GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  An incoherent cry of rage bellowed from the creature as it swung about and charged into the hallway, tearing pictures from the walls and leaving a trail of glass and black blood. It failed to see the small marble, kicking it further on until it eventually bounced out onto a deck which collapsed under the beast’s tremendous weight.

  Somehow it managed to impale itself on a spear of wood and its struggles to free itself only shoved the shard even deeper into its chest.

  “That worked out well enough,” Jillybean said, pleasantly as she slipped from the bed. She looked down at Jenn who hadn’t budged. “Why did you pick that as your hiding place?”

  “Why did I…” she began to demand before pinching her mouth closed. After a breath, she arranged her lips into a frightened grin and answered, “I was halfway in that bed and then you threw me out of it and took it for yourself.”

  “Oh my, that wasn’t very nice of me.”

  Jenn let out a tittle of fake laughter. She was shaking and the sound came warbling out. “Thaaat’s okay. I’m not mad or anything. So, is it safe to leave yet? Or do you want to talk some more? You were saying that Jillybean wasn’t so smart, which I totally agree with. But she can do all those math problems, like the one with the parentheses and square Xs.”

  “Square Xs? It’s okay, Jenn it’s me, Jillybean. What happened? And where are the others?” It wasn’t a good sign that Jenn immediately looked away.

  Since when did you ever care about signs? The sly voice was like a cold wind creeping down Jillybean’s back. She jerked and looked around. The closet door was partially open and, in its shadows, something stirred. Despite catching only a glimpse, there was a touch of something maddeningly familiar about it.

  She took a step towards the closet door just as Jenn said, “You shot One Shot.”

  Jillybean jerked a second time and, forgetting the thing in the closet, she spun. “I-I did? Why? Why would I do that?”

  Because you’re crazy, the thing in the closet answered a second before Jenn shrugged.

  “It was Eve, wasn’t it?” Jillybean asked. Jenn nodded and Jillybean’s stomach, feeling as if it was filled with rancid lard, turned over.

  Evie liked it. She got excited by it. The gun was hot and smelled like…

  “Shut up!” Jillybean cried, glaring at the closet, thinking that if she heard one more syllable she would charge in there and tear the place apart. She would tear it apart, as well. In fact, if Jenn hadn’t been there, looking at her with frightened wet eyes, she would have already done so. Clearing her throat and doing her best to compose herself, she asked Jenn, “What happened?”

  Jenn was almost too afraid to answer. “H-He got mad and came at you. I-I guess you thought he was going to attack because you pulled out a pistol and shot him.” She paused as Jillybean’s knees buckled and she sat down on the bed. “He’s not dead. You got him in the belly. Mike and Orlando had to drag him back up the hill. I don’t know what’s going to happen to you now. You might be a criminal. They may kill you and they probably will if he dies.”

  This was understandable in the primitive eye-for-an-eye world they lived in. “Whatever his faults, I don’t want him to die. We should go back at once. Where are we?” Before Jenn could answer, Jillybean heard the gentle wash of water against a ragged shoreline and she heard the wind blowing from the same direction as the waves. “We’re on the other side of the bay?”

  “You, or I guess it was Eve, made me tell you where we kept the canoes and the other small boats.” She hesitated, once more looking down. She had more to say, more evil tidings, no doubt.

  I know what you did, said the voice from the closet with a croaking noise that could only be its way of cackling. You sank them! A flash of a memory: gunfire and water leaping around slowly sinking metal canoes.

  “What about the canoe that got us here?”

  Jillybean had been looking towards the closet when she asked this and after a glance in that direction, Jenn answered, “You scuttled it. That’s the word you said right before you called me a scurvy dog.”

  “I did?” Jenn answered with a nod and Jillybean slumped on the bed, her spine curved into a C. “Sorry. I swear I didn’t mean it. I-I just need my pills. Once I have them I’ll get better. Are we near a hospital?” This brought more laughter from the closet. Jillybean lacked the will to even glare.

  “No. You said you’d shoot me if we came anywhere near one. We’re south of Oakland, very close to where we were going to meet the traders before the horde came in. I can’t believe that wasn’t even three weeks ago. It feels like a year.”

