CADDY

America's famous Cadborosaurus turns up in Glen Hartwell to eat people & animals

         It was Friday, the 10^th of April 2026, and Baz Downing and his kids were walking their flock of black-faced merinos across toward a large watering hole at the rear of their station outside Bromby. Beside them ran their three kelpies, Bluey, Blacky, and Tan, all named for their colours. From time to time, one of the sheep would go wandering, and Baz would call:
         “Geddem back,” and one of the Kelpies would race across barking to frighten the wayward sheep back into line.
         “Good dog, Bluey,” called Beryl, twenty-two, a tall, athletic blonde, wearing dungarees and leather work boots, and carrying a shotgun as most Victorian farming folk did.
         “Bring the bugger back into line,” said Basil ‘Baz’, forty-two, a tall balding man. dressed like his daughter.
         Bluey ran to obey and soon had the wandering sheep back in line.
         “Good dog, Bluey,” called Link, nineteen, a tall, lean but strong raven-haired man wearing dungarees and work boots, like the others, and carrying a double-barrel shotgun.
         “You really will get your fancy duds messed up,” said Baz to his youngest daughter.
         “I would rather die than be seen dressed like that,” said Farrah, sixteen, a short, beautiful girl with long blonde hair, wearing a colourful frock and running shoes, sighing from frustration.
         “So you’re still planning to move to Melbourne to marry a billionaire as soon as you graduate high school,” teased Link.
         “Actually, I’m now planning to move to Sydney as soon as I graduate,” said Farrah as they crunched across the dried grass: “There is a much greater proportion of billionaires there. And they do say, the glass is always cleaner on the underside.”
         “I have no idea what that means,” said Baz.
         “What if, God forbid, you can’t get a Sydney billionaire to marry you?” teased Beryl.
         “I’m prepared to settle for a multimillionaire, so long as he has at least half a billion dollars.”
         “So a demi-billionaire is acceptable,” teased Beryl.
         “As long as he’s got at least half a billion dollars,” said Farrah, not realising that she was being teased.
         “Should it be demi-billionaire or semi-billionaire?” teased Link.
         “Don’t tease your sister, kids,” said Baz: “With her beauty, she could easily become a super-model, then a billionaire would snap her up for sure; they all marry super-models or beauty queens.”
         “I never thought of that, thanks, Dad,” said Farrah, beaming: “I’ll have to start creating a portfolio to send around to all the modelling agencies as soon as possible.”
         “Not until you graduate high school in two years,” insisted Baz.
         “But Dad, models are over the hill by the time they’re eighteen.”
         “That’s true,” said Link: “They keep getting younger and younger. Nowadays, they have modelling agents going to baby shows to spot likely candidates.”
         “They’ll be wheeling them down the runways in prams next,” teased Beryl.
         “Don’t be ridiculous,” insisted Farrah.
         “Yeah, what about Elle MacPherson; she’s still a supermodel, and she’s around sixty.”
         “Yes, but she started when she was fifteen or sixteen,” pointed out Farrah: “So if I’m going to be the next Elle MacPherson or my namesake Farrah Fawcett Majors, I need to start compiling a portfolio and sending it around as soon as possible.”
         “Maybe Dad could mortgage the farm to give you twenty thousand bucks to keep you until you get your modelling career going,” teased Beryl.
         “No, she’d need a lot more than that,” teased Link: “He’d better mortgage it for fifty grand.”
         “What?” demanded Baz.
         “Yes, Dad’s right,” said Farrah: “I’d need a lot more than that. Apart from food and rent, I need a posh sports car and top-of-the-line clothing to impress the agencies ... A hundred thousand dollars would be the minimum I could get by on until I’m discovered.”
         “What?” demanded Baz again, red-faced in shock.
         “You think I’d need more?” asked Farrah: “Well, I suppose the farm must be worth at least a million dollars; so if I’m to get my inheritance up front, that would be about three-hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
         “No way!” shouted Baz: “The farm is already heavily mortgaged; no way am I mortgaging it for another three-hundred and fifty thousand, so that you can abandon the farm and live the posh life in New South Wales!”
         “Daddy, you can be so mean!” cried Farrah. Turning, she started to run back to the farmhouse: “I’m telling Mum.”
         “Tell the Pope for all I care!” shouted Baz: “I am not mortgaging the farm for another three-hundred and fifty thousand bucks!”
         “Meany!” shouted Farrah without looking back.
         “You could have let her down more gently, Dad,” said Link.
         “You two were egging her on!”
         
