Z 2134 (28 page)

The girl was angry, though, and Ana had
only seconds to intervene.

The girl stepped toward Liam, her face
red with fury. She aimed her crossbow, moving from Liam’s heart to his
forehead. Liam held his ground.

Ana raced was only a few feet away.

“Listen Chloe, I’m still an asset,” Liam
said. “Let me help you. You don’t have to do this.”

“Listen Chloe, I’m still an asset. Let me
help you. You don’t have to do this,” she repeated, her voice cruel. She took
another step, then said, “Sorry, but I don’t need you any more. Now you’re only
in the way.”

The blonde girl pulled the trigger as Ana
plunged her sword through the girl’s back. The bolt flew by Liam, barely
missing his forehead but coming close enough to leave a line of gushing blood.

The girl crashed to the ground, bleeding
out as the life went from her wide-open eyes.

Liam slowly rose, wobbling in the snow,
clearly woozy.

“Are you OK?” Ana said, scared.

“My head…” Liam stuttered. “It’s pounding
like — ”

He didn’t finish his sentence before he
fell back down. Ana kneeled down to help him, lightly slapping his face until he
finally began blinking his eyes. As he did, they widened in horror.

Ana heard the horrible groaning sound
coming from behind her. She looked up to see the giant rising, oblivious to the
open wounds and blood pouring from his torn neck. His eyes were white, and his
mouth was open and groaning.

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.

L
iam 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 about 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.