Restitution: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival series (The Dark Road series Book 8)

this gruesome act unfold, but to cover his butt while he was occupied.
He made sure to wipe the blade clean again before grabbing his rifle and quickly dropping the box magazine. He was relieved to find it full and pushed it back into place with a dull click. He threw his arm through the sling and shouldered the gun. He would leave the old man right where he was. Anyone wandering by would expect him to be passed out there by the fire. Besides, when things kicked off and the other moonshiners started to panic, finding their leader with his throat slit would only help add to the chaos and weaken their resolve.
Ben performed a quick search of the man’s pockets and found a set of keys that he decided to take with him. He moved away from the recliner and the center of the camp as quickly and as quietly as he’d come in. Slipping around the side of another container house, he took cover and planned his next move. Ben glanced at his watch; he was good on time, according to what he had told Joel. It was no reason to rest, though. He needed to keep moving.
Ben searched for his next target, and it didn’t take long for him to pick out a small building that looked like a prime candidate to house a still. It was a small shed and the first thing he’d seen in the camp that wasn’t made from a commercial shipping container. A round tin pipe reflected the moonlight as it poked through the roof and radiated visible heat waves into the night air. The still was inside; there was no doubt about it. He’d made it here with less trouble than expected.
As he crept closer to the building, he heard a mechanical humming noise coming from inside. He traversed the last twenty yards to the shed in a crouched run. Once there, he discovered the source of the noise: a large louvered fan built into the far side of the structure. The exhausted air was warmer than the outside air, and when he stood in front of it, there was a chemical odor that reminded him of a cleaning solvent.
Ben found the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. A quick search through the keys he’d taken from the old man produced a match for the lock, and he let himself inside. Once in, he stood up fully and took stock of the place. He didn’t know much about making moonshine or about stills, for that matter, other than what he’d learned late at night on the History channel while waiting up for Joel to come home.
He understood the basics of how a still operated and knew that the alcohol vapor it produced was said to be highly explosive. The fact that the moonshiners had the still inside only helped his cause. It wasn’t a smart setup, and it must have been done more for security reasons than practicality; the old man didn’t trust any of them and wanted it locked up, apparently. Ben wasn’t surprised. There was no honor among thieves.
The explosion would create a diversion and give them a small window of opportunity to take out a lot of bad guys in a short amount of time. If he could get this thing to go off the way he hoped, the moonshiners’ first concern would be to put out the fire and try to save their still, allowing him the luxury of picking them off while they scurried about.
Ben eyeballed the setup and identified the parts of the system as best as he could. They had a gas-fired burner under the largest container, which he took to be the mash pot or boiler. His understanding of the process was that alcohol vapor was created here and rose to the top, where it followed the line out and then went on to be cooled back into a liquid, which was the finished product. If he could open up that pipe at the top and fill the shed with flammable vapor, the place should blow sky-high. It wouldn’t take long. The mash pot was huge, and according to the gauge on a small piece of copper tubing that stuck off from the side of the main container, there was quite a bit of built-up pressure inside. They must have been in the middle of making a new batch.
The still took up most of the real estate inside the shed, but the leftover space was crammed full of glass jars and other containers stacked to the ceiling on crudely made shelves. Most of the jars were full, and Ben took one off a nearby shelf to examine it. The liquid inside was as clear as water, but when he took the top off the jar, a strong smell indicated otherwise.
He took a small sip and spat it out at the burning ring of flames under the mash pot. The fire erupted and leaped out toward him, curling around the equipment. The flammability of the moonshine surprised Ben, and he had to step back to avoid being burned. The stuff might as well have been gasoline; it sure tasted enough like it.
Ben spat again, this time to try to get the taste out of his mouth, but he was careful to aim away from the open flame. After replacing the jar on the shelf, he leaned his rifle against the wall, then cracked the door and took a quick peek outside. All was quiet, and with no sign of activity, he was free to go to work sabotaging the still.
The first thing he had to do was cut the power to the exhaust fan and close the louvers so the room was as airtight as possible. He followed the loosely run wires to a power source that turned out to be a few linked car batteries. Ben hoped none of them were from the Blazer or the Jeep and took a