Harold Girard put the letter back into his bag, took out Trisha's phone, put it safely in his pocket then surveyed the the map which was neatly folded in his bag.
He looked around, wondering who had put it in his bag but no one present in the gym looked likey they could have done it so, he parted the map slowly on his lap and studied it.
There was a diagram towards the edge that looked like it was drawn by a kid for his project and an ugly sketched arrow pointed at it with ‘Golden Lake University’ written on it. From the school, ‘x’ trails which showed the part Harold was follow during the contest led into a part with small firs drawn like the design found on clothing materials. To an edge, Harold saw ‘Forest’ written in a clumsy handwriting and he, Harold, instinctively nodded his head as he understood what it meant.
His eyes followed the ‘x’ trails again and only wavered once when an irregular circle was drawn quite a distan
“We have to keep everything safe,” Wilkes said as the trio stood on their feet, ready to go to the fields at a few minutes to 11 PM. “We've gotten to a point where we just can't risk anything or make mistakes.”Harold nodded in affirmation and Trisha looked around the dark room for the best spot to hide the letter in her hand and the map in Wilkes'.“Let's put them in here first,” Harold said, opening the mouth of his bag wide for them to put into his bag. When they had done that, he folded his bag in a way he knew the contents in it didn't stand a chance of tearing or soiling then he kept it under his bed.“Good spot?” he asked as he pushed his bag deeper and deeper—almost completely out of reach, under his bed that oozed a funny odour.“Yes.”“No,” Trisha countered quickly, holding her glasses by the handles against her face so that it didn't slip off and break. “Trust me, if anyone breaks in here
Professor Ericson's bones were becoming cramped because of the position he had been in for the past eighteen hours and the joints of his fingers which were tightly wrapped on his steering wheel pinched him as he kept on driving through the woods with his car's headlights—which were gradually becoming pale, shining on the dirt track ahead of him.For hours—almost a whole day if proper record was taken, he had not seen sunshine due to the thick trees and large leaves that converged ahead of him, forming a shrubby canopy. The network service, too, was unbelievably poor, and many a times, he had gone for hours without as much as one network bar on his phone.Most of the times, he had to use his natural compass—which was very inaccurate, to manage to continue moving but for all he knew, he could have been roaming around the same spot for the past eighteen hours and he will have no idea.As professor Ericson drove through, not mindi
From the night after Harold had proven to be a tough competitor when he faced Brie, he spent all his free time in the gym, doing sit-ups, and push-ups, lifting weights, too, and jogging on the treadmill to improve his endurance.Trisha and Wilkes who hadn't told him of their plans, prepared bit by bit to follow him when he was gone for the contest without him knowing. They had highlighted certain points on the map for what they referred to as ‘emergencies’, made suggestions of possible wild creatures they could come across and ways of dealing with them through minimal effort and resources and so on.Every evening, Harold met with them, they spoke on inconsequential matters for a few hours to wane the tension that built up everyday then they all headed down to the fields at night for Harold to practice.“I strongly believe this is my night,” Harold said to the other two as they walked causally to the field two nights befo
The students of Golden Lake; first year students the most, gathered in huddles in the auditorium that smelled of sweat and smelly feet to hear the details of the contest.As the week gradually ran down to the D-Day, Friday, which was the first day of the contest, students began to cheer their specie on.On the first day of the ‘outbreak of supporters’—which happened to be a Sunday, a large billboard that had ‘Go Derek Baxter’ in a swirly font was mounted in front of the Enchanters building with a picture of Derek holding his wand and looking very grim.The day after that, the Bloodsuckers came up with a T-shirt—and an anthem, too, for the vampire going into the contest as their representative, Penelope Quinn.On the second day after the massive support had started rolling out, a Tuesday, the vampires still had nothing and Harold wanted it to be that way until some students he referred to as ‘miscreants’ manage
It had been days since professor Ericson got to the human civilization nearest to Golden Lake University which was roughly some tens of kilometres away; New Cresthill, but since his arrival, he had not accomplished the reason he had stopped in such a shabby town when he could easily have moved to big cities and metropolises such as Cleethorpes, MillerVille or even Hillfar where he had grown with his aged parents before leaving them one night to a university located in the middle of an almost impenetrable woodland where he was told he will meet people like him, Werewolves.Upon driving out of the sheets after sheets of wood, trees, shrubs after a painful thirty-hour drive with little to no rest, he disposed the car which was battered to pulp next to some factory with peeling walls and wobbly infrastructure and got for himself a second-rate hotel room on one of the most notorious streets, Knife's Edge.On his first night, he slept for about fifteen ho
“Have you packed all what professor Ericson mentioned?” Trisha asked Harold as he zipped up his bag with much difficulty because of the too many cans of food he had in it.Harold picked up the letter, brushed through the many wordings till he got to where professor Ericson had listed the things he should take. “It all remains a pocket knife,” he said, dropped the paper on his bed and zipped up the remaining space that was left at once.“And where are you going to get that?” she challenged him, folding her arms. Wilkes sat on his own bed, watching the couple. They were always breathing down each other's necks and although it didn't look like it most times, it was because they cared for each other.“Uhm, I don't know,” Harold replied, swinging his heavy bag over his shoulder.“Are you sure you want to carry such an heavy bag everywhere you go for three days?” Wilkes asked, eyeing Harold's brown leather bag that protru
The moment professor Ericson took a step into the shabby house, a thick stench of poop hit his nostrils but he managed to keep a straight face as he walked on although he was internally disgusted by the lack of good hygiene.‘If this was where Francis lived’, he thought, ‘then the contest did far worse than mouths could say’.As he walked through a small passage with walls that had large holes burrowed into them, a few lizards ran into them to hide because they viewed him as a predator and for a second, professor Ericson thought Francis fed on them. He quickly took his mind off it, though, for his mental state and brooded on how Francis was back then in 1989; Long, blonde, curly hair, perfectly neat set of clothes changed everyday—coupled with a blameless hygiene which his snowy teeth were a testimony of, although with a small frame, an intimidating aura that brought the biggest bullies to their knees. Francis had a brigh
"Where are our bags?" Wilkes whispered in an alarming tone as him and Trisha watched Harold, Derek and Penelope walk to a grey limousine that was parked beside the auditorium.Four men all dressed in black tuxedos, tinted glasses and wristwatches that beeped with a red light walked before them like bodyguards and Dr. Peyton Giovanni walked behind them with a vile smile."They're at my hostel. We have to get them now and meet Harold at the gate," Trisha said pretty loudly so that Wilkes could hear her over the cheers from the students that watched their representative leave.They both gave Harold a long, lasting look as he sunk into the limousine then with a lot of struggle, they forced their way through the noisy crowd and began running. They had to beat the limousine."Any shortcuts?" Wilkes asked as they ran past a lamp post that was blackish with rust. It had stopped functioning for years and hadn't b