The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Despite being warm and comfortable, Abby couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts refused to settle down. If she thought about the drone, she saw the people of Nederland going crazy and shooting each other for sneezing. If she pictured Tris or Kevin, her gut clenched in knots worrying about them.

  Zara and Bill entered about twenty minutes later. Zara seemed pleased. Abby stared at her wide-eyed.

  “Well, it wasn’t a chem carrier. The drone you took out was a recon unit, only cameras on it.”

  “That’s not good, is it? Cameras?” asked Abby.

  She walked over and put a hand on Abby’s shoulder. “You can relax, kid. There was no Virus on it at all… and you shot it down about a half mile out. I don’t think whoever was operating it could’ve seen Nederland from that distance. Night vision doesn’t have that much range, and they would’ve been staring into the dark flying east at that hour. Odds are in our favor that they didn’t spot the town. Losing that drone could either be great, or bad. Either they’ll mark this area as too dangerous for more recon, or they’ll send something out to see what happened to the last drone. That’s why I blasted the crap out of it. If they come looking, they won’t find the transponder or a crash site.”

  Bill scratched at the side of his nose with his thumb. “We need to double up on our watching the sky.”

  “Our biggest problem is at night,” said Zara. “All their drones are black, and they don’t make a lot of noise. I got my helmet back online, and it has night vision. I don’t mind pulling night watch, but one person can’t cover the entire sky.”

  Bee walked in from the rear hallway, still holding a pillowcase and the naked pillow she intended to put in it. “Forgive me for interrupting, but I have night vision capability as well. I am also quite accurate in the employment of chemically propelled ranged weapons. And I have excellent auditory sensors.”

  Abby smiled. The effort to look proud, earnest, concerned, or whatever the plastic-faced woman attempted struck her as hilarious when paired with a pillow. Seconds later, Abby burst into giggles.

  “Well, that’s a start at least.” Bill shook hands with Zara. “Can you get any of those other helmets working?”

  “Tried already. Sorry. My rifle makes big holes. Probably take a drone down in one shot. Wish I had more ammo for it.”

  “Something we can get from Ween?” asked Bill.

  “Doubtful.” She smiled. “Fifty caliber caseless only comes from one place I know of… and I’m pretty sure they won’t sell me any.”

  Abby yawned. Zara’s confirmation that Virus had not flown within seeing distance of Nederland took the wind from the sails of her anxiety. She blinked a few times, finding it hard to keep her eyes open while curled up on the sofa with Zoe under a nice blanket. The hour or so of extreme panic swung hard in the other direction, leaving her exhausted. No longer able to fight the cozy warmth around her, she lowered her head onto Ann’s shoulder and fell asleep.

  14

  Customer Service

  Not quite ten minutes after Kwan and his wife left the compound, headlights washed over the face of a building on the left side of the street. Kevin edged up to the gate, an expectant eyebrow raised.

  A large white truck with blinding patches of fluorescent yellow trim and emergency lights rolled into view. ‘San Francisco Emergency Management Services’ ran along the side in tall blue letters. He recognized the underlying frame as that of a box truck, probably with high-performance e-motors and an enormous battery to support all the lights and whatever other medical systems the thing had. Granted, whether or not any of it still worked… who knew?

  “Damn. Look at the size of that thing. That’s like what they called when twenty poor bastards got fucked up at the same time.” Kevin chuckled. “Could haul people to a clinic by the truckload.”

  Tris fidgeted at his side. The urgent look in her eyes clashed with the guilt about leaving these people behind.

  “Come on; let’s help them load up so we can get going.”

  Kwan turned the giant ambulance away from the Boatman’s encampment, stopped, and backed down the street toward it. Kevin averted his gaze, not interested in seeing what a pair of dual truck tires with in-wheel motors would do to dead bodies. Crunching bothered him enough without the accompanying visual. The truck came to a halt within inches of the gate. Both back doors opened, revealing the red haired woman, a small medical bed, and a cavernous space full of tiny cabinet doors and an array of devices and gadgets the purposes of which sailed straight over Kevin’s head.

