Generation Z (Book 6): The Queen Unchained

by Meredith, Peter

  Jillybean hadn’t saved them, and worse, she was building engines of war for the Corsairs.

  Chapter 13

  Puget Sound, Washington

  The fog hid the slave, but not her whimpering. Zophie Williams started in again as soon as Emily reached the edge of the Sound.

  The child cringed and stopped as the icy water lapped around her ankles. Please be quiet! Emily wanted to hiss. I can’t help you, so please just die quietly. It was a horrible, horrible thought, one which she was properly embarrassed by, and yet Emily wouldn’t take it back. Zophie was going to die.

  She’d probably die just getting on the boat. “And it’s not like we’re going anywhere. There isn’t any wind. So maybe she’s just better off where…”

  “Th-there’s e-enough wind.”

  Emily jumped, not realizing how close she was to the Guardian. Having managed to somehow pull his armor back on, he was a grey man in a grey world. The only color about him was the stark white of his face and the deep red fluid leaking from beneath his chest plate. Emily pulled her eyes away from him and turned her glance upward to where the sky should have been. As far as she could tell, there was only a breath of air struggling to move the fog.

  “Enough to move the boats?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “B-Barely. Don’t l-leave the slave. It’s n-not her fault th-that she got hurt.”

  Ashamed of herself, Emily hung her head. “I wasn’t going to. Not really.” Not far away, a zombie moaned and she used it as an excuse to go check on her uncle, who was supposed to be making sure the Harbinger was empty. And if the boat just happened to float away when she got on it, that wouldn’t be her fault, would it?

  Neil splashed down right in front of her, dunking himself completely. He probably would have drowned in five feet of water if she hadn’t been right there to preserve what was left of him. When he came up, it looked like the top of his head had been mostly sheared off. His rounded skull bone was staring her right in the face. A noise that was somewhere between a meaty burp and a groan escaped her as she pointed.

  “Hmm?” He seemed confused—she felt he should have seemed dead. “What? Oh right, the head thing.” He flopped his scalp back over and squished it down so that pink juices mixed with the water streaming off of him.

  Other than the altogether disgusting flap of his head coming off, the dunking seemed to have done him a world of good. Layers of mud and blood had been washed away, making him look far less dead. It was true that he didn’t look exactly alive, still it was an improvement.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “And how did you get here? The last time I saw you, you had fallen off the Queen’s Revenge.”

  “Not by taking a short cut, I can tell you that. There was a big fight and then we broke into Hoquiam to rescue Jillybean, but that didn’t work out and I’m afraid Stu probably died.”

  “Stu? The guy from San Francisco? That’s too bad. He was nice. Oh, wait.” She took a peek over her shoulder to where Troy Holt was struggling to get to his feet. “That’s that Guardian friend of Jillybean’s, isn’t it?” Now, she was doubly ashamed about wanting to leave him and the slave. She had only met him very briefly during their flight aboard the Queen’s Revenge, and he had seemed a decent and honorable man. And cute, as well.

  “Guardian? I guess he is, though we really haven’t had time to talk about religion and such. Hey, look at that. I think he might be hurt.” His wound had to be bad for Neil to notice it.

  Together, they helped the Guardian to the Harbinger, which was the closer of the two boats. Getting him on board was another thing. Even with the partial use of his arms and legs, it was a struggle, one that they would have to repeat with Zophie Williams. Only with her, instead of stoic grunts of pain, she let out little shrieks that brought more than one zombie crashing through the water.

  The first was a small one, maybe only six and a half feet. It was trampled into the ooze by the next one that brought with it a wave of its own. This creature was so big that it dislodged both boats and sent them back into the fog, adrift on the Sound. By itself, the zombie was so large that when it grabbed the rail it tipped the Harbinger practically on its side.

  “I got this,” Neil claimed, hoisting an M4 that looked large in his small hands. It took him more shots than Emily could count to finally kill the monster. “You know, I think there’s something wrong with this gun,” he declared, turning a scarred lip up at it. “I think it’s got a bent barrel.” Before anyone could say anything, he tossed the gun into the water.

