Will shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“I should be in my car right now, listening to an audiobook and on my way to work,” Jessica explained. “It’s amazing how much you miss routine and normalcy when it’s all just taken from you.”
Will thought back to his old day job. Even though it had been a shit, labor-intensive gig, he did miss it. He missed being around all the guys and, like Jessica had said, the routine.
“Well, I have to think that someone is out there trying to find a cure for whatever this thing is,” Will said.
“If it is something that can be cured at all,” Jessica added.
Will let the thought sit in the air for a moment. He sipped his coffee, trying to gather a reply, but decided to change the subject.
“So, you definitely heard those directions to this farm correctly?”
Jessica nodded. “One hundred percent sure.”
“Good.”
“Have you guys figured out what the plan is yet?” Jessica asked.
Will shook his head. “Supposed to meet with Gabriel and Marcus this morning to try and figure things out. Losing Brandon and Sam is a big blow.”
Jessica looked at Will. “You can’t blame yourself for what they did.”.
“It’s hard not to,” Will said. “I should have just dragged Brandon out of that house.”
“You said yourself, he threatened to shoot you. And Sam had been bit. You can’t fault his decision.”
“I don’t think he actually would’ve shot me,” Will said. He bowed his head. “He was just wasting too much fucking time. I was scared that something would happen to you, and I wanted to get out of that house and get you the hell out of there.”
When he glanced back up at Jessica, she looked down to avoid his gaze. He could see the red in her cheeks.
“You know, I meant what I said last night,” Jessica said. “I understand why he did what he did. He made the only choice he felt was right. He quit. Plain and simple. On the world, on us, but more than anything, on himself.” She looked up now and stared blankly into a wall. “When I saw my parents lying on that bed, I crumbled. I felt like my entire world was lost. Like nothing mattered anymore. I was ready to let go and to quit, but your mom saved me. Difference is, I really wanted to live, and she was there to show me that. Brandon didn’t.”
She looked back to Will and he barely held back from crying, the thought of his dead mother still so close. Eventually, he knew his guilt over Brandon’s death would subside, but he was so stressed that it was easy to carry that burden on his back for now. But what Jessica had said helped ease some of the pain.
Footsteps crept in from outside and Will quickly dabbed at his eyes. He turned to see Marcus.
“Morning,” Marcus said.
“Good morning,” Jessica replied. Will waved.
Marcus looked to Will. “You ‘bout ready? I can go grab Gabriel.”
“Yeah,” Will said. “I’ll meet you down at his room and we can talk in there.”
“Alright,” Marcus replied. “Might wanna bring him some coffee, though.”
“Will do.”
As Marcus left the room, Will looked over to Jessica.
“Thank you, again.”
She waved. “Don’t mention it.”
“It’s gonna be a long day,” Will said. “Might want to try and go get some sleep.”
“I’ll think about it.”
Gabriel
When Will and Marcus came knocking on the door, Gabriel had already been awake for almost a half hour. Knowing how exhausting the day ahead would be, he’d decided to stay in bed for as long as he could. For all he knew, it might be the last chance he ever got to sleep in a real bed.
“Come in,” Gabriel said, and Will and Marcus entered the room, the latter shutting the door behind them.
Gabriel immediately noticed the redness of Will’s eyes, the bags under them, and how he almost looked as pale and soulless as one of the Empties.
“You get you some sleep?” Gabriel asked Will.
“Doesn’t matter,” Will replied.
Doesn’t matter? Gabriel thought. We’re about to start a fucking war and it doesn’t matter that you look like you can barely hold your head up? He wanted to say these things out loud, but decided against it. Better not to start a different kind of war right here before they headed out to find Dylan.
“Brought you some coffee,” Will said, offering Gabriel a mug.
“Thought I smelled that.” He took the cup. “Thanks.”
“So,” Marcus began, “we need to come up with a game plan for how all this is gonna go down today.”
“Pretty simple if you ask me,” Will said. “We drive there and we find Dylan and David. And whatever or whoever gets in our way, we take ‘em down.”
Gabriel chuckled. “That’s your plan, Rambo?”
Will nodded conclusively. “Yeah, it is.”
“We have no idea what we’re going into here,” Marcus said. “We don’t know anything about this farm; not how many people are there, what kind of firearms they are packing, or how they have it secured. Hell, we could be walking right into a trap.”
“Assuming David went back and lied to them, and told them that we killed those two rednecks, they’re gonna either be waiting on us or they’re gonna show up here at some point. Now, I agree, we need to go to them before they get to us, but we can’t just go in there with guns blazing.”
“Well, you got a better plan?” Will asked.
Gabriel smiled. “Yeah, actually, I do.”
Chapter 12
Dylan
The light shone in through the room and Dylan awoke to find he was still alone. It was a miracle he’d been able to sleep at all; absolute exhaustion had to be the only reason he’d been able to. He looked to the door and saw that something wrapped in white paper had been slipped under it. He jumped up and hurried over.
Written on top of the piece of paper that covered the object was the word “Breakfast”. Dylan frowned once he read the note, and opened it up to reveal an off-brand granola bar. His stomach howled at the sight of it and tears filled his eyes. The boy let go of the bar, wrestled himself to his feet, and started to bang on the door.
