The counterman shrugged.
'We oughta vote,' the trucker said. 'No blackmail, damn it. All we gotta do is wait.' He had repeated it three times now, like a charm.
'Okay,' I said. 'Vote.'
'Wait,' the trucker said immediately.
'I think we ought to fuel them,' I said. 'We can wait for a better chance to get away. Counterman?'
'Stay in here,' he said. 'You want to be their slaves? That's what it'll come to. You want to spend the rest of your life changin' oil filters every time one of those . . . things blats its horn? Not me.' He looked darkly out the window. 'Let them starve.'
I looked at the kid and the girl.
'I think he's right,' he said. 'That's the only way to stop them. If someone was going to rescue us, they would have. God knows what's going on in other places.' And the girl, with Snodgrass in her eyes, nodded and stepped closer to him.
'That's it then,' I said.
I went over to the cigarette machine and got a pack without looking at the brand. I'd stopped smoking a year ago, but this seemed like a good time to start again. The smoke rasped harsh in my lungs.
Twenty minutes crawled by. The trucks out front waited. In back, they were lining up at the pumps.
'I think it was all a bluff,' the trucker said. 'Just -,
Then there was a louder, harsher, choppier note, the sound of an engine revving up and falling off, then revving up again. The bulldozer.
It glittered like a yellowjacket in the sun, a Caterpillar with clattering steel treads. Black smoke belched from its short stack as it wheeled around to face us.
'It's going to charge,' the trucker said. There was a look of utter surprise on his face. 'It's going to charge!'
'Get back,' I said. 'Behind the counter.'
The bulldozer was still revving. Gear-shift levers moved themselves. Heat shimmer hung over its smoking stack. Suddenly the dozer blade lifted, a heavy steel curve clotted with dried dirt. Then, with a screaming howl of power, it roared straight at us.
'The counter!' I gave the trucker a shove, and that started them.
There was a small concrete verge between the parking lot and the grass. The dozer charged over it, blade lifting for a moment, and then it rammed the front wall head-on. Glass exploded inwards with a heavy, coughing roar and the wood frame crashed into splinters. One of the overhead light globes fell, splashing more glass. Crockery fell from the shelves. The girl was screaming but the sound was almost lost beneath the steady, pounding roar of the Cat's engine.
It reversed, clanked across the chewed strip of lawn, and lunged forward again, sending the remaining booths crashing and spinning. The pie case fell off the counter, sending pie wedges skidding across the floor.
The counterman was crouching with his eyes shut, and the kid was holding his girl. The trucker was walleyed with fear.
'We gotta stop it,' he gibbered. 'Tell 'em we'll do it, we'll do anything -,
'A little late, isn't it?'
The Cat reversed and got ready for another charge. New nicks in its blade glittered and heliographed in the sun. It lurched forward with a bellowing roar and this time it took down the main support to the left of what had been the window. That section of the roof fell in with a grinding crash. Plaster dust billowed up.
The dozer pulled free. Beyond it I could see the group of trucks, waiting.
I grabbed the counterman. 'Where are the oil drums?' The cookstoves ran on butane gas, but I had seen vents for a warm-air furnace.
'Back of the storage room,' he said.
I grabbed the kid. 'Come on.'
We got up and ran into the storage room. The bulldozer hit again and the building trembled. Two or three more hits and it would be able to come right up to the counter for a cup of coffee.
There were two large fifty-gallon drums with feeds to the
furnace and turn spigots. There was a carton of empty ketchup bottles near the back door. 'Get those, Jerry.'
While he did, I pulled off my shirt and yanked it to rags. The dozer hit again and again, and each hit was accompanied by the sound of more breakage.
I filled four of the ketchup bottles from the spigots, and he stuffed rags into them. 'You play football?' I asked him.
'In high school.'
'Okay. Pretend you're going in from the five.'
We went out into the restaurant. The whole front wall was open to the sky. Sprays of glass glittered like diamonds. One heavy beam had fallen diagonally across the opening. The dozer was backing up to take it out and I thought that this time it would keep coming, ripping through the stools and then demolishing the counter itself.
We knelt down and thrust the bottles out. 'Light them up,' I said to the trucker.
He got his matches out, but his hands were shaking too badly and he dropped them. The counterman picked them up, struck one, and the hunks of shirt blazed greasily alight.
'Quick,' I said.
We ran, the kid a little in the lead. Glass crunched and gritted underfoot. There was a hot, oily smell in the air. Everything was very loud, very bright.