Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey. Welcome back to Scary Stories and Rain. This podcast was designed to help you sleep or relax. And keep in mind that if you want to get rid of all of the ads for an uninterrupted experience, you can subscribe to this podcast for $2.99 a month. And this is the last two weeks to be automatically entered to win a Nintendo Switch 2 bundle. Sign up as a subscriber today, get rid of all the ads and be entered to win a Nintendo Switch 2. With that said, I really hope you enjoy this episode and thank you so much for being here. Support for this podcast and the following message comes from America's Navy the Navy offers new graduates, hands on training and experience in careers like computer science, aviation and medicine, plus education and sign on bonuses. Parents help your grads start their career today@navy.com youm say you'll never join the Navy, never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit or break this down. Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Learn why@navy.com, america's Navy forged by the sea. You say you'll never join the Navy, that living on a submarine would be too hard. You'd never power a whole ship with nuclear energy, never bring a patient back to life, or play the national anthem for a sold out crowd. Joining the Navy sounds crazy, Saying never actually is. Start your journey@navy.com America's Navy forged by the Sea before my brother had moved out of state, we would frequently go hiking together. One of our favorite spots was out by a river that was about 15 minutes from our house. By the time this took place, he had already moved and I had not gone hiking. I don't normally hike by myself, but it had been a nice day and I wanted to get some fresh air. For reference, I am a female and I was around 19 at the time. The drive to the river was beautiful. I lived in the suburbs of my city so it was not long before I passed the last of the houses and some businesses that were completely surrounded by vegetation. They got thicker the closer that you got to the river. Once I got to the parking lot, I parked my car, got my backpack, locked my car doors and started walking towards the river which was just a short walk from the parking lot. The parking lot was fairly large for being a recreational area and could fit at least 50 vehicles, but there were only a few cars there that day. I passed the restaurant building and some trash cans on my right and could see some campers by the river a bit out towards my left. They had been at least 30 yards away from me there is a walking trail that runs alongside the river that we would normally use that I was heading towards. Once I got closer to the river, I decided to turn right to start my hike instead of going left because I did not want to disrupt the campers. Soon after I started walking alongside the river, I heard a voice call out to me behind me and I turned around to see who it was. It looked to be an older man, about late 40s to early 50s. He was walking up to me from the campsite and asked if I had a smoke. I had never really been a smoker, so I told him that I was sorry and I did not. I glanced behind him and noticed that it looked like they had been more than just some campers. It looked like they had been living there. He said no worries. I gave a polite smile, turned back around and continued on my hike. After going about 30 to 45 minutes, it had set in that I was hiking alone and I suddenly no longer felt safe. I stopped to drink some water and also got my pocket knife out to hold in my hand in case I came across an animal or something. It had been getting a little warm, so I had taken my jacket off as well and held that over my arm which had concealed the pocket knife. I backtracked almost to where I had started and noticed that the older man had started to walk towards me again and called out to me. I stopped to talk to him to see what he needed. To my surprise, he had asked me if I wanted to go hang out with them. I told him I couldn't and I had to get back home. I started to walk away and he had asked for my number and grabbed my tank top. I told him that I was sorry and I was not interested and pulled away. He kept holding on to me, my tank top bunched up in his hand for a few more seconds. It felt like minutes and it seemed like he had been considering something before letting me go. I was terrified, but had been glad that I had my pocket knife in my hand in case he tried anything drastic. I speed walked back to my car running. Once I was close enough, I had gotten in my car immediately, locked my doors and got out of there as fast as I could. I don't know what would have happened if I stayed with them or what that man's intentions were, but I have never hiked alone since. I have started taking a supplement known as Lion's Mane over the past few months. It's supposed to help with brain function and improve memory. I'M pleasantly surprised by how well it's been working for me because lately I've been remembering a lot of events from my early childhood when I was around four to six years old, with a surprising amount of detail. A lot of them are good memories, but one in particular stands out to me. When I was younger, my parents would always take the