Jack's Back

by Mark Romain

  “Those little beauties contain a highly flammable propellant, Jack. For the last few minutes, the contents of four of them have been filling this room. Can you imagine what would happen if someone were to spark a flint down here? Or, perhaps, set light to a piece of rag like this…” He shone the torch on his other hand, which contained the balled-up rag and something else, something small.

  A lighter.

  “Pritchard, don’t be stupid. I know you hate me, but doing that would kill us both. Is that what you really want?” Tyler asked. His mouth had suddenly gone dry. He quickly calculated the distance between them, and the chances of knocking the lighter from his opponent’s hand before it could be used. The odds were poor at best.

  The door he had entered through, seconds earlier, was about eight feet behind him. The killer stood in another doorway roughly fifteen feet ahead of him. Trying not to make it obvious, Jack took a small step backwards.

  Things suddenly seemed very bad.

  “Come on, Simon, put the lighter down. Let’s walk out of here together and get you some help,” Jack cajoled, hoping to dissuade him from turning the building into a smouldering inferno. Just to be on the safe side, he took another backward step.

  “Oh, but I don’t want any help. I’m a very bad person, and proud of it.” The killer smiled contentedly. Without taking his eyes off of Tyler, he transferred the rag to the hand that held the torch and positioned the lighter directly under it.

  “No!” Tyler shouted, raising his hands to stay him.

  As the killer thumbed the flint, a blue spark leapt into the air and fizzled out. Tyler cowered down, half expecting them both to be vaporised on the spot. When he realised that it hadn’t happened, and that he was still alive, he turned hard on his heels, running full pelt for the door.

  “Run, Tyler, run Tyler, run, run, run. Don’t let the Ripper have his fun, fun, fun,” Pritchard screamed in an insane parody of the old wartime song.

  As Jack clambered over the generator, towards the fire door, The Disciple tried the lighter again. This time a bright blue flame burst into life.

  Jack glanced fearfully over his shoulder in time to see the rag ignite. He was aware of the killer throwing it towards the cylinder; then he was back in the corridor.

  “Run Tyler, run Tyler, run, run, run…”

  Jack continued running, legs pumping like pistons, as he tried to distance himself from the danger zone behind. With every step he took the deranged cackle echoed in his ears a little less.

  WHUMP!

  The storage room exploded behind him. The heavy fire proofed door was blown off its hinges as a powerful concussion wave blew it outwards like a twig, spinning it a full 180-degree arc in mid-air before pummelling it into the thick concrete wall less than a foot from Jack’s head. An enormous fireball blasted out of the doorway, chasing Tyler along the corridor, leaving a trail of blazing flame in its wake.

  Somehow, Jack managed to stay just ahead of the expanding ball of fire, which moved like a living thing, hungrily consuming everything in its path. He reached the bend in the corridor and threw himself around it, diving onto the floor and covering his head with his hands. After several seconds he gingerly lifted his head and saw that the flames had begun to recede.

  Out of breath, Tyler stood up unsteadily. Poking his head around the corner, he peered into a thick cloud of acrid smoke that was drifting along the corridor towards him. There was no sign of the killer. He wondered if Pritchard had got out in time. No one could have lived through the intense heat of that fireball.

  WHUMP!

  The second explosion was completely unexpected and it nearly knocked him off his feet. It was a completely different type of detonation to the first one, with much more substance to it. A violent tremor vibrated through the ground as the blast wave resonated along the narrow corridor. The ceiling cracked under the weight of the massive explosion and, as debris fell all around him, he instinctively raised his arms to protect his head.

  Like a cork being popped from a well-shaken champagne bottle, a large chunk of metal piping from the old generator shot out of the boiler room, careering across the fifty-foot length of corridor at phenomenal speed, making straight for Tyler. Jack pressed himself against the side of the tunnel as the jagged piece of machinery shot by him, embedding itself into the wall where the tunnel forked around to the left.

  Jack realised that something very substantial had just exploded. Instinctively, he understood that the first explosion was a result of the CFC’s contaminating the room’s air supply igniting, sucking all the oxygen from the room and creating a huge fireball. The second blast had occurred when the cylinder, itself, had gone up, causing serious structural damage.

  He wondered how long he had until the other cylinders blew up.

  Coughing violently, Tyler headed back towards the surface, this time managing to avoid the trolley he’d fallen over on his way in.

  As he entered the main warehouse building, he experienced an overwhelming sense of relief. After the claustrophobic darkness of the tunnel below, this place seemed positively light and airy. He retraced his steps back to his initial point of entry, slipping out through the dislodged wooden slats in the old door into the freshness and freedom of the cool night air.

  As he moved away from the building line, the third and fourth cylinders ignited.

  ◆◆◆

  WHUMP!

  A ten-foot high pillar of flame shot out of a manhole cover in the ground between the warehouse and the dock. Half the windows on the ground floor shattered in sequence as the blast wave hit them, one after the other, sending shards of glass flying in every direction.

