Emilie Hines, Year 12
CHAPTER 6
The next morning brought thunder clouds and torrential rainfall. After a wet awakening, Grace and Tina mustered up what little food, water and clothes they had; and pulling Elina after them, they ran into the forest. It couldn’t have been earlier than 6AM. It was still dark with only a pale morning light to guide them. In the forest, the leaves were so dense that while the rain barely touched them, they could barely see in front of them. The forest was disturbingly quiet, with not a single creature making its presence known. The three girls wandered around for hours on end. There was scarcely a path to walk down, yet alone a trail left by Anna. It was coming up to mid-morning when Tina gave up and collapsed in the muddy ditch they’d been walking along. Grace stopped reluctantly, but even she had to admit they were getting nowhere. Elina sat down quietly next to Tina, staring blandly at a caterpillar crawling up a stalk. A lone bird let out a chirp. Its impact on the silence of the forest was so powerful that it stopped immediately. Tina gasped in exasperation.
“We should never have come into the forest”. Grace stared at the maze of leaves and branches above them and muttered
“Did you have a better idea?” There was an eerie silence for a minute. The light pitter-patter of rain on the field of leaves above them was the only sound that could be heard. Then, sensing the need to vent her fear and exasperation on something or someone, Tina pulled out a lower tree branch, wet with morning dew, and began ruffling it in Elina’s face. Elina just blinked the sprayed water out of her eyes. Grace groaned
“Why the hell did Anna have to run off?” Ignoring her, Tina kicked Elina hard on the leg. When that got no reaction, she hit her hard on the arm. Grace moaned
“Why are we the only survivors? Why? Why?” Tina, now feeling very insecure and very afraid, slapped Elina’s face with all her strength. There was a red mark on Elina’s cheek but little more. Elina just stared at Tina blankly. Suddenly, Grace lost it. She leapt on Elina. She began to madly punch Elina’s face until there was a nose bleed.
“Wake up!” Grace yelled frantically at Elina’s blank face, “Wake up!” Shocked by this sudden show of violence, Tina whimpered and hid her head in her hands. Grace continued punching Elina, and Elina offered no resistance whatsoever. After 2 minutes of the one-sided fight, Grace gave up. Elina had a nose bleed, a black eye and a scratch down the side of her face. She still had the same blank expression she’d had at the beginning of the scuffle. Tina lifted her head up from her hands and approached Grace, still sitting on Elina. Grace gasped
“What’s wrong with her?” Tina helped Grace off of Elina, and then helped Elina up. Elina then did a very strange thing. She let out a noise best described as an incredibly distorted groan. It was a very loud, confused and generally bizarre groan that gave one the idea that Elina was about to burp, cough, be sick, die, sing and laugh all at once. Caught completely by surprise, Grace and Tina stared, very alarmed, at Elina. Elina stared back at them. Then a smile formed ever so slowly and ever so carefully on her face. Then the smile turned to a frown. The frown got uglier and uglier until it practically turned into a scowl, but then it changed again into a broad smile which promptly turned into the most unexpected and disconcerting thing imaginable: laughter. Elina started to laugh. The sound was scary and foreign. No one had ever heard Elina laugh before, and it really sounded like an insane opera singer with a cold and a drug addiction was doing it. Elina’s laugh grew louder and louder. She then fell to the ground and started rolling around freely in the mud, laughing her head off. Grace and Tina both stared open-mouthed at this spectacle. For maybe 2 – 3 minutes this carried on, until a burst of gunfire echoed through the forest.
Elina continued laughing, apparently oblivious to the sound. Grace frantically scanned what there was of a horizon around them, but she could see nothing. Tina secured herself behind a tree trunk and was starting to sweat. Elina kept rolling around on the ground like a raving lunatic, madly laughing her heart out. Footsteps were then heard as twigs snapped and guns clicked. Tina was sweating heavily now and her face rivalled that of Snow White. Grace was frantically scanning the dark and dense forest for the source of the sounds, but she could still see nothing. Then yelling was heard. The yelling was in a foreign language. Grace guessed it was Russian. Tina guessed it was German. Either way, it was bad news. Then, another burst of gunfire rang out, and the footsteps started running. The yelling became more desperate and the gunfire more violent. Elina was still laughing, clearly crazed by a laughing demon. Desperate to shut her up, Grace jumped on her, holding her down with one hand while the other covered her mouth. Elina stopped laughing immediately and stared quizzically at Grace from under her hand. For about a minute or so, this was the way things were; but only for a minute or so. Two very horrific things then happened at the same time. Elina attacked Grace and a dead soldier fell through the thicket and into the ditch.
Elina’s attack was as unprecedented as her laughter. Elina’s face had become red in that minute or so, her fists had clenched themselves and the ugly frown had returned and had permanently settled on her face. Elina violently pushed Grace off her, sprawling her in the mud. She then grabbed a rock and threw it at her. Tina was too shocked to scream. The rock hit Grace’s side and a bleeding cut announced itself. Elina then lunged on top of Grace and began ferociously scratching Grace’s visage. Grace was screaming at Elina to stop and at Tina to intervene. Tina was screaming at Elina to stop and at God to intervene. That was when the dead soldier fell through the thicket and right on top of the brawling Elina and Grace. Tina screeched and then fainted. Grace froze and so did Elina. Grace squirmed out from under Elina and the dead soldier. Elina turned to stare at the corpse. Slowly, she crawled out from under the body. The soldier was pale with a bloody cheek. He had hints of a back beard growing and he had a distorted look of wonder on his face. He was still holding his gun which was large, black and loaded. His uniform was dirty with the hint of a wound on his right shoulder. Grace identified him to be wearing a Russian uniform. Elina stared bewilderingly at him, and then reached out and stroked his bloody cheek. She pulled her hand back to stare at the blood now there. Grace got up and ran behind a bush to be sick. Elina kept staring at her bloody hand for a few more seconds before she broke up and began to cry. This time it wasn’t silent. It was loud and entirely heartfelt. The sound woke Tina up. The sound brought Grace back out from behind the bush. The gunfire and yelling then stopped as uncertain footsteps made their way towards the ditch.
“Nikolai!” somebody yelled “Nikolai!” Faster than Jason Bourne, Grace pulled Elina and Tina to their feet and sent them off running. Elina, still crying collapsed in another thicket soon after she’d started the run. Tina raised her to her feet again and tried to nervously reassure her. Grace then caught up with them and aggressively pushed them on. Grace now had a bloody lip, cheek, eyebrow and ear. Her side looked nearly as bad as the soldier’s cheek. Tina was the only girl who was uninjured, and she was stumbling terribly. After a straight 10 minute run, the girls came upon a small stream. Seeing a helpfully large overhanging willow tree with long droopy leaves and branches, Grace pushed the other two girls under its shelter before getting under its protection herself. Elina had stopped crying out loud, but the water was still running from her eyes. After 2 minutes of silent waiting, it became apparent that they were not being followed. Another lone bird chirped. It continued for a short while until it too was shut up by the silence.
TUNE IN NEXT WEEK FOR MORE…
