asked if you’d caught any ...?” began Dita, stopping as she saw five large mackerel lying on the bank beside her father: “What are those?”
         “Fish for us to eat.”
         “But why aren’t they covered in batter?” asked Chezza: “Fish is always in batter when you buy it from the fish and chip shop.”
         “Yeah, how can we eat it if it’s not covered in battered?” asked Dita: “And surrounded in a mountain of chips.”
         “You don’t find battered fish or chips swimming wild in rivers,” explained Stan to the two shocked-looking girls: “The fish and chip shop people dip the fish in batter before cooking them.”
         “But the fish is flake?” asked Chezza.
         “No mackerels. Flake is a large plankton-eating shark.”
         “So why didn’t you catch some of those?” demanded Dita.
         “Because they put a grate across the Yannan River a hundred Kays away, late last year, to stop big fish getting through from Port Phillip Bay.”
         “Well, that was a dumb thing for them to do,” insisted Chezza.
         “Just take the fish to your Mum for cleaning and cooking on the barbie.”
         “Seriously, you expect us to touch those creepy looking things?” demanded Dita.
         Giving up, Stan called, “Dev come and collect the fish for cleaning and cooking.”
         “Sure thing, Dad,” called the blond boy.
         He raced across, scooped up the fish and hurried back to Elvie.
         “Ooh, he’s touching them with his bare hands,” said Chezza.
         “Ooh, yucky!” said Dita shivering all over.
         “Come and help me clean these fish, girls!” called Elvie.
         “Ooh!” cried the two girls, remaining where they were.
         
         Up in the helicopter they returned to where they had lost the bloody tracks the night before.
         “Go down lower,” instructed Bulam-Bulam.
         “Sure, mate,” said Louie Pascall, a tall, bald: “But if we crash into any tree tops don’t blame me.”
         “You’re the driver,” insisted Sheila.
         “How have you put up with her for the last third of a century, Tezza?” teased Louie.
         “We first met at kinda when she beat up a boy after he pushed me over in the yard.”
         They continued to follow the tracks for nearly two hours before, Bulam-Bulam spotted something in the bushes.
         “It might be nothing,” he said: “But we’d better go down to see.”
         On the ground they hunted through the mulgas and other bushes growing around the forest floor for nearly twenty minutes.
         “Maybe I imagined it,” said Bulam-Bulam.
         “No, you didn’t,” said Sheila after stumbling upon the half devoured corpse of Augusta Oakfield: “Found her.”
         “Yeech,” said Terri looking at the remains as Sheila took the death scene photos.
         “It’s eaten her face and brain, her chest and stomach, and most of both legs,” said Colin.
         “So poor Astrid and Beatrix have lost both parents and their brother,” said Bulam-Bulam looking grief stricken: “The poor girls.”
         “Well, whatever this flying kangaroo with a horse’s head is, it’s dead if I ever catch up with it,” said Sheila.
         
