The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Kevin snagged the glass from her and put it on the shelf. “You take on an Infected with a sword, but you’re whimpering about a warm glass?”

  She exaggerated a pout. “I’m delicate.” Sad face lasted all of three seconds before she laughed. Humor survived another ten or so, and she sighed. “As far as I know, a bunch of things can affect how long someone lasts before the Virus leaves them mindless. Exposure type and severity, overall health, body mass, how good their immune system is… There are some individuals naturally resistant who take much longer to get sick. I remember someone mentioning the viral structure was similar to something a large portion of the population had vaccinations for. Chicken pox? Smallpox? Polio? One of those…”

  “Well, our friend was definitely not resistant.” He put the last of the glasses up top and shook water out of the basin.

  “Resistant isn’t immune. It just takes them longer to die.” She leaned on the counter, firing a morose stare at the floor. “Only the Enclave has a true vaccine for it.”

  “So you’re saying you have no idea how long he might’ve been ‘ticking’ before he went feral?”

  She shrugged. “Was he bitten once? Twice? Six times? Maybe he shot one at close range and got a mouthful of blood. Did he receive a direct dose of Virus somehow shooting himself up with a tainted needle?” Her eyes widened. “What if the Enclave is sending live agent out into the world again?”

  He chucked the basin through the hole in the wall to the kitchen and leaned his hip against the counter. “You think they’re gonna come this far east to infect one person? Didn’t Doc Andrews say something about sabotaging it from the inside?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like the Enclave would say ‘oh no, they ruined it… suppose we should stop.’” She folded her arms and grumbled. “They want to kill everyone they think is genetically compromised, and that’s pretty much everyone who wasn’t born inside the Enclave. That’s why I had to… Why it’s so important that…” Tears swelled from her eyes.

  He wrapped his arms around her and let her sniffle into his shoulder. “What’ll it take for you to let go of that guilt? There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

  “Then why do I keep feeling like I let everyone down.” She clung to him.

  “You didn’t. You wanted so bad for that data in your head to be real… Maybe you’re not guilty as much as pissed.”

  She fumed. “If I ever see Nathan… Oh, I got ash all over your shirt.” She swatted at his flannel.

  He caught her hands, grinning. “S’okay. Go clean up if you want, I got it here.”

  She smiled and headed off toward the bathroom. With the room empty, Kevin ducked into the office and flopped on an old canvas-topped stool by the radio unit he’d gotten from Amarillo. He grabbed the CB-style mic and squeezed the talk button.

  “Heads up. This is number 42, Rawlins, Wyoming. Had a DOA roll in last night with a trunk full’a spent brass. Grey van. Last charge near Hastings, Nebraska. Anyone got brains on that cargo?”

  Kevin let off the button and listened to the hiss.

  “Nein,” said Gertrude a few seconds later.

  “Ain’t mine.” Beth’s voice made him shiver at the memory of the grandmother hitting on him.

  “Whazzat?” asked a croaky older man, followed by a series of laughs.

  “Might be goin’ ta Ween,” said Clive, who ran a roadhouse in northwestern Colorado. Something about the voice made Kevin remember the smell of clove pipe tobacco.

  Kevin hit the button again. “Looked like he was headin’ westbound.”

  “DOA?” asked Nash. His ’house was somewhere in eastern Nevada or western New Mexico. “Someone killed a driver at a roadhouse?”

  A series of grumbles and doubts came by one after the next. Kevin eyed the black plastic grille over the speaker, noting the unusual absence of Wayne or Bee chiming in.

  “Don’t know the run was official. Tryin’ to figure that out.” Kevin let off the button to take a breath. “Weren’t no attack far as I can tell. No one killed him here. He got himself infected. Was nothin’ in his head when he came through my door.”

  A waterfall of curses preceded a loud old man yelling, “Whazzat?”

  “Go back to sleep, ’Zat,” said Beth.

  More chuckling.

  “So no one got anything on a footlocker full of empty brass?” Kevin leaned as far as the curly wire tethering the mic to the radio would allow, enough to peer into the main room and confirm it remained empty. He pushed off the doorjamb to stand upright again. “Wayne?”

