by Harley Vex
That meant that the three of us would have to do the same. We could not let David have this.
“You found a gun?” Alana’s voice rose as I took it off the counter, made sure the safety was on, and slung it over my shoulder. It hung heavy as Jerome set a box of ammo on the glass, too.
“We sure did.” I tried to keep my voice up, but it was hard.
I’d seen death, but I had never brought it to anyone.
And if David got here–
“Then we need to keep that,” Alana said. “It can’t fall into the wrong hands.”
So we were all on the same page. “I hope we never have to, you know, use it.”
There it was again. Hope.
“We should take the ammo, too,” Jerome said. “Even if we never have to shoot, leaving it here will let David know we’ve got a weapon. It’s best if we don’t warn him ahead of time.”
I gulped. “This is nice, light conversation.” But I knew we had to have it.
“Anyway, I found the map. It’s by the bathroom and near the back exit,” Alana said. “I guess there’s a trail behind the station that people bike on all the time, and that’s why that SUV is here. Some of it was a map of that.”
“That doesn’t help us,” I said.
“But the surrounding area is on it, too,” she continued, eyeing the knives and then the bathroom door. “The town’s name is Rocky Falls, and it’s fifteen miles from here, right up the road. Then thirty miles after that is Colton.”
“Alana, thanks.” At least we knew how to read map legends.
“No problem. I got some keys, so I’ll go out and check the cars while you two are looking at the arsenal.” She left the station, and I knew I’d have to give her a silent thanks. Alana had taken the worst job, hands down.
“Here.” Jerome tossed a set of tiny keys on the counter next, and I knew it was to the knives. I circled the counter, forcing myself past the dead woman, and I unlocked the display of knives and lighters. Eagles, scorpions, and cacti adorned the handles. We might need the lighters, so I took a few of those and placed them on the counter beside the ammo.
And outside, not a single motor started.
But car doors opened and closed. Alana was having no luck.
“Sounds like we’re going to be on bikes,” I said.
“I think so, too.” Jerome finished under the counter. “That’s the only gun here. I’ll put the ammo in a bag, and we’ll figure out how to load the gun later.”
“It’s probably already loaded,” I said. “Why keep a weapon for defense if it’s not?”
“Guys,” Alana said, bursting back into the station. She coughed as the smell, which she’d escaped for a few precious minutes, hit her again. “I can see up the road. David. He and the others are coming.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Seriously?” I asked, backing away from the door.
Suddenly, the bodies didn’t matter. And the shotgun felt heavier on my back, as if reminding me of its presence.
My heart pounded. It was easy to imagine shooting someone like in the movies, or during a home invasion, but the thought of doing it in reality froze my limbs. We could hold David at gunpoint when we got here. That would be easy. He would have no weapons.
“Laney?” Jerome asked.
But I didn’t know if I could. He and Alana were looking at me, waiting for my call, since I was the one with the most shooting experience between the three of us.
I had shot what? A hunting rifle of some kind when I was fifteen, and at a range with Dad? I could barely remember the instructor, especially now.
“How close are they?” I asked.
“Well, they’re coming over that hill,” Alana said. “Right now. Both tractors. I think they’ll be here in three or four minutes.”
I cursed, which unlocked my mind. “We could threaten David, but how would that make the others react? We’re still outnumbered.” Yes, I might have a gun, but I wasn’t a hundred percent sure it had shells ready to go, and if even two or three people were really in David’s corner, they would overpower us. And I knew from what I’d seen that the others would watch.
To get rid of David, we’d have to kill him.
And then the rest of the group would turn on us for being murderers. David had hidden his intents well from everyone but Alana. We would be the bad guys.
I swallowed. “It might be safer just to hide on the trails behind the station until they go away. There’s no way for this to work out well.”
Jerome grimaced. “Then they’ll get ahead of us.”
“They’re going to, anyway,” I said, motioning him and Alana towards the back door. “The land might be hilly enough to hide us. If we’re lucky, David will just think we got something to start, and that we got out of here.”
We stepped over another body—that of an athletic young woman in pink—and into the back hallway. We passed the bathrooms, and the framed map that Alana had found, and then we pushed out of the back door and into the desert. I tightened my plastic hood around my face again. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, so much that the surrounding rocky hills hid it well.
I could hear both tractors in the distance as I ducked low, following a smooth bike trail complete with green and blue flags. No other sound cut over the landscape other than the breeze, and it was blowing towards us from the tractors. A small whiff of gasoline rode on it, sending panic into my chest.
“Heads down,” Jerome said, echoing my thoughts. “I got the bags. The ammo. The other weapons. I even grabbed some lighter fluid.” He cradled it in his elbow as he ran.
I gulped, hating what this would have to come to if David came back here searching for us. If he had the gun, he would not have mercy. David would shoot and leave us for dead.
And he might also shoot anyone who stood up to him.
“We have to get off the trail,” Alana said, ducking around another curve and a blue flag.
“David won’t come out too far on his own,” I promised.
