The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “I’m afraid they won’t come back. What if they get hurt?” Abby wiped her tears on her forearm.

  Bill smiled. “Tris is a lot tougher than she looks, and that Kevin’s pretty crafty. I think between the two of them, they’ll find a way or decide it ain’t worth it and come back.”

  She curled against his chest, too worried about them to talk.

  “Abby. I need you to promise me you won’t try a stunt like this again. If anything happened to you, Tris would kill me. I promise we’ll do everything we can to protect you.”

  “Uhh.” She tossed ideas around her head, trying to think of how scary the mountains would be all alone. Any number of things could come after her: Infected, raiders, wolves, falling in a hole she can’t climb out of… snakes. She gulped. “Okay. I promise.”

  “Good. I’m going to trust you. Don’t make me feel dumb.”

  Abby nodded. “Promise.”

  Bill slipped an arm under her legs at the knee and carried her back up to the loft. He went up the ladder only far enough to set her on her feet at the top. “Back to bed for you.”

  “’Kay.”

  Abby started toward the bed, but froze at the sight of Zoe’s butt protruding from the closet. The girl rummaged around in the pile of junk like a dust hopper digging a burrow, her nightgown glowing blue in the moonlight.

  “Zoe?” whispered Abby.

  The girl sat back on her heels and twisted around, a bug-eyed gas mask on her face.

  Abby screamed.

  A heavy thud came from below. Bill said a few nasty words before dragging himself up the ladder.

  Zoe pushed the mask up off her face and grinned.

  Abby wilted to her knees, both hands over her chest, gasping for air.

  “What happened?” wheezed Bill.

  A door opened downstairs.

  “Bill? What’s up?” asked Pete.

  “Dad?” Cody sounded exhausted. “What’s going on?”

  Abby pointed at Zoe, still breathless.

  “Oh.” Bill chuckled. “Girls, go to bed, now.” He eased himself down the ladder grumbling about his knee. “False alarm. Zoe startled Abby with a mask.”

  Two doors closed downstairs.

  Zoe’s grin faded to an apologetic frown. “Sorry. I found one for you too.” She crawled over and dropped another gas mask on the floor by Abby’s knees. “Zara said the bad stuff is breathed. These will help.”

  Feeling ridiculous for finding Zoe-in-a-gas-mask scary, Abby giggled.

  Zoe smiled. “Don’t laugh too loud. We’ll get yelled at.” She pulled her mask off, shaking her head to free her hair from the rubber straps, which snapped up into the mask.

  “Yeah,” whispered Abby. “Why are you awake?”

  Zoe stood. “I was gonna go find you.”

  Abby knee-walked to the bed. “Sorry.”

  She started to pull herself up into bed when a ripple of gunfire outside sent her to the floor in a ball. Zoe darted to the closet and grabbed her M-16, then ran back across the room to the window they’d climbed out of before. Hunkered down over the windowsill, she aimed into the night. Shots continued for a few seconds more before fading to silence, though Zoe didn’t fire.

  A faint electric whine emanated in the distance, and a loud splintering crunch preceded a series of sharp smacks suggesting a heavy object hurtling through trees.

  Abby’s eyes widened to their limit. They shot down a drone… I heard it crash. “We… we gotta get out of here!” She jumped upright, looking around with random, quick jerks of her head. “They’re coming. It’s found us!”

  Zoe tossed the rifle onto the bed and leapt on Abby. “No. Don’t go out there.”

  “We gotta…” Abby struggled to run for the ladder, but the smaller girl tangled her legs and she fell on all fours. Her heart raced; every second she remained in the house, remained in Nederland, brought her that much closer to death. “Come on!”

  Zoe turned into a koala bear, arms and legs wrapped around her. “Abs! Calm down. Gran’pa! Help!”

  Abby thrashed to get free, dragging Zoe along the floor. She made it within a few feet of the ladder when a figure rose up past the floor. The motion made her scream and reverse course.

  Infected in the house!

  Shrieking, Abby twisted side to side to get away from Zoe, but the little one held on like a wolverine. The formless person-shaped blob rising over the ladder got taller… and taller… and taller. She refused to look at the bloody mouth she knew was opening to infect her.

  Abby clawed and kicked at the air, screaming, “Daddy!” over and over.

