Kevin raised an arm over his face in a futile attempt to block out the dreaded daystar. Tris gave him a light shove and climbed out of the bed they’d shared. Nothing had happened but sleep. Three in the morning plus the rebound crash from too much adrenaline had put him out within seconds of head-to-pillow contact.
He moaned. “What time is it?”
“Almost noon.” She rustled around for a few minutes. When she leaned over him again, she had the plain white tank top on. “Come on. We gotta get going.”
“I can see your tits right through that.” He grinned.
“It’s not covered in blood.” She wadded up the leather shirt and tucked it under her arm. “I’m going to check out the bus before they try and turn it on.”
“’Kay.”
He left his arm balanced across his eyes for a minute that turned into ten. Crap. I’m going to sit here all day if I don’t move now. Kevin dragged himself upright, dressed, and stumbled to the food court. The survivors more or less filled the place. He dropped a pair of coins on the counter, walking away a short time later with two skewers of dust-hopper meat. People offered smiles, nods, and raised hands as he walked among the tables, taking his food outside.
“Hey,” yelled Whazzat. “Mek sure ya bring back ‘dem skewers.”
“Right,” said Kevin.
“Whazzat?”
Kevin laughed on the way to the bus. All four wheel motors’ hatch covers were propped open like awnings on thin metal rods. Tris crouched under the flap of the right side rear, a few inches from a tattered strip of burned flesh dangling from a jagged slat. He found another direction to look in while taking a bite of his food.
“How is it?”
She leaned up and let her knees touch the ground. “Well, one good thing about the Infected is they don’t shoot at us. The motors are fine. Big question is if the system will handle the shock of powering up. The voltage regulator is the problem. We had this thing charging all night. I was so tired I didn’t think about it… might’ve failed to stop charging when it was full.”
“I hate fire.” Kevin chuckled.
“Stupid mistake, but no smoke is a good sign.” She shut the semicircular hatch over the wheel hub and kicked it to make sure it closed all the way. “If it didn’t overcharge, it might start.”
He stood in place eating while she ran around to close the other three wheels before climbing half in to the battery compartment. Survivors made their way outside and gathered in a crowd about ten paces from the bus door. One or two went off to water the grass. Danielle looked like she’d been up all night crying, but had put on a strong face for her daughter. The six-year-old seemed to have forgotten about the mad dash through streets packed with rotting people and flashed a warm smile at Kevin.
He turned sideways to slip past the others coming out and handed Whazzat back the empty skewers. The old man nodded and traded him a large black coffee.
“On th’ house. Thanks fer bringin’ in so much biz.” Whazzat let out a wheezing chuckle that reeked of whiskey, chewing tobacco, and half-digested dust-hopper.
Kevin cringed, but smiled. “Thanks.”
Outside, Paul paced around the bus door. Cody hovered nearby, arms folded, looking lost and despondent.
Kevin cleared his throat to avoid startling the man as he approached. “You can calm down. Zoe’s fine. The settlement she’s in is safe.”
Paul exhaled. “I never should’ve let her go alone.”
“Sounds like your people were dying off at a pretty scary rate.” Kevin exhaled. “You wanted to protect her.”
Tris came around the front end. “I don’t see any obvious problems with the bus.”
Paul mumbled. “I… dunno if it was the right thing to do. Might never have seen her again.”
Kevin glanced left, at one of the doors covering a luggage compartment along the ground. It wasn’t quite closed. “How sneaky are Infected?” He pulled the .45 and crept over, took a breath, and flung the hatch up with his boot. A dim rectangular space held only dust and one suitcase. “Damn. Must’ve rattled open on the road.” Thoughts of Zoe made him tense up. What if some other kid hid in it and no one found him. He stooped to reach in, unsettled by the eerie feeling of being watched. As if some kid’s ghost sat next to the case he’d died in. He held his breath, reaching for the handle.
“What’s up?” asked Tris.
“Gah!” Kevin jumped and hit his head on the hatch. “Dammit.”
“Sorry.” She jumped back.
