GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  “Order my people about?” Jillybean asked. “That’s what queens do, especially during times of war. And the Queen’s subjects must obey without hesitation. It’s the only way. But if you want me to release you from your oaths, I will.”

  Again, Stu and Jenn looked at each other. Their eyes locked, each trying to guess what was in the other’s heart. Stu shook his head on the tiniest arc. “I-I made my pledge. I won’t take it back at the first sign of trouble. If giving my life will help us win, then I’ll give it.”

  “Me too,” Jenn said, though without the same strength or conviction. She didn’t want to die, only it seemed inevitable. They couldn’t handle the enemy they already had and adding a new one made no sense. They would be sandwiched between the two, completely defenseless against one when they were fighting the other.

  Still, she had given her oath, which she guessed meant something like an unbreakable promise.

  After Jenn’s two-word confirmation there was a long painful silence on board as they skimmed southward. She couldn’t look at Mike and neither could Stu. It was too awkward. Finally, he grimaced and said, “Okay, I pledge, I guess. I was gonna do it before, but things got weird and people kept butting in and then there was a line and…” He trailed away adding only an unconvincing, “You know.”

  Jillybean waited, but when Mike made no move, she put out her hand so that he could reluctantly kiss it and make his oath. The whole thing felt weird to him, but once it was over he was able to relax and go back to sailing—what he did best—as Jillybean explained what she had in mind.

  “Even if my schemes are carried out perfectly and we manage to sting the Corsairs as they enter the harbor and we’re able to hurt them as they try to get too close to the island and the Fortress, they will still have a tremendous advantage in numbers. If they are led by a strong enough leader, ultimately, everything I feared will come to pass. We need a way to deliver a second blow that will leave them completely unsure of the situation.”

  “And you think the Santas will deliver that blow?” Mike asked, his skepticism very obvious. “They won’t. You don’t know them like we do. They’re skulking jackals. They’ll run the second they see all the sails.”

  This really was no surprise to Jillybean. “That’s why we will have to lure them out.”

  “Lure them out?” Mike asked, with a sinking feeling. “Lure them with what? What do you plan to bait them with?”

  “I think you know,” Jillybean said, caressing the rail of the Saber.

  Chapter 38

  Although they were called the Santas, they did not actually reside in Santa Clara, which was located at the far southern edge of the bay. They had moved years before to a spot a few miles north near the Palo Alto airport.

  The spot they chose hadn’t been ideal in the first few years of the apocalypse, then, the bay had gradually flooded, leaving a spit of land almost completely enclosed by water with only a single road leading back to the mainland.

  The water was deep enough to deter zombies, while a great wild hedge of prickly bushes, which was now fifteen feet high and deeper still, ran completely around their little world. The hedge absorbed any light that might escape the covered windows of the once fine houses that made up the community. It had been a moderately wealthy community, though they were now a shadow of their old eminence.

  “What sort of people are they, exactly?” Jillybean asked as she spied the ramshackle docks that were completely crammed with black sailboats.

  Mike wore a look of irritated disgust. “They’re not real sailors, that’s for certain. They had a few boats back before. Maybe a dozen or so. Most of them were smaller than the Puffer. They must have come north to do some fishing and spotted our Corsair boats and took ‘em. Oh, look at that! That one’s still got its mainsail up! And that one is using a jib as a boat cover.”

  “Yes, it’s an utter horror, but what sort of people are they?”

  “They’re sort of mixed up,” Stu said. “They’re slavers and gamblers and traders. Oh, and they have a few farms.”

  Jillybean made a hmmm noise in her throat. “So, they’re opportunists. That’s good. Are you almost ready to go, Jenn?”

  Jenn had been crouched along the short flight of stairs, looking up as the first stars began to burn through the last of the fading sunlight. She had been hoping for a sign because although her job might have been the least dangerous, she was still frightfully nervous. “I’m ready, I guess.” She held up the pipe bomb in its waterproof bag.