         Over at the Yellow House at 57 Rochester Road, Merridale, they were sitting down around the huge oval-shaped table, complete with yellow crocheted tablecloth and vases with jonquils to fit the all-yellow decor of the boarding house.
         “It seems strange not having Leo here,” said Terri Klein. A tall, beautiful blonde in her late thirties, Terri was Senior Sergeant of the local police.
         “Ah, he’s better off now,” said Tommy Turner, a short, chubby, blond retiree: “He gets to shag gorgeous Topaz now, and as her husband, he now owns her two-bedroom house.”
         “I think you’ll find that the Married Women’s Property Act of 1884 took away that so-called right in Victoria,” corrected Colin Klein, a tall redheaded Englishman and former journalist, now married to Terri.
         “Damned straight,” said Sheila Bennett. The same age as Terri, Sheila was a Goth chick with black-and-orange-striped hair and was Terri’s second-in-command.
         “Was it that far back?” asked Natasha Lipzing. In her early seventies, Natasha was the Yellow House’s first and oldest resident, having spent over half of her life there.
         “I’m with Tash, it can’t have been,” protested Tommy.
         “Sorry Tommy, but women did have some rights in Australia before Germaine Greer screwed up family life here,” said Freddy Kingston, a tall, balding retiree, with a slight paunch.
         “Well, that just isn’t right,” insisted Tommy.
         “So you think women should still be part of their husband’s property?” asked Deidre Morton, a short, chubby, sixty-something brunette, who owned the boarding house.
         “Damned straight,” said Tommy: “Or else what is the point of her father giving her away on her wedding day if he doesn’t own her, or her husband taking her if he doesn’t then own her?”
         “A father doesn’t give away his daughter anymore,” said Terri: “Now he just walks her down the aisle.”
         “Well, it’s not right in my opinion,” insisted Tommy: “I know Bob Dylan said ‘The Times They are a-Changing’, but he never mentioned that it was all going to be for the worst. What else could go wrong for men?”
         “Well, I could always pour this tureen of boiling chicken broth over your head,” suggested Deidre.
         “I’ll give you a hand if it’s too heavy,” offered Sheila.
         “Just don’t splash any on me, please,” asked Freddy: “I only sit next to him, because you all grab the best places before I get here.”
         “Should we do it, Mrs. M.?” teased Sheila.
         “No!” said Terri sternly: “It’d be a waste of Deidre’s divine chicken broth.”
         “Yes, at least let us all have our share first,” said Colin.
         
         “How long do you think it’ll be before Mum comes running to beat you up for not mortgaging the farm for Farrah?” teased Beryl.
         “Your mother isn’t silly enough to side with Farrah on mortgaging the farm again,” said Baz, more from hope than belief.
         “Well, if she comes running down here waving a rolling pin, we’re both abandoning you to your fate, Dad,” teased Link.
         “Just you against the savage rage of Mum,” teased Beryl: “You know Farrah is her fave; she’ll do anything for that airheaded blonde.”
         “Farrah isn’t airheaded,” insisted Baz: “She’s just a little arty-farty, with no sense of the realities of life.”
         “By definition, arty-farty, with no sense of the realities of life, is an airhead,” insisted Link.
         “And if Mum comes a-running, we’ll have to tell her what you called her favourite daughter,” teased Beryl.
         “You would, wouldn’t you?”
         “Well, you could always sell the farm and give us a third of the money each,” teased Link.
         “Firstly, the farm is already mortgaged for half a million bucks; secondly, if we did sell it, where would your mother and I live?”
         “You could always go live with Farrah and drive around in her Ferrari,” teased Beryl.
         “It’d cost the silly tart half a million smackers for a new Ferrari anyway,” pointed out Baz, “and that would mean you two getting zip.”
         Looking startled, Beryl said, “We were only teasing Dad.”
         “Of course, we’re farming folk through and through,” insisted Link.
         “Good, then you can share the debt on this place equally when your mother and I kick the bucket.”
         “Won’t you have the debt paid off by then?” asked Beryl.
         “With Farrah wanting to be supported until she makes it as a supermodel, and you two nattering, when we should be taking the flock to the waterhole?”
         “Actually, we’re at the waterhole,” said Beryl, pointing to it on their left.
         “Okay, let’s geddem drinking!” cried Baz.
         Bluey, Blacky, and Tan started nipping at the heels of the sheep to get them moving toward the water. However, despite baaing in distress, the merinos refused to move any closer to the waterhole.
         “Come on, you moronic mutton chops!” cried Baz: “Get over there for a drink.”
         “Dad, the last time they refused to go across to the waterhole, there was a monster in it,” reminded Link.
         “Yeah, that Yemisch thing,” agreed Beryl.
         “Sheila Bennett blew up the Yemisch with a bazooka shell,” reminded Baz: “I doubt it has put itself back together just to terrify our shiftless sheep.”
         “Well, the dogs certainly can’t shift them,” agreed Beryl.
         “Come here, Bessie,” said Baz.
         He walked across to pick up one of the stubborn ewes and carried it, kicking and bleating from distress, across to the waterhole.
         “Watch out, Dad,” warned Link: “That’s when the Yemisch came up from the waterhole to eat the sheep last time.”
         “Well, the only ones who will be eating Bessie is us, if she doesn’t start doing as she’s bloody well told,” insisted Baz.
         He lifted the small ewe high to toss it deep into the murky-looking waterhole, when up from the hole leapt a huge grey-white serpent with humps in tandem behind its horse-like head and long neck, with a pair of long thin arms with three long claw-like digits on each front paw, joined by brown-red webbing. Long fangs protruded from its mouth, and coiled pointed horns projected backwards from the front of each side of its head.
         Roaring like a monster in a horror film, the Cadborosaurus willsi or Caddy lunged down to grab up Baz and Bessie together, before the farmer had a chance to toss the ewe into the water.
         “Dad!” cried Beryl as the monster began grinding its fangs noisily upon Baz and Bessie.
         Hurriedly swallowing its first treat, Caddy plunged down again to scoop up half a dozen ewes as they turned to run back to the farm, along with the bitch, Tan, who had raced forward, barking at the creature.
         “Tan!” cried Link, more concerned by the death of the bitch than that of his father: “I raised her from a pup!”
         As the sheep and two surviving kelpies turned to charge back toward the farmhouse, the Caddy swallowed its second treat, before swooping down, knocking Beryl flying ten metres away as it scooped up another mouthful of the bleating, panicking sheep.
         Racing across to his unconscious sister, Link threw her across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and started running back toward the farmhouse, trying to ignore the slobbering sound of the creature devouring their flock, and the half-running, half-flopping sound of the Cadborosaurus as it flapped, flopped, and floundered its way after the escaping merinos.
         After a moment, Link raced across to the left to carry Beryl behind a grove of old-growth blue gum trees to hide, rather than trying to outrun the monster.
         
