One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Might not be much left. Don’t waste it.”

  While she filled the bucket, he grabbed a smaller pail, and they spent the next half hour washing off the Challenger. Bloody water gathered in puddles on the road. By then, the moon had come up.

  “We are not going near Denver on the way out. I don’t care if we need to take a shortcut through fuckin’ Canada.”

  She took both buckets as Kevin shut off the still-spewing hydrant, and threw them back in the trunk. He stared at the road, terrified of going anywhere near the slime.

  “How long is this shit lethal? What if someone comes walking by tomorrow and finds this?”

  Tris bit her lip. “Umm. I want to say forty-eight hours in the wild before it deteriorates, but direct sunlight on the road might shorten that… especially when it dries out. You want to camp here and watch the puddle?”

  “No.” He half started at the car. “Dammit. Infected are walking around an hour away from here. A puddle won’t make much difference.”

  “I got it… stay back.” Tris pounced onto the roof, avoiding stepping in the water, and slithered in the window.

  She drove the car forward far enough to give him dry land to walk on and hopped into the passenger seat. He stared at the Challenger. Someone else had driven his car… and didn’t steal it. He trudged around and got in. For a few minutes, he sat gazing into the distance without driving.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You drove my car. That’s like… walking up to someone you never met and grabbing their dick.”

  “Well, you weren’t going to step in the goo.” She got ready to pout at him.

  He took her hand before her mood could darken. “It’s okay. I’m…” Their eyes met. “Trying to accept that it didn’t piss me off.”

  A moment of silence passed.

  “It’s dark. We should go. How much farther is it?”

  He reached under his seat and pulled out an old atlas, losing a few minutes flipping pages while Tris held the flashlight. Eventually, he found the area. Finger to the page, he traced the line over 119 west from Boulder into the mountains.

  “Looks like about 17 or 18 miles. Half hour, maybe more if there’s something in the way.”

  Tris yawned. “You’re sure the locals are friendly?”

  Kevin dropped the book under the seat and accelerated hard. Alamo’s strange smile lingered in his thoughts. “If they’re not, things are about to get real hot in Hagerman.”

  nease about what had happened in Boulder dogged Kevin the whole trip along a windy canyon route west. Perhaps a particular feature of the geography of the area shielded it from the effects of nuclear strikes as close as Salt Lake or even Denver. Granted, Denver hadn’t taken a direct hit… if it had, it’d be like Dallas―a couple of iron girders and some scrap in an uninhabitable slab of glass―but where were the survivors? Why did the place look like a pre-war town where everyone had vanished straight out of their homes and cars?

  Tris’s posture stiffened. “Roadblock up ahead, two people behind it.”

  He squinted. Damn her eyes are good. “Ain’t seein’ nothin’ but black.”

  He slowed to below ten MPH. Soon, a pair of large flashlights shattered the darkness up ahead. The Challenger lurched as he hit the brakes a little too hard, and came to an abrupt stop a short distance from the rear ends of two huge dump trucks lying on their sides. Their beds opened to full extension, touching in the middle of the road to form a barrier reinforced by slabs of scrap metal. Each truck had a single figure standing on the side of the cab, half-protected by a dented wall of angled steel welded in place. The person on the right seemed much smaller, though Kevin couldn’t make out a lot of detail past the glare of the monster flashlights.

  “Nothin’ here for you. Turn right on ‘round, and git gone.” A man’s voice, tinged with age, lingered in the chilly mountain air for a few seconds, echoing off the canyon.

  A tiny electric motor whined as Kevin rolled down the driver’s window. “This Nederland? Got a shipment via Wayne’s roadhouse.”

  “Oh, yeah,” yelled a higher pitched voice. They had a girl on the younger end of teen standing guard detail. “Wayne got us on the shortwave. You Earl?”

  “Earl’s the name’a Wayne’s dog what’s been dead six years. I’m Kevin.”

  The man chuckled. “Just checkin’. Give us a sec an’ come on in. Emma, git the gate.”

