Generation Z [Book ]

by Peter Meredith

  Jillybean looked both ways, asking in a whisper. “Where are the boats? What do you think, upstream?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no maybe. They’re upstream. See that coil of rope?” She pointed her rifle at the base of what had once been a bridge. “One end is attached to the base and the other to a buoy. The sailors use these to pull themselves against the current. You can see another one at the bend in the river.”

  “If you knew which way to go, why’d you ask me?”

  Jillybean put a serious hand on her shoulder. “Not to show off, if that’s what you think. I want you to start actively using your eyes. Right now, you’re a passive observer, missing so much the world has to tell us. Come on, the sun’s almost up.”

  Jenn glanced east where the stars were already fading. All save one: Venus. It was the wandering star, never in the same place from night to night. Seeing it singled out against a black sky was extremely good luck for travelers. She wanted to tell Jillybean that she had missed a very obvious sign instead, she kept the secret to herself.

  They crawled back a block and then angled north for a quarter mile, keeping well away from the river. When they approached it once more, they saw boats lined up one after another along a series of floating docks. Almost all of them were sailboats, ranging in size from dinky twelve-footers to a gorgeous sixty-foot cruising boat. There were other boats as well including long canoes that could hold twenty people.

  Set on the wall overlooking the docks was a huge machine gun. The good feeling Jenn had at seeing Venus was crushed at the sight of it, especially as it was manned. Even without the night scopes, they could see the orange ember of a cigarette.

  It looked as though their mission was over but Jillybean wouldn’t leave, not even when the sun came up. She studied every detail, from the way the boats were positioned, to the time of the guard shift, to the way the shadows played along the water.

  Finally, she crawled backwards, but instead of heading to where Mike and Stu were, she went downriver to where it washed out into the harbor. “Look,” she whispered. Stretched across the mouth of the river was a chain that sat three feet above the water line.

  On their side of the river, the chain was hooked around a tree. On the far side the chain ran through the wall and disappeared.

  Again, Jillybean stared for what seems like ages. They were still there when a man walked up to the building, unlocked the door and went inside. Soon the chain went from taut to bowed and then gradually it disappeared beneath the water. It wasn’t long before eight sailing boats, under shortened sails, and one of the long canoes came down the river.

  “Which one will suit our purpose the best?” she asked, gesturing at the boats.

  “I’m not an expert, but I guess the biggest one. Mike knows more than I do.” Without another word, the two hurried back to where they had left Mike and Stu.

  The cart had left muddy tracks and the two girls followed them right to a house across a service road. “Jenn, tell them the situation,” Jillybean ordered. Jenn hadn’t expected this but was able to rattle off everything she had seen and including seeing Venus.

  The lines on Mike’s face had been deepening until she mentioned the planet. They cleared immediately. “Okay. I can pilot any of those ships, but the bigger the better. We should go for the biggest we can.”

  Jenn shook her head. “The biggest ones are right below the main guard. Sound carries at night. I think we should go for a thirty-footer that’s moored midway down the line. We’ll have to be extremely quiet, but I think we can get it. The biggest problem is going to be the chain. It looked like it was half a foot thick, we’ll never be able to cut it.”

  “The chain is that thick, but there’s only a bike lock holding it to the tree. A good pair of bolt cutters will do the trick. Once we get the chain down, the three of us will cut out the ship while Stu waits for us in the cart out in the harbor.”

  “Is that the whole plan?” Jenn asked, expecting more.

  “Sometimes simplicity is the best plan. I would have liked to have brought along a few surprises for our friends, but,” she paused to tap her head. “It wouldn’t have been good for any of us.”

  While they were getting some badly needed sleep, sprawled on mattresses dragged into the living room, Jillybean disappeared out into the town. Jenn woke near midday with the smell of motor oil in her nostrils. “Go back to sleep,” Jillybean said. “I decided a few surprises wouldn’t hurt me too badly.”

  “What sort of surprises?”

