It chased me out of the bush.

Hi dear friends

Episode 3, I’m not sure what to call it, `something scary in the bush’. 
This is a poem I wrote about a strange and frightening encounter. It never actually happened to me, but it’s based on heaps of actual encounters that I’ve read about and listened to. It’s a subject that fascinates me more than just about anything else. I definitely have some more of this topic to talk about in future episodes. I’ve got some great paranormal stories coming eventually too. So make sure to subscribe and follow along. 
If you do like my work, please rate and review, and share it around. I’d really love that. 

☮️

Please follow along,

micknewton_storyteller on instagram 

Mick Newton Storyteller on Facebook 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

There's a couple of rabbits down there, pop, in the creek by those old dead trees, where the bush gets dark and tall and heavy, where it sprawls away to the east. Oh, I think we'll leave him be, he said. We'll stay up here on the flat, where we won't have to carry him back up with the traps. I'm getting too old and fat. It's all right, pop. I'll go down, I said. I'll carry him back up in the morning. You stop up here, he snapped with an oath, the look in his eyes a fair warning. Listen, Dickie, you're me mate, but I won't be telling you twice. Steer clear o' the bush down over the creek. Don't ask questions, just take my advice. I give him my word and we ambled on and laid the rest of the steel. The dark and the cold was coming in now, so we headed home for the evening meal. I asked Grandma later that night, after Pop fell asleep in his chair, about where the bush gets thick down the creek, and why pop wouldn't go down there. For Pop was such a cheerful man, I'd never heard him growl like that, and the look in his eyes was something like fear, and I wondered just what he was at. We'd trapped the creek where the paddock was clear, back up closer to the house, and we drove through the scrub earlier that day on the property further out. Grandma's eyes narrowed a bit, but she smiled and sipped her tea. You listen to Pop, was all she offered. He just wants you safe, you see. Steer clear of the bush down near the creek, beyond those two old dead trees. I mean it, Dickie. Don't pry or sneak. I can't tell you, but I'm asking you please. Well I don't think I slept a wink that night, and if I did my dreams ran wild. There's something out there they're not telling me about that leans heavy on the mind of a child. Well up next morning with the sun the air was cold and still, and there was just a light misty fog that stopped the sun from defending the chill. We set out first across the flat to the creek by the neighbour's gate. I loved going trapping rabbits with pop, and we yarned as we walked like old mates. He told me about the old days and taught me about living on the land. He'd whistled foxes in every creek and shot ducks on every dam. He taught me about trapping rabbits and the plagues of em back in the day, a tap on the horn and the hills would move, and they'd carry the land away. Well we soon had a few ourselves as we made our way round the hill, and hearing the clink and the rattle of chain gave my young mind a thrill. But as we neared where the bush stands tall and those two dead trees on the creek, Pop's gaze met my curious eyes, and he didn't need to speak. So on we pressed without a fuss, my inquisitiveness recoiled, traps reset and homeward bound, laden with our spoils. Pop and grandma talked over Brecky, smiling as they always do. They spoke of their plans on the day ahead and discussed things they needed to do. Well, I gotta go to town, Pop reckoned to me. I'm leaving you to run the show. Look after Grandma and be a good lad. I'll see you later when I get home. Well I helped Grandma finish the dishes and then helped make a few more, 'cause we harvested the crop of gross lissies and got to brewin' up a big batch of sauce. And we played Slim Dusty on an old tape, and Grandma whipped up a caramel slice. We laughed and told stories and sung along to Slim. Time spent with grandma was so nice. After lunch, when we tidied up, Grandma went for a sit-down, so I headed out the back to the shed and went for a poke around. Well it didn't take long for boredom to hit, and I started to wander off, down around the windmill and water tanks, watching the roos drink out of the troughs. Then I saw a pup fox on the edge of the flat, sniffing round an old red gum stump. So after him I went, armed with a stick, to see if I could give him a thump. By the time I'd reached the edge of the flat and peered down towards the creek, the little fox was nowhere to be seen, just the bush and those two old dead trees. I stood for a minute and stared, and my thoughts floated off on the breeze, my eyes now undressing the tall heavy bush where it sprawls away to the east. Before I knew I was down in the creek, between those two old dead trees. I stared into the bush, impenetrably dense. About forty feet was as far as I could see. There was a bit of a dip under the fence, with kangaroo's hair caught in the wire, and a well worn in goat track that snaked into the bush. No further invitation did I require. I snuck between the cyclone and the barb. It felt like it entered another land. It was darker and cooler with a moody vibe, like I could feel a firmament in my hands. Cause the trees were huge and looming, the undergrowth like a wall, of a castle or a fortress. I looked