by Platt, Sean
He growled as he began walking toward them.
Oh God!
And farther away, the tattooed guy was slowly rising, letting out a scream that sounded like death being born.
As Ana turned to look for her sword, she saw it, blade sticking out of the blonde girl, who was standing beside her, mouth chomping for flesh.
EPISODE 4
CHAPTER 23 — Liam Harrow
Liam blinked, almost believing the abominations lumbering toward Ana and him might be a side effect of Chloe’s hitting him in the head.
No way this is real.
And yet, it was.
Chloe, Keb, and Marcus — all dead seconds before — had risen as zombies, snarling as they clomped through the snow, looking to devour them.
Liam had seen plenty of undead raging their way across The Barrens, through a lifetime of staring at the ubiquitous screens inside The City, yet he’d never seen players — those who’d not been been bitten, anyway — rise as the undead.
While his former teammates’ flesh had not yet started decaying or reeking of the putrified stench that the undead carried with them, there was no mistaking that Chloe, Keb, and Marcus were turned into zombies. They had that familiar haunted white horror in their vacant eyes. Their mouths were open, with awful, elongated moans stretching from their lips, kissing the air with garbled bits of nothing.
And they appeared singular in their purpose — to feast on the living.
Why are they zombies, and how the hell did they get infected?
While it was possible that one of the three he’d briefly teamed with had been hiding a bite wound, there was no way all three could have concealed such injuries.
No way in hell.
Liam couldn’t help but feel he was witnessing something new taking place, something with horrifying implications, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what those implications were just yet. First he had to figure out how the hell they were going to kill these zombies.
Liam leaped to his feet, head still throbbing from Chloe’s attack, trying to find his balance and assess the situation. Zombie Chloe was closest, with the other two zombies on the way. He grabbed the sword he’d been forced to drop.
Before he could take a step, however, Ana sprang into action, racing past Chloe, then grabbing hold of the sword still impaled in her back. As Ana pulled at the sword, she stumbled back and seemed as if she’d surely fall to the ground. Somehow she managed to stay upright as Zombie Chloe growled and turned to Ana, taking a swipe at her.
Ana pulled the sword back and swung in a wide arc, lopping Chloe’s head off in one sickening thunk.
Chloe’s head smacked the ground, and her body hit it a second later. Liam’s eyes zoomed in on the dead woman’s splayed fingers, opening and closing as if she were searching for her head. Ana and Liam’s eyes met, frozen for a moment.
Just behind Ana there was movement, which Liam didn’t pick up on at first. Once he did, and realized it was Zombie Marcus rushing at her, he tried to scream to warn her.
He was too late.
The giant’s tree trunk of a left arm swung, hitting Ana hard in the back of the head and knocking her forward, toward Liam’s sword.
Liam pulled the sword back and leaped sideways, barely avoiding Ana.
Zombie Marcus barreled forward, his dead eyes set on Ana, mouth open and growling. Liam, without thinking of a strategy, ran shoulder first into the behemoth in an attempt to knock him down. It was Liam who fell backward, however, pain splintering through his shoulder as if he’d run into a brick wall. He fell back in the snow and stared up as Zombie Marcus let out a loud bellow. The undead man’s rock-like teeth seemed all the more menacing now that they promised to tear the skin from their bones if given the chance.
Liam scrambled backward, trying to gain space as Zombie Marcus reached down with both hands, pawing through empty air. The monster misjudged his timing, either not expecting Liam to move so fast or too broken in brain and thought to calculate his moves. The zombie swiped hard at nothing, then fell forward with an angry groan.
Liam jumped back to his feet and thrust the sword through the fallen zombie’s guts, opening them and releasing their steaming contents to the snow below.
Ana screamed, pulling Liam’s attention to her.
She was on the ground, Zombie Keb on top of her, his chomping jaws barely held at bay by Ana’s skinny fingers gripping the zombie’s larynx.
