The Truth Circle

by Cameron Ayers

  “Don’t give up hope,” Lamar said, awkwardly putting his hand on her shoulder as she sobbed. Gaby tensed at his touch but did not pull away.

  “You seem to make a habit of bad decisions,” guttural Ken remarked with a twinkle of malice in his eye.

  Gaby’s tears dried almost instantly. The only thing that could break through her despair was rage, something guttural Ken excelled at stoking.

  “That’s what they’ll carve on your tombstone,” he continued. “‘Here lies Green Card Gaby. She died as she lived: A colossal fuckup.’”

  Gaby raised her head, eyes blazing with fury, eliciting a smirk from guttural Ken. She reached for the small hatchet beside her. Lamar snatched it away first, putting it safely out of reach.

  “Don’t!” he cautioned. “It’s what he wants. Don’t let him goad you.”

  “That’s right, girlie,” guttural Ken said with a barking laugh of condescension. “Listen to your master.”

  Gaby clenched her fists so tight her knuckles had turned white.

  “Don’t fall for it, Gaby,” Lamar insisted. “He’s trying to provoke you into making a mistake. We have to work as a team. The only way he wins is if he isolates us and picks us off individually.”

  “Do you really think so little of me?” guttural Ken asked with a throaty snicker, making it abundantly clear that was precisely his goal.

  “The fire’s getting low,” Coop noted.

  “You could always throw your spear on it,” guttural Ken suggested, his maniacal grin stretching wide.

  Coop looked at him evenly.

  “You first.”

  As the fire gradually abated, the shadows closed in, as did their unearthly inhabitants. Lamar walked around the firepit and began collecting all the sleeping bags.

  “Blanket fort?” guttural Ken scoffed.

  “Fuel,” Lamar replied, throwing his Voltron sleeping bag on the fire first. Flames leapt from the embers as the fire consumed the dense cotton material. The sudden brightness drove the creatures back, but the stench was truly awful. It also emitted thick black smoke that made everyone’s eyes water. Charred fragments of the bag’s exterior were swept aloft by the fire’s updraft, pirouetting through the air as they exited the venting hole.

  “You’re just delaying the inevitable,” guttural Ken chortled as Lamar threw the second sleeping bag on the fire.

  “He’s right,” Gaby conceded as she coughed and tried to wave the black smoke away from her face. “Daylight’s another two hours off. Even if we burn everything, right down to the clothes we’re wearing, it still won’t buy us another hour, let alone two.”

  “I’m not giving up,” Lamar insisted, throwing a third sleeping bag on the fire. “Coop, start collecting anything burnable. Spare clothes, shoes, luggage, anything.”

  Coop started rifling through his luggage while Lamar did the same in his rucksack. Before long, the two had amassed a sizeable pile of fuel sources. Gaby didn’t participate, preferring to remain vigilante, holding the hatchet at the ready. She knew full well that Ken would strike if all three of them were busy gathering burnables, so she kept her attention laser-focused on him, not even taking her eyes off Ken when she slid her backpack toward Lamar.

  Lamar unzipped it and dumped the contents onto the pile, tossing away a few unburnable items, like toothpaste and a razor. Beside him, Coop added a spare pair of sandals and two extra robes to the burn pile. He fished his wallet from his robes, and after removing the picture memorializing his first and only victim, tossed the wallet on the heap with a sigh.

  “What steams me is we can’t even write out our goodbyes,” he said as he stared at his photo of Johnny smiling. “No paper or pencil, and any message we write in the dirt will be obliterated by those creatures when the fire dies.” After a moment of bittersweet reflection, Coop added the photo to the pile. “It’ll be like we were never even here.”

  Gaby nodded glumly as she fingered the hatchet’s dull blade.

  Lamar, on the other hand, appeared more reflective.

  “Hmm. I’m not so sure,” he said, stroking his goatee.

  “There’s nobody you want to say goodbye to?” Gaby asked, disturbed by his apparent ambivalence.

  Her question shook Lamar out of his reverie, eliciting a guilty smile.

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” he hastily explained. “I’m just not convinced this is the end. Are we really sure those things are trying to kill us?”

