Circles in the Dust

by Matthew Harrop

  “Sure, but I figured that was just because you were too terrified of me to move,” she said with a straight face.

  “You are just terrifying. I do have to admit, though, it had a little more to do with my serious lack of arms at the moment.”

  “So you were going to sneak in and steal your gun back?”

  David raised an eyebrow at her. “Maybe.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad I was the one over the wall first then. You would have gotten yourself killed.”

  “What makes you think this would be the first time I’ve done it?” David bluffed airily.

  “Well, you haven’t come to see me yet…” David turned from her bemused expression and stared down at his hands. “Besides, if you knew what you were doing, you probably would have been ready when the guards turned away from each other. And you would have been waiting in the trees on that side of the Base too.”

  David was impressed by her knowledge. She clearly had done this before. Well, obviously, he chided himself.

  “I’m just not the professional you are,” he conceded, bringing a smirk to smudge her features. “But did you think about what would have happened if there had been an Outlier on watch walking past when you came bumbling through the trees?”

  “Bumbling?” she said with affront. “I would have handled it. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I didn’t mean to doubt you,” David said. “I’m sure you could ‘handle it’.” She shook her head at him, but she was laughing a little, so he joined in.

  “You wanted to go for your gun?” she asked again. “Not …this?” She drew his bow from the long duffle bag she had set on the ground next to her. He grabbed it greedily out of her hands.

  “Sorry.”

  “No worries,” she said. “You must have missed her terribly.”

  “Her?”

  “All the things men like are feminine.”

  David thought this over, and could only nod his head.

  “So that was all you were headed in there for, huh?” Elizabeth asked as David was fondling his bow, running his hands over its curves, checking for any damage. Her bag was also full of all his arrows, he noted, though she had not offered them.

  “Well, it is a little lonely out here. I don’t really have anyone to talk to that would think twice about stabbing me in my sleep at this point.”

  She laughed again, the sound bubbling from her full lips, drifting over to slide up his body and into his ears, leaving chills in its wake. He could not help but smile when she laughed.

  “Haven’t made a lot of friends yet?”

  “One.” David took a sidelong glance at Elizabeth, evaluating for a moment if he could really trust her with what he had learned, though he had planned on trying to steal into her room if he could, so why was this only occurring to him now? Resolving to be more thoughtful in the future, he proceeded to tell her what he had learned of Mitch and his plans.

  She stopped him when he described the good fortune that no one in the Base had died because of recent attacks.

  “Whoa, whoa. What do you mean, no one died? That’s what he told you?”

  “Yeah,” David said hesitantly. “He said it’s lucky that no one has died. He said no one has gotten over the wall, that the Base probably would have come out in force by now if that was happening.”

  “David,” she began, and he couldn’t help but think that she said his name with the same forced patience he had been enduring from Mitch the last two days, “people have been dying. We talked about this.”

  “We talked about there being raids, and people dying, but they’re not people from the Base, right?”

  “A man died in an attack last night.”

  David could not keep the shock at this from staking a claim on his face. “Maybe Mitch just didn’t know—”

  “And a week ago,” she added. “Just about every week for a while now. It’s finally starting to look like a pattern, so they have been putting more guards out a few days after an attack until there is another one. There’s talk, David, of it being an organized, conscious effort to weaken the Base, feel us out, or something. The Outliers are digging their own grave. If the Mayor—”

  “Your father,” David cut in.

  “Yes, my father—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the Mayor was your father?” David tried to make his question sound like an innocent curiosity.

  “I don’t know. He’s the Mayor first. He can be… a hard man, and he would not hesitate to say that he is the Mayor first and a father second.”

  “I’m sorry,” David said, and he meant it.

  “It’s fine,” she responded hastily.

  “Who was it that died?” David continued.

  “Who? It was, er, hmm… I just remember the Mayor mentioning that we ‘lost one of our own.’ I don’t know if he actually said who it was. The council wanted to keep it pretty hush-hush, so I don’t think there is going to be a funeral or anything.”

  “They want to keep it quiet?” David asked. “How can they even keep everyone from noticing someone is missing?”

  “Lately they’ve had the guards living in the cabins by the wall. So they’re always ready, I guess. Not many people are allowed to go over there to distract them. Since they’re only guards…” She paused, her brow wrinkling as she tried to piece it all together. After a moment she gave up and shook her head. “Anyway, they really didn’t want everyone to panic and start chanting for blood. We’re still committed to your peaceful solution.” She gave him an expectant look, as if she were a teacher looking at a student who was falling behind in class. “How is that going, David?”

  “It’s…going,” he said, unsure himself of how much progress he had made. “Like I said, Mitch remembered me, so that’s something. It definitely made it easier than starting from the bottom.”

  “Do you think that’s really his plan, David? Relying on the impatience of the Outliers, who have been sitting outside our walls for almost two years?”

  “It kind of seems like it could work, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s cruel.” All the humor she had shown earlier was gone. “You need to do something, David. Work faster. The snows are coming.”

