“You ready?” he asked, looking at Will.
Will drew in a deep breath. He knew what lay on the other side of the doors. It had been the hardest day of his entire life, and he hoped this makeshift ceremony could bring some kind of closure. He looked to Gabriel and nodded. As Gabriel moved to open the doors, Will’s grip on Holly’s hand tightened. She returned the gesture, stroking the top of his hand with her index finger.
Gabriel pushed open the doors, and there they lay.
The four bodies had been placed on the ground, each covered with a white sheet. Their only identifiers were pieces of paper neatly placed on each of them, the given victim’s name handwritten in a beautiful script.
The first in line was Rachel, the hospital receptionist who David had thrown into the room with the hospital’s experiment Empty, forcing her to let the creature loose. When she’d tried to escape after her task was complete, David had shot her in the leg so that she couldn’t get away. The rest of the group had had to listen and watch as the Empty had devoured her.
Next to her was Kristen, the innocent nurse who David had killed in his attempt to show Rachel and the rest of the group that he wasn’t bluffing. Will sensed that everyone in the group knew that it could have been any of them lying there; Kristen had just so happened to be the unlucky person standing next to David when he’d decided to pull the trigger just to prove a point.
Trevor lay adjacent to Kristen, his body having been retrieved from the area where the group had stored their weapons. From what Jessica had overheard, he’d been stabbed after he’d helped the two rednecks and David with stealing all their weapons.
Will’s eyes moistened as he looked at the last body in the line, and Holly shifted in reaction to the new tension from him, going from clutching his hand to wrapping her arm around him.
Though he couldn’t see her face, Melissa Kessler, Will’s mother, lay under the third sheet, her name beautifully written across a piece of paper placed on her chest. Marcus held the door opposite Gabriel, and Will, Holly, and Sarah stepped through.
Marcus stepped forward, moving to the other side of the bodies so he could face the group.
“Would anyone like to say anything?” Marcus asked.
After another few moments of silence, Sarah stepped forward, wiping her eyes, and began to talk about Kristen. Working as nurses on the same floor of the hospital, the two women had worked together often and become close. Sarah spoke about the first time she’d met Kristen. It had been her first day in the hospital, and Kristen had been on the same shift. Sarah shadowed Kristen most of the day, and they’d sat down and had their first lunch together, as well. This had been less than a year ago, and now Kristen was gone.
She tried to gather herself to talk about Rachel and Trevor, but she was too distraught. She had to step out of the room.
All eyes seemed to fall on Will after Sarah departed. He had barely paid attention to what Sarah had said about the other two women, focused solely on his mother. It pained him that he couldn’t see her. How was he supposed to get closure if he couldn’t actually see what lay under the sheet? His gaze finally left the body and he looked around to see the rest of the group looking at him in silence. He hoped they didn’t expect him to speak, as no words came to him.
“Melissa Kessler was an amazing woman.”
Will looked to the side and saw Jessica staring at him. She stepped forward and stood next to Marcus.
“While I didn’t know her long, she became almost like another mother to me over the short time we did spend together. She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.” She cleared her throat, and her eyes never left Will’s. He got lost in them, listening intently as she spoke. “When Walt died, I thought I was going to lose her, too. She was devastated. She loved your dad so much. But she was too strong to give up. I could tell it wasn’t in her nature. She was determined to find you, Will, and even though her death was premature, I think she died in peace, knowing that you were alive.”
Will’s eyes gave way as tears poured from them. Jessica came over, and Will felt Holly let go as Jessica embraced him. She lay her head on his chest and he held her tight.
His red eyes looked down past Jessica to his mother’s body, and he saw David Ellis’ face in the stark white sheets.
Chapter 10
Dylan
When Dylan’s eyes opened again, he was surprised to find that his hands were free. He immediately grabbed his wrists, rubbing down the grotesque wounds that the chains had embedded into them.
He lay on his back and stared up to a ceiling fan. It spun and whistled, sending a cool breeze down upon him. Rolling over toward a wall, he felt the surface he was lying on. They’d placed him on an old mattress on the floor, its sheets stained and unwashed. He could have complained about it, but he was just relieved to have his hands free of the shackles and not be trapped in the dank barn.
“Are you okay?”
The voice startled Dylan, and he turned to see a young girl. She appeared to be around his age, with long dark hair and bright green eyes, and she wore a tattered dress.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” the girl said. She was lying down, but sat up straight on her mattress to talk to him. Like Dylan’s, her mattress lay on the wood floor, though her sheets appeared to be a little bit cleaner than his. “My name’s Mary Beth.”
“I-I’m Dylan.” His jaw ached when he spoke, the gag having spent hours in his mouth. He worked to stretch it, opening it and closing it a few times. Even talking felt strange to him, and his own voice sounded almost unfamiliar.
Mary Beth smiled. “Hi Dylan.”
He looked around the room. It appeared old and unkempt, train engine wallpaper torn away from the drywall in several spots. In one corner of the room he saw cobwebs, and on the wall near him, there were five wooden letters hanging on the wall that read “BRIAN”, though the “R” looked like it might fall off the wall at any moment, hanging at an awkward angle.