  Gaby and Coop both looked at him like he was nuts.

  “They are,” came a distant, wheezing voice from across the room. Beverly raised her shaking head, revealing a steady cascade of bloody tears leaking from her eyes. The black mark was midway up her neck, now. “Just one touch did this to me,” she reminded him before doubling over again in pain.

  The others fell silent, cowed by her sobering message of what awaited them all. Lamar added the last of Gaby’s belongings to the fire. Coop looked around and saw they had collected everything on their half of the wigwam. Without even thinking about the risk, he crossed the invisible barrier separating the two warring factions, making for Ken’s metal suitcase. Guttural Ken slammed his foot on the suitcase and scooted it beside him.

  “Come and get it,” he challenged with a knowing smirk as he gripped the shaft of his spear, the firelight reflecting in his wild eyes.

  Coop took an uneasy step back to his side of the demarcation line.

  “Coop, it’s not worth it,” Lamar advised as he and Gaby took several steps forward to protect Coop if needed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Coop unloaded on guttural Ken. “This isn’t just for our sake! Don’t you want to live?”

  Beverly removed the blanket from her shuddering frame and offered it up to Coop in her trembling hands. A withering glare from guttural Ken was enough for her to silently retract the offer.

  “You just keep throwing your clothes on the fire,” guttural Ken responded mockingly. “I’ll take care of things on this side.”

  Gaby and Coop were aghast at his cavalier attitude, but Lamar nodded understandingly, as though he was expecting this.

  “He wants to use it as a bargaining chip,” Lamar explained. “Once we’re out on our side, he’ll demand something for contributing; probably our weapons. And that’s when he’ll strike.”

  A sadistic smirk from guttural Ken all but confirmed his theory.

  Gaby’s fingers tightened around the hatchet’s shaft.

  “You miserable, manipulative son of a bitch!” she fumed. “Don’t you give a damn about anybody but yourself?”

  Instead of responding, guttural Ken tested the jagged, broken tip of his spear as he stared Gaby down.

  “Easy, Gaby,” Coop cautioned, seeing how heated she was becoming.

  “I say we fight them for it,” Gaby whispered fiercely. “Why wait until he has the upper hand?”

  “No! We fight in self-defense only,” Lamar reminded her as he threw some spare clothes on the fire. “We can’t become like those two.”

  “Whet whem win!” Wade pleaded off to the side, feeding off the group’s tension as he bounced up and down. He had sawed through the first loop of his double-wrapped plastic bindings and was partway through the next.

  Instead of responding to the others, guttural Ken turned to Beverly, who was fixated on the argument.

  “See, Beverly? Didn’t I tell you that Gaby would slit our throats the first chance she got? Here’s the proof!”

  “Quit distorting things, you pedazo de mierda!” Gaby warned him.

  Guttural Ken continued toying with her as though he hadn’t heard.

  “She tried to betray you this morning, you know,” he said. “When you took off to get more wood, she suggested we throw your ass out!”

  “Shut up, Ken!” Gaby warned.

  “She wanted to feed you to the wolves … or whatever else is out there,” he cackled gutturally.

  Beverly seemed genuinely wounded by this news and stared quizzically at Gaby.r />
  “Gaby, is that true?” she asked, virtually pleading with her to deny it.

  “He’s lying!” Gaby insisted. “It was all his idea.”

  “But you went along with it?” Beverly asked, crestfallen as she shivered under the blanket.

  “Of course she did!” guttural Ken laughed cruelly. “Why save someone who’s on borrowed time, right?”

  “Stop twisting things right now!” Gaby screamed, raising her hatchet to eye level and taking a step forward.

  “Gaby, don’t let him goad you!” Lamar implored her. Gaby jabbed her finger in the air right in front of Lamar’s face and glared at him until he fell silent.

  She turned back to guttural Ken, her eyes smoldering with resentment, practically daring him to continue. He dared.

  “What else would you expect of someone who lets her boyfriend beat her like a dog?” he continued. “You act tough, but a couple of knuckle sandwiches are all it takes to put you in your place!” He leaned forward with a smirk. “Beneath your spitfire façade, you’re … just … another … doormat!”

