GENERATION Z THE COMPLETE BOX SET: NOVELS 1-3

by Peter Meredith

  Long, agonizing minutes passed before they touched any sort of land and they did indeed hit that dangerous northeast section, but by some quirk they bounced away, spinning slowly along the island, hitting here and there. No one dared to move or speak.

  “What is that?” they heard someone say, plain as day. “Is that a boat?”

  Mike found himself holding his breath. He could feel the eyes on them. Would they come out of the dark and investigate? Would they send a smaller boat out to recover it? Please be lazy, Mike prayed. Please be lazy. Just ignore us, please.

  “Yep, that’s a boat,” said another Corsair. “Look how low it’s sitting and it’s lost its…hell, it looks like it lost most everything.”

  “All ‘cept the jib.”

  Mike was surprised they could see the jib. It didn’t bode well. Could they see everything? He could feel their eyes raking across the ship, perhaps picking out Jillybean and her rifle, or the carefully stacked boxes that were ready to be heaved across to the thirty-six-footer. Could they see him as well?

  “We should go and tell the captains,” one of them said.

  “Yeah.”

  The night was so quiet Mike could hear with perfect clarity as Jillybean flicked the setting of her rifle from Safe to Fire. All hell was about to break loose.

  Chapter 5

  Jillybean

  Ever since Jillybean had blown up the Sea King in a mind-warping explosion, Eve had only been an annoying backseat driver, spouting insults and endlessly complaining about pretty much everything and everyone. This was Eve on her best behavior.

  Jillybean knew it would never last, and now as she was slunk down with a killing rifle at her shoulder, Eve made a dogged effort to wrest control of what she considered their shared body. It’s my turn! You got to blow up the Sea King AND his monkey, Gaida. That’s gotta be worth ten of these little ones.

  The bloodlust was so strong that Eve had Jillybean’s finger squarely and forcefully on the trigger before she was even aware of it. “Stop!” Jillybean hissed, under her breath. It wasn’t nearly as under her breath as she had hoped. Mike moved slightly, the nylon coat Colleen had found for him making a shifty noise.

  I’ll stop only when you make me stop.

  That was fair enough in Jillybean’s mind and the reverse would be equally true. She made sure to keep a firm grip on the rifle as she sighted on the two figures sitting with their backs to one of the supports of the water tower. At fifty yards they were no longer indistinct blobs; each showed up perfectly and she had a bead on the larger of the two.

  She didn’t want to shoot. It would be a disaster. Then again, letting someone go blab to the entire island that there was a strange boat grounded right off shore would be even worse.

  “Someone should go tell the captains,” the taller of the two said.

  “Then maybe it should be someone who didn’t get hurt in the battle.”

  This brought out a loud snort that carried through the dark. “You sprained your ankle. What? Are you looking for a purple heart or the freaking medal of honor?”

  “No, but I did sprain it and it hurts like a bitch. I’m not movin’ until our shift ends. And it’s not like the damn thing is going anywhere. If it hasn’t sunk by now, it’s not gonna. ‘Sides, we ain’t gonna get nothin’ what’s inside it anyway. I’ll be just as happy if it floats on down to whosever up in the guard tower.”

  Jillybean would be as well, but unless the wind picked up and came directly from the south, they weren’t going anywhere. The Captain Jack had ground good and deep in the rocks, which meant they would have to risk using the boom to pry themselves away.

  She tried to whistle to get Mike’s attention, only she couldn’t find the middle ground between so soft that it was more of an extended breath, and so loud that the two idiot guards would hear. She was forced to slither under the spinnaker, pulling the gun along with her. It scraped on the deck and her knee hit one of the crates and the sail made that swishy sound again. In that dead quiet night, it seemed like she was screaming We’re here!

  Mike was certainly expecting her. “Yeah?” he asked when she stuck her head from beneath the sail.

  The needle on her stress-o-meter swung sharply into the red and her fists bunched at the single, completely unnecessary word. Eve thought Jillybean’s impotent anger was funny and brayed out sudden, cawing laughter which was so loud that echoes of it rolled around the bay. Jillybean’s heart leapt into her throat as she clamped both hands over her mouth and cringed, expecting the two guards to grab their guns and start shooting.