Liam ran to help her, sword drawn. Ana’s panicked eyes caught Liam from the corner and seemed to indicate relief before going wide as she glanced past him.
Liam felt the thunder behind him, too late to recognize the threat.
Shit!
Pain erupted in his right ear, tearing through his skull as Zombie Marcus’s fist clobbered him hard, sending Liam sideways to the snow and spilling the sword from his hand. He hit the ground rolling, trying to gain distance from the goliath. If the zombie’s full weight fell on Liam, its jagged maw would surely tear into his flesh.
The zombie growled, angry and agitated, charging forward. Liam’s head was pounding, vertigo tilting the world on end. Yet, somehow Liam was able to barely dodge the giant with its slashed gut and oozing insides hanging from its torn coveralls. Zombie Marcus managed to stay on his feet before spinning around and preparing to launch himself at Liam.
Ana screamed again, shrill as her grip on Zombie Keb’s neck went slack and the monster’s teeth opened and closed, trying to bite her arms.
Liam thought of Jonah’s battle with the zombie at the end of the last Darwins, and how he’d managed to grab an orb and bash the undead fucker over the head. But the orbs surrounding their scuffle were hovering above, away from the chaos, and Liam doubted Ana could manage Jonah’s nearly impossible feat even if they weren’t.
Liam ran at Zombie Marcus, ready to slice his head off, but snagged his foot on a snow-covered something, slipped, and went flying forward, the sword launching from his fingers.
Liam didn’t have time to stand up. He could feel and hear the beast coming at him. Liam threw himself forward, on clawed hands and bruised knees, scrambling for the weapon.
Fingers just inches from the hilt, Liam was suddenly grabbed tight around his right ankle and yanked back.
Liam screamed, twisting around to find Zombie Marcus holding tight to his ankle, pulling him back with just one hand. Even brain dead, the zombie could see the clear threat of Liam reaching the weapon.
Liam twisted and turned, trying to wrangle free from the giant’s grip, but its hand was too tight, now squeezing Liam’s ankle so hard it felt as if would rip off.
Liam grabbed a massive handful of snow, squeezed it into a ball in his palm, then hurled the snowball into its face. Zombie Marcus let go of Liam to swipe at his eyes. Liam’s foot dropped and he seized the moment to slip away, turning to dive for the sword.
Liam dived for the sword but was grabbed by the feet again.
“Shit!” Liam screamed.
Zombie Marcus pulled harder this time, dragging Liam even farther from the sword. As his body was dragged back in the snow, Liam tried, but failed, to get a grip of anything on the ground to hold onto. He looked up just in time to see Ana losing her battle and Zombie Keb bearing down, just inches from her face.
Liam screamed, kicking his feet, trying desperately to break free as Zombie Marcus kept dragging him away to do God knows what to him.
Suddenly someone raced past him — a tiny red-haired girl, holding a pistol and heading for Ana.
“Ana!” Liam screamed, alerting her to the contestant trying to capitalize on their weakened positions by picking them off. While Ana hadn’t noticed the girl, Zombie Marcus had, and turned from Liam and gave chase.
The red-haired girl stopped, standing two feet from Ana, then raised the gun and fired, shooting Zombie Keb from behind, blowing a chunk of its skull away. Ana screamed and shoved the zombie’s body off of her.
Before Liam could determine whether the girl was helping or abou
t to shoot Ana, Zombie Marcus was nearly on top of her, swiping his massive arm at her tiny head.
She was small and agile enough to duck beneath the giant zombie’s swing. She dodged his fist, fell to the ground, and rolled through the snow. A yard from the zombie, the tiny thing sprang to her feet, fired once, twice, then a third time, until her gun started clicking empty.
Zombie Marcus made it one more step before he paused, now inches away from the girl, his momentum as frozen as the air.
The monster swayed, then fell to his knees, stunned, despite a shot to his face that had left the lower right side of his jaw hanging from its fleshy hinge. The undead wasn’t down, even if broken. Ana seized the moment as the girl fell a step back, grabbing the sword and swinging it in a wide circle, severing the zombie’s head from his massive body.