         The Cribbins family were happily munching away upon grilled fish plus coleslaw, or relish in the case of Stan and Dev.
         “Now isn’t this better than any fish-and-chip shop tucker?” asked Stan.
         “Nah-ah,” said Chezza and Dita.
         “Well, I think it’s fabuloso,” enthused Dev: “Much better than chip shop rubbish.”
         “I agree,” said Elvie: “Give me the freshly caught fish any day.”
         “Nah-ah!” said the two girls as something flashed past them.
         “What was that?” asked Dev: “Do we have cougars in Australia?”
         “Not as far as I’m aware,” said Stan.
         As the yellow-brown object flashed past again at incredible speed, Chezza said, “It looked a bit like a kangaroo.”
         “Kangaroos can’t run a hundred Kays an hour,” said Dev.
         “No animal can,” said Chezza, “so we’d better head back to the Rover.”
         “Good idea,” said Elvie.
         The five Cribbinses stood up, as finally the Jersey Devil raced into their campsite and stopped still so that they could see it clearly.
         “What the Fuck?” said Stan swearing in front of his kids for the first and last time.
         The bipedal kangaroo-like creature with a horse-like head, leathery bat-like wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, legs with cloven hooves stood staring at the Cribbins family for a second or so.
         “What do you want?” shouted Dev as though thinking it were deaf.
         “I doubt it can understand ...” began Stan.
         His words turned to a long scream as the creature raced forward, leapt up and kicked him in the testicles, reducing them both to paste.
         As Stan fell to the carpet of pine needles and gum leaves blanketing the forest floor, Dev raced forward to help him.
         Startled by the sudden movement, the monster let out a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream, as it leapt up and kicked the teenage boy in the head, shattering his neck, leaving his head turned around the wrong way as he fell to the ground.
         “Deviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!” shrieked Elvie before fainting with an up-burst of leaves and pine needles as she hit the ground.
         Ignoring the fallen, the creature raced across to the two teenage gikrls, who were too terrified to run.
         “What ... what do you want?” asked Chezza.
         The Jersey Devil looked from one girl to the other, before racing across to grab them both in its short but powerful arms. As the girls began to scream, the creature raised its wings wide and took to flight, carrying them both away.
         Seeing the massive black appendage hanging between the creature’s legs, Dita said, “Oh, God, I hope it just intends to eat us.”
         
         Sheila had to stay behind at the death site until the Air Ambulance came for the remains of Augusta Oakfield, then they gave her a lift back to Mitchell Street. After grabbing half a dozen shotguns and a dozen boxes of shells, getting into the Jeep Cherokee, along with Wendy Pearson, she started back out toward where they had found the raven-haired woman’s remains.
         They were halfway back there, when Sheila got a phone call from Terri to tell her that Elvira Cribbins had just phoned to report what had happened to them outside Pettiwood.
         “We won’t be stopping,” said Terri, “we want to follow the trail while there’s still a chance to get Cherylyn and Dita back unharmed.”
         “Okey Dokey,” said Sheila: “I’ll take the death scene photos, and then wait for the ambulances to arrive.”
         Sheila had taken the death scene photos outside Pettiwood and waited until Air Ambulance choppers arrived for Elvira Cribbins and the corpses of Stanford and Devlin Cribbins.
         “So what do we do now?” asked Wendy Pearson as the last air ambulance helicopter departed.
         “Well ...” began Sheila, stopping as her phone rang again: “Terri?”
         “No, Colin,” he said: “Terri is on the phone to Dita Cribbins, despite being carried by the flying kangaroo creature, she had the common sense to to take out her mobile phone to ring Terri. We’re sending you the co-ordinates now.”
         “Will get there as soon as poss.,” said Sheila as they raced back to the Jeep.
         “We’re on the way too,” said Colin. He continued to give a running commentary as Wendy held Sheila’s phone while Sheila started the Jeep.
         “No sweat, we can be there in ten minuets the way I drive,” teased Sheila.
         “What!” came the voice of Terri over the phone; followed by a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream from the Jersey Devil.
         “I don’t think he liked Tezza shouting,” whispered Colin: “So try not to worry Terri too much while you’re driving her car.”
         “Me, how could I worry her?” teased the Goth chick, starting the Jeep with a great revving of the engine.
         “Sheila!” shouted Terri, again followed by the high-pitched, blood-curdling scream from the monster.
         
         “Okay, let’s see if we can beat the mad Goth chick to the location,” said Terri.
         “Will do, Tezza,” said Louie Pascall acceleration the Bell Huey to full speed.
         
