THE NIGHT CALLERS

Phil Roberts About 6,600 words
22 Stafford Street, First Publishing Rights
Footscray (V) 3011 © Copyright 2023
AUSTRALIA. Phil Roberts



THE NIGHT CALLERS
by
PHIL ROBERTS



The Morrison family were driving along the dirt road a few kilometres outside of Upton, in the Victorian countryside in their brand new, yellow and white Kombi Van, when the bird raced past them.

"What the Hell was that?" asked Hermie, driving the van.

"Language, Herm, the kids are listening," said Gertrude, knowing damn well that her husband did not like to be called 'Herm'. He liked Hermie, or Herman.

"All right, what the heck was that?" he emended.

"It looked like some kind of bird," said twelve-year-old Ruth.

"How the ... heck could it be a bird?" demanded her father. "We're doing fifty-five Kays and it whooshed right past us. What kind of bird can travel that fast?"

"The Cheetah can travel that fast. But only for short distances," said Colleen, a ten-year-old blonde, who was the brains of the Morrison family.

"Yes, honey," said her mother, "but the Cheetah isn't a bird."

"Plus there aren't any Cheetah's in Australia, now that all of the zoos have been shut down by politically correct agitators," said Collie, adjusting her glasses along her nose.

"Er ... right," said Hermie.

They were still discussing the mysterious bird when it turned round and zoomed back toward the Kombi van.

"Jesus, it's coming back," said eight-year-old Harry. A cute little redheaded boy, like his namesake. And like Harry Duke of Sussex, his life was about to be destroyed. But not by a woman, rather by a bird resembling a greatly oversized roadrunner ... except for its fifteen-centimetre long, razor-sharp teeth - which true birds don't have.

"Don't blaspheme, honey," said Gerty. She looked around as the three children suddenly screamed.

Seeing them staring goggle-eyes at the front windscreen, she turned around, as the Night Caller, ten metres away, suddenly leapt in a way that no known bird could do, and crashed through the windscreen.

"Nooooo!" shrieked Gerty, stopping as the Night Caller crashed headfirst through the windscreen which shattered on impact. Allowing the oversized bird to rip out her throat before starting to eat her face.

"Gerty!" shrieked Hermie, lashing out at the monster with his left hand.

The Night Caller ripped off, chewed, and then swallowed his hand, before returning to devour Gerty Morrison from the head down.

"Mummy!" shrieked Harry, taken unawares as a second Night Caller shattered the side window, and opened its beak to grab the eight-year-old by the head, cracking his skull, making him scream and faint.

Then pulling away from the wildly careening Kombi Van, the second bird flew off with Harry dangling feet first from its beak to eat the youngster far off in its eyrie.

"Harry! Mummy!" shrieked the two girls, just before the Kombi van crashed into the steel guard rail beside the road and span three or four times, before stopping upside down.

Ruth was lucky to have her neck snapped in the crash, so that she died quickly, painlessly and with a minimum of terror. The other three occupants of the car were less lucky.

Having devoured Gerty down to the navel, the first Night Caller started on Hermie, who was weak from the loss of blood from his lost left hand, which still gushed. He was helpless to protect him as the bird pecked out his eyes and then tongue as he opened his mouth to scream before it cracked open his skull like a hardboiled egg and began to feast upon his juicy brain.

"Mummy! Daddy", cried! Colleen, whose brain power could not save her as a third Night Caller leant in through the broken side window and ripped out her throat.

Then like the first bird, it cracked open her skull, to begin feasting on her grey-, pink-, and white-matter, all delicious to the creature's pallet. It screeched its delight without stopping until it had devoured Colleen down to the waist. Then pulling her out through the shattered window, it flew away, holding her by one juicy thigh.

A fourth Night Caller tried to join the feast in the cabin of the Kombi Van, but the lead bird pecked at it, driving it away, so instead it smashed in a window on the other side of the van and began feasting upon the corpse of the precocious Ruth. No longer precocious. Now just dead and tasty.

Unlike the other birds, this one started at Ruth's feet and devoured both feet and legs to the crotch. Before finally cracking open her skull to sup on her tasty young brain.

Ruth had been just an average-looking girl, like Gerty her mother, but the Night Caller found the ten-year-old to be a superb meal. Better than any that it had had in years. It shrieked its delight without stopping until it had devoured all of the flesh and organs of the young girl. Leaving behind nothing but her picked clean, and slightly chewed skeleton.

