Rogue Element by David Rollins Page A

thick razor grass that did its best to flay the skin from his bones. He looked at the deep scratches crosshatching the flesh on his forearms. A collection of bugs fought with flies and mosquitoes to get at his blood. Joe shuddered. At least I’m alive, he reminded himself again, and there wasn’t a hell of a lot of that going on around here at the moment.
    It was Joe’s second trip to the hillock. It had taken a good half hour to reach it the first time, threading through the dense, clawing bush. It was easy to get lost in the gloom. The jungle was virtually impenetrable. A thick mat of wet leaves, fronds, grasses and vines fought with trees and saplings for any light blinking through the canopy overhead. It wasn’t made for human passage, especially a human more at home in the cafés of Sydney’s Paddington.
    The best way through the jungle was on all fours, close to the ground, where there wasn’t enough light for the vegetation to grow too thickly, or in the tops of the trees. Indeed, he thought he heard the chatter of monkeys overhead, but the sound stopped before he could get a fix on the origin. He came across a trail through the thick vegetation, more like a tunnel, and he tried using that for a while, but it led diagonally away from his intended destination.
    It had quickly become obvious to Joe, and Jim, that they had to move away from all the death. Every section of the aircraft big enough to provide shelter was either too sooty, too oily, or covered in gore. Within a day, most of the dead would begin to bloat and the smell of decomposing flesh, already thick in the air, would be unbearable. The most obvious section of the aircraft for them to shelter in would have been the nose and forward fuselage, but it waslike an abattoir in there and his mind recoiled with horror at the memory of it. He had checked out where his seat, 5A, had been. It was missing, of course, plucked out from the seats in front and behind, some of which still contained the bloody, torn remains of their occupants. He found his computer, but he had no use for it and so left it behind.
    Within hours of the crash the jungle had started reclaiming the ground it had lost to the 250 tonne chunk of aluminium that had ploughed through it. Decomposition was good for the jungle. That was how it sustained itself, perpetuating its existence; plants and animals dying and rotting back into the soil to provide nutrients for future flora and fauna: a continuous cycle of life and death. The crash had provided this cycle with an enormous shot of blood and bone, fertiliser, and the jungle was hungry to make use of it. This was no place for the living. A feeding frenzy was in progress. Nature would surely kill them and add their flesh to the feast if they hung around. They had to leave, and quickly, despite the fact that there was also a logic to staying put: if rescue came, where else would it go but to the scene of the crash?
    Joe parted the foliage in front of his face and the devastation of the crash below was plain to see. He scanned it with the binoculars again and steeled himself not to become nauseated by what he saw. Joe then lifted them to the haze beyond. A city could be out there for all he knew, but if there was, he couldn’t see it. Joe felt alone, forgotten, marooned. What the hell to do next? Where to go? Where the fuck is everyone?
    The jungle was comparatively sparse on top of the hillock. He’d found a couple of blankets and intended touse them as an awning strung between the saplings. There was plenty of cloud shielding them from the full strength of the sun, but he knew that strong equatorial ultraviolet rays were bouncing around under them. The blankets would provide more complete protection. Joe’s skin was pale and he’d never been a beach-goer, preferring to spend his time bathed in the radiation from a computer screen, or practising his left/right combinations in the gym.
    Using the makeshift axe, Joe dug a pit in the earth to