“I’ll get something to knock it off your back,” Garbarla shouted to make himself heard above Lucy’s shrieking.

He raced across to pick up a large red-gum bough lying on the dirt near the edge of the hardwood forest a few metres away.

Grabbing the bough he raced back to Lucy then stopped in shock.   The “bat” was shining almost blinding red light now and smoke billowed from Lucy’s back.   Flames shot out of her body; small sprays of fat jetted from her back and shoulders, which sizzled like barbecuing steak.

What the hell is going on! wondered Garbarla, too stunned to use the red-gum stick he held.   As smoke began to billow from the front of her body — her large breasts seeming to collapse into her body — Garbarla realised it was too late to save the young gin.

Hearing gasps from behind him, Garbarla looked round and saw the wide-eyed stares of fifty or sixty women and children of the tribe, who had been draw by Lucy’s screaming.   The sight of the crowd roused him from his inertia and Garbarla darted forward again to try to knock the “bat” from the gin’s back with the red-gum bough.

But her whole body was on fire now; the air stank with the pall of cooking human flesh.   When he tried to reach Lucy, Garbarla was driven back by the heat — which felt as though it would set his own flesh on fire again when he was still more than a metre from the dying woman.

Seeing the gaping hole in her back, Garbarla gasped, shocked and thought, ‘It’s burning right through her!   That damn thing is burning right through her body!’

In seconds the “bat” had vanished from sight inside the body of the young woman.   Lucy finally stopped screaming as she collapsed onto the hard, brown earth.   For a few seconds she lay burning furiously.   Then, in only minutes, the figure lost all trace of human form, reduced to hot embers, which collapsed into an unrecognisable heap.

‘Jesus what could generate that kind of heat?’ wondered Garbarla.   As he watched the still smouldering ashes of the young woman collapsed with a whoosh like talcum powder onto the ground, in a lifeless pile.