H a l l i e  

       The Ponderosa Cafe in Hulett screams old western. A wooden storefront with the word “DINING” written in 2000-point Playbill font, buffalo skull decorations, and an attached “saloon”.  The only things missing are the batwing doors that swing open and shut in all the old cowboy movies. The Ponderosa uses the much more practical and modern technology of a glass doorway, through which I enter the restaurant, half expecting to see a swarm of vicious bikers filling the tables, biting at burgers and spilling beer all over themselves. Instead, the tables hold no sign of a human nor stray wild animal. A waitress is wiping down an already clean table. Perfect. 

       I approach the woman. She looks to be around forty-five, with not a single strand of gray in her long, wavy hair, nor any sign of dye. Growing up in as big a city as Cheyenne, you tend to see a lot of gray hair forming at a young age. I already have three strands at twenty-two years old. It's all the stress of the bustle. “Excuse me, ma'am, uhh are you hiring?”

       The woman jumps, slightly startled, and I feel bad. I go to apologize, but she opens her mouth before I can.

       “Great...question!” she replies, much slower than I'm used to, with a smile so warm and welcoming that it takes me aback. Nothing like the stone-cold stares of the city. “I’ll   go     ask    the    boss.” She saunters into a room behind the counter.

       “Thank you,” I call after her. Had I said it too late?

       “Oh...Michael-ooo,” she sings, her voice disappearing behind a wall.
       I look around. Exactly nine octagonal tables, no booths—only chairs. Simple centerpieces—some hot sauce, salt and pepper, ketchup and mustard, sugar packets, and the like. One-page menus. Western-themed and Sturgis Rally motorcycle decorations on the walls. Deer heads, guns, framed cowboy pictures, neon beer signs. Vastly different from the monotonous coffee bean decor of Cheyenne’s downtown Starbucks. Five days a week, eight hours a day staring at only coffee, and more coffee and also coffee. I swear there are traces of soy caramel macchiato in my veins.
 

       A month ago from this past Wednesday, Cheyenne held a parade. I don’t even know what the parade was for, just that it brought in a lot of people. Some police officer died, or something. Anyway, I worked that night, and Starbucks happened to be right in the heart of the parade, so, naturally, it was a hellscape. 

       I am not much of a people person. But I needed money, and Starbucks is always willing to hire skinny college drop-outs with pretty faces so I took the opportunity. Despite long hours where I had to deal with customers on a daily basis, I think I did a decent job at being a barista for six months. Except, however, for this one particular Wednesday. Starbucks was packed. There was a line out the door and it was only me and this bitchy girl Catarina working, and my boss, Steve.

       “Hallie,” Catarina said with her usual snobby and huffy tone. “Someone's at the drive-thru.”

       “I’m blending a frap righnow, I can’t,” I said. 

       “Hallie, please grab the drive-thru,” Steve commanded while walking by, balancing a mocha frappucino and a mysterious latte in one hand and three sausage-egg-and-cheeses in the other. 

       “OhmyGahhhhd,” I whispered to myself, slamming the not-quite-blended frap onto the counter. Some its contents spilled over the name, and I did not have time to wipe it off. I think the name said “Valerie” but I only saw the “Va” and “ie” so I just said “Vaggie.” Catarina shot me a look. 

       “Welcomtstarbucks, uhhh whaddayouwant sir,” I said through the headset. A woman’s voice came through the earpiece. 

       “Ummm, okay then,” she said, annoyed. “I’ll take a redblend skimpy doctor waffle, please, and a—“

       “’msorry, whawasat?”

       “A REVEREND SLIPPY DOCTOR OTTO,” she shouted. 

       I pressed the headset closer to my ear.  “’msorry, I reallycan’t understa—“

       “NEVER MIND THEN.” I heard tires screeching away and the angry, forced sigh of Steve. The underneath of my skin tingled with the sensation of immense stress and frustration. My eyes were the Hoover Dam and throat was the San Andreas Fault. (Two places I have not been, as I have only left the state of Wyoming to go to Denver. But I know of them). 

       “Steve, I’m sorry, I can't do this anymore,” I said.

       He frowned, looked down at his coffee-stained loafers, and shook his head.

       After I got home and stripped out of my coffee-stained uniform, I opened my computer and furiously typed “zillow.com” into the web address bar. When the site loaded, I typed “Wyoming.” 9,269 homes for sale. I zoomed into each place, weighing my options. I didn’t want to live near Yellowstone, because if it erupted I would be the first to die. Not a far-fetched fear—I've heard that there has been a lot of suspicious ground activity in the past year. I zoomed into a cluster of dots in the northeast quadrant—a town called Hulett. It seemed far enough away from things that I might encounter fewer humans, but not so far that I'd have to drive an unreasonable amount of miles to get groceries. I also have an uncle in Spearfish, South Dakota. That could be convenient if I need some money. 

       The cheapest house listed was a $100,000 one-bedroom cabin built in 1918, probably once owned by a crazy old man. I realized I'd have to work at Starbucks one more day, preferably when Steve and Catarina weren't working and I had full register access, but this house was perfect—complete opposite of my shitty, paint-chipped duplex on East 19th Street. I called the agent, creatively named “Crazy Woman,” and told her I would like to buy the house.

       “Would...you...like...me...to...show...you...the...place...before...you...buy,...darlin’?” the woman on the other line asked.

       “No thanks,” I said. “I'd like to put down a payment. Tomorrow.”

​

J o e l 

       PCHOO! I get him in the gut. Streams of blood fly out his rotten ribcage and all over the Dairy Queen. HA! Got one hiding behind the Conoco gas station. BCHEEWWWW!!! It explodes. PYEW PYEW! Got that one right in the—

      “Joel look! They do have Sonic here.”