whole family out to a small town in Colorado to go on vacation. We loved the atmosphere of small towns and wide open mountain ranges, and this place was our regular travel spot. Now, when I say small, I mean that this town is home to about 300 people. It got its start as a mining town in the late 1800s, and the families of those miners generally stuck around and their descendants still inhabit the town to this day. Everybody knows everybody in this town and people knew my family because we were regular visitors and we owned a few acres of land on the edge of the town. I can recall one vacation in particular. It was around the start of winter, so my parents had taken my brother and I there on one of our school breaks. My grandparents came to join us and I remember having a great time going on walks with the whole family and playing with the new toys my grandparents had gotten me. One of the toys they got me was a little remote control ATV with a toy man sitting on top of it wearing a helmet and a biker jacket. I think that toy is the reason this memory stands out to me for reasons that you will soon understand. On that vacation, we took a walk around the less populated parts of town because this was a town that seemed to come up out of nowhere in the middle of the mountains. There were plenty of walking trails and scenic routes to explore, and I would always take walks with my family when we visited. One of our favorite routes included a bridge that overlooked a steep valley and the scenery looking off that bridge was absolutely beautiful. When we got to that point in the walk where we approached the bridge, there was a man sitting there with his back rested against the guardrails of the bridge. Now remember that toy I mentioned earlier? This man was also wearing a helmet and a biker jacket just like my toy. I remember thinking this was really cool. And I said something to him like, you look just like my toy. Immediately my mom said something to the effect of of, oh honey, don't bother that man. He's tired and needs to rest. I didn't think much of that because I was a very over talkative kid and I was used to my parents telling me not to bother strangers. My dad chimed in saying something about how he knows this guy and how he was going to stop and talk to him for a bit. He told us that we should all go on ahead with the walk and that he would catch up to us later after he was done talking to the guy. I didn't think much of this either because like I said, everybody knows everybody in this small town. My mom grabbed both me and my brother by the hand and practically dragged us past the man and onto the rest of the walk. This is the point where I thought something felt weird because it seemed like my mom was in a hurry for no reason. I asked her who that man was and my mom just told me that it was a friend of my dad's and that he'll be back later. I put the whole thing out of my mind quickly and enjoyed the rest of our walk. Only when my dad met back up with us at the cabin we were staying in did I think about it again and I asked my dad who the man was. He told me something about how it was just an old friend who lived here and we never talked about it again after that. Here we are now, nearly two decades later, and this memory pops into my mind today when I see a kid in my apartment complex playing with a similar toy to the one that my grandparents had gotten me. I remembered those nice vacations and how much I enjoyed looking off into the vast space of the mountains and valleys. I remembered playing with that toy ATV in the backyard of that vacation cabin, showing my grandparents all of the cool tricks I could do with it. And I remembered that man sitting on the bridge and how my mom was in such a hurry to get on with the walk while my dad stayed behind to talk to the guide. Suddenly, that memory didn't quite feel right. Something was off. I kept thinking about it through the rest of this morning, wondering why my mom was so insistent that we move on, wondering how my dad could have possibly recognized the man when his head and face were completely covered by a helmet. I texted my dad, asking him, do you remember that time we were on vacation in Colorado and you ran into one of your friends sitting on a bridge that we were walking on? It suddenly popped into my head and I remember it being kind of a weird situation. What happened there? At this point, I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to that question. I just got off the phone with my dad about an hour ago. He called me after seeing my text. He said he didn't think that I would even remember that happening, but that he thinks about it all the time and that he often worried about whether my brother and I understood what was going on in that moment. He explained the entire thing to me and my suspicions were confirmed. While we were taking one of our usual walks, we came up to a bridge and my parents saw that man sitting there leaning against the bridge, or to put it more accurately, that man's body. My parents were alarmed when I immediately tried to talk to the body about my new toy. So my dad quickly came up with the idea to say that he knows the guy and that he would meet us later because he wanted to talk to the man. In reality, he