         As they sat around at the large blackwood desk in the front office of the Mitchell Street Police Station, Sheila said:
         “By my reckoning, we must be just about due our next monster attack.”
         “Sheils!” Terri, Suzette Cummings, Wendy Pearson, and Stanlee Dempsey all shrieked in unison.
         “What? I thought we’d agreed that saying that could not plausibly cause our next monster attack to occur?”
         “No!” cried everyone else in the police station.
         “Superstitious idjits!” teased the Goth policewoman: “How could ...?”
         She stopped as Terri’s mobile phone rang.
         “Sheila!” shouted everyone else in the police station.
         “It might not even be monster-related!”
         After a minute or so, Terri disconnected and said, “It’s our next monster attack.”
         “Sheila!” shouted everyone else in the police station.
         “It’s not my fault,” insisted the Goth chick as all except Suzette Cummings got up to go outside.
         As they climbed into Terri’s white Jeep Cherokee, Sheila asked: “Where to, Tezza?”
         “The Downing Sheep Station outside Bromby.”
         “Didn’t we rescue them just recently?” asked Sheila as she started the car.
         “Yes, when you killed the Yemisch with the bazooka,” said Colin.
         “We risked our lives to save them once, and straight away they get themselves into trouble again,” complained Sheila.
         “Sheils!” cried Terri: “Both Basil Downing and Tan have been eaten by the latest monster.”
         “Oh no, not poor Tan,” said Stanlee Dempsey, a forty-something ox of a man with short raven hair.
         Forty-eight minutes later, they arrived at the waterhole at the rear of the sheep station, where they discovered a chaotic mess of wool and sheep bones, as well as what was clearly a man’s left foot.
         “Yeech,” said Wendy Pearson, a tall, honey blonde in her late forties.
         Seeing the Jeep Cherokee, Link and Beryl Downing came out of hiding behind the grove of blue gums.
         “It was some kind of sea serpent,” said Beryl, before starting to cry.
         “Sort of like a serpent dragon, but with a head like a horned horse,” said Link.
         “A unicorn serpent?” asked Terri.
         “No, it has a large, sort of spiral horn on each side of its head.”
         Looking around, Colin said: “I assume it’s long gone?”
         “Yes, thankfully,” said Beryl.
         “It came out of the waterhole, but didn’t return to it,” said Link: “Almost as though it knew it wasn’t a safe place to hide a second time.”
         “A smart serpent dragon, with a head like a horned horse?” said Sheila.
         “That’s all we need,” said Wendy.
         Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching from the front of the farm, they looked around to see Florida ‘Flory’, forty-four, a short, chubby brunette, carrying a rolling pin, gasping, clearly out of breath, as she was helped along by her daughter, Farrah.
         “All right, where is that dream-crushing monster?” demanded Flory.
         Beryl burst into tears again, and Link blanched white, looking as though he were about to pass out.
         “Well?” demanded Flory. Looking around, seeing the remains of the sheep, she asked: “What the Hell has happened here?”
         Helping her to sit down upon the long grass first, Terri and Colin went on to explain to Flory what had happened to her husband, careful not to show her his one remaining foot.
         Looking about the waterhole, Sheila said, “Hey, there’s a thick groove over here leading off into the forest on the left; as though something has flopped, slithered, coiled its way along to hide.”
         After ringing for five Air Ambulance Choppers, Terri said, “Stanlee, Wendy, stay here with the Downings until the helicopters arrive to pick them up. We’ve got a smart serpent dragon, with a head like a horned horse to track down.”
         “Gotcha, Chief,” said Stanlee.
         Terri, Colin, and Sheila returned to the Jeep and were soon following the half-metre deep channel caused by the Cadborosaurus flopping along.
         “Easy Peasy,” said Sheila, “we won’t even need our indigenous cobber to follow this beastie.”
         Then, after fifty minutes or so, they reached the banks of the Yannan River.
         “You were saying, mad Goth chick?” teased Colin.
         “Okay, so maybe it’s not quite so easy peasy as I first thought.”
         “If we need to get Orville Trevane and the Yellow Peril down from Port Phillip Bay again,” said Terri, “that will probably use up any money that might have been left over in the 2026 police budget in July to buy us our own military mini-sub with torpedo tubes.”
         “Oh no, it’s a no-win situation,” complained Sheila: “I was so looking forward to firing off torpedoes at any future water monsters.”
         “Oh well, at least the non-monster marine life is safer now,” teased Colin.
         “How dare you?” demanded the Goth policewoman.
         
