Chapter 28, London Bridges

Jim awoke with a start wondering where the bright lights had come from. The brightness shown through his closed eyelids but his head hurt to the point of even moving his eyes from side to side hurt. He had blacked out, that was the only explanation and from what he remembered someone had clubbed him a good one. Daring to open an eyelid Jim noted the now familiar florescent glow of the blueish lamps on the cieling. He was lying flat and as he opened his other eyelid he saw the desk off to the left of the couch upon which he was laying. The desk was familiar from not too distant memory though plain as it was so as to defy being of anything special or memorable. His head throbbed and he could sense a burning uncomfortable welt just below his neck. The headache bore down behind his eyes and made any quick eye movements difficult so Jim lay there for a time not daring to move.

He recognized he was in the jail area of the village hall. He wasn't in the cell but on the outside waiting area and he was alone. Why he'd been carried here and left alone Jim couldn't fathom. Why not just have shot him like everyone else was ending up who stood in Ed Jr.'s way? He was a valley man, perhaps that was reason enough to not cause undue harm, if being knocked on the noggin could be considered undue harm. Tate probably should have shot him, because nothing was going to stop him short of being really incapacitated from stopping the ghastly plan of Ed Sr.

Jim took a deep breath and slowly swung his legs over the side of the couch and worked his way into a sitting position; even the slow change caused his head to swim and he had to sit for a few more minutes to catch his equilibrium. There was still a blood stain by the door in the hallway where Willie had been found, the blood had seeped into the cracks of the tile and outlined several of the tiles now in a darkish black-red. Gathering his strength Jim pushed himself upward and squinted as his head throbbing kicked into high gear. Taking small steps, Jim began to work his way out of the cell room and into the hallway then finally found himself in the lobby. It was still dark out but the time on the clock on the opposite wall from where he stood in the middle of the room showed it was 1 am. He'd been out for several hours at least.

As he moved the pain became less or at least it became less noticable and he found that he could almost walk normally after a while. The roadway was silent as was most of the early morning, the buildings along State15 casting thier lonely shadows from the moon light upon each other and the road. Only his bootsteps could be heard as he walked from the parking lot of the village hall and across the side street missappropriately named Tate Way to the walkway that straddled either side of the main thoroughfare of State15. It was early, who else would still be up and awake even at this hour?

Regaining his stride, Jim quickly now made for the residential district where the mob had last been. The hotel parking lot was also silent and dark but fewer cars now crowded its parking spots. Not a single light shown from any window, not even the front office. Jim kept his stride and ignored the red light from the sole traffic light in Bumpersville. Traffic along State??? was non-existent at this time of the morning as well. Jim stopped in front of the Happy Valley Grocery but the car and the man in the shadows was gone. He hadn't really expected to find anyone there but he'd been surprised one too many times today and wasn't going to be surprised by anyone again. The hill began to slope downward as he made his way to the residential area. All was silent and dark here as well, no lights on in any house and few cars parked in the front drives. The mob had gone, but in the first few homes that fronted State15 showed signs of being ransacked; the home of Benton and Theresa Shields door stood ajar and Jim could discern a broken window in the front of the house. Jim was awestruck at the complicity of most of the valley men in being carried away by the Tates and thier wanton desecration of property. He'd seen it before in the war, but that was war, this was not. Or at least it shouldn't have been war as he could rekon it. Someone had declared war on someone else.

Jim walked to the crest of the hill as State15 took it's dip into the valley. Lights dotted each farmstead's location in the vast expanses of the tilled fields of future produce. Out beyond the creek and the copse of wood by the bridge glowed another light, that of the Chemical plant. From where he stood, the glow flickered oddly. There were parking lot lights and the plant had lamps all about the high points on the stacks in compliance with illumination regulations for pilots to guage realitive heights of objects. But the glow was brighter than normal. His head hurt and each step caused the bump at the base of his skull to throb. Then the faint smell of a fire caught his attention and in the darkened but moonlit surroundings a black spot and small flicker of yellow light shown off the side of the roadway down in the valley. The smell was of burnt grass, or judging by where the spot was, from burnt and singed wheat stalks in Peterson's field. Since he was already out this far, he decided to keep going and check out the spot that looked as if a fire had recently burnt.

