The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  “Funny,” Wade said slowly, as though he were trying to process an unfamiliar word. He shook his head and went back to changing.

  Ken followed suit, sitting on a moss-covered rock and unlacing his hiking boots. He could see a faint orange glow emanating from the wigwam as John started the fire.

  “So, what part of Texas you from?” Ken asked.

  Wade paused as he was taking off his shirt, looking at the younger man searchingly.

  “The drawl and the Cowboys hat kinda give you away,” Ken explained.

  “Fort Davis,” Wade replied haltingly after a moment.

  Ken brightened at this.

  “I’ve been there before,” he said. “That’s like West Texas. Most arid place I’ve ever been. I was there for an endurance run in the desert a few years back, and the wind just seemed to suck all the moisture right out of my body within the first two miles.”

  Wade was unlacing his own boots while Ken kept talking.

  “The desert had a funny name, a Mexican word,” Ken reminisced as he stripped his jeans off. “ I think it was ‘Chihuahuan,’ sorta like the dog. Does that sound right?”

  He looked over at Wade, who was shaking out one of his upended boots.

  Wade froze at the word. Slowly, his icy glare gave way to slack-jawed astonishment.

  “You do know it!” Ken said, delighted that he’d found something they had in common. It was then that he noticed what Wade had been shaking out of his boots.

  A thin trickle of sand fell from the heel of Wade’s upturned boot.

  “I take it you’ve been there pretty recently,” Ken said, putting two and two together. “That would explain your sunburn.”

  Wade said nothing.

  Ken had a thought as he stripped off his briefs and swapped them out for the Speedo.

  “Hey, you know what? You should tell those pussies back there that that’s where you bury all the bodies. As a prank, you know? That would be so …”

  “Shut it,” Wade muttered.

  “Say what?”

  “Shut your mouth right now if you know what’s good for you!” Wade spat, his expression going from shocked to grim to wrathful all in the space of a few seconds. His hands slowly balled into fists.

  Ken stood up, showcasing that he had at least six inches and 40 pounds of muscle on the older man.

  “I don’t know who you think you’re threatening here, but …”

  Time seemed to slow down. Ken watched, fascinated as Wade tensed himself up before lunging at him. He watched Wade floating lazily in the air toward him, spittle flying from his lips. He had just enough time to observe the murderous rage in Wade’s eyes before he was tackled to the ground, knocking the air out of him.

  Time sped up again, and Ken found himself flailing ineffectually as Wade’s hands encircled his neck and started squeezing. Those hands, those impossibly strong, suffocating hands. Ken tried to plead with him but could only get out a small gurgle. Wade’s face started to get hazy. As the image went further out of focus, Wade’s face doubled and then quadrupled. Ken could feel himself blacking out.

  A sound. From an impossibly far-off distance, Ken could hear a voice calling out, as though from the bottom of a well.

  “Hey, you guys almost done back there?”

  Wade loosened his grip and clambered off him.

  “Say nothing,” Wade warned him.

  Ken’s eyes refocused. He felt a searing pain in his chest. He took a deep, gasping breath and the pain slowly subsided. He took another and started coughing uncontrollably. He rolled onto his stomach until the coughing fit slowly subsided.

  When he looked up again, he saw Wade calmly changing into a pair of black swim trunks as though nothing had happened.

  Coop poked his head from around the corner.

  “Guys, what’s the holdup?”

  Coop’s expression changed when he saw Ken on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe.

  “Hey,” Coop asked as Wade passed him, “is he OK?”

  “He’s fine,” Wade grunted. “Food went down the wrong pipe.”

  Lamar and Coop exchanged puzzled looks.

  “But uhm … we finished dinner 10 minutes ago,” Lamar said.

  * * * * * *

  “What do you suppose all that was about?”

  Lamar and Coop were taking their turn behind the wigwam, but were more focused on what they’d just witnessed than on changing clothes. Lamar faced one direction and Coop another, to avoid locker-room-style embarrassment.

