The Rural Bunyip

The Rural Bunyip

First draft (If you have time feedback would be very appreciated.)

By: Ash Tewierik

To the west the sun slowly began to set, throwing a beautiful red tint across the surrounding clouds. The atmosphere seemed to agree with the sun as it turned almost mystical, the wind died down to an extremely slight breeze and the local birds sang happily deep in conversation, perhaps the final songs for the day before they hit the hay - a beautiful setting for our first night in the country.

Mum, dad and I had always lived in town, but recently mum had found herself wanting to live out her childhood dream; to live on land with horses. We decided to buy a ten acre property twenty minutes from the town where we were currently living and where both my parents had grown up. Today we moved in, and tonight would be our first night as real rural Aussies. I had invited some of my friends over for a camping trip in the paddock, all pretty excited their parents had dropped them off and had a quick chat with mum and dad while they got a brief overview of the property.

The new house is a small four bedroom weatherboard home, with a massive verandah. The house faces away from the dirt road and towards a large pine plantation. Before the plantation is one of our paddocks, the paddock is entirely sloped, except for one expanse of flat grass cut into the earth which looks as if someone in passed years had intended to build another house there. This is where I was allowed to set up camp.

We set up two four man tents, a barrel for a fire and collected all the equipment we would need before my friends had arrived.
Situated slightly higher than our camping space, mum and dad now sat on the verandah, looking down at us as we began to collect fallen sticks, pine cones and ground cover to burn in the fire. They both have a beer can and a cigarette and are chatting happily together watching us. Seven young teenagers sure can work quickly when fire is said to be involved.

“Hey Dad, we’re finished come light it!” I yelled out.

He said something to mum as he stood up from his chair and laughed as he picked up the petrol tin and walked into the paddock.

“Can I light it?” Andrew asked.

Dad gave him a blank stare, with a cheeky smile as he poured a little petrol over the top of the fire then threw his cigarette on top. The explosion sent us all a step backwards, but we quickly took the ground back and all stood soberly around the ignited fire, smiling wide eyed staring into the depths of the flames.

“Hey Dad, are we allowed to go into the pines with the torches when it’s dark?” I asked.

“As long as you all stay together, and don’t do anything too stupid,” Dad replied after a quick think.

I knew that he would say yes, he loved being the “cool” dad. He soon left us to it, and we all stood around the fire, making jokes and talking about school.

“Hey wanna’ go cow tippin’?” Marc asked

Andrew laughed but the rest of us now wore a confused by eager look.

“What’s cow tipping,” I asked.

“It’s when ya’ go into a paddock while the cows are sleepin’, they sleep standing up ya’ know, then you sneak up on em’ and push em’ over,” Marc said.

We all broke into hysterical laughter, I said that we could do it after we went into the pines. It’s only just dark maybe the cows aren’t asleep yet I reasoned. Everyone was pretty happy with that so we decided to go into the pines now. I looked up to the house, mum and dad weren’t there but I could see the television flickering through the curtains, obviously they weren’t too worried about us, so we prepared to leave. We all put on jumpers, I handed the other two torches around since we only had three and I set off.

“Follow me,” I said.

I led the way towards the weakest part of the barbed wire fence that I had found so far. Pulling up the top wires and pushing down the bottom wires I held them in place as my friends climbed through. They all congregated on the other side waiting for me. I climbed through and stepped in front to lead the way through the trees.

“I saw a lake down here, let’s go check it out,” I said as I flashed my torch from side to side on the ground in front of me.

It’s pretty scary walking at night through places that you’ve never been before, but I wasn’t going to let them know that I was scared so I kept on going. The pines lead downhill, but we took our time as we we’re all a little frightened but never mentioned it. For some reason as we walked we didn’t talk, but concentrated on our footing.

“SNAKE!!” someone yelled.

We all started running, I ran straight ahead, jumping to move quicker and dodging trees. I soon stopped, out of breath, I took a few deep breaths and then silence myself to listen if anyone was yelling out, but all I could hear was silence. Then suddenly I heard their voices, relieved I started yelling back.

