"Delicious, Nancy!" Ian exclaimed, leaning back in his chair and patting his stomach. Most of the others had finished eating long before Ian had ever started on his third helping, but for as long as Charlotte had known him, Ian had loved his food and loved taking his time in eating it. It was possibly the only thing he did at a slower pace, taking his time over meals, savouring each mouthful.
"Are you sure you've had enough?" Nancy asked, a real hint of concern in her voice.
"Yes he has," Wallace answered with a disbelieving smile on her lips.
Charlotte shook her head and exhaled. How any of them could be hungry she had no idea? Hunger seemed irrelevant with what they were facing. Bubbling unease filled her insides, stole her appetite and churned in her stomach. It was surreal to think, as they sat in the happy, cluttered dining room that anything great and terrible was looming over them. They would soon be facing battle to decide their fate and now they sat around a long table chatting about the weather and food and other matters of trivial importance.
"So what are your plans tomorrow?" Ervin asked, handing his plate to Nancy as she began to clear the table.
"We're going hiking," Ethan said without hesitation.
"Really? Some good hiking spots around here. It's pretty secluded".
Charlotte shifted her weight in her seat. Nicholls' would have liked it secluded.
"You would want to be careful, though," Nancy added. "Some weird happenings up here over the past year".
"Really?" Ethan asked, tucking his blonde hair behind his ear.
"Well surely you heard about the bodies they found up at a house not too far from here," Nancy sighed.
"A big house... a reclusive billionaire owned it... or so the rumours go," Ervin added.
Charlotte bit the inside of her cheeks, staring straight ahead of her. She could feel James' gaze burning into the side of her face. Matt was staring fixedly at his hands, almost as guilty as if he had killed them himself.
"They found... I don't know how many bodies up there, unmarked, unharmed... apart from the billionaire. He did away with himself in his panic room. Man alive, what sort of panic room was needed if he felt that was his only way out. Paranoid... money does that to people".
Nancy nodded vehemently with Ervin's appraisal of the events. "Strange thing though, the dead - they were all these missing kids... or they had been. They were all grown up, but the bodies that were found, those people at one stage or another had all been kidnapped from their families. Imagine what their parents went through... to know they were still out there after all that time only to hear they had..." Nancy shuddered.
"Like those strange... monster kids you see on the television nowadays," Ervin continued. "Bless my soul if anything so terrible had happened to any of ours. And then to find out that they were dangerous, murdering types. What's the world coming to if there are people like that in it?"
"Kids corrupted by evil and money," Nancy sighed. "Too many movies and comic books. Look what they did down in D.C. It's great to know they have caught some of them at least".
"They caught some of them?" Ethan asked, his tone mildly interested.
"Didn't you hear? A couple of days ago... in North Carolina I think? Twenty or so... younger ones mind you, but with them behind bars maybe the world will be a bit of a safer place".
"Locking them up won't do any good, Nance," Ervin exhaled. "See how they escaped last time. The world just ain't safe anymore. God knows what hell they will unleash on us next. And that Mr Ramsey is working endlessly to ensure an end is put to them".
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...
