Peak Oil by Arno Joubert Page B

bonus.
    So he sucked it up, caffeinated himself with a pot of coffee, and offered to fetch Bubba’s truck and bring it back to the refinery. A replacement driver had already been appointed, waiting to drive the tanker containing the refined diesel back to Houston.  
    He yawned. Thirty-five miles, no biggie.  
    So the maintenance crew had dropped him with a fourteen-gallon gas can, and he had filled Bubba’s baby up. She started after a couple of cranks and Toby gunned it through town, back to the refinery. He was making good time, the five cups of coffee helping him resist the numbing lull of the tires on the blacktop.
    Toby flicked his cigarette out the window, but a backdraft caught it and blew it back in.
    “Shit!” he said and lifted himself off the seat. He saw the smoldering butt between his legs and picked it up. He looked up and blinked.
    Running down Jefferson Street as fast as her little legs could carry her was a young girl. She was being chased by a guy who was gaining fast.
    She ran across the road, straight in front of him. Then she looked up and her eyes widened; she froze and covered her head with her arms, like a damn deer in headlights.
    “Christ!” He slammed on the brakes and twisted the wheel to the right. It took a second before the wheels started to shudder and screech defiantly against the momentum of the speeding truck. He yanked a red lever on the dashboard, and the parking brakes kicked in as well.  
    He glanced in the side mirror as the back of the trailer drifted to his left. He would miss the girl by five yards, but the trailer was drifting her way. Shit. He jerked the wheel back toward the girl, fighting against the stubborn trailer behind him, overcompensating to force it back into line. Smoke billowed from screeching tires as he missed her by two feet. He glanced in his mirror and saw the trailer correcting itself, but too slowly. “Please, Jesus. Please, Jesus . . .”
    The man who had been chasing the girl grabbed her by the arm, yanked her out of the way, and then grabbed her in his arms and backed up. Toby Griff let out his breath, but he knew the emergency wasn’t over. Far from it.
    The wheels shuddered and screamed, bouncing and smoking along the blacktop. The momentum carried the truck toward the green embankment on the shoulder of the road. Years of experience instinctively kicked in and he corrected slightly, keeping the chassis on the road. The moment the trailer careened onto the grass on the embankment, the truck’s ABS kicked in, and it slowly drifted wide onto the grassy section. He glanced at the mirror as the trailer slewed onto the embankment behind him.
    “Aw, shit. No!”
    The truck jackknifed, and the front wheels of the chassis lifted off the tarmac. The truck flipped and smashed onto its side, and Toby braced himself as the horrendous screech of metal on asphalt overpowered his senses.  
    He felt the seatbelt pulling him tightly into his seat. It seemed to last for an eternity. Three hundred yards later, the upended vehicle came to a grinding halt beside Prairie Lookout Park, and Toby shakily hoisted himself out of the cabin. He hobbled around the wrecked tanker on unsteady legs, making sure all the auxiliary pumps were closed. He couldn’t see any leaks.  
    By the time he had finished, a nurse from Saint Josephine’s had already rushed up to him to treat his bleeding head. His legs felt like jelly; he was going into shock. She pushed him down onto the ground, forcing him to sit.  
    He held his head in his hands, trying to recall the exact sequence of events that had led to the accident.
    “I had it under control. I had it under control,” he muttered, staring up at the nurse. “This has never happened before.”
    He fumbled for a cigarette in his jacket, lit it with a trembling hand, and brought it shakily to his lips. Then he smelled it. A heartbeat later, the gas caught alight and exploded, obliterating everything in its scorching