My fingers trace over the carved word in the tree. Noose. What does it mean? My confusion right now is mixed with fear and anger.
Everyone is very quiet for a few minutes as we mourn our lost. I didn't know him very long but I do feel bad.
"I swear if this is one of those damn hidden-camera televisions shows then I will..." Megan says pointing at Jackson.
"No! This isn't a prank!" Donna yells. Tears begin to flourish from her eyes.
"Charles was such a good man." Jackson says still looking at the hanging body.
"The question is was her murdered or did he kill himself." Quinn asks.
"That's the only thing you're worried about?" Jackson asks.
"Well if he killed himself then we have one less thing to worry about cause if he was murdered then we are not only stuck here but we're stuck here with a killer. Which could be any of us." He says looking around at all of us.
My mind suddenly flashes back to last night when I was in the monitor room watching as Jennifer and Charles went off in the woods to almost this exact spot. I stop myself. I can't assume things like that. Jennifer would never do such a thing.
"Noose? What does it mean?" I ask.
"Does it really matter? Is no one else freaking out that there's a dead body just hanging right in front of us?" Marley says holding on to Quinn.
"Okay yes I'm very concerned about that but I'm even more concerned of the fact that we are freakin stuck here!"
"People will have to come back for us. They'll realize we are missing." Albert says.
I look over and slowly walk up to Jackson and Donna who look terribly hungover. I point my finger right in there faces.
"This is your fault. All the blame is on you. You wanted some no good shit research and decided to kidnap us. And now look what your sad, no-good job got us into!" I say.
"We didn't think any of this would happen. I mean we even hired a body guard." Jackson says.
"Yeah well now look at him. He's dead! And we'll be next if we don't get the hell out of here so you better start thinking."
"Thinking? About what?"
"HOW TO GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
"Berry!" Megan yells. "We aren't going to get anything accomplished with you yelling at people." She says and she's right. I brush my hair to the side.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just emotional at the moment." I say.
"Well yeah I think we all are." Carley says. I look over and see Jennifer kneeling and still looking up at the body.
"I don't think I can stay around here and stare at him for much longer." Marley says.
"Yeah okay. Um... you two start thinking about how we can get some help." I say pointing to Jackson and Donna. "Marley, Quinn, and Carley, you guys go back to the house which is currently burning but just go and look for stuff we can use. And Albert and Megan you guys start collecting things that we could possibly eat or use. Jennifer and I will stay back and look for some clues to how this happened." I say. Everyone splits to do their job without arguing.
I walk over to Jennifer and pull her up by her arm. She's still crying.
"He was such a nice person." She says.
