The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  Wade thrust his forearm against Beverly’s throat, choking her. She slapped at it with flailing, ineffectual hands as she struggled to breathe.

  Ken decided to intervene and rushed forward. The others watched, wanting to help, but unable to coax their limbs to cooperate. Ken grabbed Wade by the shoulder, trying to pull him off. It was like trying to move a brick wall.

  Wade, momentarily distracted, eased up on Beverly’s windpipe just long enough to rear back and elbow Ken in the throat, dropping him instantly. Beverly took a long, tortured breath before Wade doubled the pressure, making her gag.

  Unwilling to make the same mistake as Ken, who was now floundering in the dirt like a landed trout, Gaby kept her distance, pleading with Wade to listen to reason.

  “Let her go!” Gaby begged. “Please!”

  Wade ignored her, focusing all his hatred on Beverly.

  “Don’t threaten me, you high-tit bitch!” Wade bellowed at Beverly with such force that spittle flew from his mouth. “You may be hot shit back in the real world, but out here, you’re useless. I wouldn’t think nothing of carving you up. You fuck with me again, I’ll hang you upside down and gut you like a pig. I’ve done it before, and so help me, I’ll do it again.”

  Wade leaned in until they touched noses. Beverly’s flailing grew weaker.

  “And you’d better pray you bleed out fast, because if you don’t, the coyotes will get you,” he continued, his raspy voice exuding malice. “They can smell blood from miles away. And they’re always hungry this time of year.”

  Beverly, who was starting to fade out, could see the absolute conviction in Wade’s eyes. He meant every word that he said.

  “Wade, she can’t breathe!” Gaby shouted. “Dios mio, let her go!”

  He held his forearm against Beverly’s throat for another agonizingly long second before relaxing the pressure and slowly pulling away. Beverly collapsed to the ground, gasping for air.

  Wade turned to face the others.

  “And that goes for all of you,” he roared, looking at each of them in turn. “You’re in my world now. You want to stay? Then leave me alone. Anyone that gets in my way again … dies.”

  With that, Wade walked back to the center of camp to reclaim his hare carcass, pulled his fox fur from the clothesline and left without another word.

  * * * * * *

  It was late morning before Lamar managed to get a fire going. Coop placed two cans of beans on the grill to heat, while Gaby fetched water to boil. Ken sat by the fire, rubbing his swollen Adam’s apple, which Wade’s sharp elbow had turned an angry shade of purple. Beverly was in the teepee, convalescing. Nobody spoke.

  All around them the forest teemed with activity as critters of all shapes and sizes took advantage of the warming weather to forage for more food. Every so often, a strong breeze would blow chestnuts from some of the nearby trees, which squirrels in neighboring trees would rush to collect. The distinctive noise the chestnuts made when they landed spooked Coop; it sounded too much like Wade’s approaching footsteps for comfort.

  Gaby came back from the water pump with a pail full of water. She lifted it onto the grill to boil with a grunt of exertion.

  “He’s only getting worse,” Lamar said, breaking the silence.

  “I told you all, but you wouldn’t listen,” Ken croaked, rubbing his injured throat to soothe it. “You were all, ‘Oh, Wade? He’s not so bad. He’s just misunderstood.’”

  Coop glared at him contemptuously.

  “Are you done? Because we need to figure out something fast.”

  “When he threatened Beverly, it made my blood run cold,” Gaby confessed, shivering at the memory.

  “That was no idle threat,” Lamar said. “He meant it. And he meant it for us, too.”

  “So what do we do?” Coop asked.

  “I say we leave,” Ken suggested in a gravelly voice. “What’d he say, that we’re in his world now? Let him have it. Let’s pack up everything and take our chances in the forest.”

  “If we leave here, our chance of rescue is basically nil,” Gaby reminded him. “What we need is a united front. Can we all agree that Wade’s not allowed in camp anymore?”

  “That’s not the issue,” Ken warbled impatiently. “He won’t go away just because you ask him nicely. We need to be able to enforce it.”

  “But we need everyone here to complete the truth circle, like John told us. Otherwise, it won’t work,” Coop protested, drawing a derisive laugh from Ken.