  “Good woman,” Jillybean said, absently. It was now too dark for the binoculars to be much use and she had taken up one of the M4s which was topped with a night-scope. There was a party of eleven waiting for them at the one dock that could accommodate the Saber, while to the left and right there were small groups with guns who, incorrectly, believed they were hidden from sight.

  Mike made an abrupt tack that had the waiting Santas scrambling, hurrying back down the dock and then along the shore. With simple delight, Mike heeled to, going back the other way and laughed as the Santas reversed direction and ran back. “Go, Jenn.” There’d be no kiss goodbye this time. Ducking low, she went to the far rail and slipped over into the water with a light gasp.

  “Good luck,” he whispered, as the boat left her bobbing low in the water, her flesh bulging almost into knots by the size of her goosebumps.

  He then swung the boat further out into the bay where it caught the wind just right and raced the last hundred yards to the dock. The Saber beat the huffing group of men to the mooring spot. Stu and Jillybean leapt out before the boat touched and then fended her off as Mike spun the wheel as if he were playing roulette and hurried to haul the boom around.

  In seconds, the Saber had snatched up the wind and was scooting away. Stu didn’t give it a second glance. He hitched the heavy pack and waited patiently as the group of men came up, guns at the ready but not aimed. There really was no need. The Santas had seen the single Corsair boat a half hour before and although it had caused a good deal of consternation, it had turned out to be just the one boat and not an entire fleet.

  “Whatchu want?” the leader of the little group demanded. He was a tall, shadowy figure who exuded both malevolence and the acrid stench of body odor.

  Stu matched his height but was so lean that his shadow was like a blade. “We want to speak to whoever is in charge.” Jillybean had insisted that he do the talking up front, which for him was harder than making the pledge to her.

  “Who-da hell are you guys?”

  She had also coached him and the question was expected. “We’re the proper owners of these boats.” This of course implied they were Corsairs and anyone in their right minds would tread carefully when dealing with them.

  “Okay, yeah, sure,” the tall man grunted, expecting exactly this. He also expected haughtiness and belittling comments. Instead he only received the most uncomfortable stony silence he had ever experienced. “I gonna hafta’ search you guys.”

  Stu handed over the bag, thinking the bombs would create more of a stir, however the man only let out another grunt. Neither of them carried any other weapon, though Jillybean had sewn a radio into her hood which she kept up while she was being frisked and only dropped it back when the man was done.

  “Dis way,” the man said, carrying the bag.

  Six goons followed them to the largest mansion overlooking the harbor. The outside was in a miserable state and things did not get better as they passed through a living room that, because of its tremendous fireplace, doubled as a kitchen. The carpet in front of the grating was scorched while the ceiling was blackened and looked to be coming apart. The peeling paint hanging in strips was sooted over, as was almost every surface, giving the room a cave-like feel. The soot combined with old grease formed a sort of ugly resin and it was this that seemed to be the only thing holding the rickety place together.

  Leaving the gloom, they entered a well-lit and important room. It was a high Gothic library, paneled wit
h French Oak. It clashed so badly with the rest of the house that Jillybean could imagine that it had been transported complete from some far fancier place overseas, making it sort of a millionaire’s version of a hand-me-down.

  The library had a much smaller fireplace with a lovely brass grate. Drawn close to it was a gorgeous desk behind which sat Matthew Gloom, the leader of the Santas.

  Gloom was tall and strong, and amazingly fat with a wide, round expanse of a beer gut so that it seemed he wasn’t so much dressed as he was upholstered in blue velvet. With all that blue, the pale flesh of his face and jowls glowed.

  Jillybean was utterly dazzled by him. To her, Gloom was very much like a circus performer or a stage magician, not that she was fooled by him in anyway. She simply looked on him as entertainment. As they stood in front of him, he made a great display of lighting a homemade cigar with a golden lighter.

  They were supposed to be impressed that he could make fire. Jillybean couldn’t help the maniacal grin spreading over her features. It was Eve hungering to put him in his place. The grin went unnoticed. Gloom considered her to be nothing more than arm candy for Stu.

