The Roadhouse Chronicles (Book 3): Dead Man's Number

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Ray shook his head, smiling. “Guess so.” He nodded at Katie. “Yeah. You welcome ta stay with me an’ my wife if you want.”

  She climbed up to sit in his lap, looking surprised, mouth open, speechless. After a few seconds of staring, she clamped on, cheek pressed to his chest. As if all the fear she’d harbored for however long she’d been alone hit her at once, she trembled.

  “Guess that’s a yes,” said Larry.

  Katie nodded. “I like. So ’lone. Want more talk. Home quiet. Scareds.”

  Abby sniffled and wiped a tear before clinging to Tris.

  A thin teenaged boy with a strong resemblance to Ben carried three bowl-shaped hubcaps full of fried chicken out into the room and paused with a look of confusion.

  Kevin pointed at their table.

  The boy nodded and set the food down.

  “Thanks for the assist.” Ray reached up to Tris.

  With a little bit of guilt on her face, she shook his hand. “You’re welcome.”

  Katie grinned. “I not ’lone.”

  Tris’ smile lasted only until she turned away from the girl. Morose, she trudged back to their booth, holding Abby’s hand. Kevin followed. After they slid into the bench seat, he took his spot at the end. The fragrance of fried chicken got him in seconds, and he dug in. Abby nibbled for a bit, but once she got a good taste of it, she proceeded to do an impression of Katie’s ‘I haven’t had real food in years’ mauling.

  Kevin glanced over at Tris after his second drumstick. She still hadn’t touched her food. “What’s wrong? You want to keep her too?” He grinned.

  Tris smirked. “No. She looks happy with Ray.” She sighed. “I almost just killed two decent men. As soon as I saw her, I assumed the worst and wanted to shoot them.”

  “Most people would’ve reacted the same way to seeing a pair of rough-looking dudes with a chained kid…” He picked up a breast, fighting the urge to jam it in his mouth. “Though you did kinda skip over the pointing the gun at them and demanding they let her go part.”

  “I’m so wound up.” She leaned her elbows on the table and held her face in both hands. “All I can think about is how I’m supposed to do something about the Enclave, and this cryptic shit from Terminal9 isn’t helping.”

  Kevin took a few bites to think over his response. She probably didn’t want to hear him repeat that she had no way to stop the Virus, and failing wasn’t her fault. He’d been around and around with her, questioning how the two of them could manage any kind of threat to the Enclave… hovercraft, high-tech weapons and all.

  “I almost killed them right in front of her and… shit.” Tris leaned back and raked her fingers up through her hair. “How long did it take her to trust people enough to ask for help, and I would’ve sent her crawling right back into some dark hiding place.”

  “Please stop feeling guilty about something you didn’t even do.” Kevin took another bite. “Nwfm eam yrr fmm.” He swallowed. “Eat your chicken before it gets cold. This is really good.”

  Hamster-cheeked Abby nodded with an enthusiastic, “Mmm!”

  Tris picked up a drumstick. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Nothing.” He reached over Abby’s head to pat Tris on the back. “If people had to answer for everything they thought about doing but didn’t do, we’d be in a lot of trouble.”

  Tris forced a weak smile. A nibble became a larger nibble, progressing to a chomp.

  Chicken wins. Kevin gnawed on the small winglet, debating a little gluttony and a second basket.

  “You’re right,” mumbled Tris. She stared across the room at Katie curled up in Ray’s lap.

  “Yeah, this chicken is damn good. I might get more.” Kevin patted his stomach.

  Abby offered him her thigh piece. “I’m full.”

  “Save it for the morning. I can’t take food out of your mouth.” He winked.

  “No, not about the chicken.” Tris indicated the men with a faint nod. “Not everyone out here is a piece of shit.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Still nice to see proof every now and then.”

  Tris shook her head. “That kid’s spent most of her life on high alert. Look at her, passed out in his lap. How long has it been for her since she’d been able to really sleep? Feeling safe?”

  Abby cuddled up to Tris. “Thank you for taking me in. I know you didn’t have to. You believed me the whole time. You wouldn’t let them hurt me.”

