The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Trying to stop the war?” He dragged a metal shelf in front of the inside door, spilling a few dozen oil filters.

  “No. They were angry about jobs going overseas. The government had to subsidize everyone too lazy to work, so it needed money. Probably why they started the war.”

  “Wait.” Kevin pinched the bridge of his nose. “Didn’t you say that they sent the work overseas? How are people lazy if there are no jobs to get?”

  Tris shrugged. “It’s what the teacher said.”

  “Enclave. Right.” He shook his head. “They used to be some kinda military corporation, right?”

  “I guess. They never said much about it, only how they’re the only hope for humanity to continue.” She put her feet up on the desk and closed her eyes. “Damn this stings. I’ve had cuts before, but not like this.”

  “Fifty years of germs in that dust.” He ripped open an air filter and held it up. “No water in here, but you should try to clean it.

  “That’ll rip open the scab and hurt more.”

  She hadn’t zipped her jumpsuit up since taking the gun out. Kevin removed his jacket and walked over. He started to put it over her like a blanket, but froze, watching her stomach rise and fall with her breathing. The cut had receded to a mark resembling an angry housecat’s scratch. He lowered his arms and took a knee, mesmerized as the skin moved. Inflammation faded, leaving a thin red line as if drawn by a ballpoint pen. Moments later, the scratch disappeared. He stared at a spot of pristine skin, save for smears of dirt and blood.

  Tris muttered when he traced his fingers over the spot.

  “What the fuck…” Kevin whispered.

  “Hmm?”

  He pressed his fingers down, light pressure. “Does that hurt?”

  “No, why.” A moment later, his poking and prodding made her giggle. She sat up and grabbed his hand. “Stop! That tickles.”

  “Tris… what the hell.” He pointed. “I don’t think it’s been an hour since I cut you open.”

  She took an air filter out of its box and used it to wipe at the almost-dried blood. “Nanites.”

  “English please.”

  Tris stuck her tongue out. “That was English. Tiny robots inside me. I told you I have some cybernetics, right?”

  “You’ve got little robots inside you?” He blinked and leaned back.

  “Microscopic. They help repair damaged tissue.” She zipped up her jumpsuit and settled back in for a nap.

  “How long do their batteries last?”

  “No idea. Couple weeks maybe.”

  He draped his jacket over her and sat on the floor. “So it’ll eventually stop working?”

  “Maybe. As far as I know, the system keeps making more as the old ones are recycled. I don’t really know how it works.”

  “Not sure I’d be so calm about havin’ little machines running around inside me.” He considered covering her with his armor, but changed his mind at the scuff of shoes outside. When signs of activity faded, he leaned close to her and whispered, “Stay quiet, they’re outside.”

  Tris held up one thumb.

  Kevin sat cross-legged, .45 out and ready. Red-orange squares on the wall faded as the sun disappeared into the distant horizon. He eyed the black windows with suspicion. All sorts of rumors about the Infected played through his head. They could hear a heartbeat from two hundred yards, they could smell people the way dogs do, or they could see body heat. He grinned to himself. The third one he had proven false. He’d stayed still, not making a sound, and one had tottered by less than forty feet away. Either they can’t smell us, or I stink as bad as they do.

  He watched Tris sleep for some time, until the weight of fatigue tugged on his eyelids. The next thing he knew, he’d slumped face-first into her. Kevin sat up straight and wiped his eyes. All three windows remained dark. He stood and stretched stiffness out of his body from his earlier sprint, and availed himself of an oil drain in the ground. Pissing made him feel like a new man.

  A second after he’d zipped up, a hand at his side almost stained the back of his pants.

  Tris’s face took on a normal skin tone with a pronounced blush. He walked off to give her some privacy, and stretched out on the floor next to the chair, keeping his back to the front part of the garage. In the deafening silence, the creak of her zipper opening seemed loud enough to draw every Infected from here to New Mexico. He tried to get comfortable on the concrete garage floor, and kept his eyes closed.

  A few minutes later, the chair next to him squeaked, followed by the hollow thump of shoes hitting desk.

