RETURN OF THE DRYAD (2025 Edit)

Further adventures of Dryadia, a Dryad trapped in Melbourne's Western Suburbs

1.

Dryadia had almost reached Eleanor Street -- where her adventure had started two weeks ago -- when she came to an Ampol service station.

Normally, she would have avoided the station for fear of the honking horns and revving engines. But as she was about to fly past, she saw a mother and two children step out of the service station shop. The mother and teen son each carried a Mars bar. The girl was already chewing a large Cherry Ripe.

At the sight of the chocolate, her belly began to rumble audibly. Realising that she was visible now, Dryadia looked all about herself to ascertain that no one was looking in her direction, then hurriedly landed.

Ignoring the burning heat of the sun-warmed concrete against her bare feet, the dryad strode purposefully across the service station till reaching the glass door to the shop.

Then, unsure how to open the glass door, she stopped a few metres away, by one of the petrol pumps and watched as other people entered or exited the shop.

To her dismay, however, there was no visible handle on the glass door. And she could not see what the people were doing to make the door open, since they were not even reaching toward it with their hands.

After a few minutes, she realised that she could not stay where she was much longer or people would start to wonder about her. And might notice that she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

After a quick look around, she decided to step in behind a tall, gangly man to try to follow him into the shop. And to her delight, when he approached the door, it slid into the wall long enough for her to follow him into the shop.

Almost stumbling on the rough mat inside the store, Dryadia watched the tall man start across to a small booth in one corner of the shop to pay his petrol bill.

As the man stepped up to the booth, the dryad saw that there were boxes of Mars, Bounty, Snickers, Crunchie, Twirl, Flake, and other chocolate bars on a counter just below the front of the service booth. But seeing the man take his wallet from his back pocket to pay, she realised that she could not just help herself to the chocolate, since they would expect her to pay for it.

So, instead, while the lanky man paid for his petrol, Dryadia turned left and started toward the back of the store, where there were some glass-fronted fridges housing milk and soft drinks. Just inside the door of the store was a much smaller glass-topped, horizontal fridge holding ice creams and lollipops of all kinds. As Dryadia started past the horizontal fridge, a mother and three children stopped and pulled open the glass top to serve themselves.

“I want an Echo,” protested a small redheaded girl as her mother reached for three Barny bananas.

“What’s that?” demanded the flustered woman.

“A variety of Magnum,” explained a teenage boy, pointing to a price board that listed Echo Magnum at $4.70.

“What?” cried the woman in shock at the price. “You can have a Barny Banana like everyone else.”

“Don’t like Barny Banana,” said the girl sulkily. “I want a chocolate-coated one.”

Sighing deeply, the woman checked out the other prices and said, “You can have a Heart or an Polar Pie then?”

After pouting for a moment, the girl finally settled for an Polar Pie.

Dryadia watched in interest as the girl took the blue and white foil package from her mother and tore it open.

“Not in here,” said the mother with a frustrated sigh. “Wait till I pay for it.”

Ignoring her mother, the girl started to eat the chocolate-coated treat in the store, while Dryadia watched on, wondering if it was a chocolate bar of some sort like the Mars bars that she relished so much.

While she was deciding, two men walked up. One man slid the glass top open and reached in to grab two ice creams. He started to slide it shut, then, seeing Dryadia standing by watching, asked, “Do you want one?”

On the spur of the moment, the dryad reached in and grabbed one of the pale blue Polar Pies. Then, as the two men turned toward the service booth to pay for their purchases, Dryadia strode in the other direction, toward the milk and soft drink fridges at the rear of the shop.

A section of shelves down the centre of the store divided the shop into two aisles. Hoping for a chance to fade out of sight again, Dryadia started down the second aisle, back toward the front of the store.

Having to stop due to an obese woman blocking the aisle, while bending over to reach for something on a lower shelf, Dryadia tore open the Polar Pie and bit into it, expecting it to be warm and soft like her beloved Mars bars. To her shock, the bar was rock hard and ice cold, seeming to sting her teeth and gums with acid-like cold.

“Eeeeeeeeeiii!” shrieked the dryad in shock after spitting out the ice cream.

“Aaaaaaaaaaah!” shrieked the fat woman as the ice cream pelted her on the backside as she bent forward.

As the woman looked around to confront her “attacker”, Dryadia dropped the Polar Pie and shape-shifted into a brown wooden hat rack.

“What’s wrong?” asked the shopkeeper, Bernie Ling, a tall Asian man in his late twenties, hearing the woman scream.

“Someone just threw something at me,” insisted the fat woman, looking around.

The attendant raced to the back of the store, expecting to find the attacker. Instead, all he saw was the woman and the hat stand behind her.

“How did that get there?” asked Bernie, pointing to the hat rack.

Looking at the floor, he saw the chewed Polar Pie and, seeing a splodge of vanilla ice cream on the back of the woman’s dress, he realised what she had been hit with. Bending to pick up the chewed ice cream he heard running footsteps at the front of the store and saw two teenage boys run outside. Damn kids! he thought, wrongly accusing them of throwing the Polar Pie at the woman who was now busily rubbing down the back of her dress with a Kleenex tissue.

2.

At the end of a long twelve-hour shift, Bernie Ling was relieved to see his replacement, Robbie Pavlidis, striding past the petrol pumps on the way to relieve him for the graveyard shift.

“How’s tricks?” asked Robbie, by way of greeting, as he strode into the station shop.

“Not too bad,” said Bernie, a little hesitantly.

Sensing his friend’s uncertainty, Robbie asked, “What’s up?”

“Nothing, except,” the Chinese-Australian hesitated, not wanting to sound ridiculous.

Finally, he related the incident of the ice cream being spat or tossed at the fat woman, and finding the wooden hat rack.

“Yeah,” said Robbie, looking around the store, “what hat rack?”

Again, Bernie hesitated for a moment before saying, “That’s the weirdest thing. After I served the woman who’d been pelted with the ice cream, the hat rack was gone again.”

“Weird,” agreed Robbie.

“And,” he stopped and sighed, afraid of seeming stupid, “all day I’ve had the feeling I was being watched. And someone’s been stealing Mars bars and Snickers.”

“Probably the kids who pelted the woman. Hardly a serious crime,” insisted Robbie Pavlidis. Although he noticed the large Mars box was nearly empty, and wondered how many had been heisted. “We’ll have to watch the little so-and-sos like hawks whenever they come into the store.”

“Maybe. But from time to time, I keep hearing the sound of Mars bars being unwrapped, like someone is eating them at the back of the store. But when I go to investigate, there’s never anyone there.” He held half a dozen empty chocolate wrappers. “Although I have found these near the drinks fridges.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the Greek, turning to look back toward the milk and soft drinks refrigerators.

“And then there’s the white woman.”

“White woman?” asked Robbie.

Then, even as he spoke, he could see a tall, pale-skinned woman lying on top of the fridges at the back of the store, eating another Mars bar.

“Yeah, all day I’ve been seeing this pale-skinned woman walking about the back of the store. She’s never bought anything, and I haven’t seen her leave. But whenever I’ve gone down to talk to her, she’s always gone by the time that I get there.”

“There she is now!” said Robbie, pointing at Dryadia atop the fridges.

“Where?” asked Bernie Ling.

He stepped out of the booth to look where Robbie Pavlidis was pointing, but only at ground level, not thinking to look above the two-metre fridges.

“Lying on top of the drinks fridges,” insisted Robbie.

Realising that the Greek-Australian was looking straight at her, Dryadia concentrated all her efforts to become invisible again.

“Lying on top ...?” asked Bernie Ling. By the time he looked up, however, the dryad had vanished from sight. “Ha! Ha, very funny!”

“I’m telling you, she’s ...” began Robbie Pavlidis, stopping as he realised that there was no sight of her any longer.

“Well, where did she go?” demanded Bernie. “Don’t tell me you’re seeing ghosts now? And I thought I’d had a wacky day shift. I’m just glad I don’t work nights, if it affects you like that.”

