He frowned. “You don’t know how to work the generators.”
I pulled out my handgun and pressed the flashlight. “Then we go together. If one of us falls, the other will get us out of there.”
He turned back to the door. “I knew you were going to say that,” he muttered as he opened the door. I shoved my bag against the door to prop it open. Before us was a filthy gray haze, hiding anything and anyone in the large room. Clutch took the lead, moving as quickly as he could, clearly pushing his body beyond what it was ready for.
My eyes burned. Every breath was bitter air. Clutch coughed. I tried to smother my coughs, but it was impossible. I supposed all these doors help protect the well-sealed towboat in case it flooded, but they were a pain in the ass because they retained bad air inside.
For all I knew, the barges were already on fire, in which case we’d be screwed. Even if it was too late to close the bay doors, we still needed water pressure to put out any small fires. We had to get the engines running.
When we reached the next door, I could barely see Clutch in front of me. My flashlight couldn’t cut more than a foot through the haze. His coughs were about the only way I could stay with him. I grabbed onto his backpack so that we weren’t separated. We didn’t talk. When I tried, I only coughed more. Tears streamed down my cheeks. A coughing fit nearly had me bent over. Clutch wasn’t doing any better, but his crutches seem to bolster our stability.
When he stopped, I bumped into him. Metal clanked, and I found myself yanked forward.
Clutch slammed the door shut behind us. The air was much better—though still not great. The beam from my flashlight cut through the haze to fall on the large engines and the short red generators covering much of the floor.
“Thank God,” I said, which brought on a coughing fit.
Clutch headed straight for the engines. He tripped over a cable and fell down, so he pulled himself over to the control box. With my help, he got back to his feet. Using my weight to support him, he flipped a switch. Nothing happened. He frowned and then struggled to the next motor. Again, nothing happened. He stood there while I watched, feeling incredibly helpless. He was right. I knew nothing about engines and generators and mechanical things. After a long moment, he spoke. “Wes must’ve turned off the fuel line.”
“I looked around the room. Where is it?”
“It’s got to be in here somewhere. It should have a gas marking or warning on it.”
I propped Clutch against an engine while I retrieved his crutches. Then I began my search. With only a flashlight, it was a tedious search. I tripped a couple times over the cables Wes has strewn across the floors.
“I see it,” Clutch said.
I hurried over.
Clutch pointed. “It’s too tight with my crutches.”
I looked down the narrow walkway between two engines and saw a triangular “Warning: Extremely Flammable” sticker. “I’ll get it.” I had to walk sideways. It must’ve been a tight fit for Wes, but it was pretty easy for me. I knelt at the sticker. Below it was a round metal crank that looked like it rotated rather than a switch that flipped on and off. I tried to twist it counterclockwise, but it didn’t budge. “Jesus, Wes,” I muttered, and put all my strength into it.
Slowly, the crank moved an inch before it picked up speed and twisted a full rotation. I leaned back. “Try it now.”
I heard an engine start up. “We’re good!” Clutch yelled out.
Clutch had the engines running by the time I reached him, and had moved to a box of switches that Wes had built to run all the generators. While each of the generators had its own gas tank, Wes has talked about how he had everything set up to run directly off the towboat’s gas tank to save someone having to constantly refill the generators.