by MJ Ware
*
"Could have been a chemical leak from one of the big factories, maybe a forest fire?" Misty said, guessing what could have caused everyone to evacuate. Whenever she got nervous, her mouth wouldn't shut.
"My money's on mass alien abduction."
She gave me a cool stare—she wasn't amused. I kept quiet and just let her blabber on about how this couldn’t possibly be happening, until we'd walked almost all the way to the bridge.
"Your brother's shoes are killing my feet."
"Oh, Nate." I heard it in her voice; she hated complaining. You wouldn't know it by looking at her, but Misty was one tough girl.
"Seriously, I think they're blood blisters."
"Not your feet, the bridge. Nate, look at the bridge."
I glanced up, not prepared for what I saw. "Whoa—the bridge, it's gone. I mean it's been destroyed."
All that remained were piles of rubble and the steel frame—twisted into a giant crumpled spider web. A huge crater sat where the overpass should have been. Someone really wanted this bridge gone.
Misty stepped forward and looked down at the huge pit. "Who would blow up the bridge? What do we do now, swim across?"
"There's no way I'd take on Bear River. Not this time of year."
"Our families could be over there. Let's find a raft or a boat," Misty said.
"Remember those outta towners who plopped in, one after another, trying to save each other?" Bear River swells all up with crazy currents and hardcore eddies every year. "That river's gulped down entire families. Let's just wave someone down and they'll get help." I stood on a pile of rubble, looking across.
"No one's there," Misty whispered.
We didn't say another word. We just stared across the bridge.
We stood there awhile longer. Still, no one showed: not at the bridge, not in the town, no cars driving by, nothing.
Finally, after standing there silent, just staring for what seemed hours, I lost it.
"I knew we should've come here before going to your house. I knew it!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, hands raised like one of those cheesy TV preachers. "You know what the other explosion was, don't you? It had to be the other dam bridge. They've blown both bridges—we're trapped. Just you, me and that stupid little dog—no, wait—he's dead, how could I forget we saw his—"
Tears flowed. I'd only seen Misty cry one other time. Even when we were kids and she fell off her bike, she'd just shake it off.
She stood there, face in her hands, tender tears trickling down her cheeks. I thought, this might have been the worst thing I'd ever done.
There was only one thing I could think to do. I gave her a hug. In all the years I'd known Misty, I'd never hugged her. Sure, I'd tackled her a few times, but that's just not the same.
She felt a lot softer than I remembered. Maybe she was getting out of shape now that she wasn't playing dodgeball.
It felt weird, like, well, like hugging your best friend. I wanted to tell her it would be all right. That we'd see our parents again, but I was never a good liar.
She started wiping her cheeks. I quickly let go and took a couple steps back. "Um, maybe we should try hollering. See if we can get someone's attention? There still might be someone over there."
"If there was, they would have certainly heard your yelling."
"Yeah, about that—I'm really sorry. This is totally not your fault. I'm really, really sorry." I always messed things up. No wonder Misty hadn't been hanging around me. Sometimes, I don't even like to hang around me.
"Sorry, seems to be a theme with you today. But I'm cutting you some slack, remember?" A small smile slipped out and made me feel a little less like the world's biggest jerk. "So now what?"
The sun beat down on us, as if it’d been glued in place. The air felt stale and lifeless. "No use going to Greenburg if no one's over there. Let's go to Cedar Creek, see if the other bridge is really blown."
Sure enough, the Cedar Creek dry dam was completely gone. Crossing the creek would have been easy, but there's nothing except asphalt and trees between here and Chico. Which is, I don't know, at least a week's walk.
"We could take bikes," Misty suggested.
"No. It's all mountain roads, we wouldn't last an hour."
Drained, dog-tired, and defeated, we headed to Misty's house to regroup. It'd been one fantastically horrible day.
"I can't believe you tried to blame me for the bridge blowing up," she said.
"I didn't say it was your fault; I was just blaming you. There's a big difference."
Misty shook her head. My legs ached and my conscience stung. I didn't have it in me to argue—especially since I was wrong.
We both dragged our feet across the asphalt. The rough sound reminded me of a street sweeper.
"We've gotta get a car. I can't walk around this town anymore." I was still wearing my backpack. Misty had left hers at home.
"Everyone takes their keys when they evacuate," she said as we passed a house with a TV lounging comfortably in the middle of the lawn.
"Who said they evacuated? Maybe they had all the water extracted from their bodies and they turned to salt. Maybe there was a huge sale at the mall up in—hey, do you see that?"
She had. "Hey mister! Over here, please help!" With her long, perfect hair, Misty could have passed for a cheerleader as she waved her arms up and down.
The glare of the low sun made it hard to see the man caught in the shadows. He was old, shuffling his feet with a slight limp. He turned and slowly started towards us. The only thing I could see was that it wasn't the mayor; this guy was too tall and wasn't shaped like a blimp.
We started jogging towards him. "Oh, thank you. We really need some hel—"
When I turned back to look at Misty, I realized something was wrong.
Very wrong.