Chemical Burn

by Quincy J. Allen

  The lights went out and the scream of the grinder cut off, the rotors slowing rapidly.

  “What the!—” men shouted in the darkness.

  Jalin took over, and I let him flow through me like liquid fire. I twisted with every ounce of strength I had. My four captors shifted to the left as I twisted, moving my body away from the grinding blades below. I felt an arm break free. The men around me discovered they had a tiger by the tail. They were nearly blind, but I could still see well enough to jab my fingers into the eyes of the man holding my leg. He screamed and let go. I brought a knee up into the belly of the man holding my leg as the others tried to grab at me in the dark. With a WHOOF of air forced from his lungs the man let go of my leg.

  “Shoot the platform!” DiMarco shouted.

  I dropped to the steel grate and rolled sideways, knocking one of the guards over as I went. Then the room filled with gunfire. The strobe of multiple muzzle flashes turned the room a flickering orange. The three guards still standing on the platform screamed as bullets ripped into them and I rolled down the steel steps.

  I came up beneath the barrel of one of the guards, grabbed the muzzle-grip, and dick-punched him as hard as I could. He squealed like a piglet and dropped to the ground, wrapping his entire body around the agony flaring between his legs. The shooters on the sides figured out that where the trouble was and tracked their aim towards the screaming. The beauty of human eyes is that when they go from bright to dark to flickering muzzle flashes, they’re pretty much as useful as cauliflower in a gun fight. Rifle in hand, I dropped to the ground and tumbled towards the nearest gunman. As I came up, I spotted the shadows of DiMarco and his driver darting out through the vault door. I heard someone slap a panel outside, then a buzzer sounded, and the door started closing.

  “Dammit!” I growled. I punched the nearest guard in the throat, heard him gurgle, and then hurled the rifle as hard as I could towards the last guard. The stock caught him in the temple and he went down hard.

  The door was nearly closed.

  I leapt, turning sideways in mid-air, and sailed through rapidly shrinking space. My body brushed against the door and jam as I passed through, nearly pinned in the gap.

  With a massive BOOM! the door slammed shut behind me. Something yanked me up short.

  I turned to see my coat caught in the door. I yanked on it once just as something hit me hard in the mid-section. I WHOOFED with an impact as pain lanced through my insides. I looked down and realized someone had stabbed me in the belly.

  I looked up to see DiMarco’s driver holding the weapon just as a hammering fist crashed into my temple, smashing me back into the door. I slid to the floor, and pressed a hand against my seeping belly wound. Shaking my head, I tried to focus on the driver, but all I could see was a big blurry shadow.

  “Cut his head off!” DiMarco shouted. I spotted his blur standing in the doorway of the limo, using the door as a shield.

  DiMarco’s driver raised the vlain, ready to slash down at me.

  Where the hell is the guy in the Ghillie suit?

  Still dazed, my reflexes kicked in as the driver approached. I swung my leg hard into his ankles and brought him down. The guy was good. He’d already rolled out of the way as my heel slammed down where his head had been. Blood poured from my belly, but the driver didn’t give me time to worry about it.

  He rose in the semi-darkness, moving in slowly with the vlain held in front of him. He was obviously a knife fighter, and the thing looked far too comfortable in his hands. I tried to stand, but got caught up in my coat. If I kicked out or swung at him, all he’d have to do is block with the vlain. I’d end up dicing myself into little pieces. That thing would cut through me as easily as it did everything else.

  “Fuck,” I grumbled, looking around for an easy way out. I quickly realized I’d have to do it the hard way, and it was going to hurt. In one motion I pulled my knees to my chest and punched downwards with both fists. My knuckles hammered into the grate, cutting the flesh to the bone, but the force propelled me up a foot. I twisted my legs underneath and stood against the wall.

  Blood poured down the deep gashes across my knuckles as I waited for the bastard to come at me. Pinned as I was, at least he’d be overconfident. I couldn’t dodge worth a damn, which meant only one thing. I put my back against the vault door and waited. I thought about trying to slip out of the coat and rush him, but to do that my arms would be pinned behind me long enough for him to open me up like a side of beef.

