Moll answered his own question. “Do not see much of one.”
“Granted that. And I am more than a little choked that this has turned into ten times what it was supposed to be. So?”
Moll looked to the fire pit.
His partner’s eyes grew rounder. Hungrier. “Hell, we’re going to burn everything up, let me have at her.”
“And get past Motorcycle Man? I’ll pay for your next two visits to the truck stop.”
Desmond said, “Three.”
Moll sighed. Were they really negotiating over this? “Okay.”
Desmond lugged the gas can to the Winnebago and poured the contents on the ground under the engine compartment. The two had burned vehicles before and learned that flames could not breach the tank, but would quickly melt fuel lines under the motor, and fuel would gush out, spurring the fire on. Even diesel would go if the temperature was high enough.
When he finished, he turned to Moll. “Might be more, you know, humane to shoot. We could leave the door open. Get ’em as they come out.”
Moll shook his head. “Motorcycle comes out, with a bow and arrow and pipe bomb. No, they stay nice and tight inside. You know how it goes, a place small as that? The fumes will knock them out before the fire gets them. Be like going to sleep.”
Desmond noted a gardening shed. He opened it up and extracted a flat-head shovel. He carried it to the Winnebago and wedged the tool between the ground and the door latch. He tested it; the door wouldn’t open.
Desmond collected a broom from the shed and lit the bristles from the dwindling fire-pit flames. He carefully touched the burning end to the fuel.
With a muted hush, a bed of blue and orange flame rolled under the camper.
Desmond danced back, and Moll smiled at the sight.
The men sat down on chairs on the porch—like they were buddies sipping whisky and telling tall tales after a day in the field taking their quota of bobwhites or pheasant. They watched the relentless progress of the flames, the torrent of black smoke.
A few minutes later the screams began.
Desmond looked at his partner with a raised eyebrow and muttered, “Fumes my ass.”
Moll stood still, listening to the cries. He looked at the cabin. “Probably some things in there we should take care of. Computers. More phones.”
“Probably.”
The men walked inside. Moll shut the door behind them. He wondered if that would mute the shrieks of agony.
It didn’t.
67
Colter Shaw said to Hannah Merritt, “You scream like a pro. You ever do any acting?”
The girl shrugged. “Like, not really. Middle school I was inPippin.”
She seemed unfazed by what had just happened. Unlike her mother, who was stunned.
The three were lying on the ground fifty feet inside the thirty percent forest. They’d made their way here after Shaw had popped the escape hatch in the floor of the camper under the bed. He’d cut and installed it himself and had had the suspension of the Winnebago raised to allow for such an exit.
When the pair had finished dousing the ground under the camper with gasoline, he’d raised the hinged bed and pulled open the hatch. “We’ll wait for a few minutes. The more smoke the better. When you’re out, crawl to the left. Stay low. They’ll be expecting us to try to climb out a window. And I want somebody to scream.”
Which Hannah had, at an ear-piercing volume.
Parker tried too, but it came out a squawk. Shaw had actually smiled. Partly to calm them, partly because of the sound.
When flames had been visible in the front window and smokehad breached the interior, Shaw decided that whatever cover there was would have to be enough. “Go,” he whispered.