GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Shutting the door cut off the wind and the sound of the storm became muted. Inside, it was amazingly snug, although the extreme darkness was a physical force. It was so thick that it pressed in on Jenn and she found herself struggling slightly to breathe.

  “Do you have your flashlight? Jillybean?” Jillybean didn’t answer. Jenn turned around and, stretching out her arms, felt the darkness, swishing it about and couldn’t find her at first. Then her foot struck the girl, who had folded in on herself and was now an incoherent, shivering little ball.

  Jenn dropped down and rummaged through her pockets until she found the flashlight. In its harsh light Jillybean was ghostly white, all save her blue lips and her strangely yellowed eyes.

  “Hey, Jillybean! Look at me. I’ll get you dry and then we’ll be okay.” Jillybean mumbled something and Jenn asked, “What was that?” but only because she wanted to keep her conscious. Jillybean mumbled again as Jenn stripped away the layers of sodden clothes and then dug through the garbage bag they had dragged from the boat, looking for something dry.

  Jenn was cold as well but touching Jillybean’s skin was frightening. Her flesh seemed hard, as if she was actually freezing. Worse, was her semi-conscious state. Dry clothes helped, but they needed actual warmth. The concrete slab beneath their feet was like a block of ice, stealing the heat from their bodies.

  She shone the light around the building and saw that it was crowded with machinery; mostly generators and various models of forklifts, neither of which would burn. On a shelf above a work station, she found a row of thick books with plastic covers. They were oil stained and it seemed as though there were smudged thumbprints on every page.

  Jenn pulled down an armload and hurried back to Jillybean. “Hold on. I’ll get a fire started in a snap.” Jillybean didn’t even open her eyes.

  Getting a fire going with the paper was easy, sustaining it was the difficult part. She burned one of the books—a tremendously complicated repair manual of some sort—in minutes, and although the air temperature had risen considerably, the floor was still painfully cold.

  Jenn went on another search and found some filthy plastic tarps; she folded and layered them until they formed a six-inch thick mattress. This she set so close to the fire that the edges curled and blackened, giving off a greasy smoke.

  By the time the fire had devoured a third manual Jillybean ceased shivering, she was still lethargic in body, but had no trouble talking. “Do you know what I find interesting? This isn’t even a truly cold fall, though it is unseasonable for San Francisco. Most people don’t know that between littoral topology and wind flows, this area experiences a greater degree of ocean upwelling than many Pacific settings. This brings the colder layers of the already cold sea to the surface…”

  A moan not caused by the wind stopped her before Jenn had a chance to yawn, though not before her eyes had drooped practically closed. She was instantly awake. “It must see the fire,” Jenn said. “It must be able to see the light somehow.”

  Jillybean set her hands on her hips. “Well, I’m not ready to give it up just yet. I’m barely thawed. I believe we should resort to arms.” Jenn glanced down at her own weak arms, causing Jillybean to laugh. “No, the gun. I’m talking about using the Sig Sauer I gave you. Ah, here he comes. Let’s make sure to preserve the integrity of the door. I’ll get behind it and you shoot.”

  All this came at Jenn so quickly that the beast was pounding on the door even before she figured out what Jillybean was on about. Then came the sudden realization of what was expected of her. She was supposed to fight and kill the creature using only what felt suddenly like a very small gun.

  “You ready?” Jillybean asked.

  She wasn’t, but that didn’t stop Jillybean from popping open the door and flooding the room with a sharp blast of cold air. Habit and instinct saved Jenn as the creature, which turned out to be a she rather than a he, charged into the room with a horrid stench and stomach curdling cry. Jenn hid, ducking behind one of the forklifts.

  It was a child’s hiding place and were it not for the fire which became the sole focus of the beast, she would have been found and quickly devoured. The fire lit up the remains of the beast’s mind and everything outside of its glow was black and insubstantial. The zombie was hideous. Half of its scalp hung in a flap like a vile shelf from the back of its head.

  Jenn could see its cracked and pitted skull as it stood swaying in front of the fire making a growly noise in its throat that wasn’t all that different from the purr of a cat.

