The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

Coop stopped in his tracks.

  “Who?”

  “She’s implying I’m a traitor,” Lamar explained.

  “You’re here because we need able bodies, that’s it,” Gaby intoned. “You’re no Mouseketeer.”

  “Can we just focus on the task at hand, please?” Coop implored, striving to keep the peace.

  “Does anybody know why she suddenly took off?” Gaby asked.

  Lamar and Coop both shook their heads.

  “No idea,” Coop said, “But she looked sick, like she was hallucinating again.”

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Gaby told the others. “I don’t know what she’s planning, but if she starts a fire out here, this whole forest will go up like a Roman candle.”

  Suddenly, the crunch of the shriveled leaves and blighted plants beneath their feet took on added resonance. It was unnerving to think that everything they trod on was kindling just waiting for a spark to burst into a massive conflagration.

  They spotted their quarry in a 30-foot-wide depression whose boundaries were defined by a rising hill on the left and a rock formation to the right. She was kneeling at the feet of a large ash tree with her back to them, shivering. From this distance, all they could clearly see of her was her white coat, which they nearly mistook for a shiny rock in the fading light.

  Coop prepared to charge down into the depression, but Gaby held her arm up to stop him.

  “That’ll only set her off. Just keep calm and follow my lead,” she asserted. “Beverly may still think of me as a friend, so let me do the talking. And make certain to keep your gloves on at all times. We can’t have her touch us.”

  Gaby signaled for the trio to fan out as they slowly descended into the depression.

  “Beverly?” she called out cautiously, taking slow, deliberate steps so as not to alarm her. From the corners of her eye, Gaby saw Lamar circling to the left and Coop flanking Beverly on the right. If Beverly heard them, she gave no indication, continuing to shiver as she kneeled at the base of the tree.

  As Gaby drew closer, she noticed that Beverly had collected a large pile of debris — mostly twigs and dried leaves — at the base of the tree. It also became apparent that she was feverishly working on something between her knees, but from this angle, it was impossible to discern what.

  “Beverly, what are you doing?” Gaby asked.

  No reply. Gaby’s ears picked out the sound of scraping, like something metallic being dragged across a rough surface.

  “Beverly, do you have the fire-starting kit?” she tried again as she drew closer. “We need it to light a fire.”

  Still no reply. More scraping.

  The trio slowly closed in on Beverly. Gaby shot an inquisitive look at Coop, who simply shook his head; the tree blocked his view of Beverly’s work. Gaby turned to Lamar, who made a quick slashing motion against his palm to indicate a knife was being used, and then raised both hands to signal a massive conflagration. She was preparing a fire.

  “Beverly, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t safe,” Gaby cautioned, walking slowly toward her. “If you light a spark here, you could burn the whole forest down. You don’t want to do that, right?”

  Beverly said nothing but paused to shiver violently for a second before continuing to scrape magnesium stick shavings with the knife.

  Gaby leaned forward and placed her gloved hand on Beverly’s shoulder. The scraping stopped instantly. Gaby took a deep breath before turning Beverly around to face her.

  Beverly’s face was deathly white. She was sweating profusely, and her right eye was twitching like mad. But Gaby was most struck by the haunted, pained look in her eyes. During previous bouts, they had been glazed or sunken. Now her eyes danced wildly, screaming in mad agony of the nightmarish visions that threatened to consume her. Beverly’s symptoms had returned with a vengeance.

  In her right hand she had the knife; her left hand — which was completely black and barely visible in the dim light — held the remnants of the magnesium stick, which she had shaved down to nothing. All that was left was the iron core and the flint backing. That must mean there were hundreds of magnesium shavings in Beverly’s pile of tinder. A single spark could ignite them all.

  “Gaby?” Beverly asked hesitantly, her voice quavering. “Are you … real?”

  Gaby looked to the others, who appeared as confused as she felt, before answering.

  “Yes,” Gaby answered, nodding slowly. “Why don’t you give me the knife?”

  Beverly shuddered and struck the back of the knife to the flint. A spark shot into the air and fizzled out before it hit the ground.