  “¡Muere, tu maldito monstruo!” Gaby shrieked, spittle flying from her lips as she raised the hatchet and charged at him.

  Guttural Ken smirked wickedly. This was the moment he’d waited all night for. He aimed his spear at Gaby and then rocked back on his log perch, preparing a thrust that would drive it right through her throat. But in his haste, he reared back too far and lost his balance as the log teetered beneath him. He swung his arms wildly as he tried to keep from falling over, sending the spear airborne. Just as he’d regained his balance, guttural Ken found himself face to face with Gaby, who was pressing the hatchet’s blade against his Adam’s apple. His spear landed on the ground with a ringing clatter.

  Guttural Ken swallowed hard and took two steps back, which was far as he could go without entering the shadows and risking the ikus’ touch. Gaby and her blade followed. Guttural Ken stole a glance over his shoulder and saw shapes writing in the darkness mere inches from his head.

  Lamar rushed up behind Gaby, with Coop a few steps behind.

  “Don’t do it!” he pleaded with her.

  “He deserves it a thousand times over! You know he does!” Gaby snarled as she pressed the blade hard against guttural Ken’s naked flesh. A thin trickle of blood rolled down his neck.

  “Maybe, but that’s not our decision to make,” Lamar said quietly. “If we appoint ourselves as judge, jury and executioner, then how are we any different from him?”

  Gaby shook with fury, her breath coming in bursts as she wrestled with dueling impulses. She’d never have a better opportunity. He was completely vulnerable. All she had to do was rear back and …

  “Please, don’t hurt me.”

  It was Ken. Not guttural Ken, full of malice and impish cruelty, but the old Ken. The sudden reversion was spooky. He looked confused and more than a little scared as his eyes fixated on the hatchet. More than any words of Lamar, the fear she saw in his eyes — fear of her — disturbed Gaby, tempering her bloodlust. Little by little, she regained control, suppressing the primal voice inside her head demanding retribution.

  “Dammit!” Gaby muttered, pulling back and slowly lowering the hatchet.

  Ken smiled gratefully at her.

  “Thank you.”

  As she continued staring into his clear eyes, she began to think that at long last the crisis was over. She even allowed herself to hope that they might still survive this night when she caught a glint of mischief in his eyes. They quickly narrowed, and the corners of his mouth turned downward, transforming his empathetic smile into a rictus leer. She had just enough time to let loose an “Oh!” before a gut punch from guttural Ken doubled her over. Before she could recover, the hatchet was lying on the ground and guttural Ken had her by the throat.

  Lamar and Coop charged forward, ready to fight for Gaby, but stopped short when Ken whirled around behind Gaby, using her as a human shield while she was still dazed. He wrapped his left arm around her throat to hold her in place.

  “Let her go,” Lamar demanded. “This is your last chance to make it out of here alive!”

  Guttural Ken simply smirked.

  “You two want a piece of me? You have to go through her!”

  The duo lowered their spears to eye level and stepped closer, training them on guttural Ken’s head and shoulders, which were still exposed because he was so much taller than his hostage. Seeing they weren’t deterred, guttural Ken pulled the penknife from his pocket with his free hand and pressed its blade against Gaby’s temple.

  “How about now?” he challenged.

  The pair exchanged nervous glances, neither of them certain how to proceed. Gaby trembled in guttural Ken’s iron grip, struggling to breathe through his chokehold. The terror in her eyes only magnified the sense of powerlessness Lamar and Coop felt.

  “Don’t make me choose between your life and hers,” Lamar said as he took a hesitant step forward. “You know who I’ll choose.”

  “Now it’s a party!” guttural Ken laughed wickedly as he drilled the blade into Gaby’s temple.

  “Ngghh!” she groaned as the cold steel poked her, desperate to pull her head away, but unable to do so because of his chokehold.

  Lamar and Coop pressed forward, side by side, trying to push guttural Ken back into the shadows, which were now within six feet of the dying fire. However, he turned and started backpedaling around the circle, dragging his petrified victim along with him.

