Circles in the Dust (16 page)

             
“Hey,” Mitch growled. He reached over and grabbed David by the hair, still bent in an uncontrollable fit of mirth, and pulled his face up into the light.

             
Shouts of pain and laughter mixed as David’s face came into sight. Mitch swore and pushed him over. David lay there, still laughing, unable to control himself. He sat there for a minute while a stream of curses flowed over him, along with a few kicks. After a minute of this, David took a few deep breaths and contained his laughter enough that he could speak again.

             
“Okay, okay,” he said, “that’s enough!” He grabbed Mitch’s foot as it came in for another landing and pulled him down on the ground with him.

             
“You son of a—”

             
“Mitch!” David yelled over the latest expletive. “What the—”

             
“David!” Mitch’s anger melted as his wide eyes settled on his old friend. They clasped their hands and embraced, patting each other on the back. “Where have you been?”

             
“Where have I been?” David asked incredulously. “I’ve been back in the valley. Where did you go?”

             
“Here! To find something else, remember?” Mitch gazed at him expectantly, and David thought back to the last time he had seen Mitch.

             
“You said you were going to the city…?”

             
“Well, yeah, I said I was starting there. But don’t you remember? I tried to get you to come with me, I was leaving the valley for good. There was nothing there anymore, man. No food, no people.”

             
“Yeah, apparently I missed that,” David admitted. He caught himself just as he was about to say something . “Where did everyone go?” He didn’t want Mitch to know that he already knew where they all were. Mitch was his old friend, one of the reasons he was still alive, but he had to be careful what he said. He didn’t know which side his old ally was on yet.

             
“We all kind of spread out, though I got some of the old gang to follow me here. I came back and tried to tell everyone there was this place where they were making a fresh start, where they were actually growing food, man. Some didn’t believe me, but most did. There were fewer people left back home than I thought. You weren’t at your cabin when I got back, David. I waited for a couple days, I swear, but I figured you must have left or…” His eyes dropped and he let David fill in the rest. “It’s real though, I swear. Just a short walk that way,” and he pointed the way he and Elizabeth had been heading.

             
“When did you find this place?” David asked, still curious how he had missed everyone leaving.

             
“I went to the city right after the last time I saw you,” Mitch explained. “And from there I just struck off in a random direction. I went west until I hit the Palouse; I figured I would probably have to walk all the way across it before I found anyone, and that made me nervous. So I just kind of made a circle down south and back around the valley, sticking to the forest mostly, where I could find some berries and stuff. I never would have made it without the plants you showed me were edible. I lived on shoots and twigs for a little while there.

             
“I came all the way around to this side of the woods, a little south of here, and figured that was it. There wasn’t any safe haven, and I was gonna die out here. I knew my last shot was going north; God knows how many people went south and promised to come back if they found anything down there. I thought maybe the Canadians were better prepared than we were and I could find some lodge where they had dug in when everything went to shit.             

             
“On my way there, I was walking along one day, wondering how much longer I really had left, when I saw smoke off on the horizon. At first I got excited and ran toward it, but then it got all muggy and I couldn’t see it anymore, so I figured it was a mirage or something. But I kept at it anyway, on the off chance I had found someone, just one person. I’d been walking for weeks and hadn’t seen a soul, man. I don’t know how many people there are left in the world. I never really thought about it until I left, in the whole world, I mean, but it hit me when I was out there.

             
“I came to this place, what, toward the beginning of the last winter? They let me in and fed me, told me I could live there, right? So I told them there were a few people left where I came from, maybe ten or fifteen? They got all excited and told me I could go get them, bring them back here to live at the Base. That’s what they call this place. So as soon as the snow lets up, I come back to the valley and go around trying to pick up everyone I could. A couple had died, you remember Bruce, and John? And of course, I went to your place but couldn’t find you, so I left as soon as I could with a handful of people from the valley, and they’re still out here.

             
“I get back here and apparently everyone and their grandma heard about this place and started showing up like crazy. So I come through and there are all these people camped out around the Base, and they all just laugh when I tell them we’re on our way there. We get there and they tell me they’re ‘so sorry’,” his voice absolutely dripped with sarcasm as he put quotes around this phrase, “but they couldn’t take anyone else in. I told them I had just been there a couple weeks before and they’d told me to go get all these people, but they didn’t care. So now we’re all just sitting out here, waiting to die.”

             
“So you’re just waiting out here, hoping they’ll take you in?” David asked.

             
“Pretty much. I don’t know how much longer we can make it though. We would have left a long time ago. I would have headed north myself, even though everyone always wants to go south, but there are some people here all the way from Edmonton who say it’s still buried in snow. They were headed south and chanced upon this place.”

