The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  Coop rolled his eyes.

  “Uh-huh,” Coop intoned in disbelief. “So, how’d they wind up in your bag?”

  “Maybe somebody else put them in there?” Lamar managed feebly, trying to avoid the accusatory stares of the others.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Coop vented, throwing up his hands and kicking at the dirt in his sandals. “Just ’fess up, already! The lies are now worse than the crime!”

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Lamar pleaded.

  Gaby shook her head in disgust. Lamar could tell that their trust in him had been irreparably damaged.

  “As amusing as all this is, there’s no use crying over stolen water,” Ken interjected, trying to salvage the situation. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we find some.”

  “So, we just go thirsty until then?” Coop asked, disgusted.

  “Afraid so,” Ken said as he turned and headed back up the rise. He could scarcely contain his glee. The tide had finally turned. If everything went as planned, he’d have the others eating out of his hand by tomorrow. As he strode forward through a thicket of thigh-high ferns, he noticed a small patch of grass was badly wilted, with two nearby ferns shriveled and brown. The smile on his face quickly sank. This was the third patch of blight he’d seen in the last 10 minutes. They weren’t as far removed from iku country as he’d hoped.

  One by one, the others followed Ken, with Gaby casting a final backward glance of disgust at Lamar, who stood alone, his head bowed as he tried to piece together how everything had managed to go so wrong for him so quickly.

  * * * * * *

  It was after 5 p.m., and the setting sun’s position on the horizon made it clear that they were, in fact, heading north. But Lamar was in no mood to gloat about it, nor would he have found many sympathetic ears after his earlier fiasco. At this stage, the group cared about only two things: finding water and escaping the blight.

  No one spoke as they scoured the landscape for any form of potable water, listening keenly for any hint of running water. Their salivary glands tingled at the mere thought of slaking their increasingly acute thirst. But no relief was forthcoming. To make matters worse, the occasional patches of blight they’d spotted earlier in the forest had rapidly overtaken it, and now they yearned for the sight of green again as they traversed the dusty and barren landscape.

  It hadn’t taken their bodies nearly as long to adapt to life in the blight as it had this morning. The nausea and disorientation passed within 15 minutes. But the psychological toll it took on them — knowing what was waiting for them in the blight as night came on — was devastating.

  All of them had quietly resigned themselves to another night in the forest. But none of them were willing to accept another night spent beating back hordes of those creatures, so — even as exhausted as everyone was — they pushed themselves onward in the hope that the blight would clear up once more before the sun set.

  Compounding their problems was Beverly. Within 20 minutes of crossing over into the blight, she’d collapsed and begun raving nonstop. Most of what she spouted was gibberish, but disturbing phrases like “burn it down” and “kill them all” kept cropping up in various forms.

  Because she was no longer ambulatory, the group had fashioned a makeshift stretcher, using two spears as the handles and their jackets as the undercarriage, with the jacket arms knotted to the spears. Each was tied off at a different point to support Beverly’s frame, and a fourth was tied over Beverly’s midriff to hold her in place like a safety harness. The ends of the spears served as effective handles, while the sharpened tips dragged in the dirt behind them like some primitive plow tilling the soil.

  But their brainstorm was proving better in concept than in execution, as it was too rickety to withstand the rigors of forest travel. Beverly was constantly sliding around on it, even with the jacket holding her to the frame lashed tightly. And any time the spear tips hit a rock or a small ditch, the whole thing fell apart, forcing them to waste precious minutes rebuilding it.

  Right now, Gaby and Coop were on stretcher duty. It was hard work, as Beverly was deceptively heavy for someone so old and frail, and the pair were sweating profusely, which only further dehydrated them. Gaby looked over her shoulder to check on Beverly and saw she was still raving, only it was now a whisper due to a combination of dehydration and exhaustion. Perhaps more alarming, despite Beverly’s constant fidgeting beneath the straps, Gaby noticed she wasn’t perspiring anymore.

  “She’s not sweating,” Gaby said, struggling to annunciate the words clearly through her swelled tongue.

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” Coop replied.

