GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  “I’m with Brian. How do we know you’re not bluff…”

  She thumbed the button on the radio, cutting off his words.

  Chapter 21

  Even through two sets of walls, the shock of the explosion was enough to make Tony’s heart flutter. The great thunderous boom was followed by an echoing crash that was nearly just as loud, and in a way, it was worse. The metal-walled warehouse acted somewhat like a huge gong when the four-hundred pound glass and steel light fixture slammed into it.

  The ground as well as the air shook. As the others cowered or flinched, and in Jenn’s case gripped her cross with suddenly numb fingers, Eve grinned at the tumultuous symphony she had created. “Just like old times,” she said, wistfully addressing the ceiling which rained tiny particles of dust. Contentedly, she watched a strand of old grey spider’s web float lazily down.

  Tony’s eyes were round as saucers. “How’d you do that?”

  In truth, she didn’t know. Jillybean was the one who knew the formula and she guarded it fiercely, never letting Eve peek over her shoulder. “A girl has to have her secrets.”

  “But you m-made that?” he asked, his mind still a little bit scrambled.

  Eve rolled her eyes. “I keep forgetting I’m talking to Caveman Grog. Yes, I make big boom.” She hopped down to stand in front of him and held her hands over her ears, wearing a fearful face. “Is big scary. I know.”

  Tony growled, “Watch your tone.”

  Behind her Stu spoke for the first time saying only, “Oh boy.” Eve had grown as if part of the explosion had filled her with its energy, and he was sure that she was within an ace of doing something.

  “Make me,” she whispered, with the venom of a dozen cobras. “I’d like to see you try.” She held up the walkie-talkie which she had already switched to the next frequency, the one that would set off the pipe bomb in the room.

  “You haven’t won anything,” Tony said. “If you set off the bomb, guess what? You’ll blow yourself up, too.”

  Her eyes popped open and her chin dropped. “Really? Will that really happen if I press the button? Wow, I never, ever, ever knew that. But here’s what you don’t know. Mike, tell him.”

  “She crazy.” This didn’t seem much like actual news and the explanation felt anti-climactic.

  “Would you care to elaborate, cousin of Grog?” she snapped. “I give you an opportunity to dump all over me, to tell the world what you really feel and all you say is ‘she’s crazy?’ Would you say that I’m crazy enough to blow us up?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, you are.” He turned to the others and shrugged. “It’s no joke. She’s got different people inside of her head. This,” he gestured at Eve, “isn’t even the girl doctor. This girl is a murderer.”

  Eve felt her insides glow like hot ash. For her it was a compliment. For her murder wasn’t always a bad thing when it was done for the greater good and what was greater than her getting to live another day? Nothing as far as she could tell. “See, I’m crazy and a murderer. Look at that, Tony, at least we have that in common. Like two peas, right? And because we’re so close, I’m going to let you walk out of here. Without your guns, of course. Oh, and no food, either, sorry but I can only eat so much fish.”

  Tony shook his head, the new sweat glistening on his dome like oil. “No. That’s not how this is going to work. I might let you walk out of here if we can come to some sort of agreement. If you show me how to make one of them bombs…” Her shaking head stopped him. “Okay, I understand. That information is worth quite a bit. How ‘bout this, I buy some from you. We can be like trading partners. Exclusive trading partners. The Corsairs make strong allies.”

  “Interesting, interesting,” she answered, lifting the walkie-talkie to her nose and sniffing it. This was a mistake. It smelled of duct tape and new plastic. It had come straight out of the package; she could remember peeling the back off and gently setting it aside before…Her lips queered into a new sneer. Those had been Jillybean’s memories.

  Clamping her mind shut on them and on her, she said, “There’s just one problem, you’re not Corsairs. The Corsairs are four-hundred miles away. Sure, you might have been Corsairs once, but now you’re just a bunch of ruffians and slavers, running a two-bit operation, squatting on my turf. You see, this is my warehouse and these are my people. And I’m running out of patience. Put your guns down and walk out of here and just keep walking before I lose my temper.”

