Circles in the Dust

by Matthew Harrop

“My name’s David, I came to—”

  “You came from the Base, didn’t you?” he yelled, now close enough there was no need to shout, but he used his outside voice nonetheless. “Came to spy on us?” His face was contorted with rage and David braced himself for a blow as the man neared. He kept his hands up in the air, not wanting to give the man any extra reason to strike him. To his surprise, the man stopped two feet in front of him, close enough to assault him, but he did so with nothing more than his rancid breath propelled by his haggard breathing.

  “No, I came to—”

  “To bargain?” he shouted, snorting with contempt. “We’ve had enough of your offers. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “I’m not from the Base,” David finally managed. “I’m—”

  “Not from the Base? You came straight from that direction.”

  David breathed a sigh of frustration, knowing now was not the time to lose his temper.

  “I just came back from trying to get in there. I heard about it a while ago, and I wasn’t going to come, thought it sounded too good to be true, but—”

  “They kicked you out, huh? ‘Just can’t take on anyone else. At max capacity.’ Something like that?” The muscled Outlier was smiling now. Despite his man-handling of the conversation, it had ended up where David had hoped.

  “Yeah,” he said, relieved. “Exactly. Though not before I got to spend a few nights in the cellar.” David had decided to add this to his story, hoping he could use the Base as a common enemy to start with, though he hoped it wouldn’t go too far.

  “Those bastards,” the man cursed. “That’s low. Even for them.” He curled one hand into a fist and pounded it against his other palm. Despite the brisk morning air, he was clad in a sleeveless black shirt, the hair and numerous scars on his bare arms out for all to admire. His muscles were visible as well, under all that, and they were menacing.

  “I understand though. They said they had to have a meeting to see if they could take someone else in, and—”

  “Oh, yeah, right! If they had any ‘room,’ they know just where to find a few starving souls. Don’t even send us food anymore. We’ve done our best, but…” He trailed off, seeming to be only talking to himself. Then he swung his attention back to David.

  “You must be hungry. We haven’t much, but I’m sure we could rustle up a little something for a fellow survivor.” He turned away and marched back the direction he had come from. David assumed he was meant to follow, and trailed after him.

  As they went, David was shocked by the lack of cans and general garbage that was typical of most survivors. Tidiness was a thing of the past, and though he himself had started bringing it back into style at his cabin, he had done so only after the death of the land and its inhabitants had left him with nothing to occupy his time. Perhaps they were in the same boat.

  After a minute David noticed a few large, dark mounds against the botanical background. He wondered what these were, figuring they must be tents or some other form of shelter. He was shocked to see that they were, upon closer inspection, cabins! Not so unlike his, though perhaps a little more regular in shape. They must have come to perfect the structure with practice, as there were at least ten of them clustered in a rough circle, with a few tents interspersed between them. He hadn’t been the only one to see the advantages of a permanent housing situation, and they must have realized they would be out here for the long haul and dug in their roots. So far, nothing had been as expected. Maybe that was a good thing.

  “Hey, Mort!” someone shouted cheerfully.

  The burly man raised a hand in greeting, and David saw a gruff smile ruffle his graying beard when he turned his head.

  “Hey, Ron! How’s the project coming?”

  “It’s coming, I guess. Who’d you find out there?”

  “A little lost sheep,” he shot back. David wondered if he should say something for himself; he kept silent instead.

  “He’s got some meat on his bones. Make a good meal.”

  The large man, Mort, chuckled, as did Ron, but said nothing in reply. They pushed on, past the first cabin, with its rough log walls and a roof that seemed to be made mostly of pine boughs and needles. There was a square carved out of the side, a window (clever, David thought), though he could see nothing but darkness through the open shutters. These were not the chaotic marauders he had imagined.

  They emerged into a cleared area in the middle of the circle of buildings. There was a large fire pit, where a roaring fire blazed, fed a constant diet of nature’s best logs by a young boy of maybe fifteen years. The ground was covered in pine needles but little else, save for a menagerie of obviously home-made chairs and a few cooking utensils by the fire.

