The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “Oh, hell.” He grumbled. “I’m gonna need that rope.”

  Stacy whined, but held her hands up, wrists together.

  “Must you?” asked Tris.

  He gestured. “Not for her. I’m gonna have to tie two of them to the roof.” Kevin rubbed his chin and pointed at the smallest dancer. “Might be room in the trunk for her and the junkie.”

  “You can’t put a person in the trunk.” Tris stomped. “For one thing, it’s cruel. For another, you have a pile of random shit in there already, and last, that’s where the cargo’s going.”

  Kevin muttered, running over maps in his head. If he pushed the car, they could probably make it to Cortez in one day. Nice little town. Good place to drop off all the baggage. “Okay, but this is going to be a damn rolling orgy. Get ready to get intimate.”

  Over the next half hour, Kevin grumbled and cursed under his breath as he transferred all his “quick access” supplies from the back seat to the trunk. Jasmin arrived when he’d all but filled it, dragging a metal case. He tried not to see it as a massive pain in the ass, instead as 1800 coins. Another twenty minutes of unloading random bits of salvage he’d taken from roadside husks made room for the box. He slammed the trunk lid, shook Jasmin’s hand, and backed toward the Garage office once again, pointing at Tris.

  “No one touch the car. I’ll be right back.”

  He opened the door with his ass and whipped around to confront the clerk.

  Takeshi smiled at him. “Back so soon?”

  “I needed to make room. Interested in salvage?”

  “Ahh, I sense a deep discount since you’d be abandoning it anyway. What sort of parts do you have?”

  Motherf… “Tie rods, a pair of traction bands for a Class E wheel, four swivel mounts for light machine guns, bunch of serviceable brackets and bolts, two power filters, fourteen feet of fuel line, and a fluid pump from a”―don’t call it a flamer―“heavy incendiary unit.”

  “Sounds lovely.” Takeshi tapped his chin. “I’ll need to see.”

  Kevin gestured at the door. “It’s all unloaded.”

  The Challenger glided over the road, wheel motors emitting a worrisome whine. Not yet twenty minutes out of Glimmertown, and already he figured he couldn’t push it past about fifty miles an hour with all the weight. Stacy sat on the floor in a ball between Tris’s legs, facing him and shivering. The black bags under her eyes kept him glancing at her every few minutes, fearing she’d contracted the Virus and would bite someone any second. Bits of white stuff dribbling off her lip didn’t do much for his nerves. As much as he still didn’t trust her, he couldn’t bring himself to carry through with his threat to tie her. The state she was in, she looked helpless already.

  He’d crammed his seat as far forward as it would go. The six women from Cloud 9 filled the back, three in the laps of three others. Hair and legs seemed to be everywhere; every five or six minutes, someone’s knee poked him in the spine. Fortunately, the car didn’t use an inside mirror for rear-view, or all he’d see was tits. With each passing mile, his frown deepened.

  Tris put a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong? You look like you want to rip someone’s testicles off.”

  “Colorful.” He sighed. “The car can’t take this much estrogen.”

  Tris raised an eyebrow. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”

  “So I hear.”

  The women in the back muttered. One asked what estrogen was, which set Tris off on a twenty-minute explanation that nearly put Kevin out cold at the wheel.

  Stacy made a series of huffing noises, sounding like a giant cat about to spit up a hairball.

  “Really.” Tris squeezed his forearm. “What’s bothering you? Are we going to run out of charge in the middle of nowhere?”

  The women got quiet.

  “No, but I have to keep it slower than I’d like to be going. This is the kind of weepy horseshit what got Dad killed.” He twisted his grip at the wheel. “He was like you. Soft heart. Saw slaves and had to get involved. He had a friggin’ truckload of girls, and I don’t mean that as a turn of phrase. An actual truck trailer ass-to-tit with women. I can’t even remember where the hell we were. Somewhere in Arizona. Word got out and bandits came out of freakin’ everywhere. We never had a goddamned chance.”

  Tris gasped. “Sorry.”