      “Yeah ok,” I mumble. Clearly my mother doesn't understand the importance of KILLING ZOMBIES AT A TIME LIKE THIS. 

      “Joel, honey, just a bit more okay? We're close!” my mom says in a coo-like voice. 

      “I think I can see Mount Rushmore from here,” dad chimes in, using his usual chipper and father-who-was-meant-to-have-a-kid-who-did-sports voice. His dreams were probably crushed by the weight of my fat ass. Whatever. There are more important things to worry about.

       RAAAHHHHH! A cluster of zombies break out of the Rapid City medical center. PCHOO PCHOO! PYEWWW!!!!! I run out of ammo. I have to use my fists. AAAAAAH!

      “Stop punching the seat, honey.”

       My efforts have been for nothing, the zombies have taken over. South Dakota has been defeated. The only states that I managed to save were Indiana and Wisconsin. I’ll have to see if I can save New York and Pennsylvania on my way back. (The Ohio state line was about where my DS died. Which is why I had to create this stupid pretend game. Fortunately, brains don’t run on batteries. At least not in America.) 

       My mother dances in her seat. “We’re almost at Mount Rushmooore, we’re almost at Mount Rushmoooore,” she sings. It’s the same melody as the one she sung for the Badlands. She begins to chant, “STAMPS STAMPS STAMPS STAMPS.” I cover my ears with the sleeves of my hoodie. 

       It all started last year, when mom got a little book called “Passport to Your National Parks.” Whenever you go to a national park, you can get a stamp in the book showing that you went there. Apparently it’s the fucking greatest thing in the world. So great that I have to be dragged on these dumb road trips to places I don’t care about to see things I don’t care about. I’d rather be killing animated zombies, not imaginary zombies running alongside the car. 

       After way too long of a time, we arrive at Mount Rushmore. We park and we get out and walk to the big mountain with the old dudes’ faces carved in it. Mom gasps. Dad says, “Gee, now that is something!” I find an outlet and sit by it, charging my DS and playing Call of Duty.

 

S a r a 

9/18 11:18am

 

       Laccolithic butte. Igneous rock. Elevation: 5,112 feet.

Red sandstone and siltstone cliffs in the area, along the
      Belle Fourche. Red, yellow, green, gray sedimentary rocks           
         found. Sandstone, shale, gypsum. Great examples of erosion.
 

 

       The ground crunches under my boots, crisp, each fragment of rock finding its way into the slivers of space in the outsole. I gaze past my notebook through dusted air at my surroundings—a family in khaki shorts and white visors stands with Devil’s Tower behind them as a man squints into a Nikon and takes their picture. An RV parks illegally in front of the visitor center and releases an enthusiastic family of eight. An overweight boy sits on a curb, looking down at a portable game console while strategically using an old man standing nearby as shade. 

       I find my way into the visitor’s center, avoiding gaggles of distracted tourists weaving between souvenir racks and information boards. Ignoring the laminated postcards, overpriced t-shirts and culturally ambiguous lapel pins, I wander to a small, dimly-lit panel displaying geology facts and models. 

        It’s nothing I haven’t already researched, but I take a quick picture of the panel with my iPhone.

       “Hi there!” A blonde, ponytailed, dark-green polo-wearing National Parks guide appears next to me, smiling in a way that makes me wonder whether she is being paid really well or if she is electronically programmed. “Would you like some information about Devil’s Tower?”

       “Oh, no, that’s okay,” I say. “I’m doing my senior research project on the geology of the area.”

       “That’s so cool!” she says with genuine enthusiasm. “What school do you go to?”

       “Montana State.”

       Her eyes light up. “Cool! I actually know someone who goes there! Do you know Pete Runshall? He’s a junior, I think.”

       “Yeah, yeah, he’s great!” I turn away from her. No idea who he is.
       “Are you planning on climbing the tower?” she asks. “I hear today is perfect climbing weather!”
       I slowly turn around. “Uh, no,” I say. “Not today.” I shift my weight to my other foot. The girl nods and continues to smile at me. 

       “Okay!” she says. “Have a great day! Good luck on your paper!” 

       I cringe. “It’s a—” But she’s gone.

       I head back outside into the dry July sun. Some flea-sized climbers ascend the butte, clad in fluorescent greens and oranges and risking their lives for the sake of a thrill.

 

       My trembling foot finds its way into the spaces between the rock and I push up, trying my hardest not to look down as I belay Dad. He chuckles and shakes his head. “Sar, do you plan on getting to the top next week?” I exhale through my nose. I did not want to do this. “C’mon Sars, you’re finally climbing a mountain! Isn’t that cool?” I think back to the time when I was nine that I said, “Hey dad! I wanna climb a mountain!” I had just watched a TV program where a cartoon dog that walked on two legs scaled the side of a mountain effortlessly, with no safety equipment or ropes or anything. In my nine-year-old mind, that was cool. Now, at sixteen, it seems a lot less cool. “Yeah, sure,” I say. “Thanks dad.” He smiles. “Happy birthday, sport.” 

 

       I close my eyes and shake my head, as if the memory is an etch-a-sketch drawing that

can simply be effaced. I touch the scar on my arm and walk toward an interesting group of boulders.

 

H a l l i e
    “I’m...sorry,...I...didn’t...get...your...name,” the waitress says, walking up to me with a brown-haired man who looks more east-coast than I’ve ever seen. 

       “Hallie,” I say. “Hallie Bellwood.” 

       “It’s nice to meet you, Hallie,” the man says at a more familiar pace, shaking my hand and smiling. He has a reflective shine on his cheekbones akin to Santa Claus, but his hair and jaw structure make him more of a Ryan Reynolds. “My name is Michael. This is my best waitress, Patty.” He smiles at Patty and she curtsies. “Where are you from, Hallie?”

