Empty Bodies (Book 4): Open Roads

by Zach Bohannon

  “You scared the shit out of me.”

  Still wet from the pouring rain, Charlie smiled and chuckled. “Sorry, man.”

  Will grabbed a towel that felt dry and unused, and turned around while drying his face. When he pulled the towel away, Will saw Charlie looking upon him with wide eyes. He was staring at the scratches and bruises on Will’s chest before shifting his gaze to the swollen wounds on Will’s arm.

  “Holy shit,” Charlie mumbled.

  Will threw the shirt over his head and pulled it down, hiding all the marks. He glared at Charlie as he moved past him and out of the room.

  “What’s up?” Will asked, moving out to the living room. “Why’d you come over?”

  “Just, uh, just checking in,” Charlie said. “I brought you guys over some bread, peanut butter, and some mixed nuts.”

  “Thanks,” Will said, sitting down at the dining room table. Holly and Mary Beth sat on the floor in front of the coffee table in the middle of the living room.

  “I found a deck of Uno cards,” Mary Beth said.

  “Awesome,” Will said, smiling.

  “We’ve got some board games over in Scott’s cabin,” Charlie said. “He and Reece have been playing Monopoly and Clue a lot. I’m sure they’ll let you play with them if you guys decide to stay long enough.”

  Will naturally turned to Holly, who was staring back at him. She smiled briefly, then looked back to the game, and Will knew they’d be finishing their conversation about the possibility of staying later on.

  “Rain doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon,” Charlie said. “Just wanted to let you know that you guys are welcome to stay the night if the day runs long and it’s still a mess out there. You’re gonna want that road nice and dry before you try to go down it.”

  “Thanks,” Will said. Charlie was still exchanging a curious look with him, and Will felt self-conscious about the bite wounds on his arm.

  “Oh, and, uh, we’ve also got some firewood stocked away in one of the open cabins,” Charlie said. “If you end up needing to stay here, you’re welcome to use some for heat and light. It gets pretty chilly up here at night.”

  “Sounds good,” Will said.

  Charlie just stared at Will awkwardly for a moment, before turning down his gaze and grabbing his rain coat off the hook by the front door.

  “Alright, well, I’ll let you guys hang out and rest for a while. I’m over in cabin five if you need anything.”

  Will stood up and approached Charlie. He smiled and extended his hand, which Charlie grasped and shook.

  “Thanks for everything, Charlie. We really appreciate it.”

  Charlie smiled. “No problem.” He opened the door, and Will saw just how much rain was pouring down from the sky. “Talk to you soon.”

  ***

  The rain continued turning the dirt courtyard into mud as Gabriel watched out the window. With no power, the overcast sky made the inside of the cabin mostly dark. The sound of the shower running from inside blended in with the storm, as Jessica had been the first to go clean up when they came inside. Dylan lay on the sofa, tossing a ball into the air repeatedly and catching it, the rubber smacking his palm each time. Across the way, someone stepped out of one of the cabins, their head covered with a jacket, and ran across the courtyard. It was Thomas, and he appeared to be heading straight for Gabriel’s cabin.

  Gabriel sidestepped to the door and opened it, just as Thomas’ feet clattered up the four wooden stairs leading up to the cabin’s front porch. He pushed the jacket off of his head.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  Gabriel shook his head and moved adjacent with the door, inviting Thomas inside. Thomas wiped his feet on the door mat lying just outside of the entrance, then came into the cabin.

  “Not a bad set-up here, huh?” Thomas said.

  Gabriel chuckled. “Have you been out there, out on the road? It could be a hell of a lot worse.”

  “Yeah, they could have put you in the place your friends are in. A couple of gay dudes were in there.”

  Gabriel chuckled and shook his head. “What brings you by?”

  Thomas sighed. “Well, actually, I was just hoping that you and I could have a chat.”

  Gabriel furrowed his brow. “Yeah? Okay.” He looked back to Dylan. “Hey, Dylan, why don’t you run over to Will’s and see what Mary Beth is up to?”

  Dylan shot up off the couch and raced for the door.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” the boy said.

  Gabriel caught him on the way by and said, “Whoa, whoa, make sure you go grab a coat so you don’t get wet.”

  Dylan retreated to one of the bedrooms and returned with a coat on his back. It was the one Gabriel had grabbed for the boy at the sporting goods store at the same time he’d gotten his own. Gabriel reached down and pulled the hood over his head.

  “Have fun,” Gabriel said, and the boy was out the door, racing through the rain to the cabin two doors down.

  Gabriel shut the door, and when he turned back around, Thomas had his hands on his hips and was staring out of a window above the sink. Not sure where this was headed, Gabriel crept into the kitchen, the wood floor creaking beneath his feet. He made his way over to the dining room table, and shifted his weight onto the back of one of the chairs, rocking back and forth on his heels.

  “So, what’d you wanna talk about?” Gabriel asked.

  Continuing to watch the rain fall outside, Thomas didn’t respond. Gabriel swallowed the silence.

