GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  He’s going to die right here, Mike thought. “Maybe I should make a run for it. I could draw them away and then you two can haul him up the hill. I think it’s the only way.”

  “I told you I can’t,” Orlando whispered back in a waspish tone. “I have a bad back, okay?” One Shot gave his friend a long look that was easily read: Since when?

  “We have to do something or he’s going to die right here,” Mike insisted. One Shot’s blood leaked out of him at a steady rate and would soon be all out of him if they’d have to wait much longer. They were still trying to figure things out when a series of gunshots came from the harbor.

  The zombies around them roared off in the direction of the harbor. The second they were gone, Mike and Orlando took hold of One Shot and dragged him up the hill as fast as they dared.

  Colleen led the way, holding a weak crossbow in weak hands. She was used to the timid pace of a mouse when outside the complex, and time and again, Mike and Orlando caught up with her as she was still tip-toeing along.

  “Move your ass!” Orlando barked, sounding like a drill sergeant which was in direct contradiction to how he looked: like a frightened, middle-aged man, sweat streaming from his thinning hair and his foul breath coming in gasps.

  She ran faster, and in her haste, almost missed a slow-moving creature. It had lost both legs below the knees and now propelled itself along using its knuckles and the stubs of its legs, looking very much like a hairless grey gorilla.

  They had to wait until it passed by before they worked their way to the forest of spears which guarded the approaches to the apartment complex. Once through the gate, they were thronged by the entire population of the Hilltop. Everyone had heard the gunshots and curiosity had driven them to the gate. Orlando gave an abbreviated report that made Jillybean out to be more of a cold-hearted monster than she really was. He completely left out the part where One Shot raised a fist. Mike forcibly interjected with the truth.

  “And you think this gives her any right to shoot him?” Lois Blanchard demanded.

  “I think so. She’s tiny. A single punch could have killed her, and she doesn’t know One Shot. Hell, I don’t know him. I actually thought he was going to hit her and if I had been closer I would have clocked him myself.”

  Donna Polston, her face set in such a hard shell that it looked like a mask, asked, “But would you have shot him?” Mike wouldn’t have. He might have threatened One Shot, but he wouldn’t have shot him. This was plain to see on his honest features and Donna sighed, shook her head, and muttered, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What have we allowed into our midst?”

  Lois, gazing down at One Shot answered, “A monster. That’s what she is, and she should be hunted down and killed like one.” There was a quiet rumble of agreement from the people gathered at the gate, though no one jumped up to volunteer to lead the hunt.

  The only voice that rose over the rumble to challenge Lois was Mike’s. “Slow down! What about One Shot?” He pointed at the pale figure and snapped his fingers in emphasis. One Shot hadn’t been able to follow what was going on, but at the sound of the snapping fingers he looked up, his face slack and his eyes as bleary as a drunk’s swaying in front of a urinal at two in the morning. Mike went on, “He’ll die without Jillybean’s help. Jillybean can fix him, just like she fixed Stu and Aaron and William. We should give her a chance to fix this.”

  “I think maybe I agree,” Orlando said. “If she can fix One Shot then maybe we don’t kill her.” We don’t kill her right away, is what he obviously meant.

  Mike missed the dark look that passed quickly over Orlando’s face, and he agreed quickly. “Yes. Exactly. She’s One shot’s only chance. And we have to get her quickly. She has Jenn. Who’s willing to come with me to rescue her?”

  “I will,” Stu Currans said, limping forward. After a moment’s hesitation, Aaron Altman, looking small and sickly, joined him.

  “Aaron, get over here!” Miss Shay snatched her son back, pulling him into the throng of people.

  Stu glared around. “That’s it? Whatever you think of Jillybean, Jenn is one of us and so is One Shot.”

  That was true, except there was a big, unspoken “But” hanging over the group. Jenn was one of them, but she had always been considered unlucky and few considered her more than just an acquaintance. While One Shot had an actual handful of friends, he was also actively disliked by quite a lot of people. He had been a bully to the entire younger generation and had a tendency to look down his nose at women, and that included the Coven, with whom he was frequently surly.