He lifted the lid, finding it full of little books and boxes. With a sigh of relief, he let the lid down and stood.
“Whoa, you okay?” Tris blinked.
Kevin rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. Just… imagining things. You believe in ghosts?”
Tris shrugged one shoulder. “Never thought about it.”
He holstered the pistol and slammed the hatch.
“Okay, everyone wait there while I hit the button,” said Paul. “If this thing blows up…”
“No way, Paul.” A Hispanic man in his later forties approached, shaking his head. “You got a kid to get back to. I’ll do it.”
“Harold…” Paul held his hands up.
“No arguments.” The older man brushed past him and climbed into the bus.
Seconds later, the interior lights flickered on. The familiar buzz alarm to warn the driver that a charging cable remained connected went off. Before long, the survivors boarded the bus, Kevin crawled behind the wheel of his car, and they drove off.
48
Impasse
Kevin swung north, skirting Boulder as much as he could while following a small dirt road south through sparse trees to where Route 119 cut west. Within a half hour, the welcome sight of a pair of dump truck beds greeted him. The same pewter-haired older man waved from the left side of the gate, gesturing at someone out of sight on the ground.
The trucks started, and a few seconds later, the beds closed to the frames with the grating screech of steel sliding over pavement. He drove into Nederland, past the pitiful little ‘circle,’ and parked near the orange building on the corner, which apparently served as the city hall. The bus squealed to a stop close behind and let off a hiss as the parking brake kicked in.
Word had apparently preceded their arrival. Zoe came sprinting down the road from the direction of the red house, followed some distance behind by Ann. Paul tripped and fell down the bus steps in his haste to get out, managing to get up to his knees before the little blonde missile collided with him, screaming “Daddy!”
Both father and daughter burst into tears.
Cody ran outside and jumped into the hug.
Tris, grinning from ear to ear, leaned up and kissed Kevin. Survivors disembarked, gathering in the open lot on the other side of the street between two rusting excavators. A few minutes later, Bill cleared his throat.
Kevin looked up from the kiss. “Found a couple more people wanting a ride.”
Bill chuckled.
An ear-piercing child’s scream followed a fleshy thump.
Guns rattled from all around as Kevin whirled. A male figure apparently made out of the same bricks as the building across the parking lot from the orange one held Zoe off the ground, boxy pistol to the side of her head. Paul lay on his front, twitching, not quite unconscious. Tiny blue sparks danced over his back from a spray of small metal Xs. The sight of them tightened the muscles on the back of Kevin’s neck from remembered agony.
The man holding Zoe shimmered; brick texture gave way to black Enclave armor. Four more figures stepped away from nearby walls, neatly surrounding Bill, the four Nederland militia with him, and all of the survivors.
“Change of plan,” said the man holding Zoe. He ignored her kicking and squirming. “We would rather Tris accompany us alive, back home where she belongs. If I see one of you Neanderthals move wrong, everyone dies, starting with this wretched little grub.”
Kevin glared.
Tris held her hands up as tears
ran down her cheeks. “Okay. I’ll go. Don’t hurt any of these people.”
“Tris… they don’t want to kidnap you, they want to kill you.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I can’t risk these people for―”
Boom.
Two lines of blood exploded from the man’s helmet; a smaller geyser spurted from the left temple toward the bus, a larger torrent flew from the back of the head in the opposite direction. Zoe slipped from his dead arms, landing on all fours.
Kevin didn’t bother going for his .45. He sprinted forward as gunfire erupted everywhere. In a not too smooth roll, he landed on top of Zoe and slapped his hand down on the Enclave pistol that had, seconds before, been against the side of her head. Survivors as well as the Nederland militia scrambled for cover while trading shots with the armored figures.
Zoe struggled to get away from him and crawl to her father. Before her dress tore off in his hand, Kevin traded a fistful of denim for clamping a hand around her ankle while firing at a man in black armor perched behind one of the derelict backhoes. The high-tech pistol felt and sounded like any other gun he’d used, though the trigger clicked like an electric button. Still, bullets failed to penetrate the suit, appearing as silvery-grey dots on the deep black.