The first Night Caller, sated upon the top half of Gerty and Hermie Morrison, staggered off. At first hopping along the road, as though too heavy to fly after its feast. But after nearly a minute of flapping its huge wings, it finally managed to take off. But nearly crashed immediately. Then dropping a couple of kilogrammes of night-black guano on the roadside, lightening its load, it finally stabilised enough to fly off into the night screeching in delight as it flew.

After the first Night Caller was long gone, the fourth bird, not yet sated, crashed through the divider from the back of the Kombi van to the cabin to finish off Gerty Morrison. Then when she was reduced to a bloody skeleton, it looked across at the lower half of Hermie. But decided that it was sated, and would not be able to fly if it tried to carry off his remains.

So reluctantly, it flew off leaving Hermie's corpse from the waist down to be picked clean by a pack of wild dingoes, which had watched the Night Callers intently as they feasted. But had not been stupid enough to risk tangling with such huge predators.

The fourth Night Caller, wisely dropped its load of night black guano before trying to take flight. Even so, it wobbled a little bit, before setting out after the other three.



The Mullins family driving home from a short vacation in Sale in the early morning discovered the gruesome remains of the Morrisons, in the ripped-apart Kombi van.

"Oh God," said Juniper Mullins, racing across to the side of the road to throw up. Soon followed by her three children, then her husband, George, finally unable to swallow it back down raced across to spew beside them.

When they had recovered enough to stand up straight, George Mullins took out his mobile phone, still saying, "Er, er," wondering if he had finished vomiting. Finding that he had, he rang through to Terrie Scott, chief of police in Lenoak, who also looked after Upton, too small to have its own police force.



Half an hour later, Terri, an attractive thirty-something blonde arrived on the scene in her pale blue police Lexus.

Followed fifteen minutes later by Paul Bell, Stanlee Dempsey, and Andrew Braidwood, all police officers in local towns who helped each other out on big cases. And what the Mullinses had told Terri made it seem certain that this would be a big case.

With them, they had brought two civilians, Colin Klein, a redhead English journalist who had helped them out before. And Bulam Bulam the grocery shopkeeper in Harpertown. A grey-haired elder of the Gooladoo tribe.

"Mr. Klein, we meet again," said Terri who had recently worked with Colin Klein on a prostitute-killer case.

"Always nice to work with a beautiful lady," said Colin, making her blush as they shook hands.

"You're being too kind," she insisted, going across to shake hands with the Indigenous elder too. "Bulam Bulam, always a pleasure."

"The pleasure's all mine," he said.

"So what have we got here?" asked Colin.

"You tell me," said Terri, leading them across to the splatter fest that was the remains of the Morrisons.

"Ouch," said Colin, hardly able to believe his eyes at the torn-apart Kombi van, and the skeletal remains of the Morrisons. Except for Hermie, whose lower body was still intact.

"Oh, come on, you're a big tough London reporter. You've seen worse than this," she teased him.

"In London? The last time this kind of slaughter happened in London was during the Blitz in World War Two. And I doubt that even that was ever this bad. Besides, I'm only forty-eight, so I wasn't born in those days."

"Any idea what did this?" asked Bulam Bulam, noticing that the bones had been gnawed upon.

"That my friend is the sixty-four million dollar question," said Paul Bell, a tall, wiry, raven-haired man, of forty-something. He shook hands with Colin Klein and Bulam Bulam. "Bears, tigers, lions, and many other animals in herd formation could have done it. But we don't have any of those creatures in Australia."

"Not even in zoos anymore, since the do-gooders have had them all shut down," added Andrew Braidwood, a tall, thin man with long stringy yellow hair.

"Might have known that when something this weird happened, the monster magnet himself, Colin Klein, would turn up soon after," teased Donald Esk, a tall muscular man with brown hair, in something akin to a Beetles mop-top cut.

"How dare you?" said Klein, but laughing as he said it.



Soon after two ambulances turned up to collect the remains of the Morrisons.

"God, these three are the most awful things I've ever seen since coming to work in this area," said Derek, a black paramedic.

"You're not wrong," said Cheryl, a tall strong woman with badly dyed hair. This week yellow; sometimes red, sometimes black or brown. She hadn't yet reached the point of following Mollie Sugden's example of much more exotic colours.

"Actually," said Jesus Costello (pronounced 'Hee-Zeus'), administrator and chief surgeon at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital, "there are supposed to be five members of the Morrison family. The youngest two, Colleen ten, and Harry eight are missing."

