The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Gloves creaked.

  “You’ve been lonely for a long time, haven’t you? That other woman, the one who took your car, really hurt you.” She tried to make eye contact. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m honestly frightened. You say you don’t trust me, but… How scary do you think it is for a girl to be helpless out here, stuck in a car with a man she doesn’t know who treats her like a piece of cargo? What if something happened to you?”

  He let off the pedal; the car lost speed.

  “You said you wanted to finish your food.” Her stomach growled again. “Was that the truth or did it really take me offering money for you to help?”

  Ahead, he spotted the boxy shape of a white van that scavs hadn’t peeled to the frame yet crashed into the side of a small shack. Kevin pulled over a short distance away. He ran his thumb over the row of glowing blue rocker switches, turning them off. Wheel motors whined down to silence.

  “Wait here. Van ain’t been stripped yet, might have something useful.”

  “Did you help me, or did I change captors?”

  He finally looked at her, but turned away from her pleading face after only a few seconds. “Name’s Kevin.”

  He stood and walked off. Tris pulled her feet up and shimmied over the console to the driver’s side. She stumbled out of the car and caught her balance by leaning against the door.

  “That was guilt, Kevin. You do have a soul. Please trust me, you’re my last chance.”

  He stomped over to the van. All four wheel-motors had burned. What had once been solid rubber tires had become misshapen puddles of cooled material beneath char-blackened hubs. Bullet holes decorated the side, and the air around it smelled of singed meat. He climbed inside and searched a number of storage compartments for anything easy to scavenge. A shiny padlock secured one hatch―irresistible temptation.

  Tris approached the open door, and bent forward to peer inside. “Kevin, come on. You’re a nice guy. You helped me. Cut me loose already.”

  “You’re asking that too much, what do you really want?”

  She stared at him, gawking. “Uhh, not to be helpless out here in the Wildlands. What kind of woman wants to be tied?”

  “I can think of a handful.” He looked back long enough to wink.

  Her face tinted rose. “Let me rephrase that. What kind of woman wants to be tied out in the middle of the Wildlands?”

  Kevin stood up straight, pondering. “Okay, that narrows it to one.” He shivered. “Zephyra’s a bit of a freak.”

  Tris screamed.

  “Oh, will you knock it off.” He turned around to say more, but found her backpedaling into a full sprint. “What the?” He jumped out of the van, winding up within arm’s reach of two walking corpses.

  At least, they looked, smelled, and groaned like walking corpses.

  Large swaths of bruise and rot stained bloated, misshapen bodies greenish-purple. The one on the right had deteriorated further, having lost something quite dear to all men. Kevin gaped at the patch of exposed insides as some of the strength left his legs. It raised an arm and lurched forward. Eager grunts fired bloody pus from the nostrils.

  Shit! Infected.

  Kevin leapt backward. One of the creatures lurched at him, throwing its weight into a punch that tore a hole in the side of the van.

  The other Infected took off at a rapid shamble after Tris, who sprinted down the road alternatively sobbing and calling Kevin an asshole as she tugged at her wrists.

  The Infected in front of Kevin pulled its arm free with a groan of bending metal. It whipped itself sideways, sending an overextended haymaker at his head. Kevin’s hasty evasion took his legs out from under him. He fell flat and scrambled in a backward crab-walk for a few feet before flipping over and running to the road. Once he had the safety of about forty yards between him and a walking dead man, he sighted over the .45 at the one chasing Tris, but changed his mind and aimed at the closer one. It gaped at him, snarling, yellow ooze seeping over its teeth as it stiff-legged its way toward him.

  He waited another half second until he felt confident shooting it would not spatter any infected blood on the van. He wanted what was in that compartment, but wouldn’t go near it if even one droplet marred the paint. As soon as it reached the paving, he fired twice. Gore blew out from its back as a slug tore through its chest. The second shot caught it in the cheek, detonating the entire back portion of its head. The Infected took one more step, twitching arms grasping at the air, before dropping to its knees and falling to the road. The sight of its body rupturing mesmerized him in a fit of phobic tunnel vision. One drop… all it takes is one drop.