Jerome cut in front of Alana and motioned behind a large metal tank that might hold propane. Something thudded. Panic seized me as I followed him. It was off the trail, and somewhat close to the back of the station, but from the sounds of it, the tractors had reached the front of the station and we needed to hide. Running in these white suits would advertise us to the world.
Alana and I ducked behind the large tank, which had warning stickers all over it. Yes. Propane. I could see a bit of the bike trail from here, worn smooth by tire tracks and feet.
And then shouts reached us. People were in the parking lot, maybe a few hundred feet away. The distance made words blend, but David’s loud, commanding tone cut above the rest.
“They wouldn’t stay here. And no one has moved these bodies.”
I gulped. The group was asking about the three of us.
I wondered who had voiced the question.
“...check!” Tony shouted.
“They’re dead.” Was that Mina?
I wanted to get up and run to them, and tell them the truth about their god David, but I knew how that would end up. David would point out our new weapon and tell everyone we were the ones looking to take control.
It was better to let them go.
The fewer people I had around me, the less death I would have to worry about, right?
But I held my breath.
“Is anyone out here?”
Eric was shouting out the back door, and I looked at Jerome and Alana as his shouts echoed off the surrounding rocks. I could stand up now, but Alana shook her head.
And then I noticed something wrong.
Jerome no longer held the can of lighter fluid in his elbow. He must have dropped it.
“That’s a bike trail, and anyone on it would have died by now. Looks like the only people here were the owners of these vehicles and those bikes. If Laney, Jerome, and Alana were here, they would have met us by now,” David said.
My heart thudded. He was at the back
door, too, and talking in such a logical voice that I almost believed him. David had turned on his full manipulation.
“What if they’re down in that mine?” Eric asked, panic filling his voice. “We can’t leave them there.”
David let a pause drag out. “Then they locked themselves in. I tried to get them to open up. Something’s wrong there. Like they’re trying to guard something. I wanted to trust them—”
“Maybe that’s because you showed them you didn’t?” Tony asked.
The three guys were at the back door, then. But I didn’t dare rise to peek. My hood would give me away in no time.
“Tony, you’re an idiot.” But David said that in a joking tone, like he was turning up that charm he showed while the world still lived.
He had to control his group somehow.
“It’s a legit concern,” Tony said with a cough. “Man, that stench.”
Footsteps shuffled as David walked out of the station and closer to us. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that. There’s nothing in this station we can use,” David said. “Food is poison. Drinks are probably poison, too. Once we’re out of here, we’ll call someone and tell them that those three have shut themselves in the mine. But we have to move.”
“You’re right,” Eric said. “This place needs to go up, before someone eats something here and gets radiation poisoning.”
I gulped.
David wanted to light the station.
“Have the others worked the pumps or siphoned any gas?” David asked.
“Christina found a hand pump on the side of the building. We can get some diesel.” Mina had joined the others in the back doorway.
“Take all the gas they can fit in those red containers. We will not have these tractors quit in the middle of the desert.” With that, his footsteps grew fainter as he headed back to the others.
Silence fell as the trio went back inside, and I frowned at Jerome and Alana.
“He’s a saint now, huh?” Jerome asked. Then he looked down at his elbow, letting his eyes widen. “I...oh. I think I dropped that bottle of lighter fluid on the trail.”
“Did anyone see it?” I asked, thinking of David stepping out and looking around.
The trail was visible from the back door.
Did David see it lying there?
Was he lighting the station because he knew we were out here, and he wanted to cut off our supplies? I couldn’t resist looking. Scooting across the hard ground, I peeked around the propane tank.
The back door stood open, and Jerome’s bottle of lighter fluid was lying right there in the middle of the trail. I almost ran out to grab it, but if David came back out and saw it missing, he would know we were still out here, and close.
He might have seen it.
David had walked out and then walked back in again.
And then he might plan something worse than just lighting the station on fire to cremate the dead.
“Is it there?” Jerome hissed.
I ducked back as figures moved deep in the darkness. “Yes.” But we had an advantage. The others wouldn’t risk the sun, would they? We were the only ones who had the suits.
I held my finger to my lips, and Alana paled. Minutes crawled past. None of us could move. Anyone looking out the back door would spot our bright suits against the tan landscape.
“...everyone back to the tractors. Pull out of the lot. We can’t leave all this leaking gas,” David said.
“Are you sure we have to do this?” Tony.
“It’s better that anyone else who ends up at this station doesn’t get poisoned. The others are going to have to wait for rescue. I saw no good way into the mine on the facility map. If we go back, we’ll kill all of us.”
I grit my teeth. David was lying. There was clearly a good way in and out, but he’d kept that to himself.
And then quick footsteps approached. “Hello?” David asked, as if he were trying to call for anyone left alive out here. “Is anyone out here? We’re about to light the station on fire. Don’t eat the food!”
He was getting closer.
And with horror, I realized what I had to do. Now was not the time to freeze.