  They didn’t, and Mike was oddly unmoved by the laughter, except for what she classified as a “disgusted” lean, something she had dealt with for most of her life—the disgusted leaners were people who secretly feared that her insanity might rub off on them. The other type of leaners she had to put up with on a constant basis were what she called “frightened” leaners. These people were simply afraid of her. She could see in their eyes that they thought there was a particularly strong chance she just might spontaneously explode and cover them in blood and sloppy body parts.

  Both groups of leaners were annoying, but Jillybean could at least understand the second group, since she sometimes felt that impossible explosion coming on. It would start as just a nub in the middle of her head. Just a seed that would grow and grow…

  “Stop it,” she muttered under her breath.

  Mike caught the sound and his lean became more pronounced. As much as she despised the lean, it provided Jillybean with a clue that the laughter hadn’t been real, which was something of a relief.

  It was a short-lived relief. “Stop what?” he asked.

  She drew in a sharp breath and waved a hand, they were both being too loud. She pointed with gross gestures at the boom and then put her index finger to her lips.

  Do you think Grog will understand? Eve asked, speaking in that same blaring voice. The sound went right up Jillybean’s spine and along her nerves, making her cringe, her shoulders hunching. Mike saw this as well and now his lean was becoming dangerous. He was close to falling right off the boat.

  Jillybean’s stress began to redline again and she had to take a deep breath before she pointed once more at the boom, which he took up, banging it against the side of the boat with a donk noise, inducing another cringe.

  “Sorry,” Mike whispered, making it worse.

  Keep talking, moron! Ha-ha-ha! And keep BOOM, BOOM BOOMING that BOOM! Eve cried. Jillybean winced with every repetition of the word boom which had Eve screeching in laughter. He can’t help it. He’s just such a moron, and we both know what’s going to happen if he won’t stop.

  Eve forced pictures into Jillybean’s head: the rocks of the island splashed with blood, Mike slumped beneath the wheel, a chunk of his head missing, Colleen and Kasie floating in the black water that filled the cabin almost to the fifth stair, Jillybean holding a lit match over the spinnaker as dozens of bottles of booze rolled on deck around her feet. She could practically smell the sharp aroma of alcohol. It had a strange metallic tang that made her wonder if it was made from fermented blood. It would burn copper bright and the smoke would reek of…

  A scrape of metal on wood jerked Jillybean back to her senses. She found herself glaring fiercely at a stricken Mike Gunter. He stood immobile, holding the long boom against his chest almost as if he was using it to hide behind. He stared, not into her face but lower down. She was pointing the rifle at him.

  She had no idea how long she’d been gone. Her inner clock always went haywire whenever Eve took over, however, Jillybean guessed it hadn’t been long. The Captain Jack hadn’t budged, the stars hadn’t spun, and the tide was still coming in. “We should keep quiet,” was all she could think to say in the heavy silence.

  If she had to apologize for something she, or rather Eve had done, she would say it later when circumstances permitted. She thought Mike was a good guy, which to her translated into his not holding a grudge despite all of her many egregious
faults.

  After a quick nervous glance through the scope at the two guards still lounging against the leg of the water tower, she slunk back to her place near the middle of the boat. She could feel Mike’s eyes on her as she went.

  Yes, you will need to apologize. You have been a bad, bad girl.

  “Did you mention…”

  Did I mention something? Like what? Oooh, you mean how you set this all up? How you made dupes of your friends and tricked them into fighting your battles? How they died to satisfy your bloodlust?

  “You’re the one who…” She was being too loud, and Mike made a soft hissing sound just as he dipped the pole into the water. Jillybean went back to gazing through the scope; Mike didn’t know her secret and she wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. “Or we’ll be swimming back to Bainbridge, Eve.”