  “Kevin!” Tris, somewhat distant, shouted.

  He turned toward her and loosed a startled yelp as the other one jumped at him. The force of the hit knocked him to the ground. The creature pounced, grabbing his forearm and smashing his knuckles against the street until the gun bounced out of his grip. Kevin got a hand up, pushing at the squishy chest of the howling monstrosity. Rational thought evaporated in a desperate flailing fit to get away. It reared back, hauling him by the arms off the ground with enough force to swing him over its head. Kevin screamed as he hung suspended for a fraction of a second before the Infected slammed him down on his chest.

  Stunned from the impact, he gasped for breath, catching a brief glimpse of Tris jogging closer between sparkling lights. One drop… One drop… He shrieked like a six-year-old boy waking from a nightmare and clawed at the dirt, trying to get away.

  The creature pounded its fist into the back of his armor twice before it lifted him by the belt and threw him. Without the armored jacket, every rib in his chest would’ve been fragments. Kevin hit the ground in a flopping roll, unable to gain control of his momentum before he collided with the rear end of the van. A little distance muted panic. Shit, these fuckers are strong.

  He stuffed a hand into his jacket, going for a 9mm Beretta in a holster under his left arm.

  The Infected was on him before he could get up. He rolled to the side as it drove two fists down onto the rear bumper, knocking it off the frame with a loud clang. He scrambled on all fours but didn’t get far before it grabbed his boot and pulled him back. Kevin flipped over, getting his arms up in time to catch the creature as it fell on him. Desperate to keep his mouth closed, he braced the monstrosity’s weight on his left forearm and drove his fist into its face. His punch crushed the man’s cheek, covering his glove with bloody ooze the consistency of raw egg.

  Vicelike hands squeezed his wrists, pinning him into the dirt. He pounded a knee into its side twice, but the wild-eyed thing did not react. Eager grunts like a rutting hog issued forth as it forced itself close enough to bite. The Infected pushed Kevin’s arms wider and leaned in as if to kiss him. Its jaw distended beyond human width, revealing a serpentine tongue-like appendage covered in tiny suckers and dark black tendrils.

  The wavering horror searched out his lips; it wanted to burrow down his throat. He grunted, unused to feeling weak. His heart pounded in his head as he thrashed his face back and forth to evade the deadly kiss.

  Blam.

  The back of the creature’s head splattered to the side, throwing gore clear of Kevin. In an instant, its superhuman strength faded. A length of tentacle bounced away from Kevin’s chest and hit the dirt. He shoved the corpse off and sat up, still panting, and put two in its chest from the Beretta. Tris peered through her knees at him from fifteen feet away. A curtain of white hair spread out around her upside-down face, touching the ground. She had bent over forward, holding his .45 behind her back. A stripe of pale brown dirt ran up the side of her jumpsuit from the somersault she must have used to pick it up.

  He blinked, unable to move as he pondered the impossibility of the shot she had made.

  Tris stood up straight and brought her feet together, the gun pointed straight down. She made no effort to go anywhere and waited for him to walk over. Still covered in sweat with his pulse drubbing in his eardrums, he looked her up
and down.

  “How…”

  She let her head sag forward. “Cyberware, remember? I have some dex boosters.”

  “Some?” He blinked. “You fired a gun from behind your back, upside down, at a target six inches away from my head.”

  “I hit it, didn’t I?” She fidgeted. “And didn’t get any on you.”

  He eased it out of her bound hands. “How…”

  “The Underground gave me some training before I left. Did you get any of its blood in your mouth?”

  “No.”

  She twisted her wrists. “Trust me yet?”

  “No.” He plodded back to the Challenger. “No, not really.”

  7

  Looking for Cracks

  Tris stared up at the clouds, unable to decide if she wanted to scream in rage or just cry. Amid a stalemate, she trudged back to the car. “You’re sure you didn’t get any of the blood on you?”