*****

"What is it that you want, Sheriff?" George asked. Beside him stood Benton and Micheal. Behind him the door to the back parking lot stood ajar and a few faces and forms darkened the entry way. Arrayed across the parking lot stood the valley posse with thier pickup and car headlamps shining in his face.

"Why, we've come you an Benton, of course."

"I see," George replied. "Well, I don't think we're inclined to be taken in by you. We'll wait for the county marshall if that's all the same to you."

"Which it aint. You'll turn you self in fer what you've both done to us an' your own. County got nuffin ta do with it."

"Not going to happen, Sheriff, least not on my own account on some pretext and the word of that repobate deputy of yours. As for Benton, he's going to surrender to the authorities in Charleston."

"The hell he is, he's comin' wiff us as you is fer what you both done," Sheriff Middlebrook said, a testy tinge to his voice.

"I think we're done with this," George said with a wave of his hand. "You'll vacate Petro-Chem property right now and go back home. I know you don't have a warrant and you won't be going any further than where you are now." George turned and grabbed Benton's shoulder to turn him around.

A faint wailing broke the awkward moment of silence between the posse and the triesome facing them. It was muffled and coming from inside one of the parked cars behind the posse. It was enough to cause Benton to pause as the familiarity of the voice drew his attention. It was enough to catch the attention of several of the women standing in the doorway of the shop floor back exit. Aside from the queerness of the wail in the circumstances of the stand off, it was familiar and unmistakeable.

"Wait," urged Benton as he drew George's hand from his shoulder. "That's Billie, I know it. "Where's my wife? Where's Theresa? I want to see them both, Sheriff!" Benton took a step forward.

"Dun' know what yer talkin' about, Shields, but you jus' come on this way real easy like an' we'll get this over wiff."

"What the hell is going on, Sheriff?" George asked.

"Dammit, what are you doing with my daughter! Tate! C'mon out where I can see you, you son of a bitch!" Benton took another lurch forward but was caught this time by both George and Micheal.

"You jus' come quietly an' you can see yer wife and daughter," Sheriff Middlebrook beckoned.

"Dammit, you can't hold them!" Benton shouted in return.

"Oh, but we can," a voice from around the corner crowed. "We can certainly do what we please." Ed Tate Jr. stepped out from around the corner of the building and out of the shadows.

"Ed, what the hell you doin'?" Sheriff Middlebrook asked. "Get over here an' take these men into custody an' stop yer gold brickin'."

The wails continued now and Ed Jr. stepped closer to the trio. In his hand was a stick that looked like it was too thin to use as a weapon but thick enough to cause some damage.

"Stop lyin' to 'em, Sheriff. We got Billie aw'right, but only 'cause she belongs ta me now," Ed Jr. said with a grin.

"Shut up, Ed. Alan, go arrest them two an' let's get this over with," Sheriff Middlebrook barked.

Alan took a step forward and George, Benton, and Micheal moved toward the open door.

"Let 'em go, Sheriff. We din't come here to arrest 'em anyway," Ed Jr. chidded.

"Paw, what'll we do?" Alan asked. "What Ed mean?"

"Boys, go take care of this so's we can get home," Middlebrook said to the men around him but no one budged.

"It's time we took care of you, Tate," Benton said as he stepped towards him but another wail from Billie caused him to pause and stutter step towards the line of men in indecision.

"Benton, we'll have to straighten this out when the real authorities get here, you can't solve nothing now," George said into Benton's ear as he held him firm by his right shoulder. "Come on, let's get inside and wait for the marshall."

"Where's my wife? Where's Theresa and what have you ingrates done with her? Theresa!" Benton shouted.

"She ain't here, hill topper, she's back by the side of the road where we stopped her," Ed Jr. said sweetly.

"Dammit, I tole' you boys to go over there, so do it or go home!" Sheriff Middlebrook shouted. "Alan, get yor ass over there an arrest Shields!"

