The Queen of the Dead

by Peter Meredith

  Work bogged down, grinding almost to a halt. They lost a few people who slipped away from work parties and took to the hills. A couple of others tried to swim from the island—at least one of whom was eaten by one of the putrefying zombies that wallowed around in the bay. Her screams were mercifully cut short as the beast pulled her down into the cold depths.

  Of the remaining five hundred, approximately half went somewhere to hide while the rest sat by their fires crying, moaning and generally lamenting their terrible luck.

  “If you ask me, they were lucky to live this long,” Gerry remarked, as he took another nip from the flask he had refilled four times that night. “Luckily, most of the work had been done before ‘The Great Freakout.’ We got only some odds and ends left to fetch from the city. Everything else is more or less in place. You’re welcome.” He tipped the flask back again and drank the last of it. Not the last of his stash, of course. He had enough hooch to keep him good and drunk until the end of the battle.

  So half your army is hiding and the other half is doing nothing but crying? Eve squealed, laughing so hard that part of her evil mirth slipped out of Jillybean’s mouth.

  “I don’t see what’s so damned funny?” Gerry snapped. “Unless you got some newer plan, we, all of us are gonna die.”

  This had Eve laughing so hard it reverberated through Jillybean’s skull and that disjointed, turned around feeling became so acute that she spun in place, trying to get her feet and her mind in sync. She ended up stumbling and was caught by Mike and Jenn.

  Gerry made the mistake of smirking with Stu close enough to see it in the dark. One long stride brought him within inches of Gerry’s face which he promptly bloodied with a single heavy punch. As Gerry lay on the ground spitting blood and making questioning noises deep in his throat, Stu grabbed his flask and threw it in the bay.

  Thinking he might be attacked by some of the others who had been helping, he spun and glared. The glare eased at who he was facing. Some were not surprising: the ex-slave James Smith and the mariner, George Parry. They were tough and dedicated. But Stu would never have believed that Donna Polston and Lois Blanchard, both of whom were hunched from exhaustion, would still be working after so many hours. Dango Ferem, Jillybean’s one time guard who she had smashed over the head, was another unexpected face, as was Rebecca Haigh who looked shockingly robust for having been on death’s door not so long before.

  There was also Johanna Murphy who was practically unrecognizable in a pair of over-large jeans and a heavy jacket. And finally, Shaina Hale, lumpy head and all, was there. She tottered up to Jillybean, a look of concern crossing her simple features. “You was laughing. Should we be laughing, too?”

  Stu began shaking his head, however Jillybean found something in Shaina’s battered face that allowed her to pull herself up out of the darkness. In a very childlike way, Shaina needed her and that was something. “Maybe we should laugh. It’s better than being glum and it might actually help us.”

  Just because Dango might have been working for the cause as hard as anyone, didn’t mean he was a Jillybean fan. “How the hell will that help? It’ll make us look as crazy as you.”

  This ruffled a good number of feathers. Jillybean, still sitting on the dock, said, “Maybe we want to appear crazy. We need an edge in this battle. As much as I wished to, I can’t make this a battle of annihilation.” Shaina wasn’t the only one wearing a blank look at this. “A battle of annihilation is one in which we destroy our enemies completely. That’s not going to happen. The most we can hope for is to sting them hard and make them believe we will fight to the last man or woman. At a certain point they’re going to realize that they’re wasting their ammo as well as dying for nothing.”

  “And that is going to be funny?” Shaina asked, honestly trying to comprehend everything going on around her.

  Jillybean stood and smiled at her. “We laugh to show them how tough we are. We laugh to show them we’re not afraid. Can you do that for me?”

  “Like a favor? Sure, I can do that! I like to laugh. Do you want me to laugh now or should I wait?”

  A part of Jillybean wanted to hear the laugh right then. “No. I say we wait until we see them or better yet, wait until they get close and then we’ll let loose with a good belly laugh, okay?”

