A BEAUTIFUL DEMON

Anthony Boyd was leaning on the reception desk of the Pittsburgh Motel in Willamby, in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby region of the Victorian countryside. It was less than a month to Christmas, and he was bored shitless.

They hadn't had a new booking in three days, so Anthony's main duties over the last half week had been to placate whining guests who expected five-star service, even though the motel clearly advertised itself as three-star.

Anthony was midway through a yawn, when the most gorgeous woman whom he had ever seen in his life walked in through the front door, struggling with two large suitcases. She was nearly two metres tall, night black, with incredible green eyes (a combination which he wouldn't have thought possible if he hadn't seen it for himself). She had luscious long legs one of which could be clearly seen through a virtually crotch-to-toe slit in her red floral dress, breasts that rivalled the landlady's for size and perfect roundness, and due to walking model style - placing one foot directly in front of the other -, she had a Marilyn Monroe style swaying of the hips as she walked.

Anthony almost fell over racing to attend to her. He grabbed her two suitcases and led her across to the reception desk.

"I'm your porter, Anthony," he said.

"I'm your customer, Ashantee Okoye," she replied. He'd received that answer a thousand times down the years and usually groaned at it. Instead, he said:

"What a beautiful name."

"Thank you," she said in an incredibly sexy, husky voice.

At the reception desk, he went to ting the bell, but hit the desk instead, since the landlady, Louisa "Dolly" Parton had removed the bell seeing them coming. Dolly was so nicknamed, not only because of her surname, but also because of her long curly platinum blonde locks, plus her 35DD chest, which rivalled Ashantee Okoye's mammoth cleavage.

"Hello," cooed Ashantee: "I'm Ashantee Okoye, I sent you a letter of reservation."

Dolly picked up a small pile of letters and went through them for a moment, before finding the gorgeous woman's letter.

"Oh, yes, we've reserved the mezzanine suite for you," handing Anthony the key, which he had to take in his mouth since his hands were full, she said: "Anthony will show you the way."

"Thank you," said Ashantee, strolling across to the elevator. Followed by Anthony, who enjoyed the view of her perfect heart-shaped behind swaying from side to side as she walked.

Since Ashantee made no move to press the elevator button, Anthony put down one of the suitcases just long enough to press the up button. The door ching-chinged open and a veteran tenant walked out. Veteran both in age, Major Yorke, as he liked to be called despite never having been in any military service, who was in his seventies, and predated Dolly and her husband Rodney at the motel. Which had formerly been known as The Imperial, before Rodney Parton, moved to Australia from Pittsburgh and renamed the motel after his birthplace.

"Holey moley," said the Major as he stared at the gorgeous woman as she swayed her way into the elevator. Followed by Anthony.

Ashantee Okoye gave the Major a broad grin, then dropped him a lascivious wink. Making him almost cum in his trousers.

Facing toward the front of the elevator, Anthony assumed that the Major's wide-eyed stare was merely due to the night black woman's gorgeousness. He put down a suitcase again, just long enough to select the mezzanine button "M".

Behind him, Ashantee started tonguing the inside of her right cheek suggestively toward the Major, while simulating a hand job with her right hand.

Stunned by the behaviour of such a young, gorgeous woman toward an old codger like himself, the Major went across to the reception desk, where Dolly was checking through the other letters in the pile.

"That black sheila," said the Major.

Glaring at him, Dolly said: "Why do you men always prefer black sheilas to us white ones?"

"I don't as long as they're beautiful with huge tits, that's all I ask for in a woman. So what are you doing later tonight?" he asked with what he thought was a lecherous leer but looked more like his wrinkled face was starting to melt.

"Well, certainly not you," said Dolly bursting the old man's bubble. "I like my men about forty years younger than you. Plus my Rod would whip my arse and strangle you if he caught us at it."

"Why do I get strangled, but you only get whipped?"

"Because I'm beautiful with huge tits, and you're not."

"Kick a man when he's down why don't you," said the Major, tottering off toward the lounge room to watch TV.

"Any cricket on?" he asked, sitting at the faded floral seated sofa.

"No, we won the World Cup, and the test cricket doesn't start till the fourteenth of December."

"Poor show," said the Major, flicking through the TV stations without finding anything fit to watch.


At the mezzanine level, Anthony placed Ashantee Okoye's suitcases down and then said:

"I'd better be getting back downstairs."

"Don't you want a tip?" asked the gorgeous woman.

"That's not necessary," he said.

"Are you quite sure?" she asked. Reaching behind her neck, she untied her dress and then let it slip to the floor to reveal her in all of her night-black lusciousness. Then holding out her long, slender right index finger, she beckoned him toward her.

Without even knowing that he was doing so, Anthony strode toward her. Then as she started to slowly undress him, she said:

"Feel free to help yourself to anything that takes your fancy."

Without taking time to consider, he reached up and grabbed her massive breasts. Surprised when he squeezed hard they felt real. He had assumed at, at least 36DD as they looked, that they had to be implants.

"They're the real thing," said Ashantee, as though reading his mind.

As he continued groping her massive breasts the night black woman completely undressed him, then pulled him across to the bed so that they could make love.

There came a knock at the door and Leila the maid stepped into the room, saying: "I've brought you some ..." Then seeing them naked on the bed together: "Oh, my God!"

She dropped the towels on the floor and hurried outside again.

"What was that?" asked Anthony, looking around.

"Nothing," insisted Ashantee. She pulled his face back around with one long, slender sexy finger and lowered his face back down to one rampant nipple, that he had been sucking, as he thrust in and out of her.