  Troy rolled his eyes.

  Neil shrugged. “What? We don’t need broken guns lying around, Troy. They’re just a waste of ammo. Well, look at us, we got ourselves a boat. Now we can make it home. Your mom must be worried sick. I bet she has the entire island ready to march off to war.” He beamed at her not realizing that his words, features and expressions didn’t match. “What do you guys think? Should we cut away that other boat?”

  He had a knife out and was sawing away at a rope in a flash. “No!” both Troy and Emily cried.

  “What?”

  “Don’t cut us away,” Emily said, hurrying over to the port side to take his knife. “Gunner’s over there. He’s hurt.”

  “Gunner?” Neil asked, looking over at the Dead Fish in confusion. His expression changed a second later. “Oh, you mean Captain Grey.”

  Emily had just taken the knife from his hand. “Captain Grey? No, I’m talking about Gunner. Jeeze, Uncle Neil, you must have hit your head harder than you thought.”

  “Yeah,” he answered. His look wasn’t one of embarrassment as she expected. Instead he had that cheesy smile going, the one he used whenever he was trying to pass off a bad lie. “I meant Gunner. Ha-ha. It’s Gunner, right Troy?”

  The Guardian, breathing in short, sharp hitches, was half-sitting, half-lying on one of the cushioned benches. “D-Don’t bring m-me into this.” He raised a bloody finger and pointed at the rope Neil had been about to cut. “Th-that r-rope isn’t holding the, the, the two boats together…either way. It’s the sh-shroud…” Unable to finish, he gestured toward the mast.

  “Are you saying the rope is part of all this,” Neil waved his hands around to indicate the interwoven confusion of lines that somehow made a sailboat go. Troy nodded. Neil laughed. “It’s a good thing I didn’t cut it. Ha-ha.” The laugh had been forced and it died quickly. “So. Should we go get Cap…” He blinked before continuing, “Should we go get Gunner? I mean, we don’t need two boats, right? And this one seems sturdy enough.”

  Even in the depths of his pain, which was far more considerable than he was letting on, Troy couldn’t believe his ears. One didn’t just give up a boat, willy-nilly. The idea was sickening. He grunted, “We keep both boats.”

  “Also, I don’t think he’ll live if we move him,” Emily added. “Can we really tie the boats together? So, they’ll both move together, you know?” Troy nodded wearily. He then pantomimed: nose to tail; thirty feet. It meant going back into the water, but since she couldn’t trust Neil to tie even a simple granny knot, she went in with one end of a length of rope in her teeth.

  “What about the wheel? Which way do I have to point it?” she called from the Dead Fish.

  A second later, Neil bawled across the thirty feet separating them, “He says make it neutral for now!”

  “I can hear you just fine, Uncle Neil. There’s no need to shout.” She tied the rope off at the bow and then decided to check on Gunner. Just as she turned, she remembered the leak. “I forgot to mention that this boat is sinking. It got shot like eight times and now there’s water in the bottom compartments. What do I do about that?”

  There was a delay, then Neil hissed out, “See if there’s any hull patch kits aboard. He says they’re easy to use. If not see if they have any towels. What? Oh, dowels. I thought he said towels. If you can see the holes, hammer the dowels into them. For the ones you can’t see, you’ll have to go beneath the boat. Do you need some help? I can
be over in a second.”

  “And have to save you from drowning?” she said under her breath. “No thank you, Uncle Neil. I got this.” She went below and found Gunner staring at her from over the kettle. He had tired eyes. Everything below them was covered by a blanket he had pulled up to cover the hideousness of his face.

  “You’re okay?” he asked. “I heard guns.” His voice was soft and sad.

  There was something in those eyes that made her pause. He thinks he’s going to die, she thought. And he doesn’t know what to think about that. Aloud, she said, “I’m fine, not a scratch. What about you? Are you okay? Do you need anything?” A look of relief passed across her youthful features when he shook his head. “That’s good because this boat is sinking and I gotta fix the holes or she’ll go down.”

  He didn’t seem to care. “Do me one favor. I heard Neil. When you finish plugging the holes, send him over. I want to talk to him.”

