The Compound

Chapter SIXTEEN

MY KNUCKLES WERE COVERED IN BLOOD. I DIDN’T KNOW IF IT was mine or his.

I backed away and Lexie finally got off. I felt so light without her.

Mom knelt by Dad. “Rex?”

He groaned. His eyes stayed closed. He didn’t utter any other sounds.

“Mom?” Lexie’s voice was shaky. She turned to me, her face red and blotched. “What did you do? Now we’ll never get out!”

Had I just messed up everything? I let my hair stay where it was, covering my face.

Mom’s voice was strong. “Eli, go get a gurney. We need to get him to the infirmary.”

My legs wouldn’t move.

Mom spoke again, firm but quiet. “Eli, go.”

I stumbled from the room, my breaths shallow and rapid. I staggered from one side of the hallway to the other, my hair obscuring my view, and I held a hand to my chest as I ran. My heart felt like it was going to explode. When I reached the infirmary, I bent over for a moment and caught my breath. As fast as I could, I pushed a gurney back to them. I’d picked one with squeaky wheels, and they were the only sound besides our breathing as we rolled Dad to the infirmary and got him into a bed.

Mom’s face was red and tear stained, and she struggled to catch her breath as she sat beside Dad and started to clean the blood off his face. She set a hand on his motionless arm. “He’s freezing.”

I spoke. “It’s my fault.”

She saw the look on my face. “It wasn’t your fault. You hit him, but you didn’t do this.” She shook her head as she assessed his condition. “I think something is really wrong with him.”

“No, not that.” I stood beside her. “It was my fault Eddy didn’t come with us.” The secret I had harbored all those years needed to be released. I told Lexie and Mom the truth about that night.

Our ninth birthday. We were excited to finally be almost in double digits. The annual big party was held the day before, so we could head to the cabin on the actual day. Dad’s acreage in eastern Washington was huge, with a ten-room log house we called the cabin. We had an RV, too, which we used to drive farther into the wilderness to go camping. Not that an RV was roughing it, but that’s what we called camping, anyway.

Gram came with us, sort of. She followed the RV with the Range Rover. She said she always liked to be prepared for emergencies. Although to her, an emergency might constitute running out of marshmallows for the s’mores we made over the campfire. A trip in the RV wasn’t a trip without Gram driving back to the cabin at least once.

As we drove along, Dad told us he had a big surprise for us. And he did. He’d just bought a new two-seater airplane. It went along with the new landing strip in the middle of the property, which is where we went with the RV. It was already dusk when we reached the site, so Dad promised we’d go flying first thing in the morning. We’d flip a coin to see which birthday boy would go first. Of course, I wanted it to be me.

We were getting ready for bed when Eddy started wheezing. Dad discovered a kitten in the RV. Terese admitted to finding it at the cabin, then smuggling it onto the RV. She started to cry and apologized to Eddy. She said she just wanted to make sure the kitten had a home.

The RV medicine cabinet always had some antihistamine for Eddy, but Mom came back empty-handed. “We’d better go get some at the cabin.”

Gram volunteered.

Eddy said he felt better. Gram insisted. “Just let me tuck Terese in. I’ll take the kitten back to the cabin and get it set up in the garage.”

Eddy and I crawled into bed. The airplane ride was still on my mind. “Hey, Eddy. I heard Dad and Gram talking. They said they have another surprise back at the cabin for us. What do you think it is?”

Eddy’s eyes widened. He loved surprises.

“Guess we’ll have to wait for tomorrow.” I rolled over and shut my eyes. I counted on the fact that Eddy also loved a mission.

“Eli? I’ve got an idea.”

“What?” I tried to stop them, but the corners of my mouth wanted to go up.

“I could hop in the back of the Range Rover and go with Gram. I could find out what it is.”

I sat up. “That’s a great idea. But you have to go now, while she’s with Terese.”

Eddy opened the window and dropped down to the ground. I lay back, grinning. I knew once Eddy was in the Range Rover with the kitten, he would start wheezing. And Gram would keep driving to the cabin; insist on staying there overnight. I would be the only birthday boy around in the morning when it was time to ride in Dad’s new plane.

The rest I didn’t plan on: waking up to shouts, the RV moving wildly from side to side, falling out of bed. Then the darkness, running blind outside, Dad’s shouts telling us which way to turn…

But I didn’t need to remind Lexie and Mom about that part. They had lived it.

My eyes were full of tears. I couldn’t look at my mother or my sister. They were staring at me. I felt their eyes.

Mom’s hand touched my arm. I moved away.

“It’s done, Eli. And if Eddy were here, you couldn’t have contacted him out there. Everyone would still think we were dead.”

Lexie didn’t say anything to me. She just wiped off the fresh tears finding their way down her face. Mom’s hand caressed my face. I went to the other side of the room. She followed.

Both her hands went to my face, holding me. She hadn’t been this close to me since I was nine. She smelled of lilacs. Her voice was gentle. “Eli.”

Her touch had been only a childhood memory for so long. It was hard for me to believe it was real.

