“I have to admit, Duffy, you impress me,” Harter said. “Of course, now I’m going to kill you.”
“The thing I want to know is how much you knew about Gunner,” I said.
“Gunner?”
“Abadon. He went by the name Gunner when he was doing this in other places. Did you know he was the slayer and didn’t care, or was he able to keep that from you?”
“That’s not for you to know, Duffy-man you’re an inquisitive pain in the ass.”
“As long as you got your steroids.”
“Shut up-I’m tired of listening to you. Move!” With his gun, he motioned me inside the steel building and shut the door. I could hear Al barking from outside.
“Your dog doesn’t ever fucking shut up, does he? After I take care of you, I’ll quiet him down forever,” he said.
“Al’s got more balls than you’d ever dream of having-you fucking pussy,” I said.
Al kept barking and barking and barking.
Behind Harter there were blinking lights, heaters, refrigerators, and all sorts of equipment. This wasn’t your average bathtub crank lab. Gunner had thrown some cash into his operation.
Harter moved over to a beaker filled with a cloudy liquid.
“You know, Duff, this is hydriodic acid, and it burns skin all the way down to the bone.” He paused to smile. “It will give your face a distinctive look in the casket.”
He carefully placed the gun down on the counter and picked up some long rubber gloves. He picked up the beaker of acid and smiled again. Then, with the gun in the other hand, he walked toward me.
I scanned the room and saw the door that led to the meditation garden and the single smoked window on the other side of the building. To get to the window I’d have to somehow get past Harter, the gun, and the acid. To make it to the door I’d have to outrun a bullet.
Through it all, Al kept barking outside and it kept annoying Harter.
“I hate that fucking dog. I’m going to enjoy pouring acid on him,” he said.
Then a loud bang rocked the other side of the building. Harter’s head snapped around and he put down the beaker but held on to his gun. A few seconds passed and another bang came on the same side of the building… then another.
“Don’t move,” Harter said, and he headed to the window.
Another metallic bang slammed the side of the building.
Harter raised his gun in his right hand as he waited by the window.
Another bang.
Harter’s attention was on the banging, and it gave me a second to think. He cocked his right arm and readied it to fire. He unlocked the window just as another bang slammed the building.
Harter threw open the window with his gun drawn but was startled by another face staring straight at him from a six-inch distance. The startle was all the delay the man needed, and he raised the steel spear and jammed it with all of his force through Harter’s throat. The gun discharged over Harter’s head and the bullet smashed through a series of lab bottles.
The spear went through one side of Harter’s throat and came out the other end. He spun around, his face a horrible mask of pain as blood curdled out of his mouth and throat. In the window was the redheaded face of Howard Rheinhart.
A smell rose in the room and I didn’t want to hang around for the chemistry lesson. I opened the door and scooped up Al, who was still barking himself hoarse, stepped over Harter, and stuffed Al through the window on the other side. I climbed through the window to see Howard and Billy waiting for me. Billy had a pile of rocks in front of him.
“Let’s go! It’s going to blow!” I screamed and the four of us ran as hard and as fast as we could to the marsh. In less than thirty seconds we had made it a couple of hundred yards when the series of cascading explosions started. There were four or five little ones that ripped into a final big one, and the whole steel compound blew up in a fiery greenish-yellow ball.
The night lit up with a series of fireworks and the air was filled with a putrid stench.
“Fellas, this is going to be one of the biggest understatements you’ll ever hear,” I said. “Thanks.”
I took turns hugging the two of them while Al howled in song.
Howard smiled for the first time ever in my presence.
“It’s nice to know I still got it,” he said.
The three of us laughed so hard it hurt.