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

by Cox, Matthew S.

  “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 forward. “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-t
ram 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.”

  Kevin found a few stacks of shopping bags behind the counter. For kicks, he bashed open the register and took all the coins, loose and rolled, while ignoring the paper currency. They spent a little while packing up anything that hadn’t fallen apart or that looked too frilly to survive life. He lugged five shopping bags per hand out into the street and turned to wait for her to follow.

  “You know, this is the part where the Infected come after us… when our hands are full.”

  Tris, carrying an equal number of bags, squeezed past the doorway and hurried toward the Challenger. “You know before the war, I think we would’ve been carrying enough money in clothing to like buy a house or something.”

  “Who would pay that much for kid clothes?” He shook his head.

  “Rich people.” She shrugged. “Hey, not like money matters anymore, right?”

  They packed the trunk as well as the back seat, re-locked the car, and resumed their journey into the mazelike debris field. The utter lack of anything else moving got under his skin. By the time they reached the curb in front of the telephone building, his hands shook.

  “What’s wrong?” Tris put a hand on his shoulder.

  “This is too easy. It’s too quiet.” He looked left and right. “We’re going to walk in that door, and this entire street is going to be filled with Infected.”

  “At least you’re optimistic.” She bit her lip and looked down. “And here I am worrying that this ‘number’ is going to be a dead end and I get to feel like a total failure all over again.”

  “You are not a failure.” He walked up a short concrete path connecting the front of the office building to the street past a dead fountain and some curved benches. “Okay, so now’s the moment of truth.”

  Tris chuckled.

  The front doors had been reduced to metal frames so long ago that no trace of glass remained anywhere in sight. Something in the lobby moved; he froze and raised the AK.

  “Careful…” Tris also aimed toward the doors. “Might be a kid or something.”

  “This isn’t a grocery store with a huge stockpile of food. Some kid wouldn’t be surviving in there.” He crept a few steps forward, squinting to see into the dark.

  “Scavver?” whispered Tris.

  Another step closer, and figures became clear in the dim lobby: seven or eight people in bloody, tattered prewar clothes. Vacant stares, greyish skin, and the listless way that they all stood around staring into space got his heart slamming against his breastbone. One woman moaned at the ceiling; she almost glanced in their direction, but seemed to lack the motivation to do much more than stand there.

  “Shit,” he whispered.

  “Infected?” asked Tris, edging closer.

  Kevin let off a nervous, whispery chuckle. “I think they’re customer service workers.”

  Tris rolled her eyes.

  “Oh, you’re right. Infected aren’t that bloodthirsty.”

  “What are you talking about?” whispered Tris.

  “How have I heard of customer service and you, Miss Went to School, haven’t?” He winked.

  “I know what they are. I’m confused why you’re saying it. I think you’re mistaking them for telemarketers.”

  “What?”

  “Customer service people don’t call out. People hated telemarketers.”

  “Never mind. Joke from a ‘historical documentary’ I saw once. You know, the whole zombie-like ‘someone please shoot me’ face?” He chuckled. “I’m trying not to think too much about what we’re looking at… though, they do seem a bit more, umm…”

  “Unmotivated?” Tris moved up to the door, rifle poised. “They’re not even looking at us. No way they haven’t heard us this close. Hey, you’re right. That woman’s badge says ‘customer service’ on it.”

  He cackled.

  That noise made all seven of the Infected look at him.

  “Oh shit.” He shot the nearest one.

  Tris opened fire. He drilled two dark-skinned men in white shirts scrambling to climb over the reception desk. Scuffing outside made him whip around. A handful of Infected spilled out of a mostly-intact section of fallen e-tram tube and charged up the sidewalk past the fountain.

  His first shot struck the lead man in the chest and killed an Asian woman with most of her cheek missing behind him as well.

  “Inside. Bottleneck the hallway,” yelled Tris as she let off four rapid shots.

  The Infected outside didn’t possess the same lethargic disinterest as the others, but Kevin still had enough time to take five careful shots and put them down before they made it to the door. He ducked in after Tris, who crossed the lobby to an interior hallway. A metal door slammed open a foot and change before it struck a metal desk, trapping a pudgy man in a blue shirt. He moaned, forcing h
is head and one arm past the gap while raking his fingers feverishly at the air, reaching for Kevin. His continuous effort to shove his way in repeatedly banged the door against the desk.

  She shot him through the door. The Infected fell over backward with a low, gurgling wheeze. Kevin walked sideways behind Tris, swiveling his head side to side to watch the lobby as well as her. A screeching woman with no skin on her left arm from fingertip to elbow fell down out of the drop ceiling. Her blood-soaked shirt clumped up around her armpits exposing breasts, and she had nothing else on save for one high-heeled shoe.

  Kevin shot her in the head before she got up. “Must’ve been one hell of an office party.”

  “What?” asked Tris.

  “Here come the nukes, I’m going to fuck someone.” He smirked. “Last-minute panic.”

  “Kevin, the Infected didn’t happen for years after the war… She’s a survivor.” Tris sighed. “Was.”

  “Explain the…” He glanced at a logo on the wall. “AT&T workers in the lobby?”

  “Died in the war and survivors took their clothes? Probably thought the ID badges were jewelry.”

  A moan preceded her firing twice into the hallway ahead of them.

  Kevin jumped and almost screamed when the ceiling overhead gave out and a trio of Indian men fell on top of him, dragging him to the floor. Blind with panic, he used the rifle to shove them away and rolled to the side. He shot two as fast as he could move the AK, but the third lunged forward and grabbed the end of the rifle in one hand, his leg in the other.

  “Nnnnngh!” roared the Infected, straining to bite him on the face.

  Kevin stomped his free boot into the man’s shoulder to hold him back while reaching for the .45.

  Teeth closed around the leather over his shin.

  He put the tip of the .45 to the man’s skull.

  Infected eyes rotated upward and crossed, trying to stare at the gun.

  Boom.

  Brain and gore spattered the wall.

  He kicked the corpse away and scooted backward toward Tris who hadn’t stopped firing in slow, even single shots.

  “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” he wheezed. After two breaths, he reached past his foot to grab the tip of the AK’s barrel, and pulled it into his arms.