Empty Bodies Box Set | Books 1-6 Read online

  Dylan had moved almost thirty yards away from the tree when he finally stepped on the photo, keeping it from flying further away.

  “Gotcha!”

  As he bent over to grab the photo, he heard a snarl. He looked up, and saw one of the monsters limping toward him.

  As fast as he could, he ran with the photo in his hand back to his bag. He tucked the photograph into one of the bag’s secure side pockets, reached inside the main compartment, and pulled out the pilot’s handgun that Gabriel had left with him. Grabbing his bag but leaving his game on the ground, Dylan turned and ran toward the plane, just like Gabriel had instructed.

  Dylan tripped over a rock only fifteen yards away from the tree. He clutched his knee, wincing from the pain.

  He flipped over onto his back, and watched the beast coming closer. It was alone, but relentless. Using his elbows, Dylan backed up, sliding across the mix of grass and dirt, until he was against another tree.

  Sweat dripped down his face and his lips trembled. The gun shook in his hand, and he fought to take off the safety and cock the hammer back, just like his father had taught him.

  It clicked, and the pistol was drawn.

  But the creature was already falling toward him.

  When Gabriel arrived at the hunting area in the back right corner of the store, the rotten stench stung his nose immediately. He walked around a corner, headed down one of the aisles, and brought his hand over his mouth and nose. Bodies—five, maybe up to eight; it was hard to tell—lay sprawled across the blood-stained tile. Some of the heads were still attached to their bodies and were either unrecognizable from the cannibalistic acts or had a gunshot wound in them.

  Some weapons were missing from stock, but many of them remained. Gabriel was surprised that the place hadn’t been completely looted. His best guess was that, whatever it was changing people into these limping and mindless beasts, it had affected enough of the people who were in the store that they’d simply overpowered the survivors—even with the barracks of rifles, shotguns, and pistols around them.

  Gabriel walked to the glass counter. Rifles and shotguns lined the wall behind it and the case itself was filled with pistols, knives, and ammunition. As he approached the counter and looked over it, his eyes were quickly diverted in another direction. On the ground behind the register, a man wearing a red vest and a name tag lay dead, with a small family of rats picking away at his flesh. Gabriel turned and threw up all over the ground, landing knelt over and retching.

  He gathered himself with a cough and a swipe at the mouth, and hopped over the counter. The rats squeaked and ran in different directions as Gabriel began to study the guns on the back wall. His eyes fell upon a black semi-automatic M4 assault rifle. He brought the gun off the wall and let the cold steel settle into his hands. He tossed the strap over his head and onto his shoulder, the gun meeting him at his hip. Next, he grabbed a pump action shotgun off the wall and threw it into the large duffle bag.

  Gabriel turned and tried to open the case, but it was locked. For a moment, he thought about reaching down and trying to find keys on the decaying man before remembering the new world he was in. He smiled, then slammed the butt of the M4 through the case, busting it open and sending shards of glass onto the ground.

  He grabbed two pistols, shoving one into the bag and mounting the other to his side, found the right ammunition for each weapon, and stuffed as much as he could into the two bags. As much as he’d hope Dylan wouldn’t have to kill anything or anyone, he realized it was probably inevitable, and a pistol would be a simple enough weapon for the boy to handle.

  Taking the M4 into his hands and loading it, Gabriel was thankful that his brother-in-law, Jimmy, was a military veteran who liked to take him to the shooting range whenever they would visit him in Georgia. It was there that Gabriel, a city boy at heart, had learned how to load and fire an assault rifle with some competence.

  Gabriel started to turn away, but a large knife stared back at him from the bottom of the case. The handle looked as if his hand would wrap perfectly around it. He pulled the knife from the case, sliding it out of its sheath. As predicted, the blade felt perfect in his hand. It looked exactly like the knife that one of his movie heroes, John Rambo, would have used to butcher Vietnamese soldiers.

  A crash came from the front of the store.

  Time to go.

  He threw the bags back on, much heavier now, and ran to the rear of the store to find an exit. A display caught his eye as he was about to enter the double doors leading into the warehouse. It was a free-standing display filled with Louisville Sluggers.

  Gabriel smiled, grabbed one of the wooden bats, and ran through the back door just as the front of the store began to fill with limping bodies.

  Like the rest of the building, the warehouse in the back of the store was void of any life. Gabriel raced to the emergency door at the back, guided only by a few florescent lights that hung from the ceiling. A large red bar stretched across the metal door, and Gabriel assumed that once he opened it, it would lock behind him and there would be no turning back. He pushed through the door, sounding off the alarm just as the first swarm of dead pushed through the double doors behind him and into the warehouse.

  Gabriel gasped as he walked outside. The light above the door shined on three monsters in front of him. They snarled as he stepped into the light, sensing the warmth in his blood. Not wanting to waste ammunition from the assault rifle, Gabriel pulled the pistol from his side and began to fire at them. The first shot caught one of them in the shoulder, only slowing it down for a moment. The second shot connected, hitting it between the eyes and sending it down. He started to jog away from the other two, firing, and connecting with the cheek of one of them.

