The Queen of the Dead Read online

  Generation Z

  Book 2

  The Queen of the Dead

  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

  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

  Pen(Novella)

  A Sliver of Perfection (Novella)

  The Haunting At Red Feathers(Short Story)

  The Haunting On Colonel's Row(Short Story)

  The Drawer(Short Story)

  The Eyes in the Storm(Short Story)

  The Witch: Jillybean in the Undead World

  Chapter 1

  1 Week Later

  The meeting room in the clubhouse was uncommonly packed. Except for the gate guard, the smaller children, and Manny Lopez, who was passed out in his apartment with one arm curled around his toilet bowl and the other around an empty bottle of hooch, the entire population of the Hilltop was present, sitting on row after row of folding chairs.

  It was an oddly rank congregation and more than one person looked askance at their neighbors through a haze of body odor. Because there were so many zombies roaming the city, fires had been curtailed and as the weather had turned brutally cold, few people had come within spitting distance of a bar of soap in the past week.

  Most pretended not to notice the smell as they sat with their eyes fixed toward one end of the room where the Coven was poised behind their familiar table with its familiar red tablecloth. Situated upon the table were three candles which seemed to throw more shadow than light on the grim features of the stern-faced women.

  To Jenn Lockhart, the shadows, coupled with their harsh unyielding expressions made it seem as if the seven women were carved totems rather than real people. Their dark eyes glistened like wet black pearls in a distinctly non-human manner. Jenn felt tiny and exposed sitting before them and wished she was either mixed in with the crowd or watching from the back of the room as she normally did.

  “The Coven welcomes Stu Currans to step forward,” Donna Polston intoned without emotion, speaking for the seven.

  It’s not much of a welcome, Stu thought to himself as he stood, trying to hide the sharp pain that marred his handsome features. His stiffness stole from his usual jeans and t-shirt, relaxed air.

  Although he hadn’t once complained, Jenn knew that his leg was bothering him. It wasn’t his way to say much of anything that really didn’t need to be said, which was why she thought it strange that he had been pushing to hold this meeting. She didn’t think anything would come of it; the position of the Coven had been made perfectly clear.

  “Before you begin,” Donna said in her strident voice, just as Stu opened his mouth. “We aren’t going to listen to any suggestions concerning pulling up stakes and moving to Bainbridge Island in one mass migration. Yes, we’ve heard the rumors and as much as I’d love for all of us to live in a fantasy land of electricity and hot wall water and working light bulbs, the Coven finds it’s all too good to be true.”

  “And Jillian is exhibit A.” Miss Shay’s accusing finger indicated the wild-haired girl who was scribbling furiously on a notepad, working out the kinks to some sort of proof or formula. Miss Shay refused to call her Jillybean and had been overheard on an almost daily basis sniffing, Why on earth does a mostly grown woman call herself ‘Jillybean?’ It’s altogether ludicrous.

  “Her mental state is erratic to say the least,” Miss Shay went on with a condescendingly arched eyebrow, “and while we appreciate what she has done for the community, we can’t help but believe she has gone through some sort of hideous torture at their hands to be this way.”

  Stu had always been a quiet man and a slow talker—too slow for Jenn who jumped up beside him. “But that’s not true,” she said, her voice an octave higher than normal. With everyone watching her, and many watching with sour looks, she was properly nervous. “Th-they treated her with respect. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “And with fear,” Lois Blanchard added. “Isn’t that what you told us before? You said they were afraid of her. ‘Even grown men.’ Those were your exact words. Don’t present us with half-truths, Jenn. We must have the real truth, and it’s obvious that Jillybean was mentally abused by those people.”

  Jillybean’s scribbling paused. It was an ominous sign. Jenn feared she would say or do something they would all regret. Jillybean was more than just erratic. To put it nicely, she was unpredictable and frightening. She had shown a hint of it to the Coven on the night the Corsairs had attacked, but they didn’t know the unplumbed depths of her insanity.

  Jenn knew her craziness better than anyone there and it was why she had done her level best to keep Jillybean secluded during the previous seven days. When she hadn’t been attending her patients, Jenn had kept her hidden in her apartment and had turned away a sudden influx of visitors, all of whom were immensely curious over the young woman who had managed to save both Aaron Altman and William Trafny, even though the one had lost his left arm at the bicep, and the other wheezed if he went from the couch to the bathroom and back.

  The only people Jenn allowed into her apartment were Stu Currans, who came by daily, and Mike Gunter, who rarely stopped by. For reasons unknown, one of the strange people inside Jillybean’s head didn’t care for Mike, and the two bickered constantly, much to Jenn’s dismay.

  “Jenn did not lie,” Jillybean said, sliding her pencil into the wilds of her untamed hair. She was, in more ways than one, a pocket Einstein whose head teemed with eccentric ideas and obscure plans, all of which seemed to generate some sort of electricity that made her hair altogether unmanageable.

