GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Jillybean was about to yawn but the choice made her choke on it. With eyes dripping, she said, “Johanna? She’s not very assertive. We have two hundred and forty people that need to be showered in the next day. That’s ten an hour; six minutes a shower. It needs to run like clockwork.”

  So, we can all rush to our deaths? The question bubbled up from deep inside. It went unasked because Jillybean would only laugh at the question, or she would demand to know its basis and if Jenn couldn’t come up with a logical reason—and signs of smoke and crows were far from Jillybean’s sort of logic—she would simply dismiss it.

  “Johanna is smarter than she looks and she’s been a big help. Though you’re right, she’s not very loud. She still thinks everyone looks at her like a ‘you know what.’” Jenn didn’t like saying the word “whore.” It sounded mean.

  “Is that right?” Jillybean asked. Jenn nodded reluctantly, and Stu shrugged which was the equivalent of an apologetic yes. Jillybean put a hand to her mouth and began tapping her full lips with a finger. “I was thinking about using James Smith, the ex-slave. He’s big and assertive, but he has a bitter edge and probably will for some time. Maybe we can use him as Johanna’s assistant? It might change people’s opinion of her if she’s seen to be in charge, while he needs to have someone with the authority to restrain him, for want of a better word. Hmm, definitely use a better word when you talk to him.”

  “Like what?”

  Jillybean yawned. “You’ll think of something. I know it. Look, I’m dying here. I have to get some sleep.”

  Jenn wished her good night, but it was with a crooked smile. The words “I’m dying” felt like nails in a coffin.

  The crooked smile had not been missed and its meaning guessed at with amazing perception. She knows, Sadie whispered. She’s seen a sign, or a black cat did a cha-cha along her path.

  A crooked smile, one that matched Jenn’s, crossed over Jillybean’s face. She cleared her throat, making an “uh-uh” noise which she hoped would end the conversation. She didn’t like talking to Sadie when anyone was around. She doesn’t know anything, she thought. How could she?

  She knows things. She knew to come here and now she’s right to be afraid to go back.

  Jenn must know you’re going to screw this up, Eve said.

  “I’m not going to screw anything up!” Jillybean snapped before feeling Stu stiffen next to her.

  “Do you want to talk about anything? Maybe God or umbrellas or something?” He always had a lean, long and dusty appearance except when he smiled at her. His obvious affection made him look his age. When she shook her head, he ventured, “What about pig farming? Or periscopes?”

  She laughed. “Periscopes? You sound crazy, you know that? People will talk if two crazy people spend too much time together. And besides, I’d want to discuss parasols, not periscopes.”

  The dock passed beneath them in silence as they walked to the Saber, Stu wasn’t sure what a parasol was. He knew it was a word from the old days, but couldn’t quite put his mind to it. Jillybean noticed the pause and wished she had chosen a different word.

  “You should’ve gone with penguins,” Sadie said. “Everyone knows what they are.”

  It wasn’t until she saw Stu cast her swift sideways look that she realized Sadie had said that out loud. “A penguin? That’s a kind of teacup, right?” he asked, with such a straight face that she was all set to believe that he really didn’t know what a penguin was when he suddenly burst out in laughter. They were now at the Saber which rode high enough that they had to climb over the rail. Still smiling, Stu sat on the rail as though it were a saddle, before reaching for Jillybean.

  “I’m glad you’re crazy, too,” she said, one leg slung over the rail.

  “I’m crazy for you.” With dead bodies rotting in a cloud of stench not fifty feet away and the moan of lost zombies serenading them, it was the least romantic place in the world and yet it worked. He kissed her softly and she melted into him, their bodies so entwined that not the least drop of moonlight could find its way between them.

  They were kissing still when they heard Mike heading towards them from the warehouse. They both knew it was him by the rambling way in which he walked. He was inadvertently loud, scuffing his shoes over every break in the concrete, kicking stones or pinecones and even old cans.