  She was sure Mike would have a much different attitude than Stu’s overwhelming heartbreak, or Jenn’s stunned angry astonishment at Jillybean’s betrayal. Mike would be close to a killing mood. He’d feel that all his past anger at her would have been entirely justified. He would have zero sympathy and even less understanding of her complex justifications. They would be as lost on him.

  He would kick her off the boat right there and then, and no amount of threats from Eve would change his mind. It was at sea where he imagined himself the most capable. It was not until he was in charge of a ship that he allowed himself to have any real power. And he would use it.

  She shot a glance his way as he thrust the black-painted pole into the rocks and heaved. As he was kneeling, he wasn’t in the best position to employ his full strength, and the Captain Jack was a big, waterlogged boat. The keel made a long scraping sound as it slowly came loose. It was loud enough for one of the guards to take notice.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Mmm? That noise from the boat? So, what?”

  “So, we should check it out. It didn’t sound, I don’t know, it didn’t sound natural. Like a person did it.”

  This was greeted by a long sigh and then a series of low grunted curses. Jillybean didn’t need the scope to know they were both getting up. Once on their feet, the guards separated and came at the boat from two directions; Jillybean could only aim at one. She looked over at Mike, who was delicately and altogether too slowly lowering the boom into the water. He took so long that he ran out of time to hide and could only sprawl over the gunwale, hoping to appear like a corpse. Unfortunately, he still held the end of the boom and corpses were not known for their ability to hold things.

  He’s gonna get us caught. Kill one of them! Kill one of them! Eve had a great deal of energy and kept repeating: Kill one! over and over until Jillybean’s eyes began to blur and the ghostly white figure in the scope’s sight wobbled in and out of focus. The figure grew and grew like a great burning sun…

  “Jillybean?” Mike was suddenly stooped over her, shaking her shoulder and whispering her name.

  “Huh?” she asked, groggily. She blinked away from the scope and looked around. They had moved. Somehow the Captain Jack was drifting down the side of the island away from the water tower and towards the guard tower. “What happened?”

  His dark form shifted in what she guessed was a shrug. “You just froze. Those guys came up and looked at the boat and I thought you were just trying not to be seen, you know? Then they left and you haven’t moved in a few minutes.”

  She had frozen in the face of danger? Jillybean didn’t know whether she’d ever heard of anything so frightening. “Uh, thanks, but, but I wasn’t, uh frozen. No, I was thinking about, uh, the uh, situation. The situation and its ramifications. Thanks, though.”

  “Sure.” He rightfully doubted her; it was written in the awkward lines of his shadowed self. “Maybe I should work the gun.”

  “If you want to, that’s fine with me.” She tried and failed to disguise her eagerness to give the gun to him and practically shoved it into his arms. “I’ll, uh, I’ll uh…”

  She pointed at the boom which he had laid across the top of the cabin at an angle to give it a forgotten appearance. It was an ungainly and prodigiously cumbersome length of painted aluminum, about three inches in diameter and three times her height. It was far heavier than she had expected, and she almost dropped it right off the bat.

  It teetered, threatening to fall to one side or the other and alert the entire island in the process. If it hadn’t been for Mike, she would have dropped it. He came up quick and helped her lay it back down.

  “We don’t need it,” he whispered into her ear. “Look.”

  She followed his pointing finger toward the bow where the jib had a slight bulge to it as the lightest kiss of air was edging them forward. For some reason she found this wonderful. In fact, it was joyous, and a giddy laugh just bubbled right up out of her throat. It was a bizarre and unnatural sound and she was too slow to choke it off.

  Once more Mike looked at her strangely and she didn’t blame him. First, she froze in the face of what could only be considered moderate danger and then she giggles? She thought it had to be Eve.

  Don’t blame me, Bubbles. Also don’t forget you missed the fact that the wind is blowing. You’re slipping. You’ve been off your meds and now you’re getting your crazy on! All your little friends are going to see the true Jillybean and it ain’t gonna be pretty. Yep, they’re going to find out that you’re the crazy one, at last.

  “Shut up,” Jillybean muttered without any real conviction. Deep inside she knew she would rather have Eve yapping than freeze up again.

