The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  “You’re going to help me stage a coup. Listen closely.”

  Beverly listened.

  * * * * * *

  Gaby exited the outhouse with a sigh of relief. She hated using the outhouse after dusk. It was so dark and cramped that she imagined herself as a fetus waiting to be born. Plus, after four days of regular usage, it was beginning to stink, no matter how much sawdust she threw down the hole. She breathed deeply after closing the door, reveling in the crisp night air.

  Things were only slightly brighter outside, even though it had scarcely been 20 minutes since sunset. A blanket of low-lying clouds blotted out the moon and most of the stars, rendering anything further than 15 feet away shadowy and indistinct. She could make out the wigwam’s dim outline between the slats of the surrounding fence, along with the branches of nearby trees and bushes surrounding the campsite swaying in the breeze. Everything else was buried in a fog of darkness.

  The din of chirping crickets was all around. She had heard them in the outhouse but didn’t register how loud they were until she was back outside, either because the interior muffled the sound or because they were growing more active now that it was dark. Either way, it sounded like hundreds of them serenading the forest, transmitting their shrill song in every direction.

  Gaby’s breath came out in tiny puffs of heated air. She marveled at the temperature differential between the outhouse and the outdoors. It hadn’t been this cold when she went in. Part of it was the strong breeze, which stabbed her cheeks and cut right through her multiple layers of clothing. She dimly wondered how so many crickets were able to tolerate this temperature.

  Over the din of crickets, she heard the sound of the teepee’s door opening.

  “Gaby?” Coop’s voice called out uncertainly in the darkness. “We’re closing up for the night. You coming?”

  “Be right there,” Gaby called back.

  From inside the wigwam, she heard Ken complaining about having to take first shift on such a cold night before the door’s closure muffled his voice.

  As she started toward the wigwam, a flash of light in the distance caught her eyes. A beam of brilliant light penetrated the darkness about half a mile south of camp, on the far side of the surrounding hills.

  The searing shaft of white shot upward, like the floodlights used at movie premieres, only there was no diffusion; a solid, column of illumination. As tiny as it looked to Gaby, it had to be four stories high to be visible from so far away. She held her breath, fixated by the sight. After a few seconds, the pillar of light slowly dissipated, and darkness once more blanketed the region.

  Gaby shivered, trying to decide what she’d just seen. No flashlight was capable of projecting a beam so strong and concentrated from that distance. She kept staring off into the darkness, hoping to see the light again. As she strained her eyes, she could see the trees and bushes nearby swaying to and fro in the blustery breeze. She shielded her face against the wind with her hand as she continued staring, hoping for another sign. But none came.

  Gaby had just made up her mind to inform the others when she noticed that the undulating plant life surrounding the camp was no longer confined to its edges. Shapes writhed and swayed in impossible patterns beside the central firepit, in front of the showers, and around the former location of the second outhouse. It looked like the forest had sprung to life and begun reclaiming the campground as its own. The shrill sound of crickets was overpowering.

  Gaby slowly backed away, making for the fence line and the wigwam.

  The moon briefly poked out from behind the clouds and bathed the campsite in an eerie glow, revealing hundreds of squirming, inky shapes swarming from all sides. They looked like softballs coated in tar, only these softballs could twist and bend in unnatural ways, like they were made of silly putty. They had no visible eyes or mouth; no sign of life to them at all. Gaby would have thought they were clumps of ash from the floodplain, except for their aggressive, jerking movements, which were too volatile for the wind to engineer.

  The moon retreated behind the clouds once more, leaving Gaby alone in the darkness with these things.

  She screamed and bolted for the fence line. Behind her, Gaby could hear frantic chirping drawing closer. She stopped only long enough to throw open the door to the wigwam and dive through before spinning around and slamming it closed behind her. She looked around at her startled companions, who she could just make out in the dim glow of John’s upturned flashlight, which was seated on a stack of firewood beside the central firepit. Beverly, who looked to have been asleep when the commotion started, groggily raised her head in confusion.

  “Gaby, what’s going on?” Coop asked, confused.

