FB - Spilled Gasoline

Another chain of explosions rumbling behind him, he veered the cruiser, tire, squealing, into the empty lot of a gas station, lights off for the night. He ran from the car, kicked through the glass of the station's door, stepped inside and switched on the electricity for the pumps. Then he grabbed a crowbar and hurried outside to wrench the locks off the pumps. There were four, two hoses on each, and he squeezed them on, spewing gasoline into the street, setting their latches in place so they would not shut off when he let go. By the time he drove the car up the street and stopped, the pavement back there was flowing with gasoline. A struck match and whoosh, the night flared into day, a huge lake of fire from sidewalk to sidewalk, twenty feet high, storefronts crackling, windows shattering, heat streaking over him, singeing. He raced the cruiser away, the blaze of gasoline spreading behind him, streaming to parked cars. WHUMP, WHUMP, they exploded, rocketing. WHUMP. Their own fault. The sign on the light pole had said no parking after midnight. He thought about what would happen when the pressure in the underground gasoline tanks went low. The fire would back up into the hoses and down into the tanks and half the block would explode. That would hold them from following. It certainly would.


- First Blood, Part 3, Chapter 16