Circles in the Dust (2 page)

“Where are you goin’?”

“If you won’t take us somewhere else, I’ll at least head to the basement. They always say when something happens, basements are the safest place,” his mother said with a forced calm. Her hands betrayed her. She dropped a can and jumped at the sound of it striking the linoleum. She raised a trembling finger to wipe a last tear from the corner of her eye.

“In a tornado maybe.”

“You’re welcome to stay here.”

“Darlin’, this is the end. This is it. Hiding in the basement isn’t gonna save you from a nuc-”

“Shut up!” his mother snapped, slamming another innocent can onto the countertop with a sharp smack. David’s father jumped at the shrillness in her voice. He sloshed a little booze onto his front though he didn’t seem to notice. He eyed her with a surprised and wary expression.

“Boys, go pack a bag,” she said, without looking up from the second bag her unsure hands worked to fill. After a few seconds with no response, she shot them a fiery glance. “Now!” she barked.

Mark jumped up off the couch and darted off. David followed Ben into their shared room. He saw Ben dump the contents of his backpack on the floor and followed suit, replacing his books with the clothes piled on the floor. Ben kept his eyes hidden as he stuffed a pair of jeans into his bag. David watched him though as he absently packed his own clothes. He thought he could see a glimmer of moisture on his brother’s cheek but couldn’t be sure. David wished he knew enough about the situation to shed tears, but he was still having a hard time grasping what the explosions outside their window meant and why he was packing a bag. He just wanted to watch what was happening out the window.

More shouting from the kitchen punctured the silence of the room and the two boys ramped up their pace. Ben dropped the jeans in his hands and scrambled to pick them up. David stuffed more underwear and socks into the top of his backpack and reached for the book he was reading, wondering if he should take it. There might not be anything to do in the basement after all.

It was not long before they’d all assembled back in the living room. David and Ben had their backpacks, Mark toted a duffle bag stretched to capacity. Their mother was out of sight when they re-entered the main room, but a rustling drifted out of her room and they waited in silence for their mother to finish packing. Their father had returned to his armchair, which he had pulled over to face the window, the empty bottle hanging from his fingers. David wanted to ask why his dad wasn’t getting ready, why he was just sitting there, but his mouth was so dry all he could do was cough and lick his lips. Not a word passed between any of them until their mother finally emerged from her room with a large purse stuffed to the brim and a monstrous rolling suitcase. She looked at the chair tucked against the far wall, a yearning in her eyes, some words on her fluttering lips. She only looked, and their father never saw, just sat and watched the events unfolding outside the window. She waited a long moment before she turned and put her hand on the front doorknob.

“Boys, grab those bags from the kitchen,” she commanded.

They filed in to acquiesce, each taking in their hands one of the bags stuffed with all the food in their kitchen. Mark grabbed two, having slung his duffle bag over one shoulder. They stood in a huddle by the front door for what felt like hours; not a single word was uttered. David trained his eyes on the back of the head poking over the back of the armchair. The brown hair was disheveled in places by the drunken hand that had a habit of running through the muddy locks. He watched, waiting for the moment when his father would stand up and laugh, walk into his room and grab his things like the rest of the family and lead them out the door. No one spoke. David pulled his eyes away from the dismal corner of the room and turned to the rest of his family. They all had their eyes trained on the man frozen in his easy chair, gazing out the window at the apocalyptic scene like an insomniac watching a late-night infomercial. One by one they rose from their stupor and shuffled their feet, eyes wandering, ready to leave.

His mother opened the door and motioned for her children to file out in front of her. They shambled out into the hallway and David heard his mother saying something quietly to his father. A short, gruff reply wafted out before the tiny click as the door closed. David’s mother turned to her boys, bearing a fresh stream of tears and cleared her throat.

“All right, let’s go,” she trilled with a weak smile, her voice cracking.

