by Jude Hardin
Tami wiped her hands with a towel. “I heard that stuff really works.”
“Zark-O?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on. It’s bullshit. Nothing’s going to make you live longer. When your time’s up, it’s up.”
“I just heard it makes you feel better. That’s all.”
“I think I’ll stick with alcohol. Can you change the channel for me?”
Tami picked up the remote and switched the channel. “Wouldn’t you want to live forever if you could, though?” she said.
“Immortality isn’t about how long you’re here,” K-Rad said. “It’s about what you do while you’re here.”
“Wow. That’s deep. I still might try the Zark-O. Just to see what it’s like.”
K-Rad didn’t say anything. He looked up at the television, wondering why he hadn’t heard the explosion or at least felt the earth shake. Maybe the Retro was too far away from the plant. Anyway, he was sure there would be some breaking news soon.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “Are those sirens I hear?”
Tami lowered the volume on the television. “Yep. Must be a fire somewhere.”
K-Rad got up and walked outside. In the distance he saw plumes of black smoke rising from Nitko’s direction. Yes! Mission accomplished. He smiled and went back inside to finish his beer.
11:03 a.m
There had been a deafening boom, followed by a wall of fire rising from behind the tanks. Matt had stood there helplessly, waiting for the flames to consume him, but he and Terri were miraculously still alive. One of the detonators had gone off, and the fuel can it was attached to had exploded, but apparently the blast hadn’t been powerful enough to ignite the ammonium nitrate. Matt’s plan had worked, at least partially. The Fire and Ice solution had prevented the big bang, but the plastic bags containing the ammonium nitrate were burning now and filling Waterbase with greasy black smoke.
Matt held the one-inch hose and sprayed the Fire and Ice mixture toward the inferno, but the liquid wasn’t coming out fast enough or forcefully enough to extinguish the flames. It wasn’t coming out fast enough or forcefully enough, and then it stopped coming out completely.
It took Matt a second to figure out what had happened. There was no electricity to power the compressor, so once the pressure in the reserve tank dropped to a certain level, there was no air to drive the pump.
“Let’s get out of here,” Matt shouted.
He climbed onto the forklift and motioned for Terri to sit on the pallet.
“What are we going to do? How the hell are we going to get out?” she said, coughing and wheezing between sentences.
“I don’t know, but we have to get away from this smoke before we die of inhalation. Come on!”
Terri climbed onto the pallet, and Matt did a one-eighty and headed toward the time clock. His eyes were stinging, and his lungs felt as though someone had stuffed oily cotton balls into them. He wished he had thought to grab some respirators from the safety office when he’d been in the front building. At the time it hadn’t even crossed his mind, but they sure would have come in handy now. He drove on, trying to take shallow breaths, one hand guiding the forklift and the other pressing the tail of his shirt against his mouth and aching nose.
He slowed down and carefully turned a corner, intending to take a shortcut between the floor-to-ceiling industrial shelves loaded with Nitko products, and when he turned Terri went limp, fell to her side, and tumbled off the pallet like a rag doll. The smoke had gotten to her.
Matt stopped the forklift, got off, and knelt beside her. She wasn’t breathing.
He felt her neck for a pulse. Nothing.
Matt put his mouth on Terri’s, gave her two quick rescue breaths, laced his hands together, and started chest compressions. He performed two full cycles of CPR. As he started a third, she coughed and turned her head to the side and vomited. Terri was alive, but she wasn’t going to last long. Matt stood, dizzy and nauseated from the smoke, the heat, the exertion, and the pain in his leg, picked Terri up and cradled her in his arms, and forced himself to put one foot in front of the other.
11:10 a.m
Shelly held Matt’s ax with both hands and stared out at the road leading to Nitko’s gate. Before she had left the parking lot, she’d broken a window on Hal’s pickup truck and had taken the sawed-off shotgun he kept behind the seat. It was a twelve-gauge pump, a very nice gun, and Hal, being dead and all, certainly wasn’t going to need it anymore. After taking the gun and the box of shells in the glove compartment, she’d left Nitko’s property and had backed her car into a patch of woods, out of sight, thinking she would ambush Matt when he tried to come after her.
She’d shoot his ass and then cut his head off with his own ax.
Because she had a feeling he was the one guy who might be able to stop her from what she had to do.
And she couldn’t have that, could she?
Thinking about it made her giggle.
K-Rad had the right idea. He was the Man Who Stood Up. The Man Who Would Not Take It Anymore. Shelly had let the pricks steal her life away, day by day, dollar by dollar. She was going to take it back. Screw dying fast versus dying slowly. If she had to go, she was going to take a bunch of those fuckers with her.
She watched the smoke rising from the production building and wondered if Matt was even still alive. She would give him a few more minutes, and then she would go have some fun elsewhere.
But where? A fragment of song from her childhood popped into her mind, something about starting at the very beginning, a very good place to start.
Good idea, she thought. Get them young before they can turn into the kind of miserable fucks who’d stolen her life away.
In her mind she mapped out the route to the daycare center down the road.