  “They didn’t have any use for a boy, but I guess they didn’t wanna kill a four-year-old. Only thing I remember is they dropped me off in Clifton. They took Dad’s rig, and all the women with ‘em.” He looked at the back seat. “Right now, I feel like a big fat fucking target… and what the hell is wrong with the thief? She’s gonna go zombie on us?”

  “She’s in withdrawal. She never told me what she was on, so I have no idea how bad she’ll be.”

  Stacy tried to say something, but couldn’t seem to get her jaw open, so it came out as a long, stressed “nnnnn.”

  Kevin sighed out his nose and tried to get comfortable despite the steering wheel rubbing his nuts. Tris tended to Stacy as best she could. The girl faded in and out of coherence, sweat buckets, and trembled. The women muttered amongst themselves about their odds of winding up stranded on the side of the road. Within an hour, they resumed their animated conversation about everything and nothing―mostly about how happy they were to be out of Glimmertown. They quieted to listen after asking Tris to tell them about Neon’s final minutes.

  Stacy had passed out, her head back in Tris’s lap.

  He tried not to feel good for helping them. Another couple of hours, and he’d drop the lot of them in Cortez… maybe enjoy a night in a bed. As stories of what had been done to them at Cloud 9 circulated, he tuned their voices out to indistinct feminine warbling, attention focused on the endless pulse of a yellow line down the center of the street. Each cruel fact twisted the guilt deeper at being ready to walk out and ignore them. The speedometer wavered between forty-five and forty-eight; the sports suspension made him feel as though his ass scraped the road.

  Another couple hours… He eyed the rearview screen as the remembered scent of his father’s truck cabin came to mind. What the hell is wrong with me?

  Kevin squinted at pale desert, aflame in the shimmering glow of the relentless sun. The Challenger’s wheel motors purred like their old selves, without the added weight of so many passengers. Rattling from behind reassured him, his box of miscellaneous handy crap once again in easy reach. Cortez settlement seemed more than happy to welcome six women and a girl. A middle-aged couple had agreed to take Stacy in. The best part about stopping there had been another helping of Jean’s gumbo. Tris had been quiet since they left, and kept her head turned to the right.

  “That didn’t take long.” Kevin tapped his fingers on the wheel.

  “What?” she muttered, not looking.

  “That kid got under your skin already. You fell for it.”

  Tris smirked at him. “She said I was the only one who’d ever done anything nice for her.”

  “What was that? Not kill her?”

  “The purple sweatshirt. Used to be Tyrant’s.” Tris sighed. “She’s had a crummy life. She’s only fifteen.”

  “And you’re only twenty and I’m only twenty… something. Seven?” He accelerated to ninety. “Fuck it. Everyone’s got a shitty life. Keep your eyes open for dust trails.”

  “What’s that you keep looking at?” Tris pointed to a dark two-inch screen below and left of the rear view, hooked into the dash by four exposed spiral wires.

  “Rad meter.”

  She kept quiet for a little while, but continued to fidget in her seat as if she couldn’t get comfortable.

  “Piss break?”

  “Not a bad idea, but… What happened to that whole people are friendly thing? Couple days ago, you were trying to tell me the documentaries are wrong, now you’re all ‘the world is shit.’”

  “I’m pissed off.”

  “So close but so far?”

  He twitched when the rad meter lit up with 00
18. “Crap. Hope you brought sunblock. If that fucker hits 100, I’m turning around and there won’t be any negotiation.”

  “100? Please tell me that’s not Gray.”

  “No, it’s red. You colorblind?”

  Tris stared at him. “Remember the other day when I said you’re smarter than you look? Yeah, forget it. Gray is a measurement. 100 Gray would melt someone. You wouldn’t have time to turn around.”

  “It’s rads.”

  She blinked. “Who uses rads anymore?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have Enclave tech.”

  She shoved him on the shoulder. “It’s not Enclave. It’s been around a long time.”

