When a billion year old creature decides its time to come to dinner … and the entire population of the Earth is on the menu – Who do you call???

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Short Fat Stubby Finger Stories PRESENTS:

THE Edge of Nightfall

By Tony Stewart 

Volume 1:

The Night of the Darkness

What are heroes, if not human folk who display incredible courage under duress?
Tony Stewart – 2002

LEGENDS LINKED TO THE TRIP TO TRENTHAMVILLE Episode 19 (1)

When Mary had first set off after Martin’s Mercedes she had no idea that the dozen or so cars that she was travelling with were, all bar one, about to reveal their true intentions for entering the motorway – SPEED… and speed alone.   But their speed, at that stage, as they travelled towards the motorway entry, was much more moderate than what was to come.

   It was a speed that Mary was more than happy with and she never thought to look behind her to ensure she had additional cover should she need it.   She had fully expected that it would be following her, block by block.   And, as a result of her inaction, she was unaware that the nearest traffic to her little group was sixteen blocks away, on the far side of James Street, waiting on the red light to change to green.   And the queue that was constantly forming behind those waiting at the lights at James Street was growing by the moment.   By the time the lights at James Street turned green the queue behind the now moving traffic that was crossing James Street was stretched back to the lights nineteen blocks behind Mary, who was now entering the motorway entrance ramp.

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At the head of the traffic, as they awaited the changing of the lights to allow them to travel across James Street, the driver of a Jeep Cherokee currently occupying the left lane opened his windows to allow the world in general, or at least those forced to share the morning streets with him, to also share the sounds of his new c.d.   But even the wailing sounds of Harry and the Toads at full blast didn’t prevent him from hearing the aggressive revving of the Suzuki GSF600 motorcycle in the next lane and, as a smile crossed over his face, he placed his foot on the accelerator and mocked the actions of the motorcyclist.    The helmet covered rider of the motorcycle slowly turned towards him and an unspoken challenge was offered and accepted by both parties.

   Suddenly the lights changed and both the driver and the rider accelerated at a breakneck pace, flying over James street with so much acceleration and aggression that it caused several unlucky pedestrians to quickly clamp their hands tightly over their ears and pray for their own safety.    As the two challengers began to almost literally fly down the street they could see the next set of lights change to green and began to accelerate even harder in order to reach them in time.   The driver of the Cherokee Jeep was grinning from ear to ear, and under his helmet mask, the rider of the Suzuki was doing the same.   Their eyes ablaze – fueled by adrenaline, common sense, safety and other lives meant nothing to these two possessed souls.  Adrenaline ruled their minds … winning was all that mattered.    Then, in an instant, the young driver’s face turned from maniacal happiness to pure terror as a tall, hooded figure suddenly appeared in front of the Cherokee – his hands stretched forward as if to magically stop the car in its tracks … and for a second the young driver felt that the strangely dressed figure in front of him could actually do that.   But the thing that was really beginning to send the young man’s mind into a tail spin was the fact that no matter how fast he was travelling towards the apparition, it seemed to remain at the same distance from the car.

   The now confused and frightened driver slammed on the brakes and wrenched on the steering wheel as hard as he could to avoid hitting the man who was standing on the road in front of him, but he really had nowhere to go … and he was travelling at speed. 

   He had taken the only course of action his mind could formulate in its moment of panic and stress, and the sudden combination of the changes to the steering and the application of the brakes caused the vehicle to slide sideways.   The front of the vehicle flicked the rear wheel of the motorbike, then flipped over and the car spun around in increasing, uncontrolled circles on its roof.  And it didn’t stop spinning until the first of the cars following it slammed into the upturned driver’s side of the vehicle forcing the Cherokee towards the footpath where it finally finished its ability to move when it smashed through the plate glass window of a dress shop narrowly missing two joggers and a cyclist.    But even without the Cherokee’s input the carnage continued as car after car slammed into the car in front of it until the flow of the traffic came to complete standstill.

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Meanwhile, the force of the initial impact from the Cherokee sent the Suzuki and its rider to the ground where they too began spinning in circles and sliding uncontrollably across the road onto the inward bound lanes.   And as the bike and its rider came to a halt on the wrong side of the road, the closest vehicle travelling towards them miraculously managed to stop but inches from the rider’s head without having the following traffic make contact with his car.   Both the motorbike rider, and the driver of the car that had narrowly managed to avoid hitting him, had been fortunate that very little traffic was travelling in that direction.   And those that did travel that way were some distance away from each other as they moved, which is why they had all been able to come to a stop without incident.

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However a total of twelve cars following the Cherokee Jeep and the Suzuki motorcycle in the outward lanes had not been so fortunate.    It took well over an hour to remove the damaged vehicles from the road and transfer their injured occupants to various hospitals due to the congestion that they had caused, and senior officials were reluctantly forced to take the decision to allow the traffic to immediately resume their respective journeys, rather than cause anymore disruption to the morning’s roads.

   The traffic accident branch were not keen on their not being able to make a full investigation into what had caused one of the worst accidents they could remember taking place in the outer city area, but they understood the reasons for the decision.   The traffic wasn’t going to reduce if it couldn’t move, it was just going to increase.   And they weren’t getting anywhere fast in their investigations at the moment, mainly because the witness accounts were constantly referring to a man standing on the road in their path … a man who had mysteriously disappeared the very instant  that the accident had occurred, and he was not to be seen again.

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Later, back at their headquarters, the investigators still had severe doubts about the validity of the statements they had obtained, but they needed to report something because in the long term they were responsible to the government, and governments demand reports … and the dubious response from the witnesses was all they had to go on.   Then things got worse for them when they reviewed footage from the traffic cameras and dash-cam supplied by several of the drivers that had closely followed the Suzuki and the Cherokee Jeep and saw the man themselves.   Saw him disappear on screen as the Cherokee began to swerve and brake in order to miss him; saw him not appear to run away from the scene, but simply disappear from every single footage that they watched, disappeared the very second the car swerved.   Finally the report was completed as the only way that they could.  ‘An unfortunate accident caused by speeding.’

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But it was those that had authorised the early re-opening of the traffic lanes following the incident at the James Street crossing that would feel the guilt complex for what came next.   A guilt that they would carry in their hearts over many, many years to come.   In their minds what happened next would have been greatly averted had they applied a more diligent approach in their allowing the traffic access to the roads again.   They felt, in retrospect, that the traffic should have been released in small batches, rather than letting everyone move off at once.   It may not have prevented the incident, but it could have reduced the carnage and the deaths to a greater degree.   However, in reality, there was nothing that they could have done differently … this was a planned attack … it was intentional … only, the targets were wrong.

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