had never met the man before in his life. He just wanted to check to see if the man still had a pulse and call 911 about the situation. This next part is what made my dad feel extremely uncomfortable and still makes him feel queasy thinking about it today. He didn't want my brother and I to understand what was actually going on. So in order to conceal the fact that this man was probably no longer alive, he sat down next to the body and started talking to it. He had to sit right next to this man's body and carry on a one sided conversation with it until we were out of earshot. At that point, he checked the man's pulse and confirmed what he already knew. That resting biker would be resting forever. This was before cell phones were very common and even then there would have been no way to get a signal in an isolated town like this. He ran back to town, called the county sheriff from a landline, and ran back to the bridge to wait for them to arrive. While my dad was waiting there, he looked around to try to figure out what happened. And it wasn't hard to tell. The bridge had started to get icy because it was the start of winter and this man must have been taking the curb onto the bridge a little too quickly. My dad looked over the edge of the bridge and sure enough, there was a motorcycle at the bottom of the valley. The man had crashed, probably been injured very badly, and had propped himself up hoping that help would arrive. My family did come across him, but not soon enough. Looking back on it, we never took that walking path again in all the times we vacationed there. In the future, I think my dad wanted to avoid it. Both because the memory of having to talk to a body and pretend it was alive made him feel sick, and because he didn't want my brother and I remembering the situation and figuring out what actually happened. This episode is brought to you by JCPenney. Yes, JCPenney. And if you've been there recently. You know it's the place to go for jaw dropping looks at brag worthy prices. They've got something special for every style and budget, not to mention rewards and deals that make finding those hidden gems even sweeter. If you already shop JCPenney, you're already in on the secret. But if not, it's time to ask. Wait, am I sleeping on jcpenney? Shop jcpenney.com yes jcpenney this episode is brought to you by Lifelock. When you visit the doctor, you probably hand over your insurance, your ID and contact details. It's just one of the many places that has your personal info and if any of them accidentally expose it, you could be at risk for identity theft. LifeLock monitors millions of doctors data points a second. If you become a victim, they'll fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year@lifelock.com podcast terms apply a few summers ago I worked at a mall in Toledo, Ohio, a pretty big city nestled right up against the west end of Lake Erie. I was very concerned about money at the time and I wanted to work as much as possible in order to save up for an apartment, my first major purchase. To do that, I took a job at the Great American Cookies Shop in the mall's food court, which had been around since before I was born. And to get some more bang for my buck, I worked there at night. For those who don't know, a lot of bakeries and coffee shops will often hire a baker to come in at dead of night in order to make all the pastries and treats for the morning. They'll come in around 3am and just bake for hours on end. That was exactly what I did. I pounded out cookie cakes and put cookies in the oven until the sun came up and then I stayed even longer to make some more money. It was actually really cozy and relaxing between the heat from the oven, the silence of the mall, and the freedom to blast my music or my podcasts. But it also put me on edge sometimes. It was haunted as heck and nobody really knows why. One morning I was in the middle of eating breakfast at my counter when I heard the carousel's sharp music echoing through the massive food court to set the scene. Our food court has this little play area on the opposite side from where I work. It's got all these kiddie rides that light up and play music and they are all motion activated so they light up when people walk by. Normally I wouldn't give the sound a second thought, but I knew For a fact that there wasn't supposed to be anybody else in the mall at this hour, and there is no way that I could have activated the ride sensor myself. As a person who regularly listened to scary stories while at work, I was immediately excited and anxious to see what might have happened. I turned on the oven and shut off the lights to every area but my workstation in order to tune in to the other end of the dark food court. It was nearly pitch black beyond the dark dim lights above my workstation, but I could see that the only thing out of place was that carousel, which was now spinning just enough for its creaking and scraping to find a rhythm. It wasn't until a second ride activated that I saw what really set it off. Illuminated by the headlights of one of the race car themed rides, it was clear to me that there was something standing behind the camera carousel. Something that was now facing my direction. The very defined silhouette of a