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  He pulled the blade up, then out, before bringing it down right between the fucker’s eyes.

  Jonah grabbed the machete and walked over to where the fat bastard zombie was crawling across the snow, groaning, with trails of black in its wake.

  The creature flung its arms wildly, trying to reach Jonah. He gave the zombie’s hands a wide berth, then circled behind it, driving his machete through its skull.

  Jonah wiped his mouth and looked down at the bodies, disgusted, then turned his attention to the blackened blood caking his blade. He slid the length of his blade along the filthy tattered rags worn by the fat zombie, wiping blood from metal.

  Jonah looked back toward the tunnel where he had left the first zombie, the one he’d shot, wondering if he should go back and finish it off or count his lucky stars and get the fuck out of Dodge before more showed up.

  Jonah decided to leave, but he hadn’t traveled more than 20 feet before the first zombie appeared. It was running toward him, not remotely slowed by the gunshot, despite a gaping hole in its chest, big enough to see through.

  Jonah panicked, not sure how to take on the runner. He readied his blade. Then, as the zombie roared toward him, he swung at its arms, missing by inches.

  The zombie didn’t miss, though, knocking Jonah to the ground so hard that it knocked the breath from his body.

  The zombie straddled Jonah and knocked the machete clear from his clutched palm. The machete slid five feet across the snow, until it was no way in hell too far away.

  Jonah bucked against the ground, trying to throw the monster from his pinned body, but the zombie grabbed both of his arms, forcing them to the ground with an impossible strength.

  The rampaging zombie kept Jonah’s hands pinned to either side of his face; the creature’s clawed fingers dug into his flesh, though not yet drawing blood.

  The zombie leaned forward, its sick white eyes swirling around in their sockets. Jonah wasn’t sure how the undead were able to see with eyes that shone with nothing but white, but the zombie seemed to be staring right at him. If Jonah didn’t know better, he would think the zombie was savoring its seemingly obvious victory rather than following its instincts to chomp down and tear his flesh like skin from a chicken.

  The orb floated above them both, hovering just inches over the zombie’s head.

  “Well, folks, it looks like this might be the end for Jonah. He gave a valiant fight, but this wife-murderer and father of two couldn’t escape Darwinian justice.”

  Rage pumped through Jonah as he slipped one hand free and grabbed the zombie by the neck, trying to choke it, or at least keep it from getting any closer to his own neck. They struggled in a war of inches as the orb floated in long, slow circles around them, announcing every action, subtle or not, and milking the moment for every drop of drama.

  “Do you have any last words, Jonah?” Kirkman asked, his face beaming back from the orb’s monitor, three inches above the zombie’s menacing, chattering, rotten face.

  The zombie’s teeth were just centimeters from Jonah’s face, as his arm, the only thing holding death at bay, started shaking, unable to keep up with the pressure. Pain splintered through Jonah’s body, starting at his arm. He had just moments before his cramped muscles betrayed the rest of him.

  He thought of Anastasia and Adam, wondering if they were watching him die.

  He hoped to God not.

  He stared into the screen, wondering if their eyes were watching from Chimney Rock and the safe side of The Wall.

  “Any last words to your precious children, Anastasia and Adam?” Kirkman asked, as though he were reading Jonah’s mind. Though the announcer’s voice was soft and sympathetic, it crawled beneath Jonah’s skin, worming its way toward his angry heart, dropping a lit match on the rage he’d been holding in check.

  Jonah surrendered his grip on the zombie’s neck, then let the monster fall forward, its mouth wide open, ready to chomp down. Before it could make contact, Jonah sent his head slamming hard into the zombie’s nose, blinding the zombie with a sharp shock of sudden but momentary pain. In that split second, the zombie released its grip and Jonah seized his moment, reaching up with both arms, leaving his face, neck, and chest entirely exposed, but hoping, and maybe even praying, that he’d properly gauged the orb’s distance.

  Jonah’s hands seized the cold, glassy orb, bringing it down hard into the zombie’s skull.

  The creature screamed.

