"Over my dead body." "Oh, you've chosen plan B. I'll give you one more chance. Jerome, convince the man." The man answered. Jerome was probably 6'5 of bulging muscles, and he was grinning. "Gotcha, boss.
I won't break anything on his right hand, so he can sign. Good idea. If he gives you any kind of fight, shoot him. Widowhood will work just as well, it might even be better." Jerome had laid his weapon on the table so he could kick ass. I had backed up behind the table, right in front of the old-fashioned picture window my loving wife refused to let me replace.
I held the opinion it raised our heating and cooling costs, but Angie loved the view. He wasn't expecting it, and I threw one of the heavy oak chairs at him, catching him by surprise and knocking him down. The other guy raised his weapon, and the boss was screaming to him to shoot me. So, I snatched up another chair and threw it through the window, with me right behind it. I hit the ground and bounced up running.
Jerome had grabbed his weapon and jumped through the window right behind me, shooting as he ran. I could hear it make sounds kind of like compressed air and could see the dirt gouges flying up in the light of the full moon. Then it felt like somebody ran a hot bar across my arm and it made me run faster. My tool shed was to my right, so I darted in and slammed the door, turning the lock. Jerome was cussing a mile a minute.
"You little, come out or I'll kill you slow." I was looking around desperately for a defensive weapon when I saw it. We lived in an area right on the edge of the kudzu range and I'd bought one of those weed burners to keep them at bay. Angie loved it but complained about carrying around the heavy propane tank. Then one day she showed me a couple of sites on YouTube. Elon Musk actually sold flamethrowers that looked like water blasters kids use, but they were sold out.
There was another site called the Hack Brothers that copied it using a kid's toy as a base. Being a welder, a machinist, and a mechanic, it didn't take me long to figure something out. I used an old.410 shotgun that a friend gave me because it was damaged and no good. I bought the parts, running a metal pipe up the barrel, then installing a burner head I'd modified until with a twist, it could go from a flame about 6 in around to one a fourth that. A side effect was when it was turned down it shot three times as far.
It was rated at 3,400 degrees at full volume and I figured it did about 4,000 when it was choked down. I put an adapter on to convert it to be able to run off the small cylinders campers used for stoves and lanterns. A full tank would last about 15 minutes and I removed the trigger and replaced it with a high-powered igniter because the standard would choke down if you tried to ignite it with the valve wide open. The valve was right in front of the trigger guard. A flick of a finger opened it.
Angie loved it, named it the blaster, and here it was. I managed to screw a new cylinder on while he beat on the door, then reached up and unlocked it just as he slammed it with his shoulder. He fell inside scrambling up, pistol in hand, looking for me. When he saw me, the blaster was about 18 inches from his face. His last vision on this earth was the flame blossoming.