TAMPAS: THE HORN-ED BEAST

A horned humanoid monster, perhaps the basis of the devil myth, comes to Glen Hartwell

                             The Ecclestone brothers were doing their favourite pastime, sitting by the Yannan River, drinking beer and talking bullshit. It was Sunday the eleventh of January 2026, and their older sister Mildred was getting married in a few hours’ time.
         “So it’s agreed that we aren’t going to Mildew’s wedding later today?” asked Lawson ‘Lars’, thirty-seven, a short, dark haired man with a beer belly so prominent that he looked at least nine months pregnant.
         “Not me,” answered George ‘Geo’, thirty-nine, a short, balding raven haired man with a prominent beer belly: “I can’t stand the sanctimonious bitch and her teetotalling ways.”
         “Or that bloke she’s marrying,” offered Homer ‘Home’, thirty-six, a short blond man with a beer belly: “He’s a priest or something I think.”
         “A prenet,” corrected Lars.
         “What’s that?” asked Home.
         “Sort of like a deputy priest, I think.”
         “Anyway, you know I don’t go inside churches,” insisted Geo, before taking a large gulp of Coors Banquet larger.
         “Is that because of Father Montague banning you for life from entering Saint Margaret’s in Wentworth Street, after he caught you taking a sip from your brandy flask during his service?” teased Home.
         “Yeah, what was that all about?” demanded Geo.
         “Well, he did give you at least half a dozen warnings before finally banning you,” teased Lars.
         “Maybe,” conceded Geo, “but it is a two hour service! How is a bloke supposed to go two hours without drinking when he’s awake.”
         “Yeah, I know I can’t go two hours without a drink,” agreed Homer, before taking a slug of his Heineken lager.
         “Didn’t he also tell you off for sleeping during his services?” teased Lars.
         “No, he did not tell me off for sleeping during his services!” insisted Geo: “It was the snoring that he complained about.”
         “Well, you do snore like a draught horse with adenoids,” pointed out Home.
         “I do not snore like a draught horse with adenoids!”
         “Do too!” insisted Lars and Home.
         “That’s why we insist that you sleep at the other end of the house to us,” insisted Lars.
         “I wondered why? I always thought that I must have BO or something?”
         “You do, but so do we, so we’re used to it,” said Lars.
         “Don’t know why we do,” said Home: “I bath nearly every week.”
         “Ah, you’re a cleanliness freak,” protested Geo: “Every week indeed. sheilas might think that they need to bath more than once or twice a month, but we blokes know better than them.”
         “Yeah, once a fortnight is plenty often enough,” insisted Lars.
         “So it’s agreed that we aren’t going to Mildew’s wedding later?” said Home, getting them back on track.
         “No way!” cried Lars and Geo.
         “Anyway, you know that they say that religion is the opiate of the masses,” offered Geo.
         “Who says?” asked Home.
         “I think it was Harpo Marx,” suggested Lars, “he was the one who always seemed to say the smartest things.”
         “Well, it was certainly one of the Marx brothers,” agreed Geo.
         “I think I read Harpo’s autobiography years ago,” said Lars, “Duh, the Capital, I think it was called.”
         “So, if religion is the opiate of the masses,” asked Home, “does that mean that opium is the religion of the messes?”
         “Undoubtedly,” agreed Geo.
         “Ain’t it the truth though,” said Lars.
         
         Over at the Yellow House in Rochester Road, Merridale they were sitting down to one of Deidre Morton’s magnificent and munificent breakfasts.
         “Flap Jacks with margo and vegemite,” enthused Sheila Bennett, spreading on a generous amount of the black substance: “My fave brekkie.”
         A tall, bodybuilding Goth chick with orange-and-black striped shoulder length hair, at thirty-seven, Sheila was the Chief Constable of the BeauLarkin to Willamby area in the Victorian countryside.
         “Yes,” agreed Terri Klein, a recently married ash blonde, the same age as Sheila, and as Senior Sergeant of the area Sheila’s boss: “But I prefer cherry jam on mine,”
         She spread a generous amount of jam on a pancake and started eating it with obvious delight.
         “Same here, babe,” said her husband, Colin Klein, a tall redheaded Englishman, a former reporter, now working as special adviser to the Glen Hartwell Police Department: “But I prefer breakfast marmalade on mine.”
         He took two large flap jacks, spread them both with Meadow Lea margarine, then with Cottee’s Breakfast Marmalade, then placed one pancake upside down on top of the other and took a huge bite.
         “Ooh, someone’s hungry this morning,” teased Natasha Lipzing, a tall grey-haired lady of seventy-two who had been the Yellow House’s first boarder when it opened thirty-seven years ago.
         “Yes, it’s all that bonking that he and Tezza do from seven o’clock to midnight,” teased Tommy Turner, a short, fat, retiree with shoulder length blond hair: “It’s fun, but it can wear a man out, make him starving.”
         “So suddenly Tom-Tom knows all about men and women,” teased Leo Laxman, a tall, black Jamaican now employed as a nurse at the local hospital.
         “Hey, I’ve been married six times,” insisted Tommy: “Who knows more about the female of the species than I do?”
         “Tommy, your six wives all divorced you,” pointed out Freddy Kingston, a tall, chubby retiree with a Larry Fine-ruff of curly black hair on his otherwise bald head, “and three of them now live as lesbians; and two are nuns; that hardly makes you an expert on the female of the species!”
         “Does too,” insisted Tommy, following Sheilas example of spreading a pancake with Meadow Lea then Vegemite: “Ah, vegemite flap jacks, you can’t beat them.”
         “You said it,” agreed Sheila through a mouthful of vegemite pancake.
         “Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sheila,” corrected Deidre Morton, a short, chubby sixty-something brunette with extraordinary culinary skills.
         “Personally, I prefer my flap jacks American style,” said Leo, picking up a large pitcher of maple syrup, he poured a generous amount on a dinner-plate sized pancake and used a fork to cut off a piece to scoff it down.
         “Isn’t that fattening?” asked Terri.
         “He can use a little fattening up,” said Deidre, “he’s all skin and bones. You’ll have to get some fat on your bones if you’re going to propose to Topaz Moseley.”
         Then when both Sheila and Leo started coughing, having swallowed some pancake the wrong way, Deidre moved across to whack the Goth chick on the back, while Colin took care of whacking a startled Leo.
         “We were just saying a while back, Leo, how wonderful it would be if you and Topaz and Sheila and Derek could have a double wedding,” said Natasha, “just like Terri and Colin and Eunice and George duBois had a month ago.”
         “You were?” croaked Leo.
         “Trust me, they were,” insisted Terri.
         “Well, you both make such lovely couples,” said Deidre, “you and Topaz both nurses, so you can work together; Sheila and Derek both bodybuilders who spend their Saturdays together at the Muscle-Up Gym in Glen Hartwell.”
         “That’s true, I guess,” muttered Leo.
         “And you can’t dillydally around too long with a gorgeous lady like Topaz,” said Natasha: “If you don’t snap her up soon, someone else will.”
         “You make me sound like a shark.”
         “If you’re the shark, Leo,” teased Sheila: “How come it’s Tasha and Mrs. M. who are circling?”
         “Gorgeous platinum blondes don’t grow on trees, Leo,” insisted Deidre.
         “No, most of them are supermodels,” teased Colin.
         “Don’t be silly,” snapped Deidre, “this is important. You got a beautiful blonde lady for your wife, so why shouldn’t Leo?”
         “Thank you,” said Terri, blushing.
         “You might as well accept it,” teased Freddy, “either you get hitched to Topaz, or Tasha and Deidre will keep after you so much that you’ll end up in Queen’s Grove Sanatorium; where I’m fairly certain that their tucker is nowhere near as sublime as Deidre’s.”
         “And if Topaz is half as into bonking as Tezza is, you’ll be the proverbial happily married man,” insisted Tommy.
         “Tommy!” cried Terri, Colin, and Sheila.
         “So when are Sheila and Derek getting hitched?” asked Leo.
         “Undecided,” said Sheila, blushing, “I haven’t managed to get up the courage to ask him yet.”
         “Is this a leap year?” asked Tommy.
         “No, but in these liberated times, a woman can propose to the man,” insisted Natasha: “If he’s dillydallying around.”
         “If she can build up the courage,” confessed Sheila: “It was so much easier before woman’s liberation, when the man was the one who had to have the courage to propose.”
         “Ah, come on,” teased Colin: “A big tough, bodybuilding, mad killer bull wrestling, werebison fighting chick like you should be able to take on any fearful situation that comes along.”
         “Unless it involves spiders, public speaking, or proposing to Derek,” mumbled Sheila, concentrating on eating another Vegemite pancake.
         “At least now we know there are some things that frighten her,” teased Leo.
         