  He was shown the pipe bombs. Reaching into the bag, he pulled one out, turned it this way and that. “Very convincing,” he drawled before tossing the bomb in with the others. As was completely in character for him, Stu said nothing to this flippancy, which Gloom found more intimidating than the “bombs” which were obvious, but well-produced fakes.

  Gloom knew bombs. He had made and used plenty back in the day and knew that pipe bombs such as these would never explode without batteries in both the transmitter and receiver, and there were no more batteries. He hadn’t seen one in years that wasn’t corroded or ruined by temperature or humidity. And even if they had been real, what did he care? They weren’t going to blow themselves up.

  “So,” he said, letting the word hang there for nearly half a minute. The man was an utter blank and the girl was cute but strange. “So, what can I do for you? I take it you’re here about the boats.”

  Finally, the man spoke. “We are.”

  “That’s it? We are?”

  The man added nothing else. As far as Stu was concerned, his statement spoke for itself.

  “Look, I’m not afraid of the Corsairs.”

  “You should be,” the girl said. “Only someone utterly devoid of fear or utterly moronic wouldn’t be afraid of the Corsairs and I have the feeling you have your share of fears.”

  It took Gloom a second to realize he was being called a moron or whatever was worse than one. He took a long drag on the cigar and blew it out onto the girl. Her eyes were twitching and the smoke only made them more so. Still, she didn’t say anything and the seconds ticked away.

  Gloom rolled his eyes. “Okay, why don’t you stop wasting my time and tell me what you want?”

  He had been speaking to Stu, but it was the girl who answered. “I have come for my boats.”

  “Your boats?”

  “Yes, my boats. I defeated the Corsairs in battle and to the victor goes the spoils and they are my spoils.”

  He shot Stu a look, saw the granite face and rolled his eyes a second time, knowing he wasn’t going to add a word. “You defeated them? I find that hard to believe. Who are you with? The Guardians?”

  “No, the Hill People.”

  His laughter rang out, booming through the mansion causing the fire to join him in merriment, waving back and forth. He laughed so hard that his pale face was transformed, becoming vividly red; his fat face swelled and his small eyes were almost swallowed by the dark-bluish sacks in which they were suspended.

  “The Hill People?” he managed to choke out.

  “Yes, I am their Queen.”

  This had him bursting into new laughter. It was truly genuine and it was carried along by a sense of relief. He had been expecting the Corsairs for some time now and yes, he was scared of them. At the same time, he figured he could exact a price from them for generously “storing” the boats. With over a thousand people at his back, the Santas weren’t a pushover; they would get something out of the Corsairs.

  And yet here was this “queen” thinking she was going to get her boats back? He chortled again. “Sorry, sorry, it’s just been a long time since I had such a good laugh. So, you’re going to go with ‘to the victor goes the spoils?’ I think I will counter with ‘finders keepers, losers weepers.’ And, I will raise you a nyeah, nyeah, nyeah.”

  Jillybean didn’t grow mad at this or even bat an eye. Right at the moment, she was only barely Jillybean. She was there to pick a fight and who better to do this than Eve? It was what she was best at. Jillybean glanced over at Stu and gave him a wink and a smile which he did not return. He knew the plan and wasn’t happy about it. In his mind, purposely letting Eve out was a disaster waiting to happen.

  There was nothing he could do about it since letting her out was simply a matter of Jillybean losing control, something none of her friends really understood. They went about their days not having to worry about who they were or who they were going to be in five minutes. Jillybean struggled every second of every day. It was why she kept her mind going at such a feverish rate, because that was who she was. No matter what, she always had to be brilliant, attentive and scientifically curious. Even if she wanted to take the day off and sleep in, or get drunk, or spend an afternoon skipping stones, she couldn’t because that wasn’t Jillybean.

  Truly, it was exhausting sometimes and it was with some relief that she turned her wide blue eyes to the fire where the flames leapt up in little ecstasies. She had read somewhere that the uncivilized people of the past were afraid of looking into a fire for fear of summoning a demon. It was exactly what Jillybean was doing.

  The idea made her feel as though the fire was dancing just for her, in a pagan, sensuous way. In seconds, a grin spread over her face, or rather over Eve’s face.

