The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  In the distance, the others were completely focused on helping Beverly.

  “Her pulse is racing!” Gaby informed the others.

  Ken hurriedly rummaged through Gaby’s bag until he found a lacy red bra, which he stuffed under all the cans in Lamar’s bag. He stole another glance at the group, who now appeared to be arguing over a stick.

  “What are you doing?” Coop asked Lamar as he moved to put a stick in Beverly’s mouth.

  “You’re supposed to put something in their mouth to keep them from swallowing their tongue.”

  “That’s an old wives’ tale.”

  Ken chanced one more misdeed. He grabbed the group’s only canteen from Beverly’s pack, upended the contents into his mouth and then stuffed it in Lamar’s rucksack.

  “Turn her over on her side!” Coop directed. “It’ll keep her from gagging.”

  “And don’t touch her left hand!” Gaby warned. “We don’t know how that black stuff spreads.”

  Ken had just finished snapping the container shut when the others noticed that he wasn’t with them.

  “Hey, Ken! Mind lending a hand here?” Lamar said, motioning him over.

  Beverly had stopped seizing but appeared to be delirious, ranting over and over about voices and flames as the others raised her to a sitting position. Her eyes were open but unresponsive. Coop waved his hand in front of her face and got no reaction.

  “Fuck me!” Ken said as he started to register that Beverly’s illness might not be as fake as he’d thought. “Can she walk?”

  Gaby looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “She can barely even drool,” Gaby intoned. “Of course she can’t walk!”

  “Now what do we do?” Coop asked, looking hopelessly down at her prone form.

  * * * * * *

  The group came out of a deep grove into a narrow clearing surrounded on three sides by withered trees and thickets, but in this blighted landscape, one could barely distinguish between a coppice of denuded trees and a wide-open field. The thicket to the right quickly petered out as the land before it dipped precipitously while the clearing ahead remained level. The two ran perpendicular for the next 100 yards before the clearing ended in a cliff overlooking the lower plane some 30 feet below.

  Lamar and Gaby were in the lead, while Coop trailed behind as he dragged Ken’s metal suitcase through the forest, leaving telltale drag marks in the grayish dirt behind him. He never should have volunteered to carry it along with his own pack. It was surprisingly heavy; Coop had no idea how Ken carried it around one-handed so effortlessly.

  Of course, Ken now had a much heavier burden: Beverly. After her fit during lunch, it took 30 minutes for Beverly to come to her senses and another 30 minutes before she was well enough to stand on her own. It was now after 2 p.m., and her condition had only worsened. She struggled to walk even with Ken propping her up, forcing the others to constantly stop and wait for them to catch up. As a precaution, the others had insisted on bundling Beverly in her jacket and gloves — despite the warming weather — to minimize skin-to-skin contact while carrying her. It also kept the growing black spot on her hand out of sight, if not entirely out of mind.

  Coop looked back over her shoulder and saw that Ken and Beverly had fallen behind again, some 200 yards back and barely visible.

  “Let’s wait over there for them,” he said, pointing toward the furthest edge of the cliff, a 15-foot-wide crag that overhung the low-lying field, capped with an old elm tree that clung tenuously to the edge. It leaned over the precipice at a 45-degree angle, as though it were contemplating suicide. “It’ll give us a good look at the rest of the terrain.”

  Lamar nodded his consent reluctantly.

  “All right, but no more breaks for at least another hour,” he said. “We have to pick up the pace if we’re going to make it out of here before nightfall.”

  “There is one way,” Gaby said as they reached the bluff.

  Lamar looked at her, waiting for her explanation. Instead of responding verbally, Gaby crossed her arms and stared at Lamar probingly until he got the message.

  “Nuh-uh. No way!” Lamar insisted as he placed his rucksack on the ground before him. “Don’t even think it.”

  “I’m not saying we feed her to the wolves,” Gaby protested.

  “Just that we abandon her to those iku creatures,” Lamar replied coldly.