When they finished, Anthony lay exhausted on the bed panting with his eyes closed.

That is why he did not see the gorgeous black woman transforming into a great serpent, which opened its jaws wide around the top of the porter's head and slowly began swallowing him alive.

By the time that she had swallowed him to the neck, Anthony started struggling, trying to shout for help, without his words rising above low mutterings.

Slowly, expanding her body to seemingly impossible proportions the snake-woman continued swallowing the porter long after he asphyxiated to death. Then she kept swallowing in an in-out motion: gulping his carcase down a few centimetres, then regurgitating a few millimetres. On and on, until she had finally swallowed the one-hundred and seventy-centimetre tall man to the toes, which still showed out through her horribly swollen reptilian mouth.

With difficulty she slithered across to the open window, then slithered with greater difficulty down to the ground, falling the last couple of metres. Then she set off deeply into the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest surrounding the motel.


Standing at the reception desk, Dolly saw seventeen-year-old Leila Feinberg, according to Leila a distant relative of Larry Fine from the Three Stooges, walking along, looking a little out of sorts.

"What's wrong honey?" asked Dolly.

"I just walked in on Tony and that black sheila starkers, making out."

"What?" demanded Dolly. Dropping the letters which she had almost finished sorting through anyway, she opened the lift-up top of the counter and stormed out into the reception area, colliding with her husband Rod, who was returning from the kitchen area.

Seeing her livid look, Rod asked: "What's up Angel Face?"

"That lecherous sod Tony is having sex in the mezzanine with our new guest, Ashantee Okoye."

"Well, that's her bad luck," said Rod, making Leila giggle and Dolly glare at him.

As Dolly stormed across to the elevator, Rod ran after her and grabbed her by one arm, and said: "Honey, it's none of our business who Tony has sex with!"

"During working hours?" asked Dolly.

"Well...?" he said: "But for all we know she may have seduced him."

"Leila?" asked Dolly: "How would you describe Miss Okoye?"

"Gorgeous. Hotter than Hell, and stacked as Hell."

"Do you seriously imagine that a 'gorgeous, hotter than hell, stacked as hell' woman would seduce Tony?" she asked her husband.

He thought for a second, then said: "Well ... No."

"Neither do I!" said Dolly pressing the up button. When the doors ching-chinged open, she stepped into the elevator.

After a second's hesitation, Rod also jumped into the elevator, as the doors began to slam closed.

"Honey, I'm still not sure about this?"

"We have to find out what's going on," insisted Dolly pressing the 'M' button.


At the mezzanine, they found Anthony's clothes, and the exotic red floral dress on the greenish shag-pile carpet. But no sign of Anthony Boyd or the gorgeous night-black Ashantee Okoye.

"Where are they?" asked Dolly. Looking around she saw the door to the en suite ajar and stormed across.

"Honey!" called Rod. But before he could stop her, Dolly strode into the en suite, turned on the light, and ripped open the shower curtain, almost tearing it away from its hooks.

"Well?" called Rod.

"No sign of them," said Dolly, puzzled. She went across to the opened window, looked out for a moment, then slammed the window closed and locked it.

"They can't have got out that way," said Rod: "We're two and a half storeys up."

"There is some kind of mark under the window, as though something has fallen or been pushed."

"If they fell or pushed each other, they'd be dead," insisted Rod: "Or if they survived they would have crawled back into the motel, or screamed out for help."

"Logically that's true," conceded Dolly: "But I'm going down to check anyway."

Knowing that he couldn't stop her; once you've been married to someone for thirty-plus years you know how stubborn they are. Rod followed Dolly back into the elevator, and then down to the reception area again.

"Have they returned yet?" asked Dolly.

"Who?" asked Leila.

"Tony and Madam Hot and Sexy."

Patting Dolly on the behind, Rod said: "That's what I call you babe: Madam Hot and Sexy."

Leila giggled, while Dolly blushed, pleased, saying: "Well, have they?"

"No, aren't they still at ... up in the mezzanine?"

"No," said Dolly. She went behind the reception desk and pulled three strong military-style super-torches out of a drawer. She said to Leila: "Ring Jessie Baker to tell him that we've got two people missing."

Then, handing two torches to Rod, she said: "Let's go, honey."

"Shouldn't we wait for Jessie and co to get here, Babe?" asked Rod.

"No, if they fell two storeys, they could be bleeding to death naked out there." She checked that she had her mobile phone with her, and checked it had four green bars. Just grateful that nearby Glen Hartwell had had a phone tower installed earlier that year, so that for the first time ever the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area had good mobile phone reception.

Then she strode off at a military quick march into the forest. Sighing in frustration Rod set off after her, to protect Dolly more than to look for the gorgeous resident or their missing porter.

Quickly Dolly detected the thick trail of crushed pine needles and gum leaves as they set off into the sweet-smelling eucalyptus forest.

"Follow me," she said bending forward at the waist to follow the trail.


Over at Deidre Morton's boarding house in Rushcutters's Road, Merridale, Deidre was laying out a gigantic lunch for her guests as she liked to call her boarders: Colin Klein, a redheaded reporter from England, spending his long service leave hunting down Australian myths and legends -- and doing very well at it. Terri Scott, a beautiful blonde, thirty-something policewoman in the local area, had just been promoted to head cop in the Glen Hartwell to Willamby area. Sheila Bennett, a Goth chick with orange-and black-striped hair, around the same age, with fifteen years in the constabulary. Freddy Kingston, a short, fat balding retiree. Tommy Turner, a reformed alcoholic - on orders from Deidre --, a short, obese man with long blonde hair, also a retiree. Natasha Lipzing was a seventy-year-old, tall, thin, grey-haired woman, who had spent the second half of her life at the boarding house.