  The anger and fury in her were running high, making it hard to think about anything but pressing that little button.

  “That’s a death sentence,” Tony scoffed. “It’d be quicker if you just blew us up.”

  “Don’t say that,” Stu suddenly growled. “She’s very, what’s the word? Impulsive. She’s likely to…”

  “Shut the hell up, Stu! I got this. I don’t need some mute hick telling me how to deal with this idiot. The only thing pieces of crap like this understand is power and I have all the power. I have power over life and death. That is why I am Queen and that is why they will bow before me. Now drop your damned guns before I get really mad!”

  Her voice had been at screech level as she raved and Stu knew she was very close to losing what little control she had left.

  “Don’t drop them,” Tony ordered as more than one of his men seemed to be wilting before the girl’s madness. “We’ll lose any bargaining position we have. Just be cool.”

  Eve turned on her heel and walked directly for the door, everyone scrambling out of her way. She wasn’t leaving. This was her kingdom and she was queen. She went right to Brian Troutman and backed him to the wall. “I bet you want this,” she said, holding the walkie-talkie in front of his face. “I bet you just wish you could snatch it right out of my hand, but are you man enough to take it?”

  He didn’t dare, her thumb had the send button half-pressed. The walkie-talkie held his focus and he couldn’t take his eyes from it—beyond the little hunk of plastic were the girl’s eyes; they were twitchy and altogether insane. He had never seen anything like them and never wanted to again.

  “No? You don’t want this? Well, I want your gun. Give it to me or I’ll take it from you and you know what will happen then? We’ll struggle, pushing and pulling and…” She stepped in closer and grabbed the barrel of his M16A2 with her left hand. She began to pull with the one hand, while at the same time shaking the detonator in front of his face.

  “Don’t, please,” he whispered, not knowing what to do. His heart had turned to wax and was softly melting away in his fear.

  His whisper showed weakness which only egged her on more and she attacked his trigger hand with her nails. When that failed to dislodge the gun, she went after his face. “Fight back,” she hissed. “Hit me. Come on, push me. Don’t be a pussy, grab the detonator and kill us all.”

  Everyone was frozen around the room, staring at the spectacle, not knowing what to do. Eventually, as she became more frantic and loud, he gave up the gun and held up his hands in front of his chest. She threw it on the ground, laughing at him. She then turned to the next of the Corsairs, a man who towered over her; all the same, he backed away until he ran up against the cardboard boxes.

  Instead of grabbing his gun, she scraped up a gob of snot and spat in his face. “Are you just going to take that? You gonna let a little girl spit in your face? Do you want to hit me? Do you? I said DO YOU?” Her scream sent him up onto the tips of his toes.

  “Here. Take it.”

  He gave up his shotgun. This time she handed it to Jenn. “Feel the power. Make them afraid of you. The secret is not being afraid to die.”

  “I’m not afraid to die,” Tony said, having finally gathered his wits. He pulled his .44 caliber Double Eagle. He was a big man and felt his guns should be big as well and the Eagle was a huge hunk of metal. “This is your last chance to make a deal.”

  She sauntered up to him without the least fear as he pointed the weapon. “Would you like to do it on the count of three?”
She held up the detonator. “One.” She took another step forward.

  “I’m not playing,” he warned.

  “Good, because I’m not either. Two.” She took another step…and he fired the gun. Everyone in the room flinched at the gunshot; everyone but Eve. She had welcomed the bullet, but it passed through her mass of hair, clipping strands that fell across her vision. Her smile faded and a look of disgust replaced it.

  “Pathetic,” she said.

  Tony looked like he was treading water in a dark sea with something terrible somewhere beneath him. His gun was no longer pointed with what anyone would call assurance. “How do we know you guys won’t kill us?”

  “I would say that you’re just going to have to trust me, but that would be crazy, right? But you can trust him.” She looked back at Stu who hadn’t budged and still looked ready to spring. “He’s a friggin’ boy scout. Isn’t that right, Stu? You would never hurt these evil, butchering Corsairs.”