  Maybe you’ll even be forced to admit it to yourself. Haven’t you ever wondered why it’s always you who has to take the pills? I never have to because when you boil away everything, I’m what’s left. I’m the real Jillian Martin. You are the pretender. You are the wannabe. You are the fake queen who killed her own people instead of saving them.

  Now she was going too far and Jillybean was forced to shush her. A second later, she in turn was shushed by Mike. He was probably glaring at her, however because of the dark all she saw of his face was a mask of shadows. She shivered down deep at it.

  What’s wrong, sweetie? Are you afraid? Are you afraid that I’m right? Or are you afraid that you’ll freeze up again? You should be, because we both know they’ll leave you behind. It’ll be a perfect opportunity to get rid of a crazy woman who really is a danger to everyone. Mike’s going to be busy fighting and getting underway and Kasie can barely take care of herself. That just leaves Colleen and will she really risk breaking a nail to move you?

  The picture Eve painted was a little too exact for Jillybean’s worried mind and the only reply she was able to make was to “shush” her again.

  “Jillybean, please stop,” Mike begged in a whisper. “You’re talking to yourself again.”

  She wanted to argue that it had been just that one “shush,” only she really didn’t know. She didn’t think she’d been talking to herself, but how was she to know? It was the problem with being crazy. “Mentally unstable,” she corrected, using the more pleasing term.

  Mike let out a low frantic hiss. She was doing it again. Jillybean realized she was losing it. “I shouldn’t have come back.” It was the stress of facing up to what she had done, she realized. It was bringing out all of her mental issues at once.

  The one remedy was to concentrate on the situation at hand. She looked around and was shocked to see they were almost directly beneath the guard tower. It loomed in a ramshackle and slightly crooked manner out toward them.

  Jillybean stared in horror. The tower was alive, and it wasn’t just her crazy that had her thinking this. It had eyes. Two glowing, orange embers stared right down at them. They were caught. And it wasn’t just the Captain Jack which couldn’t be missed, it was also Jillybean herself, who was still only sitting in a half-crouch beside the wheel instead of hunkering down under part of the spinnaker.

  It was too late to move and Jillybean froze in place, her eyelids peeled far back. She was so p
aralyzed that she didn’t notice the utterly forgotten wheel begin to spin or that the bow was now aimed directly at the first boat in line. They were going to plow right into the back of it.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mike cursed right before he fired the rifle, once, twice. “Jillybean!” he whispered as the echoes drew out. “Hard to port.”

  In many things the seventeen-year-old boy was just that, a boy. At sea he had a different quality and it was this that broke Jillybean out of her “state.” She woke to the danger of crashing and spun the wheel three-quarters around. The crash would have done little damage to either ship, however it would have made a great deal of noise and just then, other than the echoes of the rifle, the little island was particularly silent.

  It was as if the seventy men on it were collectively holding their breaths, each thinking the very same thoughts: Was this a real attack? Or had someone gotten “jumpy” and was shooting at shadows? Maybe it was a zombie that had climbed over the wall?

  This was exactly how Jillybean had envisioned the moment. There would be a long, anxiously attentive silence that, when nothing else happened, would gradually give rise to a period of muttering among the Corsairs: It was probably nothing. Or it was Bob again. That guy’s a nervous so and so—Jillybean found little reason for cursing even in her imagined scenarios.

  The gunshots had bled the crazy right out of her and as she was easing the wheel around, she felt completely like herself once more, completely in control. She snuggled the Captain Jack right up alongside the thirty-six foot Rapier as if she had been born to the sea.

  “Now,” she whispered to Colleen and Kasie, who came racing up, one to hold them close to the Rapier, the other to hand over the scavenged items to Jillybean. Mike was over the gunwale first, leaping from one boat to the next and rushing to cut the mooring lines. Colleen was next, though she stopped halfway so she could straddle both boats. Jillybean should’ve been next, however Kasie must’ve been mixed up because instead of remaining on the Captain Jack, she crossed over to the Rapier.