One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “I d-d-don’t d-d-do d-d-drugs, man.” The vagrant shivered.

  “Yeah, sure you don’t. And I got wings growing outta my ass.” Kevin pulled the hammer back with his thumb. “If you ain’t a junkie, you’re just a thief I got no use for.”

  “K-k-kay.” The man held up two shaking hands. “You w-wanna talk to Tyrant in the train graveyard.”

  “Tyrant huh?”

  “Yeah.” The junkie reached across his chest and clutched his left arm above the elbow. He lost a few seconds ticking and blinking. “He sells all the cheap stuff the Cloud won’t touch.”

  “How do I know this isn’t bullshit?”

  “Swear, man. Swear.” The vagrant thrashed his head side to side with such force it seemed his eyeballs might go flying.

  “Lead the way.” Kevin gestured with the .45.

  “Y-you gonna shoot me in the back?” He stumbled ahead facing sideways, staring at the gun.

  Kevin eased the hammer forward with his thumb so it didn’t go off. “You got a point. Might not look too good me walkin’ you in there at gunpoint. Let’s make a deal. You don’t stab me, and I don’t shoot you. I’ll even give ya five percent of whatever I sell it for.”

  “Uhh okay.” The bedraggled skeleton-in-skin took two steps before looking back over his shoulder again. “That a lot?”

  “For you? Yeah. A shitload.” Kevin put the .45 back in its holster, but kept a hand on it.

  “Mmm.” The man sniffled and wiped at his nose. “Nice. I’m Mike.” He held a grimy hand out for a few seconds, but dropped it when Kevin didn’t react. “Nice dealin’ with ya.” He beckoned with a wave. “C’mon.”

  Mike scurried off like a two-legged rat into the bowels of Glimmertown. He avoided the central square and its blinding glow, favoring a series of narrow channels between the rear walls of dwellings or other buildings. Guess people in Glimmertown don’t believe in back doors.

  After a walk that felt as if he’d gone around the entire city twice, congested buildings ended where an open channel held four parallel train tracks. The rails continued for about a hundred yards to the right, a mixture of rust and glint, before making a left turn through a gate in a decaying chain link fence. Broken glass littered the ground, sparkling as if he stood inside a snow globe of ruin. Even this far from the center of town, the tower lights cast long shadows over everything. Dozens of bullet holes in the surroundings suggested copious violence, but not a single trace of brass remained. These people’d steal each others underwear to sell for a hit. If they could sell dirt, they’d do it.

  Rectangular forms flickered in the orange of distant fires beyond the fence. A hodgepodge of old boxcars and dead eighteen-wheelers stood on the near side of an open tarmac, like metal dinosaurs come to die at the boneyard. The air carried the stink of wood smoke brushed with industrial chemicals. They’re burning creosote.

  While Mike shambled off along the tracks, Kevin spent a few seconds staring up at the gleaming mass floating like a tiny electric star. I bet she’s right. This whole place is one big trap.

  “You comin’?” Mike’s voice echoed in the open space.

  Kevin pulled his gaze away from the truck graveyard and jogged to catch up. “Yeah, yeah…”

  “N-not the kinda place a guy like you w-wants ta hang out.”

  “No shit.” Kevin glanced at the tower again before gesturing at Mike. “After you.”

  Mike trotted along the tracks, following the curve left past the tattered strips of aluminum where something huge had smashed the fence years earlier. About twenty yards beyond the breach, a section of road ran alongside the tracks past two doublewide ‘office’ trailers built into permanent structures. A handful of people, most in their teens, lounged around in various states of consciousness.

  The only one lucid enough to move, a strung-out looking girl somewhere between fourteen and sixteen with caramel-hued skin, pulled black hair off her face and smiled at him. Almond-shaped eyes widened, and she tried to strike a seductive pose. A brief gust of wind fluttered scraps of torn cloth on her thin tank top, and she barely managed to hide shivers and chattering teeth.

  “Don’t trust Fix, man,” whispered Mike. “She’ll knock ya out ‘fore ya get anywhere and you’ll wake up wit nothin’. Fell for that skank once. Ain’t doin’ again.”

  Kevin stared at her. “Yeah. I know the drill.” That redhead looked innocent too.

