Free Stiffed by Rob Kitchin

were to get the matches.  It would have looked suspicious if I’d bought them.’
    ‘Don’t try and blame me.  I …’
    ‘You stupid fat fuck!’ I explode, unable to help myself.  ‘I gave you one lousy job, but you were too busy rushing to stuff your fat face.  For fuck’s sake!’
    ‘Here.’  Paavo throws Jason Marino’s trousers.  ‘Use the cigarette lighter.’
    ‘What?’ Jason says, angry at the exchange.
    ‘In the van,’ Paavo explains.
    ‘Right.’   Jason disappears out of the mill to the van.
    Paavo wanders off to one side, staring at the old ruins, lost in his own thoughts, probably wondering why he got out of bed to turn up at my house at five o’clock in the morning to supposedly move a mattress.
    A minute later and Jason is half waddling, half running across the jumbled bricks, his right hand flailing Marino’s burning trousers.  The flame is bright and intense and is in danger of engulfing him.
    ‘Drop them!’ I yell at him.
    He doesn’t seem to hear.
    ‘Jason.  Drop the fucking trousers!’
    Something seems to register and he flings the trousers to the ground.  Paavo picks them up using the end of a stick and throws them onto the mattress.  There’s a whoosh, a brief fireball jumping up, and the pile bursts into dancing flames several feet high.
    ‘Are you okay?’ I ask Jason.
    ‘Fine.’  He holds up his unscathed hands.
    ‘And you think I’m certifiable,’ I say to him. 
    His hand might be okay, but I don’t have the heart to tell him his eyebrows are singed to practically nothing.
    We stand and watch the flames, making sure that the whole lot catches fire.  The sight is mesmerizing, a constantly shifting pattern of oranges.  Thick black smoke rises into the air and the metal springs of the mattress slowly become visible.
    I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.  At least we’ve managed to complete one task without too much mishap.  The next step is to negotiate with Redneck.  We slowly shuffle back towards the van.

 
    4
     
    Any time things appear to be going better, something has been overlooked
     
    As we near the vehicle a black SUV pulls to a stop a few yards away.  A man crowned in a large, black cowboy hat exits.  He’s wearing a fancy blue shirt with silver collar tips and a leather string tie.  What catches our eye though is the sub-machine gun clutched in his right hand.
    Fuck .
    ‘Hello , boys,’ he says with a Southern, mid-East accent.  ‘Going somewhere?’
    ‘Home,’ I manage to say. This morning just keeps getting better and better.  As soon as we stumble through one situation, a worse one replaces it.  It’s the day that refuses to stop giving.
    ‘I don’t think so.  Now I want you boys to take your weapons and place them on the ground real slow.  This thing has a hair trigger and spits out six hundred bullets a minute.  It’ll fill you so full of holes the worms will use you as a log flume ride.’
    Paavo and I stay stationary.  Jason pats his pockets and then shrugs.  The Raptor is back in his garage.  Not that it would have been of any use if he’d been carrying it.
    ‘I’m warning you.  Drop your weapons.’
    ‘We don’t have any weapons,’ I say, feeling like an idiot.  We thought we were getting ourselves back on track.  It hadn’t occurred to us that Redneck’s associates might be out looking for us.  At least, I’m assuming he’s one of Redneck’s associates.
    Cowboy laughs and shakes his head.  ‘Fucking amateurs.  And nobody’s too fat to kidnap, Fat Boy,’ he says, pointing at Jason’s t-shirt.  ‘Now, back up the way you came.  And don’t even think of trying to flee.  Not unless you think you can dodge ten bullets a second.’
    We shuffle backwards into the mill, stumbling over the rough ground.  Cowboy circles around us and stares at the blazing fire.
    ‘What’ s cooking?’
    ‘A mattress, a bed frame and some old clothes.’  
    ‘Why?’
    ‘To get rid