After lunch, they went to take a look at the gas pumps. Without electricity, the pumps wouldn’t work, but that didn’t stop Court from trying, anyway. He took the nozzle off the first pump he came to and squeezed hard on the trigger. Nothing happened. Not that he was surprised. Still, he raised the nozzle to his ear like a phone receiver and called out, “Hello?”
Bree slapped his arm as she passed. “Stop that.”
Court lowered the nozzle, but instead of hanging it back up, he peered into the small hole and squinted, trying to look down inside. “How’s this siphoning thing work again?”
“We’ll get it straight from the tanks,” Ronnie said, stamping one foot on a manhole cover. He knelt and laced his fingers through a hole in the cover, the muscles in his arms straining like taut rubber bands as