  “No!” Gaby cried and lunged for the knife.

  Beverly reared back suddenly and swung wildly with the blade, which slashed Gaby’s outstretched palm through the glove. Gaby reflexively yanked back her hand in pain, giving Beverly another opportunity to strike the back of the blade against the flint. More sparks flew before petering out in mid-air.

  Lamar and Coop leapt into action, each grabbing one of Beverly’s arms and dragging her down to the ground as she kicked and screamed.

  “Let me go, demon!” Beverly shrieked, flailing wildly. “Let me goooo!!!”

  While the pair struggled to pin Beverly down, Gaby clutched at her knife hand, desperate to pry it loose. The old woman was wiry, making it impossible for Gaby to safely claim the knife as Beverly twisted and writhed beneath her. With a violent thrust forward, Beverly yanked her knife hand free, punching Gaby in the nose in the process, and reached around to her immobilized left hand, which still held the remnants of the magnesium stick.

  Coop saw what she was doing and tried to bat the knife away with his free hand, but Beverly’s mania had made her strong. She swatted his hand away and stabbed the flint so hard that the blade tip snapped clean off, embedding itself in the base of the ash tree.

  A shower of sparks shot into the air, and Gaby and Lamar gasped at the sight, watching them fall gently to the earth like the remnants of a climactic firework burst on the Fourth of July. Most of the sparks burned out mid-air, but one kept burning as it slowly sank onto the pile of tinder and magnesium shavings.

  Everyone held their breath. Gaby and Lamar stood stock-still, like deer caught in headlights.

  In the deafening silence, they heard a tiny “pop!” and saw the faintest whiff of smoke.

  “Oh, God!” Coop cried, releasing his gloved grip on Beverly’s wrist and rolling on top of the pile of leaves and twigs, frantically sweeping away magnesium shavings from the now smoldering pile, not realizing in his panic that his violent hand motions were also fanning air across the pile. A tiny orange ember appeared on the outskirts.

  “No, you’re feeding it,” Lamar shouted to Coop. “Smother it! Smother it!”

  Coop leapt onto the glowing ember like it was a live grenade and hugged it close, praying his robes wouldn’t catch fire.

  They heard a popping noise, and Coop writhed in pain. Then another, and another, as the magnesium shavings ignited like a row of firecrackers. Smoke and popping sounds filled the air, but no flames appeared.

  “Aggghhhh!” Coop cried as dozens of magnesium flakes ignited against his robes, piercing them to strike the tender flesh beneath. It wasn’t a scream of agony but rather a sharp cry of pain, like he was being jabbed with dozens of tiny needles at the same time.

  “Dammit, that stings!” he cried out between coughs from the smoke as magnesium flakes kept going off under him.

  Six feet away, Lamar and Gaby winced sympathetically, though neither could help him as they struggled to bring Beverly under control.

  “They’re coming for us, they’re coming for us! We have to stop them! We have to burn it all down!” Beverly raved, spittle flying from her lips as she flailed like a woman possessed. Lamar grabbed hold of her knife hand and smashed it repeatedly against a flat rock until Beverly finally relinquished the blade.

  Gaby struggled to immobilize Beverly’s left hand, still afraid to touch the contaminated l
imb. The black spot had spread halfway down her wrist.

  “She’s as crazy as Wade!” Gaby exclaimed, finally bringing Beverly’s left arm under control by kneeling on it, while pressing down on her shoulder to immobilize it.

  “Burn it all! We have to burn it all!” Beverly screeched as she gave one final, especially violent thrust before her eyes rolled back in her head and she started convulsing.

  “She’s seizing again!” Lamar said, releasing his death grip on her arm so he could raise her head out of the dirt.

  Gaby didn’t move, however, fearing some kind of ruse. After a full minute of writhing, Beverly’s whole body suddenly went limp.

  The popping of magnesium flakes under Coop gradually petered out, like the final kernels in a bag of microwave popcorn. Neither Gaby nor Lamar made a move to help him, knowing full well that taking his place or merely moving Coop over to join him on the pile could give the oxygen-starved embers all they needed to burst into flames.