“Hey, come down here!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

I quickly realised that I was standing on a path, about two meters wide which cut though the underbrush and was lined on one side by the pines and the other by small bushes. One by one each of them arrived – all but Jason were now present and accounted for.

“Idiot, who called snake, they aren’t even out at night,” Andrew said.

We all laughed a bit, and then started yelling again. There was no response, so we decided to split up. Marc and Andrew started heading to the right of the path to search here at the bottom of the pines. David and Ash headed to the left to search the other side, and Justin and I headed back up to the house to search the top and to see if he had run back to the house.

Walking uphill was a lot harder than coming down and we quickly tired, no thanks to the startled run before. We yelled out Jason’s name then listened to see if there was an answer. All that we could here was the others doing the same and the insects making their strange noises.

“These trees remind me of that movie The Village, wonder if there are any crazy monsters,” I joked.

“Yea, or Sleepy Hollow,” he replied.

We stopped talking and focused on walking; we soon reached the fence, now we could only just here the voices of the others and had gotten no reply from Jason. I was worried, but also amused, after the quick talk about the movies Justin had jumped three times at insect noises on the walk up.

“Let’s go up to the house, get dad to come help us, Jason might have fallen over somewhere, hit his head or something,” I said, pulling apart the fence wires.

Justin climbed through, and held the wires open for me.

“Yea, hope he didn’t hurt himself,” Justin said as we began walking up to the house.

With Justin waiting at the paddock gate I quickly ran up to the house to get dad. He was sitting on the couch with mum watching a movie.

“Dad, we lost Jason in the pines, come help us find him,” I said as I ran in the door panting.

“What happened?” Mum asked as dad got up from the couch.

I told them about someone yelling snake then all of us running, then about not being able to find Jason after that. I said I thought he might have fallen over and knocked himself out or something. Dad grabbed the torch near the door and walked out with me right behind. I jumped ahead outside and led him to Justin. They followed me back to the fence.

We entered the pines, and began yelling Jason’s name.

“Where were you when you started running?” Dad asked.

“Just down here a bit,” I said pointing deeper into the pines.

We reached an approximate place to where we thought we had started running. Dad asked if we had seen which way he ran, but we hadn’t. Then we heard yelling just to the right of us, we yelled back.

Torch light headed towards us, Marc and Andrew appeared, and we quickly quizzed them if they had heard or found him. They hadn’t, and then we heard in the distance more yelling.

“Over here, everyone, over here!”

We all started running; dad stormed ahead and reached them first. I arrived second, and shone my torch on Ash.

“Did you find him?” I quickly asked.

“Couldn’t find him, but we found this weird thing,” Ash answered turning around and shining his light between two trees.

I quickly noticed that we were right near the edge of the lake that I had talked about earlier; the entire place seemed to get even eerier as I peered across the lake the full moon sitting on the water in the middle. Between the trees I then noticed was a weird bunch of sticks formed into a catholic cross. Below on the ground sat a bunch of small bones in a pile.

“What the hell is that?” I said shocked.

“Looks like something a witch would build,” David said.

“Know something about that, do you?” Dad asked, with a little laugh.

We all stood thinking well I stood shaking, the bones, the cross, the path. It all began to pile into my head, and it began to scare me. Then something scared me to my core.

A loud, I guess you could call it a “screeching cry” pierced the air. We all froze then started shaking, even dad looked scared. It seemed to come from the other side of the lake. I quickly shone my torch towards it as it screeched, I didn’t see what made the sound, but I did see big ripples beginning to cross the lake originating from the other side. We all saw the ripples.

“Did you all see that?” Dad asked, his voice trembling a little.

“The ripples, yeah,” Andrew said.

“Not the ripples, what made the ripples,” Dad quickly said.

We all said no, just the ripples. Dad reassured us that it must have been a fox crying.

“Cool, let’s go over there,” Ash said, picking up a stick and beginning to walk around the lake.

“Wait up,” David said, chasing after Ash with his torch.

“Meet back here in ten minutes!” Dad yelled out to them.

“What are we going to do dad?” I asked, still slightly shaking.

“Follow me, lets have a better look around for Jason,” he said.

