What Jack Thought
There's sunlight. Its shining in my eyes so I can't see. I've got to move…….I shift my head lower, some dislocated branches chatter and scratch above my head. It's too loud...like a claxon call in the oppressive silence.
It's dazzling me and my legs are beginning to burn from crouching …cramp…it's like fire. I've got to move…. I shift again and a bird crashes upwards, raucous and deafeningly loud. Damn!
I can feel Their eyes, burning the back of my neck; it won't be long now….she'll need to drink in this torrid heat. It won't see me this time…..oh no…this time we'll win. I glance back at Them but they're only eyes, invisible, cloaked and shrouded, faces synonymous now with their surroundings. They are real hunters. My Hunters!
They'll not fail this time. I'll not fail this time….Quiet!
There. On the other side, by the river. I cower and glide under the foliage towards it….samneric are next to me, faces screwed up behind the paint, against the daggers of light stabbing through leaves. I signal and they stop. I pause for a second savouring the sensation of authority……….The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife,
I creep forward……slowly…..s-low-ly….someone's talking but it's far off in the distance like static on a wireless. I edge forward through the tension… I freeze…..it stares into the bushes…ears cocked upwards for sound we wait, breathing deeply….in…..out…..that's enough surely? I squint back at Them though the shadows and they look….scared? I smile reassuringly and they recoil.
The idiots! I start to move forward again….I relax slightly….We'll get it this time! I know we will. Its all to plan…..who would have thought it…just a little camouflage and we become Hunters……. CRACK! Like a gun shot…Damn it ….Its off sprinting for the cover of the forest….I'm running…plunging down into the carnage of the Scar…..pounding footsteps…….roaring…..I can't hear….My vision narrows, all I can see are the tracks in front of me, breaking the burnished lustre of the mud path. The baleful forest tries to trip me…..the tacky mud holds me down….a low branch snaps back at me…I fall….
Instantly the legion of Hunters is around me, I'm enveloped and borne along in the rushing stream of bodies…yelling and screaming…..I must….. I've got to….get…fight my way back to the front….I sprint forward shoving Samneric to one side… they turn their fury on me but I'm long gone, next to Roger at the head of the pack.
It hits a dead end, against a ring of rock; it can't escape….someone beside me…. Roger…he hurls a spear but, barb-less, it drops out. The pig shears to one side and I draw my knife, I can do it this time….I must….Ralph…I run at it frenzied, angry...
The knife slices sickeningly through its flesh and it screams there's a rent in her side …deep…flapping... The ring of berserkers blazes with a madness that compels and I'm one of the nightmarish masks closing in.
Someone's laughing…. Manic….. Crazy…I'm laughing…Spill her Blood! Bash her in! Kill the pig! Over and over, chanting…Samneric are on top of it holding it down, its writhing…squealing, fear...its afraid….I Am Not Afraid…Oh God…..pull the knife across….do it…blood….I can't stop it its warm and suddenly I'm glad triumphant, its pouring…my hands…. I killed it almost human eyes…it was afraid I'm covered in blood...Clean... got to….I killed it its over but we're still yelling Spill her blood! Kill the pig! I run ahead to tell Ralph, They bring It after me. I cast a look back and the sun is shining almost gently on the churning blitz-krieg and the grinning pig.