Chuck’s death left me with one option. I must survive. Someone healthier and stronger than me could retrieve my friends’ bodies. Dammit! I should have at least given Chuck a chance to be a friend at the campsite.

I pushed myself away from the ledge until I found my old path that led up the hill. The mud, mostly restored to its undisturbed slickness, fought me harder on this second climb. Mel wouldn’t have given up though. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I heard her, being my yes girl like she’d always been.

“You’ve got this, Alice! Climb to that palace!”

I laughed even as I slid back down a few feet and had to regain ground. Mel preferred rhyming when hyping her friends up. She’d always supported everyone, and I thought that might be why we noticed nothing was wrong with her. If she were couch surfing, why hadn’t she reached out to me? We were supposed to be best friends. Mel and I talked at least every other week.

I reached the hill’s peak. An extra-hard tug forward sent me sprawling. This time I fell forward. I let out a scream. If this was how I died, at least I hadn’t given up. Thick mud and a lessening slope slowed my descent. I came to a complete stop. I waited a beat in the rain. Lightning revealed a flat road ahead.

I stood for the first time in hours. My arms and shoulders ached as I took heavy breaths. I reached the ruins of an old factory. Lightning flashed, and the old smokestack in the sky stood like a lightless beacon. Parts had crumbled, leaving it only a quarter of the height I remembered.

An unfamiliar warmth filled my chest as I took my first few careful steps forward. Though the ground had leveled out, it was still muddy as hell. The trudged walk with side-to-side steps kept me from falling down.
Chuck had been right to tell me to walk like this, though I’d ignored him at first. My mind drifted to Todd.

He’d been brutally honest in his last moments. Chuck blamed the heavy metal poisoning, and whatever else he’d been dealing with, but inside, I knew the truth. I’d hurt Todd and Mel when I badgered them into coming on the camping trip this weekend. I bit my bottom lip as I realized something else. The way I berated them into coming was the same thing I hated my mother doing to me. Todd was right to be angry with me, and maybe it was my fate to die with this realization.

Raindrops turned into a slight mist, and the mud was not as slick. I looked up and could see through the rain for more than half a mile down the road. The old bridge spanning I-80 was ahead, and I had one last option to make. I could risk sliding down the hill on either side of the bridge and getting through any rubble below, or risk the bridge and hope it was intact. Only one way would allow me to backtrack if I were wrong. Through the misting rain, a beam of light swept across the barren landscape. I almost ran, but remembered Todd’s constant caution. How would Todd choose? I slowed as I neared the edge of the bridge.

I crept to the edge of the steep slope, trying not to let the light distract me. But hope swelled. They were at least looking this way, whether it was the National Guard or someone else. It could have been the Grim Reaper for all I cared. I couldn’t let my thoughts take the logic away from me.

I’d made too many quick decisions this weekend. Others had paid for it. My friends lost their lives because of it. So, I had to use what they’d taught me and try to survive this last stretch until I could reach the spotlight.

Mel would have reminded me I need to keep pushing through, no matter what. She believed I could do anything. Whichever path I chose was worth the risk to live. Todd would tell me to be practical. The fast way, or the long way? Both would have their pros and cons, but my decision had to be based on survival. Chuck would warn about the possible structural damage to the bridge and the dangers of the ditch.

I took the first steps onto the bridge and waited to feel a wobble, though I doubted my meager weight would cause much of a disturbance. No movement. I breathed easier. This way always left the option of turning back. After the next ten steps though, the bridge swayed beneath me slightly. A crack vibrated through my feet, and I watched a chunk of the road I’d just been walking on disappear. My weight seemed enough to disturb the bridge. How long had it been since something more than rain or dirt weighed it down? That’s when I heard Mel’s scream from the other side of what I hoped was heaven.

“Run!”

The bridge groaned beneath me, and the road cracked beneath my feet. I pushed through the mud and had to dodge past already missing sections of the bridge as more and more of it crumbled behind me. The last stretch of the bridge was on a slope. I slid forward and fought to stay upright. With the dying rain, the roar of the bridge crashing to the ground echoed like cannon shots. I’d heard cannons only at the football games, but I’d never been afraid of them until this moment. I ran, crying, praying, hoping like I never had before. If only I could survive for my friends, to find their bodies, and tell their stories. I could live for them.

The harsh beam of a searchlight fell on me. My arms were too weak to cover my eyes from the sudden brightness. The bridge was no longer falling behind me, and silence. Through my squinting eyes, I could barely see the figures in biohazard suits running toward me. Dad scared me during a sleepover with one of those. For the first time though, I found comfort in the bulky figures around me. Though the suits muffled the words, my mind understood enough to be hopeful. My body started its shutdown. Something in the knowledge of someone else coming for me made my feet too weak to stand on.

I fell to my knees. The pain in my stomach roared to life. I doubled over. The mud met my face. Hands gripped me, turned me on my side, and then rolled me onto my back. There was a shift of my weight up, but other than that, my mind couldn’t process much. I slipped into a dark sleep, still hearing the patter of rain around me.

