He pulled out three large tanks, all strapped together with a backpack harness in the front. The man bent over and spent a few minutes attaching some sort of hose-and-gun-looking thing to the tanks. A pool of dread grew in Sandy’s stomach, and sure enough, when the man stood, he carried a goddamn flamethrower.
Sandy wondered what the hell else they had in the trunk.
The man stood back from the cruiser, then opened up with a jet of flame that blasted through the open front windows and incinerated everything inside. So much for the shotgun.
Satisfied, the man turned back to the house and marched back up the walk. He stepped out of sight, and for a few seconds she couldn’t see because the steps were in the way, but it wasn’t long before he dragged Cochran over to the porch. Sandy shrank back, lowering herself to the dirt and watching with one eye through the rose thorns.
Cochran was still alive. He moaned as the man left him at the bottom of the front steps. The front of Cochran’s white shirt was stained red.
The man called out, “Jack? You in there, Jack?” He didn’t give Jack much time to answer, stepping back and spraying the second floor with flames. Sandy could feel the heat from the flamethrower even twenty feet away. The roof caught with a dry, muffled whump.
The man circled around the house, heading south, moving to Sandy’s right, between the house and the barn. He gave the gable a fresh coat of fire as he moved. When he could see both the front and back doors, he yelled, “I know you heard me, Miss Police Officer. You’re listening to me. You come on out here before things get bad in there. You and me will talk. We will reach an agreement much better than what you will experience inside, I promise you that. Come out right now and you will live.”
Sandy grew flat into the dirt and turned her head away.
He gave the house another spray.
She felt something against the back of her thigh. A tickle at first. Then warmth, pressing down, harder and harder, until it erupted into full burning. Part of her knew it was just a tiny spot, just an ember, just a piece of the roof, but it still felt like her entire leg was on fire. She bit down on her sleeve and tried not to scream.
The man was on the move again. “You make me wait much longer, I might lose my temper.” He circled around the back, maybe worried that she was trying to get out a window on the other side of the house.
As soon as he passed the back corner, she jerked around with a fistful of dirt and slapped at the burn. The ember was about the size of a dime. She bit down on another scream as she pushed harder, filling the wound with cool soil and extinguishing the glowing wood.
She stuck her head back around the front to see if the coast was clear and saw that Cochran was on his feet, stumbling to the rental car. Sandy was impressed. He’d been playing possum. Not entirely, though, as she watched him lurch along. He’d taken a bullet in the gut somewhere. He bent down and picked up something in the grass. The first man’s gun. Cochran made it to the car and opened the front door, dropped into the front seat.
Start the car, dumbass, Sandy almost said aloud. She was trying to decide if she should try for the car and escape or use him as a distraction while she ran for the cover of the corn. If he saw her, the man might use the flamethrower to try and burn the whole field, but the plants were strong and green. The fire wouldn’t spread.
Then she heard Cochran saying the cornfields were full of monsters.
She’d also been thinking of trying for the barn, and now wondered if it was full of bugs. The darkness inside didn’t look so inviting anymore.
That left Cochran and the car.
He was still just sitting there, and she finally realized Cochran didn’t have the keys. She was worried she might have to take her chances in the corn when she heard Cochran yell something. The third man came into view, yelling back, “Thanks for contaminating the car, asshole.” Liquid flame spurted out of the end of his weapon.
Just before it reached the car, Cochran fired. An explosion of fire blew out the windows of the rental car at the same moment the bullet took out the third man’s forehead. He collapsed, finger still tight on the trigger. The jet of flame arced over his head and burned a streak in the lawn.
Sandy thought she heard Cochran screaming for a moment, then all she could hear was the crackle of flames and the hissing and popping of the old wood of the house as it burned. She tentatively emerged from the bushes and took it all in. The house was fully engulfed in flames. Both cars were on fire, sending black, poisonous-looking smoke into the cloudless blue sky. The flamethrower finally ran out of fuel, and the grass smoked in the sunlight.
She pulled out her cell phone and saw that it had been cracked from one of her falls. The screen wouldn’t respond to her touch. At least she still had her radio. She hit the button, “Liz? Liz? You there?”
“This is an official channel. Identify yourself. And this better not be who I think it is,” Sheriff Hoyt’s voice came back.
CHAPTER 21
Bob was happy.
He felt like he was back in high school, in the homecoming parade. He’d been voted Homecoming King, and Carol, the Homecoming Queen, had red hair and a curvy figure and a reputation for drinking beer with the boys and getting frisky in her daddy’s Chevy. All was right with the world.
Something jostled him and he looked down at the surprisingly modern controls of one his combines. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t 1976. All the red, white, and blue that covered the town wasn’t for the bicentennial. This was the Fourth of July parade, and he was bringing in his son’s crop to show everyone in town that his son was just as much of a farmer as his father and grandfather before him.
This was perhaps the proudest moment of his life.
He just wished he felt better. There was a coldness in his chest, and something was wrong with his eyes. They wouldn’t focus. And his arms and legs wouldn’t respond for about two or three seconds after he tried to get them to move.
Good thing the combine pretty much drove itself.
He couldn’t remember signing up for the parade, but the antique car club stopped and gave him plenty of room to follow Troop 2957. He gave all the scouts a cheerful wave. At least, he hoped it was a wave. It was getting a little hard to tell what his arms were doing. The combine was still moving; he could feel it rumbling along at least.
That was all right, though. He could make out the green of the park coming up on the right, and that’s where he wanted to stop and rest for a while. Maybe he would let one of his men drive the combine home.
He was feeling a little tired, after all.
Sheriff Hoyt had just about had enough from this self-entitled bitch. “You were warned and I guarantee you this: I will see you in jail before sundown.”
“Listen to me, asshole. You’ve got bigger problems. Arrest me later. Right now, we have an emergency. There’s something in the corn. Look southeast. You’ll see the smoke. There’s—”
Sheriff Hoyt cut her off. “I know you think you’re something special, but you are gonna find out the hard way that…” He trailed off, still keeping the button on his radio down. The sound of grinding metal overpowered the halfhearted theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark as the local high school marching band stomped past the viewing stage.
He had been standing back behind the stage, and now pushed and elbowed people aside to reach the curb. The mayor was up at the microphone, making calming gestures and talking, but the mike wasn’t turned on. Nobody was paying much attention anyway; they were all standing and pointing down the street.