  “It is true that some people fear me, but…” She had to pause as the room erupted in gasps and mutters and more than one: I told you so. She cleared her throat, loudly before going on, “Although some people fear me due to my mercurial nature, I am respected by the community. They have not abused me in any way. In fact, they have gone to great lengths to put up with my…”

  “Unfortunately,” Donna said, riding right over her, “as you’re not a citizen of the Hilltop, you don’t get a voice i
n these proceedings.”

  “Maybe she should be a citizen,” a small voice piped from the rear of the room. It was Aaron Altman who was not afraid of Jillybean and couldn’t understand how anyone could be. He was quite in love with her and made cow eyes at her every time she came to check on his arm. He made them again as she glanced back.

  Donna, affected not to have heard Aaron and addressed Stu, who had yet to say anything at all. “And as for your reports, Stu, you saw very little of the island and were under the influence of drugs. And Jenn, you were probably shown a facade. Do you know what that means?” Jenn hated when her ignorance was put on display and she shrank back with the tiniest shake of her head. “It means they showed you an illusion, a trick. They showed you this fantasy to sucker you in.”

  “I have to agree with Donna,” Melody Rinkman said, from the far end of the Coven table, her implausibly pink lips pursed. “It was clearly a trap and you can thank your lucky stars you escaped from it. But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that it was all real. How would you suggest we get to Bainbridge? By boat? The Corsairs took a hit, but they are far from powerless. We would have to sail for five hundred miles straight through their territory to get to Seattle. That would be suicide.”

  Lois Blanchard held up a finger. “Suicide is the perfect word. We aren’t sailors and we’re not warriors. The Corsairs are both. We’re safe here behind our walls and would be fools to leave. I personally would like to put an end to anymore discussion on the matter. All agree?” She looked back and forth along the table to the other members of the Coven who raised their hands, one by one.

  “They have seriously abused the word discussion,” Jillybean grumbled to Jenn under the sound of forty whispered conversations going at once. Jillybean couldn’t believe anyone could possibly think they were actually safe behind the meager walls surrounding the complex. Their self-delusion had reached a staggering level. A dangerous level. “We’re going to have to figure out a way to change their minds,” she went on in a whisper to Jenn. “In the meantime, since I can’t address the panel, Jenn you’re going to have to get them to understand how important it is that we appropriate the remains of the Corsair fleet as quickly as possible. Go on.”

  Before Jenn knew it, she was being pushed forward and just like that, the room went utterly quiet. “Uh, hi. Can I speak? It’s not about moving, I promise.” Donna looked like she wanted to say no and so Jillybean gave Jenn another shove. “I-I think it’s really important that we…” Jenn knew what was being asked of her, however she was caught up on the word, “appropriate.” It didn’t seem the right sort of word for the sentence and she was sure everyone would think she was putting on airs by using it. “We gotta, uh, round up the boats. You know, the ones the Corsairs left. We can’t just let them sit there.”

  Donna’s harsh gaze softened, slightly. Not for a second had she or anyone forgotten the twenty or so boats left behind by the Corsairs. The entire Hilltop could imagine the fortune in food and ammo tucked away inside of them, but they also knew there was part of a good-sized horde still hanging around the city and no one had been willing to brave the danger they represented.

  The leader of the Coven drummed her fingers on the table. She looked to her left at Lois, who nodded as did Miss Shay and Melody. This was enough for Donna, who announced, loudly: “The Coven agrees. The boats are too valuable to be left sitting there any longer. I will need volunteers to go down to the harbor.”

  Where a second before she’d had sixty pairs of eyes on her, now there were only a few and one set was the unnervingly large blue eyes of Jillybean—they secretly gave Donna the willies. The others, very much like school children who hadn’t done their homework, studiously avoided making eye contact.

  An uncomfortable silence also descended on the room so that when Lois began glaring at Orlando Otis, his ensuing knuckle-cracking sounded like kindling snapping in a fire. Next to him, One Shot discovered something so exceedingly interesting about his shoes, he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off them.

  “Really? No one?” Jillybean asked, as she stood up. “How on earth did you people manage to survive?”

  The scorn in her voice, more than the question itself shamed half of them and angered the rest. Jenn didn’t know what she expected. The people of the Hilltop were no different than people anywhere else; the brave, the honorable and the men and women of great character had been the first to die. Behind Jenn was what was left over: the cowardly, the skulkers, and the mentally and physically soft.

  “I’ll go by myself if I have to,” Jillybean said, shaming them even further.

  “I didn’t know if it was my place to volunteer,” Mike Gunter said, as he too stood. “I think since I know boats better than anyone here, I should go along.” It was no secret that he had been yearning to claim one of the Corsair boats for himself; one for himself and also one for Gerry the Greek to act as a peace offering, since he had stolen Gerry’s beloved Calypso.

