The Seventh Day by Scott Shepherd

Author:Scott Shepherd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781477808740
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2013-12-09T17:00:00+00:00

“You like working here?”

Fixer looked up from the engine he was tinkering with. Abe was chewing on one of the black licorice sticks he’d taken from the seemingly endless supply he kept in a plastic container on his desk. They had turned the man’s tongue a permanent shade of ebony. If Fixer hadn’t known better, he would have thought the old man had developed some sort of cancer or leprosy.

“You know I do,” Fixer answered.

“Then, maybe we oughta keep the place in one piece.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How’d you do in your high-school chemistry class?”

“Chemistry?” Fixer was trying to keep up with the subject changes and not having much success. “When I wasn’t sleeping through it or ditching it to surf?”

Abe smiled. “Thought as much.”

He pointed to a small pipe jutting out of the engine.

“Bring that and your tools to the parking lot.”

Fixer gathered everything and followed his boss out of the shop. When they were outside, Abe had him place the engine on a workbench he’d moved to the center of the lot.

“That little tube. You cleaned it out, right?” Abe asked.

“No. Just grabbed it out of the extra bin,” Fixer replied, referring to the box on a shelf where spare parts were stored.

Abe extracted the tube from the engine and held it up so both could peer through it end to end. “What do you see in there?”

“Smudges.”

“It’s actually fuel remnants.”

“Shouldn’t someone have cleaned it out?” asked Fixer.

Abe reached into the toolbox and pulled out some copper wire. “They’re supposed to. It’s why we always double-check.” Fixer’s boss affixed the wire to the end of the tube and rolled it out while stepping backwards.

“Oh.”

“I suggest you take a few steps back.”

Fixer didn’t need to be told more than once.

Abe pulled out a lighter. “Sometimes it’s good to triple-check,” Abe said as he flicked it and held the lighter over the makeshift fuse.

Then Abe shoved Fixer to the ground and jumped on top of him.

The explosion burst the engine into a thousand pieces.

The two men watched in silence as parts smoldered on the ground and the flames died out. Finally, Abe helped his chagrined employee to his feet.

“Double-check and triple-check.”

“Gotcha,” replied a mollified Fixer.

“Broom and dustpan are in the closet just inside the door.”

Abe patted Fixer on the shoulder and went back in the garage.

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