Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned Read online

  Generation Z

  The Queen Unthroned

  Book 4

  Peter Meredith

  Copyright 2018 Peter Meredith

  Kindle Edition

  This ebook is mine, all mine! You can’t have it, but you can read it, I suppose. But if you do, you must review it using all superlatives in your meager vocabulary—unless you don’t like it, then you can bugger off.

  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

  Generation Z: The Queen Unthroned

  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

  The Day Before

  The day that Eddie Sanders had been dreading for the last four years dawned just as he imagined it: cold and grey with a cutting wind that stole past his robe and rippled down the back of silk pajamas. Still half-asleep, he pulled his robe tighter across his thin chest, yawned without bothering to cover his mouth, and lit his cigarette.

  He took no pleasure in the taste. It tasted like sin and betrayal.

  Eddie smoked exactly one cigarette a day and he always smoked it first thing in the morning on his front stoop. The habit had started as an excuse fueled by his rabid paranoia. What if someone saw him come out every morning and look directly southeast across the sound? He didn’t have a dog to watch as it hunched out a turd onto his lawn, and he couldn’t pretend to be fetching the morning paper since there were no more morning papers.

  What if they did more than just notice him come out every morning like clockwork? What if they asked him why? The first time he might say it was because he liked the view and the second time he might have gotten away with checking the weather even though their weather always came from the northwest. But how long would these flimsy excuses hold up?

  That’s why he smoked the cigarettes even though he detested them to no end. And he had to actually smoke them; there could be no pretending because if someone saw, it would lead to more of the same sort of questions.

  In those first couple of years he’d been paranoid about everything and had walked around with his heart racing and his blood-pressure at dangerous levels. It got so bad that he could feel his pulse in his eyes. The fear and the paranoia reached a high point after the first year; then it gradually faded. Things looked like they were going to return to normal. Then Gina got pregnant and the fear grew so bad that it kept him up at night and he walked around with hollows under his eyes and a constant sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  If he’d been caught before, well that was that. They would kill him and Gina, and it would be deserved. But little Bobby was an innocent and there was no doubt he would suffer as the son of the only traitor in Bainbridge’s history. “The sins of the father…” was something he had muttered every morning during the pregnancy as he toked away.

  The paranoia gave way to the joys and trials of parenthood and Eddie looked exhausted for another reason for a good six months. Once the baby began sleeping through the night, Eddie had regained some peace. He still wrote his reports concerning the state of Bainbridge’s defenses, their food and ammunition stocks, and their political divisions, none of which had changed all that much in four years. And he still picked up the bullets that were left for him; what he called the wages of sin.

  So little had changed for so long that Eddie nearly missed the signal. The smoke drifting up from the Alki Point Lighthouse, across the chilly, still waters of Puget Sound formed a wavering grey feather rising against the backdrop of the grim morning. As if in a trance, he stared at it until the cigarette scorched the ginger hair from one of his fingers.

  He dropped it and, without caring if it burned down the island, went inside to where Gina was scrambling eggs with Bobby practically glued to her wide hip. She wore one of Eddie’s t-shirts and compared to her velvety dark skin, the shirt was a sharp white. “I have to go,” he told her. “Now.”

  “What? But your breakfast.”

  His stomach was beginning to churn and it would only get worse. If he ate, he would puke…and if he puked, people would ask why. He glanced at the windows, all of which seemed far too open…far too transparent. “It’s the signal.”

  “The sig…” She drew in a sharp breath and went stiff. She too glanced at the windows. “Are you sure?” she asked, yanking shut the drapes that hung over the kitchen window. Forgetting the eggs, she went to the dining room window and shut the drapes there as well. “It could be just a normal fire, you know. It could be some of the bandits making breakfast. We don’t know.”

  Before she could close up the entire house, Eddie grabbed her arm. “Maybe, but I doubt it and we can’t just ignore it. We have to, you know, proceed like it’s real.” He found his breath starting to run in and out faster and faster. He tried to control it by forcing himself to relax; however, the more he fought to control his breathing the more his hands shook. “And that means we have to act as normal as possible. If something, you know, bad happens we can’t have anything point towards us. We have to be normal. Got it?”

  Suddenly Gina didn’t know what normal was. She felt like puking and crying. She felt like hiding or packing a bag and running away—these felt like very normal responses just then. “But what do they want?” Her dark eyes were huge and unblinking. “You-you-you’ve been giving them the stuff, right? You never missed a single month. They know that, right?”

  Eddie began re-opening the drapes. He didn’t know what the Corsairs knew beyond the handwritten notes he left in the drop-off spot every month. The reports had so much sameness to them that after the first, he didn’t think they were worth one bullet a month, let alone ten. “The papers are never there the next month so that means someone is picking them up.”

