The nervous one yelled out, “Snooper, how long?”
The pounding of metal finally stopped and there came another voice from underneath the front of the truck. “I still have to get this fender off the tire. I’ll need another ten minutes, sir.”
“Ten minutes, you’re sure?”
“Yes sir, ten minutes, I’m sure.”
The boss seemed marginally pleased, “Okay, that’s not too bad. I can wait.”
The pounding immediately started again.
As the leader came closer, Hannah thought there was something she recognized in his voice. She craned her neck and suddenly saw Rob just above them.
“James! I never thought I would see you again. I was sure you died out in the cold that night. You might not believe this, but I’m glad you’re alive.”
Robert looked the same as Hannah last recalled, except his right arm was gone at the shoulder. He turned to his man, both of them staring down on their spoils of war.
The other was much shorter than Rob, although about the same age. He was covered with numerous little scars and his face was pockmarked. His head was shaved smooth except for his thick eyebrows and a mustache, and a short tuft of hair just under his bottom lip. On the back of his right hand was a tattoo of black billiard ball and on the other a pentagram.
“Eightball, this is James. I know I told you about her.”
“This was the one pretending to be a boy?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“She’s not much better now.”
“Eightball, you’re being rude; so she’s not the prettiest one here. At least she’s trying now. Look, she’s letting her hair grow out. We put a dress on her and we’ll get a decent price. That blonde, on the other hand ...”
Hannah had enough, “Rob, you bastard!”
Robert put his finger over the girl’s mouth, “Shhh, I’m talking. The merchandise doesn’t interrupt people when they’re speaking. The merchandise only speaks when she’s spoken to.”
The girl tried to bite his hand. “Rob, let us go!”
Robert clamped his hand down hard over the girl’s mouth then turned and addressed his man again. “Eightball, go into the house. Find the nicest clothes you can find, dresses if there are any, makeup too. Before we go we’ll get these girls fixed up real nice. I bet we can double the price!”
Eightball took off running and now Carol had something to say, “I know who you are. Hannah told me all about you. Your name is Robert, and you’re a cold-blooded killer.”
Rob addressed Hannah again as he finally let go of her mouth, “James, who is this woman?”
But Carol still had plenty to say, “Her name is Hannah! She’s told me all about you! I know what kind of man you are!”
Robert looked down on the girl and shook his head, “Hannah? That just doesn’t sound right.” He smiled, “You’ll always be James to me.”
Carol went on, “You’re a killer! I know all about you! You’re going to answer to God someday for all the evil things you’ve done!”
Rob shook his head at Hannah again and gave out a heavy sigh, “I guess this woman is a friend of yours. Leave it to you, James, to find the Bible thumpers.”
“Her name is Hannah!”
Rob ignored Carol but went around the other side of the truck and lifted a heavy duffel bag onto the bed. He rummaged through it a moment and produced a roll of silver duct tape.
With his mouth and one arm he pulled off a length of tape then bit into it, tearing it off. Then he went right towards Carol who was still in her tirade.
“God will make you answer for every evil thing that you’ve done! You can be sure of that! You won’t escape God’s justice! I won’t bother asking for your mercy either because I know you have none!”
Robert slapped the tape right over Carol’s mouth and made sure it was a tight fit all around.
Hannah found her voice again, “Leave her alone!”
With his finger and thumb, Rob pinched Hannah’s nose and with the rest of his hand sealed her mouth shut.
The girl struggled to breathe and speak, “MMM!”
But Robert wasn’t allowing either, “Shhh! You need to be quiet right now.”
After an intense half minute with Hannah unable to breathe and Carol’s muted screaming in his ears, Rob at last let go of the girl.
Hannah gasped for breath, “Rob, I hate you, you bastard!”
He put his hand over her mouth and started to pinch her nose again, “Shhh.”
The girl went quiet.
“You need to listen to me, James, and understand it, the merchandise only speaks when she’s spoken to. Don’t speak again unless I ask.”