  “That’s it.” Tris sighed. “Warren. That’s why I was so ready to end those two. If I hadn’t hesitated on him, then your father―”

  Abby squeezed Tris’ arm. “You’re not like him. You can’t kill someone without a good reason. It’s okay. I understand.”

  Tris wrapped her arms around Abby and sniffled into her hair.

  Kevin patted the table twice and stood. “Gonna get a room key… and more chicken.”

  4

  Scars

  Random vistas of sunsets played out across Kevin’s dream, rich orange and blue swirling over the tip of an endless road. The flash of white paint down the center stuttered; individual dashed lines floated away from the paving and swarmed around the car like curious herons, diving and circling.

  He reached up to rub his eyes. When he pulled his fingers away, he found the bizarre vision gone, though the cactuses outside had gone bright pink. Mountains approached; the road swerved to the right before plunging into a tunnel. The instant darkness surrounded him, he went from driving 140 mph to standing on his feet without a car around him.

  “Hello?”

  His dream voice echoed back to him with a metallic quality, as if he stood inside a giant, empty boiler. Hands raised, he crept forward until he found a wall, and felt around. Soon, he located a door and slid his hand down to the knob. It opened into a hallway with dingy white and green-checkered linoleum. To his right, a pair of doors led to bathrooms, each bearing a basic stick-figure label, one plain and one with a triangle skirt.

  He crept down the hall, fragments of glass crunching under his boots, and entered a roadhouse-esque space with tables, chairs, and a counter―only the colors had gone crazy. Red and green on the floor, purple chair cushions, orange counter and tabletops. Wayne, in a duster coat and three bleeding bullet holes in his face, waved from behind the counter.

  That’s not right. They shot him in the chest.

  A man in jeans and cowboy boots with a blurry mass for an upper body raised a mason jar in greeting, his face lost to an unformed memory.

  Dad?

  “What’cha havin’?” asked not-Wayne. “Usual?”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to rub sense into his head. “Ugh. What the hell was in that chicken?”

  When he opened his eyes again, Not-Wayne and the blurry apparition had vanished. The room retained its strange coloration, but he couldn’t place it as any roadhouse he’d ever been to.

  “Help… me,” whispered a female voice.

  Kevin whirled around.

  A young, pretty, Hispanic girl in a slinky black dress stared at him. Her… She could’ve been anywhere from fifteen to twenty. Infected. Turning. At the cusp of sanity. The girl raised a slender arm holding a tiny silver pistol. A trail of dark blood ran out of her right nostril, dribbling over her lip.

  “You can’t kill me, can you?” asked the girl. “I’m still human. I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t stop.”

  He took a step back. “I’m dreaming…”

  “Help me.” The girl cringed and grabbed her right arm with her left hand, fighting with herself not to point the gun at him. “Run… I’m dying.”

  She took another step toward him, opening her mouth.

  As soon as he whirled around to flee, the psychedelic roadhouse changed to desert scrubland aglow in strong moonlight. All of his clothes had vanished, as had his adulthood. Cold dirt underfoot startled a gasp out of him and made him look down at his younger self. Ten years old and scrawny… the same nightmare he’d had as a boy. As long has
he could remember, he’d slept naked. Someone told him he could get sick spending the night in the same clothes he wore all day long, and he didn’t have anything else… so he’d worn blankets to bed.

  When a pile of Infected broke down the wall of his trailer, his brain couldn’t process anything but get out. He didn’t have to look; he knew a horde of Infected closed in on him from behind, everyone from the little trailer cluster he’d called home back then. One tended to forget trivial things like getting dressed before fleeing from their worst nightmare.

  Despite not wanting to, he glanced over his shoulder.

  Eva and Hemi, his ‘parents,’ led the pack of moaning half-alive people.

  The sight didn’t hold quite the same shock it had to his younger mind, but the uncountable army of Infected behind them tweaked his phobia to irrational panic. Screaming, he took off. Every time he had this dream, it ended the same way. No matter how much faster he could run than the slow-stumbling Infected, they’d always be right behind him whenever he looked back. In the nightmare, he’d run through the waist-high grass until he collapsed, always waking up screaming as hands grabbed him.