             
“Wow.” David had figured there couldn’t be much to the north, considering basic geography, but south had been ruled out for the same reason Mitch had mentioned, that no one had ever come back. He was surprised Mitch had made it as far as he had; he must have really been living on roots and tree bark. “Did they recognize you when you got back with everyone from the valley?”

             
“Couple of them,” Mitch answered bitterly. “They knew who I was. I could have stayed and been just fine, but they told me, they told me, to go get the other survivors. Their leader, though, that mayor, what a cold bastard he is. Wouldn’t budge. He didn’t care that he’d told me to go fetch any other survivors I knew of. Who knew overpopulation would be a problem, right?” He coughed a bitter laugh and went on. “One of the guys tried to smuggle me in, told me I could come in but there was no way he could get the others in. He was a good guy, at least. But there was no way I was going in and leaving the others I’d brought from their home to starve out in the cold.”

             
David was surprised at Mitch; he had never been one to stick his neck out for anyone besides himself. He must have changed since last they had talked. They had been a kind of team in years past, but Mitch had said goodbye when they had come across some seeds and David had wanted to try growing food rather than taking it. They had still been on good terms with each other, but that was the end of their real friendship. Now look at Mitch, trying desperately to get into the place that had cracked the farming code, just as David had wanted to.

             
“So now you guys are just waiting…?” David asked.

             
“Waiting, yeah I guess. Trying to talk them into letting us in, or giving us some seeds, or something. They claim they have nothing to spare, that the best thing is just for us to move on, try and find somewhere else that can help us. We’ve tried telling them there’s nothing out there, that they are our last chance, that they might be condemning half of what’s left of humanity, but they don’t care.”

             
Mitch’s voice had turned from an excited babble to a low growl as he recounted his relations with the people of the Base. David knew this was what he had come for; peace, so that they could all stop calling themselves survivors and merely people once more.

             
“How’d you ending up finding out about this place, Dave?” Mitch asked, shifting the conversation away from himself.

             
“Me?” David knew he couldn’t tell Mitch about Elizabeth; the word ‘hostage’ came instantly to his mind. He didn’t know what else to say though. “Umm, some guy came through the valley, a little while ago. He said he had heard about this place, he was on his way here from the coast. I was running out of food, nothing left in the valley. I didn’t really expect to find anyone out here, honestly.”

             
“No one did,” Mitch said, casting a conspiratorial grin at his old friend. “Who was that guy? He might have made it out here.”

             
“His name  was…Earl, I think. It was a while back.”

             
“Hmm. No one named Earl’s come through here.”

             
“Must have gotten sidetracked or lost or something,” David postulated.

             
“Must have. Probably for the best, anyway. In any case, you should come with me back to our camp,” Mitch offered, rising from the ground. “I was just on patrol out here, things have gotten pretty rough between us and the Base. My shift should be just about up by now though.”

             
“Yeah, uh, I think I’m going to go ahead and try my luck at the Base, actually,” David said, rising as well.

             
“They’re not going to let you in,” Mitch rebutted.

             
“I know, but I came all this way,” David explained, trying to make this lie as convincing as possible. “I just… need to give it a shot, before I write it off. I couldn’t live with myself if I knew I hadn’t even gone down there and tried.”

             
“Dave, they’ve got guards all around the place,” Mitch warned. “Trust me, I don’t know how safe it is to even try and get in anymore.”

             
“I know, I know. But I have to try. You have to understand, I’ve come so close to starving, I thought I was going to die alone in the woods…”

             
Mitch sighed and gave David a long, hard look. “I get it,” he said after a minute of deliberation. “You haven’t changed, have you, Dave? At least come get some food, then. We don’t have much, but I’m sure no one would mind sparing some for a newcomer.”

             
“No, no, I don’t think I could eat a thing. I found a stash of food I’d forgotten about before I left, and I actually just ate, so I’m good. Thanks, though, Mitch. I appreciate it.” David hoped Mitch wouldn’t find it odd that he refused a meal, but before Mitch could say anything about it, he tried to deflect his comment by adding, “I’ll come find you when they kick me out of the Base.”

             
Mitch laughed and grabbed David’s hand, giving it a hearty shake. “I’ll be waiting.” He turned but, just before he turned away, David caught a glimpse of something disconcerting in those eyes, lurking behind the quick, fraternal acceptance. Something that made him catch his breath.

             
“Hey, Mitch,” David called to the retreating figure.

             
“What?”

             
“You forgot something.” David tossed the pistol Mitch seemed to have forgotten about to him.

