Charges (36 page)

“He wants chocolate milk,” Gabby said.

Vincenzo sighed. “I don’t think I have any. Anyway, I’ll be right back.”

After grabbing the gas can and siphon from the back, he picked his way to the highway, pushing through the overgrowth. There was no guard rail, so he just walked out onto the highway after checking in both directions. No one was about, but there was litter everywhere. Plenty of people had passed through.

The first car he stopped at, a silver Cadillac CTS, had been thoroughly picked over. The leather seats were trashed, the GPS display was shattered, the glove box was empty, and someone had taken a shit in the center console. Vincenzo knelt and tapped the fuel tank. There was still some juice in it. He cracked open the fuel door and found the Caddy had a cap-less refueling system, so he just pushed the hose in and began pumping gas out of the tank. While the gas can filled, he kept a lookout. Farther down the highway, he saw a white Toyota and a blue Nissan pickup truck. They would be his next targets, since they were closer than the cars to the west. He didn’t want to get too far away from the Blazer.

He returned to the truck with the full gas can. Sweating and wheezing, he transferred the fuel into the Blazer’s tank then hopped inside the cab. It was already quite hot, so he fired up the engine and switched on the air conditioning.

“I’m hungry,” Gabby whined.

“Chock it, I want chock it!” Daniel demanded.

“Keep calm, guys,” Vincenzo said. “We’ll get you straightened out. Let’s get it a bit cooler in here, and then I’ll have to leave to get more gas.”

A few minutes later, he shut down the Blazer and set off again. There was still more gas to be had from the Caddy, so he filled the gas can from its tank again. He lugged the can back to the Blazer, poured it in, then sat inside for a couple of minutes to cool off. He found a package of Santa Cruz oatmeal cookies in the back—
Thanks, Mr. Scott!—
and doled out two each to the kids. He paused long enough to eat one then chased it down with some warm water. He gave Gabby another bottle of water and told her to share it with her brother, then he set off again.

The Nissan was almost empty, and he pulled maybe a quart of fuel from that. The Toyota was virtually full, but he had to pry open the fuel door with his knife. When he returned to the Blazer. He found Gabby and Daniel were both crying hysterically.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Vincenzo asked, looking around frantically.

“We miss Daddy!” cried Gabby, tears pouring down her face.

“Daddy please,” Daniel said, through a hitching sob.

“Aw, I’m sorry, guys. Don’t cry. We’ll be going soon, okay?” Vincenzo started the Blazer and gave the kids more cookies before getting back out and transferring the fuel.

After a couple of minutes, he went back to the highway. He got another can of gas from the Toyota, and by that time, he saw people walking around the bend several hundred yards to the east. It would take a good eight to ten minutes for them to reach his position, so he wasn’t unduly concerned, but he still didn’t want to be seen. When the gas can was full, Vincenzo wrapped the siphon in the towel, capped the gas can, and hurried back to the Blazer. The kids were still whiny, so he filled up the tank, put the gas can and siphon in the back, and hopped behind the wheel.

“Okay, let’s head out,” he said, turning the key. The Blazer rumbled to life, and cool air blasted out of the vents.

He looked back and saw that Daniel and Gabby were each holding pages from the atlas. Daniel tore another one out of the book and waved it in the air.

“Shit! Give me that!” Vincenzo snatched the atlas away from Daniel.

“You said a bad word,” Gabby told him solemnly.

“Give me the pages!” Vincenzo snapped, ripping them out of her hands.

She whimpered, her eyes filling with tears. Daniel fought him for the pages, shrieking and crying. Vincenzo pulled them free, but not before Daniel had managed to tear one. Vincenzo threw the pages on the seat then put the Blazer in gear.

“I need this thing!” he shouted. “Don’t touch it, ever again!”

“We’re sorry,” Gabby wailed. “Please don’t be mad at me, Tony! Daniel did it! He always does that to books!”

“
Chock it
!” Daniel screamed, kicking the back of Vincenzo’s seat. “I want
chock it
!”

Vincenzo slapped the steering wheel as he rolled back onto US 40. With a curse, he stopped the truck and got out to unlock the wheel hubs. He climbed back inside the cab and reversed up the road a few yards to ensure they had disengaged. Once he was satisfied they were clear, he accelerated forward.

“Please don’t be mad,” Gabby whimpered. “I just want my daddy.”

“I want chock it,” Daniel added.

“Relax, guys. Just... relax,” Vincenzo told them.

“You, too,” Gabby suggested.

Vincenzo looked at her in the rear view mirror and smiled. “Okay. Me, too.”

29

With such a small force, it had taken the better part of an hour to overcome the meager defenses surrounding Taylorville. Of particular vexation to Roth was the uniformed sheriff on horseback. Roth had tried to kill him, but the man was an exceptional marksman. The lawman killed two of Roth’s people before they had even realized he was hidden in the trees off to the right of the bridge. Roth realized that if there had been someone behind them, they would have driven right into a trap, sandwiched between two elements of fighters, with the lawman off in the woods, picking them off one by one.

But that hadn’t happened, and Roth’s people were able to retreat a hundred yards and attack again from a distance. They killed most of the people holding the bridge quickly, but the sheriff managed to slip away. Roth searched for any sign the man had been hurt, but there was no blood trail.