  Kirkman yelled, “What the hell?” as the orb whirred, hummed, and beeped, trying to find its bearings and free itself from Jonah’s grasp.

  He could feel the humming and a slight burning in his arms, but Jonah held on. He stood, walked over to the zombie, now struggling to stand, and brought the orb down hard on its head again.

  “Die!” he screamed, as the orb split the zombie’s skull.

  “FUCKING!” he screamed with a second blow.

  “DIE!” he screamed with the final bash, throwing the orb at the zombie’s crumbling face.

  The orb’s screen was cracked and flickering, the humming now only a sputter.

  Jonah could see Kirkman screaming, but the speakers were silent, so Jonah could only guess what he was saying — probably a warning about not destroying the camera orb.

  Jonah reached down, retrieved the orb, then brought it to his face, swallowing the rising tide of venom.

  He looked into the camera and said, “How’s that for WOW factor?”

  He threw the orb as hard and as far as he could back into the cave, then headed for the woods.

  CHAPTER 2 — Anastasia Lovecraft

  Inside The Walls of City 6

  Anastasia stared at the largest of the more than 20 TVs that lined The Social, watching her father, Jonah, square off against the zombies.

  When Jonah went down and the zombie swiped the machete away, Ana cringed. She thought that was it — her father was dead. But suddenly, he looked up and into the orb’s camera, grabbed it, and continued to bash it into the zombie’s skull until he finally stood, victorious.

  The bar erupted into a nearly universal applause, but Ana was silent, burying herself in her long brown hair, which hid her emerald eyes.

  She glared at the TV.

  “I’m sorry,” said Michael, her best friend.

  Michael half-smiled from across the table, then set his warm hand on top of hers and gently squeezed. His smile was sympathetic, sewn on his mouth with a compassion no one else in the bar possessed.

  As if to punctuate her thought, a group of guys at the bar traded a thundering round of high-fives.

  “Jo-nah! Jo-nah!” they chanted, their cheers drifting through the smoky fog of the bar.

  “Why did I let you talk me into coming here?” she whispered to Michael. “You know I hate this place.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked down. “You said you couldn’t bear to watch it at Chimney Rock. I thought this was better.”

  Chimney Rock was what they, and most of the younger people, called the orphanage where Ana had been placed. It was one of City 6’s three State-run orphanages, and while they knew it as Chimney Rock, its official title was The Home for Wayward Youths and Miscreants.

  The Rock was a sprawling complex in the beating heart of the City, its outside as sooty and black as the spirit inside. The Rock was where they sent the children of State prisoners, and where Ana and her 14-year-old brother, Adam, had been living for the past two months, ever since her father had murdered their mother.

  Ana was assigned to stay at Chimney Rock until she turned 18 — six long months away. Only then would she be allowed to claim custody of Adam, provided she earned her keep at the textile, where it was her job to sew buttons onto shirts, all day, six days a week, 12 hours a day, until her fingers were numb or throbbing. Usually both. As awful as the throbbing was, most times Ana preferred it since it was better than the numb which tricked her into thinking her fingers had disappeared. Where she’d go after Chimney Rock was anybody’s guess, though.
r />   Most likely, she’d have to move to the Dark Quarter, the nearly lawless ghetto of City 6. In some ways, she wondered if Adam would be better off staying on at the orphanage. Sure, he’d be miserable, but at least he’d be safe, something she couldn’t guarantee in the Dark Quarter.

  A day never passed when Ana didn’t wish she’d tested well for any other aptitude back when she was 15 and chose to test for sewing, only because her friend Ginny Thompson thought it would be fun working together. Ironically, Ginny failed the test and wound up working the fields instead. How farming — being out in the open all day long — was what you got when you failed, and being trapped inside a hot factory through nearly every hour of sunlight was what you got when you passed, well, it seemed a cruel joke to Ana.

  Ana still remembered her mom congratulating her when she was first awarded her placement at the textile factory — as if she’d made a tremendous achievement and would thus be rewarded with meaningful work. It was easy enough for her mom, who had been gifted at planning and therefore landed a comfortable desk job with the City, as did her father, who had worked all the way to Major at City Watch before the events that changed all their lives.

