My throat rasped with the harshness of new sandpaper, no longer functioning like anything human. The storm was long past, but the sun brought no relief. The heat radiating off the shimmering dirt blinded us and sapped more energy than we had. We needed something to protect us, and Todd was worrying me.

Ever since we’d broken free of the storm, he’d been silently stewing behind us. His glare heavy on the back of my head. I’d rather have him glare at me than have to explain what happened to Melody. I wanted to cry about it, but I doubted I had any water left in my body to spare for tears. I narrowed my eyes just enough to soften the harsh glare, but kept them open wide enough to see Chuck marching ahead of me. Every once in a while he’d stop, bend over slightly, clear his throat, and then move forward. I fiddled with the strap of the small bag over my shoulder. It grew heavier with each step.

Todd grabbed some supplies at some point. Though he hadn’t spoken since we escaped the dust storm. He distributed the four packs in silence. One for me. One for chuck. Todd held onto the last two. Chuck offered to take the other one. It might have helped Todd to heal better from the bite wounds. Todd ignored his offer and kept walking.

I bit my lip under my shirt. He’d obviously planned for Mel to be with us. The extra supplies didn’t bother me, but somehow not being the one to grab them made me wonder why he would have grabbed all four. It made sense, but my mind couldn’t logic it out. There were only three of us, so we only needed three emergency bags.

I pressed my fingers into my temples as the headache returned. The world shifted as I closed my eyes for a moment. A bout of nausea forced alcohol and stomach acid up my throat. I swallowed the burning liquid. We needed shelter. I checked my wrist, expecting to find my smartwatch, but groaned with the realization. I’d forced everyone to stow their watches in the cars. Any technology might have been enough for someone to track us. Todd mumbled something behind me. I stopped, unsure if I was supposed to hear it.

“Did you say something, Todd?” I asked.

Todd stopped walking and stared at me. He raised a fist to his chest and pressed. With his shirt covering everything but his eyes, I couldn’t tell if he was in pain or preparing to burp. Red veins filled his eyes and took away from the beautiful hazel of the pupils. I’d always thought the green parts of his eyes were like emeralds, but now they glowed a sickly green, reminding me of my nausea. My gaze fell to his dirt-caked boots, and my face flushed with heat. The world spun again, and I stumbled to the side. It wasn’t just the physical state of his eyes that scared me, but the anger behind them pulling at my guilt. I told myself to turn back around and keep walking. I wanted this weekend to bring us together, not tear us apart.

“Todd, please,” I said.

I couldn’t take my eyes off his shoes. The heat pounded on the back of my neck, reminding me again that we still needed some kind of shelter from the damned sun. Trying to talk anything out now wouldn’t help anyone, and if the boys weren’t keen on talking, maybe they were right.

“Todd, Alice,” Chuck said. “I think I see some buildings. One might be held together with more than a broken foundation.”

A broken foundation? I scanned the area. Slabs of concrete peaked out of dry vegetation. Outlines of what must have been houses peaked out of sections of the sand. I wondered if I’d ever been out in this neighborhood before. It was crazy to believe that this entire area, the Salt Lake Valley, had been one of the most densely populated areas in Utah. Now, the surviving population had moved to the other side of the mountains. I didn’t understand until now.

In the distance, an old cinderblock building cast a long shadow. I walked faster. Chuck matched my pace before I passed him. He’d become the leader I expected Todd to be. Mel wouldn’t have let Todd boss us around. Not if I took charge. My elation fled. With Mel gone, and Todd silent, I didn’t have the support I was used to. My shoulders hunched and pace slowed. We neared a metal door with no glass in it. Why did Mel fight so hard for everyone to listen to me? I thought it was because she was my friend.

Chuck reached for the metal door. He pulled his hand back with a curse.

“Shit, that’s hot.”

The words seemed to be meant more for himself than for us. He pulled a small scrap of fabric from his pocket and opened the door. Despite the door’s missing glass, I didn’t notice the shimmering sand on the carpet in the building’s entrance. Chuck held the door open and gestured for me to enter first. I wasn’t sure if that was smart. The building might have housed another coyote den, but my fighting against them thus far had killed my best friend. With caution in my mind, I slowed my pace and let Chuck move further ahead. In all the madness of this weekend of “fun,” he tried to be a gentleman.

