Circles in the Dust Read online

  “Ah—” he managed before descending into a coughing fit, his throat like leather. He raised his hand and pointed at the river, losing his balance and falling over in the process. She watched him, face twisted in confusion, while he repeated the gesture from the ground.

  “Water?” she finally asked. He nodded his head vigorously, stopping himself when black spots threatened his vision. She cocked her head for a moment, narrowing her eyes as she looked at him. He wondered if she were thinking about shooting him. Apparently deciding otherwise, she let her weapon fall to her side momentarily as she twisted around. He saw that she had a large hiker’s pack on her back. She pulled a large steel bottle from it and held it to her lips, gulping down what was left before walking over to the river to fill it. David watched her until she passed him to kneel by the water’s edge, giving him a wide berth. When she reappeared she held the bottle to him at arm’s length.

  As if he could put up any kind of a fight.

  He grabbed the bottle and pressed it to his lips, sucking in the cool liquid. He choked and had to stop after downing half its contents, gasping for breath and slamming the bottle on the ground with a hollow thud. Breathing hard, he looked over at the girl who was standing in the same place as before, her small, sleek weapon still aimed at his chest, eyes wide, mouth drawn tight. He took another draught from the bottle and leaned back on splayed hands.

  “I—” he began, not knowing what to say. He had searched so long for another human being, and now that he had a beautiful girl in front of him he could not think of a single thing to say. His mind stuttered, still recovering from its near death minutes earlier. “Hello,” he finally managed.

  “You can talk,” she replied.

  “Yes,” David said, still flabbergasted.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know.” David paused and thought for a moment. “Am I dead?”

  “What?” she said.

  “I mean, are you… an angel, or something?”

  The girl laughed and shook her head. “That’s very flattering but I think you’re alive.”

  “Hmm.” David looked down. Returning her gaze, he went on. “I thought I was the only one left.”

  “Only what?” the girl questioned.

  “Person. I haven’t seen anyone else for…” He had to think about how long it had been; time had lost all meaning for him, “… almost two years now, I think.”

  “Really?” She said this as if it weren’t really surprising. He looked up at her, curiosity building behind the thin wall of patience in his mind, threatening to bull over his better judgment. “There’s no one else out here?”

  “Where did you come from…?” he almost whispered, wondering aloud. His voice began to rise. “I thought I was about to be the end of the human race. I was lying there, thinking this was the end, but apparently I was wrong,” he said, as much to himself as to her.

  “I suppose you w-”

  “Where did you come from?” he interrupted. The dam was breaking.

  “Where did I come from?” she repeated. “I was just out here like you, looking for other people.”

  “So you live out here somewhere…?” he prodded, gesturing at the woods.

  “Not exactly.” She hesitated. “I came out here on my way to the city. I thought maybe I could find some other survivors there, or maybe further on. I heard there might be some on the other side. There weren’t though. At least not any that I could find.”

  David’s mind was reeling. His thoughts whirled in a cloud of confusion, though there was some relief in knowing that he wasn’t the only one left after all. There was a girl standing in front of him, a beautiful, blonde girl, on the same quest as he, looking for people, chasing down something she heard.

  Something she heard.

  “There are others?” he blurted out.

  “I haven’t found anyone but you actually.”

  “But, I mean, someone told you there might be others out here. So wherever you came from, there are more people?” His eyes were wide and his mouth had curved itself into a manic grin.

  “Well, there’s a few of us, yeah,” she said haltingly, taking a step back.

  Joy bloomed in David’s chest, sending warmth coursing through his veins. There were others. He wasn’t alone. Suddenly his near fatal depression seemed silly. There was a group of people out there; he could find them, live with them, start a new life with them. He didn’t have to be alone anymore. He looked back at her to say something else and realized that she had continued to back away from him. Why was she doing that? Didn’t she know how long he had wandered like a ghost through this god-forsaken place, waiting to die, wanting his pointless existence to end? Now he had found her, or she had found him, and his life had a purpose again. He realized in an instant that he had to go with her, had to find these other people. He couldn’t go back to being alone.

  First he had to say something to keep her here. “I just can’t believe it,” was all that came out.

  She nodded, looking down at him. Her stomach rumbled and her empty hand flew to it.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked, knowing the answer. “I have food at my camp.”

  “No, that’s all right,” the girl began before her stomach resumed its howls. “I have food,” she said, indicating her bag, though David had no intention of taking no for an answer.

  “Let me feed you. You saved me. If you hadn’t found me here, I was just going to lie there until I…” David trailed off. It was harder to think of death now.

  At the end of another gastral chorus, the girl relented with a mumbled, “All right.” Though as she explained, “I didn’t really do anything though.”

  “But you did,” David responded with enthusiasm. He tried to stand and faltered as the world spun, catching himself on his hands and knees, slowly rising, the girl rigid in her place a few feet away, watching him, her gun still held with an iron grip.

  “Don’t try anything though,” she said when he was finally on his feet, eying him from head to toe.