security guard leaning around the central pillar of the ride. I had been standing and leaning around the corner of a doorway, essentially mirroring it, trying to keep hidden enough to watch uninterrupted. I did that until I started to feel uncomfortable with what I was looking at. If they are standing on a carousel, why aren't they spinning? If they are a security guard, why aren't they doing their rounds like they do during the day? Why were they trying to sneak around in the first place? I kept my eyes glued on the opposite end of the food court As I texted one of the security guards. I knew they confirmed my suspicions. I was the the only person scheduled to be in the mall. I glanced down at my phone to reread the text. It maybe took a second. The moment I felt my gaze drop, I stopped myself. But it was already too late. There was now something standing about five feet away from our counter, right along the edge of my field of view. Fun fact about the counter of our shop, it's not tall. I, standing at 6 4, could essentially step over it. And my comically short sister who worked the day shift told me that she sometimes just leapt over the counter. After closing up shop, I was now essentially standing in an island with only one route of escape. If this creep decided to jump the counter, I took the opportunity while I had it and left the shop. It didn't end there though. My car was parked pretty far away. So I instead decided to run along the long service hall towards our stock room. It was the only other door in the mall that I could lock and unlock, so I pushed my back against the door and locked the deadbolt behind me. Feeling better behind a locked door. I sat there watching YouTube under the blindingly bright ceiling lights. I felt secure and safe in that room right up until I heard footsteps coming slowly down the hallway. They were slow and light, like a kid tiptoeing down their stairs on Christmas. It was almost playful. I held my breath and waited for the footsteps to pass by my door. It was like they stopped just before it and started to walk in through place, as if it knew where I was but couldn't get to me. It was then that I heard these clicking and flickering sounds. Some mix between the sound of keys jingling and lights popping on and off. Whatever was outside that door, it was just having its fun, scaring me. I'm sure a lot of people have had a nightmare where they were running away from a threat that always knew exactly where their prey was. It felt like that, but I knew this was real. Luckily, I also knew I was safe and at one point or another I realized that the footsteps were gone. It wasn't until after I told the story to my co workers later that I realized I never had to reopen the deadbolt to exit that stock room. It was already unlocked. This happened to me and my friend Anna when we were just kids. Around 10 or 11 years old, I used to live in a very quiet small town in a house right in the middle of a purely residential neighborhood. A lot of kids from my school used to live near me as well when I was young. I was a pretty well behaved kid. Some of my friends though were mischievous. Anna herself was a little punky. She liked to explore everywhere and would often go against what our parents told us. This one afternoon Anna came to my house after school to play. Since my neighborhood was surrounded by beautiful trees and the day was warm, we set out to walk and play. It was a little bit before sundown, so maybe 5pm when we spotted a cottage. We got to it and played around it for a while until Anna spotted something right beside us. A huge spotty Dalmatian. The dog was inside a metal fenced backyard belonging to the house right next to this cottage. We marveled at the dog's gracefulness and came closer, close to it, heading it through the fence. It was friendly enough and let us play with it for a while. Suddenly another dog came along, this time an equally large German shepherd. This one though, didn't seem as friendly and kept its guard up but still let us pet it. We giggled and had fun with the dogs for a while. Nobody came out from the house their owners lived in, which was seemingly empty. From our perspective, it looked like no one was home since the windows were shut. This house had a large yard with some toys and a playground indicating a family with kids lived there. I generally had a pretty good idea of who my neighbors were, but I did not know the residents of this specific house. Everything was fine until Anna had the brilliantly stupid idea of jumping the fence in order to properly play with the dogs, literally trespassing. I immediately protested this idea with all the reasoning of a non confrontational child. I argued that we could get caught, go to jail, get hurt, etc. Anna though, wasn't having any of it and made up her mind to hop the fence. I said I would help but would not join her and would wait for her outside where I was. Anna was a tiny skinny kid and on this day she was wearing sneakers and jeans, so against my will I helped her up. She put her foot in a kind of stuff step in the middle of the fence and got to the top. This fence was pointy, so Anna had to hover above the spikes in order to not hurt herself. As soon as she got steady, the worst possible