  Jenn didn’t want to go anywhere near the harbor. She had done her part in saving the complex and everyone in it, but now that Mike was going she couldn’t imagine being left behind. She was just about to raise her hand when, out of the blue, Colleen White stood up, touched her hair to make sure it was properly in place, glanced once at Mike, and asked to go.

  This caused another run of muttering to snake around the room. As far as Jenn knew, Colleen had never volunteered for anything remotely dangerous and it was obvious she was only doing so now because of Mike. For the last week she had been eyeing the handsome Islander and had found every excuse to be near him.

  Mike caught Jenn’s eye and lifted one shoulder as if to say: It’s not my fault. Jenn didn’t blame him, but on the other hand she wasn’t going to let him go out into the world with Colleen White hovering around, flirting with him every waking moment. The thought made Jenn ill.

  Once more she was about to raise her hand; was in the process in fact, when Stu Currans said, “I’m going, too.” He was pale from having stood so long and he was already favoring his left leg. Two surgeries in a week had taken their toll on the tough-as-nails hillman and his recovery was coming along slower than he wished.

  “I don’t think so,” Jillybean said, easily pushing him down into his chair. “If you can’t run, then you can’t go. No. Don’t give me any backtalk, cowboy. It’s doctor’s orders.”

  Again, Jenn was about to volunteer when Lois said, “One Shot Saul and Orlando will also go. They will represent the Coven and the interests of the Hill People.” One Shot muttered a curse under his breath, however Orlando, who was married to Lois and was as henpecked as a man could be, didn’t dare say a thing.

  In the silence that followed One Shot’s curse, Jenn finally raised her hand. “I’m going, too.”

  “Six?” Miss Shay asked with her eyebrows halfway up her forehead and acid in her tone. “An unlucky number for an unlucky girl. If you ask me, it’s almost as if you are trying to ruin their chances. Maybe it’ll be safer for everyone if you stay behind.”

  As always, Jenn felt like a child in front of the Coven and started to sit. Jillybean took her hand. “Since we won’t be relying on luck, six will be as good a number as five or fifty. Jenn is coming with us.”

  Jillybean gazed so fixedly and sternly at Miss Shay that the older woman eventually backed down, saying, “Any ill-luck will be on your head.”

  A laugh escaped Jillybean. “I doubt luck will have any part to play in our little trip down to the harbor.”

  This made the room stir uneasily and quite a number of people crossed themselves while others, Jenn included, fingered amulets or sachets. Jenn kept a small, drawstring pouch filled with clove and basil looped around her left wrist. Everyone knew you didn’t make statements like that, it was like begging for something bad to happen.

  Donna knocked on the table three times and said, “Regardless, we wish you luck. One Shot will be in charge. We will need to know exactly what was left behind. How many boats, what kind of
supplies, that sort of thing. You should leave right away.”

  “We will leave in an hour,” Jillybean declared, imperiously. “The rest of you might trust in luck to keep the dead from eating us, I would prefer to use my brains.”

  Chapter 2

  In the hour they had to get ready, Jenn and Jillybean threw together six poncho-like ghillie suits. They were ugly and almost comically simple. Since they didn’t have netting, they used strips of green and brown cloth which they stapled to dark blue sheets. A shoelace stapled near one corner was used to create a hood of sorts.

  Orlando sneered at his. “These aren’t gonna work.” He put his on and looked down at himself both dubiously and unhappily as he couldn’t seem to find a place on the suit to hide the bottle of booze he constantly carried. He ended up sticking it under one arm. “I feel like a kid at Halloween for crap’s sake.”

  “They work, trust me,” Jillybean answered. “If you’re smart, cautious and quiet you should be just fine.”

  Orlando turned out to be none of these things.

  Armed only with crossbows, the six slipped through the gate, the strips of camouflage on their suits waving and fluttering around them in an uncertain wind. Orlando and One Shot went first, passing the bottle back and forth between them. They took a direct route to the harbor, slinking through the decaying suburban world, passing houses that were crumbling into their foundations.

  For the most part they avoided the broken, buckled and trashed out streets and walked through the overgrown, jungle-like yards where they could drop into a squat at the least hint of danger.

  It was twenty minutes before they saw the first of the dead lumber from behind an SUV that was permanently fused to a towering oak from some long-ago crash. Jenn spotted the creature first. She stopped and let out a low whistle. Everyone stopped as well, hunkering down—everyone but Orlando. He had been tipping the bottle back as he walked and didn’t hear the whistle and didn’t see the creature until he was practically on top of it. How he missed an eight-foot tall grey monster with teeth like daggers and huge gorilla arms was incomprehensible.