“Lemme go!” shouted Zoe.
“No!” Kevin dragged her back and pinned her under his hip. “He’s electrified. It’ll hurt you.”
Tris’s Beretta burped like an automatic weapon somewhere behind and to his left. Screams of pain mixed with curses and commands to ‘get down’ or ‘cover me’ in various voices. Heavy booms thundered over the street, a sound as though someone had rigged a cannon for automatic. Blood squirted from the head of the man Kevin’s borrowed pistol failed to hurt as the body spiraled to the ground in a heap. Cracked like an eggshell, the helmet split open revealing a stunned expression.
Kevin rolled over, dragging Zoe into his lap and scooting to put his back to the front end of the bus. The child fought as hard as her little limbs could fight, but he held her down. Tris wrestled with a larger male figure in black armor. He overpowered her, forcing her onto her back. Kevin shot him in the helmet and shoulder, but the Enclave soldier ignored the pistol as if it spat wads of soaked paper instead of bullets. He gathered Tris’s wrists in one hand, and drew his sidearm.
Boom.
A geyser of red sprayed out of his chest, leaving a tunnel through him the size of a man’s thumb. Tris flung the body to the side and crawled under the rear end of the Challenger. Gunfire trailed off, a few stray pops lingered over several seconds until it got quiet.
A woman moaned in pain. Multiple male voices growled.
“They’re down,” yelled a woman.
Bill shouted, “Nobody move. There’s one more.”
Kevin stared at the gaping hole in the back of the man who’d pounced Tris.
Answering shouts followed: “I don’t see anyone.” “Nothing here.” “Got shit.”
He set the pistol down on the road, cradled the still-struggling Zoe in both arms, and peered around the corner of the bus. One of the luggage compartments was open. Son of a bitch.
“Shots came from that way,” said an unfamiliar woman.
“Zara?” yelled Kevin.
“What?” Bill popped up from behind a dead car parked on the side of the orange building.
Tris, flat on her belly under the Challenger, widened her eyes. She looked apologetic and guilty.
A woman’s voice came from the roof of the bus. “Yes.”
“What now?” asked Kevin.
“You can tell Tris we’re even.”
Kevin looked up at a shimmery blur against the sky in the approximate shape of a helmet stuck over the edge above him. “So…”
Zara raised one hand. “I’ve got two rounds left and I’m not planning to waste them on anyone here.”
Bill stood. “Who the hell are you talking to?”
“It’s clear.” Kevin got to his feet, cradling Zoe. “This one’s friendly.”
Gasps sounded among the survivors and militia as Zara’s armored suit turned black, causing her to materialize out of thin air. She climbed down from the bus roof, holding her five-foot-long sniper rifle in as non-threatening a posture as one could conceivably hold such a weapon. Her helmet disassembled itself and collapsed into the pod behind her neck.
“It’s spent.” Zara nodded at Paul. “They won’t shock her now.”
Kevin released Zoe, who ran over and jumped on her father, sobbing. Militia emerged from cover and set to the task of tending to the wounded. At a quick glance, Kevin counted nine wounded and two, maybe three, friendlies dead. Marty clutched a bloody left shin. Patricia clamped a hand over her left bicep; blood oozed through her fingers.
Bill yelled and waved his arms, directing people about. A woman with Native American features and green camouflage pointed a Colt M4 at Zara from a cautious distance.
Tris crawled out from under the car and approached Kevin and Zara. “I thought you wanted to go back to comfort.”
Zara looked down. “You were right. They didn’t want to come get me. I sat around that stinking hovel for days, but not one person showed up until you came back with that… monstrosity. I had no idea the Enclave was planning an ambush.”
Kevin chuckled. “I figured that when you shot them.”
The militiawoman lowered her colt. “Sergeant Vasquez? What about this one?”
Bill looked at Zara, then Kevin. “What’s her story?”