  Jenn hadn’t budged and was staring glassy-eyed at her boots which were trimmed with slowly drying mud. She refused to look up at Jillybean, suggesting that Eve had called her worse than a scurvy dog.

  Yes, you did. You said she had a face like a dog’s cu…

  “Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to come this way,” Jillybean said, speaking hurriedly and loudly over the thing in the closet and trying to put a good spin on a terrible situation. “There’s no telling what the traders left behind.”

  “I’m sure it has all been taken by now. Gerry the Greek would’ve gone after it days ago. And if he hasn’t, the Santas would have.” Jenn looked like she was about to cry. “What are we going to do? When One Shot dies, the Coven’s going to kill you and then blame me for everything. Even though it was Stu’s idea to go find you in the first place, he’ll only get a slap on the wrist and Mike won’t even get that. He’ll get Colleen.” She said this last so quietly that it seemed she was almost talking to herself.

  “What we can’t do is just sit here,” Jillybean said, especially with that thing in the closet, she thought to herself. In fact, she did her best to put it out of her mind. She stole a quick peek towards the remains of the deck where the zombie’s struggles were growing weaker. Judging by the fantastic pool of blood it was standing in, it had undoubtedly torn open its descending aorta.

  She stuck out a hand to Jenn who reluctantly took it and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet. They slipped out of the room and were halfway down the hall when the thing in the closet called out in its hideously cold voice, Aren’t you forgetting something?

  “Huh?” It took Jillybean a moment to realize that Jenn was missing both her ghillie suit and her crossbow. There was no reason to ask where they were: Eve must have stripped her of them. No doubt seeing the fear in Jenn’s eyes was theater for the evil creature inside of Jillybean. “Take this,” Jillybean said, handing over the Sig Sauer P226 she had picked up years ago. She then slid her ghillie suit over her head. “And this.”

  The kind, polite part of Jenn looked like she wanted to refuse the gift, however the survivor in her took the ghillie suit and put it on. As she was doing this, Jillybean slid the old blanket from the bed and proceeded to shred it with a razor-edged knife she carried. She then draped the remains over her head and shoulders.

  “Do the dead see colors or are they like dogs used to be?” Jenn asked. The blanket was sky blue or had been before the dust of a dozen years had settled into its fibers. Still it was hardly camouflage in the traditional sense.

  “I suppose you mean to ask if they have red-green color blindness? I would say it’s doubtful as they are still genetically human and thus have the prerequisite trichromatic cone cells necessary to discern the color spectrum in the same manner as normal humans do. And yet…” Jillybean snapped her fingers, excitedly. “And yet, do they perceive color?”

  Jenn shrugged and laughed. “I know it’s you Jillybean. You don’t have to prove it.”

  “Of course, I’m me. Jenn you may not realize it, but you might have stumbled upon a profound question. What if the dead could not see the color orange?”

  Another shrug. “They’d step on a lot of pumpkins?”

  Jillybean laughed. “You are too cute. No. They would…” She stopped as the impaled zombie made one last lurching bid for freedom. It snapped the hunk of wood square in half and came lumbering inside
, scraping the remaining point along the wall. Jillybean dragged Jenn back into the bedroom and shut the door. Without looking in the direction of the closet where a hissing laughter crept out from the cracks, she went to the window.

  It was almost rusted shut and squealed like a frightened pig as she jerked it open. It got stuck after only a foot or so. Jillybean strained with all her might as behind her the beast came thundering along the hall, plowing straight into the door and smashing out one of the panels. Because the shaft of wood caught on the jamb it could only get its monstrous head and one arm through.

  “Open it! Open it!” Jenn yelled hammering on Jillybean’s back.

  “The dresser!” she yelled back as she squatted down to get her shoulder beneath the window.

  The dresser Jenn had been hiding next to was a tall, sturdy hunk of varnished oak. With its drawers full, it weighed several hundred pounds. Jenn must have had a gallon of adrenaline coursing through her blood because she heaved the thing over with only a grunt.

