Notice

Anyone who has been to any place described in this story will most certainly notice that the descriptions given to these locations are totally inaccurate. All locations mentioned in this story are also fictitious (though somewhere a place with that name does likely exist, I borrowed the names of these places due to my lack of creativity concerning naming things), not to mention the characters.
No resemblance to real persons, places or events intended.

G!

G! - Prologue pt 1

On a clear November evening, year two thousand twenty eight,

A death swept through the world, its origin obscure as fate.

Next day, the break of dawn found a horrible sight,

Every person aged thirteen and over in their sleep had died.

The survivors were children, of twelve years and under,

As witnesses to this terror, to panic they did surrender.

Starting off separated, they gradually came together,

The children of Bisset Valley, in local towns they gathered.

In the northern town of Coniston, two wise leaders emerged,

Their ambitions were great, so their opinions were diverged.

The conflict of the two leaders led to argument, and to war,

Only when one defeated the other, did peace become restored.

Three kilometres inland of Lake Talon, beyond the marshlands through which a tributary of the River Coulange empties out into the lake’s north-western shore, the town of Coniston is located at the foot of the mountain ridge that runs east-west, forming the northern slope of the Bisset Valley. To the west and south of Coniston the landscape is covered in boreal forest and laced with countless intertwined streams and rivers that empty into and flow out of numerous ponds and lakes.

Further west, beyond the Balsam watershed that forms the western end of the valley is the township of North Bay, Ontario, on the shore of Lake Nipissing.

Half a kilometre south of Coniston, a series of hills rose south of Coniston, giving clear view of the town. Since Coniston was a logging community, the woods within half kilometre radius of the town were cleared first. Sloped grassy fields surround the town on three sides, which in turn are surrounded by the forest, while the marshland occupied the eastern terrain. The southward field slopes upward until reaching the crest of a hill, at which point the forest begins.

One early morning of mid-April, after an icy rainstorm, the Bisset Valley was draped in mist. The sun had risen in the east, bathing the lake, the marshland and Coniston in dull misty light. Three figures crouched on the crest of the southern hill, partially hidden by shrubbery and the shadows of the trees. The center figure held a pair of binoculars, observing Coniston intently for the signs of activity she was looking for.

Meredith van Zant lowered the binoculars from eye level and continued to observe the landscape. On her left, Conrad Stevenson looked at her, then at the town, and then returned his attention back to her.

‘See anything at all?’ Conrad, Meredith’s lieutenant, asked. His nasally voice seemed unfitting for his physical build. At a meter sixty, he was a head taller than Meredith.

‘See for yourself.’ Meredith gave the binoculars to Conrad, who received them and began observing the town.

‘Aren’t you forgetting to say something?’ Meredith said.

‘Oh right, thank you.’ Conrad responded quickly. He was by now well-practiced at hiding his resentment of this unnecessary etiquette thing with Meredith. In school – which seemed like a long time ago – she had been the only one who had come from the city; everyone else was a local kid who had never left the valley.

The only other kid who rivalled Meredith in intellect was Guillaume Latross, the local child prodigy. They rivalry was among the few things that continued on from before the First Day – the day all the adults and teenagers died. It took two weeks for the kids to come together at Coniston - which had always served as the location for local community meetings – to decide what to do.

By the middle of December, the town was divided in two between kids who sided with Meredith in the south and the rest who supported Guillaume in the north. The two leaders – both had assumed the role automatically – did not get along. As the weather worsened the relations between the two fractions worsened also. An uneasy truce lasted until the New Year. Then war broke out in Coniston, though Conrad did not remember who lit the fuse.

The first battles were fought in town square outside the town hall. At first neither side had any intent to kill members of the opposing fraction, battles were essentially fist fights; that all changed when food and resources became scarce. Eventually, kids on both sides summoned the courage to pick up weapons, and real war began.

Right from the start Guillaume had chosen the offensive stance. Guillaume organized his followers into an army with four divisions, equipped with an assortment of blunt objects and sharp objects and guns – the infantry, and marched the divisions into the south side of Coniston.