  Lamar fished a set of Bermuda shorts from his backpack. He looked over his shoulder to make certain Coop’s back was turned before he unbuttoned his cargo pants.

  “The same thing that happens whenever two alpha dogs meet,” Lamar replied.

  Coop chuckled.

  “You think Wade and Ken were sniffing each other’s butts?”

  An absurd mental picture formed in Lamar’s head, and he burst out loud laughing. It was the first good belly laugh he’d had all day, and badly needed after the tension of the past couple of hours.

  “The other thing that happens when alpha dogs meet,” he said, still chuckling.

  Coop located another set of full-length robes in his travel bag, only these were a different color and made of a lighter material.

  “A fight?” he said, weighing the possibility. “Nah.”

  “Ken finally pushed the wrong guy’s buttons and got laid out.”

  Coop paused a few moments before responding.

  “Wade scares me,” he said hesitantly, as though he were revealing a dark secret.

  “Wade frightens all of us.”

  “I don’t mean it like he intimidates me,” Coop explained. “He does, obviously, but it’s deeper than that. That man’s aura is … dark. I think he’s done terrible things.”

  “With that knife, I believe it,” Lamar responded. “I still can’t get over the size of that thing.”

  “It’s like the one from ‘Crocodile Dundee,’” Coop said, nodding in agreement.

  “That’s not a knife, that’s a knife,” Lamar said in his best faux Aussie accent.

  Coop smiled and stole a glance over his shoulder.

  “Is it just me, or do you seem a lot less nervous? No stammering, no mumbling.”

  Lamar thought about this.

  “I don’t do so well in group settings,” he explained. “Too many alphas, particularly in this group,” he explained. “You, Gaby and John — I can talk to you people. You’re all right. Those others, they’re so in your face, I just clam up.”

  Lamar pulled on his Bermuda shorts and laced them up. His protruding belly, which poked out from beneath his T-shirt, overhung the waistband of his swimwear. He tried sucking in his gut when he noticed Coop looking over his shoulder at him.

  “Hey, I thought we agreed: no looking,” Lamar said, annoyed.

  “Sorry,” Coop said, turning his head back.

  The two changed in silence for a while. The temperature had dropped sharply in the last 30 minutes, and Coop found himself shivering involuntarily as he removed his robes. Overhead, a wren chirped its presence, happily unaffected by the cold.

  Lamar removed his shirt and was stowing it in his rucksack when he spied something metallic glinting in the fading sunlight near Coop. Momentarily forgetting their no-peek pledge, he looked over and saw it came from something attached to Coop’s leg.

  Coop had propped his right foot up on the same moss-covered stone that Ken had used earlier. The glint came from a black bracelet wrapped around Coop’s right leg, located between his shin and his ankle. It was bulky, like a fitness tracker, with a metallic object the size of a pager in the center reflecting the waning light. Coop noticed Lamar’s stare and hurriedly lowered his robes, hiding the bracelet and its exotic decoration.

  “What gives?” Coop asked, as Lamar quickly turned away with a “Sorry.”

  “It’s … it’s fine, it’s just this is … sacred jewelry,” Coop said, sounding uncharacteristic
ally flustered. “I’m not supposed to show it to anyone to avoid material attachment.”

  “Yeah?” Lamar asked, sounding unconvinced.

  “It was a gift from the preceptor of a monastery in the Qinghai Province, as a reward for reaching the second stage of enlightenment,” Coop explained hastily.

  “That sounds pretty cool,” Lamar said as he stowed his shirt and zipped up the rucksack. “You know, my uncle has something similar, only he didn’t go to Tibet for it.”

  “How’d he earn his, then?”

  “He robbed a liquor store,” Lamar said quietly as he slung his bag over his shoulder and walked off.

  * * * * * *

  Coop opened the door to the wigwam and immediately flinched at the heat radiating from the interior. He had been expecting the sultry warmth of a sauna, but instead was greeted with the oppressive heat of a blast furnace. Coop took a moment to adjust to the temperature change before making his way into the wigwam, duckwalking to fit through the narrow entrance.