  Shaina said that would be okay with her. Next to her James let out a quiet rumbling chuckle. “I’ve heard worse ideas than going down with a laugh. And you shouldn’t listen to him.” He jacked a thumb at Gerry. “It’s not even as close to being as bad as he was saying. People aren’t hiding, they’re sleeping.”

  “Well, it’s time we wake them!” Jillybean cried. “The Corsairs will leave at first light. We need to be fully prepared.”

  She roused up the island with a renewed vigor and the more she gave out orders, starting with finding Gerry’s stash of hooch and destroying it, the more she was nearly entirely herself, though Eve was never far away. It seemed to Jillybean that the evil girl was always lurking over her shoulder, biding her time, waiting for the smallest sign of weakness.

  Jillybean couldn’t make a single mistake; not with Eve and certainly not with the Corsairs. She couldn’t even make one with her own people. Gerry the Greek had not been that far off in his assessment of their mental state. An electric fear strummed along the chilly predawn light as they came quickly awake, all with the same whispered question: “Are they here?”

  Anxiety pervaded the island and to counter it Jillybean turned to Jenn, who was once again relegated to the position of royal babysitter, or so it seemed to her. Jillybean asked, “I think it might help moral immeasurably if you could find us an incontestable, though not necessarily genuine, positive sign.”

  Jenn had not followed half of that. “You want me to see a sign? For real? I can’t just make them happen. That’s not the way it works. Everyone knows that.”

  “Actually, what everyone knows is that you are the be all, end all when it comes to these sorts of supernatural fallacies. So, if you could just help me out and…3580!” The number she had been looking for earlier just jumped into her head, fully formed. Her happiness over the small victory dimmed quickly. The number represented how many Corsairs were coming. Seven to one odds were long, long odds, especially when the Corsairs’ many other advantages were factored in.

  “3580?” Jenn was very confused as well as scared. It seemed as though the cold and the fear had gotten down deep into her bones and she had begun shivering.

  “Don’t worry about that. It was just a math problem I was working on. What I need you to do is give me some of that old fashioned hocus-pocus. It doesn’t have to be big. Really, whatever the opposite of a black cat is will work.”

  No one wanted a good sign more than Jenn, but to actively search for one felt wrong. She felt as though she were playing with fire as she stared upwards at the stars. Her intuition proved correct. The stars were no help because they were fading as the sun was just beginning to show itself. Dread flooded her. The sky was flooding with a terrible, violent red.

  Jenn crossed herself three times, saying, “Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in morning sailors take warning. We’re in trouble, Jillybean. You can’t make the signs obey you and see what happened?” Her stomach began to churn and she looked toward the dock for Mike.

  “Hey, settle down. This is a good sign. Red sky in the morning—we are not sailors,” Jillybean noted. “They are the sailors and they are the ones who should heed this warning. I bet they’re seeing that same sunrise and are just about…”

  “Mike is a sailor!” Jenn practically cried. Then her heart almost stopped as she saw him coming up towards them. “Let me go with him,” she suddenly demanded. “I know you think you need me here with you, but Mike needs me more. And…and didn’t you say his role was crucial?”

  Jillybean shook her head. “Your role is even more crucial, vastly more crucial.”

  Mike came up and saw the two staring hard at each other, neither giving an inch.
He found it strange that in the early light the two looked very similar. “Hi. I just wanted to let you know we’re ready to go.” He gestured down at the Saber. Its deck overflowed with wooden crates and people, while from its sides hung sheets of steel, sandwiching an inch thick polycarbon fiber cloth that had such a high tensile strength that it acted very much like kevlar. His might be the most dangerous mission and it called for the most protection.

  He could be riding in a floating tank for all Jenn cared. The red sunrise had been a warning for her and she was just about out of her mind. “Already? No, you can’t leave yet.”

  “I have to,” he said, trying to hide his own fear. He had seen the sunrise. Every sailor worth their salt took a red sunrise to heart, especially a sailor going into battle. His breath rattled in his lungs, still he smiled. “You know it’s a long trip. With this wind it’ll be four hours there and three back. Time is against us. I shouldn’t even be here talking to you.” He was there, regardless of the minutes that suddenly seemed to fly by because he had to kiss her goodbye.