Gone were the smell of rotten eggs, the grit of dirt on my skin, and I awoke to the sterile lights of a hospital. A plastic tube arched over my face. Each breath felt more like someone forced it into my lungs than an unconscious flow. I tried to scream, but my mouth couldn’t move. Someone in scrubs, probably a nurse, rushed in. Someone held my hand. Another hand gently rested on my shoulder. I turned to find my mom and dad looking down at me. I expected to see anger and judgement for everything I’d done. Yet, I found only tears of joy in both their eyes.

“Relax a moment, Alice,” Mom said. “They need to get the tube out of your throat.”

Dad grimaced, but nodded.

“You’ve been out of it for a few days.”

I nodded and was grateful when they pulled the tube out of my throat, an experience I’d rather not live again. It took a while, but eventually I could speak more than a few words without it hurting. The entire time, my parents stayed by my side. They didn’t ask me about college, whether I’d figured out my major, or when I would start dating seriously again. They talked about memories of going on adventures as a little girl. Getting stuck in places the other boys wouldn’t go. I’d always been headstrong and determined. I wanted to cry and tell them to stop talking, because it reminded me too much of my friends. While I’d said I would live for them, it didn’t make it any easier to remember.

After a few days after my first round of dialysis, I mustered the courage to ask my father a favor. I needed to know what had happened to my friends, and whether my information had led to locating their bodies. Dad gave me a frown but agreed after a few rounds of begging. One morning I awoke to find him alone at my bedside.

“Hey kiddo, I know you just woke up, but I finally got some information about your friends.”

A knot formed in my chest. I knew they were dead, but a part of me hoped someone would find them alive. It was a stupid thought. I’d seen them dead, though I’d hoped the heavy metal poisoning had caused me to hallucinate. While I wasn’t sure if his telling me as soon as I woke up was the best option, there would never be a best time to tell me how my friends had died.

“Go ahead,” I said.

Dad took my hand with both of his and gave it a tight squeeze. Tears welled in his eyes, but he delivered the information with a stillness I admired.

“Most people wouldn’t get this information. Your psychologist might hate me for telling you, but I think you deserve to know.”

After a long pause and a nod from me, he started.

“They found Todd and Chuck’s bodies where you described. With the information you gave them and an autopsy, they confirmed Todd’s cause of death as a pulmonary embolism. Chuck did indeed have a severed spinal cord. Both deaths were quick.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath through my nose. My psychologist had told me not to blame myself, and that survivor’s guilt would be a long road of recovery. Not to expect it to go away after a few sessions. I tried to use her words to push the guilt which gnawed at my heart.

I did not kill my friends; the elements did. Nature is a greater enemy than any one person can withstand. After a few still moments and wiping the tears from my eyes, I gained the strength to speak.

“And Mel?”

My dad frowned, and his grip held tight.

“They found her, but her remains were not intact.”

I sobbed. The tears shook my body, and my dad had to wrap his arms around me as I lay in the hospital bed. It’s like I knew the coyotes had gotten to her, but I didn’t think through all they could do. I thanked my father and asked him for some time alone.

In the hospital’s solitude room, I cried alone for a long time. My father had done exactly what I asked. He’d given me the information about my friends without the lies others would tell me. Yet, I hated him for it. He’d always been truthful with me before. But his constant honesty taught me to face reality when necessary. He was part of the reason I survived as much as my friends contributed to my survival.

The next time my parents appeared was the day after. Mom and Dad entered hesitantly, neither asking if I was okay. They sat next to me in silence for a long time before I realized I needed to be the one to talk. I’d been thinking about it a lot, and my behavior in hiding from them wasn’t as justified as I thought before.

“Mom, Dad,” I said. “I know you want me to figure everything out, but I’ve been so afraid of what choosing the wrong thing might mean. I thought. If I didn’t control everything, then it couldn’t be the right thing for me.”

Mom folded her arms like she was about to go on a tirade, but Dad set a gentle hand on hers, and her expression softened.

“We’ve all been there, Alice,” Mom said. “But…”

“But,” Dad said. “We want you not to look back and regret not deciding. That doesn’t matter right now, though. You survived.”

I winced.

“But my friends didn’t,” I said. “And you’re both right. I need to make these decisions now, because they’re going to affect more than me.”

Neither of them moved at first. I worried that this wasn’t the right time to talk about this. Surely Dad would have told Mom about everything. My mother cupped her hand along my jaw and rubbed her thumb on my cheek.

“You’re such a strong woman,” Mom said. “You’ve proved that over the years, and I’m sorry for not trusting you to act as an independent woman.”

Tears stung my eyes, and for the first time since we’d crashed, they only hurt my eyes and not my skin. Though deep inside, my heart tried to escape the pain by beating faster. The machine in the hospital room sounded some kind of alarm, but I calmed myself and the alarm stopped. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t hide from making these decisions anymore, or hide from the world I lived in. Unknown consequences faced me in the future, but I would face them for my friends.

The Great Salt Bowl Chapter 4

The End