  The crowd, which had been rumbling angrily before, now became quiet save for the whispered excuses: I would, but I have guard duty—I just got off guard duty—And I’ve got water boiling for a bath…

  “I guess it’s just us,” Stu said, not bothering to ask the Coven’s permission. They seemed as uncommitted to the idea of a rescue as everyone else, and they weren’t actively demanding that someone form a posse to kill Jillybean, either. Donna and Lois were attending to One Shot, while Miss Shay was making a scene, embarrassing Aaron who had his chin to his chest.

  “Maybe I should go by my…” Mike began, only to have Stu glare him into silence.

  Stu hurried at his fastest limp back to his apartment where he grabbed his coat, backpack, and crossbow. The two then pushed through the milling crowd, stopping only to take the raggedy ghillie suit Jillybean had made for Orlando. With the two of them decked out like shrubbery they went out into the world where the wind was already beginning to freshen, and the sky to the north was filling with slate-grey clouds.

  At first the two were able to go along at a fairly good rate. They didn’t see their first zombie until they were halfway to the harbor. After that, they saw more and more, until their way was completely blocked. The dead were everywhere, stirred up by the gunfire.

  Stu tried to curl around them, moving constantly to his right, but he eventually ran out of real estate. If they went any further they would end up in the bay. There was no way they could get to the harbor, but the trip was not wholly a waste. Stu, with his binoculars pressed to his eyes, picked out Jenn and Jillybean slipping across the front of Angel Island in a canoe.

  “We can still catch them,” he said, handing the glasses over to Mike. “They’re tiring already, and it looks like they’re heading for Oakland.”

  “Or to Santa Clara,” Mike remarked, watching Jenn push them slowly along. Jillybean had a paddle across her lap but it looked bone dry. He then swung the binoculars around and took in Pelican Harbor where seven zombies stood about with vacant expressions on their ruined faces.

  He sighed. It could be hours before they wandered away, so he found a soft spot of hill to relax on.

  Stu joined him, easing down with a grimace. “They aren’t going to Santa Clara. Jillybean may be crazy but she isn’t stupid. They’re off to Oakland, I’m sure of it. I just don’t know why. You’ve been there more than I have, what do you think they’re after?”

  Mike had no idea. He couldn’t get into Jillybean’s head when she was coherent, but now that Eve was in charge—well, they could be going to pick daisies for all he knew. He told Stu as much and for some reason Stu grew even quieter than usual, to the point of being sullen.

  “Sorry, I don’t know why they’re going to Oakland. It’s just a city, no different than San Francisco or Sacramento as far as I know.”

  Stu ran his hand through his long hair, saying, “That’s not why I’m mad. It’s just I thought we were different. You know, the Hill People and the Islanders. I thought there was something good about us, but I think I was just comparing us to all the rest. We’re better people than those wretches in Sacramento, and they’re better than the whoring thieves in Santa Clara and everyone is better than the Corsairs. But I don’t think we’re really good anymore.”

  “We used to be,” Mike answered, after a moment of reflection. “My father was a good man and so was Jenn’s. I was eight the year they died and I remember them pretty
well. They were both like knights from the old days. They had, I don’t know the word for it…”

  “Honor?”

  Mike grinned. “Yeah, that was it. They both had that honor and maybe they made a lot of people better because a lot of people wanted to be like them.”

  “I know I did,” Stu said and sighed. “It’s too bad things changed. The dead got bigger and we got smaller and more afraid to do anything but try to stay alive.” For Stu Currans he had just used up his day’s allowance of words and he didn’t speak again as they spent the next hour watching as the canoe slowly disappeared. Two more silent hours went by as they waited for the dead to wander away from the docks.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the rain was beginning to pelt them by the time they were able to get to the harbor, only to discover that every one of their small boats was missing. They searched the buildings along the waterfront and came away empty. When they discovered the shell casings from Jillybean’s Sig Sauer along with curious scrapings in the algae right at the shoreline, Mike suddenly realized what had happened.