  “I … I think it’s just about over,” Coop said as the smoke started to clear, and right on cue, one final flake popped, eliciting a yelp of pain.

  “What set her off?” Coop asked as he climbed off the pile stiffly.

  In response, Lamar ran up and hugged him.

  “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen!” Lamar exclaimed, clutching the confused Coop so tightly that he winced in pain.

  “Okay, thanks,” he replied awkwardly, clapping Lamar on the back.

  Gaby joined them, but, as always, maintained a few feet of personal space.

  “I’m not much for hugging, but everyone in camp owes you their lives,” she told Coop as she offered up her gloved right hand for a fist bump, which Coop obliged awkwardly. He appeared deeply embarrassed by the sudden swell of attention.

  As Lamar let go of Coop, they could see dozens of tiny holes and scorch marks had turned his robes into Swiss cheese.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Coop shook his head no, but immediately started scratching as soon as Lamar let go of him.

  “No, but it stings like a sonofabitch.”

  “How about you, Gaby? Beverly tagged you pretty good, there,” Lamar said, pointing to the blood oozing out of the gash in Gaby’s gloved palm. Amid all the chaos of the last few minutes, she had completely forgotten about it. She removed the glove and held her hand up so Lamar could examine it.

  After several seconds of grim observation in the fading light, Lamar’s face brightened.

  “It doesn’t look too deep,” he declared. “I think your glove got the worst of it. You may need a couple of stitches when we get back to civilization, but bandaging it should be fine until then.”

  Gaby looked at him askance.

  “I don’t see any first aid stations around here.”

  “We can tear up a T-shirt for a bandage. You can have mine,” Lamar said as he grabbed the pocket knife and started sawing at the lower half of his shirt.

  “No!” Gaby exclaimed, startling Lamar with the vehemence of her response. He paused, mid-slice, waiting for an explanation.

  “Your shirts aren’t exactly … sanitary,” she explained, quieter this time.

  Coop, who was checking on Beverly, covered his mouth to stifle the laughter.

  “You do wipe your hands on your shirt a lot,” he added.

  Lamar looked away in embarrassment.

  “Okay, you don’t have to make a big production of it,” he protested, trailing off.

  “I’ll use something of Beverly’s when we get back to camp,” Gaby said, feeling a little sorry for Lamar, despite everything he’d put them through today. “It only seems fair, since it’s her fault.”

  “So, what do we do with her now?” Coop asked as he incessantly scratched at the scorch marks, desperate for relief.

  “Well, we can’t leave her out here,” came a voice from behind the group, startling them. It was Ken, who must have followed the shouting to find them. “Let’s get her inside and then figure out what to do.”

  Ken cocked an eyebrow when he got a better look at Coop, whose pockmarked robes were so riddled with holes that in parts they looked like a fishnet pullover.

  “What happened? Kicked out of the gay rave for bogarting all the XTC?”

  Coop blushed and moved to cover himself. Lamar stood beside him and put his arm around Coop’s shoulder in a show of support.

  “I’ll have you know that he saved all our lives, including yours.”

  Ken gave a mock bow of gratitude.

  “Well, thank you, Mr. Johnny on the Spot!” he said with a flourish and a sneer.

  Coop visibly stiffened. His eyes narrowed, and an uncharacteristic scowl furrowed his brow.

  “What did you say?” he intoned.

  “I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. Johnny on the Spot,’” Ken repeated, not picking up on the edge in Coop’s voice.

  Coop stared at him for five seconds before exploding with such ferocity that Lamar dropped his arm from Coop’s shoulder in disbelief.

  “Don’t you ever use that name again, you alpha douche blowhard shithead!” Coop shouted before suddenly running off into the woods.

  Ken did a double take, too puzzled by Coop’s behavior and hasty departure to be angered.

  “Who peed in her Cheerios?” he asked.

  Lamar stood agog for several seconds, trying to process Coop’s inexplicable Jekyll-and-Hyde routine before running after him.

  “I’ll bring him back,” he called out as he ran, throwing Ken an accusatory glare. He may not have understood the reason behind Coop’s outburst, but he felt certain that Ken was somehow responsible.

