Hands raised, Samuel did as he was told and stepped through the back door.
David stumbled into the cab, his lightheadedness subsiding. His arm burned as if it were aflame. He tried to bury the pain in the back of his mind—along with the thought that he would soon turn into an Empty—as he shifted the column shift down into drive.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Samuel asked.
“Just lay down, preacher.”
David pressed the pedal to the floor, and the car shot around the side of the barn.
***
Will
The large man dropped to the ground behind the shack like a demolished building, as Will’s aim with the rifle had been true. The cowardly man who’d been hiding behind the tree, now left alone with his two protectors laying dead under the shadow of the branches, scampered away toward the neighboring house.
Will stepped out into the open from behind the truck and took aim at the running man.
He clenched his eye.
He fired.
Miss.
Will stepped a few yards closer, and then fired once more.
This one hit.
The man fell forward, toppling into the tall grass.
Will had looked down to reload his weapon just in case the man stood again, when he heard panting. He looked up and the girl who’d been on the table stood, looking in his direction.
“Hey,” he yelled to her.
The girl ran toward the barn.
Just as he was about to chase her, he glanced to the side as he heard the roar of an engine coming from the back of the property. He turned his head and saw another vehicle heading right for them. Will would have recognized the man driving from a mile away.
David.
Will stepped away from the van, moving directly into the path of the oncoming vehicle. At the speed it raced toward him, he figured he had one shot. He raised the rifle flush against his shoulder, looking down the barrel and aiming at his target. For the first time, he noticed Dylan in the passenger seat. He didn’t care. There was no way he’d miss. The car moved in a straight line, bouncing up and down on the dirt, but not enough to hinder Will’s aim.
The gun clicked as the bullet readied for flight.
Will drew in a deep breath.
The vehicle was only yards away now.
“Fuck you.”
Right as Will squeezed the trigger, someone pushed him, and he found himself rolling on the ground. The shot went off, and right after the loud bang came from the rifle, he heard a grotesque thud, followed by a scream.
The car raced by, having missed him.
Will turned and started to fire another round, until he thought better of it. The car was now swerving, and he didn’t have a clear shot at the driver. God forbid he fire the rifle and accidentally hit Dylan.
His attention was drawn to where he’d just stood when he heard Holly crying. He looked over and his eyes went wide. The gun fell from his hands.
Marcus.
Will hurried to Marcus’ side, sliding across the grass on his knees. Blood covered Marcus and the ground surrounding him. Will’s attention went to Marcus’ face first, seeing that the eyes were open but vacant. His guts spilled from his torn and open stomach, the victim of an apparent hit and run. Will understood what Marcus had done. Even had Will’s shot connected with David and killed him, the vehicle likely would have still bowled over him. Marcus had many times told Will that he owed him for saving his life back at Ellis Metals, and now he’d paid his unnecessary debt by sacrificing his own life, getting run over by his former friend and boss.
Everything around Will went black. Holly became a muted figure, her mouth moving, tears running down her face, no sound coming out.
Will passed his hand over Marcus’ eyes, closing them. He unsheathed the knife from his side, and drew in a deep breath.
“I’m so sorry.”
Will shut his eyes and thrusted the knife into the side of Marcus’ head. Behind him, Holly screamed.
Will then got to his feet and retreated back to where he’d dropped the rifle. He picked it up and marched back over to the truck.
The passenger side door was open and he threw the rifle on the seat, shutting the door. Will then walked around to the driver’s side and got into the cab, cranking up the truck. Holly came to the window.
“Don’t do this,” she pleaded. “Wait on Gabriel, and let’s go find them together.”
“Back away from the truck, Holly.”
“Will, please.”
“Go find Gabriel and stay put. I’ll be back with Dylan.”
“Please, baby, don’t—”
“Now!”
The sheer volume of his voice was enough to make Holly jump back, and he threw the truck into drive and punched the gas, throwing up dirt behind him as the wheels spun in place before the truck took off. He cut the wheel, flipping the truck around.
The pickup raced down the driveway, and he was in pursuit.
CHAPTER TWENTY
David
The two lane backroad was mostly a flat, straight path. Trees lined either side, acting as a blockade to the homes that lay hidden off the street behind them. If the road had been a trek of voluptuous curves, he’d likely have wrecked by now, running the vehicle off the road into the trees.
David could hardly see, his vision really starting to falter.
Sweat pooled on his forehead, and the wound on his arm, still wrapped taught with a shop towel, throbbed underneath its covering. He couldn’t be sure if it was because the makeshift tourniquet had been wrapped so tight, or if it was because the massive hole in his arm was slowly coming alive.
In the back seat, Samuel mumbled something to himself. The boy in the passenger seat asked all sorts of questions, but David simply ignored him. In his current condition, it would’ve been hard enough to drive without the blabbering child riding shotgun, and a few times he nearly swung the back of his arm at Dylan in an attempt to knock him out cold. Instead, he focused on the road and blocked out the scared child.
