“Damn. These things are old.” Anger flared up in her chest and warmed her cheeks. “Bastards scammed him… Amarillo sold him prewar junk.” Rage faded to dread. “Ugh. I gotta check them all so we don’t burn the entire place to the ground.”
She cleaned the contacts in 2B, reseated the wires, and put a fingertip on the switch.
“Please don’t blow up. I promise I’ll clean you all.” Tris flicked the switch, and the faint vibrating thrum of active electronics surrounded her. She let off a sigh of relief a second before her stomach growled. “Okay, guys. I need some lunch. I’ll be back right after I eat. Please don’t die on me.”
I’m talking to solar panels. She wiped sweat from her forehead again. Maybe I’ve been in the sun too long. After tossing the wire brush back in the toolbox, she stood and made her way toward the roof access hatch. A flash of pink caught her eye by the last panel of the rearmost row, 10D. A yellow-yarn-haired rag doll in a pink dress lay bent in half by where the panel array’s leg bolted down. She picked up the twelve-inch tall toy and locked eyes with it.
“What are you doing up here?” She looked to the south. “Dammit, Zoe. I told you not to go on the roof.” Next time we visit Ned, I gotta bring this… and I’ma yell at her for ignoring me. She eyed the edge. Falling from a one-story building probably wouldn’t have killed the girl, but had the girl been hurt, Tris would’ve felt horrible.
She clutched the doll to her chest and approached the rusty metal flap over the ladder down into the building. Another glance off to the west showed no sign of approaching Enclave threats… or anything else beyond the endless open terrain. Could it be that Nathan’s fear of exile or punishment outweighed his obsessive-compulsive need to ‘tie up a loose end?’
Tris fussed with the ragdoll’s hair. Will I ever be able to stop worrying? She half-smiled at the goofy face on the toy. The place had been too damn quiet without Zoe and her brother around. Kevin seemed happy to settle in, and despite her initial doubts, he’d shown zero signs of regret at ‘not being out there’ anymore. As much as she loathed feeling useless in terms of ending the threat of the Virus, Kevin had a point. How much could she accomplish alone? She pictured the imposing black and steel gates of the aboveground portion of the Enclave complex, the mounted weapons, the armored guards… even if she could raise an army out here, one of their troopers could wipe out dozens before going down. While her hardware might be on par with theirs, they had more training, more experience, and better gear. One of her―perhaps two if Zara could be talked into helping―wouldn’t tip the scales.
Tears of frustration gathered at the corner of her eyes. Kevin constantly reminded her that not being able to cure the Virus hadn’t been her fault. It’s not like she’d had the real cure and lost it… she never had it to begin with. She didn’t mess up. Nathan was an asshole.
Tris chuckled. Maybe I should let go. I guess it’s nice enough here. Could I be happy? She squeezed the doll and let her thoughts drift to the echoing memory of a child’s giggle while playing. If we’re going to settle down, might as well commit to the whole settling down thing.
“Maybe…” She traced her fingers over her stomach, thinking about Zoe giggling, trying to forget what it felt like to be strapped down on a medical table for ‘routine tests.’ “If they didn’t take them all.”
A loud, squawking beep from the back room got Kevin running. He ducked into the office across the hall from the kitchen and grinned at a plywood board full of forty green lights. Relief spread over him. Not having to replace a dozen panels felt like finding a bag of 1,500 coins.
“Tris, you are amazing,” he muttered at the ceiling.
He pivoted on his boot heel and wandered into the kitchen. The air still held the essence of greasy meat and fried potatoes. Sang reclined on his bed, a thin foldaway mattress pad scavenged from an old sofa bed, reading. The old man hadn’t had much to his name beyond a suitcase of old books when he arrived. Since he’d been here, Kevin had quietly dropped word with drivers he’d expected to see again to keep an eye out for books. A couple spare coins here and there was a small price to pay to brighten the day of a man who was happy to work for room and board.
“Hey boss.” Sang looked up, smiling. “Someone order?”
