One More Run (Roadhouse Chronicles Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Hey… I…” He raised his free hand. “Sight unseen… assuming.”

  “No harm done.” She slung her rifle over her shoulder and walked around to where Tris stood, and collected the boy.

  Kevin packed the lockbox of coins in the trunk. Tris unplugged the charging line and let it spool back into the fender before closing the hatch. Kevin tolerated a few minutes of a five-year-old crawling around and asking “what’s that do?” about three dozen times. Both Kevin and the boy’s mother denied his request to go for a ride.

  “Aww, but why?” whined Tommy.

  “You’re not old enough to go outside yet.” The woman dragged him out of the car by a fistful of tee shirt at the back of his neck. “There’s bad stuff up there, and you’re too little.”

  “I hate radiation.” Tommy pouted at his bare feet.

  “Me too, kid… me too.” Kevin shot an apologetic glance at the mother before pulling his door closed. “Me too.”

  Tris hopped in. “Money good?”

  “Yeah.” He ran his thumb across the row of switches, each one lit azure with a click. “You’re not an android.”

  She folded her hands in her lap and looked down.

  “If you were an android, you wouldn’t be ready to cry about the thought you might be an android.” He looked around to make sure no one was behind them and backed into a K-turn between two columns. “Besides… you’re from the Enclave, not the Air Force.”

  “A lot of people there have white hair.” She looked up at him. “Almost half.”

  He drove up to the massive door. “Well, there you go.”

  Two rifle-toting men in camo approached the window. The closer one, name patch ‘Clarke,’ waved. “Quick in and out, just the way my wife likes it.”

  “Bullshit,” said Kevin. “No girl likes it quick.”

  The sentries both laughed.

  “Any lady who’s gotta smell Clarke’s breath does,” said the other man, earning a middle finger.

  Clarke pulled a metal tube from his left hip pocket, the kind of thing a cigar might’ve been shipped in. He twisted off the end cap and poured two pills into his hand before offering them. “Here, you two might wanna take this. Iodide. Helps protect from the rads topside.”

  “Thanks.” Kevin accepted the pills, handed one to Tris, and reached for the canteen behind his seat. “Since I know you’re here now, I might be inclined to do another run back this way if there’s a need.”

  “Be safe.” Clarke waved at his partner, who clapped his hand over a button that set the huge doors in motion.

  “That’s my dream…” Kevin hit the button that rolled up the window.

  Once the doors opened wide enough, he eased the Challenger past them and up the quarter-mile ramp back to the surface. Early morning sun, after hours spent underground, left him unable to look out the window for a few minutes. Fortunately, the flat, barren area allowed him to drive with one eye closed and one barely open. He had the car up to ninety-four miles per hour within seconds of his eyes adjusting.

  The Rad meter had leapt from zip to 051 as soon as they reached the end of the ramp, and proceeded to decline tick by tick with each passing minute they traveled north. Tris kept quiet for the better part of an hour, alternatively gazing out the passenger window or sending a morose stare into her lap.

  Kevin found himself humming Fortunate Son, the song the old man had been strumming, tapping his fingers on the wheel as the Challenger devoured mile after mile of wide-open desert. A shadow of paving ahead lined up with his approximate memory of where Route 70 ran west. If not for legends of millions of Infected in Oklahoma City, he’d have gone straight for Route 40 and a smoother ride…

  “Fuck Infected.” He slowed to take a gradual left onto Route 40.

  Tris looked over at him. “I wouldn’t suggest that. The Virus is likely transmissible in all bodily fluids, not only blood.”

  He opened his mouth to retort, but closed it. Not worth it.

  “That was supposed to be a joke.” She gave his arm a light shove. “I’m trying to cheer myself up.”

  “You’re not an android.”

  She stared at him.

  “They raided your ovaries. You eat. You piss. You’re awesome in bed.” Tris hid her face behind one hand. “You had a damn bomb inside you. Lot of blood there, and I saw… squishy bits too.”

  A laugh blurted out of her. “The egg thing could be a false memory… same with my childhood. Nanites can process food into other materials. They extract iron and metals from food, as well as scavenge ‘dead’ nanites to keep making new ones.”