  Fix seemed to realize sexy wasn’t working and turned up the pathetic. She shivered and changed her posture. Shit, is that girl even thirteen yet? Kevin looked away. The kid reminded him of some of the girls the Olds used near the ‘Mexican border’ as bait. A twinge low and outside of his left nipple reminded him why he wore armor. Little bitch shot me as soon as I untied her.

  One by one, other faces emerged from the dark. Boys still. Not one of them looked eighteen yet. Tris’s words whispered at the back of his mind. These are the lives he was about to destroy. He thumbed the cube, his pace slowing. He caught Fix staring at him again, huddled in a ball and peering at him over her knees. If not for having witnessed her ‘sexy’ act before, he’d have mistaken her now for twelve.

  She’s playing me. Shit, they’d all slit my throat in an instant if they knew what I was carrying.

  He stomped after Mike, who’d gained a six or seven pace lead. The junkie led him past three huge semi-trailers with open sides. The first had been merged with another, forming an open-faced barroom. The second trailer, a single, had a boxcar-like door cut out of the facing wall blocked off by a U-shaped counter full of shitty looking handguns and knives. A woman in a black lace corset, old enough to be his mother and definitely too large to wear the fishnets cutting into her legs, winked at him from the gun shop.

  “Holy shit.” Kevin rubbed his eyes. “I think I’m catching a contact high from being here.”

  The third car held only mattresses strewn with bodies that may or may not have been alive. A reek of feces and urine wafted by, causing him to choke back the urge to gag. Mike cut between it and the next one, walking four rows deep before turning right down a ‘corridor’ formed by boxcars. After passing four of them, they emerged in a semicircular clearing with a handful of burn barrels throwing off firelight. A dozen or more people lounged in improvised chairs and drank murky green liquid from fat glass bottles. Except for a few young women evidently here to trade themselves for drugs, the gang seemed to have made an effort to dress as close to the same as possible: black leather jackets, black pants, and blue shirts.

  Mike indicated a couch near the blue boxcar that formed the rear wall of the ‘courtyard.’ A large dark-skinned man sat between a pair of women who draped themselves on him from either side. He shifted to give Kevin a look-over, causing his leather jacket to creak as it strained to contain his muscles. Thick cornrows wrapped over his head and an enormous silver handgun sat on a table near his right hand.

  “The hell is this?” asked the man, eyeing Kevin.

  “You Tyrant?” Kevin stopped by a battered coffee table made from a slab of metal balanced on a plastic crate, covered with pills, needles, coins, and ammo.

  Clicking weapons played a cricket song in the dark all around him.

  “Yeah. An’ who the fuck are you? Imma give you ‘bout ten goddamned seconds ‘fore I school you on the meanin’ of sovereign territory.”

  “I’m a driver. ‘Less ya fancy Amarillo comin’ down on ya, relax.”

  Tyrant scoffed. “Shit, man. Them uptight bitches ain’t got no sway here. Not ta mention, if you here talkin’ ta me, I think they’d be more after yo’ ass than anything.”

  “You’d be right, except for the original client’s not around to complain.” Kevin held up the cloth sack. “I need to sell this quick, and Mike here says you’re the man to talk to.”

  “What’cha got?” Tyrant picked his gun off the table and held it in his lap. “Let’s see it. Easy and shit.”

  Kevin unwrapped the bundle. At the sight of the black box with glowing blue str
ips, a concentrated quiet settled over the gang. Tyrant’s hostility melted away. He gestured Kevin closer.

  “It’s legit.” Kevin cleared a space on the table with his boot and set the cube down. After a dramatic pause, he pushed the small shiny spot, causing it to open as it had in Neon’s office.

  “Motherfucker…” Tyrant’s eyes bulged. “Ain’ never seen sah much damn Salt.”

  “Yeah.” Kevin folded his arms.

  Mike grabbed him from behind to keep from falling over. The wiry man’s entire body shook with need. He tried to speak, but all that came out of him sounded like ‘mama’ over and over. Kevin pushed him off to arm’s length.

  “Give ya two hundred coins, cold.” Tyrant lifted one ampule, holding it to the light. “This shit from the Enclave, ain’t it?”

  “Two hundred?” Kevin shook his head. “It’s worth more than ten times that.”

