THE GLEN HARTWELL MILKMAN

It was Saturday evening on the 19th of October 2024, and the Friedlander family: mother Tessa a thirty-something strawberry-blonde, father Wyatt a thirty-nine-year-old accountant, who looked more like an amateur wrestler, six-year-old Kylie a strawberry-blonde like her mum, and grandmother Katie, Tessa's mother, a honey blonde of fifty-something, were watching a live performance of a one-act play "Picasso Through Time", by a local writer, at the Glen Hartwell Playhouse Theatre in Blackland Street.
"What's hit hall about?" asked a puzzled Kylie.
"Darned if I know, honey?" whispered Katie.
"It's about Picasso, the worst painter in history, travelling through time to check out Goya, Rembrandt, Van Gough and other great painters," explained Tessa: "To see what they did right, and what he is doing wrong."
"Ho!" said Kylie, still not understanding.
"Picasso..." began Katie, getting shushed by one of the fifteen other patrons at the theatre: "Oh shush yourself!" she said, stopping as an usherette shone a torch in her direction.
"Quiet ...please!" said the usherette, making it plain that it was an order, not a request.
"I'll tell you later," whispered Katie, drawing another shush from the bald-headed man two rows away.
Fortunately "Picasso Through Time" lasted just under an hour, so the Friedlanders were soon in the basement, climbing into their silver-grey 1980 Ford Cortina.
"So what're you reckon?" asked Wyatt: "About the play?"
"Crap," said Katie, climbing into the rear seats.
"Kwap," agreed Kylie, giggling as she also climbed in the back of the car.
"Well, I don't think, they'll ever film it," agreed Tessa.
"If they do, I know one family who won't be going to see it," said Wyatt. He checked that everyone was in the car and buckled up before starting the Cortina and joining the rush to exit the Playhouse.
"Dat's for sure," agreed Kylie.
"Oh damn," said Tessa: "I've just remembered we're out of milk, I meant to stop at the mall earlier."
"They'll be closed by now," said Katie as the Cortina turned left into Blackland Street.
"How'll I heat my Bix tomorrow?" asked Kylie, meaning Wheat Bix.
"With sugar and cold water," teased Wyatt as they almost collided with the horse-drawn cart.
"Water han sugar?" asked Kylie, not realising her father was teasing.
"Hey, Pisshead!" called Wyatt as a horse-drawn cart missed them by millimetres.
"I'll go down early tomorrow to get some milk, honey," assured Tessa. Then to her husband: "Don't say Pisshead in front of Kylie!"
"Why not, you did," teased Katie: "And you might not have to go down early tomorrow, Tess, ... I think that was a milk cart that almost wiped us out."
"A what?" asked Kylie.
"A milk cart," explained Wyatt: "They used to deliver milk in glass bottles door to door."
"Gwarse bottles?" asked Kylie: "But milk comes in pwastic bottles or cardboard cartoons."
"It does nowadays," agreed Wyatt, accelerating to try to catch up with the milkman: "But it used to come in six-hundred-millilitre bottles."
"Plant your foot, Touché Turtle," said Katie: "There's no way a horse-drawn cart should be able to outrun us."
"Who's Touché Turtle?" asked Kylie.
"Never mind," said Tessa, then to Wyatt: "And don't speed with Kylie and Mum in the car."
"So I can go like a demon when there's only you and me in the car?"
"No!"
"Well, I've gotta catch him. Katie's right, how can a horse-0drawn cart outrun the Cortina?"
"It is forty years old."
"Yes, but I treat it like our little baby, Kylie-kins."
Kylie laughed at the nickname, but Tessa glared at her husband as he continued to accelerate the Ford in an effort to catch the milk cart.
For the next half an hour, the Friedlanders pursued the milk cart, first through Glen Hartwell, then into the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest beyond. But try as he might, Wyatt could not catch the horse-drawn cart, which they saw was a strangely phosphorescent pale blue colour. They could hear the rattling of milk bottles and could see through the Cortina's headlights that most of the bottles were full; but could not catch the fleeing cart.
"Try honking your horn to get his attention," suggested Katie.
"Yeah, twy honking dah horn," agreed Kylie: "Gotta have milk on my Bix."
