Z 2134

automatically win. Of course, most of the people at home were rooting for Jonah to make it to the Final Battle. If he died now, it would be anticlimactic and deny the audience the spectacle of a bloody duel.
    The networks were no doubt pitching this duel as Bear against the very law that had imprisoned him and destroyed his family, despite the network being run by The City, which was the law of the land. Of course, such subtleties were lost on the common viewer, who only sought relief from the long days, not critical analysis.
    Jonah tried to focus again as the orb hovered closer, its static purr lifting his hair in the breeze. He turned back, still glaring. The orb zipped several feet back, giving him additional space. It wasn’t enough. Jonah wanted to bash the fucking thing to pieces but knew better.
    Sam Wallings had almost won The Darwin Games two years before, but had smashed an orb a half-hour from reaching the Mesa. He was a half-day from reaching The Bounty before his opponent and was stronger in every way. No one doubted he would win. But after smashing the Orb, Wallings was found by a hunter orb four minutes later and violently exterminated, to many cheers and even more lost bets.
    Jonah would have to tolerate the goddamn orb.
    He inched closer, deciding to take his chances by eliminating the closest of the zombies.
    Erupting through the relative silence, Jonah heard an explosion of noise from behind — something galloping toward him, fast.
    Before he could register what it might be, the sudden assault slammed him sideways, sending him hard to the ground. Jonah’s rifle flew from his hand and skidded across the ground.
    Unfortunately, the orb had swung from danger just in time, clearing the area unscathed.
    Jonah, on his hands and knees, looked up, hoping like hell the zombies hadn’t noticed him when they heard the charging deer. If they had, they no longer cared, every one of them too distracted by the deer barreling toward them.
    Jonah grabbed his rifle and aimed, then waited.
    The deer stopped short when it spotted the zombies. Jonah stared through the scope as one of the zombies leaped at the deer, savagely grabbing it around the neck, then sinking its teeth past the deer’s fur and into its flesh and dragging it to the ground.
    A second zombie joined the feast, and hungry growls drowned the deer’s dying cries. Grunts from the zombies echoed off the tunnel walls; a backbeat to the melody of ripping flesh below.
    The zombies were fast and vicious, and they worked together — something Jonah had not yet seen in his thirteen days outside The Wall.
    Jonah started moving as fast as he could toward them — toward the exit — without surrendering stealth, wearing the wall’s shadows for cover, and hoping to pass the zombies while they were distracted with their kill. Zombies, in Jonah’s limited experience, rarely left one meal in pursuit of another.
    They were preoccupied, but not for long. If one of the zombies finished, or was pushed from the pack for being too greedy and infringing on the feast of another, it might very well turn its hungry eyes to Jonah.
    He was 20 yards away from them when he finally got a better look at the small pack of walking corpses.
    Careful, careful. Keep your eyes on them. Be ready to fire and then grab the machete. Whatever you do, don’t trip, stumble on a rock, or make a decibel of noise.
    Jonah’s heart pounded so loudly he was certain the zombies would hear him. The thumping in his chest felt as loud to him as the zombies’ fevered grunts and the sound of ripping flesh, which grew louder as he drew closer.
    He was five yards away from the zombies and another 10 yards from the tunnel’s exit when the sounds, wet like soaking gravel, slapped him hard and turned his stomach.
    Do NOT puke here. They will hear and kill you.
    Jonah tried to concentrate on the sound of the orb, still humming relatively quietly behind him, allowing the purring drone to squelch the horrible sounds of tearing, pulling, and crunching. For once Jonah was thankful to have the orb so close, though he hoped the humming wasn’t loud enough to invite the eyes of the zombies. He saw their fists filled with guts and meat, and mouths painted with the sauce of their kill, and figured it wasn’t.
    The zombies had devoured about 60 percent of the deer so far as Jonah could see, and were now starting to push at one another. Fighting over food wasn’t unusual. Soon, things would get ugly, with