Circles in the Dust Read online

  “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. Explosi
ons 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.

  This must be a dream, he thought. He sat and watched, torn between returning to the chaos and carnage mankind had descended into and disappearing into the eerie arms of nature. As he debated, a gray blur cut through the night, collided with the corner of a house and sprayed fiery rubble just feet from his dirty shoes. The heat of the blast crawled over his skin and he turned to the woods, fleeing in fear.

  He ran with a newfound energy, ran toward what he hoped was a tower rising from the sea of trees, where he might find some people who would know what to do, some traffic controllers or something. He lost sight of it now and again behind the black arms reaching overhead, but the mammoth spire always reappeared above the green ceiling; a beacon of hope. David ran toward it all night, tripping over brambles and fallen trees, stopping for nothing until it rose up before him. It wasn’t a tower, but an enormous tree. He collapsed against its trunk, staring up into the boughs reaching out to keep the others at bay. Bark scratched at his face and arms, though he felt only agony in his young muscles. The sounds of destruction had long since faded away in the distance. The sun was poking its curious head over the horizon behind a haze forming in the sky when David slipped into a fitful sleep, dragged down by pure exhaustion.

  Behind him the world burned.

  CHAPTER 1

  Winter and summer. Cold, less cold. Spring and fall were luxuries of the past. The scale had been tipped to one side, heat and sunshine lost as the world adopted a new face; a cold, rigid visage. The clouds hovered above year-round, letting only the slimmest fingers of sunlight pierce them, just long enough to give the last vestiges of humanity a little hope, a tenuous dream, only to choke off the light and leave them once more in the stifling dark of their past transgressions.

  David mulled over this as he sat, hunkered down under the remains of a fallen tree, combing through his short beard with calloused fingers. Waiting.

  A chill hung in the air over a sodden forest floor. Winter loomed on the horizon, edging out the little sun there was as it shortened the days in preparation for its arrival. Drizzling rain weighed heavily on the arms of ancient pines and blanketed the countryside with a moist sheen. The trees swayed slowly in the wind that was just beginning to carry the sharpness that signaled the approach of yet another winter. Not that winter would change the landscape too much; snow and ice would replace rain and fog. The ubiquitous cold would simply deepen. The air reeked of snow, an odor that taunted with its devilish sweetness. The sky glowered overhead, its gray demeanor seeping into everything, casting a dull pallor over the Earth. The ground was moist but firm, the rain not yet having soaked in, and was covered in the undergrowth that had survived the ravages of mankind. Small bushes and patches of grass poked out of the soil, reaching for the slowly returning sun, a young generation rising from the ashes of man’s dominion. It was all in vain; the small nourishment they found from above would wither soon. The living trees were scarce but hardy; many had fallen, more had died where they stood. Lifeless husks of the vast life they had once contained, the forest itself was a vast cemetery of the old world.

  From his hiding place near the top of a grassy rise, David looked around him at the familiar valley, breathing in the earthy aroma of the rain. His vision flicked to a slight disturbance in the undergrowth. His restless fingers untangled themselves from his knotted facial hair. He had to be quiet now. Blurred movement against the shrubs and undergrowth, a quick flash of mottled brown, then nothing. Only the repetitive movement of its jaw betrayed its presence. It was close, a decent bowshot away. He nocked an arrow and pulled back the string, causing the bow to creak, a sound too loud in the morning stillness. The rabbit’s jaw froze, ears erect, a statue. David breathed out slowly and let his fingers relax. The arrow took flight, whipping through the air before colliding with that spot of life and pinning it to the ground. He let out a grunt of satisfaction, a little one. Walking over to the rabbit, he allowed his triumph to wash over him like ocean waves over a weathered rock. Animals of any kind were rare, and getting close to them was not easy.