  “Boy,” yelled Freya, waving at the tow-headed kid still sitting by the pile of MREs. When he looked at her, she beckoned him with a wave. “Come here.”

  Kwan slithered out of the driver’s door and walked around. His left bicep had a coating of clean gauze around it and his face ran with sweat.

  “Whoa.” Kevin got in his way. “You look like you’re about to pass out. I got it… just… sit down or something.”

  “Kwan,” said Freya. “This kid’s got skin lesions. We should clean him up.” She helped the boy up into the back of the truck. “And we got some better pants you can have that won’t keep falling off.”

  The boy nodded with an eager smile, and followed her into the back.

  “Thanks.” Kwan patted Kevin on the shoulder and climbed into the ambulance.

  Kevin and Tris hauled boxes of ammunition and weapons to the truck, though he did appropriate one case of 5.56 and one case of 7.62, which wound up in the Challenger’s trunk, as well as a case of four shiny new AK47s. He had to admit they looked badass, all metal with synthetic stocks.

  Allison, the eighteen-year-old, joined in and helped carry. At some point during the procession of moving boxes, she traded the bulletproof vest for a clean beige shirt. The boy, wearing a somewhat-too-large pair of intact jeans, lowered himself out of the back of the ambulance about fifteen minutes later. Six squares of white gauze clung to his chest, shoulders, and sides where Doc Kwan had tended to what the chain did to him. He raced over to the MRE stockpile and started carrying them by the armload to the truck. Fox ran after him to help, chattering away.

  The Indian man approached the doc, showing off an angry-looking knife wound along his left side. He spoke so fast Kevin couldn’t tell if he used English, though his gesture back at the ‘arena’ said all. Kwan nodded and waved him in.

  Before long, everything worth taking had been loaded into a vehicle. Kevin also helped himself to the Boatmen leader’s shotguns, though he did cut the tape to separate them. Fox climbed up on the front end of the Challenger and sat like some kind of biological hood-ornament-direction-finder.

  “Oh, no.” Kevin picked him up. “You’re not riding on my hood.”

  “But I know where you wanna go,” yelled Fox.

  Kevin carried him over to his mother. “I believe this is yours.”

  She laughed. “Figure we’ll head out by way of that place you’re looking for. Follow us?”

  “That works,” said Kevin.

  Freya, still holding Fox on her left hip, leaned forward and put an arm around Kevin. She tried to say something along the lines of ‘thank you,’ but only managed a teary babble.

  He weathered the embrace with a smile. Okay, maybe I understand why Dad did this kinda stuff.

  A hatch opened up from the roof of the giant ambulance. Allison emerged from the hole, wearing the bulletproof vest over her new shirt. She perched in a seat mounted to the opening, which gave her a full 360 swivel with the roof at the level of her stomach. “Outta here!” She raised a middle finger at the cage structure. “Fuck this place.”

  The blond boy leapt out of the truck. He ran over and hugged Tris, gave Kevin a thankful nod, and climbed back into the ambulance. Freya pulled the doors closed. A second later, Fox’s face appeared in the square window to grin at them.

  Kevin hurried to the Challenger, as did Tris. No sooner did he run his thumb across the row of rocker switches, lighting them blue, did the giant ambulance start for
ward. “Damn that’s gotta be handy. Rolling hospital. Almost tempts me to go find out what might be hiding in central Denver.”

  Tris blinked at him. “You want to go into Denver? We saw thousands of Infected last time.”

  “Well…” He tilted his hand away from the wheel in a low-key version of a shrug. “The militia. Bet the doc would love us if we brought her one of those things.”

  She patted his leg. “That sounds like a good idea until you see Infected coming after you.”

  He tensed. “They’re not so bad from a distance.”

  “That’s the problem. They love to come out of nowhere right on top of you.”

  “Okay… okay.” He shivered. “Point.”