  “What the hell?” Dillon gasped. For a moment all he could do was stand and stare. He had reached the front of the building seconds earlier and, finding it locked and secure, had drifted around to the back looking for an alternative way in. He began sprinting along the wharf towards the small docking area that connected the warehouse to the pier, where a cloud of fresh smoke billowed into the air.

  WHUMP!

  Another explosion, seemingly right underfoot, sent him to his knees. Large cracks appeared in the pavement all around him. “Jack!” he yelled at the top of his voice.

  Smoke escaped from a series of fissures that had appeared in the wharf floor and a section of concrete, off to his left, crumbled and gave way, falling into a newly formed chasm. A small mushroom-shaped cloud of dust spewed up into the night air from the heart of the hole.

  There was another tremor, and a large section of the warehouse began to collapse.

  He wondered what on earth had just happened. It couldn’t possibly be an earthquake; perhaps an underground gas main had exploded? Surely these explosions couldn’t be connected to the suspect they were chasing. After all, he was a psychopath, not an international terrorist.

  Dillon moved to the edge of the pier, looking down into the murky water below. Nothing unusual there, although he’d half expected to find dead fish floating on the surface.

  The tiniest sound of gravel being crunched underfoot warned him that someone was trying to creep up on him, and that could only mean one thing: danger. Dillon spun around, lithe as a cat. The sudden movement saved his life. A wickedly sharp blade slashed through the air where his body had been a split second before.

  A dark shadow lunged at him, and he caught a flicker of crazed red eyes, glowing in a face that had turned black from exposure to smoke and dust. The killer had lost his Bowie inside the building, but he still had his trusted Finnish skinning knife, and he slashed at Dillon with this, driving him back as its point missed his stomach by millimetres.

  The scream that filled the night air was so bestial that, had Dillon not already seen his assailant, he would have believed that it came from a wild animal.

  His heart pounding, Dillon quickly retreated towards the end of the wharf. He looked around desperately for an escape route, but there were none available. He was trapped; there was nowhere left for him to go. />
  The knifeman had systematically closed him down and was now thrusting and slashing furiously as he moved in for the kill. Dillon tried to sidestep the attack but he tripped on the uneven concrete at the edge of the wharf, falling heavily. As Simon Pritchard loomed over him, he realised he had two choices: Stay here and die or get wet.

  The tip of the blade struck concrete, sending sparks into the air, but Dillon was no longer there. Rolling frantically, he went over the crumbling edge of the wharf, plunging into the dark waters below.

  It was bitterly cold underwater, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that as the deceptively strong current dragged him towards the pier. He surfaced to see the killer peering down.

  “Dillon!” Tyler’s voice pierced the silence. The killer’s head whipped around in the direction it came from. With a final snarl at Dillon, he turned and disappeared.

  Dillon swam over to a wooden ladder on the pier and climbed up. As his head cautiously rose above the edge of the wharf, he caught a brief glimpse of the killer running back down the path towards the old van. He pulled himself over the edge and stood up wearily, his sodden clothing streaming water.

  “Dillon!” Jack’s voice again, nearer this time.

  “Over here!” Dillon responded, breathlessly. His expression became grim as he heard the killer’s engine cough into life, followed by the screeching of tyres.

  “After all that, he got away,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  Just then, he heard the unmistakable impact of two vehicles colliding and, in the distance, just over the horizon, a plume of smoke rose into the air. Dillon immediately started jogging back towards the road. As soon as it came into sight, he saw the killer's van had T-boned a blue car that was blocking its path. Even from this distance, he recognised the hatchback as the unmarked police vehicle that DC Flowers had been driving.

  Heart sinking, he broke into an all-out sprint.

  CHAPTER 43

  WHUMP!

  The sound of the first explosion startled Kelly Flowers so much that she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh my God, what was that?” she said, praying that the detonation hadn’t come from the warehouse where Jack and Dillon were chasing the killer.

  Within moments, a second, third and fourth explosion – each far more powerful than the last – reverberated through the night air, and the sky above the warehouse began to glow orange.

  “Oh Jack,” she whispered to herself, “please be okay.”

  The first thing she’d done, after Dillon had set of to find Tyler, was remove Sarah Pritchard’s remaining bindings and massaged her aching limbs to get her circulation going again. Kelly had then released her from the rigid handcuffs, having found a key in her bag. It quickly became apparent that Sarah’s collarbone was broken and – after putting her in a makeshift sling and making the poor woman as comfortable as she could – Kelly immediately started trying to contact the emergency services. Dillon had given explicit instructions for her to remain inside the vehicle, but when she couldn’t get a signal on either of their phones she had resorted to walking up and down the road in an effort to acquire one, not that it had done any good. Kelly had just returned to the car, intending to drive further along the road, in case reception was better there, when the deafening sound from the first two detonations shattered the silence around her. She found herself hoping that her colleagues were safe, but she had a terrible feeling that they weren’t.

