Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned

by Meredith, Peter

  “There’s some clothes that will fit you guys upstairs,” he told them as he laid his pack down in the living room and fished out a fresh set of black clothes.

  Jenn had been wet and miserably cold all during the march; she was the first upstairs. There was little for her to choose from. One of the people who had lived in the house had been a junior in high school and her taste in clothing was nothing short of scandalous. Jenn found shorts that were so short they could have doubled for a pair of panties. Skirts that were only a light breeze away from baring everything. Even the jeans were skintight.

  In the end, she went with a pair of yoga pants, shorts and one of the skirts. Over the top of this she put on a t-shirt and a man’s sweatshirt that still had a hint of cologne clinging to it.

  Mike and Stu wore extremely baggy jeans and dark sweaters that made them both appear gaunt.

  Gunner had slipped away and did not return until nightfall where he found the three of them sleeping in a single upstairs bedroom. They had pulled mattresses in from the other rooms and lined them up. Jenn woke first and found the twisted man staring at her from the corner, where he sat with his legs stuck out in front of him. His veil was off and in the starlight, she could see his long teeth and scars.

  “Sorry,” she whispered when he caught her eyes lingering.

  He covered up quickly. “I have meat when you’re hungry,” he intoned and walked out of the room.

  The meat turned out to be a wild turkey. Even without the yams and gravy it was delicious eaten right off the spit. When they were all full, Gunner sat down on a rocking chair, stretched his legs out again and began to rhythmically sway. “I saved you, I protected you while you slept, and I’ve fed you. Now it’s your turn. It’s story time, just like you promised.”

  Chapter 27

  Mike and Jenn glanced nervously in Stu’s direction. They had all agreed he would tell any story if it came to it. Because of the slow way he spoke, they figured he was the least likely to reveal anything best kept under wraps. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything,” Gunner answered. He wasn’t smiling now. He was staring with fantastic intensity at Stu. His eyes were like two wet hunks of coal. “I would start at the beginning.”

  “That’ll take some time,” Stu drawled, thinking he would spin out such an overstretched yarn that Gunner would be soon asleep. He started by admitting they were from Alcatraz, originally. “I came with my brother not long after all this started. Back then the island was crowded. It was a real good place to keep safe from the zombies, but we were starving half the time. We fished every day from the rocks or the pier, but it wasn’t long before there wasn’t a fish left alive.

  “When we couldn’t catch anything, we begged or starved. I remember we stayed alive for a few weeks by eating seagulls we’d catch with nets. We ate every part of those birds, except the feathers and the beaks.”

  Gunner nodded, enjoying the story. “How’d they taste?”

  Stu couldn’t remember the exact taste, not in a way he could describe other than saying, “Greasy. Nasty. The situation didn’t last. Not so many people lived through that first winter. Some sort of disease killed off a bunch of us. It got so bad that people began stealing the boats and disappearing until we were left with very few. It wasn’t long after, that Julie’s dad came and sorta set things right.”

  “Would you say that was ten years ago?” Gunner asked, eyeing Jenn now. She felt his gaze and she knew she would wilt before it, so she stared into the glowing fires.

  “Right around then,” Stu answered. “He was a good man and a strong leader. He basically adopted me when my brother disappeared.” Jenn had never heard this story; of course, she barely ever heard any stories from Stu. This might have been the most she had ever heard him say in one sitting.

  Gunner seemed uncomfortable by the sudden silence. He drummed his fingers on the wooden armrest. “And was he your real father, Julie?” The way he accented the name told them he didn’t believe it was hers at all. She didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded. He rumbled displeasure at her silence and asked, “How old are you?”

  “F-Fifteen.”

  He didn’t believe that either. “Really? Stand up and come a little closer. I want to take a better look at you, Julie.” It was not a request, it was an order that she could not deny—his good hand was on the butt of his ancient Glock and Jenn was under no delusion. She was sure that he could pull it in a flash and kill the three of them with ease.