  It was heavy enough that it caved in the zombie’s face, turning it into a bloody wreck.

  “Come on,” Jillybean called. She had gotten the window up another five inches and after kicking out the screen, she squirmed through the opening, her pack catching on the top and slowing her down. Jenn shoved the pack down and then pushed Jillybean out—behind her the zombie was going crazy, tearing the door and the dresser to pieces.

  There was no time for niceties and Jenn dove through the window right after Jillybean, landing on her. The two scrambled away from each other as the zombie threw aside the broken dresser and rushed full tilt at the window. It hit with what seemed like an explosion. Wood and glass sprayed everywhere. It landed between them, the bloody shaft of wood sticking straight up out of its back like a flagpole.

  It was looking Jillybean square in the eye and trying to reach for her, however it had driven the spear of wood a foot deep into the earth, managing to stake itself in place. That still didn’t stop it. With mindless, horrific strength, it dragged itself toward her, the shaft of wood tearing it in two. It died with its fingers scraping the ground four inches from her toes.

  Jillybean could have run away, but she had maliciously egged the creature on and had grinned at the gaping wound. When it died, she felt the grin and knew that for a moment, Eve had been on the verge of climbing back into her mind and taking over.

  Standing, she arranged the shredded blanket around her, taking her time, trying to regain her composure. Forcing a smile back in place, she acted as if nothing had happened. “We are definitely going to do a study on zombie eyesight. I’ll even give you top credit. It’ll be Lockhart and Mar…” She stopped, startled by a something in the window. It was a face—her own face sneering down at her.

  Chapter 4

  They slunk away from the gruesome corpse of the creature and Jillybean alternated between edgy silence and nervous, fast-paced patter, none of which made a lick of sense to Jenn. Finally, she pulled Jillybean into the remains of a coffee shop where the familiar, somewhat reassuring scent hung vaguely on the air. “What’s wrong? Are you worried about your pills?”

  “I think Eve has gotten loose,” Jillybean whispered, touching the side of her head gently. She was crouched under the shredded blue blanket as if Eve were a giant and Jillybean a mouse.

  Jenn was confused. “Are you talking about Eve, the mean girl inside you? She got out? Out of your head? Is that possible?” Before Jillybean could answer Jenn crossed herself three times and spat behind her in some sort of hybrid voodoo ceremony—and for once, Jillybean didn’t roll her eyes.

  “Yes,” Jillybean whispered. “I saw her back at that house. We have to get away. If she’s following us…” She paused, swallowing loudly. “There’s no telling what sort of mischief she’s capable of. She’s diabolical.”

  “Diabolical, that’s like really mean, right?” Jillybean nodded, glassy-eyed. Jenn tried to reassure her, “Either way, it should be okay. There’s a hospital that’s not far.”

  They were in a neighborhood where the houses were tiny and crammed in on top of each other with many of them having no yard or just a little scrap of green between the street and their stoops. The earthquake had hit the neighborhood hard and most of the houses were spilt over on their sides. The ones that were still upright had runty stoops that yawed back leaving little chasms. Anyone visiting would have to leap across.

  Of course, the only visitors were the dead. With so little greenery, there weren’t many of them, which was a blessing.

  The two scampered through the neighborhood, erring on the side of caution so that it was nearly four in the afternoon before they reached the hospital. At the sight of it, Jillybean stopped short. “This is where she brings us? Why?” Her tone had been nasty and cold, and not her own.

  Jenn looked askance at her, and Jillybean couldn’t even generate a fake smile. The darkness rose and fell within her. When it was at high tide, she drowned and when it ebbed she came back to life. Just then she was in that frightening zone where the darkness was at chin level and when waves of despair or fear swept over her, she would be herself for a second then darkness—herself—then in a crowd with three or four others trying to be heard and seen—then darkness.

  “There’s a drug place here called a pharmacy,” Jenn said, speaking softly as though she were talking to a mental patient, which, in a way she was. “It’s just inside, but we have to hurry. We’re going to lose the light soon.”

  Jillybean was half-drowned in darkness when she heard her own voice snap, “This is a waste of time. We don’t need any more drugs. Does anyone remember what our last liver function test showed or is it just me?”

