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Welcome to the first installment of our rivetting KIWMAN YARN!!
Tom Bloke stood stock still in the cold air of a bush morning. Sunlight
had begun to stream into the dark world beneath the canopy of native
bush. The light caught wisps of mist and shone on the golden green spirals
of the tall ferns.
At Tom's feet a canteen of river water gave out a loud glugg glugg glugging
as its water escaped. Tom had dropped it in the instant he heard the
sounds coming from the clearing up ahead.
Carefully he lifted his left foot. Delicately he touched the toe of
his boot on the canteen and pushed it so that the mouth was raised and
the water stopped gushing. There he stood poised like someone in a photograph
caught in a ridiculous pose.
He looked like some kind of bush ballerina. If his boss could see him
now he'd say something like “So that's what you hunters get up to in
the bush! I might've known it was ballet.” Up ahead in the clearing
the noises had stopped.
They had stopped the moment Tom had touched his canteen and stopped
the noisy water escaping. He was beginning to wonder if it had been
a bad idea after all when the noises started up again.
But then he knew it had been a bad idea as the noises came closer and
were added to by another sound. A snorting, searching, curious but very
gruff and very powerful sound came towards him from the clearing.
Fear and panic rose within him, his skin became hot from adrenalin rather
than the morning sun that had found it's way down through the leafy
tree tops onto the back of his tan safari shirt.
Tom could see nothing. It struck him that this shouldn't be as the noises
were very near and by now he should be able to see the creature making
them. Suddenly the bush before him exploded in fury!
The sounds and many others came hurtling towards him, thrashing the
little bushland seedlings and ground cover as it came nearer. With his
ten years of field work experience and eight years of training Tom Bloke
fell over backwards.
Every ounce of learning he had gained through life flooding out of Tom's
brain with a glugging sound just like the water from his canteen (which
was once again gushing water now his foot had been removed from it).
He fell backwards, he fell hard, anticipating a ravenous, invisible
beast of nightmare about to leap on his throat and destroy him! Luckily
for Tom something else happened instead.
At first he had felt the ground as it knocked the wind out of his lungs,
then he had looked past his boots to the approaching thing, some invisible
monster about the size of a large dog but sounding more like a bull.
The bush at his feet shook and broke and suddenly he was aware of a
bestial presence sailing over his body and towards his throat.
The sun beam that he had been standing in now covered his whole body
and when the thing jumped at him it had to enter the sunlight. That
was when Tom thought he could see it. Just a glimpse of it, or mainly
it's tusk like teeth. Row upon row of them.
But this he only remembered much later, after he had caught his breath
and been able to think.
What he actually saw as the invisible thing darted for his throat was
an enormous four clawed foot moving so fast it also was blurred almost
to invisibility.
The clawed foot met with the invisible something and repulsed the something
with astounding ease. Tom noted in the brief and strange second after
his salvation that the foot had three rather large toe like claws at
the front and a smaller claw coming off of what looked like a heel.
Then he saw that the foot was some sort of boot. Made by use of some
technology he was unfamiliar with.
Tom looked up to see a somewhat familiar figure, although he had never
seen it in the flesh before. Kiwiman looked down from where he squatted
above Tom.
The hero retracted his viciously clawed boot and helped Tom to get up.
“Hello. We'd better get you up on your pins, if you think you can stand
that is.” Kiwiman said in haughty voice, the long beak wagging from
the middle of his forehead where it sprouted from his hood.
“I think I can.” Tom heard himself say. He had begun to think he was
having a dream, or perhaps a nightmare.
“Well, that was close. You might not have looked the same but for your
quick thinking! How did you know to fall over backwards like that? Did
you know I was behind you?” Kiwiman asked Tom his question in a workman
like way.
“No. No I didn't... I'm not normally scared of... I mean it took me
by surprise. I couldn't see it. It was invisible.” Tom stammered, still
not sure if he was dreaming or not.
“Yes, that's right it is invisible, but it stinks to high heaven.” Said
the Kiwiman.
He was looking down at the bush, his eyes, or perhaps it was his beak
seemed to be following some sort of trail, too subtle for Tom to sense
it. Suddenly the hero gave a pulse of recognition, having found what
he sought and he strode with purpose towards a part of the ground bush
that was bent and crushed.
It was as if there were something lying on top of the ground cover,
something completely invisible.
“Well whatever that thing was that attacked you, it's not capable of
attacking anyone anymore.” Kiwiman said as he crouched next to he eerie
patch of bent leaves.
He felt at the area for a moment, to Tom it seemed as though the hero
was passing his hands through the air, like someone warming their hands
over a fire. But there came a loud rasping sound like course fur and
the ground bush moved under the weight of the invisible thing that the
Kiwiman touched.
“It feels very much like a bush pig,” The hero said turning back to
face Tom, “but much smaller, about the size of a hound. I wonder what's
going on in here. As I also wonder what you're doing here. What's your
name?”
Tom felt a pang of fear at the question, he knew he wasn't officially
allowed to be in this part of the bush.
The pack on his back suddenly seemed a lot heavier too, as if the thing
it was concealing had grown in response to Kiwiman's question.
He was about to reply when a sudden burst of sound came from away to
the right, up the foothill in the dense bush.
“What's that!” Tom said in a harsh whisper.
Both men galvanised into action, dropping low and peering towards the
source of the sound through the gently swaying yearling ferns and grasses.
Even though unknown danger was near Tom breathed a sigh of relief.
At least he didn't have to answer Kiwiman's question right then.
He would try hard to think of something to tell the hero, it had to
be something believable, more believable than the truth which Tom knew
he must keep from the hero at all costs.
To be continued...