They didn’t see me. I pressed my body as flat as possible against the old railroad ties and didn’t move a bit. In the distance the two of them were looking for me, one was the bastard that had shot me. It was a stupid idea anyway to look for gifts in that old factory. Hell, I even was sure that some other people may had the very same idea the very same days, yet still I went. Damn, I had no other choice. Didn’t even make it past the fencing rubble barricades when I was trying to approach it from the dormant railroad tracks. If it wasn’t for me bleeding and the bastards looking for me and all it would have been a lovely day once in a while. It was just past noon, the sun was harshly shining down on us all, no matter who you were and made it the first really warm day of the year. I hate the cold.

The bastard with the longbow seemed nervous and was walking in circles around where he had spotted me before. He wanted to find me, I could tell. When he glanced over in my direction I pressed my cheeks again as low as I could on the ties which were riddled with low growing weeds. The wood smelled heavily of the tar from the carbolineum, the spicy scent eased my racing heart for a bit. I looked down to my foot where I had been hit. I couldn’t see much, and didn’t dare to move much either. Just some blood coming out of the shredded sole accompanied by a dull pain. The longer I thought about what the wound would look like, the more it started stinging so I cut it out and turned my attention again towards the men, about a hundred meters away.

The one with the bow still was shuffling nervously around, probably he couldn’t decide between watching the plain for a sign of me running or looking for a place where I could have hid myself. The other one just stood there and lit a smoke. It smelled of real tobacco — wealthy bastard! Boy, I would’ve killed for a smoke right now, even one made of low-quality weeds but the sweet smoke would’ve given away my flimsy hideout instantly. I was just lucky that the two of them weren’t too bright and obviously they forgot about the old ties between I was hiding.

Around the factory there were only meadows, with thick grass and flat brown plants of last summer, occasionally some thicker tufts of grass and small weeds, but nothing high or dense enough this time of year to conceal a person trying to hide. And there was the old railroad embankment in relatively good shape, a sloped foundation roughly two meters high. The rails of course were gone, there wasn’t even a visible hole in the ground or anything. They were probably making their way towards the middle of the earth trough the soil. Or they have already arrived there. For a moment I forgot everything around me and pondered what it would look like there, center of the earth. Then a faint noise from one side of the embankment brought me back to the tense present.

Suddenly the shuffler returned inside the rusty remains of the gate, the smoking one ignoring him, obviously enjoying her smoke (it seemed now as if it was a woman) and staring away in the distance, although roughly into my direction which made it impossible for me to flee. My initial shivering, heart racing and surge of cold sweat had begun to subside and now the pain in my sole gained presence in my line of thought. I couldn’t think straight of my options, or strategy. All I could do was wait for the guards, or what ever the two were, to leave. Then I heard something that unsettled me tremendously. Heart racing, shivering and the cold sweat were back, instantly even stronger than before: I heard a dog bark.

Please, not the dogs! I thought. It’s been long since the last time I had seen one and the memory of that encounter was anything but pleasant. And the dogs would find me, I was sure. They would smell my blood trail and the grass I trampled down in my fifteen seconds of flight before and then, I thought, they would rip me to pieces. I would be lucky if the bastard with the bow took an other shot at me first.

A minute passed, maybe two, maybe just a half, I don’t know. The sun shone down on my back, the black leather jacket that kept me warm in the night heated itself up pretty bad and the pain in my foot demanded all my attention. It was dull, yet it stung and burned. My sock was soaked with blood. I just hoped that my toes were still intact, didn’t date to move them. All that for a gift! A gift I didn’t even obtain. Not even close.

Then I heard something from the gate. Fuck. The bastard with the bow returned, with a German sheep dog. That son of a bitch started sniffing right away, in a matter of seconds he was on track. Damnit! In my mind I ran through my options, couldn’t think of a single one. They were closing in and I was a sitting duck.