  Jillybean held up her hand, palm out. It was covered in dirt and grease. “No explosions, I promise. Sadie was adamant about that. It’s just a little fire, nothing too crazy.”

  A little fire was okay with Jenn. She went back to sleep and didn’t wake again until the sun was beginning to sink. Stu had woken her by trying to crawl out of the room, dragging his leg behind him. “Sorry, but I’ve got to take a leak, badly.”

  Mike hopped up and helped him. While they were gone, Jenn inspected what Jillybean had brought inside. There were fifteen dresser drawers, piled high with paper and kindling. They had been tied together with three-foot long pieces of rope.

  “I don’t get it,” Jenn said to Jillybean, who was taking small stacks of paper and using tape to turn them into tubes.

  “What’s there not to get? You take paper tubes, fill them with sawdust, pour old motor oil in them and whamo you get easy fire starters. Everyone took all the gas but motor oil is just lying around. Now be a lamb and shred up sheets. I need them to be three inches wide and tied end to end. We’ll need at least ninety feet of it.”

  When the sun went down, they moved the operation outside and worked under the stars. They finished well before they were scheduled to kick off their plan. They ate, each only nibbling. Jenn’s stomach was twisting itself into knots and it only got worse as the “Go” time approached.

  Finally, at eleven, Jillybean said, “Alright, let’s move out.” With the dark, she looked small, almost childlike and Jenn was sure that she looked the same. Mike, with his hands stuffed deep into his pockets, had the air of a nervous teen about to launch a prank. Only Stu looked old enough to be taking such a huge risk. He looked like a real adult and that wasn’t a good thing.

  In Jenn’s world adults always seemed to die first.

  Chapter 33

  Jenn Lockhart

  Jillybean had them darken their faces with dirt before they moved out.

  Jenn had never done this before and felt like she was putting on make-up, dabbing it on her cheeks with shaking hands. “Here, let me,” Mike said. His hands were steady. He wasn’t afraid, in fact, he was excited. Jenn knew that if he could bring back a boat larger than the Calypso, Gerry the Greek would welcome him home with open arms. She could only hope that if she was able to bring back the girl doctor, the Coven would do the same for her.

  Gently, he smeared mud across her forehead, her small nose and her ears. “Huh. I never noticed before but your ears are pointed.” He smiled down at her and she felt her chest constrict. They had studiously avoided intimate moments just like this, but just then her guard was down and she smiled back…at first. Then she looked away.

  “You shouldn’t look at me like that,” she whispered. “If anything will break our luck, it’ll be us, you and me looking at each other like that. We can’t. We have people counting on us.”

  “You two were looking at each other?” Jillybean laughed, a high sound that was almost a cackle. “My, what will the Baptists say?”

  “Are the Baptists like the Corsairs?” Jenn asked, turning from Mike. He looked like he wanted to pull her back and even reached out a hand, but stopped as Jillybean really did cackle. It was a shockingly loud sound.

  Jillybean was laughing so hard her legs actually buckled and she collapsed, holding her stomach. Stu glared at the spectacle. “Are you trying to sabotage the mission? Jillybean? Is that even you? Mike, can you take a look at her?”

  “Don’t bother,”
Jillybean said. “It’s me. It’s just I…Baptists…Corsairs…” She broke down laughing again.

  Jenn dropped down next to her. “Hey, uh, uh could you tell me something about those cranial nerve thingies?”

  Jillybean only laughed harder and there was nothing they could do but wait until they began to die off. She wiped away her tears saying, “Thingies? Your grasp of scientific jargon is unparalleled, Jenn Lockhart. And that’s all right.” They were almost nose-to-nose and, unexpectedly, Jillybean kissed her square on the lips. “Don’t ever change and don’t die tonight. I wouldn’t forgive myself if the world lost such an innocent creature.”