  In the seconds after the flashlights cut out, a streak of light brown zoomed out of sight behind the shooter’s nest on the right-side truck. A figure in a tan duster over flannel and jeans rose to his feet behind the other one. Scraggly, pewter-colored hair hung in spiral strands from under a battered cowboy hat. He offered a brief wave and climbed a ladder to the road on the inside of the gate.

  Kevin’s hand clenched around the wheel when a large truck engine roared to life. It revved up a second later, and loud scraping from the right side of the gate made him wince. Since the truck lay on its side, ‘lowering’ the dump bed equated to one of the two large ‘doors’ moving out of his way. Hydraulic pumps whined at a steady drone until the clunk of metal on metal announced it could move no farther.

  A slender girl with shoulder-length brown hair, also wearing a cowboy hat, sprinted through the headlight beams to the other side. Soon after another diesel engine grumbled to life, the second truck dragged shut across the paving, revealing the older man standing on the road. He waved Kevin forward. A light touch on the pedal got the Challenger creeping forward. Despite plenty of room between the two behemoths, driving in the Nederland gate made him nervous for his baby.

  He eyed the cab on the left. Someone had re-mounted the engine ninety degrees off axis, to sit upright in the flipped truck. Up ahead, the road curved down and to the right. Kevin leaned into Tris and peered out her window. A few dim red glowing spots drifted around a handful of buildings at the end of a dirt road on the right, up in the hills. About two car-lengths from the front bumpers of the trucks, he stopped.

  “What the…”

  Tris sat up taller. “Looks like people with red flashlights.”

  The elder sentry walked around the car, holding up a device that resembled a motorcycle headlight mounted to a battery the size of a canned ham. He completed a circle and stopped by Kevin’s window, patting a hand on the door.

  “Ya had a long ride.”

  “Yeah.”

  The engine on the left increased pitch, and the truck bed scraped open again. Kevin’s eyes tracked the maybe-thirteen-year-old girl as she killed the engine, crawled out of the cab, and sprinted to the other half of the gate. An AK47 swayed on a strap across her back, too large for its owner. She ducked into the red cab and reached toward the middle of the dashboard area. The second half of the gate bucked across the road with a staccato grinding noise for a few seconds before slamming into the other truck.

  “Well, the town knows we’re here now.” Kevin smiled. “Guess your neighbors ain’t the most friendly lot.”

  “Not rightly, no.” The old man gestured. “Take the road ahead until ya hit the circle. Go past it ‘till ya see a big orange buildin’ on your left on a corner. Park near that.”

  The second engine cut out, leaving the mountain in deathly silence.

  “Got it,” said Kevin.

  He pulled away, following the same road into a small town that, like Boulder, seemed to have survived the war more or less intact. With only starlight and his headlights to see by, he drove ahead at a modest fifteen miles per hour. A building with a rounded roof similar to old aircraft hangars―though much smaller―passed on the right. The ‘circle’ the old man mentioned turned out to be a patch of grass in a round curb barely twelve feet across. Kevin chuckled and drove as straight as he could past the hangar-shaped building. A brass sign on the corner read ‘mining museum.’

  “That looks interesting,” said Tris.

  “It’s probably a pickaxe, a shovel, and a dirt mound.” He grinned. “Maybe a nugget of quartz or someth
ing.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Damn, I’m tired. An hour ago, I wasn’t sure if I was going to live to see tomorrow, now I’m making fun of someone who figured mining was interesting enough to deserve a museum.”

  Tris sighed.

  They drove past a dirt lot on the right where some manner of rusting old crane sat. A little further down, on the left, a squarish building with a flattened corner looked like the one the gate man mentioned.

  “Is that orange?”

  “Uhh.” Tris shrugged. “Beige? Tan?”

  “Close enough.” Kevin turned left and pulled up in a parking space near the double doors. The sheer mundanity of parking in a designated spot made him laugh. “Well, damn.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  He pushed the door open and leaned on the button to roll the window up. “Look at this place? It’s so out of the way it’s like even the war didn’t want to make the trip.”

  Three men emerged from the building. The eldest appeared close to forty, with black hair so short it resembled motor oil smeared on his scalp. He dressed like a relic from the military: full camo. The other two were young enough to be his sons, but looked nothing like him. Both younger men had flannel shirts and jeans. One of the twenty-somethings smiled and waved.