“Where am I?” Dylan asked.
Before Mary Beth could answer, the door swung open, the knob slamming against the wall behind it. Two people appeared in the doorway: a man and a woman. The burly man had a large beard and long hair coming over the V of his tank top. The woman had stringy brown hair and a toothless grin, though she appeared to only be in her 30’s—seemingly far too young to worry about porcelain teeth unless you have a career as a professional hockey player. He realized he recognized both of them from when he’d first been brought to the farm. They’d both been there when he’d been dragged out of the trunk, and the woman had even been the one to blindfold him.
The man picked Dylan up before the boy could protest, and dragged him out into a hallway.
“Don’t hurt him!” Mary Beth cried, but the woman slammed the door behind them.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Dylan, but neither of the adults responded.
Their feet creaked on the wooden floor as the large man carried the boy to a restroom down the hall. The man placed Dylan on his feet in the middle of the bathroom.
“Strip,” the large man said.
Dylan looked down at his tattered clothes, crying now, and failed to do as the man asked.
Apparently impatient, the man leaned down and tore at Dylan’s clothes as the woman watched. He ripped off the shirt, unbuttoned the boy’s pants and yanked them off, and then tore away his underwear, leaving the pre-teen child stark naked in front of the two strangers, his face red with embarrassment.
Not even bothering to ask Dylan to get in himself, the man picked him up again and put him in the bathtub before he turned on the showerhead.
The cold water poured down and stung Dylan’s skin. He yelled out, begging the man or woman to warm the water, but neither listened. Dylan tried to shield himself from the water, but it was useless. He looked down and saw the water turning a light brown—not surprising considering how long it had been since he’d had a shower.
After a few moments, he looked up to see the wo
man leaning in.
“Stay still,” she commanded.
She grabbed a bar of soap and lathered his entire body. When the soap was all over him, she used an old body brush, far too rough to be used on human skin, to scrub him with.
“You’re hurting me!” he cried out, but the woman continued to rub him down with the brush like she was trying to grind the rust off of an old coin. He swung his hands, slapping the woman on the arms. She grimaced and slapped him across his face.
“Keep that shit up, and I’m gonna let him bathe you,” the woman said, signaling back to the large man. “And believe me, you don’t want that.”
Dylan finally conceded, knowing that crying wasn’t going to do him any good. In fact, his resistance had only made the woman scrub harder.
She shut off the cold water and Dylan found himself shivering. She put a towel over him that was more like a rag, barely large enough to cover his shoulders, and started drying him. She used almost as much force as she had with the brush, not allowing him to dry himself.
When she was done, the man came back and picked Dylan up under his arms. Dylan squealed, his arms still sore from the chains they’d hung him from in the barn.
The man lowered Dylan back to the ground, and he noticed the used clothes hanging over the sink.
“Put these on,” the man said.
Dylan abided, having no interest in finding out what would happen if he refused to put on the dirty clothes. The shirt was two sizes too big, but the elastic band sweatpants fit just fine. He didn’t want to think about where the underwear had come from, so he just slipped it on, trying to convince himself that it was his own.
When he was finished, the woman grabbed him by the arm, pinching him, and led him back down to the bedroom.
The man opened the door and the woman pushed him inside. Somehow, he managed not to fall, and the door was slammed and locked behind him.
Dylan looked over to see Mary Beth on her bed. She sat with her knees to her chin, not even glancing his way.
“Where am I?” he asked her, but the girl didn’t respond. “Mary Beth?”
She looked over to him, tears coming from her eyes, and shook her head.
“Why won’t you talk to me?”
Mary Beth turned away from him and looked to the wall next to her.
Confused, Dylan went to his own bed to lie down. He noticed that, while they still weren’t exactly new, the sheets had been changed to something cleaner than what had been there before.
Dylan fell on his belly, and all he could do was cry, thinking about how much he missed Gabriel and his friends.
A door slamming combined with yelling from down the hall awoke Dylan. He shot up off his stomach and went onto all fours before sitting up straight in a mound of blankets. He looked around the room and didn’t see the girl.
“Mary Beth?”
The door opened and Dylan backed up against the wall.
Two people walked in. It was the woman who’d helped him in the shower earlier and a man he remembered as one of the men who’d been there when he’d been kidnapped.
The man walked to the end of the bed and the woman stood behind him. He smacked his gums, chewing on something that brought a fowl stench into the room. The smacking drew Dylan’s attention to the man’s teeth, which had mostly a yellow tint, and the hair around his mouth looked to be discolored as well.
Looking down at Dylan, the man scoffed. “What you scared of, boy? Look around.” He waved his arms and scanned the filthy, dank room. “We put you in the suite!”
“Where’s Mary Beth?” Dylan mumbled.
“Oh, she’s fine. Don’t you worry ‘bout her. She’s getting all bathed up, just like you did.”
Trembling, Dylan said, “I wanna go home.”
The man laughed. “Home? What’s wrong with here?”