There were also two short-term guests for the summer. Millie and Michael Lovejoy. Public servants, and like Colin Klein enjoying their long service leave in Merridale.

Mrs. Morton was famous locally for her exquisite meals and more than generous proportions.

"Wait until you see what I've got for you today," said Deidre Morton. She pulled an exquisite roast turkey a L'orange. With roast potatoes, roast pumpkin, boiled carrots, steamed corn on the cob, peas or beans, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, and cauliflower.

"For dessert, there's rum trifle, or plain trifle, for Natasha and anyone else who doesn't like rum."

"I'll have the rum trifle," put in Tommy Turner.

"Yes, I thought you would," said Deidre, placing the roast in the middle of the table. She quickly cut them off generous slices, followed by heaps of veggies. Only asking if they wanted peas or beans. Otherwise, they got the lot.

"This is divine, Mrs. M," said Terri: "But I've put on four kilogrammes since living here."

"Well that's good," said Deidre: "You need building up."

"Need building up," agreed Natasha Lipzing.

"You're all skin and bones."

"All skin and bones," agreed Natasha.

"Not any longer," said Terri, rubbing at her belly.

"Don't worry, babe," said Colin Klein: "I like my women cuddly."

"Thank you, Colin ... you always know how to say the wrong thing," teased Terri, making the others laugh. Her boyfriend pretended to be angry, but soon gave it away by joining in the laughter.


They had finished the enormous victuals and were ready to start the rum trifle. Which to Tommy's dismay, everyone except Natasha had opted for.

"No second helpings I'm afraid, Tommy," teased Deidre Morton.

"He can always have some of the plain trifle," said Natasha Lipzing digging in: "There's plenty left."

"What would be the point?" complained Tommy, making them all laugh at his expense.

As they were laughing, a knocking came at the front door.

"Now who is that?" asked Deidre going across to open the front door. "Jessie, Donald, please come in, we're having trifle, if you care to join us."

As they entered the dining room, Tommy said: "Don't bother, there's only plain trifle. She didn't make enough rum trifle."

"Plain trifle would be great since we're on duty," said Don Esk. A tall muscular man with light brown hair cut in a beetles' mop-top cut. With a long scar down his left cheek, which far from hindering it, really helped his love life. As Bruce Willis put it in Die Hard 4, "Chicks dig scars."

"I'll have some too, thanks Mrs. M," said Jessie Baker, a tall powerfully built redhead man, sitting.

Both men were sergeants of local stations, however, Terri outranked them having just been promoted to head cop of the entire region.

After they had all finished their trifle, Terri asked: "So blokes, is this just a social visit, or what?"

"Definitely 'or what'," said Jessie: "Tony Boyd a porter at the Pittsburgh Motel, and a new guest, Ashantee Okoye have vanished, stark naked from the motel.

"Apparently they were seen making out by the maid, Leila Feinberg, then when Dolly and Rod went up to the mezzanine to check, their clothes were everywhere but no sign of them."

"She must be pretty ugly to do it with Tony Boyd," said Sheila Bennett.

"No," disagreed Don Esk: "According to Leila and Dolly Parton, the landlady, not the country singer, she was: 'gorgeous, hotter than a furnace, stacked as hell'."

"Which doesn't sound like Tony Boy's usual women," agreed Terri Scott.

"Does he usually do it with human beings?" asked Sheila.

"Sheila, really!" said Deidre Morton: "The boy can't help being homely."

"Sorry, Mum," teased Sheila Bennett.

"So what do you want me to do about it at this stage?" asked Terri. Yawning to let them know she was planning to head off to bed soon.

"Nothing marm," Don said saluting her: "As the new head cop in the local area, we were just filling you in on what's happened so far."

"Instead of hunting for the missing gorgeous woman, and equally missing homely motel porter."

"No," said Jessie Baker: "We left Paul Bell and Andrew Braidwood hunting for them. And for Dolly and Rod?"

"Dolly and Rod?" asked Terri.

"They went out with military-style flashlights to try to find the missing pair."

"Holy shit," said Terri, no longer sleepy: "Let's get alookin' then."

To Colin Klein and Sheila Bennett, she asked: "You two coming?"

"Sure am," said Sheila Bennett, who as Chief Constable was technically the second highest ranking police officer in the area. Despite Jessie Baker, Don Esk, and Paul Bell all being sergeants.

"Wait for me, Babe," said Colin walking after Terri Scott who he was now openly dating.


At the motel, they followed after the trail. The original Lamia trail had been largely eroded by four sets of human footprints.


The Partons had only gone a few hundred metres into the forest when Paul Bell, a tall thin raven-haired man, and Andrew Braidwood, a tall lanky man with long stringy yellow hair caught up with them.

Hearing footsteps the Partons spun around and shone their flashlights upon Don and Andrew.

"Geez you scared the shirt off my back," said Rod.

"As long as it was just us, and not dingoes or other night prowlers," said Paul Bell.

"Dingoes?" asked Rod: "I thought they were only in the Northern Territory."

"No they're throughout Australia," said Andrew: "And a pack of them has been seen in the local area recently."

"Maybe, we'd better get back to the motel," said Rod. He grabbed Dolly's left arm to lead her back the way they had come before she could argue with him.

"Go with them, Drew," said Paul. "I'll wait here, till you return."

"No worries," said Andrew.


Back at the motel, Terri Scott, Sheila, Colin, Jessie, and Don Esk, had just climbed out of their police cars and were armed with large military-style torches.

