MARIONETTE

Alternative reality version of The Puppeteer, concerning an evil Marionetteer!

         

         

         Thursday, 28^th May 2026

                   Over at the Australian Rules Football field at Glen Hartwell High School in the Victorian countryside, five teenage girls stood around watching the boys playing football.
         “They’re lucky we’ve had a mild autumn so far,” said Suzie Carmichael, a tall, shapely brunette.
         “Well, they’re saying we’re gonna have another mild winter like last year,” said Adelaide Donadin, a part-breed Aborigine.
         “I hope so,” said Lizzie Chong, a pretty Eurasian girl.
         “Don’t let the farmers hear me say that,” said Libby Whyte, a tall, beautiful blonde.
         “Yeah, they’re still whinging about the poor growing season last year,” said Ester, a short brunette with braces, Suzie’s younger sister.
         “I’m only here to ogle the boys in tight shorts,” said Libby.
         “Yeah, I always prefer the footy season to the cricket season,” said Adelaide, “you can’t see the boys’ tight bums through their cricket creams.”
         “Or cricketing whites as the Poms now call them,” teased Ester.
         “Damn the Poms,” said Libby, “our test eleven made mince meat out of them in last year’s Ashes series.”
         “Yeah, Starky the Destroyer sure routed the whinging Poms,” agreed Suzie.
         “Shouldn’t we be heading home now?” asked Lizzie.
         “Why, does your Mum still spank you if you come home late?” teased Adelaide.
         “No answer was a stern reply,” teased Libby.
         “Actually, she’s right, I’ve got a load of homework to do,” said Ester.
         “Then head off, short stack,” teased Suzie to the fifteen-year-old, the other girls all being seventeen.
         “Maybe we had better head home,” said Libby, then pointing at one of the footballers, “hey look at the tight bum on that boy!”
         “Ooh, that’s my cousin, Myron, you’re talking about,” said Adelaide.
         “Myron, seriously?” asked Lizzie as they finally started walking away from the high school.
         “He likes to be called Ron, but I always call him Myron to stir him up.”
         “That sweetness comes from your indigenous side,” teased Suzie.
         “Hey, I’m only a quarter-breed; even my Dad’s only a half-breed.”
         “Yeah, we figured that out from the fact that your Mum’s blonde,” said Libby.
         “Yeah, there aren’t too many indigenous blonde Aussies,” said Lizzie.
         “Apart from Michael Mansell,” teased Ester.
         “Well, yeah, of course,” said Adelaide, “although I think he’s grey nowadays.”
         They were still nattering about every conceivable subject when they started down Lawson Street, Glen Hartwell. Still talking nonstop, window-shopping as they went, finding nothing of interest, until reaching number 74, which had a large window filled with small and large puppets of all kinds. Painted in gold on the window was: Pierce Bronson’s Super Marionettes & Dolls!
         “Super Marionettes, what are those?’ asked Ester.
         “Like in the Fabulous Thunderbirds!” continued the golden lettering upon the window.
         “What the heck are the Fabulous Thunderbirds?” asked Lizzie Chong.
         “I think they were a sock puppet version of those two shows my Uncle Lindsey likes,” said Libby Whyte, “UF-O”, and “Space Out in ’99,” said Lizzie.
         “If you ask me, all old people are spaced out,” said Lizzie, “not just at ninety-nine.”
         The other girls murmured their agreement.
         “Should we go inside to have a butcher’s?” asked Libby.
         “Nothing dentured, nothing gained, as my Uncle Milton says,” said Suzie.
         “Is he the uncle who ended up in Queen’s Grove loony bin?” asked Adelaide.
         “That’s the one,” agreed Ester, “he might be loony, but he’s a fun bloke.”
         “Yeah, whenever we visit him, he tells us stories about his adventures in World War Three, fighting for the Polish Resistance, against the invading Yankee Hordes,” explained Suzie.
         “I thought there were only two world wars?” asked Libby.
         “Yes,” agreed Ester, “but that doesn’t stop Uncle Miltie from regaling us with stories about how after the United States conquered Greenland, then Canada, and then invaded Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and a couple of hundred other countries formed the Allies to defend Poland and free Greenland and Canada.”
         “Hey, is your uncle clairvoyant?” asked Lizzie. “That could happen any day now, the way Donald Trump is going!”
         As she spoke, she opened the door, and the five teens stepped inside, where they saw dozens of thirty-centimetre-tall dolls hanging from the walls and the ceiling, all attached to long, thin wires.
         “Wow, what are these?” asked Ester.
         “They’re the super marionettes, like in Thunderbirds,” explained Pierce Bronson, a tall, dark-haired man who was handsome despite a long scar down the left side of his face.
         “Is that why some of them are in 60s-style sci-fi costume?” asked Libby.
         “Exactly, I’ve got some of them dressed up like the whole Stacy family: Jeff, Scott, Virgil, Alan, Gordon, John, and Grandma; also, Lady Penelope, Tin-Tin Kyrano, Kyrano, Aloysius Parker, and the Hood.”
         So saying, he took down a doll dressed like pretty Lady Penelope and used a handset attached by wires to the doll to make it walk in the original half-hopping, half-walking style from the Thunderbirds show.
         “Hey, that’s cool,” said Ester.
         “Do you have any dressed up like Princess Leia, Chewbacca, or Luke Skywalker?” asked Adelaide.
         “Not in the super marionettes; however, I have simple marionettes in the back room dressed up like all of the Star Wars characters.”
         “Okay, let’s go,” enthused Suzie Carmichael.
         “This way, ladies,” said Pierce, leading them through batwing doors into the next room. Where there were seemingly hundreds of string puppets seated in tall bookcases all around the lime green room.
         “Wow, there are Jillions of them,” said Libby.
         “Not quite, but a few hundred,” corrected Pierce.
         He pointed to a bookcase opposite the wall and said, “The Star Wars marionettes are over there.”
         Squealing in excitement, the five girls raced across to look at the dolls.
         “Chewbacca is so cool,” enthused Adelaide.
         “And Princess Leia,” seconded Libby.
         “And Luke Skywalker,” added Lizzie Chong.
         “Even Darth Vader,” said Lizzie.
         “Exterminate!” said Ester.
         Sighing, Lizzie said, “No, little sis, Darth Vader doesn’t say ‘exterminate’!”
         “No, but Daleks do; there’s a whole section of them over here,” walking across to the left side wall, “Daleks, Doctor Whos and various monsters and companions.”
         Squealing again, the girls raced across to look at the dolls, all chanting, “Exterminate! Exterminate!” as they ran.
         “Wow, how much for the Dalek doll?” asked Adelaide Donadin.
         “A hundred and twenty dollars.”
         “Ooh, all I’ve got is twenty-five. I wonder if my parents would give me the rest as a combined early Christmas and birthday present?”
         “Anyway, we’ve gotta be going home,” said Ester.
         Reluctantly, all of the girls left, except Adelaide.
         “If you’d care to put the twenty-five dollars down as a deposit, I can hold the Dalek doll for you while you speak to your parents,” offered Pierce, making the teenager beam broadly.
         
