S. Bodeen - The Compound

I turned off the treadmill, hair hanging in my eyes, sweat running down my neck as I stood there panting, thinking. Mom’s mistrust of my dad, Terese’s rant in the gym, how could I be such a fool? For six years I’d been feeling sorry for myself and shutting out my family as much as I could, going through the motions, convincing myself we were the lucky ones.

Everyone on earth perished, right? Didn’t they? With all of Dad’s technology, wouldn’t he want to know what was happening aboveground?

He was keeping something from us.

Something big.

I skipped lifting weights and my shower, too. I had to get back to Dad’s office. I would make up a story about a chemistry experiment gone awry. I stopped in my room to grab a notebook. My laptop was in the chem lab and I didn’t feel like running all the way there and back, so I picked up the laptop I’d found in Eddy’s room and took that, too.

Dad’s office door was shut. Through the thick wood, I could just barely hear him talking to himself. His tone sounded perturbed.

Suddenly my plan didn’t seem so great after all. I didn’t want to disturb him in the middle of work, especially if he was frustrated. The moment had to be right, and I sat down on the floor to the side of the door to wait. I tied back my hair, then pulled out the laptop from Eddy’s room.

The laptop came on. Out of habit, I clicked on the Internet icon. Because it was there. I waited for the message to come up and tell me I was not connected to the world.

But it didn’t.

Instead, another message came.

Wireless Network Now Connected.

My jaw dropped. “What the hell?” Words formed in my mouth. I fought the urge to call out to Dad. But I remembered the promise I made to Mom, the promise to keep the laptop a secret.

The leather of his chair squeaked. “Is someone out there?”

I shut the laptop and cleared my throat. “Yeah, Dad, me. I wondered if you could help me with some experiments.” I stood up, scrambling to cover the laptop with my notebook. “Later’s fine, though, if you’re too busy.”

The door swung open. “Now’s fine.” Dad stood there in his usual jeans and T-shirt, a sheaf of papers under his arm.

I held my breath, trying to resist the urge to look down at Eddy’s laptop, hoping that, half covered by the papers, it resembled my other laptop enough to not draw his attention.

Dad moved toward me as the door shut, but I still got a glimpse of his office.

Although it was infinitesimal, I noticed something. My father had always been meticulous. He believed in a place for everything, everything in its place. No variations; things were always in their spot as if glued there. So when my glance revealed something out of place, it didn’t take long to notice what item was not where it was supposed to be: the Seattle Seahawks football phone.

We headed toward the lab, Dad poring over a sheet of paper as he walked. He went into the hallway restroom, and I took the opportunity to open the laptop back up, see if the message was still there. There was a message. Just not the one I wanted to see.

Wireless Server Not Available.

I shut the laptop. Had it been my imagination? Did I want to see something so badly that I hallucinated? In the lab, I slipped the laptop in a drawer before Dad could notice it.

“Oh, Eli. Here.” Dad handed me a CD.

Still freaked by the laptop, I just thanked him for the CD. I didn’t look at it until I was back in my room. The band was Cake. Never heard of them. The song started and my pencil started tapping.

I liked it. Which wasn’t always the case with the songs Dad gave me.

The song ended and I ejected to find out the name of it.

The door stuck, trapping the CD halfway out. I noticed the label on top of the CD had an edge sticking up. Took me a little while to get a good enough grip before I could yank it out.

The label was simply a printout, made with high-quality photo paper, somehow heat sealed or laminated. Tearing it all the way off revealed a recordable CD. In black Sharpie, the name of the band was written in Dad’s handwriting.

CAKE

A date followed: a very recent date. My hand slapped over my mouth.

How was that possible? How in the hell did I come to be holding a copy of a CD made only weeks ago?

It was like the dated note I’d found in the chapel. But I wasn’t going to dismiss this one so easily.

I’d been holding my breath. It came out in a rush.

Unless we always had the music and Dad simply made a copy of it, adding the date as he always did.

I dug through the stack of CDs on my desk, all given to me by my father. For the next hour, I used the sharp side of some scissors to scrape away at several labels. All fake. All PC-recorded CDs with handwritten names and dates.

All the dates well after we were in the Compound.

In the media room, I found the catalog that listed every CD we had with us. I took it back to my room.

My finger tracked down the list as I perused it for any of the groups on my desk. I went through the entire stack, dozens. There wasn’t a listing for any of them. This was no small omission on my dad’s part. This was colossal.

I WAS AWAKE ALL NIGHT, THINKING. I WAS PISSED, PISSED AT the possibility that my father was keeping things from me, maybe even lying. And if that was true, I would be even more upset at myself for being such a dupe, just taking things lying down, believing everything he said.

But I was also afraid of what would happen when I did ask him for the truth. What if he didn’t give it to me? Worse, what if he did and it wasn’t what I wanted to hear?

But I knew what Eddy would do. I also knew he wasn’t here to do it for me.

Right away the next morning, before I could chicken out, I pounded on Dad’s office door.

He opened it. “I’m busy, Eli. Can it wait?” There were deep circles under his eyes and his jaw was covered with stubble. Must have been one of his sleepless nights. He was wrapped in a plaid fleece blanket in his chair, leaning out the door just enough to see me.

I handed him the Cake CD and waited.

“What’s wrong? Doesn’t it play?” He noticed the missing label, the date written in his own handwriting. His face paled.

“Dad, I think…” I suddenly wasn’t sure what I thought. My carefully considered argument abandoned me. So, heart pounding, I stammered out what I could. “I’ve felt for a while like something isn’t right.” A bit of a lie, since it had taken Terese to open my eyes.

Dad opened the door wider and scooted his chair back to his desk. He set the CD down, then leaned back in his chair. I couldn’t believe he was being so open, ushering me into his inner sanctum. I froze, and wondered if I looked as dumbstruck as I felt. He motioned for me to sit down on the couch, where a pillow and blanket lay, and I realized he’d been sleeping there. I moved them aside to make room.

I sat, then untucked my hair from behind my ears and let it fall forward over my eyes. My eyes strayed to the padlocked door, but I dismissed it for the moment. One thing at a time.

Dad removed his reading glasses. He took his time folding them before he placed them on his desk. He yawned and pulled the blanket up around him.

Inside, I screamed at him to get on with it.

“Eli, there’s something you don’t know.”