  The chants of “Jo-nah!” finally died away, save for one lone screamer, a drunken, long-haired 18-year-old she’d known all too well. Liam Harrow was tipping back his glass and going on long past everyone else. He turned to Ana mid-swig, then turned his eyes back to the screen. A second later he turned to Ana.

  “What?” he said, a slur of hostility thick in his voice. “Think you’d be happy your daddy made it to the Final Battle.”

  “Do I look happy?” Ana shot back. “Don’t worry,” she added, “he won’t last five seconds against Bear.”

  “Some way to talk about your father,” Liam said, finishing his beer. He climbed from his stool, breaking rank with his trio of drinking buddies, each of them ranging between 10 and 15 years older than him, and each looking every bit as rough around the edges. Probably Underground scum.

  One of them, a red-haired, green-eyed man with a thick beard, slapped a hand on Liam’s shoulder and said, “Leave her be, Liam. Let’s watch the recaps.”

  Liam shook his buddy’s hand away, then glanced back as if to say, “Don’t fuck with me.”

  Though Liam was younger than the others, he was also in significantly better shape. Fighting shape, though Ana had little doubt he’d be wearing a permanent ale gut by the time he was 25 — if he lived that long, or didn’t wind up in prison. Or, even more likely, outside The Wall. Liam had always been in trouble, and his father was a known troublemaker before he killed himself, back when Liam was nine.

  Michael started to stand as Liam approached their table.

  Ana put her hand over his, then shook her head and said, “No. I’ll handle this.” She held his stare and made him silently agree.

  It wouldn’t do to have Michael playing hero.

  He was a gentleman — sweet, good looking in a nice guy sorta way, and in excellent shape, but not a fighter. Liam, especially drunk, could hurt him badly. If Ana were to lose Michael, she would be friendless as well as motherless.

  “Someone oughta teach you to respect your elders,” Liam said, sauntering to their table, wearing a wide grin, as though he had just finished a hysterical joke, with a punch line only he got.

  “You’re only a year older than me, hardly an elder,” Ana said, half-laughing, and only on the outside.

  “I’m talking about Jonah,” Liam said, looking down at Ana, while ignoring Michael entirely, which Ana was sure must be digging under Michael’s skin. “You ought not to talk that way of your father. He’s a good man.”

  “Yeah, I suppose if you like murderers,” Ana said. She glanced at her hands and forced herself to sip her sugar water rather than give in to her mind’s usual tangent, which would start with the many reasons she hated her father and end only after the exhaustive list was finished and a new one, maybe the reasons he deserved to die, began.

  Ana had plenty of feelings about her father, but not a single one was any of Liam’s goddamn business.

  “You still buying that bullshit about how he killed your mom?” Liam shook his head. “Come on, Ana, you know better than that. He was fucking set up.”

  “Whatever,” Ana said, not wanting to get into an argument or relate how she witnessed her father with her own two eyes.

  It was, after all, her testimony that had sent her father away. Ana was still considered a child, so that detail of the famous case had been kept from the News Agency and off the public reels, though she had assumed word had been whispered anyway. Perhaps not, if Liam didn’t know.

  Liam laughed, a drunken, almost sick-sounding cackle, which quickly fell into a dry heave, like he was trying to think of something more to say, maybe something clever, but couldn’t draw a drop from the well. He raised a fist to his mouth, bit it, then turned from their table and stormed back to the bar.

  Ana watched as he marched off, surprised when he suddenly spun back toward her and shouted, “You know, you really ARE a brat!”

  Ana’s mouth dropped open, shocked that Liam had called her a “brat,” of all things. And the way he said it suggested it wasn’t something that had just come to him — it was a long-held belief that he’d thought a million times before that moment. She wasn’t sure which surprised her more — that Liam thought she was a brat, or that he’d thought of her at all. It wasn’t as if their paths crossed all that often. Liam hadn’t gone to school with her since he was placed in The Orphanage almost a decade ago. And they rarely saw each other outside of the occasional run-in at the market or City Park, where she used to hang out before she had to start working at age 17.