  “She’s having a panic attack,” said a man.

  Another huge figure bounded up into the loft. The stink of rotting bodies made her gag; she strained to get away, but the younger girl held her fast.

  Zoe pulled Abby upright, sitting behind her, and clamped on. “Abby! It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s just Gran’pa and Dad.”

  Every muscle in her body locked, she stared at the amorphous figures, breathing hard, covered in sweat.

  “Abby.” Zoe’s arms felt like a steel band around her middle. “You’re okay. It’s Gran’pa.”

  The nearer Infected changed… no longer rotten. Older… Bill.

  Abby went limp. She stopped fighting to get away from Zoe. Bill took a knee beside them and brushed her hair off her face before staring into her eyes. Her heart raced; she breathed so fast she got dizzy.

  “Abby?” asked Bill.

  Shivering, she managed to nod and gasped for breath. “Yeah…”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe in Zoe’s room.” Bill leaned back. “I’ll go and get you some water. Try to think of happy things.”

  Abby’s face scrunched up, a pleading frown mixed with a touch of glare. How could he ask her to ‘think happy’ after the Virus landed in Nederland?

  She squirmed around and clamped onto Zoe, who gave her an ‘are you okay?’ stare.

  Abby shook her head and whispered, “The Enclave killed us. We’re gonna die…”

  21

  The Combat Package

  Flat on his back, staring at a bleak, pale-grey ceiling with rows of dim fluorescent lights led Kevin’s mind through a quasi-dream of having survived nuclear war in an underground shelter. Neither asleep nor awake, the mental wandering left him briefly out of touch with reality. A sudden spike of urgency―needing to rush home to check on Abby―shocked him wide awake. Hundreds of miles away, he had to know if she’d survived the bombs falling.

  Tris shifted in her sleep; her hair brushed against his chin.

  Oh… dreaming. He closed his eyes and breathed in slow. The life he’d started in Nederland barely a month ago felt like a dream as well. So close to how he imagined the world before it all went to hell. Probably why the sense of being in a nuclear bunker gave him that dream.

  I gotta at least try to sleep. Should I take that shot? Damn catch-22. Might find more inside, might not. If I don’t take it and I get scratched going in there, finding more won’t matter. If we do find more, I’m going to feel reckless for not using it. He shifted, trying to get comfortable on the thin mattress. Why would they have the vaccine in their quarantine area? They’d keep it in the main city. He sighed out his nose. Maybe Abby will be able to sleep if she gets it. A grin curled his lips. I’m getting as bad as Tris. Darn kid.

  “Hey,” whispered Tris, pushing on his shoulder.

  Somehow, she’d teleported from curled up next to him to standing over him.

  He squinted up at her, fluorescent lights above her made her hair glow. “What?”

  “They’re ready to show us the way in.”

  I just got in bed. “What? What time is it?”

  “It’s a little after ten in the morning.”

  Kevin grunted, but sat up. “Okay.”

  “You didn’t take the vaccine, did you?” She bit her lip.

  He smiled. “Abby needs it more than I do.”

  Tris looked away, conf
lict plain on her face.

  “It’s fine.”

  “Is it?” She took his hand in both of hers. “I want Abby to be safe and happy, but we’re about to go through a tunnel with a high chance of Infected being there. Abby’s not in immediate danger. You are.”

  “And unless you want to sit around for four hours or so, I don’t have time to take it anyway.”

  She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “Dammit. If you get killed down there…”

  “Then you finish what you came here to do, go back to Ned, and do everything you can for Abby.”

  Tris sniffled and clamped her arms around him.

  “Hey… I’m not planning on tongue-kissing any Infected. That poor kid’s got enough nightmare fuel to last her till she’s old and grey. This vaccine thing might help her cope a bit more.”

  She gathered her composure and raised her head, staring into his eyes. “Okay. You are such an asshole, but you’re a good asshole.”

  He chuckled.

  “At least stay near me so I can keep them off you.”

  “Sure.”

  Kevin yawned and let her pull him to his feet. She led him down the hallway deeper into the base, hooked a left at a four-way intersection, and entered a space covered in tiny blue tiles. A row of lockers stood to the left in front of a battered wooden bench mounted on two steel posts. The other side of the room held six showerheads around the walls, each with its own drain, and no partitions whatsoever.