  Kevin stood. “Hey. Got that shipment from Wayne’s.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” The older man approached in three clean strides and extended a hand. “I’m Bill. This here’s Pete and Brett.”

  The two younger men nodded in time with their names.

  “Kevin.” He shook. “That’s Tris. Nice little town ya got here.”

  “Eh.” Bill let his arm fall at his side. “Isn’t what it used to be, but we’re managing. Between the zombies and the damn bandits, it’s getting rough.”

  “They’re not zombies,” said Tris. “Infected are technically alive.”

  Bill patted a black rubberized handle on his left hip. “If I ram this through someone’s chest, do you think they’d care if I call it a machete or a gladius?”

  Tris’s eyebrows formed a flat line. “That’s an oversimplification. You don’t need to shoot Infected in the brain to kill them. There are meaningful differences.”

  “Where’d you find her?” asked Bill. “She sounds familiar.”

  “Vasquez?” Tris edged closer. “Your hair was longer.”

  Bill pointed at her. “You’re the one they were sending…”

  “Whoa.” Kevin hooked his thumbs in his pockets. “You two know each other?”

  Tris looked back and forth from Bill to Kevin for a few seconds. “H-he was supposed to be with the resistance in Harrisburg.”

  “I was there.” Bill glanced at Kevin. “Trunk?”

  “Yeah.” Kevin leaned into the Challenger and hit the release button before closing the door.

  “What happened?” Tris clenched her hands into fists. “We got there and it looked like everyone died.”

  “I’ll explain later,” said Bill. “You two look worn out.”

  “How many boxes is it?” asked Brett.

  Tris covered her mouth with both hands, trembling―though she seemed more freaked out and angry rather than frightened.

  Kevin held his hands about four feet apart. “One big one.”

  Pete and Brett followed, extracting the box of ammo after Kevin lifted the trunk lid. They grunted from the weight and shuffled only two steps away before setting it down on the road. Bill walked up as they opened it and did a quick visual check of numerous small boxes of bullets. As often as hand loaders re-used old ammo cartons, he doubted the labels matched the contents.

  “Looks good, but we’ll need to give it a thorough count.” Bill gestured at the two younger men, indicating they should bring the ammo into the building. “You two are welcome to spend the night at with me an’ the wife if you want.”

  Kevin squinted at the fast-departing box of ammo. “I’m s’posed ta pick up the payment. 5000 coins.”

  Bill hooked a thumb on his belt. “Understood. You don’t think we’d risk getting on the ‘house’s bad side?”

  Kevin half-smiled and tapped the tip of his boot on the ground. “Ain’t the ‘house’s backside I’m worrying about.”

  “Heh, fair enough. Guess you aren’t too quick to trust people.”

  Tris folded her arms. “Takes him awhile.”

  “Was gonna bring out the boxes once we’d finished counting bullets.”

  Kevin gestured at him. “Why don’t we count coins while you count bullets?”

  “No need, friend.” Bill grinned. “We don’t got much use for coins out this way. Most of what we use, we find… what little else we barter for. They’re still bank-wrapped. Two $25 boxes of pennies.”

  “Dammit.” Kevin suppressed the urge to snarl. “It’s supposed to be five thousand, not fifty.”

  Tris giggled.

  “What?” Kevin stared at her.

  “A hundred pennies to a dollar. Twenty-five dollars is 2500 pennies.”

  “Oh.” He rubbed his face. “Damn complicated prewar money.”

  “Coins are coins. You need some sleep. Head straight on down the road past this place ‘till ya see a red house on the left by a row of pine trees. That’s my place. I’ll be right behind you.” Bill jogged past the front doors of the building and pulled a mountain bike away from the wall.

  Kevin didn’t move until Tris pushed him back to the car. He took a left out of the parking lot, driving deeper into town on the same road they’d come in on. Less than a minute later, a little dirt ramp led off the road on his side, by a red brick house with an angled roof. Lights inside revealed the shadows of at least one person moving around.