  “Yeah, right.” He chuckled, standing up cautiously. He was bubbly with excitement, fatigue forgotten. He looked down at himself, worried for the first time in yeas what he looked like, and was shocked to see how thin he had become, standing there like an old skeleton. He wrapped his coat around his thin frame, reminded with a damp slap by his collar that he had been lying on the very wet ground, trying to hide himself from this girl who looked as if she actually ate, rather than wandered in a starved daze all day. It had been so long, a lifetime, it felt, since he had seen a member of the opposite sex.

  He started off into the woods in the direction of his cabin, looking back after a second to see if the girl was actually following him. She looked down at her stomach, looked back toward the forest the way she had come, and hesitantly followed in his tracks.

  “My name’s David,” he informed her.

  “Elizabeth,” she mumbled, still holding her gun in a death grip.

  “Elizabeth?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Your safety’s on.” David turned and traipsed into the wood with a smile.

  CHAPTER 7

  The walk back to David’s cabin was spent in silence. David’s head buzzed with questions but he was so weak from his passive-suicidal episode that he had to focus all his energy on walking. He tried to strike up a conversation a few times, but could only get out a handful of words before being winded. Several times he had to stop and rest against a tree after attempting to probe the girl, Elizabeth, for more information about her mysterious background. He eventually gave up on the interrogation and focused on making it back to his cabin, something he was not sure he could do. He kept stealing glances back at her, making sure she was still there, reminding himself that he wasn’t the only human alive, that his life had begun again just when it was coming to an end.

  At length they finally mounted the final rise before David’s home. He walked in front of Elizabeth, lifting his head, his eyes follo
wing the body of the tree behind his cabin all the way to the top. His tree. It stood tall and proud as ever, beckoning him home. His gaze rested lovingly on the stoic pillar as he hiked the last bit of hill, his thoughts taking a brief respite from the mysterious girl he had stumbled upon in the woods. Or, more accurately, who had stumbled upon him.

  He paused as they reached the top and his home came into view. Elizabeth was still on her way up, so he took the chance to rest for a moment and regroup. Blood rushed to his face as he looked down into the hollow. It looked like one of the deserted camps he had wandered through when supplies had begun to run low and those who had survived the old world’s initial blow were swept up by the second. There were cans littered around the fire, which looked like it had been cold for months. A mere handful of logs remained in the once proud stack beside his cabin, the ax usually stuck in one nowhere to be seen. His door hung lazily open and there was a hole in his roof where it had been caved in by snow. Awakened from his delusional haze, David realized with a start just how much he had let himself go.

  She reached the top while he stood there staring down at his mess of a camp.

  “Are we close—” she started to ask when his cabin came into view. “So this is it?”

  “This is it,” he responded. “This is home.”

  “You built this?” she asked, and he had to look at her to see if her awe was sincere. Her face showed no signs of sarcasm. Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung open, if only a little.

  “Yeah, I built it myself,” he said hesitantly. “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

  “It’s impressive.”

  “Really?” She had to be mocking him.

  “Of course! We were lucky enough to find an old farmhouse, so we didn’t have to build anything.” She jumped as she mentioned whoever it was she had left to explore the forest, ending her speech and fixing her eyes on her feet.

  “That is lucky,” he said softly, afraid of scaring her off. “The houses that were out here were taken pretty fast. After a while there were a few vacancies, but a corpse doesn’t make much of a roommate, with the smell and all, so I found this little hollow and settled down here.” He smirked a little at his dark humor and looked up to find a smile cracking through her nervous visage. Of course, it could have been something funny about her feet, where her eyes remained glued. His head spun at the effort required to talk and walk down the hill, but he fought the nausea rising in his throat and savored the grin hiding behind her stony front.

  “Well, it looks cozy,” she said as they were nearing the bottom of the hill.

  It was cozy at one point; now, as David walked up to his open door, he couldn’t agree less.

  “Sorry it’s such a mess down here,” David said, running his hand through his greasy hair, pulling it out when it got stuck in the mud and thistles that had taken refuge in his clinging mane.

  “The world’s a mess,” she said, casting a sidelong glance at him.

  “No kidding. I’ll get some food started, I’m starving,” he said as he reached for his bucket. Empty.

  She saw him look into the bucket and sigh. She dug into her bag, pulled out her aluminum water bottle and offered it to him, saying, “My contribution.”

  He wanted to refuse her offer and started to, but he was so ravenous and fatigued that the thought of making a trip back to the river made him feel physically ill. He relented and took the bottle with a muttered “Thanks” and poured the contents into the single pot that sat next to the fire. It had been lying upside-down, but a quick brush removed the dirt from its lip. He hung it over the fire from the tripod he had lashed together and limped over to his cabin.