“Ha! Ha!” said Robbie, sounding anything but amused. “I’m telling you, I saw....” But seeing how his friend was looking at him, he stopped, wondering, Could I have imagined it? There’s certainly no sign of her now? He looked around the two slim aisles and thought: And nowhere for her to have gone.

“Maybe she teleported back up to the Starkship Entergise,” teased Bernie. “Captain Quirk and company must be running short on essentials, like Mars bars, after all of those years in deep space.”

Knowing how pointless it was to interrupt him when Bernie thought he was being funny, Robbie waited till he had tapered out to say:

“Anyway, have a good night’s rest and leave me and Sherlock Holmes to fret over the Case of the Disappearing Mars Bars.”

Unable to think up a suitably caustic rejoinder, Bernie turned and strode outside to leave Robbie Pavlidis to tend to the service station shop.

“All right, my Mars bar-stealing ghost, where are you?” said Robbie, starting down the left-hand aisle toward the glass-fronted fridges at the rear of the store.

He looked up at the top of the fridges, thinking: I know I saw .... But then he shrugged, wondering what he had seen in the gloom above the refrigerators. “Just shadows, I guess,” he thought out loud.


At the other end of the store, Dryadia stood invisible near the counter, watching the stocky Greek-Australian. After a moment, she looked back and helped herself to the last of the Mars bars, then started down the opposite aisle to that taken by Robbie. Then Robbie Pavlidis suddenly turned and started down her aisle. So, uncertain if he could see the Mars bars she carried, the dryad hastily turned and sped back to the front of the store.

As she stepped past the electronic door, it suddenly whooshed open, making her squeal “Eeeeeeeeeiii!” in shock and jump backwards.

“What the hell?” said Robbie, hearing the door slide open and the squeal.

He looked over the top of the centre shelving, expecting to see someone having tripped as she entered. Instead, to his puzzlement, there was no one in sight.

For a moment, as the door opened, Dryadia debated flying out again to freedom. But she was loath to give up her ready source of chocolate bars. So, as Robbie raced around the aisle to the doors, Dryadia levitated up to the ceiling. Then, doing her best not to make any noise as she popped open the chocolate wrapper, she began to eat one of the two Mars bars, while hovering upside-down a metre or so above Robbie’s head.


“I must be getting jumpy in my early-middle age,” joked Robbie, unaware of the invisible nymph watching him from just above his head. He started to look around the store, just in case someone really was hiding there, eating their chocolate stock. But before he could get around to checking out the ceiling -- even if it could have crossed his mind that the thief might be hiding up there -- he saw two men outside filling their cars with petrol.

So, he strode to the front of the store and entered the small service booth to be ready when they came to pay.

The first man only wanted ten dollars of petrol, paid in cash and didn’t even stop for his receipt. The second man paid with a Visa card and took his time lingering over the confectionery boxes.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” asked Robbie, smiling broadly.

“Yes, have you got any Mars bars?” asked the man.

“Yes, just two ...” began Robbie, leaning over the counter to point at the box. But to his surprise, he saw that it was now empty. “Er, sorry, we seem to be all out.”

Looking a little put out, the man settled for two Crunchie bars, signed the EFTPOS slip and departed.

Over the rest of the night, Robbie Pavlidis did his best to shake off the feeling that he was not alone in the store. From time to time, though, he gave in to the urge to walk down the aisles to the back of the store. On the third occasion, he fetched a flashlight and a small set of steps so that he could check the top of the milk fridges.

“No, nothing,” he said aloud. He shrugged and thought: What did you expect? To find a tall, pasty-white brunette lying up here eating purloined Mars bars?

Robbie started to turn away when the flashlight beam lit up something yellow by the wall at the back of one of the two fridges. Hesitantly, wary of falling off his awkward perch, he reached toward the very rear of the freezer and grabbed something crackly. When he had lowered himself back to the safety of the top rung of the set of steps, he looked at his hand and saw that he had pulled out an empty Crunchie bar wrapper and two Mars bar wrappers.

“So, I was right, there was ...?” he said. Then he stopped and sighed in frustration. “This doesn’t prove anything. Kids could have stolen the bars and then thrown the wrappers up there.”

Climbing down from the set of steps, he fetched a short broom and pan so he could check the rest of the space above the fridges. Then with difficulty -- afraid of falling -- he managed to sweep along the entire top of the fridges and unearthed another four Mars wrappers, plus wrappers from Snickers, Tosca, Twirl, and Crunchie bars.

“Well, no ghostly woman, but this proves someone’s been stealing our chocolate all right,” said Robbie aloud.

Climbing down, he put away the set of steps and other items and returned to the front counter.


Hovering less than a metre above his head, Dryadia had watched the man’s actions with great interest. She decided that living in the service station shop would be much more entertaining than being locked away in the police station in Short Street.

As Robbie started back toward the counter, the dryad followed after him. Knowing that she was probably visible again, she decided to attempt to stay directly over the head of the Greek. That way, unless he looked straight up, he was unlike to notice her.

For the remainder of that night, Dryadia hovered half a metre or so from the ceiling in the small rectangular booth Robbie Pavlidis sat in to serve people. Realising that the racks of cigarette trays concealed her from casual view from customers, she did not bother to even use her invisibility -- since this was much more tiring than levitating. She recalled that she had been unable to fly for long on her first attempt, but she was now able to levitate and fly virtually indefinitely, even managing to sleep a few hours while hovering just below the ceiling. So, she realised that she would probably become more adept at maintaining her invisibility with practice too.

For now, she stayed visible, hidden from sight by way of being above Robbie Pavlidis’s head. Although she had to hurriedly vanish once when Robbie looked up to place some extra cigarette packs into one of the rows, which had become almost empty.


By morning, Robbie was relieved to see Bernie Ling striding past the petrol pumps on his way to the station shop.

“Any sign of the ghostly woman eating Mars bars on top of our fridges last night?” teased Bernie as he strode in as the door whooshed open for him.

“No,” said Robbie, refusing to be baited. “But I did find these on top of the fridges.” He held up the pile of a dozen or so chocolate wrappers and was delighted to see Bernie’s smirk fall away from his face. “So, you were right about someone stealing them. Oh, and we’re right out of Mars bars now.”

“Okay, I’ll ring the supplier,” said Bernie as Robbie handed control of the booth back to him.


Hovering just overhead, Dryadia watched this exchange with great interest. She was unable to decide yet whether Bernie and Robbie were friends or adversaries. But she decided that their verbal battles would make entertaining watching in her new home.

Over the next few days, Dryadia would work hard on perfecting her invisibility. She had now reached the point where she could hover above the floor or just above the ceiling indefinitely, no longer needing to come to ground to rest. So, she intuited that she must be able to remain invisible indefinitely, too, once she got the hang of it.

But in the meantime, she was to have a few near misses. That day, she was almost spotted twice by Bernie Ling, floating above his head when he reached up to fill the cigarette dispensers. To her dismay, she realised that it was harder to hover unseen overhead for hours in bright daylight than in the murky gloom of night. The small service booth did not have fluorescent lighting, so it was gloomy enough to provide suitable concealment at night. But by day, sunlight flooded into the booth from two windows, making up the bulk of the walls at the back of the booth.

So, to avoid being spotted till she perfected her invisibility, Dryadia took to hovering centimetres off the ground at the other end of the store, trying to pretend to be a customer. Although it did not take her long to realise that most customers only spent a minute or two in the store, instead of lingering for hours down the rear near the fridges.


At the front of the store, Bernie Ling tried his best to ignore the ghostly white woman whom he saw from time to time. At one point, he was almost convinced that she was hovering above the ground rather than walking. But since she stayed mainly at the other end of the store, it was hard for him to be certain.

From time to time, she was gone. However, Bernie had never seen her walk out of the door. Then, a few minutes later, she would be back. Although it might be half an hour since he had heard the whoosh of the electronic doors.