  Kwan navigated a few turns over about a six-minute drive before coming to a halt by where a section of the e-tram tube collapsed in the street among hundreds of old merchant stalls. Walking forward would be a tight fit, never mind cars.

  “Damn,” said Tris.

  “The city banned cars a couple years before the war. They were worried about the environment.” He let the sarcasm roll thick. “I can just see people holding up protest signs about nukes not being ‘green.’”

  “Huh?” Tris looked at him.

  “Oh, something I heard from Wayne. People around here liked to complain. Get a big crowd together to protest something like fur coats, but they didn’t seem to care about the half a million people dying in China.”

  “Oh… I remember that in school. Their government split in half or something, civil war?”

  “I dunno. Wayne said the US had something to do with it… CIA or some other three letters.”

  “Huh.” She shrugged. “They told us the breakdown of society happened gradually across all countries. People like the ones who started the Enclave hadn’t suffered the same decay of humanity and they were going to save us.”

  “Yeah, right.” He grumbled, staring out over a few blocks’ worth of smashed tram tubes, booths, and half-collapsed buildings. Blue got his attention near the end, a round symbol made out of a stack of lines. “Hey… that.” He pointed. “I’ve seen that mark before. Ads for phones at bus stops and shit.”

  “More than nothing.” She shrugged.

  The ambulance slowed to a stop. Kwan, Freya, and Fox emerged and walked back toward the Challenger.

  Kevin shut down the car and got out.

  “That’s it.” Fox pointed at the blue orb. “Phone place.”

  “Worth checking out at least.” Kevin smiled. “Thanks.”

  “As long as I’m there, you’ll always be welcome at Point Reyes.” Kwan bowed his head. “I can never fully repay you for what you did for my daughter, for my family.”

  Freya couldn’t seem to bring herself to speak. She held Fox tight to her side and smiled at them.

  “Thanks!” said Fox, a broad grin on his face.

  Kwan shook Kevin’s hand. “I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking to find.”

  “Can we go with them?” asked Fox. “Explore?”

  “Uhh.” Kwan hesitated, evidently caught between worry for his family and obligation.

  Kevin shook his head. “Not necessary. I can’t ask you to risk your family over what could be some idiot trying to play games with us.”

  Kwan relaxed. “All right.”

  “Aww.” Fox frowned at the street.

  “Hey.” Kevin poked the boy in the chest. “You need to help protect your family.”

  The skinny, wild-haired seven-year-old seemed disappointed that he wouldn’t go on an adventure, but nodded. “Okay.”

  After another round of handshakes and hugs, and a genuine smile from Allison (hanging out the driver side door of the ambulance), Kwan and his family piled back into the rolling clinic and drove off. Hawk peered out from the passenger door window and waved at them.

  Tris fumed. “What is wrong with people?”

  “There’ve been fucked up people for as long as there’ve been people. Seems worse when there’s no organized law… and the shitheads collect in the same place.”

  “And the Enclave is pouring ethanol on the fire why?” She paced back and forth.

  “Only thing I can think of is the more people the Boatmen kill, the less the Enclave have to… and they probably feel like they’re not so much killing as ‘letting nature run its course.’”

  “I’m ashamed to be part of them.”

  Kevin pulled her close, quiet until she lifted her head. He stared straight into her gem-blue eyes and smiled. “You are not part of them. You might’ve lived there, but you were never part of it.”

  She rested her chin on his shoulder, hugging him. “I always did kind of feel like an outsider. Can’t explain it really. The place never felt like I belonged there.”

  “There ya go.” He held her for a few seconds more before moving to the car. “Looks like we’re on foot for a bit.”

  “Yeah.” She ran around to her door and grabbed her katana, AK47, and two extra magazines, which she wore in a bright green hip satchel.

  Kevin left the Enclave rifle (and all six of its remaining bullets) in the car and slung the AK he’d taken from a dead Boatman over his shoulder. He raided the box in the trunk to refill the magazine to thirty rounds, and stuffed another thirty loose bullets into his jacket pocket.