  “Then why do they want to see you now?” she asked in a high, squeaking voice. She began bouncing Bobby on her hip, her agitation making it like a ride on a mechanical bull for the toddler. “Eddie, they may be done with you. Have you thought about
that? They may be tying up loose ends.”

  This had crossed his mind and he hadn’t been able to dismiss it. What Gina didn’t seem to realize was that she was a loose end as well. She was the reason Eddie had turned traitor in the first place. She had been caught and it had been her screams which had led to the entire six-person scavenging team being captured or killed. Only the fact that they were husband and wife kept them from being butchered like the others. Their love had been used against them and it wasn’t long before they were both begging for the chance to turn against the people who had taken them in and protected them.

  “They aren’t going to kill me. It’s something else, trust me.” For the first time in his life, he actually wanted one of the nasty smelling cigarettes. He lit one, coughed out blue-grey smoke and then dragged in deeply.

  Watching his hands shake and his face turning as red as his hair, Gina wasn’t reassured in the least. “They-they-they are going to kill you,” she stammered. He shook his head and was about to go on, uselessly trying to make her feel better. She would never feel better about any of it. She snapped her fingers and hissed, “I know they’re either going to kill you or make you do something that’ll get you killed.”

  In answer, Eddie took another drag, sucking the glowing embers right down to his knuckles again. “Yeah, well,” was all he could reply.

  “Yeah, well, nothing! Don’t go, Eddie. We’re safe here.”

  He loved her too much to laugh in her face. They weren’t safe. His reports, written in his hand and signed by both of them, were all the evidence needed to convict them of treason. They’d be executed and Bobby would grow up and forever be the traitor’s son.

  “We’re not safe; we’re stuck, at least for now. But if we can hold it together for a few more years until Bobby is bigger, maybe we can figure a way to get out of this.” By that, he meant running away and starting over. It was a scary thought. Nowhere on the planet was safer than Bainbridge and, as far as anyone knew, it was the only place with running water and electricity.

  The two had gotten used to the amenities as well as the “free” ammunition. It wasn’t a lot, but it made everything that much easier. They had a good life and now…

  “I have to go,” Eddie said, kissing her and Bobby.

  She wanted to say more; she wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg. It would be useless, she knew it. She told him she loved him and then took Bobby into his room and sat on the floor while he waddled about sticking brightly colored hunks of plastic in his mouth.

  Eddie left five minutes later, an M16A2 in one hand and his pack over his shoulder. He smiled and waved to the people he considered to be his closest friends, however his throat was so dry and constricted that he couldn’t manage a proper hello to any of them.

  Danny McGuinness, the night harbormaster, watched him heading towards the dock. McGuinness didn’t bother getting up from his chair. He was the fattest man on Bainbridge, and the most bribable. “Boats are gone. You were too slow, Eddie. Early bird and all that.”

  There were three boats still at the dock: a barnacle-covered rowboat with peeling paint and six mismatched oars that was kept for emergencies, a strangely bloated, twelve-foot sailboat, and finally the Calypso, which hadn’t been touched for weeks and was scheduled for auction.

  “What about the Scamp?” Eddie asked, gesturing at the oddly fat boat.

  McGuinness turned stiffly to give it a glance. “Right, the Scamp. Sorry to say, it’s reserved. You know how it goes. I’d let you have it, but there’d be arguments and bad feelings. I wouldn’t want anyone to get bent out of shape for nothing.”

  His emphasis on the word nothing meant he’d let people get bent out of shape for something. He was looking for a bribe. Eddie’s eyes flicked to the smoke rising across the sound. It was very faint. Would the Corsairs wait? Likely…for a little while, but frequently the harbor boats were gone for hours.

  And yet a bribe would raise the reddest of red flags. If anything big happened, McGuinness wouldn’t hesitate to spill the beans about Eddie. I got to play this cool, he thought. Aloud, he said, “Maybe I can catch a ride. Who’s got it reserved?”

  McGuinness leaned as far forward as his gut would allow to whisper, “Mason and that little ‘partner’ of his. You just know they’ve beed doing it on the side. It’s downright scandalous is what it is, seeing as he’s married and all. Oh, he thinks he’s fooling people, but he ain’t. Not in the least.”

  Eddie never liked gossip, and just then didn’t have time for it, either. Once more his eyes strayed across the Sound; the smoke was only a wisp. Time was running faster and with it went his racing heart. If Mason really was going out with his mistress, there was no way he’d want Eddie tagging along. A bribe was Eddie’s only option.

  “Sounds very scandalous,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I don’t think I want to be a part of any of that.”