  Jenn paused in the doorway, her eyes big around and frightened, but it was only for a second. Relief appeared next. “That was Eve, right? Does that mean she’s back inside you? That’s good news if you ask me. The idea of her running around doing who knows…” A sound to her left interrupted the words gushing from her mouth. She jumped but it was only a pinecone leaping from the branch of a pine tree.

  This too was reassuring in its way. “A storm is coming,” Jenn said, her head bobbing slightly, a look of satisfaction on her face. Finally, she had a sign. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but it was better than going about blind.

  Jillybean pulled back her hood, studied the sky and then shot Jenn a look. “I’m guessing you didn’t consult a barometer.”

  “I don’t know what a barometer is, but a falling pinecone almost always means a change in the weather. I only mention it because of One Shot. He was hit right here.” She pulled back her ghillie suit and indicated a spot on the left-hand side of her stomach just below her ribcage. “Will he die from that? I mean if you don’t help him, like tonight or tomorrow?”

  “Why would we want to help a low-life drunk like that?” Jillybean snapped, viciously, her eyes had grown quickly dark. “He attacked us, in case you forgot.”

  The anger had come out of nowhere and Jenn paled before it. After a breath, she collected herself, saying, “That’s not what I asked. I need to know if he’ll die one way or the other. What is here?” Again, she patted her stomach on the left side. “Is that where your liver is?”

  Jillybean blinked until her eyes began to clear. “No. Your liver is on the other side. Your intestines are there, and behind them is one of your kidneys if the bullet reached that far. Of course, if the bullet spun, there’s no telling where it went.” She sighed, staring again past Jenn at the sky but not seeing the vast blue expanse dotted by white gulls or the darkness quietly sliding out of the north. She was desperately trying to focus on One Shot and his wound.

  Part of Jillybean cared, part of her felt guilt, part of her wanted a ham sandwich and part of her wanted to watch him bleed to death. She could feel the parts…no, the pieces of her mind like the gears of an engine working against each other.

  “I-I need to make a list,” she said, “We’re going to need a lot of stuff, wait, I mean supplies. Hey,
uh, uh, girl, do you have something to write with?”

  “It’s Jenn and I bet we can find some paper inside.”

  “Right, Jenn, I remember.” And she did, too—sometimes, and sometimes she had no idea who the girl was.

  The two went inside and if Jillybean had needed Jenn to be a rock of confidence and courage, she would have been out of luck. Jenn was dead white and shockingly timid. The hospital was on the verge of collapse and had been for years. Its bones were not sound, its footing unsure. With the rising wind, the structure swayed, letting out slow ominous groans, as if the building itself was dying.

  Jillybean had to drag Jenn through a lobby strewn with trash to the front desk where she happily found pen and paper. Lots of pens, luckily. The first five were maddeningly dry and as Jenn stood there gripping the desk to keep from running, Jillybean tried pen after pen until she found one that worked.

  “Oh, thank God!” Jillybean exclaimed. She began writing, speeding the pen back and forth, whispering to herself: “Pinzettes, forceps, retractors and, and, and…” She began to sway, her eyes losing their focus. “Maybe we should get the pills first,” she said to Jenn, holding onto her with a fierce grip. “Where are they? The pharmacy, I mean.”

  The hospital was a clump of somewhat connected buildings. Jenn took them on a roundabout path, avoiding the interior of the buildings at all cost. When they got to the pharmacy they were both hesitant about going in. It was so thoroughly trashed that it looked as though it had been the epicenter of the earth quake.

  Shelves were overturned, bins were cast about, pill bottles were everywhere as were the remains of thousands of pills, capsules and vitamins. Jillybean stared at the mess with a growing dread drawing across her face.

  “What? Did you hear that?” There had been a sound. She fought her blue blanket ghillie suit, struggling to pull out her flashlight. When she did, she lit up the corner where the shadows were deepest, looking for whatever had spoken to her in that slithering, snake-like voice. There wasn’t anything in the corner, nothing but that unnerving darkness that silently returned every time she pointed the light away.