Rogue Element by David Rollins Page A

chain.
    He touched his cheek and felt the swollen, angry skin. The side of his face had puffed up like a soufflé. What had caused the itchy swelling? Then he saw the large spiky green caterpillar hanging from a thick thread centimetres from his face. He pinched off the grub’s bungee and angrily swung it away into the leaf litter on the jungle floor.
    He had to get moving again. But which way? Joe was disoriented. The hill’s fall-line was his only signpost. He traversed across it as much as the jungle allowed, taking a bottle from his rucksack and throwing back the contents as he half ran, but mostly crawled, sweat pouring down his face and stinging his eyes. He broke a stick from a tree and held it in front of his face, guarding against further assaults from the wildlife.
    Joe managed to find a rhythm as he moved through the clawing bush. A machete would have been helpful. Thenhe remembered his makeshift axe. He dropped the stick and removed the axe from his rucksack. He thought he was beginning to tell the difference between bush he could charge through and vegetation he had to go around. And then he ran through a clump of leaves and into the solid trunk of a tree. The force of the collision nearly knocked him out. He bounced off the tree and found himself on the ground. His nose hurt badly enough to make his eyes water but he knew it wasn’t broken. He’d had plenty of bloody noses from boxing and the pain was reassuring, like meeting up with an old friend.
    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 whilebefore 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