Circles in the Dust (10 page)

Her face floated in front of his. He could only half focus on the branches and bushes in front of him. Had she looked at him, what, expectantly? Her eyes had been open wide, but that could have been fear. She had been peering at him through her thick lashes, even though he was holding her above him, her cheeks rosy, golden hair partially covering her face, falling down onto his. No, that was ridiculous. She had just been scared, and he had caught her. It would have been no different if she had been a man. Though maybe then he wouldn’t have caught her hips, and he didn’t think he would have felt the rush of blood that made his pants suddenly so much tighter and left him breathless. He wanted to look back, wanted to try and read something of her thoughts from her face, but couldn’t. He leaned to one side in an attempt to catch a glimpse and snapped back into place, suddenly embarrassed. This was no time for that.

He was shaking his head, chastising himself, when he walked headfirst into the trunk of a tree with a resounding
thunk
as his cranium rebounded off the rough bark. His head cleared for the moment and he was glad, until he heard her laugh. She  glanced over his shoulder as she cackled, and he couldn’t help but crack a smirk at himself. Her laugh bubbled and rolled over his ears, though he told himself not to enjoy it. He tried to be angry, to flush away his discomfort with that overwhelming emotion, but his flesh still burned with a different passion and he looked back at her giggling at his expense, and could only smile.

chapter 11

Having returned to the depths of the coniferous ocean, David and Elizabeth found a spot to camp in a small clearing next to a gurgling stream. They made their beds on the soft, billowy grass that carpeted the ground; hers comprised of a patched sleeping bag, David’s beloved blankets making up his. David looked at the contrast and sighed; he still didn’t know what he was walking into. Well, he had a fair idea what he might have to pass through to get to the base; tattered blankets, ratty clothes and smelly, vicious people. There were sure to be camping coolers galore, maybe even a few old cars that some ambitious survivors had gutted and transformed into a new type of mobile home, one that forsook even horsepower for manpower. Guns would be toted and flaunted, though there were sure to be few if any bullets; arms were strictly for show at this point. Tubers and wild onions or whatever edibles could be found would be roasting over fires, hungry faces engrossed by their simmering flesh.

              David hoped he could fit in with these people; these were the people he knew. His plan, and ultimately his life, depended on it. They would be the more familiar, but that didn’t mean much. He wasn’t expecting to find any friends there. He knew these survivors wouldn’t be like him. They were the ones that had formed tribes and packs when civilization had crumbled. They were in a new dark age with no end in sight.

             
But that was the whole problem. Now they had seen a light. They had found an end to their aimless wandering. They had found the Base, their lifeline, and they would sooner die than leave it.

             
David’s job was to make them give that up.

             
He sat on his freshly assembled sleeping quarters, looking over at Elizabeth as she rifled through her voluminous duffle bag. He watched her face shrink into a tight expression of focus and wondered who she really was. They hadn’t talked very much since she’d had found him by the river the day before. He needed to learn more about her, hopefully get a glimpse into the outpost of humanity he was headed toward. That society may love him and his scheme or may want to kill him out of a well-developed sense of self-preservation. He would have to find out the hard way.

             
They exchanged only a few words as they made their camp for the night; David heading to the stream for water after setting up his tarp over an A-frame of solid fallen branches he’d lashed together. He headed off without a second thought, amused as he became aware of this habit for the first time. At least this time he actually needed water. Elizabeth was eager to get a fire going and was collecting the driest wood she could find when he left her. He made his way through the damp brush, barely noticing as more water collected on his damp clothing, which consisted of his thick raincoat, a muddy brown color, and some heavy-duty work pants that had lain dormant in his pile of treasure back home, tossed away because they were for meant for someone much larger. At least they were free of holes. The trees around him were dark in the fading light, the shadows cutting jagged lines down the length of trunks and the blanket of needles. Thousands of the golden daggers glinted in the twilight, their dagger points reaching up to grasp feebly at his worn hiking boots. It would be dark soon but had lightened up after the rain had stopped. David was enjoying the brisk evening air, reveling in the comfort he felt when he was surrounded on all sides by trees.

             
The smell of the brook drifted to him, a thick, clear scent that sent him back to the morning before when he lay down to die by the river. He froze in his tracks as he felt the crushing depression that had gripped him so recently return with a devastating swiftness. Pain lanced through his chest, constricting his heart and making him wish for the end all over again. Everything was useless, nothing would ever change. This girl would lead him to his death. What could he possibly hope to accomplish? Why even bother? If he wasn’t hanged by the people of the Base for fear he was a spy, he would be dismembered and strung up over a fire by the barbarians he was going to face and try to turn away from their last hope. The stream was only a few steps farther. The bank would be rough, but he wouldn’t notice, not for long. The water was sure to be freezing, cold enough to numb his body, and his spirit soon after. At least he would have finally gotten out of his valley.

             
He made it to the water and looked down to see his face, distorted slightly by the running water. The image was clear enough that he could see his sunken eyes and the skin pulled tight over his once fleshy cheeks. He looked like death already.

But there were people waiting for him. The thought sent a chill down his spine and a warmth blossomed in his stomach, spreading to his fingertips, bringing an unconscious grin to his face. He had just found the last people on Earth, and that at least was worth a few more days of anxiety. Even if they wanted him dead, they were there to want it. His hands shook as he lowered his vessel into the icy water, sending little ripples traveling downstream, the wan moonlight glinting off their bumps and ridges as they moved away. His mind was fragile. He needed to keep it together. He needed a distraction.