         Over at the Yellow House in Rochester Road, Merridale, they were seated around the large yellow-clothed dining table, in the all-yellow room, having their dessert after tea.
         “This Cherries Jubilee is your best yet, Mrs. M.!” enthused Sheila Bennett. A tall, athletic Goth chick with orange-and-black-striped hair, Sheila was the Chief Constable of the local police department.
         “Thank you, Sheila,” said Deidre Morton, a short, chubby brunette, owner of the Yellow House. So nicknamed due to her obsession with the colour yellow.
         “She’s right,” agreed Terri Klein, a beautiful blonde, Senior Sergeant of the local police.
         “Yes, your Cherries Jubilee are always fab,” said Colin Klein, Terri’s husband, a fifty-something redheaded Englishman and former crime reporter, “But this lot is your best ever!”
         “It could have used more brandy,” insisted Tommy Turner, a short, dumpy, blond retiree.
         “You usually complain when Deidre uses your brandy in her cooking,” said Natasha Lipzing, a tall seventy-something grey-haired lady.
         “I complain when she hands out my brandy for others to drink,” admitted Tommy, “but a good Cherries Jubilee should be swimming in brandy.”
         “Not according to alcoholics anonymous,” teased Freddy Kingston, a tall, stout retiree with curly black hair around the sides and back of his head.
         “I am not an alcoholic!”
         “No, but you would be, if Deidre hadn’t seized all of your alcohol and started parcelling it out to you, one drink per meal,” pointed out Natasha.
         “Snarky old cow!”
         “Apologise at once!” insisted Deidre Morton.
         “All right, I’m sorry that she’s a snarky old cow.”
         “That’s probably as much of an apology as you’re going to get,” said Sheila, making everyone except Tommy laugh.
         “So after tea, what are we watching on TV tonight?” asked Natasha.
         “Since it’s a Thursday, we get to watch The World’s Stupidest Stuntman,” reminded Tommy.
         “Except that they’re not broadcasting it this week,” reminded Colin.
         “I’ve got all fifteen previous seasons on DVD,” reminded Sheila.
         “All of which we’ve watched over the last few years,” pointed out Terri.
         “I’ve also got the first season of the spin-off series, The World’s Blondest Stuntwoman,” countered Sheila, “and we definitely haven’t seen that yet.”
         “Isn’t that going to be lame, like the Divas of Wrestling,” asked Tommy.
         “Not at all,” insisted Sheila, “besides the chicks all have massive tits that fall out with amazing regularity.”
         “Then, count me in, Sheils.”
         Doing a bogus yawn, Terri said, “Actually, I’m a bit tired; I might sneak up to bed.”
         “Me too,” said Colin, doing an equally phoney yawn and stretch.
         At that moment, however, Terri’s mobile phone rang.
         “Hurry up and finish, Col,” advised Sheila, “they always B-well ring while we’re still eating.”
         “Who was that, babe?” asked Colin.
         “William Donadin, Adelaide didn’t come home from school tonight.”
         “The poor man, he must be frantic,” said Natasha.
         Less than thirty minutes later, Colin, Terri, and Sheila were standing in the large lounge room of the Donadin household at 82 Boothy Street, Glen Hartwell. One wall was covered by a vast print of an Albert Namatjira landscape; the others were painted cream and covered in cheap paintings by local artists.
         “Normally she walks home with Suzie and Ester Carmichael and their friends,” said Abigail Donadin, a tall, curvaceous blonde in her late thirties.
         “We rang them,” said William, a handsome medium-height half-breed Aborigine in his early forties, “all they could tell us was that they left her at some doll shop in Lawson Street.”
         “That could be Pierce Bronson’s Super Marionettes and Dolls,” said Sheila, “It’s just opened up at 74 Lawson Street.”
         “And how do you know that, Sheils?” demanded Colin.
         “I like to keep up with what’s going down in the region.”
         “Okay, we’ll check them out before talking to the girls,” suggested Terri.
         Ten minutes later they were outside the Marionette store. Although the sign said ‘Closed’, there was a light on in the back room.
         After knocking on the glass door for nearly three minutes, a dark-haired man entered the front room to call out, “I’m closed.”
         Terri held up her badge, so he clicked on the light in the front room, then walked across to the front door. Seeing her badge, he unlocked the door.
         “What can I do for you, officer?” asked Pierce Bronson.
         “I believe you had some girls in here earlier today looking at your dolls.”
         “Marionettes, or string-puppets, if you like.”
         “They’re the grooviest kind,” said Sheila, “sock-puppets are so lame.”
         “I couldn’t agree more,” said Pierce.
         “About the girls,” reminded Colin.
         Inviting them inside, he said, “Yes, there were four or five teenage girls. They were interested in my marionettes in the rear room; especially the Star Wars and Doctor Who marionettes.”
         “May we see them?” asked Terri.
         “Well, you’re here now,” said Pierce, leading them into the rear room.
         “Wow, I’ve never seen so many dolls... marionettes in my life,” said Sheila, looking around at the dozen or more bookcases full of string-puppets.