Slowly, I removed the gun from my back. At the very least, I could threaten David.
“Dude. The sun,” Tony said. “Are you crazy?”
“Minimal exposure,” David said. Liquid sloshed on the ground, closer and closer. A shadow fell over the trail, just ten feet away.
Yes. He could see the can of lighter fluid from there, even if Tony probably couldn’t.
More liquid sloshed. “I don’t think anyone’s out here. And we need to be respectful of the dead. We can’t leave them lying here.”
And with that, he stepped away.
I let out my breath, lowering the gun.
I wouldn’t have to shoot anyone today. Or threaten them, and turn into the devil in everyone’s eyes.
But Alana frowned and motioned underneath the propane tank. I couldn’t read her expression other than the alarm.
Then I smelled it.
Gasoline.
Right on the other side of the propane tank.
“Okay. Out,” David shouted from the back door. “Back in the tractors. Pull them away from the station and the pumps. I’m going to drop the match!”
Engines revved, and then I smelled it.
David had poured a trail, leading from the back of the station to–
I eyed Jerome and Alana, and I grabbed Jerome’s arm. He must have seen us, or guessed that we were here because we had nowhere else to hide.
“He’s going to blow us up. Move.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
David was a truly insidious monster.
I rose, panic seizing me. My gun would do no good now.
I should have pointed it at David, because I knew he was trying to blow us up on purpose. And no one in the group would ever know the difference.
“Move,” I said, because there was nothing left to do.
A faint whooshing sound filled the air from the direction of the gas station, and that was enough to make Alana and Jerome move as well. We backpedaled over rocks, over small hills, and over dust, leaving the propane tank behind. The three of us stumbled onto flat ground—the trail—and then instinct hit me.
“Run,” I hissed.
We ran.
Shouts rang out, and I knew the others were evacuating the premises.
Well, so were we.
“Over here,” Jerome said, motioning to us in the dying light. He waved to a rock formation that stuck out of the ground and marked another curve in the bike trail, and Alana and I followed him and ducked behind it.
As I whirled to get behind the rock and take cover, I saw it.
Smoke billowed out of the station. Flames lashed at everything within the back door, and a small, fiery trail extended out of the back like a rope of death. Flames raced towards the propane tank–
Someone seized my arm and pulled me behind the rock.
And I got it.
I covered my ears and waited as a terrifying silence dragged out.
And then the world erupted in sound.
A deafening bang and shattering noise followed, piercing my eardrums with violence as I leaned against the rock formation. The ground trembled with shock as my ears rang and a flash of fiery light followed, expanding overhead. My teeth hit each other. My bones rattled. And an arm fell over me, pulling me close to the outcrop.
Time passed as my ears rang.
Was the sound gone?
Or was that still my ears ringing?
“Laney.” Someone repeated my name over and over and slowly got through the horrific ringing and shrieking still playing deep in my head. I blinked in the dying light, and I turned my head.
The world had stopped shaking, and Jerome, with his hood loosened enough to show his face, crouched beside me. And Alana crouched on the other. Behind him, a fist-sized piece of smoking metal—a piece of the propane tank—had fallen.
“It blew. It’s over,” he said. “We can’t stay here.”
And slowly, I realized that the roar of a burning fire was taking the place of the ringing in my head.
Yes. The explosion. The ground had stilled, and as Jerome kept his arm on my back, I realized he was right.
“My ears,” Alana said.
“I know,” I told her. “We might have some hearing loss from that. The gas station. It’s burning.” Slowly, I straightened, hating that we could no longer hear what David and his company were doing. Peeking over the jutting rock and the weeds clinging to life on the top, I faced the remains of the station.
The propane tank had vanished except for its bottom and its legs, and the fuel had probably burned off in the explosion that had lit the world outside of our shelter. Heat hung in the air, but was already dissipating. To my shock, I smelled no fuel.
The fire had claimed it all.
And Happy’s Gas had erupted into flames on the inside, with smoke escaping from weak points in the roof. More black smoke poured out of the open back door, and as the wind blew, I caught a whiff of that cooked smell that signaled–
“Turn away,” I warned Jerome and Alana, who still crouched. “We should stay here for a bit. The sun is going down, and if we move too fast, David might see us. He’s got to still be around, or not too far up the road.”
“Duck,” Alana warned me. “David’s worse than I thought.”
I tried to sort out my thoughts. “You were right to lie low around him until the time was right, or we’d be dead already,” I told her. “Well, it looks like we’ll be walking from here. Fifteen miles. Great.” I sat against the rock to watch the reddish light on the horizon fade.
All we could do now was wait as the world got darker, with only the light of the burning gas station to accompany us.
And then the rest of our journey would involve coming up behind David and company, knowing full well that by the time we reached them again, they would lay in wait.
* * * * *
Night fell, and the station continued to burn. The reek of smoke and worse was our only company, but no one talked about the elephant in the room. David and his crew would make it to the next town just fine, and then they’d restock again and leave nothing in their wake but destruction.