The storm shook the house, the wind howling through the trees, chasing the night that had fallen early on the campsite. It drove the rain before it, the torrential deluge running off the roof and flooding into the amassing streams cascading down the lawn to the swelling lake. Blackness swamped the world beyond the front door, the other cabins lost to the battering storm and the suffocating night. Too frequently lightning severed the sky, a spider web of white slicing through the clouds barrelling over the mountains. Thunder cracked like a whip, echoing off the rocks and across the lake, causing the main house to shudder under the onslaught.
Most of the students had taken refuge in their rooms, hoping to wait out the storm by sleeping or reading. It left the halls and main rooms eerily deserted and silent against the fierceness of the weather. Only the sound of the generator rumbling against the night, seemed brave enough to challenge the storm, and even it spluttered and wavered, the lights flickering and fading with each hiccough from the old, tired machine.
Charlotte pulled back her alteration as she faced the empty, dark corridor beyond her room, glad to find her path to the kitchen undisturbed by people she was doing her best to avoid. The house was bathed in an air of unease as the night rattled on, but Charlotte wasn't worried about the storm. She was worried about bumping into James or Wallace or Ethan. She was worried she would have to face those who could see past her mask to her pain.
She slipped into the corridor, easing the door closed behind her, and tiptoed barefoot along the corridor and down the stairs to the kitchen.
It was a large room with wooden cabinets, a monstrous island counter and two giant double fridge-freezers. Charlotte's stomach growled as she dragged open the freezer, snatching a half-finished box of potato waffles from the shelf. She cast an eye around the freezer looking for anything else that might offer a quick meal, a meal she could eat in solitude, but there was nothing so convenient.
The glass rattled in the window frame as she slipped what waffles were left in the box into the industrial size toaster and waited. She sat up on the counter, resting her head against the wall, closing her eyes as the lights flickered.
She could hear the television from the front room. It was constantly running, the looping news feed giving them their only connections to the world beyond and to what their enemies might be up to. It was a thankless job, but it was their only hope in predicting what was coming next.
"I thought I heard somebody in here".
Charlotte opened her eyes, trying to appear indifferent to the disturbance. Matt was leaning against the doorframe, his arms folded and his dark eyes full of mischief. He looked like the old Matt, the Matt she knew from Kingston, from Daphne Haskins house. Though perhaps he seemed a little more worn around the edges, wearied by the current circumstances, as they all were.
Charlotte forced a half-smile, closing her eyes again and listening to the wind rattling the window.
"I haven't seen you in a while," Matt said as the toaster popped. Charlotte opened her eyes as he moved into the room, taking a plate from one of the cupboards and pulling the steaming waffles from the toaster. He laid them out on the plate and handed her a fork from the drawer.
Charlotte sighed, taking the plate and resting it on her lap. "I've been... distracted".
"I can imagine," he replied. "Would you like a drink?"
Charlotte shook her head. "I'm okay, thanks". She could still hear the noise from the television inside mingled with the noise of the storm and the spluttering generator. "So you're on television duty?"
YOU ARE READING
Feared
Science Fiction'Play the game, she thought, remembering the only three words that had helped her to survive at Kingston. Only back then she had known the game, she had known what they wanted her to be, what they had wanted her to do - this man was different. She d...