  Tyrant grinned. “Yeah, it is. But you ain’t sellin’ to no Cloud 9 here. And if what you say is true… if Neon is no more… than your ass best be getting the fuck out on the sooner side of later.”

  “Contract was for twenty-four hundred. I can’t go back with less than two grand.”

  Mike emitted a sound like a chicken being run over by a truck as he slumped to his knees.

  “Two hundred’s my best offer.” Tyrant’s smile hardened.

  Kevin leaned forward and snagged the ampule from Tyrant’s fingers. “I can’t do two hundred.” He dropped it in the tray and poked the button to close the cube.

  “Pity.” Tyrant turned his head to the left. “Yo, Al. Time to negotiate.”

  Shit. Kevin went for the .45, but the woman to Tyrant’s right leapt at him, shrieking and waving knives. He backpedaled, cringing from the bombastic assault, trying not to trip over Mike.

  Bang.

  A slug slammed into his back, stalled on his armored jacket, but it knocked the breath from his lungs. The dervish woman feinted high and kicked his legs out from under him. Kevin hit the gravel on his back, raised the .45, and squeezed off one shot before a flurry of chains, clubs, and fists fell on him. Pain exploded in his wrist. His gun hit the stones somewhere to his right.

  He stomped the nearest shin, driving the knee backward with a splintering crunch. An aluminum bat smashed into his stomach, making him sit up into a massive leather-clad fist. Rocks hit the back of his head. For a few seconds, the haze of over-illumination faded.

  I can see the stars…

  n inch of water sloshed in the bottom of a highball glass as Tris slid it back and forth between her hands. Every few minutes, she looked up at the window and searched the dark street. The rhythmic sound of glass sliding over whatever synthetic material covered the table seemed to drown out the rest of the world.

  “Refill, hon?” asked a kindly middle-aged woman holding a bubble-shaped coffee pot full of water.

  “I guess.” Tris let her glass stop.

  “What’d you two fight about?” The woman poured. “Shame ya let a cutie like him get away.”

  “Oh…” Tris stared at the water until the bubbles stopped swirling, and glanced out the window again. “We didn’t fight that bad. He’s coming back.”

  “Hope you’re right, sweetie. You g’won and lemme know if you need ta talk.” The woman shuffled back to the counter.

  Tris’s focus traded blur between her reflection and the street. The dirt road outside twinkled wherever bits of silica or broken glass caught the incessant glow from the main spire. Pale blue numbers floating at the lower left of her vision read 23:18. The two dots blinked in a slow cadence, marking the passage of seconds. She closed her eyes, but the clock remained superimposed over the black. Somewhere inside her head, little wires fed it directly into her optic nerve… or at least that’s what Nathan told her.

  I don’t remember going to the bathroom once while in Detention. I had to have, but why can’t I picture where the toilet was in my cell? Lines drawn in memory appeared in her thoughts. Octagonal grey room with floor-to-ceiling chrome strips at every corner. Tiny table on the south wall. Gel-filled mattress on the north wall. Door on the left. Education terminal on the right. Gloss-black floor icy underfoot.

  Tris sighed and rubbed her fingers into the sides of her nose. She thought back to the look on Kevin’s face when she’d taken out Neon’s bodyguards. To her, everything had seemed to stop when her boosters kicked in. She’d pulled guns from a pair of mannequins and shot them in the head before they even knew she’d gotten their weapons. The predictive targeting system embedded in her brain stem painted thin lines out of the front of any gun she held, estimating the bullet path. Reflections in the fish tank let her hit the two other thugs behind them without needing to turn around.

  He looked at me like I was a… machine. She shivered. They can implant memories. Months of combat training in two real weeks. What else did they feed me? A handful of fleeting glimpses of her father, an oldish man with snowy white beard and hair. He’s so old. How can that be my father?

  She picked up the glass. “I’m drinking this. I can’t be an android.”

  “You need something, hon?” yelled the diner owner.

  “Fine, thanks. Just talking to myself.” She chugged the entire glass in one breath.

  If I’m a machine, I’m about to short out.

  Again she looked at the street. Dammit, where is he? I should’ve thrown that stupid box over the wall. I never should’ve let him go alone.