  “I hate to say it, but Gaby may be right,” Coop said, dropping Ken’s suitcase in front of him and plopping down on it. “She’s not just slowing us down; her very presence is a threat.”

  “We’ve taken the proper precautions,” Lamar insisted.

  “I’m not just talking about the black mark,” Coop said. “You heard what she said about killing us. That stuff has driven her crazy.”

  “Maybe that’s the catalyst,” Gaby chimed in. “The ikus’ touch could be what triggers the change.”

  Lamar looked at them askance.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Wade went crazy, and he was never touched,” he pointed out.

  “As far as we know,” Gaby responded. “He did spend an awful lot of time away from us.”

  Lamar shook his head as he located a decent-sized stick and started scouring the region for a flat patch of dirt.

  “Look, I get that you’re scared. We all are,” Lamar said as he found a suitable patch and buried the stick vertically in the center of it. He noted where its shadow fell and marked its tip with an X drawn in the dirt. “But if we start writing one another off, we’re no better than the animals. Beverly stays.”

  “You did that same thing with the stick right after lunch,” Coop observed. “Is that some supposed to tell us which direction to go?”

  “Solar navigation,” Lamar said with a nod.

  “Where’d you learn that?” Coop asked.

  “Long story,” Lamar deflected as he stood up and dusted off his hands on the front of his shirt. In the distance, he saw Ken stumble while carrying Beverly, falling to one knee.

  “C’mon, let’s help them,” Lamar said, breaking into a light jog. He stopped after a few paces when he saw the others weren’t joining him.

  “Aren’t you all coming?” he asked, the concern etched into his face.

  Coop openly scoffed.

  “I’m not lifting a finger for anyone who calls me ‘Fairy Poppins,’” he answered, setting his bag behind him and defiantly nestling into it like a backrest.

  “Seriously, Lamar, don’t get invested,” Gaby warned him. “That’s what he wants.”

  Lamar shook his head sadly.

  “Lack of sleep is making you paranoid,” he said before running over to Ken and Beverly.

  Gaby watched him running away for a long moment, contemplating his words.

  “Is he right?” she asked when she was sure Lamar was out of earshot. It was clear from her tone that his accusation had stung her.

  Coop, who was lying on his back staring at the clouds, turned his head to look at her.

  “I thought you trusted Lamar.”

  Gaby stood up and stretched her back.

  “I trust his integrity, sure, and he’s obviously intelligent, but you have to remember: he’s used to interacting with people through a monitor, not face to face.”

  She paused to watch Lamar run toward Ken and Beverly, who were some 140 yards in the distance.

  “He doesn’t know enough to realize when he’s getting played,” she intoned.

  Coop waved it off.

  “I’m sure he’s just pretending to cozy up to Ken to ply him for knowledge. Like he said, the man can teach us a lot about roughing it.”

  Gaby shook her head no.

  “Lamar doesn’t have a duplicitous bone in his body,” she said.

  In the silence that followed, Gaby decided to scour the terrain. She headed toward the crag overlooking the field below, but Coop stuck out his leg in front of her, barring her path.

  “What gives?” she complained.

  Instead o
f answering, Coop rolled onto his side and picked up a clod of dirt by his head. He balanced it in his hand, feeling its weight, before flinging it with an overhead motion toward the edge of the crag. It landed on the bough of the elm tree overhanging the edge. The impact made the tree shudder, and Gaby felt the vibrations through the ground some 15 feet away, causing her to rear back in fright.

  “Keep away from the edge,” Coop warned. “See how deep the tree’s roots are embedded in the soil? If that thing goes, the whole cliff face goes. And you along with it.”

  Gaby slowly backed away from the overlook and chose another, less dangerous spot to sightsee. Judging from what she could see, Coop was correct. Exposed roots as thick as her legs clung tenuously to the underside of the crag, which ended in a near-sheer drop-off as the land below plunged 30 feet before ending in a football-field-sized valley. The valley’s basin was crescent shaped, with the top and bottom both narrowing the closer they came to the crescent’s center. Everything past that was hidden by the cliff face. At the basin’s outer edge, just below the crag, she saw a pile of debris with large chunks of soil and rocks the size of her head, suggesting that part of the crag had collapsed fairly recently.

