‘An egg!’ he thought.   ‘The damn thing looks like the white of a great poached egg, with a gigantic yellow yolk in the centre!’

Despite his revulsion at the sight of the living egg, Erlick couldn’t help stepping forward as though hypnotised by the yellow “yoke” in the middle of the great white splodge.

Hearing a liquid splat, as though he had stepped into a large cow turd, Erlick looked down.   And saw that he had stepped into the white albumin-like substance of the “egg”.

It was only as the yellow “yoke” suddenly flipped open to reveal a huge, black-pupil that Erlick saw the black insectile abdomen and thorax behind the “egg”, a hard chitinous frame like the segmented exoskeleton of a gigantic ant or spider, with six long, hairy legs projecting from the thorax.

‘My God that’s it’s head!’ thought Erlick, realising the “yoke” was the creature’s eye, the white splat-like albumin the creature’s head.

‘But it’s got no nostrils or mouth!’ he thought.   ‘How does it breathe or eat?’

His feet suddenly began to burn as though immersed in a vat of acid.   Looking down Erlick saw that the leather of his expensive Italian shoes had dissolved in the “egg white” which was now eating into his feet.

‘My God, acid!’ he thought.   ‘It’s head is made of acid!’   And as the creature advanced, with a spider-like scuttling of its chitinous legs, Erlick realised, ‘That’s how it devours it’s prey!   By dissolving them!’

*      *      *

The two couples sat together at the round table in Bateman’s Hotel in Lawson Street, Glen Hartwell: Geraldine Gleeson a tall, willowy brunette, sat with Joseph Garbarla, a handsome light-chocolate coloured half-breed Aborigine.   Beside them sat Daniella Butler a tall, lithe ash blonde, and Danny “Bear” Ross — so nicknamed because of his great height, barrel-chest, and bulging muscular arms and legs.

Noticing Bear’s embarrassment, Garbarla couldn’t help smirking.   Over the last four years since breaking up with his former fiancé Bear Ross had rarely dated, and Garbarla knew the big man felt uncomfortable with the tall, gorgeous blonde, whom they had set him up with.