  This stopped Jenn’s hand; she had been about to wipe away the kiss from her lips. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I took five pills. You guys are stuck with me for as long as my liver holds out.” She sighed, chuckled again, this time ruefully. She stood and went to Stu and kissed him as well. It wasn’t deep or passionate, it was soft and quick. When she turned around, Mike took a step back and she laughed once more. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kiss you. I just figured that if I was going to die, I wanted his kiss on my lips. Trust me, it’s better than sharing a look.”

  She left the room in stunned silence. Jenn and Mike shared another look. She glanced away first. She wanted to kiss him, but there were too many what ifs hanging over them. They didn’t have the luxury of living on the edge of insanity like Jillybean.

  “We should go,” she said, feeling young and cowardly compared to Jillybean who would have laid one on Mike’s lips and laughed at anyone who tried to stop her. Laughed or worse, depending on who was running the show in her head.

  Jenn stepped outside and felt a sudden chill. The dead were out in force that night. There were hundreds of them roaming along the trashed-out streets and their moans were even more baleful than ever.

  The three of them made a slow parade hauling the filled cart to the river, where there were still more of the dead. Even with their ghillie suits and Jillybean’s laser pointer, they had trouble getting into position.

  When Mike went back with the now empty cart for Stu and the rest of the gear, Jenn and Jillybean crawled from cover to cover down to the chain. “I want you to cut it,” Jillybean whispered, handing over a large set of bolt cutters. Jenn took the ungainly tool and just as she lined them up on the bike lock, Jillybean asked, “What’s going to happen when you cut the lock?”

  Jenn was about to give the obvious answer: the chain will fall in the water, but she held off knowing that Jillybean didn’t think in terms of the obvious. She thought three steps ahead. And what were those steps? The chain would fall, making a clear splash, alerting both the Corsairs and the dead.

  “I need a rope,” Jenn said. The words weren’t even out of her mouth before Jillybean produced one.

  “This life is like a game of chess,” Jillybean said, tying off the chain and wrapping the rope twice around the tree.

  “Chess with zombies,” Jenn said, cutting the lock. As Jillybean slowly let out the rope, the chain sagged into the water, dipping gently below the surface. “You know, it’s almost like the dead knew something was about to happen tonight.”

  Jillybean released the rope. “Why? Because there’s so many of them? I brought them here. Our pirate friends will be far less likely to shoot with what could be a significant horde crowding the river.”

  Jenn wanted to know how she had brought them here, but they had been loud enough and had already attracted a trio of giants that came moaning through the trees. Jillybean gave Jenn a wink and slipped under her ghillie suit. Jenn did the same and watched through the holes as the dead came within spitting distance.

  Even before they were gone, Jillybean was moving to the launch point. She didn’t like to walk with the camouflage netting over her face so she wore it like a cape draped on her shoulders instead.

  When they reached the skiff and the stack of dresser drawers, Mike was there, crouched down next to a tree. There was no need for talk. Their plan was simple: head to the thirty-footer, unmoor it and float away, using the skiff’s engine to get them mid-channel where the current was strongest.

  As always, Jillybean had thought ahead. The car batteries had been recharged and, although they didn’t have another ghillie net, she had trimmed some branches and duct-taped them to the skiff. When they pulled away from shore they looked like a hunk of debris—a hunk of debris fighting the current, but a hunk of debris nonetheless.

  Jenn lay in the middle of the skiff feeling useless. Mike had the dart gun up front and Jillybean was driving. As far as Jenn knew, her entire job was to keep quiet and out of the way—and not to do anything stupid.

  With the dead making so much noise, the skiff’s little motor went unheard, but to be on the safe side, Jillybean cut it twenty yards away and allowed them to drift up next to the sailboat which sat high in the water. The name Saber was painted in silver lettering on its side.

  Mike stood and grabbed the top edge of the Saber, stopping the skiff with a little thump. It was a small sound, yet they all froze not daring to breathe.

  Jillybean slowly stood, shrugged off her ghillie suit and caught the edge, as well. She nodded at Jenn to climb up first. Jenn had hoped to go last. Dropping her ghillie suit, she grabbed hold of the sailboat and swung a leg up, catching the edge. With an M4 across her back, she wasn’t very stealthy. Her boot thudded, the holstered Glock at her hip scraped against the fiberglass and a grunt escaped her before she made it to the deck.

