GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Then it was a matter of sliding the barge off the embankment. Chains were rigged, and the Saber, operating under a full press of sail, was employed, as was the strength of twenty hydraulic jacks and the backs of a hundred people.

  There was a moment of uncertainty as the chains went taut and the mast of the Saber bowed from the immense strain. But gravity was on their side and the mud which had been their enemy only minutes before was now slick and acted as a lubricant. The barge, which had been mostly in the river anyway, slid the rest of the way in.

  Everyone cheered except for Mike, who now had fifty tons of floating metal to arrest before it plowed into his beloved boat and turned it into a pile of fiberglass kindling. In a nifty piece of sailing, he not only darted the Saber out of the way, but also brought both vessels up into the sluggish current.

  It was noon and everyone thought they were well ahead of schedule and ready for a break. They were wrong. Jillybean had more plans for the barge. Although it seemed to be an immense ship, she knew that with two hundred and forty people aboard, and all their supplies, it would shrink quickly.

  Luckily, there was no lack of cargo containers in the industrial side of the city. These metal boxes, some as long as sixty feet and others mere cubes, ten feet on the side, were scattered everywhere. From the deck of the barge Jillybean could see a hundred of them easily. The only difficulty was in finding ones not riddled by rust.

  While the others rested or went back out into the city for a hundred new items she suddenly needed, she and Stu went in search of whole containers. She found it strange that within a line of seven of them, where each had walls of crumbling orange metal, she discovered one that was almost entirely intact. She flagged it and moved on to the next group. These were nestled along the back of another warehouse, looking like a row of piglets nursing at a sow.

  Here she found two more that would do.

  Stu barely gave the containers a glance. He had come with her to protect her. Jillybean was not just small and weak, she would also become so engrossed in her projects that she would sometimes miss obvious things around her, such as the presence of the dead.

  The clamor of getting the barge afloat had attracted many and she was quite oblivious to them. It wasn’t until Stu grabbed her round the middle and hoisted her bodily up onto one of the containers that she even noticed them. “How inconvenient,” Jillybean grumbled with an impatient frown when she saw the dozens of walking corpses coming after them.

  “Sometimes I wonder about you,” he said. “You can see every little detail about a person so that it’s like you’re reading their minds but you missed those zombies.”

  She slid back from the edge saying, “I would’ve noticed them if you weren’t around, but since I knew you were keeping watch what was the point of me watching as well. If I had a cat would I sit outside a mouse hole next to him holding a frying pan?” He had already said as much as he ever did and only shook his head.

  She patted him on the chest. “Maybe I should be thanking you for saving me. That would be more polite.”

  He had saved her though they were far from safe on the container which was only eight-feet in height, in other words many of the beasts were actually taller than the container. Their long arms could stretch nearly all the way across the top of it.

  She and Stu dodged to the far edge of the container to get away from the diseased claws grasping for them. “They sure do appear hungry,” she said with a grin and then pinwheeled her arms as she stepped on one of their hands and lost her balance.

  Stu grabbed her and for the moment they were safe again. The moment was brief as the angry beasts began rocking the seven-thousand pound container trying to toss them off. They leapt to the next container four feet over and before the monsters could even think about swarming it they leapt to the next and then the next, which was far less sturdy than the previous three.

  Its roof and sides were composed almost completely of rust and its rectangular form was more illusion than substance. The roof collapsed under them and only their thick layers saved them from being torn to pieces by the jagged remains of metal. They fell into the dank interior. Stu was up first, dragging her to her feet, before charging through the remains of the far wall. It came apart around him and he let his momentum take him through to the next container, where he punched a human-sized hole by leading with his shoulder.

  Instead of attacking the next container wall, he and Jillybean ran through it to where its open door fed into another warehouse. Behind them the dead were tearing apart the containers or throwing them to their sides, screaming in rage.

  Stu was ready to run, however Jillybean hesitated. The warehouse was an utter mess. There were a dozen more containers here and all the varied items that had once been in them were now strewn everywhere.