Liam turned to the girl. Ana followed his lead.
The girl took a step back, followed by another three as she backed her way toward the tree line — terrified. She threw her gun to the ground, pulled a knife from a sheath at her waist, then held it out, eyes wide and darting back and forth between Liam and Ana.
“It’s OK,” Ana said, kneeling to the ground and laying her sword in the snow. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
The girl stared at Ana, then Liam. He was still catching his breath, nervous that she would do something stupid, like trying to stab one of them with her tiny knife.
She was too damned young to be in The Games, even if technically eligible. She was tiny and shivering, and he wondered how she’d made it this far. And why had she decided to help them? Was she looking for safety in numbers? Considering how The Games had to end, Liam didn’t want to team with another player, especially a child.
Liam smiled, letting the child know he wasn’t a threat, and held his hands up, palms facing her.
“Thank you,” he said. “You saved our lives. My name is Liam, and this is Ana.”
The girl said nothing, just standing there with the knife shaking in her hands.
“She doesn’t have a tongue,” Ana said.
“What?”
“She’s a Quarters kid, I think. Someone cut out her tongue.”
Liam swallowed, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
After a long pause, and an exchanged glance with Ana, he added, “You’re welcome to come with us, if you want.”
She pointed at Ana, mouthing something Liam couldn’t make out.
Ana seemed to have understood the girl, though.
Ana said, “Yes, it’s OK — I won’t hurt you, either. Promise.”
They’d been walking for a half hour, mostly in silence as the girl followed several steps behind, when Liam spotted a cave.
“I dunno,” Ana said, shaking her head before explaining how her last entry into a rocky black mouth had thrown her into a mini-game.
Liam told the girl to wait, then crept inside the cave’s open mouth to investigate. He held a pack of matches he’d taken from Keb’s fallen body.. He struck one of the dozen wooden matches, then held the flame in front of his face as he peered into the black.
Liam could never know for certain, but it seemed — and more important felt — safe enough. The cave was slightly off their present path and twisted into an ever-narrowing hollow. While uncomfortable, the recess seemed like an unlikely spot for a zombie, giving them a decent hiding place with only one entrance to guard. It was the best Liam had seen, and if they didn’t stop for rest soon, they would all be dead within a day. Dulled instincts were a bigger threat to players than the opponents themselves.
“We’ll take shifts,” Liam suggested, starting a small fire in the back of the cave. “I’ll stay up while you two get some shut-eye. Tomorrow morning, I’ll grab an hour.”
“An hour?” Ana said.
“That’s all I need.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
The girl furiously shook her head, stepping back toward the entrance. Liam turned to Ana. Allowing her to leave the cave would leave them vulnerable.
“It’s OK,” Ana assured her. “We’re safe in here. We won’t hurt you, and all of us need sleep. Do you understand?”
The little girl nodded, then shook her head as if to erase it.
Ana kneeled, then slowly crawled across the cave floor until she was a few feet from the unmoving child. She pulled the girl’s hands into her palms. “I promise,” Ana said. “We won’t hurt you. Would you like to sleep with my sword?”
The little girl nodded, then shook her head no again.
“We’re going to be OK. It’s better in here with no zombies and maybe a little sleep, than out there with all of one and none of the other.” She smiled and pointed to the mouth of the cave.
The girl made a face that looked surprisingly like a smile, and nodded.
Liam said, “Why don’t you two girls huddle together. It’s freezing in here, even with the fire. Cuddle so you can keep each other warm.”
“I’m going to put my sword in the corner,” Ana held the girl’s eyes, “but you hold onto your knife, OK?”
She nodded.
Ana thanked her again for saving them and apologized for what had happened in the forest before, then turned to Liam and told him their earlier story, letting her hear as she explained that she hadn’t been trying to hurt her when she swung the sword. She was scared and didn’t know what else to do.