         The three Ecclestone brothers were downing their favourite beers, Coors for Geo, Corona Extra for Lars, and Heineken for Home, staring off into the distance a little bleary-eyed.
         “Is that smoke in the distance?” asked Home.
         The other two brothers turned to stare where he was looking.
         “Could be,” conceded Geo.
         “Weren’t a couple of pooftahs burnt to death in a bushfire round here somewhere a week or two back?” asked Lars.
         “A lezzo and a pooftah,” corrected Geo: “No loss to the world.”
         “Yeah,” agreed Lars: “Pooftahs should be shot on sight, and lezzoes are just women wasted. A sheila’s pussy was designed to take a cock into it, not a tongue.”
         “Ooh, yeah, imagine sticking your tongue into a pussy,” said Home, looking like he was about to through up: “Some chicks actually think we’ll do that for them!”
         “Then they’re outta luck,” insisted Geo: “A pussy feels wonderful wrapped around your cock, but it’s ugly to look at.”
         “You said it,” agreed Lars: “Some chicks whine that it ain’t fair that we want them to suck our cocks, but we won’t suck their pussies.”
         “Whinging lezzoes,” said Geo with feeling.
         “But the way I see it,” continued Lars, “it’s natural for chicks to suck our cocks, and just as natural for us to suck their tits.”
         “Absolutely,” agreed Home: “Chicks are natural born cock suckers, and we’re natural born titty suckers.”
         “Absolutely,” agreed Lars.
         “Home, you are a born philosophiser,” congratulated Geo: “Harpo Marx had nothing on you when it comes to words of wisdom.”
         “Thanks, but back to pooftahs being used as bonfire dummies, should we be concerned by the smoke in the distance?”
         “Nah, it’s way off,” insisted Geo: “Drunk as we are, if it starts this way, we’ll easily outrun it.”
         “Well that makes sense,” agreed Home before passing out and falling backwards onto the thick blanket of dried pine needles and gum leaves which blanketed the sweet smelling eucalyptus forest.
         “Weak bastard can’t handle his liquor,” teased Lars.
         “The trick is to hold her ears tightly, and slam her face up and down on your dick, so she either chokes to death or swallows your load,” said Geo, laughing like a hyæna at his own joke.
         “I never thought of that,” said Lars, before passing out also.
         “Seems I’m the only one who can ...” began Geo, having to hurriedly turn around to projectile vomit out seemingly litres of half dissolved Coors Banquet lager. After wiping his mouth off on his shirt sleeve Geo said, “Oh well, at least I’ve got plenty of room now for some more Coors.”
         Taking up a small bottle, he twisted the cap off and began guzzling the beer as though nothing had happened.
         
         As Deidre Morton started to sit down for her own pancake breakfast, Tommy asked, “Haven’t you forgotten something, Deidre?”
         “I don’t think so,” said the puzzled brunette, crouching, half sitting, over her dining chair.
         “Our snifters of brandy,” reminded Leo Laxman.
         “Yeah, you know Leo, Tommy, and I like a snifter of brandy with our meals,” agreed Terri Klein: “This is a weekend after all.”
         “I thought it best to stay sober, since we’re all going to Mildred and Derren’s wedding in a few hours.”
         “One snifter of brandy won’t make us blotto,” insisted Leo.
         “Besides, poor Derren will have been building up his Dutch courage with a few drinks before the wedding,” said Tommy.
         “Unlikely,” said Natasha Lipzing, “Derren and Mildred are both teetotal.”
         “What?” demanded a shocked Tommy: “But there will be drinks at the reception party afterwards?”
         “I’ve been told that there will be Creamy Soda, Sarsaparilla, or Pepsi Max for the adults, and lemonade or cola for the children,” said Deidre Morton.
         “All the more reason for us to have a snifter of brandy now,” insisted Tommy.
         “Agreed,” said Terri and Leo.
         “Oh, all right, but don’t let them smell your breath,” said Deidre, getting up to go get three snifters of brandy.
         “Surely they know that most people do drink alcohol?” asked Freddy Kingston.
         “I think teetotallers are like commies,” said Natasha, “although they make up only a tiny percentage of people, they believe that the whole world is like them.”
         “Yes,” agreed Sheila, “I’ve read a couple of Frank Hardy novels, where everybody in Australia was a communist; even though most of us aren’t.”
         “You do realise, of course,” teased Colin, “that since the post wedding reception will be our lunch; you won’t get your snifters of brandy with your lunch today?”
         “What?” demanded Tommy, Terri, and Leo.
         “Then we’d better get two snifters with our breakfast,” insisted Terri.
         “Agreed!” shouted Tommy and Leo.
         “I wish you’d learn to keep your big mouth shut!” said Deidre.
         “Sorry,” apologised Colin, unable to resist laughing.
         
         An hour later, Lars and Home Ecclestone had finally awakened, however, Geo was now sleeping on the pine needles and gum leaves, snoring like a draught horse as his brothers had pointed out earlier.
         “Hey, let’s photo him, so he can never again say he doesn’t snore like a Clydesdale,” said Lars taking out his mobile phone.
         “Do Clydesdales have a lot of nasal problems?” asked Home.
         “Who knows, who cares,” said Lars.
         Holding the mobile around the wrong way, the raven-haired man took a short video of himself, laughing.
         “Now he can never again deny that he snores like a draughted horse,” said Home, watching the video with Lars: “That’s funny, that isn’t Geo.”
         “No, it’s me,” admitted Lars, “I always said that mobile phones make no sense.”
         He repeated the process, holing the phone the wrong way again, and said, “Well, at least I know I’m photo-magenic.”
         “Unlike ugly Geo, who the phone refuses to even photograph,” said Home, making the two drunkards laugh.
         At that stage there was a booming explosion, smoke started to billow hundreds of metres into the air, less than a kilometre away, then something still unseen started trudging toward the three alcoholics, leaving old growth trees in its wake, easily felling the massive trees as he/it strode effortlessly toward the where the three men sat near the Yannan River.
         “I think the poof fire is finally coming after us,” muttered Home: “Time to run away.”
         He tried standing, and fell back down with a thud, gum leaves and pine needles puffing up around him.
         “Too drunk to run,” said Lars, not qualifying whether that was a statement about himself, or a question about his brother.
         As old-growth trees splintered like kindling, flying every which way, the two drunkards finally managed to see the huge creature lumbering toward them.
         “The Devil in disguise,” said Lars, seeing the huge, man-like, goat-like figure rapidly approaching them through the forest.
         “I thought the Devil in disguise was red,” puzzled Home: “This thing is a sorta greeny-brown colour.”
         “Probably just Picasso’s impression of the Devil in disguise was red,” said Lars, meaning Michelangelo.
         As the creature strode toward them, the kindling in its wake whooshed into flames, starting the first bushfire of the Glen Hartwell summer.
         Realising that the Clydesdale-like snoring had stopped, they risked a glance at Geo, who was stretching widely, having already sat up.
         “That was a nice, refreshing ...” began Geo, stopping as he say the huge goat-like biped before them: “What the fuck is that; the DTs?”
         “No, we think it’s the Devil in disguise,” said Lars, “come to punish us for our drunkard ways.”
         “Maybe because we decided not to go to Mildew’s wedding,” moaned Home.
         “Who are you? What are you?” shouted Geo up at the creature as it continued to approach them.
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast!” boomed the creature; almost loudly enough to deafen the three brothers.
         “What do you want with us?” demanded Lars.
         “Sacrifices in my honour!” boomed the Caprine beast.
         “What you want us to sacrifice a chicken or something in your honour?” asked Home.
         “I’ll sacrifice this beer in your honour,” said Lars.
         He hurriedly opened a can of Corona Extra, then skoaled it down in seconds.
         “No!” boomed Tampas: “Human sacrifices; the only sacrifices suitable for a God such as I!”
         “We thought you were the Devil in disguise,” said Home.
         “Blasphemers!” boomed Tampas.
         Raising his arms to point them like weapons, he opened his fists and red and yellow flames whooshed out, shooting just above the three drunkards, searing their hair but otherwise not harming them.
         “Holy shit!” cried Geo, not even noticing as he wet himself in terror.
         “Burn, blasphemers!” boomed Tampas, aiming his flames at Lars and Home this time.
         “Aaaaaaaaaaah!” cried Geo, rolling away from the flames, not realising as he rolled into his own vomit from earlier.
         As his brothers started gyrating like dervishes as they were burnt alive, Geo took off, at first crawling, then managing to stumble back to his feet, toward the direction of Glen Hartwell.
         Enjoying the sight of the fiery whirling dervishes, being sacrificed in his honour, Tampas boomed after the fleeing drunkard:
         “Remember to tell the rest of the blasphemers in this area that Tampas the Horn-ed Beast is coming to make human sacrifices of them all!”
         “Trust me, I won’t forget,” shouted back Geo, without halting his terrified flight.
         
