Generation Z (Book 1): Generation Z

by Peter Meredith

  “Got it. I’ll see you at the top.”

  They stepped from the open bay and both stopped in their tracks, staring as a flood of dark shapes swarmed along the street in front of the harbor, while further back, lit by the starlight, even more ships crowded the docks.

  “And that’s why Jillybean has been advising the governor to deal with the Corsairs for years,” Sadie said. “They multiply like roaches.” She gave Jenn one of her unsettlingly intimate winks. “We’ll take care of them, right?”

  They split up. Sadie went straight up the hill, while Jenn cut through the town only two blocks from the harbor. She snuck along using the lowlight scope to keep away from the dead, many of which were already out in the streets. There was something almost electric in the night air, and the beasts were stirred up and growing aggressive, rushing each other in brief but savage attacks. As soon they realized they were fighting another zombie, their anger would switch to total apathy.

  Jenn slipped through all this until she was a hundred yards from the Jiffy Lube. Then she lit her first fire against a wall out of sight from the docks and the Corsairs. “This is crazy!” she hissed, when she lit it.

  The dead came rushing at the flame and she had to duck around the building to keep from being eaten. When the dead were completely focused on the light, she was able to scamper a hundred yards further up the road. This time when she lit the fire, beasts came roaring from houses all around her and she was forced to crawl under a hedge.

  In minutes, there were thirty of them crowding around and she was only able to escape when a bizarre fight broke out among the dead as they mistook shadows for people and attacked a garage door.

  “I have to be like Jillybean. I have to think three steps ahead,” Jenn told herself. The problem: she had to light a fire out in the open so the dead could see it, but she also had to be able to get away. She carried the solution in her bag. After preparing the next fire, she ran a line of oil from it to where she hid behind a car.

  The slow-burning fuse gave her enough time to slip away and watch as nearly fifty of the creatures congregated.

  After two more fires she had a hundred of them and she wore a wicked grin as she beckoned “her army” further up the hill with more fires.

  The grin faded when she got close to the apartment complex she had called home for the last nine years. Guiding the dead up the hill had been a slow process and now she saw that the Corsairs had beaten her to the top and were fanning out, surrounding the place.

  She started moving to her right, but hadn’t gone far before a soft voice said, “How many did you get?”

  Jenn jumped, her heart skipping more than a few beats in her shock. It was Sadie or Jillybean, leaning against a tree, looking very relaxed. “I only picked about fifty or so.”

  “I got a hundred, I think,” Jenn said, when she got her breathing under control.

  “That’s good. The Corsairs are in perfect position. Now, if Mike or Stu can light a fire or make some noise, the dead will move in, and goodbye Corsairs.”

  They waited in the dark and long minutes passed without either noise or fire. The complex remained quiet and dark.

  Finally, even the Corsairs grew tired of waiting for a response and a man with a white sheet tied to a stick went forward. To Sadie’s shock, he was let inside. “Are they all complete idiots? Jenn, where’s the back entrance?” Jenn shrugged. “You don’t have a back entrance? They’re idiots!”

  “There’s not a back entrance, but there is a low point in the fence. It’s how we got out. But it’s useless, the Corsairs are in the way.” Although most were squatting in company-sized formations in front of the complex, a thin band of them had surrounded the complex.

  “Just show me,” Sadie said.

  It wasn’t far. As soon as they got close, Sadie unlimbered her dart gun and cleared a path with it. The sentries didn’t know what hit them and dropped to the ground senseless.

  The two of them crept forward, then crawled beneath the plywood wall. Now that they were out of sight of the Corsairs, Jenn took Sadie’s hand and ran for the clubhouse, where a crowd of people stood outside talking in frightened whispers.

  “My goodness, they are complete idiots,” Sadie said so loudly that the crowd turned as one to stare. “I’m risking my life for idiots! Why didn’t you tell me, Jenn? Why aren’t you morons at your battle stations?” Her eyes were starting to grow wild again.

  Eve was on the verge of showing herself, which would have been a disaster. Jenn pulled her close and stared into her eyes. “Don’t let Eve out,” Jenn said so that only Sadie could hear. “If I have too, I’ll light the fires myself. All you have to do is worry about Aaron and the others. They need a doctor. They need Jillybean.”

