The Compound

Chapter TWELVE

I CALMED MYSELF DOWN, CLEANED MYSELF UP, AND HOLED up in my room. I stayed there the rest of the day. Even skipped dinner. I didn’t want to see anyone. But I wanted to pick up my book from the library.

As I left my room, I almost tripped over Mom, who was sitting on the floor, her back against the hard wall. I got the feeling she’d been waiting for me. I wondered how much she had heard of my earlier argument with Dad. Or how much she perhaps already knew.

She looked up at me with gentle, wet eyes. “Eli, come see the babies with me.”

My face must have given away my reaction.

She held out a hand for me to help her up, then pulled back when I did. “I have stood by and watched your father do a lot of things,” she said, inching up the wall. “But this—I won’t give in.”

Her tone told me what I had to do. I went to meet the rest of the family.

How could I possibly have gone that long without seeing them? We were, after all, stuck in the Compound together. But it was a big place. Big enough to be able to avoid what I needed to avoid. But maybe I’d avoided enough: facing life without Eddy and Gram, surviving the worst disaster to hit the civilized world. Hell, I’d become a master at denial.

Then Mom led me into the room with the yellow door.

My first look around made me realize the depth of my father’s preparation for any contingency. Goose bumps covered my arms. I resisted the urge to let my hair down and hide from the truth.

The walls were sunflower yellow, dotted here and there with painted handprints of pleasing greens and blues and oranges. The tone of the lighting was artificial sunlight. Did I imagine my skin becoming warmer? I felt like I was outside on a warm April afternoon. The scent of lilacs lingered, increasing the sensation of spring.

There was a crib and two toddler beds, all oak, with fluffy down bedding in whimsical, primary-colored prints. On the floor beside them lay a mattress, topped with a twisted mess of sheets and blankets. Past the beds, into the second room of the suite, we entered the playroom. Castles of blocks were stacked against one wall, and another held shelves brimming with picture books, puzzles, and games.

My eyes widened at the amount of baby and toddler things my father had stockpiled.

Had Dad planned on Mom having babies here? Before the Compound, I never heard them discuss having more children. Everything in that room suggested otherwise. And when I saw the stacks of diapers, the changing table, and the rocking chair I realized this had all been foreseen by my father somehow.

Maybe foreseen wasn’t the right word. Maybe he’d always planned to create a new generation.

Someone took my hand.

I recoiled, yanking it away. A small, dark-haired boy dressed in navy blue sweats grinned up at me. I recognized the fabric was from the piles of bolts in the sewing room.

His face was also one I knew well. Eddy’s. My legs nearly buckled and I put a hand against the wall to steady myself.

He still looked up at me. “Want to play Chutes and Ladders?”

Terese stood behind him. “Eli, this is Lucas.”

“Do you want to play with me, Eli?” I wanted to shout no and run. But where? Mom said, “I’ll come by in a little while.” She backed out the door.

Part of me was so pissed at her, for going along with all this. But another part of me was too surprised at the new world I’d stepped into. I was jolted by how much the little boy resembled Eddy at that age. And me.

A brother. I had another brother.

The boy must have equated my silence with agreement, because he walked over to a table with small chairs where a game was set up. He tapped one place. “You sit here,’ kay?”

I tried to sit where he directed, but could hardly get my legs under the tiny table. I moved the chair and sat on the floor.

He sat in a chair beside me, his eyes level with mine. “I go first, ’kay?” He counted the spaces and moved his piece.

Curious fascination overcame the knot in my stomach. “How high can you count?”

“I can count a lot. I’m almost five.”

I took my turn. “Figured you were.”

We kept playing. The boy, Lucas, chattered the whole time, telling me about what he liked to play. At one point he stopped and rested his chin on one hand. His big brown eyes contemplated my face. “You look like me.”

My laughter came before I could stop it. “I was here first, so that means you look like me.”

“And Eddy.”

I felt my smile collapse. “How do you know about Eddy?” I glanced around for Terese, but didn’t see her.

“Reesie told me. About Eddy and Eli, the twins. Eddy stayed outside to take care of Cocoa and Clementine. He’s going to come and get us out.”

Lucas knew no life besides the Compound. Yet even he felt the need to get out. If that didn’t signify the strangeness of our life, I don’t know what would.