         Less than ten minutes later, the Jeep Cherokee reached the spot where the GPS said that the Jersey Devil should be with Cherylyn and Dita Cribbins.
         “Where the Hell are they?” asked Wendy Pearson.
         The two policewomen were standing in front of the Jeep, scanning the sky with their bare eyes, without seeing anything.
         “I’ll get the binocs.,” offered Sheila going around to the rear of the Jeep.
         A minute or so later, they were both scanning the skies with the binoculars.
         “I think I see them way up,” said Wendy pointing toward the right.
         Sheila scanned the sky in that area for a moment before saying, “Oh yeah, I think you’re right; but unless they come down there’s not much we can do. The shotguns won’t fire up that high, they must be a couple of Kays up.”
         “At least,” agreed Wendy.
         Then hearing the whir-whir-whir of rotors, they looked further to the right and could just make out the blue and white Bell Huey approaching, half a kilometre or more below the Jersey Devil and its captives.
         Grabbing her mobile phone, Sheila told Colin, “Go up higher, the bloody thing is half a Kay at least above you.”
         Over the phone came Colin’s voice saying, “Got you, we can see it now.”
         “Try to drive it down toward us so we can get a shot at it.”
         “You might hit the girls,” warned Terri.
         “Better to die that way, than to be eaten alive ... or worse,” said Sheila.
         
         “Okay, will do,” said Terri, passing the instruction on to Louie Pascall.
         Trying not to startled the Jersey Devil too much, Louie took the chopper up to the level of the strange looking creature.
         Again it let out its high-pitched, blood-curdling scream.
         “I don’t think it likes us being near it,” said Louie.
         “To quote Germaine Greer,” said Terrie: “Tough titties. Get above it and drive the malicious bugger downwards.”
         “You’re the boss,” said Louie attempting to do as instructed.
         At first the monster went upwards, trying to fly above the chopper.
         “No chance can that thing fly higher than us,” said Louie.
         He proved it by taking the chopper up another half a kilometres, before starting to descend directly above the Jersey Devil.
         Giving out its high-pitched, blood-curdling scream again, the devil reluctantly started going downwards.
         “Keep it coming down,” said Sheila through the mobile phone.
         “Will do,” said Louie: “Come on you bastard, get going downwards.”
         Obviously reluctant to go downward, nonetheless, shrieking constantly now, the Jersey Devil retreated from the whirring machine descending toward us.
         “Keep going down, you evil bastard!” cried Louie.
         
         On the ground Wendy and Sheila watched as the helicopter drove the bizarre creature ever closer toward them.
         “Come to Sheila, you shit-headed bastard!” said the Goth policewoman.
         When the Jersey Devil was no more than ten metres above them, Sheila said, “Start shooting at the bugger, trying not to hit the girls.”
         “What if he drops one or both of them?”
         “At this height, falling onto grass they should survive, but to be on the safe side, drop your shotgun and try to catch the falling girl.”
         “Will do,” agreed the blonde.
         As they started firing up at the Jersey Devil, it looked up, saw the helicopter above it and tried to fly away horizontally.
         “Oh, no you don’t shithead!” cried Sheila.
         Jumping onto the bonnet and then the roof of the Jeep to get extra height, the Goth girl aimed carefully before unloading one barrel of her shotgun into the beast.
         Shrieking one final time, the Jersey Devil released Cherylyn Cribbins who shrieked all the way down, only stopping when Wendy Pearson caught her.
         Still holding onto Dita in its death throes, the creature plummeted to Earth, thankfully landing upon its back so that its body shielded the girl from most of the impact.
         “Dita!” shrieked Cherylyn, trying to run to her sister.
         However, Wendy carried her across to the Jeep and got into the back seat with her.
         “Cop that young Harry!” cried Sheila.
         Leaping off the roof of the Jeep, she raced across to unload the second barrel of her shotgun directly into the face of the creature, before picking up a hysterical Dita to carry her back to the Jeep also.
         “Stay in there, honey, with Wendy and Cherylyn,” said the Goth chick.
         When Louie Pascall landed the Bell Huey, Sheila raced across and asked, “How was that for some fancy shooting.”
         “Did you hit either of the girls?’ asked Colin.
         “Nope, not a single pellet,” insisted Sheila, although at the hospital both girls would have three or four shotgun pellets removed from their arms.
         “I hope I didn’t see you standing upon the roof of my Jeep?” cautioned Terri.
         “I hope you didn’t see me either,” said Sheila, making everyone laugh.
         

         THE END

         © Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

         Melbourne, Victoria, Australia