Z 2134 (31 page)

Daniel threw
Adam down, the toilet seat smacking hard into his jaw. Adam’s world was an
explosion of pain as the three laughed, taking turns kicking and punching him.
Adam couldn’t move. Every time he tried, another hand shoved him back down, his
face against the filthy toilet seat.

And as the abuse
continued for what felt like forever, Adam wondered how long it could go on. He
wished to God that he would die right there on the spot.

End it now.

Please.

I’ve got
nothing.

My family is
gone. My mother is dead. Please, God, just kill me before they do.

The laughter was
followed by spitting, and then, the unmistakable warm stream and stench of
urine. One, or maybe all — he couldn’t tell — were pissing on him.

Adam struggled
to get up but was kicked hard again, this time in the back.

He screamed out,
this time loud enough to bring a counselor. He didn’t even care if a knife
followed.

“Let’s go!”
Morgan said to the others, and they left the stall.

Adam stayed
perfectly still, afraid of moving until they were gone.

He heard them
leave the bathroom and was about to sit up and turn around when he felt Tommy’s
blade back at his throat and his other hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Just so you
know,” Tommy whispered in his ear. “You even
think
about ratting us out
ever
again, we’ll fucking END you. Got it, freak?”

Adam whimpered
yes, and then Tommy retreated.

He waited until
he heard the bathroom door shut and then turned around and stood up. He
shuffled slowly to the sink, hoping both that someone would come and that
nobody would. He didn’t know which would be worse.

He turned on a
sink and began to wash the blood and piss from himself, one eye on the mirror
in shame.

Suddenly the
bathroom door opened.

Adam gulped as
Brian Bob, the heavyset counselor with the goatee, who was sometimes nice and
oftentimes not, met his gaze in the mirror.

“What the hell?
Is that you, Lovecraft?” he said.

“Yes, Mr.
Brian.”

“What happened?”
Mr. Bob said, moving toward him and looking around the bathroom. His eyes
caught the piss and vomit on the floor and then came back up to Adam’s many
bruises and cuts. “Who did this?”

“I can’t say.
They’ll kill me.”

“Come on, we’re
going to the nurse’s office.”

Adam was allowed
to shower and sleep in the nurse’s office after she put ointments on his wounds
and gave him some pills to ease the pain.

Mr. Bob, who had
been extra kind to Adam following the ordeal, continued to ask questions. Adam
felt bad that he couldn’t say anything. But if his “friends” had nearly killed
him over something as small as ratting them out for stealing food, what would they
do if he ratted on them for this?

This was serious
shit. But Adam didn’t know if it rose to the occasion of being serious enough
to get the kids put in prison, and that was the only way he could ensure his
safety. Without knowing that, he didn’t dare say a word.

After a
breakfast of a hot roll and meat links that Mr. Bob brought to him, Mr. Bob
returned and asked Adam to go with him to the schoolmaster’s office.

Adam walked down
the hall, telling himself over and over that no matter what, he’d have to stay
strong and keep quiet to the schoolmaster, also.

Tell no one.

But when the
door opened to schoolmaster’s office, it wasn’t Barnum sitting behind the desk.

Once again it
was Mr. Keller.

“Good morning,
young Lovecraft,” he said. “I hear you’ve been having some trouble.”

A
na woke up to
confusion as Kirkman’s voice was piped into the box surrounding her. In a
monitor above her, she saw Liam and the child in their own separate boxes.

When Kirkman
announced that they were in a new mini-game, Ana knew only one thing — someone
was about to die.

The barn doors
opened, and Ana was momentarily blinded by sudden beams of brilliant light
interrupted by shuffling shadows which gave way to the influx of zombies.

No!

Liam’s screams
over the monitor in the roof of her plastic cell pulled her attention up to it
rather than over to his box. On the center screen, Kirkman smiled from ear to
ear. The other two showed Liam and the child. Liam was still screaming, now
mostly obscenities. The girl was screaming too, backing from one corner into
another as zombies surrounded her.

Zombies poured
into the barn, splintering into three clusters, each headed straight for the
boxes. Ana lost herself to the first scream as a pair of zombies slammed the
plastic cell, jostling it. Surprised by the sudden sway, she made a small,
involuntarily jump into the air, like a cat on coals, screaming without wanting
to.

Zombies were
everywhere, so thick Ana no longer saw the barn door. They clawed at all three
boxes. The girl’s screams were so loud that they crackled in the speakers,
twisting a blade into Ana’s guts. Liam stopped screaming and was instead
silently glaring at the swarm of undead outside his plastic wall, likely
thinking he was safe — though Ana had to assume Liam was smart enough to know
the mini-game was only beginning.

Kirkman’s voice
blared through the speaker in her box, as if to answer her immediate fear. “Are
you all ready to play The Killing Choice? I hope SO, because the members in our
studio audience are hanging by the edges of their seats! Let’s go over the
rules, both for you and the fine folks watching at home. First, the good news,
Anastasia. You’re gonna live through this game. Isn’t that GREAT?”

Kirkman laughed
as if the planet spun on an axis made of his ego. Ana stared at the monitor,
narrowing her eyes and letting Kirkman know how much she hated him, as she
waited for the other shoe to drop.

“But,” Kirkman
said, about to drop said shoe, “and you just KNEW there’d be a BIG but, now
didn’t ya, Ana? BUT…one of your friends will NEVER make it out of the barn — at
least not alive.”

