Noah peered down each trail, a strange feeling passing over him.

“I don’t remember a fork in the path,” he said. “Although I’ve only been down this way a few times, and it’s been months since I last visited. I didn’t even notice this junction on the way here earlier today.”

“Nor I,” Brian said. “It seems easy to miss, though.” He took a few steps down the left path, his flashlight swinging around, trying to see something familiar. He quickly came back and did the same the other way.

Noah watched him with resignation growing in the pit of his stomach. The trail simply looked too different at night for them to be able to recognize anything.

“We’ll just have to pick one of them,” he said. “It’s only a short walk, no harm done if we go the wrong way. It probably just comes out a bit further down the road.”

Leah groaned and started walking after Brian, who was still looking around in vain at the right path. “No way we managed to get lost on this tiny freaking trail.”

“Not lost, necessarily…” May said hopefully. “I mean, it’s a fifty/fifty chance, right?”

All thoughts immediately went to the Wager. The phrase ‘fifty/fifty’ was used so often describing it that the words themselves seemed to carry the weight of the sickness.

“Er, you know…” May said quietly, sighing.

The four of them looked at each other, flashlights reflecting strangely off their eyes, the point-blank lighting making faces appear like masks. The atmosphere seemed to get colder as they stood there.

“Well, let’s go,” Noah said finally. “We’re wasting daylight.”

“Ha, I wish,” Leah mumbled.

They moved forward, slowly at first, hesitant to leave the junction behind. But as it fell behind them they started walking faster and faster, sticking tightly together as they shuffled along. Their breaths seemed loud and quick in the stillness of the woods.

“This is fun!” Leah said suddenly, causing the other three to jump slightly. She continued blithely, “I’ve always liked going on walks in nature. Brian, remind me to get out in the great outdoors more often.”

Brian sighed. “Sure thing.” He looked around, considering. “We can probably turn around now. The path out isn’t this long.”

“No, we’re almost there, look,” Leah said.

A few steps further proved her words true. The gravel path petered off into nothing, leaving the group standing in a small clearing. Trees ringed the area like stern sentinels. There was no road in sight, although they could distantly hear the sounds of vehicles through the trees.

“Well, we reached the end of the path, but it’s the end of the wrong path,” Noah said, voicing the obvious. “I guess we picked the wrong way.” He pointed his flashlight into the mesh of trees across the clearing, towards the sounds of traffic. “Sounds like we’re close, though I don’t really feel like bushwhacking my way to the road.”

Stolen story; please report.

Leah shrugged. “Me neither. Let’s take the path back then.”

“Wait a moment,” May said. “What’s that?”

Noah turned to see her pointing into the darkness to the right of his flashlight’s beam. He shone his light out where she was gesturing, and a moment later Brian’s beam joined his own. The light soon struck a stout shape recognizable as a small building.

“Does somebody live out here?” Leah asked, peering ahead.

“I feel like we would have noticed some kind of private property signs along the way if that were the case,” Noah said. “Although it would have been extremely easy to miss them.”

Brian was walking forward, prompting everyone else to drift along reluctantly behind him. His flashlight was still trained on the structure.

“I think it’s a mausoleum,” May piped up suddenly. The four of them stopped in front of the building and stared. It had the shape of a small ancient monument, with two sets of columns supporting a pediment and a couple steps leading up to the door.

“Why’s it so far from the cemetery, then?” Leah asked.

Nobody had an answer to that.

Noah left the others behind to circle the structure, but there wasn’t much to see. The side and back walls were plain. When he had looped back to the front he paused, and on a whim mounted the steps, grasped the handle, and tugged. He jumped back like a startled cat when the door unexpectedly opened an inch.

All three people standing behind him immediately yelled.

Well, Brian and Leah yelled, and May sneezed panickedly.

“WOAH! What do you think you’re doing?” Brian demanded.

Noah quickly shut the door and backed away. “I didn’t expect it to be open! Who leaves these things unlocked anyway? That’s just careless!”

“Oh, so it’s their fault. You’re totally free of accountability here.”

“What’s the accountability for? No harm done,” Noah said, his heart racing despite himself.

Brian shook his head. “Let’s just get out of this place.”

“Good idea,” Leah said, skipping forward to snatch the flashlight from Brian’s grasp before he could stop her. “It’s my turn with the flashlight, by the way,” she added as she pranced away triumphantly.

“You don’t get a turn!”

“I think she just did,” May said dryly as they watched her disappear down the path, the light easily visible as it bounced away between the trees.

Brian sighed despondently as they hurried back into the woods after his sister. “I swear, she acts like a child sometimes,” he complained.

“You are children, you puny little first years,” Noah said.

“Oh, come off it, you’re only a year above us!” Brian snapped.

Noah shrugged, supremely aloof. “Seems like a big difference to me.”

Leah was close enough now to have heard enough of their conversation to know she should feel affronted. She was walking slowly so as to let them catch up, and seemed about to respond when she stopped moving altogether and tilted her head.

“What is it?” Brian asked quickly.

“Shh, I heard something,” Leah whispered.

Immediately the four of them went dead silent. Nobody wants to run into anything in a dark woods, and the thought of someone or something being nearby sent a chill down Noah’s spine.

Leah was shining the flashlight directly down the path, so they all saw exactly when a doglike shape crossed into the beam, barely in range of the illumination. Its eyes turned towards them suddenly, two white unblinking dots. Noah felt his entire body freeze up, from his heart to his fingers, as he stared back and felt for the first time in his life that he was prey, that he was being hunted, and that his life was in imminent danger. His friends’ presence faded away until he felt he was standing utterly alone in the sights of a predator.

The creature tilted its head back and an eerie howl spread across the woods. The sound multiplied as more distant voices joined in, growing into a haunting siren.

Wolves, Noah thought numbly. No freaking way.