The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Tris couldn’t keep still. She spent a little while sitting normally, a little longer facing sideways at him, and about four minutes cross-legged before shifting to sit facing forward again. For the past hour or so, she’d had her feet up on the dashboard and her head back. Despite closed eyes, she remained obviously awake.

  He figured he’d pull over for a pit stop around noon. After that, another fifty minutes and they should be at the airport. For a while more, a running track of mental music kept his mind off the steady thrum of wheels on pavement. The occasional pothole, piece of car, or decaying wreck on the side of the road offered small breaks from the monotony.

  “If you want me to drive, I can. You look exhausted,” said Tris.

  He yawned again. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Yep.” She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Thanks for taking this trip.”

  “I hope whatever he finds doesn’t disappoint you.”

  Tris scooted over and leaned against him, head on his shoulder. “That’s all I’ve been thinking about. I can’t say I won’t cry a little, but I promise not to melt down like last time.”

  “You never did let me have it for storming off like a jackass.” He squeezed the wheel in a repetitious clench-and-release, making the leather creak.

  “Want me to? I figured it was my fault.” She stared out over the countryside.

  “Ol’ Wayne would never believe those words came out of a woman’s mouth.”

  She jabbed him in the side. “Hey.”

  “Guys?” asked Abby. “There’s people chasing us. Are they bad?”

  Kevin looked over his shoulder. Abby knelt in the back seat, facing the rear window. Two dark shapes closed in on them. The nearer looked like a pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on a post in the bed, a pudgy, bearded guy in leather armor and black goggles standing behind it. A bit to the left and somewhat behind, a smaller, sporty, black car with spikes all over it weaved side-to-side in a rapid wobble. Beard seemed to be lining them up for a shot.

  “Either that guy’s itching to light us up or his steering is blown. Yeah that’s a problem.”

  Two small e-bikes swerved out from behind the truck.

  “Abby. Get down.” Kevin shot a look at Tris. “Can you pick off the guy on the ’60? Our mounted guns don’t go that high.”

  “What do they want?” A tremor wavered in Abby’s voice as she crawled to the floor.

  “Probably think I’m―”

  Sensing the machinegun about to fire, he swerved left hard, sliding over the grassy divider into the westbound lane. Fortunately, nuclear war had eliminated the bulk of oncoming traffic. Sparks danced across the paving as the m60 on the pickup truck roared to life. The man swiveled to follow, forcing Kevin to keep turning ever tighter. Abby screamed and rolled upside down against the right side. He yanked the manual brake lever and threw the ass end into a fishtail. A soft thump announced Abby returning to the seat. The small car lined up with his hood-mounted m60s for a second, but he didn’t bother wasting ammo.

  “―running a small amount of expensive cargo.” Kevin accelerated west and flicked on the rear-view targeting mode.

  One of the e-bikes pulled up less than a car length behind him.

  Kevin yanked on the wheel and hit the trigger button for the trunk guns. The M16 and Ak47 in back chattered. The unwary bandit fell forward over the handlebars after a two-second burst, sending the bike into a sideways spin over the blacktop.

  Tris opened the window.

  “Wait.” Kevin pulled left into another hard turn that bounced them into the grass median.

  Abby flew into the air, touched the roof for a second, and came down on the seat, screaming.

  A handful of metal clanks struck the car, but nothing burst into flames and no blood sprayed anywhere. Abby’s terrified shouting shifted to sobs.

  “Fuck this guy.” Tris thrust herself up, leaning to her hips in the window.

  Kevin kept going to the right, off the road as the line of tracer rounds skittered across the paving less than an arm’s length from his window. The pickup truck driver stomped on his brakes, causing the gunner to sway in his harness. In the second the bearded guy took to yell and beat on the roof, Tris fired twice.

  The big man slumped, lifeless meat held up by leather straps.

  “Ugh.” Kevin groaned as he accelerated and spun the wheel, circling behind the pickup truck with the other e-bike swerving around scrub brush in an attempt to follow them.