“Let me out of here! Please, let me out!”
The floors creaked and heavy footsteps marched down the hall. Dylan stopped beating on the door and backed away.
It violently swung open, the knob slamming against the wall, and the large dirty man’s shadow eclipsed Dylan. The man walked toward him, the wrapper of the granola bar crinkling as it was crushed under his huge boot. Dylan shuddered, backing up until he hit the mattress.
“I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “I’m sorry I yelled and banged on the door. I promise I’ll be quiet. Just, please, don’t hurt me.”
But the man was already leaning down and reaching for Dylan. The boy yelled, but the large man ignored him and picked him up, throwing the child over his shoulder like a sand bag.
Dylan bounced up and down, his head hanging halfway down the man’s broad backside. This was only the second time he’d been outside of the room since they’d brought him into the house, and he was finally able to get a good look at the place. He was being carried down a long hallway and, so far, they’d passed three other rooms. The floors were old and unfinished, appearing to be simple 2x4s like he had used when he’d helped his dad build a fence around their backyard. Pictures hung on the walls, but the man was moving too fast for Dylan to get a good look at them.
The stairs crackled as the man stepped down them, and Dylan’s yelling had turned into heavy breathing. Where was the man taking him?
When they reached the lower level of the house, Dylan saw a sofa that looked twice as old as he was sitting in front of a beat-up television. Two teenage girls wearing identical dresses sat on the couch, their eyes glued to one of those boring morning talk shows, barely visible through the static.
If Dylan’s stomach hadn’t been empty, he would’ve probably t
hrown up when he was tossed off of the man’s shoulder and set down into a chair. He was placed in front of a large wooden table, and two familiar faces sat at the other end of it. Clint sat at the very end of the table, a large plate of meat and eggs in front of him, and Cindy sat to his immediate left. Two children sat in chairs on either side of Dylan, each looking like they hadn’t ever traveled more than a few miles from the farm. Both of them were boys, neither wearing a shirt, and their faces stained with dirt. One of the boys, who may have just been a year or two shy of Dylan’s age, smiled at him, revealing the absence of most of his teeth.
A few moments after he settled, his veins redistributing the blood from his head to the rest of his body, the smell hit him. The stench of sour milk mixed with steak and eggs. He could also smell the two boys. It all congealed in the air to form a rotten odor that almost made Dylan puke even though his belly was empty.
The shadow of the large man appeared over Dylan, and he slapped a plate down in front of the boy. Runny eggs mixed together with some other food Dylan was pretty sure he’d never seen before. It looked gross enough to almost make him want to ask for another expired shake or granola bar.
“Go ahead, son,” Clint said. “Eat.”
Dylan stared at the slop for another minute, then looked up at Clint with weak eyes, on the verge of bursting.
“Can I take this back up to my room?” Dylan asked.
Clint’s eyes narrowed, and Dylan immediately regretted the question. The shadow reached down to steal the plate from him, and then he walked it back toward the kitchen.
“No!” Dylan cried out. “Please, I’m sorry. I’ll eat here; just please bring my plate back. I didn’t mean to offend anybody.”
The large man turned to Clint, and Clint nodded at him to return the platter to the table. He set the plate back down in front of Dylan, then picked up the fork and put it in the boy’s hand. The large man retreated again, and Clint and Cindy continued to eat their food at the other end of the table. The two boys just stared at Dylan, ignoring their food and apparently waiting to see what his next move would be.
Dylan stirred the white-ish substance on the plate, then looked up to Clint and asked, “What is this?”
Peeking over the salt and pepper shakers at the center of the table, Clint looked at the plate and chuckled. “In America, we call that eggs and grits.”
“What are grits?” Dylan asked, scrunching up his face.
“Where you from, boy?” Clint asked.
“Alexandria,” Dylan mumbled, slightly embarrassed that he didn’t know what grits were.
“Where’s that?”
“In Virginia. Right outside of Washington D.C.”
“Fuckin’ hippies,” Clint said. “Just eat it, kid.”
Dylan looked up, and the smelly boys still stared at him. He tried to put them out of his mind, and pretend like the plate in front of him was full of his mother’s delicious, fluffy eggs. Just as he realized how dry his throat was, the large man came back over and set down a glass of water in front of him. It had a slightly brown tint to it, but he wasn’t going to complain. He’d likely rather have that over the sour milk, and he knew he would need something to wash the slop down with.
Without thinking about it, Dylan forced the first bite into his mouth, trailing the mush with a large swig of the dirty water. He could taste the minerals in the water mixing with the nasty taste of the egg and grits mixture, and covered his mouth so he could swallow without throwing up. If he didn’t eat what they’d offered, there was no telling when or if the people would feed him again. He had no choice but to force it down.
One of the children giggled, and Cindy hit him across the back of his head with an open palm. The child’s head snapped down, almost slamming his nose into the table.
“You shut the fuck up and eat your food,” she shouted.
The boy rubbed the back of his head and glared at Dylan as if it was his fault he’d been slapped.