Kevin explained as others carted the wounded away. Paul woke up around the time Kevin got to the point where they’d left her tied at the roadhouse. Zoe’s sobbing became gleeful cheering when her father ‘returned from the dead.’
Zara frowned. “These people don’t look half as bad as I thought they would.”
“What did you expect?” asked Bill.
“Face paint, dirt, minimal clothing, spears, cannibalism…” Zara shrugged. “You know, total primitive.”
Bill smirked. “We try.”
Crackling emanated from the helmet of the man who’d pinned Tris. Kevin tilted his head.
“… status report. What the hell is going on out there? Why is there so much red on the status monitor?”
Tris took a knee by the corpse and squeezed something at his neck. The front of the helmet split into dozens of metal slivers, opening like insectoid legs to expose a pale face with blood draining from the mouth and nose. Bright silvery electronics around glowing domes on either side of the head flickered with light and projected a holographic screen a few inches into the air, bearing a man’s face over a field of blue.
Nathan’s annoyance melted to cool hostility. “Tris.”
“Asshole.” She glared.
“Hey, that’s me.” Kevin pointed a thumb at his chest.
“Well, you are certainly proving to be an unusually stubborn thorn.” Nathan clucked his tongue.
“Why am I so important to you? You know the data’s useless. I’m no threat.”
“But you had The Cure in your head all along.” Nathan flashed a saccharin smile. A band of shift slid down the digital image from right to left. He chuckled.
“Okay, you’re a complete hardon, but I have to at least say that was clever.” Kevin pointed at the screen. “You’re still a piece of shit for doing that to her.”
Nathan ignored him. “Oh, well. I suppose I’ll have to keep trying.”
“Why?” Tris yelled. “I’m not coming back. What are you afraid of? I’ve got nothing you need.”
Kevin put an arm around her. “The kind of dick that would put music in your implant probably can’t sleep at night leaving a piece of his plan out of place.”
An imperious frown spread over Nathan’s lips. “For a cretin, your powers of observation are remarkably sharp. Hmm, I wonder if I can offer you something to put my mind at ease. Ten thousand coins perhaps?”
“Not happening.” Kevin glared.
Tris fumed for a few seconds. “So th
is is just some petty revenge thing? I didn’t even do anything to you. The Resistance is already gone.”
“It’s amusing me.” He smiled.
Her eyes narrowed. “This is an official frequency, isn’t it. You know the Council of Four has software listeners that react to people saying certain things like oh, ‘The Council of Four.’”
Nathan turned pale. He swiped at the right of the screen, though nothing changed.
“Oh, now you’re worried.” Tris leaned closer to the screen. “Can’t kill the channel? That means they’re listening. Do you think the Council of Four would approve that you’ve gotten nine or ten Enclave citizens killed on a pointless vanity quest to kill me when doing so provides zero value? I’m sure they’re not going to be happy.”
Static laced the screen in thin, drifting lines. A sixty-ish woman with pewter hair in a tight bun and a pronounced expression of displeasure appeared. Black epaulets bore silver bars atop the grey shoulders of a military-looking jacket.
“Director Gerhardt.” Tris stiffened. “Forgive me if I don’t bow… but I’m pretty sure my citizenship has been terminated. That’s okay. I don’t want it back.”
Despite being holographic, the woman’s steel-grey eyes seemed to drill holes in reality. “Nathan…” One eyebrow rose a quarter inch. “You will leave this little one to suffer in the Wildlands without further squandering of resources. Or the next precious life lost over her will be yours.”
The floating panel faded to black.
Tris put a hand over mouth. She looked like a little girl who’d just gotten her annoying older brother in trouble and wanted so much to laugh at him.
“I wasn’t expecting that.” Kevin pulled her close. “Maybe you can stop worrying now?”
She laid her head on his chest. “Maybe. There’s still bandits, giant scorpions, slavers, Glimmertown, Infected, disease, starvation, radiation―”
He kissed her.
“Giant scorpions?” asked an unfamiliar male voice. “Where?”
“They’re always in the historical documentaries,” said Zara.
The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 43
