Change in Life

Chapter 27. Hidden Away

They never knew what to expect. As a young, bold army recruit would think when first going out on patrol in a hostile country, the anticipation of waiting, and indeed wanting, for something to happen was great. Eager for that silent, unnerving gift that could be hidden just around the next corner that would liven up their day with a cacophony of noise and spectacle. The boasting and self-aggrandizing to appear more calm or collective than their companions would be thrown about as freely as confetti to shield just what was going on inside.

Yet, the will to see just how traumatic that experience was would be too frightening to comprehend. Just what was around that corner? Or that shady alcove  where the ambient once soothing social hustle abruptly stopped, radiating a sense of anxiety from those shadows. When finally something would happen, the impact of it would be far too horrifying to even move the body. They would never be expecting something of that magnitude to happen, not even in their own imagination. Their once friendly peaceful surroundings, from a place they had become accustomed to staying light and carefree, gone. And for that, they would be scared for life.

Blake had heard of this feeling. Read it. Seen it. The same boldness and will to stay strong in front of Jade held on tight. To some extent he was prepared. But not fully... Never fully. Not long after he had blocked the entrance as he lay guard in the tunnel, the soft slapping of boots on wilted leaves casually strode towards them... and continued onward without hassle. For hours the gunfire echoed regularly in hollow ripples, only letting up their tirade for what Blake could only assume was for lunch. The winds carried a high drawl of a chainsaw in some distant part of the woods. This went on for hours also.

The next day was the same. And indeed some of the night.

Well... No rest for the wicked... Blake kept reminding himself as he struggled to find more strength from within his collapsing mind.

For Jade, having only known the comfort of the woods and nothing else, the anguish was delivered directly. For two nights she didn't move from the corner of the den she felt the safest in; the one deeper curve of the chamber that was the farthest from the tunnel. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. Even her body was giving her some respite, having relented on her contractions after the humans brushed passed their den. All she could do was shiver and wait for her impending doom. And cringe at the sound of every gunshot... And hold back a frantic yip at the distant bellows of dogs.

And all this happened to them by ear alone. Not yet have they seen the true extent of the cull. The true damage. The real atrocity of it all.

So, in the den they stayed. Not knowing, or daring to think, when to come out. The food they had with them would only last a few nights before they had nothing, even after rationing it. It was going to be a long time before they could even think about going out to hunt. They wished many times to see just what was happening to their homeland, but could only indulge themselves with a few meters from their hole in the ground. They could only predict what was happening in the wider world.

Although, the need to predict wasn't as necessary as they first thought. Every time they tried to get to sleep they would always be woken up by the sound of a gun that only seemed just over the ridge, or the bark of dogs that seemed to say that they had been smelt. The bellowing of dogs alongside the shouts of excited men and their guns drowned out or chased away the once beautiful songs of the woods. And the whirring buzz of their chainsaws sang a new sickly song that those who called the woods home would play back in their minds long after the cull ended.

In his heart, Blake knew the intense mission of these humans. Once the second night ended and the shooting continued into the third, he knew his father had planned long and hard for this outing. Probably since he fell to the fox. Friends were called and arrangements were made to get as many people as possible to search ever corner of the woods to find this one fox who humiliated him. Somehow, despite his father, word had got out and his face had been plastered all over the papers and TV as humorous gossip. Many people from hundreds maybe even thousands of miles around, thanks to the speed of the media, were laughing at him. In his home town he had become the village idiot. Compounded with the loss of his son that previous autumn, any thought of coherent and lawful thought crumbled. To be able to hold the pelt of the cause and display it proudly at the local bar would bring back the fame he lost so comically.