  “I don’t know how those nanite things work, but that doesn’t prove you’re a”―two large shadows from the right caught his eye―“shit.”

  Tris gawked. “I’m a shit?”

  “Incoming!” he yelled.

  A quick cut of the wheel launched them off the paving of Route 40 seconds before a ripple of sand geysers traced the path of a machine gun. He jammed up on the parking brake to cause the ass end to fishtail around and lined up the nearer shadow with the front-mounted M60s. A pair of near-identical black SUVs, probably rebuilt Excursions, roared over the desert at him, belching blue flames from exhaust ports along the underside between the wheels.

  “Ethanol. Fuck.” He flicked the master arm switch and a green laser projected a targeting crosshair on the windshield. “Hold on.”

  Kevin risked three seconds of driving straight at one while firing both guns. Sparks danced across black armor paneling on the front. Even the windshield had steel plates over it, with only a narrow slit for the driver to see.

  “That’s not good.” Tris pulled on her seat belt. “Grenade trick?”

  The second truck broke away, drifting off to the left while the one he’d fired on continued on a ramming trajectory. A turret on the top of the distancing vehicle swiveled to aim at them. Kevin stared out of the corner of his eye at what had to be a single-barreled 20mm machine gun. Sweat ran down his head.

  “Goddammit. This is what I get for going cheap and not getting the .50 Cals.” He slammed on the accelerator and turned to the right.

  The Challenger slid around in a circle, kicking up a wall of sand. He straightened out in the general direction of west and stomped on the accelerator. A tremendous repeating boom boom boom went off somewhere to the rear and right, answered by a series of sharp snaps much closer.

  Explosive rounds.

  “Who are they? Why are they shooting at us?” yelled Tris.

  He flicked the toggle to activate the rear-facing guns and lined up the second vehicle on the little targeting monitor. “You see any insignia or markings on them?”

  Tris twisted around to look. Kevin’s thumb touched the fire button, but he didn’t press it hard enough to activate the guns. What the hell am I doing? The ‘60s bounced off… these won’t do shit.

  “No markings.” She righted herself. “I think… inch-thick plate on the front and sides. Grenade trick won’t work; looks like they got plows or something with spikes.”

  “Crap. Night Riders. They’re looking for target practice. Bunch of complete psychos.”

  “Wasn’t that a little tiny car?” She looked confused for a second until bullets clanked all around. She screamed.

  “Goddammit!” Kevin swerved to the right, pushing the accelerator as hard as he could as a triplet of small explosions hit the ground next to them. “Where the hell did tiny car come from?”

  Sand washed over the hood, spraying up onto the windshield.

  Tris pressed herself into her seat, staring wide-eyed at him. “Historical documentaries. The car had an AI inside it that helped the driver.”

  “Never heard of it.” He scanned the dash looking for any warning lights or signs of major damage. As soon as he dared to feel relief, both rear wheel status indicators went yellow. “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Anything you wanna say before we die?”

  Tris grabbed his arm. “What!”

>   “We lost two motors. We’re not going to be able to outrun those ethanol-chugging monsters. These little pop guns aren’t gonna do a fuckin’ thing to an inch of armor. If I ever see that bitch again… So much for speed being an advantage.”

  She unhooked her belt and rolled her window down. “Hold me so I don’t fall out.”

  “What the hell are you going to do? Flash your tits and hope they take up slaving?”

  Tris punched him in the thigh, hard enough to numb the leg. “No. Asshole.” She pulled the Beretta off her hip. “Gonna try for the viewport.”

  “Ow, son of a…” He reached to rub the leg, but seeing the gun coming back around, wound up with both hands on the wheel, throwing the car into a right turn that sucked Tris back inside.

  Another row of dirt geysers passed on the left.

  “Use the .357; it’s got a longer reach. More accurate too.”

  She dove between the seats, reaching for the back.

  Kevin swerved in as erratic a serpentine as he could manage. The Excursions came around and pulled in close with each other before their engines roared. The Challenger’s speed bled from eighty to seventy and kept going down. Front wheel status went orange, indicating the motors were getting too hot. He glared at the speedometer as enormous black forms tipped with rows of welded spikes engulfed the rearview screen, engines roaring.

  Tris slid back into her seat with the silver revolver in her hand. She grabbed Kevin’s right hand and slapped it onto her belt. “Don’t let me fall.”

  “Wait.” He eyed the turret on the left Excursion moving. After a fake right swerve, he committed to the left as the 20mm gun opened up again. One clank came from overhead. “Shit!”

  “Going!” Tris lunged half out her window.

  Kevin held on to her belt with one hand, trying to watch the rear view for the next attack while slaloming among larger clods of sagebrush that might cause the car to flip. Come on… Come on… what are you waiting for?

  Blam.

  He frowned at the rear screen. At nothing happening.

  The .357 went off again, two shots so fast it sounded like a burst.

  The SUV with the turret veered into its companion, bounced away, and careened off in an aimless drift. Tris shifted and grunted. The other Excursion swerved left; black steel filled his door-mounted rearview mirror. Blue flames belched from four exhaust pipes behind the driver side door as the growl of a massive ethanol-swilling engine drowned out the world. Kevin palmed the wheel and cranked it clockwise while pulling back on his right arm in an effort to get Tris inside the car. He lurched forward in the seat as the huge vehicle rammed the Challenger from behind, knocking the car into a flat slide before thundering past. Tris screamed. The weight on his arm vanished. Kevin’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of a bundle of denim in his fist around two black shoes.

  Blood on the door only frightened him a little more.

  She screamed again and slapped the roof. He twisted his head to look. She’d wrapped herself around the side of the car and somehow managed to hold on. Kevin kept pulling on her jeans while straightening out and slowing. At twelve MPH, Tris pushed off the car and slipped free of the denim. Kevin stomped on the brakes. She bounced to her feet, .357 aimed at the black mark in the distance leading a trail of dust back toward them. Dirt caked in the shape of bloody rivulets down her right leg.

  He shoved the door open, pulled his .45, and aimed at the front of the Excursion barreling at them. What am I doing? Tris fired.

  Plink.

  She fired the last two rounds. Kevin stared at the muzzle flare.

  Plink. Plink.

  Tris grabbed at her hip for the Beretta, but got only a handful of thin elastic. “Shit.”

  “Here!” Kevin threw the .45 over the roof to her.

  Rumbling engine noise vibrated the ground.

  She caught it, aimed, and fired four times, once every half second.

  Plink. Plink. Plink.

  The Excursion’s horn blared a second before it swerved hard to the right and flipped. The massive vehicle went from driving to rolling like a log at them.

  “Fuck!”

  Kevin hopped in, not bothering to close the door. Tris took off running. He slapped it into reverse; the tires spat dirt as he slid backward into a half turn. Dust, metal fragments, and a huge blur of darkness crashed and bounced past the front bumper. No shock wracked the frame. It might’ve been under an inch, but he’d take any miss fate would give him. Kevin let his head sag forward until it touched the wheel.

  Holy shit. He sat there breathing for a few minutes.

  Shoes scuffed up outside his door. He glanced to his left at Tris’s panties.

  “Hey cowboy, goin’ my way?”

  “That was incredible.”

  She bent forward, resting her elbows on the door, .45 draped from her hand. “So… Ya trust me yet?”

  He reached a hand behind her head and pulled her into a long kiss. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, crap.” She pushed herself up to look over the roof. “Got people coming out of the other truck.”

  “Get in.”

  Tris limped around the nose and dove headfirst in the window amid the pops and snaps of pistol and rifle fire. Kevin stomped on the accelerator, feeling a little dead inside at the lackluster response. On the car-shaped outline displayed on the little screen in the console, two red triangles where the back tires should be flashed with exclamation marks.

  “Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.” He banged his head against the seat with each word. “Now what the hell am I gonna do?”

  Tris twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “I’ve already got my pants off.”

  “You know what I mean.” He stared at the rearview monitor for a few seconds, until he felt safely out of range. “You’re shot.”

  “It went all the way through my leg and out the floor. Didn’t catch bone.” She twisted to show off her perfect thigh. “Skin’s sealed, but it still feels like I’ve got a burning rod in my leg.”

  “Gotta love those nanites.”

  She grabbed the wadded up jeans. “S’pose I should put these on.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to run around the Wildlands in a loincloth.” He squeezed the wheel. “Sorry. Car…”

  “Yeah…” She kicked her shoes off and pulled the jeans on. “I said pull me in, not rip my pants off.”

  He squinted at her.

  “The belt broke.” She flopped the two strands around.

  “You scared the crap out of me, I thought you went flying.”

  Tris leaned on his arm and put the .45 back in its holster. “I did. You saved my ass when you pulled. Gave me a chance to grab the car.”

  “You didn’t scream when you got hit.”

  She shrugged. “Too much adrenaline. You were all ‘we’re gonna die.’ I was terrified.”

  “You’re pretty hot when you’re scared shitless.”

  “You too.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “Oh, bullshit.” She winked.

  “I’m pissed. I was supposed to collect 2700 coins for the void salt. Between a thousand for that mess and the 1800 for the meds, we almost made out a tiny gain. Now we’re lookin’ at maybe a couple hundred coins’ worth of repairs… this trip was a loss.”

  Tris looked over, but whatever thought was at the tip of her brain didn’t make it out of her mouth. She bit her lip and looked down. Kevin grumbled to himself. Yeah… yeah… never should’ve run drugs. Whatever.

  Silence reigned, save for the whistle of air over bullet holes or the occasional thump of the tires striking a crack or pothole in the highway. Whenever a dark shape on the side of the road hinted at potential salvage, he slowed to take a closer look, though everything seemed picked clean.

  A little over an hour after bullets stopped flying, he took her hand. “Nice shot. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. My leg is pretty much healed.” She pulled her hair out of her eyes. “You should probably move those ma
chine guns to the back and get a pair of .50s on the hood.”

  Kevin chuckled. “Yeah… seems we’re gonna be driving for a while longer. Ween had a couple M2s he put back together… wanted five hundred apiece.”

  “Ouch.” She rubbed her leg. “I guess we could’ve outrun them if they didn’t hit the motors. If I had a rifle, it would be easier to make a shot like that again.”

  He eyed the charge meter, which showed eighty-eight percent. “It’s draining too fast for two wheels. If the fucking battery took a hit, I’m gonna be pissed.”

  “You already are pissed. The remaining motors are working beyond capacity. They’re used to pulling half the amount of weight. Probably on the far side of the efficiency curve. If the battery took a bullet, you’d have seen a large drop in charge as whole cell clusters went out.”

  Unbelievable. “Yeah… Yeah. I’m not thinking straight.”

  Time blurred under the endless repetition of a long, desert drive. A few hours farther west, he pulled over for a quick bathroom break. Afterward, he circled the car while Tris wandered off to have her own chat with Mother Nature. A line of small holes scored from a hand’s width above the left rear wheel all the way to the front. Both fenders and the door. Two gouges scored the roof, and both rear-wheel motors had taken several slugs that pierced the tread. Fortunately, the solid bands of rubber held together―the electronics inside the motors, not so much. Kevin popped the hood and walked around front. Dread mounted in the seconds it took him to build up the balls to look, but the giant battery proved intact. One bullet breached the compartment, but only nicked a mounting bracket holding up the ammo box for the machine gun.

  Repairs would set him back a couple hundred coins, but the car would survive. Fuckin’ Night Riders. What are they doing this far south? He slammed the hood and got back in, feeling more optimistic about their odds of reaching Hagerman. So I run a couple more cans of ‘bacco. Nothin’ I haven’t already been doing. Tris slipped in and closed her door with a gentle touch, as if afraid of hurting his ‘brand new car.’

  “I really thought Doctor Andrews had coins to give you. I wasn’t lying.”

  A smile curled the left side of his mouth. “Yeah. I knew you weren’t lying. You had no idea what happened there. You think your dad’s plan would work? Trying to get the Enclave to open up and help?”