  Except for the soft crackling of the fire, the room was dead silent as she stood with jerking, almost robotic motions and went to stand before him, where, she was inspected from head to toe like an award-winning hog. He even had her bend down so that he could look into her eyes. She felt naked, her mind an open book, her soul laid bare. On the other hand, his mind was impenetrable; his thoughts and feelings hidden in the inky darkness of his watchful eyes. Still, she trembled. He was loathsome and sinister.

  “Alright,” he said, at last. He allowed her to sit back down and laughed loudly when he saw Mike glaring. “I’d keep an eye on her, son. She’s worth a pretty penny to the Corsairs, one way or the other.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Mike asked through gritted teeth. “One way or another? What ways are you talking about?”

  Gunner took a long time to answer, “I think we all know.” Eyes shot around the room and he laughed again. “Slaves, son. The Corsairs like their slave girls. They snatch them up whenever they can. That’s why you need me and that’s why you’re going to have to put up with me. I can keep you safe or I can drag you all back to the harbor in chains.”

  “And all you want in return is stories?” Mike asked, dubiously.

  “He wants information,” Stu corrected. “No one is lonely enough to risk their lives to hear fishing stories. Are you something like a spy, Gunner?”

  Gunner’s eyes crinkled, though this time it didn’t seem as though he were smiling. “Come back when you look like me and then you can tell me all about loneliness. Until then, I’d keep your mouth closed on the subject.”

  Stu nodded, his face impassive. “Fair enough. But you didn’t answer the question. Are you a spy?”

  “Like James Bond?” He cackled again and then when he saw the old reference meant nothing to the three he laughed again, this time shaking his head. “Who would listen to me?”

  “The Corsairs for one,” Stu answered.

  “Because they like fishing stories so much? No, you’re just paranoid, which makes me wonder why? What are you afraid of letting out? Something exciting? Something interesting? I think you should finish your story.” His eyes flicked back to Jenn for just the briefest moment.

  Stu knew he couldn’t say anything interesting at all as it would just lead to more questions, which would only lead to more lies and he wasn’t a good liar, especially under the proverbial gun. His best bet was to stall for time until he could think of some dull, relatively simple reason why they had been on a Corsair boat and why they looked as though they had fought a recent battle, and why there had been fresh blood on the deck. He nodded slowly, stared into the fire for what felt like ages, and listened to the far-off howl of a zombie.

  He took his time coming to the realization that no lie would suffice. “You know I don’t think tonight is a good time for more stories. We’re all pretty tired. I know I am.” He stood and stretched, letting loose with a fake yawn. “Tomorrow, I promise.” Mike also stood and stretched. Jenn stood up, turned partially away from Gunner; she could feel his eyes crawling all over her.

  Other than those searching eyes, Gunner made no move or sound at all. It became uncomfortable. Even Stu felt the odd need to say something and he blurted out: “We’ll see you in the morning. Bright and early. Good night.” Still nothing from Gunner. He watched them file past and head up to the room they shared.

  Mike locked the door behind them and put his ear to it as Stu and Jenn held their breath a few feet away. He listened for
over a minute before he straightened up and whispered, “I can’t hear anything. He’s probably down there whittling human leg bones into flutes. Is it me or is that guy the creepiest thing on two legs?”

  “It’s not just you,” Jenn said. “He wigs me out, too. We all know he’s after Jillybean. We should just tell him that I’m not her. Maybe he’ll leave us alone.”

  Stu was at the window, pulling back the blanket they had hung over it. He stared out, saying, “And maybe he’ll turn us over to the Corsairs since he won’t have need of us anymore. I think we should try to string him along until we can overpower him or slip away. All it’ll take is a second where he’s not paying attention. Then we hit hard and fast.”

  “Do you want to kill him?” Jenn asked. “He did save us.”

  “We don’t have to kill him, if you don’t want,” Stu said. “But we have to disarm him no matter what.”

  They all agreed to this. After pushing a dresser in front of the door, they fell asleep quickly, even though they had spent the better part of the day in bed.