         Founded in 1838, Saint Margaret's was one of the centre points of Glen Hartwell: the floors were traditional polished teak, with red felt-lined wooden pews, plus more than life-size plaster statues of Jesus, the Stations of the Cross, Mary, Joseph, and the apostles lining the walls and the rear of the small stage upon which Father Thomas conducted his sermons.
         “We are gathered here today in the sight of God,” began Father Thomas Montague, “to join this man and this woman in the sanctity of holy matrimony by the authority of God, and the state of Victoria.
         “If any person knows any reason why Mildred Ecclestone and Derren Thornberry should not be wed, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace.”
         With a crash that made the whole congregation spin around, the large polished red gum double doors slammed into the walls, as George Ecclestone burst into the church to shout:
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard has just burnt poor Homer and Lawson to death!”
         “George Ecclestone get out of this sacred building!” cried Father Thomas: “You have been banned for life from this church and are not wanted here.”
         “Especially during my wedding!” Mildred shouted at her drunkard brother.
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard has just burnt poor Homer and Lawson to death!” shouted Geo again, before projectile vomiting down the aisle, then passing out.
         “Aaaaaaaaaaah, I will kill him!” screamed Mildred.
         “Perhaps we’d better take care of this,” said Terri, signalling for Sheila, Alice Walker, and Colin to follow her down the aisle, carefully lifting her dress to avoid it being vomit soaked.
         Sheila and Alice each grabbed the supine drunkard under one arm to drag him outside onto the plateau at the top of the steps.
         “So what do we do with the drunken bastard now?” asked Sheila.
         “Sober him up, I guess,” suggested Terri.
         “And who the Hell is Tampas the Horny Bastard?” asked Alice, a forty-seven-year-old brunette; an amateur bodybuilder, and gym mate of Sheila, Derek, and Cheryl.
         As they all looked toward him, Colin said, “Sorry, I might have a vast knowledge of myths and legends, but Tampas the Horny Bastard is one that I’ve never heard of.”
         Donald Esk, a huge muscular sergeant under Terri’s command appeared at the door, asking, “Do you need my help, Chief?”
         “Yes, can you take this drunken so-and-so to Mitchell Street in the Rust Bucket, while we all go and change our clothes.”
         “Actually I brought my brother Gene’s brand new Ford ute here.”
         “Then hurl him into the rear of the ute while we go change.”
         “Will do, Chief?” agreed Don.
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard!” muttered Geo, still unconscious.
         Forty-five minutes later they were at the front office of the Mitchell Street Police Station, feeding Geo Ecclestone massive doses of vitamin B tablets.
         “Are you sure this will sober him up, Chief?” asked Suzette Cummings a seventeen-year-old constable with long raven hair: “You know that I’m one of those people who chunder if I see other people chunder?”
         “I believe I read somewhere that vitamin B in large enough doses can sober drunkards up,” insisted Terri Klein.
         “Actually, babe, I think it only cures their hangovers,” corrected Colin.
         “Oh.”
         “Don’t worry, I know a perfect soberer-upper,” said Sheila pouring a litre of milk into a vitamiser.
         “Actually, Sheils, that milk is past its use-by date,” said Suzette.
         “All the better,” said the Goth chick, “this recipe works best with sour milk.”
         She broke two raw eggs into the mix, included the shells, then a generous amount of black pepper, before pouring an entire small bottle of Worcestershire sauce in, placed the lid on and then started the vitamiser.
         “I think I saw them do this on the Benny Hill show when I was a kid,” said Colin, looking both impressed and horrified.
         “This, according to Mr. Hill, is the sober them up or kill them potion,” explained the Goth policewoman.
         “Or kill them?” asked Terri, then after considering for a moment: “Well, it is only George Ecclestone, and I doubt that Mildred will miss him ... So go ahead, it’s worth a try.”
         “She is so caring,” teased Alice Walker.
         Despite the potion, it was nearly an hour before they had revived Geo enough for him to repeat:
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard just burnt poor Homer and Lawson to death!”
         This time he went on to explain in detail what had happened, including the bushfires that the ‘Devil in disguise’ as he also called the goat-like creature, had started as it crashed its way through the old growth forest.
         “Well, that much we can confirm or deny quickly,” said Terri. Taking out her mobile, she rang a number and talked for less than a minute. Disconnecting she said, “Hermione Meldon has confirmed that bushfires have started in the old growth forest, where it looks like something huge strode through crushing trees in its wake.”
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard!” insisted Geo Ecclestone.
         “Well, since Colin hasn’t heard of Tampas the Horny Bastard,” said Terri, “I guess we’d better go visit our Wiccan Witch friend.”
         “Magnolia McCready!” cried Sheila, Alice, Colin, and Suzette.
         “Do you mind staying to look after Geo?” Terri asked Don Esk.
         “No sweat, Chief, I’m not really a cat person,” said Don as they headed outside.
         