Doing as instructed, Wyatt continued after the milk cart, without any sign that the milkman was aware of their pursuit.
"Is he deaf?" demanded Wyatt.
"Must be," agreed Katie: "Or too stupid to recognise potential customers when he hears them."
"Are those old-fashioned six-hundred-millilitre bottles?" asked Tessa.
"Looks like it," agreed Katie: "But as long as the milk is fresh, who cares."
"Yeah, who cares, long as I get milk for my Bix," insisted Kylie.
"Hey, you deaf bastard!" Wyatt shouted out the car window.
"Language in front of Kylie!"
"Yeah, langwitch in front of me," agreed the little girl.
"Slow down, you deaf idiot," shouted Wyatt, ignoring his wife and daughter.
"I think we're on a wild goose chase," said Katie.
"Har dare wild gooses out here?" asked Kylie.
"It's just a saying, honey," explained Tessa, as the milk cart suddenly stopped a hundred metres or so ahead of them.
"At last, pig-brain heard me," said Wyatt as he pulled up the car and began to step out: "Where the Hell are we?"
"Does dat man have a pig for a bwain?" asked Kylie.
"Yes!" said Wyatt before the two women could say otherwise. Stepped out of the Cortina, then looked down puzzled: "Has it been raining lately?"
"Not that I can recall," answered Tessa, as she stepped out of the car; knowing she could not trust her man for such an important purchase. The last time he had come back with six litres of skim milk, even though Kylie would only have full cream milk. When Tessa had pointed that out he had said: 'She's gotta learn she can't always get her own way!' Then he had gone back out to buy the little girl her full cream milk.
However, when she stepped out onto the pine needles that blanketed the forest floor, they were soft underfoot, and the strawberry-blonde struggled against the grip of the muddy ground that tried to suck her down.
"It is wet underfoot," said Tessa as she started toward where the milkman had climbed down from his cart. He now stood grinning idiotically at the approaching couple.
"Good evening, we'd like a few litres of milk," said Wyatt.
"Full cream," added his wife.
However, the tall thin grey-haired milkman stood silently, grinning at them.
Is he retarded or something? wondered Tessa, really struggling now against the pull of the sodden ground.
"Feels like we've wandered into quicksand," said Wyatt, like his wife, struggling not to be pulled down into the mire.
"Yes," said Tessa, unable to move forward at all anymore as she started to sink more rapidly into the ground: "Wyattttt!"
"Don't panic, struggling only makes you sink faster," said Wyatt, noticing that his wife had now sunk to her knees in the mud.
"Don't tell me not to panic!" shrieked Tessa as she sank deeper into the murky mess.
"What's going on?" called Katie from behind them.
"Stay in the car!" shouted Wyatt. Yet when he looked back he saw that the Cortina had sunk to the axles into the mud. Turning back to the milkman, he shouted: "For God's sake help us!"
"Help us! Help us!" shrieked Tessa.
However, the milkman stood grinning widely as he watched the couple sink to their thighs, then to the navel, with Tessa still sinking faster than her husband.
"Help us pleeease!" called Tessa one last time, before sinking past her nose into the mud.
"Tessa!" cried Wyatt, trying desperately to stride across to his dying wife ... without success. "You bastard, why won't you help us!" he called to the milkman.
Who only grinned evilly back at him. Until Wyatt had also sunk completely below the mud.
"Mummy! Daddy!" shrieked young Kylie trying to get out of the car.
"No, honey, stay in the car," called Katie grabbing the youngster. Then as the car sank down to the windows she realised, It's too late for me, but Kylie can still escape!
Quickly unwinding a window, allowing the mud to start seeping into the car, Katie hefted Kylie out through the window, saying: "Run like Hell back to the Glen, and don't stop running or you'll sink into the mud too."
Standing on the miry mud, the little girl, hesitated for a second, then turned and ran back the way they had come into the forest.
For the first time since stopping, the milkman stopped smiling. Then as the Cortina sank beneath the surface of the mud, he grinned a half grin, thinking: Three out of four isn't bad!