  Parts of the paving had broken apart in jagged junks. Here and there, the bumps forced him off onto the dirt for a smoother ride. Blasted out shells of steel trailers dotted the road, the metal blued near jagged tears along the south-facing parts. Large hunks of debris, pieces of former buildings, cars, and a set of train wheels, sat at the ends of angled furrows going in the same direction, a frightening indication of proximity toto Dallas’ Ground Zero. Kevin grumbled. Taking a ride to Harrisburg on Tris’s flimsy promise for a thousand coins was one thing… but driving this close to an impact crater stressed the limits of reason.

  He slowed to a halt. Twisted iron and steel claws rose from the scorch mark that had once been Dallas, Texas, a dark stain across the horizon. The rad meter displayed 042, causing a bead of sweat to slide down the left side of his head. Striations in color over the open nothingness before him radiated outward from the distant city, crossed by the occasional tumbleweed or dust-hopper oblivious to the radiation.

  “So, another couple months of small runs will make up for it.” He sighed.

  Tris glanced at him. “We’re already here.”

  Kevin tapped the corner of the rad meter. It hopped up to forty-four. “Can barely see the city from here and the dose is almost halfway to ‘screw this.’”

  She leaned forward and shielded her eyes with her hand. “There’s gotta be something here.”

  “You almost sound upset.” He chuckled, flicking his fingers at the gearshift in contemplation of backing off.

  “We’re here because I believed Jasmin about the run.” Tris leaned from left to right, surveying the distance.

  He dropped the Challenger into reverse. “Ain’t no point o’ me retirin’ to run a roadhouse if I grow a third testicle.”

  “Wait.” Tris lunged through the gap between the front seats and grabbed a pair of dusty green binoculars from the box. After flinging herself upright again, she pointed them off to the right and held them to her eyes. “Yes… Tire marks over there. Seems like they’re converging on one place.”

  “How far?” Kevin squinted, but couldn’t make anything out of the blinding glare.

  “Four hundred yards maybe?” She pointed almost right at the spar between windshield and door window. “That way.”

  He pursed his lips, eyeing the rad meter. “No sense wasting time debating. Couple hundred more yards won’t change much.”

  The gearshift moved forward with a clunk, and he steered where she indicated. A few minutes later, distinct vehicle trails emerged from the smooth beige landscape. Someone (in fact many someones) had driven onto a strip of paving more or less covered by dirt, all heading toward the southwest. The sight of it made him cringe. In all likelihood, the resettled sand had been fallout, and probably still ‘glowed.’ A quick glance at the rad readout tightened his grip on the wheel: 52.

  Kevin held out another few seconds until the Challenger reached the old road, and he went in the direction of the tracks. “You know, this could be a damn bandit nest. If it is, this is going to get real damn ugly.”

  “What happened to ‘people want to help each other?’”

  “There’ll always be a bad element. Human nature. What I meant was most people are helpful. The two you gotta watch out for are the ones who don’t give a shit about shit, and the ones who’ve given the fuck up.”

  “You’re wasting yourself behind the wheel.” Tris leaned her elbow on the door and smiled over the fingers supporting her chin. “You should’ve been a poet.”

  “Hey…” He accelerated. “Looks like there’s some kind of old tunnel up ahead.”

  A pair of figures in long, brown coats wearing full bug-eyed gas masks stood from behind white concrete lane dividers repurposed as barricades on either side of the sunken roadway. Both had AK47s. A hundred or so yards closer to where the road diverted down into a culvert, two more figures crouched behind similar barriers with huge rifles.

  “Oh, shit. They have Barrets.” Kevin stopped the car and held his hands up in a non-threatening manner.

  “That’s bad?” She mimicked his hands-up pose.

  “Yep. Barret will shoot through the battery, me, the trunk, Cortez, and lodge in Wayne’s ass all the way back in Hagerman.”

  “Right, so don’t get shot by it.” She rolled her eyes.

  The figure on the left approached in a cautious stride, AK47 held not-quite-aimed at the car while the other moved up on Tris’s side. Dark lenses in the gas masks concealed any clue about their disposition.

  “Hey,” said Kevin. “Not lookin’ for any trouble. You know where we can find a Sergeant Ralston?”

  “Why?” asked a female voice.