  A tall man rose from his seat by the boy, where he had been sitting with his hands extended toward the heat, and strutted over in Mort’s direction when he heard the approaching footsteps. The short, black facial hair and those large, intelligent eyes gave away his identity.

  “Mitch?” David said, acting surprised, though he had expected to see him here.

  “David? How’d you come across my old friend, Mort?” David was glad that Mitch didn’t acknowledge their meeting a few days past.

  “Found him wandering the woods, coming back from the Base. Rejected, as usual,” Mort explained, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at the man in his shadow. “You know him?”

  “Yeah, me and David go way back,” he said with a warm smile that spread from ear-to-ear, the disarming weapon that had been a staple of his charm, his greatest tool of survival.

  “Huh.” Mort tossed a look of appraisal over David. “I was bringing him to you, figuring he might be a spy or something.” David looked at him, slightly aghast. He had to be more careful with who he trusted. Maybe Mort had a trick or two up his own sleeve.

  “No, David’s no threat to us,” he said, laughing. He reached out to embrace his old friend. He broke away and held David at arm’s length. “In fact, he may be a real asset. With that bow of his—“ He paused and looked to either side of David. He shot David a concerned, questioning look.

  “They didn’t let me leave with it, the Base,” he explained, shrugging. “I didn’t think they were going to let me leave at all.” He was grateful that the paranoid Mayor had not returned his cherished weapon. This made his story so much easier to sell.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll be a great help nonetheless.”

  A question was blossoming in David’s mind. Mort was bringing David to Mitch…? “So, are you the leader here or something?” he spat out.

  Mitch looked abashed and grinned at the ground. “Someone has to be in charge, I suppose. I speak for us. The ‘Outliers,’ as they call us. We make all our decisions as a whole, though.” Mitch’s rise to the top was no real surprise. There was a reason he had always been the one to head into camps while David watched from afar.

  “Are you hungry, old buddy? I’ve got a few little treats back at my place.”

  “I could go for a little breakfast.” David followed Mitch to a cabin on the far side of the circle, exaggerating a limp. Mort disappeared behind a cabin in the opposite direction, and David was relieved to be alone with Mitch. There was something in the look he had given David, something David could not quite put his finger on. There was concern, but something else as well. Surprise? That was understandable, given David’s own feigned shock at their meeting. Suspicion? Maybe, but why? It was probably all in his head.

  They came to the cabin and Mitch held out an arm to usher David in. He entered, and found the cabin to be much like his own. There were shelves on one wall, dotted with a few cans and jars, though most of what littered the uneven planks were what looked like dried roots and tubers, some woven bowls of berries, and even a few bits of bark. There was a pile of boughs in the corner covered with a couple of thin blankets, which served as a bed. The floor was all dirt and there was a pile of hiking packs along one wall, along with a few things like tarps and what must be tents, fishing poles, and
a line of boots.

  “Did you just copy my cabin?” David joked.

  “Honestly, I did use yours as a sort of template,” Mitch admitted. David had built it before he and Mitch had become so completely estranged, and Mitch must have committed it pretty well to memory, though David had never come across anything like his own home back in their valley. “I was working on building my own back home, before I caught wind of this place. You know most of these people were living in teepees? Their tent stakes and poles hadn’t lasted too long, obviously, and a bunch of them had just used the tent canvas and their tarps to make them? I guess it’s not a bad idea, they can be moved around.” Mitch took a seat on a little wooden stool at the foot of the bad, inviting David to a similar one next to it. David leaned his pack up against the wall and accepted.

  Mitch sighed and stared at David for a minute before speaking again. “Didn’t go too well over there, huh?”

  “Not exactly,” David responded, trying to sound embarrassed.

  “I told you.” Mitch shook his head. “You never did listen to me, though, did you?”

  “I had to know for myself. Go off on my own, you know?” There was a hardness to his voice. Mitch picked up the hint.

