Chapter 2

“Whoops. That’s it right there. Dawson Road. I told you to keep your Jesusing eyes peeled.”
Glen Frederick lowered his head to read the small blue road signs out the van windshield. “See it?”
“Yeah. Number 15,” Derek said, pointing to his left. “17 must be the one in the trees there.”
The bottles clinked together as Glenny turned the wheel sharply and pulled over.
The small bungalow houses of Dawson Road were spaced far apart on country lots, shielded from view of their neighbours by dried-out lilac bushes and snow banks.
Perfect.
Glenny compared the home in real life to the one in the picture.
“Burn. Let it burn, wanna, wanna…” he mumbled a lyric from the old Sublime song that had been playing on the radio, the song about the 1992 riots in L.A.
There was a dark red Windstar in the driveway. Someone was home.
Toad was on a night shift rotation this week, which meant the minivan was his wife’s.
He would have to be careful not to kill her tonight.
Two picture windows sat at the right side of the house with frilly curtains drawn across them.
The living room.
“Stay in the car,” Glenny ordered. “And watch me, because next time it will be you.”
He got out and closed the door gently, clicking it shut.
He had bunched the bottles sideways under his arm like sticks of firewood and draped three automotive towels over top of them, feeling the adrenaline begin to form at the edges of his heart.
Anyone can get caught, he told himself, no matter how smart.
He'd performed hundreds of Shitties over the years, but nobody was perfect.

You could never be too careful.
He stole a glance back at Derek through the driver's side window.
His son was visible. A shadowy shape smoking a cigarette.
The van was parked up against a telephone pole with the back doors slightly open to reveal compartments of tools, like a phone or power company contractor.
As Glenny backed away he could see the little red light of Derek’s cigarette burning in the darkness of the van’s interior. It looked very odd and suspicious.
“…kill that kid,” Glenny mumbled.
Keeping to the shadows, he crept up slowly to the side of the small house, stepping through a copse of evergreen trees at the right flank of the snowy front lawn, opposite the driveway.
The house lights were off inside but he could see the unmistakable blue lightening flash of a television on in the living room.
He snaked a blue automotive towel into the first bottle, tippingit upside down and soaking it wet. He lit the cocktail, making sure the automotive towel was burning good against the night sky before lobbing it sidearm against the living room window.
Boomfffffff!
The bottle slammed right through what was apparently a single pane of glass, plunging deep inside the house and exploding in an orange fireball.
“Shit.”

A muffled woman’s voice began to screech inside the house like an injured animal.
Glenny felt the nerves electrify up his fingertips and wrists. He lit the second bottle and fired it at the second window, throwing it softer this time. Boommfff.
He hadn’t intended for that first bottle to go right through the window, but it didn’t really matter. The laundry soap appeared to be working. The flames didn’t seem to be splashing everywhere. The people inside would probably have enough time to escape.
He chucked the last firebomb at the front door to prevent anyone running out of the house that way and seeing him, then took off running.
“OK.” He climbed back into the van. “Buckle up.”
“Damn!” Derek was hopping up and down in the passenger seat, freaking out. “Burn that shit down, nigga!”
“-Shut up!” Glenny cuffed Derek in the lip with a loose set of fingers, hard enough to bleed. “I said keep quiet. What are you, fucking stupid?”