Free Pit Stop by Raymond Khoury Page A

the counter, Glen placed their order. The girl ringing up the sale said the nuggets would take a few minutes, but she had his coffee to him in seconds. Glen wrapped his hand around the takeout cup and quickly let go.
    â€œYikes,” he said. “We’ll be up there before this is cool enough to drink.” He put the tip of his index finger on the bottom lip, and his thumb on the edge of the plastic lid.
    â€œWhere’s my nuggets?” Kelly asked.
    â€œThe girl said they’d just take a—”
    That was when the woman screamed, “He’s on fire! There’s a man on fire!”
    The first thing Glen thought was, no way! A car on fire, maybe. Wasn’t unheard of for a car to overheat here along the interstate, especially when it was pushing ninety degrees out there. But a man in flames? That didn’t sound right.
    The second thing he thought was, he had a fire extinguisher in his pickup, a Ford F-150 with the words GARBER CONTRACTING, MILFORD plastered on the doors. Should he run out, grab the extinguisher from behind the driver’s seat, and try to help this guy, assuming what this woman said was true?
    Yeah, maybe. Except he wasn’t about to leave Kelly all by herself in a crowded, roadside fast-food joint, where someone could grab a kid, toss her in a car, and be God knows where in ten minutes.
    â€œHoney,” he said to her, “we’re going to the truck.”
    â€œWhat about my—?”
    But by the way her dad pulled her arm, she knew something bad was going on. She hadn’t only heard the woman screaming about that guy, she could feel the anxiety sweeping the room. People trying to decide what to do. Whether to stay in there, flock to the window and gawk, or run outside and get a front-row seat.
    Glen guided Kelly quickly to the door, pushing past people, butting in ahead of them to get outside. Coming out of the air-conditioning, the midday heat hit them like a warm, smothering blanket.
    â€œOver there,” Kelly said, pointing.
    A crowd had formed a couple of car lengths away from the pumps. Waves of heat riffled through the air. Glen let go of Kelly’s arm, reached into his pocket for the remote, and hit the button to unlock his truck as they approached it.
    He brought Kelly around to the passenger’s side. She was more than big enough to hop in herself, but her father gave her enough of a boost that she was nearly tossed across the seat. He reached over her and placed his coffee into one of the cup holders between the seats.
    Then he went around to the driver’s side, opened the door, and reached behind the seat to grab the red cylinder he always kept there. Doing construction, you were just as likely to need one of these at a work site as you were to put out a car fire.
    â€œStay here,” Glen said firmly. “Lock the doors.”
    â€œI’ll die with the windows up,” Kelly said. “It’s a million degrees in here.”
    He hopped in long enough to engage the ignition, without firing up the engine, and power down the windows, leaving the key inserted in the steering column. “Keep the doors locked just the same.”
    Glen, extinguisher in his right hand, ran toward the commotion.
    People screaming.
    He pulled the pin on the extinguisher, then got his left hand under the cylinder for support, and shouldered his way through the onlookers.
    Good God.
    It was hard to tell with the flames, but it was, indeed, a man. In his thirties, probably, maybe two hundred and fifty pounds, dressed in sandals and a T-shirt and a pair of those cargo shorts with the oversized pockets.
    Not exactly a Tibetan monk setting himself ablaze.
    If the man had been flailing earlier, he’d given up by the time Glen had arrived, now down on the pavement, his body crumpling in on itself as the flames consumed him. But that didn’t stop Glen from taking a few quick shots with the extinguisher.
    The people who’d gathered