The body in the bushes

Jessica (Miss 18) went for a walk before dinner as she usually does. She strolled through the bush/reserve at the end of the street and out the other side to a curvy street with beautiful mansions, but also reminiscence of drugs and parties at the start of the street where hoods come in their cars and hang out.
Rubbish everywhere from fast food joints, broken beer bottles and smoke butts everywhere.
She walked along the side of the road like she always does, admiring the beautiful houses, dreaming about living in one.. passing the reception center where she imagines having her own wedding reception at...
suddenly she is struck by this terrible stench. It's like garbage at first, so she keeps walking, thinking it's coming from the bins that she sees tucked away behind a fence of the reception place.
As she keeps walking, gusts of wind blows a stronger scent which she has never smelled before. She gets an eerie feeling when she sees drag marks in the dirt leading to bushes. She looks into the bushes and the smell is even stronger now.. so strong she dry heaves.

She rushes home and with images of dead bodies, wondering if someone was murdered by the drunken louts who left their mark down the end of the street.
When she tells me what she saw and smelled, she seemed so freaked out that I thought I would put her mind at ease and go back there with her.
I was sure at the worst, it would be a dead animal that may have been dragged off the road and hidden.

So heading through the bush and out the other side with Jessica leading the way, I enter the street and see the empty bottles and cans and rubbish. There are no cars around.. no people, just huge mansions that you would see in Hollywood. Maybe someone in the Mafia owns one of these houses.. I giggle at myself.. as if.
Then I get a slight change in the air.. a scent that is strange, but not like a dead animal.. or maybe it is, but I am so far away from the spot, that it's mixing with other smells, stopping me from making out exactly what it is.
I keep walking, the smell gets stronger and stronger.. every time a gust of wind passes it's stronger again..
Eventually we came to the bushy area with spiky twigs and teeny white flowers. It's dense and the smell is now powerful. I am dry heaving, it's got to be a dead something. At first I wonder if there is something dead in the drain, which is situated right in front of the bush. I try to look inside but it's too dark and there is no way I can lift the concrete slab. So I focus back to the bush and decide to pull the shrub open and peer through. I get images in my head.. the smell is making me see corpses. I truly start to believe that I will find a dead body. I walk along the edge of the shrub and every 2 feet, I pull the shrub open and look inside. I get to one section and with dread pull open the shrub.. a swarm of flies fly out and surround me. The smell is so heavy.. I see a mound. What is it? I look closer by bending my body forward and leaning in to the bush. I don't want to step inside. I am over come with fear and dread and a sick feeling.
The mound is large.. could easily be a body. It's long and wide and covered with dirt and twigs and flies.
I turn to Jessica and say.. I think you are right Jessica. This smell reminds me of death. There is something in there.
I have brought the cell phone just in case. I dial 000 wondering if that will work.. I think there may be a different number to ring from a cell....
someone answers
Emergency police fire or Ambulance?

Police please.

The call gets transferred and the operator says some code thing to someone else.. the other person speaks to me
Police, where is your emergency?
What State and town?

I tell her

What is your emergency?

I think I have found a dead body

Ok miss, can you give me your exact location?

I didn't know the name of the street and it was a very very long street and I didn't want to walk off on Jessica, but didn't want to lose the spot with the mound.
I tell her it's the street across from where the Steiner school is.
She says she can only see 1 school on the main road on her map.. The Basin Primary.

No I say, closer to Canterbury Rd.. it's called Ghilgai. There is a street across from it.. we are on that street..

Oh.. found it.. you are on Taninbomb Crescent (something like that). How far down are you?

In the middle at the bend.

Do you think it's male or female?

I don't know.. I don't even know if it's a body.. it's buried and stinks and is in bushes.

I start to dry heave and another gust of wind blows across.

hang tight Miss.. police are on their way. Don't touch anything.. it may ruin a crime scene.

I won't touch anything.. please hurry up, I don't want to be here.

Jessica and I wait across the road opposite the bush in an attempt to get away from the smell. We can't.. it's over powering.. We are both pinching our noses.. we let go occasionally and then dry heave.

I can't believe this is happening.. I'm a bit excited.. ok I am a LOT excited.. but am scared.. what if it's a child? What if the guy who just drove past and pulled into the long drive way at the mansion where the bush is located.. who just looked straight us, is a murderer?

I don't want to walk up to the house.. I just stay put.

I am standing next to Jessica,with pinched noses we are chatting about how cool and creepy this entire thing is.
I look at my phone.. I try to get on to the internet and tell my friends what is happening.. I am too shaky... bloody touch screen...arghhh..

I walk back over to the bush.. this is all just too out there.. it has to be my imagination running over time.. Jessica puts weird shit in my head..
I lean into the bush again.. mound is still there.. I stare at it a bit.. it's creepy and still.. and deliberately covered up... it's a body for sure...
I go to stand up.. the flowery bush brushes across my face.. the flowers either don't smell or... I wonder... I go and grab some of the bush and put my nose to the tiny white flowers.. they are firm and scratchy...
I see a police car out of the corner of my eye.

I step out to the road and wave them down. A male and female get out. What have you found?
Something in the bushes.. I point..
Can you smell that?

No they both say..

Jessica and I look at each other gobmsacked. We have been dry heaving.. but the police can't smell it. They have GOT to be kidding me.

They look in the bush the same way as me. The male says yep.. looks like one.. call back up.

Jessica and I look at each other. Excited.. not scared anymore because the police are here. We look on like we are watching an American cop mystery show like.. Law and Order or whatever.
Within 10 seconds another police car comes speeding down the road behind the other one. Two more police get out. One grey haired large man carries some metal stick thing.. with a hook.
He hands it to the other guy..
The woman gloves up.

The suspense is making my heart race.. I think I am smiling... I shouldn't be though.. but it's way cool.. I'm a sicko...
I ask the older guy if he can smell the stench.. wondering if Jessica and I are the only ones..
He said yes.. it smells like...
before he finished his sentence another cop who had quickly broken through the bushes and had been smashing and messing up the mound said.... ants nest.... huge one at that.
They all seemed really bummed.. as bummed as me.
But what is that smell?
The older cop says.. well see that bush?
Yeh...
There is one at my kids school.. we often wonder if there is something dead in that too.. they don't smell very pleasant.

I swear my face was burning I was so flushed with embarrassment.
I apologised and they were fine with it. They were glad I called.. the older guy said most of the time people just get scared and run off.
He said we did good.
I said, good.. thanks.. we are going to go home now..
Jessica and I both walked off... really really fast.. laughing our arses off..

We kept getting wafts of that smell every now and again.. we'd look over and see the same bloody bush.. the smell was those horrid little flowers in a type of shrub spread throughout the reserve.

Far out.. what an ordeal.. I wish we could have at least found a dead wombat.. road kill would have been better than a an ants nest and funky smelling flower.

The end