One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Hungry?” asked Tris.

  Now that you said that, I am. Kevin scratched at his stomach and sat up. “Yeah.”

  Tris seemed to take notice of the names on the boy’s shirt and gave him a sad look. “Why are those names crossed out?”

  Tommy smiled at her. “It’s mine now. They’re too big.”

  Tris relaxed.

  “Are you and her gonna make kids now?” Tommy looked at him.

  Laughing, Kevin grasped the boy about the chest and set him on his feet. “Not right now.”

  “You can make kids with my mom if you wanna. I need a li’l brother or sister.”

  Kevin covered his face to keep from laughing too loud. Tris coughed and gave him a strange, unreadable look. He patted Tommy on the head, ruffling his hair. “Not right now.”

  The boy took two steps away before looking back. “Can I still see your car?”

  “Ask your mom. And, in the morning.” Kevin stood and took a deep breath laden with the fragrance of cooking beans. “Food?”

  Tris, with a trace of blush in her cheeks, kept her gaze down as she got up and followed him deeper into the train tunnel. The smell of cooking food grew stronger the farther they walked. Power fluctuations manifested as regular flickers in the lights that affected the entire settlement. He glanced at one corkscrew bulb as they passed under it, wondering what these people would do when they ran out of them. Guess they’re gonna live like moles when the lights go out. While debating how long it would take for humanity to regain the ability to manufacture light bulbs, he sidestepped boxes, toys, running children, and a handful of fifteen-to-thirty-year-old women who tried to catch his eye.

  “Reminds me of home,” muttered Tris.

  “How’s that?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “All those girls are checking you out. There can’t be that many people here. They probably want some outside DNA.”

  “Hmm.” He chuckled. “And here I thought it was my good looks.”

  “You planning to donate?” Tris swung her arms as she walked, not looking at him.

  Kevin halted by a metal counter, where a kitchen had been set up in place of bunks. “Nah. Still too sore from Tyrant’s lack of ethical business practices.”

  Tris nibbled on her lower lip.

  A pale thirtyish woman with mouse-brown hair looked up from tending a stove full of pots. She had a ‘kiss the chef’ apron on over an olive drab tee and camo pants. A trio of preteens, a boy and two girls, sat on the floor nearby, making what appeared to be salsa in a metal bowl big enough for them to bathe in.

  “Hello. You must be the driver who brought the medical supplies.” The woman smiled.

  The kids looked up with curious expressions.

  “Yeah.” Kevin took a handful of coins from his pocket. “Kendall said we should see you for food? Guessin’ you’re Paula?”

  “Yep.” She waved at him. “Put those away. We all help out here. Be just a moment.” Paula tapped the boy on the shoulder.

  “Yes, Mama.” He jumped up and ran to a flat cooking surface, where he poured pale batter out of a plastic pitcher and set to the task of making four fresh tortillas.

  Kevin leaned on the counter. “I got the explanation on the way in. Not sure I could tolerate staying underground so much.”

  “Oh, there’s more than this.” Paula pointed at the wall. “Tunnel D hits an open atrium about two miles in. That’s where we grow all our vegetables. Used to be a platform, but the whole roof fell in. Plenty of dirt to grow things with.”

  “No rads? No Infected?” Kevin blinked.

  Paula shook her head. “Haven’t seen any Infected around here.”

  “Maybe everyone died in the blast,” said Tris. “No one to get sick.”

  Kevin scrunched his face in thought. “We saw building frames on the way in. Had to be a high-altitude airburst. City as big as Dallas was, there had to be enough survivors for a major nest. The Virus landed in all the major population centers. I don’t see why they’d have skipped this one.”

  The boy scraped the tortillas up and flipped each one before grinning back at them. “‘Nother minute.”

  Paula stirred a thick brown paste in one of the pots. “All I know is we’re safe down here.”

  Until the lights go out. Kevin glanced up.

  The man who had been with the doctor emerged from the tunnel and waved at everyone.

  “Hi, Josh,” said Paula. She looked at the boy, but before she could say a word, he’d already poured out two more tortillas. “Maybe he could explain?”

