James Axler – Stoneface

The sec man scowled. “Then why the fuck are you looking for it over here?”

“Because” The barrel of the Uzi poked through a link in the gate and pressed against the man’s belly. In a quiet yet flint-hard voice, J.B. said, “The light is better over here. You got the key to the lock?”

Gulping, the sec man nodded.

“Very, very carefully, I want you to unlock the gate. Act like you’re having a nice conversation with the joltbrain.”

The sec man fumbled inside his hair-covered vest, produced a small silver key, reached around the frame of the gate and inserted it into the base of the lock.

“Hey, Pooh Bear!” the sec man’s partner bellowed from the compound. “Got an alert! Them outlanders escaped, chilled Tex and T.J.!”

The man opened his mouth to bellow a reply. J.B. saw the fear in his eyes change to panic, and the bellow became a grunt as a 9 mm burst squirted from the Uzi, catching him just above the groin. The impact slapped him away from the gate, and before his partner could do more than flail around to bring his Tec-10 to bear, J.B. shot him three times, just below the rib cage. Forty feet was long range for such a stunted blaster as the Uzi, but J.B. brought him down.

He unlocked the gate and pushed it open, hearing the running footfalls of his friends behind him. Krysty was reeling, her boots dragging in the dust, clinging to Doc, who had one arm around her waist.

J.B. ran a quick check on the nearest dune buggy, checking out its frame, the condition of the tires and the engine. The ten-gallon fuel tank was full. Jak pointed to the gasoline pumps. “Couple five-gallon cans there.”

“Good. Go fill ’em.”

The keys to the vehicle were hanging by a string from the rearview mirror. Relieved he didn’t have to hot-wire it, J.B. nevertheless checked out the ignition, looking for an explosive charge. As he was doing so, Fleur said anxiously, “They’ll just come after us, you know. Run us to ground like deer.”

“Mebbe so,” J.B. grunted. “Mebbe not-so. Electrical system is clean.”

Everybody piled into the dune buggy, Fleur, Krysty and Doc squeezing into the back seat. Krysty sagged limply against Doc, her eyelids fluttering with the effort to keep conscious. J.B. started the wag, and it caught on the third try. The engine sound was steady, and though not loud, it carried a note of power. Putting it into gear, he steered around to the fuel pumps. Jak had just finished filling the two cans, and he heaved them onto the floorboards in front of the passenger seat.

He exchanged a quick nod with J.B., then produced one of his knives. He slashed through the pumping hose at a point just below the nozzle and gasoline sprayed in all directions. Jak leapt aboard, and the dune buggy rolled toward the open gate.

Down the street raced a group of sec men, about five of them. J.B. hit the brakes and half-turned toward Fleur. “You got that flare?”

“Yeah.”

“Break it and throw it toward the fuel pumps.”

She looked a little shocked, then a smile spread over her face. She snapped the cylinder between her hands, and a blinding reddish-white light splashed her with an eerie luminescence. The sec men were yelling at them, unslinging their blasters.

“Throw it!” J.B. shouted.

Turning in her seat, Fleur hurled the burning flare in an overhead half-loop, back into the compound. The spilled gasoline ignited immediately, and before J.B. floored the wag’s accelerator, it was flashing in a foot-high flame trail toward the pump.

A mushrooming orange ball of fire roared angrily upward. The pumps were uprooted from the concrete apron and they rocketed into the night sky. The fuel storage tank beneath the compound exploded, ripping a ragged crater in the ground as if a giant fist had slammed up from beneath. It triggered a deadly chain reaction as the other vehicles in the compound were flung in all directions and overturned. The gasoline in their split tanks leaked out, then erupted in secondary explosions.

The shock waves thundered across Helskel, knocking people flat, pushing over merchants’ stalls, shattering every window in the saloon.