  “You need to get rid of that jumpsuit,” muttered Kevin.

  Tris sighed. “What, because this is the Wildlands, a girl’s gotta run around naked?”

  “Not where I was going, but”―Kevin grinned―“sounds like an awesome idea.”

  The chair springs screeched, and she kicked him in the side. “Ass.”

  “I got a metal bikini in the trunk.”

  “Ass,” she muttered, and kicked him again.

  “I’m kidding.” Kevin laced his fingers behind his head and opened his eyes. “At least about the bikini.”

  A hint of color returned to her face. “I am not―”

  “Shh. Don’t get loud. I mean the jumpsuit, not clothes in general. That outfit will tell everyone you’re Enclave.”

  “Former.” She scowled. “They want to kill me, remember?”

  “How can I forget? So who was that shithead on the screen?”

  Tris kicked the desk. “Nathan. Argh! I can’t believe I trusted him.”

  “Sounds like he’s the one who sprang you from jail?”

  “Detention. Yeah.” She glanced down, lip quivering.

  “There’s gotta be something more to it than you not wanting to marry who they told you to. Enclave are a bunch of fascist shitheads, but that seems like a bit much even for them.”

  She shrugged. “If there is, I have no idea what I did. Probably all a setup to send me out here.”

  Thump.

  Both of them jumped. Kevin shot upright, glaring at the rolling door. Tris cringed, her expression apologizing for making noise. He held his hand up and made a running motion with his fingers. Tris nodded and patted her gut before giving another thumbs-up.

  Damn. I need me somma them nanite things.

  Seconds of silence passed before another heavy slam rattled the entire rolling door. Kevin held a hand up to her as if to say ‘relax.’ The unmistakable moan of an Infected emanated from outside, so close he pictured it pressing its face against the metal.

  “Will that hold them?” Tris whispered as she leaned forward in the chair and put her feet down.

  Kevin nodded. “We should―”

  Wham!

  A human arm punched through the slats, flailing for something to grab inside. Bloodshot eyes locked on Kevin, pupils narrowing to points. Shattering glass echoed from the right, on the other side of cinderblocks. He pictured Infected pressing past the gas station’s convenience store window like a lava flow of warm corpses.

  “Run!” yelled Kevin.

  13

  Stay Sharp

  The Infected raked and pulled at the garage door, peeling the slats apart with a screech of stressed metal. Kevin aimed his .45 as he backed up to the inner doorway. Tris leapt out of the chair, launching it into the shelf behind the desk. A few cardboard-boxed oil filters fell to the floor. Skin peeled away from the Infected’s face as it forced its head into the widening breach in the flexible barrier. Steel slats buckled and broke apart. Kevin clapped his second hand on the pistol, sighted, and fired. Blood spattered up and down on the metal. With a final, heaving groan, the dead man hung in place, stuck by his neck and arm.

  Tris braced her hands on the side of the shelf and shoved it away from the inner door with a mild grunt. Kevin blinked. She ignored the incredulous face he made and rushed out. He backed after her. A short hallway to the right contained a single bathroom opposite a white door with black letters sp
elling out ‘private.’ Straight ahead, a red-tiled corridor led to a modest convenience store, full of overturned grocery-style shelves and trash. Six sliced and bloody Infected staggered over the wreckage.

  A chubby Asian woman with a foot-long piece of glass sticking out of her shoulder swiveled to face him. Milky eyes held no trace of higher brain function, and rolled up into her head as a black serpent-like tendril emerged from her mouth. It, more than the woman, seemed to be staring at him.

  He shivered. “Oh, fuck no.”

  Kevin fired, missing on the first shot. The other five ambling figures behind her whirled toward the noise. His second shot caught her in the shoulder, staining more of her peach colored shirt red. She took a step closer, the thing in her throat straining forward. The third slug struck at the base of her nose, spraying gore over the rest. The serpentine tongue surged out to three feet in length, whipping side to side as the body careened over backward.

  Tris raised the Beretta. “Five, we can do that.”

  Metal clanged in the street outside.

  “Shit, the ones from the garage are comin’ ‘round.”