"Shit!" said Jerry "Elvis" Green, the local coroner who had just turned up. His nickname came from his long black sideburns and his worship of the deceased King of Rock and Roll.

"Funny you should say that, Elvis," said Terri, "we've got something for you to test."

She led Elvis and the others across to examine the piles of black guano.

"Covering his nose," Colin Klein said: "Pugh, what are they?"

"Possibly the dung of whatever slaughtered the Morrisons," said Terri. "Although we can't be sure of that."

"There's a lot of it," said Elvis, collecting samples from each of the piles.

"Which seems to confirm, that we're looking for some very big creature," pointed out Andrew Braidwood.

"Now our next job, after getting this mess dealt with," said Terri, "is tracking down the two missing kids. The Morrisons had been returning from holidaying, apparently. If we're lucky the younger two kids stayed behind for some reason."

"If not, we have to try to locate whatever is left of them," said Bulam Bulam. Unaware that that problem was about to be solved for them.



Geo and Babs Whitbread were travelling to work, in their yellow BMW I7 M70 Xdrive Sedan, when huge birdlike shadows blotted out the sunlight.

"What the Hell," said Babs, craning her head, trying to see whatever was causing the shadows.

As she tried to look up, something suddenly landed with a crash on the roof of their expensive car.

"What they...?" said Geo, pulling over just in time as a second object crashed onto the bonnet of the Xdrive Sedan.

"Aaaaaaaah!" shrieked Babs, recognising it as a child-sized skeleton.

Getting out of the luxury car hurriedly, they saw that a larger, but still child-sized skeleton had smashed upon the roof of the car.

While Babs fainted, Geo threw up over the boot of the BMW and then helped his wife into the car. Beore using his mobile to phone Terri Scott.



Thirty-five minutes later Terri, Colin, and the others had arrived at the skeleton-clad Xdrive Sedan. Except for Elvis Green who had taken the Guano samples back to his morgue in Dien Street Glen Hartwell to try to figure out what creatures they had come from.

"So, I guess we have found the missing children," said Terri Scott, sounding world-weary, despite her youth.

"It would seem like it," said Colin Klein as two ambulances turned up to collect the two skeletons.

"They looked like gigantic birds overhead," said Babs Whitbread as Derek and Cheryl walked across to her.

"You actually saw what did this?" asked Colin Klein.

"No, but their shadows blocked out the sun before the first skeleton crashed onto the roof," said Geo, "then a few seconds later, the second one crashed down onto the bonnet."

"Luckily he was already pulling over when the second one landed," said Babs, "or else we might've been killed."

"I'd say you had a very lucky escape," said Terri.

"Lucky?" said Geo, "just look at the state of our new BMW Sedan."

"It's just a car, Geo, it can be fixed," said Babs, "unlike those two poor kids."

"We'll arrange for it to be toed into town for you," said Terri. "Do you want to ride with us or wait for the tow truck?"

"I'll wait, take her into town," said Geo in one of his rare considerate moments.

Back at the morgue in Dien Street, Glen Hartwell, Elvis Green told them: "I can definitely say that it's some type of guano, but I can't say from what."

"Guano?" Donald Esk.

"Bird poop," explained Colin Klein: "He was showing off."

"I'm no expert on animal life," said Elvis, "but we know someone who is?"

So saying, the coroner rang through to the Melbourne Wildlife Safari Park and asked to speak to Totty Rampling. He finally hung up, saying, "She'll be on the nine o'clock train at Merridale, tomorrow morning."

"Excellent," said Colin Klein, remembering the last time, a few weeks back, that they had worked with the attractive, brunette, wildlife biologist.



That evening, a scout jamboree was camping a few kilometres outside Upton, with four leaders and thirty or so scouts sitting around a log fire, enjoying toasted marshmallows.

Suddenly loud screeching came from overhead.

"What the...?" said the Scout leader, Godfrey Tebbs, careful not to swear in front of the boys and girls.

Suddenly a huge pile of black guano fell into the campfire, making the fire flare up, and the kids squeal and start running hither and thither.

"Calm down kids," said Godfrey. His last spoken words, before the first Night Caller zoomed down and tore out his throat, then started to devour Godfrey head first. It cracked open his skull with its razor-sharp teeth and eagerly supped upon his juicy brain.