  As it played out every time, it played out that night. Kevin’s child self eventually ran out of steam and collapsed, surrounded by grabbing hands and sharp fingernails tearing at his skin.

  Kevin snapped awake, covered in sweat, but silent. He held as still as he could manage, arms straight at his sides, staring at the ceiling. Reality crawled back into his brain fact by fact. Roadhouse. Rented room. Omaha. No longer a little boy. Since they’d gotten one room and Abby shared the bed with them, he’d kept his boxers on, Tris, her shirt. Abby lay between them, in the sweatshirt-turned-nightdress she’d brought along. The girl flinched in her sleep, every so often emitting distressed whimpers.

  Her bad dream is leaking into my head. He rubbed his face. I haven’t had one like that in years.

  The girl squirmed side to side and stretched her legs as if cringing away from something held to her face.

  Kevin yawned. Tris had an arm over Abby like a giant child clinging to a doll. Kevin lay in silence for a few minutes, tired but unable to fall asleep. He had no real way to know for sure that Infected wouldn’t stumble across this place. As unlikely as it would be for them to wander out into the no-man’s land along Interstate 80, it could still happen. Hell, one had shown up at his roadhouse in Rawlins. Talk about middle of nowhere.

  He closed his eyes and tried to focus all his thoughts on Tris. It had been easier to sleep in Nederland. He’d never admit it out loud, but that giant dump truck gate, the wall, and the militia did make him feel safer. More so than even the Code had. Fifty or so real people willing to defend their homes reassured him more than a phantom army of thousands who’d supposedly have avenged him after the fact.

  Abby convulsed and sat up, sucking in air as if to let out a long scream. He put a hand on her back. She turned toward him, not fully awake.

  “Dad!” she wailed, and clamped on before bursting into tears.

  “Hey… hey…” He rocked her a little, patting her on the back while she trembled and sobbed. “You’re okay.”

  Abby quieted. After a while of laying still and silent, she sniffed in a wet-sounding breath. She lifted her head, looked at him, and let her face thud into his chest. Again, she broke down crying, but these sobs sounded borne of grief rather than fear.

  “It’s okay.” He rubbed her back. “You’re safe.”

  “Sorry I called you Dad.” She sniffled. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he’d mind. You’d just had a bad dream and weren’t all the way awake.”

  She lay still, sniffling occasionally.

  “I’m scared of those things too.” He shifted to get more comfortable and closed his eyes. “Ever since I was your age. Still have nightmares.”

  “But you’re like… old.”

  “Thanks.” He poked her in the side, causing her to squirm and grin. “Tris told me a bit about what happened. You’re a lot tougher than me. I didn’t go through half of what you did and I have wicked dreams too.”

  “I dream I’m back there,” whispered Abby. “Tied to a bed and everyone’s Infected… and I can’t get away. I try to stay quiet but they still find me… and it’s Warren after Tris shot him… Infected.”

  Kevin kept patting her back. “It’s just a dream. You’ll never see that bastard again.”

  “I know. Tell that to my dreams.” Abby shifted over, laying against him. “What’s your nightmare like?”

  “I’m back home as a kid. Used to live in this old trailer park. We’d gone on this long trip to move, and a couple of the people with us wound up getting infected along the way. Two older boys, think they were seventeen or eighteen, knew they got it. They buried the other dead and walked away to end it before they turned.”

  “You dream that?” whispered Abby.

  “No… The nightmare I have never really happened. I used to dream that everyone but me in our little town got Infected. They break down the wall of my old bedroom and chase me across the field. Brown tall grass up past my waist. I run and run but I can’t get away from them.”

  Abby almost shivered. “Mmm.”

  At least I can bore her to sleep. He smiled.

  An ear-piercing scream dragged Kevin out of bed. He made it to the hallway outside their rented room—one eye open, .45 in hand, boxers clinging to his hips—before his brain caught up to consciousness. Abby backed away from a flaking green door with black spray painted letters spelling, ‘shit here.’

  “Huh?” He croaked.

