Z 2134

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