“She can’t be a ghost, can she?” Bernie wondered. However, he had half begun to believe that she was by 10:30 AM.

He had tried his best to ignore the ghostly woman all day. Although he could not help noticing that the chocolate continued to vanish from the boxes in front of the service booth, he was almost certain that the tall, alabaster woman was stealing them. Though he had never seen her eating them.

A little after 10:30 AM, the confectionery man arrived with new boxes of Mars, Snickers and Crunchie bars.

“Gee, you blokes are getting through these things,” said the delivery man, Salvador, as he deposited them onto the counter. “What are you doing, eating them for breakfast?”

“Yes, they go down well with cornflakes and soy milk,” agreed Bernie Ling.

Knowing that he would never get the better of the Chinese-Australian in a verbal skirmish, Sal shrugged and handed over a clipboard to the attendant to sign.

Normally, Bernie would place the confectionery below the counter at the front of the counter. But he decided to keep them on the countertop instead, thinking, “Let’s see her help herself to them now!”

Over the next ninety minutes, Bernie sat on his stool, staring straight at the three chocolate boxes, only looking up to serve customers. Yet, despite his diligence, by noon, three more Mars bars and one Snickers had gone from the boxes.

“Maybe they weren’t quite full to start with?” Bernie tried to convince himself. But he was certain that they had been. “Besides,” he realised, “Sal would never short-change us. He might have his flaws, but no one can fault the bloke on his honesty!”

So, after the noon rush had started to taper out, Bernie decided that it was time for a showdown. Seeing the tall, deathly-pale woman by the rear of the store again, he hurriedly served the last two lunch-time customers. Then he lifted the keys from a hook under the counter and walked across to lock the sliding door shut.

Now, let’s see you get away! thought Bernie as he strode down the left-hand aisle to where the woman stood in front of the glass-fronted milk fridges.

Seeing him stalking toward her, the dryad looked terrified. She waited till Bernie was nearly at the rear of the store, then hurriedly started down the right-hand aisle toward the front of the shop.

“That won’t save you, the doors locked!” thought Bernie, starting down the right aisle after her.

To his dismay, though, when he got back to the front of the store, there was no sign of the pale brunette.

“Now, where can ...?” muttered Bernie in surprise.

He looked down the left-hand aisle, then the right aisle in turn without spotting her. He half wondered if she had sped back to the rear of the store, to crouch down behind the centre shelves. Bernie tip-toed back to the fridges, but there was no sign of her.

He walked back to the front of the store down the left-hand aisle and started to head down the right aisle again, when a thought struck him: She must be crouching down out of sight in the service booth!

Smiling almost idiotically, Bernie started around the side of the small booth, convinced that he would find the vanished woman hiding there. The smile dropped from his face, though, when to his dismay no one was crouching in the booth.

“Then where ...?” muttered Bernie, turning to peer back into the service station shop.

Rap! Rap! Rap! hammering came on the glass door.

Looking around, Bernie saw a mother and two small children standing on the mat outside, waiting to enter the store.

Sighing from frustration at not having solved the mystery of the vanishing woman, Bernie raced across to unlock the glass door, which promptly whooshed open.

“Sorry for that,” Bernie apologised to the woman before returning to the small service booth.

“Pump four,” said the woman, handing over her credit card, “and fifty dollars cash please.”

Bernie accessed the balance of the petrol pump-four by PC and used EFTPOS to take the amount from the woman’s credit card, plus the extra $50, which he gave back to her in cash.


Hovering invisible centimetres from the ceiling, Dryadia watched Bernie serving the woman with great interest. She had been alarmed at first when he had locked the service station shop door, then started down the aisle after her. At first, she had fled down the opposite aisle toward the front of the shop in terror. But then, finding that she could fade out of sight again, she had become invisible and had levitated to the ceiling to watch in fascination as Bernie Ling hunted around and around both aisles for her, and even checked in the service booth. She decided that living in the service station shop, though fraught with an element of danger, was certainly more interesting than being locked in the dingy holding cell in Short Street. And even more interesting than crouching disguised as a chair in the Lomaxes’s or Currans’s living rooms as she had done for nearly fifty years.

As Bernie served the woman, Dryadia watched, fascinated as he accessed pump four, then her Visa-debit account from his small PC terminal. Watching the numbers come up on the monitor, she decided that this could be fun too.

“Anything else?” asked Bernie.

“Mars bars, mum!” insisted the two small children.

The woman sighed, then picked up two large Mars bars from the box on the counter. “And these.”

Seeing the two Mars bars, the dryad’s mouth watered. She reached out to grab one of them off the counter. But as though seeing her hovering beside her, the woman slapped a hand on them, picked them up with one hand, while accepting her Visa Card and $50 cash with the other.

Pouting a little petulantly at this behaviour, Dryadia reached toward the box on the countertop. But, as though sensing her presence nearby, Bernie lay his left arm across the top of the three boxes.

Frustrated by this rude treatment, Dryadia grabbed two dark chocolate Bounty bars from one of the boxes in front of the counter, spun around, and flew after the woman and her two children.

Still uncertain how the door opened, the dryad waited till the woman walked out, then flew out directly over the children.

Seeing the woman pop open one of the Mars bars to hand it to her little girl, Dryadia did the same and began to eat one of the two Bounty bars. Although she preferred Mars bars, she decided that the crushed coconut covered in dark chocolate was delicious too.

As the woman and her children headed toward the red Mazda beside pump four, Dryadia followed after them, hovering just above the ground.

“Get into the car, kids,” said the woman and her two children hurried to comply.

Seeing them climb into the car, Dryadia was tempted to follow them home. She wondered if she could get away with impersonating a chair or coffee table in their living room? But even as she was considering following the family, the woman turned the key in the ignition.

“Eeeeeeeeeiii!” shrilled Dryadia as the yellow Mazda’s engine suddenly roared into life.

Dropping her two Bounty bars, she spun around and fled back toward the glass door of the service station shop.

As the dryad released them, the two bars became visible and fell to the ground beside the car.


“What are you doing?” demanded the woman in the Mazda, seeing her daughter open the car door again.

“Bounties,” said the girl leaning out of the car door.

“Where did those come from?” asked the woman, puzzled when her daughter sat up again holding the two Bounty bars.


As the Mazda finally sped away, Dryadia raced toward the electronic door, too terrified to consider that it might not open as she approached.

“Eeeeeeeeeiii!” shrilled the dryad as she collided headfirst with the cold glass.

Not quite passing out, Dryadia lost control of her powers for a second and realised that she had become visible again, even before she realised that she was falling.

“What the ...?” said the tall, swarthy man, as the pale, thin woman suddenly fell to the concrete in front of him.

Not considering that she had not been visible a second ago, he raced forward to help her to her feet.

“Are you okay, lady?” asked the man, helping her up.

Dryadia nodded, a little uncertainly. She did not struggle as the man led her toward the glass door, which conveniently opened this time as they approached.


Inside the store, Bernie was still carefully guarding the three boxes of chocolate bars when he heard the whoosh of the electronic door. Looking around, he was astonished to see the pale, willowy woman entering the service station shop, arm in arm with one of the salesmen from Alan Mance Mitsubishi across the road from the service station.

“Hello, Bernie,” said the salesman.

“Hi, Ross, who’s your new girlfriend?” asked Bernie Ling, thinking: We might get to prosecute her yet!

“My girlfriend ...?” asked Ross Wood, puzzled. Then, realising, he said, “No, she tripped on the mat coming into the store. I just helped her up.”

“Yeah, well, keep hold of her,” said Bernie, starting around the end of the booth to the customer area.

“What?” asked Ross, puzzled.

Before Bernie could elaborate, however, Dryadia pulled free from the big man’s grip and raced down the left-hand aisle toward the rear of the station shop.

