The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  Sunlight trickled through the trees overhead. Gaby kept her face pointed skyward, a small smile starting to develop as she basked in the light’s warm caress. Maybe what she was doing wasn’t the smartest thing when they were effectively at war, and she knew the others would be furious with her, but after three days of high tension and zero privacy, she needed the kind of perspective that only solitude could afford. And if she could get them all saved in the bargain, that would be the icing on the cake. She imagined the others thanking her: Lamar, Coop, Ken and …

  A low-lying cloud blotted out the sun, and the warm glow slowly faded, along with Gaby’s smile. Gaby lowered her gaze until it came to rest on her ultimate destination: the high hills marking the eastern edge of the three-mile-wide crater that sheltered the campsite from the worst of the region’s inclement weather. The peaks were among the highest in the region, perfect for sending a transmission.

  After studying the depression for several minutes, Gaby settled on a route that should avoid the worst of the hidden crannies. She’d just take it nice and easy. One misstep and the C.B. could be damaged beyond repair. One serious misstep and she’d be dealing with a broken ankle. Gaby stood up and reclaimed her burdens, the pack and C.B., the latter of which she hoisted with a small “oomph!” of exertion. She took a deep breath and started down the slope. As she wended her way downward, Gaby went over the plan once more in her head.

  She’d been out here for an hour or more and appeared to be making good time; the terrain was already getting rougher. It looked like she had another mile to go before she reached the lower slopes of the eastern ridge, where hiking would turn to climbing. She figured the best way to handle it would be to dump all the nonessentials from her backpack at the foot of the slopes, placing some sort of marker to locate them again, and then stuff the C.B. in the bag to free her hands for the daunting climb ahead. The first leg of the climb looked especially steep, 45 degrees or more, as the ridge rose precipitously from the forest floor before tapering off to a more gentle incline at a fork between the two lowest-lying peaks, which coincidentally were also the closest.

  Gaby reached the other side of the draw and lifted her arms to set the C.B. on the other side, standing on her tiptoes to reach. After it was secure, she used a toppled tree as a foothold to push off and hoist herself up on the other side. That wasn’t so bad, Gaby assured herself as she brushed the dirt off the front of her jacket. She knew that far more perilous climbing lay ahead.

  Gaby calculated that reaching the highest peak of the eastern ridge would take at least another three hours, which if she factored in an hour or so of C.B. time — a prospect she did not relish — that would put her return to camp somewhere around 5:00 p.m. if she made good time on her descent. That wouldn’t give her much time to recuperate once she reached the top, but she knew that if she dawdled in any fashion, it would put her return trip perilously close to twilight. She did not relish the idea of trying to find her way back to camp in the dark.

  Before long, Gaby found herself in a muddy, low-lying region comprised mainly of smaller, spindly trees and heavy grasses that reached halfway to her thigh. Something about it seemed oddly familiar, sparking a sense of déjà vu that Gaby couldn’t place.

  Up ahead she noticed tracks in the mud. She leaned down to study them. Shoeprints. Someone had traveled southward here rather recently. That put her on edge. Wade could be in the area. The chances of running into him in a region this large seemed astronomical, but Gaby didn’t want to take any chances. She started looking around for a sharp stick or some heavy rocks, anything she could use as a weapon, when she noticed another set of tracks. And another.

  Gaby was trying to process this information when she spotted something from the corner of her eye that looked out of place. She turned to find something white tied in a knot around the base of a denuded sapling not 15 feet away. After a few moments of examination, Gaby recognized it as a strip of plastic torn from one of the archery targets. That could only mean …

  Gaby looked around once more and that sense of recognition grew stronger. She had been here before. She had crossed this area, coming via a different route, with Lamar and Coop on their second day here. The white strips of plastic were route markers Coop had laid down so they could find their way back to camp as they searched for Beverly. Now that she had reoriented herself, Gaby spotted the tree she’d leaned on 48 hours earlier while doubled over with laughter, trying to explain the concept of the Three Mouseketeers to a mystified Lamar and Coop.

