The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  A bony guy with short black hair and a thin mustache in a tank top and camo fatigues loaded a 40mm shell into a grenade launcher attachment on his M-16. At his right, a stocky man with long brown hair snapped buckshot shells into a SPAS-12. The pockets of his olive drab trench coat swelled with extra ammo. On the near side of the table stood a dark-skinned man with an afro many months devoid of any attempt at maintaining it. His ordinary sneakers, jeans, and plain white tee shirt made him seem like he’d fallen through a time hole from before the war. Only the silver Desert Eagle on his belt seemed to belong in this damned new world. A leather bandolier over his chest held about ten more magazines. He looked up at them and offered a nod.

  Dennis moved past Kevin and spun to face him. “I can’t tell you how grateful we all are that you’re willing to do this for us. It’s been… hell being stuck here. We’re all hoping you can get one of those old buses to work.”

  “Gee… no pressure at all.” Kevin smiled.

  “Heh.” Dennis chuckled. “This is Gene.” The man with the M-16 waved. “Martin.” The long-haired man flared his eyebrows up twice, with a manic ‘lets do this’ expression. “And Rod.” The man with the Desert Eagle nodded. “Rod was with us the last time we went to the depot. He knows the best route.”

  Kevin hurled a playful accusatory glance at Tris. “I’m sure you all have been dealing with these damn things for a long time too, but I’d appreciate it if we tried to stay as quiet as possible. If we see Infected, but they don’t see us… don’t blow their heads off. Gunshots will attract more.”

  Paul ran in holding an Mp5, with a black hip satchel clattering at his side. He’d changed into an almost complete grey-white city camouflage uniform.

  “Paul.” Kevin shook his hand. “Bear with me here; I’m saying this to make myself feel better. The Infected are not undead. They are alive. One bullet to the heart will put them down.”

  The men offered murmurs of agreement and nods.

  “Sometimes when you’ve got a choice between shitting your pants and going full auto, full auto happens,” said Paul.

  Kevin walked to the window. “Yeah, I understand that. I’d prefer we got there without a shot being fired.”

  Marty racked the pump grip on the SPAS, and locked it forward. “You know that ain’t happening.”

  “Didn’t you hear? I’m an optimist.” Kevin held his hands up to the sides and winked at Tris.

  He slipped up and over the windowsill amid subdued laughter. The flexible ladder rattled and swayed on his climb to street level. Before anything else, he paced a circuit around the Challenger and breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had bothered it during the night. One by one, the others came down and formed up in the small parking lot.

  Tris tugged on the handle to the passenger door. When it didn’t budge, she flashed an expectant look. Kevin walked up to her and hovered nose to nose with her, smiling.

  After a light peck, he kissed her ear, and whispered, “4-1-9-4 to open. Push 0 and 9 together to lock it.”

  She gave him a quick hug. Kevin swallowed a tiny hint of fear that he’d set in motion a chain of events that would culminate with being tied naked to a cactus again, without a car. He forced the worry out of his mind and jogged over to Rod.

  “What’s the best way there? Long enough to drive it?”

  Rod frowned. “The roads got junk all troo ‘em. A bus’ll push crap out its way, but that nice ol’ car o’ yours ain’t doin’. We make it on foot jus’ fine. Take ‘bout forty minutes.”

  Thump. Kevin looked up as the car door closed. Tris jogged up to the huddle with her AK across her back on its strap, and the katana out.

  “What?” She shrugged. “You said you wanted quiet.”

  Marty loosed a wistful sigh. “I used to have a claymore.”

  “Damn stupid to get close to them.” Gene held the M-16 up in one hand. “Prefer working at a distance.”

  Kevin bowed to Rod. “Your show. Lead the way.”

  Rod walked out of the lot and crossed the street, headed generally south and west. Despite his request for quiet, Kevin held the Enclave rifle at the ready. The ghosts of a once-thriving city echoed in the back of his mind as his brain tried to fill in for the lack of noise. He imagined a place like this would never have been so quiet, even in the dead of night. Hundreds of cars littered the streets, undisturbed since their former owners last touched them before the world went up in flames. Windows coated in rain-hardened silt hid whatever secrets lay within under a shell of death.