They made their way to the stairs that led down to the first floor and then to the basement. Others appeared and moved through the halls, some running up to their homes, others gliding listlessly through the hallway, a few in their pajamas; eyes dull, faces expressionless. They drifted like ghosts, and David wondered why they were out at all if they had no direction. A few shared their path toward the basement, looking like David’s family, backs laden with a few belongings, arms full of the same. Some carried nothing but food. A boy in front of David had a stuffed bear and a small gaming console. He was younger than David, and his parents were too distraught to have noticed what their child had in his hands.

They hurried down the hall, past the specters and down the stairs spiraling into the belly of the building. They’d reached the main floor and were headed to the last staircase when an enormous flash blinded David. He stopped in his tracks before a rush of wind and a bang that left nothing but a ringing in his ears assailed him and threw him into a doorway set in from the wall. He looked around as the air filled with smoke and dust. He couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him, the far wall a blur of green and gold wallpaper, shrouded by the polluted air and the spots on his vision from the bright light. He rubbed his burning eyes and stumbled back into the hallway, his ears ringing, and saw his family crumpled on the ground.

Mark stirred a little, rising up on his hands, but Ben lay motionless, a board across his back. David looked behind and his stomach sank as he saw his mother lying face down, her hair stained with streaks of crimson. He dove to her side, kneeling in debris that poked his knees through his jeans. He held out a shaky hand to his mother’s head, reaching for the bloody clump of hair. Time stood still for a moment. His eyes could barely focus on her, his vision distorted by the flash, ears unable to pick up any sound as they throbbed. He could not even breath without choking on the soiled air.

              He came to as his fingers met her skin, cold and clammy, slick with blood. He poked her injured head with a few fingers then let them slide down her face, smearing her life’s blood down her cheek. He grabbed her shoulders with both hands and shook her. His vision slowly returned and he heard someone screaming, screaming at his mother to get up. It was his own voice. He had not even realized he was making a sound. His cries left his head spinning and his lungs gasping for air; he sucked in only to choke and ended up lying next to his mother in a coughing fit. He hacked and gasped until a shadow came to rest upon him, a dark silhouette his eyes took too long to recognize as Mark. Strong hands clasped around his arms and suddenly he was upright. Mark’s face appeared inches from David’s, his jaw jumping up and down. Hot breath struck David’s chilled cheeks as Mark shouted something, but the words came to him from a great distance and meant nothing. He squinted, trying to decipher the message. Mark’s hands returned to David’s arms and shoved him forward, down the hall in the direction they had been heading before the blast. The hallway was buried under a mess of rubble; the paper was stripped off the wall. Ben was now on his back, the board a few feet from him. His shirt hung torn and his head lolled against a light fixture that had been knocked from the ceiling. Statuesque again, he did not move. He had been just behind their mother.

             
David stumbled as strong arms pushed him again farther down the hallway, the last few feet to the main door. Shards of glass glittered in the entryway, starkly beautiful against the wreckage. The metal frame that had encased the glass lay twisted among the shattered doors, a jagged hole all that remained of the once pristine entrance. David walked slowly over the glass, feeling it crunch beneath his tennis shoes. He walked out onto the cracked sidewalk and looked back inside. Mark was limping behind him with his two bags of food back in his fists, salvaged while David had been admiring the terrible glory of the wreckage. David’s was still inside, though the weight on his back told him he still had his backpack.

Positioned just outside the door, he stood and watched Mark struggle. He wanted to help him but could not control his body. Everything seemed unreal. The air shimmered like a dream, and like in a dream, he had no conscious control over anything that happened. He knew he wanted to move, to go back into the crumbling building and pull his bloody brother out, pull his mother out, but his thoughts and his muscles were no longer on speaking terms. A statue himself now, he merely watched as Mark made his way over the glass. He tripped on a twisted frame that had once held an old photograph of the river the town was built around and fell to the ground. David stood motionless as something fell on his own head, like rain but dry and light. He held out his hand and watched as little black and brown pieces of his home bounced off his sweaty palm. His head turned up and he saw explosions dotting the building, which was now pockmarked with holes like a bit of the smelly cheese his dad liked.