"So you made it back all right?" asked the redheaded reporter, Colin Klein.

"Yup," said Rod, still leading Dolly against her will toward the motel.

"Perhaps you'd better go with them, to get their statements, Sheila," said Terri.

"Why me, because I'm a sheila?" she asked. Then when no one laughed she explained: "My name is Sheila, and I'm also a sheila."

"We got it, Sheils," said Terri.

"No sense of humour," muttered Sheila Bennett following after the Partons.


Ten minutes later they had caught up with Donald Esk and started forward after the peculiar trail.

"It's almost like something is being dragged along the ground?" surmised Terri.

"Or crawling on its belly," guessed Colin.

"If it's someone being dragged?" asked Jessie Baker: "Could it be Tony Boyd dragging the woman along?"

"From what the Partons said," said Don: "She's a two-metre tall Amazon. More likely that she was dragging him along for some reason."

"To hide his body?" suggested Drew Braidwood.

"They were last seen making out," said Terri: "Why would she suddenly kill him and drag him off?"

"Maybe some dingoes killed them both and dragged him off?" suggested Jessie.

"Then why didn't we find her body?" asked Terri.

"Besides," said Don: "From what the Partons said, she seemed the juicier of the two. Why wouldn't they have dragged her off?"

"Because she was a two-metre tall Amazon, much heavier than him," suggested Colin Klein.

"Even so," you'd think that they would have eaten her juicer bits, knockers, and backside, before dragging him off?" insisted Paul Bell.

"Good point," agreed Terri.


They continued following the trail for another ninety minutes or so before it detoured into the murky waters of the Yannan River.

"What could live in those waters?" asked Drew.

"Crocodiles, maybe?" offered Colin, an Englishman.

"No! Crocs are mainly in the Northern Territory and Queensland," explained Terri: "The equatorial zone of Australia. Besides, surely nothing could live in the Yannan River, not even Crocs?"


Back at the motel, Dolly asked: "So what do we do with her clothing, if Madam Hot and Sexy doesn't return?"

"Leave them where they are," suggested Leila Feinberg: "She's paid for three months in advance."

"Well, that solves one problem," said Rod Parton.

"Now if we could only work out where the Hell she got to...?" said Dolly.


For the next few days, the local police forces continued to search for Tony Boyd and Ashantee Okoye. Then a week after they had vanished, a local backpacker found a pile of human bones hidden in a fallen blue gum tree.

Using DNA samples from Tony's relatives, they were able to confirm that the skeleton was his.

"What about Ashantee Okoye?" asked Colin Klein.

"No sign of her yet," said Terri.

Examining the bones, Elvis Green, the local coroner (so named because of his long sideburns and worshipping of Elvis Presley), came up with a new detail:

"The bones have definitely passed through an animal's digestive tract."

"So it was a croc?" asked Colin Klein.

"No!" said Terri and Elvis together.

"Crocs only live up North," repeated Terri.


That night, well after dark, the doors to the Pittsburgh Motel opened, and the naked figure of Ashantee Okoye peeped in through the doors and looked through the reception area. Seeing no one about her, she crept across to the elevator, then pressed the up button.

Immediately the doors chinged open to reveal Major Yorke, who started to get out, then quickly changed his mind as the gorgeous curvaceous night black woman rushed in naked.

He didn't even try to hide his lust, opening looking the naked woman up and down.

"Didn't you forget something, gorgeous?" he asked.

"Yes, to invite you into my bed, handsome," she said, gazing at him with her emerald green eyes.

"Invitation accepted," said the Major. Although he hadn't performed the sex act in over a dozen years and wasn't entirely certain that he still could.

"Don't worry," said Ashantee, as though reading his mind: "I can bring any man to life. If you know what I mean."

"I certainly do," he said, dropping his cane, to grab her 36DD breasts and openly fondle them.

"I like a man who is ready for action, Major," said Ashantee. Looking at his crotch, she added: "And you are certainly ready for action."

"I certainly am," he agreed, grabbing her perfect heart-shaped arse with one hand.

Ignoring his groping, as the door chinged open, she led the old man into the mezzanine suite. This time being careful to place a cane chair against the handle of the door, saying:

"That's so we aren't disturbed, my handsome Major."

She walked across to the bed, lay down on it, spread her legs wide, and said: "Now pretend that I am a foreign country and invade me."

The Major hurried out of his clothing and half climbed, half fell onto the bed to invade the luscious country known as Ashantee Okoye.

After barely five minutes, the Major was spent and fell down on the bed beside the night black woman.

"Sorry," he apologised.

"What for, you were magnificent," she lied, kissing him on his leathery face.

"I was?" he asked, before starting to snore.

"Hopefully you won't taste as awful as you look," said Ashantee Okoye. Transforming into her serpent form, she quickly swallowed the Major whole. Then crawled off into the forest again, enjoying the sweet smell of eucalyptus as she slithered along. Looking for a place to hide for the next week, until she could regurgitate the bones of the old man.


The next morning it was Leila Feinberg who discovered the Major's cane in the elevator.

"Careless cruiseaway," she said, a term that she had picked up from the Partons.

She went up in the elevator to room 229 on the second storey. She used the cane to knock on Major Yorke's door. Then, upon receiving no answer, she used her passkey to open his door and call out:

"Major Yorke? Are you in here?" There was no sign that his bed had been slept in, still, she went across to the en suite and used the cane again to knock on the door.

"Major Yorke?" she called again, before going into the en suite. She turned on the light and quickly established that he wasn't in there.

Puzzled, she left his cane on his bed, thinking: That's one less bed for me to make today!