             
“Thanks.” Mitch replaced the pistol in the holster at his hip. “Our camp,” he went on, “is just inside the forest by the Base. You’ll see the smoke. Come find us. Oh, and Dave, I know I’ve never had to tell you this, but be careful out there.” Then he turned and made his way back into the woods, and David watched him go, waiting until he was out of sight before he turned to go back to the clearing.

             
He returned to find Elizabeth slumbering, unaware of the danger they had narrowly avoided. Things might have been very different had that not been Mitch come to investigate. He sat back down on the log, wide awake now, and waited for dawn to come.

Chapter 18

David was on edge, more than he had been thus far on the journey to the Base. He couldn’t keep from constantly scanning the woods in every direction, just waiting for Mitch or someone else to show up, or for them to drop into one of the outlying camps around the Base. He waited while Elizabeth rolled up her bedding and ran her fingers through her hair to smooth it down. David tried to hurry her without transferring his own worries and fears. He tapped his feet and rubbed his hands on the sides of his pants, unable to contain the storm raging within. She never seemed to dawdle but at this particular moment he was sure she was taking as long as physically possible to complete the simplest tasks.

             
When she finally stood up and draped the strap of her duffle bag over her shoulder, he breathed one quick sigh of relief, though it was the only one he would be allowed all morning. The sky was a muted gray, only a few shades lighter than it had been when David ran into Mitch. David turned on his heel and began marching off in the direction of the Base, taking the lead from Elizabeth.

             
“Is everything all right?” she asked, scurrying after David in his frenzied march.

             
“Sure, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied.

             
“You know where we’re going?”

             
“I believe it’s in this general direction, is it not?” he called back, keeping his head facing forward.

             
“It is,” she responded slowly. “Did something happen while I was asleep?”

             
“Nope.” He knew he needed to pace his response time, but he felt like everything was slowing down around him; his feet could not carry him forward fast enough, and slowing down at all was no option. It felt like running through chest-deep mud. “I just want to get to the Base before anyone wakes up out here, that’s all.”

             
“Okay.” David feared the look she might be aiming at his back, so he dared not turn around.

             
They went on like this for a few minutes. David asked if she remembered at all where the camps were out here, or what path she had taken to get through, but she couldn’t, and thus he opted for the quickest route through the trees, sometimes deviating from his straight line east to walk around a tangle of bushes or avoid climbing over a steep hill or a jumble of boulders. They zigzagged through the wood toward the Base, and David grew ever more tense as they did. He would be safe enough from those wandering around, he would be just another Outlier, but he feared for Elizabeth if they were caught out here. If she worked with the mayor, perhaps the Outliers would know who she was, and if they recognized her hanging around their territory, David shuddered to think what these destitute campers would do to ensure their own survival. His thoughts flashed back to the shack he had found the morning before.

             
The woods thickened as they continued, growing denser and denser. In other circumstances, David would have been very pleased to see the earth flourishing as heat began to once again penetrate the atmosphere but in his current frenzied state, he was only perturbed by the escalating darkness through which they stumbled. He was unsure exactly where they were headed; he had only had a vague idea in the first place, but his sense of urgency had propelled him to take the lead, and he wasn’t about to slow down and follow Elizabeth now. She would probably want to stop again to make sure her hair was in perfect order, and they had no time for that. He ventured forward, pausing for only a moment at the brink of a menacing copse before plunging in headfirst. The void swallowed them up, and David could hear Elizabeth saying something, but her voice was dim and far away when it reached his ears; he was in a manic state her soft voice could not penetrate.

             
Just as disorientation began to sink in and David considered allowing Elizabeth to resume the lead, a dim glow became visible ahead and David’s heart leaped. He wanted out of this place. He wanted to find the Base so that he could get Elizabeth out of harm’s way; every moment she was out here and in danger with him was agonizing. He emerged from the thicket first and stopped abruptly as the sky opened up before him and he saw a large valley, surrounded on all sides by gently sloping hills and sentinel trees. He stood on a rocky outcropping where the forest cut off, the air dead and limp around him.

             
The moon had dipped below the horizon by now and David could see no more than silhouettes but there was no mistaking what lay ahead. A large building stood starkly out from the brightening sky, surrounded by a crude palisade wall. There were a handful of small buildings surrounding the larger farmhouse, all a deep brown, walls and roofs, constructed by inexperienced hands from the dead wood that was readily available. In the morning gloom, they looked little more than piles of timber. Scraggly grass ran from the line where the trees ended right up to the walls around the compound. Two men stood behind the fence, raised up to see over the ten-foot walls, each holding what David guessed were old hunting rifles. Another pair of men watched over each side of the wall, a compass rose of soldiers.

             
They had reached the Base.