Oh, Hell! thought Bernie, seeing her racing down the aisle. “Stay by the door, while I go get her,” he said aloud as he started down the right-hand aisle after the dryad.

“Why, what’s up?”

“She’s been stealing from our store for the last couple of days.”

Bernie decided not to mention that it was Mars bars that she had been stealing, in case Ross laughed at his expense.

He raced down the aisle, this time determined to catch the chocolate thief. But to Bernie’s dismay, when he reached the milk fridges, there was again no sign of the willowy woman.

Running down the left-hand aisle to the front of the store, Bernie asked, “Did you get her?”

“She didn’t come this way,” insisted Ross Wood.

Sighing in frustration, Bernie asked, “Am I mad, or did we both see a tall, thin woman run down toward the milk fridges?”

“Yes to both questions,” said Ross with a laugh.

“Then where did she go?”

“She must have slipped out the back door.”

“Yeah, I suppose,” agreed Bernie. Not wanting to seem any more foolish than he already felt, he didn’t bother to mention that the store had no back door. “So, what can I do for you?”

“Just a couple of mags.,” said Ross. He took two magazines from the rack just inside the door and took out his wallet to pay for them.


Hovering invisibly a few centimetres below the ceiling, Dryadia tried to control her pounding heart as she watched the two men below her.


“So, what’s she been filching?” asked Ross, putting away his change.

“This and that,” said Bernie, refusing to elaborate further.

“Cash or stock?”

“Stock.”

“Well, as long as she’s not taking your cash,” said Ross, heading back toward the electronic door.

“Yeah, I suppose,” said Bernie.

Although it was now a matter of pride more than profit to him. He was determined to catch the pilferer. Despite his best efforts, though, by the end of the day, two more Mars bars, a couple of Bounties, and two Crunchie bars had vanished. Without Bernie even sighting the pale woman again.

“So, Sherlock, any luck in catching the great Mars bar thief?” asked Robbie Pavlidis, turning up to start the night shift again.

“Elementary, my dear What’saname, I almost got her today,” said Bernie.

He went on to recount what had happened with Ross Wood and the willowy brunette.

“That’s weird, Sherlock,” teased Robbie. “Are you sure that you haven’t been taking too much Mary-ja-wanna again?”

“Sherlock Holmes didn’t take marijuana, you idiot, he took a 7 Percent solution of cocaine,” pointed out Bernie as he strode across to the sliding door. “I bet you don’t even get that close to catching her.”

“Wanna bet?” challenged Robbie.


Hovering just above the two men, Dryadia listened, enthralled by their verbal exchange, still uncertain if they were friends or enemies. She had started to suspect that sarcasm was part of the natural patois of both Bernie Ling and Robbie Pavlidis.


After the challenge from Bernie, Robbie was determined to stop the mysterious ghostly woman from stealing any more chocolate bars. Or better yet, have her under arrest by the time that Bernie came back on duty in the morning.

“Let’s see you steal them from here?” said Robbie. He lifted two of the cardboard boxes down and put them in a small drawer under the counter. To Dryadia’s dismay, he took the box of Mars bars last and put them into the drawer, took a small key from his pocket and locked the drawer.


Still invisible, Dryadia flew around the left side of the booth and flew inside until she was only centimetres from Robbie Pavlidis, wondering if she could somehow steal the key and unlock the drawer when the Greek-Australian wasn’t watching?

“Go on, mystery woman!” challenged Robbie, holding up the key.

He placed it into his shirt pocket, then carefully did up the button on the small flap on top of the pocket.

Scowling in annoyance at this unreasonable behaviour, Dryadia reached out an invisible hand toward the shirt pocket. Seeing it was only a small button, she wondered if she could break off the tiny button and quickly grab the key?

Then, as Robbie leant forward almost touching her hand, she realised that this would be a foolish risk when there were so many other snack bars that she could help herself to in the store.

Sighing loud enough to startle Robbie Pavlidis, who spun around to look in her direction, the dryad turned away. She flew out of the booth and returned to the front of the counter to examine the remaining confectionery.

After a few seconds, she reached down and picked up two dark chocolate Bounty bars. Then, popping the top of one bar, she turned and flew slowly down the left-hand aisle to gaze out the plate-glass window at the passing traffic and pedestrians while eating.


As Dryadia sighed, Robbie leant back, startled, and almost fell off his stool. When he had steadied himself, there was no sign of the sigher. However, he was in time to see two Bounty bars vanish off the top of the box in front of the counter.

“So, that’s how it’s going to be, is it?” said Robbie.

He had started to believe that the service station shop had become haunted by a chocolate-eating ghost. Getting up from the backless stool, he walked around the side of the small booth and grabbed the boxes of Bounty and Cherry Ripe bars and walked back to place them on a shelf under the counter inside the small booth. Then he returned for the next two boxes, and so on until all of the confectionery boxes were on the drawers on his side of the counter.

“Now, let’s see you get them?” challenged Robbie, hoping that he wouldn’t regret the challenge.


Halfway down the left-hand aisle, Dryadia did not even hear the challenge. She was too engrossed by the bitter-sweet taste of the dark chocolate and smooth, sweet taste of crushed coconut as she peered out the full-length window, watching the traffic flowing up and down Barkly Street. Although it was after 9:00 PM, the flow of traffic had hardly abated from peak hour (it rarely did on the main street), and Dryadia enjoyed watching the powerful vehicles rolling along the road. Just so long as she was safely inside the store, where the double-glazing cut out most of the frightening roar of the powerful engines.

Yes, she decided, situated on a major road, the window would provide her with endless hours of entertainment.

It was a couple of hours later that Dryadia felt peckish again and hovered toward the front of the store to help herself to another Bounty or perhaps Flake bar. But to her astonishment, the boxes of chocolate bars were nowhere in sight.

As though sensing that the chocolate thief had returned, Robbie Pavlidis grinned a broad Cheshire Cat grin, reached under the counter and lifted out a Crunchie bar. He toyed with the chocolate bar for a few moments, like a cat worrying a mouse. Then he popped the bag open and bit off a large chunk of chocolate-coated honeycomb and began chewing loudly, smacking his lips with exaggerated relish as he ate the bar.

Pouting from annoyance, Dryadia turned and flew back toward the milk fridges at the rear of the store. In anger, she swiped at the packs in the centre shelving, then squealed, “Eeeeeeeeeiii!” in shock as half a dozen foil packs fell to the grey-carpeted floor.

“You can rough up the stock as much as you like, ghost lady,” called Robbie, “but you’re not stealing any more of our chocolate.”

Robbie Pavlidis was wrong, though. When Dryadia picked up two of the foil packs that she had knocked down, one said Tim Tams, the other Chocolate Royal Biscuits. Staring hard at the drawings on the foil packs, the dryad saw that they looked like smaller versions of the chocolate bars, which she loved so much.

After a moment, she popped open the pack of Tim Tams, took out one of the small chocolate-coated biscuits, and decided that she was right. Without further hesitation, she popped a complete biscuit into her mouth and began chewing.


“Hey, stop that!” called Robbie, wondering what the “ghost” had found edible at the other end of the store.

He looked over at the glass-topped horizontal freezer, where the ice creams were kept. But the sliding glass plates were still in place. He got up to start down the aisle, but as a couple walked in to pay for their petrol, Robbie sat down again at the stool and began punching numbers into the small PC.

Hearing the sound of the PC, Dryadia flew unseen down the aisle to peer over the shoulder of the couple as numbers came up on the monitor.

“Anything else?” asked Robbie.

“Just some chips, and a large Pepsi,” said the man.

He grabbed two foil packs of potato crisps from a rack near the magazines, while his wife returned from the rear of the store with a two-litre bottle of Pepsi.

To Dryadia’s delight, Robbie ran a barcode wand across the Pepsi bottle and numbers automatically flashed onto the monitor. Then he swiped the two packs of crisps and tapped a couple of buttons on the keyboard.

“Sixty-two dollars fifty even, including the petrol,” said Robbie.