  When he reached the rabbit, he knelt down and pulled the arrow from its neck. A slim line of blood flowed from the wound, stark crimson against the creature’s creamy coat. The arrow slid through flesh and fur, David’s hands guiding it carefully to avoid breaking the shaft. He always took the utmost care of his equipment; when one scraped a living from a barren environment, precious few things could be spared. He was one of those who made a living on the outskirts of the world, where everyone rode a fine line between life and death, having enough and starving, surviving and suffering. Today he would survive, and he gave silent thanks to the rabbit for making sure of that. He grabbed his prize by the ears, slung his bow on his back and melted back into the dreary woods.

  As he walked, he resumed his survey of the surrounding trees and the ground beneath his feet. When he was young, he remembered living in a city, dreaming of entering the woods. That made him laugh now. He would give anything for a home in a city, a little house with a fireplace and a refrigerator. Maybe someone else to keep him company. He lived a lonely life. Not that he could complain too much—he did like being alone, relying on no one but himself, knowing that he was capable of sustaining his own life without needing help from anyone else. Not that he had much of a choice.

  He hadn’t even seen another human being since the end of the last winter, when the snow had begun to melt. This year? Last year? It was hard to remember. The last person he remembered seeing was Mitch. His fellow survivor had crossed David’s path on his way to the city. Mitch had tried to get David to come along, but he wanted no part of that. They had picked the city clean long ago, and no one who stayed there ever lived long. The thought of going to the city had given David a bellyful of butterflies, sent a chill down his spine even now. And Mitch was planning to go alone. He almost felt bad, forcing Mitch to go into the city alone, but David had been following what he had hoped were a few deer, and had little motivation to risk his life that day. Mitch understood; they were the closest things in this new world to friends and there was no point in angering your closest neighbor. He tried to remember what Mitch had been looking for. Must not have been important. Summer was nearing its end now, so that would put his last human interaction at least a few months ago.

  Trekking a few miles through the sparse wood, David came upon a cluster of fallen trees that he recognized as the edge of his territory. Making his way through the scarce brush, he had to use his free hand to push back the army of saplings striving to hold him at bay. As the temperature had risen over the years, so had the plants been reborn after remaining dormant for so long, waiting for the day when they could rule over the land as their ancestors had without the thr
eat of eternal winter. David’s faint trails through the woods comprised the only present threat to the young plant life, though he tried to change his paths when they grew too distinct. For their sake, and his own.

  He knew this place like the back of his hand. Just ahead a tree that had been split in two during a storm a couple years back jabbed its charred stub skyward, and a little ways past that was rock that looked like a turtle. The patterns in the botanical ceiling above were enough to tell him he was almost home. He continued forward, taking a different route than he had followed that morning. Elsewhere it might be solely for the plants’ sake; here he knew the importance of keeping his home as much a secret as possible. Raiders had found him before, and it was not pleasant. Not that he could particularly blame the raiders; his hands had their fair share of blood.

  He plodded along, absorbed in his musings, until he looked up and caught sight of the beacon that had drawn him here years ago: his tree. A massive pine, so large he could not reach halfway around its trunk. It was hard to miss. Towering over the rest of its nearby brethren, it stood tall and proud against the gray sky, defying all other challenges to its supremacy. Its trunk went naked and branchless for at least fifty feet, giving it a place in David’s mind as his sentinel, his own personal watchtower, impregnable and strong. The bark shimmered at the base, a rich silver, growing darker and darker as it rose, so black at the top he could not always pick it out at night. He still remembered the day he found it.

  Walking up to his tree, David felt all over again that sense of protection that had stopped him that first night, when he had no direction and no goal but safety from violence and destruction. Even now it took a weight off his shoulders to stand under the guarding arms of his protector. He came over the last hill and looked down, pleased to see his home unsullied, tucked as it was in a deep hollow. His steps lengthened in anticipation as he closed on his hut, taking a deep breath full of home, that feeling that had taken so long to regain permeating the very air. He was proud of the home he had built, proud of every branch and log and nail and bit of rope and string that had come together to protect him when he had felt so vulnerable.