Salt Pillars

Chapter 16

Fire raged in the center of the room, crackling the kindling as it burned. The boys gathered around the swaying flames, dancing shirtless with their swords and axes in hand, singing at the tops of their lungs through dry, off-pitch throats that came out more as screams then songs, pausing only to take drinks from their shared bottle of whiskey.

They chanted violently over and over, "God is dead!" Shouting and pounding their fisted weapons in the air, jumping around, smashing into one and other with their chests and shoulders as though they were in a mosh-pit at a heavy metal concert.

The drug bender had gone on for two more days before insanity induced by the neuro-chemical rollercoaster had final gone off the rails. That was the point at which Cole's suggestion from the other night had materialized, from a casual joke, into all them all actively shaving their heads.

It must have been the meth that bridged the gap between lunacy and genius. With so many synapses firing in rapid succession, the world seemed to move in fast play, and the tangible morphed into the surreal like the virtual reality from the violent video games which they had all become too accustomed to. The hours that these boys had spent before a digital screen as children, blowing zombies' heads off and shooting hookers, had made them numb to the sight of violence, and the absence of that continuous exposure had left them in a withdrawal-like state, craving the kill — fiending for the thrill of it, as every carnivore does.

So they danced around the fire that night, shirtless and bald-shaven, with black ash smeared around their eyes and their mouths as war paint, screaming, "God is Dead!" and beating their chests like tribal warriors in preparation for the great hunt — the great battle that lay before them.

Willie had given them their target: Judd and his friends. The plan was set: they would attack at night — this night. Adrenaline was flowing, the thrill, the glorious thrill building in anticipation like tribal drums in their blood. Upon my red horse, I am war. I am death.

They stalked slowly through the night to Judd's house. Instinctively moving with stealth as they approached from across the street. The air was cool against their exposed torsos and an electric calm filled it. Their senses were heightened beyond anything they had known, allowing them to detect every sound regardless of how subtle. The black street slowly took form as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, and gray silhouettes of houses morphed into structures with a blue tint until Judd's house finally took form against the indigo night sky.

2.

Judd was a "metal-head" from Wisconsin. He had moved to Eden Springs when he was thirteen with his sister Lily after his parents' divorce. With his long straight black hair and death metal T-shirts in this small town culture of football and pop/country music, he never quite found his niche socially.

Ultimately he settled into a group of stoners that everyone referred to as the burners. It was a small clique of about four people. They were the long-haired smelly kids with tie-dye hippie shirts and cigarette burns on their clothing. They took acid on the weekends and played hacky-sac behind the seven eleven. The girls wore dark makeup and multicolored hair. To the elderly, they were weirdos, but everyone else just thought that they were losers.

Judd considered himself to be an anarchist and an intellectual, in contrast to his younger sister Lily, whom he referred to as a conformist with her mainstream preppy style. He would debate concepts of philosophy and cinema with an intensity that made his parents uncomfortable so they left him alone.

After the bunker, Judd and Lily returned to their parent's house where they buried their step-mother's burned and blistered corpse in the remnants of the garden. The tulips that she labored so diligently over had also turned black and shriveled.