In response, Meredith gathered all of her followers around the lumber mill in the southern tip of the town and barricaded the roads leading to the mill with logs. Guillaume’s only choice was to overrun the barricades with his infantry, which he attempted to do. His attacks were slow on progress and heavy on casualties, compounded by the fact that the lumber mill was built on top of a hill that overlooked the rest of town; it was a natural defensive position.

Considering Meredith’s followers amounted to only a fifth of Guillaume’s army, she was doing exceptionally well in the war.

Undaunted, Guillaume had attacked Meredith’s barricades every day. His strategy took a costly toll on Guillaume’s army – who had taken to call themselves Defenders of Coniston, ironically – but the natural leader had a knack for elevating the demoralized spirits of his troops – at least temporarily – using his flamboyance and magnetic personality, qualities that Meredith both envied and admired.

His campaign of attrition came to a sudden and abrupt end in late March, after nearly three months of war and over a hundred casualties among his army of six hundred. A ten-year old kid named Beniot Brossard had been trying to get Guillaume’s attention ever since the war began. Guillaume finally agreed to see Beniot for whatever ‘great idea’ Beniot promised he had to offer in the middle of March. After hearing what Beniot had to say, Guillaume immediately promoted Beniot to become his chief strategist. Form that point on Guillaume always considered not discovering Beniot sooner to be the greatest blunder of his life.

Beniot had been working on a plan to push Meredith’s army out of Coniston. He came up with a way to destroy Meredith’s barricades -which had been the single obstacle repelling every one of Guillaume’s attacks – by using gasoline bombs. Beniot also introduced cavalry to Guillaume’s army – kids on bicycles. Finally, at the beginning of April, Guillaume successfully burned down the barricades around the mill fortress with the bombs and overrun Meredith’s defense with his cavalry, forcing her army into a speedy retreat out of the town.

Meredith pulled her army into the woods to the south of Coniston. There are several cottages on the forested ridges in that part of the forest that were well stocked with supplies. The houses were built on the crest of the tallest ridge several hills behind the edge of the woods; they offered clear vantage points to the terrain below them and beyond the cover of the woods, all the way to Coniston.

Meredith once again held the advantage of high ground and fortresses, which Guillaume tried to attack with the intention not only to defeat but to destroy her altogether. His victory in taking Coniston did not satisfy the ambition to win the war completely, so he continued his attacks, and the Coniston victory was following by failed assaults on Meredith’s fortresses in the woods.

The misty morning on which Meredith, Conrad and Conrad’s sentry Truman Wright crouched on their crest observing Coniston marked the second week since Meredith’s expulsion from Coniston and three days since Guillaume’s last attack on the woods. It was odd, because Meredith had expected Guillaume to attempt at least one attack everyday, which he had done according to her expectation up until three days ago.

Conrad was done looking through the binoculars and handed them back to Meredith, who said thank you. ‘The town looks deserted.’ said Conrad.

‘The town is deserted.’ Meredith replied.

The forested area due west of Coniston was on lower ground than the area due south, but the foliage provided by the pines obscured any activity that might be observed by a lookout positioned on the southern high ground. Ryan Vigneault crouched low beneath the foliage of a tall pine tree and smelled the moist soil. The morning mist also helped concealing him and the division of Guillaume’s army he was in charge of. Ryan was one of Guillaume’s top lieutenants.

After more that a week of defeats, Beniot had formulated another great plan. Rather than fighting Meredith in the woods, the plan was to draw her forces out into the open and defeat them then. In the open and without the advantage of a defensive position, Guillaume’s forces could easily overwhelm Meredith’s army. Guillaume assigned Ryan and his other top lieutenant William O’Carrier each with a quarter of his troops and instructed them to make their way into the western woods. From previous battles, Guillaume had learned that Meredith did not post sentries in this part of the forest surrounding Coniston, only in the adjacent southern woods where the cottages are located. Ryan’s and William’s troops easily avoided detection while entering the western woods. William was in charge of the cavalry division, and they were placed in front of Ryan’s own division of light infantry. Guillaume told them to attack Meredith’s forces from behind ‘when the time is right’, and only if her entire army emerge from the south woods.

