Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,21

remembered eating mussels me father had brought back from Hobart, these were different, they were real fresh, plump, really fatty plump, and we laughed and laughed as Becky and me popped mussels down each other’s throats and down the throats of the tigers, who liked us doing it cos the meat didn’t have any shell bits. Once I cut me ankle on a mussel shell but I didn’t care. Corinna licked me blood til the wound closed and I s’pose because of the sea water it didn’t become infected.

The tigers didn’t head back from the beach near dawn, instead they waited near the sand dunes facing the sun, their eyes and bodies alert. Then as the sun came up, washing the sea in light so it shone brightly, black dots appeared and disappeared in the golden water. I heard the tigers’ throats rumble and their noses sniff hard. Their bodies trembled with excitement as the dots swam closer. Then the dark blobs emerged from the sea, flopping and scrambling up on the beach. They were seals and about the size of me and Becky. I seen the tigers’ fur bristle and their tails go stiff. Then before I knew what was happening they were rushing across the dunes down to the wet sand where the seals were making their way to the rocks. Dave jumped at the throat of one and ripped it open. Corinna leaped on a smaller one and did the same. The seals were hollering and squealing. Dave looked back at us with his eyes burning bright with the scent of blood. He were calling us. I ran down to join them. I heard Becky calling me back, but I didn’t care. I were excited by the smell of blood too. When I reached the tigers they were putting their snouts down the throats of the seals and ripping out their tongues which they chewed up in a blink of an eye and then they were off to kill more. I didn’t know what to do. I had never eaten seal before. I didn’t fancy the tongue but then I knew the tigers wouldn’t let me have any tongues cos they were in a right frenzy ripping them out of every seal they killed. Becky came up to me trembling at the slaughter and the agonised groans of the seals and their squealing, squeaking pain. This is terrible. This is terrible, she kept on saying. It turned me guts a bit, especially the cries of the seals, but mostly I were not that upset about it. I knew I had to eat.

God knows where me sense of survival came from. Maybe it’s natural cos humans are just animals too. But I went over to the rocks which were slippery with blood and got meself a mussel shell, which I knew would be as sharp as a knife. I used it to slit open a seal’s belly. Inside were hearts and lungs and stomach. I licked some of the blood and then cut off a hunk of the black skin which had pink flesh sticking to it. The outer skin were tough and tasteless but the inner lining were fresh and pink and was like chewing gristle. Even though it didn’t seem to taste like anything special - in fact, it were a bland taste - it had this real odd effect, as if me skin were suddenly alive. The prickly feeling started in me upper lip near me nostrils and then headed up both sides of me nose and met in the middle of me brow where people think a third eye is and Bang! there were this explosion of high spirits in me. I were grinning like a fool. I looked round me. Becky’s pained expression seemed funny, the tigers ripping out the tongues of the seals seemed wonderful and the sea were made from gold.

Some men say that when they drink whiskey there is a moment when they feel the happiest they have ever felt, when they feel like they can move mountains, chop down a tree with their bare hands or wrestle a man to death. Well, that’s how I felt. What were ever in that shiny pink gristle surged through me in waves of ecstasy. Becky asked if anything were the matter. I think I told her to try some of the pink flesh. I were cutting great chunks of it away from the black outer skin and chewing and chewing and chewing