  On the other side of the clearing, Lamar caught up to Ken and Beverly. Ken had risen to his feet by this time and was continuing their slow, plodding journey as Beverly clung to him, her right arm draped over his shoulder as he pushed against the small of her back to propel her forward. Ken was sweating profusely from the exertion, and Lamar could see that Beverly’s “steps” were really just her shuffling her feet in the dirt. Ken was doing the walking for both of them.

  Up close, Beverly looked far worse than she had at lunch. She was still deathly pale, and she leaned with her full weight on Ken’s shoulder, causing them to both lean at a precipitous angle. Her eyes were no longer glazed over, but instead appeared manic, darting every which direction as though unseen forces were closing in on her.

  Lamar checked her left arm from any sign of exposed skin. Seeing none, he cautiously draped it around his neck and hefted her left side with a grunt of exertion.

  “Thanks,” Ken said, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow. “You sure you should be doing this, though?”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” Lamar insisted as they prepared to walk her together. “Ready?”

  Ken nodded.

  “On the left in 3 … 2 … 1 … go!”

  He and Ken stepped forward with the left leg at the same time, causing the balance of Beverly’s weight to shift toward Lamar. He had just enough time to marvel at how heavy her dead weight was before Ken stepped to the right, shifting the burden to him as Lamar struggled to keep up with his brisk pace and long gait.

  “So, which one gave you the most flak about helping me?”

  Lamar was so startled by the question that he broke stride and had to hop forward to keep Beverly from falling over when Ken shifted her weight to his side.

  “You heard that all the way from over here?” Lamar asked him in astonishment.

  Ken barked laughter, but it did little to mask his pained expression.

  “I don’t need to hear them to know what they’re thinking,” he said. “They don’t trust me, and I’ll bet they’ve spent the last few hours trying to convince you.”

  “I’ve tried telling them that you’re helping out,” Lamar replied, realizing only after the fact that he had essentially confirmed Ken’s suspicions. “But they won’t listen.”

  “You’re wasting your breath,” Ken said grimly. “You won’t change their minds. If you want them to take you seriously as a leader, the best thing you can do is keep your distance.”

  “That’s not my idea of leadership,” Lamar insisted as he put extra effort into his step, as if he was trying to reinforce his message with action. “And if the others can’t accept it … to hell with them!”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Ken warned grimly. But beneath his dark façade, Ken was secretly yukking it up. This kid was waaaay too easy to manipulate.

  As they drew closer to the others, another voice suddenly sprang up, hissing in their ears.

  “Shhhhh!” Beverly warned, her eyes darting to and fro. “They’ll hear us!”

  Lamar stared at her, confused.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he insisted.

  “That’s good,” Beverly said thoughtfully. “Maybe the flames will spare us.”

  “W … T … F?” Lamar quietly intoned.

  “She’s been babbling like that on and off for the last 20 minutes,” Ken said dismissively. “Just ignore her. That’s what I do.”

  Coop waved lazily as the trio approached.

  “Glad you could join us. Pull up some dirt,” he said with a grin.

  Lamar extricated himself from Beverly’s grip and made a beeline for his impromptu sundial. It had moved about two inches, enough for a decent reading. He marked the shadow’s current position and pulled the stick from the dirt to draw a line between that and the first reading.

  “Huh, I’m off again,” he said with more than a touch of confusion.

  “You said that after lunch, too,” Coop observed. “You sure you’re doing it right?”

  Lamar just glared at him in response until Coop backed down.

  “Okaaay, forget I asked anything,” Coop said, wilting.

  Ken set Beverly’s limp body beside Coop, who promptly scooted away while Ken headed for the edge of the crag, apparently having decided it made a suitable resting spot.

  Gaby saw where he was walking and stood up to intervene.