thing happened. The German shepherd started barking viciously and bit her right foot, the one that was inside the fence. Anna started screaming in pain. It took a beat to understand what was happening because we didn't anticipate that this could even happen. I remember vividly feeling horrified, not only because of the sudden loud barking, but because of the blood pouring down my friend's leg right in front of me. It took me only a couple of seconds to realize all of this, but then I immediately sprang into action trying to pull Anna back from the top of the fence. She was crying and screaming like never before. The sounds were bone chilling and filled with pure panic. She kept howling and saying she couldn't move and would be stuck there forever. I was terrified myself, but I knew something even worse could happen if she stayed up there for a minute longer. I couldn't get too close to the fence because now both of the dogs turned feral as they would. Both were clearly security dogs, but we obviously did not realize it at the time. I was in so much panic that I started crying really hard while thinking of what I could possibly do to help. I got a little bit to Anna's side and tried to pull her back. That was when she bumped into the spike and ripped the inside of her jeans by her upper thigh. Anna cried even louder after minutes of mine trying to pull her and the Dogs trying to attack. She managed to throw herself onto the sidewalk safely. We hugged each other, crying and trembling. That was when I realized her shoe had fallen inside the fence, right where the dogs were still barking and stamping on, still really shaken up. We looked around to see if there was anyone that could help us, but we were completely alone. I'll never forget that dreadful lonely feeling. Anna's foot was bleeding quite a lot and she kept saying how much it hurt. I asked her if she was okay with me going back to the house to call my mom, but she didn't want to be alone nor to tell any adults what happened in fear of a scolding. I was really frustrated and scared, but still tried to keep calm and resolved the situation in my child mind. We couldn't leave her shoe behind since it could be found and maybe traced back to us somehow, as if this was some kind of CSI situation. I then tried to get the shoe, but the dogs were still perceiving us as threats even after getting off their fence. I tried throwing rocks at the back of the yard to attract their attention and make them retreat from the front gate. At first this did nothing, but eventually they backed off. I grabbed a twig and fished out her bloody shoe from inside the gate. Hurt, crying and shaking, we came back to my house. Luckily for Anna, my bedroom was on the ground floor and had a big window I used to climb through. Instead of using the back door, I smuggled her her through the window and did my best to clean up the injury in secret. I don't recall exactly how bad it was, but I think the sudden anger of the attack and the sight of the blood scared us more than anything. I still made her promise she would tell her parents and take a rabies shot since it was something I had already gone through a few years before and knew to be important. After she left, I felt so bad that I had to tell my mom. She was really worried and upset, revealing that what we did put our lives in danger and that the house actually belonged to another kid that went to my school. That made me feel even worse. What if the kid somehow found out and told everyone? It didn't make sense of course, but I was very shaken up. Thankfully, I was physically unharmed and Anna recovered just fine. Nowadays, I know that what we did was pretty stupid, but back then it didn't seem like it would be such a scare or even dangerous. All we wanted to do was play with the dogs. We did learn our lesson though and never hopped any fences or pet unknown animals ever again. The slumber party for 5 is now 10. Just tap Target Better get more glitzy nail polish and pancake mix. You tap a same day order and it's off to find those extra pillows. Delivery when you want it. Just tap Target. The following events took place in June 2022. My passion is in wild foods. I'm no stranger to working out in the bush for a living. Prior to this I was building mountain bike trails for my friend's company. He owned and was a tree planter. I realized mountain biking, while fun, is not something I can use to get ahead in the world. Tree planting, while lucrative, is probably the most miserable I have ever been in the world. Workforce good parties though. It's basically sacrificing all comfort and volunteering yourself for hardship and misery so you can earn a bunch of money quickly and have a rave in the woods every three days. I always picked mushrooms and foraged for fun. But once I found out I could monetize my passion, that it's in fact a pretty big industry and can be just as lucrative as, if not more so than planting, I was head over heels. Granted, you need to know what you are doing and what to look for and where, but you can make a killing if you do. Morels are a very lucrative and sought after wild mushroom that rely almost entirely on wildfires to produce fruiting bodies. The carbon from a wildfire spikes the PH of the soil and such