  “Not if I give my word,” he answered. “Give up your guns and we’ll let you walk out of here, unharmed. That is a promise.”

  But without weapons and food? That struck Tony hard. He had been part of the raiding party that had followed the Saber south. With confidence that crossed the border into outright stupidity they had come up that hill without a plan, expecting an easy time of it. Then the dead had come. Wave upon wave of them, crashing out of the forest.

  They had been everywhere eating people or tearing them limb from limb. Tony had tried to get back to his boat or any boat for that matter, but he was cut off. Grabbing what men he could—and the two slave girls who had appeared out of nowhere—he figured he would hike to the other side of the bay and get picked up there, only the Corsairs fled and he and his group had been hounded for two straight days by the dead, driven north east until they saw a smudge of smoke on the horizon.

  And now he would be forced out there, again. But the girl was certifiably crazy. It wasn’t an act. She would kill them all and cackle madly while she did so. But what choice did he have? His only consolation was that, at thirty-eight and he had survived a lot worse.

  “Here,” he said, holding out his gun. She took it and sniffed the hot barrel, sending a wave of pleasure through her.

  “Now the rest of you,” she said. With heads lowered, they handed over an assortment of rifles and shotguns. Now armed again, Stu and Mike corralled the men into a corner and frisked them, taking only ammo and weapons. Some of the men had lighters or small pocket knives; a few had little bits of food stashed. They would need every little nibble and neither man could, in good conscience, take these morsels.

  “What about our coats?” Brian asked. “It’s cold outside.”

  Eve laughed at the request. “There’s an entire city filled with coats. You can have all of those you can carry. Let’s get those hands in the air and come on out the door. The sooner you’re gone, the sooner you’ll be someone else’s responsibility.”

  It was an odd thing to say but only because it was Eve who had said it and it went unnoticed by the shell-shocked Corsairs who were heading out the door and by Mike and Stu who were entirely focused on them, ironically nervous now that they were moving away from the bomb.

  Only Jenn took real notice. Like every child of the apocalypse, she had recovered her senses with amazing speed. “Who would be responsible for them? What’s that mean?” She had come to realize that neither Jillybean nor Eve tossed about words uselessly.

  “Hold on, will you?” Eve purred. They had just trooped out into the dark expanse of the warehouse and she could feel hundreds of hidden eyes on her. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear them whispering or coughing. The people were naturally curious and properly afraid.

  Screams and gunshots had become a daily occurrence, however the explosion seemed to mark some sort of monumental change and now they were watching the Corsairs being led out at gunpoint and there was big Tony with his hands at shoulder height along with the rest of them. The only thing that could have surprised them more was if he had squatted out a litter of pups right there on the floor.

  “Stop!” Eve commanded and they stopped.

  “What are you doing?” Stu demanded. Even in the dark, he knew that smile of hers. “I promised we wouldn’t hurt them.”

  She nodded. “Yes, a promise is a promise and I agreed to it, but they didn’t.” She clicked on her flashlight and illuminated two hundred people in the achingly long throes of death. “How many of them have been wronged by these subhuman pieces of garbage?”

  Tony turned on Eve and whispered savagely, “We had a deal!”

  “And we still do,” she replied, mildly. “At the same time, I owe a duty to my people.”

  “Your people?” Stu asked, wondering if he had missed something. Had she changed again to some new person he had never seen before?

  No, her eyes still flashed with greedy hunger. Eve was still solidly in charge. She had made her promises but that didn’t mean she had to forgo any fun. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she called out at the top of her lungs. “My people. I am your new Queen!” Although she had said this in triumph and even paused for applause, the statement was met with only silence.

  She wasn’t disappointed. They would come to love her…and fear her.

  “I have freed you from your oppressors and soon I will heal you of this terrible sickness, but right now we must deal with an unfortunate task. I need to know if these men have wronged you.”

  “We had a deal!” Tony said again. His desperation made his voice shake and that was all the evidence she would ever need to convict.

