Empty Bodies: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Dystopian Survival (Book 1)

by Zach Bohannon

  Jessica screamed. How could the man be alive? She had watched him be ravaged by his sick wife and stood there trembling as he drew his last breath. Now, he flailed his arms underneath the weight of his wife as she stumbled to her feet, still hissing at Jessica.

  Jessica ran across the hallway, ignoring the atrocities, and fled through an open door into one of the guest rooms. She shut the door, resting her forehead flat against it, and cried. Behind her, she heard more hissing. She turned to face the interior of the room and saw three people on all fours, leaning into the bodies of two other people and tearing them apart. She gasped as they looked back at her, away from their meal. Jessica fumbled the handle, but finally got the door to open and moved back into the hallway—the war zone.

  Jessica cupped the back of her head with her hands as she tried to breathe. There was blood everywhere as people were eaten alive all around her. She shuffled to her right, feeling as if she had nowhere to go.

  From across the hall, one of the sick people began to groan at her. She was a woman, not much older than Jessica. Her blonde hair was still strangely radiant, though shining with the gloss of thick blood. Arms outstretched, she came at Jessica.

  Jessica screamed, hoarse now from the repeated vocalizing, as she backed against the door.

  Just as the woman was about to reach her, the door opened and Jessica found herself falling backward.

  A set of hands caught her, pulled her into the room, and she yelled out as the door shut in the woman’s face.

  ***

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Walt said, kneeling over Jessica. She lay on the ground in shock, flailing her arms and convulsing from her encounter with the dead woman and the graveyard in the hallway even as she looked up at the kind man in his tropical shirt, the fisherman’s hat now removed to reveal his shiny bald head above a ring of white hair. Walt looked back to Melissa.

  “Grab a cold towel,” he told her.

  He put his hands on Jessica’s shoulders, working to try and calm her.

  “It’s okay, you’re fine.”

  Melissa came behind him, dressed only in a robe from a recent shower, and handed him the towel, dampened with cool water.

  “Shhh,” Walt said to Jessica as he lay the cold towel across her forehead.

  Jessica’s arms quit swinging and her palms lay flat on the floor. She closed her eyes and now only fought to let her breathing catch up. The thud in her chest persisted, but she controlled it a little more with each passing breath.

  “It’s okay,” Walt said, dabbing the towel on different parts of her face. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  With a tremble in her voice, Jessica caught up with her rapid breathing enough to speak.

  “What’s happening?” She asked, looking back and forth between Walt and Melissa.

  The banging on the door startled the three of them. It continued without a rhythm, sounding like the beat of a progressive rock band.

  Walt stared at the door, but spoke to Melissa.

  “Get dressed, now.”

  Melissa ran to her suitcase and pulled out the first set of clothes she saw, obviously not thinking or caring if they matched. Without hesitation, she dropped her gown to the floor, not caring if the young girl saw her in the nude, and put on a fresh set of clothes.

  Walt stood and walked to his bag.

  Irritated by the constant thump of the wooden door in her ear, Jessica stumbled to her feet, still slightly disoriented, and walked to the other side of the room.

  Walt reached deep into his bag and pulled out a handgun. He pulled out the clip, confirming that the weapon was loaded, and snapped it back into place.

  “What’s the quickest way to the parking garage?” Walt asked Jessica, keeping his eyes on the gun.

  The constant banging at the door distracted Jessica and kept her from thinking straight. She finally focused on her thought and spoke.

  “There’s a maintenance elevator, but it’s at the end of the hall,” she said. “It leads all the way down to the parking garage.” She reached down to her keyring and pulled the key up to show him.

  “Good,” Walt said, looking back at her.

  Jessica shook her head. “How are we going to get there? Have you looked out in the hall? It’s suicide if we try to run all the way down there.”

  Walt shrugged. “We could be toast just as fast if we take the guest elevator and then the lobby is full of those things out there. And we sure as shit can’t stay pinned up in here. May as well take our chances with a direct shot to a vehicle.”