a way that it is the ample substrate to produce and the connection between the mycelium and the relationship with the tree roots they depend on becomes disrupted. So they desperately flourish, producing as many morel mushrooms as possible to spread as many spores as possible to reestablish these connections. In turn. They also cleanse the soil and allow the forest to to regenerate. Sometimes I find a patch so juicy my jaw just drops and I cannot even believe what I have stumbled across. That being said, it's a dangerous industry. Every picker I have met has some sort of harrowing tale of survival. Each year pickers go missing, either to be found as a corpse or never seen again. Being that far out in the wilderness is inherently dangerous. One time I slipped and almost impaled my chest on my knife. I'd have been so screwed. Even just rolling an ankle that far from a road or a hospital carries its own risks. I have almost died alone in the woods more times than I'd like to admit and this tale is just one of those times. It was a beautiful bluebird day to be out picking. I was deep in the woods off a logging road inside the Okanagan Indian Band. I must have hiked close to 2km up the mountain, across a cut block and far into the woods. I kept finding clusters. Nothing too special. I had come across one hillside that was very steep, but was loaded with some big holes. Honkers. The top of the ridgeline had various clusters all over it. I had about 25 pounds stuffed into buckets, which I had propped up next to a decaying log so they wouldn't tip over. I was taking a break while also scouting the area to see if any more were around. I had pretty much depleted the area on top of the ridgeline and beyond that was too dry for anything to grow. I was scanning around, hoping I could find one more cluster. Generally, mushrooms will cluster near a patch. I knew it was around in the general vicinity. My eyes turned back to the direction I came from. There was a really steep hill that plateaued out onto another ridgeline. But just below this hill, the ground was littered with burnt pinecones. Then it dawned on me. I am picking in cedar and birch. There are no pinecones to be had up in here. Holy crap. Those aren't pinecones. I exclaimed to myself in astonishing wonder. I panicked with excitement. Normally I'd have dropped a waypoint to my buckets on my gps, but if my eyes died, didn't deceive me, I somehow walked right past the biggest patch of morels I'd ever seen in my life. I scrambled down that steep hill as fast as I could, and sure enough, blending into the black soil and singed cedar leaves was an overwhelming surplus of morels. Most of these were young baby mushrooms. If I had my wits about me, I would have more marked this entire area on my gps. Also, as that patch would be producing for the next two to three weeks. Instead, I hungrily and greedily scrambled across the forest floor on my hands and knees, filling my planting bags, my T shirt baskets, and everything I could use to store them. There were so many. I was financially struggling and looking so hard that I was ready to cry at the blessing nature had bestowed upon me. I stood up for a second. Drenched in sweat, I caught a bad whiff of something in the air. Disgusting, I thought to myself. As soon as I get to camp and cash out, I'm heading to town and washing these nasty nose piercings. Gonna get some real food and a nice clean shower, I thought to myself. I was driven. Shortly after, I thought I heard sticks snapping. I froze, called out to the wind, scanning my surroundings a Woodpecker near me started pecking a tree. Dang bird. I said to myself as I resumed working. Little did I know I was being watched this entire time. I had pretty much filled everything. I could carry mushrooms in up to the brim and couldn't pick any more. I resolved to mark this on my gps, cash out at the nearest buyer station and head back up and pick until dusk. Suddenly, without warning, I heard a very loud, loud and hollow thud. Followed by another and another. I looked back to the source and it was my mushroom bucket tumbling all the way down the hill, spewing mushrooms in every direction. Like Sonic the Hedgehog when he loses his rings. A very strong gust of wind came and simultaneously my other bucket followed suit. This was infuriating. I threw a hissy fit and started screaming at my buckets as loud as I could as they tumbled, screaming expletives, slurs and curse words at the winds, assuming it was a breeze that knocked them over. When I got my composure back, I heard a very loud snap and a loud huff. Right at the top of the ridgeline was a black bear staring me down. I have encountered many a bear with only a few close encounters. The moment I saw this bear, I knew something was off. It was a juvenile, big yet scrawny. It was bobbing its head up and down and huffing. Its fur was standing on end and it was staring right at me. It looked agitated. It took a few steps towards me and I froze. I knew I had to stay calm. No point in running from a bear. Side note, as I was leaving my car that morning and looking for my bear spray, it was nowhere to be found. I could see it clearly in my mind's eye, right next to my bed in my tent. Screw it. It's not like I'm gonna need