As the car hit 70 mph, his heart raced. The dense population in these parts made for a clear path, as he hadn’t seen any Empties or straggling survivors on this desolate road. Now, he just needed to find a good place to stop. Pulling into one of the many driveways off the road was out of the question; they were out in the country, and he didn’t want to come face to face with some survivalist protecting his land at all costs. Perhaps there would be somewhere up the road—maybe a church or a gas station—that he could pull into and hide the car behind, in case Will or anyone in his group followed them. He needed to find a place with plenty of open space for the preacher to try and draw this disease out of him, but he felt as if he might be running out of time.
A not-so-distant roar caught David’s attention, and he looked in the rearview mirror to see headlights on a fast approaching vehicle.
Will.
David gritted his teeth, feeling another jolt of pain shoot up his arm. He fumbled his hand down to the A/C dial, cranking it up. Sweat bled through his clothes. Behind him, the truck gained on them. David punched the gas, watching the red dial swing up to 80.
David saw two versions of the same road in front of him, both moving in a blurred motion. He’d often driven after a night of having a few beers with friends, but had never experienced anything like this. If this had been a night in the old world and a cop had pulled him over, he likely would have just crumbled to the ground and passed out when the officer asked him to walk in a straight line.
The pursuing vehicle shot around to the side of David, who looked over and confirmed that it was Will manning the truck. Will’s mouth moved, but David was unable to hear what he was yelling. All sound around him had diminished.
Will turned the truck into the side of David’s vehicle. David nearly lost control, but managed to keep a straight path. He turned the wheel, returning the assault back onto Will.
The impact caused Will to lose control.
&nb
sp; Will’s vehicle spun when David rammed into it near the rear tire. His hearing returned as both Dylan and Samuel screamed. Smoke from burning rubber clouded David’s vision. He slammed on the brakes, but Will’s truck spun in front of him, and David rammed into its passenger side door.
David cut the wheel and then blacked out just as the car went airborne into a ditch.
***
Will
The hood of the truck had folded like an accordion. Smoke rose from the engine, and there was a gentle hiss which sounded like air being slowly released from a punctured beach ball. Will came to, his head pounding. He reached for his left temple, and immediately felt the bump around where the throb originated from. The window was still intact, but he assumed his head had crashed into it during the accident, thus knocking him out.
He sat up straight and looked around. His truck had gone off the road, landing on its side in a ditch. His driver’s side door had been pinned against the ground, making it near impossible to escape. Will unbuckled his seatbelt, thankful he had decided to put it on, and climbed up and over to the passenger seat, pulling the handle and pushing the door open, then using its frame and his upper-body strength to pull himself out of the vehicle.
Once he was out, he rolled onto the road, feeling the pain in his ribs for the first time as his adrenaline began wearing off. It didn’t feel as if anything was broken or punctured, but it hurt for him to breathe.
Will lay on his stomach, palms flat on the asphalt. As he pushed himself up, he saw the other vehicle folded up near a tree. Smoke rose from the folded front end. David had apparently hit the tree at high speed.
He held his breath.
Dylan.
Praying that the boy would be okay, Will stumbled to his feet.
His knee ached, and upon the first step, he felt the sharp pain hit his stomach, sinking through to his ribs. He was forced to gasp just to gather a single breath. He lumbered toward the car, working to catch a glance of the boy on the other side of the battered, smoking hood.
When the cab finally came into view, the front windshield was almost nonexistent, and Will saw Dylan still strapped into the passenger seat, blood showing on his head. Through the driver’s side back window, he could see the man who’d been riding in the back seat—slumped over, but still fastened into the seat he’d occupied.
Will’s eyes narrowed.
The driver’s seat was empty.
He twisted and looked at the road. About twenty yards from where the vehicle had stopped, a puddle of blood glistened off the asphalt in the shape of a kidney bean. Tiny streams flowed away from its nucleus, leading down the slight incline and into the ditch off the side of the road.
But there wasn’t a body.
Will trudged toward the blood lake, reaching down to draw his weapon from its holster. He practically had to carry his right leg as he walked, the pain from the accident intensifying.
The trail of blood flowed off the road and appeared to lead into a collection of trees, and a dissatisfying thought fell upon Will.
Had David died in the accident?
David Ellis didn’t deserve that. He’d earned the right to die a slow and torturous death at the hands of Will himself. Will hadn’t come through all this just to find the man who’d killed his mother lying in a ditch, unmoved, having gone to hell while basking in mother nature.
Monsters deserve to suffer.
As he lumbered toward the brush, the bushes rustled and leaves stirred on the ground. Will scoffed a kind of relieved and tired laugh. He’s still alive.
Will stopped to make sure the gun was loaded, and then he thought of something. With the amount of blood on the ground, there was no way that David would have enough strength or be conscious enough to fight back. No, Will wouldn’t have to make it too fast, though he wondered how many more breaths David would be able to inhale, considering how much blood he’d lost. Either way, Will slipped the gun back into its holster and drew the knife from his hip. Examining the blade in front of his face, what was left of the day’s sun glared off the sharp tip as if to tell him it would be over soon, and that the weapon was here to carry out his wish. He thought of his mother, and her screams as that beast had torn into her. David, laughing in Will’s ear, forcing him to watch.