         Starting out from Ferguson Street in Perry, where they lived, the Aldebaran family were driving along toward Jacobson’s Lake midway between Perry Township and Wilhelmina. They were driving in their brown and red-trim 2001 Chevrolet Suburban SUV, which seated up to nine people and had a pulling capacity of over five thousand four hundred and forty kilograms.
         “So if this is our car?” asked Luna ‘Tic’, seventeen, a tall, busty girl with long, straight red hair: “Who gets to keep it when we three kids leave home?”
         “If we ever do,” added Magellan ‘Maggie’, fifteen, a medium height busty honey blonde: “Personally, I’m planning to stay in the family home forever.”
         “Technically, the car is mine and your father’s,” explained Chelsea ‘Chel’, forty-three, a tall, leggy redhead with a long ponytail.
         “So who gets to keep it if you and Dad get divorced?” asked Nicholas ‘Nikki’, fourteen, a tall raven-haired boy.
         “Your mother and I have no intention of getting divorced,” insisted Joseph ‘Joey’, forty-two, a short, stout man with long stringy blond hair.
         “So when are you planning to upgrade it?” asked Tic: “This car was made in 1935, I’ve been told.”
         “Not this particular model,” insisted Joey: “The Chevrolet Suburban has been in production since 1935, ninety-one years now. But this one was made in 2001.”
         “Still, it’s not exactly a cherry,” said Nikki: “Isn’t it time to upgrade, Dad?”
         “Well, the 2026 model costs over a hundred thousand dollars,” said Chel: “Still, I suppose if we stopped giving you lot spending money, cut off your mobile phone accounts, and stopped giving you Christmas and birthday presents, we could just afford it,” teased Chel.
         “Who needs an upgrade?” asked Nikki and Tic.
         “It’s an oldie but a goody, as the Beach Boys once said,” insisted Maggie.
         “I think that was Jan and Dean in Surf City,” said Joey: “But point taken, kids, we’ll stick with the oldie but goody.”
         “Yes!” agreed the three teenagers.
         “They’re changeable,” said Chel, making the adults laugh.
         “Phew, that was a close one,” said Tic.
         “So where are we going, and why?” asked Maggie.
         “To laze in the fun and sun at Jacobson’s Lake,” said Chel.
         “Why?” asked Nikki.
         “To get you out of the house for a few days,” said Joey.
         “A few days?” asked Tic.
         “Yes, you’ve got two weeks off school over Easter, and since you told us you’d finished all of your Easter homework projects, we thought you’d like a few days living rough,” explained Chel.
         “I knew we should never have told them that we’d finished all of our Easter projects,” complained Maggie.
         “Big mistake,” agreed Nikki.
         “When you say living rough?” asked Tic: “I assume you mean in a four-star hotel built near the banks of the lake?”
         “Nope, in the three tents we brought with us,” said Chel, grinning.
         “There’s a single for Nikki, and two doubles for you girls, and your Mum and me,” said Joey, also smiling broadly.
         “Tents!” demanded Nikki and Tic.
         “I think those creepy smiles are the same kind that the Nazis had when they were slaughtering innocent people,” said Maggie.
         “Relax, no one is going to get slaughtered at Jacobson’s Lake,” said Chel incorrectly.
         
