Sweet Lickings:

"What was that?!" Anna said as there was a sudden sound of splintering wood and tearing metal from out in the pouring rain which surrounded "Sweet Licks" Ice-Cream Parlor in Paradise West Virginia where she was working the morning shift with her frenemy Jean.

The two women, both 18 and finishing high-school, had been best friends from kindergarten till they turned 13, but for the past five years were alternately at daggers drawn and trying to patch things up, and neither of them would admit the true reasons for it, to each other or themselves.

"My GOD: the bridge over Cutter Creak just washed away! This big log smacked into it and it just WENT!" Jean exclaimed, staring out into the driving rain where she had been standing by the window with a mop and bucket cleaning the floor.

There was no one else in the store: Jim-Bob Lee, the owner/manager, had not arrived yet, he didn't come in till noon most days and it was barely 9:30, and their 'Morning Rush' was over and had been light today because of the rain, leaving just the two girls to mind the store.

"Oh, God!" Anna responded, rushing to see for herself.

"The creak is in full flood, no one is going to be able to get out here for hours..." Jean stated looking across the parking lot to where the two concrete pilings of the bridge stood exposed with the wooden span that had stretched between them missing and the gully it had crossed now a raging white water torrent, and Anna saw for herself that Jean was right.

"Thank god we have the generator." Anna remarked flopping down in one of the vinyl and steel chairs that customers sat in.

"Well, the shop's closed for the foreseeable future, what do you want to do till we get rescued?" Jean asked.