"What's going on?" asked assistant scout leader Julie Davidson, coming out of her tent. Only to have a second Night Caller land on her back, breaking it, so that she fell to the floor of dried pine needles and gum leaves in the sweet-smelling forest.

"Aaaaaaa!" screamed Julie, until the Night Caller pecked open her skull and greedily devoured her pulsing brain.

The children ran into the tightly packed forest, which the Night Callers could not fly through. So they landed and raced after the children. Catching them and eating them one by one.

The children ran helter-skelter screaming constantly. But their speed was no match for that of the Night Callers, which ran them down and killed them all, even though they were unable to eat more than half of them.

When they were finished, the birds each grabbed one of the remaining children by the legs to fly back to the eyrie with them, to feed upon later.



They arrived at the Merridale Railway Station in Yorke Street half an hour early. But for once the train arrived fifteen minutes early, instead of being late as it usually was.

As fifty or so people alighted from the train, Colin Klein pointed out a tall, leggy brunette and said: "There she is."

They went across to greet her and help her with her three suitcases, although Totty insisted on carrying her heavy equipment case, never letting anyone else touch it.

"You came prepared this time," said Colin.

"Yes," agreed Totty, who had expected an overnight stay only on her last visit. So she had had to phone back for her sister to send her some clothing.

"You still at Mrs. Morton's?" asked Totty.

"I'm back there," agreed Colin. "I left for a while, but now I'm back. I'm sure she'll have a room for you."

"Uh-oh," said Totty.

"What?" asked Terri.

"Last time she was determined to get Colin and I married," explained Totty.

"She actually had the date set," teased the redheaded reporter, "when Totty scarpered, leaving me standing at the altar."

"You poor thing," teased Terri, making everyone laugh.



They got Totty settled in at Mrs. Morton's two-storey boarding house near the end of Rochester Road in Merridale.

"Miss Totty, what a wonderful surprise," said Mrs. Morton, hugging her as Terri, Colin, and Totty walked into her parlour.

"Ooh, you're back with us," said Miss Lipzing, a dowdy old spinster lady, who like Mrs. Morton had been planning a January Wedding for Totty and Colin.

"Miss Lipzing," said Totty, walking across to kiss the old lady on her papery right cheek.

"So nice to see you again," said the spinster.

"Don't they make a wonderful couple, Terri dear?" asked Mrs. Morton almost glowing with delight that Totty and Colin were - in her opinion - back together.

"Yes, the perfect couple," teased Terri, pretending not to notice as Colin Klein and Totty Rampling turned round to glare at the blonde policewoman.



After they had helped Totty unpack, Mrs. Morton said: "And you're just in time for lunch."

"Um, well I am here on business," pleaded Totty, remembering Mrs. Morton's gargantuan repasts.

"Nonsense, young lady, like Mr. Klein, you're all skin and bones. You need feeding up." Then to Terri: "You're welcome to stay too, dear."

"Thank you," said a starving Terri, who had not stopped for breakfast that morning.

"Help yourselves," said Mrs Morton, with Miss Lipzing's help, piling plate after plate of hot food onto the table. She handed them all cuppas, including Nescafe for Colin Klein, who had finally summoned up the nerve to tell her, that despite being an English man, he actually hated tea.

Knowing that they'd never get away with it, all three of the young people sparingly filled their plates.

"Oh, come on now, that's not enough to feed a field mouse," said the old lady, getting up to pile chicken, ham, potatoes, broccoli, and half a dozen other vegetables upon the plates of Terri, Totty, and Colin. "I really do need to feed you youngsters up."

"They're all so thin," agreed Miss Lipzing, almost anorexic herself.



At the morgue in Dien Street Glen Hartwell, Totty stared through a microscope at some of the guano on a slide. Finally, she looked up and said: "Well it's definitely guano, that's bird poop, but not of any type that I've ever seen."

She thought for a moment, then asked: "Don't suppose there are any surviving eyes witnesses?"

"Yes two," said Terri. "But all they saw was gigantic bird-like shadows overhead before it dropped two children's skeletons onto their car."

She went on to relate Geo and Babs Whitbread's almost encounter with the Night Callers.

"How gigantic?" Totty asked.

"They said the shadows blotted out the sun," said Colin Klein.

"Hmmm?" said Totty. "There are birds that large, of course. The rare Californian Condor, the Andean Condor, the Cinereous Vulture, the Great Bustard."

"Also called the silly bustard," said Paul Bell.