“Not yet. I’m sending Athena down to Carver’s to pick up more supplies.”
“Ahh, good. Good.” Sang nodded. “We are running low on sausage and potatoes.”
Kevin glanced at the giant silver fridge they’d salvaged from the former burger place. The solar array on the roof had more to offer than charging vehicles. “Yep. It’s ordered. Since we’ve been doing okay this month, I’m picking up some extra meat.”
“Oh? What?”
“No idea.” Kevin smiled. “Whatever Carver’s got available. We’ll find out when Athena gets back.”
“Sounds―”
Wham. A heavy thud reverberated in the walls.
“Try it, asshole!” shouted Athena.
A deep male voice roared in response.
Sang nodded to the left. “Better get out there.”
“Shit.” Kevin pushed away from the doorjamb and ran to the front room.
The huge dark-skinned man Athena had been sitting with stood by a flipped-over table, hand poised over a pistol on his belt. He had his back to Kevin, gold sewn-on lettering spelled ‘Rook’ between his shoulders above a crude rendition of a castle tower in silver permanent marker. Athena hovered a few steps away in a chin-forward lean, a nascent grin still on her face. Despite the top of her head barely being even with his pectorals, she showed no sign of fear. One finger teased around the handle of a 1911 on her belt.
“Come on, Rook. You think I’m all talk? Pull that thing out and I’ll show you what a ‘little girl’ can do.”
Rook snarled. His cheeks reddened and his eyes bulged. Perhaps the mental capacity to understand firearms had left him; he seemed about to strangle her.
“What are you waitin’ for, old man?” Athena glided a step to her left, adding a sultry bat of her eyelashes. “Don’t keep a girl waiting all day. I could use the coins from selling your shit.”
“Hey,” yelled Kevin, pointing. “You kill him in here, his shit belongs to the house. You know the Code.”
Athena’s expression soured. “That’s horseshit, you damn thief. He runs his mouth into a gunfight, the shit’s mine.”
“Runs my mouth?” Rook grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled. “Argh. You irritating little bitch. You got a lot of nerve. I oughta―”
“She’s faster than she looks,” said Kevin. “Just walk away.”
“You’re not taking my shit.” Athena glared at Kevin. “That’s bull.”
“One…” Kevin walked to the end of the counter. “It’s the same in every roadhouse from the West Coast to the Mississippi. Someone gets dead in a ’house, all their crap belongs to the ’house. Ain’t about gettin’ crap, it’s about not shooting the shit out of the place.” He waved his arm as if to indicate the room. “This is supposed to be a place of respite. Preserve the sanctity of the Roadhouse Network and all.”
Rook drew his leg back, eyeing a chair, but decided against it. He stormed up to the counter. “Whiskey double, and a room.”
“Luxury room or cot-in-a-closet?” asked Kevin.
“Small room’s fine,” muttered Rook.
“Nine.” Kevin kept half an eye on Athena while pouring some JD in a tumbler. He set it on the counter next to nine coins, a mix of nickels and pennies. After collecting the money, he fished a key out of a steel bin next to the cash box. “Room five.”
“Thanks.” Rook fired off a dire glare at the grinning blonde, and tromped past Kevin toward the small rooms.
Once he’d gone out of sight into the narrow corridor, Athena rolled up on the counter. “So…” she twirled a strand of hair around her finger, smiling. “You should give me that bigger job now. You obviously think I can handle myself.”
Kevin dropped the coins one by one into the bo
x, not looking up at her. “If he’d wanted to throw down, he’d have shot you when you decided to give me the evil stare. You broke eye contact. Half a second is all it would’ve taken… assuming he didn’t miss.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“And at about ten feet… he wouldn’t have missed.” As the last coin fell into the cash box with a clink, he shifted his eyes up to regard her. “You may think you’re hot shit, but you’re just a seventeen-year-old with more balls than brains. You’re basically me at that age―with tits.”
Athena fidgeted and rested one hand on the edge of the counter. “Nice try, but I’m nineteen.” She showed off a strange metal holster that looked like her gun might fall out of it if she jumped. “Got a quickdraw rig. I’d have had him easy.”
