Circles in the Dust

by Matthew Harrop

  The ground crunched under his steps and his boots raised little puffs of dirt from the parched soil. He bent over slightly to let his fingers catch some of the taller strands of grass, enjoying their abrasion on his calloused hands. The sky was just beginning to lighten, but it was still dark yet and David enjoyed the brisk air of pre-dawn. It felt icy and invigorating against his throat and tingled his nose. He scratched his bearded complexion and ended up stroking it as he walked and took in the picture of isolation around him. There was nothing but grass, dirt, and a, potentially imagined, shape in the distance.

  He kept himself oriented on a course toward his potential source of excitement for the morning and eventually stumbled upon a bare line he guessed may have been a path carved by frequent footfalls in days gone by. He stuck to this as it winded in the general direction of the shape, which was growing and becoming more distinct as he got closer. He could tell it was real now, the light increasing to reveal a skewed rectangular outline. His imagination took over; maybe it was a house, filled to the brim with food by someone who had stocked up and changed their strategy to flight. Maybe it was a safe house where survivors took refuge, a small family (in this new world, more likely a collection of people banded together than actual blood relatives) living peacefully in their little cottage.

  As he approached it, he could tell that it was almost certainly some sort of ramshackle dwelling, constructed hastily by inexperienced hands. It resembled his own, actually. The roof was slanted to the right and one of the walls was shorter than the others, but David understood the concept of beggars not being too choosy. He made it to the little cabin in a few minutes, wondering hungrily what he would find inside. He came around the back and was struck by the question of why someone would build a cabin right here. Where had they even gotten the wood? It was pretty small, he had to admit, but it still seemed an odd place to settle down. Maybe isolation was what they sought?

  He rounded the front and saw that what must have been the door lay a little way from the hut, rope hinges still attached. It looked like it had been ripped off, some of the pieces of wood around the frame of the door were splintered. He was nervous, afraid of what he might find inside, but he had come this far so he inched his way up to the front of the cabin. He peered in to the shady interior though he could barely see the dirt floor on the inside and realized he was holding his breath. He sucked in a deep gulp of air and nearly vomited. A vile, stomach-churning stench had assailed him, a smell he knew well but could never get used to. He covered his mouth with his sleeve and took a deep breath, then resorted to shallow hyperventilation as he stepped into the single room.

  It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he knew what he would find before he saw it. There were two of them, a man and a woman, lying on the floor, their clothes blotted with dark stains and their faces contorted in anguish, frozen the way they had died. The air was thick with flies and the ground slithered with whatever else was feasting here. The man’s body was riddled with short slits but the woman’s death was a mystery, her tattered form too abused to offer much in way of explanation.

  The small room was littered with the shattered remains of the life these people had made for themselves, a few large coolers sitting open or knocked over on the ground, empty of course. Whoever had been here had done what they had to, though by the looks of things they had gotten a little carried away. He understood that in this world, the world of ‘Outliers’ as Elizabeth would call them, it was survival of the fittest, but he had tried to avoid any pleasure in the necessary facets of this life, another reason he had ended up isolating himself from other people as much as possible. Some of them enjoyed it too much.

  There was obviously nothing of any value left in the room, so he turned to leave. A small object caught his eye. A discarded wallet lay by his feet. There was little in it besides a picture he assumed was of the unrecognizable woman, a faded photograph with a few smeared drops of blood soiling the image. He picked it up and felt a stirring in his chest. He shoved the image in his pocket and made his way out of the mausoleum, breathing freely once he had come away. He brought the picture out once more, studying the smiling face whose edges were blurred with the deep crimson liquid.

  Someone had found this place on their way to the Base, and they hadn’t been kind. They knew they were headed to an oasis and slaughtered these people anyway. The world had not been kind to those who still remained, but it pained him to see that unfair anger reflected in their actions. This must be part of his new self; the new David wouldn’t harm another if he could help it. A week ago he might not have felt this way.