         1/21 Calhoun Street was the right-hand side of a subdivided white weatherboard house, inside lived Magnolia McCready, a tall, busty, fifty-something redhead with electric-blue eyes. Inside the turquoise coloured lounge room, Magnolia handed around cups of raspberry tea. On the carpet lay her white, fluffy tomcat, Timmikins, who watched with interest as she handed around a plate of homemade brandy snaps.
         Sheila sat and helped herself to a biscuit, causing the cat to leap up onto her lap.
         “Hello, handsome,” cooed the Goth chick, holding the brandy snap out of the cat’s reach, “are you pleased to see Auntie Sheila, or do you just want to steal my bikkie?”
         “By way of answer the tomcat gave the Goth chick its best pleading moo cow-eyes look, trying to break her heart.
         “Okay, you can have half of it,” said Sheila breaking the biscuit, to give Timmikins at least two-thirds of the treat.
         “Don’t give him too many, Sheils,” said Magnolia, “the last thing I need is a drunken cat staggering around throwing up everywhere.”
         “Yeah, we’ve already got a drunken rat doing that at Mitchell Street,” said Alice Walker.
         “So, what is the latest problem that you need my advice with?” asked the white witch.
         “Have you ever heard of Tampas the Horny Bastard?” asked Terri.
         “No, but I’ve heard of an Ancient Sumerian legend of Tampas, the Horn-ed Beast, supposedly a thirty-metre tall goat-like humanoid, brownish green, with long demonic horns and the ability to crash through tall forests and shoot flames from his hands and exhale smoke from his mouth.”
         “That sounds like him,” said Sheila Bennett, not minding as Timmikins snatched another brandy snap from her right hand to crunch away upon.
         “According to some modern writers, Tampas is the main reason that fanatical Christians like Cotton Mather and King James often depicted Satan as being a horned, goat-like creature,” explained the Wiccan: “They were confusing the Christian legend of Satan with the much older legend of Tampas, the Horn-ed Beast.”
         “Although, I suppose that some Christians might argue that Tampas, the Horn-ed Beast is just Satan under one of his legion of names,” said Colin.
         “Perhaps, but if Tampas is raging through the forest around Glen Hartwell at the moment,” said Magnolia, “whether he also goes by the name Satan, is possibly the least of our worries.”
         “Well, we haven’t been able to get to the area where he was supposed to have cremates Lawson and Homer Ecclestone,” said Terri, “due to there being a sudden bushfire in that area.”
         “Which seems to have sprung up from nowhere right after drunken George Ecclestone burst in upon his sister’s wedding to tell us that Lars and Home had been killed by Tampas,” added Colin.
         “That can’t have endeared him to Mildred?”
         “Well, she hated his guts to begin with,” said Sheila, “so probably no change there.”
         “Good point, well made,” said the Wiccan.
         “So how do we deal with this Tampas, might be Satan, character?” asked Alice.
         “Ah, well, there you have me,” admitted Magnolia: “Dating back six and a half thousand years, the details of most Ancient Sumerian legends are sketchy at best.”
         “I had an awful feeling that she was gonna say that,” said the Goth chick.
         “If he is the Devil, you might try dousing him in water or fire retardant foam.”
         “And if he’s a supernatural creature whom water and foam won’t effect?” asked Terri Klein.
         “You might try praying to God,” suggested the Wiccan: “Or asking Father Thomas to attempt to exorcise him.”
         “We’re not exactly in good with Father Thomas at the moment,” said Terri.
         “We’ve asked him to mix up batches of hundreds of litres of holy water a few times too often over the last couple of years,” explained Colin.
         “Although we did remove that drunken wretch Geo Ecclestone from his sister’s wedding for him,” pointed out Sheila, feeding another brandy snap to the fluffy white tomcat who was purring to show his appreciation.
         “Then now might be the time to ask him, before he forgets that he owes us a favour,” suggested Alice.
         
         Over near the Yannan River where Lawson and Homer Ecclestone had been cremated by Tampas, they were desperately fighting a raging bush fire.
         “So how’s it going, Hermione?” asked Terri as Louie Pascall’s Bell Huey landed near one of the large red fire engines.
         “Badly,” said Hermione Meldon, a tall Amazonian brunette in her late thirties, the local fire chief: “We have no idea how the fire suddenly started, plus we have the problem of the splintered trees.”
          “Splintered?” asked Colin Klein.
         “Yeah, lots of the trees are shattered as though something huge has stomped the crap out of them. But what on Earth could stomp twenty metre tall old growth trees?”
         Maybe a thirty-metre-tall horn-ed beast? Colin thought, careful not to voice the idea aloud.
         “Okay, let’s have a look at them,” said Terri as they returned to the chopper. Then as they lifted off, to Louie Pascall, “Take us past the fire to look at some stomped trees.”
         “Stomped trees coming right up,” said Louie, a tall, bald man in his late forties. As usual dressed in fawn slacks, today he was wearing a white T-shirt with the motto ‘#1 Pilot in Glen Hartwell’.
         “Aren’t you the only pilot in G.H.?” asked Sheila spotting the shirt.
         “Which, by definition, makes me the number one pilot in Glen Hartwell.”
         “Well we can’t argue with that logic?” agreed Colin, between laughter.
         
         Hermione Meldon had just climbed into the cabin of one of the new fire trucks, when she heard the splintering of trees as Tampas stormed toward where the fire fighters were working.
         “What the Hell is that?” asked the brunette, backing out of the truck.
         Seeing the gigantic man-like, goat-like figure rapidly approaching through the forest, the brunette jumped down from the red engine, just in time as Tampas reached down to pick up the fire truck and hurl it through the air in the general direction that Terri and the others have just gone.
         “Who are you; what are you?” demanded Hermione, dismayed to lose one of just two newish fire trucks under her command; as well as two ancient trucks.
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast!” boomed the creature, making the fire fighters hurriedly cover their ears.
         “What the Hell do you want here?” demanded the chief fire fighter.
         “Sacrifices in my honour!” boomed the horn-ed beast.
         “You mean blood sacrifices?”
         “Human sacrifices!” boomed the goat-horned creature.
         
         Only a couple of kilometres away from the fire site, Terri and the others heard the splintering of great gum and pine trees in the distance as Tampas stomped toward Hermione’s crew.
         “What the Hell could that be?” asked Louie Pascall.
         “Tampas the Horny Bastard?” teased Sheila.
         “If he’s thirty metres tall, I just pray that he’s not too horny,” teased Alice.
         “Actually it’s Tampas the Horn-ed Beast,” corrected Colin.
         “Taking her back,” said Louie, as he turned the blue and white Bell Huey, to start back toward where Hermione and the fire fighters were.
         
         “Human sacrifices?” repeated Hermione: “It is my job to save lives, not to sacrifice them to a jumped up Satan Wannabee like you, Doofus!”
         Snarling in rage, Tampas reached for Hermione, who just managed to outrun his reaching hand.
         So, instead, the creature picked up one of the two ancient fire trucks and hurled it back the way that the chopper was coming from.
         
         “Taking her up!” cried Louie, as the ancient fire truck hurtled toward them.
         As the chopper went up vertically, the spinning fire truck missed them by mere centimetres.
         “Now that’s what I call a close shave,” said Sheila, having found the fourth thing that terrified her; after spiders, public speaking, and trying to summon up the courage to propose to Derek Armstrong.
         “Let’s get back to Hermione before any more fire trucks coming flying toward us,” suggested Terri as though flying fire trucks were an everyday occurrence around Glen Hartwell.
         “There’s still three fire trucks left,” reminded Colin.
         “Two,” corrected Alice, pointing down to where one of the newer trucks lay not far from the ancient one that had just missed them.
         “Then let’s get back to Hermione before the last two come flyi ng our way,” ordered Terri.
         “Taking her back,” said Louie, accelerating the chopper.
         
         “They will be no human sacrifices, while I’m in charge of fire fighting around here!” insisted Hermione Meldon.
         “Human sacrifices are required for a God such as I!” boomed Tampas.
         “God, I thought you were the fucken Devil?” the brunette boomed back at him through a loud hailer.
         “No, I am the great God Tampas the Horn-ed Beast; feared as far back at six and a half thousand years by the Ancient Sumerians; then later by the Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Romans, and Ancient Greeks, each calling me by a different name.”
         “So your name is Legion?” queried Hermione: “That’s what Christians say about our Devil.”
         “Take care,” warned Tampas, “the Jews feared me so much, that after I moved on, they changed their whole religion to deny the existence of a Devil or an underworld! Prior to that they had believed in Satan, Beelzebub, and myself as so called fallen Gods, or dark Gods, cast out of Heaven by Yahwe-Jehovah!
         “And like the other fallen Gods I require human sacrifices in my honour!”
         “Well, you’re out of luck, Doofus,” insisted the brunette: “We worship, Yahwe, Jehovah, Jesus Christ, or Allah, not some jumped up reject kicked out of Heaven by the Lord Above!”
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast, not Doofus!” boomed the goat-horned creature.
         “Same difference as far as I’m concerned!” insisted the bodybuilding chick.
         
         Zooming as fast as possible, the Bell Huey was only a couple of hundred metres away from the fire site, and at last they could see Tampas.
         “Jesus Christ!” said Louie crossing himself.
         “No, Tampas the Horn-ed Beast,” corrected Sheila Bennett.
         “Well, I’ll be gobsmacked,” said Terri.
         “You shouldn’t be surprised, honey, after all of the monsters that we’ve battled over the last few years,” said her husband, Colin.
         “No, I’m gobsmacked that that drunken sot, Geo Ecclestone, was accurate in his description of that thing,” said Terri, staring down at Tampas.
         “Okay, that is a first,” conceded Colin.
         “Wow, look at it,” said Alice: “If it weren’t trying to kill everybody, it would be impressive.”
         “Do you think it really is the Devil?” asked Alice Walker: “Or at least the origins of the devil legend?”
         Sheila shrugged, and Terri said, “Could be, who knows? We just need to find a way to kill it.”
         