  “Little drips on my armor and pants, yeah.”

  “You should clean the armor and burn the pants right away. The Virus can persist in the environment for up to twenty-seven weeks.” She squinted into the oncoming wind; her hair lofted like the train of a specter. “It’s warm here, so probably double that.”

  Kevin grumbled.

  She meandered back to the car and sat on the hood while he took off his belt, armor, and pants, admiring the sight of his pectorals, biceps, and thighs. He’s a lot healthier than I’d thought possible. If not for the cord biting her wrists, she might’ve found his almost boyish face cute.

  He used the pants to clean his armored jacket and tossed them to the road. A brief rummage of the trunk located a replacement pair, which he pulled on. A zippo and some lighter fluid from a box facilitated the disposal of the discarded, blood-soaked pair. He held his right hand glove upside down over the burn, trying to cook the viral blood off it.

  With that done, and crowbar in hand, he returned to the van and disappeared inside. She sat on the hood, tapping her foot on nothing while the repeated clang, clank, clang, thump echoed from inside. It took him about ten minutes to batter the padlock into submission. Eventually, he emerged from the hulk with a belt of ammunition―.50 Cal BMG―over his shoulder. He paused at the fender, sensing the stare she gave him.

  “These are worth about four to six coins a bullet. Good find.”

  “Do you want me to beg? Cry? Suck you off? When are you gonna untie me?”

  “When I get paid.” He looked at the road.

  “Kevin…” She slid off the hood and leaned into him. “I hit that Infected. I could’ve hit you. Why won’t you trust me that I’m not a threat? Whatever that other girl did to you, I’m not her.”

  “I’ll think about it.” He moved forward and tossed the ammo belt into the backseat crate.

  Tris scowled and trudged to the car, backing up to it and managing to get the door open. She flopped into the seat and pulled her legs up. He reached across her to close it.

  “I’ll blow you right now if you cut me loose.”

  He ignored her and pulled back onto the road, driving around the dead body. “So you know all about this virus thing, huh?”

  She scowled at the door, somewhere between rage and futility. “I’m not a doctor, but I guess I know more about it than someone that grew up out here. I went to school as a kid. It’s nasty stuff.”

  “Zombies.” Kevin shivered.

  “Not completely.” She leaned her head back. A small time display floated in blue letters at the lower left of her vision, fed into her optic nerve: 6:42 p.m. “They’re not dead. They rot alive in a condition similar to leprosy. The virus causes degeneration in parts of the brain that govern reason and personality while stimulating regions linked to aggression. It causes random cellular necrosis, causing victims to look like they’re decaying once it progresses to stage three. Infection winds up being fatal after about six months, less for weak people, longer for healthier ones. We don’t know why some of them seem to spawn tendril symbiotes. The Virus isn’t supposed to be able to do that. They think it’s another organism.”

  Kevin shivered. “If your timeline is correct, there shouldn’t be any infected left. The Enclave set that shit loose like twenty years ago. And that symbio-whatever sounds like a weapon.”

  Tris rolled her head toward him. “Yes. It was. That’s why I have to do this. The Enclave doesn’t want it stopped. We’re all vaccinated, and it lets them dominate what’s left of the world even though there’s forty people out here to every one of them.”

  He glanced at her and sighed. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  She gazed out the passenger window to hide a smile. “You’re still going north.”

  “Yeah. Gonna hop on Route 40 and go east to 44. There’s a connection somewhere up there to 70 or 76”―he scratched his head―“ain’t never been up that far north or east, but Harrisburg used to be a big ass city, right? There should be signs.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not heading west. Figured since you’re treating me like a prisoner, you were going to take me back to the Enclave.”

  “I don’t trust them either. Reward’s too high. They’d probably kill me for my trouble. Knowing my luck, they’d let me go, but confiscate my car.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “You’re right. So, are you gonna leave me like this the whole trip? I’m wearing a jumpsuit. I can’t take it off to piss with my hands tied. I’m sure you don’t want me wetting myself in your nice car.”