             
David stood and gazed it at, relief and awe mixing in his brain. They had made it; the worst was over, at least for now. It was bigger than he expected; the farmhouse dwarfed his personal dwelling. The roof was steep and the paint was chipping on all sides. The wall extended around a long patch of what seemed like tilled ground, though it seemed like more than enough area to support everyone out here.

             
Elizabeth came crashing out of the woods behind him, apparently knocking trees out of her way rather than walking around them. Her breath came out in labored huffs and David had to put out a hand to stop her from taking a spill off the rock. She gasped as she looked up from the clump of needles she was absorbedly extricating from inside her coat and saw the opening up of the world in front of her. The profanity on her tongue was cut short and her eyes widened, hands going limp. David looked over at her to see a wide grin spreading across her face.

             
“Good to be home?” he asked.

             
“You have no idea.” Blood rushed to her cheeks as she gazed lovingly down at her home. She grabbed David’s hand and pulled him to the side of the rock and down the hill. She was running now and, as he saw the invigoration on her face and gave it a place in his own heart and mind, he dashed alongside her, no longer pulled but still firmly grasped by her warm hand. He felt something broiling in his core. Running to the Base, what he hoped to be his new home, away from the worries of life alone in the wild, joined to the beautiful stranger who had found him dying and alone in the woods and saved him from himself and the harsh world around him, crisp morning air nipping at his cheeks. Joy rushed from his lips in the form of a hearty laugh, one he could not contain nor fully explain. Elizabeth looked over at him and joined in, adding her mysterious giggle to his unabashed merriment.

He tripped mid-chortle, and went careening down the hill, pulling her down with him. They rolled into a jumbled heap at the bottom of the slope, chuckling still. David pushed the girl’s leg off his forehead and sat up, looking down at her face, still racked by jovial tremors. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, his reflection a ghost of an image in her jade eyes. He stood and helped her off the ground, once more savoring the touch of his skin and hers, and they resumed their escapade at a more leisurely pace toward the front gate.

The guard at the left side of the gate had been watching them since they’d emerged into the no-man’s land between the woods and the Base. His face became visible as David and Elizabeth came closer to the walls, and his look of trepidation was plain even at a distance.  He held his rifle up to his shoulder, ready to fire upon these intruders. David kept a sharp eye on the man as he and Elizabeth closed the gap between them, and wondered where the other man had gone; he had been there at first glance but was now nowhere to be seen. It sounded like there were voices shouting something behind the wall, but David couldn’t be sure.

When they were a stone’s throw from the base of the wall, the man poking out over the palisade hefted his rifle to a battle-ready position. David slowed his steps but Elizabeth continued at an uninterrupted pace and dragged him ahead, up to the man with the gun. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, disappearing in the waves of his beard. They took a few more steps and Elizabeth looked behind them to the woods they had emerged from. David stopped dead in his tracks, an anchor that held Elizabeth in place. The jerk of her arm as he planted his roots made her turn her head back around, where she looked up to see the gate open, the man who had been standing guard now advancing down the worn path leading from the Base.

Her face brightened even as David’s paled. She released her hold on David’s hand and walked forward, waving at the man and greeting him in a congenial tone. David couldn’t hear what she was saying over the pounding of blood in his ears. The man above had his left eye closed, right eye focused down the sights to his chest. The other man had reappeared and was walking toward them, ignoring Elizabeth, a pistol drawn and hovering at the man’s hip, trained on David’s midsection. Something was wrong.

Elizabeth had reached the man now. He kept his eyes on David but used his free hand to grab Elizabeth by the arm, growling something from the corner of his mouth. He pulled her behind him, his face contorted in a hateful grimace. She turned her head as she was forced behind him, the joy gone from her face, saying something, her brows puckering together, a placating gesture pointed at David. The man ignored her and gave her a shove backward as he kept up his march toward David, who was still standing in the place where he had stopped, too paralyzed by the shifting of the world to move.

Elizabeth’s arms came out from behind the lumbering guard, over the shoulders of his tattered, navy-blue pea coat. She tried to pull him back, to turn him around; David could see that, his eyes functioning where his ears had malfunctioned. She was yelling now, her mouth opened wide, baring ivory teeth, the red hues of her throat the only point of color in the pre-dawn gray. David was underwater; sound was lost to him, he couldn’t move, and everything seemed to happen so slowly. He had time to put his arms out in front of him when the man came within a few feet of him.

“No! I told you, he’s with me! He helped
me! I need to take him to the mayor, it’s important! What are you—“ Elizabeth’s voice came piercing through the fog as the man raised his pistol above his head. David cringed and lifted his arms higher but it was too late. Now that he knew what was happening it could not be stopped. This was it; he had made it, but he would go no further. The guard’s arm came crashing down on the crown of David’s head and the world went black.