         “I am the great God Tampas the Horn-ed Beast, and I demand human sacrifices in my honour!”
         “I am Hermione Meldon, the fire chief of this area, and I say fuck off, Doofus!”
         “How dare you!” bellowed the thirty-metre tall greeny brown, man-goat creature!
         Reaching past Hermione, Tampas picked up the second of the area’s ancient fire trucks and hurled it casually through the air; narrowly missing Louie Pascall’s Bell Huey as it zoomed toward the fire site.
         
         “In coming!” shouted Louie.
         Instinctively Sheila ducked, even though it would not have helped if the fire truck had collided with the helicopter. Fortunately the truck missed the chopper by a metre or so.
         “Time to unload the water on Tampas,” suggested Terri Klein.
         “Will do,” agreed Louie, positioning the helicopter twenty metres above the horn-ed beast.
         “Hopefully, this time I won’t have to climb out onto the water tank and kick open the release valve,” complained Sheila: “I almost broke my right ankle doing that last time.”
         “Relax, mad Goth chick,” assured Louie, “I’ve had Ed Bussy check out the mechanism since then, so it should work fine.”
         “It’s that word ‘should’ that’s got me worried,” said Sheila: “We’ll find out in a sec whether I’ve come to bury or praise Ed Bussy.”
         “Here she goes,” said Louie pulling the lever.
         This time the water tank opened instantly and hundreds of litres of Yannan River water splashed down onto the rampaging Caprine creature.
         “There’s mud in your eye, Doofus the Horn-ed Beast!” taunted Hermione.
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast, and I will not be belittled!” boomed the greeny-brown goat creature.
         Raising its arms into the air, Tampas unfisted his hands and great bursts of yellow and red flames whooshed out to engulf the helicopter.
         “Taking her down!” cried Louie frantically, as they were enveloped in the demonic creature’s fire.
         Aiming for the only thing that might douse the fires, Louie crash landed the Bell Huey straight into the nearby Yannan River.
         “Everybody out!” shouted Louie, helping Sheila out of the chopper.
         Alice Walker, Colin and Terri Klein managed to escape the burning chopper, but were only a few metres from the helicopter when it exploded, throwing all three of them through the air.
         “Oomph!” gasped Alice as they landed upon the soft blanket of dried pine needles and gum leaves which coated the forest floor.
         “Well that’s what I call a soft landing,” said Colin, landing half upon the forest floor, and half upon his wife.
         “Not so much for me, with a tall, heavy Englishman landing on top of me,” teased Terri.
         “Isn’t he legally an Aussie, now that he married you in Aust?” asked Alice as they all staggered back to their feet with some difficulty.
         “Let’s argue semantics later,” advised Colin: “We still have a thirty-metre tall rampaging monster to worry about.”
         “Who was pissed off when we unloaded ordinary water upon him,” said Sheila Bennett: “But other than his ego, did not seem to be hurt at all.”
         “Unlike my poor Suzie Q,” moaned Louie Pascall.
         “Who now?” asked the puzzled Goth policewoman.
         “That what I always name my choppers.”
         “Well, I did not know that,” said Sheila.
         “And we thought you knew everything about everything from BeauLarkin to Willamby?” teased Alice.
         “I do know most things ... but I did not know that Louie named his choppers Suzie Q,” admitted Sheila: “But I’m sure that Russell Street will gladly buy you a new Suzie Q.”
         “Sheils, that will mean me getting shouted at by the Assistant Commissioner again,” complained Terri.
         “I thought he didn’t shout at you anymore?” asked the Goth chick: “Just banged his head upon his desk and sobbed like a baby.”
         “You really have broken that poor man, honey,” teased Colin.
         “It’s not my fault!” protested the ash blonde: “Goofy stuff just keeps happening in and around Glen Hartwell ... How am I to blame for that?”
         “We’d better let her calm down before teasing her anymore,” advised Colin.
         “So what do we do now?” asked Alice.
         “Follow Hermione,” suggested Sheila, pointing to where the Amazonian brunette was racing toward the one remaining fire truck.
         “Wait for us,” called Terri as the five people raced across to leap onto the back of the fire truck to hold onto the railing for dear life.
         “I am the great God Tampas the Horn-ed Beast and I demand human sacrifices in my honour!” boomed the thirty-metre high creature.
         He began firing its flames after the fire truck as it took off as fast as possible away from the fire scene.
         “I hate to abandon a live fire!” Hermione shouted: “But I can’t afford to lose my last remaining fire truck ... Especially not one of the newish ones.”
         “Fine by us!” Sheila shouted back at the brunette.
         After they had reached Daley Township, where the fire station was situated in Davidson’s Road, they disembarked and Hermione asked:
         “Now how am I supposed to fight fires? And with that rampaging monster, there will be plenty of them.”
         “We’ll get George and Eunice duBois from the Department of Building and Works to tow the other trucks to Wentworth Street, and hopefully Ed Bussy can fix them for you,” offered Terri.
         “At least the newer one,” suggested Colin: “Whether he would be able to get the parts for the ancient two is another matter,” said Colin.
         “If not, you might be finally able to get the Victorian Government to lash out for two more new ones,” said Alice hopefully.
         “Although they won’t come across with the moola until late July,” advised Sheila: “That’s when all the government departments are happy to give you money so that they won’t have anything left come the August budget, for fear of getting less money for the next year.”
         “How does she know that when she’s only ever worked for Victoria Police?” queried Alice.
         “Victoria Police is still part of the state government,” advised Sheila: “So if we ever want anything like our own midget submarine, or a Cessna, that’s when to ask for it, late July.”
         An hour later they were back at the Glen Hartwell Police Station in Mitchell Street. Terri had rung George and Eunice to arrange for them to take the damaged fire trucks around to Ed Bussy’s garage and wrecker’s yard; and had rung Ed to let him know that they were coming.
         “So now what?” asked Sheila: “We know that water is no use against the great horny Doofus, but we don’t have a chopper to test fire retardant foam on him.”
         “I’m doubtful that foam would work either,” said Colin, “since the water just pissed him off.”
         “So I guess, I have to risk getting excommunicated by Father Thomas, by asking him to mix us up a giant batch of holy water again,” suggested Terri.
         “Actually, Tezza,” suggested Sheila: “The trick is to casually start by saying that you hope that Mildred’s wedding went off without a hitch after we helped out by removing her drunken sot of a brother. Then when he thanks you, and says that he owes you one, that’s when you spring on him the fact that you need to call in the favour immediately.”
         “Brilliant, mad Goth chick,” enthused Terri: “He might be fuming inside, but he can’t refuse to help out after saying that he owes me one.”
         “And he wouldn’t dare excommunicate you, after saying that he owes you one,” added Alice Walker.
         “Speaking of Mildred’s drunken sot of a brother, why can’t we hear him moaning or whatever in the cells?” asked Colin.
         “Sheila’s sobering up remedy worked well enough that I palmed him off onto the hospital,” said Donald Esk.
         “Brilliant, Don,” said Sheila, “let them clean up after he chunders, so that we don’t have to.”
         “That’s what I thought!”
         After they had all laughed, Terri said, “Anyway I’ll need to bring in another chopper before I talk to Father Thomas; I don’t want to waste my chance to butter him up, only to find that we can’t get another chopper.”
         