  Zoryn, and another man he hadn’t seen before, as well as a woman with waist-length black hair cleaned themselves, showing little reaction to the two of them walking in. Tris’ cheeks pinked, but she disrobed.

  Well, I guess this isn’t going to be a ‘fun’ shower. He piled his clothes up on the bench near Tris’ and followed her to the far-left showerhead. The heat in the water caught him off guard. In all his twenty-seven years, he’d never seen it come out of a tap hot enough to waft steam.

  “Whoa. Yowch that’s hot.”

  She smiled. “I’d almost forgotten what it’s like. Once we get home, I’m going to be working on proper water heaters so we can have showers like this.”

  “Hey,” said Zoryn. He didn’t quite turn to face them, but Kevin looked elsewhere. “I’m going to be with you guys in the tunnel. As far as the walk goes, it ain’t too bad. Should take us about an hour.”

  “Sounds good.” Kevin looked around for soap, but found only a small silver can. He patted Tris on the butt and whispered, “soap?”

  She took the can from its shelf and sprayed a lump of lime green foam into his hand. “You’ve never seen real soap before?”

  “Yeah… usually blocks of it.” Mint slapped him across the face, making him cough. “Damn.”

  “This is new soap. It’s antibacterial.” She sprayed some into her hand and lathered it over her chest.

  Nervousness and worry kept any playfulness out of her demeanor. He proceeded to wash himself, though froze two minutes later when Amaranth walked out from behind the lockers, naked. If she looked young before, she looked even younger with nothing on. Her presence made him feel awkward. He’d driven cargo to plenty of rural settlements where some of the people didn’t bother with clothes, many of them kids, but he’d never showered within five feet of them either. Knowing her true age of thirty-six didn’t take away from what his eyes told him.

  He stared at Tris instead.

  With no chance of the shower becoming anything more than a cleaning process, they finished in a few minutes and headed to a table nearer the lockers where a pile of towels sat folded safely away from the spray.

  Amaranth walked over as they dried off, casual as anything, and smiled. “Good morning.” She gestured at the lockers. “There’s some jumpsuits for you in number 19. Her shoes look Enclave already, so she didn’t need that. We got you some.”

  Kevin nodded.

  “Yes.” Amaranth put a hand on her hip. “I might have the body of a twelve-year-old, but I’ve got the brain of a dirty old woman. It is goddamn annoying. No one will touch me.”

  “Anyone that would, we’d kick their ass,” said the unknown man.

  Zoryn headed over and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around himself on his way behind the lockers.

  Amaranth sighed. “Yeah. Awesome nanites.” She swiped a towel from the shelf and draped it over herself. “Maybe they’ll turn me back into a zygote and I can forget about all this shit.”

  “Are you going backwards?” asked Tris.

  “I don’t know. Seems like I hold steady unless I get really hurt. Like they go into high gear and they keep going after they’ve fixed the injury. Took three bullets a few weeks back and I swear my boobs shrank.”

  Kevin opened his mouth to comment that she didn’t have any, but closed it. He pivoted on his heel and walked over to locker 19.

  “Your guy’s smarter than he looks,” said Amaranth.

  “What?” asked Tris.

  Amaranth laughed. “I know that look. A stillborn bad joke.”

  Kevin whistled innocently as he pulled on his boxers before opening the locker and removing a jet-black jumpsuit, which he put on.

  “Sorry,” said Tris, her tone quiet.

  “What for?” asked Amaranth.

  “What they did to you.” Tris toweled off.

  “Oh.” She followed her around toward the locker. “I wasn’t a science project. More of an oops. I’m not like ‘project Amaranth’ or anything… I used that as a code name when I got involved with the Resistance. Eternal flower or something.” She rolled her eyes. “I thought it was cooler before I realized these nanites are probably going to kill me.”

  “Maybe you’re not eating enough? Might’ve attacked fat reserves to rebuild tissue.” Tris tossed the towel on the bench and grabbed a jumpsuit. She held it for a few seconds, staring.

  Kevin zipped his up. “What’s wrong?”

