Abigail’s Boys
Hell rose from Earth’s fiery core beneath the surface and had kissed each grain of sand on the dry desert floor. A breeze managed to stir up enough force to travel across the still red desert and whispered hot air against David’s exposed skin and through the dark strands of his unruly hair. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face, dripped down his bearded chin, and traced small rivers down his back as the sun punished him from above and the sand from below with fierce heat.
He had accepted the harsh climate as well as the dull silence of his surroundings long ago, understanding that the isolation Abigail had submitted herself and the rest of the boys to was a necessary adjustment. “The world is a dangerous place. I can protect you.” She told him the night they first met three years ago. He was alone sleeping on cold concrete, a forgotten child in a big city. She approached him, gently placed a hand on his shoulder and then offered him something he longed for for a long time, a place to belong.
Their camp was made up of eight young boys. The boys varied in age, starting as young as twelve and the oldest 19. David was one of the older boys, his age 17. In the middle of the camp of makeshift tents pitched beside one another in a straight row, lunch boiled over a steady fire. David took quick long strides across the camp.
“Morning, David!” a thirteen year old named Joseph yelled, his voice cracking on the second syllable in David’s name. David waved his hello to the young boy, not really paying attention, lost in his thoughts. His stomach turned over and rumbled, letting him know the smell of the boiling rabbit soup pleased it. When he reached the pot he eagerly lifted the lid up, steam spilled out of the pot and floated up to his nostrils, filling them with its delicious scent. He shut his eyes and breathed in.
“The breeze is blowing from a different direction today,” An unexpected voice spoke from behind him. David gasped and dropped the pot’s lid. It hit the ground with a dull thud. “I’m sorry did I frighten you?” The woman’s voice was scratchy, a result of decades of smoking.
“N-no not at all. It’s fine.” David stuttered as he scrambled to pick up the lid. A deep shade of pink spread across his cheeks. He slammed it onto the pot and whipped around to face Abigail, feeling flustered and slightly out of breath. The older woman’s dark blue eyes bore down at him with great intensity. David squirmed underneath her stare, “Was there something I could do for you?”
“Oh, yes.” Abigail clapped her hands together and a wide smile stretched across her face, revealing her older age as the creases by the corners of her mouth and eyes deepened, “I needed someone to come into town with me today. I have important business to take care of.”
“What sort of business?” David asked. Abigail’s smile wavered and her eyes darkened.
“Business that does not concern you. Eat your lunch, then meet me by the jeep in twenty minutes.” Without another word or any warning of the conversation being over, Abigail pivoted on her heel and headed back to her tent. David’s stomach continued to turn, but for a different reason.
David entered the tent, “Hey, man where are you going?” he asked once he noticed his friend George filling up his bag. George’s blond curls acted as curtains. concealing the side of his face.
“Abigail needs to run a few errands in town so she asked me to come. She said we’d be gone for a few days.” George answered without looking up from his bag. He struggled to close it.
“Let me give you a hand.” David laughed and walked over to him, pushed the top down with as much force as he could muster. George quickly forced the zipper closed.
“Thanks, man.” George smiled gratefully, “I’ll see you when I get back.”
David tried to dismiss the apprehension he felt towards Abigail as he remembered his last time seeing his friend. When Abigail had returned without George, her explanation of his disappearance was that he lost his mind and ran away, but things never added up. Three months had passed since then. David shook the thoughts out of his head lifted the lid off the pot once more, and then filled his bowl with the rabbit soup. He sank to the ground by the weak fire, crossed his legs, and began nibbling on his food no longer having a large appetite. The sand stuck to his sweaty skin and the sun’s heat was relentless. The breeze had calmed, but no matter how hard he tried to suppress them his racing thoughts would not.
