Page 64 of The Island

Petra was shaking her head no.

“They will kill us! Do you understand?”

Petra was sobbing now.

“We can’t surrender! We can’t,” Heather said and finally Petra nodded.

“If I let you go, will you stay down?”

Petra nodded again and Heather cautiously released her.

Now the Toyota was driving away from them. The men hadn’t seen them yet. Two of them were leaning out the windows of the cab, whooping and shouting. They did not appear to be doing any kind of rigorous search. They were driving this way and that, hammering the car for all it was worth.

The car did a slow 180 turn, and now they were coming toward them.

Heather ducked back under the lip of the grass.

Hans was yelling now. A horrible noise that Heather knew she would remember her whole life, however long that was. His voice pierced the general cries and the sounds of the engine. He was terrified and Petra could hardly bear it.

“Come on, let’s get down to the hollow,” Heather said softly.

Petra nodded, tears streaming down her face. She was gasping for air. Not knowing what else to do, Heather rubbed her back.

They slithered through the grainy red dirt and the sharp grass and reached the little dried-up creek where the kids had taken shelter.

“What’s going on?” Owen asked.

“They’re looking for us. Best we stay here,” Heather replied.

The two women lay down next to the kids while the Toyota careened this way and that over the scrub. The sound was more muffled down here, but occasionally Heather could hear a war whoop or a rifle shot.

Heather lay there and kept the kids’ heads down.

The flies. The heat. Sluggish, cigar-shaped clouds moving through the sapphire sky like evil alien ships.

“It’s coming closer now,” Owen said.

He was right; the Toyota was heading straight toward them. Could they have been seen? Of course they could have.

“Nobody move,” Heather whispered.

The engine revved, and the Toyota bumped over the terrain.

Closer.

Closer.

It leaped the dried-up stream about twenty yards ahead of them, stopped, turned in a big circle, and headed away again.

Heather was lying next to Olivia. Her eyes were closed and her lips were moving. She was praying. Heather had never really learned how to do that properly. Tom had taken the kids to church most Sundays. She’d gone once and told Tom that she didn’t want to go back, and he’d been OK with that. As churches went, it had seemed pretty inoffensive. Just plain wooden benches and a harmless old man up at the front telling people to be good, not the terrible hypocrisy-ridden place her father had said church was, but she supposed it all had to do with the denomination. She watched Olivia, fascinated. Her message was going straight from her to God. Heather found that she was holding her breath, waiting for an answer or a bolt of lightning or something, but the only sound was the whooping from the Toyota.

It was coming back their way again.

Men’s voices:

“Where are they, Hans? Tell us!”

“Faster, you drongo!”