  Still, she was quieter than Mike, who knocked a knee against the side of the boat so loudly that it woke someone inside the cabin.

  “What the hell?”

  Jenn’s first response was to look to Mike, but he was still struggling to climb onto the bow. Almost too late, she scrambled for her Glock, pulling it just as the cabin opened revealing a shadow of a man. He was indistinct, but the shotgun in his hands was unmistakable.

  “S-stop!” she hissed, whipping the Glock up. It wavered and jitterbugged in her hand.

  “What is this?” the man growled. He wasn’t quiet. They were all of fifty feet away from the guard, sitting behind his machine gun. Jenn couldn’t afford any more noise.

  She jabbed the gun in his direction to make sure he saw it. “Shut up and, and, and put your hands up.”

  “No. I’m not doing a damned thing. You come on my boat, point a gun at me and demand that I shut up?” As he spoke, he came walking out of the cabin, seeming to grow larger and larger with each step up the short flight of stairs. He towered over Jenn, who was enveloped by the stench of whiskey and body odor.

  He was a frightening beast of a man, but Jenn wasn’t as frightened of him as he supposed. After all, she had fought and killed Frankenstein, she had ridden a tiny boat into a school of the zombies and saved a man, and she had braved a hurricane on the open ocean.

  Yes, she was afraid of the man, but she was even more afraid of making noise. Even more than that, she was afraid that she would make the same mistake Mike had made. She was afraid to let this man turn that shotgun away from her and point it at one of her friends. She would never allow that to happen.

  “Put the gun down, now,” she said, her voice growing icy as she came closer and closer to pulling the trigger.

  “The hell I will.” He didn’t need to be quiet. In fact, it benefited him to be loud; loud enough to get the guard’s attention, but not loud enough to get shot. He knew Jenn couldn’t shoot him without alerting the entire town.

  What he didn’t know was how desperate Jenn was. “Then you don’t leave me any choice.” He held the shotgun pointed slightly down and away. Jenn saw the track it would have to take before he could pull the trigger: left to right, and just as it began that track, she pulled the trigger.

  He was a big man and the 9mm round staggered him as it hit him square in the chest. He was also a vindictive man. He was going to die no matter what and still that shotgun tracked.

  Jenn dodged left firing the pi
stol three more times, blinding herself with the muzzle flashes. The man went down with a sad moan. Suddenly, there were cries all around them. “Cut the lines!” Mike hissed.

  Jenn was too frantic to even think about the mooring lines. People were rushing out of the boats all around them. She turned the Glock toward the boat that was next to the Saber and started blasting away as someone came on deck. He went down after who knew how many shots.

  By then, bullets were going every which way. Jillybean was trading shots with four people on three different boats, all on the north side, so Jenn turned to the south and saw muzzle flashes all down the dock. The air was sighing and hissing with the passage of bullets.

  Jenn, standing in full view, fired back until her Glock emptied in what felt like a second. She was reaching for her M4 when Mike pushed his into her hands—it had the lowlight scope and when she put it to her eye, she gasped. Suddenly she could see!

  From that moment, the battle changed dramatically. She shot at everything that moved until her ears rang and her hands were numb. She was changing out her magazine when she realized that they were moving. Mike had stuck to the plan and cut away the mooring lines and heaved the Saber away from the dock.

  “Get us into the channel!” he yelled to Jillybean as he hauled up the mainsail.

  There was utter confusion along the docks with people screaming back and forth demanding to know what was going on and it was a full minute before it was decided that either Benny had gone crazy or that someone was stealing Benny’s boat. Either way, the guard with the machine gun finally opened up.

  They were a hundred yards away and in the dark, the bullets ripped up the river off the port side, sending up a sheet of water. A direct hit would have torn the boat in two. Jenn immediately rattled off a string of bullets, killing the man just as he was correcting his aim.