GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  “Jenn’s right, we should get going,” he said. To his great relief Stu agreed. They went back to Jenn’s apartment and were shocked to find Orlando and two of his friends there, pawing through Jillybean’s belongings. Both men were armed with M4’s.

  “What the hell?” Stu demanded. Undeterred by the rifles, he walked right up and snatched a night scope out of Orlando’s hands. They stared hard into each other’s eyes before Orlando shrugged.

  “We got every right to be here,” he said. “We’re here for your crossbow, little Jenn. Oh, and yours, too, little Mike.” This had the other two laughing and elbowing each other.

  Jenn picked hers up—it was still loaded. Her finger slipped into the trigger guard and the point strayed across all three men as she casually said, “It’s been sitting here the entire time.” The deadly bolt, ready to fly, stopped the laughter. “Who wants it?” she asked and again the point drifted across the three men.

  “She ain’t gonna shoot,” Orlando said and then jumped in fright as Jenn fired the bow at the wall four feet to the right of him. “What the crap!” he cried.

  Without saying a word, she walked out her front door and flung the bow down the stairs. Gesturing at it, she said, “There you go. You came for the bow. It’s all yours.”

  There was a good deal of cursing and mumbled threats, but Jenn didn’t listen to a word of it. She stood at her dining room table for a full five minutes in silence before she could finally commit herself to what she knew had to be done—she and Jillybean would have to run away.

  “We have to help her escape,” she said to Mike and Stu. “And I’m going with her. I’m done with this place, though I really don’t know where to go. Alcatraz will be out of the question now, and I know you are set on giving up the Saber, but maybe you can give us a ride first?”

  “Us? I’m coming as well,” Mike said, trying to come across boldly although he felt a little sick.

  Stu, face grimmer than usual, said, “I’m in, too. Let’s see Jillybean and see if she has a plan.”

  The complex, lit by the setting sun was more quiet than usual; eerily quiet to Jenn. They passed a few people who stared at them, especially at Jenn, and it was not until they came across Colleen White that she remembered what she was wearing and how she had made herself into someone completely different.

  As they passed, Colleen gave her a quick inspection before saying, “I’m sorry about your friend. But maybe it will be for the best.”

  Stu stumbled, his weak leg kicking a rock. He fell into Mike and they both nearly went down. Jenn didn’t even notice. She had rounded on Colleen, her blue eyes like ice. “How on earth can killing her be for the best?”

  “She told me things,” Colleen said. “Eve, the other girl inside of her, told me how wicked they both are. And you know bad things have happened since she came here and more bad things will happen if she stays. But now we can get back to normal. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  Colleen was somewhat desperate to get back normal. In her “normal” world, she was the prettiest and Jenn was somewhat of a scullery maid. Stu was the quiet hunter who could be depended upon in all things and Mike the handsome mariner who was clearly in a need of a wife.

  “Have you eaten?” she asked all three of them, though her eyes hung on Mike the longest. “I have some venison braising. It would be a little tight with four…” She left off clearly hoping that only one of them would accept the invitation to dinner.

  They all declined which was a great relief to Jenn and a shock to Colleen whose eyes narrowed at the done-up scullery maid.

  Jenn only shrugged as Stu limped on. She was happy to be away from Colleen while at the same time she began to worry what she would feed Mike and Stu. After all they couldn’t enact any sort of rescue until deep into the night and they certainly shouldn’t attempt it on an empty stomach.

  Before she could figure out a proper dinner, the three of them arrived at the shed and there was indeed a guard seated just outside of it on a folding chair, an M4 set across his lap. The man’s name was Dan “Dango” Ferem and he had been one of One Shot’s sly drinking buddies. He had fully expected the visit.

  “Turn out your pockets,” he told them. With an eye out for shenanigans, he watched them put their belongings in a small pile. Next he frisked them one after another, going so far as to inspect the pill bottles. “If you give her all of those at once, it would save everyone a lot of grief.”