  “¡Los ikus! ¡Están aquí para nosotros!” she shouted hysterically as she tried with fumbling fingers to tie the upper and lower enclosures to the door and then scooted backward. She was talking a mile a minute, barely making sense in her native Spanish.

  “¡Nos matarán a todos! ¡Ikus! Ikus!” she continued ranting, her panicked eyes darting every which way as she kept scooting back until her rear pressed against the pile of wood, upsetting the flashlight. It landed in the dirt with the beam aimed squarely at Gaby’s face, revealing to the others just how frightened she was.

  “What are you going on about?” Ken asked as he bundled up, preparing to take the first watch.

  “There’s so … something out th … there,” she finally managed to get out in English as she shook uncontrollably.

  Lamar stood up and grabbed his spear, fearing the worst.

  “Is it Wade?” he asked.

  Gaby shook her head.

  “It’s these little bl… black things,” she said between panicked breaths. “Thousands of them, all around the campsite. They’re all wriggling and … we can’t stay here! If we stay, they’ll … they’ll surround us!”

  Instead of rushing to reinforce the door, Coop and Lamar exchanged worried glances as Ken rolled his eyes and silently mouthed: “Here we go again.” The only one who seemed appropriately alarmed was Beverly, who pressed her hand to her chest in worry.

  “What’s wrong with you all?” Gaby asked, vacillating between desperation and exasperation as her words started to run together. “We have to go now! They’re right outside! Weneedtogetoutofhererightnowtheikuarecoming!”

  Lamar set his spear back down and kneeled beside Gaby with a pained expression on his face, as though he were steeling himself for a difficult conversation. That’s when it suddenly dawned on Gaby.

  “You don’t believe me,” she said in astonishment.

  Lamar tried to be tactful.

  “Beverly described seeing something similar after drinking the moonshine,” Lamar started. “Maybe she planted the idea of those things in your head, so when you saw the bushes rustling in the darkness, it looked like what she described. But it’s just your mind playing tricks on you.”

  Gaby shook her head insistently.

  “Nononono!” You don’t understand!” she insisted as tears welled up in the corner of her eyes. “She didn’t tell me anything! I swear, they’re out there right now!”

  Lamar bit his lower lip as he struggled to convince Gaby that it was all in her head. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Beverly, who was now wide awake.

  “If they’re already here, it’s too late to escape,” she warned ominously.

  “Goddammit!” Ken intoned as he picked up the flashlight and trained its beam on the entrance. “Do I have to go out there and prove there’s nothing there but a bunch of noisy crickets?”

  “Well, you did draw first shift,” Coop reminded him. “So you might as well get it over with.”

  “What?” Gaby shrieked. “Are you crazy? You can’t go out there!”

  Ken shook his head sadly as he loosened the door straps.

  “Am I gonna have to check for monsters under your bed next?” he chuckled as he grabbed one of the door’s struts and prepared to push it open. Gaby rushed forward, desperate to sto
p him, but Ken used his large frame to block her.

  “If you open that door, they’ll kill us all!” she shouted, giving in to hysteria as she futilely struggled with him. “Theikuwon’tspareanyonestopitnoworwe’llalldie!”

  “Will someone get this crazy bitch off me?” Ken intoned as he pushed the door open and peered outside.

  “See? Absolutely nothing to fea …” he stopped midsentence as the flashlight’s beam landed on a wriggling, black mass oozing its way through the gap in the fence. The gelatinous blob started smoking and writhing as soon as the light touched it, and split apart like the globules in a lava lamp, scattering in all directions to avoid the light. A small section at the center of the mass didn’t move fast enough and quickly dissipated into a steaming, inky pool under the flashlight’s glaring beam.

  That’s when Ken noticed movement on the beam’s periphery. Hundreds of these things were scaling the fence or squeezing through the slats, wriggling their way toward him. It was like all the world’s black Play-Doh had suddenly turned hostile.

  “…rrrrrholy fuck! What the shit is that?” Ken shouted as he reared back and slammed the door closed behind him.

