Free From the Fire V by Kent David Kelly Page A

out of here,
right now.”
    She looked down again at the bobbing needle.  “I thought I was
your private.  Is this my decision?”
    “You’re promoted to equal.  I say out now.  You decide.”
    He’s certain we’re going to see someone.  Is there any other way?  She eased her jaw, wetted her upper lip, pushed her tongue against
her teeth.  No.   We need this.
    “You know we need this,” she said, wanting to close her eyes.  The
last edge of the restaurant building hovered off to the left, away.  “We have
no choice.  Protect me, Silas.”
    “All right, we look a little longer.”  He sighed. “Protect you to
the death.  Swear to God and all his demons,” he said to her.  “Damn them all.”
    She thought she could see the farthest edge of the concrete
clearing up ahead, another wall of trailers.  Wanting to be as far away from
the ruined building as she could, she drifted the H4 to the right.
    More ruins, more denied gasoline.  They drove past the
almost-intact diesel islands, the meadow-gold signs warning “CLEARAN —” and “—
NGAGE BRAKE HE —” and “— AIT FOR SIGNA —,” the drive-ups for the CAT scales, the
squarish wreck of a crumpled forklift on its side.
    “We can do this,” she said.  Her voice sounded rattling, frail. 
Perhaps if she said it again, she could mean it.
    “I’m covering you, Soph.”
    Another long, rectangular building arose in darkness.  There. 
That must be it.  Please.
    Opposite the diesel islands, she could see brick walls and a slate
gray roof.  Downed gutters and tilted signage showed the way.  Closer.
    “That’s it.  That’s it!  Leave the engine on while you fuel,”
Silas was saying.  “God’s sake, you know how dangerous this is going to be even
if we’re alone.  No choice but to leave the engine on, never get it going
again.”  He was stuttering his words, slurring, trying to slow himself.  “Make,
you, you make one hundred and fifteen percent sure you ground yourself, you
hear me true.  No static electric, no?”
    “I’ll make certain.  Just aim out the window and watch out for
me.”
    “Like a hawk,” he continued, “damned hawk on vigil like the night
and mercy, none at all.  And Soph?”
    “Yes?”
    “Don’t smoke.  Clean the windows.”
    She tittered a little, hysterically.
    He’s trying to keep me from screaming.
    “Can I carry my own gun, Silas?”
    “While you fueling, engine on?  Hell no, Soph.  You got to trust
me, I cover you.”
    “Okay.”
    “Right, then.  Go.”
    She edged the H4 around a pile of formless tires.  There were the
fuel bays, looming up as merged silhouettes of dark from out of the twilit
streamers, the dust devils of the darkening storm.  Conjoined, the damaged
hollows of the cavernous fuel bays formed the mockery of a sturdy and steadfast
building, tall and somehow askew.
    The bays themselves looked like immense drive-in car washes,
greased brick hollows framed by scorched aluminum and crumbled brick.  They
were huge, big enough to drive any size of truck through.  Precarious dunes of
garbage were piled in the first and nearest bay, but the other four seemed
unobstructed.  Some of the hoses had been crushed or severed, some were on the
ground, their metal snouts jammed under a single manhole cover held down by an
anvil.  An anvil?   The other hoses, still racked and intact, did not
seem to be made of rubber.  They looked like weathered leather, almost
scintillant like snakeskin, like old-fashioned fire hoses which had been looped
out from the steam carriages parked in some turn-of-the-century museum.
    These somehow sinister hoses looked coiled, waiting in infinite
patience for their prey.  They almost seemed alive.
    Each bay had an aluminum side door, ribbed rectangles of armor. 
The trash bay was half-open.  Two were down, padlocked.  One was wide open. 
Above this last, a burnt and shredded remnant of an American flag whipped on
the wind, dangling from a fused