  “Double or nothing,” I said, goading him on. I came up in a rather stiff fighting stance, the best I could manage pinned against the door like that. Now all I had to do was stay conscious and not lose anything important.

  DiMarco’s driver smiled as he approached. “I’m gonna fuck you up,” he said. “I’m the one who trained Tommy. He was a punk compared to me.” He raised the vlain and slashed at my head. I ducked beneath it and threw a punch at his face, but he stepped back, looking for an opening. He slid in slowly, keeping his feet on the ground. As he came within reach, I feinted a kick at his mid-section and pulled it up short to keep his down-swing with the vlain from taking my leg off.

  I had only one way to end this. I took a deep breath, lowered my hands, and gave him an opening a mile wide. I focused first on the vlain and then beyond it. His attack would start with his eyes. Life may be about the smiles, but violence begins with the portals to our souls.

  A flicker, his eyes narrowing, shifting left then right. A microscopic twitch.

  The vlain moved in towards my shoulder. I threw out a weak block, enough to make contact with his forearm, which I knew he would pull back. He spun, arm extending as the vlain came around to take what he thought would be an exposed side.

  I stepped out, my coat coming taut ten inches from the door. I reached up and grabbed his wrist as it came around. I placed my palm at the back of his neck and twisted, using my coat as leverage. With every ounce of strength, I smashed his face into the armored steel door with a wet smack and crunch of nose and cheek bones. With one hand still gripped around his wrist, I grabbed a handful of his hair and smashed his face into the door a few more times as his body went slack. I let him slide down the wall as I pried my vlain out of his hand.

  Gripping it, I slashed down and cut myself loose from the door. As I turned I heard the receiver of a pistol slide back and snap click into place. DiMarco stood in the door of the limo with a .45 pointed at me.

  “You motherfucker,” he growled. “Now I’ve got you.”

  I held still. “DiMarco, if you miss me, you could blow the whole place up.”

  “I’m a pretty good shot, Case. I won’t miss, and this thing has soft nose hollow points. They’ll make a mess of your insides, but they ain’t coming out the other side.”

  “I would not do that if I were you,” a deep voice said from the far side of the limo. The words echoed through the facility as a shadow moved towards the door. It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard—next to Rachel’s voice, of course.

  DiMarco and I turned to see a man in a Ghillie suit moving towards the doorway. He had his Kalashnikov pointed at DiMarco.

  “Now drop the weapon!” he ordered. The way he said it had law enforcement written all over it.

  “Empty threat pal,” DiMarco said. “Like Case said, one spark will blow the place sky high.”

  “It would, but I too am a very good shot, Mister DiMarco.” He sighted down the rifle. “From where I’m standing, the bullet will go through your head, pass through the glass of those labs behind you, and settle somewhere safely inside.” His finger moved to the trigger. “Besides, I am in the door and you are not. By the smell of things, you would not want to run across here if there was a fire, yes?” He paused and let that sink in. “I will not ask again.”

  DiMarco slowly set the weapon on the grating at his feet. His face was so red I thought he might explode.

  “Please come here, Mister Case.”

  Who was I to argue?
>
  “Perfect timing, Albert,” I said, stepping away from the vault door and into the open. My rescuer’s head tilted to the side. I slipped out of my now ruined coat, wincing at the still bleeding belly wound, and draped it over my shoulder. With my free hand I pulled my goggles down to dangle around my neck. My head ached a bit, and I felt a little dizzy … but it’s a lot better than being dead. Jalin slowly receded into the background. “Hey, Gino, maybe you should get back into the car and relax.”

  “Mister Case …” Albert said, concern filling his voice.

  “Trust me.”

  “Case! This isn’t over, you motherfucker!” Gino screamed as he got into the car. He slammed the door as I stepped up to Albert.

  I scolded the fat Italian. “Temper, temper, Gino. You’ll give yourself an aneurism.”

