When I was young I lived in quite a small town in Victoria(Where Melbourne is for you US brahs). The whole town was surrounded by bush in every direction for hundreds of kilometres and we had so much room to play. This particular story is about the first time we got drunk.
In the winter the level of water would drop significantly. Enough for us to camp in the river bed. My best mates parents owned a pub at the time so we were in charge of getting the drinks for a little camping trip we had planned so we could finally pop our drunk cherry.
The place we had in mind was out near an old indigenous settlement (where a few creepy things have happened to us over time).
So we made our way down in to the river bank which was low on the side we came in and really high on the other side. You couldn't see on the other side through all of the trees on the top and it was kind of unnerving knowing someone could be up there watching and you wouldn't know.
There are about 7 of us kids in the camp and our parents have no idea where we are or what we are doing. We lied and said we were staying at a friends place.
We set up our camp and build a little shelter for all of us to sleep under. We are all set up and start drinking as the sun is setting. Soon it's dark and we are in full swing mixing drinks and singing songs and throwing stuff in the water. And generally making a whole heap of noise.
As we are starting to wind down, one of my friends says he saw something move at the top of the river bank on the steep side. We all say that he is full of **** and should calm down but he is adamant there is someone up there so we all start calling out "Come out you pussy!" And other such things. Being brave well beyond our years.
Too our surprise a bearded man wearing straggly clothes and no shoes comes out of the treeline, stands on the edge of the bank and just stares at us. We all go silent waiting for him to do something but for about 5 mins he just stands there and then he retreats back in to the treeline. We all talk amongst ourselves and get a bit nervous but we soon forget it.

About an hour later the guy is back but he isn't on the bank anymore. He is coming out of the shadows from the other side of the bank and entering our camp. He comes over and stands next to the fire. Just joins our group of 12 year old kids and stands there. We are all officially a bit scared and don't really know what to do so we just sit there in silence. Eventually one of my friends gets up the courage to speak to him. "Gday mate! How are you? Are you OK?" The guy just stares at my friend and then starts staring at each of us in turn for a little bit of time spent on each of us. My friend tries again. "Hey! Are you OK? What's your name?" The man snaps his head back at my friend and stares at him wide eyed for at least 2mins before answering.
Without blinking he says in a raspy whisper "That's none of your ****ing business!" And he hisses like a cat. Then this guy just jumps back screaming and staring at the fire like it had just appeared and runs off up the steep bank in record time. It was impossible to get up this thing so we all stand there speechless.
We decide that it's best if we just stoke the fire up because it is about 19km walk in the pitch black back to town and we weren't confident on that. So stoke the fire we did. We sat up for as long as we could keeping watch. Not really talking. Now this is the story all about how My life got flipped, turned upside down And Id like to take a minute just sit right there Ill tell you how I became the croc hunter of a country called Australia. In the outback of Melbourne born and raised In the zoo is where I spent most of my days Taking out, handling, cleaning animal poo And all handling dangerous wildlife too When a couple of crocs who were up in no good Started making trouble in my neighbourhood I got in one little fight and my wife got scared And said youre moving with your crew and documentary to Port Douglas! I whistled for a boat and when it came near the Licensplate said STINGRAY and had a barb in the mirror If anything I could say that this boat was rare But I thought "naw forget it, crikeys to Port Douglas!"
I pulled up to the reef about seven or eight And I yelled to the stingry "Crikeys! Smell you later!" He looked at me square and shot the barb through my chest And now I'm dead in the ocean next to the Stingrays nest! We all eventually dozed off one by one.

When we woke up in the morning, everything was gone. All of our alcohol, all of our bags, all.of our shoes and all of our blankets. Everything. The creepy thing was that none of us awoke as someone robbed us blind and there was not a single footprint. We were sleeping in wettish sand so there should have been footprints everywhere but there were none. It looked like we hadn't even been there. Needless to say we bailed and ran most of the way back to town. Our feet were all cut up and messy by the time we got back. We never told our parents about our camping trip and I think we never will.

Cliffs:

- Went camping with the boys when I was young
- Nobody told our parents
- Creeper rocks up randomly
- Scary chit happens
- Never told anyone about it

absolutely didn't read

Dean Koontz is a miscer

did
not
read
a
single
fuarking
word

Stephen King, you need to chill.

Didn’t read. Just came into say your memory is an illusion and your story probably doesn’t reflect real occurrences in the slightest.

I'll wait for the feature length adaptation of that novel

didn't read all of it, but reminds me of the video game firewatch

go play it for a crazy dejavu breh

I didnt read but id get your butthole checked if you were from Ballarat

Farkin Wolf Creek mate

Knew it, read it anyway.

Good one m8.

Jesus christ I just found the text version of the great wall of China.

I read that chit and wish I didn't