  Jessica hesitated, but nodded.

  Walt looked over to Melissa, who was dressed in a pair of leggings and a sweater. He threw her the coat lying on the bed and held up a small duffle bag.

  “Put essentials in here. Your wallet, extra pairs of warm socks, and an extra pair of underwear or two. Nothing heavy.” He looked down to her feet. “And put on your tennis shoes.”

  The banging increased at the door, sounding like more fist pumping. The hinges creaked like they could give away at any moment.

  “We’re gonna have to be fast.”

  The two women nodded.

  Jessica walked to the door.

  The view through the peephole showed four beasts beating at the door. Jessica pulled her face away and looked over her shoulder at Walt.

  “Are you ready?”

  Walt nodded. Melissa stood behind him, shaking, and gripping the duffle bag with both hands, the strap over her shoulder.

  Jessica had no idea how she was going to get to the elevator with her present company. The couple, at a minimum, were in their early 60’s. Walt had done his duty of keeping them safe so far, but that was in the confines of a small room and didn’t involve any running. Even for her much younger legs, getting to the elevator would be a challenge.

  Regardless, Jessica gave Walt a sign of acceptance. She removed the chain lock, turned the deadbolt, and pushed the handle down.

  “Now,” she screamed.

  And the door to hell opened.

  ***

  The first shot exited the pistol, echoing through the room and sending the first sick person to the ground. Walt’s aim was true. He fired at each of them from mere yards away, landing a blow to the head four shots in a row.

  Jessica’s eyes widened behind the door as Walt began to wave at her.

  “Go! Go!”

  Jessica followed his motion, moving swiftly through the door and into the hallway.

  The gun shots had drawn the attention of more sick people from both the hallway and the guest rooms. As Jessica began to make her way toward the elevator, one of the beasts reached out to her. It caught her shirt, tearing it near the shoulder. Walt followed her out of the room and put a bullet into its brain. He put his hand on the small of his wife’s back, yelling at her and urging her to run in front of him.

  “Run! I’ll cover you,” he yelled to his crying wife.

  And run they did. Down the hall they moved, dodging the grasps of the undead.

  With adrenaline flushing his veins, Walt took aim and brought down any threat to either of the women, changing out the clip as fast as he could when necessary. The moment was surreal. It reminded him of being on the frontline in Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, never sure if he would be breathing through the next minute. When he fired the handgun at the limping, dead bodies, it was as if time stood still. Like everything had slowed down.

  Melissa’s vision faded as she ran, trying to block out the scene around her. She tripped over the mutilated body of what used to be a human, now rotting lifeless in the hallway, having been torn apart by the creatures.

  Almost to the elevator, Jessica turned when she heard the fall. She hadn’t realized how far ahead of the older couple she had run. Most of the sick people were behind them as Jessica looked on, watching Walt kneel down to aid his fallen wife. He looked up and waved at Jessica.

  “Go! Get that door open,” he yelled.

  Trembling, Jessica turned an
d skidded the few extra yards to the elevator door. She fumbled the keys in her hands, dropping them on the ground.

  “Damn-it,” she mumbled, kneeling over to take the keys off the floor.

  “Walt,” Melissa yelled.

  Jessica turned as she heard the groan. There was an ill person on Walt. Jessica’s eyes widened as she recognized the outfit.

  It was the snobby bachelorette, sick, and now turned into one of them. She had a hold of his arm as he screamed. He looked up to Melissa.

  “Fucking run, Melissa! Run,” he shouted, struggling to keep the bachelorette’s jaw away from his skin.

  She did, looking back every few steps with a river of tears coming down her cheeks.

  Jessica looked to the wall and saw the fire extinguisher sitting behind the glass case. She went to it, pulled the case open, and removed the heavy, metal extinguisher.

  Melissa arrived at the elevator and watched as Jessica ran to Walt.