As we began walking Marc picked up a stick and threw it at the cross. It collapsed to the ground, and as it did another cold shudder ran through me. The cross scared me, but I was now glad that it was gone.

We continued walking, scanning the ground with our now three torches and yelling out for Jason. We chatted in bursts, wondering what had happened to him. Dad was just about to head back home to ring for some more help when another blood curdling cry pierced the air. The screech was longer and louder than before. We all froze and listened, the screech stopped, but was then replaced by a very real and very human scream. Dad immediately started running back to the lake, we followed.

Reaching the lake, we continued running around the edge to reach the other side, shinning our torches on the lake as we ran. Ripples streamed across the entire lake again all originating from the opposite bank. We reached the bank about thirty seconds after dad. He was just standing there, his face obviously horrified, and he was holding a shoe. I shone my torch on his face and then to the shoe to give a bit more light than the moonlight was giving. My face quickly became as scared as dads as I noticed that the shoe was Ash’s and that it was covered in blood.

Dad turned to us but stared straight past us into the pines, he looked like he was quickly assessing the situation. His eyes then grew bigger as if he had just had a light bulb moment.

“Run back to the house as fast as you can,” he said quietly.

I stood silent, scared, and unable to run. I could here the others running, their footsteps quickly trailed of. Dad grabbed my hand and started running, he pulled me out of my shock by dragging me a few steps. He let go and I continued, this time easily keeping pace with him.

As we reached the other side of the lake, the screech again shot through the atmosphere. I didn’t even consider looking back, but dad stopped and turned, pointing his torch at the lake. He soon caught up to me again. We reached the top of the pines, jumped over the wire fence and bolted through the paddock. We caught up with Marc, Justin and Andrew in the paddock, together we all ran through the paddock gate and onto the veranda, not stopping until we had pushed our way in through the front door.

Mum quickly jumped up from her chair as we barged into the house.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, already as hysterical as us.

None of us answered, we just stood around. Dad was already dialling a number on the phone.

“Let’s go to my room, till dad figures out what to do,” I said.

I walked down to my room followed by my three remaining friends. Sitting on my bed, I started racking my brains trying to figure out what was going on.

“This is weird as what do you think happened to Jason? Where’d he end up, and what the hell was with Ash’s shoe?”

No one replied, but I think we all had a similar thought, not a very realistic thought, but a thought nonetheless.

“Stay here guys, I’m going to see what dad’s doing about this,” I said leaving my room.

They all looked so sad sitting on my bed sagged against the wall. What a strange, scary night. The only conclusion I could come up with that fit was that the pines actually were like The Village and that there was in face a monster living there, most likely in the lake. I love horror movies, but this is ridiculous.

“Bring a gun if you can, see you soon,” Dad said, hanging up the phone as I entered the living room.

“Are you alright,” Mum asked, “Dad told me what happened,”

“Yea Mum, I’m alright but it’s weird as what’s happened,” I replied.

Mum walked over and gave me a hug, Dad followed her lead and stepped behind me and patted me on the back. In that one moment, all the fear left me and I felt completely happy and safe, how long would this feeling last I thought to myself, trying to burn it into my memory. We were broken apart by the sound of a car coming down the driveway.

“That’ll be Ian and Andrew, they live on the next road,” Dad said.

I followed Mum and Dad outside, I think my mates heard us leave the house because they came running down from my room. Afraid to be alone I guess – I don’t blame them.

We all stood at the edge of the verandah with mum and watched dad greet his friends. They both shook his hand before moving to the back of their vehicles. Ian was driving a red Ute; he put his hand in the tray and pulled out two handheld spotlight torches. He handed them to Dad then pulled out a large rifle with a scope. Behind his car sat Andrew’s four wheel drive. With him was a kid about seventeen years old, they all came onto the verandah. Andrew was holding a large torch and a shotgun, and the teenager gripped a lever action rifle.

Dad introduced us all and told us that the teenager was Andrew’s kid. Dad told them the entire story, but pulled them aside once he got the part where he and I had run from the lake. I know he turned around then, I wonder if he saw anything, why else would he call friends to come with guns?