         “I believe Adelaide stayed behind after the other girls left?” asked Terri.
         “The part Aboriginal girl? Yes, she wanted to make arrangements to buy the Dalek marionette. It cost a hundred and twenty dollars; she only had twenty-five, so she gave it to me as a down payment, to pay off the rest later. I think she hoped to convince her parents to give her the rest as a combined Christmas and birthday present.”
         “Can we see your receipt book?” asked Colin.
         “Of course,” said Pierce.
         He walked across to a small desk and removed the receipt book to show them.
         “Twenty-five dollars paid, ninety-five still owing,” read Terri.
         “With both of their signatures on it,” pointed out Colin.
         While the Kleins were checking out the receipt book, Sheila had been looking around at the native costume dolls across the room.
         “I notice you’ve got some Australian Aboriginal marionettes?” said Sheila.
         “Yes, they’re very popular, especially in the capital cities, and to tourists from Asia, the U.K. or North America.”
         As Terri and Colin thanked the Marionetteer and made to leave, the Goth policewoman continued to look through the Aboriginal marionettes.
         “Hey,” she said, picking it up, “here’s one that looks remarkably like Adelaide Donadin.”
         “What?” asked Terri, as she and Colin returned to look at the marionette.
         “Hey, it does too,” agreed Colin, taking the doll from Sheila.
         “Except that it’s made up like a tribal Aborigine with a loincloth, topless, and carrying a spear in one hand and a boomerang in the other,” said Terri.
         “Adelaide would never dress like that, especially not topless,” said Sheila, “and only the bucks use spears or hunting boomerangs, not the lubras.”
         “Sorry, I was so impressed by the young girl that I adapted one of the Indigenous Aussie dolls to look like her,” admitted Pierce.
         “You’re a fast worker then,” said Colin.
         “It was only the face that I had to change. And as for the spear and boomerang, they might not be authentic for women, but they do help to sell them to tourists and big city dwellers.”
         Not certain whether she believed him or not, Terri said, “I’m afraid we need to keep this doll for now. Colin will write you out a receipt for it.”
         “Already doing it, babe,” said Colin, tearing off the receipt from his book to hand to Pierce.
         “Well, all right,” conceded Pierce.
         “Okay, let’s go talk to the Carmichael girls first,” said Terri, as they headed back to the front room.
         Climbing into the rear of her white Jeep Cherokee, Colin said, “I’m not convinced that this doll has been adapted in any way in the last few hours.”
         “Marionette,” corrected Sheila, climbing into the driver’s seat.
         They had barely started when they pulled up at fifty-five Lawson Street, where the Carmichaels lived. Soon they were sitting on a floral sofa in the cream-coloured lounge room.
         Seeing the marionette, Suzie said, “Hey, that looks just like Adelaide.”
         “Except she would never go around topless, wearing a loincloth,” said Ester. “She is a city girl born and raised.”
         “And lubras don’t carry weapons of any kind,” pointed out Suzie.
         “No, but it helps to sell the dolls to gullible tourists,” said Sheila, making the girls giggle.
         After leaving the Carmichael’s red-brick house, they headed round to 62 Wentworth Street to talk to Lizzie Chong, then around to 17 Blackland Street to talk to Libby Whyte; without learning anything new.
         “So what’s our next move, babe?” asked Colin as they were returning to Merridale.
         “We get a warrant to tear apart the Marionette shop in Lawson Street,” suggested Sheila.
         “Yes, I’m sure that that glib bastard was withholding something from us,” agreed Terri.
         “Agreed,” said Colin.
         Back at the Yellow House, they found everyone getting ready to go to bed.
         “So how was The World’s Blondest Stuntwoman?” teased Colin.
         “Yes, I must admit that that was better than The World’s Stupidest Stuntman,” said Freddy, “especially the way that busty redhead’s tits kept falling out of her blouse, without her even noticing.”
         “I’m fairly certain that the host had strings attached to her blouse, and pulled it up whenever he thought interest might be flagging,” said Tommy.
         “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” said Colin.
         “Oh well, my turn to watch it now,” said Sheila, plonking herself upon the yellow, floral sofa in front of the television.
         “Not bloody likely,” said Colin, “no way are you keeping us all awake with the TV blaring all night.”
         “But I didn’t get to see the World’s Blondest Stuntwoman!”
         “You can’t be that interested in big-breasted redheads with their tits falling out regularly?” teased Terri.
         “It’s not the big tits that interest me, but seeing them fall off their motorbikes, or crashing into brick walls at high speed,” insisted Sheila.
         “Come on, big girl,” said Colin, grabbing the Goth chick by one arm as Terri grabbed her by the other, “time to get some shut-eye.”
         “Okay, but I get to watch the World’s Blondest Stuntwoman tomorrow night, instead of the bloody opera we normally get stuck with on Fridays.”
         “Agreed,” said Deidre Morton, “if it’ll get you up to bed tonight, so we can all get some sleep.”
         
