Let's Not Meet~ Reddit Horror Stories

Sometimes You Should Just Ignore Curiosity

Just some basic info about myself as I appreciate when others do the same: Male, 11 at the time of the incident, Australia.

It was around 2pm on a Sunday and my brother (13 years old) had a friend (male, 13 years old) over at our house just to hang out as kids do. Our parents had been away for the weekend and were expected back late afternoon, meanwhile our Grandma was looking after us.

Fairly standard for kids at that age, we were all into BMXs and Scooters etc. My brother and his friend decided that they wanted to go and build their own jump for the BMXs and the easiest way to do this was the classic dirt/mud jump. My brother and his friend invited me along so we grabbed a shovel and the BMXs and headed off after letting our Grandma know where we were going (Our parents would've let us do the same just as some extra info, we weren't taking advantage of our grandma or anything lol).

We live on a street (well crescent to be exact) that backs onto some bushland with a few cleared out paths. We rode/ran about 2km's (about a 1.2 miles) through the bush to get to an openish area next to this dirty, medium sized river. My brother started to shovel some dirt/mud to start making the jump. The friend and I left our bikes sitting a couple of metres away from the rivers edge where it was level with the water itself, this was just so they were out of the way. As we were doing this, we saw this rope/string sort of thing sitting at the edge of the river and leading into the water. We started to pull at it thinking it was just a loose rope but there was definitely something on the end of it. So we keep pulling and pulling until eventually we see what is at the end of it... a crab pot, duh (sorry not a dead body).

Once we realise its just a crabpot, we both pick it back up to throw it back in. As we are doing this, a man comes from out of the path we came through intially. I can't remember too much of what he looked like since it was quite a while ago, but I do remember he was Maori with old looking clothes, t-shirt/shorts, no shoes and holding a machete which in retrospect, he had to assist him with the crab fishing. We hoped thats all he would use it for.The friend and I were still standing at the rivers edge while my brother was the same distance away from the man (around 20m) except across from us in the open, dirt area. He started yelling and screaming at the friend and I,

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY CRAB POT, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE!?"

My brother and his friend didn't say a word, probably thought it was better not to or were just that scared, but as I was a bit younger and probably more naive, as I was shaking like crazy, I tried to reason with him;

"Sorry, we just saw the rope in the water and didn't realise, sorry, sorry."

At this point he was basically just yelling profanity at us. To try and give him some understanding of the situation, I said;

"We were just trying to throw it back in the river sorry, sorry"

To which he replied with the words that scared the living shit out of me.

"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I THREW YOU IN THE RIVER LIKE YOU DID WITH MY CRAB POT HUH!?"

He then started walking over to us. This is when flight kicked in and we knew we had to get out of there. We thought he was walking towards us so we ran to the side trying to keep the same distance away from him. He ended up walking towards our two bikes that were sitting near the river. He picked up one of the bikes and looked at us and said;

"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF THIS WERE YOU!?"

He then threw the bike as far as he could into the river. As he started to pick up the second bike, we took our chance and legged it, my brother taking his bike as he left it near the clearing. He got on and started riding as me and the friend ran beside him. We heard a second splash of the man throwing the other bike into the river but we weren't looking back at all. Eventually my brother let me ride the bike as I was younger and it would be easier for me. I was hysterical, literally crying the entire way. Once we had made some distance, we started to look back to make sure he wasn't following us, we didn't see him although this definitely didn't make us go any slower.

Eventually we made it back home, my parents had just gotten home from their weekend trip around 5 minutes before we ran inside. I'm not sure how my parents knew something was wrong, maybe it was the fact I was crying profusely mixed with the screaming and yelling almost jibberish as I was trying to explain everything that happened in one sentence, hmmm. We eventually explain what happened so my dad calls the cops and they arrive around 1 hour later as it wasn't an immediate danger and they must have been busy. My brother and friend were just sitting on the couch talking to eachother while my mum comforted me.

I only really heard all these next details a couple years later when I asked my parents about it. Apparently while waiting for the cops to arrive, my dad had gotten a crowbar and a small knife and also called two of his mates who arrived shortly after. They actually went into the bush looking for the guy. They didn't end up finding him though. When the cops arrived, my dad took them to the location and they actually ended up finding the man, as well as his wife and child. The roughly 5 year old child was apparently sitting with the mum, playing with a kitchen knife. The cops spoke to the man about the situation and ended up taking him into the station. We never received an update of what happened to him.

I also spoke to my Mum about what happened and she said that she had never seen my Dad that angry before in her entire life. She said that he was in the rage/protective mode where murder isn't out of the question, she didn't have time to reason with him before he left to go searching. She doesn't want to think about what he would have done to that man if they ended up finding him without the cops there and was glad they didn't find him.

A couple days later we actually went back and ended up salvaging the two bikes from the river. That was not a fun process, very dirty and lots of garbage in that river. Could barely see your own hand with goggles on.