What A Game!

The headlights from the enormous convoy of stolen early 90s model Commodores heading back west after the Dogs had shit the bed - again - in a preliminary final bathed Caro in a sickly yellow light as she worked late in her office on the CBD periphery.

She was putting the final touches on her Brendina splash. For all the flak she copped, Caro certainly worked hard at her craft. Some days, she was in the office for a whole two hours.

Her steely concentration was broken by the ever-annoying Liam bursting through the door.

"What a game!" he said with boyish exuberance, "What a bloody game. How many inches on the front page boss? I've got great react quotes from Rocket, Bob Murphy spilt his guts to me in the rooms. And the St Kilda guys were great, gave me loads."

"You're not getting the fwont page," Caroline snapped.

"What," Liam asked with thinly disguised disbelief, "We're not going on the preliminary final result on the front page of the next day's paper."

"Yeth, Wiam, that'th wight. People can get the thilly old thcores from anywhere. They can only get my inthightful and touching thtowy about Bwendan'th thtwuggle for accethpanth in this cwuel cwuel world from The Ewa"

She put her head back down. Liam tried one more time.

"But, boss, I really think ..."

She waved him away.

"Wiam, go and wite up your copy. We'll find a few inches for your widdle match weport."

With a sigh, Liam did exactly that. Two hours later, once he'd filed, he trudged over to the lift to head home for a cold beer and an empty bed.

Just as he got in the lift, he heard Sam cry out, asking him to the hold the lift. Ah fuck it, he couldn't be bothered with that weirdo tonight. He'd had enough. He pressed the ground floor button.

Just as the doors were almost closed, a scaly claw shot between them. Then another. Liam watched with unmitigated terror as Sam forced the doors open using super-human strength, like something out of Terminator 2.

She prised them apart and entered the small steel cubicle.

"Thanks for holding the lift Liam," she spat aggressively.

A silence developed, one Liam prayed would hold. But sadly, it didn't.

"You shouldn't disrespect the boss like that Liam," Sam said.

"Like what," Liam asked.

Sam moved quick as flash, pinned him up against the wall, her forearm across his throat.

"You know what I mean!" she hissed, her tongue flickering back and forth like a reptile testing the wind.

Another beat passed. She kept him pinned against the wall.

"Wanna fuck some time?"

Liam was saved by the lift reaching the ground floor and flinging its doors open.

Sam released him with a look that said - sometime soon, oh yes we will, whether you like it or not.

As Liam headed to the nearest bar for a quick beer to steady his nerves after his encounter, Sam headed home, walking through the park.

She liked walking home through the Exhibition Gardens and the other Melbourne parks. Sometimes you got some pretty hot action around the public toilets.

Tonight though, there was nothing. She kicked a twig contemptously as she went. it would have to be the hairbrush again.

Little did she know that as she went through the dark, the Dewosaurus was tracking her. For such a great beast, it could make itself quiet and all but invisible when it wanted to.

It followed her until she reached her home. It recorded the exact route she had taken then crept off to sleep.

He would strike in a week. On Grand Final day, the time when the Dewosaurus did all his best work.