Over at the Yellow House in Rochester Road in Merridale, they were setting down to one of Deidre Morton's magnificent repasts.
"Looks scrummy, Mrs. M.," said Sheila Bennet. A Goth chick with orange-and-black-striped hair, at thirty-six Sheila was the second-top cop in the BeauLarkin to Willamby area of the Victorian countryside.
"Delish," agreed Tommy Turner. A blond retiree, Tommy was short and obese; a reformed alcoholic due to Deidre hiding his stash and doling it out one drink per meal.
"Fabuloso," agreed Terri Scott, a tall beautiful ash blonde. The top cop of the area, Terri was Sheila's boss and Colin's fiancé.
"Superb," agreed Colin Klein. At forty-nine Colin had worked as a London crime reporter for thirty years but now worked for the Glen Hartwell Police Force.
"Yes, wonderful," said Natasha Lipzing. At seventy-one, Natasha had lived at the Yellow House for thirty-six years.
"Better than the rubbish I got at my last place," said Leo Laxman. Leo was a Jamaican-born nurse who had been employed at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital for about a year now.
"Absolutely," agreed Freddy Kingston, a tall, heavy-set retiree.
"Yes," agreed Deidre Morton, a short dumpy, sixty-something brunette: "They should have called it the Slop House with the so-called cooking of that woman."
After tea, they settled down into the lounge room to watch the finals of, 'The World's Stupidest Stuntman Down Under'.
"Just three more weeks to go," said Tommy, sounding sad.
On the screen, a huge-chested, huge-arsed blonde appeared tentatively walking a small motorbike. She screamed as the bike fell from her grip and just jumped backwards in time.
"Ouch," said Natasha as the blonde fell onto her backside.
"Relax, she's got enough padding back there," said Sheila: "I still can't believe she made the completion instead of me. What's she got that I don't?"
"Huge tits, a huge bum, and blonde hair," said Tommy.
"From the mouths of babes and idiots," said Colin, making everyone except Tommy laugh.
Long before the show finished Natasha, Deidre, Leo, and Freddy all went off to bed. Colin and Terri soon followed. Only Sheila and Tommy watched the whole two hours, laughing like mental cases each time some potentially horrific accident occurred.
Finally, Sheila and Tommy went off to bed.
Only to be awakened around 3:30 by Deidre Morton hammering on the bedroom walls.
"Mrs. M., have you gone bonkers?" called Sheila, seeing the time.
"No, you're wanted in Glen Hartwell," called Deidre, going across to wake up Colin and Terri also: "Wakey, wakey, sleepy heads."
She's definitely gone bonkers, thought Sheila as she hurriedly dressed in her police uniform.

Forty minutes later Terri, Colin, and Sheila were standing in a hospital ward at the Glen Hartwell Hospital, listening to the Nurse-in-Charge, Annie Colfax a short forty-year-old ash blonde, as she told them the tale Kylie Friedlander had told them after staggering into Glen Hartwell half an hour earlier.
"She was lucky Suzette Cummings was still at the Mitchell Street Police Station and could bring her to us," said Annie.


They bring in Bulam-Bulam to backtrack to where the Friedlanders sank into the mud.

Second incident, horse riders looking for brumbies.

Final incident, illegal loggers get pulled down.

Mel Forbes now ninety tells the story of the G.H.milkman, set in Glen Harwell in the 1850s, when Victoria and the Glen were new.
Have Milkman start appearing again, killing people.
Perhaps have Mel Forbes tell Terri and co. the Glen Hartwell Milkman story after a number of people have started dying after seeing the milk cart.
Perhaps mention the man who took 'Drink a Pint of Milk a Day' too seriously, drinking three pints a day from age 20 to 50, when he finally died from it.

At the end they dig up the old G.H. swimming pool, finding dozens or vehicles, bodies, and ancient horse-drawn milk cart.
A priest exorcises the ghost of the milkman, and killings/disappearances cease!!


THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia