Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (24 page)

An explosion came next, again knocking him over. His ears rung, but underneath the buzz he heard people screaming downstairs. Smoke reached his nostrils. His adrenaline kicked in and, ignoring the overwhelming ache suffusing him, he rose to his feet, pulled the door open, and limped down the hall.

*
  
*
  
*

Larry Nevers sat in the lounge alone, doodling in a notebook. He wasn’t much of an artist, and most of the time he simply spent his time sketching band names, but it was all he could do to keep his emotions in check. He’d become a basket case of late, always feeling on the verge of tears while thinking about the people he’d lost.
Scribbling, even if it was nonsensical, while thinking of better, more youthful times was all he could do to keep the despair from engulfing him.

His mind tracked to the past, remembering Connie, his old girlfriend. They met a year after he dropped out of high school, and she was a little older. She was a bubbly sort, with a wonderfully tacky dye-job, but she was infatuated with him, and he with her, and when they made love…she was probably the best fuck ever. He closed his eyes and tried to remember why they broke it off. They’d had so much fun, and there seemed to be no reason for it to end. But end it did, which led to him meeting Brooke, who he married. And yeah, they were happy early on, even though it ended badly. He was glad he got to experience it—even if the sex wasn’t nearly as good.

“Everything happens for a reason,” he muttered.

A shadow passed by the window, and Larry glanced up. The rain came down in sheets outside, the sound of it like thousands of continuous rim-shots. Another shadow crept across his vision, along with a flash of blue, and he put down his pen. Rising from his stool, he tiptoed across the plush carpeting. No one could’ve been outside, not with the ferociousness of the downpour. The notion that Hector might have somehow escaped came to mind, and fear gripped him.

He grabbed a poker from the fireplace on the way by, and then pressed his back to the wall beside the picture window. Turning slowly, he peered through the glass, spotting two female figures, one large and one small, decked in raincoats and holding umbrellas. He let out a breath when he recognized Allison and Shelly Steinberg. While it was odd they were out in a driving rainstorm, they obviously didn’t pose a threat.

Then a third figure appeared, and Larry felt a moment of trepidation. It was Tom, running after his family, his body shifting from side to side as if he could barely keep himself upright. Allison spun around, stared at her husband with wide, frightened eyes, and yelled something Larry couldn’t hear. Tom then pointed off in the distance, twirling his other arm like a third base coach waving the runner home. Allison and Shelly took off in a sprint, with Tom right on their heels.

”What the fu—”

Those words were cut off when the floor rumbled with such force that Larry dropped the poker and collapsed against one of the couches. He heard voices shouting down the hall, followed by doors slamming shut. The voices grew louder, and soon Dennis and Luis appeared from the hallway.

“What
was
that?” asked an incredulous Dennis, his silver hair a mess.

Larry shrugged. “Don’t know. Felt like an earthquake.”

“Well—”

Light flashed, so bright it felt like his eyes would melt in their sockets. A deafening
boom
followed, and the ground shook once more. Dennis and Luis screeched from the other side of the room, and barstools toppled over. Glasses fell from their perches, smashing on the parquet floor surrounding the bar. Larry held on tight to the arm of the couch, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to get the stars out of his vision.

More voices, this time Corky and Doug’s as they appeared from the other direction. Doug’s eyes were narrow and serious, while Corky’s bulged from his head.

“Holy shit!” exclaimed the towering redhead. “Did you guys see that?”

Everyone nodded.

“What happened?”

“How the fuck should we know?” muttered Luis as he rose from where he’d fallen, rubbing his left hip.

“Where’s Doc?” asked Doug.

Larry shrugged. “Upstairs, I think. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Doug didn’t answer, instead sprinting away from them. Larry, his knees shaking, got up on his feet. He glanced over his shoulder at the picture window. The Steinbergs were nowhere to be seen. He was about to say something about it, but then he smelled the smoke. Beneath that smell was something else, something sour and pungent.

“Oh no,” he said.

“What?” said
Corky.
“What the fuck, man? What’s going on?”

Larry stepped away from the window and gazed at the fireplace. It was smoking something fierce, billowing from a crack in the brickwork.

“We have a problem.”

Doug reemerged, towing Horace behind him. The old man looked horrible, like he’d been stricken with the world’s worst flu.
That’s how Hector looked
, Larry thought, but the beginnings of a rumble reached his ears, and he instead shouted, “Everyone, get out!”

He sprinted toward his friends, shoving Dennis in the back and grabbing Corky around one massive elbow. The rumbling grew in volume as he ran, and when he entered the hallway another blast knocked him off his feet. He collided with Luis and they both careened to the floor. His forearm scraped across the carpet, burning his flesh. The sensation was appropriate, for he glanced behind him and saw the lounge begin to glow. It was on fire.

“Everyone outside!” he shouted. “It isn’t safe in here!”

“Wait!” he heard Corky yell. “Where’s Shelly? We can’t leave without Shelly!”

Larry spun around, stared down his massive cohort, and said, “Just move your ass, Cork. They’re fine. They’re outside already. I saw them earlier, okay?” He wanted to say something more, but he didn’t have the time. He’d explain everything after he did what had to be done.

Dashing out the back door as fast as his spindly legs could carry him, Larry hopped down the steps without his feet hitting them once. He landed on the wet grass, rain beating down on his head, and made a beeline for the bulkhead, a hundred feet away. Smoke wafted between its seams, creating a snaking tendril of black that coiled up, up, up. The window above—the laundry room—was shattered. Flames licked out, greedy and sizzling in the rain.

He ran around the dead deer, still hanging from its makeshift gallows, slid to a stop before the bulkhead door, unfastened the latch, and lifted. Smoke engulfed him, flowing up his nose and down his throat, making him gag.
His eyes, still sore from the bright flash earlier, stung like a bitch.
Hands then fell on his back, pulling him away from the smoking pit.

“What the fuck’s going on?” asked Corky. The big man had his hands on his knees, panting,
his
long red hair stringy and wet. The others surrounded him, looking wet and scared.

Larry swallowed hard, trying to drive away the itching in his throat. “It’s the furnace,” he croaked out. “Something’s wrong down there. When was the last time anyone checked it?”

“Um…never?” said Luis, unsure.

Doug stepped forward. “I looked at it when we brought you-know-who down there,” he said, his voice even. “The gauges all seemed fine. Arrows pointing to black are good, right?”

Larry nodded. “Yeah, but it’s obviously not fine now. I need to go see what’s wrong.”

“Seriously?”
Dennis said.
“But the smoke?
And what about Hec?”

Larry waved him off. “The smoke ain’t gonna mean shit if this place goes up. And Hec’s all chained. He ain’t gonna be able to do anything. Right, Ho?”

“Yes,” replied the old man in a weak voice.

“It’s settled then. I’m going in. If I’m not back in, oh, five minutes, come get me. But be fucking quick about it if you do, ’kay?”

He pulled his shirt over his nose, buttoned the top button, and stepped over the ledge. The smoke was indeed thick, and he couldn’t see more than a foot in front of him. He took it one step at a time, until he felt the reassuring hardness of concrete beneath his feet.

Before becoming a cross-country trucker, Larry had tried his hand at being an HVAC technician. He wasn’t very good at it. A lot of it came down to a lack of studying, which was something he didn’t do well. He also didn’t have the stomach for working with chemicals. During his initial schooling he developed migraines, the worst of which forced him into bed, in complete darkness, for hours. He’d dropped out quickly enough, but in the few months he had spent at the tech academy, he had seen enough videos of what happened when a furnace redlined to know they were in trouble.

And the furnace at the
Clinton
was at least five times larger than any he’d ever seen, so make that
a shitload
of trouble.

He squeezed his eyes shut, using the wall to guide him, trying to save his vision for when he was close enough to the furnace to do some good. The further he progressed, the thicker the smoke became. Even with his shirt covering his nose and mouth, he choked.
I better not’ve misremembered where the damn thing was
, his subconscious worried.

After about thirty steps, his feet splashed in a puddle of liquid. His hand then fell upon a pipe of some sort—a pipe so hot it immediately scorched his palm. He yelped and jumped back, eyes popping open, and there it was, the giant hulk of shuddering gray steel. The grate at the bottom had blown out and flames erupted from it. The smoke in the room came from the top. The pipes were bent back and blackened, like the barrel of a rifle when a bullet explodes in the chamber.

He swallowed his fear, and the pain, and stepped up to the metal beast. The flames spraying from the bottom cooked the air, but still he pressed on. He inched closer, wincing, and waved at the smoke so he could get a better view of the gauges, but they were nowhere to be found. They’d all been ripped out. Wires hung like dead worms from the holes. Even the instrument panel below, which had probably contained the restart and emergency shutoff switches, had been smashed. Confused but determined, he allowed his eyes to wander upward, tracing the thick copper tube leading to the main tank. There was only one way to stop the inevitable now, and that was shutting the flow valve.

To his dismay, that had been destroyed as well. The knob was nothing but a single spike, mocking him with its uselessness. Oil spit from a crack in the pipe, gathering on the floor. That explained the liquid he’d stepped in, at least.

The furnace shuddered and burped, and the flames intensified. It shook out of control, making a high-pitched rattle that made it feel like his ears would start bleeding. It was hopeless. The thing was going to blow any second. Panic set in. He turned toward the way he came in—at least what he
thought
was the right direction, for the smoke formed a wall of gray all around him.

“Guys!” he screamed, then scurried in a pained half-limp for the exit. “Guys, it’s gonna blow! Get the fuck outta here!”

He heard a heavy click and started to run. What followed was an explosion so violent it sent Larry flying across the room. He landed on his face, his forehead thwacking the concrete floor. Stars filled his vision. He smelled burning flesh.

One thing bothered him: the explosion hadn’t come from the furnace. The angle was off. No,
that
blast came from the generator.

Larry moaned and rolled over. His head was hot, his scalp burning, and he lifted a blistering hand up to find out why. Flames licked off his fingers. Shrieking, he started smacking himself in the head, trying to put out the fire. That’s when he noticed the heat rising from below him. He froze and stared at his feet, finding that
they
were now in flames, too.

Leaping up, he stomped in a circle until the bottoms of his sneakers only smoked. With that done he shoved his face in the corner, searching for clean air while he both lamented the loss of his precious hair and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. Then it came to him, in the form of a constant
whup-whup-whup.
The generator, though something had detonated inside, was still running. That was the ticket, the way to end this. All he had to do was shut it down. Without power, the pressure would stop building in the furnace and it would burn itself out on whatever fuel remained.