  “Explain?” Josh leaned on the counter.

  “Infected,” said Tris. “Paula said there aren’t many around here.”

  “Any, actually…” Josh nodded. “We’re not sure of the exact mechanism, but it seems like the radiation in the area kills the Virus… or kills any cells which uptake the virus. It would be great if we had the kind of diagnostic equipment that would let us study this in detail, but…”

  “Yeah,” said Kevin. “Any place big enough to have that kind of tech is either blasted to hell or too small to still have any sort of power.” He sighed. “Seems like we’re still sliding down.”

  Paula took the first four tortillas from her son and set to the task of turning them into bean burritos. “What do you mean?”

  “We’re still hanging on to scraps from how the world was. Using up whatever tech survived… but you don’t really see anyone making more of it. Eventually, I figure we’ll go back to the dark ages… and then we start the whole damn cycle over again… assuming we don’t die off.”

  “Heh.” Josh shook his head. “Let’s hope we don’t reinvent nuclear weapons.”

  “Oh, they will.” Kevin accepted a hubcap with two fat burritos from Paula. “Thank you.” He leaned back as Tris took hers, and glanced at Josh. “By the time they get there―if they get there―no one will remember this.”

  “Sad, but true.” Josh sighed.

  “So radiation”―Kevin held out his ‘plate’ as one of the girls doled out a ladle of salsa for him―“kills the Virus. Any idea if it could function as a cure? Or is the dose necessary to clear the virus gonna kill someone too?”

  Josh laughed. “If you figure that out, we’d love to know.”

  “Your hair is so pretty,” said the girl, after giving Tris a scoop of the salsa.

  “Thanks.” Tris returned the smile.

  Kevin glanced at his food. “Take it easy, Josh. Gonna go eat.”

  “Keep yourself safe.” Josh waved.

  They wandered back down the tunnel to the bunk Kendall let them use. A few hesitant notes from an acoustic guitar twanged from the old man who had been reloading ammo before. The sound bent and warped as he tuned it. Kevin sat on the side of the bunk, stuffing one end of a still-hot bean burrito into his mouth. He scooped salsa with the hole he’d made.

  “Maybe that’s why the Virus hasn’t wiped everyone out?” Tris bit the corner off her burrito and poured a little salsa in it. “Enough radiation zones to keep it in check?”

  Kevin held up a finger while he finished chewing. “I don’t know of any other settlements like this… so close to a strike point. Maybe it works as designed and kills people too fast to migrate over long patches of uninhabited ground?”

  She shrugged, and continued eating.

  “What about that vaccine?” Kevin drank the salsa between bites.

  Tris shook her head. “The Enclave is one city… maybe a thousand people at most. They built up an area around what used to be a corporate industrial complex. The war happened in the middle of the day when people were at work. I…” She looked down as tears collected along her lower eyelid. “Sometimes I think about it. What it was like when everything happened. People not knowing if their families were still alive. Millions of lives vaporized in minutes. All the achievements of our civilization gone. I guess some of them tried to go home to find their families, but the Enclave formed from those who stayed behind. There’s a big underground
lab… I think it used to be some kind of physics thing with particles in a giant ring. No one cares about that anymore though.”

  He finished burrito one in three more bites and squeezed her shoulder. “You weren’t even alive then. Hell, neither was I. You shouldn’t feel guilty about something you had no control over.”

  “It’s not that.” She took a breath and wiped her face. “They still have some tech. The Enclave can make medicine and solar panels, cars, light bulbs… there’s no reason we have to go back to the Stone Age again.”

  “Except they’re zee-no whatever.”

  “Xenophobic.” Tris attempted a smile, but it lasted only a second. “The Council of Four is convinced only they deserve the world. It wasn’t bad enough nuclear war happened… they tried to kill everyone else. That’s what I feel guilty about. Being associated with that kind of insanity.”

  A handful of kids ran by, re-enacting the climactic final battle from Tris’s story. One boy yelled “I’m your father” seconds before a girl stomped her foot and screamed, “You shall not pass!”