Overnight, Guillaume, working with the remaining half of his army had barricaded the southern portion of Coniston from the rest of the town. A small portion of his army, commanded by him personally, hid in the basement of the lumber mill. The rest of his army commanded by Beniot was spread out behind the barricades. From Meredith’s position on the south crest, all of Guillaume’s army was obscured from view and the town looked completely deserted.

‘Let’s attack them now.’ Conrad said to Meredith. It was almost unbelievable how easy it all seemed. Guillaume had left the southern section of town undefended, as if inviting them in. Even better, there was no sign of an impending attack from Guillaume’s army at all.

‘You’re impulsive,’ Meredith replied, ‘this may not be what it seems. Don’t let what you perceive interfere with what you see. I have a hunch Guillaume is up to something.’

‘And I have a hunch we’ll take back the town today.’ Conrad raised his voice, ‘So what if Guillaume is up to something, we can handle him! We’re already out of food, and he’s giving us a perfect opportunity here to strike back at him.’

‘I want to wait one more day.’ said Meredith.

Conrad grabbed Meredith’s left wrist roughly and hissed, ‘I’m not spending another day out in the woods listening to my belly growl like a sick dog, got it? We have no more food, we got to attack now!’ Their eyes locked; neither of them blinked.

The tension increased, which Conrad sensed, and he looked for a diversion. ‘What do you say, Truman?’ Conrad said to his sentry, ‘You’re hungry too, aren’t you? Truman?’ Conrad’s glare was still fixed on Meredith, and his grip on her wrist did not loosen.

Hearing no response, Conrad looked past Meredith’s face at Truman, who was crouched down on her right. Truman’s head was resting on his folded arms, his eyes were closed. He was asleep.

Even in his peaceful slumber, from his sunken cheeks and boney arms, Conrad could see that Truman was famished.

Ryan raised his head from underneath the cover of the pine foliage and looked right through the trees towards the crest where the south woods began. Through the pines, Meredith’s army emerged in waves; all their faces were painted to various extents with beige clay that is common on the forest floor. Ryan saw his best friend, William, crawling from the line ahead towards him.

‘They took the bait.’ William said excitedly.

‘They did.’ Ryan replied.

‘How many do you think are coming out?’ William asked. More of Meredith’s army spilled into open ground. They were rapidly covering the sloped distance from the southern woods to the south side of Coniston, armed in the same disorganized manner as Guillaume’s army, advancing without formation.

‘All of them.’ said Ryan.

The last wave of Meredith’s army advanced out of the woods, they were running now, straight towards Coniston, some two hundred meters away.

A voice coming from the ditch in from of Ryan and William whispered, ‘Can we attack now?’

‘Wait until they’ve all reached the mill.’ Ryan replied.

‘Beniot’s a real genius for coming up with this plan.’ William remarked. ‘They don’ suspect a thing by the looks of it.’

The first waves of Meredith’s army reached the foot of the hill on which the Coniston mill stood. The wave broke off into two groups, one headed up the mill, the other down Main Street, where Guillaume’s barricades would greet them.

‘So they’ve run out of food, that’s how it ends.’ Ryan said dryly. William did not hear him, he had stood up.

‘Cavalry, mount your bikes!’ William shouted. In the ditch in from of where Ryan still lay crouched, to the left and right a line of kids stood up and began to mount the bikes they had next to them.

Gunfire rang out from Coniston.

‘Well, I’m off. See you back in town’ William said to Ryan, who had stood up also. To the cavalry, he shouted, ‘Charge!’

The cavalry kids were off, peddling through the cover of the western woods and raced towards the south side of Coniston to join the battle. Ryan got up too; he raised one arm and said, ‘Charge!’ His light infantry division ran behind and after William’s cavalry.

The melee in Coniston had already begun.