  It was no shock to see his possessions in complete disarray. The hooks on the walls were barren, but most things seemed to be present. He picked up his blanket and tossed it back on the mattress, which seemed to be soiled with unfamiliar stains, and took a seat on the ice chest that held his last morsels. He let his head sink into his hands, allowing himself a moment to take in what was happening. He was home, awake, alive, with a girl. All at the same time. She was real and he was going to make her a meal. Then she was going to leave. No. His head whipped up and he winced. He couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let his one link with the rest of the human race abandon him to the awful pit of woe he had so recently crawled out of. He hadn’t even realized how dismal his state was until she found him. His stomach turned sour at the thought of being alone again, of returning to the numb existence he had lived in for so long. He wouldn’t be alone. Not again.

  He rose, went over to the door and poked his head out to look at Elizabeth. She was sitting on the stump next to the fire, just where he had left her. She was beautiful, and not just because she was the only girl he had seen in nearly two years. Her hair was limp. Her coat was oversized and fell to her knees, and her black jeans were torn and stained at the ankles. He had no real standard to judge her against, but to David, sitting there in the gray morning, she was surely radiant.

  Her face turned from the forest toward the cabin where he stood. He ducked his head back into the house, hoping she hadn’t noticed him staring. He went back over to his chest and lifted the lid. What he saw inside made him blanch. Besides dust and cobwebs aplenty, there remained two cans of beans and one of corn. That was all. How had he let his stores run so low? No roots or berries or anything to supplement it. David sank to his knees on the dirt floor of his cabin, resting his head on the lid he held open, wishing for a moment that Elizabeth had never found him. Wishing that she had found him a year ago, when he had food and a fire and a cabin that wasn’t falling apart. When he was strong and confident. When he had something to offer.

  When he had regained his composure, he returned to the fire.

  “How do beans and corn sound?”

  “Anything sounds good right now, honestly.”

  David was carrying the three cans of food that were his last. This was all he had to offer her. Lucky she wasn’t picky.

  “Good, because I haven’t got much else left besides that,” he lied, feeling it wasn’t too much of a fib.

  “That’s all right,” she replied. “Do you live off canned food completely?” Her voice sounded sincere, as if she were only curious, but David couldn’t help but feel a little offended. He tried to push those feelings down; now was not the time to be sensitive.

  “I have a garden behind the house,” he replied, keeping his voice even. “Though it really doesn’t do much good.”

  “I see,” she said. “So the people that live out here,” she stopped and looked at him from the corner of her eye, “well, lived out here, and you, of course, live off the things you could salvage from the city?”

  “I guess, yeah,” he replied slowly, trying to think about his life out here in a broader sense than he was used to. “I make what I can and try to avoid going back there as much as possible, but I suppose a lot of the things I have are from there. I got a lot of them before I realized how dangerous it was…” he trailed off, sifting through his memories of the past and how he had come to be where he was now. “Most of what I have are just camping supplies, and most of them I salvaged from other people’s camps. I was just a kid when everything happened… I didn’t have much when I started out here.”

  “You took what you needed from other people out here?” she responded reproachfully.

  “I didn’t steal,” he snapped. He caught himself and resumed in a more even tone. “I did what I had to. When I say took, I mean that I collected it from people who didn’t make it, who couldn’t hack it. Stealing seems like a pretty gray area now anyway, don’t you think?”

  “Not really,” was her curt answer.

  Well, some of us had to choose, he thought to himself. Bad or dead. “Well, a good deal of what you see came from the city. I went back a lot the first few years. Before I realized how bad an idea that was. All the fighting…”

  “At least you realized that before it killed you,” she said. “I can’t im
agine you need to go back for much of anything by now, though.” She continued when she noticed the black look on his face. “It looks like you’ve made a nice home for yourself here.”

  “Home,” he repeated, feeling that the word did not adequately describe his cabin or his hollow, as much as he wanted it to. Not like it had.

  “Though it must be lonely out here.”

  “Did you gather that?” He almost laughed. “It’s one thing to not have anyone else around, but to know that there isn’t another person over in the city, or a few miles away at their own camp. It’s kind of,” he paused, trying to think of the right word to describe the way he had felt in the instant before she had found him, “crushing.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Can you?”

  “Well, I-”

  “Well what? You said you live with other people. You have a camp or something out there somewhere, obviously far away, because I’ve never found it. How can you imagine what it would be like to be the last human being left on the planet?” His voice began to rise though he tried his best to control his tone. Why was he getting so angry?

  “I just mean that it must be hard, and I’m sorry,” she said. “At least you’re not really the last person left,” she added.

  “I guess that’s true. I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to another person in a couple years. I’m… rusty,” he said with a forced grin.

  “It’s okay,” she assured him, brightening up a little at the smile he managed to crack. “Shall we start the food?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, realizing he had been standing there with the cans in his hands, distracted by their conversation. He realized with a start that the fire was crackling happily next to them. He looked around and saw no wood shavings or any sign of tinder on the ground and wondered how she had started the blaze so quickly.

  “You got the fire started,” he stated aloud.

  “I thought that would speed things up a bit,” she replied, gazing fondly at her creation.