  Anything of real value had long before been taken; all that remained were wilted stacks of cardboard, nested in by a colony of rats, toasters by the thousands, enough computer monitors to build a staircase to the moon, and car parts; crates and crates of useless fan belts and alternators and headlights that were forever destined to remain unlit.

  Jillybean took this all in with her usual perception and then proceeded to toss it out of her mind. Her eyes were on the cargo containers, all of which were unmarred by rust. “Perfect.” She had a vision of the barge, its flat hold filled with these containers, which would in essence double the deck space.

  “Not perfect,” Stu said, over the sound of the dead tearing apart the rusting containers behind them. He dragged her on through the warehouse to the front where the mess continued unabated. In a trashed-out front lot, two eighteen-wheelers were joined at the nose, melded together by a crash that had sent both drivers flying through the windshields. They had, in essence, traded places though all that remained of either of them was a leg bone jutting from one of the cabs.

  The closest truck still bore the Ace-True Value logo. It had been emptied with great energy by a gang of desperate people years before, which in a way was helpful for Jillybean as she did not have to dig beneath layers to find three cases of varnish and the hand dolly that went with the truck.

  “This will do for a distraction.”

  Stu, lugging the dolly, trailed after Jillybean as she set off for the tallest building on the far side of a crowded bridge and without the least qualm, set the upper floors on fire.

  With so many gallons of what smelled like fermented varnish spread around, the building went up like a torch. Even in the bright light of day it was an immense beacon that drew the dead. From a block away, the flames danced in her eyes, transforming them, and her, into something not exactly normal.

  It seemed to Stu that Jillybean and Eve were almost in complete balance. Her face registered both a distant approval and a wicked grin. What was more, the flames seemed to hold her spellbound. Minutes went by and she only stared as if hypnotized.

  He was pretty sure that if there was ever a time to get information out of her, it was right then. “Why are we going back to San Francisco?” he asked in the softest voice he could manage.

  Her head turned slightly, her eyes still locked on the fire. “To fight the Corsairs of course.”

  The answer, given with complete certainty, was like a stab in the heart and he blurted out, “The Corsairs!”

  “Yes. They are coming for us. Thousands of them.”

  Chapter 31

  Stu’s mind should have been going a mile a minute, but instead he felt slow and stupid as he tried to come to grips with what she had said. “How do you know they’re coming?”

  “Because we know evil,” Jillybean answered in the strangest voice she had ever used. It went up and down the scale, somehow hitting only discordant sour notes. “We know how it thinks. We know its anger and its fear. We know its lust for power. Jenn is right to see death in the signs. If we are correct, this can only end in death.”

  Jillybean paused, staring out, her eyes filled with the fire. Suddenly, more than ever, Stu wanted to be
lieve signs and omens were nothing but bull, only he had a terrible feeling that Jenn might have really seen something significant.

  Was there any chance she could unsee it? Or perhaps see a way around their fate? Or to see…

  Jillybean broke in on his thoughts, in that disconcerting voice, “Jenn tried to hide the severity of her vision, only she’s too innocent for lies. It’s what we love about her. She’s such a dear, dear lamb. A lamb so easily led to the slaughter.” For just a moment, a hateful look emerged from the netherworld of Jillybean’s subconscious. Slowly, her head wagged until the look was gone and there was balance again, though it was a precarious balance.

  Stu didn’t want balance, he wanted answers, even if they came from Eve. “And you want us to fight the Corsairs?” he demanded, baiting the evil out of Jillybean with a contemptuous snort. “You want to fight them with a bunch of sick, diseased people? That’s ridiculous.”

  “Are you calling me ridiculous?” she asked, her words forming crystals of ice as her eyes darkened until there wasn’t even a suggestion of Jillybean within them.