Even in a hellscape like this, I couldn’t be mad at a guy for trying. As I passed him, I noticed the fabric matched Mel’s flannel she’d thrown on before we went on the joyride in the side-by-side. I held my gaze on Chuck’s eyes, hoping he would tell me how he’d gotten that scrap of fabric. I wanted to take it, because Mel was my best friend and not his, but Todd pushed me inside. He gasped for breath as he limped forward. His pants didn’t show any tears from bites, but it didn’t mean his legs were uninjured.

“You’re going to kill another of us if you keep standing in the doorway,” Todd said.

I turned to yell at him, but he’d already pushed deeper into the building and into the shadows of the hallway. Old fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling in the offices and stores, but they probably didn’t work anymore. The shade and being inside a building made my skin relax and the nausea dissipate. I dropped my bag from my shoulder and let it drag across the ground as I slipped into the icy darkness. It wasn’t anything equivalent to air conditioning, but it wasn’t in direct sunlight.

The hallway ended at a T-intersection. The door in the center stood open. Todd’s feet stretched out in the opening. I crept into the room, keeping my eyes on the crusted carpet. Each step crunched as the undisturbed crust fractured. I sat against a desk that spanned the width of the dark room. The harsh sunlight, a relief from Todd’s glare. Chuck entered last and took up a seat on the wall opposite Todd. None of our feet touched. I felt like they should. A small amount of light illuminated Todd and Chuck’s shadowed expressions.

Todd brought us supplies. Chuck found us shelter. It was my turn to contribute.

We had to find a way back. It was simple, but I couldn’t bring myself to voice my opinion. My decision got us into this mess, but I didn’t see a way out.

My shirt hung heavy on my face. I looked to Chuck for permission to drop my shirt. Surely, we were safe. The arsenic couldn’t be in here. Chuck, however, stared through the far wall. Skin pale. Brows furrowed. I turned to Todd. His shirt sat normally. A circular patch of salt and sand caked on a once-green T-shirt. I let my shirt drop and noticed my white undershirt had a similar collection of muck on the front.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Todd rolled his eyes. He drew a deep breath through his nose and blew it out his mouth. With that, he leaned forward and slid his pack into his lap. He pulled the first zipper open before he spoke, keeping his eyes only on the contents of the bag as he laid them out.

“I grabbed four because Mel was supposed to be here.”

I stopped watching him and turned my focus to my bag. Somehow his voice sounded more like an attack on me than anything, and I had nothing to say in my defense. I should have helped Chuck keep track of Mel. She was always a bit more than a handful. That was how Mel always lived, though. The world was too small for a woman with that much personality.

“Why isn’t she here, Alice?”

“I don’t know?” I said.

What more did he want me to say besides she disappeared during our escape. And it pissed me off Todd would go straight to blaming me. Wasn’t Mel my best friend? Wouldn’t I be the one most concerned about keeping her safe? I bit my lip at my own thoughts. I hadn’t been concerned with Mel as if she were my best friend. A part of me I never knew had pushed only my survival into my mind. I’d worried about Todd staying back to give us time, but Mel had a head start. I shouldn’t have had to worry about her.

“Why didn’t you find her on our way back to us?” I asked.

Screw his self-entitled victimhood. He had found us somehow in the storm. It was almost illogical that he didn’t find Mel as well.

“What, you sent the coyotes running after Mel while you grabbed these stupid supplies?”

Todd stopped messing with the supplies and set his bags down.

“Mel didn’t want to come this weekend,” Todd said. “Mel lost her apartment and her job a few months ago. She’s been couch surfing ever since.”

I knotted the hem of my shirt in my shaking hands. We should worry about food and water, not what Mel was dealing with.

“I didn’t force her to do anything,” I said.

Todd grumbled in frustration, and finally turned to me. The hate in his eyes made me wish I could pull deeper into the desk at my back.

“Alice, all you do is force people to do things. Everything you think of is the best idea ever. Screw logic. Screw what anyone else wants. You take charge because your mommy and daddy won’t listen to you.”

Todd spoke raggedly, and Chuck’s whispered words more like a light breeze before a massive wave that someone had held back for years.

“It’s not her fault that we lost Mel.”

Todd staggered to his feet, kicking the supplies at Chuck and me.

“Don’t defend her. She’s been this way since high school.”

He turned to me.

“You’re the reason Mel’s dead. She never wanted to come on this trip, and neither did I. We stayed friends because you wouldn’t let me leave this damned town behind me. And now we’re here, most likely all of us will die, and it’s all your fault. Alice.”