  They accepted this bit of unpleasantness without comment and then headed into the dark shed. It wasn’t so dark they could miss Eve’s flashing eyes. “Pills? I was hoping for a file in a cake or at least something to drink. These pukes,” she jerked her chin toward Dango who had followed them in and was watching things closely, “won’t give me even a swallow of water.”

  Mike rounded on Dango and glared. Uneasy under the hard eye, Dango explained he wasn’t supposed to leave his post, but if one of them wanted to bring something for her to eat and drink, “There wasn’t a law against it.”

  As Stu was still somewhat lame and Jenn in heels that were beginning to make her limp as much as Stu, Mike ran back to the apartment he shared with Stu and fetched something for her to eat and drink. In the meantime, Stu squatted down next to the cuffed girl. She sneered and said something disgusting about his mother and her ardent desire for farm animals, but if she thought she was going to get a rise out of him, she was mistaken.

  He even smiled at her. “Seven times nine,” he said. She shook her head and refused to answer. “Seven times nine is sixty-three. Seven times ten?”

  “Seventy,” she snapped. “It won’t work. I know my times tables.”

  “Is that right? Where did you learn them?”

  Her face froze, her slack jaw open and her eyes out of focus. She began to shake her head and he asked, “Seven times eleven?”

  “It’s seventy-seven, okay? You can stop now.”

  “Seven times thirteen? Well? Come on, seven times thirteen? It’s eighty-four.”

  She froze again, and he repeated it. Now a line appeared on her forehead and she said, “No it isn’t. It’s ninety-one, of course. What’s happened? Did I do something wrong? Is someone hurt?” Jillybean had no notion what day it was. The last thing she remembered was lying down for what she had hoped was a short nap, but that felt like a very long time ago and all the time spent in darkness.

  “One Shot died sometime this afternoon,” Jenn told her. “They say it was ‘complications’ that got him.” For Jenn it was a blanket term that could cover anything, including his guts exploding out of his body.

  “Did he have a fever?” Jillybean asked. “Bleeding? A racing pulse? What? What killed him?”

  Dango answered, “You did when you shot him and that’s why you’re gonna get strung up by the neck. Okay, give her the pills and let’s be done with this. Come on.” After taking the pills from Jenn, he shuffled them out, keeping a strong hold of his rifle. Mike came up a minute later with a plate of cold catfish and a jug of water. Dango grabbed that, too. “I’ll take it in. You three best get out of here. You’re no longer needed.”

  They had hoped to have a private conversation with Jillybean to figure out a proper escape plan. Now, it was on them. Shut tight in Jenn’s apartment they whispered back and forth, only able to come up with the very simplest of plans.

  Stu boiled it down, “We sneak out, over-power the guard and slip out through that hole under the fence. If we go out around two, chances are we’ll find Dango or whoever it is fast asleep.”

  He hoped it would be Orlando on duty and, in a way, his wish came true.

  After a quick trip back to Stu’s apartment to gather what supplies could fit in their backpacks, the three sat around playing cards until almost two a.m. Then Stu got up, cracked his back and said, “I’m going to go see what we’re up against. You guys wait here.”

  He crept out of Jenn’s front door, tiptoed down a flight of stairs and then jumped with his heart bounding in his chest as som
eone in the shadows said, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  It was Orlando and he had an M4 pointed right at Stu. The ugly smile he wore made it seem as though he relished the idea of pulling the trigger.

  Chapter 12

  Jillybean had her own plan worked out seconds after the three left. Unfortunately, she had hours to kill before she could escape. It would not do to go out too early, that was so obvious even Eve agreed.

  When the time comes, let me do it, she whispered from out of the murk. You’re always too nice. If you don’t hit him hard enough he won’t stay down.

  Jillybean had taken only two Zyprexa and even that small of a dose had her feeling sick. She didn’t dare take more or it would be a coin flip whether her heart or her liver gave out first.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Sadie said, speaking through Jillybean’s lips. “She’s a hateful thing. But if you want, I could get us out of here. I could get us over that fence in a blink.”

