by Janean Worth
Chapter Seven
The day had passed quickly, and Kara felt as if she’d walked many miles. She’d found no water. In desperation, she’d sipped the last of her water at midday, and now her mouth was dry with thirst. She’d found quite a few more edible leaves, and had chewed them in order to moisten her mouth. They’d helped at first, but now, as night began to fall again, her thirst was a pounding need within her head.
Wearily, she found another tall tree to spend the night in and listlessly began to climb it. Her body ached. Her head pounded and her muscles shook with the effort that it took to haul herself up into the branches. As the last of the light bled from the sky, she used the remainder of her strength to crawl to the top third of the tree, where the branches were as nearly as thick as her waist.
This time, she sat down in the crotch of a branch with her back to the trunk and leaned forward to wrap her arms and legs around the branch. With one arm, she adjusted the strap of her bag so that it still hung around her shoulder, but could be moved far enough up so that she could use it to rest her head upon it, instead of using the rough bark of the tree as her pillow.
Although her thirst plagued her, and she was sure that she would get no sleep for the second night in a row, she fell into a fitful slumber almost immediately.
A bright shaft of moonlight pierced the thick canopy of the tree some time later, and she awoke almost instantly. Not knowing how much time had passed, or whether, in her exhausted slumber, she’d allowed some new creature of the night to sneak up on her, she glanced around frantically, her arms clutching the branch reflexively in her panic.
Finding no new threats in the branches around her, Kara looked to the ground.
The dazzling moonlight illuminated the forest below with a brightness that was unexpected. It silvered the fallen leaves, reflecting and bounding around, providing a wealth of illumination. Below, Kara could clearly see several Fidgets on the forest floor. But, to her amazement, they were not concentrating upon her presence in the tree. Instead, their attention was directed at a small dark hole in the trunk of a giant oak tree that was just adjacent to the tree she occupied. The hole was at ground level, looking to be roughly the size of the orange-fleshed melons that had been sold in the market in GateWide. From her height, she could see nothing special about it, and wondered why the Fidgets seemed to be so fascinated with it.
One of the Fidgets reached a clawed hand into the hole, fingers extended as if reaching for something. It immediately drew back its hand with a high pitched shriek, and Kara was surprised to see that a small animal came out of the hole too, attached to the Fidget’s hand, its teeth sunk into the flesh.
She saw only a splash of soft looking rust-colored fur before the other Fidgets were upon the poor creature. The animal cried out a piteous cry as the Fidgets tore into it with their claws and teeth. It happened so fast that Kara had time to do nothing more than gasp at the violence of the action, but that small sound was enough to draw the attention of the Fidgets away from their bloody meal. It was too late though. The damage was done. The poor creature was dead.
The Fidgets turned as one toward her position in the tree, and the bright moonlight clearly illuminated the blood dripping from their misshapen jowls and the ripped remains of what had once been a beautiful fox hanging from their claw-tipped fingers.
The Fidgets jabbered at each other in that strange way that she’d heard the other nights she’d seen them, and darted toward the tree. Their movements were quick, yet oddly stunted. Their short, dwarfish legs carried them forward at a loping run that looked almost comical from her vantage point in the tree. When they reached the tree she was in, they scrabbled at the trunk of the tree frantically, awkwardly trying to climb up to where she was perched in the branches.
Kara realized that they could see her as clearly as she could see them.
Pity for the maimed fox pulled at her heart, and she forgot for a moment that she did not want to draw more attention to herself.
“Go away you filthy little beasts! Just go away!” Kara shouted down at them, horrified by their blood-drenched faces and beady red eyes. “You can’t get me up here. So just leave!”
As she stared down at them, a strange rage washed over her. They’d killed that helpless creature in moments, and all the poor thing had been trying to do was protect its burrow. Much like her mother had been killed. Violently and without regard to the life that had been taken. Ineffectual rage filled her at the thought of her mother’s unneeded suffering.
“I said leave,” Kara screamed at the creatures as loudly as she could, her dry throat rasping on the last word. Her voice echoed through the forest for a moment, then all grew quiet.
Kara immediately wished that she’d not shouted so loudly. Now, all of the creatures of the forest in the surrounding area knew where she was. Her rage cooled as quickly as it had begun, now replaced by cold fear in the pit of her stomach.
She was certain that the forest was home to creatures that were far, far worse than the Fidgets.
Seconds later, Kara’s heart threatened to pound right out of her chest as she heard the approach of something large. The unseen thing crashed through the brush, disregarding stealth in favor of speed. Kara’s mouth grew even drier with fear. Surely only a large and very powerful predator would be so noisy in a forest full of such dangerous creatures like the Fidgets?
Moments later, she got her first real glimpse of what her tutor had called a bear. The massive animal was large and shaggy; its coat was dense, a dark brown color that seemed to absorb the silver moonlight as the beast lumbered into the clearing. The Fidgets immediately began squealing in terror and jabbering at one another.
The bear moved forward quickly, towering over the small, short-legged Fidgets. The Fidgets tried to run, but the bear had already come too close. With one swipe of a massive paw, the bear knocked a Fidget to the ground and then, in a gruesome action, bent its massive head down and bit the creature on the neck.
Even from high up in the tree, Kara head the Fidget’s neck snap.
The Fidget’s two companions wasted no time in trying to save it, they ran away like cowards as the bear devoured their companion, and Kara hid her face in the crook of her elbow, unable to watch the scene below her any longer.
If she had been able, she’d have covered her ears as well, because the sound of the bear’s feast traveled up to her in the tree clearly. The sound of the bones and sinews popping as the bear crunched and ground them in its massive mouth made her stomach heave.
Her head began to ache again and she struggled not to cry, wondering how she would ever survive in such a harsh place as the wilderness. She didn’t want to end up as a meal to the Fidgets or a bear. And she didn’t want to die of slow dehydration, either.
After what seemed an eternity, the bear finished its meal and lumbered off into the forest in search of another.
Kara clung to the branch the rest of the night, unable to sleep after the horrors that she’d seen.