       “Cheyenne,” I reply. 

       He raises his eyebrows. “Our great capital city, huh? What makes you want to work here?”

       “Well,” I start. “I actually just moved into a house on Sager Avenue. I just, like, needed to get away, I guess.” I laugh nervously, Michael and Patty staring at me with full, undivided attention. “The big city bustle, you know?” Michael laughs. I didn’t intend for it to be funny.

       “Do...you...have...any...serving...experience?” Patty chimes in. I patiently wait for her to finish.

       “I um, I worked at Starbucks for a little while,” I tell them. “That was my last job. Before then I kind of just, you know, like, sold clothes online. Ebay and stuff. Yeah, that’s about it.” I opt to leave out my main source of income.

      “Well, I'll have you fill out an application for legal purposes, but I think you'd be a great fit for our restaurant.” Michael beams. He walks back into his office, and Patty claps for me.

       “Oh,...you...are...SO...going...to...get...hired!” Patty says, bouncing excitedly. I nod, and swallow, and bounce a little too.

​

M a n i s a 

       “Are you crazy?”

       “No.” I stared straight into my older brother’s eyes, unwavering.

       “Walk? To Bear Lodge Butte?” Matt tilted his head. “You’re crazy.”

       “I’m not crazy,” I replied, calm. “I want to visit more sacred lands.”

       “Cars, Manisa. They have cars.” 

       “I don’t. And I want to go alone.”

       “That’s really stupid, Nees. Good luck getting dad to agree to that one.”
 

       The conversation with my dad went a similar route.
 

       “Are you insane?”

       “No.”

       “You are not walking by yourself to Wyoming.”

       “Why not?”

       “You just can’t. Tell Matt to take you.”

       “I want to go alone.”

       “Absolutely not. End of story.”
 

       I wish I could have seen the look on their faces when they saw my empty bed this morning.

       

       The straps of my backpack dig softly into my shoulders and I am halfway there. Right in the heart of the Black Hills—the elevation calculated by the soreness in the backs of my legs and the amount of breaths I can take before I get back up again after sitting. (I have been doing a lot of sitting.)

       Twelve cars have already slowed next to me, asking if I needed a ride or help or what have you. One man pulled over in front of me, got out and stood in my way of walking.
       “You okay, hun?”
       I tried to get around him. “Fine,” I said.
       He got back into his car and drove off. 

       I think people are afraid of natives. Tourists, especially. Like we’re going to do voodoo murders to them because their ancestors took our land from us. I just want them to drive faster and not say, “Oh my God, an Indian! Do you think she lives in a teepee?” every time they see me. 

 

       “Can I get a pack of Marlboro reds?”
       I slap down my ID onto the counter of a gas station convenient store.
       The cashier looks at it for a second, then grabs the pack. “That’ll be $6.49 please,” he says through crooked teeth.
       I hand him exact change.
       “Enjoy.”

       “Thanks,” I say. “Where is your bathroom?”

       “You can’t smoke in there,” he says.

       “I know.”

       “It’s through that door over there.” He points to a white door with chipped paint and the words MIKE AND JENNY FUCKED IN HERE 2011 written in faded sharpie. I walk inside and shut the door behind me, finding a single grime-stained toilet and a small sink. I take the longest piss I’ve probably ever taken as a human being. The one-ply toilet paper feels better than the crumpled receipts I’ve been using. I wash my hands and hair and walk out.

      The cigarette lights easy in the arid heat. I take a drag, and it stings a bit—I haven’t smoked since my stepmom moved in a few months ago. She can “smell the smoke of tobacco ten miles away,” apparently. She also tells my dad everything.

       After smoking on a bench outside for a bit, I get up and crush the butt under my heel. The ground shakes for a few seconds, but I ignore it. I look up at the angled sun—six hours until nightfall.

 

G o r e 

       I hear the post-death squeak of the rat when I kick it across the floor. Rolls out the front door with disgrace. Let the trash man get it. Turn around to find a wooden rocking chair on its side in the corner. Good condition aside from some dust. Pick it up. Slips out of my hands and onto the floor. A piece flies out toward the back wall. “Shit,” I mutter through my cigar. 

       Found this place when I drove by it goin' through Hulett last February and saw a “For Lease—As Is” Sign. Property owner told me he didn’t want to pay to get it cleaned, so he’d just sell it to me for a cheap price. I was bored, so I took it. Wife left, kids grown. Guts-who-died, gone. I needed somethin’ to do. When the owner saw my signature on the paper, he squinted for a long time. Like there was a bug in his eye or somethin’. “Gore?” he said. “Yep.” Laughed. “That your Christ-given name?” “Yep.” Easier than tellin’ the truth.

       Sun comes in through a dusty window. Spit at it and use my fist to wipe it clean. Property owner asks me if I need any supplies. Laugh and say, “God gave me two good hands and the ability to spit, right?” Widens his eyes. I laugh again.

       “What are you gonna use the place for?” Looks at my sleeves of tattoos. Looks nervous, like I gonna make it into a tattoo shop or gang meetin’ place or somethin’. Laugh. “Don’t worry, sheriff, I ain’t gonna turn your property into a gang shop. Hung up that saddle long ago.” Squints his eyes again. “So you were in a gang, then?” Howl, “Aw man, those were the good ol’ days. I used to ride all around the country with my pals. We fucked shit up! But I can’t ride no more, these sixty-two year old legs ain’t made for the road!” He nods, looks at my legs. “I think you should take me out to dinner first,” Wink. He ain’t got no sense a humor.