After the debriefing was over, Dad turned to us to speak.

“Now boys, I want you to wait here. We will be back soon with your friends,” he said looking at me directly.

Andrew, Marc, and Justin seemed relieved and began heading towards the front door, but I wasn't.

“There my friends Dad I’m helping, no way am I going to just sit around and wait,” I said, raising my voice.

He began to counter my argument, but for some reason I added a stupid line cutting him off.

“And besides, you know I love horror movies, and this is just crazy. I am in this now,” I said, regretting it as soon as it had come out.

“Just let them come,” Ian said.

The argument went of for a little while, but in the end I won out with the support of his mates. Marc also wanted to come, but Andrew and Justin didn’t so they headed inside with mum as we began our walk towards the pines.

Marc and I were given Ian’s two spotlight torches; Dad had the big torch and Andrews son held a smaller, but still big torch as well as his gun. Andrew and Ian freed their hands so that they could use their firearms more effectively I guess.

Now in the pine plantation the pace slowed dramatically, we all moved our torches from side to side, this time lighting up the majority of what was around us with the bigger torches. I tried yelling out for Jason, but Dad made me quickly stop. I think he did see something.

Inching closer to the lake, we began to hear a low cry, similar to that of the louder screeching before but much less menacing, it was more of a slight growl. It still made me shiver but I kept up with the rest of them who slowly made their way down through the entangled trees.

All bunched together in a tight pack, we reached the lake bank at the same time, Marc and I shone our lights over to the other side of the lake where we had found the shoe. I dropped my light as soon as it touched on a black moving object, but luckily Marc kept his nerve and held on tight. Though the light beam was shaking we could easily make out a creature laying on the grass about ten metres from the lake.

I had never been so frightened in my life. It was an amazing sight, laying there was a creature as black as night, its face almost dog like and its body covered from neck to tail in a long shaggy coat of black fur and feathers. Time stood still as we stared at this creature, its eyes blinking in the torches light. It then stood up; its four feet were like flippers though they defiantly had a clawed foot at the end of them. It looked directly at us, then up into the air. It let out the loudest sound I have ever heard, I clutched my hands to my ears as fast as I could.

Marc turned off the light; dad immediately pushed him, making him turn it back on again. The creature was gone, but the sound was not, it echoed through the forest forcing it to go silent. Even the insects stopped making their sounds.

We all stood silent, waiting. All of our torches combing the banks and surface of the lake, guns trained, fingers ready to shoot at the slightest movement.

“THERE!” yelled Marc, pointing at his torches beam on the surface of the water.

Andrews’s shotgun blasted into the water, he reloaded. All was quiet again, suddenly I lost my footing and slipped, I turned quickly to my belly trying to grab onto something, we were standing right next to the waters edge and my feet were about to enter it. Time went slow, I felt the water fill my shoe, and then creep up my leg as I went further in, but luckily it stopped climbing as I touched the bottom. I looked up at the others horrified; dad quickly reached down to grab my arm, and pulled.
Then the water erupted behind me, dad fell backwards losing grip, as the creature propelled out of the water and flew over me, it headed straight for Marc. Its mouth opened, its massive white teeth catching the glint of the full moon. Marc did not move. The creature’s mouth closed around his head and the sound of breaking bones followed. Everyone quickly realised what had happened, recomposed themselves and began firing. Bullets ripped into the creature’s skin, its mouth opened allowing Marc’s body to collapse to the ground as it cried its final cry. Blood began gushing from its body and its crying soon stopped as did the gunfire.

I lay in the lake, scared beyond imagination, I can’t move, I can’t speak, I can’t think. Dad’s had moved down in front of me, I want to take it but I can’t, he bends down and pulls me out himself and throws me onto my back. As I lay there I can hear the others talking, Ian decides to head back up to the house to call the police, Andrews son walks up to the creature and kicks it in the head. Andrew tells him off. Dad looks at me, his eyes still full of horror.

“So you like horror movies hey son?” he asked, mocking me.

I didn’t answer I just laid there, staring at the full moon. Wondering what in the hell else inhabited this world if this creature did.