I touch his forearm. “Let’s just see what’s over there.”
He doesn’t nod. I know he’s thinking we should turn around and head back, forget we saw anything. But my mind won’t so easily let it go.
Clay follows me, his eyes swiveling, wary. While I push on ahead, wanting to see what waits on the other side of the trees.
But it’s not a building that comes into view first.
It’s a sign, a wooden post stuck in the ground at waist height.
THIS WAY TO POOL.
I stare at the letters, certain I’ve misread them—as if it were written in a language I no longer remember. Pool? My mind crawls forward, trying to imagine a pool, an artificial aqua blue, shaped like a palm tree or a kidney bean. A place where children splash and squeal with inflatable arm bands to keep them above the waterline. Where adults with sunburnt shoulders drink rum daiquiris.
I flash a look to Clay, but he looks just as confused.
My heart beats against my eardrums, knowing we can’t turn back now, so we continue past the sign, following a narrow, overgrown path through the last stretch of trees, until the jungle falls away behind us.
And it comes into view—
A resort.
Thatched roofs and bamboo railings, a concrete patio rimming a long rectangular pool, a sign that readsLOBBY, nailed to an open-air archway.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, moving toward the stone steps that carry us up to the patio. Several dozen wood tables and their matching chairs are scattered throughout the area, most overturned. Some are even in the empty pool—only a few feet of brown rainwater at the bottom. A blue-striped umbrella, turned inside out, metal spokes bent, bobs at the surface.
The place is abandoned. Taken back by the jungle. And not recently.
We make our way under a large awning into what was probably the poolside restaurant. The quietness of the place, the silent reminders of what was once here, sends a chill straight down to my bare feet. Above us, birds have made nests in the rafters, crabs walk freely beneath the tables where palm leaves and rainwater cover the tile floor.
“We should check the kitchen,” I whisper, although I’m certain we’re the only souls here, and there’s no point trying to remain quiet.
Clay nods, but his face is stone. If he feels a twinge of relief—knowing there’s no risk I’ll be swept away by the temptations of my old life—he shows no sign of it. He is watchful in a way I’ve rarely seen in him.
He doesn’t like this place.
Maybe it’s the unfamiliarity, the flat-screen TVs mounted along the walls, a tablet coated in dust resting on the bar where servers would enter orders for happy hour drinks and onion rings. The resort isn’t luxurious. It’s on the smaller side, a budget place, maybe. Only hosting a hundred guests at a time, at most.
But it still holds reminders of the modern world I left behind.
And perhaps it’s these things that make him uneasy. Or maybe it’s something else.
An instinct telling him we shouldn’t be here.
In the kitchen, we scour the metal cupboards, the shelves, but find no remnants of food. Anything that may have been left was likely scavenged by wildlife long ago. Or looters, arriving by boat.
But on the far wall, near a sign for a bathroom, I see it. A phone, with one of those coiled cords connecting the headset to the receiver. It seems out of place, outdated. But maybe there’s a chance it still works. Connected by satellite. Maybe the resort runs on solar, and there’s still some remnant of power pulsing through the walls.
I rush to the phone, pressing it to my ear. I listen for the dial tone, but there’s nothing. I press down on the receiver several times. Still nothing. Panic wells up inside me, a sudden need to feel some connection to the world beyond. I start dialing Nana’s number, punching in the numbers frantically. But still, there is only silence on the other end.
“Fuck.”
I dial it again, hitting the numbers harder, my heart pounding. Still nothing.
I squeeze the phone in my fist. “Dammit.”
I look up, and Clay is beside me. He takes the phone from my hand, carefully placing it back on the wall.
“I just wanted…” I shake my head. “I wasn’t—I don’t want to leave, it’s not that. I just thought if I could hear her voice, tell her where I am.”