  Sunlight flashed on distant scopes. Kevin’s sphincter clenched at the thought of a .50 Cal Browning round pointed at him. The figure on the passenger side seemed more on edge than the woman and kept the AK trained on Tris.

  “Got a box from…” He glanced at Tris.

  “Jasmin.” Tris offered a smile at the figure pointing a rifle at her.

  “Let’s see it.” The woman backed up a step and let the rifle down a few inches. “Damn, did a perfume factory explode in there?”

  “It’s a long damn story.” He pushed the door open and got out, heading for the trunk. The other sentry kept the AK pointed at Tris. He glanced at his escort and flicked his gaze to the other one.

  “My sister doesn’t trust her,” said the woman.

  Kevin chuckled. “She has that effect. Neither did I at first.” He opened the trunk lid. “She grows on ya though.”

  Hissing breath from the woman’s gas mask paused as she leaned forward to examine the box from Glimmertown’s general store. She reached in and moved a few car parts to the side to clear away the front face, and pointed at a tiny black doodle that resembled a poor attempt at a biohazard symbol, or an even sadder flower. Kevin tensed when she patted him on the shoulder.

  “Sorry for the rough greeting. Welcome to New Dallas. I’m Samantha. My sister’s Marcie.” The woman backed up three steps and made a series of exaggerated hand motions at the two distant snipers before yelling, “It’s good” to her sister.

  Tris waved at Marcie after she lowered the rifle.

  Kevin shut the trunk. “Now what?”

  Samantha pointed down the road. “Drive on down to the gate.”

  “New Dallas is underground?” He felt as nervous as a hamster in a microwave and hurried back to the door.

  “Yeah.” Samantha followed. “We don’t get a lot of drivers out this way. Sorry again for almost shooting you.”

  He hopped in and closed the door. Tris turned her head to continue staring at Marcie as the car pulled forward. The woman’s posture conveyed disappointment at not getting to kill someone, but the opaque lenses over her eyes hid any sense of emotion. Concrete lane dividers rippled by on both sides, flashing in the sun. Finally, he reached the point where the road angled downward. The snipers had set up behind the first set of dividers after the downgrade, where the terrain gave them protection from the sides and rear. Both men wore full gas masks, military armor vests, and camo-covered helmets. Despite the intimidating hardware draped over their barricade, they both offered enthusiastic waves.

  Tris smiled at the man on her side. “Okay, these two seem friendly.”

  “Friendly enough for two guys who would’ve shot u
s a minute ago without losing sleep.” Kevin grumbled as he guided the Challenger down a sunken roadway lined on both sides with stacks and stacks of sandbags. Thirty meters after the road leveled out at the bottom, they entered a rounded tunnel. Three weak incandescent bulbs overhead gave off enough light to see a huge darkened metal door covered in lines of rivets streaked with green smears of corrosion. He pulled up to within three feet.

  “You’re the one that told me people are friendly.” She sounded sad. “Except for the Enclave, I was almost ready to believe you.”

  He sighed. “Recent events haven’t done much for my optimism.”

  A resounding clank filled the tunnel a second before a seam appeared down the middle of the door. Two halves peeled away to the sides, revealing the barrier to be eight inches thick. Behind it, two more doors of similar dimension opened at a somewhat slower pace. Each great slab slid into the wall, riding rollers in recessed tracks. Though the tunnel was wide enough for three cars to drive abreast, the doors halted with only inches to spare on either side of the Challenger. Beyond, the tunnel continued, lit every fifteen yards or so with a somewhat less feeble light than the ones nearer the entrance. Another man, also in a camouflage uniform, waited inside with a black M4 held to his chest. He waved in a manner indicating Kevin should follow.

  “Wow.” Tris leaned up. “That door would stop a damn nuke.”

  He drove in, following the jogging figure along a subterranean road. The rad meter ticked down to 008 about a minute later when the tunnel opened into a large chamber supported by thick columns. The space had the appearance of an old subway platform converted into a garage. The rails had been ripped up and replaced with a crude asphalt surface. Carts of tools and clustered around most of the columns. Five military-style Humvees occupied parking spots defined by yellow spray paint, as well as an M35 truck with a canvas-covered back.