  Stu was up before dawn. Alone, he lifted one end of the dresser away from the door and crept downstairs. Gunner was gone, and Stu had the impression that he had been gone for some time. Perhaps all night. Even a few hours were long enough to get to Grays Harbor and back again with a posse of Corsairs.

  He turned on his heel and rushed back upstairs. Throwing on his still damp boots, he hissed to Mike and Jenn, “This is our chance!” In under a minute the three were dressed and out the door, each pausing only long enough to grab a chunk of the leftover turkey. They had been traveling northeast; now Stu led them directly east where the sky was beginning to glow along the edge of the dark horizon.

  After half a mile, he slowed their frantic pace and began to pick his way with more care. At night, zombies were almost blind; now that the sky was beginning to brighten the danger from them increased a hundredfold. They began to creep through the thin winter forests, always on the alert.

  They came upon a paved road that was carpeted in wet leaves. As if they were dodging sniper fire, they took turns running across it, or in Stu’s case, limping across it. Mike frowned as he watched him. “Shouldn’t your leg be better by now? How long has it been?”

  Stu had no idea. Without the constant reminder of calendars or work or school, days tended to run together in a blur. “A month maybe? I’m not sure. I think the muscles are healing wrong. It’ll be okay once we get to Bainbridge. How far do you think it is?”

  He had been loopy on pain meds for most of the trip south and time had taken on a deceptive nature. They might have been traveling for days or weeks. Neither Jenn or Mike were sure since a good part of their trip had been by motorized boat. They added “map” to their growing list of needed items.

  Finding a house in that wilderness was difficult. There were endless hills to climb, icy and swollen streams to cross, and zombies to dodge. Without weapons, they had no choice but to hide from the dead. It was miles before they came to the first house, which was a little box of a place with a detached over-sized garage that had once doubled as a barn. Now it was the home of an owl which glided silently away as they approached.

  The house had been picked over many times and was stripped of all the essentials: food, guns, and gas. It did have plenty of dusty, but dry clothing. Jenn found herself in boy’s jeans and a hoodie with a matching vest, the latter two items in Seahawk blue and green and emblazoned with the Seahawk logo.

  Stu was decked out like a lumberjack, complete with flannel coat. There were no other coats, so Mike wore layers of sweaters and shirts to stay warm. The three also took the time to fashion quick and easy ghillie suits/ponchos out of blankets and torn-up clothes. They had a vagabond sort of appearance to a human eye. To zombies, they were a confusing mishmash of stripes that did not look much like a person at all.

  The ghillie suits had their first trial ten minutes after leaving the house. Stu kept them on an eastward course until the land began to open up into what had once been farmland. They began to skirt around to the north where the pine forest gave way to fruit trees that had once existed in perfectly manicured rows, and were now almost hopelessly intertwined. The cool air was ripe with the sickly-sweet stench of rotting apples.

  Over time, the orchard had attracted a number of zombies that had grown immensely fat and huge. One mountain of a beast was so large that it could bend the thickest of branches down to its gaping mouth. It not only ate the apples but also leaves and twigs. The zombie appeared ponderous and slow and yet, when another came too close to its feeding grounds the larger zombie attacked with shocking speed, tearing off the newcomer’s arm and beating it senseless with it.

  Mike’s stomach had long before digested the bit of turkey they’d taken and had been growling at the smell of the apples. That all changed as he watched the black blood squirting from the downed zombie.

  “Let’s go around,” he whispered.

  They quickly followed his lead and found themselves on a dirt trail, heading down yet another hill. The trail ended at a scum-covered green pond. When they turned to head back, they heard the unmistakable sounds of a zombie forcing its way down the trail—it was the beast zombie, its enormous belly leading the way. Although the creature probably wasn’t the tallest zombie they had ever seen, it was easily the fattest. The trail was five feet across and it broke branches on both sides as it came down.