Rob walked to the side of the truck and jumped up. With only his one arm he clumsily climbed on and took a seat on the duffel bag behind the truck’s cab. The two women looked up at him, sitting there upside down.
“James, I know you just think I’m being mean to you, but I’m not. I’m really trying to help you.”
Hannah laughed.
“I am.”
The girl laughed once more at the ridiculous thought.
“You need to pay attention to what I’m saying right now, kid,” he turned to Carol for a brief moment, “you too lady,” and back to the girl again, “what I’m telling you is going to keep the both of you alive. Where you two are going ... well, the guys there, they won’t put up with this kind of stuff. You talk to them like you just talked to me, they’re going to hurt you, real bad. So here’s some advice, I’m hoping you’re smart enough to take it. When you get there, do whatever they tell you to do. No argument, no backtalk, just do what they say with a smile on your face. No matter how disgusting it is, act like you don’t mind. If you can do that, you’ll probably have a relatively long life.”
Rob put up his feet and got comfortable, addressing Hannah once more. “But that’s enough talk of that. Let’s talk about something else, something more pleasant. I know! I bet you’re dying to hear what happened to me after we last saw each other.”
Hannah’s hatred was only growing, “I don’t care what happened to you! I hoped you died horribly! I hoped you suffered! You murderer!”
With his hand Rob reached out towards the girl’s mouth again, “Shhh!”
The girl went quiet.
Rob sat back once again and casually went on, “Well, after me and Alton tangled, I was really hurt. That bastard did some real damage. I don’t mind, though, because I got him back,” he said with a smile on his face. “He shot me right in the arm, the bone was shattered. I knew I had to get some help or I wasn’t going to live very long, but I couldn’t think of anywhere to go. Everybody was dead ... oh, I never did find McCain or Rudd by the way, Alton must have killed them. Anyway, I didn’t have a place to go to and no one to help me. I certainly couldn’t go to any of those people we robbed, could I?” He barely stopped for a short laugh and then went on. “The only thing I could think of was this gang and that old house of ours ...”
Hannah rebutted him, “It never was our house. You killed the rightful owners!”
“James, don’t you know by now ‘rightful’ has nothing to do with it; whoever can take it is the rightful owner. And please stop interrupting or I’m going to get the tape out again.”
The girl shut her mouth but still told Rob what she thought of him with her hate filled eyes.
He didn’t seem to mind. “Anyway, that house was the only place I could think to go. I thought they might let me join up with them. So I stopped the bleeding the best I could and made my way there. When I got in sight of it, I suddenly got real scared. I’m not ashamed to tell you, James, I was scared shitless. I remembered what they did to Peavey and the other guys. I didn’t know what they were going to do to me, but figured it wouldn’t be nice. But I didn’t have much in the way of options; if they didn’t help me I knew I would be dead soon anyway. So I took the chance.”
Robert leaned forward staring at girl, her loathing quite apparent. “So you know what I discovere
d when I got there? They didn’t have a leader, he was recently killed ... and most of these guys, well, they’re not management material. They were just looking for someone to lead them and you know how I am. Once I started talking, I kind of talked myself into the job.”
“How could you, Rob? These monsters murdered your friends.”
Rob sighed again, “There you go again, James, still living by the old world’s rules. If you’re going to survive out here, you have to learn to be more flexible. You have to learn to change with the circumstances. I don’t like what they did to Peavey, Martinelli, or Cornwell ... or whatshisname. But I can accept it and move on. But it’s like with Alton, I’m not holding a grudge. You can’t if you want to survive out here. You should learn that lesson, James. Besides, these guys aren’t so bad. Okay, they did kind of enjoy it when they held me down and sawed my arm off ... and let me tell you that hurt like a son of a bitch ...” Rob rubbed his stump as is reliving the pain, “but they’re not so bad otherwise. These guys don’t even want much. They’re real easy to keep in line, they don’t even care if they eat every day. You know what most of them want? Spray paint, they huff paint, and hell, that’s easy to find. Every town we go to, there’ll be a department or hardware store, it’s still sitting on the shelves. Think about it! Nobody ever looted spray paint! Of course there are drawbacks too, these guys aren’t the most reliable, and you usually have to tell them the important stuff several times before it sinks in. They’re not as good as Alton and the guys, certainly not as smart or resourceful, but they do have unused potential. That’s mainly their last leader’s fault, he wasn’t using them very wisely. Before me they were just killing for fun, now I’ve got ‘em killing for profit!”