  Abby, hands flailing, whirled around and pounced on him, burying her face in his chest and whimpering. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to sob hysterically or throw up.

  Kevin stood taller on the balls of his feet, peering into a small bathroom covered in black stains. A dense cloud of flies swarmed around the back corner, clinging to the wall and ceiling in a carpet of moving black spots. A severed human head, rotted enough to expose skull, sat in the toilet amid a massive bloom of silvery-black mold. He cringed and pushed the door closed with the tip of the .45.

  “What the fuck is wrong with that guy?” Kevin stared down the short hallway toward the main room. The wall to his right blocked his view of the counter.

  Kevin stood there a moment, comforting Abby. When she calmed enough to release her death grip around his chest, he edged to the end of the corridor and stared at Ben. “Dude…” He pointed the .45 at the hallway. “The fuck?”

  “Something wrong?” asked Ben.

  “You’ve got a goddamned rotting head in your toilet.” He blinked.

  Abby coughed, sounding a hair’s breadth away from vomiting.

  “Yeah. Had a… umm… raider issue last month.” Ben fidgeted. “Wife won’t touch it. Kids won’t touch it. I don’t wanna touch it.”

  Kevin blinked. “So you just leave it there?”

  Ben gestured at the back. “There’s an outhouse. No one used the damn toilet inside anyway… not like plumbin’ works.”

  “Unbelievable,” muttered Kevin.

  It occurred to him at that second that Tris hadn’t been in bed. “Where’s Tris?”

  Abby shrugged. “She was gone when I woke up. Will you go with me to the outhouse? I don’t wanna be alone.”

  “Yeah. Lemme get dressed.”

  “Not like in the outhouse,” whispered Abby. “You can wait outside.”

  “That’s what I figured you meant.”

  “Hey! Get out of there!” yelled a woman in the back.

  Soft thuds shook the floor in the gait of a small person running. Seconds later, Katie, naked again, sprinted out of the kitchen area, her face and hands smeared with beige-brown sauce, which had also dribbled all over her chest. Flour dusted her face and most of her legs. She bee-lined for Kevin and hugged him.

  “Hiii!” Her breath carried a spicy fragrance that reminded him of the fried chicken.

  A woman, likely Ben’s wife, ap
peared in the doorway, glaring. She appeared to think better of chasing the girl and proceeded to berate Ben as if it was somehow his fault the girl had raided their pantry.

  Kevin patted her on the head. “Good morning. What did you do?”

  Katie let go and took a step back. “Day food.” She wrapped her arms around Abby, who stood ramrod straight. “Hiii!”

  “Hello,” said Abby.

  Kevin took Katie by the hand and led her back into the hallway to Ray’s room, obvious due to the open door and loud snoring. She darted in and pounced on the bed. Kevin pulled the door closed and returned to their room, tossing the gun on the bed. After wiping chicken batter off himself, he pulled on his white T-shirt, jeans, boots, and gun belt. Abby waited in the doorway squirming and bouncing, an urgent grimace on her face. He snagged his armored jacket and headed out the back door, Abby close at his heels.

  The space out back echoed with a multitude of clucking from the right, where a large fenced-in area held close to a hundred chickens. Beyond that, a few small farm plots contained corn, potatoes, and a bunch of other green stuff he couldn’t quite identify from the distance. Twenty paces or so behind the roadhouse, a lime green porta-potty perched on a cinderblock foundation. Considering the air didn’t peel the skin off his face, he figured Ben had removed the tank and dug a hole under it.

  Kevin pulled the door open and a bit of cold metal pressed into his forehead. It took him a second to realize Tris, seated inside, had put her Beretta to his skull.

  “Shit.” She lowered it. “Knock first!”

  He held up a finger, waited for his heart to resume beating, and slammed a fist into his chest twice. “Right. Sorry.”

  Tris pulled the door shut with a plastic rattle. Abby whined and sent a look of serious consideration at the grass to the right of the outhouse. She decided against it and remained at his side, bouncing on the balls of her feet for a minute and change until Tris emerged. Abby scrambled in.

  “Eww.” Her voice echoed. “It’s gross in here.”