  Tris fired again as they crossed onto the road, three shots as fast as an automatic burst. The rear window of the truck flashed opaque white from smashed safety glass. No longer steering, the truck rolled in a straight line, gradually losing speed.

  “Where’s the little car?” yelled Kevin, having lost track of it while focusing on the 360-degree firing machine gun.

  “Behind right,” shouted Tris. “Five o’clock.”

  Kevin whipped his head around. The little spiked turtle thing hovered perfectly at his blind spot. A bone-thin woman in a leather jacket and ski mask stood hip deep in the sunroof with a pair of MAC-10s. He figured she’d been lobbing bullets at them for a few seconds already, but sucked at it.

  “Dammit,” muttered Kevin. “I hate killing chicks.”

  Tris’ Beretta went off twice. “I got it.”

  He cringed. Whatever. Bitch was probably batshit anyway.

  “Bike,” yelled Tris. She swiveled to her left, sitting on the edge of the door facing Kevin, aiming over the roof above his head.

  He stepped on the accelerator to avoid a ram from the evidently enraged driver of the spiked turtle car, and eyed the almost-stopped pickup truck. Tris squeezed off another shot while Kevin peppered the turtle with the trunk guns. The little armored car’s driver reached a pistol out the window; Kevin swerved hard to the right, causing Tris to thump onto the roof.

  Come on… two more seconds. Kevin fired a few more rounds from both rear-facing rifles to make the driver flinch. A loud boom went off behind them, but nothing struck the car.

  Fucking magnums. Kevin drove straight at the pickup truck. “Tris! In! Now!”

  She slipped down into the seat a split second before he cut the wheel left. The Challenger slid past the rear corner of the truck with inches to spare.

  Wham!

  The ass end of the truck bounced into the air, going from stationary to about twenty miles an hour in an instant. Kevin stomped on the brakes and steered into another powerslide that brought the larger hood guns to bear on the combined wreck. As soon as he had a clear shot on the turtle, he let off about fifteen rounds in tandem. Rhythmic recoil shuddered in the Challenger’s frame.

  Tracers passed through the dull black metal without any apparent effect beyond making a bunch of small holes surrounded by pale steel where paint flaked off. He looked around at the horizon in all directions. Nothing moved.

  “Where’s the second bike?”

  “Over there in the field somewhere. Got him in the head.” She pulled the magazine out of the Beretta to count bullets. “You hit?”

  “No, you?” Kevin looked at the console. Nothing turned yellow. He almost smiled. “Heard a few hit the car.”

  “Abby?” asked Tris.

  Silence.

  “Abby!” Tris screamed and leapt between the front seats. “Abby! Come on, sweetie, you’re okay… You’re alive.”

  No… please don’t do this to her. Kevin shoved the door open, got out, pulled his seat forward, and crawled in over the girl.

  She lay on the floor in front of the back seat, motionless. He didn’t see any obvious blood, so his heart agreed to move again.

  “Hey, kiddo.” He grabbed her arms and pulled her upright.

  Whimpering and sniffling, Tris pawed at her, searching everywhere for a bullet wound.

  Abby opened her eyes and looked around, disoriented. “W-where am I?”

  Tris clamped onto her and burst into tears. Kevin wrapped his arms around them both and held on, a lump i
n his throat too large to talk past.

  “I… What happened?” Abby squirmed, but couldn’t move.

  Kevin swallowed worry. “Are you hit?”

  “Someone hit me?”

  “No, I mean a bullet. Did you get shot? Does anything hurt?”

  Abby stared at him for a few seconds with a disoriented expression. “No… I’m dizzy.”

  Tris finally let go and slid back into the passenger seat with her hands on her face. “She probably fainted… or hit her head on one of those turns.”

  “I… could’ve let that idiot riddle us with bullets. Figured turning hard was the better option.” He picked Abby up and carried her outside. “It’s over, kiddo. Get some air.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Tris gave him a wounded stare. “Sorry.”

  “I…” Abby put a hand to her head. A second later, her eyes shot open with panic. “A bullet almost hit me! Fluff came outta the seat by my face.”

