A news report flashed across the telly. “Long term prisoner Reginald Radcliffe has escaped from the local prison. He was sentenced to ten years on a charge for murder. It appears he escaped by hiding in a prison laundry wagon that was heading back into town! He is highly dangerous and could now have a gun. He is 1.8 metres tall with thick coarse, dark hair, piercing blue eyes and a muscular physique. Do not approach him, but report his whereabouts to the local authorities.”
A short time following this announcement, a woman phoned the police station to report that her ten year old son Ethan had gone missing. Talitha was frantic. Where could he be? He’d never left home before.
The police made a thorough search for Ethan all day to no avail. It was getting late into the night when she received a call from the police informing her that there had been a horrific fatal accident on the freeway just ten kilometres south of town. One of the vehicles had burst into flames on impact and the two occupants inside the vehicle were burnt beyond recognition. It is believed that one was a man in his forties and the other, a boy aged about eight to ten years old. On checking the vehicle’s number plates, it was found the vehicle had only been reported stolen that day.
Talitha became hysterical! She sobbed and sobbed with deep sniffling gasps. “I pray that it’s not him!” she cried. A female officer was commissioned to remain with her for the remainder of the night. Talitha couldn’t sleep a wink. She sat up all night sipping cups of tea and talking with the female officer Constable Holmes, who did her best to calm the situation and put Talitha at ease. This was the darkest night of Talitha’s life.
At 4.00 am, the shrill blast of the phone shattered the quietness of the night. Both women jumped. The police informed them that both victims of the car accident had been identified. It was not Ethan. Despite the relief she felt, now a new threat had crossed her mind —— could Ethan have been kidnapped by the escapee?
By 7.00 am, daylight broke through the French windows. Again the phone rang. It was Sergeant O’Toole from the local police station. He said he had located a young boy just a few moments ago claiming to be Ethan, Talitha’s son. He was with a middle aged man. Both were being brought back to the station for questioning.
Talitha and Constable Holmes hopped into the police car and rushed down to the local police station. On entering the station, Talitha was overjoyed to see her son alive. She raced over to him and threw he arms around him. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she wept profusely.
Eventually Sergeant O’Toole on pulling them apart, said, “There’s a man we have in the cells who was with the boy. We would like to see if you can identify him?”
“Aaron! Oh My Goodness! What have you done? Why are you in here?”
Then all was revealed!
“I came around to see if Ethan would like to come for a day trip to the zoo with me. He said that you were at work, and knew you wouldn’t mind him having a day out at the zoo with his favourite uncle. While we were at the zoo, we lost track of time and were accidentally locked in overnight. We just kept quiet and still all night because we didn’t want to chance wandering into any wild animal enclosure in the dark. We could hear the lions growl and roar and many other frightening sounds. In the morning when the zoo keepers arrived, they contacted the police because we were trespassing on zoo property out of visiting hours. Anyway, how was your night?” he asked cheekily.
“I could kill you Aaron!” she cried, but gave him a huge hug instead for bringing Ethan home alive.
x x x x
Meanwhile, high up in the hills only a few kilometres out of town, a young family was experiencing a terrifying night. The escapee from the nearby prison had broken into their home and was terrorizing the family.
“Woman! Get me some food and clothes to wear, AND I MEAN NOW! Or I will slit your daughter’s pretty little throat!” he roared.
He held a huge knife at the throat of the young teenage girl. He demanded army camouflage clothes. The stripes of prison clothes were too obvious to be worn out on the street.
Reggie was an evil, wicked and ruthless man. He gulped down his meal, then found a length of rope and tied up each member of the family securely. He quickly shaved off his long grey beard, bundled some extra food and drinks into a duffle bag and disappeared into the night, leaving the house in darkness. It seemed hours before the young teenager was able to loosen herself from the knots in her rope. She untied her mother and father and then alerted the police.
By this time they thought the escapee was well away, on the run again.
x x x x
A couple of kilometres down the road at a stop sign intersection, an elderly man had stopped his vehicle. Before he could drive off again, he was dragged out of the driver’s seat by the hair and thrown onto the road. His car was driven away at high speed.
After driving for only fifteen minutes, the vehicle began to cough and splutter and then the motor stopped. Then silence. One glance at the petrol gauge and Reggie knew the problem. No gas.
As he walked along the dark road, he saw flashing lights coming towards him. Quickly he crawled into an underground drain pipe. Halfway down the pipe he heard a hissing sound. Moving along a little further, he could see a coiled snake in the distance only a couple of metres away.
“No snake is going to bar my exit!” he thought, and crawled right past it. The snake disturbed by his movement, responded in the way that snakes do —— he bit him.
Reggie yelped, and smashed the snake with his bare hand. But as he continued crawling towards freedom, his head began to spin, his knees to tremble and his eyes became blurry.
“Damn reptile!” he shouted aloud.
Pressing on, now perspiring profusely, he found he couldn’t move his legs. He began dragging his body towards the opening, gasping for freedom.
x x x x
Because of the emotional stress and events of previous night, Talitha felt completely exhausted. She had not had a wink of sleep all night.
“I’m going to phone my boss at work and let her know that I won’t be coming in to work today,” she said. “While I’m sleeping, Ethan, I want you to stay around the house and be very quiet.” “Aw Mum!” Uncle Aaron is going fishing down at the jetty this morning. Can I go with him? Please Mum! Please?” Ethan pleaded.
“Oh! Oh, very well. I might get a better sleep if you’re not at home. But Aaron, you keep a good eye on him,” she demanded, “I don’t want any more scares today thank you!”
Arriving at Aaron’s house, they collected their fishing rods, reels and gear and began walking down the road towards the river, with Aaron’s black and white Cocker Spaniel dog Buster, leading the way. Buster was a clear one hundred and fifty yards in front of them when he stopped in his tracks and started barking.
“What’s got into that mongrel of a dog?” Aaron asked aloud.
As they came nearer to where the dog was, Aaron noticed the outline of a body in the long grass.
“Just wait here Ethan!” Aaron said softly. “I’ll go over and see if everything is OK!”
Then he saw the repulsive sight. It was the body of a man dead and very bloated.
Aaron put Buster on a leash and they all hurried back to the house to phone the police.
After the forensics were completed, they were informed that the identity of the body was none other than the prison escapee Reginald Radcliffe, the very man whom the police had been searching for.
The cause of his death was not known until after the post mortem, which clearly indicated that he had died from a fatal dose of snake venom in his system.
Hilda Oakley Copyright © 07.03.2013