  The sky was moving from black to gray as he stood there on the plain, breathing slowly. The picture returned to his pocket and he struck a course back to Elizabeth, eager to get as far from this place as he could.

  The hollow where they had slept came into view just as Elizabeth was stirring, stretching her arms and sitting up. She squinted and yawned, her eyes drifting to where his blankets had been laid out. Not finding him there, she turned around and searched, her face displaying immense relief when she found his stony face.

  “Where did you go?” she asked.

  “Nowhere.”

  He didn’t want to tell her about the house he had found, didn’t want her to see that side of the world he came from.

  “Oh, okay,” she allowed, clearly unsatisfied. “You already packed?”

  “I woke up pretty early,” he explained. “I’m just… excited, I guess.” He was excited at that moment to have her face push the images of the house out of his mind.

  “All right. I’ll be ready in a bit,” she said as she rose and began rolling up her bed.

  “No rush,” he said. “We should be there by tonight, right?”

  “We’ll get there by dusk, if not earlier.”

  “Earlier…” he muttered. “That reminds me. How many people are there camped out by the Base?”

  “How many?” She didn’t look up from her task. “I don’t know, a lot. Why?”

  “Well, I’m just wondering how we’re going to get through them to the Base.” He paused, trying to catch her eye. “How did you get out anyway?”

  She ignored him as she finished tying a knot around her tightly rolled sleeping bag and tucked it away. When she was done, she rose with a biscuit in each hand, offering him one. He refused, not sure his stomach could handle food at the moment. She shot him a curious look then shrugged and bit into one.

  “So…?” he prodded.

  “How did I get out?” she repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Very carefully.” She smirked. His face dropped and he shot her a venomous look.

  “Seriously,” he insisted. “Are they spread out, or clustered? Is there a certain place we can get through? How do we do this?”

  “Don’t you trust me to get you through?” she asked. “You know I got through once before.”

  He started to respond, and stopped; his shoulders drooped as it sank in how stubborn she was.

  “I’m just – nervous,” he explained. “I imagine they wouldn’t be too kind if they found out you were from the Base. There aren’t a lot of rules out here.” His recent discovery had left him realizing he had not considered fully the importance of sneaking through the ring of campers to get to the Base.

  CHAPTER 15

  Not since his childhood had David been so relieved to see a tree.

  The land had risen steadily all day, and David had begun to outpace Elizabeth in his rush to return to the rough arms of a forest. She said there would be trees when they got to the Base, that there was a ring of trees around it, and he was ready to end his time spent as an exposed ant in this windswept hell. He walked as fast as he could without her falling behind. She may have enjoyed her role as leader and guide, but they had been walking in a straight line since leaving his forest behind and it took little thought for him to realize they were headed due east, a fact that was glaringly obvious in the early morning.
He marched resolutely, empty threats ringing out from behind him, though they soon faded into labored breathing that obliterated any attempt to speak.

  They continued like that for most of the day and stopped only briefly to eat (which involved Elizabeth stopping to eat while David paced and glared at her). There was nothing to do but get to the Base, and while David had regained his anxiety at the thought of having to pass through the gauntlet of old memories, the chance to get there while there was still light enough to see what they would have to wade through had proven tempting, and thus he dragged Elizabeth along behind him.

  The sun was just on the last leg of its heavenly race when he saw it. There was one hazy green line, then another, and another. David’s imagination clarified the shapes and relayed the message to his celebratory center, flooding his body with elation, picking up his feet so that he floated to the top of the last rise and drank in the view. These pines were not unlike his back home, their shadowy depths a haven from the never-ending void they had traversed. David sighed and held up his arms, trying to convey his joy to the trees, which were already standing and waiting to welcome him. Elizabeth caught up after a few minutes, leaning over to plant her hands on her knees while her breathing slowed from a deathly rattle to a hoarse huffing.