              He returned to the clearing to find Elizabeth blowing on a family of newborn flames, coaxing them out from under the square structure she had erected with the twigs and sticks she had gathered, a few of which still sat in a jumbled heap next to her. She had one hand on the ground and one holding back her hair. The feeble light of the young fire glinted off her hair, catching here and there before rippling back in a wildfire that cascaded over her head. David stared at her as he walked up with his small pot full of water, stepping carefully to avoid wasting any of the precious liquid.

             
“How are you so good at that?” he asked.

             
“I hate the cold,” she responded, not lifting her eyes to look at him. David was beginning to notice that she was hesitant to give him any real answers, when she responded to his queries at all. That was about to end. This could be his distraction.

             
“You hate to be cold,” he repeated. “I had no idea.”

             
“What?” She didn’t look up from the fire.

             
“I’m just saying I don’t know much about you.  I’m coming to risk my life, to try and save your ‘Base,’ and I don’t really know anything about it,” he said, leaning over more and more in an attempt to force her to look at him. It didn’t work, even when his face grazed the dirt.

             
“Hey, I already saved your life,” she reminded him, still engrossed in her work. “You haven’t quite paid that debt off yet.”

             
“I took you home and fed you,” he said. “And we still haven’t gotten to know each other. At all. We need each other. There’s no need to be strangers.” She continued to coax the flames out into the open, leaving David waiting for a response.

             
“You need me more than I need you,” she told him as she became confident that her creation would survive on its own and rose to her feet, letting her hair fall down her back and brushing the dirt off her knees. It struck David that she was nearly as tall as he was. She wore a slim raincoat over a dark t-shirt. No wonder she was cold. She put her hands on her hips as she studied him, watching her words sink in.

             
“I made it this far on my own,” he mumbled, trying to disguise the embarrassment he had brought on himself, looking away. “But anyway,” he went on, setting his pan over the fire to boil, “I was just thinking it couldn’t hurt to get to know each other a little before we get to the Base. Don’t you want to make sure I’m not some kind of spy?” he asked. He forced a sly grin to his face. Her face remained stony.

             
“You’re not a spy,” she said, so softly that David could barely hear.  “That wasn’t acting out there by the river.”

             
Everything he thought he knew about himself had been turned on its head. He looked back at this girl, Elizabeth, his naïve savior fresh from the community that would have been an impossible dream a couple of days ago, and realized that she knew nothing about him. She knew only this new David, this scrawny, weak David. She had not seen the wild man who had grown up without his family, without school or anyone but an old man and a sense of self-preservation to carry him through this new world. She had not seen the iron-hard individual who had killed men when food was short, who had fought tooth and nail to hold his place in the world. She had only seen the David that had given up after living a full life of pain and suffering. That David had been so happy to see another human being he had giggled. Literally giggled.

             
This David, this new version of himself, was a revelation. He didn’t know himself anymore. That day by the river was a turning point. Why not use this to his advantage? He was a blank slate, he could be anyone. No one had to know who he had been. This could be David, part two. He knew a few things about this new self so far: he wasn’t going to die, he was going to find the Base and make a new life for himself there. He was not interested in the precarious existence he had led before; he wanted a stable life. And he needed someone to help him achieve these goals, a ticket in.

             
His eyes rose to his ticket and he tried to suppress a smile as they reached her face. “Well, I am a professional,” he continued. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ll be pardoned once we’ve taken over.”

             
“Gee, thanks,” she said with a dismissive smile.

             
“You are a valuable accomplice,” he went on. “You could be my partner, if you wanted.”

             
“Sounds lovely. We could take over this rotten world.” A  short burst of laughter escaped her lips as she knelt on her bedroll and held her hands up to the flames.

             
“We certainly could. King and queen of a fallen kingdom,” he said. “But, I’ll have to know a little more about you before I grant you power like that, of course.”

             
“But of course,” she responded with mock seriousness. “What exactly would you like to know, my liege?”

             
He had to think for a moment. It dawned on him that interrogations worked better when one had a more precise objective than simply ‘gain information.’ What could he ask her about? She’d been so vague before, he knew he’d have to start with a light topic, something easy.

             
“How old are you?”

             
“Old enough,” she replied. “Not that age means much anymore. How old are you?”

             
If this was how the questioning was going to go, they were going to be up all night, he thought. “I don’t know,” he replied. 

             
“Really? You haven’t kept track of the years?” she responded, seeming amazed.

             
“I had more important things to worry about,” he shot back, reminded again of her sheltered nature. “How old are you really, since you obviously must know what the date is?”

             
“Twenty.”

             
He was surprised by her age. She looked like she was at least as old as he was. Could he be that young?

             
“You’re young.”

             
“Not that young.” She seemed stung by his words. “Old enough to come out here on my own and find you.”

             
He chuckled a little at her indignation but made no comment on it. “So what do you do at the Base?”

             
“I told you, it’s kind of like a big farm—”

             
“No, I mean what do you do there?”

             
“Oh.” She paused. “I do this and that. We don’t all have set jobs. I help with the laundry, pull weeds, cook…” she trailed off, her head cocked to one side.

             
“Such fitting work for a brave adventurer.” He tried not to smirk.

             
She threw a nasty look his direction, then laughed. “Very funny. I help the mayor a lot, running errands, sending messages and all that too.”

             
She seemed to be warming up to him, so David thought he’d turn up the heat.

             
“Do you have a family back at the Base?”

             
“I have my father, yeah,” she responded. He was glad to see she didn’t look disturbed by the question. “And a girl I share a room with, Ann. We’re not related, but she’s like a little sister. We share what used to be the master bedroom in the farmhouse.”

             
“The master bedroom, eh?” Fancy.

             
“Believe me, it’s seen better days,” she said. “Though it’s no hand-built cabin.”

             
Now it was David’s turn to scowl good-naturedly. “Hey, my cabin is all master bedroom.” She smiled her agreement.