Generation Z_The Queen of War Read online

  Generation Z

  The Queen of War

  Book 3

  Peter Meredith

  Copyright 2018

  HANDS OFF, BUDDY! CUZ IT AIN’T YOURS, THAT’S WHY!

  AND NO, THAT ISN’T YOU IN CHAPTER 4

  Fictional works by Peter Meredith:

  A Perfect America

  Infinite Reality: Daggerland Online Novel 1

  Infinite Assassins: Daggerland Online Novel 2

  Generation Z

  Generation Z: The Queen of the Dead

  Generation Z: The Queen of War

  The Sacrificial Daughter

  The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day One

  The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead: Day Two

  The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead Day Three

  The Apocalypse Crusade War of the Undead Day Four

  The Horror of the Shade: Trilogy of the Void 1

  An Illusion of Hell: Trilogy of the Void 2

  Hell Blade: Trilogy of the Void 3

  The Punished

  Sprite

  The Blood Lure The Hidden Land Novel 1

  The King’s Trap The Hidden Land Novel 2

  To Ensnare a Queen The Hidden Land Novel 3

  The Apocalypse: The Undead World Novel 1

  The Apocalypse Survivors: The Undead World Novel 2

  The Apocalypse Outcasts: The Undead World Novel 3

  The Apocalypse Fugitives: The Undead World Novel 4

  The Apocalypse Renegades: The Undead World Novel 5

  The Apocalypse Exile: The Undead World Novel 6

  The Apocalypse War: The Undead World Novel 7

  The Apocalypse Executioner: The Undead World Novel 8

  The Apocalypse Revenge: The Undead World Novel 9

  The Apocalypse Sacrifice: The Undead World 10

  The Edge of Hell: Gods of the Undead Book One

  The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead Book Two

  The Witch: Jillybean in the Undead World

  Jillybean’s First Adventure: An Undead World Expansion

  Tales from the Butcher’s Block

  Chapter 1

  Mike Gunter

  The forty-foot Captain Jack was doomed the moment Mike Gunter swung her east, slipping within the furthest reach of the Marin Headlands. The wind, which had been steadily coming from out of the west, now spun in strange eddies causing the chains and ropes hanging from the Golden Gate Bridge to undulate, making the whole structure look unsettlingly alien.

  “They’re like giant tentacles,” Mike said, mostly to himself.

  The only other person on deck was Kasie King, who replied as best she could in something reminiscent of a toad’s croak. She had been so violently seasick that Mike didn’t think she could express herself in any other way.

  “Do you need anything, Kasie? Do you want me to ask Colleen for some more…” The wheel took that moment to yank itself halfway around and nearly out of his grasp as the boat slewed and yawed. The Captain Jack was struggling against not just the sudden change in wind direction but also a new current as brackish water from the bay emptied into the ocean.

  Mike fought the wheel back and as he did, he grew increasingly nervous. “I don’t like the feel of this.” He could only describe the sensation coming from the keel as “tight.” It wasn’t a scientific term or even a sailing one for that matter, but as he hadn’t been taught by an accredited instructor, using feel and instinct were the only way he knew how to sail.

  And just then, that “tightness” meant there were stresses on the boat he didn’t think she could handle. He tried easing her around only to have the wind rush in from another angle. There was a long, loud tearing sound very much like someone was ripping a thirty-foot piece of paper in half.

  The spinnaker, a great ballooning pyramid of nylon that sat in front of the mainsail, dwarfing it by far, began to dance and flail, threatening to shred itself to ribbons. Its frayed ropes, or “sheets” as they are technically called, began to snap, looking and sounding like giant whips.

  They had been cruising along, a black shadow in the darkness, trying their best to remain unnoticed, but now they were making such a tremendous amount of noise in an otherwise quiet night that they were practically screaming their position to anyone who might be looking for them. And there were probably hundreds of people after them.

  In a thunder of over-sized feet, Mike Gunter ran to the bow, almost tripping over a sprawled Kasie, who looked as grey as one of the dead. She paused in her vomiting long enough to gaze blearily around in confusion, too sick to be afraid.