"Benton, George, come on, let's get inside now," Micheal urged.

"You'll pay fer this Middlebrook!" Benton yelled as George and Micheal drug him backwards to the door and quickly dissapeared through it. The door slammed shut and left the posse frozen mid lurch forward.

Ed Jr. chuckled and dissapeared back behind the building once more.

"Ed! Get over here right now!" Sheriff Middlebrook growled. "Alan, and the rest of you, what the hell you people thinkin' about? I tole you to ..." Middlebrook cut his speech short. Behind the corner of the building a flickering light caught his attention and Ed Jr. reappeared around the corner, his left side lit by the orange light. "Ed, what the hell!"

"Jus' takin' care of some buisness Sheriff," Ed replied.

"What the hell Ed!" Sheriff Middlebrook swiveled quickly to face the hunched and ragged looking Ed Sr. leaning against his car. Ed Sr. hadn't been far from any of the goings on this day and was even closer to the happenings as the evening wore into early morning.

"Sheriff, you don't think they's gonna jus' give up an' come out, didya?" Ed Sr. drawled.

"You tole him to do this?" Middlebrook said flabbergasted. The other men around him just looked to one another and nodded.

The flicker of light grew and Ed Jr. stepped away from it and walked over to the group.

Inside the shop floor area George and Micheal sat Benton down and motioned for the others in the room to gather around. Those who had been curious and at the doorway knew what had happend, but the majority were in the dark. Benton sat motionless and stared glassy eyed at the far wall while George replayed the conversation with the sheriff for everyone else. Worried glances where cast from face to face as the realization that they were under siege dawned on each person. The purpose had gone from what to do to how to get out of the issue without resorting to a direct confrontation. It had been a bad idea, George thought, to call everyone together that evening.

"We just wait for the county Marshall, at least Benton and I, but, if they have Billie then they aren't just interested in me or Benton, but all of us," George said, his face and jaw set hard and grim.

"What?" blurted Estell White. "Theresa isn't with Billie?"

"We heard Billie crying and Ed Jr. said he had Billie, but didn't say nothing about Theresa."

"Look, we don't know yet what is going on, but I'm just saying if you leave, you leave here at your own risk," George repeated.

"Them? These valley hicks? They just don't like us, but, doing someone in for it? I know some of these men, that don't make any sense," Clarence Applewood added.

"We just sit tight, the county will get here and we'll be able to leave. I just don't want anyone else taking any chances here. With Ed Jr. out there anything is capable of happening," George said.

"Look, we go out there an' we just go home, they aren't killers out there, just pissed off after the accident," Applewood retorted, a few weak "yeah"'s replied and a few other nods in agreement answered him.

"I'm not holding anyone here. I'm just suggesting that no one leave for your own peace of mind," George replied.

There was a hesitation in Applewood as he started to move towards the back exit and all eyes where on him.

"Law, you've got more to risk leaving than you do in staying," Micheal Strood said to Lawerence.

"This is madness," Clarence said.

"Look, I imagine the county will be here after daylight, we just sit tight here, bar the doors just to be sure and wait it out." George said and put hs hand on Lawerence's shoulder.

"What's that?" Charlene Pembrook exclaimed and pointed to the high windows that ran across the adjacent wall where the vats sat. They were all dark and had been darkened since the beginning of the meeting. But aside from the parking lot lights and the lights on that side of the shop floor the light that flickered along the windows now wasn't from the yard lighting.

"What's what?" Micheal Strood asked and looked in the direction Charlene was pointing at.

"That light outside," Charlene responded.

****

"What the hell you just standin' around for?" Sheriff Middlebrook said to the men in the posse. "Alan, go get somethin' ta put that out."

"Stand fast, Alan," Ed Jr. ordered. "Let it burn."

"Paw, we gonna let them people burn?" Alan protested.

"No one's gonna die," Ed Sr. gargled, his jowls and face resembling that of a bassett hound. "Just some incentive to come on out."

"Ed, this is not the way I ...this is not the way to do this!" Sheriff Middlebrook protested.

"It's burning pretty good now paw, quick," Alan muttered.

