“Har, har!” he laughed. “Did you hear him? He don’t know where them slugs are. Well, that’s good! He don’t. Nobody does. Well then, they don’t tell no stories.
“No—nor you don’t neither!” He turned fierce, glistening eyes on the boy. “You’ll tell no tales. Do you hear me?
“Know what’s in this jug?” He laughed a fiendish laugh. “It’s alki—alcohol you’d call it. Alki’s hard to get these days. But we don’t grudge the cost. We’re going to give you a mighty sweet death, we are.
“Some cheap ones would use kerosene. Bah! Kerosene stinks!
“But this. How sweet it smells!” He removed the cork and put it to his nose. “Mm! How sweet! Pity to waste it!
“But there, we ain’t tight. We ain’t. We’ll use it, every drop!
“Know what?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “There’s a patch of woods over yonder a mile. Forest Preserve. Campers make fires there. Nobody notices smoke. We’re going to light a torch there, a flamin’ torch. You and this alki. Do you understand?”
Johnny did understand. His heart paused. They meant to soak him in alcohol, then burn him alive. He had heard of such things, but had not believed them.
“It’ll be a sweet death,” the half drunk man raved on. “Such a sweet death. All alki, hundred per cent. A sweet—”
He broke off short, to stare at the wall. His face went white. His lips remained apart. His hands began to tremble. The glass jar dropped to the floor. It broke into a thousand pieces. The alcohol filled the air with a pungent odor as it flowed across the floor.