  A second later, Colleen White rushed up from the main cabin where she had been trying to make herself more presentable. “Are we being attacked?” she cried. In one hand she held a tube of lipstick and in the other an M4. She had her black hair plaited down her back in imitation of Mike’s.

  “Jeeze,” he groused under his breath as he tried to pull in all the sail he could, hugging it to his body. “No, we’re not and don’t just stand there. Give me a hand. No, don’t trim back the main!” More than any of them, he was mindful of the minutes zipping by. He had counted every one of them since they had fled from the bay three hours before with half of what remained of the Corsair fleet racing after.

  Mike was desperate to get back to the bay area. He felt the sting of each of those counted minutes. He had left behind Jenn Lockhart, the woman he loved, his best friend, Stu Currans, his mentor, Gerry the Greek, and the Islanders and Hill People—he had, in essence left his family and there was no way to know whether they were alive or dead.

  Acting on Jillybean’s advice, he had raced away in the Captain Jack, hoping to draw the Corsairs after him, and they had taken the bait big time.

  The Corsairs were excellent mariners and it had been touch and go until the last of the twilight had simmered away. Even then they were spread out over miles of sea in a great line behind them. Nimble as the Captain Jack was, she wouldn’t be able to turn wide enough to get around them all in the dark. Jillybean, who had moved very little and spoken even less, suggested using a simple ruse to outwit their pursuers: they lit a boxed candle, attached it to a floating life-preserver and then hauled it along for a few miles.

  Like moths to a flame, the pursuing ships drew in closer and tighter until Mike cut the rope and let the little contraption drift on as he suddenly brought the Captain Jack about and wheeled toward shore with the wind dead on his stern. Five minutes later, gunshots rang out. Mike immediately turned south, fighting the wind and an evil current that was set on driving him onto the shore.

  Using the thermal scope, he saw many of the Corsair boats turn back as well, then came more gunfire and undefinable pandemonium. Boats were going every which way, shooting at each other, none knowing who was who in the dark.

  “What’s going on?” Colleen asked. Everyone turned to look at Jillybean, who made no move to suggest that she was even aware of Colleen’s presence. Colleen glared but she didn’t have the nerve to say anything.

  “I have no idea,” Mike answered. “And I don’t think they do either.” Colleen shrugged, Kasie belched like a frog and then groaned. Jillybean, again acted as if she were alone on the boat as she watched the shadowy, distant sails cutting back and forth, scattering in all directions…all except toward the very dangerous lee-shore, which was why Mike had chosen exactly that direction.

  It was an ugly, rough ride back and Mike was sure that somewhere in there Kasie had barfed up something vital. A spleen maybe, or a “pan-critis,” which he thought was an actual word for one of the squiggly things inside a person. He could have asked Jillybean, however the Queen had been so exceptionally quiet that he had assumed she had learne
d how to sleep with her eyes open.

  Even during that rough ride, with the spinnaker billowing, Kasie getting vomit on her shirt, and Colleen trying to untie one of the shrouds which was perhaps the very height of counterproductively, Jillybean stood at the wheel without saying a thing, her wild hair like a living thing, whirling around her head.

  This muteness on her part was so unlike her that Mike might have said something if the silence hadn’t been so enjoyable. It wasn’t as if he disliked her, he just didn’t like how, inadvertently or not, she made him feel so very extra stupid all the time.

  She remained quiet, manning the wheel as Mike struck down the remains of the spinnaker and sent Colleen in search of more cordage.

  “Is this the Captain Jack or the Captain Morgan?” Colleen joked as she came back without rope but with an armload of pirate hootch. Many of the bottles were fouled over and sticky, and she went to toss them over the side.

  “Don’t throw them overboard!” Jillybean said, sharply, coming awake with her eyes blazing.

