GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Jenn shot him a look. Save for some ratty scrub, there was no cover along the path. If they ran into one of the dead they would have no choice except to fight. In the last few weeks they had been lucky to escape as often as they had. It was a luck that couldn’t last forever.

  They crept back down the bridge until it spilled onto the Marin Headlands. From there Stu led them to a path that had once been dirt but was now a narrow strip of mud with rubble piled high on one side and a long, steep drop on the other. It was treacherous to man and beast alike. They slipped and slithered along it for half a mile when they saw one of the dead.

  As it rushed at them, it slid right off the trail and tumbled down the hill, ending up in a sucking quagmire of brown ooze from which it couldn’t seem to extricate itself. It roared as they passed, and struggled mightily, only to find itself six inches deeper.

  This was their only run-in with the dead. At four minutes after eleven they were let through the gate. Jillybean had been toiling along as if she had an invisible piano strapped to her back, however the moment they were safe inside the walls, she seemed to get some extra energy and headed straight for the tiny clinic in the complex’s clubhouse.

  Other than a single candle burning next to One Shot’s bed, the building was both dark and cold, and other than the dying man, it was empty, as well. He lay in such a deep state of sleep that when she gave him a hard knuckle rub on the sternum, he only moaned softly.

  “What the hell?” she hissed. “Where is everyone?”

  Her eyes blazed with wrath and in the light of the candle they were a terrible sickly yellow. “Jillybean?” Stu asked, staring into them as if trying to see the girl beyond.

  “What?” she snapped. Her yellow-cat’s eyes, a malignant force by themselves, were full on him. She could tell he wanted to calm her and she did indeed need calming. Her heart was racing, with an occasional jolting misfire thrown in to remind her that the meds she was taking would eventually kill her, one way or the other. Other than the upsetting jolts, it was absolutely natural for her heart to be racing, considering what was being asked of her.

  She looked down at One Shot, estimating the damage she had caused. The bullet had entered his abdomen and could have gone anywhere. Without access to radioactive dyes, an X-ray machine or even a simple endoscope, she would have to cut One Shot nearly in half to find it. She would have to run her hands through the loops of his guts, going inch by inch, searching with her finger tips for any tears, of which it was almost a given, there would be a dozen or more.

  She could picture it with perfect clarity: his abdominal cavity would be a foul stew of blood, chunks of meat and fecal matter. It would be a hot, bubbling pool and she would have to bathe in it if she wished to wash away the sin of murder.

  “Jillybean?” Stu asked again.

  She started at the sound of his voice and shook her head, amazed at how quickly the darkness had sucked her down. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little flustered. Shouldn’t there be someone here watching him? And look at this IV for goodness sakes. The vein is blown. I-I need his chart. Is there a chart? Anyone see a damned chart? How am I supposed to know what meds he’s been given? Why…” She was getting loud again and the darkness was back, filling her.

  “Jillybean,” Stu said a third time and took her by the shoulders. “I need you to look at me.” He knew it was dangerous to ask a normal girl to “calm down,” and he wasn’t going to make that mistake with Jillybean. “We’ll find all that out. Let’s concentrate on what to do first. We’ll go in order. Step one is…”

  Before she could answer, Mike whispered, “What’s with your eyes?”

  Stu’s calm, quiet voice had beaten back the darkness, but it came roaring back at Mike’s question. Luckily, Jenn answered, “Her pills do that to her. I think they might have gone bad or something.”

  “It’s her liver that’s gone bad,” Jillybean heard a remote voice say. Once more she was beginning to sink. She clawed up out of the darkness and proclaimed, “My liver, I mean. And speaking of which, I’m going to need my backpack,” she said to Jenn. “The green one in my room. Would you mind?” The girl took a look at One Shot’s face, his grey, wasted face, with its blue rings beneath hollow eyes, and left.

  “One thing at a time,” Jillybean said to herself as she, too glanced at One Shot. “I-I need to know what’s been done for him up to this point. Stu, if you could please call on one of the Coven and ask. They still like you, I hope.”