  The man two cubbies down began to play an ancient song. Kevin stared at a torn US flag on the wall outside their cubby as the elder sang Fortunate Son.

  “There’s not enough vaccine for the whole world.” Tris stared at the remaining burrito on her hubcap. “Even if the Council changed their opinion.”

  He picked up the second half of his dinner. “It’s a waste of time even considering people like that will change.”

  evin awoke to the sensation of warm breath at the crook of his neck. At some point while he slept, Tris had moved from the upper bunk to under his blanket. She lay on top of him with her head at his chin. He gazed down at the field of snowy white inches from his chin. The way she clung in her sleep made her seem frightened. Not surprised. Out of her perfect little Eden. He smirked. Awake, she’d seemed far from afraid. She’s either good at hiding it or this is my Dad coming out. Having her body so close to his made the effect of morning even harder.

  He slid a hand up onto her back, over a thin strip of cloth at her hip and smooth skin the rest of the way.

  Tris smiled. “Is that a gun in your belt or are you happy to see me?”

  “Gun’s under the pillow.” A strange feeling made him turn his head to the left. Tommy, crouched at the side of the bed, peered at him over the edge, eyes and half a nose visible.

  “Hi,” said the boy.

  “Morning.” Kevin yawned. Consciousness spread from one region of his brain to the next. His hand flew under the pillow, and he calmed at feeling the .45 right where he’d left it.

  “Did you make a baby?” Tommy stood. “You said I can see your car.”

  “Need a minute, kid.” Kevin rubbed his face. The more he tried to think about calming his erection, the more determined it seemed to be to remain.

  Tris stirred. She seemed to lose the desperate clinginess her posture had given away in sleep and slid off him toward the wall side. “I promise you can see the car. Can you give us a little privacy?”

  “Okay,” said Tommy, not moving.

  Kevin tried to ignore the images his brain gave him of Tris in only her panties and focused on how much he wanted to beat the hell out of Tyrant. Having a five-year-old stare at him helped kill the mood the rest of the way. He scooted to his left, sliding out from under the blanket while ensuring it continued to cover Tris. Seated on the edge of the bed, he stared at the boy. “Go on, we’ll be a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” said Tommy.

  After it became clear the kid wasn’t going to leave, Kevin grasped him under the arms and carried him across their cubby to the other side. He set the boy down inside the tall steel cabinet and closed the doors. Tris flung the blanket off, hopped out of bed, and grabbed her shirt and jeans from the top bunk.

  “You’ve got a way with kids.”

  “Yeah.” Kevin scratched himself. “Usually it involves not being around any.”

  She offered a playful smirk while she dressed. He shook his head and reached for his pants. Tris seemed to think he wasn’t serious. That’s what got Dad killed. Feeling sorry for women and kids. With a grumble, he put all thoughts of his father out of his mind and got the rest of the way dressed. He patted himself down once he’d put his armored jacket on, making sure everything was where he’d left it.

  “You look surprised,” said Tris. She pulled the last Velcro fastener closed over her right shoe. “Expecting something to be missing? The kid’s only wearing a tee shirt… he’s got nowhere to hide anything.”

  “I’m not a stealer.” A little voice echoed inside the empty metal cabinet.

  Kevin opened the door. Tommy stood exactly as he’d been placed. “Yeah, well… A guy drives all over the place, you get a little used to bein’ taken advantage of.”

  The boy trailed them through the tunnel to the food counter, where Paula offered the three of them toast slathered with raspberry preserves. After thanking her for the food, Kevin made his way back to the mall area. Conversations filled the open concourse, everything from patrol schedules to one woman complaining about being put on a ‘rest list’ due to having taken in too many rads, to a crowd of older teens discussing ways to optimize the garden’s dispersion of sunlight.

  Kevin finished off his toast halfway across on the way to the garage. Fortunately ‘straight across the big tunnel’ was easy to remember. New Dallas appeared much larger than he ever could have imagined. Despite the radiation overhead, and being stuck underground, the thought that no Infected could exist here got an idea bouncing around his head of possibly returning at some point. He dismissed it as soon as the Challenger came into sight past a row of Humvees. There weren’t many Infected out in no mans’ land either, and he couldn’t see spending the rest of his days hiding from the sun.