  Two more explosions, which were even more powerful than their predecessors, had followed in quick succession, and as flames lit up the night sky, Kelly Flowers feared the worst. No one could have survived that.

  Suddenly, Kelly heard the killer’s van spark into life, and when she saw the dazzle of its headlights bumping towards her over the uneven path leading back to the road, she knew that she had to act, and act fast.

  “Get out,” she told Sarah Pritchard.

  “Why? What’re you going to do?” Sarah asked, horrified.

  “GET OUT!” Kelly shouted. There was no time to explain, and she couldn’t risk endangering a civilian.

  Sarah Pritchard opened the door but then hesitated, looking at Kelly imploringly.

  “Get out,” Kelly ordered, and there was steel in her voice.

  Sarah nodded and reluctantly forced her aching body out of the car, doing her best to ignore the incredible pain from her shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned. “He’s mad. He won’t stop.”

  Kelly nodded, grimly. “I know that, which is why I don’t want you in the car with me. Now move aside.”

  Sarah hobbled away as the Sherpa rocketed towards them, its engine screaming. It was going very fast, and if Kelly was going to do what she thought she was, someone was probably going to get very badly injured. She could only prey it would be her wicked husband and not the kind woman detective who had just saved her life.

  “I must be mad,” Kelly said as she engaged first gear, slipped the clutch and began to rev the car into the red. “Steady, steady,” she told herself, waiting for the optimum moment. If she moved too quickly, he would simply swerve around her and then he would be free.

  The van was really motoring now, and she could see the driver’s face clearly enough to see that the bastard was smiling.

  He thinks he’s going to get away, she realised. Well, we’ll see about that.

  A chilling thought occurred to her; what if he had caused the explosions? What if he had deliberately blown up that building, killing her colleagues – her friends – in the process, just to evade capture? Suddenly, all that mattered was stopping him, even if it meant putting herself in harm’s way.

  At the last moment, when the van was almost upon her, she lifted the clutch and floored the accelerator, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The wheels spun and the Escort surged forward into the path of the advancing Sherpa.

  The sound of the impact was deafening from inside the Escort. As any science student knows, anything that has mass and velocity also has kinetic energy; the heavier a vehicle is and the faster it is travelling, the more kinetic energy it has. That’s all very well and good, but when said vehicle suddenly decelerates – as it does in a crash – the kinetic energy has to go somewhere. In this case, it went straight into the side of the Ford Escort, crumpling it into the shape of a boomerang.

  Despite wearing a seatbelt, the violent momentum of the collision whipped Kelly’s head sideways, smashing it straight into the driver’s door window – and although the front impact airbag went off with a loud bang, deploying at 300 kilometres per hour, it did very little to help.

  Everything went silent for a moment as the world around her froze. But that moment passed quickly, and then the world sped up with a vengeance. The frame of the Escort contorted around her as it was shunted sideways with tremendous force and, for a terrible moment, Kelly was convinced that the car would flip over and go into a roll. Her windshield seemed to disintegrate, showering her with glass fragments. The sound of metal twisting and shearing as the mangled frame of her car caved in around her was agonisingly loud – but Kelly was too busy drifting in and out of consciousness to pay much attention to any of this.

  When she came around, seconds or hours later – she wasn’t sure – she found herself slumped forward in her seat. The car had stopped moving but she could still hear the engine clicking over, and steam was coming out of it. As her senses returned, the first thing Kelly noticed was the smell of radiator coolant; there was something else, too – something much stronger. It took a moment for her befuddled brain to process that the smell was leaking petrol. By some miracle, her car hadn’t rolled over. She groggily unfastened her seatbelt and forced open the driver’s door, which protested noisily. Somehow, she managed to drag herself out of the car, motivated by a fear that it might catch fire at any moment. She staggered around the front and, as a wave of dizziness swept over her, leaned on the bonnet to catch her breath.

  ◆◆◆

  Ins
ide the van, Pritchard’s chest slammed into the steering wheel during impact, knocking all the air out of his lungs, and breaking three of his ribs. His head collided with the inside of the windshield with a sickening thud, which seemed louder than the crash itself.

  His ears were ringing as the van came to a jarring halt, and the coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. It really hurt to breathe, and he suddenly coughed uncontrollably, covering the dash in frothy crimson. He knew he was badly injured. The blood he’d coughed up was most likely a result of a broken rib puncturing one of his lungs. He ignored the pain; he needed to keep moving or they would catch him and it would all be over. There was so much more than his freedom at stake if he failed to complete the fifth and final ritual.

  What the hell had the brainless idiot driving the car that had just pulled across his path been playing at, he wondered? Not realising that the act had been deliberate. He hoped that they were in a far worse condition than him. Had it not been for his pressing need to get away, he would have gone after them with his knife.