it, I said to myself. I also had an exacto knife and a buck knife, both of which were black colored and got lost. As soon as I set them down in the woods, they blended in seamlessly into the black ground. I was vulnerable, sitting duck with only my limbs to the defend myself crap was the only thing that went through my mind at first. It started slowly coming towards me. Our eyes were locked together. I started to realize the severity of the situation. I reached for my spray and it wasn't there. I remembered that if a black bear attacks you, you must must fight back. Unlike grizzlies, black bears will eat you alive if they attack you. Bears do not kill their prey, they just eat it. Grizzlies will attack if they see you as a threat and playing dead does in fact work for them. Not black bears, though. Rare black bear attacks on average are more flawless fatal than grizzly attacks. Fun fact. All of these thoughts came rushing through my head so fast I could barely process them. I was still frozen as this bear slowly crept down the long hill toward me, grumbling and growling. To say I felt vulnerable and helpless is an understatement. I realized I was looking this bear directly in the eyes and even though it was far away, it is not something you should ever do. I remember my crew boss in tree planting describing black bears as big raccoons that are easily startled to make lots of noise, get big and try to scare it off. I unclipped the planting bags I was using to store mushrooms on my hips, lifted them over my head to augment my size and gave a long shout as loud as I could. The bear froze and growled. Completely unfazed by this, I stomped the ground and gave a couple of short shouts like a dog would bark. Hey. Hey. As soon as I screamed this at the top of my lungs, it erupted into full blown charge straight at me. Supposedly the top speed of a bear is 50 to 60 kilometers per hour. It's astounding how explosively fast they reach that top speed. I didn't even have time to flinch before it had cleared all that ground and was upon me. I kept my size augmented with my planting bags and was screaming bloody murder, literally screaming so loud. I tasted blood standing my ground, just full blown panic screaming. This bear was stopped 10ft away from me, snarling, drooling, snapping its jaws and swiping at me. The bear stopped and I backed up maybe six feet before it lunged at me again. I stayed put, screaming at it. The bear got up on its hind legs staring down at me and let off a roar as it came came back down on its fours. It snapped its teeth once more and took a swipe at me with its claws. It looked like it was gonna pounce and eat me. The next move it made. Without even thinking of it, I took a gamble. I leered at it, screaming and kicked a pile of dirt and ash directly into its face and open mouth. This in hindsight was very foolish. 9 out of 10 times times it would have just pissed it off. But it worked. The bear coughed and huffed looking at me and growled before running back up to the ridgeline. It spun around and looked like it was going to charge again, but I raised my bags higher above my head and let out the most desperate cries imaginable. Screaming beyond bloody murder. The bear finally got on top of the the ridgeline and I started backing out away from it in the direction I came from. Initially, it was now following me with eyes on me, the only thing separating us being the long steep hill between ridgelines that was getting longer the further I went. This bear was stalking me as I literally sidestepped in a crab walk, screaming as loud as I could at it, screaming every curse word in the book until my throat was completely raw. I realized I was still locked in direct eye contact with it and instantly felt like an idiot. I jumped up and down, screaming as loud as I could. It huffed and went out of sight. As this bear disappeared behind the ridgeline, I noticed I didn't get even have time to realize how scared I actually was. I felt dizzy, my heart was beating out of its chest, and sweat was literally pouring off my body. Is it gone? I thought to myself. No, it wasn't. It disappeared out of sight and got behind me in the direction I was moving in. I heard brush snapping as it reappeared on top of the ridgeline further down, waiting for me to get closer. Piss off. I shouted, augmenting my size again, making all the ruckus I could. It charged again down the hill at me. Good thing I went to the bathroom in the woods before this happened, otherwise I would have filled my trousers and seasoned myself. This time it charged slightly off to the side of me and blew right past me, down the hill and out of sight again. I took this opportunity to run in the direction I came from. This was stupid. The sound of my fleeing must have brought it back because the next thing you know, I was staring down at it from the ridgeline I was at again. I augmented my size and slowly started backing away. This thing ran up onto the ridgeline I was at, paused, then scrambled back up the hill and resumed stalking me from on top of the upper ridgeline again. It ran farther down and waited. I was certain I was gonna die that day. I knew for a fact that I was being hunted. This bear was stalking me and closing a circle around me so