  Sadie started nodding uncertainly. Jenn was afraid Eve would slip out in front of everyone. She grabbed Sadie’s hand and pushed through the crowd and into the building. Except for a soft murmuring coming from the meeting room, the place was quiet as a church.

  Jenn didn’t knock or poke her head in timidly. She marched in brazenly, her M4 in one hand. The full Coven sat at their table, looking soft and weak. Off to the side were Mike and Stu.

  Stu was pale, while Mike was dripping sweat and exhausted—pulling a hundred-and-seventy pound man uphill for two miles in a zombie-infested environment had left him barely able to stand, yet he and Stu wore matching looks of defiance.

  The only person in the room who seemed utterly at ease was the Corsair. He stood directly before the Coven, wrapped in a black cloak and wearing an insolent smirk. He raised a dark eyebrow at Jenn and Sadie.

  “This is them!” Miss Shay cried, pointing an accusing finger. She waved back and forth between Mike and Stu, and Jenn and Jillybean. “It was these four. We had nothing to do with any of this. In fact they were banished. You can have them.”

  “I’m afraid four won’t cut it,” the Corsair answered. “We lost four ships and over fifty good men.”

  Miss Shay began to breathe heavier than Mike. “I’m so sorry, but like I said we…”

  The man cut her off simply by raising a finger. “While I appreciate the apology, the Corsairs operate on a strict eye for an eye philosophy. We demand proper compensation and we’re going to get it. You are surrounded by over two-thousand men and frankly, you have nothing to stop us with. You people are pathetic and weak. Give me fifty warm bodies to go along with these four and we’ll leave.”

  As the council looked at each other in horror, Sadie’s eyes changed. Eve was now in charge and her grin was dripping with evil as she started walking forward. She spun the empty dart-gun around as if she were going to hand it to the Corsair, while at the same time her right hand took hold of the hunting knife she had used to kill Kim Marino.

  “No!” Jenn said, rushing to get between them. “She was going to kill you.” Jenn could see Eve smoldering behind Jillybean’s blue eyes. Eve wasn’t thinking three steps ahead, she was only thinking in the moment. She had had no idea what another death on Jillybean’s conscience would do to the girl, but Jenn saw it all clearly. She finally saw three steps ahead.

  It was why she plunged her own knife into the man’s chest.

  Chapter 36

  Jenn Lockhart

  For once in her life everything was laid out for her step by step. Someone had to stop the Corsairs and that meant stopping this one man from ever leaving the complex. Just like Jillybean, he had been shocked at their soft defenses and even softer people. If he had been allowed to leave, the Corsairs wouldn’t have stopped with fifty people. They would have made slaves of all of them, as well as the people on Alcatraz.

  He had to die and if Aaron and the others were going to have any chance, Jillybean couldn’t be the one to do it. Someone else had to be the bad guy.

  “Jenn, what did you do?” Donna Polston practically screamed, as the man fell, gasping, his eyes locked on the dagger and the blood erupting around it.

  The other council members were in hysterics as well. “Shut
up!” Jenn yelled. “Everyone just shut up! We have one chance to live through this. Stu, set up some sort of defense. Get everyone on the perimeter. Don’t have them shoot unless the Corsairs attack. Mike, I need you to set up a fire on the roof of building four. It’s right across the way. Everything you’ll need is in the trash bags we left outside the door. The fire has to be big enough to attract the dead, but not so big that we burn down the building.”

  The two men hesitated and Jenn had to yell, “Go!” before they would move. When Mike helped Stu limp out, Jenn and Eve were alone with the Coven, some of whom glared, some looked like they were on the verge of tears.

  “A fire?” Donna asked, her voice high and shrill. “Are you insane? You-you just said the fire will bring the dead. Why on earth…”

  “The dead are our army,” Jenn explained. This had the women wagging their heads in disbelief. “They’ll defeat the Corsairs for us. And this,” Jenn pointed at Jillybean, “is the girl doctor.”