  Silence.

  “Wayne, come back?” He flicked the talk button for a few seconds. “Bee?”

  “Prob’ly shittin’,” said Harold, a gravelly, but deep voice.

  “Who’s in Hastings again?” asked Earl.

  “No one who wants to stay alive.” Gertrude grumbled for a second. “Place is full of them things.”

  “The ’house isn’t in Hastings. It’s nearby,” said Clive.

  “Shit if I know.” Harold clucked his tongue.

  Tris walked in, having traded her flannel and jeans for a blue mechanic’s jumpsuit. “What are they arguing about this time?”

  He set the mic on the desk and grasped her shoulders, smiling. “I was trying to figure out if there was an active run on that box of spent ammo before I took it as salvage.”

  “Oh. Some ‘code’ thing?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced down, chuckling. “Not quite as bad as opening an unofficial ’house or shooting at the guy runnin’ it, but interferin’ with a driver on an official run is pretty bad.” He grinned. “Wish the pirates and raiders cared about the Code.”

  “Then driving wouldn’t be as exciting.” She smirked.

  A few of the voices on the radio attempted to get a response from ‘a roadhouse near Hastings,’ but no one chimed in to claim it. Kevin stared at the silver-black box.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Tris.

  He shifted to the side, left arm sliding down her back, and pulled her close. “They’re not answering…”

  “That shouldn’t put such a look of worry on your face.”

  “Neither is Wayne.” He tapped his boot. “Wayne’s always fast on the radio to tell everyone how wrong they are about whatever.”

  She started to laugh, but stifled it at the worried glower he fired into the radio box. “Gonna check it out?”

  Kevin’s eyes flared; his legs locked stiff. “If that Infected came from a ’house near Hastings…”

  “Hire someone to go to Hastings?” She rubbed his back.

  “I can’t send someone there.” He wiped at his mouth. “Might as well shoot them myself. No idea what they’re gonna find.”

  She joined him in staring at the radio for a little while. The voices eventually fell silent, still with no one claiming to be at any roadhouse near Hastings… and still no sign of Wayne. She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll do it.”

  “What?” He turned to face her. “No…”

  “You’ve got an idea something’s happened there… you think it’s possibly full of Infected. Doing nothing isn’t much different than sending someone to the place. It’s a Roadhouse, dammit… Someone will eventually stop there.” She hurried to where he’d put a map up on the wall. “It’s on 80, right?”

  “Yeah.” He followed, put a hand on her shoulder, and pulled her away from the map. “Look, Tris… I don’t…”

  “Think I can handle it?” She frowned.

  “No… it’s not that I’m just worried―”

  “That I’m weak and helpless.”

  “No.” He sighed. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “We can’t both go. Between this being your place and―”

  “Our place.” He brushed fingertips over her cheek.

  She smiled, eyes half closed. “Our place… and your thing about Infected, it should be me. Do you want to just stay quiet and have someone walk into a pack of Infected with no warning?”

  “We don’t even
know that’s what happened.”

  “Exactly the reason we should check it out.” Her deep blue eyes glimmered with urgency. “You know me. I can handle a couple infected.”

  He approached the map at her side, pointing at Hastings. “The ’house isn’t in the city. Likely along the highway like ours.”

  “Right. I can make it there in a couple hours if the road’s clear enough to fly. I’ll be back for a late dinner.”

  He eyed the doorway to the hall. Sang could watch the place. He could go with her. Infected. If one got her, it wouldn’t be much different from a human bite. One drop of blood in the eye and he’d be as good as dead. Her idea to go there. She’d feel as guilty as if she’d shot him herself. Heck, she’d probably wind up shooting him if he turned.

  “Please be careful.”

  Tris nodded. “I will.”

  “You haven’t done any combat driving.”

  “Nope. I’ll just run. The Challenger can outrun most things on flat, straight road.” She winked. “You’re welcome by the way.”

  Infected… He gnawed on his lip. “Give me a minute. I’ll ask Sang to watch the place while we’re out.”