  He edged away from the sides of the road and walked the centerline. Any of that muck could’ve been nuclear fallout. Heck, most of it probably was. Fifty years didn’t seem like a whole lot of time for radiation to go away, but Wayne had seemed convinced the danger of fallout particles abated after only a couple weeks. What the hell happened in Dallas then?

  Marty swung his shotgun left and right as they passed side streets and alleys, looking eager to kill something. Paul started off bringing up the rear, but Gene faded back enough to give him some protection. After fifteen minutes of walking, Tris slid the katana into the sheath and flexed her hands.

  The eeriness of an empty city seemed to press in on him. Dripping water and the rustle of unseen small animals kept everyone jumping and spinning at the slightest noise. Rod took a right turn, following another street west until tall buildings gave way to a more residential looking section with nothing over four stories. Minutes later, he went south again onto a road littered with cars. Some had been flipped upside down, others lay on their sides, and many had hundreds of bullet holes in them.

  “What the fuck?” whispered Kevin.

  Gene quickened his step, getting close enough to speak in a low tone. “Pre-infected territory war. Three gangs went at it for about two years. Ugly time. Course… makes ya wonder if it’s better than this.”

  “Turf war is easier to deal with than Infected.” Kevin jumped at a moving shadow in a trash-strewn alley. “City’s so damn big, what was the point of fighting?”

  “People who have power always want more,” whispered Tris.

  Gene chuckled. “Nah, nothin’ that highbrow. I think someone tried to put ketchup on a hot dog.”

  “Huh?” Kevin blinked.

  “Aw shit.” Gene laughed. “You ain’t from around here are ya?”

  “Nope. New Mexico.”

  “Damn. What the hell made you come all the way out here?” Gene whistled.

  “A blue-eyed blonde.” Kevin glanced at Paul. And two thousand coins.

  Rod climbed over a roadblock of orange plastic construction barricades, causing sand to leak out of numerous bullet holes. The others followed. Minutes shy of an hour after leaving the building, Rod came to a halt at a corner and pointed at a wide chain link rolling gate at the end of a short section of road. Two coils of razor wire ran along the top, connected to a tangle of more razor wire perched on a security guard’s booth at the left side of the driveway. Beyond the fence, eleven white metro-buses parked in a neat row in front of a one-story Transit Authority building. Solar panels covered the roof, and all three garage doors were closed.

  “We’re here,” said Rod. “I’m impressed. Quiet worked.”

  “We didn’t see anything to shoot at,” said Marty, sounding disappointed.

  Kevin jogged down the approach road, weaving between rows of water-filled barrels set up as a defensive fortification. With any luck, one of the flat-fronted e-buses could push through them. As expected, the outer door on the security booth was locked. He jiggled the knob out of annoyance and hit the blue painted metal door with a light punch. “Dammit. Rod, how’d you get in last time?”

  “Door was open last time. We slammed it runnin’ away from Infected.” He offered a weak smile.

  “Wonderful.” Kevin sighed at the clouds.

  “Break the window out?” said Paul.

  “I got it.” Tris took a knee by the door and fiddled with her left shoe. She pulled a pair of small metal rods o
ut of the heel and stuck them in the keyhole. “Try to stay quiet so I can listen.”

  “You’re full of surprises,” whispered Kevin. “Where’d you learn that?”

  Tris emitted a sad sigh. “I was trained for the resistance, remember?”

  She picked the lock in about forty seconds and stashed the tools back in her shoe sole. As soon as she opened the door, a rotting body in a security guard uniform moaned and reached for her from the ground.

  Tris’s arms blurred. The katana went from the scabbard on her back to pointing down and to the left in the span of a camera flash. A severed head hit the ground with a hollow clonk. She’d cut it at the level of the mouth, leaving a bit of chin and jawbone attached to the larger portion of corpse.

  “Fuckin’ A,” said Marty.

  “What was that?” asked Paul. “She some kinda android?”

  “No. Don’t call her an android again, or she’ll cut your balls off.” Kevin smiled.