  Stu reacted first. With only seconds to hide, he pushed the others off the trail where they squatted among the frost-withered ferns, pulling their blankets over their heads. Although it was foolish, they peeked out and watched the thing go by. When it entered the water, Jenn sighed and drew the sign of the cross. She was about to huddle back down beneath her blanket to wait out the zombie when she saw a curious sight: a pair of black eyes staring at her from the other side of the trail.

  It was a man!

  He was hiding fifteen feet from the edge of the little path; close enough for her to see the tattoos beneath his eyes and his long straggly beard. He wore a stained black leather coat and even dirtier blue jeans. It wasn’t a man at all, it was a Corsair. She quickly jabbed Mike in the ribs and pointed. In turn, he poked Stu.

  “Damn,” Stu breathed. The only thing he could think to do was pull the empty Sig Sauer and aim it at the Corsair.

  Unbelievably, the man smiled and mouthed: Go ahead and shoot. Even if he had bullets, Stu wouldn’t have shot unless his life depended on it and the Corsair knew it. The beast of a zombie would be on him in seconds if he did. Since the Corsair seemed equally impotent, Stu decided that their best bet was to try to slip away while they could.

  He gave Jenn a nudge and nodded for her to head back in the direction of the pine forest. She started inching away from the trail and the pond as quietly as possible. Mike followed, and Stu was about to go when the Corsair unexpectedly yelled: “Hey! Over here!”

  Stu’s first thought was that the Corsair had a dozen or so friends with him; anything less would be suicidal. He spun around in time to see the Corsair throw something high in the air and then drop back into the undergrowth.

  The zombie turned as well, his dull eyes following what Stu saw now was a spinning branch as it flew straight at him and almost landed on his head. He jerked in response, throwing his hands up as the branch came down. The branch thumped into his shoulder; he’d probably have a nasty bruise, but that was only if he lived through the next few minutes. When he peered down at the pond a second later, he found himself looking right into the zombie’s face with only thirty yards of open woods between them. For the second time in less than a day, he yelled: “Run!”

  Chapter 28

  At three minutes past midnight, the water that had been swirling beneath the wall’s foundation finally began to erode its footing. A long section of the wall, running from the gate to the arc in the northern wall where it swung west, began to lean outward and as it did, it let out a titanic groan. It sounded like it was dying.

 
Cracks appeared next and then hunks of cement began blasting off it, causing some of the townspeople to back away.

  “Keep digging!” Commander Walker bellowed, marching along the trench. He marched with his usual confident gait: his shoulders back, his thick chest thrust out and his strong arms swinging—not even a second later he was sprayed with dirt; he didn’t flinch and he didn’t chastise the soldier. His armor was already filthy and yet he looked pristine compared to his men. They had been digging for hours, trying to carve out an arcing ditch three-hundred yards long.

  Although he wanted it deep enough to divert the waters away from the interior of the town, flooding was a secondary concern of Walker’s. What he desperately needed was another defensive line, even one as archaic as a moat, which was what the trench was laughably being called.

  Militarily speaking, a seven-foot wide moat wasn’t much of an obstacle, but he didn’t have any better option. The wall had been so large and so grand that no one had ever thought it could be destroyed by anything short of artillery and, as everyone knew, there was no more artillery. In short, the Guardians had put all their defensive eggs in one basket and now the Queen was grinding that basket beneath her heel.

  More dirt flew, flicking off his armor as his men put in a last frenzy of digging. Although it had been inadvertent, Walker knew he deserved it. There was no denying that he had failed as a “Guardian.” It had been his job to prepare his Knights for any challenge, be it from zombie or human, and now people were going to die because he had lacked foresight. He deserved more than just dirt being flung at him.

  “It won’t be long now,” Bishop Wojdan murmured, appearing out of the dark like a small, soft apparition. He was still in his cassock and would likely remain in it throughout the fight; he liked to joke that it was his uniform. Walker shot him a look and saw he had his round head canted back. The Commander expected him to be staring at the wall; however he was gazing placidly up at the constellation Orion.