“Except for the part where you broke eye contact. You kill anyone yet?”
“Yeah… of course.”
Kevin chuckled. “Outside of a car? I don’t mean lighting someone up with that .50 of yours. You ever look into a person’s eyes after you put a round through their heart, see the realization in their last two seconds of life spread across their face that they’re dead.”
“It’s not gonna work, pops. You’re not gonna scare me into going home and being a ‘good little girl.’” She threw herself onto a barstool and slapped the countertop. “Gimme a beer.”
“Not what I’m trying to do.” He filled a mason jar with some of Wayne’s homebrew. “Two.”
Athena fished out a pair of quarters and set them on the Formica. “So, what are you trying to do then?”
“I’m tryin’ not to have to carry your dumb dead ass out back and bury you.” He set the beer down and scooped the coins into his hand. “All I’m sayin’ is, don’t take stupid chances, and don’t look for fights where you don’t gotta have ’em. You run the road long enough, you’ll get more than you ever wanted.”
Athena rolled her eyes and took a sip. “I dunno how you can do it… just sit here.” She leaned back, closed her eyes, and smiled. “I can’t imagine being stuck in one place doing the same damn thing every day. I’m gonna be driving ’til I’m too old to walk.”
She really is just like I was.
Kevin glanced over his shoulder at a metallic thud from the back hallway. His expectation of seeing Tris soon after the roof hatch closed proved correct. She glided over and leaned against him. After a quick kiss, he looked at Athena again. “If it’s what’ll make you happy, go for it. Just remember, stupid equals dead.” His voice became Wayne’s in the back of his mind. “There’s a fine goddamn line between confidence and foolishness, and fools don’t live long.”
“Sure thing, gramps.” Athena winked. “Hey Tris.”
“Hey.” Tris leaned up and kissed him again on the lips. “There’s a problem.”
Kevin shot a look at a ragdoll in her hand. Oh shit. She wants a kid. “What kind of problem?”
Tris stuck the doll on the shelf behind the counter, under the panel full of room keys. “The electronics on the roof are almost sixty years old. All of it was manufactured before the war.”
“That’s bullshit.” Kevin glared at the ceiling. “They’re brand new… even had the plastic film on the solar plates.”
“They’re stamped.” Tris set her hands on her hips. “I’m not lying.”
“No… not callin’ bullshit on you… That Amarillo gave me salvage.”
Tris wiped her sooty hands off on a rag. “I don’t think any of it was used… probably sat around in a warehouse. I’m going to have to clean everything. It might not be a big deal that the stuff’s so old, but if we don’t deal with it now, it’s going to be a mess.”
Visions of roadhouse-in-flames danced across his mind. “Shit. Yeah.”
“Relax. I’ll get started on it after lunch, but it’ll take me a few days to go over them all.” She locked lips for a third time, wrists crossed behind his neck.
After a few minutes, the snap of a coin touching the counter made him look. Athena smirked at him.
“What’s that?” He gestured at the dime.
“Figured if I’m getting a show I should pay for it.” She winked at Tris, who threw the cleaning rag at her.
“Sang?” called Tris.
“Yes, boss?”
“Can you please whip me up some lunch?”
“What you want?”
“Whatever we have the most of.” Tris let out a breath, turning to Kevin. “How’s the stock?”
“Low, but Athena’s about to run to Carver for us.” Kevin grinned.
The teen drained the three-quarter full beer without coming up for air. “Yeah, yeah. I’m goin’.”
Tris collected a tray with a burger on it from Sang via the hole in the wall to the kitchen, then flopped on a folding chair behind the counter, using her lap for a table.
“So other than our solar array being dangerously old, what else was wrong with it?” asked Kevin.
Tris finished chewing her first bite. “Corrosion on the contacts. Broke the circuit. I’m gonna be up there a while.”
“I’ll go with you.” He smiled, but looked away as a man, woman, and three kids all stood at once. After a bit of murmuring amongst themselves, the man walked over.