         The Harpertown Diving Club had gathered with the police on the banks of the Yannan River outside Bromby; however, Terri was reluctant to let them go into the water after the monster without the Yellow Peril for backup.
         “Come on, Tezza, we’re all expert divers,” insisted David Cadbury, thirty-two, a tall, lean, raven-haired, recent widower; leader of the diving club.
         “Yeah, and we’ve helped defeat monsters before,” said Marsha Maudsley, thirty-something, a tall Amazonian brunette.
         “But always with the security of the Yellow Peril to hide behind if necessary,” insisted Terri.
         “We don’t need no stinkin’ mini-sub,” said Virgil Menzies, twenty-eight, a tall, lean, redheaded man, in the worst possible attempt at a Mexican bandido’s accent.
         “Please forgive him,” said his wife, Helena, twenty-six, a tall leggy blonde: “He watches way too many spaghetti Westerns.”
         “No, no Mamacita,” said David Lewis, twenty-nine, a medium height, dark-haired man, in an equally unconvincing spaghetti Western accent: “Is no possible to watch too many spaghetti Westerns.”
         “My husband’s only excuse is being brain damaged,” teased Tina Lewis, thirty, a tall, chesty, pregnant brunette, who was not going upon the dive.
         “No, no Mamacita,” said David before giving her a sloppy kiss on one cheek, then the other.
         “I rest my case,” said Tina.
         “Don’t worry, Marsha and I will look after them,” insisted Sheila.
         “Okay, but make certain that you have explosive tips on each of your spears, and don’t take the usual foolhardy risks,” ordered Terri.
         “Will do,” said Sheila, only realising what Terri had said after she was underwater: Usual foolhardy risks? she thought, puzzled.
         
         When the Aldebaran family arrived at Jacobson’s Lake, they found it swarming with families taking advantage of their children’s long Easter break.
         “Uh-oh,” looks like we’ll have to cancel the weekend in Hell,” said Tic.
         “Yeah, there’s certainly no room to pitch a tent, let alone three tents,” agreed Maggie.
         “So it’s back home to watch Doctor Who for another week,” said Nikki.
         “Or natter to our girlfriends on our mobile phones,” said Maggie.
         “Such bad luck, Dad,” said Tic.
         “Relax, there will be plenty of room in the forest, a little away from the lake,” insisted Chel.
         “What with all the bears, and lions, and crocodiles?” asked Maggie.
         “We don’t have bears or lions in Australia,” pointed out Joey, “and the crocodiles are all up in the Northern Territory or Queensland.”
         “We know that,” said Tic, “but we were hoping that you didn’t.”
         “Relax, kids, killer koalas are out of season now,” teased Chel as they climbed out of the Chevrolet and started to look around the crowded banks.
         Seeing some teenagers, Joey said, “Why don’t you go and make friends, while your Mum and I find a good spot to set up the tents?”
         Walking across to a raven-haired girl about her own age, Luna said, “Hi, my name is Tic.”
         “Hi, I’m Matilda Waltzing,” said the girl: “How did you get a name like Tic?”
         “Actually, my name’s Luna, but from an early age my siblings started calling me Lunatic, then finally Tic for short.”
         “Brothers and sisters, who needs them?” said Matilda, making the two teens laugh.
         “Well, Tic seems to have made a friend already,” said Nikki.
         “Yeah, she could get lost in a desert and come out with a couple of girlfriends,” said Maggie, envious of her sister’s ability to make friends.
         
         Marsha, Sheila and the other skin divers swam along the winding river for kilometres until coming to an underwater tunnel. After a moment’s hesitation, they started down the tunnel which ran for kilometres, until reaching Lake Cooper outside Harpertown.
         They came up for a look around, only to see a gaggle of school kids and their parents sunning upon the banks.
         “Hey, look, Mum, the monster from the black latrine,” said a young boy, pointing at Sheila.
         Taking out her air plug, Sheila growled at the boy, sending him running to hide behind his mother; before the divers submerged again and started around the eight-kilometre serpentine lake, trying to avoid being kicked by the feet of the dozens of bathers.
         Let’s hope the serpent dragon, with a head like a horned horse, isn’t in Lake Cooper, thought Sheila, or there will be a massacre.
         