11:12 a.m
In a little while, after you’re good and dead, I’ll be sipping on a cold one at the Retro and thinking about how famous I’m going to be.
Matt was no longer worried about getting shot. He figured K-Rad had already left the building.
Of course he was gone. Why would he have stuck around to get blown up?
Matt carried Terri through the walkway to the office suite. The air was better up there, but only slightly. Smoke and fumes had started to seep through from the production area, and with no ventilation and all the doors sealed tight, it was like trying to breathe mud.
There were dead bodies everywhere.
Matt opened the door to the safety office, set Terri on the floor, and found respirators for them both. He put Terri’s on first, and then donned his own. It was an immediate improvement, and after a couple of minutes Terri sat up and said, “Now what?”
“Follow me,” Matt said.
He could have taken car keys from any of the corpses, but he knew what kind of car Officer McCray drove. It was a 1966 GTO convertible, maroon with patches of gray primer and a white top. Matt had noticed it in the parking lot his first day on the job, and Shelly had told him whom it belonged to.
Matt led Terri to the security office, reached into McCray’s pocket, and snatched the keys.
“How are we going to get out of the building?” Terri said.
“There has to be a way out. Firefighters and rescue personnel and hazmat teams are able to gain access during lockdown situations, so there has to be a way. I would imagine it’s wherever the breaker box and all that kind of stuff is.”
“The main power closet,” Terri said. “I know where it is. I used to date a guy in Maintenance.”
“Let’s go.”
They made it to the power closet, saw the drop-down ladder and the hatch, and two minutes later were on the roof. They took the respirators off and tossed them aside.
“Amazing how you take things like fresh air and sunshine for granted,” Terri said.
“Yeah.” Matt walked to the edge of the flat roof. His leg still hurt, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been previously. The wound had already started to
heal, another part of the enigma his life had become since the avalanche. “You think you’re able to climb down this drainpipe?”
“I’ll give it a shot.”
Matt went first, so if Terri fell while climbing down he could catch her. He used his powerful arms to shinny down the pipe, guarding the bum leg the best he could. Terri did fine, and in a couple of minutes they were in the GTO, heading for the gate.
“Where are we going?” Terri said.
“The Retro. I want you to climb in back and get on the floorboard. I have a feeling K-Rad’s killing spree isn’t over.”
Terri started sobbing. “I just want to go home.”
“I’ll get you home,” Matt said. “I promise.”
He urgently needed to find Shelly, too, but he had no idea where to start looking.
Worse came to worst, he’d have to wait… and follow the trail of bodies.
11:15 a.m.
Shelly watched McCray’s ’66 GTO take a right out of Nitko’s driveway.
Matt was driving, and some bitch was riding shotgun.
Was he fucking her, too?
Had he been all along?
Fuck it. The daycare could wait.
Shelly started her car and followed the GTO.
11:16 a.m
Tami had left an ice pick on the bar near the garnish tray. K-Rad picked it up and put it in his pocket. He sucked the last few foamy ounces from his Shiner Bock longneck and walked outside to once again admire his handiwork. He looked southeast, and the horizon in that direction was now completely shrouded in a haze the color of pencil lead. What fun! Thousands of people were dead now, all because of K-Rad and his perfect plan. This was just too cool, and there was even more amusement yet to come.
K-Rad wanted to be arrested, the sooner the better, so why wait for the authorities to put two and two together and figure out he was the one responsible for the Nitko explosion? Why not just open fire on the lunch patrons at the Retro and expedite the whole process?
The idea had come to him halfway into his second beer. The Berettas were in the car, and he still had plenty of ammunition. No point in all those bullets going to waste. He would drink another beer or two, until the joint was good and crowded, and then he would go at it with a pistol in each hand. He would jump behind the bar and kill Tami first, and from that position would start picking off customers. Someone would use a cell phone to call the police, and when the cops got there K-Rad would walk out with his hands in the air and surrender peacefully. Perfect.
On their way to the Retro’s entrance, a young couple stopped where K-Rad was standing. College students, K-Rad thought, taking a break between classes. The guy had a goatee and diamond studs in both ears.
“Hear anything about the fire?” the young man said, gesturing toward the smoke with his thumb. He was sucking on a cigarette, trying to consume as much of it as he could before going inside. His girlfriend stood beside him with her arms folded, obviously impatient with his vice.
“Nothing yet,” K-Rad said. “I’ve been sitting at the bar watching the news. I’m sure they’ll get to it eventually.”
“Tyler, can we please go in now? I’m starving.” The college chick had a tight knit shirt on and very short cutoff jeans. Daisy Dukes, they called them, after a character in a largely forgotten television show from a largely forgotten decade. She had a pretty face and a nice body.
“Let me finish my cigarette, babe,” Tyler said.
“You need to quit that vile habit. You smoke and then you want to kiss on me. It’s like kissing an ashtray.”
“A sexy ashtray.”
“That makes no sense at all.”
“Go on in and get us a table. I’ll be along in a minute.”
