And then it was gone.
Let’s stay calm,” Levine said, pacing the little store. “Tell her to get back right away. And let’s stay calm.” He seemed to be talking to himself. He walked from one wall to the next, pounding the wooden planks with his fist. He shook his head unhappily. “Just tell her to hurry. You think she can be back in five minutes?”
“Yes,” Thorne said. “Why? What is it, Richard?”
Levine pointed out the window. “Daylight,” he said. “We’re trapped here in daylight.”
“We were trapped here all night, too,” Thorne said. “We made it okay.”
“But daylight is different,” Levine said.
“Why?”
“Because at night,” he said, “this is carnotaurus territory. Other animals don’t come in. We saw no other animals at all around here, last night. But once daylight comes, the carnotaurus can’t hide any more. Not in open spaces, in direct sunlight. So they’ll leave. And then this won’t be their territory any more.
“Which means?”
Levine glanced at Kelly, over by the computer. He hesitated, then said, “Just take my word for it. We have to get out of here right away.”
“And go where?”
Sitting at the computer, Kelly listened to Thorne talking to Dr. Levine. She fingered the piece of paper with Arby’s password on it. She felt very nervous. The way Dr. Levine was talking was making her nervous. She wished Sarah was back by now. She would feel better when Sarah was here,
Kelly didn’t like to think about their situation. She had been holding herself together, keeping up her spirits, until the helicopter came. But now the helicopter had come and gone. And she noticed neither of the men was talking about when it would come back. Maybe they knew something. Like it wasn’t coming back.
Dr. Levine was saying they had to get out of the store. Thorne was asking Dr. Levine where he wanted to go. Levine said, “I’d prefer to get off this island, but I don’t see how we can. So I suppose we should make our way back to the trailer. It’s the safest place now.”
Back to the trailer, she thought. Where she and Sarah had gone to get Malcolm. Kelly didn’t want to go back to the trailer.
She wanted to go home.
Tensely, Kelly smoothed out the piece of damp paper, pressing it flat on the table beside her. Dr. Levine came over. “Stop fooling around,” he said. “See if you can find Sarah.”
“I want to go home,” Kelly said.
Levine sighed. “I know, Kelly”, he said. “We all want to go home.” And he walked away again, moving quickly, tensely.
Kelly pushed the paper away, turning it over, and sliding it under the keyboard, in case she should need the password again. As she did so, her eye was caught by some writing on the other side.
She pulled the paper out again.
She saw:
SITE B LEGENDS
EAST WING WEST WING LOADING BAY
LABORATORY ASSEMBLY BAY ENTRANCE
OUTLYING MAIN CORE GEO TURBINE
CONVENIENCE STORE WORKER VILLAGE GEO CORE
GAS STATION POOL/TENNIS PUTTING GREENS
MGRS HOUSE JOG PATH GAS LINES
SECURITY ONE SECURITY TWO THERMAL LINES
RIVER DOCK BOATHOUSE SOLAR ONE
SWAMP ROAD RIVER ROAD RIDGE ROAD
MTN VIEW ROAD CLIFF ROAD HOLDING PENS
She realized at once what it was: a screen shot from Levine’s apartment. From the night when Arby had been recovering files from the computer. It seemed like a million years ago, another lifetime. But it had really been only…what? Two days ago.
She remembered how proud Arby had been when he had recovered the data. She remembered how they had all tried to make sense of this list. Now, of course, all these names had meaning. They were all real places: the laboratory, the worker village, the convenience store, the gas station….
She stared at the list.
You’re kidding, she thought.
“Dr. Thorne,” she said. “I think you better look at this.”
Thorne stared as she pointed at the list. “You think so?” he said.
“That’s what it says: a boathouse.”
“Can you find it, Kelly?”
“You mean, find it on the video?” She shrugged. “I can try.”
“Try,” Thorne said. He glanced at Levine, who was across the room, pounding on the walls again. He picked up the radio.