Short Hair

Chapter 4

After a moment of hesitation, Clem tried to back away from the men. The bearded one made a grab for her, but Clem ducked and sprinted away from them, weaving between trees and hearing the men's shouts and grunts as they fired their guns.

She heard them angrily shout towards her. Paying them no attention, Clem continued her way through the trees and was back in the fields.

Biting back a curse, Clem made a split decision and headed dead-right, towards a thick brush, full of a labyrinth of trees. Fear clutched at her heart and she swallowed the anxiety lumped in her throat.

Knuckles white, Clem held a vice-grip on the cold handle of her gun. Her chest heaved and her legs ached, burning with the fiery determination to get away.

Clem didn't dare glance back, she ran and ran, until she came across a large tree with a plethora of thick roots spiralling beneath the clusters of vibrant green leaves which emerged from winding twigs, that would surely cover her small frame.

Mind made up, she sprinted towards the tree and stuck her gun in her pocket, after ensuring the safety was on, and made a grab for the lowest bough she could find.

Failing to find her grip on her first attempt, Clem twisted her face into a frown and looked up at the twirling branches above her, they waved towards her in mocked beckoning and Clem gritted her teeth in annoyance.

Irritated and starting to grow panicked, Clem holstered her backpack on her shoulders tightly, tensed up her legs and made a leap up to the tree.

Finding a small groove in the tree's bark, Clem gripped it as tight as she could, clenching her hands around the tree as much as possible and put all her remaining strength into pulling her upper body onto the tree's thick bough.

After making sure she was steady, Clem almost collapsed in exhausted relief, nearly slumping down the tree.

Clem pushed the tiredness to the back of her mind and hauled herself up. Grabbing on by the skin of her teeth, Clem let out a gasp and willed herself up some more branches.

The branch she was on was quite high up, yet she doubted it would be safe from the men's view. The branch also wasn't the biggest and looked as though it could snap under her weight at a moment's notice.

Clem felt tense and her growing panic was escalating majorly by the second. She pushed herself up onto her unsteady feet, using the tree's trunk as a crutch and breathed a quiet sigh.

"That was the easy part." She muttered, sarcasm evident, with special emphasis on 'easy'. After rolling her eyes and mentally preparing herself for the task ahead, Clem crouched slightly, in order to help herself jump higher and clutch the branch above her.

After securing her grip on the other branch, Clem used her temporary momentum to swing herself forward slightly and, using her legs, pushed as hard as she could against the trunk.

She jumped up slightly from the speed and caught herself on the branch, just as the one below her crunched from the force and snapped off, slamming to the muddy ground below.

Clem's eyes widened and she frantically stilled, clinging to the branch for dear life.

She kept silent as thick tension engulfed the air. After a minute of nerve-wracking quiet, Clem swallowed her anxiety and began to pull herself up with her burning arms, which were screaming in pain from the brutal exertion.

Chest heavy, body aching and mind racing with too many fears and thoughts to count, Clem slumped against the tree trunk and gasped loudly for a long deserved breath of relief.

Clem rested her head on the tree and her eyes drooped from the exercise. She heard a quiet sound below her and groaned softly, silently begging it not to be the men, or anyone/anything else.

With her pleading, Clem appeared to have called them to her as they stood mere feet below her.

"Speak of the devils." Clem uttered briefly, exhaling heavily.

She slumped down further and began to curl in on herself, before a gut-wrenching crackle was heard from the bough she sat on.

She swallowed, trying to convince herself that it wasn't.

Another soft, daunting crackle erupted from beneath her and Clem sat still, eyes screwn shut.

The men below her were growing frustrated, she could feel it. Soon enough, they'd be shooting blindly at the branch she was on if she made another sound.

Clem held her breath and there was a faint crack, she opened her eyes and made to move, but the branch underneath her gave out and she went tumbling through the various branches and twigs, stabbing and slicing and bruising her on her way down.

Clem yelped loudly, mouth opening wide before she could think. Her head bashed the cold, wet ground and her eyes blurred for a moment, the unfocused silhouettes of the two men knelt before her and her head spun.

All she heard as her eyes closed on their own, was the haunting laugh of two men who had caught their prey. Clem felt a pair of large hands grab at her legs carelessly and another gripped her arms before she felt herself getting hauled away to a place she knew she may never be able to escape.