  Suddenly embarrassed, the two scurried into the small cabin which Jillybean shared with Jenn. There they were trapped as Mike came aboard, sighed loudly as only he could, and made himself a bed of blankets in what was the direct center of the main cabin. To get past him they would have to step over him and the cabin was so overlaid by shadows that it was impossible to tell which part of the blankets he was under, precisely.

  “It looks like we don’t have any choice,” she said. Stu was pretty sure it was Jillybean in the dark with him right up until she added, “You’re going to have to sleep here with me.”

  Chapter 30

  All through the night, the new shower was in perpetual use. In groups of five, Johanna Murphy roused the sleepers, explained the situation, and sent them stumbling off to the curtained area where James sent them through in matched pairs.

  He kept a strict watch on the time. Nine minutes was the maximum they were given and five the minimum. James was of the opinion that a person couldn’t get properly clean in less than five minutes. The cold water meant nobody wanted to linger. The water was well beyond brisk and he was soon tired of hearing the complaints.

  When he’d been a slave he hadn’t been allowed to complain and he made sure to remind those of them who’d been the most brutal to him of this.

  Complaints were made and Jenn had to step in. This wasn’t the easy-going Jenn that the Hill People had taken for granted. This was the queen’s friend who had, up to this point, worked tirelessly in the sweetest mood. Her patience had worn thin, however.

  She took one look at a few of the damp, but still filthy people and ordered them back into the shower. “You’ll go in wearing nothing but chains if I have to hear one more word. People are trying to sleep, damn it!”

  If they had been asleep, they weren’t after her explosion which rang from one end of the warehouse to the other. Jenn didn’t regret her outburst for a second because the shower ran smoothly from then on, and by morning they were well ahead of schedule and the place was a good deal less foul.

  Jenn slept in brief snatches and wasn’t nearly as bleary-eyed as Jillybean expected when she finally made a late appearance an hour after sunrise. Stu had hung back and came in a few minutes later, no one noticing the skip in his step as he headed for the shower to check on the water pressure.

  “We’re getting low on IVs,” Jenn said. “We got only twenty-two bags left.”

  “We Have twenty-two bags left,” Jillybean corrected, without thinking. She was walking along the line of patients gazing down at their faces. “That might be enough. We’re going to DC most of these lines. I want each to drink two cups of water before we release them. If they can keep it down, it means they’re well on their way to being fine.”

  Jenn’s shoulders slumped from weariness. “DC? Does that mean take the IVs out?”

  “Yes, but the water first.” She glanced around to see who was in attendance and as usual there were a number of people nearby. “Diamond, grab a few friends and help Jenn. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes?” Jenn grumbled. “Water for two hundred people in twenty minutes?” With ten helpers, they were done with one minute to spare as Jillybean came fast-marching back. Sometimes it seemed to be the only speed at which she moved.

  She ignored the patients and went right for Jenn, grabbed her hand and went back the way she had come, going just as fast. “Mike has a surprise for you.”

  “A surprise? What is it?”

  “Do you honestly expect me to answer that? It wouldn’t be much of a surprise if I did, would it? You go on alone. I’ll go get those IVs DC’d. Good luck.” She gave Jenn a wink w
hich was very strange for her, but not so much for Sadie. The wink only confused her, while at the same time, a heavy thud rattling the wall of the warehouse, frightened her.

  There was a zombie outside, looking to get in. Its presence soured Jenn and colored her imagination, turning what might have been interesting or even pleasant into something unnerving. She didn’t know what sort of ghastly surprise Mike could have found in the warehouse, so she approached a small curtained off area stuck in the same corner with a good deal of trepidation.

  The first thing she saw beyond the little curtain was a fire in which blackened pots had been thrust. Then she saw a blue plastic rectangle, like a large box that was half-filled with water—hot water. Through the falling grey light, little wisps of steam could be seen rising from its surface. Mike stood next to it, grinning from ear to ear. “Me and Stu found it! We found it yesterday but there wasn’t any room in the carts so we left it. But, but I went and got it just now and Stu got the water going for me.”