She headed back to the lift and descended to the ground floor to help out in the dining room.

Seeing her through the kitchen door, Dolly asked: "Where have you been, Leila?"

"Taking the Major's cane back to his room, I found it in the elevator."

"I hope you told him to come down for brekkie, he gets rather shirty if he misses a meal."

"He wasn't up there. And it looked like his bed hadn't been slept in either."

"That's strange," said Dolly: "But we haven't got time to search for him now; the natives are getting restless."

So saying, she pushed out the breakfast cereal trolley for Leila to take into the breakfast room.

"Wheat Bix, as usual, Mrs. Sonbon?" she asked.

"Of course, four please," said Mushee Sonbon. Of Japanese extraction, she had lived in Australia for nearly forty years now.

Then she went across to the next table: "Mr. Chase, porridge and treacle as usual?"

"Naturally," said Horace Chase, a sixty-something man enjoying his annual vacation in the Victorian Countryside. "Be generous with the treacle."

"Of course, Mr. Chase."

She continued serving breakfast, while Dolly served tea or coffee to everyone. Except, Horace Chase who always had Cadbury's drinking chocolate, with three spoonfuls of brown sugar.

After breakfast, they finally had time to search for the Major and hunted through the entire motel.

"Maybe, he's gone out walking?" suggested Rod Parton.

"And missed breakfast?" said Dolly and Leila together.

"No, that doesn't seem very likely, does it?" admitted Rod: "That guy could put to shame most Olympic eating contest winners."

"Is that an Olympic event now?" asked Leila.

"No, he's just being his usual sarky Pittsburghian self," explained Dolly.

"The correct term, my beloved, chestalicious wife, is 'Pittsburghers' or 'Pittsburghese'." explained Rod.

"I stand corrected," she said, doing an exaggerated bow so that her generous chest almost fell out of the top of her low-cut dress.

"Ooh chestalicious is right," said Rod, making Dolly laugh and straighten up, clutching her chest as she did so.


At lunchtime, Terri, Colin, and the others were just sitting down to lunch when the phone rang.

"Hello?" asked Deidre Morton. Then taking the phone across to Terri: "It's for you dear."

Terri spoke on the phone for a few minutes before hanging up and saying: "We've got another one. Major Yorke has mysteriously vanished."

"At this rate, we'll have to rename it the Bates Motel," said Colin Klein.

"Major Yorke, indeed!" said Deidre: "I doubt he's ever been inside a military barracks in his life."

"And unless they give out promotions for running away the fastest, he could never have been promoted to Major," added Natasha Lipzing: "The man is afraid of his own shadow!"

To Deidre, Colin asked: "Any chance, you could make me a quick steak sandwich?"

"Of course, dear," she said obliging him.

"Me too, please," said Terri Scott.

"How are you going to drive and eat?" asked Sheila Bennett as Mrs. Morton made the second sandwich.

"I'm not," said Terri holding out the keys of her police blue Lexus: "I'm delegating."

"Oh, why me?" whined Sheila Bennett as they headed toward the front door.

"As my second in charge, you have to learn to take some responsibility upon those broad shoulders of yours," said Terri before biting into her steak sandwich.

"How dare you say I have broad shoulders?"

"You do for a broad," said Colin, drawing yawns from the others. "Oh come on, Sheils, you said you were a sheila named Sheila. So why can't I say you have broad shoulders for a broad?"

"Yeah, well, I still wish I could take responsibility for eating that steak sandwich," said Sheila.

"You have to drive before you can learn how to eat!" misquoted the blonde policewoman.

"Here, dear," said Deidre handing Sheila a plastic takeaway bag: "I've packed you some of the carrots and roast potatoes to eat later."

"Thank you, Mrs. M.," said Sheila giving her a peck on the cheek: "You're a life saver."

She got in behind the wheel of the Lexus, saying: "I've always wanted to try drag racing in one of these babies."

Almost choking on her steak sandwich, Terri said: "There will be no drag racing in my baby, thank you, Sheila!"

"Vroom! Vroom!" said the orange-haired Goth chick.


Back at the Pittsburgh Motel, they spent hours again, searching for Major Yorke, with again the trail growing dead at the Yannan River.

Finally, Terri called it quits, for the time being, saying: "We may have to have the Yannan dragged? Or drained."

"Yuck," said Sheila: "What are we gonna do with all that slimy muck?"


"All we can do is put out random patrols trying to find him. Hopefully alive," said Terri as they returned to the reception area of the motel.

"And if you find his bones like poor Tony Boyd?" asked Rod Parton.

"Then we're renaming your place the Bates Motel," said Colin Klein, drawing daggers from Dolly and Rod, and titters from everyone else.


Again a week passed before the regurgitated bones of Major Yorke were discovered in the forest, less than fifty metres from where Tony Boyd's bones had been discovered a week earlier."

"Okay, let's start draining the Yannan, to see if anything is living in it," ordered Terri Scott.


An hour later the Department of Building and Works had put up portable dams a kilometre apart over the section of the Yannan River where the creature had entered the water.

When they started pumping out the water they found an amazing amount of rubbish: ancient chairs and a sofa, a sunken lifeboat...

"Couldn't even save itself, the poor sod," said Sheila, drawing snickers.

Also dredged up were camping equipment, toolboxes... Opening one, one of the workmen found the tools still dry and in good condition.

"I'm keeping these," he said with a broad smile. Taking them over to put in the cabin of his work truck.

"Keep whatever you like," said Terri: "Less stuff for us to find a place for."

They also found wooden packing crates, now slimy and falling apart, any number of huge ancient TVs and old-fashioned radiograms and music centres. Plus enumerable other odds and sods.