Todd limped out the doorway holding his right arm to his chest. I braced a hand at my hip, and leaned forward. I wasn’t ready to let him take the last blow in this fight. Everyone here was an adult, and they could have said no if they didn’t want to be here. Chuck’s words were more effective than if he had physically stopped me.

“You’ll regret it if you follow him,” Chuck said. “I know I’m not part of your friend group.”

He groaned in pain as he bent over for a moment.

“But, it’s better for you to let him cool off. Not to mention the effect of the arsenic on his mind.”

I’d stopped before Chuck explained why I shouldn’t go after him, but no, he had explained. My mind slipped back to the high school classes talking about some issue with letters. But that didn’t seem right. What did I remember about arsenic? Just that the toxin had been in the air here ever since the Great Salt Lake dried up. At first, it was nothing more than a minor toxin to add to the already polluted Salt Lake City, but then it got worse. I remembered people getting sick before the government stepped in.

“If it’s affecting his mind,” I asked, “does that mean it’s affecting ours?”

Chuck nodded.

“It will vary based on our body types, diets, and something else.”

Chuck’s face twisted, and one eye closed.

“I’m definitely feeling it,” Chuck said. “Worrying about it will only stress our bodies more. Let’s organize our supplies and let Todd cool off.”

I nodded and started working through my bag. For a long time, the only sounds were the shuffle of bags and the crinkle of vacuum-sealed supplies. It seemed like hours passed, but the harsh light never shrank from the doorway. Nothing in the bags would help us communicate with the outside. I’d forced them to leave all phones in the vehicles parked in a small clump of trees down the hill.

Chuck excused himself to find a restroom. I focused on my task, hoping Todd would come back with Chuck. A heavy thud that sounded like something falling over came from outside. I stopped my organizing for a moment. After a few breaths I dismissed the thud as the wind knocking over a weathered post. Or Todd probably punched a door or something. That’s how guys got their anger out. We should talk it out. I’d stay calm this time. Todd couldn’t stay angry with me. The accident and exhaustion must have gotten to him. He couldn’t have meant everything he said. It was the arsenic talking, not Todd.

By the time Chuck returned, the actual layout of food supplies versus non-food supplies was dramatically inadequate. As much as a hundred feet of string might help with survival, it meant nothing if we couldn’t sustain ourselves. Each pack was only about the size of a small box with a strap. Within each there was only one pack of freeze-dried food or what my dad always called MREs. Terrible food unless you were trying to survive. I remembered him saying that a single MRE had enough nutrients to fuel a full day’s march. The rest of the supplies were bandages, some kind of string, and a compass. Chucks ghostly white face didn’t provide hope for a positive assessment of the situation.

“You don’t look so good,” I said.

Not a useful comment, but nicer than saying he looked like shit. My appearance wasn’t very appealing either. Chuck got to the floor awkwardly, lying on his side, almost making an obvious effort not to sit on his ass. A rush of air sent a god-awful scent of a bitter shit. I gagged silently as Chuck stared at the pile of food.

“Not enough,” Chuck said. “We don’t know where we are or how far we have to go.”

I stood up, the smell only getting worse. I held my forearm to my nose as if that would do something. Chuck wasn’t wrong, but we’d fallen down the opposite side of the mountain we were camping on. We must be in a small city on the east side of the mountain. We’d never fully explored the city, but if I recognized something, then we might find our way home.

“If you’re going out looking for Todd, he’s not down the right hallway,” Chuck said. “Please trust me.”

I nodded and kept my walk as fast as possible without making it look like I was running. The wind had picked up again outside, and fresh sand blew into the entry hallway. Or the exit? Either way, I wouldn’t explore two hallways.

I found a window at the end of the hallway. Clear of any glass, the heat rippled over the metal like illusory water. My mouth opened and closed on its own, reminding me I had drunk nothing since the vodka last night. Or had it been longer? I walked toward the window in a daze. There was no logical justification for it, just something else to watch.

Close to the building was a strip of blacktop exposed by the wind. Sand and dirt flowed onto and off the cracked and slanting chunks of road. The bright yellow and red paint of a clown reminded me of a gas station we always stopped at on the way back from a concert for drinks and junk food. In the ripples above the road, I thought I saw Todd’s old station wagon full of all of us high school kids heading to a concert. It didn’t matter which one, every concert we went to, it was the same group. Todd, me, Mel, a random guy Mel invited, and our three other friends that we’d long lost contact with. Ashley, Taylor, and Tiffany had all gone out of state, but in high school they went everywhere with us.

