Page 85 of The Compound

He slipped a little on the stairs. Neither of us mentioned it. I threw his things into a bag while he put on a T-shirt and shorts I handed to him. He became agitated, asking me if I had included different items he wanted. “The navy polo shirt? The watch—the one I wear in the evenings?” I told him yes, I had put everything in, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I was packing his things or Andrew’s. When we went downstairs to the gray room, he was silent as I packed up the broken record player and the map, the leather wallet and the bone. I filled three bin bags in total. I tied a knot on each one and placed them into his arms. His face fell. “This is everything?”

“I think so.”

I looked at him closely and, for the first time in a long time, entirely without fear. I didn’t know what he was waiting for: I don’t know if he thought I might show him some mercy and let him stay until sunrise, in the hope that he would recover some of his sight. We were silent for long enough that he said, “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Will you bring me out to the boundary?”

“If you want,” I said. I owed him that, at least.

I led him through the house and across the compound. The night was cold and silent, and I could hear the catch of his breath, the gasps of pain.

“You were close,” I said. “You nearly had the right number. Did you see Becca’s notebook?”

“Becca’s what?”

“She had been keeping track of the days.”

“No,” he said. We walked slowly, were nearly at the boundary. I knew that it was fear as well as pain that kept his pace so slow. “I had scratched a tally onto the wall in my room. It was my girlfriend’s—my ex-girlfriend Amy’s birthday in August. I had planned to go home by then, but when the time came, I didn’t want to. A month ago, I could have told you the minute and the hour and the date at the drop of a hat. It was the first thing I thought of when I woke up. But I’d forgotten about her. I didn’t think I would, but I did.” He paused. “You left a trail around the compound?”

“Leading from the desert.”

“You went past the boundary?”

“I did.”

I brought him to the southern entrance, to where I had cut the barbed wire, and where the animals had come in. “We’re here,” I said.

He looked, unseeing.

“Where—? I don’t—”

“We’re at the southernmost point. It’s where you came in. If you keep going straight, someone will be there to meet you.” I didn’t know how that part worked—they never showed it on television. I didn’t even know if it was true.

A wind blew across the sand, cold and sweet-smelling. The weather was changing: I could feelit.

I had stepped back, but he put his bags down and moved toward me, his hands stretched out, pawing at the air between us. When he reached me, he grasped at my hands, and I thought, for a moment, that he was trying for some kind of tender goodbye. But he only took the knife from my hand, turned, picked up the bags, and walked across the boundary without a word. I could see him for a few seconds, his arms outstretched, the terrible glint of the knife clutched in his hand, until he was swallowed by the night.

—

I went to bed.I had been struggling to keep my eyes open all night, but now I couldn’t sleep. I drifted off for brief periods, and then would jolt awake, imagining sharp teeth and snapping jaws. I went downstairs and fetched the chair leg that Tom had used earlier. He had left it in the long grass, but I found it easily enough. It lay glistening in the morning dew.

I was both terrified that someone might appear, and desperately, desperately lonely. At turns, I longed to wake up and see Sam’s face on the pillow beside me—but just as much I wanted to talk to my mother, and have her tell me that I would be all right. I didn’t know how I had got here, lying bloody and alone in a disheveled bed, clutching a makeshift weapon, jumping at every noise.

I woke again a short while later. I heard a noise from outside and lay for a moment, limbs stiff and unwilling, before I swung my legs out, stepped quietly across the wooden floors, and crept down the stairs. I stopped at the bottom of the stairwell, the leg of the chair brandished in my hand. Andrew stood before me. His hand went to his face in what I realized, after a moment, was horror.

“What happened?” he said.

I looked down at myself, covered in my own blood. It was on the floor in front of him too, some streaks, and other more definite patterns, numbers and symbols.

“Tom’s gone,” I said.

“When?”

“Not long ago.”

He looked distressed. “Didn’t he want to say goodbye?”

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