Empty Bodies (Book 2): Adaptation

by Bohannon, Zach

  Will felt a pit in his stomach as he came to realize that the horde was ripping Miranda apart. He wanted to throw up, but stopped himself.

  “Will! Focus!”

  Will rapidly blinked his eyes a few times and shook his head, then started to assess their situation. Most of the Empties on the driver’s side of the vehicle were distracted by the feasting on Miranda’s body. The group on the passenger side and the back of the truck—right on the other side of the glass from where Will sat—were banging on the truck and rocking it back and forth, making it even more difficult for Will to focus.

  “I need you to give me some cover!” Marcus said.

  Will slanted his eyes. “Cover? For what?”

  “We can’t stay here. I’ve got to go and get us another vehicle.”

  Will shook his head. “Nah, man. You’re still beat to shit. I’ll go.”

  “Look who’s talkin’. You should see your face, brotha.”

  “Seriously, Marcus. Let me go.”

  One of the creatures reached through the open window where Miranda once sat, and Marcus put a bullet between its eyes immediately. The beast hung motionless over the window, halfway inside the vehicle.

  Marcus sighed in relief and shook his head at Will. “Alright. What are you going to do?”

  Will looked out and saw several vehicles near the fire engine they’d almost collided with. From what he could see, it appeared that the only Empties on that side of the SUV were the ones banging on it, trying to get inside.

  “I’ve gotta make a run for one of those cars,” Will said.

  “You know how to hot-wire it?” Marcus asked.

  Will nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I’m gonna have to go out that door you’re leaning against,” Will told Marcus. “It’s the only way. Here.” Will handed the rifle back to Marcus. “I need to travel light. I’ll just take the .45. Leave that dead Empty in the window. It should fill up enough space to keep any others from reaching in.” Will looked up to the front seat. “Dylan.”

  The boy was crying with his hands over his ears and didn’t look up.

  “Dylan!” Will yelled.

  The boy looked up, and Will looked into his bloodshot eyes.

  “Buddy, I know you’re scared, but we need your help, okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  “You need to watch Marcus’ back and let him know if any danger is coming from behind him. Can you do that?”

  Dylan nodded again, then sat up straight in his seat, moving his hair from in front of his eyes, though still crying.

  “Good.”

  Will looked down at Holly and ran his fingers through her hair. He could feel a lump right where he figured their heads had collided during the turbulence of the crash. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be back,” he whispered. He then hopped over the seat and sat next to Marcus. They switched places so that Will could be next to the door. There were two Empties right on the other side of it.

  Will took a deep breath. “Alright. On the count of three, I’m gonna break open the window so we can clear a path before I open the door and run for it. You ready?”

  “Ready!” Marcus said.

  “One… two…”

  Will took a deep breath and mumbled to himself, “Please, be with me.”

  Then, at the count of “Three!” Will shattered the window with the butt of the rifle and fired consecutive shots into each of the two Empties’ skulls, then opened the door and jumped out.

  A creature came at him from behind the truck, and he saved a bullet by pulling the knife off his waist and driving it into the thing’s skull. He then looked back and saw that a couple of the Empties were pulling away from Miranda’s body and moving toward him.

  “Go!” Marcus yelled.

  Will watched Marcus turn to shoot the Empties leaving the body, but they were already behind the truck and out of the view of any open window. Will knew that Marcus couldn’t break the rear window with Holly lying unconscious in the back. It’d be too easy for one of the things to reach in and hurt her.

  “Fucking go!” Marcus yelled again. “Or I’m gonna shoot your ass and run to one of those cars myself!”

  Finally, Will came out of his trance and hurried away from the truck.

  He had to dodge the remains of the dead in the middle of the road, and a couple of vultures flew away from the rotting corpses when he began to run.

  There were an array of abandoned vehicles to choose from, but Will just ran to the first one he could get to. When he tried to open the door, it was locked, and an Empty appeared in the window and banged on the glass. Will fell backward, landing on his tailbone, grimacing. He then heard a snarl, and one of the creatures was over him. He quickly drew his Glock and unloaded a round into the Empty’s head, rolling out of the way before it fell on him.

  He jumped to his feet and ran to the next car he could reach. Behind him, he heard gunshots and bodies hitting the pavement. He took a quick glance back and saw Marcus firing at the Empties out of the window. It looked like the entire group was migrating away from Miranda’s body now.

  Will readied his firearm and pulled the handle on the door to a four-door sedan. It opened, and he prepared to shoot if one of the creatures jumped out at him, but none did. He slid into the driver’s seat and looked for keys. He checked in all the obvious places—under the sun visor, in the glove box, in the sunglasses compartment—but he couldn’t find any. He got out of the seat and squatted down next to the car, and opened the compartment under the steering wheel, exposing the wiring.

  As he started to mess with the wires, he heard a continuous snarl amidst a fury of gunshots.

  “Will! Look out!” Marcus shouted.

  Will stood, and an Empty was in his face, pushing on the door and pinning him between the door and the body of the vehicle. It was dressed in a fireman’s uniform, wearing a helmet with a shield covering its face. It leaned in to Will’s face, and if it hadn’t been for the shield the thing was wearing, it would have easily been able to bite Will.