  Jillybean gave him a quick hug, whispered, “Good luck,” and moved away to watch the two as they kissed briefly and then fell into a crushing embrace, neither wanting to pull away. Jenn’s hands were gripping fists that shook. They both trembled in their long embrace and Jillybean was just wondering how she was going to separate them when Stu came up.

  A grunt from him broke the two up. “Sorry, but it’s time.”

  Mike broke out a big smile to show that everything would be just fine. Jenn’s was watery and kept trying to dribble away to nothing. “I love you,” he murmured, so that only she could hear.

  “Really?” She felt a little like she’d just received an unexpected present and a real smile blossomed, lighting up her face. “I love you, to,” she said just before the smile froze. “Come back to me in one piece…and without any holes in you, either. Promise?”

  “I promise.” He gulped down a large swallow of nothing, gave her another lying smile and a warm kiss and was gone. He looked back once, tripped over someone’s pack, went red in the face and then jogged the rest of the way down to the dock. Jenn stared after him.

  Stu and Jillybean pretended not to notice her tears. They moved off to the side. “I have to go, too my Queen,” Stu said. He was not going with Mike. He was taking the Puffer out to the Golden Gate Bridge to anchor their first line of defense. “I feel like something of a scrub, letting Mike get there first…”

  Quickly, Jillybean held up a hand. “Don’t. Don’t say it. Maybe if we live and the Corsairs have been properly dealt with, you can say it. Not till then.”

  It was such a rare thing that Stu let anyone past his rough exterior that few people ever heard him speak in anything other than a growl. “Why not?” he growled.

  She couldn’t look him in the face as she admitted, “Because I’m not good. I’m not a good person. Sorry, but I’m afraid you’re going to be just another casualty left in my wake.” She saw he was about to argue and she barked, “No! Now’s not the time to get into this.”

  “We haven’t heard from the scouts yet. We have time. Why can’t I say I love you? I’ve already told you that I don’t care what you did in your past.” She glared in answer and he glared right back. “You know I could just ask Eve.”

  The glare disappeared in a snap. “Don’t, please don’t,” she begged. “Please. If you really love me you’d let this go.”

  His broad shoulders drooped and he opened his mouth to speak, only just then the radio at his belt seemed to come alive as a tinny, static-ravaged voice cried, “They’re going! The Corsair boats just put up their sails and they’re heading south. They’re heading towards you guys!”

  “Got it, thanks,” Stu answered, sounding only tired. He looked at Jillybean. “I love you and I’m not going to take it back so you’re going to have to deal with it.”

  “She loves you, too.” It was Jillybean’s lips moving, but it wasn’t her and it wasn’t Eve.

  “Sadie?” Stu asked. She nodded and he growled again, this time in frustration. “We need Jillybean back and I don’t have time. Jenn can you deal with this?”

  Before she could come up with a math problem or something sciency, Sadie shook her head. “Don’t bother. The Queen is duking it out with Eve but I don’t think she’s going to win this time. She’s tired of being Jillybean. I think she’d rather hide than come back.”

  Chapter 41

  Stu left Jenn with the order to “Fix her, now!” He didn’t think they could win without Jillybean’s mind and if Eve managed to prevail they would all be better off committing suicide.

  That had been three hours before. Three long hours of hauling rocks from the mainland to a hundred different points along the bridge. They had to be prepared to fight anywhere along the span which meant they had to have stockpiles set every fifty feet or so. They had gathered thousands of rocks each roughly the size of his head.

  While this had been going on, another team led by George Parry had used the Puffer to haul the twenty-two buoys into a long line beneath the bridge. They were anchored from above and kept on a very tight leash to keep them from straying too far. They were then connected by lengths of rope, each as thick as his wrist.

  A third team readied fires in San Francisco to attract zombies while a fourth dug trenches and bunkers along the now completely barren Marin Headlands.

  Three hours had gone very fast and now the first black sails could be seen. Despite a strong ocean breeze, they came on slowly in three echelons, slowing almost to a stop when they were within a mile of the bridge. The lead elements turned northward.