  The firepit in the center was greedily consuming most of the tinder and logs they had spent the afternoon gathering, and radiated incredible heat in return. At points the fire rose to three feet in height, which was all the more impressive considering the bottom of the pit was a full foot below ground. Coop looked up and saw that the ceiling’s venting hole was fully open to accommodate the inferno John had unleashed on the group.

  Most of the others were already here. Lamar sat to the right of the entrance in a pair of turquoise Bermuda shorts. He seemed ashamed of his near-nakedness and kept positioning his arms at odd angles to hide his sagging man boobs. Beside him was Gaby, who was uncomfortable for a wholly different reason. Despite her earlier assurances, the heat was clearly getting to her. Her long-sleeved T-shirt and checkered harem pants were already coated in a thin layer of sweat, and she had taken to fanning herself to keep cool. Their guide was on the other side of the fire, wearing a pair of brown swim trunks that had probably been very fashionable in the early ’70s. The shimmering haze of the fire’s heat exaggerated his features, making him appear almost mystical. Beverly was to his right, wearing a simple black one-piece. Her makeup was already beginning to run. Last was Wade, who sat immediately to the left of the door, staring passively into the fire.

  Coop crossed in front of Gaby and Lamar, holding up his hand to shield his face from the fire, before taking his place between Gaby and John. He noticed that John had surrounded himself with a host of accoutrements: on his left was a large metal funnel, to his right was the water pail with a ladle in it, and in front of him were about two dozen lava rocks.

  John leaned in toward Coop, his expression uncharacteristically anxious.

  “Have you seen Ken?”

  Coop shook his head.

  “Not since we were changing,” he replied.

  The old man’s eyebrows knotted in worry.

  “What’s the problem?” Gaby asked.

  “We can’t start the sweat without him,” John explained. “And like I said earlier, we’re running out of time.”

  “Why do we have to wait on Ken?” Gaby asked. “If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t think twice about excluding us.”

  “Everyone has to participate,” John said firmly. “Otherwise, the circle will be incomplete.”

  As Coop’s eyes acclimated to the room, he noticed a dreamcatcher hanging from a nail over the door. Unlike the ornate ones found in curio shops, this one was monochrome and had a fairly simple design: an eight-petalled crimson flower with a corresponding number of feathers dangling from the bottom.

  “Is that the same dreamcatcher from the van?” he asked, pointing to the trinket.

  John nodded.

  “I brought it for the ceremony,” he explained. “Only it’s not a dreamcatcher. It’s a mandala. It acts more like a guidepost than a ward.”

  “What are you guiding here?” Coop asked.

  John ignored the question and stood up.

  “I’m going to go search for Ken in case …”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the door opened and Ken thrust his head in.

  “There he is,” John said, sounding immensely relieved.

  Ken immediately squinted and turned his face away from the intense heat of the fire. It was then that Gaby noticed the purple welts forming on his neck.

  “Ken, what happened?” she asked in alarm.

  “Oh, this?” he replied, stealing a glance at Wade, whose back was turned to him. “It’s nothing. Tripped in the woods and caught a tree branch in the throat.”

  Coop and Lamar exchanged knowing looks but said nothing.

  “Hurry up and come in,” John said. “You’re letting the heat out.”

  Because of his height, Ken had to walk through the tiny opening hunched over. Gaby and Beverly noticed he was wearing a Speedo and fought to stave off a wave of revulsion. Ken closed the door behind him and looked for an empty space.

  “There’s room beside Wade,” John said.

  Ken walked right past the open spot, giving Wade a wide berth before planting himself between John and Beverly. He nudged Beverly to make room, earning a dirty look from the older woman as she scooted over.

  “Comfy?” Beverly asked sharply as Ken sat in her former spot.

  John clapped his hands.

  “Everyone, this is the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” he said loudly, to ensure everyone could hear him over the roaring fire. “The circle is now complete, and we can begin the ceremony.”