  “I am not!” she snapped back, feeling her face redden as her fists curled into balls beneath the table.

  “Oh yes you are!” Liam said, cackling like before, now louder. “Your father had nothing but the best things to say about you, and you have the gall to sit here, sipping on your sugar water while wishing him dead? Dead? You aren’t just a brat, Ana, you’re an icy-hearted bitch.”

  Ana was too shocked to do what she wanted — punch the fucker right in either one of the fat sneering lips flapping from the front of his smug mouth.

  Michael leapt from the table and to Ana’s defense. “She said to leave her alone!”

  “Sit down, Michelle,” Liam snapped, taking a long step toward Michael and shoving him hard toward his seat.

  The nudge was just enough to send Michael’s ass banging against the back of the booth, where he only stayed for a second. Michael lunged from his sprawl, swinging before he was even standing.

  Even drunk, Liam was too fast, deftly stepping aside as Michael shot by and fell awkwardly to the ground. Scattered laughter rippled through the bar.

  Ana fumed, then stood and yelled, “Stop it!”

  Liam, whose back was to Ana as he waited for Michael’s next move, turned to her, eyes wide, surprised by the sudden outburst.

  Their eyes met — his were icy blue but blushed with spirits — locked in the realization that everyone in the bar was staring at them, and that trouble was a coiled snake, ready to strike.

  Liam’s friends were watching, but they weren’t hooting or hollering, like most of the bar patrons. They seemed concerned for their friend, and possibly worried about what he might do next. They approached Michael as he stood, hands out, to show they hadn’t meant to hurt him and wanted to sooth the situation before it escalated further.

  The man with the light red beard said, “Here, let me help,” as he extended a hand to Michael to help him off the floor.

  Liam took a step toward Ana, his eyes dancing and cheeks twitching. “You really think he did it, don’t you?”

  In that moment, for the first time since Ana had seen her father standing over her mother’s dead body, a seed of doubt was sprouting.

  It made no sense, but hell if it wasn’t germinating anyway. Maybe it was the conviction in Liam’s eyes. How can he be so certa
in of his innocence? She wasn’t sure how he knew her dad, though she had her suspicions, since her father was a rumored member of The Underground.

  What does Liam know that I don’t?

  Michael yelled something at Liam’s friends, shaking off their assistance. He took a few steps toward the bar, grabbed a bottle from the counter, then raced toward Liam, bottle raised, ready to attack from behind.

  Ana’s eyes widened before her mouth could warn Liam or stop Michael.

  Liam was fluent in her look and spun around just as Michael swung the bottle and connected with Liam’s forehead. Glass shattered. Liam screamed as they both stumbled forward and fell to the ground.

  Ana jumped back, trying to figure the best way to break up the fight.

  Two seconds later, City Watch guards burst into the bar — a pack of six, dressed in black, heavily armed, faces concealed by impenetrable black enclosed helmets.

  “Break it up,” one of the men ordered through his helmet’s muffled speakers, masking The Watcher’s voice while adding several layers of menace.

  Michael and Liam both looked up, surprised, then quickly untangled their fight.

  The Watchers responded as if both were still a threat, though.

  A pair of Watchers thrust out their safety sticks, connecting with Michael and Liam, sending them both into writhing spasms, screaming on the floor from the electric current the sticks sent through their bodies.

  The Watchers then began swinging the sticks as clubs, bashing both fallen men repeatedly.

  Ana started toward them, as if she might somehow talk some sense into The Watchers, but someone grabbed her by the elbow. She turned, surprised. A black man in his mid-fifties with greying hair and a scruffy salt-and-pepper beard was wearing the same serious look her father often wore — a look that begged her to listen rather than run.

  “Don’t,” was all he said, pulling her toward the back of the bar, away from the cluster of Watchers surrounding Michael and Liam.

  “But — ”

  “If you get involved, it’ll be way worse. Just let The Watchers get their steam out, do what they’re gonna do, and leave.”