         Over at the Yellow House around 7:30 PM, they had just finished eating tea, and were discussing what to watch on TV.
         “How about one of my ‘World’s Stupidest Stuntman’ DVDs?” asked Sheila.
         “Sound good to me,” agreed Tommy Turner.
         “No!” said everyone except Tommy and Sheila.
         “It’s bad enough having to watch that crap every Thursday evening,” insisted Terri.
         “What about Swan Lake on the ABC?” asked Natasha Lipzing leafing through the TV pages.
         “Sounds good to me,” said Terri.
         “Nah-ah,” said Sheila and Tommy.
         “We have to watch that garbage every Friday evening,” protested Tommy.
         “And half the time, Terri doesn’t even watch it,” complained Sheila: “As soon as she thinks that we’re not watching her, she and Colin sneak upstairs for some serious bonking.”
         “Well, you could sneak up to your room too, mad Goth chick,” said Terri.
         “What, with my room right next to yours? The last thing I need is to hear you two going at it hammer and tings; Colin, poor old fellow, gasping for breath, and you moaning and shrieking, ‘Stick me! Stick me harder!’!”
         “I have never shrieked ‘Stick me! Stick me harder!’!” insisted Terri.
         “Well, you’re certainly a goer, Tezza; you might be only thirty-seven, but just remember that the old fellow is fifty, you don’t want him dying from a heart attack before your first wedding anniversary.”
         “How dare you!” demanded Terri, then to Colin: “Come on, Honey, let’s go up to bed rather than listen to Sheils’s vicious slander.”
         “It can’t be slander if it’s true!” Sheila called after them, then to the others: “So what are we watching everyone?”
         “How about evening mass on Channel 19?” asked Natasha.
         “No way!” said Tommy.
         “Tasha, there’s a time and a place for religion,” insisted Sheila, “and this is neither.”
         “You do remember that it’s Sunday evening?” reminded Deidre Morton.
         “Yes, but we were in church earlier today,” pointed out Tommy.
         “That was for Mildred Ecclestone’s, I mean Thornberry’s wedding,” pointed out Natasha.
         “And Sheila and the police left after that drunken sot, Geo Ecclestone arrived declaring that a horny beast had just murdered his two brothers,” reminded Deidre.
         “That was just our good luck,” insisted Sheila: “It doesn’t mean that we didn’t go to Saint Margaret’s with the intention of suffering through the entire service.”
         “I actually did suffer through the entire service,” said Tommy.
         “Besides, I’ve just become Jewish,” lied Sheila, “so this isn’t my holy day at all.”
         “Oy Vey, so have I,” lied Tommy.
         “You know that you’ll both burn in Hell when you die for taking your religion so lightly,” teased Natasha.
         “Not if Judaism is the one true faith,” countered Sheila.
         “And we’re both prepared to gamble that it is,” insisted Tommy.
         The argument might have continued, except for the whir-whir-whir of rotors outside in Rochester Road.
         “Don’t tell me that Louie got his new chopper already?’ asked Leo Laxman.
         Going outside, they found a tall, dark-haired man in an American Air Force uniform standing beside a massive twin-rotor military helicopter, parked in the middle of the street.
         “You know that’s only one hour parking there, Harrison?” teased Sheila, giving the pilot a friendly slap on the shoulder.
         Trying not to wince in pain, Harry said, “I don’t plan to park there, just letting you know that I’ve arrived.”
         “Well, we don’t need your services till tomorrow after brekkie,” said the Goth chick, “Terri still needs to trick Father Thomas into making up a huge batch of holy water for us.”
         “You do know that it’s Sunday and you’re talking about duping a priest.”
         “Not me, Tezza ... Speaking of whom do you want to talk to her now; she’s upstairs bonking with her new hubby; but I’ll be happy to disturb them for you.”
         “Er, no thanks, tomorrow morning with be soon enough ... I’ll be back here at six thirty.”
         “Make it 7:30 and you can have brekkie with us, I’m sure Mrs. M. won’t mind.”
         “Of course not, always happy to feed one more,” said Deidre Morton.
         “But be warned, after tasting Mrs. M.’s haute cuisine you’ll never be satisfied with that slop that they feed you in the U.S. Air Force.”
         “I’ll take the risk,” said Harrison climbing back into the U.S. helicopter.
         
         The next morning at breakfast, Sheila asked, “So where are Mildred and Derren Thornberry going on their honeymoon?”
         “They’re going to Las Vegas for a month,” said Deidre.
         “A month?” asked Sheila: “Let’s just hope that Donald Dum-Dum doesn’t decide to invade Las Vegas while they’re there.”
         “Las Vegas is already part of the U.S.A.,” pointed out Harrison.
         “Yes, but does Donald Dum-Dum know that?”
         The tall American laughed, before saying, “Probably not. These are wonderful biscuits, Mrs. M.”
         “Technically, they’re what we call scones,” advised Deidre Morton: “What you call cookies, are what we call biscuits.”
         “Well, whatever they are, they’re delicious.”
         Straight after breakfast, they piled into the military helicopter and headed around to Saint Margaret’s in Wentworth Street, Glen Hartwell.
         “You don’t think that we’ll be giving the game away a bit by parking this thing outside the church?” asked Sheila as they landed.
         “I could always try parking it around the back,” teased Harrison.
         “Well, those of us about to die ...” only half joked Terri, climbing from the military chopper, and walking as slowly as possible toward Saint Margaret’s.
         “Do you think she’ll be all right?” asked Colin.
         By way of answer they heard the priest shout, “You want what Theresa?”
         “She’s in trouble when he calls her Theresa,” advised Sheila, unable to resist smirking: “It’s times like this that I’m glad that I’m a Protestant.”
         “Really,” teased Colin: “You said last night that you were Jewish.”
         “Perhaps I may have slightly exaggerated the extent of my conversion,” admitted the Goth chick: “I mean I have plenty of Jewish friends, but I could never follow a religion that doesn’t believe in Hell. I mean if absolute monsters like Hitler, Mengele, and Trump go to Heaven; that turns Heaven into Hell for the rest of us.”
         “You make a good point, mad Goth chick,” said Harrison as Terri, looking a little pale faced finally started down the twenty concrete steps to the street.
         “How’d it go, Tezza?” asked Sheila.
         “He reluctantly agreed, only because I used you strategy to make him think he owed us a favour first; but the words ‘the very last time’ and ‘excommunication’ did pass his lips.”
         “But he didn’t excommunicate you ... yet?” asked Colin.
         “No,” said Terri, clearly a little jittery.
         “Then to quote the late, great Eddie Cochran, everything’s swinging,” said Sheila Bennett.
         “He said to come back in an hour and the holy water will be ready.”
         “Excellent,” said Harrison, “I left the water carrier about half an hour’s flight from here, so by the time we return with it ....”
         “He can shout at me some more,” finished the ash blonde.
         “You take these things too personally, Tezza,” said Sheila as the chopper lifted off again.
         
         The Faulkner family were driving through the forest outside Brooklyn Township in their carefully restored psychedelic ‘60s era Volkswagen Kombi van complete with oversized purple flowers on a yellow, red and orange background.
         “Dad, this Kombi is super groovy,” said Barnaby ‘Barny’ a tall, freckle-faced redheaded seventeen-year-old.
         “What does super groovy even mean?” teased his sister Bluebell ‘Bell’, a fifteen-year-old medium height strawberry blonde.
         “It’s a bit like ginchy, I think,” teased Cecily ‘Cess’ a short raven haired fourteen-year-old.
         “It means that it’s super chill,” said their mother, Aurelia ‘Lia’ thirty-nine, a tall, leggy redhead, wearing a pink top over a pale blue skirt.
         “It is so sad when old folks try to be trendy,” teased Bell.
         “So sad,” agreed Cess, shaking her head.
         “At thirty-nine, I am not an old folk!”
         “So sad,” repeated Cess: “Now she’s in denial.”
         “I am not in denial, but you two will get tossed in the Yannan River as soon as we get there, if you don’t learn some respect.”
         “So sad,” agreed Bell.
         “Stop teasing your mother,” said their father, Rafferty ‘Raff’, a tall forty-two-year-old raven haired man, who as always was wearing a pale blue business shirt and black shorts.
         “Yeah, you know Mum has no sense of humour,” teased Barny.
         “I do so have a sense of humour,” insisted Lia crossing her arms indignantly.
         “And Dad, you know you’re not at the office now?” teased Bell: “You could unwind a little and wear a funny T-shirt, and slacks maybe.
         “It never hurts to dress smartly,” insisted Raff.
         “It’s a pity that you didn’t tell Mum that before we started out,” said Cess.
         “What was that, young lady!” demanded Lia.
         “Really, I mean a pink top and a pale blue skirt? Where were you dressed at Grace Brothers by Mrs. Slowone?”
         “It’s Mrs. Slocombe, and no I did not slip into a 1970s Britcom to get my clothing.”
         “You coulda fooled me,” insisted Bell.
         “Well, that shouldn’t be too hard, dimwit,” teased Barny.
         “Don’t call your sister dimwit,” chided Lia, although she had smiled when her son said it.
         “Yeah, dimwit, don’t call me dimwit!” insisted Bell.
         “Don’t call your brother dimwit either,” said Lia.
         She slid open the dividing window between the cabin and the main part of the Kombi van and tried to whack Bell, who quickly jumped across to the opposite seat.
         “Not fast enough by half, Mum,” teased Cess.
         “Come back here, you little brat, so that I can whack you!”
         “That is hardly motivation, Mum,” insisted Bell staying where she was: “Anyway I prefer facing the way we’re going.”
         “Then why were you sitting with your bum facing forward before, dimwit?” demanded Barny.
         “Don’t call your sister dimwit,” said Raff, when it become obvious that Lia was not going to tell off their son.
         “Why not, she is a dimwit.”
         “True,” teased Raff: “But you don’t have to tell her to her face.”
         “Dad!” protested Bell, hardly mollified when her father laughed, showing that he was joking.
         “Besides we were teasing Mum, not us,” Cess defended her sister.
         Leaning into the rear of the Kombi, Lia tried without success to whack her youngest daughter:
         “Come here so that I can whack you, you little brat.”
         “To quote Bell, ‘That is hardly motivation’!”
         