  “I know,” he snapped. He had been out here for two days. How much could he have possibly done in that time? “I’m working on it. I don’t know if our plan would even work though, Elizabeth. How many people can the Base afford to let in, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But I can try and find out.”

  They sat there for a moment, both deep in their own thoughts.

  “You don’t think he’s lying, do you?”

  David had to think about that. “About what? People dying?”

  “Just everything. You don’t think he would just be throwing you off on a wild goose chase, do you?”

  “Mitch, or the Mayor?” David mumbled. She cast a venomous look back in response. It was no joke, but he knew he couldn’t say that. “I think he trusts me,” David responded. “We were… we worked together. We survived together. We were like brothers, once.”

  “So it’s just like old times?”

  David knew this was a trap of a question. Of course things were not the same. David was not the one keeping Mitch from being killed at any moment. It was Mitch who was really in charge this time. At least there was one consolation: the stakes were ever the same.

  “We’re on the same side, Elizabeth. If he’s changed, it’s for the better. The Mitch I knew would have climbed over the fence at the first chance, rather than wait for the rest. He’s a good guy.”

  “I hope so, David. It’s not just you and him. We’ve all got a stake in this game.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m…” she started to say something then turned her face away.

  “What?” he pressed her.

  “I’m just… glad I found you. That’s all.”

  “It was lucky I was sitting here.”

  “Yes, it was lucky you were
here tonight,” she echoed, biting her lip.

  “Elizabeth, I need to know what is going on in the Base. Can you find out how many people have died because of the Outliers in the last few months, since the weekly attacks started? There has got to be some record of it, right?”

  “I can try,” she said uncertainly. “I’ll have to ask around…”

  “Talk to whoever you have to. Find out how many have died, how many the Base can take on. And find out who died, if you can. At least the last person. I might have less time than I thought.”

  “Um, David…?”

  “Yeah?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes glistened, though David couldn’t be sure if it was from tears or the light of the moon as she looked up at his. He felt his frantic mind freeze at the sight.

  “Be careful, okay?”

  David’s heart skipped a beat. He wanted to believe those were tears, tears she would cry for him. Maybe she really was worried about him, concerned for his life and his safety. Maybe she missed him, and worried their time together might end with him out here.

  Maybe she was just worried about the people that were relying on him back home.

  “I will.”

  CHAPTER 33

  A stray beam of late afternoon light pierced the shutters to besiege happily closed eyelids, rudely waking David. He rose from the bed to find that Mitch was gone, blankets piled neatly on the boughs that were beginning to sag and harden. Curious, David thought. Mitch had slipped in after David the night before. David had nearly been asleep when his cabin-mate had slithered through the door and snaked his way underneath his own covers. David said nothing, but wondered to himself what it was that had distracted Mitch the night before, what had taken him so long to do. The sky had begun to lighten before David returned to the cabin, dawn just around the corner, and he had expected Mitch to sleep as late as he.

  But he was alone in the cabin.

  David rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he stumbled drowsily out into the light of the fading sun. The camp was empty. The Outliers were always out foraging, gathering and gathering all day long. Only a few ever remained in the camp during the daytime, and David was one of those, left behind for the day while the able-bodied men went to work, with the crippled and elderly to keep him company.

  He made his way out into the trees to relieve his bladder, taking his time about it, not really knowing what he should do until Mitch returned. Like the Base, the Outliers had chosen to introduce him to everyone all at once, and thus he knew no one. Except for Mitch and Mort, he had shared no more than a handful of words with any of the others.

  On his way back into camp, the pressure of water gone, he pondered what Elizabeth had told him the night before. Someone had died in the Base, killed by one of the Outliers Mitch had been unable to convince to stay at camp and refrain from running to their death. That plan was macabre and inhumane, but how many parts of the life of a survivor were pleasant?

  Maybe it would be better for everyone if some of the more radical survivors were taken out of the picture. Maybe it would prevent future hostilities and violence, allow for stronger bonds to be forged between the two peoples, bonds that could easily be shattered from within by those who lacked patience and forethought, who would rather raid the ones their lives depended on than wait for a stable solution. David was here now, right? He would work something out. David’s life, and surely plenty of others inside and outside the palisade walls, depended on it. Without the problem children, the family would be closer. Let the rebellious teenager go off on his own and get himself killed. Who needs him?

  Everyone needs him, David thought. The number of survivors had dipped too low already. If anyone was going to have a future, everyone had to participate. Each death lowered the chance of the group surviving. Every grave brought them six feet closer to extinction.

  David could see his breath as he came back into the deserted habitat of the Outliers. The cabins were dark and foreboding, like empty skulls scattered in a desecrated graveyard. He walked toward the fire, the nerve center of the camp, hoping to find someone to talk to. He hoped to build a rapport with some of the individual Outliers, and maybe doing that without Mitch present would be a good idea. He needed them to know him, if he ended up needing them to listen to him. He could use Mitch as a mouthpiece, but only so long as they saw eye to eye.

