Chapter 4: The Alchemist's Brew

Chapter 4: The Alchemist's Brew

The drive home was silent. Sarah, sensing the tightly coiled anger radiating from Jake, didn’t press him. She likely interpreted his stony quiet as him being sullen over the family drama, a simple case of a grudge. She couldn't begin to comprehend the cold, crystalline purpose that had formed in his mind. He was past grudges. He was moving into the realm of solutions.

He pulled the F-150 into the driveway, the headlights cutting through the deep twilight. Without a word, he got out, walked to the back of the truck, and lowered the tailgate. His hands closed around the handle of the reclaimed gas can—his gas can, with its distinctive splash of blue paint. It felt heavier now, weighted with significance.

Inside the house, the sounds of Sarah getting ready for bed were a distant murmur. Jake walked straight through to the back door and into his sanctuary. He flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights, and the garage buzzed to life, bathing his orderly kingdom in a stark, shadowless glare.

He placed the painted can in the center of his workbench, positioning it with the care a jeweler might afford a rare gem. It was no longer just a container; it was the vessel for his vengeance, the symbol of the disrespect he had endured. For a long moment, he just looked at it, the blue paint splatter a mark of his ownership, a flag planted in reclaimed territory. The smug, revving engine, the insolent wave, the eighty dollars vanished from his pocket—it all resided within that cheap red plastic shell.

Then, the alchemist got to work.

His movements were methodical, stripped of all wasted motion. This was not a frenzied act of rage. It was a precise, calculated procedure, the kind he’d performed a thousand times on engines and machines. He pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves, the snap of the latex against his wrists sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet garage.

First, he retrieved one of the new, pristine cans he’d been forced to buy. He unscrewed the cap and carefully decanted about four gallons of its clean, potent gasoline into the painted can, leaving a gallon of space at the top. This was the base, the sweet-smelling lure that would hide the poison within. It was the siren’s song for fools who only saw a free tank of gas.

Next, he turned to a dark, dusty corner of a lower shelf. He pulled out a large, grimy drain pan containing the waste oil from his truck’s last oil change. The liquid was thick, viscous, and black as pitch. He stared into its murky depths, seeing the microscopic metal shavings suspended within it—tiny fragments of a well-maintained engine, the ghosts of honest work and proper care. Now, this lifeblood would become a cancer.

He took a clean funnel and a measuring cup. With painstaking precision, he measured out a quart of the sludge. As he poured it into the funnel, the black oil oozed slowly into the gasoline, swirling into it like dark ink in water. Each drop was a payment for the cousins’ laziness, for their parasitic existence. This would foul their spark plugs, clog their fuel filter, and gum up their valves. It would make their engine spew a cloud of smoke that would put their earlier pathetic display to shame. He remembered Randy's greasy smirk and added another half-cup for good measure.

The mixture was already taking on a foul, chemical odor, a corrupted version of the familiar smell of gasoline. But he wasn’t finished. The masterpiece required its most crucial ingredient.

From behind a row of neatly organized spray cans, he produced a one-gallon jug of diesel fuel, left over from a project helping Boris with an old tractor. He unscrewed the cap. To a layman, it smelled similar to gasoline, but Jake knew the difference as well as he knew the feel of his own tools. Diesel was oilier, heavier. Its cetane rating was the polar opposite of gasoline’s octane. In a gasoline engine, it wasn't a fuel; it was a plague.

He knew exactly what it would do. It wouldn't detonate from a spark plug; it would wash the lubricating oil clean off the cylinder walls. The pistons, now bare metal against bare metal, would scrape and grind, generating immense heat and friction. It was a death sentence, delivered one piston stroke at a time.

He measured out half a gallon. The cost of the diesel was maybe five dollars. The repair bill for the damage it would cause? Astronomical. He thought of the forty-two dollars and fifty cents he’d spent on the new cans and smiled grimly. A fantastic return on investment.

He poured the diesel in slowly, watching it blend, creating a toxic cocktail of unparalleled automotive malevolence. The color of the liquid in the can had darkened to a sickly, brownish-red. He swirled the can gently, the contents sloshing with a thick, heavy sound. It was perfect.

He held the can up to the light, admiring his handiwork. The foul aroma hit him, a pungent mix of sulfur, oil, and corrupted fuel. It smelled like a rotten egg left in a hot car.

"Rotten Egg Gas," he whispered to the empty garage. The name was perfect. It was ugly, descriptive, and promised nothing but misery.

He screwed the cap on tightly, his work complete. The rage that had been a burning coal in his gut was gone, replaced by a cold, thrilling calm. He had transformed his anger into a tool. He had taken their disrespect and brewed it into a tangible consequence.

Jake stood back from the workbench and looked at the can. The ordinary object had become extraordinary. It was a bomb, patiently waiting for the right hands to arm it. He had done more than just mix fuel; he had set a law of physics in motion. A law that stated, unequivocally, that actions have reactions. Stupidity has a price. And for Randy and Billy Jenkins, the bill was about to come due.

Stripping off the nitrile gloves, he turned off the lights, plunging the garage back into darkness. But in his mind’s eye, he could still see the can sitting in the center of the bench, a dull red promise gleaming under the phantom light. The trap was built. Tomorrow, he would bait it.