  She lowered her arms and ran for the door marked private. Kevin shot a second one in the chest, putting it down in one. Dammit. I got one or two bullets left. “I hate Infected… I fucking hate infected.”

  Rattling came from his right. “Does anyone like them? Shit, it’s locked.”

  “You’re vaccinated at least. One speck of blood in my face and I’m fucked.”

  Tris flipped 180 degrees and went for the bathroom. “Damn, the window’s too small.”

  “Look out.” Kevin aimed at the private door and pumped his last two .45 rounds into it. Splinters flew, but it held. “Shit.”

  “I got it.” Tris jumped up, grabbed the top of the bathroom doorway, and drove a two-legged mule kick into the private door. It shook, but held.

  Infected rushed the corridor, gripping and punching at the air. Kevin pulled a Sig 226 out from under his right arm and shot a charging Indian man as well as two dark-skinned women with cornrows and bloody eyes. They collapsed. Two burly men in flannel shirts stumbled over the crawling bodies. The fallen seemed so desperate to get to him they didn’t bother trying to stand back up.

  Tris kicked the door again, and it broke open. Kevin shot the crawling men once each in the head and ran after her up a flight of stairs to a tan-carpeted apartment. A Confederate flag adorned a wood-paneled wall over a battered sofa facing a massive flat-panel TV set. Aside from that, every scrap of decoration in the room appeared to bear a Steelers logo: pennants, mugs, framed shirts, posters. Even the trash can in the kitchen had a team sticker on it.

  “Oh, hello you beautiful thing…” Tris jogged around the coffee table to a bookshelf between the couch and the wall.

  Kevin followed her gaze to the top where a Japanese sword set sat under a thick layer of dust. She climbed up and took the katana, pulling it out enough to check the edge.

  Tris whirled about with a child-at-Christmas grin. “It’s sharp!”

  He rushed for the kitchen. “All yours. I ain’t gettin’ that close to them.”

  “What now?” Tris jogged up behind him. “Infected know how stairs work.”

  As if to underscore her point, commotion echoed up the hallway. Kevin crossed the kitchen in four steps, heading for a door out to a small patio. He squinted at the moonlit streets, shivering at silhouettes moving with the telltale mannerisms of Infected as far as three blocks away.

  “What the hell! Do they have radios or something?” Panic bubbled in the back of his throat. “Shit.”

  Tris ran out onto the patio with him and slammed the sliding door closed. “Seven of ‘em coming up the stairs. We don’t have much choice.”

  He frowned at the tiny slab of safety with two folding chairs. Glass doors wouldn’t hold them at all. “Roof.”

  Kevin grabbed her by the hips and hoisted her up. She got her arms over the rain gutter; the katana hit the tarpaper with a clack. A few seconds after she shimmied over, she reappeared and reached down.

  “Grab my hand.”

  He jumped up, but missed the edge. Something crashed inside.

  “Kevin!”

  “You’re half my weight.”

  She scowled. “Thanks, but I doubt that. Don’t be an idiot.”

  After another miss, he grumbled and leapt at the same instant the door smashed outward in a rain of glass fragments. His grip closed around her frail wrist. He expected to drag her down into the grasping arms of a pair of Infected, but she closed her fingers around his forearm and hauled him up. Her mousy little grunt of exertion would’ve been cute if he hadn’t been about to shit himself.

  Scratching fingers pulled down his legs. He booted a jowl-faced business suit in the nose, knocking him over the patio railing. Tris scooted backward, dragging Kevin away from the edge. The portly man hit the ground with a noise similar to a trash bag full of pudding bursting on the pavement.

  “Ugh.” Kevin cringed. “I do not want to see that.”

  Moaning and rattling metal echoed from down below. A shallow lip about ten inches high ran around the flat-roofed building. Aside from a handful of pipes with spinning vent cowls, and a long-dead air handler, the area was wide open.

  “You okay?” Tris picked at his shirt.

  “Yeah.” He stood and walked to the edge. Six Infected had crammed themselves onto the patio, reaching up at the roof as if trying to will themselves to fly. “Damn, what a mess. I think they’re exceeding the weight limit on that patio.”