  Gaby shook her head.

  “Look closely,” Gaby implored him. “Her pores are wide open. If she’s not sweating, it’s because she’s seriously dehydrated. She needs water fast.”

  “She’ll have to wait in line behind me,” Coop said through gritted teeth.

  It was then that Gaby noticed Coop was walking bow-legged, his flowing robes swaying wildly from side to side with each step. His face was contorted as well, as though he were desperately trying to mask his discomfort.

  “Coop, are you in indescribable pain?” Gaby probed.

  “I’m chafing,” Coop admitted. “Every time my thighs touch, it feels like they’re lined with razor blades.”

  “When we take another break, you should put on thicker shorts.”

  “We’re not taking any more breaks until sundown,” said Ken, who was walking 15 feet ahead of them. “Unless you two want to spend another evening with those … creatures.”

  That was answer enough for Gaby and Coop, as the thought of encountering those creatures again convinced them both to quicken their strides. Well behind them was Lamar, who walked with his head bowed and his eyes glued to his feet, as though lost in deep contemplation as he walked.

  The group emerged from a grove of denuded pine trees and found themselves standing on the threshold of a yawning valley whose shape could only be guessed at because it stretched out of view in every direction. Its rocky basin lay approximately three stories below them, connected to the higher ground by a slope with sides so smooth they could pass for manmade.

  Every inch of the valley was covered in blight and the swirling ash trails the iku left in their wake. While the sight of the ash swirls at ground level was by now pedestrian to them all, seeing the exquisite, alien patterns stretching across the horizon from 30 feet up was disquieting. It seemed to affirm the unspoken fear echoing through all their brains: there was no escaping the iku tonight.

  “Should we turn back?” Coop asked. “We could be back in the forest — the real forest — inside an hour.”

  “There’s no going back,” came Lamar’s voice behind them, thick with exhaustion. They were the first words he’d spoken since the incident more than an hour ago. He looked at them pensively. “What we need is ahead of us, not behind us.”

  “Are you making that decision for the rest of us?” Ken asked, annoyed that Lamar was trying to take charge again.

  “Going back won’t help,” Lamar asserted. “This blight stuff is some kind of trail they leave, not a boundary line.” He paused to check his watch. “We’ve got maybe 90 minutes of daylight remaining, so let’s prioritize what we need: water and shelter. I think the valley is our best bet for both.”

  “Water’s our priority, not yours,” Gaby replied cuttingly. “You had your fill earlier.”

  Lamar rolled his eyes in annoyance.

  “I already told you I …” he started and then suddenly stopped himself. “You know what? Forget it. It doesn’t matter what I say because you’ve already made your mind up.”

  “If we don’t find either one down there, then we head back to the forest. Agreed?” Coop asked, pressuring Lamar.

  Lamar looked evenly at Coop.

  “If we don’t find either one down there, then we die tonight,” Lamar said grimly.

  Gaby and Coop exchanged a pained look before reluctant
ly starting down into the valley. With Ken’s help, they carried Beverly down the slope into the valley, Gaby and Coop lifting by the handles while Ken hoisted her stretcher from the back. Lamar waited for them at the top of the slope, his brow furrowed.

  The dusty air slowly turned rank as the group descended. The basin of the valley was rocky, with few trees interspersed among the multitude of desiccated grasses and scrub bushes, all of them coated with a fine layer of ash. There was something about the valley that unsettled all of them — Gaby in particular — some vague spark of familiarity amid a sea of horrible newness.

  Ken dropped his end of the stretcher as soon as they reached the bottom. The sudden jolt unbalanced the delicate structure, yanking the poles out of Gaby and Coop’s hands and sending Beverly careening as the poles went one way and she and the jackets went another. She came to a stop about five feet away, wrapped up in so many jackets that she looked like a human sushi roll.

  “What the hell?” Coop exclaimed.

  Ken shrugged.

  “Sorry, I thought we were going to take a break when we got down here.”