  “Jesus Tapdancing Christ, are you for real?” Ken mocked. “We’re trying to keep everyone alive, and your priority is what Chief Sitting Bullshit wants, so you can fulfill his precious shamanistic fantasy.”

  “Actually, shamanism is practiced in Asia,” Coop corrected him before seeing in Ken’s face how trivial his point was. “You know what, just forget I said anything.”

  “Wade’s out, and that’s final,” Ken said before turning to Lamar. “Where do you stand, Poppin’ Fresh?”

  Lamar, who normally squirmed in embarrassment whenever Ken referenced his weight, didn’t react at all. He seemed lost in thought. Ken was about to repeat the question when Lamar finally weighed in.

  “If we’re not going and he can’t stay, that leaves us just one option,” Lamar said in a measured tone, scanning the faces of his companions as he spoke. “We arm ourselves.”

  A hush fell over the group as Lamar’s words sunk in. In the distance, more chestnuts fell.

  Ken whistled low, although with his bruised windpipe it sounded more like a death rattle.

  “That’s pretty ballsy.”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” Gaby asked.

  Lamar nodded.

  “And you’re willing to die over a campsite?” Gaby pressed.

  “It’s five to one,” Lamar replied. “Nobody has to die. All we need is a display of overwhelming force. If we show him how far we’re willing to go, he’ll back down.”

  “You don’t know that for certain,” Coop interjected, alarmed at the direction this conversation was going.

  “No, I don’t,” Lamar admitted. “But if we leave, he could just as easily stalk us and pick us off one by one. At least here we can prepare defenses.”

  “So, what do we arm ourselves with?” Gaby asked. “A few sharp sticks won’t stop him.”

  Lamar thought for a moment.

  “Black hats learn to probe systems before attacking them, so they know the countermeasures and activity log triggers beforehand,” he said, tugging thoughtfully on his goatee.

  “Meaning what?” Ken asked, growing exasperated.

  “We need to take inventory before we decide on a battle plan,” Lamar responded. “What do we have to work with?”

  “We have the pocket knife John gave me,” Gaby said. “We can make fire, too.”

  “So those things and all the rocks we can throw,” Ken said dismissively, convinced that this conversation had outlived its usefulness. “There’s nothing here. Short of weaponizing your B.O., that’s everything.”

  “No,” Lamar said quietly as an idea began to take root. “Not everything.”

  The others looked at him, baffled.

  “We haven’t looked in there yet,” he said, motioning to the storage shed on the other side of the campsite.

  * * * * * *

  “Is it in?” Ken asked, his voice still hoarse as he strained against the shed door, trying to pry it away from its frame.

  “Almost there,” Gaby responded through clenched teeth as she struggled to wedge her arm through the narrow opening Ken was making.

  It was just blind luck that John hadn’t replaced the door lock — which the last set of visitors had somehow dismantled — with anything better than a knotted bungee cord. Without that chink, the supply shed might as well have been Fort Knox. Unlike the outhouses with their unevenly spaced plywood boards, the supply shed was solidly built, made of two-inch-thick teak boards with no gaps. The door was solid oak and at least an inch thick
er.

  Unfortunately, the group’s only way in — the bungee cord — was knotted from the inside and looped so tightly that Ken couldn’t open the door more than a few inches.

  “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this yesterday,” Coop lamented as he watched Ken pull and Gaby try to squeeze her forearm inside. Lamar was in the teepee, checking on Beverly after her earlier assault.

  “And I … can’t believe that … you aren’t helping!” Ken rasped as he gave one final, desperate tug at the door.

  “I’m in!” Gaby exclaimed just before Ken lost his grip. She winced as the door closed tight against her arm, pinning her in place.

  “Thank God!” Ken exclaimed as he leaned against the shed wall, exhausted and breathing heavily.

  Ken and Coop watched Gaby’s face for any sign of hope. It only amplified the pressure she felt. She trained her eyes skyward to avoid their gazes and set to work.

  “I can feel the knot,” she declared.