“I want my mom,” Dylan said.
“Where’s home, kid?”
Dylan bowed his head and didn’t reply.
“Now, Dylan, I’m trying to be your friend here, buddy,” he said.
“How do you know my name?”
“Well, our friend, Mary Beth, told us.”
“She’s not your friend. She told me so.”
“She must have been joking around, then!” The man was smiling. “Mary Beth loves us!”
“I don’t believe you,” mumbled Dylan.
The man laughed and looked back at the woman behind him. “You know what, Cindy? You know why he’s scared of us?”
“Why?” she asked, keeping a stern look on her face.
“’Cause he doesn’t know our names! We’re just strangers to him ’til he knows our names.”
He looked back toward Dylan, then sat on the edge of the bed. Dylan tried to scoot away further, but he was already against the wall and in the corner. He had nowhere else to go.
“My name’s Clint, and this here is Cindy.”
“Did you hurt Gabriel?” Dylan asked.
“That the guy who was with you when we found you?” Clint smiled. “Oh, I think Gabriel is coming to see you real soon!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Footsteps bellowed from the hallway, and another man walked into the room. It was the large man who had helped Cindy bathe him. He held a plate in his hand. Steam rose from the top, and a knife and fork hung off the edge of it.
“Dinnertime already?” Clint asked, turning around. “Can you believe that, Cindy? Time just flies on by!”
The smell hit Dylan’s nose and his stomach growled at the beauty of it. Meals had been scarce on the road with his new friends, and he hadn’t eaten anything since he’d been brought here except for bread and some kind of nasty chocolate drink they’d poured down his throat. He could practically taste the juicy steak on the tip of his lips, which he tried to wet.
Clint looked back to the boy. “Well, I hoped to have you down for dinner with us. Gonna be a good one. Cooked up a lot of steak, right off the grill. Got some potatoes, freshly picked corn. Ya know, all the good stuff. But, I guess you’re not interested in all that, seeing’s how you don’t wanna become friends with us.”
Clint stood up, and Dylan finally came out of his ball.
“Wait, wait. What do you want to know? I’m starving!”
“Sorry, kid. Too late for that,” Clint said, turning his back.
“Please!” Dylan started to cry. “Please, I’m so hungry.”
But Clint had already left the room, and so had the man with the steak, though the meat had left its impact on the room.
Cindy walked to the door, and just before she walked out, she reached into her pocket. She pulled out a can and tossed it to Dylan.
It fell on the bed in front of him, and he looked down to see another one of the off-brand chocolate protein shakes.
“Wait!” Dylan cried.
But the door was already shut, the lock grinding into place to seal him inside.
Chapter 11
Will
When the sun rose the next morning, Will lay in bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The night had come and gone, and he’d hardly slept—maybe an hour, at most. Holly lay next to him, still resting peacefully. She’d fallen asleep with her arm over his chest, but at first chance, he’d moved her off to the side. He wasn’t in the mood to be touched; there was far too much on his mind. He could feel his back was stiff, he having stayed still on the firm bed for most of the night. It was an easier position to gather his thoughts in, and he’d known that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep while lying on his back.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, and as he sat upright, the ache in his back came alive. He let out a groan as he arched back. Then leaning over to touch his toes, Will could feel every inch of the strain on his backside. After about two minutes bent over, the pain began to subside, and he stood up straight again—slowly, so as to not throw his back all the way out. He needed coffee. A t-shirt and a pair of shorts lay over a chair against the wall, and he grabbed them and
threw them on, then stepped out of the room.
As he stepped into the hall, all was quiet. Will assumed that most everyone would be sleeping in, as exhausted as they had all been. He knew he should be getting as much rest as possible since they had another treacherous day ahead, but the thought that he might get to kill David Ellis today, the man who had murdered his mother, weighed too heavy on his mind.
Will walked toward the break room, his lumbering gate almost like that of the Empties. As he got closer to the door, the fresh morning scent of roasted coffee hit his nostrils. He took a deep breath to take it in and he could feel at least a little bit of his stress fade away. Somebody must already be awake.
When he walked through the doorway, Will saw Jessica sitting alone at the end of the table. A steaming mug sat on the table, cupped between her hands. She glanced up at him, and her eyes appeared heavy. Her hair was slightly a mess.
“Couldn’t sleep either?” she asked.
Will narrowed his eyes. “How could you tell?”
She smiled. “Sit down. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”
Will grabbed an open chair on the long side of the table near Jessica and sat down. Behind him, he listened to coffee mugs clank together in the cabinet and then he heard the sweet sound of the liquid gold flowing into the cup. She set it down in front of him, along with some cream and sugar.
“Thanks,” Will said, looking at her and smiling as she sat back down. Her smile back told him he was welcome, and she took another sip of her coffee.
“You get any sleep at all?” Will asked.
Jessica shook her head. “I’m pretty sure for half the night I wasn’t even in bed. I spent a lot of time at the window, just looking outside.” There was a brief silence, then Jessica continued. “You think things will ever go back to how they were?”
Empty Bodies Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 38