  “She sunk ‘em!” he cried. The idea that anyone would purposely sink even the tame little paddle boats struck a nerve. Although Mike was on land, he felt stranded. His rightful home was Alcatraz Island and yes, it was practically a certainty that he would never be welcomed back, he was still queasy thinking he couldn’t go back.

  Stu crossed to the dock to where the Saber sat in fourteen feet of water, her cabin flooded, and her keel broken. “Can you do anything with this?”

  “This? Can I do anything with her?” Mike practically growled. “No, not in the time frame we have. Jillybean will be long gone by the time we can raise her and there’s no telling how bad the hole is. Oh, I feel sick.”

  “Then we think of something else,” Stu said, resolutely.

  Thinking really wasn’t Mike’s strong point, but he tried. He and Stu stood there thinking for ten miserable minutes until Stu said, “We’ll cross the bridge and wave some flags to get your friends’ attention over on Alcatraz. Do you think they’ll give us a ride over to the other side of the bay?”

  “You kidding me? No.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Stu said. “We’ll do it anyway. It won’t hurt to ask.” Dejected and with the rain turning into sleet, they began making their way back to the complex, taking the long way around. They had just crested a particularly muddy hill when Mike chanced a look back and in the fading light, he saw a flash of blue far out on the storm-grey water. Grabbing the binoculars, he picked out a little child’s pool bobbing in the water just before the edge of the city blocked it from view.

  “That’s them! They’re heading for San Francisco! Come on.” He started off in a tearing hurry, but Stu’s leg was still weak, and he could only hobble through the cold, stinging rain.

  Stu’s pace was a trial for Mike. For a week now, he had been put in one ridiculous situation after another; always at the Coven’s request and always with a girl in tow. It couldn’t have been made more plain that Mike was to forget Jenn and look elsewhere for a wife. With Jillybean’s mental instability making things intolerable, Mike had barely seen the girl he had kissed so passionately on the night of the battle.

  But that hadn’t stopped him from thinking about Jenn constantly, and now that she was out in a city filled with the dead, his heart ached, and it forced him on. He even offered to carry Stu only to receive Stu’s most formidable glare to date. “Sorry,” he said, and stared into the miserable blinding rain.

  It was two miles to the Golden Gate and another one and a half across it—a dangerous one and a half, at that. There were three zombies on the bridge, haltingly making their way south along it. As the zombies were heading in the same direction as Mike and Stu, they were forced to plod along in their wake with aching slowness.

  Mike’s imagination was all over the board, but with each turn of his mind he pictured something worse happening to Jenn than the one before. And yet he could not believe his eyes when he ran up to see an eight and a half-foot zombie hanging Jenn off the ground by an ankle.

  Despite being armed with only a rather puny looking crossbow, he yelled, “Come on, Stu!” and charged across the intervening roadway, leaping up onto the very SUV Jenn had been pulled from.

  He was now at head height with the beasts and with cool deliberation, he set the bow against the temple of the one that had hold of Jenn, and fired. As the temporal bones are relatively thin, the bolt sank deep, sending a convulsive wave through the creature as if it had just been struck by lightning.

  It fell, still holding onto Jenn, trapping her legs beneath its dying bulk as it continued to tremble and convulse. The other beast now turned to stare at Mike who was still covered nearly completely in his dirty ghillie suit and looked like a bedraggled mass of ivy, topped by a human head.

  For three seconds it stared, the meager wheels of its mind trying to fathom exactly what Mike was. Curiously, it stuck out a hand. Mike fled, running down the hood of the car and racing off into the night with the beast right behind.

  Chapter 7

  Stu stumped up, his useless crossbow in his hands. He stared after Mike and the zombie as they disappeared into the darkness. The boy was on his own. Stu’s leg throbbed, threatening to give out at any moment, and it took everything he had just to keep standing.