  Gaby shook her head in annoyance as she retrieved the spears and prepared to rebuild the litter. Coop and Ken checked on Beverly. She seemed unharmed by the spill; all the jackets had cushioned the impact. The pair started to extricate Beverly’s upper torso from the knotted tangle of jackets when her left arm popped loose and flopped to the ground.

  Her hand was almost entirely black now, with only some coloration above the second knuckle on two of her fingers. Worse still, the blackness had begun creeping down her wrist.

  “It’s still spreading,” Coop said breathlessly.

  “Then put on gloves and help me move Typhoid Mary here,” Ken said, impatiently.

  Coop hesitated.

  “What if gloves don’t protect against it?” he asked. “Gaby, what does Santeria say about touching people who’ve been marked by the iku if you’re wearing gloves?”

  “I don’t know,” Gaby replied as she lined the spears up. “They’re religious texts, not owner’s manuals. The iku purify wayward souls, guiding them to Heaven and killing their bodies in the process. You now know everything I do.”

  After another moment’s hesitation, Coop helped Ken extricate Beverly from the jackets and set up the litter once more, careful to avoid her left hand. Lamar joined them down in the basin as they were putting the finishing touches on the litter.

  Just as the group had finished strapping Beverly in, Gaby held up her hand for silence.

  “What, did the spirits of Santeria just fax you new instructions?” Ken asked mockingly, eliciting a furious “Shush!” from Gaby.

  “Can’t you hear it?” she asked.

  The others listened intently for any sound.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Ken said, giving up after a few seconds.

  “I do!” Coop exclaimed, his red curls bouncing in excitement. “It sounds like water!”

  Gaby nodded excitedly in agreement.

  The group struggled to pinpoint the faint noise and eventually made their best guess, setting out northwest. The sweet siren call of flowing water soon grew strong enough for Ken to hear, validating their decision and setting their salivary glands ablaze as they trekked across the largely featureless valley. All of them unconsciously quickened their pace, desperate to taste the life-giving fluid.

  Within a few minutes the sound of rushing water reverberated in their ears. The land started to rise on either side of them as they closed in on the source, gentle and sloping straight ahead and to their left, while climbing steeply to their right, with 20-foot cliffs overhanging them. The group broke through withered underbrush that came up to their waists and stumbled upon a rocky, winding path leading northward.

  That flickering sense of recognition Gaby had wrestled with earlier returned, stronger. It was like she had come home, only to find it filled with someone else’s furnishings.

  The sound of rushing water was now quite loud.

  The group followed the rocky path around a large earthen mound decorated with a fallen tree and found themselves not 15 feet from the banks of a narrow, fast-moving creek. Ken fell to his knees in gratitude and started knee-walking through the mud to the shoal’s edge, where he knelt down and dipped his hand into the icy waters. The stream was shallow, but moved quickly enough that the water never became silty.

  “Shouldn’t we boil it first?” Gaby asked, though she licked her lips as she did so, and it was clear she was struggling to keep from diving headfirst into the narrow stream herself.

  “I can’t wait that long,” Ken said as he leaned forward and dipped his head toward the creek. “And neither can she,” he added, motioning toward Beverly, who they had laid near the edge of the bank.

  Ken leaned over and took a cautious sip. He swirled the liquid around tentatively in his mouth, like he was sampling the wine at a fancy restaurant. He took a cautious swallow. His eyes lit up and he immediately dipped his head back in. Seeing his reaction, the others threw caution to the wind and excitedly clustered around the creek like hogs rushing the trough at feeding time.

  Lamar leaned in until his mouth was at water level and opened it, desperate to force as much of the life-giving fluid down his throat as he could stand. Coop struggled to get direct access, so he started splashing water into his open mouth, lapping it up and laughing the entire time. Gaby was only slightly more dainty, cupping her hands in the water and raising them to her lips so she could slurp as much of the precious liquid as she could. She could feel new strength surging through her, an electric tingle that coursed through her body like a passing storm, leaving her stronger than she’d felt all day.

  After a couple of minutes of gulping water, Lamar raised his head and gave a satisfied belch. Ken gave a sigh of contentment as he drank another draught, while Coop stopped splashing long enough to fill the canteen so he could give some to Beverly.