Then the man took out his wallet and began to remove notes and three coins, to Dryadia’s great interest.

“Sixty-two dollars fifty even,” said the man as he counted the money into Robbie Pavlidis’s hand.

Robbie rang up the total and handed over the receipt. Then, as the couple turned to leave, the woman collided with Dryadia, who quickly pulled away and flew back to the centre shelving.

“What’s wrong?” asked the man, seeing his wife’s startled look.

“I ... I thought I hit something sort of cold and clammy,” said the woman, looking about the store in puzzlement.

“You must’ve turned around too fast and got a bit dizzy,” said Robbie.

The last thing that he wanted was for word to get around that the service station shop was haunted. We’ll be swarming with reporters, while the paying customers stay away in droves! he thought.

Looking uncertain at the explanation, the woman allowed her husband to take her by the arm to lead her out through the electronic door.


Hovering unseen over the centre shelves, Dryadia watched the man lead his wife outside. Popping another Tim Tam into her mouth, she sucked the sweet chocolate off before chewing the wafer as she puzzled over the way that the electronic door knew to open for the couple.

After the man and woman left, Dryadia flew across and hovered in front of the door. But it remained closed. She hovered higher and lower, to the left and to the right, even backing up then coming forward again. But nothing she tried would make the door open for her.

Seeing a yellow Toyota pull into the service station, Dryadia flew backwards to hover invisibly above the centre shelves again.

Through the window, she watched a stocky man fill his car with petrol, then start toward the service station shop to pay. As he approached, she watched with great interest, determined to discover how he made the door slide into the wall.

By the time that the man had paid for his petrol and was leaving, Dryadia had finished the box of Tim Tams. Without thinking, she popped open the box of Chocolate Royals and stared at the small round biscuits with a funny swirl on top.

“What was that?” demanded the stocky man, looking back startled.

“Sorry, just dropped some chocolate,” lied Robbie Pavlidis.

“Oh,” said the man, reassured.

Picking up the first Chocolate Royal, Dryadia licked the chocolate off the swirl as she watched the man leave. She let the strawberry marshmallow melt in her mouth before crunching away the biscuit base.

“You’ll be the ruination of us all at this rate,” said Robbie, staring in the general direction that the chewing was coming from.

Throughout the night, Dryadia ate Chocolate Royals and Tim Tams and carefully studied every customer as he or she entered and then left the store. By the time that Bernie Ling came back on duty that morning, she had almost decided that the door opened automatically when you stepped onto the welcome mat on either side of it.

Looking through the glass door, she watched Bernie step onto the mat and squealed in delight as the door opened on cue, confirming her theory.


“What was that?” demanded Bernie, startled by the squeal.

Before the door could slam shut again, Dryadia flew outside to test her theory once and for all.

“The store’s haunted by a chocolate-eating poltergeist,” said Robbie Pavlidis, guessing wrongly.

“Ha! Ha!” said Bernie, sounding unamused.

Behind the Chinese-Australian, Dryadia came to ground just past the welcome mat. The electronic door stayed shut. But when she stepped onto the mat, the door whooshed open behind Bernie, startling him as Dryadia walked unseen back into the store.

“What ...?” said Bernie, spinning around.

Unseen, Dryadia stepped off the inside mat and waited for the door to slide shut again. Then she stepped back onto the mat and squealed in delight as the door slid into the wall again.

“Told you,” said Robbie, smirking at Bernie’s puzzled look. Heading across to the door, he said, “Oh, I’ve hidden the chocolate bars under the counter on our side.”

He stopped at the door, uncertain whether it was safe to walk through the “poltergeist”, then tentatively stepped forward.


Dryadia backed away to allow the salesman to leave, recalling her collision with the woman hours earlier -- and knowing that even invisible, she was solid to the touch. Then, after Robbie left, she let the door slide shut, then stepped forward and squealed in delight as the door slid into the wall again.


“Oh, God, this is all I need,” said Bernie. He went to sit on the stool in the service booth and watched in alarm as the glass door continued to slide into the wall, then swing shut again, over and over again for nearly half an hour, accompanied by a child-like squeal of glee each time the glass door slid into the wall.

By the time that the morning rush-hour crowd had started to arrive, Bernie’s nerves were close to breaking point. I just hope it doesn’t scare away our trade, thought Bernie as the first of the crowd started to arrive.

He need not have worried, though. As soon as the salesman started to swipe or key items into the PC, Dryadia abandoned the sliding door and flew invisibly across to hover just above the PC monitor so that she could watch in interest as the rows and columns started to flash across the screen.

She sometimes startled customers by squealing in delight when Bernie swiped bar-codes with the wand or swiped their credit cards through the EFTPOS handset.

“Just computer noises,” explained Bernie to one customer startled by Dryadia’s delighted squeal.

The three rush hours -- morning, noon, and evening -- were when 85 Percent of the store’s profit was made. Nonetheless, Bernie heaved a sigh of relief when, a little after 10:00 AM, the last of the morning rush crowd departed.


For a few moments, Dryadia continued to hover near the PC monitor. Then, realising that the fun was over for the moment, she turned and flew back toward the electronic door.

Then feeling a bit peckish, she headed down the left-hand aisle toward the packs of chocolate-coated biscuits. She selected another box of Chocolate Royals, then, for variety, helped herself to a box of Chocolate Wheaton’s biscuits.

Then, biscuits in hand, she flew back to the electronic door. Popping open the foil pack of Chocolate Royals, she sucked one of the small biscuits, surprised to find that it tasted different. This time it was light chocolate and the swirl of marshmallow underneath was vanilla flavoured, not strawberry. Nonetheless, she decided that they were very nice.

Popping a second Chocolate Royal into her mouth, Dryadia landed just behind the welcome mat. Then, after a second hesitation, she stepped onto the mat and squealed in delight as the glass door slid into the wall again.

“Oh no!” said Bernie as he saw the door sliding open and closed again and heard the squeals of delight each time.

For the next two hours, the dryad stepped on and off the mat, squealing in delight each time -- when not eating a Chocolate Royal -- as the door slid open and shut to her dictate.

She realised that the ability to open and shut the door at will gave her the opportunity of leaving the store and returning if she desired. And on occasions, she was tempted. But each time she thought of flying outside, a noisy truck or motorbike would roar down Barkly Street, terrifying her. So, she soon decided that she preferred the peace inside the small service station shop. It was nice to know how to leave the store, if she ever needed to. But for now, she was content to remain where she was.

Stepping back off the mat, Dryadia reached for another Chocolate Royal, only to find that the plastic container was now empty. Tossing the empty carton away in disgust, she popped open the container of Chocolate Wheaton’s. These biscuits were different again, she saw: small saucer-sized circles of biscuit a few millimetres thick, with the top half only covered in dark chocolate.

She licked the chocolate for a second, then took a large bite and stepped forward onto the mat, squealing again in delight as the glass door slid into the left-hand side of the wall.


As the blue-and-white Chocolate Royal box suddenly flew down the aisle, just missing his head, Bernie Ling thought: My God, it looks like Robbie was right. The store really is haunted by a chocolate-biscuit-eating poltergeist!

By noon, Bernie was almost ready to scream as the door continued to whoosh open and shut. Accompanied by the ghostly squeals of delight and crunching on unseen chocolate biscuits. Unseen that is, until the empty box came sailing in Bernie’s direction.


Once again, as soon as the lunch-time peak crowd came flooding in, Dryadia abandoned the electronic door and zoomed across to look over Bernie Ling’s shoulder as he began typing or bar-code swiping numbers up onto the PC monitor.

For nearly an hour, Dryadia watched Bernie punching numbers into the PC before deciding to join in the game.

“What the ...?” said Bernie as a great string of letters, numbers, and symbols of all kinds began to come up onto the monitor while he was totting up the bill for Ross Wood.