I always made sure we had the band blasting that we were going to see, but something in the memory flickered and I saw the strain on each person’s face. The strain of that memory pulled something more recent to my mind. A discomfort that I should have noticed when convincing Mel to come on the camping trip. I should have heard the strain in her voice from the moment she answered my call.

“Hey, bestie, what’s going on?”

I’d texted her two days prior to the camping trip. I’d seen the read report. The sound of screaming children in the background filled the gap between her question and my response. I shifted my phone to my shoulder as I fought my clothes into a camping backpack.

“Where are you, Mel?” I asked. “Why do I hear kids?”

The hiss of a sliding door opening and closing with a clunk came through.

“Sorry, I’m at the park with my nieces and nephews.”

I should have thought then that parks didn’t have sliding glass doors. But I’d never thought Mel needed to lie to me.

“So, you’re coming this weekend. Right?”

“Alice, I don’t know if I can.”

“Come on, Mel, you’re my best friend, aren’t you? And you wouldn’t let me be the only girl, right?”

I’d already gotten Todd to agree, and even to bring a friend that might be interested in Mel. Everyone would be happy. Mel’s silence went on too long. I put some extra whine in my voice.

“Please! Todd’s bringing a friend.”

More silence.

“I can’t afford to miss any more work,” Mel said.

“Girl, we have our whole lives to work,” I said. “Don’t people always ask you to cover their shifts? You can work an extra shift next week.”

Mel responded with a heavy sigh.

“I promised to watch my nieces and nephews this weekend.”

“Come on, Mel,” I said. “One weekend of babysitting will not make a big difference. You’ll get what — twenty, thirty dollars? You’re stealing pocket change from teenagers. I need my best friend this weekend.”

Silence. I had one more tool in my back pocket. I’d really thought she wanted to come, but was trying to sound good for her sister.

“You gave me a rain check the last time I asked you to hang out. I’m calling it in.”

There was a soft thunk on the other side of the line.

“Fine,” Mel said. “But only because I’m your best friend.”

A blast of hot air and the thought of arsenic in the air pulled me from the memory. I had the signs needed to see Mel’s issues, but I’d blinded myself to them. My gaze fell back to the road in the sand.

Wait a second, I knew where we were by this road. And this building. It was a city building of some kind. I couldn’t remember which city, but if that road was the one we took to concerts. I found the path home. I turned to run and tell the others I had a plan, but stopped. We were out here because of my brilliant weekend camping idea. I’d insisted Chuck bring his side-by-side after Todd mentioned it. Then came the fall, and if we’d left when Chuck told us to, survival might have been possible. My chest tightened, and the tears stung like fire down my face. Mel might have lived.

I’d killed my best friend.

I’d completely ignored the signs that she’d been struggling.

When was the last time I’d asked Mel about her life instead of barraging her with mine?

I leaned against the wall, headache back in full force, and a new pain gnawing at my stomach. My ideas were useless and got people killed. Todd might offer some feedback, though there was no sign of him my entire time walking around. Chuck might be a better bet. He’s more logical and a better leader than Todd. I wound my way back, not paying attention to the offices that connected to the hallway. A slightly ajar door caught my attention, but no sound came from within. And I didn’t want to risk meeting yet another family of coyotes taking shelter from the wind and heat.

I heard Chuck’s groans before I reached the room. He hadn’t moved since I’d walked away.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

He shook his head. I stayed in the doorway, where the fresh air blew the stench away from me.

“Could I run an idea past you?”

Chuck rolled to face me, but didn’t show any effort to move.

“I’m listening.”

His words came out clipped and stated between jagged breaths.

“I think I know where we are,” I said.

I bit my lip but flinched at the sharp pain on my dry lips. Chuck’s lips resembled mine in their dryness and cracking. I wanted to make sure I didn’t try to boss him around.

“And if I’m right, we might make it home.”

That may have been a stretch, but Chuck had seemed to lose hope. I couldn’t give in because we didn’t feel good. My dad taught me to push through even when I didn’t want to. Chuck shrugged.

“We can’t survive another dust storm.”

There was anger that rose inside of me, and I wanted to kick the door frame, but that would hurt more than anything. I couldn’t give up, not after Mel had died and given us a chance to live. She wasn’t a willing sacrifice, but I had to view it as that if I didn’t want to fall apart at the seams.

“Chuck, will you at least listen to my idea?” I asked. “What else do you have to do?”