              His dad.

             
His father still sat in his armchair up there somewhere, probably enjoying the spectacle now that it was in 3-D surround sound. He scanned the front wall, looking for the window that marked their apartment but couldn’t pick it out. He backed up slowly into the street for a better look. A massive crack and a screeching groan broke through his impaired hearing, waking him up from his dream. He blinked and shook his head, still backing up toward the far side of the street. He could hear the screams now, coming from every direction. The loudest and most unsettling came from the building in front of him. A woman screeched something about a baby, a man shouted David’s name. David heard this and his gaze snapped back to his brother, lying bloody and bruised in the ruined foyer of the apartment building. He was telling David to do something, stabbing the air with his finger, pointing away from the building. Why wasn’t he getting up?

David took a step toward the building. Mark’s face contorted into a knot of anger and his screaming doubled, now waving for David to stop. The opening through which he could see Mark began to shrink, closing like a garage door, smaller with every second. David trotted backward, his arms raised as he realized the building was coming down. Shingles and glass poured down around him. A piece of siding bounced off the sidewalk and knocked him off his feet. He raised himself up on his elbows and watched his family swallowed up by the beast he had called home. The tower collapsed sideways, taking David’s entire world down with it.

The next thing David knew he was running, dashing through the streets, Armageddon all around him. A gunshot popped every now and then, glass spilled out into the street, babies cried, men shouted at each other. Thrashing bodies clogged the streets, fleeing from the wanton destruction all around. A woman bolted from a building and collided with David, sending him skidding across the pavement. She didn’t look back but kept on running, blending into the mob like a salty drop in a stormy sea.

He got up and wiped his bloody hands on his pants, resuming his exodus from the city. He ran down a street that he knew, the wide road that led from his apartment to the strip of stores his family frequented. He sprinted down the sidewalk, his backpack flailing around on his back as if it wanted nothing more than to be free of him. He ignored it as he ran. He heard the screech of tires as a car lunged out of a garage up ahead. The headlights lit up the night; lit up the face of a man running across the street. David watched with wide eyes as the man threw his arms up in the air, leaned back as he tried to slow his feet or turn away, but the car was going too fast. David saw the terror in his face in the moment before the car struck him, sending the limp figure tumbling over the hood and off to the side.

David had his eyes trained on the man as he ran by. There was no movement from the pile of bloody clothes in the street. Another vehicle came barreling down the road and hit the man, dead now if he was not already. There was a sickening crunch and a jarring bump as the minivan hopped over his lifeless form. David moved into the grass next to the sidewalk and ran faster.

He knew only that he had to keep going toward the trees in the distance. He had no one to lead him, guide him, protect him. Explosions shattered buildings to either side of him, digging craters in the street, sending cars careening into the air only to come crashing upside-down before the already terrified boy. Pandemonium reigned in the streets of the once sleepy city. It couldn’t be much farther to the edge of town; it felt like he had been running for hours. Just when his legs began to flag and he thought about stopping to rest, having lost the mob briefly as he made his way through a grocery store parking lot, he skipped over the sidewalk and clambered over a short fence, stopped short by what lay in front of him.

Nothing.

The end of his world lay before him, empty land covered in long grass stretching out to the trees like the back of some hairy behemoth. He had seen the trees that stood as the barrier between him and the rest of the world and dreamed of the adventures he would have once the chance to enter that mysterious unknown finally came, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Darkness loomed before him like a host of dark spirits beckoning him to come into their hostile world. Dread filled him and he wanted to turn around, but he couldn’t go back to the city. Behind him the buildings burned, flames lapping at the sky. Cries of death and despair wafted to him on the unnaturally warm night air, and he watched the distressed creatures of the city crawl from the rubble like ants from a burning log.