Z 2134 (13 page)

The woods were pitch black on every side,
like a wall of darkness as impenetrable as the walls of City 6.

Going into the woods at night was stupid
even when armed. Crossing the line of trees and stepping into the blackness
with nothing in your palms was begging to die and getting your wish. He looked
back at the wooden building, figuring he should go back and wait until morning.
The shack offered little protection from the cold, but it would at least get
him free of the wind and snow and keep him hidden from any hungry zombies who
might catch his scent in the outside air.

Jonah turned and was starting to walk
back to the ramshackle shelter when a sudden ear-piercing shriek split the
night.

He spun around and saw the zombie — a
tall, lanky creature — at the edge of the woods. Its white eyes practically
glowed against the darkness as it broke into a run.

Jonah raced toward the shack, nearly
tripping on his third step, then reached it and pushed himself through the
threshold, slamming the door shut behind him. He fumbled along the knob
searching for a lock.

Nothing. Shit!

Since the door opened inward, he’d have
to push himself against it and hope that he could brace the door against the
weight of a zombie assault.

Shit!

The zombie shrieked again, its footfalls
growing louder and faster as it neared.

Jonah’s heart pounded so loud and with an
insanity of speed that it threatened to drown the sounds of the approaching
monstrosity. A short moment later, the zombie’s bulk slammed against the other
side of the door with a thud, shaking the door in its frame. Jonah leaned hard
against the wood as the zombie screamed and shrieked from the other side, the
horrible scrape of its scratchy voice reaching deep inside Jonah and twisting
his gut into panic.

The doorknob began to rattle violently as
Jonah squeezed it tightly in place. He wondered if the zombie was trying to
turn the knob or simply pushing against it on repeat, as a phantom memory told
it what to do.

The door shook harder with another thump.
The sound of wood cracking in the darkness fueled the fear flooding Jonah’s
body and coursing through his veins. There was no way the door would hold much
longer. He racked his mind for a solution. He had no weapons and was trapped in
a box, while a zombie gnashed at the door, waiting on the other side to eat
him.

Suddenly the door stopped moving, and
things grew quiet.

Jonah swallowed hard, wondering what the
hell the zombie was doing. He dared to hope it had grown impatient and had
simply wandered off in surrender. That seemed unlikely given that on his third
morning in The Games, he’d woken to find four zombies waiting under the tree he
was sleeping in. They waited nearly six hours for him, not leaving until they
were distracted by one of the mutated animals, something that resembled a moose
but was far larger and uglier, that wandered The Barrens.

Jonah wondered if something had also
distracted the zombie outside the shack.

Jonah waited, ear pressed against the
door, listening for the sound of the monster’s retreating footsteps, but heard
nothing above the howling wind beating hard against the decrepit structure. He
pressed his ear closer to the door, straining to hear anything useful.

Then he heard it, just barely, but it was
there, in the distance.

No. No. No.

Whatever warmth left in Jonah’s body bled
out the instant he recognized the moaning of the undead. Not just the one
zombie outside his door, but who-knew-how-many. The groans were accompanied by
an even worse sound — the sound of zombies running across the clearing, so many
it sounded like a herd of horses in full gallop.

Jonah wanted to open the door, just a
crack, to see how many there were — there had to be at least a dozen — but he
couldn’t chance it. They were closing in around him, just moments away from
reaching the shed.

He braced the doorknob tight in his
hands, pushing his foot tight against the door, shaking as he heard them
drawing closer, surrounding him. Something hit hard against the wall of the
shack.

Fuck.

This is it.

This is it.

There’s no way I’m gettin’ outta this.

Another zombie smashed against the shack,
much harder than the first time, as if driven by anger now. And then another.
Suddenly, the thumping was coming four and five hits at a time, from all sides,
and the shrieks and screams began to swell in an unholy cacophony.

Jonah thought again of Ana, Adam, and…

Molly, his beloved wife.

He saw her dead eyes looking up at him.

Anger coursed through him again. Anger at
the bastards who had set him up. Anger at the bastards who had made his
daughter testify against him. Anger at the bastards who had destroyed his
family.

Jonah flashed back to both of his
children as babies, as wide-eyed, trusting children looking to their daddy with
nothing but faith and love in their eyes. The world had been so simple back
then.

And now…

More screams.

More splintering wood, followed by a
deafening cracking.

Oh God.

One of the monster’s hands suddenly shot
through the wall beside the door, reaching in and blindly grasping at nothing,
barely visible in the moonlight just inches from Jonah’s waist.

The entire shack started shaking around
him, and it seemed just moments before the entire structure would collapse
under the mounting pressure. The wails and screams grew louder as if sensing
the proximity of their next meal.

Again Jonah thought of his children.

“I’m so sorry,” he cried as the hand kept
swiping, slapping the inside of the wall and inching closer.

Another sound, this one impossible, rose
above the monstrous wailing.

Gunshots!

Jonah turned his head sideways, trying to
be certain he heard what he thought.

Another gunshot followed, confirming the
inconceivable sound of the cavalry, followed by a scream and the sound of a
body hitting the ground.

Someone’s come to save me!

Jonah listened as more gunshots screamed
into the night, sounding like semi-automatic rifles, old weapons long out of
use within The Walls. The arm reaching into the shack slipped back beneath the
weight of a fresh round of fire as Jonah deeply exhaled. Tears streamed down
his face as his rescuers continued their assault.

I’m saved!

