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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Kevin stood with his back to the outhouse, staring off at the countryside. Tris leaned on him. A moment later, Katie wandered out the back door, waved at them with a big grin, squatted, and proceeded to water the grass not quite five steps away from the door.

  “This is so nasty,” said Abby, her voice muted by the fiberglass outhouse. “I think I’d rather go outside.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Your choice. Apparently, that’s an option here.”

  The fiberglass structure wobbled; Abby made uneasy noises. Ray walked out, saw Katie, and slapped himself in the forehead. He hurried over and they had a quick murmured conversation before he stared exasperation into the clouds. The girl darted inside, and Ray approached the converted port-a-potty.

  “Take a number,” said Kevin.

  Ray shook his head, waving his hand in a gesture toward where Katie had been. “Ugh, sorry about that.”

  “Looks like you’ve got some work ahead of you.” Kevin scratched his cheek. “She doesn’t seem too feral though. At least she went outside first. Last feral kid I saw, he didn’t care inside or outside at first.”

  “She said someone was in the shitter and didn’t wanna wait. Used ta just use the crick behind that store she’d holed up in.” He laughed. “Little thing’s ravenous. She ate six coins’ worth of damage in their cabinet. The owner’s wife found her sitting on the floor in the kitchen stuffing her face.”

  “Kid’s been eating fifty-year-old canned food for somewhere ’tween two and three years.” Kevin shook his head. “That’d almost make anything taste like the best meal in the world.”

  “Chicken here is pretty damn good. Too expensive though.” Ray spat to the side. “Five damn coins for one portion.”

  Kevin smiled. “He’s only got so many chickens. Guess he doesn’t wanna use ’em up faster than they breed.”

  Abby pushed the door open, looking nauseated.

  “Is it safe in there?” asked Ray.

  She rolled her eyes. “There’s no dead person in the seat.”

  Katie came around the far corner of the roadhouse at a full sprint, squealing with delight. She ran past the rear porch and ducked into the alley between it and the next building, which appeared to be a dead laundromat. Curiosity got the better of her and she started to climb in through a window.

  “Katie!” bellowed Ray. “Don’t go in there. It could be dangerous. Come on over here.”

  She jumped down, looking frightened, and ran over. From her expression, she expected him to abandon her if she did the slightest thing wrong.

  “It’s okay. I ain’t angry. I don’t want you to get hurt.” He took her hand. “’Mon, let’s go in.”

  Kevin stepped into the outhouse. True enough, Ben had used the fiberglass box as a shortcut for building a shack and bench. A rough-cut hole in the bottom let out into a relatively deep pit. He couldn’t help himself but peer down in case another corpse lurked below. That Ben guy seems a bit… off. On second thought, maybe it’s good I was up all night.

  With a yawn, he put himself away and opened the door. Abby seemed nervously tolerant of Ray, but gabbed Kevin’s arm as soon as he stepped close enough. Katie zoomed by again waving and cheering, passing a few feet in front of them as he approached the porch. Ray set off, chasing her at a deliberate walk, the army T-shirt in his hand. He gave Kevin a defeated look, but laughed.

  Kevin smiled, and headed inside with Abby in tow.

  Tris had a table already, with three piles of scrambled eggs and a passable attempt at making sausage patties from dust hopper meat. A few minutes after they settled in to eat, Ray entered carrying Katie, now in her shirt/dress.

  “What’s wrong with me?” Tris whispered.

  Kevin glanced at her.

  “I was this close to just killing those two guys… and they’re normal people.” She braced her head in her hand. “I… I’m on edge. I… can’t stop thinking about the Virus and curing it and getting to―”

  Kevin pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Any decent person seeing a guy dressed like a raider with what looked like a captive child would’ve reached for a gun too. Somethin’ my dad woulda done.”

  Tris frowned. “No one seemed to care when those shitheads carried me into Wayne’s.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I did.”

  “Reluctantly.” She managed a weak smile.

  “I didn’t want to get blood on my food.” He winked, leaning closer.

  Abby grumbled. “You guys are crushing me.”

  Kevin sat up, as did Tris.

  “Sorry for getting in the way,” muttered Abby.

  “What?” asked Tris.

  Abby shrugged. “You guys couldn’t ‘do it’ last night with me in the bed.”

  Tris blushed.

  Kevin laughed. “We don’t do that every waking minute.”

  “You want to.” Abby smiled at him. “You guys are so into each other… it’s nice.” Her gaze shifted to her food, lingered for a moment, and fell into her lap. “I wonder if my parents were like that.”

  Tris put an arm around her. “I hope they were, and they’re together now.”

  Kevin cocked his jaw sideways and looked away. He didn’t have much room for talk of afterlives or ghosts or some far-off, all-powerful, supposedly benevolent invisible man in the clouds. He’d seen enough in his travels to know that before the war, a lot of people believed in ‘religion,’ but all it ever seemed to do was cause conflict. How fucked up is that? People killing each other over who’s got the more peaceful belief system. If in fact some kind of entity did exist out there, to let the world burn itself, he, she, or it had to be either oblivious, careless, or sadistic.