  “I will not,” Tris muttered while wiping blood from the blade on the dead man’s shirt. “Don’t touch the blood.”

  “No kidding.” Kevin took a long step over the body.

  The interior door of the booth opened with ease, and he jogged up to the first bus in line. Over the next hour, he went from bus to bus, finding them all stone dead. The massive vehicles filled him with daydreams of creating the Marauder II. The tires came up to his chest; he thought of all the armor he could pile on a beast like this. Nothing would stop it once it got rolling. He’d be a wildlands juggernaught. As awesome as it could be, he’d still rather ‘sell fried potatoes to morons.’ Some looked as though they’d been pressed into service during the gang warfare, and bore numerous scars from pipe bombs, bullets, flames, and full-on collisions.

  Kevin surveyed all eleven buses, disregarding four off the bat as unrecoverable. Of the three in the best outward condition, one had a small army of dead Infected hanging on spiked armor plates all the way around it. That one, he wanted nothing to do with. The next best bus, in terms of lacking outward damage, turned out to have taken a hit from an explosive in the left rear, which exposed most of the inner workings of the biggest in-wheel motor he’d ever seen.

  His last, best, hope had four intact wheels, but the ass end looked like a work of modern art. No less than ninety silver circles surrounded finger-sized holes where black paint had flaked away at the impact of a bullet. Cringing at what he’d see inside, Kevin grabbed the hatch release and opened the rear panel.

  The battery cluster had long ago ceased oozing whatever chemicals they put in it. He knew enough to understand it should contain pale blue gel, not bright green foam. Odds were decent that between the other nine buses―he disregarded the existence of the one covered in Infected bodies―they could find enough serviceable battery modules to make one full array. If the only thing wrong with this one was lack of power, they might have a chance.

  He waved everyone over.

  “Okay, I think this is our winner.”

  “That don’t look like winning,” said Rod.

  Gene chuckled.

  Kevin smiled. “Looks bad, but it’s actually in the best shape of the lot. All we need to do is replace the batteries. I know it’s hard to see through this crusty foam shit, but there’s sixteen battery modules in there. Each one is about ninety pounds. We’re going to have to take them from the other buses and put them in here, then charge it up. Tris, can you check the solar panel controls? Before we start busting our backs, might as well make sure we’re not wasting time. Paul, go with her in case there’s shit inside the building. Everyone else, with me to the garage.”

  Tris nodded and jogged off. Paul hurried after her. Kevin strode up to one of the rolling garage doors and hesitated long enough to watch her disappear inside the office portion. He squatted and got his fingers under the rim. Rod, Marty, and Gene followed suit. The four of them grunted and lifted, flinging the cumbersome barrier into the air with a great rattling of counterweight chains.

  Unfortunately, the garage contained no intact bus waiting to be driven with zero effort. It did have three massive lifts that called out to the little boy inside him who wanted to play with something that cool. Kevin resisted the urge and pointed at four machines resembling the bastard child of a pallet jack and forklift.

  “We’re good,” yelled Tris from an open window. “Panel array is online.”

  “Grab those battery lifts. Should be self-explanatory how to use it. There’s rails near the top of the battery for those prongs. Slide it in and pump the handle. Lift the battery an inch and pull it back.” He grabbed appropriate-sized socket wrenches and handed them out. “Each battery is wired in a sequence with two contacts. Unscrew it, clear the wires, and pull it out. We’ll need sixteen intact packs. The stuff inside should be sky blue. If it’s any other color, don’t bother with it.”

  Kevin picked up a crowbar and a socket wrench before jogging back to the chosen bus. He got to work on the foam crust, bashing and stabbing at it to clear away the batteries underneath. Greening in the metal gave some evidence of an electrogel fire, though the real damage looked confined to the plastic battery casing and anode/cathode plates. Once he got the debris out of the way, he attacked the nuts holding the wires in place. All the while he worked, the grating sound of hard wheels on paving announced the arrival of battery module after battery module. At one point, he looked up at a shocked noise from Marty, at Tris lazily pulling a battery cart along with one arm. She didn’t bother pumping it down, rather pulled the battery off the rails with her hands and set it on the ground.