My eyes shut. Hot tears still squeezed out. My head went from side to side. “I’m not…”

Mom’s grip on my face got stronger. “You’re not what, Eli?”

The word came out in a racking sob. “Worthy.”

“Oh, Eli. You’ve always been worthy.” She pulled me to her and held me. I let her. “You were a child. Children make mistakes.”

My arms went around her. “I’m so sorry.” My mouth open against her shoulder, I wept. I wept for Eddy, for what I’d done. So many things I’d done. But mostly, my tears were for the loss of the last six years with my brother.

I wanted them back.

When I stopped blubbering, Mom backed away. Her shoulders straightened as she took a deep breath. Her eyes darkened as they went from me to Lexie and her voice was clear of any fear or sadness. “Let’s do what we have to and get out of here.”

Mom and Lexie stayed with Dad.

Wiping my face as I ran, I tore down the corridor to his office. As I suspected, it was locked. I could have used Terese’s lock-picking skills, but there was no time. At the closest fire extinguisher panel, I broke out the glass and grabbed the axe. Seven whacks later, the office door swung on its hinges.

Once inside, I took a deep breath. I had to find what we needed. I grabbed the phone, hoping for a dial tone. Nothing. How easy that would have been, to just pick up the phone and call out? I imagined that was how he talked to Phil, his accountant. I couldn’t think of anyone else he would have trusted with this secret. That guy would probably sell his own internal organs for the right price.

The laptop from Eddy’s room was on a shelf. I switched it on, drumming my fingers as I waited for the wireless signal.

I groaned.

It was off. Of course.

Starting with the books on the shelves, I looked everywhere. Book by book, I emptied the shelves and ran my hands over each dusty one. Nothing. The piles of National Geographics ended up on the floor in heaps. I yanked on the drawers of his desk. Locked tight.

I picked up his chair and heaved it at them until they broke open. Papers, notes, lists: proof I was right about everything, but none of it mattered. Nothing gave me the code to the door or the passwords to his computers. I tore the office apart looking for a switch, some way to get on the Internet, the phone, anything. But I kept coming up dry.

I looked over at the door to the secret lab. I couldn’t imagine any Internet switch being there. I had to keep moving.

Our only hope was Dad. Maybe he would relent and tell me what I needed to know.

BACK IN THE INFIRMARY, MOM SAT ON THE BED AND LEXIE stood beside her, an arm around her shoulder. Dad’s bruised face was clean, and he lay under several layers of blankets, shivering. His eyes were open, but they seemed to be vacant, unfocused. If he noticed me come in, he gave no sign.

Mom looked up at me, her eyebrows raised hopefully. “Any luck?”

I shook my head. “How is he?”

“We took his temperature. It’s low.”

“That’s good, right?” I asked, as I took in what I’d done to his face. Some son.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not a good thing. His temperature is low.”

“What do you mean by low?”

“Below normal. Below 98.6.”

Lexie pulled a blue blanket out of the warmer and we both spread it over Dad. His eyes widened, seemed to focus for a moment. “Oh God.” Leaning over the side of the bed, he retched.

Ugh. Turning away, I said, “Got it.” I found the mop and bucket in the closet and cleaned up the mess.

Before long Dad had diarrhea, too. He was no more coherent, but we managed to get him to the bathroom. Mom went in with him and shut the door.

Lexie waited for a minute. “I’m gonna go help Terese with the Supp—” She paused. “I mean with the little kids.” She left.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, wondering what kind of bug Dad had. How bad he had it. Whether we would all end up with it.

“Eli, are you out there?”

“Yeah, Mom. Right here.”

She opened the bathroom door. “He needs to lie down again. Can you help?”

Dad leaned totally on me as we started back to the bed. Suddenly he went limp.

I couldn’t hold him.

He dropped to the floor. His head thrashed from side to side. “No!” he screamed. He began to babble, many of the words incoherent.

Mom knelt by him. “Rex? What’s wrong?”

Dad seized me by the collar. His breath was hot and stinking in my face. His hands were ice against my skin. “I won’t let you do it. I won’t.” He was agitated, angry, and then he stopped. He fell back on the floor, and then looked up at my mom, pleading. “Clea, don’t let them do it.”

“Do what, Rex?” She looked as confused as I felt.

“Mom, he’s delirious.”

Mom sighed. “We’ve got to find out what’s wrong. Maybe we’ve got medicine for it.”

Suddenly Dad seemed to be calm again. Grunting at the effort, I slid him across the floor and lifted him into the bed. I said, “I’ll go see what I can find out. You stay here but be careful. If he starts to get violent or seems like he might hurt you, just leave, okay?”

Mom nodded.

In the library, I grabbed several thick medical books. It would have been so much easier to just go on the Internet, find out what I needed. But then I could have gotten us out. I wouldn’t have had to play a half-assed doctor.

Back in the room with Dad, Mom and I paged through the reference books. “Mom, what are his symptoms?”

“For weeks now he’s been drinking antacid like it’s water.”

“So… heartburn?”

She shook her head. “And the vomiting and diarrhea. Although today may be the first time that’s happened.”