She stalked away without saying another word. Once she was safely inside, Tyler turned to K-Rad and said, “Women.”
“She’s very attractive,” K-Rad said.
“Yeah, and she’s right. I really do need to quit smoking.”
“You guys in college?”
“Yeah, CH State, but I’m planning on transferring to the University of Florida when I get my associate’s degree.”
“Sounds like a good plan.”
Tyler dropped his cigarette on the pavement and crushed it with the toe of his sandal. “I better get on in there before she starts freaking,” he said.
K-Rad pulled the ice pick from his pocket, gripped it tightly, and jammed it into the side of Tyler’s throat. Blood pulsed skyward, as though being shot from a squirt gun. Must have punctured an artery, K-Rad thought. Tyler fell to the sidewalk, twitched a few times, and then lay still.
“Now she’s really going to start freaking,” K-Rad said. He dragged Tyler’s limp body behind a stand of ornamental shrubs and walked toward his car to get the Berettas.
11:20 a.m
Terri climbed into the back of the GTO and got down on the floorboard, as Matt had instructed. Matt switched on the radio and turned it to the news channel, just in case Shelly was unleashing whatever hell she had in mind. If a bulletin came on about an ax murderer loose in a school or a department store or something, at least Matt would know where to go.
And what he had to do.
Because every person she hurt… or killed… was on him.
For bringing Mr. Dark into her life.
And for letting her walk out of the factory.
Matt listened to the radio program, but the only story being broadcast at the moment was from an economist, something about the possibility of interest rates going up. The usual boring crap.
“I need to pee,” Terri said.
“What?”
“I gotta go. Really bad.”
They were currently on a stretch of two-lane blacktop lined with pine trees on both sides. The closest bathroom was at the Retro, still several miles away, and Matt wanted Terri to stay in the car when they got there.
“There’s nowhere to go,” Matt said. “You’re just going to have to hold it. Or pee your pants.”
“I can’t hold it much longer, and I’m not going to pee my pants. Pull over to the side of the road and let me out. It’ll only take a minute.”
Matt cursed under his breath. He eased to the shoulder, braked to a stop, and put the car in neutral.
11:22 a.m.
Why the hell are they stopping here? Shelly wondered. Then she saw the petite young woman climbing out of the passenger’s side door. He’s going to do it to her right there in the trees. Can’t even wait to get back to her place. She should have known he was just like all the rest of the assholes she’d been with.
Matt had his eyes on the bitch and paid no attention as Shelly sped by. No worries about him seeing and recognizing her car. Shelly knew where Matt and his little chickadee were headed.
The only thing out this way was the Retro.
The Retro. Hmm. The day care could wait. She’d take out the parents first-then there would be no one to get in her way. It was close to lunchtime, and they’d all be heading to the Retro.
Heads will roll!
She laughed out loud.
11:23 a.m
Matt didn’t see the driver of the car as it passed… but he recognized it from the Nitko parking lot.
And there was nobody alive at Nitko to drive it.
Except one person.
Matt jammed the transmission into first gear and burned rubber back onto the highway. Terri was safer here than where he was going.
11:31 a.m
Shelly pulled into the Retro’s lot, found a parking place, and killed the engine. She popped the hatch and reached into the cargo area and removed the long and slender nylon pouch from one of the two tailgating chairs she kept back there. She slid Matt’s ax and the sawed-off shotgun into the pouch, walked inside, and made a beeline to the ladies’ room. It was a large restroom, very nice, with eight stalls and a triple granite-top vanity. There was a young woman, college age, standing at the mirror touching up her makeup.
“How’s it going?” Shelly sai
d.
“Great, except my stupid boyfriend would rather stand outside and smoke cigarettes than come in here with me.”
“Men.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Hey, what’s in the pouch?”
Shelly pulled the ax out, and in a single swift motion buried the blade in the young woman’s skull. The sound of the sharpened steel breaking through bone and tearing into brain tissue made Shelly burst into laughter. Or maybe she was crying-she couldn’t really tell. She dragged the body across the marble floor to the stall farthest from the door, positioned it on the toilet, and closed the door.
There were still seven stalls to go!
11:34 a.m
K-Rad was on his way back inside when an old Pontiac GTO screeched to a stop at the sidewalk. A man got out of the car and limped toward him. The man looked like a nightmare, his clothes black with soot and his face and left shoe crusted with blood.
K-Rad assessed the filthy man. “What the-”
As K-Rad was saying the, the man clouted him with an uppercut to the chin. The impact caused K-Rad to bite his tongue, his incisors slicing down hard and completely severing the tip of the highly vascular and highly innervated organ. Blood gushed from his mouth, and he started dancing around trying to stop the flow with his hand. The pain radiated through his jaw and to the bones in his ears.
“Fuck!” he said. “You made me bite my fucking tongue off.” Uck! Ew ade ee ite i ucking ung off.
The man came forward with his fist cocked. Who the fuck was this idiot? K-Rad knew it wasn’t someone from the plant, because everyone there was dead now. Anyone who had avoided being shot had surely died from the explosion. Nobody could have survived that.