  This was Eve and Stu knew he had to tread carefully if he didn’t want her to go from talking to stabbing. “I was calling the situation ridiculous. Are you really on board with a battle? Or is this all Jillybean?”

  “It’s never all Jillybean!” Eve snapped. “Though that’s what she wants you to think. Oh, man I hate her guts. She’s always taking the credit for everything, but the truth is, that stupid little bitch couldn’t make it on her own. She’d still be talking to that dumbass zebra if it wasn’t for me.”

  Eve was quite prepared to go on, expounding on Jillybean’s many faults however, Stu hadn’t summoned her to hear an hour-long diatribe.

  “So, you want a battle? You know, these people…your people are too weak to fight. You won’t be queen of anything if you do this. Is that what you want?”

  He felt altogether shoddy for going around Jillybean like this, but her plan to take on an army of Corsairs with a few hundred people who had been at death’s door only two days before was, well, it wasn’t right. They’d be slaughtered.

  Eve scratched the underside of her chin for a moment considering. “I do like the idea of being Queen. Do this! Do that! Off with her head!” She laughed, and it was a cruel, sordid noise that rang like someone was drumming on a kettle. “But at the same time a battle sounds wonderful.”

  She looked wistfully off at a scarred landscape of blood and broken bodies, where the sky was the color of smoke streaked with the yellow-green of chlorine gas. She could almost smell the spent powder and the gangrene turning the stumps of limbs black. A sigh escaped her and she smiled. “I just can’t decide.”

  Stu growled, “Then what good are you? Do you at least know how she plans to fight them?” A detached and altogether flippant shrug was her answer causing Stu’s fist to ball in a display of useless anger. With an effort he controlled himself and asked, “Okay, do you at least know how many Corsairs are coming?”

  Eve turned her haughty gaze towards him and her smile gave a hint at the coming of winter. “All of them, I don’t doubt. Enough to grind us under their heel. Enough to make an example of us. That’s what they want. They want everyone to fear them. It’ll be an orgy of blood and it won’t be quick, either. It’ll be like a feast. Course after course of torture and rape. Oh, they are absolute gluttons for rape. It’s sick what they do to the women, but it’s nothing compared to what they do when they get a girl, you know, a young girl like Jenn.”

  She was about to go on when he choked out, “That’s enough.”

  Everyone knew what the Corsairs were like. They had a wicked reputation for unimaginable horror. It was a reputation they cultivated and built upon every chance they got. It was this reputation for evil that had allowed just eight of them to take over the warehouse and its two hundred and forty people. It was this reputation that filled Stu with terror.

  “That’s enough?” Eve laughed, a shrieking, cawing sound. “What? Are you afraid to hear the truth? What a pathetic loser! What a complete wimp! And you have the nerve to doubt us? You doubt our fortitude? You doubt our conviction? Why do you think she chooses battle? Because death is the only good choice you have left. If you puss-out and run they’ll hunt you down. They’ll get the weak ones first, but in the end, they’ll get you too, Stu Currans. Then, instead of going out in a blaze of glory, they’ll drag your sorry, cowardly hide out from beneath some rock and they’ll make you scream like a pig.”

  He knew she was right, which was why he desperately needed a third choice. “So, you of all people choose battle? Even though you know we don’t have a chance of winning?”

  “First off, doorknob, you should know by now that I never lose. I’m sure you’ll all die horrible, horrible deaths, but I’ll be fine. I always am. Jillybean will think of something to save herself. Either that or she’ll have some fool throw his life away for her. Do you know anyone like that? Someone she has eating out of the palm of her hand?”

  Stu was that fool. Eve saw the truth the second this struck him, and her peals of laughter were louder than ever. They rang out and echoed along the empty buildings, causing a few of the shambling dead to pause on the way to the fire. She didn’t care and she didn’t care about Stu, which bothered him greatly since she wore Jillybean’s face, and made him feel worthless with Jillybean’s lips.

  “I’m tired of you,” he told her. “It’s time you crawled back down into the pit where Jillybean keeps you.”