They had been concerned about what to do with the mucky water. But in the end, there were only a few thousand litres of water, the rest was garbage that could be taken to the public tip.

"Everything except the kitchen sink," said Colin Klein.

"Wrong, we found three of those," said one of the Public Works men, George, pointing toward the pile to be taken to the tip: "Along with two bathtubs and a couple of fridges."

But what they didn't find was any sign of anything large or small living in the river.


As they carted the last of the rubbish away, Terri said: "Seems a shame to remove the portable dams and let more muck in here."

"Sorry, Terri, but we have to account for them," said one of the Public Works men as they removed the metal dams. "There used to be a lot of nicking, so now we have to pay for anything that we can't account for."


That night Ashantee Okoye sneaked back into the hotel. This time she slithered her way up the outside wall, and back in through the open window, before changing back into human form.

Finding a dress hung up in the closet, she put it on and sneaked outside the door to look for her next meal.

On the second floor, she literally ran into Horace Chase, knocking them both over.

"Terribly sorry," she said standing up in such a way, as to allow her dress to fall down to her feet.

"I thought you had...?" said Horace standing again. Stopping as he saw her naked splendour.

"Left?" she said: "No, I had to come back because I have a desperate need."

"Oh, really," said Horace, unable to take her eyes off her magnificent breasts.

"I need a man ... And my heart is set on you, ooh ooh ooh," she said, singing the last bit.

"Well, if I'm the one that you want," he said reaching out to grab her 36DD treasures.

"Let's go up to my mezzanine suite," she said, leading him across to the elevator, which she had switched to manual, to stop it from leaving.

"Whatever you say," he said. He was drooling as he placed a hand between her warm labia, to start probing her vagina.

Laughing, she said: "You can put something else in there when we get up to my bed."

"Holy shit," said Horace. Unable to wait, he undressed in the lift, leaving his clothing behind as they reached the mezzanine suite.

Grabbing his impressive erection, she led him out of the elevator, saying: "Come on big boy, time to get aboard."

They both laughed as they ran like excited children over to her floral-quilted bed, to start making violent passionate love. To Ashantee's delight, he was able to last for more than an hour, seeding her three times.

Finally, he stopped exhausted. Cradling his head against her vast bosom, she said: "Go to sleep, my sabre-wielding soldier."

"Soldier," he repeated wearily, before falling asleep.

Transforming into her snake form, Ashantee started to devour him from the head first and had to swallow-regurgitate many times before she had consumed him entirely.

She slithered across to the elevator to switch it to automatic. Then hurried out before the doors closed and slithered back into her suite, then across the floor to crawl out through the window and slither down to the ground. This time being careful not to fall.

She slithered slowly into then through the forest, unable to move fast for long on such a full stomach. She kept going till reaching the Yannan River which she slithered into then swum across to the opposite bank. A little surprised that the water seemed a little shallower, and possibly just a tad less murky than previously.


The next morning Terri and the others were sitting down to eat breakfast around 7:30. They had not all sat down when Sheila Bennett started spreading vegemite onto slices of toast and wolfing them down.

"My, someone's hungry this morning," said Deidre Morton to the orange-haired Goth policewoman.

"I'm playing safe in case we get called out again before I've had a chance to eat anything."

"Wise thinking, Sheils," said Terri: "Since you're now the designated driver of my Lexus."

"I'll be ready this time," said Sheila reaching for two Wheat Bix, which she ate without bothering to pour milk or sugar onto them.


Over at the Pittsburgh Motel, they were just coming down to breakfast when Mushee Sonbon noticed Horace Chase's clothing in the elevator.

"I think these are Horace's," she said picking them up. "He's certainly starting to go strange if he's stripping off in the lift, and leaving his clothing behind."

When they reached the ground floor she placed the clothing on the reception counter and explained where she had found them.

"In the lift?" asked Dolly perplexed.

"That's right. And Mr. Chase hasn't come down for breakfast yet."


After breakfast, Dolly and Rod took the elevator up to the second storey and knocked on the door to room 217.

"Mr. Chase? Horace?" called Rod. Then using his key card, he opened the door and they stepped inside.

Again the bed hadn't been slept in, and there was no sign of the sixty-something man anywhere.

They went and checked the rest of the hotel inside and out, then phoned through to Deidre Morton's boarding house.


Putting down the receiver, Terri said: "It's happened again."

"Another skeleton?" asked Natasha Lipzing, a big murder fan, both in fiction and in true crime magazines.

"No, another man has gone missing from the Bates Motel in Willamby."


At the Pittsburgh Motel, they did a room-by-room search for Horace Chase, then hunted around the outside of the motel, and found Ashantee's latest trail. They followed it for ninety minutes, until again it led them to the Yannan River.

"Back here?" said Terri, frustrated: "Maybe we didn't drain it enough?"

"Or maybe whatever is doing this is smarter than we're giving it credit for," suggested Colin: "Maybe it is just leading us to the river to throw us off its trail?"

"Maybe," agreed Terri Scott, sighing from frustration.


As per schedule, Horace Chase's bones were discovered in the forest a week later.

"This time it's not getting away with it," said Terri. She arranged to have a dozen cops, plus Colin Klein, all heavily armed, hidden about the Pittsburgh Motel, guarding rooms that had men or couples.

"What about the rooms with women only?" asked Sheila.

"We don't have enough people to cover every room," said Terri as they stood around the reception desk planning their intended sting: "So we just have to hope that it doesn't change its pattern. So far it has only attacked men."