around, completely enthralled. Further and deeper in I went. I remember it felt profound, the awe inspiring height of the trees, the smells and the forest sounds. I don't know how long I'd been in there, maybe about quarter of an hour, not really worrying about anything, just watching for critters and smelling the flowers. When sort of all of a sudden, I came across a putrid smell. Sort of like shit and a dead animal, but this strange burning sulphur as well. It really was unpleasant, and it seemed like it followed me around, 'cause I couldn't walk away from it and the source of it couldn't be found. Well I decided then I'd had enough and started to make my way back. But as I went I noticed something and it stopped me dead in my tracks. A handful of trees in a random patch, probably as thick as your arm, were all snapped off about two metres high, which was weird, but no cause for alarm. But something else I realized as I stood there scratching my head, and it was even stranger than snapped off trees. I kind of wish I'd stayed back at the shed. The bush had gone completely silent. Not a whisper, not an insect or bird. The place had gone eerily, deathly still. My elevated heartbeat was all to be heard. I continued on my hasty retreat, putting all else out of mind, but an ominous feeling had planted a seed, and I began fearing what I might find. And crack from out of nowhere, no more than twenty yards to my right, what sounded like another tree getting snapped, and I felt my face turn white. I tried to stay cool and composed, but I had the shakes and a lump in my throat, and I thought of the look in old Pop's eyes and his words that I overrode. Still I dared not run in fear of panic, but I trotted stiff and quick. Then another noise stopped me, so I looked around, but I couldn't see. The bush was just too thick. I took another couple of steps and I was sure I heard it again. So I shuffled on a few feet more and I definitely heard it then. Something was bloody pacing me out, paralleling me through the trees. Only twenty feet into my left, I searched, but there was nothing to see. It was copying me step for step, and it sounded like it was on two feet. Surely I'm imagining this, but I pressed on with my retreat. My heart was now pounding hard and making its way to my mouth. I was about to break and charge for home when things slid further south. A rock about the size of a footy, from seemingly nowhere at all, hit the deck only a meter in front of me, the last splinter of my courage to fall. I tried to scream but only croaked. I took off at a scorching pace. I wasn't even sure I was going the right way, as the tears streamed down my face. I sprinted hard as I ever had, in mortal fear of certain death, pure terror causing through my veins, pure penitence on my breath. Still this unseen monster flanked me, but salvation was now inside, because I was back on that well-worn goat track. Oh, at the end of the tunnel was light. But I swear it was getting closer. I could feel its pounding feet, I could feel its rancid breath on my neck, I could feel its blistering heat. I was only metres from the fence when hell's gates opened up, and a scream from beyond the mortal realm, like a volcano did erupt. It was something like a dinosaur and thunder from the sky, and a bellowing, murderous banshee's howl, a deafening explosive cry. I bursted out of that devil's garden and dived headfirst through the fence. I left some hair on the barb with the ruse, but my time in the trees was past tense. I scrambled between the two old dead trees, but tripped on the rabbit hole's mounds, and I tumbled headlong over boots, busted and beaten into the ground. Gasping for breath I conceded. I turned over to receive my doom. The woodland shook with a tremendous howl. Birds took flight with a sonic boom. The monster finally ran out of breath, but I didn't hang around for a yak. I sprang to my feet and took to my heels. I turned around to run and went whack. Straight into Pop with open arms. Before I had time to realize, he clamped him round and gripped me tight, and relief burst out of our eyes. I think I'm up all by myself. I've been sitting on that one for a while. There it is. I'm sharing it with you. I don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm recording this one sitting out in the backyard because I live kind of right on the edge of civilization, if you will. We live on the like one of the outer suburbs of town, and the sort of development stops just after our place. And just out like a out my back fence, I cut a bit of a gate in the back fence, and we can just walk out into the scrub. It's not like pristine wilderness or bushland, and it's a bit gross at first, to be honest. You walk down there and there's people dump shit, and there's the odd burned out car, but you can sort of explore through the scrub a little bit, and it's pretty nice. There's a creek that runs through there not far, and some beautiful trees, so yeah, it's cool. It's a bit of scrub. There's a track that heads out that way. Anyhow, sitting here at night time in the backyard, it's really lovely. Um, you can hear wallabies and kangaroos thumping round, you can hear curloos screaming and lizards chirping on the walls, ducks flying overhead, mobs of ducks. I didn't know ducks flew round at night. These wandering whistling ducks do. You can hear them tweeting and stuff. If any fly over, I'll see if I can catch it for you. But either way, I recorded outside tonight just to try and set a bit of a