The Truth Circle by Cameron Ayers

Author:Cameron Ayers [Ayers, Cameron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

* * * * * *

Gaby exited the outhouse with a sigh of relief. She hated using the outhouse after dusk. It was so dark and cramped that she imagined herself as a fetus waiting to be born. Plus, after four days of regular usage, it was beginning to stink, no matter how much sawdust she threw down the hole. She breathed deeply after closing the door, reveling in the crisp night air.

Things were only slightly brighter outside, even though it had scarcely been 20 minutes since sunset. A blanket of low-lying clouds blotted out the moon and most of the stars, rendering anything further than 15 feet away shadowy and indistinct. She could make out the wigwam’s dim outline between the slats of the surrounding fence, along with the branches of nearby trees and bushes surrounding the campsite swaying in the breeze. Everything else was buried in a fog of darkness.

The din of chirping crickets was all around. She had heard them in the outhouse but didn’t register how loud they were until she was back outside, either because the interior muffled the sound or because they were growing more active now that it was dark. Either way, it sounded like hundreds of them serenading the forest, transmitting their shrill song in every direction.

Gaby’s breath came out in tiny puffs of heated air. She marveled at the temperature differential between the outhouse and the outdoors. It hadn’t been this cold when she went in. Part of it was the strong breeze, which stabbed her cheeks and cut right through her multiple layers of clothing. She dimly wondered how so many crickets were able to tolerate this temperature.

Over the din of crickets, she heard the sound of the teepee’s door opening.

“Gaby?” Coop’s voice called out uncertainly in the darkness. “We’re closing up for the night. You coming?”

“Be right there,” Gaby called back.

From inside the wigwam, she heard Ken complaining about having to take first shift on such a cold night before the door’s closure muffled his voice.

As she started toward the wigwam, a flash of light in the distance caught her eyes. A beam of brilliant light penetrated the darkness about half a mile south of camp, on the far side of the surrounding hills.

The searing shaft of white shot upward, like the floodlights used at movie premieres, only there was no diffusion; a solid, column of illumination. As tiny as it looked to Gaby, it had to be four stories high to be visible from so far away. She held her breath, fixated by the sight. After a few seconds, the pillar of light slowly dissipated, and darkness once more blanketed the region.

Gaby shivered, trying to decide what she’d just seen. No flashlight was capable of projecting a beam so strong and concentrated from that distance. She kept staring off into the darkness, hoping to see the light again. As she strained her eyes, she could see the trees and bushes nearby swaying to and fro in the blustery breeze.

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