He was ready.
This was it. Retribution.
Will followed the path of the blood down into the shallow ditch and on into the grass. More of the iron substance gleamed off the grass, leading behind a bush.
He gripped the knife, sweat gushing from the pores in his palms and wetting the handle of the knife.
Will drew a deep breath and stepped around the bush.
He cocked his head.
Nothing was there.
He looked back to the road to check that he’d followed the path correctly, and this one simple mistake distracted him long enough for the beast to strike.
A snarl came from behind a nearby tree, and Will turned just as an Empty launched itself at him and dug its teeth into his exposed arm, just above the elbow at his bicep. The knife fell from Will’s grasp and he screamed. He clenched his teeth as he grimaced and pushed the creature off of him. Will’s hand went immediately to the wound on his arm, and his eyes widened when he looked up.
Even through the pale eyes and tattered skin, there was no mistaking the identity of the Empty: it was David.
Will reached for his gun, but with his body still recovering from the accident, his draw wasn’t quick enough. David made another dive at him, knocking the weapon from his hand. The creature’s teeth snapped, and Will grabbed onto its shirt, throwing it down to the ground. The momentum caused Will to stumble, and he fell into the nearby ditch.
He looked up and saw the creature working its way up to its knees. When Will tried to stand again, he slipped in the mud on the slight incline of the shallow ditch. He fell and his knee slammed down onto a rock the size of a tennis ball. The pain from the already hurting joint shot to his brain and he clutched his leg, instinctively writhing on the ground.
He looked up just as David, mouth wide, pounced on him. Will tried to roll out of the way, but the thing already had ahold of him. Will lay with his back pressing into the mud as the monster clicked its jaws, saliva dripping from the bottom lip.
Mud covered Will’s palm, and it became slick enough for his hand to entirely lose its grip on David’s shoulder.
The creature’s weight shifted down onto Will, and it buried its teeth into his shoulder.
Will screamed again.
This was it. He was going to lie in this ditch and be eaten alive by the human monster turned supernatural beast that had killed his mother. Somehow, through all his panic, Will found a very brief moment to wonder whether any part of David Ellis’ human mind was still intact. Was he completely vanished from the world? Or did he have any sort of realization that he was on top of Will, ending his life at this moment? Was the bastard enjoying this?
Will couldn’t muster the energy to fight back. Pinned down in the mud, he closed his eyes, just trying to focus on something that wasn’t the pain or the thought of impending death.
A thundering bang filled the space in the air, and the snarling in Will’s ear stopped. All the weight of his assailant fell on top of him, and the pain of teeth digging into his flesh was replaced by a sudden panic that he had to fight for air.
“Help,” a voice said.
He heard the plea, but the gunmetal sky above slowly faded to black, like the end of a dramatic movie about to roll the credits.
The two wounds on his arm pulsated, the pain intense.
Everything went dark.
***
Jessica
Shadows of the night draped over the pale asphalt, and Jessica ran as fast as she could. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d started running from the farm. Something, a premonition perhaps, had urged her not to wait for Will to return. It had encouraged her to take chase and run after him.
In the distance, she heard the cries.<
br />
“Help!”
It sounded like the voice of a child, apparently pleading for someone, anyone, to help.
As she passed over a small hill, the scene of the accident came into sight. It was almost as if her legs churned faster and with more urgency now, like a conductor throwing coal over an engine. She saw both of the vehicles on the side of the road, one jammed against a tree and the other rolled onto its side in a nearby ditch. And as her feet slapped the concrete, the young boy appeared from between the two trucks, waving her down.
“Help! Please!” he called out. The boy was jumping up and down, pulling at his hair. Panic colored his voice.
A man sat in the back seat of the car, and with her vision bouncing up and down with the rhythm of her sprint, she was unable to tell if he was moving or not. All she wanted was to reach the boy and see why he’d called for help. In the back of her mind, she feared the worst.
That fear reared its ugly face when she finally saw what the boy had been crying about.
Will.
He lay facing up to the coming darkness above, his stomach rising up and down at a more frantic pace than it should have been. A stilled body pinned one of his arms to the ground, laying halfway up the limb. Jessica slowed to something between a walk and a stand-still. Will’s eyes were open, but they looked lifeless. They looked… empty.
She hurried to his side and pushed the body of the dead creature the rest of the way off of him.
His other arm folded across his chest, and she saw the two open wounds pulsating.
“He got bit,” Dylan said, wiping his eyes.
Jessica looked to the body she’d just pushed off of Will. Blood pooled from a hole in one of his cheeks, and his pale eyes seemed to look up at her. She remembered his face from the hospital; it was David.
She refocused her attention to Will.
Grabbing his hand, she watched as he continued to fight for air. He stared with wide eyes, as if he was looking past the darkening sky. Like he was being pulled somewhere—out of this body, out of this life.
Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) Page 13