A big slug from a goonbag

The morning broke bright and fresh. Sam had just walked through the door at The Era when Nathan, the new English guy, told her that the city's biggest commercial radio station wanted her to get down to studios straight away to take some talkback on her story.

“Dingogate is massive! Biggest story since Diana died. This shit’s going bloody Mexico baby!”

Sam spent the next two hours sitting happily in the soundproof booth as a series of credulous morons, the mentally infirm and those who liked to welcome the day with a big slug from a goonbag rang to praise her story and offer their own insights into the now confirmed culture of animal hatred at Punt Road.

“I used to live next door to Nathan Brown, at least I think it was Nathan Brown, looked like him anyway,” slurred one imbecile from the kind of suburb where hopes and dreams go to die, “And he would go hours without feeding his cat. He’d leave food for it in the morning, and then go out all day and not feed it again until he came back. You could tell the poor thing was hungry because it used to spend the day trying to catch birds.”

Sam sighed: “Yep, studies have shown that violent males will control every aspect of their victim’s life, right down to diet. It’s disturbing and as far as I’m concerned, the only course of action is chemical castration.”

It got worse. One man rang in to describe an awful scene at Mentone beach where Matthew Richardson had been observed shouting at his dog to ‘heel’ as they approached a busy road.

“Textbook case of psychological bullying. The man is clearly a monster. This single act, for mine, wipes away any good he has ever done in his entire pathetic life. His name is now mud. Parents should shield their children’s eyes if they are unfortunate enough to pass this demon in the streets,” Sam opined, the weight of a journalism degree and a reference from her Dad providing unassailable moral authority.

On and on it went. All of the evening news bulletins lead with it. The assassination attempt on President Obama was relegated to a few minutes before the weather.

And quite rightly too. The Americans could always get another President. Maybe a woman this time, instead of yet another black MAN. But there would never be story of such historic significance as Dingogate.

She felt the tape of the interview she’d done with the dingo in her pocket. Sure, the dingo hadn’t actually spoken to her, more emitted a series of low growls. And to be fair, it wasn’t actually a dingo she’d interviewed, it would be pretty bloody stupid to get that close to wild animal. No, she’d looked into the eyes of a stray dog in a park in Carlton. And its eyes had told her an unbelievable story of pain, exploitation, of fear as the deranged Sheedy chased the dingo round the enclosure, his enormous threatening manhood tumescent in those tight short, uttering all kinds of vile threats and curses.

Tomorrow she would tell the dingo's story and there would be no escaping the truth for Richmond – that it was a club of hate and despair that was the football of equivalent of Nazi Germany, Saddam’s Iraq and the late stage Roman Empire all rolled into one.

Little did Sam know she wasn’t the only one with animals on her mind. Nor did she know that her carefully prepared story would be blown out of the water by an event so shocking, so disturbing that even the most hardened observer would be sickened.

In the abandoned wasteland behind the Zoo, near where derelicts would gather to find a dark place to huddle in their blankets, a lumbering form with number 31 on its back approached the high red brick walls of the popular attraction.

If that drunken old codger Sheedy could get in, then so could he. And get in he would. The hunger was driving him, giving him energy, power. The cries and hoots of the beasts contained within only served to intensify his desire.

He would start with handfuls of frogs from the reptile house, then move onto something bigger, maybe a few fairy penguins before the main course – a camel. This night, he would devour a camel whole.

Tonight Stewart would feast!