"But none of those birdies have ever been sighted in Australia," said Totty. "The largest we're supposed to have is the emu. But it's flightless. Although I've been told that they can run the pants off a kangaroo."

"These birds dwarf the emu in size, based on the shadows that the Whitbreads saw," said Terri. "And the indications are that they ran down a moving Kombi van. Meaning that they could run the pants off an emu ... if indeed emus wore pants."

Examining the skeletal remains of the Morrisons, Totty stopped, obviously shocked: "These have clearly got teeth marks on them."

"Yes, I noticed," said Elvis Green.

"But no bird since the Jurassic age has had teeth," insisted Totty. "Hence the expression 'rare as hens' teeth'."

"That I'm also aware of," said Elvis.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Totty. She spent the next two hours examining the skeletal remains of the Morrisons, and half-body remains of Herman Morrison."

Finally, Totty said: "What we seem to have here is some kind of gigantic cross between roadrunners and prehistoric pelagornithids. They're early, toothed birds."

"So how do you explain it?" asked Bulam Bulam.

"Well, if we were anywhere else, I wouldn't even try," said Totty. "But the truth is that we're in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area, where, as we all know, goofy stuff happens."

"So that's your explanation?" asked Paul Bell.

"Yep," said Totty.

"Frankly, I couldn't have explained it better myself," said Elvis Green, making them all laugh.



However, they were not laughing half an hour later, when they received a phone call from a hysterical jogger, who had stumbled across the slaughter at the scout camp a few kilometres outside Upton.



Looking around the shattered campsite, Terri, almost crying, said: "Those poor kids."

"The damn things have killed them all, but not for food," stated Totty.

"But why?" asked Terri.

"Well, in a smarter species, I would suggest to prevent witnesses from escaping and telling on them," said Totty. "But there is a reason that people say bird-brained when they mean dumb. So, I'm guessing they got caught up in their blood lust and got excited, killing everything that moved."



That night Totty and Colin returned to Mrs. Morton's boarding house in Rochester Road in Merridale.

"Just in time for tea," said Miss Lipzing. "Mrs. Morton has spoilt us with a lovely lamb roast."

"And I want you two to tuck right in to fill yourselves up," said Mrs. Morton, giving them each more than either of them would normally eat in an entire day.



That night Paula and Lindsay McCartney were driving home late from a boring visit to Lindsay's boring parents when something whooshed by their car.

"What was that?" asked Lindsay, "I'm doing sixty Kays and it zoomed by."

"Some idiotic bastard on a motorbike probably," suggested his wife.

Even as she spoke, a second Night Caller whooshed past the car. The two of them stopped half a kilometre in front of the McCartney's psychedelic Volkswagen Beetle. Then raced back toward it, as the third and fourth Night Callers attacked the vehicle from behind.

A 2002 model, the Beetle still had the engine in the rear, so as the third and fourth Night Callers attacked it, they literally ripped the engine out of the small car, and sent it tumbling back down the bitumen road. Stopping the car, which helped the first two Callers to attack it from the front.

As the birdlike creatures ripped the bonnet off the Beetle, the McCartneys started screaming hysterically, realising that barring a miracle they were about to die.

Having literally pulled the front storage unit off the Beetle, the two Night Callers slammed their beaks through the front windscreen to rip out the throats of Lindsay and Paula. They cracked open the McCartneys' skulls to feast upon their juicy brains. Consuming their entire heads and necks, then down through their chests to the navels. Then burping loudly, the two birds had had enough.

Running along the road flapping their wings wildly, they managed to finally take off, dropping a couple of kilos of guano as they flew. Leaving the third and fourth Night Caller to finish off the two corpses, chewing down from the navel to the crotch, then through the thighs and legs, leaving only the skin at the bottom of the feet. Other than that the McCartneys had been picked clean, even their bones cracked open to get at the marrow within.



"So how do we destroy these prehistoric birdie things?" asked Colin Klein.

"Pelagornithids," explained Totty. "A rocket launcher should do it. They're not supernatural, just out of their own time somehow."

"That's assuming that they don't run us to the ground and eat us before we can fire the launcher," said Colin.

"Yes," agreed Totty, "and we know that they can outrun a car. So unless we can borrow a Formula One racing car, we can't even run away once we confront them."

"What about a light plane?" asked Don Esk.

"We'd be worse off," said Totty, "they can probably out fly anything that's not jet-powered. So if they didn't eat us we'd fall to our deaths. So a racing car seems to be our best bet."