         Joey and Chel Aldebaran found a place not far away from Jacobson’s Lake and started to set up the three tents, while Luna nattered to Mantilla Waltzing, Maggie returned to the Chevrolet to sit in the back seat to natter to her girlfriends over her mobile phone, and Nikki played online games on his PDA.
         “My family are such morons,” said Matilda.
         “Tell me about it,” said Tic, “my Dad isn’t too bad, but my Mum lets Maggie and Nikki, her favourite, get away with anything.”
         “I so hate it when parents favour one kid over the others,” said Matilda, stopping as screaming started from behind her: “Sounds like someone just found out that the water is cold.”
         The two girls laughed until, turning around, they saw the Cadborosaurus, looking like a serpent dragon, but with a head like a horned horse, and a spiral horn on each side of its head.
         ”What the fuck?” asked Tic, “I know that Jacobson’s Lake is stocked with marine life when the Yannan overflows but how could that thing get from the Yannan River to here?”
         Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed Tic’s right hand and started running toward the safety of the gum trees ten metres or more away.
         Ignoring the ululation of panicked day trippers, Maggie and Nikki continued to natter or game while the Cadborosaurus grabbed three teenage swimmers in its mouth and noisily gnawed them before swallowing.
         Then, excited by the screaming, hysterical humans, the creature flopped its way onto the sandy shore to scoop up more and more people, noisily gnashing them up in its teeth before swallowing them down. Excited by their hysteria, Caddy shrieked a hellish roar, making frantic fleeers charge headfirst into gum trees and each other in their insane rush to escape the rampaging sea monster.
         “Quieten it down a little!” shouted Nikki without bothering to look up from his PDA.
         Maggie pulled her feet into the Chevrolet Suburban before slamming the door; Nikki soon followed her example.
         “Noisy morons!” cried Maggie, before explaining to her girlfriend over the phone: “Just some idjits at Jacobson’s Lake who don’t know how to have fun without spoiling it for the rest of us.”
         “Selfish bastards!” said Suzie Carmichael at the other end, making both girls giggle.
         Outside the car, the Cadborosaurus continued snapping up, hurriedly gnawing to death and then swallowing people while Nikki and Maggie were oblivious.
         In the forest, Matilda and Tic almost ran into the first tent that Joey and Chelsea had erected.
         “Slow down, girls, what’s the hurry?” asked Joey.
         “And who’s your friend?” asked Chelsea, seeing the two girls holding hands.
         “Mat ... Mat ... Matilda,” said the raven-haired girl between struggling for breath: “Matilda Waltzing.”
         “Hello, Matilda Waltzing,” said Joey, “come to help us put up the tents?”
         Shaking her head, Matilda said, “No, to escape the monster eating everyone on the lake shore.”
         Looking puzzled, Chel said, “My hearing must be going, honey. I could have sworn you said that there’s a monster eating everyone at the lakeside.”
         “That’s right, Mum!” cried Tic: “Didn’t you hear the screaming?”
         “We heard what we thought was excited revellers,” admitted Joey. Then to Chel: “Perhaps we’d better go investigate?”
         “No, no, there’s a monster eating everyone,” insisted Matilda.
         “Nikki, Maggie!” cried Chel before racing through the forest toward the lake.
         “No, come back, Mum!” cried Tic: “They’re probably already dead.” Then, as Joey raced after Chel, to Matilda: “So, you wanna hide in one of the tents?”
         “Okay,” said the raven-haired girl and the two teens, still holding hands, walked across to the closest tent.
         Almost colliding with gum trees more than once, panicked parents Chelsea and Joseph Aldebaran ran to the lakeshore, where they saw dozens of severed human body parts, a couple of nearly complete corpses, but not much else.
         “What is that?” asked Chel.
         She pointed to where the head and neck of the Cadborosaurus could barely be seen in the distance; however, the creature submerged before Joey could look around.
         “What is what?” asked Joey, before remembering: “Nikki, Maggie!”
         Chel and Joey raced across to where their car was parked, pulled open the side doors and found the teens sitting inside, oblivious to the carnage outside.
         “Mum, Dad, got the tents set up already?” asked Nikki.
         “Tic found herself a new girlfriend,” said Maggie without looking away from her mobile phone.
         Almost screaming from relief, Chel grabbed Maggie and held her in a bear hug.
         “Mum, please, you’re strangling me,” cried Maggie.
         “How could you not have seen what happened at the lakeside?” demanded Joey.
         “Well, we heard the excited bathers carrying on like retards,” said Nikki: “That’s why we shut the doors to block out the noisy buggers.”
         Tempted to hit his son in the face, instead, Joey grabbed him and hugged him half to death.
         “Dad, do you know how poofy it looks for two blokes to be hugging where anyone could see us?” gasped Nikki.
         