Taking the remainder of the town was relatively easy. Most of the residents were elderly, so Roth simply dispatched them after some quick interrogation. The new world was no place for the weak or infirm, so he did them a favor by killing them quickly and painlessly before they spent a harsh winter starving to death.

One old man wearing a greasy John Deere baseball cap and a mechanic uniform had given him some information. Stenciled on a dirty white oval patch on his left breast was the name SYLVESTER.

“You looking for the guy with the kids?” Sylvester asked.

“Yes,” Roth said.

“Saw him. He came through here before.”

“What was he driving?”

“Old Blazer. Vintage, early 1970s. Black. Good shape. Had two kids, a boy and a girl.” Sylvester cleared his throat. “I sold him five gallons of gas for a hundred dollars. He wanted more, but I told him it would be another hundred. He said he’d find more out on the highway, so he passed up a bird in the hand for two in the bush.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“California. Crazy bastard. Who the hell would want to go out there? I mean, it’s all fruits and—”

Roth waved the man to silence. “Did he say how he was going to get there?”

“Planned on taking Route 40, mostly. He had a big atlas, but I didn’t really get a look at it. But that’s what he said.” Sylvester looked around nervously. “Anyone want a Dr. Pepper? Got some in my station in a cooler, nice and cold.”

Roth ignored the offer. “What else do you know about this man? Describe him to me.”

“Kind of short. Maybe five-foot-eight. A little skinny. Dark hair, some whiskers. Looks like a wop. You know, kinda Mediterranean or something like that.”

“Mediterranean?”

“Well, yeah, like I said. A wop. You know, an Italian. Around here, it’s mostly Dutch and German folks, some Amish, people like that. None too many wops.”

“I guess pizza isn’t a usual presence on your menu.”

Sylvester looked puzzled. “Well, sure it is. I mean, I
love
pizza.”

“Tell me more about the man. Do you know his name?”

“Tony. That’s all I know.”

“And the children?”

“I don’t know their names.”

Roth sighed. “Describe them, please.”

“Light hair. White. Little girl was really whiny. Boy was older. He played with a hanger or something the entire time. I think he’s a retard.” Sylvester shrugged, making a little circle gesture near his temple. “They just looked like kids to me. I didn’t pay them no mind.”

“You said you have a station. A gas station, I presume?”

Sylvester turned and pointed at the gas station down the street. “Right there.” A weathered Texaco sign stood at the end of the parking lot. The station looked like a postcard from the 1960s.

“You still have gasoline?”

“Sure, a couple hundred gallons left. Tough to get to without power, but I have a manual siphon system set up. I can hook you up, if you want some. Just let me know.”

“Thanks. I’ll take you up on that.” Roth shot the old man between the eyes and watched him fall to the street at Clarissa’s feet. If she was surprised by the sudden violence, it didn’t show.

“Let’s help ourselves to some fuel,” Roth said. “I want two of you to go back and contact Chester. Tell him to roll a few dozen troops our way. We’ll need to push ahead and start scouring Route 40 for our man, Tony, and his two young charges.”

“You want me to go, boss?” Toombs asked.

Roth shook his head. “Go to the gas station and see to the gas. My truck needs to be filled.” He nodded toward the pristine Ford pickup sitting behind him.

“Sure thing. You want me to fill it for you?”

“Please,” Roth said. “But don’t get any gas on the paint.”

“No problem! You want a Dr. Pepper, too?”

Roth tried hard not to roll his eyes. If the man in the Blazer thought he had problems with a retarded kid on his hands, he had nothing on Roth. Toombs was virtually a living cartoon character, but he was loyal, and Roth preferred loyalty to intelligence at the moment. Toombs would run right into machine gun fire if Roth asked him to, and the time might come when he might actually do just that.

“No thank you, Toombs. But knock yourself out if you want one.”

“Thanks!” Toombs seemed genuinely grateful. “So we’re going to follow this Tony dude and hunt him down?”

“For as long as it interests me, yes. But he happens to be following a very rich path, as well.”

“What about Pittsburgh? We still gonna try and take that?”

Roth had been considering that. There was a heavy National Guard presence surrounding Pittsburgh. A former Guardsman who had joined Roth’s ranks had said that the governor of the state was a native of the city, and he had enlisted the Guard to protect it at all costs. Roth would have thought Philadelphia would have been a more prestigious city to preserve, but apparently, politicians did what suited them, not the people or state they represented. So blue-collar Pittsburgh was getting all the brotherly love.

The Guardsman had also informed Roth that his two-thousand-man force wouldn’t last a day against the military arrayed there. The Guard had invested a lot of time and effort into devising defenses in depth, and they had armored vehicles. They were also working to restore more of the damaged equipment they had around the state, trying to make them operational again. One key component they were looking at was helicopters. While more advanced systems like Black Hawks and Apaches were not likely to be flying for months, older Hueys could be returned to active service as soon as their electrical harnesses were replaced. Roth had no doubt that when that happened the Guard would begin asserting itself throughout the state, which meant he and his troops had to leave.

Moving west was a suitable option. Ohio was a rich state, and there would be plenty of plunder to be had and lost souls to join his cause.

“Yes, we’re going to leave Pittsburgh for the time being. I’m thinking Columbus, perhaps.”