They searched through the night and past dawn without finding any trace of the teenagers.   Until shortly after 8:00 a.m. Jim Kane heard a cry of, “Over here!”

By the time he had manoeuvred his way through the thickly wooded forest to reach the point the called had originated from, Jim found a small crowd ahead of him.

“What is it?” he asked the nearest man.   He got no response from the old man whose face was as white as a sheet and who looked as though he was about to pass out.

Seeing Paul Bell kneeling by the water’s edge, Jim went across to his constable and asked, “What is going…?”   He stopped in mid sentence as he saw the mounds of chalky white bones, laying broken and chewed on the bank of the lake.   “You’ve found them,” he said stupidly.

“Three of them, by the looks of it,” corrected Paul.

“It…it can’t be them…!” insisted Merv Stebbins, refusing to believe the worst.   “They only disappeared a few hours ago…They can’t have been reduced to skeletons already….”

“Something has picked their bones clean,” said Paul unthinkingly.   He received a sharp glance from Jim which silenced him.

“It…can’t be them!” insisted Merv, on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

“No, no, perhaps you’re right,” agreed Jim.   He led him away from the gruesome find.

After taking Merv away from the scene and ensuring that Melinda and Cherylyn were kept well away, they set to arguing about what had killed the teenagers.

“Crocs!   It has to be crocs!” insisted Sam Hart from Merridale.   “I’ve seen crocodiles strip a large carcase as clean as these in an hour or less.”

Looking at the collection of bones Jim was doubtful.   They gleamed in the early morning sunlight as though they had been polished to a high lustre.   “How could crocs get into an inland lake?” he demanded.

“Same way the fish do,” insisted Hart.   “Across from the Yannan River.   You’d be amazed how far those bastards can travel across dry land.   A couple of Kays would be nothing to them.”