  Jillybean shook her head, feeling the things hidden within her great mass of hair as they jiggled. They wouldn’t be needed this time, however the items kept in her rather plain brown belt would be. The belt was made of cotton and in the inner lining she’d sewn a razor blade, a common set of handcuff keys and a homemade lock pick kit. It had been years since someone had the temerity to try to imprison her, but old habits died hard.

  “No. I’ll do it, but it’s not yet time.” But it was time to slip out of the cuffs. She worked a thumbnail along the inner part of her belt, feeling the key and the threads holding it in place. Back and forth went her thumb, separating the fibers until the metal began to wiggle.

  It was done in five minutes. Quietly, she set the cuffs down next to the support beam. When she stood her bones cracked and the cartilage popped, loudly. It was no great sound and the guard didn’t even stir. Gently, softly, Jillybean ghosted around the shed. It was a laughable place to hold a prisoner: tools stacked all around, pipes to be used as clubs, paint thinners, ready to be ignited.

  She picked out a few items, making sure to keep her lips sealed in the process. The guard had heard her talking to herself, that was a certainty, but he had only heard her from the one spot. It would be an easy giveaway if she began carrying on a conversation from one end of the shed to the other.

  Besides, there wasn’t much to say. Sadie wasn’t great for plans, while all of Eve’s plans involved murder. Eve was overly fond of fire and she kept forcing an image into Jillybean’s head of pouring paint thinner under the door where it would run down under the guard’s chair. As sleepy as he was he probably wouldn’t know it was there until Eve struck a spark to it and roasted him alive.

  “No,” Jillybean hissed in a whisper.

  Better, quieter ideas had already sprung up. She hefted a length of pipe four feet long. It was the right weight but the wrong length; it would catch the ceiling in an over-head attack. Putting it aside, she chose a shorter one. It would require more arm strength and that was a tricky thing. Too much, and she could kill the guard. Too little, and he could turn on her. Even a man knocked on the head and half-blind was more of a physical match for Jillybean.

  She would need something else to give her an edge and she found it using a spool of wire and a saw.

  This will never work, Eve complained.

  “Just ignore her,” Sadie said. “She’s being her usual bitchy self. I think this will work like a charm. It kind of reminds me of when you escaped from the River King. Ha! The way you disappeared right under his nose. I wish I could have seen his face.”

  “Not so loud now,” Jillybean warned as she rigged the noose and the tripwire. Everything would have to be just right for her plan to work. The guard would have to step exactly where she wanted. Of course, she could manipulate things to make this happen. With great perseverance, she inched a lawnmower to one side of the main post and then set a stack of rakes leaning along the wall across from it. Three inches off the ground she set a double length of wire—a perfect tripwire. Five feet in the air she hung the noose; a wide circle that would close in a flash.

  The saw was hung from the rafters so that its teeth would scrape on what looked like a barbecue smoker. She tied a length of the wire to the handle and ran it back to the pole where she settled herself down, the pipe hidden behind her.

  She was ready to go and settled back down for a long wait. Closing her eyes, she slipped into a deeply meditative state. The hours seemed to go by in a snap and before she knew it, it was time. She commenced by pulling the wire attached to the saw. It let out a soft, almost purring rasp. As she could barely hear it, she judged it to be too soft by far and pulled harder. Presently there came a much louder scratching noise. It was less of a purr and more like the noise a guilty person might make when trying to escape.

  Dango had wooden ears, however and Jillybean was forced to grate the teeth of the saw even harder. It grated on her soul as well, and she found herself sneering and thinking about the longer pipe and the turpentine—and fire.

  “Stop,” Jillybean whispered, and gave the wire an extra hard pull; there was a scrape and a thump, which finally roused Dango.

  “What is that? What? I have a gun.”’ All of this came in a frightened hiss as he peered around the side of the shed, trying to make out what had made the sinister sound. He was so afraid of being attacked that he took a wide, wide route, around the building, the gun growing slick with his sweat.