  Ignoring the pain, he slung the bow and began pulling six-hundred pounds of stinking, undead meat off Jenn. “You okay? Are you scratched?”

  “I-I don’t know, it’s hard to tell,” she answered, her eyes wide with shock. “I think I’m too numb to tell.”

  They searched her for scratches and found only angry red splotches ringing her ankle. They would become deep purple bruises before the night was over.

  She stood and tested her ankle, wincing as she did. “It’s a little tender. I think I’m good,” she said then looked down the length of the bridge. “Should we go after him? He might need our help.”

  Stu cocked his head, listening past the fast patter of the rain. There was nothing, not even the moan of the zombie could be heard. “No. He’s gone to ground. He should be fine.” He was sure Mike was seventy or eighty yards down the bridge, hiding behind one of the many cars. No doubt the beast was hunting him, but if he remained still and quiet the beast would eventually go on its way.

  “Where’s Jillybean? Is she okay?” Stu had felt an odd shock at seeing Jenn alone. But, by the time he had helped her to her feet, there was nothing left of it except for a slight tremor in his voice. He was quite sure, almost completely sure, that Jillybean was safe—she knew the dead better than anyone.

  “I think she’s under there,” Jenn whispered, lifting her chin at the SUV. The two eased down to peer beneath the vehicle and saw the young woman, lying on her stomach, her head resting on her arm, her large eyes wet as if the rain had been washing into them.

  “Is One Shot alive? Or am I a murderer, again?”

  Stu nodded. “He was alive when we left.” He didn’t know what to say after that. Jillybean had crossed a line that had been a decade in the making. In the early days of the apocalypse there had been many terrible things done in the name of survival, but after the first few years, things began to shake out and assume a more proper form. There hadn’t been a murder on either the island or the hilltop in all that time.

  There were fights, of course, and once, seven years back, a man named Florey had tried to rape Lois Blanchard, only to be stuck in the groin by the knife she carried. Bleeding and begging for mercy, Florey had been booted out the front gate. Some had taken to pelting him with rocks. Stu had not joined in, figuring his wound and his banishment were more than enough of a punishment.

  As her crime was so much greater, he feared for Jillybean, and it showed on his face—his rather boyish face, or so it seemed at the moment with the rain trickling down his newly shaved cheeks.

  “Will they let me save him?” she asked.

  “I think so.” He helped her out from beneath th
e car as Mike returned from his flight. Mike thought he was being stealthy, but they had heard him a good way off, accidentally treading on glass or kicking small stones.

  “We’re safe now,” he said, without taking his eyes off Jenn. She was a miserable thing. Her sagging, wet ghillie suit was clinging to her and her bedraggled hair looked like seaweed. She gave him a weary smile and he couldn’t help return it. The smiles and the stare lingered.

  Stu watched them smiling at each other as if they hadn’t seen each other in a year. He shot Jillybean a look, noticing that their smiles, the one spot of pleasantness in an otherwise terrible day, had revived her slightly. He hated to put a damper on the moment, but they couldn’t stay there all night. “There may be more of them. We should get moving.”

  The smiles faded and not because they had another two-hour march through a land filled with the dead. It was their destination that bothered each of them. They weren’t going “home,” because none of them really had a home. In a way, they were all misfits and, except for Stu, unwanted in their little communities.

  Mike would be arrested on sight if he went back to Alcatraz; Jenn had been tolerated before the Corsair attack, now her presence was barely endured; Jillybean, having committed mercy killings in Bainbridge, had been permitted to remain but only because of what she could do, not out of any particular love or loyalty.

  Stu was wanted by the people of the hilltop, however the feeling was no longer mutual. Their treatment of Jenn was well beyond shabby, their personal courage a shadow of what it had once been and their honor was not much than a small step up from what one would find among the villainous Santas—and it was a very small step up in his opinion.

  He would go back “home” because his own honor demanded it. “I’ll lead and Mike will pick up the tail,” Stu ordered. “We’ll use the path overlooking the 101.”