Chuck let out a long groan of pain, and possibly annoyance. My response was bitchy, but I needed him to listen. To at least get someone’s input on my idea.

“Fine,” Chuck said.

I took it slow, keeping it simple since Chuck was struggling with more pain than the rest of us. The headache was also pounding a spike into my skull, so short sentences worked best.

“I saw a familiar road. We used to drive it a lot. It can lead us home. North, then west. We just have to walk it.”

I couldn’t remember any major hills, but we wouldn’t be climbing up any sheer rock walls. Hopefully, the winds, along with everything else, had eroded the small hill I recalled from those drives. The National Guard soldiers should be somewhere on the road, patrolling.

“See what Todd thinks,” Chuck said. “I might as well not die in my own shit.”

I tried to contain my excitement. It was simple, but if Todd agreed, this idea could save all our lives. Moving around became easier as I checked each doorway looking for Todd, my hope on the rise. Most of it was empty office space with desks and some dusty books still in place. I didn’t blame them for leaving the books behind since they were as thick as manuals. After checking all the offices along the first stretch of the hall, I went back to the hallway, where I found the window. My attention immediately went to the partially ajar door.

A sliver of light shone through the crack as if it were a beam of white, feverish light. My heart stopped. I should have considered it strange earlier when a doorstop held every other door in the building open. As I drew closer, I noticed a small, rounded shadow outline blocking the bottom of the light beam. Possibly an old vase on a desk. Yeah, that’s what it had to be. A smear of dried blood wrapped around the stainless steel doorknob. I reached up and pushed on the wooden door, trying to convince myself that the blood was from when someone abandoned the building. My mind warned of a potential walk in on an office worker’s suicide. I stopped pushing on the door, but it swung open as if pulled by an invisible cord.

Tears should have scorched my skin, moistened my eyes, or threatened to appear after a knot formed in my chest. The jeans and familiar flannel shirt wrapped around the waist were enough to tell me this wasn’t some long-lost employee.

I ran from the room, hand covering my mouth, trying not to fully process everything. I knew Todd was dead, but my words came out in a sputter as I tried to tell Chuck what I’d found. The words came with cracked sobs, as dry as the world. Chuck, broken out of his spell of misery, handed me a packet of food and told me to eat. He disappeared for a little and came back with a somber expression.

“I don’t know exactly what it was, but Todd had bloody foam in his mouth. Rabies takes more time to kick in, so I don’t believe it was from the bites on his arms. His lips were kind of blue too, and that’s not good. I wish I could tell you more.”

Chuck took his lying position back up and faced the pile of food. The water bottles inside cracked and dried long ago. I slurped down the MRE applesauce that sent a rush to my head. I wondered how long it’d been since we fell off that cliff. The bit of food was enough to refuel my mind, though.

“So, what do you think of us moving on?”

Burying Todd would be the proper thing to do, but neither of us had a shovel, energy, or strength to do so. Judging by Chuck’s state, he didn’t have any energy left. The heat of the day had already drenched us in sweat, but now I was dry and my skin tight. Something in my mind said that was a bad sign, but I couldn’t remember why. I just wanted to shut off my mind. We could make it if we turned off our brains and walked like robots in the sun. Had it been long enough for my father to organize a search party once they found our vehicles? That’s if they cared to look for me.

“Alice?” Chuck asked.

“Huh?”

“I’ve been talking to you for five minutes.”

I frowned and tried to recall, but all I remembered were my thoughts.

“Don’t go back there again now,” Chuck said. “Listen. We can’t survive a long stretch in the heat of the day. Night is the safest bet. We’ll need to rest well enough to keep moving until we’re out. Moving will keep us alive longer than layers.”

I nodded. It made sense.

“What do we do for now?” I asked.

Chuck nudged the food packets with a finger and frowned.

“Eat about half our supply of food. That should also replace some water in us as well,” Chuck said. “We’ll take turns sleeping until night falls. It’s not clear much time that gives us, but we need to be ready to get out of here before the, well, we don’t want to stay here too long.”

We ate, and I laid down to sleep after. I couldn’t fall right asleep, as my memories of everything that had happened remained unrelenting. I’d killed two of my friends with my “perfect weekend,” and it was all because I wanted to hide from my parents. They always thought I needed to be ordered through my life, and I’d been doing the same to my friends. Now I’d lost a best friend and a man who might have been something more. I trembled and fought back the tears.

The Great Salt Bowl Chapter 2

The Great Salt Bowl Chapter 4