  “Oh, for you,” she said, hoping the disappointment didn’t show.

  “No. It’s for you. He got it ready for me to give to you. So, it’d be ready when I got back.” He felt like he was blowing what should have been a slam dunk.

  Strangely, it had been Stu’s idea. Stu had woken him at four in the morning and told him to go fetch the portable tub as soon as it was light out. He had said, “Jenn will love it,” but Jenn only looked a little stunned.

  “I have shampoo,” he exclaimed, as she only stood there. “It’s fancy and smells like coconuts. And, I have towels that are clean. See?” She nodded but did nothing else. “So, uh, do you like it? You don’t, do you?”

  “I do like it a lot, but I don’t think it’s right for me to, you know, bathe with you right here. I don’t know what you thought was going to happen.”

  Mike went instantaneously red. “I didn’t think anything!” he cried. “Nothing, I swear. I just, uh, wanted to make sure you were okay. I’m leaving right now.”

  He was almost through the curtains when she caught him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come off like I’m not happy with your gift. It was very kind.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  As though he were ten feet tall, he swaggered out into the warehouse, gazing fondly on everyone he met. He was looking for Stu and found him hovering over Jillybean as she supervised the simple operation of removing an IV. The worst had passed for the majority of the people. They would continue to have diarrhea for a few more days and their full strength wouldn’t return for another week but they would live.

  “I gotta thank you, Stu,” Mike said, swatting him on the shoulder. “That bath really did the trick. She kissed me square on the cheek.”

  “A kiss on the cheek. Good for you.” Stu looked on him approvingly, before casting a glance at Jillybean, who was smiling prettily up at him. Her cheeks had a bloom to them so that she appeared to be the quintessential English rose. Stu held her gaze for a moment before turning back to Mike and asking, “So when’s the wedding?”

  If he thought he was going to sink Mike with the glib question, he was mistaken. Mike looked around with evident suspicion, lowered his voice and said with utmost seriousness, “A week maybe. As soon as things settle down around here.”

  “Well, about that,” Jillybean said, the bloom coming off the rose as her cheeks lost their color. “I’m afraid you might want to move up the proceedings…”

  “The proceedings?”

  She cleared her throat and gestured at Mike’s body midway down. “Your nuptials if you prefer. I’m sorry, but we need to be afloat by this time tomorrow. We will free the barge today, stock her with the essentials and cast off at first light.”

  Mike gaped. He had been so busy that he was almost the only person not to have heard the rumors that they were all leaving on the barge. “Cast off to where?”

  “San Francisco. Now, if you will excuse me, I have things to attend to. Please be ready by eight with all the able-bodied people you can gather. We will, of course need the Saber available.”

  Mike made noises as if he were expressing the vowels of a foreign language, while Stu only stared after her, his thoughts his own, but he had lost the gaiety that had been lighting his dark eyes.

  “What does she plan on doing in San Francisco?” Mike demanded. “The Hill People will kill her on sight and I bet Gerry will as well.” Stu could only shrug, a cold worry eating away at the warmth that had been burning in him ever since the night before. Jenn wasn’t the only one who knew Jillybean was carrying a secret inside of her.

  “They may not. We’ll have a barge filled with people at our back. No one’s going to risk a battle that will get us all killed over revenge, or the loss of a boat, in Gerry’s case.”

  In a sane world, that made sense. Unfortunately, Jillybean didn’t always live in a sane world. “What about Eve?” Mike asked, his voice pitched so low that he had to almost lean into Stu’s ear to make himself heard. “She might do anything. Anything, Stu. We can’t let her attack our people for no reason.”

  “We’re not going to attack anyone. Eve may be a little off, but she isn’t suicidal. Or completely suicidal, I should say. I’ll talk to Jillybean and see what’s going on.”

  He tried and failed in this. When she wasn’t sending people to him with one request after another, she point-blank ignored his direct questions. He pressed her as politely as possible until she grew agitated and her eyes took to shifting, light to dark and back again.

