Red Fox Read Online Free Page B

pulled low over narrowed icy blue eyes. With a square shaped jaw, broad shoulders and enormous hands, he is exactly what I imagine an army general to look like. He is dressed in the same maroon coloured jumpsuit as Holland, but it has a camouflage print and somehow it doesn’t make him look like a clown. However, I don’t think this vicious looking man could appear clown-like in a tutu. A gun holster is fastened around his hips and I see the menacing glint of a silver pistol there. A megaphone is clutched under his left armpit and a steel whistle hangs from a string around his neck.
    One by one people look towards the platform, murmuring softly until they see the intimidating man looking over us like livestock in a saleyard. The man’s gaze falls upon me, and I immediately feel violated as his eyes work their way over my face and torso. It isn’t a perverted look—it is cold and calculating. I glare at him and grit my teeth. He looks away, unfazed, and then raises the white megaphone to his mouth.
    “Good morning, everyone.” The megaphone screeches for a second and then we hear a deep, rough voice. “My name is Lieutenant Seiger. Sorry for having to call you to the town centre like this, but your government has decided that some slightly more drastic changes need to be made for the welfare of our country. In three corners of this courtyard there is a letter on a picket. The letters consist of A, B, and C. We also have a group D, and those placed in the D group are to rally outside of the town square. When I call your name, come up to this platform and I will tell you what letter you belong in. The people sided by you in these groups are going to become like your family, so please get to know them well. If you have answered the recent test correctly, you have nothing to worry about.”
    I was right. This is about the test results. I don’t know how to react to Lieutenant Segier’s words. We’re being sorted into groups? Why and what do these groups all mean?
    A stunned silence settles over the town centre, followed by murmurs of confusion. It’s as if everyone present isn’t sure whether they heard the man with the megaphone correctly. Then people shout in outrage and begin yelling out swear words at Lieutenant Seiger. I can imagine no faster way to cause a rebellion than to sort humans into groups like market animals. I can feel the heat radiating off the screaming people around me. The enraged crowd, blinded by their anger, batters against me. Seiger raises his megaphone and tries to order people into silence, but the townsfolk continue swearing and shaking their fists in fury. My family are one of the few that stand stone faced and silent, expecting the worst and knowing that rioting will only work against us.
    Seiger eventually lowers the megaphone, scowling at the outraged crowd, and that is when I notice movement on top of the brick wall. There is a flash of shiny black and silver every few metres along the top of it and my stomach knots in terror as I realise what they are.
    Rifles. Rifles aimed at us, the people standing in the courtyard. Black-clad gunmen sit behind them with their eyes pressed to the scopes. I am one of the first to notice and fear begins eating away at my insides like I’ve swallowed acid. Sweat breaks on my brow but I feel icy cold. I grab hold of Jack’s arm and my fingernails dig into his jacket. He puts his arm around my shoulder and draws me close.
    “Just be calm and be quiet,” he whispers to me, his eyes also on the gunmen. “Calm and quiet.”
    I take a deep breath and exhale it slowly. The fear is still there, waiting to swallow me whole, but I control it. Everywhere I look the gunmen are there, waiting and watching. Seiger has his hand up to silence people. I know if that hand comes down, the bullets will rain on us. A panic I have never felt consumes and paralyses me. It is the petrifying fear that comes only when one is faced with the idea of death. I grip onto Jack,