Wild Fiction

James kept a safe distance behind Corp and Hog. He did not need to see them to follow them. Hog’s panting and muttering was easily audible. James felt like his namesake, secret agent 007, as he moved from tree to tree shadowing the enemy. He made the shape of a gun with his hand and held it next to his head, pointing at the sky, as he had seen on TV. He was behind a large oak. Slowly he moved his head to one side revealing a single eye and looked towards where the voices were coming from. He levelled his index finger in front of him, ready to blast his fingernail at his adversaries with a drop of his thumb. Their voices grew lighter and he moved through the bushes and trees parallel to the path to catch up with them, his thumb cocked and his finger ready. He could now just make them out through the branches ahead. Suddenly a loud crack came from under his feet. He had stood on and broken a dry branch. Instinctively he dropped to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut.
Stupid, he thought to himself. Double stupid, was his second thought. The first stupid for standing on the branch and second stupid for thinking like a child. If I shut my eyes then they cannot see me. Where the hell did that idea come from?
His breathing was fast but he managed to control the amount of noise the aspirations were making. Apart from a solitary bird in the distance, the forest had become silent. There was a scurrying in the branches overhead followed by the deafening boom of a shotgun firing two barrels in rapid succession. He felt a thud on the side of his face, held his breath, and did not move. Something wet and warm was lying on his face. He opened one eye and looked into the glassy stare of a dead squirrel. Its sharp blood stained incisors hung menacingly close to his nose. He could feel its blood running down his face towards his mouth; his body involuntarily shuddered throwing the little corpse off and onto the ground next to him.
He heard the click as Corp opened the shotgun and then the popping sound as the cartridges ejected. The shotgun closed with a resounding snap, presumably two new shells in the barrels. The tinnitus of the shots rang in James’s ears. The bird that that been twittering earlier had either ceased to twitter or had relocated itself. He became aware of his heart beating very fast and realised that he was now holding his breath. He let it out and tried to breathe in slowly and normally but his lungs were screaming for air and his breathing became sharp and shallow again. His nasal passage filled with the smell of the ruptured gut of the squirrel. He brought his hand up to his mouth as his stomach went into spasm and he stuck his fist in his mouth and gagged.
‘What did you do that for?’ it was Hog speaking.
‘Shut up moron, there’s somebody in there,’ Corp said.
James could hear Corp walking towards him, pushing through the bushes.
‘We don’t have time for this mate. It was just a bloody squirrel and you killed the poor blighter,’ Hog said sounding almost sorry for the animal.
The footsteps stopped and James felt every muscle in his body pulling tight against the nerves that wanted to twitch and shake his limbs.