  When Jenn emerged, pink and wrinkled from her bath, Mike and Stu cornered her and peppered her with questions, only she knew no more than them.

  After that things became too busy to even breathe. Jillybean was her usual self. With inexhaustible zeal, she thought enough for a dozen people at once, setting seven plans into action, most of which were aimed at getting the barge out of the mud.

  Teams were sent out into the city in search of shovels, buckets, jacks, ropes and more hoses. The mud was thick, but relatively fresh. The same storm that had shot the Calypso north three weeks before, had sent a flood down the Sacramento, sweeping the barge from the dry dock it had been sitting on for the last dozen years and depositing it, as well as twenty tons of mud, almost in view of the warehouse.

  Jillybean did not believe in signs and omens, and yet she did not entertain even the possibility the barge would sink once it was pulled into the river. She believed with utter religious certainty that it would float.

  When the Saber pulled alongside, she casually leapt from the sailboat to the canted front edge of the barge. Beaming, she walked down the ramp into the long empty hold, and stamped her foot on the steel decking, and grinned. It was solid and strong.

  The barge had been brand new twelve years before and hadn’t even taken its first run when the apocalypse had struck. Now, there was only the beginnings of rust along its edges, though the sun and elements had turned everything dull and ugly.

  Jillybean grinned and she was not the only one. Everyone who came aboard did just as she had: they gave the decking a few kicks, grunted in amazement and then grinned at one another—everyone had heard the rumors: that it was finally time to leave the horrible warehouse after all the years they’d been there. Not one of them wanted to stay and just like Jillybean, they saw the barge as a sign from God.

  “Will it be all of us going?” Shaina asked. Her grin was as lopsided as her head. She was afraid that she had so little to offer that, if anyone was going to be left behind, it would be her. Others looked on, their grins not so vibrant as before. They had been subsisting on rumor and now Shaina had come right out and broached the subject.

  The question, and the sudden quiet around her, surprised Jillybean who had been deep within a calculation trying to find an estimation of the weight of the vessel, which would have a bearing on the size of the anchor it would need, the sturdiness of the mast and the composition of the rudders. She put that aside for the moment, realizing that it was time to explain why she w
anted to move and why it had to happen so quickly.

  “I know a lot of you have similar questions,” Jillybean began in a loud, strict voice. She was afraid that she would see resistance in some of their faces; Willis’ in particular, and she wanted it known quickly that she would not put up with it. “And I know a lot of you have fears, but know this: I will not leave anyone behind. The warehouse is not safe. In fact, it’s never been safe, not from disease, not from the Corsairs, and certainly not from the dead.”

  Happily, everyone including Willis began to nod and she went on in a much gentler tone, explaining that the time to move was right then and that they could not delay, no matter how tired or sick they were. Of course, she used long, somewhat mysterious-sounding words, whose definitions were only partially understood.

  The barge was “providential,” their duty was “incumbent,” the timing was “precipitous,” and so on, until the people were dazzled into believing the chance of their lives might slip away if they did not throw themselves into the task of freeing the barge. Despite the promise of hours of hard work in front of them, they cheered their new queen.

  Stu Currans cheered along with them, but he was only going through the motions. He was not dazzled by the important-sounding words and far from seeing the barge as providential, which he gathered meant lucky, he found it heartily worrisome. Parking the barge in the middle of San Francisco Bay would be considered a direct threat to the Islanders, and the fact that it was Jillybean commanding it would bring the Hill People into what might normally be a squabble among fishermen.

  He needed to know the truth, but at the same time he owed her a debt that couldn’t be repaid. She had saved his life and the lives of the Hill People, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

  It’s why he cheered along with the rest and worked harder than anyone to get the barge afloat even though his gut churned with anxiety.

  Jillybean directed operations and the task of clearing the mud went quickly. Posthole diggers and hand augers bored holes into the mud, and when filled with water the mud became sloppy enough for buckets and the endlessly working hose to carry it all away.