         Straight after breakfast the next morning, Terri and the others headed toward the Glen Hartwell Town Hall in Boothy Street to see the mayor, and a friend of theirs, Donald Frazer, sitting in his oak-panelled office.
         “Terri, Colin, Sheila,” said Don, waving them toward black leather chairs in front of the blackwood desk. “What can I do for you?”
         Terri quickly told him what had occurred so far.
         “So we need a warrant to tear the marionette shop apart, if necessary, to find Adelaide Donadin,” said Sheila.
         “I don’t know; that seems extreme, based upon such tenuous evidence.”
         “Sheila found this in the back room of his shop,” said Colin, handing Don the Adelaide doll.
         He stared at it, saying, “Wow, that really does look like Adelaide.”
         Reaching into a drawer of his desk, he took out a large form book, filled out and signed the warrant, and handed it to Terri.
         “Okay, let’s go tear apart a marionette shop,” said Terri as they returned to her Jeep.
         “Super marionette shop,” corrected Sheila, getting glared at for her trouble.
         “I really do like being corrected by my subordinates,” said Terri, glaring at Sheila.
         Before breakfast they had rung around to arrange to have all of the local police waiting for them outside the super-marionette shop in Lawson Street; including Donald Esk in the Rust Bucket, an ancient green and rust Land-Rover, Stanlee Dempsey in his white Range Rover, plus various other vehicles lining the street across the road from the shop.
         “So, did you get it, Chief?” asked Don, a huge ox of a man in his early forties with dark brown hair.
         Holding up the warrant, Terri said, “The Mayor was hesitant until Colin showed him the Adelaide Donadin doll.”
         “Marionette,” corrected Sheila.
         “I seem to recall you’re next in line for promotion, Stanlee,” teased Terri, “should I decide to demote Sheila for correcting me once too often.”
         “Whacko-the-diddly-oh, to quote Sheila,” teased Stanlee, a tall, muscular man with short raven hair.
         “Ah, you wouldn’t demote me, Tezza, not after all of those boys I beat up for being cheeky to you when we went to school together?”
         “That’s true,” admitted Terri, “the first time was at kindergarten when we were three. This boy twice my size raced over and pushed me over for no reason. Then Sheils raced over and beat him up ... After that I decided it was safest to have her as a friend, rather than get beaten up myself.
         “Okay, let’s head across the road.”
         A few minutes later, they were in the super-marionette shop, tearing up floorboards, checking in the ceiling and checking out the dolls in the back of the shop.
         “I don’t know what you’re expecting to find?” said Pierce Bronson surlily.
         Holding up the Aboriginal marionette, Colin said, “Adelaide Donadin, or her remains.”
         “Well, you won’t find her or her remains here.”
         “We’ll see,” said Colin.
         An hour or so later, Jessie Baker said, “I’ve found something.”
         Walking over to the tall, redheaded man, they found him holding another Aboriginal girl doll, dressed in tribal clothes, with a spear and a boomerang.
         “What about it?” asked Terri.
         “I’m sure this one looks familiar.”
         Leaning over to look, Sheila said, “That’s Womah. She’s from the Gooladoo Tribe outside Harpertown. Or she was until about three months back when she left the tribe to become a prozzie at the Free Love Sex Lounge in LePage.”
         “That’s right,” said Hilly Hindmarsh, a tall Nordic blonde in her late fifties, “she went missing after wandering off with a private client a couple of weeks ago. We looked everywhere and couldn’t find any sign of her.”
         “Yes,” agreed Terri, “but there was another prozzie from the sex lounge who went missing soon after that.”
         “Bridgitte ‘Bridge’ Coalman,” said Sheila, “her pickup line for potential customers was, ‘How would you like to spend time on this bridge?’”
         “Very subtle,” said Colin.
“Well, she had tits the size of cantaloupes, so I don’t think many men ever refused,” said Sheila.