"Dammit Ed, this is dangerous and it aint working!" Sheriff Middlebrook glared.

"It's called killin' two birds wif one stone, gettin' rid o both problems at once," Ed Sr. crowed. "They come out when it get too hot in thar."

*****

The calm that George had worked hard to foster amoungst the reluctant prisoners on the shop floor broke down in an instant as it bacame clear that a fire had broken out along the vat wall. The excitement even broke Benton out of his torpor enough to realize the sudden danger to the vats and especially the hard won equilibration of the over-reactive vat four. The obvious other exit was up the narrow metal stairs to the office part of the plant, a sure bottleneck disaster waiting to happen. Benton watched as the flicker on the vat wall windows became a full dawn like light that danced along the windows now and from the ground level, they were five feet from the ground with the shop floor set a further fifteen feet in the ground. A service ramp angled downward at the very back of the building for off loading or loading of the transport containers of chemicals and the rear exit now blocked by the posse.

Being set underground as most of the shop floor was would protect the vats from outside influences like weather and freak accidents of fire, but nothing would protect any chemical holdings for very long, especially if the fire made its way into the building. The vats were made to withstand pressures and hold in the chemical contents, but pressures on the inside of the building outside the normal where an unkown to him. If fire did get into the building, no matter what happened to the vats they were in for some serious trouble if they couldn't get out.

Benton had brooded while George had calmed everyone down. He'd sent Theresa into the mouth of the beast and it should have been him to go and get thier extra clothes or at least he should have gone with her to suffer her fate, what ever that had been. But her dissapearance and the sudden confession of Ed Jr. to having Billie caused his knees to wobble. Yet it was for his own safety that he stayed. Things had turned real ugly real fast, too fast to have seen it coming but that was no consolation to what he should have done in the first place. Had Theresa simply given little Billie up to Tate? Would she so easily give up her first born regardless of Billie's parentage? Did she really hate Benton that much as to do this then run off?

Micheal Strood ran to the stairs leading to the offices taking two at a time causing the whole stairwell to rumble with each heavy foot fall. Taking Micheal's quickness of action as panic several others in the room started to rush for the stairwell as well, including Estell and her husband. Maggie held Micheal's two children close and they started to squirm away, misunderstanding her actions and thinking it was play. The folding chairs layed out in rows in the center of the floor between all of the equipment that sat to either side along the walls went from order to jumble as the panic quickly spread. George, watching from the front of the room understood too late what was going to happen. Just as Micheal reached the metal door leading to the ground level offices the floor erupted into a cacophony of noise of metal chairs being shoved and flung out of the way and shrieks of panic.

Micheal turned when he heard the noise to see the mob making for the stairwell and those that had followed on Micheal's heels pounding up the steps. With the sudden upsurge in noise, Micheal's two children jumped at up-roar and both began to squall and try to get away from Maggie.

"No!" Micheal shouted and put his hands up to the people barreling towards him from the stairs. The first, Estell with her husband in tow made it to the cat-walk with a wild look in her eye. "Stop! I need to check the door!"

"Open the door!" Estell screamed as she took the next few steps to reach him in a flash. Her husband trotted behind her but didn't see her stop and he bumbled into her knocking her down. Estell hit the cat-walk hard and he tried to stop his forward momentum but only succeeded in tripping over her and crashing down in his own free fall onto her back. A string of curses flowed from Estell as she had tried to get up on her hands and knees when Ernie crashed down on her back. The few others who had followed them had caught up to Ernie and they came to a sudden halt in front of the pile up. The clog only got worse as the panicky crowd filled the stairwell and those behind, unable to see the pile began shoving against the stoppage.

"Get off me you dumb lummox! Strood, open that goddamn door!" Estell shouted.

The pushing and shoving continued as Ernie struggled to lift himself up against the press of the people trying to climb over him to get at the door.

"Get out of the way!" Clarence Applewood shouted as he tried to push Ernie back down.

"I can't; Clarence lemme up!" Ernie whinned as he struggled against the pressure from behind and from below as Estell tried to squirm her way free.

