Besides, Joe figured they already had, what with those helicopters flying over—twice now—and that shooting coming from the north end.
Something was coming down.
Nothing like a little fire to bring rescue.
The GTO had a sunroof.
Not original equipment, but some crazy sonofabitch had decided to cut a hole in the roof of a classic. Joe showed his respect by tearing it off. It made a good bombing port for Ruby Sue.
“Hey, there’s a credit union,” Ruby Sue said, manning her lookout. “Those bastards turned me down for a loan. Let’s do it.”
Joe popped the curb, drove right across the lawn and Ruby Sue lit up two bombs and let them fly. The shadows retreated as huge balls of orange and red fire engulfed the side of the building.
“HOO YEAH!” she called out.
A trio of rabids were standing at the entrance of an alley, just watching.
She lit up another and heaved it in their direction.
A canvas of flame erupted mere feet from them and they ducked back into the shadows. She slid back into the car.
They’d hit an Amoco convenience store—wide open and empty—and helped themselves to four cases of Blatz and a few boxes of tampons. They dumped the warm beer out and filled the bottles at the pump. They were on their third case already. She looked out the rear window and saw the flickering glow of flames as the town went up.
“What we need is something quicker,” Joe said, bringing the GTO around in a complete circle, sacrificing rubber.
This time they found a Citgo station.
Like most stations these days they sold everything from beer to broasted chicken. The electricity for the pumps was on, all four tiers of them, some sixteen pumps. Giggling, he turned on the hoses one after another, setting the latches so they would not shut off after he let them go. Before long, gasoline was flooding through the parking lot, into the streets. Oceans of it flowed through the grass flanking the lot, pooled around parked cars, and washed up to the station itself.
But the best thing was the tanker truck parked in back.
With any luck it was full.
Joe ran back to the GTO, splashing through the sea of gas.
Behind the wheel, he said, “Ready for some pyrotechnics, babe? Tonight be the night.”
He brought the GTO out into the street and got within three, four feet of the nearest stream of gasoline.
“Man your position,” he told Ruby Sue.
She did just that. She upended a firebomb and got the wick nice and wet. She lit it with her Bic and let it go. It crashed in the street, flames splashing in all directions. Joe saw the fire moving in a blazing yellow-orange wave towards the station.
“ROCK AND ROLL!” he shouted, stomping down on the accelerator and squealing out of there, the back of the GTO fish-tailing wildly until he got it under control.
They were maybe a block away when night turned into day.
A vivid cloud of fire easily forty feet high rose above the rooftops. The explosion was so intense it actually jarred the GTO nearly off the road. The plate glass windows of storefronts shattered and a great surge of heat passed through the car making the chill September night feel like a July afternoon.
But it didn’t end there.
More explosions followed as parked cars went one after the other.
Ruby Sue was hollering like a cheerleader.
But the really big one came next.
The tanker truck went maybe three, four minutes later. Thousands of gallons of gas went up with a deafening peel of thunder. Fireballs and black, rolling clouds of sooty smoke were sent skyward.
“Let’s see ’em ignore this,” Joe said.
He figured it was only a matter of time before the underground tanks tasted a flame or spark and went up in a blazing, explosive inferno—no doubt, taking a city block or two with them.
With that in mind, it made good sense to get the hell away from there.
“What now, babe?” Ruby Sue said. “We still got more bombs left.”
Now that they were a good distance from the spreading inferno, Joe slowed down, navigating the dark streets. “No need. Not just yet. Let’s just wait around now and see what develops. Something’s gotta happen pretty soon. Half the county’s gotta be wondering what in fuck just happened.”
And when the underground tanks went up it would sound like Hiroshima all over again.
Ruby Sue was sucking on a cigarette, wishing she had some weed. Sitting sideways on the passenger side of the GTO, she watched the glow of the fire behind them. It painted the treetops red.
“You ever see that movie where those people are trapped in that burning skyscraper, Joe? It was awesome. Fire kept getting closer and closer. Shit, I hope we don’t roast-up, man. That would suck.”
Joe coasted slowly up a blacked-out street. “We’re okay, we’re… what the fuck was that?”
Something had thudded against the car.
“Something hit us,” Ruby Sue said.
Thud.
“What—”
Then another thud right on top of the roof.
And then there was no time to discuss as a white arm snaked in through the sunroof and took hold of Ruby Sue by the hair, pulling her up towards the opening. She started screaming and thrashing, kicking out wildly and accidentally catching Joe in the ribs.
The GTO swerved crazily, thumped over a curb, barely missed a tree, and came back down in the street only to sideswipe a parked pickup truck in an eruption of sparks.
Ruby Sue was still shrieking, shoulders nearly drawn through the sunroof now, legs bicycling madly and striking the dashboard, popping open the glove compartment, and spinning the wheel from Joe’s hands more than once.
“Joe, help me for god’s sake! Help me they got me oh shit oh shit—”
Joe had hold of one leg and pulled with everything he had, yanking Ruby Sue maybe a foot or so back into the car so that he could just see her chin, but then, as if attached to a bungi cord, she sprang back up again.
“Cocksucker!” Joe spat, trying to reach behind him for the guns they’d lifted from the sporting goods joint. No dice. He got his hand on the butt of the Remington pump and then it fell behind his seat.
They were at the verge of a lighted neighborhood now.
He made it into the light and stamped on the brakes.
The GTO squealed to a halt, going sideways in the middle of the street, coughed and died.
Ruby Sue let go with a bellowing cry and dropped back into the car.
Her assailant—a thin man with a face white as putty, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else, his bleached torso dark with what looked like ritual symbols panted in dried blood—slid down onto the hood, clinging there like some huge, bloodless beetle and started slamming his fists into the windshield. A few hairline cracks appeared almost instantly.
Joe tried in vain to get the engine to catch and smelled gas.
Jesus, I flooded her, I flooded her.
The rabid pressed his face to the cracked windshield, staring in at them with vapid eyes, the pupils dilated obscenely and glittering with a demonic yellow shine. He made a hissing, angry sound… or maybe it wasn’t angry, because he knew he had them.
“Sonofabitch,” Ruby Sue said as he leaped off the hood and landed in the street.
Joe threw his door open and the rabid was on him.
His fingers hooked into claws, he slashed at Joe’s face. Joe sidestepped him and smashed him in the mouth with one meaty, broad fist. The rabid stumbled back in a daze, but did not go down.
Ruby Sue was out by then, on the other side of the GTO. “Hey, shit-fer-brains,” she called out. “Over here.”