I’m alive!

As the last of the gunfire settled, and
the only remaining sound was the footsteps of his saviors and the final dying
cries of the creatures outside, Jonah’s heart raced, wondering who had saved
him.

Watchers?

The network?

The Underground?

Who?

“Come out!” a voice said, sounding like a
young woman with either an unrecognizable accent or some sort of speech
impediment. “Slow. No weapons!”

“I don’t have any weapons,” Jonah said,
slowly opening the door and stepping out into the blinding light from two light
sticks.

He shielded his eyes, stopping just
inches outside the door, and said, “Thank you. You saved my life!”

His saviors said nothing.

When they moved the lights from his face,
he lowered his hands and squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light, to see who
saved him. It wasn’t Watchers, The Underground, or the network.

Jonah was staring at three children — two
boys and one girl, none of them older than 10 — standing a foot in front of him
holding old assault rifles. Their faces were filthy, and their clothes thick
with caked mud and dirt. They looked like some of the kids he’d seen in the
Dark Quarter, kids lost in the system, kids who became part of the drug, sex,
slave, or body parts black market.

“You’re kids,” he said, unable to bury
his shock.

“No talk, Watcher,” one of the boys
yelled, jabbing the gun toward Jonah, anger turning his face into a vicious
mask.

“Walk!” said the girl, her voice the one
with the accent, not an impediment, as she glared at him with steely blue eyes.

“What?” Jonah said, confused.

“You’re our prisoner, Watcher. Now walk!”
one of the boys said, shoving the rifle hard into Jonah’s lower back, nearly
knocking him down.

Jonah stumbled forward and considered
spinning around, grabbing the gun from the little bastard, and shoving it in
his face. But the other two kids were looking at him with the icy, calculated
intensity of seasoned soldiers. He had no idea who the kids were, or why they
had saved him. But as he looked around at the tiny mountain of bloody undead
lying still forever, the only thing Jonah knew for certain was that
underestimating the kids would lead to a bullet in his skull.

“She said walk!” the kid behind him
repeated, louder, and with a sharper jab of his rifle.

Jonah met the girl’s gaze and saw nothing
but hate in her eyes.

B
efore they were loaded into the van for
their final journey, the four contestants were forced to stand on stage for the
Farewell Ceremony, as their names and crimes were read out loud. Ana was found
guilty of being a traitor to the State and part of The Underground.

Ana was surprised that there were three
other contestants, since were usually only two from each City. Also surprising
was that the others were also female, which she was fairly certain was a Darwin
Games first.

This must be a Special Edition Game. I
wonder if the entire Game will be girls.

Each person’s name was read, immediately followed
by boos.

Ana spent the entirety of the ceremony
scanning the crowd for either Michael or Adam. A line of City Watchers and
robot sentries posted along black wooden barricades held the crowd back. Just
as she was wondering if Michael had kept Adam away from the ceremony, she
spotted them — standing in front of one of the barricades, about 100 yards
away. They must’ve gotten up early to secure a spot so close to the front.

Her eyes met Adam’s, and she swallowed
her rising tide of tears. She had to appear stronger than she felt. While she’d
wanted to see Adam, if only to know he was OK and that The Watchers hadn’t
grabbed him up, she wished he didn’t have to see her going off to her certain
death.

He’d lost so much and managed to hang on.
But to lose his sister might be the final straw to break him.

No, don’t think about it. Be strong.

Michael stood tall behind Adam, his eyes
meeting Ana’s. She couldn’t tell for certain, but it looked like he was trying
to keep his emotions in check as well.

Adam waved.

Ana swallowed, then waved in return.

“Ana!” Adam screamed, lurching forward.

A Watcher moved toward him, stick raised.

Ana screamed out, “No!”

Everyone on stage looked at Ana, then
followed her gaze down to her brother, who was about to incur the wrath of The
Watchers.

Fortunately, Michael was fast on his feet
and grabbed Adam, yanking him back before her brother was beaten. Adam tried to
break free from Michael’s grasp, but Michael held tight, apologizing to The
Watcher repeatedly and begging the officer to have mercy.

“His sister is up there, please, please,”
Michael yelled above the growing noise of the crowd to the two closest
Watchers.

Ana called out, “Go home, Adam! Go home!”

Michael pulled Adam into the crowd,
vanishing from sight. The last thing she saw before she was ushered away and
into the waiting van was two Watchers following Michael and Adam into the
crowd. She screamed, trying to draw as much attention as she could toward her
and away from her brother, to allow Michael time to get Adam away before things
got ugly.

Someone screamed in the crowd, and
suddenly more Watchers moved forward, sticks swinging.

The van door slammed shut as the sound of
the crowd got ugly.

She looked at the other girls, staring at
her as if she’d incited a riot. She wasn’t sure what to do, or say, so she sat
back against the rear wall and looked down at the floor, hoping Michael was
able to get Adam away in time.

She wasn’t sure if she’d been successful
or not. As Ana sat in the van with the four other girls, silence cloaked the
air.

She thought more about the possibility
that they might be playing a Special Edition Darwin Games, where the network
changed the rules seemingly at random. A Special Game could be shortened to a
single day or extended to two months. It was anybody’s guess, and they might
never be told the rules until they needed to know them.

She tried to keep her rising terror in
check, not wanting to be seen as weak and an easy target, or too strong and
therefore someone who should be eliminated immediately. It was far better to
fly right down the middle and under the radar for as long as she could.