Salt Pillars

Chapter 13

There was an exodus from the high school as the epicenter of the town, which held unpleasant memories, to the city's main street where most people would gather each day just to stay connected. Teenagers loitered aimlessly around getting fucked up. Boys played sports in the streets, while others gathered on the sidelines to watch and gossip. Bicycles and skateboards raced up and down the strip as the new primary mode of transportation. For the most part, everybody scavenged for their own food supplies and whatever resources they could find. Everything including food, drugs, alcohol, and even homes were just lying around for the taking.

Travis and his hand-selected group of leaders became surprisingly effective at maintaining the semblance of government. They attempted to organize work-parties to clear the dead from houses while also searching for supplies and other survivors. The majority of homes, however, remained untouched, and the stench of death lingered heavily in the streets, except for Main Street, where they had wheeled the corpses out on dollies to burn them in a pile outside of town.

Nobody expected the stench from the smoke to be so overwhelming that the crowd had to flee to avoid sickness.

The wake turned into a party that went through the night into the next day, and continued on after that. There were no more rules, nothing to aspire to, no future, no past, only the ghosts of their lost families to drink away.

2.

iThe community swimming pool had been emptied following the end of the season, leaving it as a hollowed, white base with a black stripe running down the middle, giving dimension to its contours. All of the flotation devices and swim toys were locked away in a red shed adjacent the pool. The restrooms with community showers for a quick rinse were pad locked as well to keep out the vandals who would come at night and urinate over everything then tag the walls with graffiti.

Despite this and the increasing chill in the air, Rachel and Kara laid out in lawn chairs alongside the empty pool, wearing nothing but their skimpy bikinis in anticipation of the early-day's sun to bronze their young skin.

The girls wore large sunglasses and held burning cigarettes like movie stars from the 1950's, the likes of which neither girl had any notion of. Kara brought her cigarette to her lips and filled her mouth with smoke then blew it out before it entered her lungs or throat. Although they were typically non-smokers, they still felt cool holding cigarettes like it added an air of sexual maturity to their mystique.

"Are you, like, worried about Travis?"

Kara asked in a dull tone, "I mean... that's really brave of him to step up as the leader, or president, or whatever."

Kara wanted to ask the right questions to show Rachel that she was a good and caring friend—someone that Rachel could trust, who also offered mature insights into her life.

"Of course I'm worried." Rachel started, "Travis is the love of my life, and it's a huge responsibility, but I can't ask him to stop being himself. He's a leader...that's what makes him great."

"You're so lucky to have a guy like that... I don't mean lucky like you don't deserve him... you're so beautiful... he's lucky too," Kara said rubbing her goose-bumped skin for warmth.

"Yeah, I don't know... every relationship has its problems."

"Oh no, are you guys in a fight?" Kara said expressing more enthusiasm then she had intended.

"I'll tell you something, but you can't tell anybody else ever... you promise?"

This was it — the kind of demonstration of trust that she had been waiting forever since she had started hanging out with Rachel last summer during cheer camp. It had taken almost the entire summer of intense drills before Rachel's friendship with her previous best friend, Lindsey, had started to crumble, and Kara was there to provide her with emotional support during that trying time.