  He smiled. “Sympathy isn’t working so you’re trying logic now?”

  Her stare got wider. “I don’t think sympathy failed all the way. You still have a heart in there somewhere, even under all those scars.” She shifted in a search to get comfortable. “I just hope you find it before I have to take a whiz. Course, you got time. I haven’t had anything to eat or drink in two days.”

  8

  The Enclave

  Dammit. His gloves creaked. I’m not gonna fall for the guilt trip. I am not going to fall for the guilt trip.

  “Kevin?”

  He let out a long sigh. “What?”

  “You might want to speed up. There’s a few Hoplites coming up behind us.”

  “Shit.” He glared at the rearview.

  Three black Enclave hovercrafts gained on them, dark spots on the forefront of a massive curtain of dust. One followed the road while the other two spread out to either side and lagged a length behind. Each was about twice the size of the Challenger and brimming with mounted weapons.

  “I should just stop.”

  “They don’t want me back, Kevin.” She lifted her face to stare right at him, looking wan, tired, and terrified. “They want me dead… and probably you too for being with me. In case I told you too much.”

  As if to underscore her point, a dull pop came from behind. A split second later, explosions on either side of the car showered them with rocks and shrapnel. He swerved, avoiding the second volley. The hard maneuver bounced her into him and back against the door. She wailed as her head hit the window.

  “Ow.” She sniffled.

  Kevin kept his gaze on the mirror, drifting side to side without pattern. Tris lifted one foot, bracing it on the dashboard in an attempt to avoid another hard encounter with automotive glass. She grunted as Kevin hit the brakes unexpectedly, causing the left hovercraft to glide up alongside. A man in a black flight helmet looked down at him. Kevin waved and pulled a cord along the roof over his head.

  From a few inches behind the driver side window, an incendiary gel sprayer roared to life. Burning slime spewed all over the armor-plated rubber skirt, raising an instant cloud of greasy smoke. The hovercraft pilot pulled away, but not before taking on enough flaming material to cause a catastrophic failure of the air cushion. With a great concussive boom, the seal burst. The hovercraft bottomed out and came to a shuddering halt somewhere in the dust, two enormous fan blades kicking up dirt.

  Kevin nailed the accelerator, pinning them both against the seats. Red LED numbers sho
t up past sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, over a hundred. The other two hovercraft kept pace; slow to accelerate, but they soon gained ground and opened fire again, this time with machine guns. Kevin growled as red-hot tracers streamed overhead.

  A quick swerve put Tris face-first in his lap. She grunted, trapped there by inertia and having no use of her arms. Kevin squirmed at the awkwardness of where her face landed, but stayed focused on weaving between streams of tracers. After two more muted explosions outside, he cut the wheel hard left and she slapped into the passenger door again.

  “Cut me loose! You’re gonna break my damn neck.”

  Kevin flicked on the rear-targeting screen, lining up the lead hovercraft for a shot.

  “You bastard. You really are going to leave me like this until Harrisburg.” She stomped her foot into the dash, barely in time to catch herself before another sudden evasion.

  “Sorry, hon. Little busy right now.”

  Thumb on the button, one rifle in the trunk opened up. Shit, forgot to clear the damn ‘16. Sparks danced across the curtain of rubber and metal; the bullets didn’t dent the armored panels. “Shit. Shit. They’re not gonna fall for the flamethrower again.” He twisted in the seat, reaching for the crate behind him. His fingertips about touched it when he had to swing around to correct for a giant pothole. Another explosion showered them with dirt and threw up a dust cloud that blocked his vision for three agonizing seconds.

  “What’s in the box?” she yelled.

  “Couple of ‘nades.”

  The deep rumble of a high-caliber cannon made him swerve off the road. Now he had to dodge scrub brush and rocks in addition to heavy weapons. Giant jackrabbits, not so much. Tris turned her back to him.