  “Get away from the edge. If they don’t see us, maybe they’ll lose interest.”

  “I ain’t that lucky.” He moved from the alley side to the front, where at least forty more half-alive wretches wobbled past the old gas pumps. The mere sight of them got his hands shaking. He paced. “This is why I don’t go to cities.”

  “Sorry.” She walked to the air handler and pulled open an access panel. “I feel like it’s my fault we’re stuck here.”

  “Probably because it is.” He folded his arms, backing away from a tarmac full of groaning, mindless, virus-carrying nastiness.

  A piece of sheet metal clattered to the ground.

  “You’re supposed to say no it isn’t, or it’ll be okay, or it’s not my fault.”

  At the front-facing corner opposite the patio side, he squinted at the darkened street. “It’s not your fault this went to shit, but you are the reason we’re in Harrisburg.”

  She grunted an instant before something broke with a loud snap. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “I can’t tell where the hell we are. Every street looks the damn same at night.”

  A deep moan rumbled up from inside.

  “We should be safe up here until morning,” said Tris.

  He retreated farther from the edge. She knelt by the air handler, rigging some salvaged wires into a harness so she could wear the sword on her back. Tears caught the moonlight, making her cheek glint. Kevin trudged up to the narrow end of the old air conditioner and leaned against it. The box was a few inches too tall to make hopping up on it like a seat easy enough to bother.

  “You had no way to know. It’s not your fault those people are dead.”

  She stopped knotting wire and let her hands fall in her lap. “I know.” After a pause, she sniffled and wiped her face. “The Resistance represented our last chance. I was supposed to have the cure. Save the world. Now everyone’s going to die.”

  “Look…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You did all you could. Blame the sick bastard who came up with the Virus in the first place.”

  “What if I wasn’t so slow? It was my fault those idiots caught me. If I’d been a little more resourceful, I wouldn’t have been abducted and―”

  “You’d have showed up in time to die from whatever killed them.” Kevin shook his head. “I can’t say I’m terribly impressed with this ‘resistance’ if they’re dumb enough to set up shop in the middle of a damn
hive.”

  Tris pulled a knot tight to the scabbard. “They made the Virus to ‘scrub’ the world of those with genetic impurities. They’re paranoid about DNA damage from nuclear fallout, inbreeding, toxic chemicals… Those poor people.”

  “What’s the Resistance hope to accomplish anyway? The Enclave is one city. It’s not like they’re in control of anything but themselves.”

  She shrugged the sword over her shoulder onto her back, measuring a length of wire around front as she let off a somber chuckle. “They wanted to break down the wall. Open the Enclave up. It started inside with a small group of dissidents. I remember being a little girl and seeing the head talk about it.”

  “The head?” He lowered himself to sit and waited for his heart to slow back to normal. “I gotta hear this.”

  “Oh.” She smiled. “It’s not a real head. Everything’s scary to a five-year-old. The Speaker. He’s appointed by the Council of Four. Most citizens think he’s in charge, like a president or something. His face is everywhere. There’s TV screens all over the place.”

  “Maybe they tossed you in jail because you found out about this council thing.”

  “No. The Council is common knowledge.” Tris fidgeted until the sword sat right, and shifted around to sit next to him with her back to the air handler. “I might’ve been six or seven when the Speaker announced there were people among us who were trying to destroy us from within. At the time, I was terrified. I had no idea what was really going on. They weren’t trying to kill us.” She tapped her shoes together. “They wanted to overthrow the council.”

  “And do what? Stop trying to kill everyone else?” He contemplated closing his eyes, until another moan floated up from below.

  “Either that or escape. Civilians aren’t allowed to leave.” She pulled her feet close and rested her chin on her knee. “I think the Virus might have mutated in ways they never expected. Now they’re afraid of their own weapon. The victims weren’t supposed to live more than a couple months after contracting the disease.”

  Kevin shivered. “Infected have been around at least ten years. I don’t think it’s ‘working as intended.’ Sure, there were survivors in big pop centers, but not enough to keep it this bad, this long.”