  “Hey,” said Tris. When he looked up, she threw an empty magazine at him. “You’re not going to be able to load stray bullets in the middle of a firefight.”

  “You’re expecting one?” Kevin chuckled and transferred the bullets from his pocket to the magazine.

  She pointed down the road. “Lots of hiding places, and it’s way too quiet.”

  “Right.” He closed the trunk, stuck the extra mag in the inside pocket of his armored jacket, and locked up the car. “Moment of truth.”

  “Not quite yet.” She swung her AK around and pointed it down the road. “Moment of truth is when we find a way to call that number.”

  Kevin unslung his rifle and held it at the ready. “Now you’re just splitting hairs.”

  She chuckled.

  They crept down the street, forced into single file here and there by the way the debris had collapsed. Dried blood smears made him feel like a small boy trying not to step on ‘lava.’ It didn’t matter what he tried to rationalize, his mind refused to believe blood on the ground in the middle of a large city came from anything other than Infected.

  Plastic and grit crunched under their boots. Something small and metal hit the ground and rolled away as Tris bumped an upended booth bearing signs advertising ‘organic satay - $13.50’ She grabbed a section of steel frame from the e-tram tube and pulled herself up and over a twisted jumble of concrete and rebar.

  Kevin hung the AK over his shoulder and worked his way up the barrier.

  “Oh, hey,” said Tris.

  He reached the top and peered down at her. “What?”

  She pointed at a storefront. “I’m tempted to scavenge a bit.”

  A dusty window held a number of child-sized mannequins modeling clothing. “Uhh?”

  “There’s never kid-sized clothing at any Roadhouse.”

  “That’s because people grab it before it can hit the shelf. Wayne had a pair of little jeans for a while… finally got thirty coins for them.” He grunted and climbed over the top.

  Tris stared at him, mouth open. “Paying that much for clothing is ridiculous.”

  He got upright and descended the hill of concrete with a few quick leaps from flat spot to flat spot. The echo of his boots striking the road carried in both directions for a while. “Especially for little pants the kid will grow out of in a year or two.” He grinned.

  “I’m going to look. Grab some stuff for Abby.” She hurried over to an aluminum-framed door and kicked at it. When it didn’t give, she rested the rifle against the wall, knelt, and opened her shoe sole. “Good sign.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “This isn’t going to take too long and it’s not like we’re trying
to beat some kind of countdown.” She withdrew her tools from her shoe and attacked the lock.

  Kevin watched the street, squinting at wherever shadows flickered. Any motion might be wavering signs or a scrap of tarp fluttering in the wind, or it could be Infected sneaking up on them. He slid his fingertip back and forth across the trigger. He didn’t like being in the city at all, and standing still, he liked even less. Things looked quiet now, but one gunshot could set off a flood of shambling death.

  Infected had good ears.

  The door gave up the fight, and Tris pushed it open, entering a smallish store. Shelves full of dust-covered stacks of kids’ clothes lined three walls except for a small changing area and a door to a back room. Hangars of shirts and dresses sat on round racks in the middle of the floor. Above the shelves, the walls sported yellowed posters of kids posing in the same clothing. Kevin locked stares with a picture of a boy about ten or so in a blue shirt with a white sweater tied around his neck by the sleeves, his arms folded and a cocky expression on his face.

  He spent a moment arguing with himself wondering what this world would do to that kid, or if it would’ve been better for the little arrogant bastard to keep the world he’d known. If that picture had been recent before the war, he’d be a sixty-year-old man now at the least. Probably not smiling like that anymore.

  Kevin raised an eyebrow at the sight of a price tag on the floor beneath a dress that looked intended more for a prostitute than a girl small enough to fit into it. “What kind of idiot would charge 2,600 coins for that scrap? It barely covers anything.”

  Tris looked over. “Oh. That’s prewar money. I think this was some kind of place for rich people.” She paused with an armload of garments. “Look for bags or something. If that phone number turns out to be bullshit, at least we can do something productive with this trip.”