Clint looked over to Dylan, who was trying to swallow his second bite of breakfast. “We gonna let you spend some time with us today. Show you the real fun stuff.”
Dylan nearly threw up, barely hearing Clint speak as he was trying to make himself swallow another disgusting bite. Clint took another bloody bite out of his steak.
“Yeah, you gonna have fun with us today, boy. That, I promise.”
The stairs creaked as heavy footsteps moved downward. Dylan looked up and his eyes widened as he saw a smiling familiar face. An uneasy feeling crept up inside him. Clint smiled.
“Perfect timing,” Clint said. “We were just finishing up breakfast before we go and get started for the day.” Clint looked to Dylan and pointed at the man. “Dylan, I’m not sure you’ve been properly introduced. This is Mr. David Ellis.”
Chapter 13
Jessica
Writing had always been Jessica’s number one way of relaxation and escape, and now she was thankful she’d mentioned her love of the craft to Sarah in passing during a conversation that morning. When she’d gone back to her room after breakfast, there lay a blank notepad and a pen waiting for her on her bed, along with a simple note that just had a smiley face drawn on it.
She’d spent the past hour lying on the bed on her stomach, writing in her new journal. It brought her a certain calm to finally get the words out onto the page. She wasn’t the kind who was typically comforted by speaking her emotions out loud with other people and trying to sort through them. She found writing them down to be a much better therapy.
Jessica had just reached the part in her story where Walt pulled her into the hotel room, thus saving her, when a knock came at the door.
“Come in,” she said.
The door opened and Holly poked her head through. “Will, Gabriel, and Marcus want to talk to everyone. They’re asking everyone to meet out at the nurses’ station in about twenty minutes.”
Jessica nodded. “Cool, thanks.”
She’d looked back down to continue writing when she saw Holly enter the room out of the corner of her eye. Jessica shut the notebook and looked up to Holly again. Her arms crossed, Holly glared at Jessica.
“Yes?” Jessica asked.
“I love him.”
Jessica was at a loss for words. How was she supposed to respond to that?
“I know that you guys are getting close,” Holly continued. “You’ve got a special connection to him because of his mother, I get that. But just don’t get too close.”
With that last sentence, Jessica went from feeling slightly awkward to a little bit angry.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Not yet,” Holly said, shaking her head. She turned and opened the door, glaring back at Jessica one more time before she left the room.
Staring down at her notebook, Jessica shook her head. She hopped off the bed and headed to the restroom for a quick shower, being sure to take her notebook with her so she could keep it close.
When Jessica left her room and headed to the nurses’ station, the rest of the group was already standing there. She made a point of looking for Sarah first, whose eyes went to the journal under Jessica’s arm, and she smiled. Jessica smiled back and mouthed the words “Thank you.”
“Nice of you to join us,” Holly said in a snarky tone.
Jessica took one look at Holly and then looked away. The girl was obviously trying to intimidate her, but the schoolyard antics weren’t going to do anything to impress her.
Will either didn’t notice her snobbish tone or didn’t care. He looked focused on more important things as he began to speak.
“Thanks everyone for meeting here. Before I get started, I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for their support over the last day. It’s been the hardest couple of days of my life, and I thank you. I know it wasn’t made any easier last night when we lost three more people, but everyone has remained strong.” He stopped for a moment to clear his throat and gather his thoughts.
“Everyone here knows that o
ne of our own was taken by some redneck savages. A young, helpless boy. And it’s no secret that the man who killed my mother and Kristen, and who was responsible for the death of Trevor, is more than likely there with them.” He had to stop again. Jessica could see in his face that the utter thought of David Ellis jolted Will’s nerves. Gabriel leaned over to whisper something into Will’s ear, but Will shook his head and then continued. “Gabriel, Marcus, and myself have come up with a plan to rescue the boy. We’re here today so we can get your opinion. This is going to require everyone to contribute, and it’s going to be dangerous.”
Jessica looked to Holly again, who was staring up at Will. The girl was scared, no doubt. Much more scared than Jessica. Jessica was prepared to do what she needed to do to help the group move forward, whatever the cost might be.
“So,” Will said. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”
Jessica was the first one to walk away when Will and Gabriel were through talking and everyone had agreed on the plan. She headed to her room, but she immediately heard approaching footsteps and turned around to see Will.
“Are you okay?” Will asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jessica nodded.
Will shook his head. “You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s okay,” Jessica said. “I want to do it. Really. It can’t be you, Holly, or Marcus. And Sarah is way too scared. So, that just leaves me.”
His hand landed on her arm and his face moved closer to hers. “We’re gonna be right behind you. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Will leaned in and hugged her, and as she looked back down the hall over his shoulder, Jessica saw Holly glaring at her.
Will pulled away. “Go get some rest. We’re gonna head out in just a couple of hours.”
Chapter 14
Dylan
As soon as he finished eating his steak and egg breakfast, Clint slammed his hands on the table and jumped to his feet. It startled Dylan, who almost choked as he was trying to force down more of his slop. He looked up to see the large man looking down to Clint and nodding.
Empty Bodies Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 39