  David looked over at her, a wide grin plastered on his face, his arms falling to his sides as her presence brought him back to the ground. His radiating gladness was swallowed up in her dark resentment, violence lurking just behind her eyes. Her ominous stare reminded him of what awaited them in the forest, and his smile faltered. Reality tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he gave in to it, letting his lips fall to a flat line. They weren’t there yet, he reminded himself.

  From there, David bequeathed the lead to Elizabeth and she zigzagged through the field, pockmarked with large boulders, that sloped down to meet the trees. There was a faded track that they followed. David could not take his eyes off the woods as they descended. How many Outliers were there? He could see a slight haze that might have been smoke, but it could have just been his eyes playing tricks with a seam in the clouds. Elizabeth seemed unconcerned about the danger, though, and he decided they must have a ways to go still until they would have to fear coming across any hostile parties. Once they had passed under the living canopy, she slowed her steps and stopped by a fallen log, shrugging off her bag and plopping down on the decaying wood.

  “We’re almost there,” she said as she took her seat, in a voice that was only scarcely above a whisper.

  “All right.” David’s head bobbed up and down as he responded. “Now what do we do?”

  “I was thinking we wait until nighttime and try and sneak through.”

  “Is that what you did before?”

  “I had my bag packed for a few days, and I just waited until there was some late-night meeting to slip away.”

  David was glad she had some kind of plan, because his excitement at reuniting with his moss-bearded comrades had taken up most of the spare room in his thoughts. They certainly wouldn’t want to go through in the daytime; that would just be suicide. Nighttime would be better, unless the Outliers were planning some kind of raid on the Base, which they would be sure to attempt after dark. Getting caught up in the middle of that might be worse than walking through their camp now…

  “What if we go early in the morning?” he suggested.

  “In the morning? Why?”

  “I’m just thinking, you said the Outliers have been trying to raid the Base more and more, right?” She nodded. “Well, what if the sun sets and they try something? What if they’re up planning something, and we stumble into their secret meeting?”

  “Why would it be any better, though, to go that early?” she asked.

  “Do they have an actual leader, the people around the Base?”

  “Not really. There are a few that kind of represent them and come talk to us sometimes, but I don’t think there’s any real organization out there.”

  “Then I sincerely doubt any of them are going to get up at the crack of dawn for anything. They might have someone up keeping watch, but I doubt there will be more than a handful of people up at that hour.”

  “I don’t know, people at the Base get up pretty early.”

  “But that’s because they have something to do,” he countered. “Trust me, when things start to run low, bed sounds better and better. Especially when you’re just waiting out here for something to happen. I’ve been doing this for a while, remember?” He hoped she would acknowledge his expertise on this one facet of life outside the Base he felt confident giving; it was what she wanted from him in the first place.

  “What if they plan to attack in the pre-dawn for that same reason?” she argued.

  “I know you haven’t told me all that much about the people I’m coming to meet, but it seems like these aren’t the biggest go-getters.” Guilt assailed him as he spoke these words; he was technically an Outlier, or probably would have been if he had been made aware of the Base’s existence. These were his people. He just needed her to trust him. He was on her side.

  She pursed her lips as she considered what he said, looking for answers in the bracken. “Fine.” She sighed. “You’re gonna be the one to stay up though.”

  “That’s okay,” he agreed. “I’ll get a little shut-eye, and later tonight you wake me up and I’ll keep watch until it’s time to go.”

  She said nothing while he set his pack on the ground.

  “There’s a few hours until dark,” he said as he worked to untie his blankets. “Wake me up then, all right? Unless anything happens, then don’t hesitate.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” she said as she watched him prepare for his early night. “You haven’t eaten all day. Don’t you want some supper?”

  “No, thanks.” His stomach had not fully recovered from that morning’s adventure.

  “All right. Goodnight then.” She stood up and begun to pace, looking up at the swaying boughs overhead. “You have until dark. Sunset, and I’m waking you up.”