  He pulled up by a battered garage door and shut down the car. Tris’s right leg bounced. She seemed markedly less tired than before. Kevin didn’t feel like walking up to a strange house; that’s a good way to get shot. Within a few minutes, Bill arrived. The mechanism of his ten-speed emitted a ratcheting click as he slowed and pulled up to the porch left of the garage. Kevin got out, giving the door enough of a shove to close with a gentle thump behind him.

  Bill led the way into a small kitchen where a brown-skinned woman with black hair, about Bill’s age, sat at a rectangular table covered with a blue-white checkered cloth. She gave them a cursory glance before cocking an eyebrow at Bill. Kevin looked around, feeling out of place in such a normal setting. Replace the half-dozen candles with electric lights, and it might’ve been possible to forget a war had happened at all.

  A little girl of about nine stood in an open doorway leading into the next room. Blonde and blue-eyed, she looked nothing like Bill or the woman. A threadbare pink tee shirt, sized for a woman, but with the neck sewn smaller to turn it into a nightgown, hung from a bony figure. Her right big toe poked out of a hole in olive-drab socks. The girl stared at him, face neutral, not blinking.

  “This is my wife, Ann.” Bill gestured between them. “Kevin, Tris… driver who brought in the ammo.”

  “Oh. Wonderful.” The woman smiled. Her English had a trace of Spanish in it. “Have you had anything to eat?”

  Kevin’s stomach answered for him. “Uhh, no. Not yet.”

  “We’ll give you fair coin for some food.” Tris smiled.

  “Oh, nothin’ doin’.” Ann pointed at chairs. “You’re guests. Sit. Besides, they’d just collect dust in a drawer somewhere. We don’t really use coins here.”

  “You don’t?” asked Kevin, eyebrow up.

  Bill grinned. “We don’t leave Ned much. No need. That’s mostly for inter-town trading and people like you who never sleep in the same bed twice.”

  Kevin eased himself into a white-painted chair he feared would break if he put all his weight on it. He laced his fingers together and rested his hands on the table. “Food sounds awesome. Thanks.”

  Tris sat catty-corner to him on the right. The smile she gave him said she had to be thinking about his recent doubts about humanity. “Thank yo
u, Ann.” She fixed Bill with a stare as he sat across from her. “So, what happened in Harrisburg?”

  The child didn’t move from her spot. Kevin locked eyes with her. He shrugged and mouthed ‘what?’, but the girl didn’t react.

  Note. Keep the matches away from that one.

  “We figured we were relatively safe underground there. The Infected hadn’t worked out how to use ladders. Most of ‘em couldn’t handle the idea of lifting manhole covers. They’re pretty stupid.”

  “Not completely.” Kevin rubbed his arm. “One of them knew enough to disarm me once. They understand what guns are.”

  “I’ve never seen that.” Bill scratched his cheek.

  “Might’ve been recently infected,” said Tris. “Still had a bit of higher brain function left.”

  Bill picked at a gouge in the table. “Anyway, about a day after Nathaniel told us you were on your way”―Tris scowled―“Jeffries stumbled into the command room. He’d been out on sentry watch, and said the floor gave out from under him. His leg was all tore up. Couple of hours later, he crawls to his feet and staggers off down the hall, we think ta hit the shitter, but he kept on going. That old sewer had a street level access point about a quarter mile away. Son of a bitch Jeffries went right to it and tore out the barricades. He opened the damn doors up and let the Infected walk right in.”

  Kevin shivered.

  Bill flicked his gaze up from the Formica to Kevin. “Oddest thing was they were waitin’ for him. Like they knew he was comin’.”

  Kevin shivered again.

  Tris stared down. “I’m sorry. He probably saved you all… at least the ones who lived.”

  “How’s that?” asked Bill, a touch of a glare in his expression.

  “Nathan wasn’t trying to help the Resistance. He’s probably First Tier administration.” Tris’s eyes reddened around the edges. “He put a bomb inside me. If you were all still there, it would’ve killed everyone.”

  Bill scowled. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Wait.” Kevin tilted his head. “That prick didn’t know you were there until you tried to make contact. How would he have known when to set off the bomb? If you didn’t get him on that… computer thingee, he’d never have realized you were at the target location.”