  “Fair enough, fair enough. They kept your bow though? That’s harsh. I wouldn’t have expected that of them. I’m surprised they didn’t just tell you to get lost. What took you so long? I was expecting to see you again in a couple hours.”

  “They let me in and gave me something to eat,” David began, reciting the answer he had been rehearsing all morning. “They were nice enough, and seemed like they didn’t want to send me out, but in the end I guess they just couldn’t let me in.”

  “They don’t let anyone in, David,” Mitch said gravely. “Otherwise we’d have more to eat than roots and bark.” His voice turned dark and resentful as he rose to grab a handful of withered, leathery plants off one of the shelves. “It’s perfectly edible,” he explained as he handed one to David, “doesn’t taste great, but it’ll fill you up. One of the guys here used to work in a greenhouse, and that saved our asses. Wouldn’t have made it this long without all the roots and bark he showed us we could eat, though we’ve had to really spread out to find enough. We’ve practically run out of everything else.”

  “Sounds rough.” David tried to say it with as much sympathy as he could muster. “I finished off the last of what I had on the way over here; thought I’d see if what you tried telling me was really worth going after. I didn’t expect to find anything, but I wasn’t about to die lying down.” The image of the sky the morning he had literally laid down to die came back to him, and the supreme irony of what he was saying almost forced a macabre smile to his lips.

  “You never did give in,” Mitch said. “You knew we couldn’t go on taking from others forever, you were the one that wanted to try that garden. I’m guessing it didn’t work out too well?”

  “Not at all,” David said. “It looked like it at first, but I’m no farmer, or gardener even, and after that first year I was totally lost. I didn’t think ahead and keep any seeds, at least not enough, and it was all over. Kept me going for a while, but…” David hung his head. Even the dirt beneath his feet had abandoned him.

  “Imagine, you might have had the same problem they’ve got on their hands if it had worked,” Mitch joked, nudging his arm. “Maybe that was for the best?”

  “I guess.”

  “Anyway, we’ll get ourselves in there, don’t you worry about that. It’s just a matter of time.” Mitch seemed confident, the aggressive light in his eyes, the same one that had kept him alive after having countless guns pulled on him, shone brighter than ever, brighter than David remembered. Once again, David would have to save him before he got himself killed.

  “How, though? Why not just move on and try somewhere else?” David asked, though he knew the answer to that.

  “There is nowhere else, David. Believe me. This is our one hope. But if we can’t get them to let us in before winter, I don’t think we’ll make it to spring.” He didn’t seem terribly worried about this. He was confident they were going to get in, but how?

  “What’s your plan?” David asked again, taking a challenging bite of the leathery morsel.

  Mitch chewed thoughtfully, looking up at the tops of the trees. “They kept you locked up in the cellar for three days, huh?” he said through a mouthful of food and skepticism.

  “Yeah. The door was locked and I’m pretty sure someone was guarding it the whole time.”

  “No one else got locked up while they voted on whether or not to let them in.”

  “Really?” he responded, pouring all the incredulity he could into the word.

  “Yeah. You must just be pretty special.” Mitch smiled, but there was no humor there. It was a cold, calculated expression, and David realized he was going to have to work for every ounce of trust he garnered.

  David spluttered, not knowing what to say. Mitch spoke again before he managed to put a coherent thought together.

  “But I knew that already.” His mouth still said I’m so glad you’re back, old friend, but something in his eyes kept the words from giving David any comfort. “Why don’t we introduce you to the gang, huh? I’m sure they’ll love you, being my oldest friend and all.”

  Mitch led him out of the cabin. David wanted to be comforted by this alliance that should have made his introduction easier, but fear crept into his heart, fear that he had just met a new enemy rather than an old friend.

