Jasper Night 2 Firetree

By Stephen J Bannister

In book 2 Jasper Night finds himself dealing with another creature that he would not call 'supernatural'. It is a creature that cohabits with people but likes to keep a low profile. The problem is, it likes to eat people. Jasper heads to Port Headland to investigate, he is one of a few who can. Along the way he 'befriends' a journalist who assists him, to a degree, but who proves vital at the end. Together they track down what the locals call the Gan-Ngarrang and try to deal with the situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen J Bannister
• Release date: Mar 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224937899

Stephen J Bannister

Stephen. L West writes under the pseudonym of Stephen J Bannister. Stephen was born in the UK but moved to South Australia in the mid-sixties growing up in Adelaide. Enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy aged 17. Married in nineteen eighty. Joined the New South Wales Fire Brigades before moving back to South Australia.Started writing in the late nineteen-eighties creating technical manuals which led to dabbling in fiction. As an amateur astronomer with a lot of interest in other sciences, he decided to write his first science fiction novel.Stephen and his wife live on a two acre plot in the rural mid-north of South Australia. Their family has expanded to seven grandchildren.

Book preview

Firetree

Book Two of the Jasper Night Series

Stephen J Bannister

Published by Stephen J Bannister at Smashwords and Draft to Digital

Copyright 2024 Stephen J Bannister

All characters appearing in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, most locations or persons living or dead is coincidental.

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Also by Stephen J Bannister.

Converging Parallels

Bugs

The Red Door

Short Stories.

Shoppe of Desires

The Jasper Night Series.

Book One: The Bundgolata Mystery

Book Two: Firetree

Jasper had a radio on in one room and the television on in another, both tuned to the ABC news channels, his favourite places to hear about events of interest to a person like him. It was the way he liked it. It meant no matter where he was in the house he would be able to hear the news.

He was making a cup of green tea, not his favourite but a Chinese philosopher once told him it helped the healing process after receiving wounds from unmentionable creatures. He had his doubts but always proclaimed if one could not trust an ancient Chinese philosopher, then who could one trust?

A Yarri had inflicted the wound on his thigh twelve months earlier and it was taking its time mending. He had to use what was known in his trade as traditional non-conventional medicine. Trying to explain to a doctor at a hospital or surgery how he got the injury would not be easy. It looked like an animal had inflicted it so there would be the inevitable awkward questions. He had to use alternative medicines and green tea was one of them.

The deep tissue wound the Yarri had perpetrated had one benefit, his sense of smell was more acute.

Jasper took his tea and two Tim Tams into the lounge and sat down in his recliner, the red wound open to the air to allow it to breathe. He concentrated on the television where a reporter swishing away flies greeted him, she was delivering a short story that piqued his interest.

‘… it’s believed there may have been three accidental deaths in a camp site east of Port Headland, but police are still baffled.’ Her microphone swung to one side to reveal a female uniformed police officer standing next to her, the officer did not look comfortable. The reporter continued. ‘Joining me is Sergeant Gail Monahan of the Port Headland Police.’

Monahan looked nervous as though it was her first time in front of a television camera and crew. Being Port Headland, Jasper thought it might very well be the case.

‘Sergeant Monahan, do you know why the three people were out in the bush?’ the reporter said.

The reply was simple. ‘No, we don’t.’

The short response annoyed the journalist. ‘Do you know what they were doing?’

‘No, we don’t.’

The reporter persisted. ‘Do you know who they were?’

The sergeant looked at the reporter with an expression on her face that told the viewers she desperately wanted to be somewhere else. ‘No, we don’t, our investigation is continuing. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask for the public’s help in this matter, please contact the Port Headland police station if you have any information.’

The journalist dragged her microphone away from the cop who went out of shot, it was not good television to watch. ‘What we can say is the victims appeared to have been cremated, how is still to be determined.’

The mike swung back to the police officer again. ‘Sergeant Monahan, thank you for your time today.’

Without waiting