  The sound did nothing to calm the electric fear running through her as she stepped out from behind the forklift and raised the Sig, which jittered in tune with her fear. Although the zombie was captivated by the fire, it wouldn’t remain so. If Jenn kicked a soda can or knocked a wrench from the end of a table, it would turn on her and…

  She had to stop and take a deep near-silent breath before going on. She hit nothing and kicked nothing as she tiptoed up behind the beast. As it was almost eight feet tall, she had to reach high up just to get the tip of the barrel within eighteen inches—a sure hit if she were aiming at, say a pineapple or a coconut hanging from a low branch.

  Then again, neither a pineapple nor a coconut would eat her face off in a rage if the bullet didn’t hit it just right. And it didn’t. The creature had been swaying to some unheard beat, but just as Jenn was about to pull the trigger, the fire suddenly flared, and the beast jerked back.

  She fired and the bullet went through its lank hair and then into the side of its head. Jenn had heard that a person used only a small part of their actual brain, and figured a zombie used only a nub, a small pea-sized mass hidden somewhere inside their massive heads.

  In any case, the bullet missed everything vital, and just as she feared, the creature turned with savage speed, its long arms reaching for Jenn, who was already ducking away around forklifts, dodging left and right as the beast came after her. There was almost no room to run or hide and when she tried to disappear behind a pallet jack, the creature heaved the five-thousand pound machine onto its side.

  Jenn was already running when an explosion of flame enveloped the zombie. Jillybean had set a bundle of paper alight and had thrown it into the creature’s face. It swung its huge arms around in confusion as Jillybean yelled, “Get it again, Jenn!”

  It was faced away from her and so she leapt up onto the downed forklift and fired again into its head. It turned and fell at the same time, looking as though it were corkscrewing into the cement floor as it died.

  “One down, two billion to go,” Jillybean said, heading back to the fire and sitting Indian style on the tarps.

  “Is that a lot?” asked Jenn, hiding the gun away and sitting next to her friend, holding her hands out to the fire. She was already calm, her near death experience in the past.

  Jillybean was just looking slow-eyed once more. The question roused her and she took to laughing so hard she fell over onto Jenn. “Is that a lot? I love the way you said that. You slay me, Jenn Lockhart. Wait. You were serious, weren’t you?” She sat up quickly. “I keep forgetting that you had no proper schooling. Sorry.”

  “It’s not an excuse for being stupid,” Jenn replied bitterly. “You only made it to the second grade and now look at you. You’re a doctor. Everyone knows doctors are smart.”

  “Some are,” she conceded. “And some shoot innocent people. I think we both agree that shooting One Shot was a terribly stupid thing to do.” Jenn began to argue that there was a difference between crazy and stupid, but Jillybean spoke over her, dismissing the entire question with a tired, “Everyone has their problems. How far do you think it is back to the Hilltop? Nine miles?”

  Jenn had never measured the distance. She had only come this far south once on what had turned out to be a useless scavenging trip. It had taken her a day to get this far and most of the night to get back. It had been useless and frightening. She had been hounded relentlessly by the dead who had been mad with hunger. With noth
ing else to eat, they had stripped the city’s parks and golf courses bare and now chased anything that moved in a way she had never seen before. They attacked trees to get at bird’s nests and homes were torn apart to get at the mice living there.

  It was a dangerous trip and the few bullets and cans of soup she had brought back had not been worth it. “Yeah, maybe. Somewhere like that. I hope the snow keeps up.” Jillybean agreed, but to their dismay, the snow had turned to a cold rain, and the wind still whipped in objectionable gusts alternating between howling and moaning.

  “The wind will die down, eventually,” Jenn said. “We could wait.” Both knew it wouldn’t be wise to wait. “He came at you, Jillybean. I’ll testify to that and so will Mike,” she said as they left the warmth of the little building

  “Mike is still technically an outsider and you, well I don’t think they’ll listen to you. I have to go back and fix what I did and the consequences will be what they will be, though I highly doubt they’ll kill me. I don’t mean to sound egotistical, but I’m too valuable to kill.”