  This left Mike alone with Jillybean, and One Shot, of course, but he hardly counted. “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m going to need my instruments sterilized so get water boiling.”

  Mike was eager to get away from those terrible eyes and, in no time, he had a fire going and water boiling. He ran for clean towels to sop up blood and more candles and then even more candles because Jillybean had roared at him in a fury: “How can I see a damned thing with six candles!” She was trying to get a new IV going and in the wavering shadows, One Shot’s veins seemed to have disappeared altogether.

  Mike filled the room with candles, lighting it up perfectly so there was no way he could miss Jillybean slicing into One Shot’s belly. In no time she had blood up to her elbows and a spray of it across her face.

  “Gaw,” Mike whispered, his face contorted and his throat constricted so tightly that he knew if he vomited, he would probably choke on it. Even though the room was plenty bright, he said, “I-I should get more candles,” and fled bumping into Jenn on his way out.

  She gave him a smile that was cut short by Jillybean bawling: “I need you, Jenn!”

  Jenn did what she could to help, which was never really much of anything. Without suction, she dabbed at One Shot’s innards constantly with little puffs of cotton, she changed out the plasma bag that fed into One Shot’s arm and she held yards of intestine as her stomach see-sawed as if she were back on the Saber in the middle of a storm, something that didn’t sound half-bad just then.

  It was a long, exhausting night. At one point, Stu came by with Donna to watch, and immediately wished he hadn’t. They both turned green, as Jillybean began to cauterize the many small bleeders, filling the room with the horrible stench of burnt human flesh. Mike came and went doing his best to be both helpful and nowhere near the room at the same time.

  A little after three, Jillybean seemed to hit a wall.

  With One Shot, lying there barely breathing, his pulse thready and weak, Jillybean grew listless, in fact too listless to go on. Her hands fumbled through her instruments and her eyes drooped. “I need something to eat and get me the bottle of pills that start D-E-X,” she said in a whisper.

  Jenn found the bottle and wasted a few seconds trying to read the word Dextroamphetamine printed on the front. She had no idea what the pills were and thought they would be for One Shot. She was surprised when Jillybean dry swallowed two of them, and then was even more surprised as Jillybean was almost magically revived.

  She went into high gear, whistling as she stitched and stitched and stitched his guts back together, repaired his abdominal muscles, and reconnected his severed inferior mesenteric vein which was a “slippery little bitch,” as Jillybean put it.

  The surgery ended just before sunrise, just as the uppers Jillybean had taken began to wear off. The two girls stood back watching One Shot’s chest rise and fall.

  “Is it done?” Mike asked from the doorway. “Will he live?” Behind him Stu stood on tiptoe to get a look.

  “Maybe,” Jillybean answered, rubbing her eyes which would normally have been red from exhaustion, but were now a strange, inexplicably murky, orange. “There are a hundred things that can still go wrong. I need sleep.”

  Stu cleared his throat. “The Coven is going to want to talk to you. They’re demanding it. They told me that as soon as the surgery is done, I’m supposed to take you to see them.”

  “Demand?” Jillybean asked, feeling a ghost of something stir inside of her. She was cranky, not crazy.
She was too tired to be crazy. “Then tell them it’s not done. Tell them I’m just taking a break.” It was true that there was still a chance that a stitch could give way or that the mesenteric might just fail completely. Then there were clots to worry about and it was almost a guarantee that an ileus would develop.

  Stu volunteered to watch over One Shot as Jenn, pulled a stumbling Jillybean along, going around the back of the buildings. Jillybean meant to sleep only a few hours, but she crashed hard and didn’t wake until three in the afternoon when there came a steady hammering on Jenn’s front door.

  Jillybean immediately reached for her gun only to remember that she had given it to Jenn, and that it was out of ammunition. A gun would have been a bad idea either way. The moment she was fully awake she felt the darkness inside her heave and stretch.

  “Coming,” she heard Jenn call in a mumbly voice from her room.

