The problem was, there wasn’t room to move, no matter how pressing the danger.
The elevator continued to rise, and stickies all around the shaft opening could see the rows of bright metal cans inside and smell the volatile fumes. The ones that could see tried to take a step back and were stopped by the wall of bodies behind them.
Linked by the psychic network of Lord Kaa, all the stickies on the top two floors realized what was about to happen and froze, holding their breath as they awaited orders from the piebald general. Kaa, far from the center of the action, at the base of the hotel, scoured
his book knowledge of tactics and maneuver for some way out of the predicament. In vain.
It was a checkmate. There were no possible countermoves.
All Kaa could think of was for them to duck and cover. Because his psychic command to do so was so powerful, the stickies on both floors did just that, all at once. As it turned out, neither their ducking nor their covering did much good.
Autofire crackled from the bottom of the shaft, and heavy slugs rattled the floor of the elevator, piercing the cans, scoring the stainless-steel walls and in the process sending plumes of bright sparks shooting across the interior of the vapor-filled car.
The ignition of the fuel bomb was muUiple stage, thanks to the way J.B. had stacked his cans, but it happened so quickly that it sounded like a single, horrendous blast First the trapped fumes exploded. They blew out with such force that the stickies standing closest to the car never felt the heat; they were vaporized by the shock wave. The elevator car acted like a crude cannon, focusing die blast out its open doorway. The initial explosion sent the lidless cans of solvent flying out the door. As they flew, they tumbled, trailing flammable liquid and even-more-flammable vapor. Some cans ricocheted off the walls of the hall before exploding. None escaped the ignition temperature of the primary blast
Fireballs swept down the hallway in both directions.
The heat was so intense that everything in its path exploded, living bodies, couches, chairs, walls.
The stickies at the ends of the hall were far enough away so they weren’t instantly incinerated. They had their arms melted to the tops of their heads. The fortunate ones inhaled in order to scream, and in so doing, drew searing-hot gases into their lungs, which cooked in a heartbeat, making them instantly dead.
The mutants protected from the initial blast by the hotel’s interior walls couldn’t escape the raging fire that followed, even if they had wanted to. And it appeared that they didn’t want to. The thousands that survived the explosion continued to dance, gibber and drool as the flames consumed those dancing right next to them.
It was so hot at the core of the blast that the metal frame of the elevator doorway began to melt. The I-beam girders of the car glowed incandescent red through the stainless-steel walls, as did the concrete lining of the elevator shaft. With a groan, the cable system on the roof of the car sheared and gave way, and the burning hulk plunged back down the shaft, this time in free-fall.
A HALF SECOND after the firebomb blew, the power-plant room rocked. The lifting cable snapped hard against the windings on the drum. The powerful jolt shook the whole apparatus; the spokes moved, driving the slaves back a step even though they had their bodies braced. Grease sprayed down on them from the
meshed gears in the ceiling. Doc leaned on the clutch lever, making sure the dog stayed in place.
Mildred was looking at the quivering floor indicator when J.B. raced back into the room.
“It worked!” he said jubilantly. “Dark night, that was one sweet fireball!”
“I’m curious, John Barrymore,” Doc said, “at what temperature does your petroleum-distillate cocktail burn?”
“Oh, it’s hot,” he said. “Rad-blasted hot. Mebbe six thousand degrees, mebbe more.”
The slaves stood and dared to relax, leaning against the spokes.
“You did good work,” J.B. told them. “We just fried a whole shit load of stickles.”
The only one who looked happy about it was Lester.