By 10:00 PM they were all in place. They sat in chairs inside each room. Their backs to the door so it couldn't swing open, watching the sleeping men, or couples, having made certain to close and lock the windows.

"Feel free to join me, beautiful," said a forty-something man, who looked like a bad caricature of Sir David Suchet's Hercule Poirot, to Sheila Bennett. He switched on the bedside lamp and pulled the blankets wide for her.

"I'd rather join The Devil in Hell," said the orange-haired Goth policewoman, in one of her best putdowns to date.

"Ouch," said the man, pulling the blankets back over himself and switching off the light.


By breakfast time the next morning the police were all exhausted, and, after confirming that all of the residents were still there they headed off to have their own breakfasts, while Dolly, Rod, and Leila served breakfast to the residents.

"Feel free to go to bed straight after breakfast," said Terri, as she, Sheila, and Colin headed toward her police-blue Lexus: "We'll be back on duty here for the next couple of nights."

As they got into the Lexus, Colin asked: "So what do you think happened?"

"The killer or creature got smart and realised that we had twigged to its pattern. But if it needs to feed soon after regurgitating each set of bones, then it can't hold off for more than another night or two."

"Unless it decides to come by day," said Sheila, getting behind the steering wheel.

"Unlikely," said Colin Klein: "I don't think it's human, so it can't risk being seen, as it would be in broad daylight."


The police had hardly left, when Ashantee Okoye, risked sneaking into the reception area, taking advantage of everyone being in the dining room. She hurried, naked, across to the elevator, pressed the up button, and was soon up in her Mezzanine suite.

She hurriedly put on her red floral dress and then repacked her suitcases, which unhelpfully Leila Feinberg had unpacked for her.

Then she returned to the elevator and staggering beneath the weight of the suitcases walked out of the motel, and walked the two kilometres to the railway station on Oxford Street.


Ashantee got off the train, after a relatively short ride to the Torres Street Railway Station in Harpertown. She took a taxi to the Chandler Hotel on the corner of Chappell Street and Rushcutters Road.

The Chandler was a bit broken down, desperately in need of a paint job, but that didn't worry Ashantee, she was here to feed not to sleep.

Inside the reception area, she met the manager Louie Chandler, a tall, rather handsome man of forty-eight, with longish dark brown hair.

Yum! Yum! thought Ashantee Okoye, as she strode in her slinkiest manner across to the reception desk.

"Hell ... hello," said Louie, entranced by her great beauty. "Can ... can I help you?"

"I need a man," she cooed: "To help me with my luggage."

"I, ah, I can carry your suitcases to your room he said," walking around to her side of the desk: "What room is it?"

"I don't know yet," she cooed: "It could be your room if you don't mind sharing."

"Of ... of course, I don't mind," he said. He carried her cases across to the elevator, a real clunker that sounded worse than the Tardis taking off as it lumbered down toward them.

The elevator doors groaned open and they stepped inside. Louie pressed button three, thinking: Thank God Martha died two years ago!

"Yes, indeed," said Ashantee Okoye, as though reading his mind.

At the third storey, they crept across to room 301, then he used his key card to open the door, and they went inside.

Putting down her suitcases, Louie said: "This ought to...." He stopped as he turned around and saw the gorgeous night black woman standing there stark naked.

"There's no point wasting time, is there lover boy?" she said, almost ripping his clothes off him in her impatience.

Finally with them both naked, she grabbed his penis to start leading him across toward the queen-sized bed. Lying on her back, legs spread wide, she said:

"Room for one on top."

"I don't even know your name?" he said, starting to get cold feet.

"Ashantee Okoye," she said. Then seeing his erection wilting: "Here, let me help you with that."

Leaning toward him she took his manhood into her mouth and started to suck it expertly.

"Holy Christ!" shrieked Louie as he came in her mouth.

"No, more like the other fellow," said Ashantee, pulling him, with surprising strength, across to the bed to fall on top of her.

Soon they were going Hell-for-leather, and they both shrieked like Banshees as he came deeply inside her.

"Oh God, I've just been to Heaven," gasped Louie.

"Well, now it's time to go to the other place," said Ashantee. Transforming into her serpent shape, she began to swallow Louie Chandler headfirst.

"What, help...?" he gasped, no longer able to speak as she swallowed him down to the neck. In an in-out swallow and then part-regurgitate cycle, it took Ashantee nearly ten minutes to fully swallow down Louie Chandler.

"Yum! Yum!" she said, falling asleep on his bed.


Six hours later she awakened to the sound of hammering upon the door to room 301.

Slithering off the bed, she slid across the tattered carpet to the window and looked out.

"Dad?" came a female voice from the hallway outside.

Deciding to take a risk, in her sexiest voice, Ashantee said: "He's with me, honey, please let us have a few more hours of fun together."


Out in the corridor Toni Chandler, Louie's seventeen-year-old daughter blushed, thinking: It is two years since Mum died. I guess I can't begrudge him some relationships with women.

She turned and walked away to tell the other staff that everything was all right.


Inside the bedroom, Ashantee Okoye placed a chair against the handle of the bedroom door and then went back to sleep on the bed.

At first dark, around 8:30 PM, she slithered across to the window, crept down the white weatherboard outer walls, and then started at a leisurely pace off into the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest.


At bedtime, Toni knocked on her father's bedroom door again and got no response. She wondered if she should call the police. However, she decided that if Louie and the unknown woman had been at it all day long, they had probably collapsed from fatigue, and would be up again by morning.

Although curious as to who the husky, sexy-voiced woman was, Toni decided that it was none of her business and went off to her own bed.