  “Open up!” snapped a man’s voice, amid more pounding. “We need Jillybean. She’s under arrest.”

  The darkness in her began to swell. Logic suggested that because she had come back of her own free will the only reason to arrest her was because One Shot had died.

  Not died. Oh, no, he didn’t just die, did he? Jillybean swung around to stare in at the closet which was open just a crack. It had been closed the moment before.

  “I need my pills!” She jumped up and spun slowly in place—her pack was nowhere in sight; she had left it back in the clinic.

  No, he didn’t just die. You murdered him! You murdered him! You murdered him!

  The words kept repeating, growing louder and louder as the darkness came flowing out of the closet to swallow Jillybean whole.

  Chapter 8

  Orlando led a group of six men, all armed to the teeth. They escorted Jillybean who, from a distance, looked far from dangerous in a soft pink sweatsuit she had borrowed from Jenn. Up close there was hiding how utterly crazy she was. Her hair was a wild swirl of brown, her eyes were yellow and there was a smattering of blood freckles across her face.

  The entire population of the hilltop was there to watch the procession. They whispered and sneered and laughed. Jillybean acted like she couldn’t hear or see them. It was such a convincing act that Jenn looked askance at her and asked, “Are you alright?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? The day is beautiful.” Jenn glanced up at the heavy clouds which were threatening more rain. Jillybean laughed easily. “I meant the temperature. It’s so much warmer than yesterday. I thought we were going to freeze to death. Remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember. Are you okay?”

  Jillybean took a long time to answer and just as she opened her mouth they reached the clubhouse and Orlando put out a hand, stopping Jenn from entering. “You’ll be called if you’re needed.”

  “I’m needed now,” Jenn insisted. “If you’re going to arrest her then someone needs to look after One Shot.” She watched his face closely as she said this. Despite all his practice, Orlando was not a very good liar and Jenn figured she would see the truth about One Shot in his eyes.

  He didn’t try to lie. “Stu and the Islander are in there with him. They don’t need you.”

  So, he was alive. Jenn felt a great relief and even felt the beginnings of a smile creep across her face. Jillybean didn’t react at all, not even to suggest that Jenn was needed either at her side or with One Shot. It was up to Jenn to make the argument. “They don’t know what to do. I helped with the surgery in case you didn’t know. He’s just as much my patient as Jillybean’s.”

  This was an outrageous lie and a sharp, disagreeable look darkened Jillybean’s features, but only for the briefest of moments before it was erased by an actively placid one.

  Orlando, with his marginal intelligence, believed the lie and allowed Jenn into the clinic as Jillybean was escorted to the conference room. Jenn lingered in the hall long enough to see the Coven at their table. Colleen White stood near it. With her hair piled high, wearing a navy blue dress with a big, white lace collar, she almost looked like someone’s idea of a party decoration.

  Jenn entered the clinic and her eyes went first to One Shot, who was sleeping belly-up, a thin line of drool stretching from a corner of his bottom lip to his pillow. He was no longer ashen-faced and at the sound of the door clicking behind her, he shifted slightly.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered to Mike and Stu.

  “They’re calling it an inquiry,” Stu answered, “but it’s more like an inquisition.” Jenn didn’t know what that was, she just knew it sounded ominous. “They’re going to be calling witnesses pretty soon.”

  Jenn hoped she would be called. She would tell the truth: One Shot had raised a fist and it had sure looked as though he was going to use it. Had he been a bandit or a Corsair, Jillybean would have been well within her rights to use deadly force.

  While she waited, she checked on One Shot and found that Stu had written a great quantity of barely legible notes. He had taken One Shot’s pulse every half hour, marked down the times he had been awake and when he had been given pain medication.

  “Is that a seven or a nine?”

  “It’s a two,” he answered, shooting a look at Mike who had been unable to suppress a snort of laughter. “You think something’s funny? We both know I could show her something hilarious, so I’d zip it if I were you.”