  On the face of it this was true. The people of the hilltop could only make a few simple things like Jenn’s infused vinegar and Orlando’s hooch. Half of them could barely read, and the half that could, rarely did, and when they did, they never read the same sort of things that Jillybean did.

  On the other hand, Jillybean seemed to be a direct link to the old technological world and everyone knew that technology had given rise to the dead. Over the last week the possibility of there being actual lights on Bainbridge had been the only thing people could talk about, and during these conversations, someone would invariably go on about the unholy nature of the light bulb and how it had undoubtedly been the start of it all.

  Jenn was mulling this in her mind as they walked in a hunch against the freezing rain, their ghillie suits plastered to their slickers. She let Jillybean guide her northwest into the very teeth of the wind, but they had not traveled more than a mile before Jillybean began to tire. Her pallor grew extreme and the yellow of her eyes stood out even in the dark. Although the hills ran gently in this part of the city, she labored terribly as she toiled upward.

  They stopped frequently, and when they did, Jenn prayed fervently to the Christian God and then, without missing a beat, to the gods of luck and fortune whose names she didn’t know. Luck was the only thing keeping them alive.

  Jillybean was too worn out to run from even the slowest zombie; she walked with her chin on her chest, heading in a straight line and no matter how much Jenn begged, she wouldn’t leave the center of the street, when there was a street that is.

  Many houses and buildings that had been built along the hillsides had collapsed in the earthquake and the streets were frequently all but impassable.

  Their luck held as twice they came upon the dead and both times they were able to scurry among the hunks of wood and rusting metal. The second time, Jillybean was so lethargic Jenn didn’t know if she’d be able to get her moving again. “Hey, just think, Stu is back at the hilltop waiting for you. And it’s not all that far to the bridge now. You can hear the bay bells.”

  This rallied Jillybean enough to get her to the bridge. It was six lanes of near bumper to bumper traffic and since it was so narrow and so long, over a mile and a half including the sloping run-up, meeting a zombie along its length would be particularly dangerous.

  “You ready?” Jenn asked. A grunt was all the answer she received. Jenn fished out her cross, kissed it, and started across. Amazingly their luck held until they had about a half mile to go when they saw three hulking, menacing shadows lurking in the rain. Two were slowly stomping along the same lane as Jenn and Jillybean, while the third was standing in the lane farthest from them.

  With the dark and the miserable weather, it should have been nothing to dodge the beasts, but Jillybean’s exhaustion betrayed her. In her stupor, she kicked a hunk of metal that skittered loudly, and worse, in her desire to get away from the sound she knocked up hard against a car that had one end sitting up on a spindly jack. For twelve years that jack had survived severe wind, wild weather, earthquakes and the dead, but it could not withstand Jillybean’s ill luck.

  The car came down with a huge crash. All three zombies charged at the two girls. Since the beasts never tired, running was out of the question. The two hid beneath a smallish SUV, Jenn holding the Sig in shaking hands and Jillybean with a marble.

  She threw the marble, but the clacking noise went unnoticed as two of the creatures attacked the vehicle and the third went down on its hand and knees and reached a long arm beneath. Its hand, bigger than a catcher’s mitt was on Jenn’s sneaker, and before she knew it, she was being dragged out into the rain. In terror she began firing the Sig as she was lifted off the ground. She shot into its face and it almost seemed like the zombie was eating the bullets, six went into it before it jerked and dropped her.

  It fell, stiff as a tree and as the other two creatures rushed around to get her. Jenn, mad with fear, scrambled under the car, only to feel claws on her calf. In a blink, she was out in the rain and once more dangling upside down. She fired the gun once and then, to her utter horror, the gun’s slide shot back. She was out of bullets.

  Chapter 6

  Mike was too slow. He saw One Shot coming at Jillybean with that damned fist of his cocked and ready to go and, too late, Mike tried to get between them. When the gun went off he froze, Colleen let out a little scream and Orlando clutched at his ghillie suit like an old lady clutching her handbag.