"So how do we get a racing car?" asked Colin Klein.

"When is the Melbourne Grand Prix, again?" she asked.

"About a week before Easter next year," said Don Esk, a bit of a rev head.

"So not for four-and-a-half months," said Totty. "Well, we can't wait that long. These things could massacre hundreds of people by that time."



After the massacre at the scout jamboree, they had had to notify Russell Street, Melbourne about the goings on at Upton, trying their best not to sound insane as they filled them in.

To their surprise, Russell Street agreed to send them a military helicopter to try to shoot down the Night Callers.

"They should be here by the morning," said Terri Scott.



Colin and Totty were enjoying a copious breakfast at Mrs. Morton's the next morning when two things happened. Firstly, Terri Scott arrived to tell of the discovery of the McCartneys' chewed-away Beetle, plus their gnawed skeletons.

"Oh Lord," said Mrs. Morton, sitting down with a serving spoon still in her hands.

"My Goodness," said Mrs Lipzing, "those tiny cars aren't much protection."

"Not against giant winged roadrunners," said Colin.

"Pelagornithids," Totty corrected him.

As they started toward the door, Terri said: "And their wonderful psychedelic Beetle ripped to shreds. It was like a blast from the past."

"Was it a 1960s model?" asked Totty.

"No, from 2002," said Terri. "But the McCartneys were always nostalgic about the 1960s: peace, love, and the karma sutra. That kind of thing, so they had it painted into almost a new mystery incorporated car."

"From Scooby Dooby Dooby Dooby Do?" asked Colin Klein, doing the worst Scooby Doo impression ever.

"Exactly," said Terri laughing.

The second thing occurred when they opened the front door to leave and found the front lawn swarming with over a hundred big city reporters from Melbourne and all around Australia. All the TV networks (7, 9, 10, ABC, SBS) were represented, plus radio news, a dozen major rags, and even podcast news programs.

At the front of the swarm, was gorgeous platinum blonde TV reporter Lisa Nowland, who had been making a name for herself reporting on the whacky murder cases that had been cropping up in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area over the last few months.

"Hello, Mr. Klein," she called out, waving as they exited the house. "It's nice to be working with you again."

"Lisa, we have never worked together," Colin said.

"What about on the Darkling case?" she asked, knowing that he couldn't deny that they had worked together at least that once.

"Well, maybe that one time," he conceded before Totty tapped him in the ribs and said:

"Stop digging, she's getting ready to throw the dirt back in on you."

Forcing their way out through the swarm, Colin, Totty, and Terri raced to Terri's blue police Lexus, parked outside, got in and started toward the location of the McCartney's slaughter.

"Follow them," said Lisa to her driver-cum-cameraman, as she jumped into the front passenger seat of their news van.

"Okey dokey," said Davo, double-clutching into third, with twenty or more other vans, and as many more cars racing after them. In their hurry, many of the vehicles collided and came to an abrupt stop, to the delight of Lisa Nowland.

"That'll teach them to try to beat me to a scoop," said Lisa, laughing again.



Forty minutes later they arrived at the death scene, to see that Jesus Costello and Elvis Green had already done a preliminary examination of the bodies. And Cheryl and Derek were ready to place them into the back of an ambulance to be transported to the morgue in Dien Street, Glen Hartwell.

Terri, Colin, and Totty only examined them briefly, and then Terri said: "All right take them away."

As the ambulance took off, half of the news vans and cars followed them. But Lisa Nowland, and the smarter reporters, knew that the story would come from Terri Scott and the other investigators.

"Well, if the term write off hadn't already existed, they would have made it up for this poor Beetle," said Terri staring at the ruins of the McCartneys' psychedelic Volkswagen, with its engine strangely half a kilometre down the road behind it.

"What happened there, I wonder?" said Colin Klein.

"Your guess is as good as mine," said Totty.



When they returned to the police station in Morecambe Street Lenoak, they found an RAAF A25 Sikorsky S-70 Blackhawk helicopter. As they arrived, out stepped its female pilot, fifty-something Jennifer Eckles, an attractive brunette with pixie-cut hair.

Staring at her for a moment, Paul Bell said: "You look vaguely familiar ... and that's not just a pickup line. Although if you're free Saturday night?"

"So do you, Paul," said Jennifer shaking hands with the puzzled policeman. Until she reminded him that she had been in the region thirty years ago as a junior co-pilot. "On that Glug-A-Luki business."