  “Are they leaving?” James Smith asked. Even with his voice coming through the radio and being muffled by gusts of wind, the relief in it came through with perfect embarrassing clarity. He was in charge of the thirty men and four women who were supposed to hold off any flank attack coming from the north.

  “No,” Gerry snapped, sounding both peevish and distant. In spite of his earlier drunkenness and the cruel pounding in his head, he was in charge of anchoring the defenses leading to the southern part of the bridge. To accomplish this he had only a half dozen men and a whole lot of matches.

  He stood on the top of the VA medical center, a hundred yards from where San Francisco ended and the Pacific began. “They must have seen the buoys and they’re just wearing away. Just you watch, they’ll all make the turn and basically go in a big circle. Do I light the fires or what?”

  Stu didn’t know. He knew eventually they would but was it best to do it now? Or was it better to wait? With no room for error, he tried Jenn again, whispering into the radio in something akin to a babble, “Hello? Jenn? Hey, is she back? They’re here and I’m not sure what the best thing to do is.”

  Jenn answered in a quiet, nervous voice, “She is, but she’s all over the place. I don’t know if I can keep her together. She sometimes…okay she saw me. Here she is.”

  “Who is this?” Jillybean asked, suspiciously in a way that wasn’t like her at all.

  “It’s Stu Currans. Are you okay?”

  A long anxious pause came in which Stu watched the sailboats with his stomach twisting and turning. Finally Jillybean spoke in a quiet, apologetic voice, “I-I am doing okay. I’m here, at least. And, and I see them. They’re splitting up just like we…I mean I knew they would.”

  I see them? A cold finger went up Stu’s back and he turned to look around at the congested lanes of traffic that filled the bridge. The only people there were his team of sixty men and women. “You see them? Where are you?”

  “Still on Alcatraz. Jenn set me up with a telescope. She thought that me being able to see you would help bring me back. Sadie didn’t think it would but she was wrong. I’ve been watching you.”

  “Really?”

  She laughed softly, the radio cutting in and out making it sound like she was barking. “Sorry if you feel violated.” She sounded more confident, now, more like herself. “I believe we should ligh
t the fires. It will limit their options and perhaps convince them to hurry an attack.”

  Stu quickly gave Gerry the order and then switched back to Jillybean’s frequency. “What about Mike? Have you heard anything at all?”

  There was a long pause and then Stu caught part of a sigh as Jillybean said in that uncertain voice, “Not a word.” This was followed by another, longer pause. Then: “I think we should switch to the open channel. Sadie, me, uh, I think we should.” They both hesitated. Any chance for a private word or to express their feelings without being overheard was seconds away from being lost.

  Although Stu couldn’t hear anything but static, he could picture Jillybean’s face in turmoil, just like his was. When he didn’t say anything, Jillybean whispered, “Bye,” with a dreadful finality as if she wasn’t just saying bye to him, but to the two of them.

  She then turned her radio to what she referred to as the “battle net.” After a long pause where Stu only stared at the hunk of plastic in his hand, hoping she would come back on, he switched over as well. There was plenty of chatter from the other radios, but neither Stu nor Jillybean said anything as Gerry and his team lit a dozen fires along the northwest corner of San Francisco. They were oil-fed fires set with purposeful intent. The buildings went right up, looking bright even with the morning sun blazing away in a perfect blue sky.

  Although they were far off shore, the fleet shied away from that stretch of the city. Just as Jillybean had guessed, there were many survivors of the last attack among them and they wanted nothing to do with the undead. The fleet milled in uncertainty for a good twenty minutes before the leader of the Corsairs sent three ships darting towards the bridge.

  “Hold your fire!” Stu yelled. “Everyone keep down.” This was passed up and down the line and it almost wasn’t needed. Most of the people on the bridge were already cowering.

  The three boats pulled up several hundred yards away and through his scoped rifle, Stu could see the captain of the largest boat gazing at the buoys and the ropes through a set of binoculars. When he started sweeping the bridge with his glasses, Stu ducked back down.