  “What if he has a weapon in there?”

  “Gino’s not stupid,” I said quietly. “He’ll wait for his lawyers at this point.”

  Albert nodded. “How did you know it was me?” he asked, keeping the Kalashnikov aimed at the limo.

  “That’s a long story,” I replied.

  “We should not talk here, then.” Albert said. “Come outside while we wait for the police.” He backed up to the door, his rifle never wavering.

  “Police? I came here to kill that piece of shit,” I said indicating DiMarco.

  “I am aware of this. Please. Come outside and we can discuss it.”

  “Alright,” I muttered. I walked with him towards the door.

  Albert opened the door and motioned for me to go through.

  I stepped halfway through and then stopped dead. “Oh, wait, I want to do one more thing before they take him off to jail.”

  Albert sighed and shook his head. I walked over to the massive black vault door and stared at the electronic keypad set into it near the edge. I reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a small, gray device that looked like a calculator but with fewer buttons. I placed it over the door keypad and hit a button. An amber light flickered on, and some characters appeared in a small screen. I hit a few more buttons, and the amber light went purple. I stepped back and watched characters flicker by quickly on the readout. A few seconds later something buzzed and clanked inside the door. I grabbed the device and put it in my pocket as the door slowly swung open. I stepped around the door and walked inside, slipping my goggles up over my eyes.

  I already had what I needed, but I wanted to scan the area one more time, and record clear images of the interior with my goggles. With the evidence in hand, I walked out the door, hitting the close button on the panel. The hydraulics spun up again, and the massive door slammed behind me as I approached the limo.

  “Gino?” I smiled and used an excessively friendly tone to talk to the doomed gangster.

  “Fuck you, Case!”

  “I wanted to say goodbye. It’s unlikely I’ll see you again except on TV, okay?” He didn’t say anything. “Okay. Goodbye then,” I said cheerfully and waved like a child. “One last thing … you really should stay in the limo until the police come.”

  I turned around and walked back to the doorway as Albert stepped out into the night. I brushed my left hand against the concrete wall as I stepped through the door.

  Albert closed the door behind us and pulled off the headgear of the Ghillie suit. I casually drifted away from the door.

  “Come on over here, Albert,” I said, continuing to drift towards the steel gate. “It is Albert, right?”

  “Those are the credentials I am using, yes.”

  “By the way, you didn’t happen to cut your way through the fence near here, did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Straight towards the fence, over near the gate. Why? What’s wrong?”

  I quickly stepped out through the open gate and looked. “Ahh, I see,” I said, spotting the opening.

  “What’s going on, Mister Case?” Albert was clearly curious about the need for haste.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, trying to sound innocent. “What did you use to cut the fence?” I had a funny feeling I knew the answer.

  Albert reached into the Ghillie suit and pulled out a vlain identical to the one now in my belt.

  I smiled. “From the truck, right?” I held out my hand, motioning with my fingers and drawing Albert closer to me and away from the warehouse. “Can I have it back?”

  Albert walked up to me, placed the vlain back in the sheath and handed it over.

  “Thank you.” I smiled and peered back at the lab door. “By the way,” I said casually, “how fast can you run?”

  “Very. Why do you ask?”

  We heard the metallic hiss as the burner I’d placed inside the warehouse door cooked off, and we both heard Gino scream. Albert shot me an accusatory look, and I’m sure I looked as guilty as senator in a whorehouse.

  “Because … well … we should run … NOW!” I shouted as the roar of a bigger fire WHOOFED to life inside the building.

  I bolted for the hole in the fence-line just as one of the drums inside the lab exploded. Albert was hot on my tail. We leapt over the piping connecting the main facility to the restricted building and dashed through the gash in the fence. The single explosion turned into a string of them.

  O O O

  A stack of 55-gallon drums ruptured, bounced and sprayed liquid fire throughout the front area of the bay. A flaming drum, propelled by the explosions, flew over DiMarco’s burning body, bounced off the limo, and ricocheted across the steel grate flooring into the stack of drums, landing directly below the electrical panel. The flame coating the drum heated the contents to the ignition point. The drum ruptured, dousing the double stack of drums around it with flame. The concentrated fire heated them quickly, and they exploded almost simultaneously.