  Naw. It’s probably like the Great Horned Dust Hopper.

  Some settlements got their kids to behave by claiming a giant magical dust hopper would come by and give the good children decorated eggs in the middle of the night. Of course he’d hide them, as simply handing them over would be too easy. That whole religion thing before the war had to be a version of that. Something to make adults behave. The other option, that some manner of higher power did exist―and turned a blind eye to humanity nuking itself―seemed worse.

  He sighed at the earnest face Abby made at the ceiling. What if some bits of it happened to be true? Could his dad be a ghost? Is that why he kept winding up doing stupid things that could get him killed? He hadn’t been too worried about Ray and Larry. They didn’t carry themselves like slavers, and Katie hadn’t acted at all frightened of them. He’d seen slaves before, and nothing in the child’s demeanor had put him on edge.

  Besides, what kind of slavers would drag a new catch to a roadhouse for lunch? Tris had been on edge lately. Hopefully, he could get her to Omaha before she did something she’d regret. Ever since she’d suggested Nathan might drop Virus on Ned, he hadn’t managed a full night’s sleep. The nightmare had come back in force. Usually, it played out as it always had: back home, sixteen years ago or thereabouts when he’d been eleven. Sometimes, the Infected chasing him turned into Bill, Ann, other people from Ned. Once, he’d even seen little Zoe crawling after him with her mouth wide open.

  His throat tightened and he rubbed his eyes. He barely managed to kill that one young woman… his hesitance got Neeley shot. If he ever saw an Infected kid, he’d be fucked if he couldn’t run away—he’d never be able to shoot at a child, even one who’d caught The Virus.

  “You alright?” asked Tris.

  “Yeah…” He let his arm fall to the table. “My turn to have crappy depressing thoughts.”

  Katie’s voice pierced the silence, practicing words with Ray and Larry. She picked things up fast, making him think she couldn’t have gone too long without human contact.

  “Wanna talk about it?” asked Tris.

  He glanced down at Abby. “Just bad dreams. Infected.” He exhaled. “Infected I couldn’t bring myself to shoot.”

  Abby gasped. “I’m not sick.”

  “No, had a nightmare… Zoe…”
/>   Tris put her hand on his shoulder. “We―”

  “Have to stop them, yes. I know. I agree, but I don’t see how we’re going to do that.”

  She grumbled. “There might be something important hidden in that data. Maybe Nathan found out about a hidden message? That’s why he kept trying to kill me?”

  Kevin shoved eggs and ground dust hopper in his mouth. “Maybe.”

  Katie appeared out of nowhere, ambush-hugging Tris from behind over the bench seat. “Hiii!”

  Tris laughed. The child crawled over Abby, hugged Kevin, and ran back to the table with Ray and Larry. She’d gotten so much dust on her shirt/dress she left a trail in the air.

  “She’s going to run up to the wrong person… Hope that town of theirs is safe,” said Tris.

  “Ned’s not the only ‘nice’ settlement. There’s quite a few actually.” Kevin coughed at a surprise jalapeno in the egg. “Besides, kids like her can just tell when someone ain’t right.”

  Tris stabbed a bit of sausage on her fork. “I hope that’s true.”

  Abby whispered, “I never liked Warren, an’ I trusted you right away.”

  “See,” said Kevin, winking.

  She stared at Abby for a while before looking down. “Those bastards. They sit behind their computer screens and don’t care who they kill. I should’ve shot Warren as soon as I saw him pointing a gun at you.”

  “I think that would’ve made a mess.” Abby looked down.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” Tris teased at her food with the fork.

  Abby squeezed her arm. “I blame the Enclave for killing my dad.”

  Tris offered a slow nod. “Yeah. Yeah… me too.”

  Kevin attempted a reassuring smile and spent a few minutes working on his breakfast in silence.

  Around the time they finished eating, Ray, Larry, and Katie approached.

  “Gonna head out,” said Ray. “Little one wanted to say thanks again.”

  “Thank you.” Katie grinned.

  Kevin got up to let Tris out of the bench. Katie hugged everyone―twice―and followed Ray and Larry outside to a battered blue pickup truck with a cap over the bed made of welded steel plates. She crawled up into a tiny rear bench seat. Both men waved at them in that ‘don’t get dead’ sort of way, and got in.

  “We should hit the road too.” Kevin put his hands on Tris’ hips, and pulled her close.

  Forehead to forehead, she smiled and gave him a quick kiss. “Yeah. I’m dying to know what he found in those music files.”

  Abby scooted to the end of the booth seat and stood. “How much longer ’til we get there? I wanna go home.”

  “We should get there in a couple hours. Unless whatever he’s got to show us takes a long time, we’ll probably be back here at night to sleep, and home the next day,” said Kevin.

  “Great.” Tris took Abby’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Uhh…” Abby ground her shoe into the floor. “Can we maybe stop somewhere without a head in the toilet?”

  Kevin stared with bleary eyes at the endless road sweeping under the Challenger’s hood. Abby had curled up in the back seat, kicked off her shoes, and passed out within minutes of getting underway. He stifled a yawn. At least I’ll be able to sleep tonight.

  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.