"Stop it, hold on, calm down," Micheal yelled.

Benton, awoken now to the dangers around them suddenly looked up at the drama taking place on the cat-walk and as if something finally had fully drug him back into the reality of what was happening stood and ran towards the cat-walk.

"Mike, Mike!" Benton shouted. "Feel the door, don't open the door!"

"Now hold on, calm down!" Micheal repeated.

"Get off me!" Estell shouted followed by a string of cursing that only a sailor would have been proud of.

"It's hot as hell, Benton. The fire's in the office!" Micheal shouted as he withdrew his hand from the door and took a small step back from it.

"Don't open it!" Benton called from the floor fifteen feet below.

George hadn't moved from the spot he had occupied all night during the discussions as if it where his turn to become lost in thought. He watched as if attending a show. Lawerence Applewood finally succedded in shoving Ernie back down to the cat-walk floor so he could climb over him to a string of more cursing from Estell and grunts from Ernie as the next person in line proceeded to do the same. Micheal turned from looking at Benton to face Applewood who took the next few steps in a flash and shoved Micheal into the safety railing and grabbed for the door handle.

"No!" both Micheal and Benton said at once.

Lawerence withdrew his hand immediatly from the scorching it recieved from the handle but his fear overrode his sense of reality as to how hot the handle had just been and this time grasped it and quickly turned the handle.

The explosive force of the ambient pressure change from room to room blew the door off it's hinges and sent Clarence, Micheal, and Martha Hubener who had just succeeded in climbing over the Ernie and Estell obsticle flying over the safety railing and to the hard concrete shop floor along with burning debris from the office area in the suction of the pressure change and feeding the intensity of the fire. The paint on the piping fictures that ran along the cieling burned off and though there was mostly metal and steel in the shop area, the heat ignited any paper and clothing in the immediate area of the cat-walk. The pile up near the door saved a few of the lucky ones to have been caught on the other side but Estell and Ernie White caught fire from the initial lick of flame that surged through the opening and the two squirmed and flailed to no avail as the crowd behind them now pressed the other way to get away from the bonfire. But now the narrow stairs and catwalk neatly restricted their movement back down to the floor.

Benton had been bowled over by the initial blast as the wall of heat and hot air pushed everything down, even George was knocked down from across the room. Yet the windows had held. The fire, envigorated by a new source of oxygen quickly spread along the walls and the tempretature in the shop area rose rapidly, too rapidly. Benton pushed himself up to a sitting position and felt the burning on his face from the heat. The bodies of Micheal Strood and Martha Hubener lay next to him and that of Clarence lay across his legs. The bodies were all singed and smoldering but thankfully appeared to be dead. The screaming and screeching continued unabated.

Maggie Smith lost sight of Micheal's children and sat in the middle of the now flattened folding chairs and stared at Micheal's prostrate form. The children cowered behind Vat four and tried to make themselves small. The children of Charlie Pence had scattered to the opposite side of the shop floor during the pandemonium. Both Charlie and his wife suddenly realized thier children were gone and started to crawl around the floor to find them. They had been the only ones left on the shop floor besides George, Benton, Maggie and the Strood children. The flying debris landed amongst the seating area and smoldered amongst the folding chairs and filling the area with smoke. A noxious odor from the burning paint began to tell upon those still stuck on the stairwell and several people started coughing fits.

The situation on the catwalk and stairs became panic in reverse. The White's finally ceased thier screaming and writhing as the pall of flame burnt itself out on them. The others on the catwalk nearest them backed away against the flow, forcing those still on the stairs to fall back into the person directly behind and spilling down like dominoes until the last persons tumbled down into a heap at the opposite end making it impossible for anyone to regain balence or move off the stairwell. Those on the catwalk ran into an even bigger obsticle to overcome, one that meant breathing the super heated air or leap over the side railing. It wasn't a long drop down, but one that would bring certain injury upon the concrete flooring.

George ran over to the pile up at the foot of the stairs to help the people up as each one spilled out from the stair step above. Each person fell out backwards and onto the pile, making pulling anyone out difficult. In the middle of the stairs someone had fallen on thier back bringing everyone in front of them on top and backwards and crushing them under the added weight of the other fifteen people ahead. The screaming and panic where irreversable at this point and George's attempts to help out at the pile only added to the problem.