  CHAPTER 28

  There were only a handful of people in the Outliers’ camp when Mitch led David around. There was Mort, who David learned was Mitch’s right-hand man, and the boy tending the fire and preparing some foraged victuals for winter. His name was Jason, and he didn’t say a word to David or accept the proffered handshake. A man who had injured his ankle was resting on a bed of pine in one of the cabins, and a few more were dropping off some of their scavenged spoils. Mitch promised to introduce him properly when all were present that night.

  Mitch asked no more about David’s internment, though David had a few more answers ready to go. He showed David around the rest of the cabins, the latrine set a ways away in the woods, and where they went to get water from a small stream almost invisible under a blanket of brush. There was precious little to look at, though what was there was impressively organized. David realized as they were peeking in the windows of some of the vacant cabins that these people had been traveling, and had not carried very much with them. Most of the dwellings had little or no more than a crude bed and a few tattered scraps of clothing. David had only the sparse contents of a backpack himself. Everything else was back at his cabin in a valley a few days’ walk away. There was a good chance he would never return to that place.

  Mitch took him into one cabin where they stored what food they had. It followed the mold of the rest, with rough shelves lining the walls, covered with a variety of green and brown roughage. It looked like no way to live, no canned goods or meat. This many people, though; it was no wonder even the rare animal stayed away.

  “It’s not enough,” Mitch said from behind as David surveyed the cache.

  “There’s more than I thought there would be,” David replied.

  Mitch chuckled. “There are forty-two of us, David. Well, forty-three now, I guess. We’ve got a couple months’ worth of food maybe.”

  “So what are you going to do?” David asked.

  “We’re going to get into the Base,” Mitch replied matter-of-factly.

  “How?”

  Mitch was silent for a minute more, and David thought he was going to ignore his question again.

  “They won’t let all of us die out here.”

  David turned and looked at his old friend, the one who had spent his days scouting the valley for travelers the two of them could ambush and loot to keep themselves alive. His plan was to bow to the mercy of others?

  “Counting on their humanity?” he said with disbelief. Mitch lo
oked at him like he had not heard.

  “Walk with me, David.”

  They left the cabin and headed out into the woods, Mitch leading the way, David following close behind.

  “When I arrived, I was one of the first. I know some of the people in the Base, and they would sure as hell recognize my face. I was so excited, as I’m sure you can imagine, when I found this miracle of a place. I was so excited, in fact, that I couldn’t keep it all a secret. I had to go back to the valley, had to go and find everyone I knew and tell them of this place where they were making a stand, digging in, and making a living. They were not content to live just another day, they wanted to rebuild the human race, they want to live forever.”

  David could see the awe that Mitch felt plain on his face, as if he were just seeing the Base for the first time. His eyes were distant and David was sure that, in his mind, he was back in that first day.

  “I told them it wouldn’t be more than ten or twenty people that came back with me. They said that was fine, they would find room for them, put them to work. Everything was great, David. It was a dream come true.”

  Rage blotted out the euphoria that had painted his features a moment before.

  “But when I got back, with the few survivors that were even left in the valley, just a handful, not even as many as I said I would bring back, by the way, they wouldn’t open the gate. They didn’t even have a gate when I left. Keeping us out had become important enough for them to build a wall. They said they had taken in everyone they could, said they would starve if they let any more people in. Not to mention they’d have to deal with the ones they had already turned away, those camping out in the woods, watching no doubt, ready to run in if they saw the Base make an exception for others. I had met the guard that came out to shoo us away when I spent a few days there, and he offered to take me around the corner and hoist me over the wall, alone. At least they offered me that much.

  “But I couldn’t do it, David. You know me, or at least the man I was; I would have been ecstatic to get back in there, should have hopped over the wall then and there. Sometimes I wonder at how I refrained. But I just couldn’t look into the eyes of old Marge, and Mel, and Gus, the guys I had grown up with, shared laughs and fought alongside when we had to. We survived together, and they were the ones that were always off limits. We were all on the same team, all of us that lived in the valley. You know what I’m talking about. Even though you were a hermit and you had a garden, no one came to raid it, at least none of us. We stuck together even when we lived apart, and that’s how we made it. But now…”