  She turned with the fire in her eyes, the grin so awful that it soured Gloom’s laughter though his guards continued to chuckle.

  “As long as we’re being childish…” Eve said, while pointedly looking down at the detonators hanging in full view from the buttonholes of her coat. They hadn’t been overlooked by the guard who had frisked her. They had been ignored as weird decorations. Wearing useless trinkets from the past had been something of a fad among the Santas a few years before.

  “If I can’t have my toys back then nobody can have them,” she said, taking up one of the detonators.

  Gloom’s eyes narrowed, while Stu’s went wide in alarm. “Hold on, Eve!”

  Stu hissed in a rasp of a whisper. “Do you even know what that’s connected to?”

  A shrug. “Does it matter? As long as the explosion is big.” Ignoring Gloom, she hurried to the window, coming close to pressing her small nose to it in her eagerness. Below them were the docks and the jumble of boats, looking blacker than black in the twilight shadows. She gazed at them in quickening excitement. “Let’s see, you raised me a nyeah, nyeah, nyeah? How much is one of those boats worth? I mean in our little gambling game?”

  Gloom didn’t answer. He had sat up a bit in his anxiety and was tall enough in his heavy chair to see the tips of the masts poking up like a forest of limbless trees. He didn’t like how the strange woman was suddenly so at ease, while this blank of a man was now pensive.

  Eve turned back. “I thought you Santas liked to gamble? Isn’t that what you said, Stu? Didn’t you call them gamblers and degenerates? Didn’t you say the Santas were the lowest scum on earth?” She giggled as Stu’s lips pursed to the point of disappearing. The fact that Gloom was no longer laughing or even smiling spurred the giggle on even more.

  The giggle was refreshing, and her smile was full and wide. “Come on, let’s gamble, Chubby-wumpigans. Let’s place some bets. Which boat will blow sky high when I press this button?”

  It was only with a great deal of mental control that Gloom managed to remain seated. Calmly, he interlocked his fingers and set his hands on
his lap. “Chubby-wumpigans? That’s rather rude.”

  “And nyeah, nyeah, nyeah isn’t?” she countered. “You see, it’s like this, you reap what you sow. That’s in the Bible, though I suppose a degenerate such as yourself never cracked one of them. Which is too, too bad. Here, let me give you a synopsis: give me back my boats or I’ll send you to hell where you’ll burn in fiery goodness forever and ever, amen.”

  “Wow,” Gloom said, shaking his head in utter disbelief.

  “Yeah, I get that a lot. Probably sort of like how you hear: Hey, who ate all the doughnuts? all the time. Am I right?”

  In complete amazement, Gloom slowly revolved his big head toward Stu, who only gave him a what-can-you-do? sort of shrug.

  “Okay, let me get this straight. You show up at my home, insult me and then demand my boats?”

  “Oh no, not at all,” Eve answered. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were as dumb as you are fat. You see, I showed up, then demanded my boats back, and then insulted you. You had the order mixed up.”

  It took all of Gloom’s self-control to keep from flying at her. It was also difficult to keep his eyes from straying towards the bag of pipe bombs which he was beginning to realize were probably real. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to relax. This was not the first time he’d been called fat or stupid. The woman, Eve, was playing a game. She was trying to get under his skin. She was trying to upset him, but to what end?

  “Do you really think you’ll get your boats back by acting this way? Like a child, I mean. Come sit down and we can talk.”

  She wagged a finger at him. “Oh, you naughty boy. You want me to come sit down? On your lap? Like Santa, the real Santa? You are a sick…walrus. I was going to say pup, but who’s kidding who? But I do like how you called them my boats.” She came to sit down, rocking her thumb along the edge of the “send” button.

  He pretended not to notice. “Why don’t you lay out your proposition concerning the boats. I’m open to making a deal. These bombs for instance. If they are real, that is, perhaps we could make a trade. I have a lovely 23’ boat out there that I could let go for maybe thirty of these. What do you say?” He sat back, throwing one massive leg over the other.