move, catch the vibe, because um it is a little bit little bit eerie at times. I'm borderline obsessed with that sort of shit. Yowies and cryptids and ghosts and things like that. I've never seen one, but there's no one in the world can say anything to me to make me not believe. Like I'm a hundred percent convinced they're out there, and I like hanging out in the backyard thinking, oh, I'll see one. I'd shit myself if I really seen one. Sometimes before I go to bed. I hang out, we hang outside a bit here at night. We've got a cool little fire pit and stuff that we've built. And yeah, sort of hang out for some nighttime sessions, but often like the last thing I do, I put the fire out, and I just stand up and have a look over the fence, see if I can see a Yowie. Haven't seen one yet. But yeah, I'd shit if I did. I've just listened to so many podcasts and read so much about them, I freak myself out. I don't get a great deal of time to do it anymore, but I used to love going on little solo camping missions. I think I'd be too scared to do it up in the bushland. I live in North Queensland and I don't know, I'd freak myself out going up in the bush. The bloody yaw, you get me. Anyhow, that was kind of what inspired um my little rant this evening. That and like yeah, it's a made-up story, but there is some sort of true elements to it. I speak a little bit about Pop, my grandfather, and um going rabbit trapping and stuff with him when I was a kid. Now I know that's not super cool, you know, trapping rabbits, steel jaw traps, it's pretty brutal, and I I guess I don't really do that sort of stuff anymore. But I was a kid in the 90s, hanging out with a dude who grew up in the 40s and 50s, and that was how he grew up and how he sort of, you know, raised me, doing some adventures like that too. And yeah, some of that is true. I was real fortunate to grow up around the same area that my family had before me, and Pop was a farmer and grew up on the land, and I just loved going for drives with Pop because he was always just telling mad stories. I loved him, and yeah, we couldn't drive anywhere around the or half the state, and he'd pull up and he'd point down a creek. Oh, I whistled some foxes down there when I was young, and me and so-and-so should crept up on this dam every season and shot ducks, and oh, what was that? Here that fuck, I don't even know what that is. I hope you can hear that, or it was a bit of an awkward pause. I'll check it out later. That's what I'm talking about. Just this I don't know, we've got nature right in the backyard here. Anyhow, yeah, and Pop telling me about um trapping rabbits and the rabbit plagues when he was young, like in the 50s, and we'd stop at the on the track at the base of some of these hills, and he'd tell me sitting in the old truck with his uncle back in the 50s, and they'd pull up and give the give the horn a toot in the truck, and the whole hill would move. There was that many rabbits on it, and they really did carry the land away. So, yeah, I guess I'm just drawing on a bit of that too and sharing those stories with you guys. Anyhow, thanks for listening. Thanks for coming back if you uh if you've been with me from the start and listened to my first couple of podcasts. Thanks for all the kind words getting sent in and the love. Um, yeah, it's been really cool. It's been really fun being able to do this. I've actually got, I wrote this down. I've got some listeners from the United States, which is really cool. And I don't know if they're like expats, Australians who live over there now who knew me, or they've just found the podcast randomly. Um I don't know. Either way, it's really rad. Welcome, thank you. People from Broadman, Oregon, Ashburn, Virginia. I've never even heard of those places. People listening to me from there, Dallas, Texas, Columbus, Ohio. There's people listening in LA, Orangeburg, New York, and New York City. How cool is that? Um, yeah. Good on you. That's sick. Uh hit me up on the socials and I don't know, say good day. Give me the give me the gossip. Everyone, please hit me up on the socials. Mick Newton Storyteller on Facebook or Mick Newton underscore storyteller on Instagram. Give me a a subscribe or a like or a follow. Um, I've got some cool stuff on there, just little skits and poetry and um funny things that I've done. Um, yeah, too. Please share the podcast around with your friends and your family, and give it a like. Make sure you hit subscribe too. Um, that way you'll know when the next one's coming out. I've put a couple out. This is my third one, and like I've had a few people, oh, when are you doing your next one? They were telling me after I did the first one. I said, Oh, it's out already, and they're like, Oh no, I didn't know that. Well, you gotta subscribe, and that's how you'll be able to keep track of me, if you want to, of course. But anyway, I guess I'll leave you be. I'm just ranting, rambling on a bit now. So, yeah. Until next week. Oh, and of course, I was gonna do it weekly, and you know, I've missed a week because it's been busy, and I'm sorry about that. I'm gonna try and be as reliable as I can, but I don't know. I'm gonna go around week-ish, fortnight-ish. But yeah, that's why you gotta subscribe so you'll be able to keep a track of that. But um, until next week ish, and I'll be back with something else. I don't know what yet. I'll tell another story. But um be kind to everybody that you encounter, tell everyone you love that you love them, and um peace out.