“What are you talking about?! What are you going to do with us?!”
He put his finger over his own lips, “Shhh. If you would just stop talking I’ll tell you. Like I was saying before you interrupted me again, their last leader, he liked to call himself ‘Vor-Gan’ but his real name was Leslie,” Rob said as he rolled his eyes. “He was a sad little man, just this sadistic asshole who went from place to place killing and torturing people. Not with any real plan, mind you, just because that shit is what got him off. My second in command, Eightball, you just met him.” Rob motioned to the house with the thumb of his only hand. “He told me all about it. Eightball is smart but isn’t much of a leader, doesn’t have any ambition. Anyway, he told me about a lot of opportunities ‘Vor-Gan’ never took advantage of. Once I heard about them, I made some big changes. This group has a purpose now, it has a job to do.”
Rob leaned towards Hannah, his warm breath right in her face. “Did you know there’s a large gang of men just northeast of Fort Wayne and they have an entire warehouse full of food? They captured it right when all of this started, a distribution warehouse for a large grocery store chain. They control a building with over a million square feet of nothing but food! I’d never heard of them and I bet you hadn’t either. They’ve been running some raids of their own and contacting other gangs too, including this one. You see, while they’ve got a lot of food, there’s something else they’re very short of, can you guess?” A smile came back to Rob’s face, “Women! They don’t have any women and they’re willing to pay a hefty reward for people that bring them some!”
Rob leaned back against the duffel bag and folded his arm behind his head, “That’s what I’ve been doing since I last saw you, James. We’ve been going house to house collecting women and running them over to Fort Wayne. You won’t believe how much you three will bring. I bet your blonde friend there will bring a month’s worth of food by herself.”
Hannah finally had enough, “Carol is right! Rob, you’re evil! You’re going to answer to God for all that you do! Repent now before it’s too late!”
“You should stop worrying about my soul, James; you should worry about yourself. You’re the one in a lot of trouble right now.”
“I’m not worried about me or my friends. God loves us. God will take care of us. It’s you who should worry! You will answer to God for everything you’ve done!”
Rob sighed as he struggled to get up and then went through the bag again. He found the tape and tore off another piece with his teeth, fixing it over Hannah’s mouth.
“I don’t understand you people, I really don’t. I just killed everyone you love, including a baby. Now I’m going to sell the three of you into sexual slavery to some filthy degenerates, where the rest of your life will undoubtedly be short and miserable. And yet you can still sit there and talk to me about God’s love ... how God will take care of you. Like I said, I just don’t get it.”
Shortly after Rob finished shutting Hannah up, the hammering completely stopped. Now a voice yelled out from below, “It’s ready to go!”
Just then Eightball came running back with some frilly things draped over his arm. “This is all that I could find. Some pretty dresses, some lingerie, and makeup too. I also brought a hairbrush and a mirror.”
By now Rob was ready to go, “Good thinking, Eightball, throw it in and let’s get going.”
“I thought we were having them change first?”
“No, I had another one of my brilliant ideas while you were gone. We’ll wait till we get there. Then we’ll strip the ladies down and make them change ... right in front of them. That will drive those guys nuts. I might even get a bidding war started!”
“THAT IS BRILLIANT! Sir.”
“Thank you ...” Rob seemed quite proud of himself right then.