  As Gaby leaned back, her thirst momentarily slaked, her eyes fixated on the overhanging ridge some two stories above. That sense of déjà vu she’d been struggling with ever since they entered the valley doubled, and then trebled when her gaze fell upon the rocky path they’d just taken. Why did this seem so familiar? She had a sudden thought and stood up.

  As Coop knelt beside Beverly and lowered the canteen to her parched lips, he noticed Gaby was walking north along the creek’s muddy right bank. Ken and Lamar were too busy returning to the stream for a second helping to notice.

  “Gaby, where are you going?”

  No reply. She kept walking, as if in a daze, continuing northward some 50 feet before disappearing around a bend in the creek.

  At the water’s edge, Ken raised his head and started looking for Gaby.

  “Hey, where did Miss Banana Boat go?” he asked.

  “She headed north,” Coop said, shaking his head in disgust at Ken’s characterization as he gave Beverly a few more cautious sips of water.

  An ear-splitting shriek pierced the late afternoon sky, making everyone jump. Lamar, who was on his hands and knees by the creek, nearly fell in.

  “¡No se puede!” the voice shrieked. “¡Es un truco! ¡Truco! Truco!”

  Lamar and Ken exchanged a brief glance before grabbing their spears, which they’d set on the bank. Lamar felt the pit of his stomach drop out as he stood up and bolted northward, already several paces behind Ken, their ears still ringing with Gaby’s scream. Out of the corner of his eye, Lamar saw Coop pick up his hatchet and rush to join them.

  Over the din of the current, they heard splashing and crashing noises as they stumbled through the forest, their spears at the ready. It sounded like some sort of struggle. Lamar silently prayed that Wade hadn’t returned. All sorts of horrible images flitted through his mind as he sprinted, all the gruesome things Wade could do to Gaby … or to the rest of them. Ken was in the lead and rounded the bend, disappearing from view around a man-sized rock formation. Lamar pushed himself to run faster, tightening his grip on
the spear, steeling himself for whatever might be waiting for him around the corner. Lamar lowered his spear to waist level and shot across the bend with a visceral roar.

  On the other side of the bend he saw Ken standing stock still, facing the opposite direction. Lamar looked over Ken’s broad shoulders and saw, to his astonishment, Gaby kneeling in the ice-cold creek water, sobbing uncontrollably. He scanned the perimeter for any assailants or other threats. Nothing on either bank or in the distance.

  Gaby shrieked again and started splashing the water with her fists, like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. Lamar lowered his spear. Behind him, Coop rounded the rock outcropping with such speed and intensity that he slid two feet in the mud and nearly wound up in the creek. Lamar caught him by the robes, giving Coop time to regain his balance and composure.

  “What happened? Are we under attack?” he asked, wide-eyed, as he tried to orient himself. Lamar simply pointed at Gaby, who wailed in anguish once more.

  “We can’t be here!” she screamed at the heavens as she continued rage-splashing. “We can’t possibly be here!!!”

  Lamar scratched his stubbly chin in confusion as the others looked around, trying to make sense of Gaby’s outburst. Coop noticed that the creek was wider here and slower moving, forming a couple of small pools on its edges that ate into the muddy right bank. The same kind of pool their guide had used to store the food on their first night. He looked closer at that bank and noticed footprints in the mud. Realization slapped him in the face as the hatchet fell from his numb fingers, burying itself blade-first in the mud.

  “Ohhh, no,” he whispered in shock. “Guys, I think I know where we are.”

  “That’s not possible,” Ken said dismissively. “None of us have been this far north before.”

  “We aren’t north of the camp,” Coop said slowly, measuring his words carefully. “We’re west. We’re in the floodplain. This is Deer Creek.”

  “We never left! We never even left!” Gaby screamed, and the reason for her fit suddenly became apparent to all.

  Lamar looked around wildly. On the right bank he saw the switch that Ken had accidentally beaned her with on Sunday, right beside the maple tree it had ricocheted off of.