Guess it was up to me to shatter his illusions. “Look, kid. Eddy isn’t out there. He’s gone.”

The statement didn’t seem to unsettle him at all. He simply looked at me. And he sounded very confident. “Reesie said you’d say that.”

I had no response.

“Why didn’t you come see me before?”

“Before what?”

“Now.” Lucas blinked. His dark lashes were a stark contrast to his pale, perfect skin. Such a beautiful child.

Again, I didn’t have anything to say.

Then he handed me a toy car. “It’s broken.”

“Huh?”

“It’s broken. Can you fick it?”

His face was so serious. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I can fick it.” The wheel had come off. I pried it back on.

As he leaned in to watch me, he was close, so close that I could feel his warm breath on my arm.

Too close.

My body tensed, waiting for my heart to speed up, my breath to become shallow. But it didn’t happen. I finished, handing back his toy.

Lucas smiled. “Thanks.” He dropped to the floor, running the car back and forth until he seemed satisfied it worked. He checked behind him, and then whispered, “Eli, can you keep a secret?”

“Yeah, of course.” Like there was anyone to tell.

Lucas led me over to a door. Inside, shelves upon shelves held toys, puzzles, and games. He went to the back, tugging out a wooden box. “I keep this back here so no one else can see it. It’s special.” He beckoned.

With one hand, he selected an item from the box. His grin showed a lot of teeth. “Look.” He held up a painted figure of an intricately carved clown.

Great. It had to be a clown.

He removed the top, which revealed another smaller figure inside the first.

“Oh, they’re nesting dolls.”

Lucas scrunched his nose up. “They’re not dolls. They were a special present. A secret.” He plucked one out of the other until there were six. He set them on a shelf in order, keeping the smallest in his hand. “This is the last one.” He held a finger to his lips. “It has a mystery inside.”

“The last one doesn’t open, that is the mystery.”

Lucas nodded. “It does so have a mystery.”

Was I actually arguing with a four-year-old? “Okay, whatever.”

He put them all back and hid them in the same spot again. “Do you hate us?”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You never came to see us.” His eyes blinked slowly, like he was waiting for me to come up with an explanation.

For a while, even before Terese had aroused my suspicions that day in the gym, I sometimes wondered if the staleness of our existence would slowly suffocate us. I finally understood why Mom and Terese and Lexie doted on the Supplements. Sitting with Lucas, my brother, I already felt different. More alive than I’d felt for a long time.

I explained it to him. “It was dumb of me to stay away. Let’s just leave it at that.”

He nodded. “I have to get my pie-jammas on now.” He skipped off to where Terese was helping a little girl with dark braids put on a nightgown.

In the rocking chair, Lexie held the youngest one, a boy about a year old. I heard her call him Quinn. I’d always considered my older sister to be completely self-absorbed, concerned only with herself and what she could gain from any situation. Her actions usually proved my assumptions to be true. But as I observed her, she was unaware of being watched.

Lexie held Quinn with a look on her face I’d never seen. If I had to describe it, I guess I could say she appeared happy. Not because she was getting her way or someone was doing something for her. She was just content in the role of observing Quinn, just waiting to see what he would do next. Mostly I was amazed to see her being so patient with someone.

Then Lexie saw me. “What are you doing down here?” Before I could answer, her surprised look turned to one of annoyance and she stood up, shoving Quinn into my arms. “Hold him, I have to pee.”

I tried to hand him back. “Wait, don’t leave.”

She was already into the bathroom on the other side of the suite. Terese had her hands full. I was stuck. I wanted to let go, drop him, anything to get him out of my arms. But he was clutching me so hard. So I held Quinn.

My hands on his waist, I tried to lean as far away as I could. He struggled to twist around and face me, patting my face with his hands. Blond hair curled around his ears. His footed pajamas were made of soft polar fleece, a blue and white print with moose and pine trees. His heavy, solid toddler body radiated heat. He smelled of baby shampoo and powder, not unpleasant in the least.

I shifted him up a bit to get a better grip.

He giggled, revealing two tiny front teeth.

“Do you like him?” Lucas padded over dressed in similar pajamas. “That’s Quinn.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So do you like him?”

Quinn patted my face and inspected my nose. I cringed, but still squeaked out a reply. “He’s cute.” He was.