The driver stepped in and started the motor, its lumpy idle reminding Hannah of all the friends she lost. Eightball threw the dresses in the passenger side window and got in himself.
Rob made a sharp whistle with his hand and four armed guards jumped onto the bed of the truck. They took a seat at each corner while Robert looked down at his merchandise, “Okay, girls, you ready for your new life?”
Carol and Hannah were both incomprehensible as they screamed at him through their muzzles.
He put his hand to his ear, “I’m not understanding you too well, does that mean you’re ready? I guess it does.” Rob turned to the two in the cab and tapped on the window, “Eightball, let’s go!”
The truck backed up and made a U-turn, then stopped. It gradually started forward again down the driveway of the old farm. The other seven remaining men grouped up and started marching behind. The truck slowly made its way over the snow-covered ground creaking and groaning all the way. At last it turned right as it stopped at the main road.
Rob knocked on the back window again. “Keep it slow, slow and careful. The last thing we need is to slide off into a ditch. They can wait ... they won’t mind the wait when they see these three, especially this blonde.”
Eightball acknowledged his man, “Yes sir, slow and careful,” and turned to the driver, “you heard him.”
The battered truck eased out into the road.
As they were pulling out, a “lump” in the snow on the side of the road stood up. Simultaneously, several heavily armed soldiers jumped out of the nearby bushes and a ditch by the highway.
Rob heard the roar of automatic weapons fire and turned to look as the truck came to a slow stop. The driver and Eightball were both dead, their blood and brains all over the inside of the cab. He jumped to his feet as his own men started firing. The four on the truck fell dead to the ground one right after the other. His men behind him spread out and started shooting but in another second they were all dead too. Rob stood there in disbelief until he finally went for his Colt in its holster.
The white “lump” quickly closed on him, a woman with her 1911 pistol drawn and dressed in snow camouflage. From the ditch came another woman and a man, dressed the same and armed with M4s. Four more men and three women all in normal clothes rapidly advanced with their rifles from the underbrush ten yards northeast.
Rob grabbed for his gun as the woman with the pistol took careful aim and fired. Rob’s hand exploded, all four of his finge
rs coming off. One of the men came from behind and swept his feet out from under him. Rob toppled off the truck. He tried to pick himself up but a boot to his back knocked him back down.
Hannah and Carol lay there unable to see what was going on. At last the woman with a pistol at her side came into view. She loosened her white scarf and pulled her hood back. It was Nancy Kurtzman’s friendly face both ladies at last recognized standing over them.
As gently as she could, Nancy peeled the tape from Carol’s mouth. “Carol, are you all right? Are you all right, Hannah? Vira?”
Hannah nodded.
Carol coughed and at last spoke, “Vira is in shock, but both of us are all right.”
Nancy studied Vira for a moment and turned back to Carol with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry ... I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner. I’m sorry all of your people are dead. Maybe we could have saved the rest of you ... if we had been faster. But when we got here it was too late, you had already been captured. Please forgive us.” She holstered the gun with one hand and wiped her eyes with the other. “Since we couldn’t make it to the fight we thought it would be best to ambush them out here on the road.”
Carol was sympathetic to her old friend as she started crying herself, “Nancy, don’t even think that way. You saved our lives. This isn’t your fault, none of this is, it’s his.” The three looked at Rob who was now standing, blood pouring from his mangled hand, a small army surrounding him.
Chapter Sixteen
It took nearly a month for the trial to begin, most of that time spent just trying to gather a jury. They searched far and wide among this close-knit community but most everyone knew or at least heard of the victims. After twenty-six days, they were able to find seven women and four men that could swear before God that they would give Rob a fair trial.
Witnesses were easy to find as they came to them, most amassing at the Kurtzman’s farm to see Rob die.
It was decided to have the trial in the Kurtzman’s old barn; it was large enough to do the job and one of the stalls could be used as Rob’s holding cell the entire time.
Joshua (Book 2): Traveler Page 18
