Into the Jungle: A Novella

Chapter 5

Then the girls came to a large slope and started running up. When Iris screamed, Ruby looked over her shoulder to see her tripping to her knees. This part of the grass seemed slippery. So Ruby grabbed her sister's arm and pulled her up the slope. The ground leveled, but now, big rocks were blocking the path.

"Jump!" Ruby shouted.

The girls leaped from rock to rock, and Ruby was surprised at how good Iris was doing. But when Ruby jumped off the last one, she landed in sucking mud. "Be careful of the mud!" Ruby warned, but Iris already leaped off a rock and fell to her belly. Ruby forced her legs to walk over and pull her up. Then she carried the kid as far as the mud stretched, groaning under the weight and struggling to keep her legs moving.

Ruby put her sister down and they ran on level grass. When Ruby looked over her shoulder, she could see the gorillas leaping over the rocks easier than she ever could.

But later, the girls found themselves standing on the edge of a massive river with rushing rapids. The water was green. Plants were all around its banks, a screen that blocked Ruby from seeing it at first, but she had heard the current flowing and stopped just before falling in. Big rocks were sticking out of the water. Most of them looked pretty flat, prompting Ruby to wonder if someone placed them there for easy crossing.

Ruby held her sister and took the slippery rocks with caution. She tripped but caught her balance, and before she knew it, they had crossed.

"YAY!" Iris shouted.

Something about that seemed too easy to Ruby, but she didn't mind. Her fear was forcing her to rush and ultimately made her think faster.

Then Ruby put Iris down, and they ran through walls of greenery up another slope. From here, she could just see the gorillas and only two were still pushing through the plants.

When they got to the top, she gasped at the sight ahead. In a distant tree, it looked like someone had built a square house similar to hers, but this one had a balcony that wrapped all the way around it. The land was somewhat cleared with some trees still surrounding it. At least, she'd be able to run without thorns scraping her face, and even better, there was a trail leading to the fort.

Ruby pointed and shouted, "That's where we're going, okay."

"Are we going to a party up there or something?" Iris replied.

"I wish."

The girls fled as one gorilla easily climbed up the slope and charged after them. Ruby stopped looking behind for fear and later approached a tall vertical ladder made of wood and tied together with vines. She let Iris climb up first but prepared to grab her spear and fight the brute if necessary. Then she heard a voice and quickly looked up to see a male opening a hatch so Iris could climb inside. Ruby presumed she could make it up the ladder before the gorilla attacked her, but then again, these animals could climb trees, so there wouldn't be much hope.

Anyway, Ruby sprinted up the ladder.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Iris and the man shouted.

Ruby squeezed her body through the hatch but not before taking a peek down. The gorilla was staring up at her, curiously wondering how to climb up.

But the man tugged Ruby inside, closed the hatch, and grabbed a black object from a table. "This will scare them away," he said in a heavy accent. Then he stepped through a doorway onto the balcony, aimed the object, and fired. Ruby and Iris jolted with each shot. (The man had a pistol, but the girls had never seen such a device.) After a pause, he walked into the home and said, "It worked. They've run away."

Ruby gulped and hugged her sister with two arms, her nose buried in Iris' hair. Then she pointed and asked, "What is that thing?"

The man held it up. "This? It's a pistol. It uses gunpowder to eject sharp things called bullets. It's much like a blowgun."