  With his heart going like mad and his breath blowing in and out, he was not quiet and Jillybean tracked him right around the shed. Waiting until he was nearly back where he started, she pulled the wire again. She did so with an evil grin. The darkness inside of her was nearly as bad as the darkness outside of her.

  The pull was too hard by half and the rasping sound was terribly blatant practically screaming: Come in, there’s a trap, waiting!

  Despite this, Dango was taken in. He fumbled at the lock, trying to catch Jillybean in the very act of escape. The keyhole seemed to have shrunk and it took four tries to open the lock, giving Jillybean enough time to set herself to rights and to prepare for her performance.

  Just as the door was about to open she gave the saw a final jerk. Back and forth it went, the sound drawing Dango’s attention. He pointed his gun at the gloom-covered corner.

  “Who is that?” he demanded.

  “There’s no one here,” Jillybean said, giving the corner a guilty look. The saw, with the last of its momentum, sighed gently across the smoker. “It’s nothing,” Jillybean added quickly as Dango took a step towards the corner, the noose and the double tripwire.

  He didn’t even notice that the one path before him had been artfully arranged and that there was only one place to step. In one moment, he was falling and in the next, he was caught up by the wire noose which cut deep, choking off his windpipe. The strangled sound he made, adding to the clatter of his rifle falling, made Jillybean’s heart flutter in fear and horrible delight.

  As she stood, taking up the pipe, her mind was scattered. Eve wanted to crush his head and at the same time let him strangle to death; Sadie wanted to run before he found his feet and discovered the way free of his trap; she knew she could be halfway to the harbor in two minutes.

  Jillybean wanted to smack Dango hard and firm with the pipe, lay him down gently and get that accursed wire from about his throat. She thought she was in control when she raised the pipe, but as she swung it she felt a gleeful burst of strength surge through her arm. At the last moment she tried to check the swing and managed to do so, in part.

  Still there was heavy crack as the pipe struck. Dango went right over, the wire cutting even deeper. Blood flowed, and she stared and stared as it came fast and almighty dark. Somewhere along her periphery she saw hands, small supple hands releasing the knot.

  Dango collapsed and then those same hands hauled him over and wormed their way beneath the slick wire. They were her hands. “Jillybean’s,” she said, trying to right her mind. Her hands were a good deal more
intelligent than her head just then and she was able to stop the bleeding with pressure.

  “He’s alive,” Sadie said. “I’d get the cuffs on him pretty quickly. There you go. What do you think? Which is worse, the bonk or the cut?”

  “His neck will heal just fine. The cut was long but shallow. His head, however,” Jillybean paused, feeling the man’s skull and the mighty big lump that was forming. A lump was better than a depression.

  “You hit him too hard, Eve,” Sadie snapped. “You could’ve killed him and that would’ve been murder.”

  Eve sulked and only muttered in what sounded to Jillybean’s ears very much like a foreign language.

  Jillybean searched Dango, taking his gun, keys, lighter and a long hunting knife that had a wicked edge. From there, despite the danger and her slightly unhinged mental state, she went straight to the clubhouse. It was locked, but it was an agreeable lock and it took only minutes to turn the tumblers with the small pieces of metal from her belt. Once inside she went to the clinic.

  One Shot was still on the gurney. He had one arm in the air and the other curled at his chest. Rigor mortis had set in. It made her hesitate. She could operate on people and on the undead, but touching the actual dead sort of creeped her out.

  Their cold flesh always sent a chill down her back, and when they stared at her with blank fish eyes she couldn’t meet their sad gaze. She especially disliked it when they were stiff. For some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, they seemed more dead when they were stiff, as if there was something fundamentally inhuman about a stiff corpse. Then again, a pliable corpse that spilled everywhere as if it was nothing but a bag of jelly, made her gag.

  Maybe the explanation could be found in the circumstances surrounding how her mother had died. Jillybean, at the age of six, all alone and terrified out of her wits, had the rare opportunity of watching her mother waste away for weeks on end in a catatonic state. Even before she died, her mother had been as cadaver-like as a person could be: the unseeing eyes, the stiffness, the insane silence that pervaded her room.