  His face was turned away from her so she could not see him smile.

  “Goodnight,” he said.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Your turn.”

  David woke with a start from a sting on his cheek. He sat up quickly, eyes wild, arms flailing. Elizabeth was sitting back on her heels next to him, just far enough to avoid his swinging arms, her face full of devious mirth as she watched him contort. The sun had fallen and the only light to be seen by was that of the moon. The sky must have cleared because Elizabeth’s face was bathed in a clear white ray of moonlight as she choked back laughter. He looked around and saw the silhouettes of trees and pine needles, eerily sharp in the bright light of night. He huffed, turning his attention back to Elizabeth, wanting to shout something awful at her. He knew he wouldn’t.

  “What was that for?” he whispered.

  She looked at him and snickered.

  “You’re awake now,” she explained matter-of-factly.

  He growled and looked away, rubbing his eyes and scratching the skin hidden beneath his copious beard. “Did anything happen while I was asleep?”

  He heard the rustle of her sleeping bag as it rolled out upon the forest floor.

  “Nope. It was pretty boring.”

  “Good.” So far, so good.

  “Well, now that you’re awake I’m going to get some sleep before the sun comes up.” With that she slid into her bed. She rolled over so that her back faced him and promptly began snoring.

  Flabbergasted by the ease with which Elizabeth could fall asleep, David rose and stumbled through the bracken until he found a tree that looked a little thirsty and began watering it. He yawned, feeling still half asleep, and concentrated on the cold air against his face and the rest of his exposed skin, hoping it would help him rise from his sluggish stupor. It helped a little when he reached out and placed his hand on the trunk of the tree; he heard a crack and some rustling and looked up just in time to see a pinecone ca
reening toward his unsuspecting forehead. He jerked his head forward and it bounced off the back of his cranium. He breathed a sigh of equal parts relief and pain and zipped up his fly. His hand came away warm and he grimaced as he looked down to witness the splatter of collateral damage caused by the bombing.

  At least I won’t get too comfortable, he thought.

  David walked back to where Elizabeth was sleeping, rubbing his head where he had just been assaulted. He stood over her and watched her sleep, her face blank, serene. The night air had brought a chill and he knelt beside her peaceful form and pulled the edge of her blanket up over her shoulder. His eyes lingered on her face; her eyes were darting under her eyelids. She must be deep within a dream. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trace the line of her cheek as they pulled away.

  He rose and pulled a blanket off the ground, draping it over his shoulders as he prepared himself for a long night. The moon was peeking through a break in the clouds, shining its light down on the small clearing David was standing in, a bright white disc hovering a quarter of the way up the sky. He had a long night ahead of him.

  He turned around and found a place to sit on the body of a fallen tree behind him, letting his thoughts roam to the coming day, giving them the benefit of a future where they had already made it to the Base unscathed. His thoughts traveled the path of a hero. He imagined walking into the Base, no, riding in on a carriage, people lining the streets to cheer and praise him, a savior come to scatter their foes. They would present him with the most delicious food they had to offer, give him the very best of what they had. Clothes. Women. They would assign someone to wait on him hand and foot, massage his aching muscles and bathe him with sweet soapy water. Young women would line up to show their gratitude. It would be a paradise. An oasis.

  Doubt came creeping into this dreamscape just as it was being perfected. Why would they sing the praises of a boy they had never seen before, didn’t know existed, who had nothing to offer but a willingness to help so that he could have a place for himself? He saw himself walking down a dirty street, being shouted at and spat on. The same people who had been chanting his name now pointed and laughed, slapped his back and pushed him into the mud at their feet. They would chastise his idea that he could come in from nowhere and solve all their problems. He would be thrown out, called a spy and a selfish manipulator. He could see himself running from the Base toward the forest, a host of hostile muzzles trained on his back. There was always the ultimate rejection, the one that left him unable to run, ending him completely.