  Besides, maybe he could make himself useful.

  As he walked, David became aware of a boy, a young boy, sitting alone in front of one of the cabins. The boy had a knife in one hand and a bloody carcass in the other. His hair was wild, long and dark, obscuring his face from view. His clothes were barely rags, hanging from his starved frame like denim cobwebs. He sat alone on a stump as David approached.

  “Hey there,” he said as he neared the boy, who made no sign that he heard the greeting. “Is that a squirrel? I wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to find one of those around here.” David watched as the knife was abandoned and replaced by grimy hands, dirty fingernails slipping under skin and separating it from flesh. It looked brutal, but David noticed there was not a single tear in the pelt. It looked like he was peeling a bloody sock from a grotesque creature that had crawled into it and died.

  As David watched the skinning, now silent, he noticed that the boy’s shirt was actually made from the pelts of squirrels and rabbits. It was a hairy mess of a garment, but sewn with care. The boy continued his work, bare feet planted in the dirt, oblivious to the presence of the world around him. David turned to walk away just as the boy was pulling the last few inches of the sock off the carcass.

  “Yes.”

  The voice was raspy and deep, like the sound of two stones grinding together, no doubt a result of a life lived around endless fires, like the small one separating them.

  “I would have guessed you had found all of the ones left out here a long time ago.” David was standing at a distance, eying the peculiar boy warily.

  “Everyone gave up. Say foraging smarter. I don’t know.”

  “But you still keep at it?” David asked. There was a pause as the boy searched for a stick around his feet.

  “Yes.”

  “Looks like you’re the smart one, if you’re still finding them. I’m surprised you’ve found that many.”

  The boy found a stick that pleased him and set the carcass on top of its fur, and returning the worn blade to his hand, began carving a tip onto the miniature spit.

  “Not a lot,” he replied, and David caught a glimpse of gnarled, yellowed teeth. He ran his tongue over his own, wondering what they looked like.

  “You’re a hunter, rather than a gatherer?” David queried.

  The skin of his forehead crinkled as he considered this. David wondered if it was the idea or the words that vexed him.

  “Yes.” The boy had not taken his eyes off his work since David had first caught sight of him. “Mine,” he said abruptly, finally deigning to take a look at his visitor. His face was filthy and his eyes bloodshot and sunken, his skin had a slight yellowish tint. David just stopped himself from cringing at the savage power of his gaze. His hands were still and David got a good look at them. The bones were twisted and deformed, which David had not noticed while they were at work. Now as the boy returned his attention to the stick in his hands, eying it from different angles, David could see the odd way the boy moved, swinging his head around instead of simply turning it, using his wrist to manipulate the knife, rather than troubling his bulbous finger joints.

  “That’s okay,” David said when he found his voice once more. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Mitch friend,” the boy replied in his husky voice. “Mitch think you good, you good.”

  “Mitch is a good guy.” David meant it as a statement, but it came out as a question.

  “Mitch let me in. He say I live here. We get into Base together.” His words were punctuated by a deep cough. “The others no like me, but Mitch good. He tells me stay.”

  The boy ran the stick through the m
eager body of the squirrel without betraying an ounce of strain and placed it over his small cook fire. David looked up at the boy’s cabin and realized that it was set a way back from the circle made up around the central fire by the rest.

  “He is a good man,” David repeated, this time with more conviction.

  The boy grunted his assent.

  “You live alone?” David asked.

  “Yes,” was the curt reply as the boy rose and walked over to a tree to hang his pelt. He sunk rusty nails into each corner using the shaft of his knife.

  “Do you have any family?” David asked. The boy was so young; he couldn’t have been more than ten years old at most. He had to have someone.

  “Family?” he repeated.

  “How old are you?” David blurted out. He knew it was a stupid question as soon as he asked it. Who really knew how old they were? So many winters had blended together it was hard to tell. He hadn’t even been able to answer when Elizabeth had asked him the same.

  “I had mother,” the boy said, sounding confused. “She die.”

  “Oh,” David said. It was a stupid question anyway, he thought.

  This boy was so young, most likely a little older than David had been when he watched his family die one by one, and he was on his own. David suddenly saw himself in the youth; but he had grown up with a family, he knew something of the world besides the wild. The world had abused this boy, deformed him, abandoned him, more than anyone else. David wanted to be sad, but found more fear inside than tears.

  “You have no one,” David whispered.

  “I need no one,” the boy responded. His garish legs carried him through the door of his cabin. He emerged with a handful of herbs, which he set about crushing in his warped hands and spreading over the body roasting in the fire, turning it as he did.

  “But at least you have a home here,” David stated.

  “Home?” the lad questioned.

  David’s head reeled as he found himself explaining another fundamental aspect of human life to this stranger.

  “This is home, I guess,” the boy ended up agreeing. “But Base is better home.”