  “You know, they made those so people don’t throw their back out.” Kevin winked. “Work smarter, not harder.”

  “It takes too long.” She sighed.

  “I’m tellin’ you, she’s gotta be an android,” whispered Marty.

  The locals discussed androids and Enclave cyberware with Tris while collecting the remainder of the replacement batteries. Gene pointed out that Tris was sweating, something an android couldn’t do. A few times, Kevin had to resort to bashing the socket wrench with the crowbar to crack through the crud on the nut. So what if I break a bolt. Not like we need this bastard to run for the next twenty years.

  Once the last of the bad battery units came free, the entire group descended upon the bus. It took them about twenty-five minutes to de-load the smashed batteries, drop them, and slide the scavenged ones in.

  Kevin wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. He tossed Tris a wrench. “I could use a hand with the nuts.”

  Marty laughed.

  Tris raised an eyebrow. “Right here? Now?”

  “I’m half tempted to call your bluff.” Kevin slipped the first contact over the bolt post and set to the task of tightening it. “How’s the panel array?”

  “Operational. A few of the capacitors are blown, but that won’t be a problem unless we’re charging all eleven buses at once.”

  He smiled. “Maybe the extra power will get us out of here faster.”

  Between her superhuman dexterity and enhanced strength, she secured four to five contacts for every one he tightened. Before long, the bus looked ready to go.

  “Okay, now for the shitty part.” Kevin chuckled.

  “There’s a shitty part?” asked Gene.

  Kevin grinned. “See where this bus is?”

  Everyone nodded.

  Kevin pointed to an island on the opposite side of the bus yard that resembled a tiny gas station with a covered awning. “We have to push the fucker over there to charge it.”

  “Great,” said Marty.

  Paul shook his head. “Wonderful.”

  “Shit.” Gene spat.

  Rod whipped the Desert Eagle off his hip and aimed. Everyone froze, and turned in a gradual spin to stare where the pistol pointed. A lone Infected, a heavyset bald man in a coral pink shirt, wobbled across the street by the gate. He sniffed around the security booth. Milk white eyes gazed over the group, though he didn’t seem to notice them
.

  Kevin mouthed ‘nobody move’ without giving voice to it.

  The pudgy, rotting man crawled through the booth and shambled into the bus yard. His left arm tucked up like a bird with a broken wing while he dragged a right leg that seemed incapable of bending at the knee. One of his cheeks hung open, a swaying flap of skin exposed bright red muscle underneath, roiling with maggots.

  Tris eased the katana out.

  Kevin put a hand on her shoulder.

  “If we shoot it, there’ll be fifty more.” She eased up to the corner of the bus, sword held down.

  Paul broke out in a cold sweat and raised his Mp5. Gene waved him off. Paul moved his finger off the trigger and nodded. The Infected bobbed his head, as if somehow waving it back and forth would help him smell or hear. Everyone huddled behind the bus. Kevin crouched at Tris’s side and grabbed the back of her belt.

  She squinted at him. “I’m not an idiot.”

  The Infected swung itself around in response to a distant clank.

  At almost the same instant, Paul rasped, “What are you waiting for?”

  Kevin cringed.

  The decaying man whirled around and hobbled closer, emitting eager grunts and sucking noises. Kevin released her belt. She’s immune. She’s immune. Tris flexed her knees. When the Infected reached the front end of the bus, she ran out.

  Another distant crash got its attention, and it spun away, drawn by the louder noise. It took one step toward the gate before the crunch of Tris’s shoes on the paving got its attention. The Infected sucked in air, preparing to howl. She rammed the Katana into its chest to the hilt, raised her right leg, and stomp kicked it while jerking the sword free. Gurgling, the dead man fell over backward with a sickening splat of semi-rotten flesh striking asphalt.

  Everyone exhaled at once. The group fanned out in a V, aiming weapons at all possible points of entry to the yard they could see. After a few minutes of nothing, Kevin patted Gene on the shoulder and pointed at the bus.