  She fainted. He rocked her side to side and patted her back. “Can you stay with Tris for a bit? I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay.” Abby sat sideways in the driver’s seat, feet on the road.

  Kevin pulled the .45 and stormed over to the wreck of the pickup and the turtle car. He walked up on the driver’s side window and put a bullet through the head of the driver, who may or may not have died in the crash. Red ooze spattered all over the interior, as well as the thin leather-clad woman in the passenger seat. He pointed the .45 at her ski mask, but didn’t shoot. A neat hole almost in the center of her forehead proved it a useless gesture.

  He checked on the pickup truck driver, who’d taken two of Tris’ 9mm rounds to the back of the head, leaving the windshield a wash of blood. A quick walk out into the grass ended with him putting two rounds into the back of one of the bikers. The man had a .45 as well, but a Glock instead of a 1911. He took it, and three spare magazines, two combat knives, and the boots. He didn’t have much use for a battered leather jacket on the verge of falling apart, and less interest in taking the pants from a dead man.

  Kevin carried the items back to the car, keeping a wary eye on Tris and Abby heading off the road a bit to relieve themselves. He dropped the salvage in the trunk, watered the grass on the opposite side of the road, and found a few hundred 7.62 rounds in an ammo can in the pickup truck’s bed, as well as the remainder of the belt in the weapon itself. He unloaded the weapon and added the ammo to the can, popped the M60 from the post, and carried both back to the car.

  Militia will probably get some use out of this.

  Abby walked up to him. “Why did they shoot at us?”

  “Where’s Tris?”

  “Over there by the crash.” Abby pointed to her left. “She said I should wait here. I’m not supposed to look at dead people.”

  Her flat tone almost made him laugh. “Seems silly doesn’t it, after everything you lived through in ’Rillo.”

  “Yeah.” Abby looked down. “She doesn’t want me to have bad dreams, but I already do. Why did they attack us?”

  He looked at her. “Pirates. They see a single car out this far alone and they figure it’s carrying something valuable. People hire drivers from the roadhouses to transport stuff, and they’re hoping to steal it. Either that or they’re batshit crazy and like to shoot at anything that moves.”

  Tris returned with two MAC-10s and a bunch of loose bullets in an improvised flannel shirt sack. She dropped everything in the trunk. “While I find your chivalry somewhere between cute and foolish, that car was full of needles and pills. I don’t think either of them qualified as fully sentient human beings anymore.”

  “Huh?” asked Abby.

  “Just say no to drugs,” said Tris. “Like the historical documentaries say.”

  Kevin fought the urge to laugh. Abby caught his shaky lip and gave him a look of ‘what’s so funny?’

  “What?” asked Tris.

  “Most of those documentaries are made up.” He guided Abby to the car. After she climbed in, he pushed the seatback into place and flopped in behind the wheel.

  “This wasn’t like that.” Tris jogged around and hopped in. “It was a message to tell everyone how dangerous drugs are. So if someone tries to give you some, all you have to do is say no.”

  He shut down the targeting system and leaned on the accelerator a little too hard. “And you think people who liked getting high saw those ads and said ‘oh shit, this stuff’s bad for me. I should stop’?”

  “Well, no, but… those who hadn’t started yet.” She sighed. “I’m being silly, naïve, and optimistic, aren’t I?”

  He grinned. “Maybe a little.”

  She’s wound up about something. Doesn’t have that usual sad face she makes whenever she has to kill someone.

  The next hour and change of driving passed without any additional pirate ambushes. Tris and Abby discussed random things about the town. Abby was gradually making friends with the local kids, and even looked forward to organized school starting in another month or so, something the town elders decided a good idea. His little trailer-park childhood home hadn’t had enough people to warrant any kind of group education, but Hemi didn’t do a bad job, even if most of his ‘learning’ had been about fixing cars and some other machines. Kevin could read, he could repair most mechanical things, and somewhere along the line, he got stuck with an unbroken moral compass.