  The bachelorette was facedown on Walt’s arm, tearing the flesh away from his forearm as he punched her in the head with his free hand. He heard a groan as Jessica lifted the fire extinguisher over her head, and with a scream, brought it down to the skull of the bachelorette with repeated blows. After the first hit, Walt was able to move what was left of his arm, and Jessica bashed the bachelorette’s skull into the carpet.

  Other creatures approached.

  Jessica threw down the fire extinguisher, grabbed the gun off the ground, and took Walt’s good hand.

  Melissa was already in the elevator waving and shouting at them.

  Walt groaned from the pain, but made it to the elevator.

  Jessica looked down and started hitting the PG button, which stood for Parking Garage. The elevator took its time shutting.

  “Fuck! Come on,” Jessica yelled.

  The door began to shut, just as one of the beasts reached out.

  Its hand got caught, keeping the door from closing all the way. Melissa screamed.

  Drawing the gun up to her face, Jessica pulled the trigger and heard the thing yelp as its hand fell to the elevator floor and the door shut.

  They watched the fingers of the hand move in their last reflex, the wiggling becoming gentle, as the elevator sent them down to the parking garage.

  ***

  When they arrived at the Kesslers’ mini-van in the parking garage, Jessica and Melissa helped Walt onto the backseat. Melissa sat in the back with him, taking the keys from his pocket and handing them to Jessica, who had made her way to the driver’s seat. She cranked the van and adjusted the mirror so that she could see outside, but also keep an eye on Walt behind her.

  Jessica backed the van out of the spot and drove down the aisle, heading for the garage’s exit.

  They made the two tiered climb to the ground level, and Jessica saw two sick people coming toward the truck wearing the uniforms of the valet boys. Being a front desk clerk, she knew them; it was John and Doyle, two friends of hers who played in a heavy metal band together when they weren’t parking cars. Jessica hit the brakes.

  Melissa looked up.

  “Why did you stop? Drive,” she said.

  “I can’t,” Jessica responded.

  She looked into their eyes. Her friends eyes. Where had those eyes gone? But the closer they got to the van, the more she realized they were no longer her friends.

  Melissa was crying. “Please, drive! He needs help,” she pleaded.

  “I’m sorry,” Jessica mumbled.

  She eased off the brake and pressed the gas, watching the two boys reach towards her as she ran them over, hearing the two thuds of their bodies as the van moved toward the sunlight which shined through the garage exit.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  GABRIEL

  Just west of Nashville, open fields lay for miles across the long stretches of highway. Many of them, with grass so green from thriving in the rich soil of the delicate earth, housed acres of farmland producing crops and food to feed the population. With many foods now being made in science labs and packaging plants, the land represented a dying art; one of the last memories of the blue-collar foundation of America. Out there, farmers could live off the land and sustain independence from the convenience of supermarkets and chemistry-created foods.

  But everything had changed.

  The Jacobsons owned the farm and, like the world, they too had changed. Left with no conscious minds to parade the sea of thought, they now stood in the open pasture, living off the land in a different way. Satisfying a new need.

  They were a large family; nine of them to be exact, headed by the man of the house, Ron, and his wife, Rose. They had seven children, five girls and two boys. The second oldest girl, Rosa, was the one responsible for sending the house down in flames. When she rose from the ground following her sudden and fatal fall, she knocked a candle off of her nightstand, sending it onto the floor by her bed and catching the edges of her comforter on fire.

  Three of the other children fell too, before resurrecting. The confused and mourning family never stood a chance. Not from the flames or from their dead children.

  Now, the Jacobsons were nothing but frail minds moving aimlessly through a dead pasture.

  The empty body of Ron Jacobson turned and looked up, growling as his attention was caught by the plane soaring through the sky overhead. The carcass of the cow beneath him, lying motionless on its side, wouldn’t be going anywhere. He had time—not that his vacant mind understood the perception any longer.

  The plane continued its descent toward the field. An open flame shot off the rear tail and warmed the pale autumn air.