  Colleen looked to Mike for clarification on the subject. He didn’t care one way or the other. “Yeah, if she wants them, keep them. But no cordage? That’s not possible.” Grumbling, he took the lantern from Colleen and went below, but not before taking one last look at the Golden Gate Bridge, looming a mile and a half dead ahead. After that tricky gust which had let loose the spinnaker, the wind had settled back in the west. He had ten minutes before things would get hairy.

  He didn’t turn on the lantern until he had shut the door behind him and then he wished he hadn’t. Below deck, the boat was a shambles of bottles and broken glass. Pillows, blankets and clothes of all sorts had been thrown everywhere. There were stains and burns, and the place smelled of a dire combination of rancid lard, dirty feet and ass.

  At the bottom of the stairs was an open saloon/nav station. Beyond that was a kitchenette/dining area and then the forward cabin. All of it looked like it had been the temporary home to thirty filthy beasts rather than actual men. Mike stepped down onto a blanket only to have it “squish” beneath him. He yanked his foot back.

  “What the? Water? Son of a…jeeze. Son of a…” A few more incoherent syllables spluttered out of his mouth, though he wasn’t really aware that he was saying anything at all. He was too caught up in the fact that there was a leak in the boat—his boat.

  Turning, he scrambled in the mess and the shallow water, searching for the access panel to the engine room, which was really more of an engine “cubby” where the inboard motor was crammed below the flooring. Popping the panel up, revealed the flooded cubby.

  It was altogether expected, still Mike spluttered out more partial curses. He didn’t bother going to check the other nooks and cranny-like spaces below the crew deck, certain that all of them would be just as flooded. The smart thing to do would be to heave around, find the source of the leak and plug it as fast as possible.

  As much as he was already in love with the Captain Jack, even with the mess, Mike loved Jenn Lockhart even more. He dropped the panel lid and hurried on deck and found Jillybean waiting on him. “There’s a leak in the ship,” she told him. He opened his mouth, the words How did you know, beginning to form, unnecessarily. She was already answering, “She’s been growing sluggish, that’s how I knew. It’s probably just a bullet hole or two. I’d check just above the normal waterline.”

  “Above the waterline?” Colleen asked. “That doesn’t make any sense at all. Are you Jillybean at all, or that other girl?”

  Jillybean turned cold eyes on her for seven lingering seconds; long enough for Colleen to drop her eyes. Only when she was properly cowed did Jillybean explain to Mike, “As I have only just begun to feel the wheel gripe, it’s likely the water is coming in at a point above what is considered the Captain Jack’s normal waterline, possibly due to the rough seas we’ve been experiencing near the shore. And as for you…” she added turning her attention back to Colleen.

  For a moment, Jillybean reverted to being the imperious and haughty queen. Her eyes blazed and there was power in them beyond her dominating intelligence or her dangerously broken mind. There was something regal and innately superior in them as if she had always been a queen.

  Then the look vanished completely. “Perhaps you should not say things such as ‘that other girl’ when referring to Eve. In case you haven’t noticed, she is easily offended and does not suffer fools gladly.”

  Colleen’s lips twitched at being called a fool, and her hand strayed to the strap of the M4 she had slung across her back. Jillybean smirked, arching a single condescending eyebrow, but she said nothing, which was just as well with Mike. With the boat slowly sinking and the bridge drawing closer, he did not have time for a cat fight. He stepped between the two just in case either wanted to add something that would end in Colleen’s corpse floating in the bay like so many others—she was in way over her head.

  “Colleen, could you go look for that hole? Please? For me?”

  The begging helped. She flashed him a white smile within those red-painted lips and hurried down into the cabins. The moment she was gone, Jillybean rolled her eyes and Kasie croaked again and spat over the side. “Are we there yet?” she asked in a bleary voice.

  The words were barely out of her mouth when something thumped into the hull of the Captain Jack. It was the first of many bodies. In the dark they looked like floating piles of trash.

  “They’ll be fewer in number near the south tower,” Jillybean said, speaking softly, barely audible over the sound of the wind. Mike thought she looked quite stricken at seeing her handiwork once again. Over three-thousand Corsairs had come to the bay area bent on revenge. Now, at least half of them were drifting lifelessly in the current all because Jillybean could deal out death and destruction as easily as dealing cards.

