LIFERS Chapter Forty Eight

With the entire goings on down at the garage, no one had thought about the most crucial part of what she was there to do. How the hell was she supposed to light the fuse without a source of ignition? She blew out a stream of frustrated air, angry for forgetting such a simple, yet significant thing.

‘Hey there, Mac,’ she shouted at the windows. ‘Ya gotta match?’ but none of them replied.

She could go back to the garage to see if Gregg or Nick had a light, but that wasn’t feasible, by the time she got there and got back again the rain may have stopped altogether. So her options were two-fold; either find something in the van to light the fuse with, or head back and forget the plan to rescue the two remaining young girls.

But in reality, option one was the only option.

She looked in the glove-box and under the seats, in both doorwells and behind the sun visors, and even under the floor-mats for a possible loose match, but found nothing. She’d messed the whole thing up, big-time. She sat in the driver’s seat feeling utterly dejected and was about to start the engine and head back with the news of her failure when something brought the smile back to her face. It was small, it was black, it was made of plastic, and it was sat smack in the centre of the dash, and embossed with the outline of a smouldering cigarette.

She turned the ignition key and pushed in the little black knob, and then waited for the longest twenty seconds of her life until it popped out. She grabbed it and ran for the fuse then pushed them together, but tissss was all that happened. Another rasp of frustrated air left her lungs as she screamed under her breath. The problem had to be the distance between the two, so she needed to get them closer.

She climbed in the van and turned it around until the fuse lay right beside the driver’s door, and then again she pushed in the cigarette lighter. This time she was out the van and had the fuse in one hand whilst the other hovered over the little black knob, ready to snatch it up the moment it popped.

Twenty and a half seconds later she touched the two together in one swift movement, and, with a puff of blue smoke, the fuse ignited and started its three-minute journey toward the town hall. Once more she looked at the many gaunt faces that stared from the windows, and again she shouted to them, but a little louder than before.

‘S’okay, Mac, I got a light now.’

And that’s when Mac looked at her, his brow creased, his eyes narrowed, and then a curious, unknowing expression formed on his face, like he’d seen something for the first time but wasn’t able to figure out what it was.

‘Ohhh-fuck,’ she said under her breath, then did the only thing she thought sensible; she held that breath and stood still, absolutely still.

Mac continued to look at her, Jill continued to look at him; she could see his mind ticking over, could tell it hadn’t quite broken free of its hypnotic prison. And as thin as the rain had become, if one of them wakes then they all wake, and they might just fancy their chances and give chase. Her eyes moved to the burning fuse to see it almost half way to the steps as the blue smoke ballooned skyward just left of the window. But in paying Jill what little attention he had, Mac didn’t seem to notice it.

She waited and didn’t dare blink as they stared one another out, then, in a slow, straight movement, Mac raised his head and looked once more along the length of Main Street. That was Jill’s signal to climb in the van and get her ass out of there fast. She didn’t bother with the rear doors but quietly closed the driver’s door then looked in the side-view mirror to see Mac and his friends pay her no attention.

She started the engine and slipped the van into gear and then floored the pedal. Five seconds later she was heading for the garage at full pelt where she could just make out the two trucks already positioned outside along with the 4x4.

..

Gregg and Nick had rigged the oil truck with the remainder of the round-shells and roped two compressed air cylinders to each of the fuel tanks along with two fifteen pound explosive paper balls on each. According to Nick, the fifteen-pounders would rip the fuel tanks apart and ignite the fuel in them, the blast from that and the rest of the truck should then rupture the compressed air cylinders, adding to the shockwave that would destroy the cinema and anyone unlucky enough to be inside it.

Nick had used most of his Polaroid films taking pictures of the “Truck-bomb” but made sure he saved a couple for the big finale. The big ka-boom.

The hatch had been closed and bolted, and tyres, wheels, and tools, and anything else they could find to pile on top of it they did. Gregg was wondering why Jill was taking so long when he heard the van pull up outside. Nick placed his camera and plastic bag on the oil drum and pushed the up button to allow her to drive in.

‘It took me about a minute to get back,’ she said. ‘But one of them twitched on me so I couldn’t move, the blue fuse was half burned when I left.’

‘Crap,’ Nick said. ‘That only gives us about thirty seconds until red-fuse ignition, and just under a minute before full-blown fire-time. We gotta get a move on.’

‘Nick and I will get the trucks in the alley across the way, you need to get Alicia into the van and have it facing the town hall so I can see when you flash the signal. And remember, once you’ve given it to me; get yourself and Alicia out of here. Is that understood?’

Jill nodded. ‘Fully.’

‘How long will it be before the fires, Nick?’

‘About twenty seconds.’

‘Right, let’s get those trucks in position.’

Jill woke Alicia and transfered her to the van.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘In just a few minutes,’ Jill said, as she reversed the van out to face north ready to give Gregg his signal. ‘You and I are moving out of town to wait for Nick and Gregg to join us, and then we’re all going home.’

With a grin almost as wide as her face, Alicia accepted that.

Gregg steered the oil truck whilst Nick towed it rear-end first into the alley across Main Street, and once they were in position, he climbed out and pulled down the sides of his hat so he could run through the thinning rain to the 4x4. Nick drove the tow-truck out through the back of the alley and turned it round to get its front end pushed tight up to the oil truck’s rear end, ready to push it on its final fifty yard journey into the cinema.

Gregg pulled the 4x4 up at the side of the van and pressed a button to roll down his window an inch. ‘Remember,’ he said. ‘No matter what happens, don’t come back here. If Nick and I don’t turn up in the next fifteen minutes, drive to the nearest town and tell them what’s gone on here.’

Jill looked through Alicia’s window. ‘You damn well better come back, Gregg.’

‘Yeah, that goes for me too,’ shouted Alicia.

Gregg smiled but never replied; he just removed the hat and rolled up the window.