Circles in the Dust (27 page)

He snuck around the building and caught sight of a shape that rose high above the others and zigzagged toward it, hoping the guards were busy watching outside the Base, with no eyes turned inward. Just as he was at the last building before the main house, he stopped and caught a glimpse of something moving by the door. They must have guards there, he realized, because that must be where just about everyone sleeps. He watched for a moment as the blur paced back and forth, barring David’s way. He cursed and thought about going back. He even turned and faced the wall and saw that the guards were returning to their posts. He could face the guards on the wall or the one by the door.

He scrambled around in the dirt and sparse grass for a rock, checked to make sure his revolver was still tucked into his pants, and turned to face the farmhouse.

chapter 35

The rock crashed against the wood of a shack on the far side of the guard, sending a hollow echo through the air. He turned his head that direction. A second rock went thudding into the dirt on the far side of the shack. That made the guard turn his whole body. Raising his rifle to a ready position, he took a few steps toward the noise. That was all the time David needed to be around the back of the building, cutting through the night, a wraith shrouded in the welcome shadows of a moonless night.

             
He poked his head back around the side of the long farmhouse to take stock of the guard. He waited for what felt like hours for the man to return to his post at the door. A string of unintelligible curses tumbled from his mouth and he shook his head. His rifle sagged once more to his side, the butt planted in the dirt, the man leaned back against the wall of the farmhouse. Once he was sure the guard was there to stay, David crept to the back of the building.

             
The front doors of the farmhouse faced the main gate, which was on the south wall. Most of the buildings in the compound were in front of the main house, so the sentries on the wall were the only threat David had to worry about. He was sure that his wool coat and dusty pants would blend right in with the shadowy backdrop, but he stooped to grab some dirt off the ground and rub into the pale skin of his hands and face anyway. It would not do to be shot down now. And he would hate for the man with the finger on the trigger to feel the guilt of having doomed them all. That poor man. David had to help him out by staying out of sight.

             
He rose, flexing his hands as they cramped and stung from their reluctant contact with the near-frozen soil. He breathed what life he could back into them, as quietly as he could. They just grew damp and he gave it up.

             
The back wall of the house was dotted with windows, most of them on the first floor, a handful on the second.               The one David needed to reach was on that floor, and he wondered how he was going to make it up that far. There were vines creeping up the side of the house, but they were brittle when David grabbed them, long dead but preserved in the embrace of the endless winter. Like so many of us, he thought as he looked companionably at the lifeless plant in his palm.

             
He crept past one window, two, thinking the window he needed must be on the far side of the house. He crawled under the windows that were open and those with lights peeking through, on his hands and knees, once again feeling the warmth in his flesh drain out into the hungry earth. He was just rising to his feet when he heard a voice. Someone was whispering, though loud enough to slice through the still air. The words drifted from the next window. He put his back to the wall and leaned in to listen.

             
“—I swear I had more than one! Dammit, what good is that gonna do anyone?”

             
“Are you sure you checked the extra one under the mattress?”

             
“Of course I checked the extra. Empty. I can’t believe I’m down to one. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother going with them tomorrow. I’ll be useless.”

             
“But you have to go, dear. You heard what they said, they need every man. It’s life or death, Toby.”

             
“I know, I know. I’ll have to see if I can borrow an ax or something. At least god knows they must have less ammo than us.”

             
The shutters banged closed and David jumped. What did they need ammo for so badly? David wondered if they were training, fearing the Outliers might attack any day. They must be really worried, David thought, if they had already assigned more men to guard the wall at night, and now they were recruiting more.

             
He held his position until the light went out in that room and then got down on his belly to scrabble along the wall. The leg of his pants tore and he swore silently (though nearly aloud; these were his only pair). The skin of his knee kissed the ground now with every inch, and he promised it he would warm it when they were back at camp and safe. Satisfied, his knee carried him along until he was under the window that was a gateway to the girl he needed to see.

             
To rendezvous. Nothing more.

             
He said a prayer to whatever gods may be out there as he hoisted himself up onto the nearest windowsill. It was only a few inches wide, so thin he could not fit the full length of his fingers on the wood without pushing the shutters open. He thought about giving them a little tap, a little push, just to see if they would open inward, but decided he couldn’t risk it. What if it squeaked and someone awoke and threw open the shutters to see this filthy stranger (though they might recognize him from one of his gracious introductions) perched on their window, dirty-faced, clothes torn, blood dripping from one knee, the handle of a gun peeking out over the top of his waistband.

             
Wouldn’t that be a lovely sight?

             
No, he had to just be careful. He stood on the tips of his toes, balancing precariously on the grainy wood of the window. He was glad this was an old house; there was something to stand on, rather than a more modern window that would have been flush with the wall. He reached up and nearly fell; grabbed for the window above and missed. His arms swung about wildly as he searched for something to grab. His fingers curled under a piece of siding, which snapped off easily and he nearly fell.

             
Panic swarmed his mind as his arms twirled like twin windmills and he waited for someone who just heard the sharp crack of the board to throw open a window and see him. Maybe they would have a gun and he would be dead before he hit the ground. At least that way he wouldn’t have to suffer. They couldn’t take him and throw him back down in the basement dungeon. Maybe he would finally see all his old friends and family. His mother would call to him, beckoning him to her at the pearly gates. His brothers would be smiling, and there would be no end to the food he could enjoy all day long. Maybe he would get lucky and Elizabeth would come join him, and then he would have everything he needed.