  “Damn skippy,” McGuinness replied, scratching the undercarriage of his ponderous belly. “You know, he asked for the Scamp in particular.” Eddie didn’t need the raised eyebrow to guess why. Bainbridge possessed only a handful of boats, none of them larger than fifteen foot. Because of its deep design, the Scamp was the only one with an actual cabin. It wasn’t very large, barely long enough for Eddie to stretch out in and he wasn’t the biggest of men. It was big enough for some hanky-panky, however.

  “Yeah, it’s a sad situation all right,” Eddie said, playing up sorrow he didn’t feel. “We should do something. You could let me have the boat and say there was an error with the paperwork.”

  McGuinness looked as though he had expected exactly this reply. “I don’t know. Maybe for a couple of Nines I might fudge the reservations a bit.” Nines were small silver coins that were in fact, backed by 9mm rounds sitting in the Island’s armory.

  Two Nines was a lot of money for a bribe of this nature. Eddie threw his hands up. “Half a Nine, and I don’t know why I would even pay that since we’re trying to do some good here.”

  This line of reasoning was lost on McGuinness who was only interested in doing good for himself, but Eddie stuck to his guns and got his price. In exactly two minutes and four seconds, he had the Scamp’s sail up and was pulling through the harbor gate. He didn’t look back as he swung the Scamp south on a heading that would take him three miles south of Alki to the same little church where he dropped off his reports every month.

  Like the rest of the city, the little church was in a state of advancing ruin. Its stained-glass windows were now only a litter of multicolored glass on the floor, its roof leaked in seven different spots, and there was mold growing in profusion, climbing up the corners of the walls and making everything look dirty.

  “Hello?” he called out in a carrying whisper. The church was tomblike in its coldness. Eddie, his body beginning to tremble, drew his camouflaged coat around him more tightly. “Hello? I came alone and…” He put his M16A2 down on a pew. “I’m unarmed.”

  He stood with his head cocked waiting on a reply, however the only sound was a steady drip, drip, drip, coming from somewhere behind the altar.

  “I came as fast as I could. Hello? Hello?” After a minute, he realized that he was alone. His body stopped trembling immediately; his stomach however began to churn. Did this mean he was too late, and if so, what would they do to him? Would they expose him? He thought about calling out even louder, but knew it would have been foolish. There were too many zombies roaming around Seattle to make himself a target.

  With no idea what he should be doing, he picked up his rifle and went to the seventh pew on the right, shuffled sideways along it until he was midway down and stuck his hand beneath the wooden bench. This was where he left his reports and picked up his payment. Instead of bullets he found a small black bag. Inside was a razor blade, a handwritten note, and a glass vial, filled nearly to the top with some sort of black fluid.

  The note was nothing more than a set of instructions; a road map that led straight to hell. Once he read them th
e trembling set in again. “Oh, God,” he whispered, clutching his stomach. He was about to vomit. He could feel it happening in slow motion. Swallowing hard, he yelled out, “I can’t do this! Do you hear me? I can’t and I won’t!” The louder he became, the more his fear turned to anger. They wanted him to kill…no, assassinate, Neil Martin. It didn’t even say why. If there was a reason, even an iffy reason he might consider it, but Neil seemed like a nice guy.

  “I’m not doing it,” he muttered as he strode from the church. Almost immediately, the fear settled back into his bones. He tried to fight it by getting stupidly loud, and he raged, “I’m not doing it!”

  His voice echoed through the city streets which only brought the fear on stronger. Anything could be listening—and anything had been. He had barely made it up the block before he saw one of the lumbering beasts heading his way. It was eight feet of terrifying death.

  Quickly, he slunk down and scampered to the nearest building: an old Mexican restaurant. It was a dim, low-ceilinged place with chairs and tables flung about, some bearing the claw marks of zombies. Seeing them made Eddie hesitate. He squinted around at the shadows just to be on the safe side, though he was almost certain there was no one or nothing in the…

  Eddie jumped as one of the shadows moved.

  It was a man, half wrapped in a black cloak. The cloak hid most of his face; only a set of hard, dark eyes shone out from the shadows. “What are you not going to do?” the man challenged in a harsh whisper as he limped closer. He was oddly twisted and humped. His right arm bulged with steel muscles, while his left was stunted and withered. Because his left leg was shorter than his right, he walked and stood in a hunch.

  These deformities did nothing to make him any less frightening. Eddie tried to summon what bravery he possessed, only just then he saw that the man had his hand wrapped around the shaft of a black axe. It was an executioner’s axe. Eddie swallowed loudly, which made the man’s dark eyes crinkle.

  “Take it from me, friend,” he said in that growling hiss. “You’ll do what you have to. You do or you die. It’s the one constant in our world.”