  “I’d like to see you try to make me. I know your tricks. All you got are math and science, and I know more about both than you ever did. Tell me, hick, you ever learn to read? I’m talking books without pit-chers.”

  Stu took a calm breath and the calmer he became, the more nervous and guarded she grew. “Do you remember last night?” he asked, when her smile slipped away to nothing.

  Her eyelids drew down into wary suspicious slits. “Parts of it. I remember blood. Lots of blood. And I remember a knife, but not the good kind of knife. It was the tiny kind. Tiny but so sharp that it could go through flesh as easy as drawing a line with a pencil.” She hesitated, unsure of herself. “Why? What happened last night? Did you wet the bed again? Did snook-ums have a bad dream?”

  She was on surer footing making fun of him, and the sadistic smile was back as she prepared to dish out more. Stu was an easy target because he never fought back. Jillybean had him turning in circles, chasing his tail just to please her. “You’re like a dog, you know that? You’re her little poodle that fetches and rolls over and…”

  “You were with me last night.”

  Three unconnected and incoherent syllables fell out of her mouth before she took control of her tongue again and demanded, “I was where?” He didn’t say anything, he only smiled and smiled and smiled while she became more furious by the second. “What happened?” she seethed.

  The smile remained fixed, however he added the smallest shrug which told her everything. “No! We didn’t.”

  “Yes,” he said, quietly, “we did. You remember.”

  The way he said this, so calmly, so softly, he was like a hypnotist and she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes lost their focus as she tried to remember. She could see herself stepping over the rail of the Saber, no not stepping, she had straddled it, so she was face to face with him. “We kissed,” she said, distantly feeling that ghost of a kiss.

  He stepped closer, standing tall above her. Again, he said, “Yes,” and now he bent and their lips brushed like young wild flowers in the wind.

  It was the tiniest and the softest of kisses, yet the sensation of it grew until her lips were warm. Eve wanted more. She wanted to remember more and this was her undoing. The more she wanted it, the more she faded into the background.

  It was Jillybean who touched her own mouth, smiling at the memory of the night before. The memory had been a good one, so it was strange that there was a touch of disquiet running through her, and there was something not quit
e right about the way Stu was looking at her. He was trying to be cool about something. She knew when he was trying as opposed to simply being his natural cool self.

  “Eve is gone,” she told him, carefully noting how his demeanor swiftly changed. He went from cool to cold. “What did she tell you? You know she can spin a lie as easily as breathing.”

  “I don’t think she did this time. She told me the truth about why we’re going to San Francisco. She told me that the Corsairs are coming. Was that a lie?”

  She turned to stare at the fire again. That raging fire had been her last memory before Eve had come. She remembered thinking that fire was beautiful in its way. She had always liked fire. “Man’s first complex tool,” she said, indicating the blaze. “If Greek mythology is to be believed, it was given to us by the Titan Prometheus and in return for his benevolence he was tortured by Zeus. Every day he had his liver eaten by an eagle and every night it grew back.”

  “Are the Corsairs coming?” The fact that Stu repeated himself was not lost on her. He was outraged that she had kept the coming attack hidden from him.

  Jillybean’s mind was, by necessity, compartmentalized and the part of her that had grown so fond of Stu wanted to apologize. That part of her wanted his smile back. She was desperate for it. He was falling for her and it had been since never that someone had looked at her the way he did.

  And she was falling for him right back—and that was all well and good, yet a different part of her noted that the smoke from the burning fire had swung around. The winds had changed. Whatever global phenomenon had kept the winds coming from the south had relented at last. If Jenn knew what Jillybean did, the girl would have proclaimed the winds another sign, and not a good one, either.

  The Corsairs were coming, but it was unclear how close they were. Jillybean only knew that the winds, which had been against the Corsairs were now with them and she could picture black sails billowing outward as they filled with air. In her imagination, there were hundreds of them, so many they blotted out the sky.