Apocalypsis 04 - Haven

Flick.” Ronald left the room at a fast walk, Flick right behind him.
    “We need something that’ll catch fire,” I said, looking around the kitchen. I was no chemistry major, so I had no idea what that might be.
    “An accelerant,” said Derek. “Several of the chemicals we found could do the trick, but I’m afraid if we combined them there’d be a poisonous gas created that could really cause more harm than good.”
    “Yeah, let’s avoid the poison gas thing,” I said wryly. Jesus. That’s all I need … to be known as the girl who created the first gas chamber in the new world.
    “What about this?” asked Gretchen, holding up a jug of something.
    “What is it?” I asked, walking over to check it out.
    “Well, it says acetone on the label.”
    “What’s acetone?” I asked. “Isn’t that like nail polish remover? Why would they have a big jug of that around here?”
    “It’s a solvent,” said Derek. “My dad had a garage. We used it to clean up the grease. Heavy duty stuff.”
    “Will it burn?” Gretchen asked.
    “I guess so. We could try a little spot on the floor and see what happens,” he suggested.
    I nodded. “Good plan. Let’s get whatever we can find and do a few test-burns. Then we’ll use the best one and keep the rest for … whatever. Cleaning.”
    “Or burning more bodies,” said Winky. “This can’t be all of them, can it?”
    “Why not?” I asked. I really didn’t want to hear the answer to that question, but I listened anyway.
    “I don’t know. How many do you think there are? That can’t be all the prisoners and the other people who were brought here.”
    Bodo stepped away for a minute or two while we marinated in that bit of awfulness in silence. When he came back, he said, “I cannot count exactly, but dare iss probably a hundred bodies in dare. Dat’s a lot, but I think dis prison had more dan dat.”
    “Maybe they shipped a lot of them out when there were still facilities for that,” I offered. It was a lot of wishful thinking on my part.
    “Let’s hope so,” said Winky. “But just in case, make sure you don’t use all that acetone in one shot. We might need more of it.”
    “There has to be more here,” said Gretchen, looking around. “I’ll bet there’s a closet full of it somewhere in this place.”
    “Remind me to put inventory control and supply discovery on Peter’s list of things to do,” I said. There was so much crap to get done here. Until now, I hadn’t fully appreciated the sheer amount of work it was going to take to get this place up and running. Even what should have been a fairly straightforward job was turning into a nightmare that could get really out of hand in a hurry. And we had kids who were going to be showing up any day asking for shelter and almost no food to feed them. This is an impossible task.
    Bodo came over and put his arm around me, tapping his mask against mine in a weird kind of hazmat kiss. “You are making the funny faces with your eyess again. It’s gonna be okay. All of dis … it’s not a problem. We make da decisions and we do da work. Like a team. Like a family.”
    I nodded. “I know. You’re right.” Thank goodness I had Bodo with me. He made things seem not as hopeless. Even a little comfort meant a lot these days.
    Jamal came back into the room. “We’re all set. They’re ready for some smoke out front. They moved the sickest kids outside temporarily, til we tell them it’s all clear.”
    “Okay then,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s light some test fires.” I looked over at Flick. “Bring me that fire extinguisher, would you?”
    ***
    We stood in a circle, everyone but Flick with an extinguisher in hand. I squeezed the trigger a little, hoping I’d have the strength to fully compress it if necessary. I didn’t want to waste any test-squirts, so I was running on faith that it would work.
    Flick poured a capful of the liquid on the concrete ground in the middle of our circle. “Okay. Here’s the acetone.” He took the box of matches we found in a kitchen drawer and struck one, hurriedly throwing it onto the liquid before it could burn his gloved fingers.
    A flame jumped up immediately, making me jerk in panic. It stayed high for several seconds until the liquid was gone, eventually dying down to leave a burn mark on the ground.
    I took a deep breath and nodded, looking around at the reactions of my teammates. They looked as relieved as I felt.
    “That was good, I think,”