Rogue Element

He pushed on through a mat of vines sheathed in fine needles that made his skin itch. A section gave way and he fell into water. He’d reached the creek at the base of the hill that separated it from the crash site. It smelled of kerosene, even stronger here. Then he heard something. He froze and listened, trying to isolate the sound of moving water from the alien snap of a stick. The jungle was just as noisy as it had been, except that his fall had disturbed ground-dwelling animals that scurried off like startled smugglers, back into their hidden caves. He thought that finding some thick scrub to hide in would probably be a good idea for himself too.

Joe crawled out of the creek. He was careful not to make any sound that might alert the soldiers. He’d badly bruised his shins in the fall into the creek and he grimaced when he put his weight on his feet. He slowly pulled himself up the bank and into the jungle’s embrace. He forced his way through on all fours and found himself in the tunnel he had noted earlier. He peered into it in the diminished light. The tunnel carved through the jungle, remaining roughly parallel with the creek bank for a while before twisting back at right angles and heading (probably, he thought) back around the base of the hillock. Joe turned and backed into it, deciding that if he was shot at, he didn’t want to take a bullet in the arse, or have his nuts blasted off.

The floor of the tunnel was made up of flattened grasses and leaf litter. The tunnel walls were remarkably uniform, as if they’d been woven. He continued reversing through the tunnel until it kinked right. Then he stopped. Something around him had changed. But what? Then he knew what it was. The world had suddenly fallen silent. What was that? Had he heard something? He held his breath.

The wall of the tunnel suddenly collapsed in front of him. Something large fell into the space. Joe was paralysed with fear. It was either some kind of wild animal, or one of the soldiers. Either way, things were about to get unpleasant. Before he could react with a scream or shout, he was head-butted on the point of his chin. The force concentrated in his head, orange planets exploding behind his eyes. His mind fought to maintain consciousness. Then a hand covered his nose and mouth, and a weight pressed on his chest. In front of his face were frightened eyes as wide as Frisbees. It was a woman lying on top of him, pressing the air out of his lungs. At least, he thought it was a woman. She put her finger to her lips for him to be quiet. He nodded.

A noise! She gestured at the hole in the side of the tunnel. And then Joe heard it too. Again, it wasn’t a noise so much as a patch of unnaturally still air in the fabric of sound that enveloped them. There was something close, very close, and it was trying hard to be stealthy. Its presence was something he could feel rather than see. Joe’s own heart pounded noisily in his ears. He tried in vain to control it. The boot came down quietly an arm’s length from the matted wall of the tunnel.

Joe saw the disturbance in the pattern of greenery first, then the mud-covered leather of the boot itself. It was a soldier’s boot. The camouflage pattern of the fatigues was so effective he could only see that it wasn’t foliage when the leg moved. Joe’s eyes were large in his head. Not a metre away was a man with a gun, trained to kill, hoping to put that training to good use on them. On top of him was a woman as scared rigid as he was, pressing the life out of him. The boot lifted and was gone. They waited for the bullets to rip through the tunnel wall. Nothing. The soldier had come close to stepping on them, but still hadn’t seen them. After what seemed an age, the woman quietly, slowly, slid off to one side. Joe exhaled and silently blessed the creator of the tunnel.

He blessed too soon. A brown head appeared around the bend of the tunnel ahead. It was an animal, a large four-legged animal the size of a full-grown pig. It stopped, wrinkled its nose and moved its head quickly from side to side. Joe blinked dumbly, not knowing what to do. Something in the animal’s brain decided, for whatever reason, that it should be afraid of the animals in its path. Maybe it was their reluctance to move, or it smelled their fear. Whatever the reason, the beast’s legs suddenly started pumping. The animal charged through the wall of the tunnel and made off noisily into the undergrowth, grunting and squealing.