         “Very subtle,” repeated Colin.
         Fifty minutes or so later, Hilly called out, “What did Bridgitte Coleman look like?”
         “A tall, curvaceous bottle blonde,” said Sheila.
         “Anything like this?’ she asked, holding up a curvy, blonde marionette.
         “That’s our bebe,” said Sheila, taking the doll from Hilly.
         Taking the Womah and Bridge doll across to Pierce, Terri asked, “How do you explain these?”
         “Two of my hundreds of marionettes.”
         “Which are dead ringers for two prostitutes who went missing recently,” pointed out Colin.
         “Mere coincidence,” insisted Bronson, “there are eight-and-a-half billion people in the world, with hundreds of marionettes in my shop, the odds are good that occasionally they will vaguely resemble real people.”
         “The resemblance is more than vague,” insisted Sheila.
         “And there might be eight-and-a-half billion people in the world,” said Terri, “but there are only around six thousand people in Glen Hartwell, so the coincidence is much greater than you’re suggesting.”
         “We’re confiscating these two dolls,” said Colin, writing out another receipt to hand to the Marionetteer.
         They continued searching through the marionettes and the super marionettes in the front office for a few more hours before finally deciding that they had found everything there was to find.
         “Okay, we might as well leave now,” said Colin, looking around. “Hey, where has Terri gone?”
         The others looked around before Hilly Hindmarsh said, “I think she left with Stanlee to take the dolls to Mitchell Street."
         “Okay, let’s go after her,” suggested Sheila.
         They headed out into Lawson Street, and climbed into their respective vehicles.
         Arriving back at Mitchell Street Police Station, they found Suzette Cummings and Stanlee Dempsey in the front office.
         “Did Terri come with you, Stanlee?” asked Colin.
         “No, she was still at the shop when I left. She told me to take the dolls to lock them away in the evidence room.”
         “She definitely hasn’t been here,” agreed Suzette, a short raven-haired teen.
         “Then where the aitch can she be?” mused Colin.
         Taking out his phone, he rang through to the Morcambe Street Police Station in Lenoak, being manned by new pro-rata police woman Elsa Cheong. He spoke for a moment, then disconnected and said:
         “Elsa hasn’t seen her.”
         Over the next half an hour or so they rang around to all the local police stations, including out at BeauLarkin, two hours’ drive from Glen Hartwell, and Willamby, eighty to ninety minutes’ drive away. Plus also the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, in case she had gone there for some reason. Finally, they rang Deidre Morton at the Yellow House in Rochester Road, Merridale, in case she had gone home for some reason.
         “Nope, Mrs. M. hasn’t seen her,” said Colin, disconnecting. “Where the Hell could she be?”
         “Back at the Marionette shop,” suggested Suzette Cummings.
         “Didn’t Hilly say she’d seen her leave, though?” asked Sheila.
         “No, only that I thought she had gone with Stanlee,” corrected Hilly.
         “All right, let’s head back to Lawson Street,” said Colin, and the police (except for Suzette Cummings) all strode outside into Mitchell Street.
         When they arrived at the shop, they found it locked up. However, there was a light on in the rear room, so they hammered upon the door until Pierce Bronson appeared. Opening the front door, he asked:
         “What do you want now? Haven’t you done enough damage to my store already?”
         “We can do a lot more, if we have to,” offered Sheila.
         Glaring at the Goth policewoman, Bronson asked, “So what can I do for you now?”
         “We’re looking for Terri, my wife, and our Chief,” explained Colin.
         “I thought she left with you an hour or so ago?”
         After looking around the front room carefully, Stanlee said, “Maybe we should check the rear room again?”
         “Do you have another search warrant?” asked Bronson.
         “We can get one if we have to,” said Colin.
         “Or we could just arrest you on suspicion, and take you down to Mitchell Street to grill you for the next seventy-two hours,” suggested Sheila.
         Looking outraged, Bronson said, “Very well, help yourselves.” He waved toward the rear room with one hand.
         They returned to the back room to search for another ninety minutes or so, until Alice Walker, a tall athletic forty-something brunette, called:
         “Sheils, Colin, found something.”
         Walking across, they saw she was holding a blonde marionette, dressed in a policewoman’s uniform.
         “That looks just like Terri,” said Sheila.
         “Yes, I was very impressed by your wife, officer, so I based the doll upon her,” explained the Marionetteer.
         “I’m afraid we’re going to have to seize this doll too,” said Colin, writing out a receipt for it.
         “How am I supposed to make a living if you keep seizing all of my stock?” demanded Pierce Bronson.
         “How are you supposed to make a living if we take your licence away?” countered Sheila.
         Colin handed the man a receipt and said, “Anyway, you’ll get them back once we find Terri and the others.”
         “Here’s hoping,” said Bronson.
         “We’d better,” said Sheila, “that offer of a seventy-two-hour grilling downtown still stands, Mr. Bronson.”
         As they turned to leave, Colin said, “As they say on the TV cop shows, don’t leave town without our permission.”
         Outside in Lawson Street, Sheila suggested, “Maybe we’d better keep a guard on the store overnight, in case he decides to do a runner.”
         “Good idea, Sheils,” said Colin, “Stanlee, Alice, you’re elected.”
         “Don’t we both outrank you, since you’re only a special adviser?” asked Alice.
         “Stanlee, Alice, you’re elected,” said Sheila before doing a broad shit-eater grin, “you don’t outrank me.”
         “Damn, she’s got us there,” conceded Stanlee Dempsey as the others climbed into their cars to drive away.
         As they climbed into Stanlee’s white Range Rover, Alice asked, “So do you want to stand the first watch while I snooze, or should I stay awake first?”
         