  For the next few minutes, her face was a study in concentration as she struggled to untie the knot with a single, immobilized hand.

  “I can almost … no, it slipped,” she said.

  After five minutes of this, Gaby gave a sigh of resignation and shook her head.

  “I can’t get a proper grip. My fingers keep slipping off.”

  Coop and Ken started debating the best way forward while Gaby stood there, waiting for someone to assist her.

  “Forget the lock,” Ken said. “Let’s just break down the door.”

  Coop shook his head.

  “It’s solid oak,” he declared. “You’d break every bone in your hand.”

  “I can use my shoulder.”

  “If you don’t mind dislocating it,” Coop replied.

  “Excuse me!” Gaby suddenly shouted. “Is someone going to help me out of here or what?”

  Just as Ken and Coop finished extricating an annoyed Gaby from the door, Beverly exited the teepee, still favoring her ankle and leaning on Lamar for support. Gaby shook the numbness out of her arm and gave Beverly a polite hug.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like I got attacked by a madman,” Beverly replied with a small, but forced, smile.

  Coop and Ken continued debating how to open the door.

  “If we could just remove these somehow,” Coop said, studying the three stainless steel hinges holding the door in place.

  “I don’t see the screwdriver fairy anywhere,” Ken groused in frustration. “I just wish we’d thought to break in here yesterday, before Wade went rogue. We could use some of his psychopath strength right now.”

  “No,” Gaby said softly as the gears in her mind whirred. “We don’t need him; we need his knife.”

  “Well, anytime you want to ask him for it, be my guest,” Ken replied dismissively as he mulled over how to break into the shed.

  Gaby pulled away from Beverly and ran into the teepee. When she emerged several minutes later, the others were trying to force the door open with a three-foot length of plywood they’d wedged through the crack, using it as a fulcrum as they pushed and pulled on the exposed side with all their might.

  As Gaby drew closer, she noticed it was the “Braves” sign that normally hung over the men’s outhouse.

  “Put your back into it, twinkle toes!” Ken growled at Coop as he pushed against the sign, head down and dripping with sweat.

  Coop’s face was rapidly turning purple as he pushed beside Ken. He managed to grunt out a barely audible “fuck you” as he drove his shoulder into the board.

  On the other side of the plank, Lamar had the wood pressed against his sizeable stomach and was pulling on it so hard that he was in danger of falling backward.

  “See, that’s what you should be doing,” Ken said of Lamar’s technique. “Biggie Not-Smalls is finally putting all that extra weight to good use.”

  Gaby sidled up to Ken.

  “I have an idea,” she said.

  “That’s great,” Ken grunted as he continued pushing against the board. “Now, less thinking, more helping.”

  Instead of moving to the other side of the board, Gaby tried to push past Ken, whose large shoulder blocked access to the door. Ken didn’t budge.

  “I said ‘help,’ not ‘tickle,’” Ken barked. “If you want some loving, at least wait until we’ve stopped the knife-wielding lunatic.”

  “Oh, for God’s sakes, Ken!” she vented. “What I want is for you to get out of the way.”

  Ken gave one more push against the board before pausing to look Gaby in the eye.

  “You can’t weigh more than 120 soaking wet,” he said, mopping sweat from his brow. “What makes you think you can do it?”

  Gaby reached into her pocket and brandished the penknife John had given her.

  “Because I’ll use brains, not balls,” she said.

  When Ken didn’t take the hint and move over, she lowered the knife until it was level with his crotch.

  “Speaking of which …”

  Ken immediately scooted back.

  Gaby grabbed a handful of bungee cables through the hole in the door and started cutting. The tiny knife was surprisingly sharp and made quick work of them.

  Ken spat in disgust, though it wasn’t clear whether it was from Gaby threatening his manhood or annoyance that she came up with the solution before he did. Lamar and Coop were more gracious, giving a polite golf clap as she threw the severed cables to the ground and grabbed the door handle.

  * * * * * *

  Gaby opened the door wide so everyone could see inside. The shed was small — three feet wide and four feet long — but tightly packed with all sorts of odds and ends. A shelf along the back wall contained a dozen canned goods, a bag of dried apricots, an old flashlight approximately the length and width of Coop’s forearm and a box whose contents were obscured by a tarp and layers of dust.