  Tris grabbed his arm. “Kevin… there might be Infected.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m expecting.”

  “I don’t want to lose you either.” She clasped his face in both hands and kissed him on the lips. They stared into each other’s eyes for a while. “I’ll be okay.”

  “At least let me drive you there.” He grinned and winked.

  5

  Road Trip

  Tris opened the padlock securing the metal rolling door to the ground. After pulling it free, she flung the door up, exposing the nose end of the Challenger and releasing a cloud of air filled with the smell of rubber and ozone. At a scuff of boot on blacktop behind her, she twisted around to look. Kevin strode out the roadhouse’s back door, sliding into his red armored jacket. Heat shimmer along the ground blurred his boots. A half grin spread over his face as he leaned back to peer at the door over sunglasses.

  She stood on tiptoe, arms over her head, fingertips clinging to the underside of the door, and watched him walk. Her gaze lingered on where his jeans wrapped tight about his thighs. If I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t believe he’s worried. She let her arms drop and walked into the garage. Does he miss the road? She opened the panel by the right front fender and threaded the belt of 7.62 in the fixed-forward M-60 machine gun.

  Kevin stopped at the door and inhaled a deep breath through his nose. A mixture of excitement and contentment flashed in his hazel eyes. He moved to the opposite fender and loaded the gun on that side, though he didn’t bother looking at what his hands did. The whole time, he kept staring at her.

  Tris bit her lower lip. He doesn’t want us to be apart. She grinned. As much as she wanted to run back inside and spend the rest of the day in his arms, every hour they waited could kill someone. She unplugged the charging cable and let the spring-loaded spool in the wall reel it in.

  “You got the rear guns?” asked Kevin.

  “Yeah.” She scurried around to the back as he hopped into the driver’s seat and hit the button to pop the trunk. After loading a drum mag in the M-16 on the passenger side and racking it, she stuffed a huge, curved magazine into the AK-47 opposite it and flicked switches to arm the electric firing circuits. “Weapons hot.”

  She backed out and slammed the trunk. He drove the car forward, stopping with the rear bumper a few paces from the garage. After pulling the garage door closed, Tris ran around to hop in at his side.

  “Don’t feel like I’m forcing you to do this.”

  “I don’t.” He squeezed her hand. “Wouldn’t be right for me to sit there while you run off into the Wildlands. Besides, we’ve been inside for six months.”

  “But you love having your own roadhouse.” She eased herself back in the seat as he accelerated out onto the highway. A rusting tricycle in the grass along the side of the access ramp between rest stop and interstate put a lump in her throat. Had it been forgotten there by some family on vacation long before the world ended, or…? Her mind filled with the image of a toddler riding it while a mushroom cloud rose in the distance, their frantic parents running to collect them. She covered her eyes. “Ugh.”

  “What?”

  She looked up. Road shot by fast enough to make her guts clench up. “Dark thoughts. Nothing about this. Just being maudlin about the war. Someone left a toy on our lawn.”

  “Nothing landed all that close here. Whoever it belonged to probably didn’t die as a direct result of the war. No one shot Cheyenne Mountain.”

  “Wasn’t that a major installation?”

  He shrugged. “I guess. But maybe all those damn movies made it seem indestructible, so they didn’t bother trying.”

  “They?”

  “Whoever launched the nukes.”

  She blinked. “You don’t know?”

  He leaned toward her, peering over the tops of his sunglasses. “I’m not the one who went to school.”

  “They never mentioned it.” She leaned over to check the dash, and sucked air through her teeth at the speedometer showing 174. “This thing’s been sitting for a while… is it a good idea to push it so hard right away?”

  “It hasn’t been completely idle the whole time. I’ve been going to Carver’s Farm once a week or so. And you did a beautiful job on the drive system… still got a bunch of throttle to give her.”

  Tris sat up to check out the road ahead. Miles of endless brown flanked a ribbon of dingy grey paving. “Don’t hit anything.”