The girl yawned, looking a second from collapse, then finally nodded and crawled to a spot near the fire where Ana came up and huddled beside her. She was asleep in seconds, with Ana following her lead a minute after that.
Liam stared at the girls as they slept, sorting his thoughts around the unexpected doubling of his burden. He didn’t mind looking after Ana. He owed it to her, and to Jonah even more. Betraying The Underground left Liam with a debt he intended to pay — even if it meant settling the tab with his life.
Liam was prepared to get Ana to the Final Battle unharmed, then kill himself before it started. But keeping the child alive would be impossible. The Darwins had one winner. If Ana lived, the girl died. So what was the point in prolonging the inevitable?
As he stared at the child, still beneath a heavy sleep, Liam wondered about the cruelties that had draped her life in City 2. Liam had never been to any City outside of City 6 and had no idea if their Dark Quarters were similar, but human cruelty knew no bounds, and he suspected that if someone cut her tongue out, the evils were similar and possibly worse.
Liam felt a chill, wondering how many atrocities had been visited upon people he loved because of his betrayal. He fell asleep wishing he’d been more faithful to The Underground.
Though Liam tried staying awake until one of the girls opened her eyes, his lids grew too heavy to lift and he finally fell asleep not long before dawn. He was asleep for maybe an hour, though it felt like seconds, when he woke to the hum of several orbs growing suddenly louder. Blue light bounced everywhere as Kirkman’s voice echoed through the bottled air.
What the hell?
“Are you ready to wake up, contestants? I hope so, because it’s tiiiiime to play! And we’ll be starting this morning with a brand-new mini-game!”
Liam sprang to his feet and looked around. He was standing in a clear plastic box in an old barn that must’ve been older than the Walling.
Morning light poured through the open roof, illuminating the heavy vegetation creeping across it. Liam looked for his companions and found another pair of plastic boxes, one in the middle and the other at the far side of the barn, holding both Ana and the child.
“No!” Liam screamed, pounding his fist against the plastic wall. He was trapped; they all were — likely gassed and dragged from the cave before getting tossed into the old barn. Liam had never seen Producers get so involved in a show. At least when watching from the monitors, the Games seemed to unfold naturally enough, but this was an outright manipulation of events.
He wond
ered if the audience had seen what had happened, or if they were lied to, seeing Liam, Ana, and the child waking in the boxes and thinking they had somehow stumbled inside the barn on their own.
“What did you do?” Liam screamed into the monitor at the top of the box.
Kirkman smiled, then said, “Are you prepared for another challenge? We have a BRAND new mini-game, added to the Darwins THIS SEASON! And you’re lucky enough to play it first! The new mini-game is called The Killing Choice. Are. You. Ready?”
The barn doors slid on their tracks, opening wide and spilling bright light inside. Beside the light fell dozens of rapidly moving shadows, immediately followed by a horde of shuffling zombies.
Liam looked up at the monitor, screaming.
CHAPTER 24 — Jonah Lovecraft
The rope bit deeper into Jonah’s flesh as he pulled harder against his restraints. His wrists felt like raw meat. He tugged with more force, sending a shock of pain through his body as the cord bit into his tender skin. He winced, then hung his head in defeat as he realized he wasn’t going to break free of his bindings.
Again, it seemed that working on Egan was his only chance of freedom.
When he looked up, Jonah was surprised to find himself staring at Egan, though he’d not heard the man enter the room.
Egan sat in the chair across from Jonah and stared at him for minutes without words.
Jonah’s head screamed as his flesh burned. “What?” he snarled, daring Egan with his voice.
“Have you given any thoughts to your defense?”
“I don’t even know the crime I’m charged with.” Jonah swallowed, trying to keep from covering Egan in spit.
“Murder, of course. Someone must pay for the deaths of my wife and son.”
Jonah said nothing, certain Egan wasn’t searching for apology. He was on safari for something else, though Jonah couldn’t begin to guess what that might be, and he felt too beaten to try. He sat quietly, waiting for Egan to give words to thought.