  O O O

  “Justin, we’re coming around in the Bronco!” Xen shouted over the comm.

  A massive explosion shot a chunk of the lab’s roof into the sky with a bright orange plume of flame shooting into the darkness above.

  “From the North side!”

  “Where the hell have you been?” I screamed.

  “Sorry … batteries got knocked loose,” he replied, and I heard the roar of a motor in the background.

  “You better hurry!” I yelled over the eruptions, laughing as I ran. Albert and I cut right to meet the oncoming four wheeler bouncing across the desert.

  O O O

  An inferno blazed inside the building, and the liquid that hadn’t burned off in the initial explosion poured under the large row of heating columns along the south wall in a flaming torrent, spreading across the floor. It took only seconds to raise the strictly controlled temperatures of the columns the few degrees necessary to ignite them. Another detonation tore out a chunk of the lab’s wall, and then the pipelines began to blow like giant, bursting fuses.

  The twenty-foot section of pipe connecting the building to the pumping station ruptured, and then the pumping house went, setting the piping on fire in both directions. One length led towards the main facility and the other around the back of the lab towards the long, double row of storage tanks on the north side of the compound. Another twenty-foot section cooked off, jetting higher concentrations of the fluid, and then, when the air to fuel ratio hit critical, exploding and igniting the next section.

  O O O

  The Bronco, headlights off, came at us hard and fast in the rapidly shrinking darkness being chewed up by the fires and explosions filling the desert night. It bounced over the rocks and dunes, shaking the old frame to the point where I worried for its safety … and ours.

  Another section of pipe exploded along the fence line between the lab and the main facility. There were only two left before the pipes disappeared into the interior of the main plant and reached the inner pumping housings. Once it got into the superstructure, things would deteriorate quickly.

  The Bronco came straight at us, and Xen sat in the passenger seat. The driver wore the mask of a Ghillie suit and had on night vis
ion goggles. I stepped away from Albert as the wheels locked up, and the Bronco skidded to a stop between us. Mag sat in the very back behind the seat. Albert and I yanked open the back doors as another section of pipe lit up the desert with a brilliant orange flash. Only one remained. Albert leapt into the seat and slammed his door closed. The driver revved up the engine, preparing to tear off into the desert and escape the inevitable explosion of the hundred-and-fifty-foot storage towers of the main plant.

  Sounding all the world like a mildly enthused tourist, I said, “Wait … I want to take a picture.”

  Four heads, including Mag’s, slowly turned and gave me an Are-you-out-of-your-fucking-mind look. They all held it for a few seconds as I stared back at them.

  “What?” I asked innocently, pretending not to understand what the big deal was.

  “Get in the fucking truck,” Xen growled.

  “Oh … alright!” I said, dejected.

  The engine revved as I stepped into the Bronco. The driver dropped the clutch the moment my butt hit the seat, and the tires ripped giant gashes out of the sand beneath us. The force threw me back against the seat and slammed the door closed.

  We tore through the desert, rocking and bouncing over stones and dunes. As I reached for my seatbelt, the Bronco lurched to the right and hit a big dune. Mag had dug her claws into the carpet glued to the floor, but I got tossed up and down like a doll in a dryer. I bounced off the ceiling, then floor then ceiling again, laughing like a maniac the entire time.

  “You might want to take it easy on those, Natalia,” I said between the laughing. “This thing is older than you are, and I think we need to get farther away.”

  Albert and Xen turned surprised faces at me, but the driver never took her eyes off the desert in front of us. Nobody said a word. I looked out the back window and saw the next section of pipe detonate. Seconds later the first section inside the superstructure went. I could see flaming shrapnel ricocheting around inside the piping and supports of the plant. A triple explosion inside the superstructure—boom … Boom … BOOM!—rocked the desert.