Free The Beach by Alex Garland Page B

enunciating each word. 'Do you understand?'
Her eyes bulged wide and she started snorting through her nose. 'Do you understand?' I hissed again. 'It's a fucking field.'
Then Étienne was behind me, pulling at my arms. I dropped Françoise and, for a reason I still don't understand, I lunged for his neck. He twisted behind me and wrapped his arms around my chest.
I tried to struggle but he was too strong. 'You idiot! Let me go! There are people coming!'
'Where are the people?'
'On the mountain,' Françoise whispered, rubbing her mouth. 'Higher.'
He looked up to the second plateau. 'I can't see anyone,' he said, easing his hold on me. 'Listen. What is that?'
We all went silent but I couldn't hear anything except blood pounding in my ears.
'Voices,' said Étienne quietly. 'You can hear it?'
I strained to listen again. This time I found it, distant but getting clearer.
'It's Thai.'
I choked. 'Fuck! We've got to run!' I clambered to my feet but Étienne dragged me back down.
'Richard,' he said, and through my fear some part of me registered surprise at the calm expression on his face. 'If we run we will be seen.'
'So what do we do?'
He pointed to a dark copse. 'We hide in there.'

Lying flat against the earth, peering through the mesh of leaves, we waited for the people to appear.
At first it seemed that they would pass us out of sight, then a branch cracked and a man stepped into the field, close to where Étienne and I had been standing a few minutes before. He was young, maybe twenty, with a kick-boxer's build. His chest was bare and etched with muscle, and he wore military trousers — dark-green and baggy, with pouches sewn into the legs. In his hand was a long machete. Slung over his shoulder was an automatic rifle.
I could feel Françoise's body pressed against mine - she was trembling. I looked round, somehow thinking I might calm her, but I could feel the tightness in my face. She stared at me, eyebrows raised as if she wanted me to explain. I shook my head helplessly.
A second man appeared, older, also armed. They stopped and exchanged a few words. Though they stood more than twenty metres away, the curious looping sound of their language carried perfectly over the distance. Then another man called out from within the jungle and they set off again, vanishing over the ridge, down the slope we'd originally come from.

Two or three minutes after their sing-song chatter had faded away, Françoise suddenly burst into tears. Then Étienne started crying too. He lay on his back and covered his eyes, his hands bunched into fists.
I watched the two of them blankly. I felt in limbo. The shock of discovering the fields and the tension while we'd been hiding had left me empty. I just knelt on the ground, sweat running from my hairline and down the side of my face, and thought of nothing.
Finally I managed to gather my wits. 'OK,' I said. 'Étienne was right. They didn't know we were here, but they might find out soon.' I reached for my bag. 'We've got to leave.'
Françoise sat up, wiping her eyes on her mud-streaked T-shirt. 'Yes,' she muttered. 'Come, Étienne.'
Étienne nodded. 'Richard,' he said firmly. 'I do not want to die here.'
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn't think what to say.
'I do not want to die here,' he repeated. 'You must get us out.'
Falling Down
    I must get them out? Me? I couldn't believe my ears. He'd been the one who'd kept his head when the dope guards were coming. I'd lost my shit. I felt like saying, 'You fucking get us out!'
But just by looking at him I could tell he wasn't about to take control of the situation. And neither was Françoise. She was gazing at me with the same scared, expectant expression as Étienne.
So, not having a choice, it ended up being me who took the decision to go on. In one direction there were gunmen, walking along the tracks we had ignorantly assumed were made by animals. Perhaps they were even on the way to the beach and would find a chocolate-wrapper or footprints that