“What’s up, Bernie?” asked the Mitsubishi salesman, seeing his bill suddenly become a computerised Scrabble game -- complete with expletives ##@@$$++##’d out.

“Damn computer’s overheating again,” lied Bernie, thinking fast. “It does that from time to time.”

Backspacing to remove the unwanted characters, Bernie crouched low over the keyboard to prevent the unseen “poltergeist” from punching in any figures.


For a few moments, Dryadia tried to reach around the Chinese-Australian to tap-tap-tap the keyboard. But as he crouched across it, to her dismay, she was unable to reach the keys. So, a little truculently, she settled for watching the numbers come up on the PC monitor as Bernie finally totted up Ross’s lunch-time bill.

After Ross Wood and two women -- also from Alan Mance -- departed, the lunchtime rush ended. So, Dryadia returned to her game of stepping on and off the welcome mat. Squealing in delight each time that the door slid into the wall, then slid out again when she stepped off again.

At a little after 3:00 PM, she stepped off the mat and flew down the left-hand aisle to help herself to another two packs of chocolate-covered biscuits. This time, a box of chocolate Oreos and orange-flavoured Jaffa biscuits. She lapped up the Oreos, sighing in delight at the rich chocolate taste, but screwed up her nose at the sweet-and-sour taste of the orange-centred Jaffa biscuits. A week or so earlier, she would have spat it out. But now she swallowed the one Jaffa biscuit, then flew back down the aisle to return the pack to the shelf and help herself to a replacement pack of light chocolate Tim Tams.


“What’s up?” wondered Bernie Ling when the electronic door suddenly stopped sliding open and shut. He looked at his wristwatch and saw that there was still more than an hour to go before the beginning of the third rush period. “So, what’s made her stop?” he wondered aloud.

After exchanging the orange biscuits for Tim Tams, though, Dryadia quickly returned to the electronic door and the game of making it slide open and shut as she devoured the chocolate biscuits.


By the time that Robbie Pavlidis came to relieve him, Bernie was ready to scream.

“What’s wrong?” asked Robbie, seeing the Chinese-Australian’s highly strung state.

“I think you were right about a chocolate-eating poltergeist haunting the shop,” said Bernie.

He went on to relate everything that had happened at the store that day.

“Why don’t you get your old granddad to perform an exorcism or something?” teased Robbie.

“Hey! Grandpa Le is a registered practitioner of Eastern Holistic medicine!” protested Bernie. “He's not some kind of witch doctor.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so!”


Hovering not far from the two men, Dryadia listened to this latest exchange in delight. She had finally decided that the verbal forays between the two men were harmless, deciding that they were friends. Of a sort.


Bernie and Robbie were still teasing each other when the shop door suddenly whooshed open behind them.

“Sound like the return of the chocky-munching poltergeist!” teased Robbie. But instead, when the two men looked around, they found themselves looking down the barrel of a sawn-off shotgun.

“Put all your money in the sack,” ordered the blond man, wearing a black-and-white Balaclava. He tossed an old Hessian bag onto the counter. “And don’t try anything funny.”

For a second that seemed to stretch for aeons, Bernie Ling and Robbie Pavlidis stared at the Hessian bag on the counter. A few metres away, Dryadia watched on wide-eyed in delight, wondering what this new game entailed.

“Well!” demanded the robber, shocking Robbie into action.

The Greek-Australian reached across the counter to slam shut the electric till, then quickly punched in three numbers on the keyboard.

“Too late,” he said, “it’s locked.”

“Well, get it opened again!”

“We can’t,” explained Bernie Ling. “Only management knows the codes to unlock it.”

“You mongrels!” shrieked the bandit, spinning around to aim the shotgun at Robbie.

“Duck!” Bernie shouted.

Robbie Pavlidis started to comply. But too late, as the gunman fired twice, hitting him in the chest and the face.

“Oomph!” Robbie grunted, more a release of air from his lungs in death than a cry as he flew backwards into the plate-glass window.

The window acted like a trampoline and threw the corpse of the Greek expatriate onto the floor of the small service booth.


Floating a few metres away, Dryadia shrieked and covered her ears at the explosive roar of the shotgun. The smile left her face as she saw half of Robbie Pavlidis’s face blown away by the shotgun.


Outside the store, two people serving themselves with petrol stopped at the sound of the shots and raced around to crouch behind their cars, while watching the goings on inside the store. A redheaded woman reached into her handbag for a mobile phone and dialled 11444 for Police Emergency.


For a second or so, Bernie Ling stared at the counter, from behind which Robbie Pavlidis’s half-headless corpse could be seen. Then, realising his own danger, the Chinese-Australian turned and started to race down the left-hand aisle toward the rear of the service station shop.

Shouting an obscenity, the gunman spun around and fired both barrels into Bernie’s back. Then, he reloaded the shotgun then raced across to the electronic doors.

As the gunman fled the store, the people outside crouched lower behind their cars, hoping that he would not come in their direction.


Inside the store, Dryadia watched the man race outside and run toward a black panel van. As it pulled up, he jumped in through the sliding side door, and the van accelerated away.

For a few seconds, Dryadia hovered inside the store, watching the retreating van through the plate-glass window. Then she flew across to land in the aisle beside Bernie Ling, who was lying face-down on the blood-spattered carpet.

Taking Bernie’s head into her hands, Dryadia began to rock him gently in her arms, like a mother rocking her baby.


The people outside the store were puzzled. They saw Bernie Ling’s head rise from the floor slightly and could see his corpse gently swaying. But they were unable to see why.

“What’s going on?” demanded the redhead, still holding her mobile phone in one hand.

“Just death twitches,” explained a youth hiding behind a green Volkswagen.

He had heard this explanation on any number of paramedical dramas on TV, so it seemed as likely an explanation as any.


Inside the store, Dryadia tried to heal Bernie Ling as she had healed the fireman, Joe Linde, more than two weeks earlier. But this time, the internal injuries were much more severe. So, without realising, the dryad started to relax her grip on invisibility.


“Where did she come from?” demanded the redhead as Dryadia suddenly appeared, kneeling in the store, cradling Bernie’s head in her arms.

“She must’ve been hiding behind the centre shelving,” said the youth behind the VW.

Although his eyes told him that the woman had appeared from nowhere, his brain rejected this information and provided him with a more plausible explanation.

“Should we go inside and help her?” asked the redhead.

“No, best not to corrupt the crime scene, we might destroy vital evidence,” said the youth.

Again, drawing on his knowledge from police procedurals on TV.


As Dryadia cradled Bernie, rocking him slowly, she and her patient were enveloped in a pale green aura. An aura which flickered around them like some kind of strange green fire.

For nearly five minutes, Dryadia rocked the Chinese-Australian man in her arms, muttering softly to herself as though chanting some ancient incantation. Or perhaps a nursery rhyme that she had had sung to her five hundred years earlier by her mother as a child in some faraway forest in the British Isles or Europe.

As she rocked and hummed, the green fire ebbed and flowed like any other fire. It flared up and deepened to a dark emerald, almost black hue. Then it slowly dimmed to a pale lime, almost white as the green nearly faded out altogether.


“What’s going on?” asked an old man near the redhead, as the aura rapidly brightened again like a green fire consuming both the Chinese man and the alabaster-skinned woman cradling him.

“She’s crying over his corpse,” explained the youth near the VW, having seen many women grieving this way for lost loved ones in TV movies and soap operas.

“But what about the green fire?” demanded the redhead.

“What green fire?” demanded the youth, whose brain was providing its evidence for what he was seeing again. “That’s just a trick of the light.”

“Yeah,” the old man near the redhead agreed, “it’s the fluorescent light reflecting off something green inside the shop.”

“Exactly,” agreed the youth.

The redhead’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement, uncertain if she could believe what the two men were telling her. She wondered what in the store could be large enough to cast such a large green reflexion? She started to argue the point, then stopped as they finally heard sirens as two ambulances and a police car raced down Eleanor Street to turn left into the service station.