  “She’s not crazy! There’s thousands of those things out there! It’s some kind of invasion!” Ken screamed as he dropped the flashlight in favor of the one of the door struts and braced his feet against either end of the frame to keep it closed.

  “Tie it down! Tie the door closed now!” he demanded as he held the door fast.

  Lamar rushed over and reached between Ken’s feet to tie the upper and lower clasps to the door. On the other side of the wigwam, Gaby had retreated to her sleeping bag, clutching it like a security blanket as she mouthed the word “iku” over and over. Beverly wasn’t far behind in the panic department. Only Coop remained skeptical.

  “Ken, if this is another one of your dumb pranks, like when you said John was back …”

  “I am dead fucking serious!” Ken shouted to cut him off. “There’s really something out there!”

  “Let me see,” Coop said, sounding unconvinced as he tried to gently move one of Ken’s hands out of the way so he could take a look.

  Ken responded by violently shoving him away, sending Coop flying one way and his glasses the other.

  “Anyone tries to open this door and I’ll wring their neck!” Ken hollered.

  In the awkward silence that followed, they could all hear the high-pitched chirping noises growing in intensity. They were now coming from every direction.

  Coop dusted himself off and hunted for his glasses as Lamar grabbed the flashlight and panned it from side to side. One sweep of the beam illuminated Beverly, who was curled up in a ball on her sleeping bag, slowly rocking back and forth as she cradled her arms for comfort. A second pass of the beam revealed Gaby on the other side of the teepee, still in shock after her ordeal, her eyes glued to the entrance for any sign of movement. A third caught the reflection from Coop’s glasses in the firepit.

  “Just great,” Coop muttered as he dusted the soot off to find the left lens badly scratched from the fall. He placed them back on the bridge of his nose and squinted, trying to see past the damaged lens. He couldn’t tell if it was from Lamar’s unsteady grip on the flashlight or from the scratched lens, but it almost looked like the walls near the base of the teepee were … moving. He closed his left eye and focused on one section of the wall near the entrance to the teepee. After a few seconds, there could be no doubt.

  “Look at the walls,” Coop warned, his voice quavering.

  Lamar followed Coop’s finger and trained the flashlight on a spot to the left of Ken.

  The fabric near the base of the wigwam was bulging inward against the lattice frame, as if someone or something was repeatedly pressing against it, trying to force its way in. The pressure on the fabric immediately ceased where the center of the beam was aimed, but in the dim light of the beam’s outer edges, they could see the material still pressing inward from the base up to about a foot above the ground.

  “Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck!” Ken started wailing in an unnaturally high voice.

  Before long, the base of the walls began to bulge on all sides. The feathered mandala overhanging the entrance began to vibrate as the chirping grew more insistent.

  “We’re trapped!” Gaby shrieked.

  Ken kept his feet firmly planted against the door, forgetting in his panic that it only opened outward. He noticed that some of the shadows to the left of the entrance appeared to be swaying.

  “They’re coming in!” he shouted, pointing toward the swirling mass in the shadows.

  Lamar trained the beam in the direction Ken pointed, where it illuminated an inky mass trying to force its way through narrow gaps between the bottom of the canvas and the dirt. The black tendrils started smoking and quickly retreated. Ken scooted away until his back was against the stones surrounding the central firepit, his eyes frantically searching the shadows for any further signs of movement.

  From the relative safety of her bedroll, Beverly comforted herself by huddling into a ball and slowly rocking back and forth, trying to convince herself that none of this was real. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed movement in the gloom just over her right shoulder. She slowly turned, dreading what she might find. Something long and sinewy leapt out of the shadows at her.

  Beverly’s shriek pierced the din of incessant chirping. Lamar turned to see Beverly leap backward, landing in a heap several feet away from her bedroll. He aimed the flashlight at her bedroll and found a heaving mass of darkness swarming beside it. The creatures writhed in agony as the light seared them. Those caught in the light’s central cone started smoking and quickly evaporated, while those on the periphery retreated to the shadows.