  Will pushed the door, sending the Empty stumbling back, but it stayed on its feet. He pulled up his gun and fired, but the bullet ricocheted off of the helmet, and the creature kept walking toward him. After another two shots, the gun clicked; it had run out of ammo.

  “Shit!”

  He went to reach for the knife, but the beast was already on him.

  It pushed Will back against the car. He could just see over the thing’s shoulder, where Marcus was unloading more rounds into Empties who were trying to come over to Will. He gripped the creature’s jacket, which was slick with blood, making it difficult to keep a good grasp on it.

  The Empty was a few inches taller than Will, giving it leverage. Its face was right over the top of Will’s, and saliva was dripping off of the bottom of the shield and down onto Will’s cheek.

  Will let out a grunt, and pushed the creature back. It had a hold on him still and they both tumbled to the ground.

  When they hit the highway, the thing’s helmet flew off, freeing its jaws. It snapped at Will’s right hand, which was still gripping the jacket at the shoulder, and Will quickly moved his hand before it bit him.

  As Will went to put his hand back to hold it down, the Empty shot up and came at his arm.

  Right as it was about to bite Will’s forearm, a single gunshot rang through the air and blood sprayed onto Will’s face. The Empty fell limp and let go.

  Will wiped his face and looked up.

  Marcus was standing halfway between the truck and him, slowly lowering the rifle.

  Will stood up and narrowed his eyes at Marcus.

  “You could have fuckin’ shot me!”

  Marcus tilted his head and smiled with a single, muffled laugh. “Yeah, you’re welcome.”

  Will patted down his shirt and his pants, shaking his head.

  “Let’s just see if we can get one of these things started and move Holly and Gab
riel into it, okay?” Marcus said.

  Marcus walked over to the sedan that Will was trying to jump when the former firefighter attacked him. Will watched him kneel down and begin to play with the wires.

  At Will’s feet, the Empty lay motionless. He looked at it, wondering how many times the man in the suit had escaped a life-threatening situation when he’d been alive, only to have it end like this.

  Will kneeled down and looked the thing in the eyes. They were still open, a pale white. He scanned its body, until he noticed something hanging out of the right pocket of its pants.

  He reached in and grabbed the object, smiling.

  “Hey!” Will said to Marcus.

  Marcus turned back and Will dangled the keys in the air.

  “I think I got us a ride.”

  ***

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lawrence

  Trevor and Sam were waiting to let them in when Lawrence and David returned. As the ambulance pulled through the makeshift gate, Lawrence heard three gunshots muting the two snarling beasts that were standing near the gate as David pulled up to it.

  Lawrence stepped out of the ambulance and the two men immediately rushed over.

  “Holy shit!” Trevor said. “You guys alright?”

  Lawrence nodded. “Fine. Just a close call.”

  He had an intense pain in his right shoulder. Fighting with the large beast and trying to hold it off of him had fatigued his muscles, and his brain was just now starting to receive the signal, the adrenaline finally wearing off. Blood stained his clothes and his hands.

  If Lawrence looked like he had been to hell, David looked like he was the fucking president of the underworld. Blood was everywhere, barely leaving a clean place on his clothes or his body.

  Sam and Trevor stood next to Lawrence as the three men watched David step out of the vehicle and head inside without saying anything. He had on a short-sleeved shirt and his arms were covered in red. When he walked, he did so with a slow limp.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” Sam asked David, but the man didn’t turn around. Lawrence, Sam, and Trevor watched as David entered the hospital.

  Behind him in the distance, Lawrence heard snarls growing louder as they came up the ramp of the parking garage toward the gate. He took a deep breath and took a step toward the door.

  Sam put his hand on Lawrence’s shoulder and asked, “What happened?”

  Lawrence sighed and found a clean place on the back of his hand that he could use to rub his eyes. He then held up the bag he had in his hand and said, “We got some supplies.” He threw the bag over his shoulder, grimacing as the sudden movement shot a pain into the joint that connected his arm to it.

  “Here,” Trevor said, extending his hand out and offering to take the bag.

  Lawrence glared at him for a moment and then sighed. He removed the bag from his shoulder and handed it over to Trevor.

  “Thanks,” Lawrence said.

  “No problem.”

  Lawrence nodded toward the door. “Come on. Let’s go inside and I’ll fill you guys in on what happened.”

  ***

  David

  David reached his room free and clear of anyone seeing him. He wouldn’t have stopped to talk to anyone if they’d tried, thus avoiding the inevitable awkwardness that would have arisen. David only wanted to get to his room and be alone.

  Once inside, he shut the door behind him. He looked around the room for something heavy enough to put against the door so that no one from the outside could open it, but nothing would suffice. The closest thing was the bed, but even if he put the wheels in the lock position, it was still probably too lightweight to prevent anyone from getting inside.

  He walked to the bathroom to take a piss, and then washed his hands and arms. The darkened, dried blood filled the sink. He watched the white porcelain turn deep crimson as he scrubbed vigorously. David looked into the mirror and splashed water onto his face. The man looking back at him was a stranger. Just days ago, he’d been a successful business owner; a millionaire and an eligible bachelor. Now, he was nothing more than another person trying to survive in this new world. His money didn’t mean shit anymore as far as he could tell.