         Reaching the Yannan River again, Sheila and the divers had to come up to the surface since their air tanks were almost empty. Unzipping her wetsuit, Sheila took out her mobile phone to ring Terri, to tell her where to meet them with the extra air tanks.
         Terri and the others had barely arrived at the site when Terri received a phone call from Joseph Aldebaran.
         “It’s happened again, there’s been a massacre at Jacobson’s Lake,” explained Terri.
         Sheila and the others hurried out of their wetsuits before squeezing into the Jeep to head for the lake.
         By the time they arrived at Jacobson’s Lake, there were all six of Glen Hartwell’s wheeled ambulances there, half a dozen Air Ambulance Helicopters, plus numerous medics and paramedics.
         “Jesus, massacre is right,” said Sheila as she did her best not to interfere with the medics while taking the death scene photographs.
         As the cops and divers pitched in to help in any way that they could, a tall black American came over to Sheila.
         “Any word from Leo and Topaz yet, babe?” asked Derek Armstrong, a tall, muscular fifty-one-year-old who had been dating Sheila for over two years now.
         “Not so far, babe,” said Sheila: “We thought you or Chezza might have heard something.”
         “Not a thing, guess they’re too busy honeymooning.”
         “Yes,” agreed Sheila, snickering: “That’s what Tommy suggested.”
         “Sheils, you can be quite childish sometimes.”
         “I thought you loved my child-like quality?”
         “Less nattering, more helping with the dead,” said Cheryl Pritchard. A tall Amazonian brunette in her mid-sixties, Cheryl was the chief paramedic in the area.
         “Yes, marm,” said Sheila, saluting.
         “You’re right, Strong Arm,” said Cheryl, “she can be quite childish sometimes.”
         The clean-up would take most of the rest of the day; it would be nearly a week before all of the body parts were identified. Fortunately, a small number of survivors, mainly children, had managed to reach the safety of the pine and eucalyptus trees.
         “The poor little B’s,” said Cheryl as the last of the survivors were airlifted to the hospital, some with missing limbs.
         “Glen Hartwell must have the highest number of orphaned children of any town in Australia,” agreed Derek.
         It was after dark by the time that the cleanup was completed and Terri, Sheila, and Colin returned home to the Yellow House.
         They had hardly started breakfast the next morning when they heard the whir-whir-whir of rotors outside.
         “I’m guessing that’s Harrison,” said Terri.
         “I’ll go greet him,” volunteered Sheila, getting up to race outside.
         Looking up at the massive twin-rotor U.S. Air Force Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter, Sheila shouted up:
         “Come on down for some of Mrs. M.’s divine tucker, Harrison.”
         “Will do, Sheils,” called back Harrison, a tall, dark-haired American, bulging with muscles.
         He lowered a rope ladder and then climbed down to street level.
         “Hey, you can’t leave that thing hovering there while people are still trying to sleep,” insisted an elderly grey-haired man, Neil Stoner, who lived at 55 Rochester Road: “Shift it at once, or I’ll call the police.”
         “So call me already, Neil,” teased Sheila.
         “Snarky Goth bimbo,” said the old man before turning to head back inside.
         An hour or so later, they were at the banks of the Yannan River, along with the Harpertown Diving Club. In the river was a bright yellow four-person submarine, the Yellow Peril. Standing beside the mini-sub was a tall, grey-haired man in his mid-fifties.
         “Professor Orville Trevane, as I live and breathe,” said Sheila, shaking his hand furiously.
         “Who’s coming with me in the Yellow Peril?” asked Orville.
         “Marsha, Sheila and Helena,” suggested David Cadbury.
         “Have you got your spearguns with explosive tips on the spears?” asked Orville.
         “You betcha,” said Sheila: “Can’t wait to nuke this latest beastie.”
         “That’s all we’d need,” teased Harrison: “Sheils in charge of nukes.”
         “How dare you?” teased back Sheila as she, Marsha and Helena climbed aboard the Yellow Peril.
         They followed the course of the Yannan River for over ten kilometres before reaching the undersea tunnel which led to Lake Cooper.
         “Turn left here,” directed Sheila, putting on her air-tanks to go outside to allow one of the others to get fresh air tanks.
         “Are you sure?” asked Orville Trevane.
         “No, but if it’s the wrong place, we can always head from Lake Cooper back to the Yannan, then on to Jacobson’s lake. But it doesn’t seem likely it would hit the same place twice in as many days.”
         