  She beamed at the happy memory. It had only been two days, and yet she found herself pining for it as though it were years ago. It seemed mildly absurd to wax nostalgic for a period when they’d just been abandoned and were all petrified, and yet, compared to what they’d gone through since then, the memory seemed positively innocent. Gaby didn’t linger too long and pressed on eastward, outside the boundaries of her previous journey.

  After another few minutes of walking Gaby encountered the first real sign that she was near the base of the ridge: a 15-foot-high earthen wall running north to south that was sheer in both directions as far as the eye could see. Above the wall was a steep, rocky outcropping that shot upward at an acrophobia-inducing angle for 20 stories or more. A narrow foot trail peeked out between the scrub bushes lining the slopes, one that cut up and back as it wound its way out of sight. She’d reached the base of the ridge.

  Gaby loosened the straps on her backpack and let it slip from her shoulders as she mentally steeled herself for the climb ahead. The noise prompted a small raccoon nesting along the ledge to poke its head over the lip of the wall, and seeing Gaby, skitter its way southward, scattering pebbles as it went.

  Just as Gaby had selected the perfect hiding spot for the supplies she would leave at the base — a waist-high clump of snowberry bushes at the foot of the earthen wall —she heard a tree branch snap in the distance. The noise came from the northwest, and it was too large to be another raccoon.

  She hastily stowed her backpack in one cluster of bushes with most of its leaves intact and then ducked behind a larger clump, clutching the C.B. in her unnerved fingers. Before long, she could hear leaves crunching underfoot. Whatever it was was drawing closer. Gaby ducked her head and tried to will herself invisible, praying that it was nothing more than a passing elk.

  Something broke through the undergrowth 20 yards away. Curiosity finally overcame Gaby’s survival instincts, and she raised her head just enough to peek between the branches. Through her leafy peephole, Gaby caught fleeting glimpses of mottled brown fur and a creature that looked to be the size of a large wolf, although it was difficult to discern much of anything through her narrow aperture. The creature moved strangely as it shambled in and out of view, as though it were favoring its hindquarters. It also appeared to have some tuft of skin dangling from its head. The creature suddenly paused and raised its head, giving Gaby her first decent look at it.

  Gaby recognized the tuft on its head as a mud-encrusted fox tail. But before she could even ask what it was doing on the fox’s head, she noticed that this was no fox, as the side of its face was pinkish. The creature suddenly turned its face toward her, and Gaby saw it was no creature at all. It was Wade.

  Gaby inhaled sharply and covered her mouth to stifle the sound.

  Wade had replaced his tattered pants from last night with a tanned beaver hide, that he had fashioned into a kilt, which, along with his fox-fur cap, was all he was wearing. He was hunched forward, low to the ground, as though he were ready to strike at any moment. His movements were sharp and quick, like a predator stalking its prey. Gaby leaned in slightly and saw that his bare chest contained two fresh scars, signifying two new kills. But it was his expression that she couldn’t get over. One of the things that had scared the group about Wade was how he always seemed to be a man on the edge; his rage bubbled just below the surface, kept in check by the twin veneers of humanity and self-control. The creature crouched in front of Gaby showed none of these tra
its. She saw no signs of rage, uncertainty, or reasoning; no spark of humanity at all. This was a purely instinctual being, hunting not for sport or the thrill of the chase but for sustenance. The sadistic hunter was gone, replaced with a pure predator.

  His eyes flitted back and forth, scanning the area for something. He leaned back on his rear legs, raised his head and started sniffing the air. Had she not seen him walking and talking yesterday morning, Gaby would have sworn he was feral.

  Gaby tried to breathe as shallowly and quietly as possible, but her elevated heart rate and racing pulse conspired against her. A nearby bush branch pressing up against Gaby’s head had managed to worm its way into her ear after she’d leaned in for a closer look. The sensation was unbearable, but she didn’t dare move a muscle.

  Wade stopped sniffing the air and lowered his head until he was at eye level with Gaby, staring in her general direction for so long that she started to fear he’d spotted her. He moved a few steps closer. Gaby squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable discovery.