​

H a l l i e       

       Pulling clothes out of the boxes I have yet to unpack, I finally find an outfit I can wear to my first day of work. A white, scoop-neck Ralph Lauren shirt and black Levis. There is a bit of a wrinkle in the shirt, but I’m sure I can iron it before I leave. I look at my watch, panicking because I only have twenty minutes until my shift. Wait, I no longer have to factor in driving or traffic time—I can walk to work in five minutes! This town is great.

       The walk is easy. No cars whizzing by every three seconds, no creepy homeless men or trash gathering on the sidewalks. It's quiet, the exact amount of quiet I've always wanted in my life. I stand in front of my new place of employment and suddenly find myself at home. A place I will appreciate, a place to make good, honest money and lasting friendships and a decent life. A new me. My toes tingle at the thought.

​

J o e l 

       PCHOO PCHOO. A zombie climbs up one of the old guy's heads and assembles a laser death ray inside his left eye. PEECHAAAW. The head explodes! Pieces of rock fly everywhere. Charred zombies fly into the trees. Who could've done it? A zombie killer sits on top of the gift shop roof with a bomb detonator—

       “Joel! Time to go!”
       I almost run to the car, but, of course, running is something I will never be able to do. I’d rather not attempt it in front of all these people. 

       The car smells like body odor and corn chips and stifling heat. I sit on top of my own crumbs and flip open my DS. 

      “Seatbelt, honey,” mom says to me as she turns around. “Time to go to Devil’s Tower!” 

      “Now, little known fact,” dad says as he begins to drive. “Devil’s Tower was the first national monument in the US, because a man named Teddy Roosevelt thought that—”

 

       I wake up to my DS on my lap and the car stopped in a parking lot, under the shade of a tree. 

       “Where are we?” I ask, my post-nap breath billowing out of my mouth, PSSSEEEWWW, like how glowing green smoke comes out of the mouth of zombies in a lot of video games.

       “Look, Joel!” My mother points out the left side window at a gigantic tree stump protruding from the ground. It's ten times bigger than my house. Twenty, even.

       “What the hell?” I say.

       “Language, Joel,” dad says. “And also, precisely.”

       “Huh?”

       “It’s Devil’s Tower!” mom says, and I must have missed her usual stamp song. THANK GOD. 

       Mom opens the door and steps out, gazing up at the giant thing. It’s cooler than Mount Rushmore, I guess, but still pretty lame. As we walk to the visitor’s center, I imagine the tower being ravaged by zombies. Command force officers at the top with machine guns shooting down at them. I have to get up there, too. Zombies fall down one by one. An officer gets grabbed by the leg and pulled down. Blood spewing everywhere. PCHOO PCHOO! My efforts are slim this far back. I need to get closer!!!

       Dad grabs me by the shirt and pulls me backwards.

       “This way, honey!” mom says. “Stamp this way!” She skips into the visitor’s center. 

       I groan. “Pleeease can I just stay out here?” 

       “Alright,” dad says sternly. He points to a space on the curb. “Stay right here!”

 

S a r a 

9/18 11:29am

 

       Tower – igneous rock. Phonolite porphyry of
                    Tertiary age. Light, brownish gray in color.
                    Vertical polygonal columns taper off fr

 

​
 

 

       My pen stops writing. I look away from the famous landmark.
 

       “The most impressive research projects are the ones where the researcher branches out of his or her comfort zone. They find a geologic source that terrifies them and they run to it.” I sit in class, wondering why my professor teaches geology and not something in the field of drama or poetry. However, her twenty years of geologic background shows that she knows what she’s doing, and I respect her, so I usually tend to follow in the direction of what she says. I think deeply about her advice. What could possibly be so uncomfortable and scary for me that I would have to “branch out” of my—then it hits me. No—I cannot do it. I touch the scar on my arm. I’ll have to do something else. Death Valley, perhaps. Yeah. Definitely something different.

 

       The boulders get larger as I get closer to the tower. I find one protruding diagonally from the ground, a sort of natural awning, shading a space on the dirt. I sit under it, cross-legged, and open my notebook to add more to my field notes.

​

                                                                                              9/18 11:35am

​

                                                            867 feet from summit to ba

 

 

       “We did it, sport! We’re at the top!” My legs feel as if someone has been beating them with a hammer from the inside, but when I look around, I see why someone would suffer the pure agony of climbing a nearly-vertical wall. Fields and hills and trees and a river and teeny cars and red rocks all share the landscape. Distant mountains shape the horizon with a vintage photograph-style haze. It looks almost as if I am on a plane, landing, without the uncomfortable seats or tiny oval-shaped window. It’s, in a single word, stunning.“Look, Sar, our car!” my dad points to a random silver speck in the parking lot below.“Yeah, cool,” I say, but I care more about the framework of the land. It’s really cool. No—it's spectacular. The way the colors are different in different places and how the river carves out the ground and the way the mountains look. Jagged, writing across the horizon like cursive sentences. Dad snaps me out of my awe. “Let’s eat before we go back down!” I furrow my brows. Down? Dad sets up a blanket from his backpack and throws a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches on top of it. I cringe. I sit down and unwrap the sandwich, picking off the ham and placing it on the plastic. “Aw, Sars, no ham?” I look up at him, hurt. “But it’s the best part!” “I don’t eat meat, dad. I’ve told you this.” He looks over at a woman stretching her legs. “I try my best, Sara. You know that.” I nod. “I know, dad.” 

 

       I climb out from under the rock and take the pack of gum out of my pocket. I take out a piece, unwrap it, and place it on my tongue. The sharp taste of cinnamon comforts me. The butte stands ahead, almost in a taunting matter. I try to look at my feet until the trail bends to the right. 