  He heard the alarm inside again as the back door of the sporting goods store opened. As they spilled out of the door, the siren was overtaken by growls.

  Leaving the third creature to walk after him, Gabriel slipped the pistol back into the holster and ran, passing right by the back entrance to the supermarket.

  His only goal now was to get back to Dylan and get the hell out of here.

  Chapter 12

  Jessica

  Jessica gasped as the panic awoke her.

  “Help! Help!”

  She stood, leaving her makeshift bed of cheap gas station blankets behind, and ran to the storage room at the back of the building, behind the counter. When the door swung open, Jessica saw Melissa straddling Walt as he convulsed. His eyes were white, rolled into the back of his head, and his hips thrust with aggressive succession.

  His lips were moving, and Jessica squinted and turned her ear toward him, listening close to him mumbling something almost indistinct.

  “Get out,” he said, under faint breaths.

  Then, he ceased convulsing and his chest stopped rising.

  Melissa looked up at Jessica with a blushed face, covered in tears.

  “Please help! God, please help him!”

  The only thing Jessica knew to do was to try CPR—a skill she’d been required to learn when she took the job at the hotel. She urged Melissa out of the way and put her head to Walt’s chest, hearing a faint pulse. Her hands moved to his chest and she clasped them right above his sternum and began to perform compressions. After a series of pumps, she leaned down and breathed fresh air into his mouth, feeling his cold lips against hers and the coarse hair in his beard gone stiff.

  Again, he mumbled something, and the volume was so faint, she wouldn’t have had heard what he was saying if she hadn’t been performing mouth to mouth.

  “Get out of my head.”

  “What?” Jessica asked.

  “Out.” Walt closed his eyes.

  Jessica repeated the steps two more times before Walt stopped moving entirely.

  Her head lay against his chest and she heard nothing. The faded drum in his chest had stopped marching.

  Melissa looked back and forth between her husband and Jessica.

  For five mor
e minutes, Jessica performed CPR. When all the color had flushed from his face and the beat in his heart hadn’t returned, Jessica resigned.

  Leaving tears on his shirt, she looked up to the still man’s wife and shook her head.

  Melissa cried out and let her entire body crumble to the ground.

  Shoulders slumped, Jessica sat back onto her feet and wept for the man who’d saved her life and had now died because of it. She hardly knew the Kesslers, but such a debt could never be repaid, least of all now.

  She stayed on her knees, watching Melissa clutch the cold hand of the man she loved, screams echoing through the small room.

  Outside, the day hinted at more rain. Fog peeked over the mountains and the sun lay still, hidden behind a cluster of clouds. It wasn’t as cold as it had been the previous evening, and even with rain, Jessica knew she could drive them safely down the rest of the mountain. But for now, allowing Melissa time alone with the cold body of her dead husband seemed important, so Jessica waited outside. She sat just inside the open sliding door of the van nursing an orange sports drink. Every few seconds, she found herself looking down at the cell phone in her hand to see if there was a signal. It had become a futile routine.

  Each time she checked the phone she thought of her parents. It was the most desperate of feelings, to wonder if they were alive. In her heart, she wanted to believe they were. But only reaching them on the phone or getting to them would prove that.

  She stepped onto the dirt for a moment and moved into the front of the van, sliding through the doorway and into the passenger seat. Jessica inserted the key into the ignition and turned it over halfway to power the radio on, searching for a signal. Again, there was nothing.

  She looked back as she heard a bellow from inside the gas station. Jessica grabbed the gun and left a trail of dust behind her as she hurried to the door.

  Inside, she watched Melissa back away from the shut door of the storage room. Her hands covered her mouth and she was slumped over in disbelief.

  “Melissa,” Jessica said, getting no response.

  Jessica tapped Melissa on the shoulder, flinching back as she turned and yelled out.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Jessica said, embracing Melissa.

  “Walt,” Melissa cried into Jessica’s shoulder.

  Jessica gently urged Melissa away.

  “What about Walt?”

  Melissa wiped her eyes and pointed to the room.

  Banging started on the door. It made Jessica jump, and her first reaction was to pull the gun from the back of her pants.

  “No,” Melissa yelled, pushing the weapon down toward the ground.

  Jessica cocked her head.

  “What’s behind the door, Melissa?”

  She knew the answer. But for some reason, she felt the urge to ask. Wanted to hear it out loud.

  The banging continued until the wood in the middle of the door split open and a face appeared.

  The eyes; they’d changed. No more the gentle eyes of the delicate stranger who had saved her life. The eyes were empty. Soulless.

  Melissa began to reach out to Walt as he continued ripping through the door.

  Jessica pulled her back.

  “We have to go.”

  “No! I can’t leave him!” Melissa said. Her mind was nearly as lost as her husband’s.

  Jessica’s grip around her tightened as the older woman fought.

  “It’s not him, sweetie,” Jessica said. “He is gone.”

  Half of Walt’s body—one leg and one arm—were through the door. He was spitting toward them through hungry teeth.

  Jessica began walking backwards, dragging the woman who fought a little less with each step, but still reached after her husband.

