Free Forsaken World:Coming of Age by Thomas A Watson Page A

they were up the draw, they dropped down, gasping. “You think you can run back to light it?” Ian huffed, not wanting to breathe deep.
    “Shit on that,” Lance said and reached around to the bottom of his small backpack and unzipped a pocket. He pulled out a road flare. “I’m throwing from here.”
    “You’re still carrying road flares after almost getting us kicked out of the jamboree last year?”
    “Hey,” Lance said, standing up, “the guide said we had fifteen minutes to get a fire going. Not my fault I’m smart and used a flare.”
    “He was a punk,” Ian said, straightening up. “You think you can hit it from here?”
    “We may have run over a hundred yards to get there, but that pile is sixty feet below us, and I have half a dozen chances,” Lance said, taking the cap off.
    “You hit it, and I’ll buy you a teddy bear just to keep from going back down there,” Ian said as Lance pulled the tab, lighting the flare.
    Rearing his arm back, Lance threw the flare in a high arc as hard as he could. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to miss it by much,” Ian said, watching the flare fall. When it was twenty feet over the pile, ka boom! sounded, knocking them down, followed by whoosh as a fireball lit up the area, sucking the oxygen out of the air.
    “What kind of gas was that?” Lance said, shaking his head.
    “If that’s super unleaded, that’s all I’m getting from now on,” Ian said, sitting up, and his mouth fell open. A pure blue flame covered the pile of bodies below them, and no smoke was coming from the fire. “Holy shit,” he mumbled.
    Looking at Ian, Lance whipped his head and gawked, looking at the blue flame, and could see it rippling around the pile almost to the road. “Ah,” Lance stuttered, standing up and slowly looked at Ian, who was getting up and looking at him.
    “We are so fucking stupid!” they yelled.

Chapter Five
    “Hydrogen sulfide?” Jennifer said, looking at them sprawled out on the sectional.
    “Yeah, sulfur doesn’t have a smell. The rotten egg smell comes from hydrogen sulfide, which is highly flammable,” Ian said.
    “And toxic to breathe,” Lance said, trying to undo the laces of his boots, but finally gave up and flopped back on the couch.
    Jennifer looked at them as they sat panting on the couch. “You two stay here. We’ll put the chickens up,” she said, but Allie and Carrie moved over to Lance, untying his boots.
    “I don’t give a shit if we just cook the damn chickens right now,” Lance moaned, grabbing his chest. “My lungs feel like someone sucked them out my ass, washed them in bleach, then put them back.”
    “Have one hot-ass fire in the valley to have a cookout. Just need barbeque sauce,” Ian said, pulling off his chest rig.
    Seeing the girls struggle to take Lance’s boots off, Jennifer moved over and helped; then, they took off Ian’s. Standing up, Jennifer studied the two holding their chests and breathing hard. “You two will not do anything else today,” she said, shaking her head. “Allie, Carrie, let’s go get the chickens out.”
    Lance watched them leave and rolled his head until he could see Ian. “That was really stupid on our part.”
    Giving a snort, Ian chuckled. “Yeah, most people would run away when they can’t breathe, but we screwed around the area.” Getting up, Lance walked to their bedroom. “Dude, you’re going to piss her off,” Ian warned.
    “Just getting my laptop. I want to make sure we didn’t damage our lungs,” Lance said, walking in the bedroom and not really caring if Jennifer was pissed.
    When the girls came back, Jennifer saw Ian and Lance looking at laptops. “Well, seems they don’t understand ‘do nothing,’” she mumbled, walking over.
    When Jennifer stopped at the sectional looking down at them, Lance raised his hand. “Don’t start. I needed to know if we damaged our lungs,” he said, not looking up at her.
    Fear spread over Jennifer’s face. “Oh my God, did