it could pounce when it knew I wasn't looking at it. I'm not a religious man, but found myself begging to God to save me and begging for forgiveness. It all felt hopeless and in vain. I proceeded along with my exit strategy as this thing went out of sight again. Cautiously, I started walking forward faster until I came around the bend and this bear was right in my path, staring me down and slowly approaching me, snarling and huffing. I knew I was helpless and so did this bear. I screamed at it, cursing, and started walking carefully up the hill. It descended down on me from prior. It approached me again and I kicked my more dirt at it from a distance that would never reach it. This bear was hesitant. I don't think it really knew what to do as it probably never encountered a human and I was tall with the upper ground. Now I slipped walking backward up this steep hill and its interest definitely peaked again. The bear resumed its approach. I had like 25 to 3030 pounds of mushrooms in these planting bags I had over my head and I could barely hold my arms up anymore, so I chucked them down the hill at this thing. The bear scrambled towards this scattered mess of mushrooms, sniffed them, bit one, spat it out, and looked at me again. I continued with my exit strategy as it scrambled up the hill so it was level with me. It let out a strange noise as I was shouting once again for it to screw off. It continued approaching. I stopped. Then the bear stopped. This happened frequently and each time the bear stopped, I would resume and shortly after it would continue stalking me. It appeared to lose interest in me and again ran out of sight. I stood there petrified for a bit until it seemed like it had finally left me alone. At this point, I started hiking with haste in the direction I was retreating in, frequently stopping to listen and check my surroundings. Just before I broke out of the woods into the cut block, I caught another nasty whiff of something. I knew the bear was around. I could smell it. These creatures roll in carcasses, feces and muck. Most times you can smell a bear before you see it. I couldn't see anything, that is, until I noticed it goal posted between two trees right next to me. Still checking me out. I started screaming every expletive in the book until it fell. Felt like my voice was breaking. At this point, I had finally made it to the cut block I hiked in from. I continued backing away. The bear continued approaching. It stopped. However, it was just checking me out from the tree line now and not approaching any further. I was now in a wide open exposed spot where I could see my surroundings from without any obstructions. The direction I was fleeing revealed the faint neon colors of the tents back at Jane's camp. Meanwhile, back at Jane's camp, an old man named Chuck, bless his soul, was eating a can of beans and smoking a joint and heard me screaming for a while. He reluctantly decided someone had injured themselves in the bush and went to go investigate. I reached the opposite end of the Cut block and the bear looked like it was just a distant furball. Now, as I was getting closer to the camp, I saw Chuck walking up the hill, joint in hand, asking me if everything was alright. I was so rattled that I frantically explained everything I just went through while hyperventilating and broke down crying in front of this man. Calmly, he extended his joint to me. Here man, take some. You really need it right now. A wave of calm washed over me. He offered me water. We walked down the hill to a spring coming out of the mountain and I splashed water on my face. I felt safe. I felt like the situation was over. I got my bearings again and started breaking down. That I worked almost nine hours and lost all of my mushrooms. Bless this man as his response was Aw buddy, you lost all of it. Come on, let's go get him. After a lot of back and forth forth, he convinced me of things I should have done to avoid that situation altogether and convinced me of strength and numbers. I explained I had no waypoint on my GPS and that it would be a mission. He asked if I could trace my steps and find the area again. Yeah, I think so, I replied. Let's go then. Come on before it gets dark. What about the bear? What bear? I looked back and the bear was gone. He had bear spray too. So we started booting back up the mountain. It was a wild goose chase. But two and a half hours of hiking later, as we were giving up and the sun was setting, I found them. We hastily packed these mushrooms out of the way woods and got back to camp where I cashed out. I thanked Chuck profusely. What a guy. He didn't even ask for a cut for helping me. Now I was debating even including this information, but I feel it's somehow important. That year I was in a deep depression where I was strongly considering ending it all. This experience was a spiritual one. And the spiritual revelation that came from all of this was, I am going to freaking Denny's. I almost died a slow, painful, agonizing death in the woods by myself. And my last meal would have been Vector cereal with no milk. I bought three steaks and four four appetizers. I realized if I ever leave this world, I am not leaving willingly. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?