  She stood, slung the katana across her back, and rushed out. Four steps into the street, she stopped, unsure which way to go.

  “Hey,” yelled the woman. “You forgettin’ something?”

  “Oh.” Tris turned. “Sorry. I gotta find him. What do I owe you for the water?”

  “Just one, sweetie.” The older woman smiled, and let go of something in the back of her belt.

  “Sorry.” Tris handed over a dime. “I was too pissed. Did you notice which way he went?”

  The woman pointed left. “Toward the bad part of town.”

  “There’s a bad part?” Other than everywhere?

  “Oh, ho…” The woman shook her head. “You’re still new here. You’ll find out. Little thing like you might wanna come on back inside and wait for him.”

  “I’ve already waited too long.” She squinted into a breeze blowing in from the west. “I got a bad feeling.”

  “Pity if anything happened to a pretty face like yours. Be careful.” The woman ambled back into her diner.

  Tris thought about marking a waypoint. A faint beep sounded in her ears and a directional arrow, in the same shade of pale blue as the clock, appeared next to the numbers. She followed the road for a few minutes before it dead-ended in a cul-de-sac with three brothels. The last possible right turn led past a row of private residences that used to be passenger vans, small cargo trucks, and a few made from welded-together dumpsters. All manner of sounds emanated from within. Snoring, sex, and everything in between.

  She fought the urge to start shouting his name. Urgency hastened her stride and she proceeded to jog in a regular back and forth sweep pattern. One side of Glimmertown to the other, up one block, then reverse. The second time she reached the farthest east point before the walled-off end, a flash of red caught her eye to the left. A wisp of a teenaged girl had Kevin’s armored jacket. How many long-sleeved, red, ridged jackets are there in the Wildlands? She pivoted on her heel and ran up behind the girl.

  “Hey, kid.”

  “I’m not your kid, blanca.” The girl kept walking in a wobbly gait that made it seem like she’d fall over at any second.

  “Nice jacket.”

  The girl narrowed dark green eyes at her. “Fuck you, it’s mine.”

  “Where’d you get it?” Tris grabbed the sleeve.

  “Offa me!” The girl whipped her body around to jerk her arm loose and fell on her ass. She grabbed Tris’s wrist and pulled, unable to move her. Fear widened her eyes. “Fuck do you care?”

  “I really want to know.”
Tris squatted, draping her elbows over her knees. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Offa some dead guy.” The girl made a sour face.

  A wave of lightheadedness came on and passed. By the time Tris returned to the here and now, the girl was upright and half a block away. No… Kevin.

  Tris stood and yelled, “Show me where.”

  The girl shrieked something incomprehensible and took off at an ungainly sprint. Tris bolted after her, gaining ground with ease. She got close enough to shove the teen with two hands, knocking her forward into a tumbling roll. After a somersault, the girl curled on her side, clutching her right knee.

  “Ugh, bitch.”

  Tris pulled the Beretta off her belt and pounced on the girl, holding the gun against her cheek. “You’re going to show me where you found that jacket. If you move faster than a calm walk, I’m going to blow out both your knees. Got it?”

  The girl stared at her, lip quivering as if about to burst into tears.

  “Don’t give me that bullshit.” Tris leaned back and stood. “Get up.”

  “I’m Stacy, but everyone calls me Fix.”

  “Don’t care.” Tris wagged the Beretta at her. “Get up.”

  “Please don’t shoot me, I’m only twelve.”

  “You’re at least fifteen. Get the hell up.”

  Stacy rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled to a stack of tires someone likely intended as a ‘crash absorber’ at a street corner. She pulled herself upright and leaned on it. Tris closed to within two steps.

  “Alright, alright.” Stacy pushed off the tires and flailed her arms to keep balance. “You torched my fucking knee, gimme a little slack.”

  “Sorry. It was that or shoot you.”

  Stacy fixed her with a dark look, half pout and half venom. “He’s over by Tyrant’s, on the tracks.”

  “I’m still waiting.”

  The girl limped on. “Stay quiet. Tyrant’s crew’ll fuck you up if they hear ya.”

  “They leave you alone?” Tris raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah.” Stacy raised and lowered her arms as if pantomiming a bird. “They don’t mess with payin’ customers. If you’re not there to buy, you’re there to steal.”