  He glanced back at Abby for a second before slowing to take an off ramp. We should’ve left her at Ned. At some point, Route 80’s signs had changed to 680. He remembered the turnoff they’d taken last time, and turned onto the same road that circled around the northeast portion of Omaha straight to the airport without going into the city proper. He didn’t even want to know how many Infected dwelled inside the downtown district. All big cities, at least as far as his brain would believe, brimmed to bursting with them.

  The same rusting cars sat like barricades before a bridge of hulking green ironwork. Eight or nine months hadn’t changed the place, though it didn’t feel as if that much time had passed. A collection of derelict cars blurred by the window, congregated in the grassy patch between two lanes. They’d been there so long scavvers had even taken the seats out of them.

  Shit. We’re going to get back home and find the place fucked from the air. He wrung his hands on the wheel again, fighting back the urge to get angry and despondent over the idea of Nederland falling victim to a Virus attack. His nightmare of Zoe shambling after him made his foot heavy. Tires chirped as he turned past a sign for Eppley airfield. The road led them around in a curve that descended, putting the same bridge they’d crossed a moment before high and left. He whipped through a right turn past a sign that read ‘John J Pershing.’

  “Slow down,” said Tris. “What are you so pissed at?”

  “Nathan.”

  “Oh.” She scowled. “Me too.”

  “Think he did it?”

  Tris looked away, out her window at a huge warehouse type building. “I…”

  Abby shivered. “Are they gonna kill Ned too like they killed Amarillo? Is that why you let me come with you, even though you didn’t wanna?” She leaned into the front.

  “I don’t think he’d be able to do anything so soon after Amarillo.” Tris put her hand on Abby’s where she gripped the seat. “He’s not operating with the permission of the Council of… I mean the government. He’s just being an asshole.”

  Grass as high as the car’s roof passed on the right; when the red and white gas station went by, he thought of Tris’ reaction to Twinkies. He glanced at the little rad meter on the dash, the red LED display reading 000. Anticipating the radiation spike from the old quonset hut on the right, he floored it. He pulled 165 past a parking lot full of half-molten cars next to an office building that had definitely seen better days. It looked like it had collapsed in on itself even more since last time. He slowed and turned across the empty oncoming lanes and drove onto the tarmac, still squeaking the tires from speed.

  Abb
y grabbed the ‘oh shit’ handles on both sides, bracing herself against bouncing around.

  “Yeah. That doesn’t mean it’ll never happen.” He drummed his fingers along the top of the wheel. “I hope this guy’s got something real for you.”

  Tris smiled at him. She lit up as though a burden fell from her shoulders. Perhaps he hadn’t meant to commit himself as much as she had to somehow stopping Nathan, but she’d sensed it in him. Again, Zoe. The little blonde girl hadn’t even asked him to do this like she’d asked him to bring her father and brother back from Chicago. The mere thought of the Enclave’s virus hurting her lit his blood on fire.

  They rounded the corner of the terminal building. Abby gasped and whispered “wow” at the sight of the huge pile of techno-scrap stacked behind the airport in mazelike rows. A line of airplanes parked near the building got an even more awestruck stare.

  “What are those?” She asked in a small voice, seeming afraid of them. “Dead dragons?”

  Kevin tried not to think about Nederland at the moment; he put on a grin for Abby. “Airplanes. They don’t work anymore.”

  “Air… plane?” Abby tilted her head.

  “You know what a bus is, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, they’re like buses, only they used to fly.” He pointed up.

  “They’re big and scary,” said Abby.

  He brought the Challenger to a stop by a pack of baggage carts parked outside the door to Terminal A9.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of them.” Tris patted her on the hand. “They’re machines. We’re gonna go inside one.”

  Abby bit her lip, eyes wide.

  Kevin shut down the car and opened his door. “I’m guessing you wanna talk to him first, then go hunting for parts?”

  “Yeah.” Tris got out, faced the building, and folded her arms. “Now I’m afraid of going in there.”

  Abby squinted at her. “I told you they’re scary.”

  Kevin shoved his door closed with a thud and walked around to put a hand on Abby’s back. “It’s not the airplane she’s afraid of… it’s the information inside it.”