  Jenn turned so the two locked eyes. “Her name is Jillybean,” Jenn said very deliberately. “I brought her back from Seattle and yes, she’s a real doctor. She saved Stu when he was shot. She operated on him and everything. She had antibiotics, which she made.”

  “She’s just a kid!” Miss Shay cried. “And what’s wrong with her eyes? Why are they doing that?”

  The stress was beginning to tear Jillybean in half and her eyes were going their separate ways. Jenn grabbed her by the shoulders and whispered, “Stop it, Jillybean, please. You don’t need to be scared. You have me.” The girl’s eyes slowly came to focus on Jenn.

  “It’s Eve. She’s clawing to get out. She knows we won’t make it. I-I can’t concentrate. I can’t think clearly.”

  “Forget her, and forget them.” She gestured toward the Coven. “We don’t need their permission to save lives.” She took her by the arm and walked her around the Corsair, who was staring up at the ceiling with blank, unseeing eyes. With the Coven trailing, she took Jillybean into the medical wing which was lit only by a few candles. It was plenty of light to see that there were only two occupied beds in the room. Jeff Battaglia was already dead.

  William Trafny lay in the closest bed. He was thinner now, his flesh membranous. Jenn could see the blue, spider-like veins clearly beneath it. He was so close to death that in sleep he looked more like a cadaver than a person. Jenn had to touch him to make sure he was still warm.

  Watching this from the next bed was Aaron Altman. “He’s alive, but not for long,” the boy said in a whisper. He was ghostly pale and listless. His face glistened in the candlelight. He was missing most of his left arm. It was cut off at the bicep, and there was a sour smell emanating from the stump.

  “Can you do anything for them?” Jenn asked.

  Before Jillybean could answer, one of the Coven whispered. “If that really is the girl doctor, they might just take her instead of all of us.”

  Jenn pulled her Glock. She held it dangling at her side as she said, “Whoever said that leave, or so help me, I will shoot you.” The menace in her voice was enough to cause three of the women to leave. When she turned back, she saw that Jillybean’s eyes were still focused, but she hadn’t moved.

  “The smell,” she whispered.

  “It’s gangrene, right?” Jenn said. “Will your antibiotics cure it?” With half the Coven watching and Aaron looking at her with sad, brown eyes, Jillybean astonished Jenn by shrugging.

  “Fifty-fifty. He looks like he’s half-dead already and the other one is worse. Let’s do them a favor.” She pulled out the hunting knife, a malicious gleam to her eyes. “I’ll take care of these two, you get those three. We don’t want witnesses, they can be messy. And weren’t these the people who threatened to banish you? I say do it, Jenn. Plug ‘em.”

  Jenn realized that she was still holding her Glock. Donna began shaking her head. “Don’t, please.” Next to her Miss Shay started making a mewling sound and Lois looked as though she were either going to faint or run away.

  “I won’t,” Jenn said, feeling frantic. Time was slipping away. “No one is dying in here tonight. Do you understand me, Jillybean?”

  Jillybean wasn’t Jillybean. She brought the hunting knife up to her nose and sniffed it. She smiled and sighed as if the smell of Kim’s blood was a perfume. “Is that what your silly signs say? If so, I’d roll them old bones again or maybe get some glasses, cuz…” A sudden blaze of gunfire erupted and the girl’s smile widened.

  Their vague plan was falling apart. “Stop it, Eve! Let me talk to Jillybean.”

  The girl shook her head. “Why should I?” She suddenly raised her hands to the ceiling and bellowed, “Great and powerful Oz! Give me a sign right now or I’ll slice this boy’s throat wide open. Hello? Anyone listening? He needs a sign pretty badly.” She shrugged. “Did you see a sign because I didn’t. Sorry kid.”

  She turned to Aaron, raising the knife. Jenn cried, “Wait! Listen to me. There are signs. I know I’m not smart enough to pull you out of this. I don’t know anything about times tables or cranial nerves or arteries or veineries or…”

  “It’s just veins. There’s no such thing as veineries.”

