Black Friday

CHAPTER 68

The trapdoor wouldn't move. Rebecca tried to find something other than her hands to ram it with while Dixon tried to saw his plastic tie. At least she had found a light switch, although the single, low-wattage bulb set between the rafters lit only the area below it.

Dixon had told her not to worry about his bleeding. "Just a flesh wound," he called it and Rebecca couldn't help thinking he sounded like one of the heroes in the graphic novels he loved to read.

"How do you know they rigged the place?"

"They told me. They laughed about it." He sounded out of breath. "It was right after they let my granddad's phone ring and ring. They told him if he called back at a certain time he'd get to talk to me again. But they wouldn't let me answer. It was still ringing when they threw the phone up on one of the shelves where I couldn't reach it."

He shook his head, then started sawing at the plastic again.

Then Rebecca smelled something besides gasoline. It was seeping down from the air vents.

"Dixon. Do you smell that?"

He sniffed the air.

"Holy crap," he said. "Smoke." He tried to saw faster.

Rebecca banged on the trapdoor, using her battered hands. What if the fire was already in the room above? They didn't have to rig a bomb. With all the spilled gasoline, all they had to do was light a match. It'd explode once the flame reached the fumes down here. It was hopeless.

She heard Dixon's plastic snap. He rushed over to help her. That's when they heard someone yelling above. Boots stomped. Wood cracked. Maybe they had decided to come back and kill them before they left them to burn. Rebecca crouched with Dixon in the corner.

The trapdoor started to split and the metal point of an ax came through. The smell of smoke was stronger. The voices louder. More boots thumping. A bright light shined down as the last of the trapdoor came away.

"Dixon Lee," someone shouted. "Are you down there?"

Rebecca held onto his arm as Dixon started to crawl forward. Above them, surrounding the hole where the trapdoor had been, were three men in SWAT team uniforms.