         The Wordsworth family had just joined the crowd of holidaymakers on the sandy banks of Lake Cooper outside Harpertown.
         “So tell us again why we had to come all of the way from Willamby to Harpertown for a day’s holiday?” asked Allison ‘Alli’, fifteen, a tall, beautiful ash blonde.
         “So that you can get out of the house for part of your two-week Easter break,” said Duane, forty-three, a tall raven-haired tax accountant.
         “Except we were happy at home nattering to our girlfriends on our mobile phones,” said Desdemona ‘Desi’, fourteen, a short, plain-faced brunette.
         “If you’re lucky, you might meet some of your girlfriends here beside Lake Cooper,” suggested Ida, forty-four, a short, beautiful redhead.
         “Duh, who wants to talk to them in person, when we could relax at home and talk to them over our phones?” demanded Alli.
         “You do know there was a monster attack here yesterday?” asked Ennui ‘Onwe’, thirteen, a tall, stocky redheaded boy.
         “No, that was at Jacobson’s lake, midway between Wilhelmina and Perry,” pointed out Ida.
         “In which case it will attack here next,” insisted Desi, correctly.
         “Don’t worry, you’ve got the King of Cool here to protect you,” said Ida.
         “Kanye West is here?” asked Alli, looking around hurriedly.
         “I thought he’d been banned by the fascist government in Canberra?” asked Desi.
         “No, I meant your father, Duane.”
         “Since when has he ever been cool?” asked Onwe.
         “I’ll have you know that I’m named after the King of Cool himself, Duane Eddy!” insisted their father.
         “Dwayne who-now?” asked Alli.
         “Duane Eddy, he played the theme song, Rebel Rouser, in Forrest Gump,” said Ida.
         “You have seen Forrest Gump, haven’t you?” asked Duane.
         “No, but we’ve seen the dirty version, Forrest Hump,” teased Desi, making the teens all giggle.
         “I’ll whip your bum in a moment, miss cheeky,” said Ida.
         “Anyway, I thought you always said that the King of Cool was that 1950s bloke,” said Onwe: “Alvin Parsley.”
         “You mean Elvis Presley, no, he was and is the King of Rock and Roll,” explained Duane.
         “I thought Kanye West was the King of Rock and Roll?” protested Alli.
         “No, he’s the king of standing on stage and talking crap about how good Adolph Hitler was,” corrected Ida.
         “In a democracy, he has a right to his opinion,” insisted Onwe.
         “All right, Duane, go and find a straight stick to use to whip all of their bums!” said Ida, only half joking.
         So busy were the Wordsworth family that they barely noticed the excited screaming from the holidaymakers behind them.
         “What’s happened? Has Kanye West managed to sneak into Australia?” asked Desi, turning to look ....
         Only to see the huge grey-white serpent with humps behind its horse-like head and long neck, with a pair of long thin arms with three long claw-like digits on each front paw, joined by brown-red webbing. Long fangs protruded from its mouth, and coiled pointed horns projected backwards from the front of each side of its head.
         “What the fuck?” asked Ida as the Cadborosaurus swooped down to scoop up three teenage swimmers to start hungrily chewing them in its oversized jaws.
         “Kylie!” shouted the mother of one of the teens, Dakota Jacobs.
         With nothing else at hand, she picked up a large round plate and hurled it at the monster; more by luck than skill, hitting it on its left eye.
         Shrieking in agony, the creature dropped the half-eaten remains of the three teenagers and flopped its way to shore to chase after Kylie’s mother.
         “Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!” shrieked Dakota; turning, she charged up the bank along with fifty or more other frantic would-be escapees.
         “It’s time for us to leave too,” said Ida Wordsworth
         The five Wordsworths raced across to their grey Volkswagen Golf, leapt inside, but then they had to risk running over other fleeers as they took off.
         
         Entering Lake Cooper through the dark tunnel, Sheila and the Yellow Peril travelled along for nearly five kilometres, around the serpentine Lake, before seeing the lower half of the Cadborosaurus for a moment, before it raced out of the lake to chase after the panicked holidayers.
         Surfacing as quickly as possible, Sheila spat out her mouthpiece to say, “What the fuck?”
         Marsha Maudsley and David Cadbury soon surfaced beside her, followed by the Yellow Peril.
         Ignoring their own danger, Sheila, Marsha, and David swam to shore as quickly as possible to attempt to kill the raging monster.
         “Hey, horse-face!” called Sheila as the three divers loaded their spearguns with spears tipped with detonators.
         When the Cadborosaurus ignored them, all three divers fired their arrows, two hitting it in its side and one in the left side of its head, blowing away its already damaged left eye.
         Shrieking like the voice of death itself, the creature spun around to face the attackers, now joined by the rest of the Harpertown Diving Club; all firing explosive spears from their spearguns.
         “Stand your ground!” ordered Marsha, and the six divers continued to fire explosive spears at the monster, aiming for its neck and head.
         One of Marsha’s spears landed on top of its pate, blowing off both of its coiled horns and its scalp when detonating.
         “Great shot, Marsha!” cried Sheila, before firing an explosive charge straight into the creature’s right eye.
         Blinded, the creature began flopping about wildly, forcing the divers to back toward the lake again, as the last of the surviving holidaymakers managed to flee the lakeshore.
         Staying as quiet as possible, the six speargunners fired off shot after shot at the monster, until finally most of its head and much of its long, serpentine neck had been blown away. As the headless beast collapsed to the lakeshore, Sheila said:
         “Now that’s what I call a headjob!”
         “Oh, Sheila!” cried David, as everyone else laughed: “Seriously?”

         THE END

         © Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

         Melbourne, Victoria, Australia