  Mike zipped it quick, darting an embarrassed look Jenn’s way. She guessed that it had something to do with his handwriting and if so he had little to be ashamed of, at least as far as she was concerned. Her hand with a pen was uneven, blocky and above all, childish. Her father had started teaching her the basics: math and adding and reading, but had died before she had progressed very far at all.

  To allay his embarrassment, she admitted, “I’m glad Jillybean didn’t have me writing the notes. I don’t think I could even do the number part.”

  “The number part of what?” Colleen White asked from behind her. The three of them turned and the three of them stared. When Jenn had seen her from forty feet away, the blue dress had been fancy enough to catch the eye, but up close she saw that the dress was only one aspect of Colleen’s latest salvo.

  Having just recently been washed and brushed, her dark black hair gleamed softly. Her cheeks were pink, her lips red and there was color, a touch of gold, just above her eyes—she was wearing makeup! And that was not all. An aura of perfume surrounded her. The fragrance was a perplexing and beguiling odor of fresh cut flowers and spice that made everyone want to lean in closer and breathe deeply.

  That morning, Jenn had been too exhausted to bathe before falling into a near coma-like sleep and now she smelled of old blood, dirty rainwater and sweat. What was tragically worse was that she didn’t look any better than she smelled. Her hair was limp, her face smeared with both mud and blood, and her clothes were filthy and torn. She looked like a beggar.

  Jenn hid the handwritten notes behind her back. “Nothing,” she said, dropping her gaze. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I was just curious. The Coven would like to talk to you,” she said to Mike. She put out a hand.

  Mike seemed stunned by Colleen’s appearance, dazed by her perfume and confused at her hand. He looked blankly at it and then at Jenn who seemed to have shrunk in on herself. Her distress was obvious and that was even more perplexing. Something was wrong with her, but he didn’t have time to find out what.

  As he was gazing at her, Colleen took his hand in hers and led him away.

  When they had gone, Stu stood there in a profoundly uncomfortable silence until Jenn asked in a strangled voice, “Why do I bother? Why do I bother with any of it? I can’t compete with Colleen. Did you see her? She’s going to get Mike, and, and I don’t blame him. Look at me.”

  Obediently, he gave her a quick once over and would’ve had to be blind not to see what she meant. Supposing she was looking for some sort of combination of words that would console her, he tried to think of something to say, but bef
ore he could find any words that would suit the situation she fell into his arms crying.

  Having never had an actual girlfriend or a sister, he was utterly unprepared for this and hit peak discomfort. He could think of nothing better than to treat her as he would a man. “Hey,” he said, disengaging and holding her at arm’s length. “If you’re worried about her, uh getting Mike, then do something about it.” She blinked up at him; her tears had a mystifying effect on him and he heard himself saying, “I can help if you want.”

  “How?”

  A part of him screamed, Run away! As appealing as that sounded, he was in too deep to run. No, he had offered to help and he would do his best. “I-I don’t know. Maybe I can help you get dolled up. Do you have a dress? A nice one?”

  She had dresses, but nothing as nice as Colleen’s. “I have three of them, but they won’t do. They’re like, normal dresses. Colleen’s dress was…fancy.” She choked on the word “fancy.”

  Colleen’s dress had been riding the edge between over the top and way too over the top. It had looked out of place and at the same time was pleasing to the eye.

  “The town is full of fancy dresses and shoes, too,” Stu said. “We can make you even fancier than Colleen. I’ll take you into town today if this doesn’t take too long, which it shouldn’t. The Coven has been saying all day, If One Shot dies, that’ll be it for Jillybean, but since he’s doing pretty good I think everything will work itself out.”

  The two were staring at One Shot, watching his chest rise and fall when Colleen came back for Jenn—she didn’t offer her hand this time.

  Colleen escorted her into the conference room, announced: “Jenn Lockhart,” and then left, shutting the door behind her.

  The seven women stared at Jenn, but not in the reproachful manner she had been expecting. “Why don’t you tell us what happened yesterday?” Donna Polston asked. “Start at the attack and work your way to this morning. Be sure to mention every instance of craziness on Jillybean’s part.”