 

       “Alright, Sara, now to get down, we need to rappel.” “Rappel?” “Yep! Just hold onto this rope and bounce yourself down with your feet!” I begin to sweat. “Uh, okay.” He ties the end of the rope around my waist and pats my back. I start to descend down the rope, my dad on a different rope next to me. I look over to see another person rappelling, their rope system looking different from mine.“Are you sure you did this right?” I ask. “There are different ways to do it, Sars. Just trust me for once, okay?” I nod. We get about four-fifths of the way down when I start to get unfathomably tired. My legs start to feel weak and shaky, my hands feel hot, and my eyelids become heavier than usual. “Hey dad,” I say. “We’re almost there, sport!” I turn to look down. That’s the last thing I remember.

​

M a n i s a   

       “I knew you'd be here.”
       “Why did you follow me?”

       “Manisa, you're being ridiculous. What's wrong with you?”

       “I'm fine.”

       “Bullshit. Get in my car.”

       I scoff at the thought of such a conversation. It crossed my mind back at the Wyoming border that my dad’s Ford Explorer might be sitting by the entrance of the national park, holding both my father and a large energy drink as he waits for my arrival. Now, I stand before a fork in the road and a sign:

↖ Devil’s Tower 17 mi

↗ Hulett 21 mi

 

       I head right. Smirking and shaking my head, I wonder how long it will take for him to call the police about his missing daughter. I wonder if I will be at the Idaho border by then.

 

H a l l i e

       The first day goes great. Barely any customers, no weirdos, and Patty helps me learn the menu and the ways of talking to the locals. A few hours before her shift ends she gets a phone call which prompts her to leave, but I am confident. I am trained in confidence.

       The next day, I wake up before my second shift with a smile on my face. I don't even need to make coffee. I gaze with lust at the stack of dollar bills on my dresser, all tips, and then get ready for the day.

       I approach the main street of Hulett where the restaurant is, and there is a discomforting amount of cars and motorcycles parked along the road. A group of teenagers with various forms of ripped t-shirts sits in the bed of a mud-covered truck with burgers and sodas. The Ponderosa is packed—every chair of every table holds a person. Oh boy.

       I walk in to see Michael dispensing sodas into glass cups. “What's, uh, t's going on?” 

       He makes a face. “We never really know when it’s going to be busy,” he says, grabbing straws. He walks over to a table and I follow. “Patty called in today. Didn’t really say why.” He hands the table their drinks. “Here you go,” he says to them, smiling. “Enjoy.” He turns back to me. “Of course, this was before it got busy. But now she isn’t answering my calls."

       I can feel my heartbeat quicken. “So what do I, uh,” I look around. Most of the tables have yet to be served food. “What do I do, exactly?”

       Michael looks at me apologetically. “Just do what you did yesterday, okay? You were great.”
       “I had twenty-eight total customers in six hours,” I inform him.

       He smiles. “Don’t worry about rushing—these aren’t the city folk you’re used to.” He winks at me, then hands me an apron, a purple flip notebook, and a pen. He sees the terror in my eyes. “You’ll do great.”
       I’m not convinced.

​

G o r e   

       Unpackin' a box a old stuff to use for the store, find an old prescription bottle. Words are faded, but I know what they say. “Ho-ly shit!” Cigar falls out my mouth and onto the floor. Pick it up. “This was some good times!” Shake the bottle, listen to the familiar sound a pills in plastic. Makes me think of my good friend Guts-who-died. We had some good times back when, on the motorcycles, old bars and sexy ladies and all sorts of funny pills.
       Open it up. Purple pills was the first dose, I remember. Gets me seein’ colors and shit. Woohoo! Yellow pills was the second dose so I wasn’t weird for the rest a the week. Met my first wife on this!

       Take a purple pill and a yellow pill out of the plastic and shut it. Stare at the purple pill. Me and my wife used to stare at it for a while before we took it. Liked to lick it a little, too. Prepare the tongue. I used to miss the days before she got sober. Now just miss the days second wife loved me. The days of Guts-who-died, alive.
       Put the pill closer to my mouth. Ya know, I really shouldn’t. Laugh. “What the hell! I’m on my own property now!”

​

J o e l 

      GRUMMBLE. A zombie runs up and tries to reason with me. PCHOO. I shoot it. No time to make friends with the enemy. GRUMMBBLE. Huh? Oh, it's just my stomach.

       “Come on, Joel, let's go get something to eat.”

      Yay! Food! As we walk to the car, mom looks up places to eat in the area on her phone. 

       “This looks like a good place,” I hear her say. “The Pond o’ Rosa. It’s in Hue-let.” Ew. Why would anyone name a restaurant after a pond of the pink blood that comes out of Rosallian Monsters? Aside from being the lamest monsters in the Chlompskin World, they also have the stupidest blood. It’s made of thousands of tiny daggers. Not even realistic.

 

       As it turns out, the Pond o’ Rosa is really the Ponderosa. Slightly better. We have to park in a space kind of far from the restaurant, because all the spaces are full. UGH. So much walking.

      Hue-let looks a little like a town in this old western game I played once where I had to stop mutant cowboys from plotting to overthrow the western king. It was pretty boring, so I stopped playing after a few hours. It was a Christmas gift.

       “This is so cute!” mom exclaims. 

       “But you’re cuter,” dad says, leaning in for a kiss. Mom gives him a quick peck, YUCK, and skips to the restaurant. She disappears inside when dad is still a few yards behind her, and I’m a good tractor-trailer length behind him. 

       The inside looks like the restaurant we go to in Rochester when mom is sick of the places in Gates Chili. This one is more western, though, and probably doesn’t have seven-cheese jumbo burgers. We sit down at a table that doesn’t seem to have been cleaned and holds a full plate of fries. SCORE! I reach for it, but mom slaps my hand before I can grab one. Dammit.