  John reached beside him and grabbed the metal funnel. It looked a mutant pairing of a pot lid and a kitchen funnel, except it was four times larger than either, with a foot-wide spout at its center and a raised exterior. Their guide upended the funnel and laid it gingerly over the roaring fire, covering it completely. The bright orange light that had illuminated the teepee was now reduced to a few wisps of flame emanating from the funnel’s conical center. The room was immediately enveloped in darkness.

  Black smoke started belching forth from the funnel’s opening; between that and the dim reddish glow of the funnel’s interior, it looked like a miniature volcano. The funnel started to glow faintly as the metal heated up. John began placing fist-sized lava rocks along the outer rim of the funnel, walking around the teepee as he did so.

  “My ancestors referred to this space as the truth circle,” he said as he moved around the edge of the fire, placing lava rocks at evenly spaced intervals. “They believed that once the circle is formed, a sacred bond develops between the participants, one that cannot be broken until the truth comes to light.”

  “What truth?” Coop asked, entranced.

  “Your truth. For each of you. What drives you, what haunts you. What makes you … incomplete. Each of you must face your own truth over the next seven days. And when you have all faced your truths, you will no longer require the circle, and will go forth as whole people.”

  “Face our truths?” Ken sneered. “What’s the penalty for refusal? Scalping?”

  John merely smiled and placed another stone on the rapidly heating funnel.

  “No penalty,” he said. “Because the truth will find its way into the circle, one way or another.”

  John leaned in uncomfortably close to Ken before suddenly bursting into song.

  “One way, or another, it’s gonna find ya, it’s gonna getcha-getcha-getcha-getcha!” he sang, making pistol fingers with each “getcha.”

  The others all laughed; even Wade cracked a faint smile.

  “My ancestors performed this ceremony — the Inipi — at the start of every vision quest,” John continued, turning serious once again. “It’s a rite of passage for my people. Children would enter the truth circle, then emerge seven days later as adults, having conquered their demons. You shall all undergo a similar process, and will learn, as they did, that it isn’t the experience that shapes you: it’s the truth. Tonight, we call upon the weyekin — the spirits of the forest — for their assistance in the cleansing to
come.”

  He placed the last of the lava rocks on the now-sizzling funnel and took his place at the head of the circle.

  “Is everybody ready?” John asked.

  Hearing no objections, he pulled the chain tied to the rafter poles, and the ceiling’s opening shrank to less than a foot. An audible click confirmed that the “flue” was effectively closed.

  John grabbed the pail and started ladling water on the lava rocks and the funnel. An ear-splitting hiss echoed throughout the small structure as the water came to a boil, enveloping the room in a cloud of steam. The hazy mist only further obscured everyone’s vision; people whose features were barely visible in the darkness were now distorted and twisted, rendering them as hideous approximations of people.

  “So, do we start saying our mantras?” Coop asked earnestly, wiping condensed water from his glasses.

  “All you have to do is relax and breathe deeply,” John advised. “The circle will do the rest. The only thing I would suggest is that you keep an open mind.”

  “You putting the knock on critical thinking?” Ken asked.

  “Not at all,” John replied evenly. “A critical mind is still open to persuasion, if the evidence presented is strong enough. But a skeptic rejects anything that challenges his worldview, no matter the proof. Over the next six days, your worldview will be tested. All of you will encounter things beyond your experience. It’s up to you to decide whether to close your minds … or change your outlook.”

  Through the hazy darkness, Beverly could just make out Ken making a jerk-off gesture toward John.

  The sizzling in the funnel had started to abate as the water boiled off. John applied another ladleful, and the air was again alive with steam and that deafening hiss.

  As the tumult tapered off, Lamar could hear another sound, faint and indistinct at first, but growing in clarity as the hissing gradually subsided into a dull sizzle. It was John.

  “Heya-heyo-heya-heyo-heya-heyo-heya-heyo-heya-heyo,” he chanted with his eyes closed. John started tapping out a rhythm on his legs in time with the chanting.