  “That’s my point. I’m not smart. I don’t know nothing about nothing except I know this, all those signs and omens you mock, they brought you right here, right now for one purpose and it isn’t to kill Aaron. There’s a killer in you and a person who can save lives. If you want to kill, go kill the Corsairs. I’ll handle this. How hard could it be?”

  “How hard?” Eve cried. “Try very hard. No one else can do what she does. No one else even has the guts to try. And do you know why? You don’t get a second chance or a do-over. One mistake and Aaron’s dead and you know who gets blamed?” She pointed the knife at herself. “They’ll say: he would have lived if she hadn’t been so crazy, or better or smarter. I know it because I say the same thing every time. I try to be better, it’s why I practice so much and I try to be smarter, it’s why I read all the time. But what can I do about being crazy?”

  Somewhere in there Jillybean had come back, only now she was crying. Jenn hugged her in a fierce embrace. “I’ll help you with the crazy. You know that. And Stu and Mike will help you as well.” Saying their names caused her chest to spike with pain. They were out there in the thick of the fighting, which was turning savage by the sound of it. The screams and the gunfire were now all around them.

  “Do you believe me?” Jenn asked.

  “I do believe you,” she answered, “but pretty soon it won’t matter for these two or for any of us. You have to help Mike and Stu. I would help but I don’t think these two will last even an hour. I’ll be good, don’t worry. I have these three fine ladies to assist me.” At this Lois broke for the door in a sprint.

  “I’ll help,” Miss Shay said, taking one step closer.

  “Me too,” Donna added. “Just tell me what to do.”

  Jillybean appraised them. She pointed to Donna. “You, get my bag from the hall. And you, start boiling water.” When they scurried from the room, the girl turned to Jenn. “The battle can go one of two ways: either the dead wins or the Corsairs do. We know what happens if the Corsairs win, we become slaves. But if the dead win…”

  Jenn knew. “We die.”

  “Maybe not. The same thing that brought them here can lead them away. Do you understand?”

  A flash of goosebumps swept her. She understood. Someone would have to go outside the walls in the middle of a war and she already knew who that someone was.

  Feeling dizzy, Jenn said, “I gotta go.” She hugged Jillybean and ran out of the room, pausing to grab the garbage bag with the last of the oil and sawdust, as well as her M4. Rushing out into the night, the noise struck her full force. It was an assault on the ears that was like having nails driven into her eardrums.

  The fight was chaos. The Corsairs were winning and losing at the same time. On one side of the complex they had managed to scale the wall and were battling around one of the
buildings, while on the other side of the complex, they were being overrun by the dead, whose numbers kept increasing as more and more were drawn to the bonfire Mike had lit.

  She found Stu pulling people from one side of the complex and sending them to the other. He had taken a hammer to his cast and was now hobbling about, issuing orders at the top of his lungs.

  “Where’s Mike?” she yelled over the din. She had used her scope to check out the top of building four, and he wasn’t there.

  “Where do you think? In the thick of it. I don’t think he can help himself. Some…Hey!”

  Jenn left him in mid-sentence, sprinting towards where the gunfire was heaviest. The firing was almost all one-sided. The hill people weren’t fighters and the only reason they still existed was that no one had yet tested their feeble defenses. For the most part, they hid or fired from windows and balconies when they felt it was safe.

  Only the forest of spears kept the full Corsair army at bay, but in the one spot where they were able to get past it, the hill people had simply fled. Only Mike still fought.

  Using the lowlight scope, Jenn could see him pinned down on a ground-floor porch hunkered in a corner, using a stout grill as cover. When bullets ricocheted off it, they looked like fireworks. The Corsairs had a great advantage in training and ammo. They were shooting like mad, but only when they were shot at. They were looking for captives, not kills. Mike was the one exception.

  Jenn quickly became the second. With her lowlight scope, she became a terror. Three shots and three kills. In greyscale, the deaths looked like movie deaths. When she went aimed at the fourth, all she saw was a blaze of light while all around her the air hissed.

  Acting on instinct, she rolled and kept rolling as the bullets tracked her, kicking up dirt and whining off cement. She rolled into one of the little personal farms that sat between the buildings and dropped into a ten-inch trench. It was just deep enough that the bullets blistered the air above her head, but left her unhurt.