Needles arrived at the practice range out of breath. The hatch was open, and that light was shining up from down below.
He called down the steps. "Beeks!"
Beeks couldn't hear a thing under his earmuffs.
POP! POP! POP! Three rounds through the bulls-eye.
" Beeks! " Needles shouted.
No response.
" Damn it! "
He started down the ladder, then stopped short when he heard a loud metallic, groaning sound. Then a tremendous bang made him shiver, and he climbed quickly down the ladder.
POP! POP! Two more rounds through the bull's-eye.
Needles ran over and yanked the earmuffs off Beeks's head.
Beeks nearly shot him in the face. "What the fuck? " he said.
"We have to get the hell out of here, Beeks!" Needles said. "The boiler's about to explode!"
" What? "
"Come on!"
Beeks mumbled something under his breath then dropped everything and followed Needles up the ladder. Needles climbed up out of the hatch, then turned back to assist Beeks.
Beeks missed a step and banged his shin hard. "Motherfucker!" he exclaimed, biting his lower lip in pain.
" Come on, Beeks! Move your fat ass!"
The groaning sounds became an intense rumble that moved through the earth beneath them like a demon locomotive on a trip through hell. Needles held out his hand to help his oversized friend, then went cold when he heard a long, metallic, ear-grinding scrape, like a ship running aground on a rocky point. He looked over his shoulder toward the boiler house, then back down the hatch at Beeks. Beeks could see their fate reflected in his eyes.
Another low, shuddering rumble shook the building… then
BOOM!
– The force of the blast smashed through the cannery like a great wrecking ball. Splintered brick and shards of steel shot through the structure like the shrapnel from a thousand mortar shells, ripping Needles to pieces as he was flailed to the floor. Beeks flew backward down the ladder and hit the ground on his neck, snapping his spine. The massive, steel boiler tank rocketed into the desiccated water tower, which then smashed its full weight through the cannery's sheet-metal roof, causing a chain-reaction collapse of the floors and interior walls. Burning embers ignited by the furnace sprayed out over the wood-framed structure, starting ancillary fires fed by shattered lanterns and sheared-off natural-gas lines. A tornado-like firestorm, hot enough to melt iron, burned the Alton Brothers Fish Cannery, along with the two trapped men, to a smoldering shell.