  “Why do you insist on teasing him?” Gaby asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “If you want to lead this group, you need to learn to play nice.”

  “Why do you insist on being a stick in the mud?” Ken retorted. “And if you have a problem with how I run things, we can put Lamar back in charge.”

  “No!” Gaby said, recoiling at the thought.

  “Fine,” Ken said, putting on his gloves and grabbing Beverly by the shoulders. “Then help me get her back to camp.”

  Instead of assisting, Gaby bent over the tinder pile Beverly had erected at the base of the ash tree and reached into it.

  The sound of distant chirping, faint but unmistakable, wafted past their ears. As muffled as the noise was, there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of different pitches contributing to the din. The iku were stirring once again.

  Ken’s ears pricked up at the sound, and he looked at the setting sun, which was more than halfway below the horizon.

  “We gotta get moving,” Ken warned. “C’mon, grab her legs.”

  Gaby wheeled around. In her bloody left hand she held the remains of the magnesium stick.

  Even in the dimness of twilight, Ken could see that Beverly had shaved the stick clean of all magnesium, and the flint backing had shattered in the struggle, leaving only the iron core in the center. With no magnesium and no flint to start a fire, the device was now useless.

  “She used it all,” Gaby said softly, tears welling up in the corner of her eyes as she stared at the denuded stick in disbelief. “There’s nothing left.”

  “If we can’t use that to start a fire …” Ken said aloud, but abruptly stopped himself when he came to the same realization as Gaby.

  Unless they found another way to start a fire, they’d all be dead in an hour’s time.

  * * * * * *

  Lamar scoured the woods in search of Coop, straining his eyes for any sign of the slight man in the dimming light. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and Lamar shivered against the cold as he zipped up his bubble jacket.

  Coop’s outburst, his running off; Lamar struggled to understand any of it. Even his words had mystified the group. Ken had mocked him with a stupid expression — Johnny on the Spot — and Coop had lashed out over the use of the name, of all things.

  The only thing Lamar knew for certain was that Coop was suffering, and he couldn’t leave
him out here alone, certainly not with those things all around.

  As he was passing a clump of denuded trees, Lamar noticed from the corner of his eye tiny puffs of air some 30 feet in the distance. He zeroed in on the location and moved forward, keeping an eye on his path to avoid any foot-snagging rocks or gopher holes.

  As he drew closer, he could hear sobbing, but struggled to distinguish Coop from the background. Coop’s peach-colored robes and bright red hair were impossible to miss during the day, but blended perfectly with the surroundings as dusk started to drain the colors from the world.

  When he was 15 feet away, Lamar could see that Coop was sitting on a rotted log covered in moss, his back turned, staring at something intently in his outstretched hands. Another exhalation from Coop provided just enough contrast for Lamar to identify it. It was a photo. Lamar surmised that it was the one of the little blond boy with the gap-toothed grin that Coop stared at so intently night after night.

  Lamar coughed politely to alert Coop to his presence.

  Coop immediately tucked the photo into his robes and dabbed his eyes with the flowing sleeves.

  “You didn’t see that.”

  “Of course not,” Lamar said as he drew closer. “You seemed a little agitated when you left, so I wanted to make certain you were okay. Mind if I sit?”

  Coop gestured beside, and Lamar joined him on the log, which creaked under the combined weight of the two.

  “How are the burns?” Lamar asked after a moment of awkward silence.

  “They still itch like crazy,” Coop said with a sniffle. “They don’t hurt that much.”

  “But something else does,” Lamar surmised. “Want to talk about it?”

  Coop gave no sign of either approval or opposition, so Lamar continued.

  “The boy in that picture isn’t your son, is he?”

  After a moment’s consideration, Coop shook his head no.

  “He was your boyhood crush, right?” Lamar gently probed.

  “No, not exactly,” Coop said, fumbling for the right words. “It’s … complicated.”

  Lamar put his arm on Coop’s shoulder in what was meant to be a comforting gesture but one that came off as merely clumsy.