  The walls on either side were lined with implements hanging from nails: a tiny hammer, a rake, a hand spade, a plastic bag of loose nails and the bow drill that Gaby had struggled to use earlier.

  On the floor they found several plywood two-by-fours stacked in a corner, a few fold-up lawn chairs and an earthenware jug. They also found items from Saturday’s sweat: the metal funnel used to cover the fire during the ceremony and the lava rocks that lined the cylinder.

  A musty odor permeated the shed. Dust and cobwebs decorated most of its exposed surfaces.

  Coop entered the shed first. He brushed away a few cobwebs with his robes and then knelt down beside the jug. He jiggled the container and heard the swish of a large volume of liquid inside.

  “We’ve got something in here, maybe gasoline,” he said. He uncorked the spout and took a sniff.

  “Doesn’t smell like gas,” he declared, tipping it back and taking a tentative sip.

  “Coop, don’t!” Gaby warned.

  Coop threw his head back and made a pained sound, shaking after drinking it. His reaction was strong enough that the others started to worry he’d drunk something poisonous.

  “Ngggghhh!!!” he exclaimed, hastily recorking the jug. “It’s not gas, but you’d be hard pressed to tell from the taste.”

  “What is it?” Gaby asked, still concerned.

  “Firewater,” Coop declared, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “Just like mama used to make.”

  “Moonshine?” Lamar asked.

  “Yeah, strong stuff, too.”

  Ken started to laugh.

  “‘Think warm thoughts’ my ass!” he said mockingly, recalling John’s words when introducing them to the cold-water shower. “Looks like geriatric Geronimo had his own method of keeping warm.”

  From the back of the group, Beverly stared at the jug and shivered before walking away from the group, muttering under her breath. Gaby, who was closest to her, was barely able to make it out. She was spelling out letters, over and over again.

  “S … A … L … T … S … A … L … T,” she repeated, pronouncing each lette
r separately, as though it stood for something else.

  Ken, unaware of Beverly’s odd behavior, scoured the shed for anything that could be weaponized. They might be able to file down the handle of the rake and fashion it into a spear, but there were plenty of branches in the forest that would work equally well. And the hammer could work as a close-range weapon in a pinch. Other than that, there was nothing.

  He gave a disheartened groan.

  “Well, this was a fucking waste of time,” he said dejectedly.

  “Not completely,” Coop insisted as he examined the rows of canned food. He handed the cans back to Gaby for safekeeping. “We have more food.”

  “Great,” Ken deadpanned. “So when Wade strolls in with his big-ass knife to kill us all, we can throw …”

  He paused to pluck one of the cans from Coop’s outstretched fingers and read from the label.

  “… lima beans blended with natural sea salts at him,” Ken said. “Splendid.” He tossed the can haphazardly toward Gaby, who barely managed to catch it.

  “This was precious time we could have spent preparing for Wade or packing up and leaving,” Ken continued. “We need real solutions.”

  As Ken chided the others, Coop was still examining the shed’s contents. He located a box on the top shelf, one covered by a blue tarp. He pulled it down and gently blew dust off the lid to reveal its contents. He stared at the box in confusion, trying to make sense of the picture on the cover. After several long moments, his expression changed from confusion to wonderment to elation.

  “What about this?” he asked, walking out of the shed cradling the box with the lid upturned so the others could see the contents. “Would this work?”

  * * * * * *

  Coop knelt down and laid the box gently in the dirt as the rest of the group gathered around him to watch.

  The faded and partially discolored picture on the lid declared that this was a “Genuine Sears Portable Citizens Band Two-Way Radio,” with the letters ‘C’ and ‘B’ displayed with a zoom-in effect not seen in advertising since the early ’80s. This impression was reinforced by a prominent picture of a young teen with a bowl cut dressed in earth-toned clothing eagerly operating the knobs on the C.B. His hands were partially obscured by a gold sticker announcing: “Great fun for kids, too!”