         Returning to the Yellow House in Merridale, Colin and Sheila told Deidre Morton and the others of the latest developments.
         “Oh dear,” said Deidre, “well you’d better both go to the dining room, while I warm up your teas for you.”
         Finally going to bed, Colin placed the Terri Marionette upon the bed on the left-hand side where she normally slept, before climbing into the right side of the bed.
         “I’m not used to sleeping without you, babe,” said the redheaded man as he climbed under the blankets.
         
         Early the next morning, Charlene and Charlotte Remington were strolling toward Glen Hartwell High School. They always set out early so that they could dawdle.
         “I can’t wait to graduate high school and move to the big city,” said Charlotte ‘Charlie’, sixteen, a tall raven-haired girl, and a bit of a daydreamer.
         “You mean BeauLarkin, or Sale?” asked Charlene ‘Lene’, fifteen, a medium-height strawberry-blonde, also a daydreamer
         “No, I meant Melbourne or Sydney; anything to get out of this local yokel area.”
         “That’s for sure,” agreed Lene, “if you wait till I graduate too, we can move in together at our own flat in Melbourne.”
         “Actually, I might need space, so that I can have a boyfriend stay over nights.”
         “I didn’t know you even had a boyfriend?”
         “I don’t, but I’m bound to get one once I move to the big smoke; there are two or three million males in Melbourne, perhaps four million in Sydney.”
         “But if you can’t get a boyfriend here in Glen Hartwell...?”
         “Course I could get a boyfriend in G.H., but dating these local yokels is beneath me. I may have been born in the sticks, but I’m a city girl at heart.”
         “Me too,” insisted Lene. “So, would you really have a boy sleep over with you outside marriage?”
         “Lene, get with the times; no one has a white wedding anymore.”
         “Suzie Mentone did recently.”
         “Yeah, but she was eight months pregnant at the time, so that hardly counts as a white wedding. White wedding means virginal.”
         “Aren’t you a virgin?”
         “Of course I am, I’d never put out for anyone here in the sticks, but once I get to Melbourne or Sydney I’ll join the swinging set immediately.”
         “Assuming you can find them.”
         “Well,” said Charlie, stopping to consider for a moment, “you can probably find swinging sites on the internet these days.”
         “Oh yeah,” said Lene as they stopped at 74 Lawson Street to read the gold lettering which said: Pierce Bronson’s Super Marionettes & Dolls!
         “Super Marionettes, what are those?” asked Lene.
         “Electronic string-puppets, I think,” said Charlie as the door opened to reveal a tall, dark-haired man in his thirties.
         “Very astute of you, young lady; that’s exactly what super marionettes are,” said Pierce Bronson. “I have hundreds of super marionettes, marionettes and dolls in my shop, if you would care to have a short tour.”
         “Sure,” said the two girls, stepping into the marionette shop.
         Welcome to my parlour! thought Pierce, grinning broadly at the two girls.
         