  The older man behind the desk looked up. “Howdy there. You must be the driver.”

  “Yep.” Kevin walked up to a desk littered with handwritten ledgers.

  Tris stood at his side.

  Tommy squeezed between them and grabbed the edge of the desk, pulling himself up on tiptoe. “They made a baby.”

  Kevin chuckled while Tris gasped.

  Sergeant Ralston frowned at her and shook his head at the boy. “Doubt it, son.”

  Tommy looked up at her.

  Tris frowned. “What?”

  “Can’t knock up a toaster.” Ralston gestured at her. “White hair’s a dead giveaway. Right before it all went to crap, the Air Force was experimenting with artificial intelligence and androids. They tried ta make ‘em look as real as possible… but the first-gen batch was all given white hair so they could be easily identified.”

  Tris shivered.

  Kevin put a hand on her arm. “She’s not an android. I’ve seen an android before, and they don’t bleed.”

  “Civvie models, sure.” Ralston opened a drawer and took out a dented lockbox. “Military intelligence had ones that could bleed. Wouldn’t be any good to fool people if it was obvious.”

  “Are you a robot?” asked Tommy.

  “No.” Tris scowled at Sergeant Ralston. “If I was, would I have memories of being a kid and growing up?”

  The sergeant offered the lockbox to Kevin. “Maybe… maybe not. Depends on what the mission params were. Can’t see why they’d bother to trick their own machine though.”

  She clenched her hands into fists.

  “Of course, you won’t mind if I count it?” Kevin smiled.

  “Go right ahead.” Ralston fell into his chair and tucked up to the desk. “I know you driver types aren’t the most trusting sort. No sweat off my balls.”

  Tommy ran off toward the Challenger.

  Tris tapped her foot for a few seconds before shifting her weight. “I’ll go watch him, make sure he doesn’t touch anything.” She jogged off.

  Kevin opened the lid and got to counting.

  “So where’d you find that unit?” asked Ralston.

  “She ain’t an android. I’ve bee
n under the hood.” Kevin squinted, thinking back to the shot she’d made with her hands tied. The woman was strong enough to kick a man through Wayne’s railing… twice. Nah. If she was an android, she’d have broken the rope. She eats. She pisses. She fucks. “Body heat. Bleeds.” She can’t be… He looked up from the coins. Tris had Tommy in one arm, balanced on her hip, and seemed to be pointing at various parts of the car. No… no way.

  “Looks like I hit a nerve.” Ralston grinned. “Ah well. Whatever floats your boat.”

  Kevin finished counting under a little black cloud. His count wound up being 1804, but he didn’t feel like repeating it since the error went his way. More than likely it was 1800 and he overcounted due to feeling distracted. He closed the lid, shook hands with the quartermaster, and jogged over to his car with the burdensome payment under one arm.

  A muscular, twentyish woman with an M4, full camo, and Hispanic features jogged in, hurrying after him. “Hey…”

  “Yo.” Kevin stopped. “What’s up?”

  “What’s with the boy?” She gestured at Tommy.

  “Oh.” Kevin laughed. “He demanded to see the car. We ain’t trying to take him. Hell no. Kid’s pushy enough for one night, can’t imagine having to live with him. Little bugger even wanted me to go nail his mom.”

  “Oh?” The security officer cocked her eyebrow.

  He resumed walking. “Yeah. When he asked if I was going to be making a kid, I figured the next thing he’d say would be some kind of ‘got a kid?’ ‘No.’ ‘Want one?’ routine. Threw me off when he suggested I go ‘make a kid’ with his mother… Guess she works on her back and found a new way to advertise.”

  The soldier coughed.

  Tommy, still attached to Tris’s side, looked up from the car and waved. “Hi, Mom! Can I see inside?”

  Kevin halted five feet from the trunk. “Shit.” He glanced to his right with an overacted, sheepish smile.

  After a momentary hard stare, the woman’s gaze softened. “Well, I suppose being called a whore is better than you two trying to abduct him. He’s a little forward and a lot fearless.”