By breakfast time Toni still could not get an answer from her father's room. She tried the key card, which unlocked the door, but she was unable to push the door open. So she asked two of the burliest male residents to try to break the door down. With the chair propped against the handle, it was difficult, but they finally managed to push the chair aside.

Inside they found Louie's clothing, and two suitcases full of women's clothing, but no sign of either Louie or the mysterious woman.

"Daddy?" called Toni, walking across to check the en suite. Coming out again, she said: "Where can he be?"

She checked his cupboard and found none of his clothing missing.

"Well, he can't have just gone off naked," said Chef Thatcher, a tall black American who cooked at the Chandler Hotel.


At the Pittsburgh Motel in Willamby, the police had just finished a second night shift, protecting the male residents.

Yawning widely, Terri said: "Let's go home for Brekkie, then sleep the day away."

"You can have breakfast here," said Dolly: "If you'll settle for Wheat Bix, Porridge, or Marmalade and toast. On the house since you've kept the place safe for our guests."

"That sounds good," said Sheila Bennett and they all followed her into the dining room.

"Mmmm!" said Terri tucking into a large bowl of porridge and honey.


Ten minutes later, they were still eating, although like previously Sheila had been careful to scoff down her food as fast as possible, when Terri received a phone call from the Chandler Hotel in Harpertown.

"It seems to have happened again," she said to the others: "But this time in the Chandler in Harpertown."

"Looks like the killer's got smart," said Dolly: "And I should have charged you for your breakfasts ... Only teasing."

Emptying her bowl of porridge as fast as possible, Terri said: "All right, let's get going."

Again Terri, Sheila, and Colin piled into the blue Lexus, this time with a pro-rata policewoman Suzette Cummins (only called on duty when extra policing was necessary) sitting next to Sheila.


They drove across to Harpertown and repeated the procedure of checking every room and then checking around the hotel. Again they found the trail of flattened leaves and pine needles leading away into the forest.

"Let's go," said Terri leading the way, with Colin Klein, Sheila Bennett, and Suzette Cummins directly behind her.


Having stopped to sleep on the pine needles and dried gum leaves to help her system ingest the late Louie Chandler, Ashantee Okoye was awakened by the sound of the others only a hundred metres or so away from her. She began to slither as quickly as she could toward the Yannan River, all the time fearing that they were catching up with her. Her partly digested meal did not help with her locomotion.


Not far behind, the police were travelling slowly, for fear of crashing into the killer/monster.

"Can you hear something ahead of us?" asked Sheila Bennett.

They all stopped to listen.

"I think so," said Terri Scott.

"I know so," said the orange-haired Goth policewoman, pushing past Terri to start running in the direction of the sound.

"Hey!" called Terri, not happy at her second-in-command usurping her lead position.

Following Sheila's lead, they all started running through the forest and arrived at the banks of the Yannan River just in time to see the serpentine avatar of Ashantee Okoye slide headfirst into the water.

"A snake?" said Paul Bell.

"A serpent more like it from the size of it," corrected the redheaded journalist, Colin Klein.

"Watch the opposite bank, to see where it comes out," ordered Terri Scott. And they all did as the blonde policewoman had ordered.


After sliding into the scummy water of the Yannan River, Ashantee Okoye swam-slithered down the river, away from her pursuers.

That was close, she thought, although confident as she swam along that she had eluded them.

Seeing a fridge lying diagonally against two packing crates, ahead of her, she judged the distance and decided that as long as she was careful, there was enough room for her to swim through the small gap.

She would have made it, except that when she was halfway through, one of the wooden crates collapsed and the fridge came down on top of her, pinning her to the remaining crate.

As her air started to run out, she remembered drowning once before in Africa. On that occasion, she had returned as a Lamia. On this occasion, she drowned as a Lamia and returned to her beautiful human form just before dying.


After twenty minutes Terri rang the Department of Building and Works to get a crew out to dam the river again.

When they drained the section of the river, instead of a living serpent, they found the drowned corpse of what looked like a very heavily pregnant night black woman.

"Looks like she was going to give birth to a football team," said Colin Klein, almost unable to believe how far outwards the dead woman's stomach bulged.


"Or she was suffering from the greatest stomach tumour of all time," said Jerry "Elvis" Green the local coroner when they transported her body to his morgue in Dien Street Glen Hartwell.

Donning a full-protection blue plastic suit, Elvis picked up a scalpel and cut through the dermis of her stomach, then the fat and tissue levels beneath. To find an unspeakable gooey mess inside her stomach, not her womb.

"My God, what is it?" asked Terri Scott.

"Damned if I know at this stage," said Elvis, continuing his autopsy upon Ashantee Okoye first. Before starting one on the mucus-laden remains from her stomach.

By DNA testing, referring to the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital's computer records, they were able to confirm that the sticky mess was the partly dissolved corpse of Louie Chandler. Doubly confirmed by doing DNA testing on his daughter, Toni.

Based on photos shown to Leila Feinberg and Dolly, they were able to confirm the name of the night black woman as Ashantee Okoye.

"Who?' asked Terri Scott.

"Using Interpol's Database," said Sheila Bennett: "I was able to confirm that a woman of that name fell, or was pushed, no one seemed certain, over the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe about twenty years ago. Her body was never found. So it could be her ... apart from the age factor. She should be early fifties by now."

"And there's the question of her changing into a serpent to devour her victims?" said Colin Klein.

"I never saw that," said Elvis playing safe: "I've only got your word that she could do that."

"So, do you know another way that a woman could swallow a tall man whole, without even chewing?" asked Terri Scott.

"Um, no, I have to admit, I don't," said Elvis Green.

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