The two men ran across to talk to the police, leaving the redhead to direct the ambulance men.

“Inside the service station shop,” she directed two men carrying a stretcher, “but I think they’re both dead.”

“Okay,” said a grey-haired paramedic.

He turned to look back at the policemen, and after receiving a nod from the cops, the two men ran across to the store and stopped in the doorway in shock. Inside, they saw what appeared to be a raging green thunderstorm, surrounding a willowy brunette, sitting on the floor and cradling a man’s head in her arms. Emerald flashes of lightning crashed again and again, seemingly striking the man and the woman kneeling over him.

“What the hell is going on here?” demanded the grey-haired paramedic, thinking aloud as the electronic door whooshed open before them.

Squealing in shock at the sight of the two men, Dryadia dropped Bernie Ling’s head, leapt to her feet and raced around to the right-hand aisle to hide.

Hearing running footsteps behind them, the two ambulance men looked around as two cops raced into the store.

“You’d better go get his girlfriend,” said the grey-haired paramedic, pointing. "She ran around the other side of the shelving.”

“Okay,” said a young policewoman walking down the aisle to the milk fridges before turning right.

“What about her boyfriend?” asked a thickset policeman.

“He’s as dead as a dough ...” said the paramedic.

He stopped and stepped backwards, startled as Bernie Ling suddenly opened his eyes wide.

“What ... what’s going on?” asked Bernie, sitting up.

“We were hoping that you could tell us,” said the cop, trying unsuccessfully not to look as startled as he felt.

For a moment, Bernie stared at the ceiling, trying to remember his life from more than a few minutes ago. Finally, he said, “We were being held up, and Robbie slammed the till shut and locked it. Then, in anger, the robber started shooting.”

“You were lucky,” said the second paramedic. “He must’ve been a lousy shot to have missed in such a confined space.

“No, no,” said Bernie, his brow wrinkling in puzzlement as his “death” came flooding back to him. “He blasted me at point-blank, with both barrels.”

“Shot you at point-blank range with both barrels?” asked the thickset cop.

“You’d be dead if that happened,” insisted the elderly paramedic.

“He’s right,” agreed the younger paramedic as they started to examine Bernie Ling.

“Yes, I know, I ...” said Bernie, tentatively feeling his chest with mounting surprise as he could detect no signs of gunshot wounds. “But he shot me with a sawn-off at point-blank range!”

“Then where are the shotgun wounds?” demanded the cop. “Where are the cartridge pellets?”

“Well, I,” said Bernie, lifting the bottom of his sweater to examine his chest.

As he untucked his jumper, there was a metallic clatter as a handful of metal pellets fell onto the carpet at their feet.

“What the ...?” said one of the paramedics, as they all stared at the pellets in disbelief.

They were still staring at the pellets when the policewoman returned and announced, “There’s no woman around there.”

“What?” asked the grey-haired paramedic, staring at her. “But we both saw her run around there.”

“No one around there ... but in the service area, there's a male corpse with half of his head shot away,” insisted the policewoman.

“Robbie!” cried Bernie Ling, trying to climb back to his feet.

“Calm down, mate,” insisted the younger paramedic, “you’d better relax and get your strength back.” Still staring at the shotgun pellets on the floor beside the Chinese-Australian, he thought, “Particularly if you’ve been shot in the chest at point-blank range.”

“Let’s get him to the ambulance,” the grey-haired paramedic suggested, helping Bernie to his feet.

“But, I’m fine, I tell you.”

“Nonetheless, we’d better take you in for observation,” said the paramedic, leading Bernie toward the electronic door.

The two paramedics escorted Bernie Ling into the back of the ambulance, then returned to collect the corpse of Robbie Pavlidis.

“Oh, God!” said the younger paramedic, barely twenty-one, new to this kind of work.

“Don’t worry,” teased his companion, a twenty-five-year veteran, “you get used to the sight of half-headless corpses ... after twenty years or so.”

The younger paramedic did his best not to look at the mangled corpse of the Greek-Australian as they covered it with a sheet on the stretcher.

“Let’s get him into the back of the van,” said the senior paramedic, trying to take his assistant’s mind off the sickening sight.

They got outside in time to see the first ambulance with Bernie Ling pull away as the second ambulance drove up.

“Over here,” called the senior paramedic, and after a nod for the two cops, the ambulance drove as close to the door of the service station shop as possible, then pulled forward a little to make it easier to get Robbie Pavlidis’s corpse into the rear.


After being spotted by the two paramedics, Dryadia had fled around the centre shelving so that she could fade to invisibility. Then, unseen, she had watched the paramedics as they led Bernie Ling out to the first ambulance.

Then, confident that she could not be seen now, the dryad followed behind as the two paramedics stretchered out the body of Robbie Pavlidis.

As the ambulance pulled up, the driver’s assistant raced out to open the back doors for the stretcher-bearers.

“No need to rush,” said the grey-haired paramedic, George Long, “this one is past help.”

Dryadia waited while the assistant stepped into the back to take the front handles of the stretcher. Then, flying around the two paramedics, she zoomed into the back of the ambulance.

As the paramedic climbed into the rear of the ambulance, Dryadia lifted the corpse sheet to look at Robbie to see how much healing he would need.

Despite her best intentions, the dryad dropped the cover sheet and squealed in shock at the sight of the salesman with half of his face blown away.


“What in hell was that?” asked Tony, the younger of the two paramedics, as they climbed into the ambulance.

“I don’t ...” said George Long, looking around as the ambulance driver’s assistant shut the door. “One of the onlookers, I suppose.”

“It seemed to come from in here,” insisted Tony.

“Well, unless your voice hasn’t broken yet, it didn’t,” insisted George.

Doing his best not to look at the corpse, Tony tossed the cover sheet back over its damaged face.


Dryadia turned to glare at Tony petulantly for this discourtesy when she was trying to heal the Greek-Australian. She went to lift the sheet again. Then, deciding that it would help to conceal her healing green flame, she slipped her hands beneath the covers and began to exchange vital energy with the corpse. Trying to “jump start” the body back to life, while using her powers to heal his hideous injuries.


Instead of following the first ambulance down Eleanor Street to the Western Hospital in Gordon Street, the second ambulance headed down Barkly Street, heading toward Melbourne.

Sliding open the window cabin, George asked, “Where are we going?”

“The Royal Melbourne in Parkville,” said the driver. “The Western’s full up.”

George started to protest that it was too far. But recalling the state of Robbie Pavlidis’s face, he thought: What does it matter how far away it is? He’s long dead! Aloud, he said, “Okay,” and slid the small window shut.


Ignoring the by-play between George and the ambulance driver, Dryadia continued to exchange energy with Robbie, until slowly his shattered face began to be repaired, filling in and fleshing out like a balloon being slowly inflated. Then, despite feeling a little giddy from loss of vital force, the dryad moved her hands down under the sheet to his chest to start to draw out the shotgun pellets one by one.

Dryadia had carefully collected the pellets in one hand -- only dropping them when startled by the sudden appearance of George and Tony. This time, the dryad was too exhausted from the healing that she had already done and merely left the pellets wherever they landed under the drop sheet after she extracted them from Robbie Pavlidis’s body.

Dryadia barely even noticed when, due to the motion of the ambulance, the pellets started to fall out from under the sheet to plop on the floor of the vehicle.


“What was that?” asked Tony. He looked around the floor and was astonished to find a handful of shotgun pellets. Holding them up, he asked, “Where did these come from?”

“They must be the ones that were beside the other bloke,” suggested George.

“The bloke who insisted that he’d been shot in the back?”

“Yes.”

“Man, that was weird. I mean if he wasn’t shot, where did they all come from?”

“According to the cops, they’d definitely been shot out of a shotgun cartridge, and the back of his sweater and T-shirt were both peppered with buckshot holes.”

“My God,” said Tony, crossing himself as he said it.

