Plague Of The Wise

Chapter 4

When David and I returned, Martha's gaze was like a hawk, watching every move we made. The group had settled down and was eating some of our food.

I stopped walking at the edge of the circle they had made. "You might want to hold off on eating all the food we have," I said matter-of-factly, even though none of them knew what David and I had found.

"Why?" Audrey asked. Yvonne wouldn't look at me, and Martha was still glaring at David for a reason unbeknownst to me.

David beat me to the punch. "We're stuck in here," he said. I glanced at the faces of our friends. They didn't believe us.

Yvonne stated the obvious. "I don't believe you,"

"If you don't, go see for yourself," I said, my tone irritated from my previous interactions with her. I caught eye contact with her and held it, my gaze unwavering. Finally, she looked away.

"Fine," she said. "But how do you know?"

Jack nodded at me. Zachary drew a line across his throat. I heeded Jack instead of Zachary. "Jack, Zachary, and I saw this enormous fence being put up around the valley. Jack recognized it and said it was an electric fence whose voltage could be turned up or down, depending on the need. We assumed it was low enough to just give a small shock, or even turned right off, just to keep people out of this place over the winter."

David interrupted me. "It's not," he said. "Ethan was over six feet away and got shocked. There's no way it's set to a low voltage. And if it's set to such a high voltage, it's intended for keeping out something smart." He paused. "Or keeping in something smart."

Audrey raised her hand sarcastically. I could tell from her expression that she wanted to trust me. We shared a glance that guaranteed that she was on my side, she just wanted to know more.

Audrey lowered her hand, realizing all eyes were on her. "But why keep us in here?" she asked. "What's the endgame?"

I shrugged, having no answer. David said nothing, so I assumed he didn't either. That, or he just didn't want to talk anymore. Both were possible.

Jack brought his legs in to sit cross-legged. "What if we consider all the possible scenarios?" he asked. "We're smart, we can figure this out."

"Alright," Eden said, beginning to count on their fingers. "One, they forgot about us." They looked around the group and were met with approving glances. "Two, the owner of this valley was uninformed about our hike and doesn't know we're in here." they raised another finger.

"There might be an entrance somewhere," Yvonne said. Her features were set in a hard line. Eden looked to me and I nodded. They raised a third finger.

"We're lost," Zachary said indignantly.

His words sparked outrage from nearly everyone in the group. Even Yvonne turned to him and said something into his ear. Words became decipherable as everyone tried to speak at once. Hillary's authoritative voice carried around the group, but it was David's dangerously emotionless tone that quieted everyone.

"Shut up," he ordered in his quiet loud voice, and it resonated through the other nine of us, quieting us all.

David put one hand on his hip and raised his other, taking over Eden's count. He kept it at three, ignoring Zachary's statement. "Alright," he said. "There's no need to yell at each other. It'll get us nowhere. We need to think about this analytically." He paused to take a deep breath. "We've considered all the possible scenarios for the immediate situation, but we need to consider what could have happened if we got stuck in here indefinitely."

I dared to speak. "This could be part of a weird Watson ritual. It is for the most prestigious students, maybe we have to survive an amount of days here."