             
But that would mean she would be dead too, and David broke from his reverie in disgust and slapped his hands against the building. He screwed his eyes shut as the sound reverberated through the silence of the night. Knowing he had to act quickly, he jumped up to grab onto the desired windowsill. Iron fingers clamping onto the wood, legs curled back so they wouldn’t hit the house, he swayed back and forth a few times, listening for any sound that someone had heard him. There was a guard out front, after all, though he hadn’t even gone to see what had made the noise he heard when David threw those rocks. He had just taken a few steps and come back, shaking his head. He was a villain’s favorite kind of guard.

             
David pulled himself up so his chin rested on the ledge in his claws. The muscles in his chest and arms screamed out, but he ignored them. One of the fingers on his right hand inched forward, every inch a mile, every mile a tremendous effort. His yellow fingernails connected with the shutter, and he realized with a pang of irony that he hoped they opened inward. He gave it a push, a microscopic shove. It did not budge. He gritted his teeth and slid his hand up farther, refusing to give up. Nothing.

             
He tapped the chipped wood with his nails, wondering what to do now. He looked down and saw the ground was a solid fall below, aware that his knee was skinned and bruised from the rocks growing out of the dirt. It would have been throbbing if not numb from cold, and he worried what would happen if he let himself fall. He would have to, and try to get in the front door. That was the only way. His hands were cramping and he could not stay like this forever. He slid his left hand closer to the edge as he prepared to drop.

             
His breath caught in his throat as the shutter exploded open above him. He stifled a shout as the pane scraped the top of the fingers on his left hand. Any closer and they might have been broken. He looked up and could see the outline of a face poke out into the night. Elizabeth’s face pulled back inside as some other noise sounded from within the house, though this one sounded more like a full-sized door slamming against a wall. At least he had the right window. He could feel a warm trickle crawling over his fingers, bloody from the shutter scraping his skin as well as the sharp ledge he hung from biting into his fingers as they supported his weight. He did his best to block out the pain and focused his attention on whatever was happening inside the room.

             
Elizabeth was shouting then a man’s bass growled back. They went back and forth like this a few times, David unable to catch more than a handful of words as they were thrown in a hushed tone, not enough to carry out into the night. The words that escaped were fragmented and unhelpful. He waited in agony, wishing they would hurry their bickering along.

             
There was a decisive grunt and the door inside slammed once more. David heard laughter and pulled himself up, reluctant as his muscles were. The room was lit with a handful of candles, crude cones of wax, the room aglow with the warm light spilling onto his face as his head cleared the windowsill. Elizabeth was sitting on her bed, head in her hands. She was not laughing but sobbing. David wanted to comfort her, wanted to reach out a hand and wipe the tears away that were falling down her soft cheek. He rested his chin on the wood in front of him, saw his crimson hands, and pulled himself up.

             
At least it felt for a moment like he was pulling himself up, though his muscles could do nothing but hold him there like a fly stuck to the wall.

             
“Help,” he whispered. She did not hear him, and went on wetting the palms of her hands with her pitiful sobs.

             
“Help,” he repeated, a little louder. He did not know if there was anyone on the other side of the door, or hidden somewhere in the room, but it didn’t matter. Either she would hear him and pull him the rest of the way through the window, or he would fall and go limping back to the Outliers, worse off than when he had set off.

             
She brushed the back of her hand across her cheeks and opened her face back up to the world. She glanced around the room to the window, on him, then past him to the far side of the room. David was preparing to scream at her. He knew he was dirty but how could she be so blind as to miss a face in her window? Just then she whipped back around to meet his eye, and screamed herself, a short yelp.

             
“What are you doing here?” she asked, still seated on the bed. Apparently the pain on David’s face was not obvious enough.

             
“Help,” he grunted once more.

             
She sprang up from her bed and grabbed his hands. Pain seared his skin as she grasped him and he nearly dropped, but he winced through it, took the help she was offering and threw a hand into the room, grasping blindly at the wall, while she tried feebly to hoist him in by the arm. He was so close, so close now, but she wasn’t strong enough, and he was going to fall. His hand slipped along the smooth wall, grabbing only paint chips and smearing blood.  He tried to throw his leg over the edge and it slipped off but she caught it and dragged him into the room, where they collapsed in a heap together on the floor.

             
David was panting, his muscles pinching and contracting, hurting worse than they had while he hung. He kissed the floorboards worn smooth from countless feet over years pacing over them and waited for his breathing to return to normal. Elizabeth scurried out from under him and regained her place on the bed, wide-eyed and silent. Her own breathing was labored and he could see dark swaths streaking her arms, and he felt very guilty. How pitiful he must look and how strange his appearance must seem, he realized. When they had met in the woods, he had surprised her as she flitted through the trees, a shadow ambushing a shadow, but now that it was his turn, he flopped onto her floor in a bloody mess.

             
It didn’t seem quite fair.

             
He sat up and brushed his hair out of his face, fingers sticking to the rogue locks. Elizabeth jumped up and grabbed a rag from the top of a dresser next to him and dipped it in a pot of water. She approached his ugly form and wiped his face and hands clean. He refused to look into her eyes, embarrassed and unsure why he had even come. He wanted to know what she had found out, but would sneaking into the Base when attempting such had ended with so many deaths not seem unnecessary? It dawned on him, now that he had ravaged his body breaking in, that the people of the Base should recognize him and would probably have let him come in if he had asked nicely. Oh well.

             
“What are you doing here?” she asked again as they sat there on the floor, soiled rag in her lap, legs tucked underneath her body. She wore a forest-green skirt that revealed the first few inches of her milky thighs. He blushed and looked into her eyes instead, her emerald eyes that cut right through him, and settled on her mouth. He could at least focus on what she was saying if he kept his eyes there.