As the two paramedics talked, Dryadia continued to exchange vital energy with Robbie Pavlidis, slowly drawing the iron pellets out of his body and healing his wounds. Then, slowly, with little spare energy left, she began to restore his life processes.

Tony bent to pick up the stray pellets from the floor and shuddered as something cold dropped onto his neck, “stinging” him. Reaching up, he grabbed the metal pellet before it could fall down his shirt and held it up.

“Where did that fall from?” he asked.

George started to offer a suggestion when two more pellets fell out from under the drop sheet to clatter to the floor.

Both men stared as more pellets continued to drop every few seconds.

“They’re coming from under the sheet,” said George, stating the obvious.

After a few seconds, he hesitantly reached out a hand toward the corpse sheet. Two more pellets fell as he hesitated. Then no more.

The two paramedics exchanged a puzzled look, then George reached out and pulled away the cover sheet.

As George lifted the white cover sheet, there was a great flash of green, like an exploding emerald. Then, in a second, the vital energy had flooded into Robbie Pavlidis’s body.

“Eeeeeeeeeiii!” squealed Dryadia in shock as she flew backwards, hitting her head and temporarily stunning herself against the back of the cabin.

“Did you see that?” asked George.

Tony started to speak, then stopped as he saw the pale, willowy brunette lying on the floor near the cabin.

“Who the Hell are you?” he asked.

“What?” asked George, thinking for a moment that the younger man was talking to him.

Then, looking around to his right -- where Tony was staring -- George saw Dryadia lying stunned on the ambulance floor.

At first, she seemed to be unconscious. Then reaching up, she began to rub at the back of her head with one hand.

“Who are you?” repeated Tony.

Dryadia stared at the two men for a second, not certain if they could see her. Then, as Tony repeated his question, she realised that she had lost her invisibility. Screwing up her eyes, she clenched her fists hard and concentrated upon making herself fade out of sight.

At first, her attempt failed, and the two men watched her efforts in puzzlement, wondering what the Hell she was doing.

“Are you all right?” asked George.

He started to wonder if she was in shock -- having perhaps seen the two service station salesmen gunned down.

Then, as she concentrated harder, the dryad’s image began to rapidly fade in and out, like a fluorescent light vainly struggling to come on.

Having started toward her, the two men stopped again and stared open-mouthed as the woman flickered in and out of sight at an increasingly rapid tempo. After nearly a minute of flickering, her image faded out entirely.

“My God, did you see ...?” said George, reaching to point to where the woman had been a second before.

But before he could even finish the gesture, he heard moaning from behind him.

Thinking that Tony had passed out in shock, George looked around and, to his horror, saw the corpse of Robbie Pavlidis sitting up on the stretcher.

“What ...? Who ...? Where ...?” muttered Robbie, struggling against the corpse sheet that still covered his head.

“But you’re dead!” cried Tony.

Backing away, he fell against the stretcher on the other side of the ambulance.

“Dead ...?” asked Robbie, puzzled.

He yawned and stretched wide as though just waking from a long sleep.

Now invisible again, Dryadia climbed slowly back to her feet, trying not to startle the two ambulance men any more than she already had.

Careful not to bump into either of the paramedics, the dryad tentatively hovered just above the floor of the vehicle for a moment, testing her bearings. Then she flew past Tony and George to hover just above Robbie’s feet on the stretcher.

Although unable to see her, Robbie Pavlidis was conscious of the pale woman’s presence nearby. And for a moment, he thought that he was still lying on the floor in the service station shop. But seeing the two paramedics standing over him, Robbie started to look around slowly and realised where he was.

As the left-hand side of his face began to itch, Robbie reached up to scratch it and asked, “What happened? How did I get here?”

“You ... you were shot,” explained George Long.

Then, feeling a little light-headed, the grey-haired paramedic sat on a small chair near the cabin, before he could pass out.

“Shot ...?” asked Robbie in amazement.

He looked toward Tony -- who looked as though he was about to throw up -- then toward George, who clung to a rail at the front of the ambulance, as though afraid of falling to the floor.


At the foot of the stretcher, Dryadia ignored the two paramedics to examine Robbie Pavlidis’s face. She had done a pretty good job of rebuilding it from her life essence. However, it was a little deflated, like a balloon that had not quite been inflated enough and didn’t quite match the right side. Also, it was a little lighter in shade than the right side of his face, not quite matching Robbie’s swarthy complexion. So, she decided that she would have to have another “session” with Robbie to finish the job. Once she had recovered her strength again.

3.

When at last the ambulance pulled up, the driver and his assistant leapt out and raced around to the rear of the vehicle.

“All right, let’s get it open,” said the driver, Len, who had been driving ambulances of one kind or another since the first Gulf War.

Opening the door, they expected to find two live paramedics standing over a probably D.O.A. Instead, to their shock, the two men saw Robbie Pavlidis sitting up on his stretcher, looking none the worse for wear, despite having been shot at close range in the face, and grey-haired George Long trying to revive his assistant Tony, who had fainted to the floor of the ambulance.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Len, almost fainting himself at the sight of Robbie sitting up on the stretcher seemingly unhurt.

But I thought you had half your face shot away when they carried you in here! thought Len, careful not to say it aloud for fear of seeming an idiot.

“Nothing, I'm fine,” said Robbie, still rubbing gently at the left side of his face. He yawned and stretched wide again, then started to step down from the stretcher.

“No, no,” said Len, stepping into the rear of the ambulance to stop him. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re going into the hospital on the stretcher."

Robbie started to protest, then lay back and allowed Len and his assistant, Tom, to carry him in through the emergency doors of the hospital, where he was raced down a long corridor, toward the operating theatres.


As the stretcher-bearers ran down the corridor, Dryadia soared along behind them. Until they passed a chocolate vending machine. Then, feeling drained still from the vital energy that she had passed on to Robbie, she stopped to help herself to some chocolate.

At first, the dryad struggled to work out how to make the machine give up its delicious cargo. But by concentrating with all of her might, she managed to somehow influence the coils containing the chocolate bars, to make them roll forward until each of the sixteen sections had dropped one or two bars into the tray at the bottom of the machine.

Abandoning most of the chocolate, she grabbed two Mars bars, a Snickers, and two Crunchies, then zoomed off down the corridor to find Robbie Pavlidis and the others as she restocked her energy.


“Well, what’s the verdict?” asked Robbie as a doctor, an anaesthetist and three nurses stood around goggling at him.

They had expected to have to perform emergency surgery, or else declare him dead-on-arrival. Not to see him sitting up on the stretcher, wide awake and seemingly unharmed.

The doctor gave Robbie a complete physical before declaring:

“Nothing seems to be wrong. But we’d better keep you in for observation overnight. Just to be on the safe side.”

“But I’m fine, Doc,” protested Robbie.

“Nonetheless,” said the puzzled surgeon.


It was nearly 2:00 AM when a tired Nurse Sarah Brown was passing room 414 and saw a strange greenish glow emanating from under the door.

“What the ...?” said Sarah, opening the door a crack.

Inside, she saw a willowy brunette leaning across the sleeping service station attendant. At first, a green aura seemed to envelop the man and woman. But as it faded away, Sarah decided that it was just a reflexion from neon lighting across the street.

She studied the tall, pale woman for a moment. Then, deciding that she was probably a new nurse checking on the patient, she turned and shut the door again, leaving them in privacy.


Dryadia waited till she heard the retreating footsteps in the corridor outside. Then she began to exchange vital energy with Robbie Pavlidis again, pleased to see the left-hand side of his face fill out properly, then start to take on the deep swarthy complexion of the right-hand side.

As she finished healing her “friend”, Dryadia picked up a Mars bar from the grey, metal cabinet beside the bed. As she began to eat the chocolate, she decided to make the hospital her new home. She enjoyed healing sick people. And the vending machines on each floor were a ready source of nourishment to allow her to restock after passing on her vital essence to the sick and injured.

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