He bent down, picked up the wood and walked away, leaving Joel standing there. A couple of other people had already come back, including George, who was using one of the branches to work on the fire, pushing the burning material into a more stable shape.

He nodded to Tom and said, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… it’s nothing.”

George didn’t look convinced, but he shifted his attention to the branches Tom was holding. “They look pretty dry—I could use them.”

“Sure,” said Tom, and put the branches next to the fire instead of on the larger woodpile. He noticed his hands were still shaking.

He helped George add them, calming down now, even though he kept looking toward the trees, watching for signs of the others coming back, trying to remember how many more were still out there.

Then George said, “What’s that kid’s name, the one who fixed the toilets?”

“Barney.”

“Barney, that’s it. I don’t really know him, but he seems okay.”

Tom thought of Barney, and of Shen, and perhaps because of the scare he’d just had, he felt an odd attachment to both of them. He felt good too, that this kid George, whom he’d never spoken to before today, was talking to him now like they were friends. For once, he liked the thought of not being alone, of not having only himself to rely on.

“If I’m honest, I don’t know him, either, but he’s a good guy.”

“Yeah.” He smiled, the look of someone who’d come to a realization, maybe just that there were people worth knowing beyond the narrow world of his former friends on the football team.

George started to say something else, but appeared to change his mind as Joel strolled over. Joel looked ready to speak too, but a faint scream sounded from deep within the trees to their right. All three of them looked in the direction of the cry, but a few seconds later it was followed by the sound of people laughing.

Joel looked at Tom. “They’re just fooling around.”

Tom didn’t answer, but turned slowly back to the tree line. The two sounds had come from more or less the same direction, but it seemed to him that the scream had been farther away, the laughter nearer. As if to prove that point, Chloe, Mila, and Chris emerged from the shadows, laughing, carrying a few small branches between them.

“I’ll speak to them,” said Joel, and walked over to meet them, and Tom wondered if Joel had come to the same conclusion as him about the location of the scream, because he looked rattled in some way. He spoke to Chris, who turned back to the trees and shouted for everyone to come back, his voice bellowing and briefly drowning out the jungle chorus.

CHAPTER 15