  The report from the gun echoed, bouncing off the hills and the abandoned houses. For a few moments that was the only sound. Even One Shot was silent, his eyes round and bulging, his lips quivering as he sank to the ground.

  Jillybean stepped toward him, breaking the silence, “Betcha that hurt like a mother, didn’t it?”

  He was too afraid to answer, Mike could see it in his eyes. It was common knowledge that for years, One Shot had lived off an unverified and unwarranted reputation for bravery. He talked a good game and his excuses, when true courage was called for, were nothing short of genius. But now he was undone by this little slip of a girl.

  “Want another?” she asked. “Want one in the knee?”

  With tears springing in his eyes he begged her, “Jillybean, please don’t.” This made the hideous insanity inside her burn and Mike could swear there was real fire in the depths of her huge eyes.

  “Don’t call me that.” The hot madness in her was on the verge of spilling out. She raised the gun which was just as black as the shadow of a raven and pointed it at his crotch. For just a second, One Shot forgot the hole in his belly and the pain screaming from it as he covered his parts with his left hand.

  “Her name is Eve,” Jenn whispered quickly. When Eve swung around, Jenn jerked her hands up and took an involuntary step back. “Hi, uh, Eve. I-I was just introducing you. Is that okay? Everyone, this is Eve…uh, you never did tell me your last name.”

  Eve opened her mouth only to shut it again a second later, as a look of angry uncertainty came over her. “It’s not Martin, you can count on that. I’d never take that lying, murdering son of a bitch’s name. No. It, it, it’s none of your damned business.”

  In that moment of confusion Mike might have been able to snatch the gun from her and if it had been pointed at anyone other than Jenn he might have. Then the moment was gone and Eve took a step back, gazing at each of them in turn, a sneer on her lips.

  “What a pathetic bunch. None of you are worth a damn, except for maybe boat-boy. Too bad we don’t have any friggin’ boats. And what are you supposed to be?” She demanded of Colleen. “Apocalypse Barbie?”

  Colleen was too shocked by everything going on to answer which only made Eve angrier. Jenn interceded before anything could happen. “Apocalypse Barbie, that’s a good one. Hey, we’ve got one boat. Remember the Saber? It’s sort of sunk, but I bet you could think of a way to raise her. Do you want to take a look?”

  Eve hesitated a
s if sensing a trap. “Yeah, but I only want to see it with you. The rest of these ding-dongs give me the creeps.”

  She led Jenn away. The moment they were out of sight, everyone came to hover over One Shot, who said, “She shot me.” He sounded surprised as if it had happened just that second.

  “She killed you is what she did,” Orlando said. “Taking one in the guts is like signing a death warrant. Man, what a crazy bitch! But don’t you worry, One Shot, I’ll round up the old boys and take her out.” He tried to smile at his friend, but it didn’t stick. There weren’t all that many of the old boys left and the ones that were left weren’t what anyone would call brave.

  One Shot shook his shaggy head. “You can’t kill her. She can fix me just like she did Aaron and that Islander. Once she fixes me, then you can kill her.”

  “No one is killing anyone,” Mike snapped. “Jillybean has problems but they are manageable as long as she isn’t threatened and that’s exactly what you did, One Shot. I’m going to go after them. Can you get him up the hill with Colleen’s help?”

  Orlando scoffed at the idea. “With the dead all around us? Are you friggin’ kidding me?”

  The dead were indeed coming closer, drawn by the sound of the gun. The four of them huddled in the shade of a brick house and with the ferns growing lushly all about them, they were near invisible, as long as no one spoke or moved.

  Poor One Shot was in a bad way. The initial wave of adrenaline had worn off and now the pain almost radiated out of him. No one knew much in the way of first aid and the only thing they could think to do was to cut away a portion of Orlando’s coat to use as a “bandage.” In truth it acted more like a sponge, but it helped to calm One Shot.

  A half hour went by and still seven or eight zombies lumbered around them sounding like elephants as they crushed bushes and saplings beneath their huge feet. During this time, One Shot’s pain mounted and his face grew ashen, his lips slightly blue.