I frowned. “Those are symptoms for a million things. Let’s focus on the unique things.”

Mom nodded. “Like his low body temperature.”

“Yeah. And being delirious.” I kept flipping pages. Then my eyes caught a paragraph about low body temperature. “This couldn’t be it.”

Mom looked up from the book she held. “What?”

“Well, it lists all those symptoms. Plus seizures, headaches…” I caught my breath. “And itching.” I met Mom’s stare.

“He’s been scratching like crazy.”

Reading further, I jammed my finger into the page. “And pins and needles. He said that the other day, that his hands felt like pins and needles.”

“Eli, what’s the condition?”

I hadn’t even looked at that yet. I’d been too busy matching up the symptoms. “Ergotism.”

“What is it?”

I kept reading. My heart sunk when I found out what it was. I didn’t want to tell my mom. But she was waiting for me.

I read the definition aloud. “Poisoning by ingesting ergot-infected grains.”

Her face registered confusion. She paled as she understood. “The flour.”

I scanned a bit more, trying to find out what I could. “There must have been some rye in it that was already infected with the ergot when it came into the Compound.”

Her eyes widened. “I… I did this.”

I started to shake my head, but she grabbed my arm. “I did. But I didn’t mean to… I just thought… I thought it would make him sick, make him weak, so that we all wouldn’t have to worry so much about…”

“About him doing something crazy?”

She nodded.

We both looked at Dad. He seemed to be asleep. “But it made him crazier.”

She looked at me. “Do you think his workers planted the flour?”

I didn’t know. “He wouldn’t have wanted us to get sick. I really believe that.” Too ironic, that he went to the trouble to have someone sabotage the food supply and he was sabotaged himself by the flour.

Mom stood up and walked to the bed. She tucked the blankets in around Dad. “Is there a cure?”

“Yeah. According to this, a derivative of ergot gets used to treat migraines. Once in a while a patient overdoses and they have to treat them for ergotism. Intravenous sodium nitroprusside.” Further reading revealed that medicine’s own dangers.

“Do we have it?” Mom looked like she was holding her breath.

“Yes.” Dad’s voice was raspy and weak.

I scratched my head. It was such an obscure medication. “Dad, why would we have that?” Maybe he had planned the ergot poisoning. Why else would he have the antidote?

He swallowed. One of his hands reached up to scratch his face. “I had to have that, of all things. Because of what it becomes if… if you take too much.”

Mom and I both leaned in, waiting.

“Just in case. In case it came to that for some reason.” Dad’s eyes had been clear, but then they seemed to glaze over. He recited part of a poem.

The poem was one I knew all too well. I joined him for the next part.

T. S. Eliot’s poem from the beginning of On the Beach.

Dad leaned back, trying to catch his breath. He didn’t have to tell me more. I understood why he had sodium nitroprusside. I explained to Mom. “Too much of it gives you cyanide poisoning.”

Mom gasped. “But that’s deadly.”

I nodded. “That’s the point.”

Dad’s voice was weak. “Can’t survive a nuclear war without cyanide.”

Among everything else, my dad turned out to be a walking cliché.

I sighed. “Mom, do you know how to put in an IV?”

“No.”

Pity they didn’t cover that at the commune.

I leaned in. “Dad. You’ve got to give me the code for the door. Let me go out and get you help. You have to or you’re going to die.”

He nodded. “Yes. Yes. The code. Of course. We must have the code.” His eyes were strange again, not clear.

I could tell there wasn’t much behind them. “Dad, if you just hold on. Please, just hold on, stay with me. Can you tell me the code?”

He grabbed my hand.

I wanted to pull away. I tried.

But his grip was so strong. His eyes cleared again. “Eli. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

It was a little late. Maybe it would be enough to get him to give me the code. “Dad, can you tell me the code? Please, that will make up for everything.” Not quite, but it would be a decent start.

His lips formed the words. “The numbers…”

I squeezed his hand even harder than he was squeezing mine. “Tell me the numbers.”

He started to recite numbers, so many numbers they blended into each other. “Nineteen… four… five… eight… six…”

“Dad, wait… Mom! I need pen and paper!”

Mom started ripping open drawers, searching.

“Eight… two… nine…” He kept on with the numbers, so many they didn’t even begin to start sinking in. Like a phone number from hell.

“Dad, please! Hold on, I can’t remember them all.”

Mom was still banging drawers. “I can’t find anything to write with!”

Dad squeezed my hand again. “Son—”

I paused, leaning over him. My hair cascaded in front of my face and I pushed it aside. “Dad, I’m here.”

The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “You can save them. You can.”

I breathed out, not knowing if he was right or not. I hoped he was. “I know, Dad. You’ll give me the numbers and I’ll get us out.”

He started again, reciting numbers, so fast that I wanted to scream.

The numbers stopped. Dad began to convulse, his limbs thrashing.

“Mom!”

She ran to my side. Together, we tried to hold him down as his whole body jerked.

Before it got so bad that he passed out, he managed to spit out one word.

“Turducken.”