  Tris smiled. “Just remembering you telling me to get rid of my old jumpsuit. Unwanted attention. Thought it ironic we’re putting them on for the same reason… to avoid attention.” She stepped in and zipped up.

  “Yeah.” He grabbed the red armored jacket, and sighed. “Feels stupid not wearing my armor… but I suppose being the only dude wearing red in a sea of black would be dumb too.” He packed it, and the rest of his clothes into the locker. The .45 he kept, stuffing it into the large pocket on his right hip, and two spare magazines in the opposite one.

  Amaranth ruffled the towel at her hair. “Yeah. You can leave it here. Assuming you make it out, no one will touch it. Our stuff’s way better.” She winked, dropped the towel, and pulled on a pair of white boxers a little too big for her before reaching for her tank top.

  “You’re not coming with us?” Kevin grinned, intending to tease. Of course, the Resistance leader would want to sit back here where it was safe. “Don’t s’pose you can spare any of that fancy armor?”

  “If it wouldn’t put you at risk, I would kick down the door for you. And no, all of our armor is hodgepodge, scuffed to shit, and dirty. If that didn’t get you questioned, being in armor would mark you as military and invite a whole host of other questions you wouldn’t have answers for. Better to look like civilians.” She wriggled into the tank top.

  “How are you a problem?” asked Tris.

  Amaranth glanced at her. “My real name is Lisa Yaro.”

  Tris coughed. “As in Dmitri Yaro?”

  “Yeah… he was my father.”

  Kevin held his hands up. “Savage boy is out of the loop. Who is this bad man?”

  Amaranth looked down. Her tiny delicate feet, white as new fallen snow, reminded him of a mannequin from that children’s clothing store they’d raided hours ago. A sad doll trapped in an even sadder tomb.

  Kevin’s smile died. Too much of Dad rubbed off on him. This woman looked so much like a child he wanted to comfort her. “Hey… sorry if it’s a sore topic. I’m… I have no idea.”

  “My father was the Prime of the original Council of Fo
ur. He’d have been almost eighty now if he hadn’t been assassinated.” Amaranth stood quiet for a few seconds, arms limp at her sides, a forlorn look on her face. “He voiced the idea that the Enclave wouldn’t be sustainable in a closed community and advocated opening up to the outside world. The only time the subject was ever discussed in front of the people. They had Council sessions about it, televised to everyone in the Enclave. The original Four were set to vote on it on a Tuesday, but someone shot him Saturday afternoon. Someone who had the backing of the other three Council members, because the killer walked right in and walked right out. ‘No one saw anything.’”

  “Sorry,” muttered Kevin.

  “They targeted me next. Would’ve been dead if it wasn’t for the nanites.” She sat on the bench staring into nowhere. For a few seconds, she looked every bit the tween she appeared to be. “Son of a bitch… I was twelve when…” She scratched at her chest. “Woke up on a gurney listening to two guys talk about how the ‘official story’ would be I’d been shot in the heart and killed. I almost sat up and told them I was alive, but they said they had to cremate me before anyone came to check. They were part of it. I played dead until they parked me and walked off to do something.”

  “Damn,” said Kevin.

  “I ran like hell. Been out here with the Resistance ever since.”

  Tris blinked a few times. “Your nanites… maybe they’re not hyperactive? Maybe they somehow imprinted on your body architecture the instant you took a bullet to the heart, and keep trying to put it back to that?”

  “I guess being twelve for the rest of my life beats shrinking until I stop existing. But yeah… if I get seen on any cameras, all hell will break loose.” Amaranth made a sad chuckle. “I could really use some dick though.”

  Kevin coughed, scratched his head, and kept his gaze on the floor. A cascade of uncomfortable grunts and mutterings emanating from the shower area suggested everyone else had about the same reaction to that as him.

  “So, uhh,” asked Kevin, “how’d a kid wind up in charge of the resistance?”

  “I didn’t start off leading a cell. I really was a kid when I first found them… twenty-three years ago. Harrisburg almost wiped us out. What you see here is it… managed to get a couple more bodies over the last couple months, but we’re still fewer than thirty.” She slapped her hands on her thighs and stood. “Right. You two should get going. Naomi and Zoryn are going to escort you to where you need to be. For what it’s worth”―she locked eyes with Tris―“I hope I’m right.”