  The other members of the Jacobson family looked up, each leaving the remains of the dead livestock they had slaughtered in the field. Roger, the younger of the two boys at eight years old, hobbled away from the carcass, attracted by the sound of the falling aircraft.

  The scream of the plane heightened as it came down into the field, plowing over the Jacobsons’ bodies and leaving nothing left to eat of the livestock, except perhaps scattered pieces of muscle, bone, and flesh.

  On the other side of the field, where the tree line began, the plane finally came to a halt, having put the stolen minds of an American family out of their misery.

  ***

  Gabriel opened his eyes and shook his head, letting his lips flap and making the sound of a horse carrying a shiver. He looked over to Dylan and saw the boy’s eyes were shut, and he wasn’t moving.

  Gabriel quickly unfastened his belt and reached over, shaking the child.

  “Dylan,” he called.

  The boy didn’t move. Gabriel grabbed Dylan’s thin wrist and checked for a pulse. Blood still flowed through his veins and the drum of the heart sounded through his body.

  He looked around the plane and saw no movement. The only sound he heard was that of the engines failing and the gentle hiss of the flames flapping through the wind at the back of the plane.

  Gabriel was scared to move Dylan in case he had sustained any injuries in the crash, but with the back of the plane on fire and not being sure if any of the sick people had survived, he saw little choice. He reached over and unbuckled the strap on Dylan’s lap. Then he stood and leaned down, grabbing the dead weight of the child and throwing him over his shoulder. Dylan’s arms dangled to the small of Gabriel’s back.

  He walked into the aisle and assessed the scene around him. Everyone and everything was dead. Bodies, or at least parts of them, lay all over the plane. All over the floor and all over the seats. The power was out, leaving the sun as the only light to illuminate the interior of the plane. Oxygen masks swung from above each seat. Aside from him and Dylan, no one had ever had a chance to even put one on. They were either ravaged and eaten by the undead, or left to be tossed around the plane like dirty clothes in an industrial dryer.

  The plane had made a fairly clean landing, leaving Gabriel to wonder if the pilot was alive in the cockpit. He made his way there, stepping over parts of bodies in the process.


  He reached for the door leading into the cockpit. It was locked. Gabriel put his ear to the door and heard a muted moan on the other side.

  “Hello,” he said.

  He heard the groan again.

  “Open the door. I can help you,” Gabriel said.

  He heard the muttered words but couldn’t make them out.

  One of the passenger seats near him was empty, and he sat Dylan down in it. The boy slumped over in the seat.

  He stood back a few feet from the door and gave it a swift kick. To his surprise, the door opened on the first attempt, having likely been weakened during the pre-landing chaos and the crash itself.

  With no weapon in hand, he crept toward the door, not sure what would lie on the other side.

  Gabriel looked inside the cockpit to see the pilot still in his chair, leaned back with blood covering his uniform. Beside him, a body lay wearing the same uniform, face-first on the ground with a hole in the back of his head, and parts of his skull and brain scattered on the windows.

  Gabriel moved to where he could see the face of the pilot, who jumped slightly as he looked to him.

  “Did you land this plane?” Gabriel asked.

  The pilot gave a slight nod.

  “Thank you,” Gabriel said simply.

  A small laugh came out of the mouth of the pilot and was joined by blood.

  Gabriel looked down and saw the missing square of flesh from the pilot’s neck. Blood seeped from the wound, and it looked alive as it pulsated. The hand of the pilot hit against Gabriel’s left arm a few times and he felt something cold touch the skin on his hand. He looked down and saw the grip of the hand gun nudging at his palm. The pilot was nodding for him to take it.

  Gabriel took the gun from the pilot and it felt even colder in his hand.

  The pilot muttered something that Gabriel couldn’t understand.

  “What?” Gabriel asked, moving his ear closer.

  “Me,” the pilot mumbled. “Kill me.”

  Gabriel shook his head. He couldn’t kill the man, even if it meant the pilot would be put out of his misery.