  “Um, Thom—”

  “We’d looked forward to this trip for months,” Thomas said, breaking his awkward silence. “I bought a special calendar which I put in my office at work just to mark down the days until we left to come up here. We were only coming for five days, which may not seem like a big deal to some people. But when you’ve worked as hard as I have to provide for your family, five days away from all the sweat, and coming home with hands stained black and bathed in the scent of motor oil; five days is a long fucking time.”

  There was another pause while Thomas cleared his throat and gathered himself. Footsteps approached from behind them and Gabriel turned to see Jessica emerge from the short hallway. She was drying her hair with a towel, wearing a white robe she must’ve found in a closet, and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Thomas and Gabriel looking back.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Jessica said.

  “It’s alright,” Thomas said. “I don’t mind if you hear this.”

  Jessica stepped toward the sofa, continuing to pat her hair with the towel, and took a seat. She eyed Gabriel, as if to ask what was going on, and then Thomas continued.

  “Probably ‘bout an eighth of a mile through the woods, there’s a water hole,” Thomas said. “That’s where Jake and I were when we heard the screams. My parents planned this trip about a month after Claire got divorced, and rented out three cabins for us. My dad was gonna come fishin’ with me and Jake, but changed his mind at the last minute, opting instead to take a nap. It would’ve been weird enough if there had just been one scream, but this was several in unison. Jake and I left our fishing gear down by the water and ran as fast as we could back up here.

  “When we arrived back at the campground, several people were outside. There was a lot of confusion. Claire stood in the middle of the group and ran to us when she saw us appear out of the woods. I asked her what was wrong, and all she could say was, ‘Jane passed out! Jane passed out!’ Jane’s my wife, you see. I told Jake — my son, if you haven’t figured that out by now — to stay outside with Claire, and I ran into the cabin.

  “It was…”

  Thomas paused again, this time because he’d started to cry. Gabriel, his face feeling hollow and pale, looked back to see Jessica wiping tears from her own eyes.

  “The inside of the place smelled lovely. Jane and Claire had been baking and the kitchen counters were loaded with various cookies, a couple of pies, and they had a cake in the oven. The smell didn’t match the
feeling I had when I walked in the door. Then I looked over onto the kitchen floor and just saw a hand peeking out from the other side of a cabinet.

  “I ran to her and kneeled down next to her. She was lying on her side, facing the cabinet, and I flipped her over. I’ll never forget the eyes. They were wide open and lifeless. Deep down, I knew. She wasn’t breathing, but I checked for a pulse anyway. When there wasn’t one there, I began to administer CPR. As I’m sure you all know by now, it was useless. After that, I just lay there next to her, holding her hand at my lips and mumbling ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again, as if there would’ve been something I could’ve done if I’d been there.

  “There were more screams outside, and I heard my sister call my name.

  “When I ran outside again, I watched Miles, one of those queers who’d been staying in your friends’ cabin, come walking across the picnic area out front toward the survivors. He had blood all around his mouth. He’d bitten his partner, you see? We found him later, all chewed up to hell. A fuckin’ mess.

  “I ran back into the house and grabbed my Remington. I always carry a sidearm, but we’d brought our deer huntin’ gear with us, too. Glad we did.

  “Before I even made it back outside, I heard more screams. When I made it back to the porch, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Miles was on top of a child — a little girl who’d belonged to a couple we later found out had become those monsters, as well. Some guy tried to get Miles off of her, but he got bit in the process. I ran over there, and I didn’t know what else to do. I pulled out my handgun and shot him right in the head, without any hesitation.”

  “In hindsight, good on you for not waiting,” Gabriel said.

  Thomas nodded, then continued. “I turned around to look for Jake, but he wasn’t there. I called his name, with no response. I knew there was only one place he would’ve gone.”

  “Oh, God,” Jessica mumbled.

  “I raced back to our cabin and hurried inside. Upon hearing me enter, Jake turned around to look at me. He was standing just outside the kitchen, where he could see his mother’s body. He said to me, ‘Dad, I think she’s okay.’ I was confused. Jane was dead, I knew it for sure. That’s when I heard her make the sound. That grotesque, inhuman, sound.”

  Thomas looked up to the ceiling and drew in a long deep breath. He finally looked away from the window and turned to face Gabriel and Jessica.

  “I tried to get him away, but it was too late. She bit right into Jake’s calf. I watched my son fall to the floor in agony, and she was able to take a chunk out of the back of his neck before I finally pulled him away from her and carried him outside.”

  Gabriel looked to the ground, shaking his head. He brought his hand up to his face, covering his eyes.

  “I shut the door behind me, and whatever my wife had turned into didn’t have the sense to turn the knob and follow us outside. I laid Jake down onto one of those picnic tables outside, but there was so much commotion all around. More people had emerged from the cabins, transformed into those monsters. Two more people were on the ground being attacked. Everyone was yelling at me at once, seeing as I was armed. Honestly, I don’t really remember much about what happened next. I left my son on the table and I just started shooting at any of the beasts. Everyone else ducked down and got out of the way. I slaughtered all the things that were out there. By the time it was over, Jake had stopped breathing, and he was gone.