  “Ken, be careful where you …” she started before Ken cut her off.

  “I don’t care if an entire horde of those blob-things is on our trail, I need 10 uninterrupted minutes of rest,” he insisted, rubbing his shoulder as he sat down heavily right beside the leaning tree.

  “Ken, don’t do that!” Gaby exclaimed and took two steps toward him just as he lay back against the leaning tree’s exposed roots, putting all his weight against it.

  Just as Gaby reached him, a terrible shearing sound filled the air as the tree lost its grip on the crag, its roots popping loose from the soil one after another in rapid succession. Ken sat up too late, as the ground began to shake violently. The tree fell over the edge of the cliff in slow motion, taking basketball-sized chunks of rock and dirt with it.

  “What the …” he exclaimed as the vibrations intensified and cracks started to appear on either end of the crag, five feet from the edge. He had just enough time to register his mistake before the ground seemed to swallow him up, crumbling beneath his weight as it obeyed gravity’s call.

  Gaby saw Ken disappear and tried to take a step back as the ground lurched sickeningly beneath her feet. A moment later she was airborne, her feet losing their purchase as she tumbled headfirst downhill, screaming the whole way. She saw the hulking remains of the toppled tree hit the bottom of the basin and realized she was about to join them as she tumbled downhill at a frightening speed. She put her hands up to shield her face just before impact and everything went black.

  Coop and Lamar rushed toward what remained of the crag, which now had a five-foot-diameter crater where the tip used to be. They got on their hands and knees as close to the rim as they dared and peered over the edge.

  “Gaby? Kennn!!!” Lamar shouted in a panic.

  All they could see was a swirling cloud of dust, dirt and ash at the bottom of the basin. As it slowly dissipated and settled, Gaby and Ken came into view. Gaby was facedown near the bottom of the basin and about four feet from the overturned tree. Ken was lying flat on his back several feet to her right, his left arm covering his face. Because of all the dust still in the air, it was impossible to tell whether either of them was seriously injured.

  “You guys alive down there?” Coop asked.

  No response.

  “If either of you can hear me, say something,” Coop urged. “If you can’t speak, signal us.”

  Through the cloud
of settling dust, they saw Ken slowly extend his left arm in the air, followed swiftly by his middle finger.

  Lamar and Coop looked at one another and grinned.

  “Sit tight. We’ll be right down,” Lamar promised as the two slowly backed away from the edge and looked for a safer route into the valley below.

  Gaby’s head was swimming. She tried to get a sense of where she was. She was lying down, but her bed was bumpy. And coarse. Her arms and ribs ached. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring at the trunk of the fallen tree. She wiped the dirt and ash off her face and moaned, stretching to see if anything was broken or sprained. A quick check showed that she had cut her elbow, probably when she face-planted, and her arms and legs were bruised and battered, but she’d managed to avoid serious injury. Behind her, she could hear Ken spitting dirt out of his mouth.

  “Did anyone get the license plate of that truck?” he intoned.

  Gaby ignored him and raised herself up to one knee, feeling the strain of a pulled back muscle. Looks like she would be carrying her belongings one-handed for the rest of the trip. As she tried to get a sense of her surroundings, Gaby’s eyes fixated on an anomaly just past the fallen tree trunk. She blinked and refocused her eyes, convinced she was hallucinating.

  She stood up painfully and staggered around the periphery of the tree trunk, stopping just shy of a violet in bloom surrounded by a few blades of unblemished grass.

  The flower was tiny, no more than a few inches tall, and its blossom had wilted from the cold, but it was still alive. This one little patch of land was an oasis of life in a sea of blighted, ashen death.

  “Dios mio,” she whispered to herself. She turned her head slightly and called out to Ken while keeping her eyes on the flower, afraid that if she looked away the spell would be broken.

  “Ken? Ken!”

  “If you want me to apologize, sister, you can forget it!” Ken’s irate voice came from a few yards behind her. “Nobody said nothing about it being unstable.”