Lexie came back out and took Quinn. “Thanks. Wasn’t that bad, was it?” Lexie set Quinn inside a playpen.

My hands trembled as I wiped my sweaty face on my shirt. I wished my heart would stop pounding so hard.

Lucas pulled on my shirt. “We can do Legos now.”

“Yeah, okay. You go get ready and I’ll be right there.” I waited until he couldn’t hear me, then I said to Lexie, “We need to talk.”

On the other side of the room, Lucas dumped all the Legos on the floor.

Quinn squawked.

Lexie reached down and hoisted Quinn out of the playpen. He grabbed a fistful of her hair. She winced, holding his hand so he couldn’t yank any more. Lexie hid her face in Quinn’s chest as he squealed.

“Lex, you don’t have to go along with any of Dad’s plans.”

Her reply was muffled. “And see how long it takes us to starve?”

“I just had a talk with Dad. He showed me the lab.” She didn’t say anything. “He said he’d talked to you.” She nodded.

“It’s true? Have you been to the lab? Seen what he plans to do?”

Lexie fixed her dark eyes on me. “If it was the only way, I would do it.”

I tried to make my voice sound as kind as possible, not exactly a practiced skill of mine. “Lex, even if there were more, you would come to love them, just like you love these ones.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then set Quinn on the ground where he crawled off toward Terese. “Meet me later. In my room, after Terese has gone to bed.”

“Why?”

“I need to know what you know. I have to decide what to do. Eli, we’re wasting time.” She laughed without sounding the least bit cheerful. “How stupid is that? We have all the time in the world, years and years. Yet it’s all so urgent.”

“Eli!” Lucas sat amid a mountain of Legos, waving. “I’m ready.”

Lexie left before I could catch her, so I stayed with Lucas. We built a tower halfway. I wanted something bigger. Digging in the closet, I lifted a container from the top shelf and discovered a shrink-wrapped, unopened box of Legos, along with other unused, brand-new toys.

Another one of Dad’s stashes. I found a bag of balloons and told Lucas I’d be right out. I blew up a few, red and purple and green. I opened the door and freed them. They floated out toward the others and bounced along the ground.

Lucas clapped. “Yay!”

The little girl stopped playing and stared.

Terese called out, “Go get it, Cara!”

Cara kicked one, traipsing after to kick it again.

Terese held Quinn as she picked up a balloon. She held it out to him.

He grinned. “Bub-oh.”

I didn’t understand. “What did he say?”

Terese giggled. “Bubble. He thinks it’s a bubble, like in the bubble bath.”

Bubble baths? Of course. Of course the children had bubble baths. Of course they had that part of childhood. What else had I missed all that time?

Terese enunciated her words. “It’s a balloon, Quinn. Balloon.”

“Boon?”

Terese nodded. “Yes, balloon.”

“Boon. My boon.”

My face flushed. My upper lip broke out in sweat. I excused myself.

In the hallway I squatted, leaning my head against the wall. As much as I’d tried to remain detached, unaffected, I’d been touched. Touched and affected. Because no matter what I might call them, no matter what the unholy reason for their creation, the simple fact remained: the Supplements were a part of me. They were part of all of us.

As I sat there considering the Supplements and their intended purpose, Dad’s other repugnant solution for the food shortage, it made me wonder. Had we become godless?

Were we so removed from the world of before that we would actually consider such things to be commonplace?

Mundane?

Another fact of life?

God forbid: not immoral?

I’d been a practicing selfish worm for so long. Basically my entire life. Why was I suddenly so opposed to doing the very things that would ensure my continued existence? Given the context, the circumstances that no one had ever faced before, there really wasn’t a precedent. We were it. Was it the right thing then? To do what was necessary, no matter what?

I had never made a point of seeking out right and wrong. The right answer depended entirely on whether the outcome benefited me. Right or wrong, this outcome would definitely benefit me, more than any other outcome had before.

This time, however, I felt it. I felt it in my head. I felt it in my heart. Dad’s solutions were wrong. And for once, I was not going to do the wrong thing.

We had not become godless. The Compound had just distracted us. We still needed to live by rules of the old world, even if those rules didn’t exist anymore. They were a line that could not be crossed. For the first time that I could remember, I was going to take a stand.

I wasn’t Eddy. Didn’t pretend to be.

But I could still, for once in my life, do the right thing.