  The sound of pebbles falling from the rock wall behind Gaby distracted Wade, sending his gaze upward. Gaby craned her neck as far upward as she could without moving the rest of her body. Looking out from over the ledge was the raccoon from earlier, probably trying to return to its nest only to be confronted with two intruders this time. It sounded a cautious complaint to its new neighbors in a high-pitched trill. Wade responded with a guttural growl that sent the raccoon packing, fleeing south down the wall before leaping into a poplar sapling and scampering out of sight.

  Wade’s growl slowly subsided. He looked around, as if trying to remember why he’d stopped here in the first place. He padded a few steps to the right — out of Gaby’s sightline — and sat there for a minute or more, doing who knows what. Gaby said a silent prayer for it to all be over soon.

  After an agonizingly long time, she heard footsteps again. From the sound of it, Wade was retreating northward. He padded out of view and Gaby listened with bated breath as his footsteps slowly faded off into the distance. She held her pose, too scared to move, until she was certain he was gone. It seemed like an eternity.

  Gaby rose cautiously, scanning the area for any sign of Wade. All was still. She heaved a sigh of relief, trying to lower her heart rate and calm her frayed nerves. That had been close. Gaby took it as a sign. She had wrestled with the wisdom of coming out here alone and unarmed all morning, and this near miss with Wade had clinched it.

  She stood to her full height and retrieved her bag from the neighboring snowberry bush. Gaby hated admitting defeat, but she liked the idea of dying at some lunatic’s hands even less. She tried to work out what she would tell the others. Grimacing at the prospect of their disappointed reactions, Gaby knew she would never be taken seriously — or trusted — again.

  As she put her arms through the knapsack’s straps, Gaby heard more pebbles falling from the rock ledge behind her. She shook her head with a mixture of annoyance and amusement. That was one persistent raccoon. Maybe it was a mother protecting her young. Then she remembered watching it flee to the south, having abandoned the ledge in favor of the forest floor. So if it wasn’t the raccoon up there, what was it?

  Gaby whirled around. Standing on the ledge, towering over her, was Wade, with his buck knife drawn and a hungry look in his eye.

  Wade tensed and pounced. Time stood still. Gaby’s eye focused on small details as she watched him leap toward her. The dull glint of his downturned blade, which was aimed right at her head. The dried smears of blood on his arms, presumably from the last unfortunate animal Wade had caught. The dried and cracked mud on his stomach, which obscured several of Wade’s self-inflicted trophy scars. Gaby realized that if she didn’t do something, she’d be the next one.

  She hoisted the C.B. It had always been heavy, but now it felt like it was made of lead. Time resumed, but Wade seemed to move at half-speed, gliding lazily through the air toward her as though he were suspended by wires. But if he was moving at half-speed, Gaby felt like she was moving at quarter-speed. It took an impossibly long time for her arms to raise the C.B., moving so sluggishly that she might as well have been swimming in molasses.

  Just as Wade was upon her, his knife barely a foot from her face, she summoned the strength to raise the C.B. up the last few inches to absorb the strike. Time suddenly resumed its normal flow. The C.B. turned Wade’s blade in a shower of sparks. The edge of the contraption clipped him in the jaw, sending his head rocketing backward as he fell with his full weight on Gaby, knocking the wind out of her and sending the C.B. flying several feet behind her, where it shattered into countless pieces. Gaby’s head smacked the ground and she blacked out momentarily.

  When she came to, Gaby felt a searing pain in her scalp. She raised her head and blood started oozing into her left eye. Gaby blinked it away to get her bearings. She was flat on her back. There was something heavy on her legs. She looked up and saw Wade, unresponsive and face down, laying across them. She tried to wriggle away, desperate to extricate herself from this lunatic. Wade gave a low moan in response. Gaby’s fear turned to panic, and her flailing grew wilder.

  Wade turned his head and raised his arm just as Gaby managed to squirm out from under him. Still only semi-conscious, he feebly pawed at the hem of her jeans, trying to restrain his prey.