"Oh, that's right," said Paul, "I was hoping to pick you up at that time, but never got the chance."

"Whose-awhat-now business?" asked Totty; Terri looking equally puzzled.

"A very old case, involving a very big snail," said Andrew Braidwood.

As the co-pilot, a much younger brunette stepped out, Jennifer introduced her: "This is my co-pilot and daughter, Barbara."

"So we hear you've got another whacky backy case in the region?" said Barbara. "Mum told me all about the giant snail case."

"Giant snail?" asked Totty Rampling, wondering whether they were all pulling her leg.

"We'll tell you later," said Paul as the press started to arrive. "For now, let's go inside."



Inside they reviewed where the killings had occurred, then risking the pariahs of the press, they headed back out to the A25 Sikorsky S-70 Blackhawk helicopter.

With Jennifer and Barbara in the cockpit, Paul Bell, Totty, and Colin Klein piled into the rear, leaving the others to take care of the media.

Unseen by anyone, Lisa Nowland managed to sneak into the yard and cling to one of the landing stanchions just before the helicopter took off. However, they were less than ten metres in the air, when she started screaming in terror.

"What's that noise?" asked Jennifer.

Her daughter looked out the window and said: "You're not gonna believe this, Mum. But we've got a platinum blonde clinging to one of the stanchions.

"Then down we go again," said Jennifer, taking them back to the ground.

They piled out of the chopper and helped a terrified Lisa back to her feet.

"What are you doing, Lisa?" asked Terri Scott.

"Trying to get an exclusive on these giant carnivorous roadrunner, thingies."

"How the Hell do you know about that, Lisa?"

"I've got my sources," she said pouting.

Looking around at the men, Terri asked: "Okay, which one of you blokes has been sleeping with Lisa?"

"Not a wink," said Colin Klein.

"Ha-ha," said Lisa.

"All right, Lisa," said Terri, regretting her decision immediately, "you can come with us ... But only to protect you from yourself."

"Okay," said Lisa, climbing into the back of the chopper with the help of Colin Klein and Paul Bell.

Again they took off, to the raised fists of angry journalists, demanding: "Hey, how come she gets to go with you, but not us?"

"Because I asked first," shouted back Lisa.

"Climbing onto a stanchion is hardly asking," pointed out Barbara Eckles.

"Close enough," said Lisa, not willing to back down.



A few kilometres outside of Upton, a mixed-gender corroboree was just starting. The chief of the tribe chanted, slapping wooden instruments together, while fifty men and women, all topless, danced around a large, red gum fire. Revelling in the sweet smell of the burning eucalyptus wood."

"Iya Iya," began the chief as suddenly something raced across the clearing too rapidly for them to even see what it was. Stopping the surprised dancers.

"Keep going," ordered the chief, chanting again as two more Night Callers zoomed past the dancing Aborigines.

This time no amount of prompting could keep the dancers in order. Panicked, they began to run in all directions.

As a huge-breasted sixty-something lubra fell over, one of the Night Callers raced forward to rip out her throat. Then he consumed her huge pendulous breasts, before cracking open her skull to delight in her sweet brain.

"Run for it," shouted the chief. Seconds before a second bird raced forward to push him face down into the ceremonial fire. Eating him as he screamed in agony while cooking in the fire.

The third and fourth Night Callers raced forward to gulp down two tots, before running after two other huge-breasted lubras. One in her sixties, the other mid-seventies. Both with huge, pendulous breasts, which the night callers devoured, making the lubras shriek, even before killing them. Finally, they ripped open the women's skulls and began delighting in their juicy brains.

The birds then abandoned the dead lubras, to chase after two more, to devour their breasts first, then crack open their skulls to consume their brains. A process that a third bird now started to repeat.

Only the first bird kept eating its original victim. Delighting in the flavour of the Aboriginal chief, as he cooked in the ceremonial fire.

Again and again, they ran down huge breasted lubras, devoured their breasts, then cracked open their skulls to sup on their brains. Until the fattest lubras were all dead. So they turned their attention to the other end of the age spectrum, chasing down and consuming young children, too small to be able to escape the carnivorous birds.



The helicopter had started toward Mickelson's Road (in fact a dirt trail) where the attack on the Morrisons had occurred, when a voice came over the mike.

As Lisa Nowland Leant forward to pick up the handset, Barbara Eckles slapped her hand away, saying: "Strap in Lisa, I won't ask you again nicely."