  “After that, I moved Jake into one of the cabins, shut the door, and then went outside to check on Claire. She was bawling, because she had discovered our parents had both turned, as well. Phones didn’t work, and we just passed it off for bad reception up here, so I knew I’d have to go for help. I was about to jump in my truck and go find help when I heard the banging at the door of the cabin where I’d left Jake. He was—”

  Thomas leaned over one of the chairs, bracing himself with one hand and covering his face with the other.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, waving toward Gabriel and Jessica.

  “It’s okay,” Gabriel said. “You don’t have to continue.”

  Thomas shook his head, then looked up. “All night, I just sat on the picnic table listening to my wife, my parents, and my son, bang on three separate doors. It was almost like some sort of demon inside of my head, screaming at me from every direction.”

  “Excuse me,” Jessica said, and she left the room, hiding tears.

  “For two days, they remained in those cabins,” Thomas continued. “I didn’t want to accept what had happened to them. But then I made a few runs with Charlie, and we saw just how bad things had gotten. Those creatures were everywhere. We even talked to a couple of other people who had already received word that there wasn’t a cure. I called ‘bullshit’ at first, but the more we encountered these things, the more we realized it was probably right. And I just couldn’t take another night of my family bashing against the doors.”

  Thomas drew in one more long breath. “That night, I made my sister and the others lock themselves in one of the cabins, and Charlie and I opened the doors one at a time and put them down.” He cleared his throat. “When we were finished, we burned the bodies over there.” He pointed to the far end of the campground.

  “My God,” Gabriel said. “Why didn’t you just let others do it?”

  “I wish that question had an answer, man,” Thomas said. “For whatever reason, I just felt I had to be the one to do it.”

  “I couldn’t have done all that,” Gabriel said.

  “And that’s why I’m here telling you this,” Thomas said.

  Gabriel cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at Thomas.

  “As soon as you leave here, you need to get to Washington as fast as you can,” Thomas said. “Don’t stop and don’t let anyone hold you back. These people are your friends, but that’s your family out there. If I had any hope at all that my family was alive, I’d stop at nothing to get to them. And if you get to them, and you find them in the same state my family was in, then God help you. But I hope that you don’t have to do what I had to do.”

  Every muscle in Gabriel’s body tensed, and he became so enthralled by what Thomas had just said to him that he almost forgot to breathe. He’d thought back over and over again to the last conversation he’d had with Katie on the phone, thankful that it had been pleasant. But it still wasn’t enough to mask the issues they’d had going on at home. All this played into Gabriel’s guilt, and if he reached home and found that his wife and daughter were either dead or turned, then he’d already decided to make sure he had one extra bullet for himself. God forbid he have to live through what Thomas had lived through.

  And as if the two men were brothers or best friends from childhood, they embraced in the middle of the dining room, both of them crying.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Later on that evening, the hosts set up a bonfire at the end of the campground, just on the other side the playground. This had apparently been the group’s routine, as Will had noticed earlier a collection of rocks that formed a circle around the charred remains of the wood they’d burned the previous evening.

  Even though the rain had let up, Will and the others had collectively decided to stay the evening. Being out on the road at night was dangerous as it was, but making it back down the mud-caked mountain in pitch black would pose to be even more treacherous. The circumstances had brought more frustration upon Gabriel, but Will had been able to drive some sense into him, knowing that trying to get back out on the road that night would’ve been suicide.

  When Will emerged from the cabin, the sun had gone to sleep, and the moon sat in the sky, possibly just another day or two from revealing its entire face. The clouds had dissipated in spots, revealing pockets of stars. Crickets chirped, and leaves in the woods ruffled every now and then. The entire campground was dark except for the bright orange glow of the bonfire. Each person sat just off from the flames, which illuminated their faces. There was a chill in the air, just as Charlie had warned the
m about earlier. Will wondered, even with all the available wood to burn surrounding them, how the group would survive up here once the temperatures really started to drop. And furthermore, what were he and his own group going to do once the temperatures fell? They would be in Washington by then, but what if this refugee camp they were hoping to find there was nonexistent? Will shook the thought off as he headed down the front porch staircase and walked across the courtyard to join the others by the fire.

  As he approached, he quickly noticed the absence of Gabriel and Thomas. Everyone else was there, sitting basically shoulder-to-shoulder with each other. The three kids had their own little area, and the older couple, Larry and Marie, looked like Siamese twins, cuddled up under a blanket together. Will glanced over to Jessica.

  “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “He didn’t want to come out here,” Jessica said. “I think he just wanted some time alone.”

  “Same with Thomas,” Charlie said. “He’s back at his place. Maybe he’ll join us in a little while. Gabriel, too, if he has a change of heart. Have a seat.”

  Holly had saved a place for Will to sit between both her and Jessica. Holly patted on the ground beside her, inviting Will to sit down. He moved around the circle and plopped down onto a blanket which covered the mud.

  “You guys sit out here every night?” Will asked.

  “It’s just started to get cooler over the last few nights,” Claire said. “We’ve been trying to save most of the wood we’ve gathered for when it gets really cold, but this has been some really good bonding time for us over the last couple of evenings.”

  “There’s only so much you can do up here at night with no power,” noted Scott, the twenty-something year old guy who’d barely spoken a word up until now.