  Gaby kicked his hand away, grabbed her backpack and bolted. Her legs felt like rubber and her head was still throbbing, but she knew she didn’t have long until …

  “Rraawwwrrrr!”

  She hadn’t made it 30 paces before a deafening roar sounded in the distance. Guttural and unintelligible as it was, Gaby had no doubts about the intent behind it. She pushed herself harder, unsteady legs be damned, knowing that Wade would soon be in pursuit. The hunt was on.

  Gaby ran for her life. Panic reasserted itself and slowly took over. It deprived her lungs of badly needed oxygen, cramped her legs and robbed her brain of any rational response to the threat. She had no idea where she was running and scarcely noticed her surroundings. In her mind, all she saw was Wade’s knife, and her only thought was to get as far away from it as possible.

  She was sprinting now and avoiding ankle-snagging rocks and tree roots more by luck than any skill. Off in the distance, Gaby could hear crashing noises as Wade barreled through the forest toward her, desperate to claim his kill. In the back of her fear-addled mind, she knew she didn’t have long until he caught up and put that big-ass knife to use. She had to think of something — anything — and fast.

  As she ran, desperate and scared, a glimmer of white in the forest up ahead caught her eye. She struggled to focus her eyes on it as she ran. When she was within 10 yards, she recognized it as one of Coop’s markers tied to a tree. And farther south, some 40 yards in the distance, she saw another one. Gaby changed direction and followed the trail of white markers. Within moments, she emerged through the brush in a small clearing. She recognized it immediately: it was the same clearing she had visited days ago with Lamar and Coop when they’d been searching for Beverly. That fallen tree on the other side of the clearing was where she’d gotten a splinter in the backside. The memory was so strong it overshadowed her panic and forced her to pause in her tracks, even as her ears warned of Wade’s impending arrival. Gaby reflected back to that day, replaying the rest of the trip in her mind, and lying in wait there was the answer to her plight.

  She now knew what to do.

  Gaby hopped over the downed tree and the dried creek bed it straddled and ran eastward, where the clearing fed into a grassy ridge that ended 100 feet away. Just as she reached the base of the ridge, Wade broke through the brush of the clearing on the other side, his eyes scanning the region for his prey. Gaby saw he had a nasty laceration to his cheek from where the C.B. had clipped him, with the skin around it hanging down in a flap as blood poured from the wound. He spotted her by the ridge and his eyes narrowed.

  Gaby charged up the hill. Another guttural roar sounded behind her as the
chase resumed. Gaby pushed herself harder as the slope of the ridge grew steeper. Heavy breathing and crashing footfalls rang in her ears. As she neared the top of the ridge, the ravine where they found Beverly came into view. The slope leveled out and Gaby’s footfalls came faster. She veered north, heading for the leafy meadow she and the others had crossed two days earlier to reach the entrance to the ravine.

  She could hear Wade closing in behind her, but she didn’t dare to turn around. Gaby barreled down the slope to the meadow, running so fast that she nearly lost her balance. Her heart was jackhammering in her chest, while her oxygen-starved lungs burned. Her backpack felt like it weighed a million pounds.

  Behind her, Wade was so close that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck, causing the small hairs there to stand up in revulsion. His hand grabbed hold of her backpack and tugged, trying to hold her back. Gaby shrugged it off her shoulders and kept running.

  Her panicked eyes scanned the high grasses and leaf piles of the meadow as she closed in, desperately searching for a sign. She saw a small metallic glint in the tall grass between two trees in front of her and knew she’d found what she was looking for. She tried her best to gauge its location while fending off the gnawing panic that threatened to consume her. Gaby knew that if she miscalculated, she was as good as dead.

  Gaby reached the trees and dove between them, rolling as she landed some five feet behind them into the meadow. She came up with a mouthful of grass and dead leaves. Now came the tricky part. She knew she couldn’t outrun Wade, so she had to outsmart him.

  Gaby braced herself with her hands and rose up into a runner’s stance. She tensed up as though she was about to break into a sprint and then let her left leg buckle, sending her back to the ground. She rolled over to see if her ruse was having the desired effect.