  As the two sides slowly circled the fire, Wade continued bouncing up and down on the edge of the firelight, insisting that the group “whet whem win.” He was three-quarters of the way though the final loop of his plastic shackles.

  Guttural Ken stopped backpedaling when he reached the pile of burnables that Gaby, Coop and Lamar had amassed. He stole a glance at the monstrous shapes wriggling in the darkness and kicked the top half of the pile over, cackling sadistically as the burnables rolled into the inky shadows, where they couldn’t be reclaimed.

  “Take another step forward and the rest of the pile goes, too!” guttural Ken threatened.

  Lamar cast a sideways glance at the fire. It was already getting dangerously low.

  “Don’t listen to … ackk!” Gaby’s words were abruptly cut off as guttural Ken tightened his grip around her throat.

  As Lamar and Coop racked their brains for a solution, a voice from the other side of the fire shouted at them.

  “Enough!” Beverly shouted raspily, tossing her blanket on the smoldering coals and standing up as best she could with one lame arm and one nearly lame foot. The blanket ignited almost immediately, and a burst of light filled the room. The older woman grabbed the drinking bucket with her shuddering hand and dragged it toward the stone-lined edge of the firepit.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” guttural Ken demanded.

  “This,” she replied, as she knelt beside the bucket and tipped it toward the firepit, balancing it on her knees at a precarious angle until the water was sloshing along the lip of the pail. A single drop escaped and landed in the fire with a chilling sizzle.

  Beverly looked up from her handiwork and saw the shock in guttural Ken’s face, satisfied that he knew she meant business.

  “Drop the knife and let her go!” Beverly ordered. “Or so help me, I’ll do it!”

  The pail shook violently in her quivering right hand.

  “You’re bluffing,” guttural Ken sneered.

  But the defiance in Beverly’s twitching, bloody tear-streaked face suggested otherwise.

  “As you already pointed out: I’m dead no matter what, so I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “Well, well,” guttural Ken replied, his voice betraying a certain admiration for her kamikaze tactics. “Looks like we have ourselves a genuine Mexican standoff.”

  Everyone stood stock still, waiting to see what would happen next. Gaby struggled to control her panicked breathing as she watched the flames recede and the shadows clos
e in. From the corner of her eye, she could see hundreds of iku writhing within five feet of the firepit. Ken took a step closer to the center, dragging her along with her.

  As the minutes ticked by, Lamar tried to divide his attention between Ken and Beverly, neither of whom appeared willing to bend to the other’s demands. He held his spear fast, waiting. As the shadows drew closer, Coop — who had been standing shoulder to shoulder with Lamar — stepped behind him to avoid the ikus’ touch.

  No one spoke, except for Wade, who kept chanting “whet whem win” ceaselessly, like it was his personal mantra. The sound of the ikus’ chirping was overwhelming as the firelight slowly faded.

  “The fire’s dying,” guttural Ken observed with a vicious sneer. “You better feed it soon.”

  When the shadows were within four feet, Lamar shrugged off his jacket, making certain to keep one hand on his spear at all times, and tossed it onto the red-hot embers, which happily accepted it. Coop quickly followed up with his jacket.

  Beverly locked eyes with the petrified Gaby.

  “Are you scared, child?”

  Gaby nodded, her eyes wide with fright.

  “Good, that means you have something worth living for,” Beverly said as she shook furiously. “‘Fearless’ is just another word for someone with nothing to lose. Don’t make my mistakes. I lost everyone around me because of the bottle, and now it’s going to cost me my life,” she said, pausing to cough up more blood. “Make sure you live in my stead.”

  “I wish I’d known you better,” Gaby said regretfully.

  “You’ve spent so much time with me at my worst,” Beverly mused. “Now you finally get to see me at my best.”

  Guttural Ken barked with savage laughter.

  “This isn’t an afterschool special, you dumb bitches!” he mocked. “If those things don’t kill you, I fucking well will!”

  At a gesture from Lamar, Coop started walking around to the other side of the firepit, careful to watch his feet to avoid stepping in any encroaching shadows, which were now less than four feet from the outer rim of the firepit. Once he was on the other side, guttural Ken would be trapped in a pincer maneuver with nowhere to go.