  “You know Neil? How?”

  “From before you were born. Also, I just ran into him a few days ago. Him and Stu Currans. Is Stu with him? I’d like to see him…” She had shaken her head in that way that everyone understood. “Oh, he’s dead. That’s too bad. I liked him for Jillybean. She needs someone who’ll have a calming effect on her.”

  Emily stood looking down at him, feeling as though she was missing something important. It was driven from her mind when the boat let out an unexpected groan. “The holes!” she cried before running around searching for something to patch the boat with. It wasn’t hard to find since one cabinet next to the galley had the word EMERGENCY stenciled on it.

  Along with a well-stocked med-kit were two fire extinguishers, a flare gun with a dozen shells and a box filled with different boat-related repair kits. There were two different types of hull repair kits. The first was designed to be used when the boat was out of the water. The second was what she needed.

  There were wooden dowels and circles of cork all in different diameters. There was also a short-handled mallet, a tube of 3M5200 sealant, a plastic squeegee, a roll of fiberglass tape, and finally, a little three-page manual. Seeing it had her breathing a sigh of relief. What was even better was that the emergency repairs were childishly simple. All she had to do was find the holes, pick out a dowel or piece of cork that was the tiniest bit larger than the hole and then tap it into place with the mallet.

  The relief was short-lived. She could only get at three of the holes from inside the boat. For the rest, she would have to go beneath the boat with the sealant in one hand a strip of the three-inch wide tape in the other.

  She paused at the back of the boat, suddenly afraid to go in. It would be dark down there. Dark as a midnight pit, where even the shadows were drowned. She would be blind, scrambling around, trying to feel for tiny holes while her lungs burned and her clothes grew tight, constricting her, keeping her from being able to…

  “Jeeze,” she whispered, her heart racing like mad. She was right on the edge of panic. It took her a few deep breaths before she could even think about going in, “Just for a look.” She expected that there would be nothing to look at, exactly.

  With the sun was dropping into the west behind layers of cloud and fog, the darkness beneath the boat was pure black, pierced only by thin rays of light coming from the bullet holes. They were dazzling in the inky water.

  She swam for the closest hole, thinking she’d have the boat fixed in no time. The procedure was simple: a quick squeeze of the sealant onto the tape before it was applied to the hole and voila, no more hole. She didn’t take into account the force of the vacuum created by the negative space in the hull relative to that of the surrounding water. The tape was sucked into the hole in a blink. Cursing silently she swam to the surface to get another piece of tape ready.

  This time she slapped it down and held it there with her palm. Although it seemed to hold, she didn’t trust it and went back to the surface for more. She put down four strips, one on top of the other, and then went to the next hole. Again and again, she broke the surface gasping for air, and each time she stared around in fear. There were zombies in the water with her. She could hear them, but couldn’t see them.

  Finally, the job was done; the first of many for her. She sent Neil over to see Gunner and while he was away, Emily raised the main on the Harbinger, and as the wind shifted, she was able to ease them to the northeast. This was with Troy’s help, of course. She thought the idea of going anywhere in the fog was insane, even at the walking pace they were currently making.

  As he knew exactly where they had started and he had charts of the Sound available, he wasn’t nervous at all; about sailing, that is. His chest wound was another matter. His death felt like it was only hours away, if not sooner, and he had a strange sensation of being incomplete. Spiritually, he was ready to die, and had been for years. The problem was that he still had too much to do.

  In essence, his quest was incomplete.

  He had come north to defeat the Black Captain. Not that he had expected to fight an epic one-on-one battle against him. He had simply hoped to do his part, which he knew in his heart was more than just running away with a slave and a demon.

  But now he had a boat. Two in fact. In his world, there was no clearer sign from God than this.

  “God loves me,” he whispered, as he watched the young girl going about the boat. Just then, she was checking on Zophie, shushing her so she could take her pulse. As she felt the pulse, she bit her lip and then gave the woman a strained smile.

  Next, Emily came to check on Troy. She had taken a stethoscope from the med-kit, but before she could place it on his chest, he asked, “Do you have…actual medical…training?”