  She turned her terrible gaze on him, raising the Desert Eagle. “Get on your knees. I will make you if you don’t and I won’t be nice about it.” She lowered the barrel of the gun until it was aimed into his crotch. Hissing curses, he got down. “The rest of you, now,” she commanded.

  All but Brian knelt. He stood there, shaking his head, chewing his lip, not noticing as it began to bleed. Eve wasn’t going to ask twice. She walked right up to him, aimed the Eagle from a distance of two feet and deafened his left ear as she fired it for effect only. It was like someone had stabbed a pen into his ear and his brain felt like jelly that had been hit with a hammer. She was still there pointing the gun when he looked back up, only now it had switched to his other ear. He knelt along with the rest of them.

  Eve had never felt so huge. She gazed down at Brian, snorted and walked away. “You no longer have to fear these…pirates.” She spat the word out and then actually spat, splattering a gob, next to Tony. “Now if anyone has been hurt or harmed by these people, now is the time to say something and, as your Queen, I will make sure they receive the proper punishment.”

  She paused, feeling the room, waiting for the inevitable and sure enough someone said in a carrying whisper, “Tony killed ol’ John McGuvee.”

  “Did he murder him?” Eve asked. The voice, louder now, agreed, that had been the case. “Did anyone else see this?” Heads nodded and a few whispered timidly, I saw it. “Okay what about Brian? Is he innocent of any crimes?” Soft laughter from the crowd.

  “He even worse,” someone said. “He done all the boss-man’s dirty work. He killed plenty, offin’ all them that was too sick.” This seemed to open the floodgates and now there came so many whispers that Eve couldn’t follow them all especially those that came up from inside her own head demanding that she get revenge. These were especially bloodthirsty and chilling, yet Eve was not like Jillybean and she reveled in the voices.

  She went down the line of eight men, all in their thirties, all strong, all gritty survivors and all were killers. Names of victims were shouted from the crowd—they had killed dozens, weeding out the sickest and those who showed the slightest resistance to their rule.

  “We were following orders,” one of the Corsairs said in his defense. “Tony would have killed us, too if we hadn’t.” He was booed down by the crowd and someone threw a shoe at him, striking him in the back of the neck.
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br />   Stu held his gun on the Corsairs, looking ready to blast them all if any of them moved, but he didn’t think he could. They were hateful, evil men…and he had given his word. And he didn’t think he could execute them, either.

  Eve seemed to be able to read his mind. “So, are you going to let these murderers go free, Mister Boy Scout?”

  “I don’t know what to do with them,” he said, after a long pause and a glance at Mike, who gave a noncommittal, boyish shrug. Mike suddenly looked like a kid and Jenn, holding a shotgun nearly as tall as she was, like a girl playing dress-up. Neither truly wanted to be a part of this.

  “I know that I’m not smart enough to know what the right thing to do is and neither are you.” Eve’s eyes narrowed and a snarl began to form, but Stu spoke over it. “You need to bring Jillybean back. You need her to help all these people anyway, right? If you don’t you’ll be queen of an empty warehouse. Is that what you want?”

  “No, but this is the best part,” she whined, stamping her foot like a toddler. “And I just got to be Queen anyway. It’s still my turn. She is going to have to wait.”

  Stu sighed, getting a glimpse of fatherhood. “Do you even know what’s wrong with these people?”

  “You heard baldy, it’s something about the water.”

  “No, the name of the disease. Jillybean called it like collar-something.” Eve started shaking her head. He went on, “You’ll need to know it if you want to help these people. Collar…”

  For a moment her mind wavered, then she regained her footing. “Cholera. It’s cholera and they are my people, ‘these’ people as you…”

  “No, Jillybean called it something else,” Stu said, going on. “It sounded foreign. Like Italian or something. It was vibrio something.”

  “Italian? Jillybean doesn’t know Italian. But vibrio isn’t Italian, it’s…” She blinked and appeared drunk for a moment as she teetered. “It’s Latin. Yes, Latin. Basically, it means ‘to vibrate’ since the bacterium in this rather laxly ordered genus are motile, meaning they move through a series of undulations. Stu, uh what’s going on? Who are these people?”