I stripped off my jeans and shoes and changed into Haulk’s flame-retardant clothes. Since Haulk was taller and bigger than me, his clothes hung on me, but they didn’t have to fit. They just had to protect me.
‘Got another suit?’
‘In my office.’
‘Shit.’
‘Do you think you can make it to the door?’ Rags asked.
Racing suits are flame retardant, not fireproof. They are meant as a temporary barrier giving the driver a couple of minutes of protection at most. I could make it to one of the doors, but I’d never survive long enough to open it.
A thunderclap rocked the workshop. The fire had caught up with Haulk’s car and the petrol tank had exploded, spraying burning petrol over a tool chest.
‘How do you fancy driving out of here?’ I said.
Haulk’s car might be on fire, but the flames had yet to make it to mine. The only problem was that I had to cross through a lake of burning oil to get to it. I pointed at my car.
‘Are you crazy?’
‘Crazy is the only thing that’s going to get us out of here.’
I pulled on Haulk’s Nomex balaclava and his helmet, then snapped the visor down.
As Rags trickled out what water was left in the hose line, burning leaves dropped down and landed on his head and back. It was what was left of the many winners’ wreaths hanging on the wall. He yelled out and I slapped them away with my gloved hands.
‘You need to move fast.’
I stepped up to the roiling wall of fire. I had thirty feet of it to walk through. I tried not to think about how hot it was and walked into the flames.
The heat was immediate and intense. I felt it come at me from all angles, latch on to every inch of me and squeeze. It penetrated the suit immediately, hungry flames seeking a path through the fabric to get to my skin. It easily found the two weaknesses in my protection: where the legs of the suit slotted into the tops of my boots and where my balaclava was exposed under my chin. I felt my ankles and the underside of my jaw burn and the soles of my feet tingled as the burning oil ate my boots.
My view of the world vanished. The helmet’s visor charred and turned opaque in seconds. I ignored the blindness and focused on where I’d seen my car before my vision disappeared.
I placed each foot as squarely on the ground as possible, but slipped on the burning oil. I pitched forward and landed on my hands and knees.
Panic knifed through me as quickly as the pain. I was on my hands and knees in a bed of flames. That one thought helped me scramble to my feet in a second.
I felt a new and more intense heat in my hands. I didn’t understand it for a second, then I got it. The suede patches on my gloves were on fire. I fought the urge to yank them off and expose my naked hands to an oil fire.
‘Keep going, Aidy!’ Rags screamed.
That’s it, I told myself, keep walking. You can do this. My mantra kept the panic in. I made it through the fire.
The second I was clear of the flames, I yanked the gloves free and tugged the helmet off. Every inch of the suit was scorched and blackened, including Haulk’s helmet. The heat had destroyed the fancy design incorporating the Dutch flag. Nomex really was a lifesaver.
I ran up to my car. It was hot to the touch, so I used a burnt glove to open the door. I threw myself behind the wheel and slammed the door shut.
I felt safe inside the car, but it scared me to see what the oil- and water-temperature gauges were registering.
I put my finger on the starter. ‘Please start.’
I pressed down. The engine turned over and over, but it wasn’t catching. The fuel was probably evaporating in the engine.
Then the engine caught and fired. ‘God bless Honda and their reliability.’
I put the car in gear and drove into the fire. The car pushed back the flames. I couldn’t believe I’d just walked through this.
I punctured the flames and found Rags on his feet on the other side, holding his mobile in one hand and my shirt to his neck. I clambered from the car.
‘It’s your grandfather. He’s outside. Jesus Christ, the tyres are on fire.’
He jammed the phone in my hands and aimed the hose at the tyres.
‘Steve?’ I said into the phone.
‘We’re outside. We’ve kicked in the door to the offices. Can you see us?’
I wiped my eyes. I’d been tearing up since I walked through the fire. I looked back. Between the smoke and the flames, I couldn’t see them. I could barely make out the outline of the offices.
‘No.’
‘Fuck. We can’t open the loading doors. They’re locked from the inside.’
I coughed so hard I folded over. I felt the smoke in my lungs, choking me from inside. ‘And I can’t get to them.’
‘We’re going to get you out of there, son. Just keep believing that.’
He was clinging to that belief. I heard it in his voice. As long as he believed, I did too.
‘We can plough through the doors,’ I heard Dylan shout in the background.
‘No, the inside of this place is a fireball,’ I said. ‘You’ll burn up getting to us. I’ve got my car going. It’s got extinguishers. I’ll drive out from this side.’
‘Are you going to smash through the door?’ Steve asked.
Smash through it? I couldn’t see it. It was lost in the smoke. In the gloom, I could miss the door and drive the car into a support pillar and that would be the end of the car and me. I went up to the prefab siding. It was corrugated metal. It was strong, but it wasn’t reinforced like the rollup door.
‘Steve, I’ll never find the door in all this shit. This siding. How strong is it?’
‘Not that strong.’
‘I think I can rip through it. Come around to the other side.’
‘Do it. We’ll be waiting.’
I tossed the phone back to Rags. He dropped the hose to catch it.
I got back behind the wheel and strapped myself into the harness. I pulled hard on the straps. I needed to be in tight. Any slack and the impact would break my back.
I needed a long run up for this. I put the car in reverse and rolled it back into the smoke and the flames. Rags and the wall disappeared. Flames licked at the bodywork. Paint blistered. Smoke blackened the windows. I prayed the tyres wouldn’t melt. I backed up until I bumped into the opposite wall.
‘OK, here goes.’
I floored the accelerator, but the tyres slipped in the burning oil. The car barely accelerated while the tyres spun.
‘Shit.’
I backed off and tried to feather the throttle, but the car still only reached fifteen miles an hour by the time it re-emerged from the smoke.
Rags lumbered over to me and opened the door. He looked awful. I couldn’t tell if it was smoke inhalation or the blood loss.
‘I can’t get any traction on this sodding oil,’ I said.
‘Shit.’ He thumped the roof of the Honda. ‘He can’t get any speed with all this fucking oil on the floor,’ he yelled into the phone. A moment later, a grin broke out across his face. ‘Your grandfather is a fucking genius. Get this thing on the rolling road.’
That would do it. The rolling road faced the prefab siding. If I built up enough speed on the rollers and jumped the car out, I’d have the force to tear a hole through this building without the run up.
Rags staggered over to the rolling road and pulled off the safety plates as I manoeuvred the car on to the rollers. Rags flashed me the thumbs-up and backed away.
I put the car in second and stepped on the accelerator. The car gathered speed fast on the near frictionless rollers. I watched the needle climb on the display. Thirty. Forty. Fifty. Sixty. Sixty miles an hour should do it. Now to jump it out of its rollers.
The car’s weight kept sitting squarely in the rollers. To get it to fly out of them, I needed to give it a little help by rocking the car back and forth.