         Two hours later, Suzie Carmichael, Libby Whyte, and Lizzie Chong were in the maths room struggling to make heads or tails of imaginary numbers, when a voice came over the intercom demanding they all go to the Head Master’s office.
         “Suzie, Libby, Lizzie,” called their teacher, Roxanne Russell, a tall, attractive, forty-something brunette.
         “Yes, Miss Russell,” said Suzie as the three girls stood and headed out into the grey locker-lined corridor to start down to the Head Master’s office.
         “What the heck have we done now?” demanded Libby Whyte.
         “Other than not understanding how imaginary numbers can be used in the building of skyscrapers and bridges,” said Lizzie.
         “My Uncle Milton says that that’s why that span fell, killing all those people when they were building the Westgate Bridge in the 1970s,” said Suzie.
         “Because they used imaginary numbers in its construction?” asked Libby.
         “Yes, so the bolts holding the span up were imaginary, so it fell, killing over fifty people.”
         “That makes as much sense as anything else we’ve been taught about imaginary numbers,” agreed Lizzie, as they finally reached the vomit-green door saying ‘Head Master’s Office’.
         Suzie rapped upon the door, and a deep, booming male voice said:
         “Come in, girls.”
         Tentatively opening the door, the three girls eased into the room and stood rigidly in front of the large, paper-covered oaken desk at which sat Quinton Brierley, a tall, balding bespectacled man in his late fifties.
         “Relax, girls,” said Brierley, noting how nervous they were, “you’re not in trouble. I just wanted to ask if you had seen Charlene and Charlotte Remington today; neither girl has made it to class.”
         “No, we haven’t seen them,” said Lizzie.
         “I rang their home number, but no one answered.”
         “Their Mum works, and their Dad is interstate on some project or other,” said Suzie, “he’s a Project Manager.”
         “Perhaps I’d better ring the Glen Hartwell Hospital, just in case something has happened to them,” said Brierley, reaching for his mobile phone, “you girls can return to class.”
         
