Page 103 of The Accomplice
And the pressure eased.
It didn’t take long for the can to empty. Less than a minute. He tossed the can into the pit, then reached into his pack.
His hand came out holding a ground flare. A red tube with a cap. Once that cap came off the flare would ignite and burn at two thousand degrees. Gripping the flare tightly with one hand, he placed the other on the cap and it was then he noticed his chest was heaving, sweat dripped from his face and he had a fluttering of pure excitement rippling over his body.
He paused. Got control of himself.
If he tossed the flare into the pit now, it was anyone’s guess if the fumes would ignite before the flare hit the small reservoir of gas on the floor. The gasoline itself is not flammable, it may actually extinguish the flame. The fumes, however, were highly flammable.
The Sandman had never burned anyone before. Certainly never burned anyone alive. He imagined Kate in the pit, probably standing on the chair, getting as much distance between her and the gasoline, perhaps wondering how long the chair would hold out before it caught fire, and then her feet, her legs and then …
But it wouldn’t work that way. Not quite.
If he let the fumes build up in the pit first, then tossed in the flare, the air itself would ignite in a fireball. The plate would keep him safe, as long as he stood back after he tossed it in, but Kate would be instantly engulfed in an inferno. The air all around her, in her mouth and in her lungs, would instantly burn.
The thought occurred to him again –Keep her alive. You might need her.
He knew it would be foolish to kill her now.
Pure joy, but foolish all the same.
‘If you try to escape again I’ll burn you alive, do you understand ?’
He put the flare on the ground, then used the hook on the bar to drag the plate to the edge of the pit, leaving a small, two-inch gap. He lifted one of the sandbags he had piled high and tossed it onto the plate. Then another. And another. Making sure she had no way out.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
KATE
The boom from the plate above her head made Kate’s teeth rattle every time she heard it. Something was raining down into the pit, but it wasn’t gasoline. Not this time.
It was sand.
He was throwing sandbags on top of the plate to weigh it down.
Kate balanced on the chair. Her feet on the seat, bent over, hugging her knees, keeping as far away as possible from the gas. She was shaking so much she’d almost fallen a couple of times.
Now the fumes were making her gag. Her eyes were watering and sore. Her throat burned and the smell was already making the headache come back with a vengeance. She wanted to be sick, but didn’t want the retching and convulsion of vomiting to throw off her balance.
Her tears seemed to burn her eyes.
This man was going to set her on fire. If not now, then soon.
And there was no escape.
The deafening boom of the sandbags landing on the plate stopped, and she heard his footsteps retreating into the distance. A familiar sound of the door slamming shut brought silence in its wake.
Kate stepped down off the chair, her feet instantly wet in the small pool of gasoline on the floor. She moved the chair into the right corner, stood on it, put her shoulders to the plate and pushed.
No give.
Not this time.
The chair back, a simple strip of hard wood, an inch thick, which she had removed from the uprights, slipped into the gap between the plate and the lip of the pit. She pushed again with her shoulders, tried to push down with the strip of wood trying to lift the plate and lever it open, widening the gap.
The plate didn’t move.
The chair back snapped in two and fell to the puddle on the floor.