         More than an hour had passed when the huge military helicopter finally returned to Saint Margaret’s Cathedral in Wentworth Street, Glen Hartwell.
         “Whose turn is it to get shouted at by Father Thomas this time?” asked Terri.
         “You’re the head honcho, Chief,” teased Sheila Bennett: “We’re not even Catholics, so he might be even shoutier to us.”
         “Is shoutier even a word?” asked Colin as Terri started down the rope ladder, required, since they could not land while carrying the water tank: “Do you want me to come with you, babe?”
         “Yes, please, honey,” called up Terri.
         Rather reluctantly Colin climbed down after his wife.
         “You did promise for better or for worse,” teased Terri as they started up the concrete steps of the church.
         “Yes, but as a Protestant, I never expected to get excommunicated by a Catholic priest.”
         “Shoosh,” said Terri putting a finger up to her mouth: “If the Father finds out that he married a heretic in his church, he’ll excommunicate us both. Although you did rather give it away when you didn’t know what to do when he offered you the communion wafer.”
         “I popped it under my tongue, the tasteless thing, what else are you supposed to do with it?”
         “Well ...” began Terri, stopping as the priest stepped out of the church to greet them.
         “Theresa, Colin,” said Father Thomas by way of greeting.
         “Father,” said Terri.
         “It is so kind of you to help us again,” said Colin, hoping to take the onus away from his wife.
         “Holy water is supposed to be used for rare occasions only,” said the priest, stressing the word ‘rare’.
         “Yes,” agreed Colin: “But whatever keeps sending demons and monsters our way, obviously doesn’t know that; with respect.”
         The priest sighed, before conceding, “Yes, I suppose you can’t just allow demons to keep rampaging around killing people ... What are you fighting this time?”
         “Tampas: The Horn-ed Beast,” said Terri.
         The priest paled, saying, “An Ancient Sumerian fiend, who many believe is Satan!”
         “Harrison wants to know what the hold up is?” asked Sheila, having climbed down the rope after them.
         “No hold up,” said the priest, leading them into the church.
         “Oh, and he said to tell you that the two halves of the tank have to be filled separately. That’s so that if he misses the first time, he’s got a second shot at it.”
         “Hopefully he won’t miss with the first attempt!” said the priest, leaving no doubt that it was more than a mere suggestion.
         
         As the Faulkner family reached the chosen picnic area outside Brooklyn, Bell asked, “Is it actually safe to be out in the forest while bushfires are raging?”
         “The bushfires are over the other side of Glen Hartwell, not over here in Brooklyn,” pointed out Lia.
         “Those things can move pretty darn fast though,” insisted Cess: “Maybe camping in the jungle isn’t such a wise idea.”
         “We don’t have jungles in Australia,” corrected Barny, always happy to show up his sisters: “They have jungles in South America; we have forests in Australia.”
         “Ah, duh, a forest by any other name,” insisted Cess.
         “Actually a jungle and a forest are two different things,” pointed our Raff: “Jungles have plants growing so densely together that you need a machete or axe to chop your way through. A forest has plenty of trees and bushes, but there’s usually enough room between them so that you can walk through easily enough without having to mutilate the vegetation.”
         “Thank you professor,” teased Bell.
         “Actually your father is a professor of agriculture at the Glen Hartwell University,” pointed out Lia.
         “I know that, Mum,” said Bell with a frustrated sigh: “I was being sarky.”
         “Well, that makes a change,” said Barny, making everyone except Bell laugh.
         “Hey, that isn’t funny,” complained the teenager.
         “She can dish it out, but she can’t take it,” teased Barny.
         “My thoughts exactly,” agreed Lia, glad that they were now teasing someone besides herself.
         “Old folks’ humour,” said Bell, hoping to get people teasing Lia again.
         “Anyway, we’re here now, so everybody out of the Kombi,” said Raff.
         “We’re where now?” demanded Cess.
         “Out in the wicked jungle,” teased Barny.
         “And irritating older brother humour,” added Bell, making Cess laugh along with her.
         “You mean, sarky, irritating younger sisters,” insisted Barny.
         “I’m with him,” agreed Lia, as they finally started out of the Kombi van.
         “So who wants to lay out the blanket for us to sit on the ground, while Lia and I set up the barbeque and start cooking steaks and lamb loin chops?” asked Raff.
         “No one,” said Cess, “but if it’ll help us to get fed, I guess we will.”
         “I hope you brought plenty of coleslaw?” asked Barny: “You know I always like coleslaw with my meals in summer.”
         “Don’t worry, honey,” said Lia, “I made you my own special recipe coleslaw, since I know you love it so much.”
         “What about us?” asked Bell.
         “You don’t like coleslaw,” reminded their mother.
         “I know, I meant did you make any relish for Cess and me?”
         “Sorry, I didn’t have the time. I had to make a generous amount of creamy coleslaw for my hungry boy.”
         “You’re the best, Mum,” said Barny, sneering at his sisters.
         “But we brought a large jar of mustard pickles that you girls can eat.”
         “Mustard pickles with steak or loin chops?” asked Cess.
         “It’s better than nothing,” said Lia.
         “Yeah,” said Barny: “Mum’s not your slave you know.”
         “Well, I’m glad that someone appreciates that,” said Lia going to get the large container of coleslaw from the cooler unit under one of the seats in the Kombi van. “Here you are, my darling boy.”
         “Thanks, Mum, you’re the best.”
         “Well, he knows how to grovel,” said Bell doing a slurping sound.
         “It wouldn’t hurt you girls to show your Mum a bit of gratitude sometimes,” suggested Raff.
         “What for, she always puts Barny ahead of us,” insisted Cess.
         “That’s because he’s my handsome, genius boy.”
         “Oh Lord, now she’s talking in baby talk about him,” said Bell.
         “How is he a genius?” demanded Cess: “We get mainly As and a few Bs; he gets mainly Bs plus a few Cs and even Ds.”
         “No one likes a show off!” said Lia sternly.
         “Listen to your mother, girls,” insisted Raff, although secretly he agreed with them.
         
         When they were finally airborne again, Sheila said, “Now we just need to locate Tampas the Horny Bastard!”
         “Well, if we see any fire trucks hurtling toward us, we’ll know to head off in that direction,” pointed out Alice Walker.
         “Very sarky, but also appropriate,” teased Terri.
         “Have we heard from Hermione Meldon about the bushfires?” asked Colin.
         “She’s using local volunteers plus the one working fire truck to fight the fire,” said Terri: “I got the impression that with Tampas having vamoosed that they were making progress.”
         