         Colin and Sheila had stopped off at the Mitchell Street Police Station for morning tea when the wall phone rang.
         “I’ll get it,” said Suzette Cummings, walking across to answer the phone. After a minute or so, she hung up and said, “That was the head master at G.H. High; he says two more girls have gone missing.”
         “Who?” asked Alice Walker.
         “Charlene and Charlotte Remington.”
         Standing, Sheila said, “Okay, let’s go talk to Pierce Bronson.”
         “You’re convinced he’s behind this?” asked Colin as they headed outside.
         “I’d bet my left tit that he’s got marionettes that look just like the two girls,” said the Goth chick as they stepped out into Mitchell Street.
         “Now that’s what I call a serious gambler,” teased Alice Walker as they climbed into Terri’s white Jeep Cherokee.
         “I’ll take us to the town hall first to get another warrant from Don Fraser,” said Sheila as she started the car.
         
         This time Don Fraser insisted on coming with them, so half an hour or so later they arrived back at the super marionette shop, along with Stanlee Dempsey and another dozen or so police officers.
         Sighing from frustration at the sight of the police, Bronson said, “I hope you’ve got another warrant?”
         “Right here,” said Don Fraser, handing it to the Marionetteer.
         “All right, come in,” said Bronson unenthusiastically.
         This time they started removing the floorboards and ceiling with crowbars and pinch bars as well as using sledge hammers upon one wall.
         “Why is he doing that?” demanded Bronson as Stanlee Dempsey wielded a large sledgehammer.
         “There seems to be some missing space in this back room on that side,” explained Sheila Bennett. “Our guess is a hidden room.”
         “Hidden smidden,” said Bronson, as they finally broke through to a small room about the size of a walk-in closet. “It’s my temple, where I do my praying.”
         When Stanlee and Jessie Baker had broken through, they found a large ancient wooden altar covered in dolls, mainly of zombies, mummies, and what seemed to be black slaves, there were also what looked like solid gold talisman’s to various gods unknown to the police, scented candles in small pots, strange looking roots in glass jars, and several small dolls, all of girls or women.
         “So what exactly is your religion?” asked Jessie Baker.
         “Vudun,” replied Bronson.
“That’s a fancy way of saying voodoo,” explained Sheila, a lifelong devotee of horror films and novels, as well as all things outré.

         “Voodoo is a legitimate religion,” insisted the Marionetteer, “I learnt it from a Haitian friend of mine when I was in the Australian Army for a few years.”
         “You were in the Aussie Army?” asked Colin in disbelief.
         “Until I was kicked out for suspected perversions ... Perversions, me, really?” said Pierce. “Anyway, two things I learnt to do there were how to sew, and how to make marionettes.”
         “Got them,” called Elsa Cheong, a tall, large-breasted, thirty-something pro-rata policewoman just recruited.
         Entering the voodoo room, she held up two marionettes, which looked remarkably like Charlotte and Charlene Remington.
         “Whoops!” she cried as she almost dropped one of the puppets.
         She grabbed at the puppet, inadvertently breaking the strings tying it to the marionette board.
         “Sorry, I ...” began Elsa, shrieking and dropping the Charlotte doll as it started rapidly expanding, until what looked like the corpse of Charlotte Remington lay on the floor of the voodoo room.
         “What the fuck?” said Colin. Then to Stanlee Dempsey, “Cuff him, mate.”
         As his hands were being cuffed behind his back, Pierce Bronson explained, “My Haitian mate in the army, Pierre, taught me how to turn people into marionettes.”
         While he was talking, Alice Walker had checked Charlotte at the neck for a pulse and announced:
         “She’s alive, but I think we’d better get her to the G.H. Hospital ASAP.”
         Reaching for her mobile phone, Sheila said, “Start removing the marionette boards from all of the dolls in the back room.”
         “Will do,” said Alice.
         By the time that they had finished, they had nearly three hundred corpses and a dozen or so girls and women who were alive but in comas at the hospital, including the Remington sisters, Adelaide Donadin and Terri Klein.
         Sheila gave Colin unlimited unofficial time off so that he could stay by Terri’s bedside until she awakened; which would be in nearly a week. By which time Adelaide Donadin had returned home, although she would not return to school for another week.
         Over the next three months they managed to track down the identities of over half of the corpses; however, nearly a hundred and fifty had to be cremated and placed in paupers’ graves.
         

THE END

© Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

         Melbourne, Victoria, Australia