Benton watched passively the drama on the stairs. Sweat trickled down is temples and the air around him was hot and stuffy, almost so that breathing felt like a chore. He watched as those on the cat-walk shoved against the the person behind them with the sole thought of getting them out of the way and thier own selves down the stairs. The air higher up was even more hot and they looked like overheated dogs; mouths open, tongues sticking out, and wild looks in thier eyes as each struggled with the other in an almost comical slapstick routine. The heat and how hot he felt was the only thought swirling through his mind as he sat with Clarence still laying across his legs.

Then it struck him, as if there already was not enough danger and things to fear in the room. Vat four loomed suddenly large in his mind and in his vision. The heat outside could only be causing something to happen inside the vat as heat transfered through the metal container. It had only been a few moments since the office door blew off it's hinges and brought the full force of the fire into the shop area, but it had so drastically changed the temprature in the room that anything he could do might already be too late. Shoving Lawrence Applewood's corpse off of his legs he struggled to his feet but they felt tingly and useless. Taking one step at a time on feet he barely felt through the numbness of the onset of sudden blood flow into his extremities, Benton negotiated the array of smoldering debris, collapsed chairs, and past Maggie who still sat motionless in the center of the room.

Benton stopped momentarily to look at her but she wouldn't return his gaze but watched the process of panic on the far stairs. What seemed to him to take forever to make it to the control panel for Vat four, Benton felt a fresh wave of hot air burst over him from the open doorway twenty feet away from him as a fresh billow of flame rolled through. The flames caught his attention as he made it to the panel. Those hapless people still on the cat-walk collapsed as the air temprature spiked once again making breathing impossible. The shop floor had been designed to deny a fire of opportunity other than oxygen to burn in case of this very happenstance. Metal does not burn and save for the small amounts of glass and plastic on the controls for each vat, there was little of flameable value in the room. Clothing was one of the few things not considered in the flame retardant designes and those closest yet to the open door discovered it first hand as their clothes caught fire from the heat buildup.

Benton shook himself back to what he had come to do. The plastic knobs on the release controls had begun to melt and the glass was starting to warp slightly, but the one gauge that he needed to look at was still functioning and it told him he was too late. The needle was firmly planted in the red and even a timely release of the venting valve would not prevent the vat from becoming unhinged at the seams, flooding the shop floor with hot chemical. Benton backed up from the vat as if it threatned to explode any moment. Those few of them who were still on the floor would be killed, if not by the explosion of pressure realsed from the vat, but by the caustic chemicals it contained. Benton looked towards the door at the far end of the shop floor that lead to the rear parking lot. It was thier only way out, but with most of the people jammed up on the stairs or in the pile at thier foot, it all seemed futile to even try to do anything but let fate take over, as fate seemed to have been doing all day.

George managed to extract the first person from the pile and asked him to help pull the woman up he had been laying upon. Instead he turned tail and ran for the rear door.

"Hey!" George screamed. "Charlie, help me out here!"

Charlie, the floor supervisor whose children where cowering behind the right hand pipes and pressure equipment sprinted for the rear door but bumbled into Maggie and sprawled upon several chairs near Benton. Charlie looked up and into Benton's eyes. Benton felt tired and listless and Charlie's sheepish look, that of a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar, made little impression upon Benton at this moment. Maggie lay nearby scrambling to get up off of the jumble of chairs she had fallen on. Charlie, rising to his feet, stood next to Benton as if either guilt or curiosity got the better of him. Benton motioned with a quick jerk of his head towards the control panel as the needle planted firmly against the metal post at the extreme end of the red zone. Charlie looked back at Benton and neither man showed any sense of urgency or renewed panic.

Helen Pence came skittering out of the pile next and shrieking profanities at Charlie while he and Benton stood motionless in silent communication with the other.

"Where are the children," Helen cried then stopped, "what?"

"Goodbye dear," Charlie replied.