         After finishing their lunch, Raff said, “You girls can clean up can’t you?”
         “Your father and I are going into the back of the Kombi together for some alone time,” said Lia.
         “How can you be alone, if you’re together?” demanded Bell.
         “Let’s just say, that if you see the van a rocking, don’t come a knocking,” said Raff, giving Lia a playful pat on the behind.
         “Wrinkly sex!” said Cess, sounding horrified.
         “You’d think they’d be past that kind of thing at their ages!” said Bell.
         “Hey, Mum and Dad work damned hard for us,” insisted Barny: “They have the right to some lovey-dovey time together.”
         “Ooh, wrinkly sex!” said the two girls.
         “Just stay there, nattering girls,” said Lia: “Or natter to your girlfriend on your mobile phones.”
         “Good idea, Mum,” said Cess: “But we won’t tell them that we’re doing anything as lame as camping.”
         “Let alone that you two are doing wrinkly sex!” added Bell.
         “We are not wrinklies!” shouted Lia.
         She started to run across to the girls, before being pulled back into the Kombi van by her husband.
         “Nookie time now, honey, thumping the girls time later,” insisted Raff.
         “Okay, but don’t think I’ll forget,” Lia shouted at the two girls.
         “Don’t worry,” whispered Cess, “after Dad’s given her a bloody good banging she’ll have forgotten about thumping us.”
         Lia and Raff had barely locked the rear of the Kombi van, when the van started rocking wildly like a ship canting from side to side on a stormy sea.
         “What is he doing to her in there?” demanded Barny jumping to his feet.
         Only to pitch headfirst to the dried pine needles and gum leaves covering the forest floor, as the three teens finally realised that it was not just the Kombi that was rocking like a ship on a stormy sea.
         “What the Hell is going on?” demanded Cess.
         Also standing, she was pitched to the ground as well.
         “I don’t know,” answered Bell, as she fell from the deck chair that she had been sitting upon.
         It was as a burst of flames suddenly whooshed down, setting the trees on fire ahead of them, that the three teenagers finally looked up and saw the huge, greeny-brown man-like, goat-like figure standing staring down at them.
         “Who? What?” muttered Barny.
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast!” boomed the creature; almost loudly enough to deafen the three teens.
         “W-w-what do you want?” muttered Bell.
         “Sacrifices in my honour!” boomed the Caprine beast.
         “What, you mean like goats or chickens?” asked Cess.
         “No! Human sacrifices; the only sacrifices suitable for a God such as I!” boomed Tampas.
         “You look more like the Devil than a God?” said Barny before he could stop himself.
         “Some people have called me Satan  , the ancient Romans called me Lucifer   the Morning Star, others call me Asmodeus, or Beelzebub  ; the Egyptians called me Ammut ‘the Devourer of the Dead,” others called me Nyarlathotep, or Sathanus or Barachiel, or even ....”
         “So, in other words, your name is Legion?” asked Bell.
         “If you like!” boomed Tampas.
         “Which does seem to support the theory that you are a devil, rather than a God,” said Cess.
         “Blasphemers!” roared the thirty-metre tall goat creature: “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast! The one true God! And I demand human sacrifices in my honour.”
         “Like no one is going to honour you, Doofus,” said Barny regretting it immediately.
         “What the Hell is going on out there?” demanded Raff leaving the Kombi van, wearing only thongs and his shorts.
         “Girls is that you making all of that racket?” asked Lia, wearing thongs and her husband’s pale blue business shirt.
         “This is the first time I’ve ever seen Dad without a business shirt on,” said Cess.
         “And the first time I’ve ever see Mum with a business shirt on,” added Bell.
         “Do not blaspheme in my presence, mere mortals,” boomed Tampas.
         “Holy shit in a hand basket,” said Raff staring up at the goat-like being.
         “This is Tampas the Horn-ed Beast! The one true God! And he demands human sacrifices in his honour,” explained Cess.
         “Blasphemers!” cried Tampas.
         Aiming his arms like weapons, he fired out great whooshing burst of red and yellow flames, which soared over the heads of the Faulkner family, but set the forest behind them on fire, including their psychedelic Kombi van.
         “The Kombi!” cried Raff, almost running towards it.
         Then as Lia and the teenagers raced into the imagined safety of the forest, commonsense kicked in and Raff raced after them.
         “You cannot escape the vengeance of Tampas the Horn-ed Beast! The one true God!” the giant creature boomed down at them.
         “What are you doing?” asked Cess as Bell started using her mobile phone.
         “Ringing Triple-oh,” said Bell.
         
         “Any ideas where we should be heading?” asked Harrison.
         “Somewhere around the forest; wherever Tampas is,” said Sheila.
         “Well, that narrows it down to a few thousand hectares, mad Goth chick.”
         “Hey!” complained Sheila: “And just when I thought you were my cobber.”
         “I have no idea what that even means.”
         At that moment Terri’s mobile phone rang.
         “Hopefully this is a clue,” said the ash blonde, answering her phone.
         After disconnecting again, Terri said, “That was Bluebell Faulkner, outside Brooklyn township, they’re being terrorised by Tampas right now.”
         “I have no idea where that is?” said Harrison: “The last I heard Brooklyn was in the western most end of Long island in New York, New York.”
         “These are the cords,” said Terri handing him her phone.
         “Got it Tezza,” said the American feeding the co-ordinates into his control panel.
         “How come everyone calls me Tezza now, instead of Tare?”
         “Tezza sounds much cooler,” insisted Sheila as the chopper roared away in the direction of the Faulkner family.
         
         Tampas raged through the trees splintering them in his quest to kill the Faulkners, from time to time shooting his deadly flames toward them.
         “Dad we can’t outrun that thing indefinitely,” shouted Bell, almost crying.
         “We’ll get out of this somehow,” said Raff, wishing to Hell he had an idea how they were going to survive the raging demon.
         “Dad, we don’t have ...” began Cess, stopping as the heard the whir-whir-whir of the rotors of the massive U.S. Air Force helicopter racing their way.
         
         “They should be down below, can anyone see them?” asked Harrison.
         “No, but I can see Tampas the Horny Bastard!” said Sheila pointing toward the rampaging monster.
         “Sheils, that was funny the first five hundred or so times, but could you please stop saying it?” asked Alice Walker.
         “Everyone’s a critic!” complained the Goth chick.
         “Okay, going up to douse the horny bastard!” teased Harrison.
         He positioned the helicopter fifty metres above the ground, directly over Tampas, then suddenly the helicopter slewed to the left so that the Holy water in the first tank completely missed Tampas and instead soaked the Faulkners.
         “How could you miss the target from that distance?” demanded Sheila.
         “I didn’t; I saw that the Faulkners were nearly being enveloped in fire, so I used the first lot of holy water to douse the flames. No point stopping Tampas if I let five innocent people burn to death.”
         “Well done,” said Terri, “but perhaps we’d better not mention that to Father Thomas; he seemed pissed off enough as it is without knowing we used some of the holy water to douse a fire.”
         “Agreed!” said everyone in the military helicopter.
         “Okay, let’s go douse the big boy,” said Harrison, sliding the helicopter back to the right.
         “I am Tampas the Horn-ed Beast! The one true God! And I demand human sacrifices in my honour!” shouted the monster one last time.
         Then Harrison emptied the second tank of holy water upon the creature and it started shrieking in terror and agony as white plumes of smoke billowed off the monster which was gone from sight when the plumes of smoke finally vanished.
         “So much for Tampas the Horn-ed Beast,” said Harrison.
         “Well he’d been around for at least six and a half thousand years,” said Sheila: “So he had a good innings as we say in cricketing circles.”
         “I didn’t know that you played cricket?” asked Alice.
         “I don’t, but I love watching it on TV,” answered the Goth chick, making everyone laugh.
         Seeing the burnt out wreck of the psychedelic Kombi van, Harrison said, “Well I suppose we’d better go down and see if the Faulkners need a lift home.”
         “Sound good to me,” agreed Terri.
         

         THE END

         © Copyright 2026 Philip Roberts

                   Melbourne, Victoria, Australia