  “It’s not the bodies we have to worry about,” Mike answered, taking up the thermal scope and scanning ahead.

  A shiver tickled her spine, making her shoulders seize and hunch. “Maybe you don’t have to worry about them.”

  Mike shot her a look over the scope, afraid he would find himself looking at Eve, the “other” girl living inside of her. As fearsome as the Queen could be, Eve was far worse. She was the embodiment of depraved lunacy and anything could set her off on a killing spree and few things could bring Jillybean back.

  “Maybe you should go look for the leaks,” Mike suggested, an entirely fabricated smile barely holding onto his lips. “I’ll have Colleen steer, or, better yet, Kasie can.”

  Kasie, sounding drunk to the point of obliteration, moaned that she could steer, as long as she had a—croak—a bucket nearby.

  Jillybean looked as though she wanted to flee below as fast as she could, but it was also clear that she thought Kasie’s sea-sickness had become terminal and that Colleen had her hands full already trying to find a husband on a death-cruise. Mike had the same fears and asked Jillybean, nicely, to just, “Look straight ahead, or better yet, look down at your feet. I’ll tell you which way…I mean, I’ll suggest the best course.” One did not tell Jillybean what to do.

  “Would you find it acceptable if I just closed my eyes?”

  “Yes! Great idea.” As long as she remained Jillybean, he could count on her to follow his directions, blind or not.

  Once more he took up the thermal scope. It had worked like a charm in the smoke and chaos of the battle which had raged across the bay, but now it was next to useless. The greatest danger they faced was not the hundreds of corpses floating in the bay, but rather the many dozens of half-sunk boats that lay like broached whales on or just below the surface of the bay.

  They passed one that was wallowing on its side; all that could be seen of it was the soft rise of its hull, glistening in the star light. Another one had gone down by the head, however a life-raft stowed in the stern had self-inflated and now the boat bobbed like a cork with its rump three feet out of the water.

  Like all the Corsair boats, the Captain Jack includ
ed, it had been painted black, to match the dark water. As the thermal scope only read heat signatures, the boat was grey on grey and basically invisible until they were right on it.

  “Hard to port!” he hissed, running to heel the boom around, thankful they hadn’t been rushing along driven by the spinnaker. At the speed they’d been traveling, they would have struck the boat dead on and likely sunk in minutes.

  Blindly, Jillybean spun the wheel until it was hard over. She held on, her body tensed for impact. Even Kasie lifted her head, mid-croak, to see if they were going to crash. They didn’t, though it was so close they lost a long strip of black paint as the Captain Jack ground against some part of the semi-sunken ship, the mast probably.

  “What was that?” Colleen demanded in sharp, frightened tones as she came halfway up the stairs, so that only her head appeared above the line of the deck. She looked to Mike like a prairie dog with lipstick. He told her that it was nothing and only gradually did she go back down.

  “Still hard to port?” Jillybean asked. She hadn’t opened her eyes which was a good thing as the number of corpses had multiplied now that they were nearing the bridge. There were constant thumps and scrapes, although these were far lighter. Colleen must have seen the carnage ahead of them for she did not rush up again as the noise increased.

  “Center the wheel,” Mike ordered as he drew down the sheet using a hand crank that pretty much did all the work for him. It had rusting gears that squeaked—yet another sign that he was on a slap-dash boat. With the battle and later, with the dread certainty of being caught among the Corsairs, masquerading as one of their own, he hadn’t noticed the illusion that the previous captain had artfully woven to give the Captain Jack an air of naval perfection.

  Now, even with the dark, he began to catch glimpses: mold in the spinnaker, granny knots used instead of square knots, duct tape on the wheel. The worst, of course, had been using old lines in the spinnaker and now as he drew in the mainsail, he saw more age and wear. He was just wondering if it would stand up to any real test when they hit something far more solid than just a corpse, and yet without the awful grinding noise associated with hitting another boat.