       “I’ll be there in onnne second,” a frazzled waitress says as she runs by carrying six glasses and three plates somehow. It is then that I see some pieces of ceramic strewn across the floor, accompanied by a broken mug and a small puddle of coffee. Mom looks at dad, worried.

       “Should we go somewhere else?” she asks.

       “No,” dad says. “We’re already here, the food looks good, let’s just sit tight, okay?” Mom nods. UGH. More waiting. I imagine all the people as hungry zombies, waiting for their food, while the waitress is running around, deciding which one she wants to be eaten by.

 

 

S a r a 

 9/18 11:59am
 
 

                             End of notes.

 

 

       I have to leave. This is too difficult; I've ventured too far outside of my comfort zone. Will I be able to get back inside? I speed-walk back down the trail and away from the butte. At one point I grab a jar out of my backpack and scoop up a particularly rocky patch of soil so I can do research later. After I stand up, I nearly bump into a very tan, possibly Native American, man walking frantically down the trail, looking all around. Probably lost something.

       The leather-smelling inside of my car makes me feel safer, and I jam my keys into the ignition and pull out of the lot. I avoid looking in my rearview mirror as I drive away from the park. When I get to the end of the road, I see a sign.

               ¬ Hulett

———————

                 Sundance

  Moorecroft ®

       A billboard behind it says “HULETT WY. CLOSEST SERVICES.” I turn left, hoping for a restaurant with good vegetarian options and a decent distraction.

​

M a n i s a

       “To listen to your voice messages, press one.”

       Beep.

       “Hey, Nees, listen, It's Matt. I just wanted to know—”
       Beep.

       “Fuck off, Matt.”

 

       About ten miles away from Hulett, a green Ford Explorer slows down next to me. I momentarily think it is my father, but it's just some white girl. 

       “Hey, do you need a ride?” The girl has brown, shoulder-length hair with half of it in a ponytail, rectangular glasses, and a long scar along her jawline. She's pretty cute, seems badass, but not worth the effort.
       As I open my mouth to say no, my stomach growls, loud. She definitely hears it. I shrug.
       “Sure.” I get into the car.

       “You going to Hulett?” she asks as she pulls off.

       “Yeah, actually,” I say. “I’m hungry as shit.” I look over and see the girl up close. It looks like she has been crying. I don’t ask about it.

       “Yeah, I’ve had a pretty long day already,” she tells me. “I need some comfort food.” 

       I nod. “I can definitely relate.”

       She smiles, and, despite the pile of shit my day has been, I can’t help but smile a little, too.

 

J o e l 

       HHHHHH. The waitress girl drops a fork as she comes over to us. TINGY TING. All the zombies will want to eat her now. The clumsy ones are the tastiest.     

       “Hello! I’msosorryaboutthewait, what would youlike to order?” The waitress blinks twice. Her hair looks like it might have been styled, but now it's just a mess. A green stain is smeared across her shirt. This girl is a zombie!

       My mom starts speaking to the zombie. “I’ll take the Carolina catfish sandwich, withhh uhhh some breaded mushrooms on the side.” She sets down the menu. “Thank you!”

       “I’ll have whatever you like best,” dad says. The zombie blushes. 

       “I actually uh, haven’thad anything onnnthe menu yet,” she says in a quick mumble, as zombies do. “I juststarted.”

       “Well then,” dad says. “Just choose whatever you see first.”
       The zombie nods, then looks at me.
       I send her a telepathic message with my eyes. She squints and tilts her head.

       “Order your food, honey,” mom says. The zombie wins this round.

       “Can I get the white owl burger, no sauce?” I ask. The zombie nods, then takes our menus and scurries away. Mom and dad exchange a look. 

 

        A good forty minutes later, after two weird times where the floor and tables shook, we finally get our food. The zombie waitress puts down mom’s sandwich in front of me, my sandwich in front of mom, and a plate of cheese sticks in front of dad. Mom and I switch plates, and that’s when I see the sauce spilling from my burger. I raise my hand as the zombie is walking away.

       “Um, excuse me,” I call after her. “Lady?” 

       Mom shakes her head. “Just scrape it off, honey.” 

       “NO!” I shout as stand up, pushing my chair out from behind me and hitting a chair at an adjacent table. “I said NO sauce and I got sauce! I don’t want this!” Everyone in the restaurant has their eyes on me. The zombie sees my weakness. I storm out of the door, SLAM.

       I turn right and walk down the street for a little while until I see a place with an open door and a clown statue outside of it, propping it open. It laughs at me. HAHAHA. Taunts me. STUPID KID. I look back at the restaurant. The door is opening. I quickly duck inside the clown statue place.

​

G o r e 

       Small circles, purple circles my tongue is their home. Spinnin’ cavescape I swallow my throat an everglade, consumes my brain cells to forget, to remember, the chains surround and they break, they meld together the welder is this world, sixty-two years of cruel—“Fucking shit fuck I don’t want to be here.” Whip around. Large boy storms in through open door and I drop the second dose. Dose to ground me to bring me back from this helicopter cloud they fall down the drain in the floor that damn hole with teeth—Smash. Cowboy clown in shatters. Fat boy stares at pieces, pale, looks at me he is a porcelain doll he has broken himself. “I-I’m sorry, Mr Man, I uh—” I nod, I think, or snarl, face is of the numb state and I ain’t sure. “Boy,” manage to say. Looks at me, waiting to hear what my mouth will emit next, radiation poisonin’ out my esophagus into his life to seep into his ear watercourses so that he may, eventually, emit something back. But I say nothin’. Tongue sticks to the bottom of my mouth like a ship who was unfortunate enough to be in the ocean as it drained. Fat boy still starin’. “Have you heard of my friend Guts-who-died?” I say. “Joel, honey?” Voice of a mother emerges into the dusty space. I swear I can see the dust runnin’. “Are you in he—oh there you are!” Dad comes in after her, sees fat boy gives disapprovin’ look. Seein’ the whole family, I can tell they come from far away from these parts. City dwellers, maybe. Atlantic littoral-dwellers. Parents look up at me. I reckon am twitchin’. I think it's also earthquakin’. “Have you heard of my friend Guts-who-died?” Fat boy Joel breaks away from parents and runs into back of the store. I worry he'll break somethin’ else. “Have,” I say, callin’ after boy. “You heard! Of my friend? Guts.” Can’t remember how words. Parents stare at me, then in direction where boy ran, back at me. I smile and nod, for about twenty minutes I think.