Conrad carried two weapons: an aluminum baseball bat and a heavy shotgun he had discovered in his former home. His wave had led the charge across the southern field. He and the group that followed him were halfway up the hill to the mill when Guillaume’s troops began to appear from the mill’s entrance gate on the hilltop. Guillaume’s army was identifiable by the cloths they wore covering their faces below the eyes; they looked like bandits. He fired one round at Guillaume’s troops and continued on uphill. Other firearm-carrying members of his wave fired more shots. The firing did not last long before the two sides were close enough at the top of the hill to engage in melee. The opposing forces were evenly matched. Conrad had disposed of several Defenders of Coniston. He looked behind him and saw that the waves behind him were quickly coming up the hill to join the battle. Conrad decided to descend the hill on the left and join the battle on Main Street, raging before some barricades Guillaume must have reconstructed, where the fighting seemed heavier.

Just then, he noticed the kids on bicycles coming up behind the rear of Meredith’s army.

‘Damn.’ Conrad cursed as he ran down the hill on the same path he had taken coming up, shouting for the rear of the army to turn around.

William’s cavalry crashed into the back of Meredith’s rear flank. Some members of the cavalry were dismounted by the impact of crashing into a member of Meredith’s army; others were knocked off their bikes. Behind the cavalry, Ryan’s infantry were advancing slowly.

A cavalry kid peddled straight at Conrad, in one hand, his spear was raised to resemble the jostling posture. Conrad aimed his shotgun at the kid and fired. The shot tore through the kid’s neck; he flew backwards off his bicycle, which continued on its course for a few moments more before falling to its side. The kid had already fallen flat by then; he was dead.

More cavalry kids closed in on Conrad. With no time to reload, Conrad dropped the shotgun - which was too heavy for him to carry for long – and with both hands gripping the handle of his bat, he ran in the opposite direction, towards Main Street.

The bicycle cavalry had taken the back section of Meredith’s army completely by surprise. They did not expect an attack from behind. As a result, the army’s rear flank was thrown into disarray and further decimated by Ryan’s infantry sweeping forward after William’s cavalry charge.

William was still on his bicycle, he peddled onward towards the fighting near the Main Street barricades, cutting right through Meredith’s army, swinging his rod left and right, knocking down more faces painted with clay.

William was tackled from behind by a painted face. He was knocked off his bike to the ground. Rolling over and dodging a blow from the attacker who carried a fire axe and still on his back, William thrust his pole at the attacker’s stomach, stabbing him through.

Meredith moved towards Main Street. The back of her army was destroyed. They were surrounded and Guillaume’s masked troops were everywhere. Meredith advanced slowly and cut down several masked attackers. The ground was becoming bloody.

She slashed one attacker charging towards her from left, spun around and stabbed another attacker in the chest. The stabbed attacker screamed and fell forward on top of her. Meredith pushed the dead attacker off of her and stood back up in time to deflect a hatchet blow from a third attacker. She knocked this masked figure down too. She was suddenly fighting next to Conrad.

‘This is all your fault!’ Meredith yelled over the roar of battle. She heard an explosion followed by more screams. Looks like Guillaume is still using those gasoline bombs, Meredith thought ruefully.

‘It’s too late to fault me,’ Conrad yelled back, he and Meredith fought with their backs to each other, ‘what do you say we do now?’

‘Attack the barricade, advance further into town. Our retreat is gone, as you probably already know.’ Meredith yelled in reply; she was almost out of breath.

‘I got a better idea.’ Conrad said, suddenly sounding very assured.

‘What is it?’ Meredith slashed another masked kid across the neck. Jets of blood erupted from the knife gash, he fell backwards. Meredith wiped the sprayed blood from her eyes and repeated her question, ‘Well what is it?’

Still hearing no response, Meredith turned around in time to see Conrad swinging his aluminum baseball bat straight at her.

Hello again!

So it's been over half a year since this blog has been updated...
It's Kiki here, and I thought I'd give you a little heads up!
This blog and story is going to be somewhat revived from its comatose state! Although my original co-author never managed to get on the ball and write this (I actually think he's lost all interest and has entirely forgotten about Zone 1), a friend of mine, G (if you've read North by North, you know him very well), has picked up on the narrative and decided to put his own spin on it!
So we've come to the agreement to post his writing on this...I won't be a co-author, but I'm more of an administrator on the blog itself, so if you have any questions or whatever feel free to ask me!

Hopefully, this will be successful!

-Kiki