  Coop and Gaby knelt beside Beverly to examine her. With her eyes still squeezed shut in terror, Beverly swung her arms wildly at them, convinced that it was the creatures. It took a lot of convincing before Beverly opened her eyes.

  “They touched me!” she shrieked hysterically. “One of those things grabbed me!”

  She motioned to her left arm, which was shaking like a leaf. Coop gently examined it and saw some grayish-black powder on the outer edge of her palm. Her palm felt cold and clammy to the touch. Coop studied the powder for a moment then broke into a smile.

  “Beverly, it’s just soot,” he explained. “You probably got it from the floodplain.”

  Beverly looked at him in disbelief.

  “It’s not a bite?”

  Coop shook his head.

  “But it touched me. It felt so cold.”

  “You probably ran your finger along the zipper of your sleeping bag while running from those things,” Coop gently suggested.

  “I’m not going to die, then?” Beverly asked pitifully.

  “Not from ash,” Gaby said, suppressing the urge to laugh. “Priests use more soot than that on Ash Wednesday.”

  As the others let her be, Beverly cautiously examined her left hand. It appeared unharmed, and her fingers still worked. She wiped the soot off the palm. It smeared and gradually faded as she rubbed, except for one small black dot in the center. No matter how hard she rubbed, this pimple-sized black spot stubbornly remained.

  After seeing what the flashlight had done to the creatures menacing Beverly, Lamar had a thought. He pointed the flashlight at a spot a few feet to the left of the entrance. The fabric stopped bulging. He spun and trained it on a section near the rear of the wigwam. Small inky tendrils were worming their way under the fabric and into the teepee. They started smoking the moment the light hit them and quickly retreated. He spotted another point a few feet away where the material at the base was bulging so far inward it looked ready to split open. He trained the beam on it and the pressure quickly relented. Everywhere the light focused the creatures retreated.

  A look of understanding slowly spread across Lamar’s face.

  “They’re afraid of the light,” he said softly, almost to himself.


  ‘We need to build a fire,” he told the others. “Now.”

  “What if fire doesn’t work?” Coop asked.

  As if on cue, the flashlight momentarily dimmed. Lamar smacked it and the light came back.

  “If you have a better idea, now would be the time,” he replied.

  * * * * * *

  Lamar stood near the center of the wigwam and slowly rotated, like he was practicing the waltz, only with the flashlight as his partner. Its roving beam fended off whatever was outside, one section of the wigwam at a time. Behind him, Gaby and Coop were struggling to get a fire going.

  Coop had raided his duffel bag and was tearing an undershirt into small strips that he laid over a pile of wood stacked in the firepit, while Gaby coated the strips in flakes of magnesium hastily scraped from the magnesium stick. Her hands were shaking so badly as she worked with John’s penknife that it was a wonder she didn’t nick herself. Once she had produced a small pile of magnesium flakes, Gaby flipped the stick over and ran the blade along the stick’s flint backing, trying to generate a spark with unsteady hands.

  After several attempts, the magnesium flakes ignited. The group watched as crackling flames greedily consumed Coop’s undershirt and several twigs he’d thrown on the pile. Coop kept feeding the fire from his wardrobe, coaxing the flames to the firewood underneath.

  Their eyes all quickly turned from the fire to the teepee walls. Sure enough, as the flames rose higher and the aura of light spread further, the pressure on the walls slowly eased.

  Lamar turned off the flashlight with a sigh of relief. Coop fell to his knees in exhaustion. Gaby hung her head in silent gratitude. Whatever these things wanted, fire clearly wasn’t on the menu, but the creatures’ high-pitched chirps made it clear that they hadn’t gone far.

  As the minutes slowly ticked by, each of them struggled to deal with their new reality in different ways. Beverly seemed to be in complete denial, muttering to herself as she rubbed her right palm incessantly. Gaby sat several feet from the entrance with her spear at the ready, watching the door like a hawk for any sign of movement. Coop seemed to withdraw into himself, staring silently at a photo with a look of deep regret as he blinked back tears.