​

H a l l i e 

       “Dammit. Dammitdammitdammit!” I say, slamming my fist against the wall of the back office. Every table now is either waiting for food or waiting for a redo of their food, and everyone is pissed. This is like Starbucks, but worse. I feel my throat tighten up, and I find myself wondering why I thought I could do this. I peek out of the doorway to see the people, distracted by the utter hunger in their stomachs. I move my gaze to the cash register. When I looked in it earlier, there were quite a few rubber-band tied wads of hundreds sitting at the bottom. I swallow my building saliva and walk over to the register, casually.

​

S a r a 

                                                                                                9/18 12:22pm
 

12:07 am

83°F / 28°C

48 mph

 

 

 

       I remain on high alert, shifting my eyes to the right ever so often. The girl in my passenger seat seems nice, though a bit troubled. I’m probably a bit troubled as well. Why she hasn’t yet asked me about my scar, or why I have dried tears all down my cheeks and on my shirt?

       “So I guess I haven’t really introduced myself,” I say after a few minutes of silence. “I’m Sara.”

       “Cool,” the girl nods. “I’m Manisa.”

       “That’s a pretty name!” I tell her. 

       She shrugs, then laughs. “It’s funny, actually. The name apparently means “one who walks” and I literally just spend the last three days walking.” 

       “From where?” I ask.

       “Porcupine. It’s in South Dakota, in the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

       “Shit, that’s far. Why?”

       “I’m running away.” She clears her throat. “What, um, where are you coming from?” 

       “Montana. I study at MSU, geology.” Manisa raises her eyebrows and nods. “I came out here to do my senior research on Devil’s Tower, or, uh, Bear Lodge Butte I mean, but, I dunno, it’s hard.”

       Manisa furrows her eyebrows. “Why?”

       “I fell, off Devil's T—Bear Lodge Butte, when I was sixteen.”
       “Shit.”
       “Yeah. It was dumb, the whole thing. My dad made me do it. He made me do a lot of stuff I didn't want to do. Ride a motorcycle, shoot off fireworks, weld. I always ended up getting hurt.”
       “Dads kinda suck,” Manisa says. She laughs. “I'm running away from mine. He's always been an uptight ass but he got way worse when he married a white woman from Sioux Falls.” She says “Sioux Falls” as if it was an uppity-rich neighborhood, like the Hamptons. She pulls a Red Bull out of her backpack, opens it, and starts drinking. "Anyway," she says. "The point is, men are dumb, dads are dumb, and I'm running away to Portland because everyone's chill there."

       "I thought about going to school in Portland," I tell her.

       "Portland State? I might go there, actually."

       "Yeah," I respond, impressed. "They have a pretty great geology program. But UMT was closer to home, and crazy things, like moving far away for college, have never been my strong suit."

       Manisa nods, and it's obvious that she can't relate.

       "So what would you study at PSU?" I ask.
 

       By the time she starts telling me about her life goals as a slam poet and freelance beekeeper, we’ve been sitting in a parking space in Hulett for ten minutes.

​

M a n i s a 

       “So yeah, I'm going to shout about racism against natives and sexism and how much I hate men and also I'll have a lot of kickass bees and shit. God, I'm starving. Wanna go eat?”

       “Yeah! Let me just get my wallet out of my bag real quick,” she says.

       “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I got lunch today, if you get dinner tomorrow.” I say, raising my eyebrows for effect.

       Sara blushes and looks down, smiling.

       Holy shit, did I really just say that? I walk away from Sara toward some restaurant. Did I make the right move? I never took myself as a smooth person, but that was pretty damn smooth. I turn around. As soon as I look at her, she blushes and stops.

       “What?” she says. 

       I laugh. “Nothing, come on! I’m starving!”

       As soon as we walk in, a girl in waitress clothes and a messed up ponytail walks out, holding her purse to her chest and looking at the ground. I look at Sara, then in at the restaurant. It’s a mess. People looking around, calling to wait staff that don’t seem to be there. Cooks outside of the kitchen yelling at each other. Empty tables piled with trash, food and ceramic pieces on the ground, a broom on top of a table for some reason—it’s chaos. 

       Sara makes a face of concern. “Do you wanna uh—”

       “Go somewhere else?” I finish.

       She bites her lip. “Yeah.”

       I push my way out of the door and hold it open for her. She walks out and thanks me, and I wink. She blushes again.

 

J o e l 

       CREEAAK. I sit down on a wooden chair a weird dark corner at the back of the clown statue place (which has some other stuff, too. Old timey guns and swords). The chair sounds like it might break, so I sit down on the floor next to it. A spider walks by my foot. SMACK. Another hangs from its web above me. Whatever. Anything to get away from my stupid parents and pretend I’m not in this stupid store in stupid Wyoming in the stupidest part of America.

       The crazy old man sits down next to me. He has a big sleeve tattoo of a bunch of weird monsters and goblins and zombies. It's kind of amazing.