Pulling her back into her seat, Terri Scott strapped her in, while Barbara talked into the handset for a couple of minutes, then hung up, saying:

"Those things have invaded a corroboree at the Wanneroo Settlement just outside Upton."

With instructions from Terri and Paul Bell, Jennifer headed the chopper in the direction of the Aboriginal village.



At the village, the men had stopped to hurl spears from woomeras at the Night Callers. Most of which they were fast enough to evade, but an occasional spear hit its mark, making the creature shriek in rage and run at the thrower to chew off his throwing arm, before heading back toward the fleeing children.

Sometimes the spear would fall out as the Night Callers ran. But sometimes it was so deeply embedded that the creature would have to take the spear shaft into its mouth and rip the spear out, screeching in agony as it did so. Which only increased its determination to kill every person at the indigenous settlement.



Overhead the A25 Sikorsky S-70 Blackhawk helicopter came into view of the village.

"My God!" said Barbara having never been into battle yet, let alone seen the sort of carnage which existed below.

"Thank God these things are a Hell of a lot more reliable than the old Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanches that we had when I was here thirty years ago," said her mother, Jennifer.



Hearing the helicopter approaching, three of the Night Callers zoomed into the sky, while the other continued to run down and eat the children of the tribe.



"Wait for it," said Jennifer as her daughter looked like pushing the button to fire two missiles. "Let them get right up to us in a group, so that you can't miss."

Screeching in anger at this latest intrusion, the Night Callers soared wing to wing within twenty metres of the helicopter. Before Jennifer Eckles finally said: "Now, honey."

Her daughter, Barbara, fired the ignition button and two missiles whooshed out igniting as they struck the first and third birds, blowing them into tiny bloody pieces. The middle bird was not killed, but with a damaged wing fell back to earth.

"You got three of them," said Terri, speaking too soon.

Only stunned by the fall, the Night Caller climbed shakily to its feet, then took off at a run toward the forest, abandoning the feast.

So did the fourth bird. But not fast enough to avoid the two missiles that Barbara Eckles fired at it.

"Direct hit!" said Jennifer, proud of her daughter, as the fourth Night Caller was blown to pieces no bigger than lamb roasts. "Good girl."

"Thanks, Mum," said Barbara blushing in pride and embarrassment.

They had to follow the final bird deep into the forest, sometimes having to follow it by radar location as they lost sight of it. A couple of times they thought that they had lost it. Then it reappeared on the monitor first ... then into sight.

As it raced toward a thick grove of blue gums, Jennifer said, "You'd better get it before it gets into those woods, or we've lost it."

Barbara fired off six missiles in a row. Four of them fell short or overshot the target, blowing up gum trees. But two of the missiles were direct hits, decapitating the Night Caller, then blowing it to bloody scattered remains.

"Bullseye," said Jennifer, hugging her daughter for a second before returning to the Aboriginal settlement to offer whatever help they could.

While they were landing Barbara radioed to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital to tell them of the attack and see that all six of the ambulances in the local area were sent out to help.



It took them hours to ferry the injured and dying to the hospital in Baltimore Road, and the dead to Elvis Green's morgue in Dien Street.

All except six of the children below the age of twelve had been killed. All of the heavy-chested lubras had had their pendulous breasts devoured, two being left alive to scream in agony until being sedated, One dying on the way to the hospital. The unlucky one survived to live another eleven years.

Only six of the men had been killed or maimed. And all had thrown spears at the Night Callers.

As the last of the Aborigines had been attended to, Totty Rampling walked across to the splattered remains of one of the monsters and said:

"It's such a shame."

"What?" asked Lisa Nowland who had walked over with her to take pictures of the mutilated Night Caller.

"That we had to kill these beautiful creatures," said Totty, "they were a valuable glimpse at the prehistoric past of this planet."

"You are one weird cookie," said Lisa. "Frankly I have seen more beautiful-looking things floating unflushed."

"So, Lisa, looks like you get another exclusive, thanks to your wily ways?" said Colin Klein.

"I prefer to say, my professional desire to chase down a great story, no matter what."

"Even at the risk of almost falling from the helicopter stanchion and being killed?"

"I knew you'd hear me and come to my rescue before I was in any real danger," said Lisa Nowland, giving him her most sexy pout.

"I think we've been conned again," said Colin Klein, making Lisa and the others laugh.

THE END
© Copyright 2023 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia