The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set
Matthew S. Cox
Contents
One More Run
1. Nice Shot, Man
2. In Thirty Years
3. Wayne’s
4. Think Fast
5. New Problems
6. A Little Sympathy
7. Looking for Cracks
8. The Enclave
9. Campfire Jitters
10. Harrisburg
11. Final Stand
12. Gut Feeling
13. Stay Sharp
14. Glass Half Empty
15. Debts
16. Little Black Box
17. The Common Good
18. Glimmertown
19. A Special Kind of Stupid
20. Dream Killer
21. Tyrant
22. Little Red
23. Had it Coming
24. Payback's a Bitch
25. Plan B
26. A Matter of Perspective
27. It Ain't Me
28. Circling the Drain
29. Sparks
30. Do Androids Dream
31. A New Complication
32. Nederland
33. Exceptions
34. Fair is for Dead Men
35. The Whole Conscience Thing
36. Terminal
37. Junk
38. A Thousand Coins
39. Watering the Bushes
40. Hunting the Hunter
41. With Friends Like These
42. Second Chances
43. Two Hours
44. Sunset
45. Batteries Not Included
46. Seventeen Plus One
47. Absoluton
48. Impasse
49. A Slight Miscalculation
50. A Good Run of Bad Luck
The Redeemed
1. End of the Rainbow
2. Barren
3. The Door's Always Open
4. Spoils
5. Road Trip
6. Sinking Feeling
7. No Road Leads Home
8. Out of Warranty
9. Tarnished Dream
10. Alamo
11. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
12. Dead Code
13. Bounty
14. Bastard
15. Pauline
16. A Matter of Justice
17. Imperative
18. Mercy Flight
19. Las Cruces
20. Like Old Times
21. Roadhouse Down
22. Amarillo
23. The Lower Deep
24. Behind the Curtain
25. Playing Risk
26. Take No Chances
27. Just Walk In
28. Waiting, Watching
29. Komodo
30. Wasting Time
31. Used and Discarded
32. Matchsticks
33. Haunted
34. Contagious
35. Someone Else's Lie
36. The Quiet Life
37. Reboot
38. And Miles to Go
Dead Man’s Number
1. The Message
2. Speed
3. The Opposite of Alone
4. Scars
5. Nothing is Everything
6. A Long Time to Fix
7. Too Many Questions
8. Aces and Eights
9. Two On The Way
10. Sky Watch
11. Only the Good Die Stupid
12. Stoking the Flames
13. Blackbird
14. Customer Service
15. Contact
16. Dark Roast
17. High Alert
18. Resistance
19. Amaranth
20. Survival
21. The Combat Package
22. Please Follow
23. Lock and Key
24. The Next One
25. A Storm of Doubt
26. A Hollow Echo
27. Lying in Wait
28. Diplomacy
29. Dreams' End
30. What She’s Always Wanted
31. Irony
32. Burn
33. The Council of Four
34. The Future of Humanity
35. Cleansing
36. Reunion
37. Wishes
38. Nowhere Else
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
The Roadhouse Chronicles Book
© 2015-2017 by Matthew S. Cox
These novels are a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, places, or nuclear apocalypses is purely coincidental. No portion of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.
1
Nice Shot, Man
Worry and relief made for strange bedfellows―stranger still when the bed is only big enough for one. Civilization, such as it was, ended fifty-one years ago. A war started on some forgotten day in August of 2021 ended forty-five minutes later amid the smoky haze of nuclear fallout and blind panic. Most people never even knew what hit them.
The driver curled and uncurled black-gloved fingers around the rubberized steering wheel. Clouds of dust whipped past the windows and billowed into a plume that made the rear view screen in the middle of the console useless. The silt invaded the air vents, tainting the fragrance of sweaty leather with earth. Pale blue bar graphs on the pieced-together dashboard reassured him the vehicle had enough juice left to finish the job. Loose spiral wires of red and yellow snaked among gauges, wobbling with every motion. The steady vibrating thrum of four electric motors stoked his adrenaline. He grinned at the large red LED numbers in the center of the console behind the wheel: 86 MPH. The six flicked to a seven or a five every few seconds. He’d go faster, but road crews hadn’t existed for a hundred years, and the last thing he needed would be to smash an e-motor out in the middle of nowhere.
The lack of bullets flying at him so far had him on edge, not to mention how wide open the road seemed. He sped past the occasional tangle of metal on one side or the other, a former vehicle picked to the frame by scavs. This far out in no-man’s land, he should’ve encountered at least one bandit party―especially with the valuable cargo in the passenger seat. He glanced at the unassuming metal can and patted it. A broad smile distorted skin covered with days’ worth of beard and road dirt. Gloves creaked over the wheel.
People tended to hear things, even in Wayne’s place. The scavs would know he was coming.
The iron sights of two hood-mounted machine guns wobbled from the occasional dip or pit, nothing that would threaten the solid tires. Flickering brass glinted as the ammo belts danced in the wind. He’d gone cheap, settling for 7.62 instead of going whole hog with .50 Cal. Anything heavy enough to need ordinance like that couldn’t catch this car.
He glanced again at the innocent-looking can. The payoff from this run would be another big step toward his dream, but the closer he got to reaching it, the more it felt like he’d never get there. Sure, the smaller guns saved him about three hundred coins, and with any luck, they wouldn’t kill him.
Glowing light pierced the dust cloud behind him. He squinted at the rearview screen, mounted where the radio had once been. No one needed those anymore. Two leather-clad figures on motorcycles fanned apart out of his wake. On the right, a little speed-machine with a couple of sub-guns in the handlebars; to the left, a larger cycle, a retrofit Harley with electro-motors and a rotary gun mounted to a side car.
Damn shame if I have to torch that Harley. Screw the Ninja.
His finger poked a small, square red button on the edge of the four-by-six-inch dis
play screen. It flickered with static for a split second before a grainy feed from a trunk-mounted camera replaced the wide-angle rear view. A hair-thin green crosshair formed across an image flecked with mud. He flicked a toggle switch and one of many tiny pushbuttons on the side of the steering wheel lit up orange. He hovered his thumb over it and weaved to avoid a spray of fire from the smaller, more maneuverable Ninja. The biker’s attack ended a second later when he swerved in a desperate attempt to stay upright.
The driver grinned. “Watch them potholes, son.”
A quick shift of the wheel lined up the crosshair with the Harley as the giant rotary cannon on its sidecar spun up. I hope you go to hell for makin’ me do this. The driver pushed the thumb-trigger. In the trunk, mounted assault rifles barked to life: an AK on one side and an M-16 on the other. Muzzle flare blew like dragon’s breath from his taillights. As usual, the ‘16 let off about six rounds before it jammed. The AK continued chattering for a few more seconds until he released the button. Bike and sidecar burst into a fireball. The e-Harley veered off the road into an end-over-end tumble.
The Ninja’s engine wailed as its rider pinned the accelerator. A lone square headlight surrounded by dingy green rushed in on the rear view camera, hoping to get close enough for a ‘can’t-miss’ shot. The driver stomped on the brakes, chirping the tires and causing the small bike to smash into the rear bumper. All four tires threw off plumes of white smoke. A heavy whump landed on the roof a second before the bandit rider slid onto the hood in a flailing, gangly mass.
“Hmph. Ethanol.” The driver shook his head at the rearview. “That’s gonna burn hot. Damn waste of parts, even if it is a Ninja. Fuck it.”
The bandit pulled a revolver from his jacket and pointed it at the windshield. The driver cut the wheel and reversed hard. A shot went high as the bandit sailed off the long hood and fell onto the road. The driver straightened out of the turn and continued in reverse another few seconds before slamming on the brakes. He flicked the Challenger into drive and stomped on the pedal. Sand flew in torrents from all four wheels before the car caught traction and took off like a streak, straight at the prostrate figure. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of the old revolver as the man wobbled up to one knee. For a nanosecond, two men stared into each other’s souls.
A thudding clank rocked the undercarriage as all four-thousand some-odd pounds of car crushed flesh into pavement. The driver slowed and steered back around, stopping near the body. He waited a few minutes, staring at scraps of shredded leather fluttering in the wind while breathing the smell of molten tires. Once he felt confident no threat remained, he got out.
A pair of submachine gun mechanisms welded to the Ninja’s handlebars excited him, until he realized he’d found some H&K thing chambered in .40 cal. Despite having no guns that could use it, he still took the twenty-six rounds. The revolver looked in working order, albeit banged up. On the way back to his car, he pulled a leather belt full of .357 shells out of the semiliquid mass he had run over. Gun and bullets went into a bin he kept in the back, joining a handful of grenades, knives, and tools.
He fell into the driver’s seat, his weight barely noticed by the bulk of his rebuilt Challenger. Aside from the dirt, for a sixty-year-old frame, it looked mint. Granted, all the exposed wires and add-on tech inside was quite a far cry from what the designers originally planned on when the thing had a gasoline engine. Electric motors had been a novelty before the war, but now gasoline joined a long list of ghosts humanity may never see again. One more forgotten thing of the past, and only fools still used air-filled tires. Some die-hards clung to ethanol for the sound and fury, but the Roadhouse network made charging cheaper. He shut down the weapons to save battery life before returning to his delivery. The solar-powered trickle charger in the trunk could take twelve to fourteen hours to help him limp back to a waystation, and he’d rather not be exposed that long.
The driver brushed a smudge of dust from the rear-view targeting monitor, leaving finger trails of clean plastic. He offered a moment of silence for the death of a Harley, humming some song his dad used to put on in the truck all the time. He leaned back in his seat, arm draped over the wheel at the wrist, tapping one foot to ancient music that played only in his mind.
“Nice shot, man.”
2
In Thirty Years
The road stretched out to the horizon, so straight it seemed like a crease upon which the world could fold. Vigilance returned as the relief of surviving another ambush faded. He flicked the rear view back to the wide-angle. A faint chirp came from the camera in the plastic bubble on the back window. It seemed silly to have a third tail light in the window; the housing proved much more useful as a camera, not that anyone paid much attention to signals or lights these days. Within an hour, a bullet-riddled sign caught his eye. Artesia settlement, a mile away.
Within a few minutes, he slowed and turned onto a cracked and battered side street past a handful of crumbling RVs, trailers, and a half-dozen huts. He drove through the dead town, following a little-used back road that took him to a desolate outcropping of rocks a quarter-mile farther down with a single armored door. Ten paces away, the matte-black car whirred to a halt amid a rolling cloud of beige. Listening to the barely audible electric hum of the wheel motors, he waited. A narrow slit in the door pulled to the side, revealing eyes. They regarded him for a few seconds and the metal plate slid closed with a clank. The driver took hold of the innocuous silver can and got out. Clanks and squeaks emanated from the armored door, which opened a few seconds after he reached it. Warm air carrying the fragrance of stale humanity and wood washed over him.
“Took ya long ‘nuff,” said the old man in the doorway. Brown-white hair and beard fluttered in the wind for a moment of silence. “That it?”
“Yep.” The driver patted the plastic lid like a drum. “Got the coins?”
Wrinkled hands clasped the metal can, failing to pull it out of the driver’s grip. Yellow eyes widened. “You’ll be understandin’ if I wan’ ta check it first.”
“Fine, old man.” The driver kept his grip on the can until both of them were inside.
Tattered coats, boots, and pipes hung along the length of the narrow entryway. Coils of rope and hose hung on one side opposite spindles of wire and twine. With some reluctance, Kevin surrendered the can to the shaking arms reaching for it and put one hand on his .45. The old man ducked deep into his burrow, scurrying off like a squirrel with the world’s last acorn. After nudging the door closed, the driver followed.
A single naked light bulb hung from a wire above a wooden table in the center of a room bedecked with maps. Pre-war radio equipment sat on a longer table against the wall in back, next to a massive shell―the kind of thing once fired from tanks. The driver stiffened, staring at it, relaxing a touch at the lack of wires connecting it to a button.
“Heee!” The old man squealed and spun in a circle with his prize. A plain steel cylinder with a plastic lid―an old coffee can. He set it on a workbench, opened it, and inhaled the sickly sweet scent of pipe tobacco. “Tis the stuff.”
“I watched Gil load it. Could’a told ya it was real. Don’t much like gettin’ shot at for bullshit.”
The old man more or less ignored him, grabbing one of a dozen pipes from his wall and wiping it out with a grimy finger. He moved to the canister and set about packing the bowl.
“Care ta join me?”
The driver looked down at his boots, letting the air out of his lungs. “Nah, thanks. That shit’ll kill ya.”
Yellow eyes gazed at the driver’s scuffed body armor, a red leather jacket with Kevlar panels sewn in here and there. He glanced at three pistols, two knives, and the face of a man who just got shot at to deliver tobacco across the Wildlands. “Heh. Kill ya. Yeah, I s’pose it would at that.”
He set the pipe down and shuffled around a corner, deeper into his subterranean nest. The driver’s hand tensed around the .45. At the scrape of coins sliding over a metal desk, he loose
ned the grip, but only a little.
“Thousand?” asked the old man.
“That’s right.”
The elder emerged from the hallway, carrying a burdened cloth sack, which he tossed to the driver. “Yanno, boy. They used ta use bits o’ paper for curn-cee when I was teeny. Lot easier ta carry than these.”