“Nah. There’s only one wire brush and you gotta watch the shop.” Tris winked and took another bite.
“Afternoon,” said Kevin.
“Howdy.” The man directed a suspicious squint at Tris for a few seconds before making eye contact with Kevin. “How much ya askin’ fer one o’ them big rooms a night?”
“Ten.”
The man nodded and fished out an assortment of coins. Soon, the family disappeared through a door into what had, prior to August of 2021, been a cookie and cupcake shop.
“There’s only one bed in there,” said Tris around her hamburger. “Do we have any extra blankets?”
Kevin leaned forward and kissed her atop the head. “You are so beautiful.”
She smirked, waving a round slice of fried potato at him. “Are you trying to be stingy and not come off as an ass?”
“Nope.” He sighed with a hint of a smile. “All that you worry about, and you’re still so sweet to people.”
She suppressed a laugh and tossed the fry into her mouth.
“So… you want a baby huh?”
Tris gasped and started choking.
He patted her back until she coughed up a mangled wad of potato and took a few raspy breaths. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she gave him a startled look. “Where’d that come from?”
“Oh, you had a certain look in your eye when you came in with that doll.”
“Zoe was on the roof.” Tris scowled. “I told that girl not to play up there. What if she falls?”
Kevin leaned back, stretching. “Maybe she’d learn to listen then.”
“Do you miss it?” asked Tris.
“Miss what?” He leaned his butt against the shelf behind the counter.
She waved her half-burger around. “The road… the adrenaline… traveling.”
His lips curled into a contemplative frown. Wayne had joked about that… Soon as you find yourself lookin’ out at everyone else livin’ the life while you’re sittin’ still, you’ll wish you’da had fun with all that money. Kevin smiled. “Not really. Not as much as Wayne was sure I would. Guess I outgrew it.”
She finished her lunch in silence, set the tray aside, and stood. After a long, lingering stare, she kissed him again. “So, what are you thinking about?”
He licked his lip. “I think I’m gonna have a burger.”
She jabbed him in the side, grinning. “Ass.”
He laughed and brushed her hair off her face. “I’m thinking how glad I am those idiots carried you into Wayne’s.”
She jabbed him in the ribs again.
“Ow. What was that for?” He rubbed the spot.
“For leaving me tied up so long.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and laughed. “Okay, I’m gonna go get started on the panel guts.”
She gave him a raspberry and disappeared down the hall past the kitchen. Kevin shifted. He caught sight of the yellow-haired ragdoll and gritted his teeth. Driving other people’s crap from settlement to settlement had its scary moments, but the idea of having a kid of his own… now that was frightening.
2
Barren
Rumbling in the ground drew Kevin’s attention to the door, and the shadow of an enormous olive-drab semi-truck. The glimpse hinted at tires as tall as a man, and a ladder on the side next to painted-over US Army markings. Liquor bottles on the shelf behind him clinked together as the titan passed close to the front door and proceeded around in a wide, circular turn before nosing up to the westernmost charging spot.
He looked up at the ceiling. “Damn, I hope the system can handle the pull from that monster.”
A click from the panel announced someone had plugged in a moment later, in time with the indicator light going yellow. Another click preceded the adjacent bay showing a plug as well. Soon after, two dark-haired men in their later twenties entered, followed by a pair of pale tween girls who appeared to be identical twins. Three women and an older teenaged boy with an infant in his arms brought up the rear. Everyone except for the infant carried a weapon. Assault rifles on the adults, both of the girls had handguns in thigh holsters, and the first man through the door also carried a blade akin to a medieval broadsword in a leather harness on his back. All wore green camouflage combat fatigues, though the twins had mismatched flip-flops instead of combat boots. The mood among them seemed friendly, if guarded.
“Afternoon,” said Kevin. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen one of those things before.”
The man flashed an annoyed smile. “Usually we don’t need to come in to charge. Got our own panels on the trailer, but damn pirates did a number on ’em. Headin’ to Amarillo to get some replacements once we finish this run.”
The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 46