  “Some. Not enough.”

  She went to apply the listening end a second time, and again he stopped her. “God has chosen me, and God will preserve me.” Her eyes went wide in alarm and he nodded, seeing that she understood. “You will…take the…bullet…out.”

  “No, no, no. I can’t. I’m not a surgeon.” The idea was ludicrous. It was laughable. It was insane. “I’m eleven years old, for goodness sakes.”

  “Then Neil…will do it.”

  Neil had drawn the two boats together and had somehow managed not to fall off either one as he climbed back over to the Harbinger. It was a near thing and if it hadn’t been for Emily leaping up to catch him, he would have gone right in. He gave her a brief smile that didn’t touch his baby blue eyes. “Neil will do what?”

  “Operate…on me,” Troy gasped. “Someone has to…or I’ll die.”

  “Have Emily do it.”

  She looked at him in shock. He shot her that brief smile again and then looked away. He was distracted. Something had happened on the other boat. “No, Emily won’t do it,” she said, “Because Emily can’t.”

  “Jillybean taught you. Maybe not everything, but enough. You’re his only hope, so get going.” He left them, going below deck. When he came back, he was stuffing a sheath of papers into one of his pockets. “I’ll be back to help in a few minutes.”

  Emily stopped him. “What did Gunner say to you? He told you something, I know it. I can tell by the way you’re acting.”

  “Uhhhh, he, uhhhh, just wanted me tooooo,” he dragged the word out for at least ten seconds as he thought of a lie. “To, uh check the holes. And that’s what I’m going to do. So while I’m doing that, you take care of things here.” Neil clambered quickly back across to the Dead Fish, leaving Emily on the verge of crying. Tears welled in her eyes, making them seem brighter and bigger and, in a nonsexual way, irresistible.

  The tears of a woman frequently undid a man. They couldn’t be fought with strength or dealt with intellectually, and were almost always a response to a problem that defied rational solutions. They were confusing. The tears cut through Troy’s pain, making him want to ignore his coming death and comfort her. “It’ll be…okay,” he hitched out and patted her shoulder.

  She didn’t think it would be. She was being asked to be the mature
adult in the group, to fix everyone’s problems, to cut into people, to sail ships and to fight Corsairs. She had to keep everyone safe, she had to feed them, and change their bandages, and pretend not to be afraid when all she wanted to do was go below and hide. She was exhausted, hungry and cold. And she was just a kid. This wasn’t an excuse, it was a fact. She was a kid who missed her mom and her warm home and her soft bed.

  Sometimes, hiding was a kid’s best option and she took it. “I should check on the uh, boat. This boat, I mean.” She went below without looking back. A fire burned in a squat kettle that was very much like the one in the Dead Fish. It had burned low, but still put out enough light for her to see that the Harbinger was both oddly clean and monumentally disgusting. The common areas were uncluttered and smelled of concentrated lemon; the cabins were filthy and smelled of feet. All except for the captain’s cabin. His looked as though it was regularly and thoroughly cleaned.

  Emily went and sat on the bed and let the tears go. They were hot on her cold cheeks. She shivered and held herself and cried. It should have been a cathartic moment. Her tears were a condensed and liquified form of stress, and each one would have brought her closer to a form of acceptance of her current predicament—if she’d been allowed actual time to release them.

  After only a minute, she jumped as something began thumping on deck almost directly over her head.

  With the tears still on her cheeks, she raced up the stairs, thinking that a zombie had somehow gotten on board. It was only Zophie Williams. “Hey, girl! I need some drugs. What’s in that box? Huh? I need some pain meds, okay. You gotta help me.”

  A flare of anger erupted in Emily; she wasn’t even being allowed to cry in peace!

  Her anger didn’t last. She was too emotionally drained to sustain anything so bitter. With a sigh and a shrug of one shoulder, she looked in the box. “Motrin is about it.”

  Zophie groaned in despair and pain. “Fine. Just gimme some.” Emily shook out four pills, thought better of it and added four more. They didn’t seem to help.