Page 69 of The Compound

It was cold outside. I rarely left the house after dark, and then usually only with Sam. I missed him. I missed him so much that I considered going home right then and there. I should have: I felt a sort of lightness in my head at the thought of it. But then something like tiredness came over me, and I thought,a couple more weeks won’t make much of a difference.I had stayed for the summer, but I would leave before winter came.

Someone—Jacintha, I think—had installed lights around the house, but in the dark their illumination didn’t go very far, and only a fewmeters past the house was pure darkness. “Hold on,” I said. “Let me check if there’s a torch in my room. I think Sam might have got one a couple of weeks ago.”

Tom turned to me. I could only see half his face, but the irritation there was easy to read.

“A torch would have been very useful a couple of weeks ago, Lily. You’re only telling us now?”

“I’ll only be a minute. Don’t go without me.”

I went into the kitchen and ducked low, so that they couldn’t see me through the window. They were standing just outside, and I knew that they would be able to hear me. I had closed the door behind me, but despite Sam and Jacintha’s best efforts it was imperfect and noise slipped through easily enough. I crawled as quietly as I could to the cupboard where we kept the dried foods and snacks. It creaked as I opened it, and I paused, listening for the boys, but only heard the song of the cicadas thrumming in the night. I opened the door of the cupboard the rest of the way and grabbed a fistful of chocolate bars, then closed it quickly, wincing again at the creaking. I put the bars in the pockets of my robe and returned to the boys.

“No torch?” Andrew said.

“No,” I said. “I must have imagined it.”

“Are you afraid of the dark, Lily?” Tom asked.

Before I could answer, Andrew said, “Lily, why don’t you come with me and check to the west of the pool; Tom, you can check to the east.”

“Let’s all split up,” I said. “We’ll cover more ground.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. We’ll probably find her in no time.”

“Okay. Call out if you find anything.”

We separated, and within seconds they were out of sight. I heard them call Becca’s name, Tom to the left of me, Andrew to the right. I wanted to stay there badly, where the house was within view and I could track the boys’ locations, but Becca had been on her own now for long enough. I called her name loudly, and then walked quickly and quietly toward where I thought the maze was.

I had underestimated just how dark this part of the compound was at night. With the house behind me there was nothing to illuminate the way but the dim light of a crescent moon and the pale, tired glow of distant stars. I kept stopping and listening for the boys. I heard Tom far off, to the west, but Andrew was maybe only a couple of hundred feet away. I wondered if Becca thought that I had abandoned her and was hunting her like the others.

Somehow I got lost. I swung around and saw the illumination of the house, white and brilliant in the distance, but once I turned around again I saw only darkness. I had thought I was approaching the maze, but worried now that I had missed it entirely. The boys were no longer calling Becca’s name, and I had no frame of reference now as to how close they were. I wanted to call out myself, just so that someone could know where I was. I was gripped by a sudden terror that I had ventured past the perimeter and into the desert.

I heard movement and froze, my mind conjuring images of snakes and other wild creatures. Where was Tom? Was he frightened, too?

“Lily,” a voice said. A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I screamed, my hands thrown out, encountering nothing.

“It’s me,” Andrew said. “Calm down, Lily, it’s only me. Here, take my hand. I knew we should have gone together. It’s okay; there’s nothing wrong with being afraid of the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark.”

“I used to be, when I was a boy. I’m not afraid here, because I know you’re here and Tom is somewhere, and Becca too.”

“Where are we? Can you tell?”

“Put your hand out—there, can you feel? It’s the swings. To the left is where the vegetable garden used to be. A little farther south is the maze.”

“How do you know? It’s so hard to tell,” I said, and with the right amount of artlessness led him toward the maze.

“Do you think she might have gone into the maze?” Andrew asked. “We’ve searched everywhere else.”

“I don’t know. Becca?” I called, and waited, letting the silence echo. In clear tones, I said, “I don’t think that we should go in tonight. Maybein the morning, when we can see where we’re going.” I put my free hand, the one that wasn’t holding Andrew’s, into my pocket. There was the tiniest rustle of the wrappers.

“I think you’re right,” Andrew said, resigned. “We should go back. Even if she was standing in front of us, we wouldn’t be able to see her.”

I moved my foot across the ground, to cover the noise as I took ahold of the chocolate in my pocket. I could still hear the rustle, just slightly. Could he? “Let me call her one more time,” I said, “just in case.”

Was she in the same spot deep in the maze, hoarding the water, not making a sound? Or was she hiding by the entrance, peeking out at us, laughing as we stumbled through the dark?

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