One day a few years ago I decided to go for a walk. My betrothed was hanging with a friend who was over and neither wanted to head out so I shrugged and went alone.
My neighborhood is exceedingly safe, there’s a little school right down the street and I’ve never had a worry. It was getting closer to dusk but there was still plenty of summer sunlight laying around.
The route I picked was a circuit, it ends in a cul de sac and spins me back homeward. Along the way is a small manicured loop around some grass. It’s surrounded by trees and shrubberies. There’s a little play place and it’s popular to bring dogs and kids while not technically counting as a park.
As I came up on the loop I saw a young man jogging the circle and no one else. He looked to be about late teens to early twenties. I didn’t think anything of it, it’s a popular place to walk.
But when he spotted me coming he froze. He moved off the trail. I was still a ways off so it seemed oddly preemptive. Then to my surprise he went even further to move back into the bushes.
I hastily took off a headphone so I could listen to my surroundings and texted my betrothed and friend to be like, “Hey, here’s where I am on my walk and there’s some guy making me nervous.”
I aborted my trip on the loop since I would have had to pass by his patch of bushes, and continued down the main sidewalk. To my alarm I saw him moving closer through the bushes and I sped up to clear his hiding spot before he intersected with me. I had one glimpse of his blank staring face from his hiding spot before I was safely passed.
I immediately called my betrothed to be like, “There’s some Bush Boy making me nervous, stay on the phone!” I finished the circuit and had to head back the way I’d come from. My betrothed asked if they should come get me but I was feeling a little silly so I said no. I was jumpy on the walk back but didn’t see him again.
It’s possible that he was just a weird kid but it really spooked me. He was staring at me so avidly from a place of concealment. Now my betrothed and I will call someone a Bush Boy if they’re behaving like a creep or we have reason to suspect they’re up to something.
“So-and-so is being a real Bush Boy,” is a common phrase for us. I’ve never seen him again.