  Walt busted through the door just as they’d backed up to the front door of the store.

  Jessica opened the door to leave, but Melissa put up one last fight.

  As he got closer, Jessica drew the pistol and put three shots into Walt’s chest. Melissa screamed out. When the bullets didn’t faze him, though, she realized that the pale eyes were not of her husband; they were something else. She’d known all along, but fought to make the connection in her tired mind. It took watching Walt be shot multiple times in the chest for Melissa to comprehend that her husband was dead. She turned with Jessica and ran out the door, to the van.

  Seeing the sliding panel door of the van already open, Melissa jumped onto the backseat.

  Walt pushed through the glass and continued a powerful limp toward them, howling into the open air. His hat was gone, revealing his ring of silver hair moving in the wind.

  Jessica slipped when she ran around the front hood, tearing open the material on the knee of her pants and leaving a scrape on her flesh in the process. She grimaced, but got back to her feet and slid into the driver’s seat.

  The key was still in the ignition and she turned it the rest of the way, hearing the engine roll over.

  Walt reached the van and pounded his fists against the window of the sliding side panel door. On her back, with her head resting against the door on the other side of the van, Melissa looked into his dead eyes as he hit the glass. For a moment, she saw sadness and wondered if any part of him was left inside the pale eyes.

  As the van pulled away, his eyes never left them. He limped behind them, arms flailing in the air as the sky opened and rain fell. Melissa watched him until he became smaller than one of the drops of rain.

  “I love you,” she mumbled, blowing him one last kiss before the van turned a corner around the mountain.

  Chapter 13

  Will

  The cold rag against his forehead awoke Will in a stir. He opened his eyes and saw Holly with a look of concern over her face as she wrung the damp rag out in a bucket beside her. Her hair was up, making her eyes propel their beauty at him even more. He saw her full lips moving, but it took a moment for his ears to catch back up with his eyes after having blacked out.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  Will shook his head to try and wake himself up a little more. He was sitting against a wall, his legs straight out in front of him, stretched across the cold floor. He tried to bring his hands up so that he could scratch his nose, but he couldn’t. He rocked side to side, trying to remove his hands from the binding behind his back.

  “What is this?” he asked Holly, furiously. He pulled on his hands, feeling the twine begin to rub his wrists raw.

  She ignored him, dipping the rag back into a small bucket of water, and wringing it out, the sound of dripping water popping in Will’s ears.

  They were in a large, empty room with no windows. The floor was solid concrete and the walls were a pale white. Doors were on either side of the room. Will could only see out of one of them, but it appeared to lead out into the main part of the warehouse.

  “What the fuck is this?” he yelled at her again.

  “I’ll tell you what this is.”

  The voice came from a man on the other side of the room. His boots clicked across the floor as he approached Will.

  “This is your new home,” the man said.

  Will raised his head and looked the man up and down. He wore a fitted green t-shirt tucked into a pair of black slacks. He had medium length hair, dark and curly, and appeared to be in his mid-40’s. From what Will could tell, he appeared to be fit, matched with a chiseled face under his beard.

  “If you really want it to be, that is.” The man spoke in a slight, but elegant, Southern drawl.

  “Who are you?” Will asked.

  The man knelt down next to him, working a toothpick between his teeth. He let the pick rest between his lips on the right side of his mouth, like a cigarette.

  “My name is David Ellis,” he said, sarcastically offering a handshake to Will, who shot him a frustrated look. David scoffed.

  “Oh, yeah. Right,” David said.

  “What do you want? Why am I here?” Will asked.

  David looked back at Holly, who was
taking her hair down, straightening it out, and putting it back up in a ponytail.

  “Holly, go grab Mr. Kessler here some water, will you?” David told Holly.

  She walked to the other side of the room, flashing a flirtatious smile at Will, before walking out the door.

  “How do you know my name?” Will asked.

  David held up Will’s wallet. “You can tell a lot about a man by looking through his bag.”

  David stood and began removing things from the bag, tossing them on the ground. He pulled out the pack of almonds and began to snack on them as he continued to talk to Will.

  “We’ve been watching you,” David said.

  “I bet you have. You look like a fuckin’ queer.”

  David smiled.

  Holly arrived back in the room with a bottle of water. She knelt down next to Will and put the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back so that he could hydrate.

  Will smacked his lips as they began to moisten, staring back at her, and trying to figure out the motive behind her glaring smiles and her kindness.

  “The way you handled those people to get on the roof was impressive,” David said. He reached down into the bag again and pulled out one of the bottles of water. Smiling, he showed it to Holly and shrugged.

  Will swallowed his gulp of water and wiped his mouth on his shoulder. “What people?”

  David pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “Outside,” he said.

  Will laughed. “People? Those aren’t fuckin’ people. Not anymore at least.”

  David leaned in closer to Will and spoke in a firm tone with his Southern drawl. “What do you suggest I call them?”

  Will put his head down and looked at the ground, not sure if he should say the word he was thinking. Then, it just came out. “Empties.”

  David cocked his head to the side. He flicked his tongue, moving the toothpick to the opposite side of his mouth.

  “Empties?”