Manx- Gas Station Kill

  Manx dropped his left hand and came up holding the gas hose. He cracked the metal nozzle into Tom’s head, banging him across the bridge of the nose and squeezing the trigger at the same time, so gasoline gushed into the soldier’s face, down the front of his fatigues.

  Tom Priest issued a strangled cry and put his hands over his eyes. Manx hit him again, slamming the nozzle of the hose into the center of his head, as if trying to trepan him with it. Bright, clear gasoline flew, bubbled over Priest’s head.

  Alan screamed and screamed again. The car began to creep forward, dragging him by the arm.

  Priest tried to throw himself at Manx, but the tall man was already stepping back and out of the way, and Tom fell to all fours on the blacktop. Manx poured gasoline all down his back, soaking him as a man might water his lawn with a garden hose.

  The objects on top of the car—the coins, the lighter—slid off as the car continued to roll gently forward. Manx reached and caught the bright brass lighter as effortlessly as a first baseman reaching for a lazy infield fly.

  When she could see the blacktop again, Manx had stepped back and flicked his lighter. He dropped it onto the soldier’s back, and Tom Priest ignited in a great blast of blue fire, which threw a burst of heat with enough force to rattle the windows of the store.

- Sleigh House: Sam’s Gas and Sundries