  David looked a little further down in the mirror and tended to a cut on his left pectoral. During his struggle with the last Empty, the creature had scratched him really good. He grabbed a towel and applied pressure to the scratch to try and cease the light bleeding.

  His eyes moved to other scars on his body.

  In various places on his chest and his stomach, David had permanent cuts and scratches. He avoided looking at them as much as possible, desperately wanting to forget the memories trapped inside the wounds.

  But, deep down, he knew that to forget the origins of his wounds would only weaken him.

  ***

  October, 1984

  Texas

  He remembered every detail about the last time it happened.

  The boy was sitting in the closet under the stairs, where he and his brother would often go to hide. The closet was only used to store coats and a couple of boxes full of junk, so there was plenty of room for the two boys to fit inside.

  This particular night, James Robert Ellis had finally gone too far.

  David sat in the small closet alone, while in the other room, his mother begged for James to stop. It wasn’t as if young David hadn’t heard it before. During his thirteen years of life, the boy couldn’t remember a time when his father hadn’t beaten his mother. Recently, though, the beatings had gotten worse. And they weren’t just limited to David’s mother. His father had beaten him and his little brother, Michael, as well. Michael was two years younger than David and was upstairs in his bedroom. David could only hope at the time that his younger brother was asleep like he was supposed to be, and like David, should have been.

  “Robert, please!” David’s mother cried.

  David heard the glass bottle slam onto the table, and could distinctly hear the heavy breathing of his father as he grunted, then connected with another blow, the slap obvious through the stale air.

  While his mother sobbed uncontrollably, David didn’t cry. He had long passed the point of becoming immune to the beatings. David knew he would be next. It hurt him to know that his mother was in pain, but he wanted to keep a straight face for when his father came after him. He didn’t want to give the son of a bitch the luxury of seeing him cry while the man, enraged in a drunken state, beat his oldest son with the same black, leather belt that he’d used many times over.

  “What?” David’s father yelled.

  David could hear his mother crying more loudly now. He heard his father growl, and his mother let out a deafening scream. David came off the wall he was leaning against and sat up straight. There was a bang, followed by glass shattering, and then a loud thud.

  He jumped to his feet and ran out of the closet toward the kitchen.

  When David reached the dining room, his father was already waiting for him. He looked down and saw his mother lying facedown on the linoleum floor. Blood was coming out of her forehead. He wanted to run to her, but feared that his dad might harm him even more than he was already going to if he tried to help her.

  “You son of a bitch,” David mumbled.

  His father took a swig out of the whiskey bottle, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and glared down at his oldest son.

  “Boy, I’ll teach you to talk to me like that!”

  And for the next twenty minutes, that’s exactly what his father did.

  ***

  Just over a week later, David was heading out the door to go hunting with his younger brother and a slightly more sober version of his father. He watched as his mother planted a kiss onto his stoic father’s cheek before leaning down to give him one.

  “Love you, son.”

  “Love you, too, Mom.”

  She kissed Michael, told him the same, and the two boys joined their father in his pickup truck.

  *** />
  The only sound in the truck was that of outlaw country music coming from the stereo. None of them spoke on the way to the land where they were going to hunt. It belonged to a friend of David’s father, a man who James had worked with at the factory for almost nine years. The man had supposedly inherited the land when his own father had died, and allowed some of his friends, including James Ellis, to come hunt on the land during deer season.

  David sat in the middle of the bench seat between his father and his little brother. He glanced over at Michael, whose eye had swollen overnight from the beating their father had given him. David looked up at his father, who didn’t acknowledge him. He focused on the road, smacking the snuff between his gums, and mouthing the words to Waylon on the radio.

  The truck turned down the bumpy dirt road that led to the hunting area; David and his brother bounced up and down on the old seats.

  “You boys better keep God damned quiet when we’re out there, you hear me? I don’t want you scarin’ no deer away,” their father said.

  “Yes, father,” Michael replied.

  David didn’t say anything.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his father glance down at him a couple of times.

  “You hear me, boy?”

  David narrowed his eyes and continued to face forward.

  “Ouch!” David cried out as his father drove his right elbow into his arm.

  “You better not ignore me, boy, or I’ll make both your eyes look like your brother’s.”

  David rubbed his arm and took a deep breath. “Yes, sir.”

  At the end of the dirt road, the truck came to a stop, and David’s father stepped out of the driver’s seat.

  “Come’on boys.”

  The two children climbed out of the truck and followed their father.

  ***

  David stood behind a bush, eyeing a deer that was grazing twenty yards away. He licked his lips in anticipation of firing a shot. When they hunted, they sometimes stayed together, while other times they’d separate. Today, their father had decided to split them all up. The boys had spent enough time hunting in the woods to be on their own. David assumed that his father wasn’t exactly in the mood for quality time with his two boys, and that was fine with him. If their mother hadn’t begged him to take them, James more than likely would have just gone alone.