  “80’s pretty clean. Probably sees the most traffic of any road left in the world.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that? You think the whole planet got destroyed? What about all those countries that didn’t have anything worth taking?”

  “Countries?” He glanced at her for a second before dodging a patch of broken paving that snuck up on him.

  “Yeah… El Salvador, Nicaragua, all those places in Africa. At least tell me you’ve heard of Mexico?”

  “That’s Mexico, not country.”

  Tris sighed. “The third world. I guess they’re the first world now. If fallout didn’t get them.”

  Kevin blinked at her. “There’s more than one?”

  She let her head thud back against the seat. “This is going to be a long conversation.”

  “We got a few hours.” He put a hand on her leg, squeezing her knee.

  At a touch past one in the afternoon, three hours and change after leaving, Tris decided to abandon talking about her theory that so-called ‘third world’ countries may have escaped a nuclear war intact and probably continued to live much as they had before the war. Too many stories had convinced Kevin that giant ash clouds wiped out everything save for the few hundred people in this immediate area. What ‘some old man in a roadhouse ten years ago’ told him had leeched deep enough into his brain that her ‘book learning’ couldn’t dislodge it.

  Then again, she didn’t much trust the Enclave teachers either… not after what Nathan did.

  Interstate 80 had narrowed to only two lanes in either direction… two pin-straight lanes, horizon-to-horizon, separated by about twenty or so feet of waist-high grass. Distant trees dotted the landscape far away to the left and right, beyond endless fields of shifting green. Tris scanned the left side of the road since Kevin felt confident this particular ’house sat on the westbound northern lane. That had been one of the peculiar things he’d mentioned. Despite any semblance of law being gone for more than fifty years, for whatever reason, Drivers tended to respect I-80 for that. It had evolved that someone coming at you the wrong way was assumed to be a marauder or pirate, or simply an idiot worthy of soaking up some bullets.

  “There.” She pointed ahead at where a patch of crimson stuck out of the wavering tall grass. “I think I see a Roadhouse sign.

  He hit the brake hard enough that she leaned forward. As soon as he got the c
ar under fifty, he glided left and cut across the forest of wild grass between lanes. They rode the wrong lane for about twenty seconds before he veered into the exit lane for a rest stop. Her chest tightened up as two parked cars and a small pickup truck came into view, two with doors open. A long, bloody smear led from the driver’s side door of the nearest car to a notch in the building over which hung a sign reading, ‘restrooms.’

  Pale brown-beige bricks at the corner bore several crimson handprints. The front bay window had been shot out and the red neon letters spelling out Roadhouse in a semi-cursive script sputtered and buzzed, the ‘adh’ in the middle dark.

  Kevin wrung his hands on the wheel. “Well, that doesn’t look good, does it?”

  “Stop here,” whispered Tris. She pulled the Beretta off her hip and opened her door.

  “Can’t be much more than ten at the most.” Kevin pushed his door open as well and got out, leaving all the switches on.

  She looked over the roof at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Please be careful.”

  He reached into the car and pulled out the Enclave rifle he’d kept from the ‘deal’ they’d interrupted. “Oh, I’m all about careful.”

  Tris slung her katana over her shoulder before easing the door closed. She advanced around the front bumper. “Stay back. Pick them off.”

  “If I hadn’t seen you take out four guys in two seconds, I’d feel like a chicken.” He shouldered the rifle, taking aim.

  Tris grasped the Beretta in both hands. “The guys in the lab wear sealed suits because they’re smart, not because they’re chickens. You’ve already come to the place believing there are Infected here. That means a lot.” Her heart swelled. “Okay. Going in.”

  She crept along the access lane for about thirty yards until it met the parking lot. With the building still a good fifty yards away, she glanced back at Kevin. He’d climbed up onto the Challenger’s hood, flat on his stomach behind the rifle. He raised his hand for a second to wave. She returned it and faced forward again. The structure resembled a huge rectangle with a notch cut deep into the middle of the front under an overhang, where vending machines and bathrooms lurked. The left half contained the main room, bar and tables, while the wall to the right of the vending machine alcove had fourteen small doors like a motel.