       “Stare my inky arm?” he asks. What a weird dude. “Monster eat skin so not to eat heart.” 

       “Uh, suure,” I say. He smiles, and I notice a few teeth are missing.

       “Monsters inside you keep you awake at night,” he says as he pokes my chest. “Gotta learn how turn ‘em off.” 

       What he says makes a lot of sense. I stay up all night playing my games, so, yeah, they do keep me awake. But I don’t really want to turn them off, I just want to keep playing and beat as many games as possible. I tell the man this.

       “No, no,” he says. “Think deeply-er, kid. Why do you, play, these game?” 

       I think for a moment. “I dunno, the stuff in the games are way better than real life. I can do what I want and kill all the bad things and just be awesome.”

       “You like to have control. But you ain’t got control in really life.” HWACH TUH. The man spits into his hand and wipes it on my forehead. 

       “What the HELL, man?” I back away from him.

       “You been baptized, child. Go forth!” The man raises his arms and waves them around, like grandma does when she’s doing her gospel dance. I get up and run toward the door, not because I’m “going forth” or anything, but because I’m about ninety percent sure this crazy dude is going to kill me.

 

H a l l i e 

       I think I got away with it. I jog toward my house, which, I guess I’ll have to abandon, but oh well. Starbucks would've probably found me anyway. I plan out my life from this moment: I’ll drive north, to Alaska maybe. Put all the money I just took into a small cabin in the woods. Sell all my clothes and paint for a living. It’ll be great! Total seclusion! And I've heard that Alaska pays you for living there after a year. 

       I start moving my boxes out to my car, a smile plastered on my face. I’m excited. A new life. As I place a large box of stuffed animals into the trunk, a cloud passes over the sun and a slight darkness overcomes the area.

       Finally. I walk back inside. It hasn't rained in weeks.

 

S a r a 

9/18 12:55am
 

       Manisa – Rhyolite skin, smooth. Short obsidian
                     hair, shaved on one side. Sleeve tattoo of various
                    things. Dark brown eyes, canyons covered by
                    canopies. Thousands of secrets lying beneath,
                    buried, like fossils in badlands.

 

       Manisa never leaves my line of sight as we walk toward the other cafe in town. She's the most interesting person I've ever met, and she doesn't even talk about geology. How do I make sense of these feelings? I've never really thought about having desires or thoughts about anything other than school, and work, and rocks and riverbeds and geologic formations. When all you think about is how little the Earth changes in millions of years, you tend to find things like relationships insignificant. 

       But when I look at Manisa, it feels like I’ve just dug a small hole in the ground and uncovered a painite. It's all new to me, but I think I like it.

       Suddenly, our shadows disappear. A look of confusion comes over Manisa’s face as she turns around and looks toward the western sun. I look as well. A cloud seems to have covered it, darker and quicker than most rainclouds.

       “Is it supposed to rain?” she asks. 

       I gulp, thinking about what is west of us. Due west, 279 miles, to be exact, tucked into the unfortunate corner of Wyoming that borders my home state. I stare straight into the cloud, and think about what lies in the next few minutes. Not the kind of thing that can be prepared for. The kind of thing you can learn about for years in environmental science classes. The kind of thing scientists will warn about with a shrug and a hope that it might not happen in our lifetime.

 

H a l l i e 

       I walk over to the kitchen window, my last good look at this town, and I push away the set of hot pink curtains I will leave behind. Then I see it. A billowing smoke cloud.
       “Sonofa bitch!” I run to my car, shut the door, and put the key in the ignition. I select the GPS function on my car's dashboard display screen, and type in “Maine.”
       “You are on the fastest route,” the automated voice says. “You will arrive at your destination in twenty-five hours.”

 

J o e l

       Outside, people are crowding the streets. It's much darker outside, like a cloudy day, but worse. I find my parents. Mom takes my hand. I try to release from her grasp.

       “Joel, honey, stay with us, okay?”

       “What's going on?” I ask.

        Dad grabs my shoulders and turns me around. There is a gigantic cloud of smoke, covering the sun and growing upwards. The zombies.

       “Could that be—” Mom puts her hand to her mouth.

       A smile grows on my face. Years of training has prepared me for this. I look over at the clown statue shop, which has swords and old, dusty guns. I got this.

 

M a n i s a 

        We run to Sara's car and sit there, looking at each other.

       “What do we do now?” I ask.

       “There's nothing we can do,” Sara responds.
       I grab Sara's hand.

       “Does it help that my lungs are already blackened by tar?” I ask.

       Sara tries to laugh. “Guess we'll find out.”

 

G o r e 

       Try to follow fat boy but he gone by the time I can get up and find my way to the door. Legs feel like brain and brain feel like granola. Granola! That’s what I shoulda named my daughter. Sun stops seepin’ in the window, and I wonder why it woulda set so early. Is it winter already? Stumble outside to see people crowdin’ the streets and lookin’ toward west. Figure I should look myself, and I see it.  “Ho-ly mother of the Lord, what in the—” trip over a curb and fall on my behind. Don’t think much about the pain ‘cause I’m lookin’ at the sky. There’s a big cloud billowin’ over the sun, bigger than anythin’ I ever seen. Bigger than any thunderhead or wildfire smoke or anythin’.Gets bigger and bigger, and then somethin’ huge emerges. I gasp. Devil’s Tower grown a million feet high! And it has a face! Keeps growin’, and it’s laughin’ evil and there’s all this glowin’ red and this black smoke and it’s headin’ straight for Hulett! Suddenly, the thing gets closer and I think it trips ‘cause it starts fallin’, fallin’ toward us and laughin’ and growin’ and starin’ straight at me and I open my mouth to scr—