Kirkman cackled
again.

Liam screamed,
“You fuck–” getting his audio cut before he finished his tirade.

“Such filthy
language,” Kirkman tutted. “Good LORD, young man, don’t you know there are
children watching back in The City? Now,” he said, as The Darwin Game’s
sweeping score swelled behind him. “On with the rules! Ana, you’re responsible
for choosing who lives and who dies. In a few minutes you’ll be asked to push
the monitor above you — either Liam’s or Charlotte’s.”

So, that’s
her name.

“The choice is
yours, but the killing is theirs!” Kirkman laughed, and Ana wondered if he
actually thought that was funny. “The box you choose will be opened and exposed
to the 3o zombies swarming in the barn! That unlucky ‘winner’ isn’t likely to
make it, though we suppose anything is possible. However, you and whoever you
spare will then be escorted under the barn to an escape tunnel leading straight
to safety!”

The score crescendoed,
and Ana stared at the screen. Charlotte’s eyes welled with tears, knowing her
odds were slim. Charlotte wasn’t only new to their group, but she was young and
couldn’t protect her like Liam, even if she’d already saved her life once.

“This isn’t
fair!” Ana screamed. “She’s only a child.”

Kirkman said,
“Awwww, such compassion from a murderer’s little girl. Well, let’s see how
compassionate you truly are, Anastasia Lovecraft. Because there IS a third
option.”

Yes, what is
it? Give me another option.

Ana dared to
hope, though she knew a tease when she heard it.

“Not picking
either box within the 60 seconds given means automatically selecting your own
box. This will instantly spare your opponents, taking them down to the tunnel
below the barn while you stay topside and earn your survival from more than two
dozen zombies!”

Ana didn’t want
Kirkman to have the joy of breaking her, and didn’t want the audience to see
it. She tried everything to keep from crying, screaming, or showing any
expression at all, but another zombie ran at her box, forgetting about the
translucent wall between her and the rest of the world. The zombie slammed hard
enough against the plastic to splatter it with a bloody smear. She swallowed
her rising bile as the box swayed, making her wonder how much longer she had
before it fell, or worse, broke apart.

She wondered if
her cell would even sustain 60 seconds of zombies smashing into it.

“Now,” Kirkman
said, “I’m going to give each player a chance to beg for their life. First, your
City 6 mate and secret Underground lover boy, Liam!”

Ana was already
crying out as his monitor went live. “I don’t know what to do, Liam.”

His face was
serious, eyes meeting hers. “I know it’s a tough call, Ana, but you’ve gotta
open the girl’s box. I’m not saying this to spare my life; believe me, I don’t
give a fuck. I’m dead anyway. Until that happens, I’m the best chance you have
at staying alive. Choose the girl and you’re both dead.”

Kirkman
interrupted. “And they say chivalry is dead, ladies and gentleman. ‘Kill the
child, spare me instead.’ Ah, Liam Harrow is a knight in shining armor!”
Kirkman cackled. “Do you kiss the ladies with those slippery lips? I tell ya,
folks, these Underground scum have NO decency!”

The audience,
being the eager sheep they were, booed. The camera panned across the crowd, and
Ana saw the rage etched in their faces. She wondered how people could feel so
much hate and rage toward strangers.

“Fu — ” Liam
started to say before his audio went dead.

“Charlotte
Gray,” Kirkman commanded, “plead your case!”

The girl looked
up to her monitor, staring into the tiny green dot at the top that would
capture her voice and broadcast her words, if only she could make them. Between
her river of tears, her missing tongue, and the shrill, sudden scream as
another zombie slammed into the side of her box, every one of her sounds was
further proof she was not fit for The Games.

“Oh yeah,”
Kirkman cackled, “I’m afraid the kitty’s been playing with Charlotte’s tongue
for far too long! Let’s all imagine together: If she
could
speak, surely
she would say something like, ‘Please, please, not me! Anyone but me! I’m just
a little girl!’”

The audience
laughed, fueling Ana to almost uncontrollable anger. She had to stay measured.
Her father had told Kirkman to fuck himself, but with the Network pulling
strings and three lives in the balance, the bastards wouldn’t need much of an
excuse to end the mini-game with all of them dead.

She glared at
the monitor, biting her tongue.

Kirkman said,
“OK, Ana, have you made your decision? Will it be your boyfriend or the poor,
innocent child?”

Ana continued to
stare at the monitors. Liam was speaking, likely with no clue that she couldn’t
hear a word. The girl stared at Ana from her monitor, hands cupped as if in
prayer, pleading with her eyes.

Ana’s guilt rose
into full bloom as she remembered scaring the girl away when she first
encountered her in the woods. Ana hadn’t meant to be so cruel. She’d only
wanted to scare the girl away, to protect her. And now, ironically, after the
girl saved her and Liam’s lives, her own was on the line. In a just world, Ana
would save the girl and leave Liam — the man who got her into this whole mess —
to fend for himself.

But nobody ever
claimed this was a just world. And if Ana died, who would be there for Adam?

Still, Ana
couldn’t imagine opening the child’s door. There was no way the girl could
survive a zombie attack. At least if she opened Liam’s door, he might stand a
chance of making it out of the barn alive.

Kirkman’s voice
cut through Ana’s thoughts. “One more thing, Little Miss Lovecraft. In order to
make such an important decision, you need all the information available.” His
bright tone went brighter as he said, “Which is why I think you need to see
this!”