Empty Bodies (Book 5): Damnation

by Zach Bohannon

“Yes,” Will said. “Now just rest, okay?”

  Mary Beth laid down on her back, staring up to the ceiling with her arms crossed over her chest.

  A few minutes later, Maureen arrived back in the house. She carried a large bowl and a bucket, as well as a plastic bag looped through her arm.

  “There’s some spaghetti in this bowl. We’ve got a couple of generators and a microwave, so I was able to warm it up for you. Unfortunately, we ran out of pasta sauce a while back, so you’ll have to eat it dry.” She set the bucket down on the table. “I've also got some clean water here that the girl can use to wipe her face off with. If the rest of you want to wash up, I can always go grab another bucket.”

  “Thank you,” Will said. “We might take you up on that after we eat.”

  “Is there a bathroom nearby were we could take this bucket and get Mary Beth cleaned off?” Holly asked.

  “It’s just down the hallway over here,” Maureen said. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  While the girls went into the other room to get Mary Beth cleaned up, Will and Charlie each found a seat at the dining room table. Will found some plates that appeared to be clean in one of the cabinets and set them down on the table. Assuming that there was no running water at the house, he checked the tap on the sink anyway. As expected, nothing came out.

  When the girls arrived back, Will and Charlie had prepared each person a plate of pasta. They’d set a fork and open bottle of water next to each dish. Mary Beth walked into the room with a big smile on her newly cleaned face. Will smiled back at her.

  “You look beautiful,” Will said.

  “Well,” Maureen started, “I’m going to let you all have some time to eat and rest up. Whenever we have some news on the boy, we’ll come let you know.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said. “And thank you for the meal.”

  “It’s no problem.” Maureen turned and exited through the front door.

  Mary Beth sat down at the table in front of one of the plates. Hungry, she started to dig into the pasta, but then hesitated.

  “Go ahead,” Holly said. “We know you’ve got to be hungry.”

  Mary Beth blushed. “Shouldn’t we… say something? Like a prayer, or something?”

  “Absolutely,” Will said. He hadn’t been one to believe in a God, but with everything he’d been through over the past few weeks, he’d come to believe that something was out there.

  “Do you want to say something, Mary Beth?” Holly asked.

  The girl nodded. “Bow your heads.” Everyone did, and she started. “Lord, thank you for this food and for this shelter. Thank you for keeping us together and keeping us safe. Lord, we pray that you watch over Dylan, and make him okay again. I don’t know what life is going to be like for him now, but please be with him.”

  There was a moment of silence until Charlie said, “Amen.” The others followed.

  No one spoke as they ate.

  After they finished eating, the group gathered in the living room to relax on the sofa while they awaited news on Dylan.

  They didn’t have to wait long.

  As the day was making its transition into night, the door opened. Sitting in a chair, and leaned over with his hands clasped together, Will looked up to see Doug.

  “Please, come with me,” Doug said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fluorescent lights and silence.

  That was all Gabriel would remember about waking up.

  Aside from the pain.

  When his eyes opened, he squinted. The lights above him were so bright. He threw his hand to his face and let out a groan when his ribs screamed at him. It felt like someone driving their knuckles into his side—twisting, turning, and digging into his ribs.

  “He’s awake,” someone said. It was a male voice. An unfamiliar male voice.

  Gabriel tried tilting his head to the side to look at the person, but his neck wouldn’t allow the range of motion.

  As he regained his conscious mind, he came to the realization that he wasn’t dreaming. This was real. The pain was real. The male voice had been real. The bright lights above his head were real. But where was he?

  Furthermore, where were the others? If Jessica, Thomas, or Claire had been inside of this room, surely one of them would have said something by now.

  He started to speak, but his throat felt as dry as asphalt on an August day in Tuscon. He’d been to Arizona on many sales trips. How long ago were they now?

  “Are you all right?” the male voice asked.

  “Yes,” Gabriel muttered. It came out raspy.

  “We’re going to get you help,” the man said.

  We?

  Who else was in this room? And, for the love of God, if someone only could have turned out the lights. At least the ones beaming down upon Gabriel from just above him. Even closing his eyes did little to shield him from their power.

  “When they come in,” the man said, “don’t ask questions. None. Just let them tend to you.”

  “Who?” Gabriel asked, but the man didn’t answer.

  Heavy footsteps replaced his voice, pounding on tile flooring. With each step they became louder, moving closer to wherever Gabriel was.

  I am home, Gabriel thought. Not home, but near home. Maybe I’m in a hospital and those steps belong to a doctor, coming to bring me to my family. Yes, to Katie and Sarah. Oh, my Sarah. Will she be in that dress her mother and I bought her for her birthday? The robin egg blue one that makes her look like a princess? Yes, that’s the one.

  Just then, everything started to come back to Gabriel. What had happened, where he’d been.

  The accident.

  “They’ve drugged you,” the man said.

  “Drugged me where?” Gabriel said, laughing on the inside.

  “Not dragged you, but injected you with something.”

  Gabriel wondered, if they had drugged him, how could he feel the pain?

  “Not drugs for the pain, but for your mind,” the man said.

  How did he answer my question? Is this man inside my head?

  “Who else is in here?” Gabriel asked.

  The footsteps stopped right outside the door.

  No response from the man inside the room.

  He coughed, and then asked, “Where are my friends?”

  The door opened.

  “Dammit, tell me,” Gabriel said.

  Those heavy footsteps now slapped the floor inside the room. Whoever it was did not speak, but they moved closer to Gabriel, in no rush to make their way through the room. Gabriel tried to move his head again, but it was of no use. It was as if someone had put a padlock on his neck.

  “Who’s there?” Gabriel asked.

  “Thank you for letting us know that he’s awake, Joe,” a new male voice said. It had a slight Southern twang to it, but the man sounded more articulate than most. Each word carried its own certain bit of elegance with it as he spoke.

  The heels of the man’s boots clicked against the floor as he worked his way nearer to Gabriel. Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw the man briefly before he moved down near Gabriel’s feet. Anyone else who was in the room held their tongues.

  “What is your name?” the man asked.

  Gabriel, still trying to work past the sharp pain in his neck, ignored the question. Standing still, the man awaited an answer he would not get.

  “All right then,” the man said. “Want to play that game? Fine. In lieu of your apparent secrecy, I'll just call you Bob.”

  Gabriel couldn’t help but smile, and he wondered if the man had noticed the gesture.

  “Though, I must warn you, Bob, that I will find out your name eventually. I always do, don’t I, Joe?”

  “Y-yes, sir,” Joe said.

  “But,” the man continued, “if you want to do this the hard way, well then, I suppose that’s fine.”

  The man whistled, and a collection of new footsteps sounded through the room.

  The man said, “Get him up,” and then left
the room.

  Gabriel cried out when his back came off of the surface he was lying on. Hands, at least four of them, picked him up under his arms. They sat him straight up, and it felt like all his insides shifted. His internal injuries stormed alive, and burned like someone had flicked a Zippo lighter inside him, the flame licking his organs. Gabriel tried to open his eyes again, but they still didn’t want to stay open.

  The hands returned to under his arms and lifted him up. Again, he cried out. His captors stayed at either side of him, holding him up. That was good, because his legs felt like they would’ve folded if he hadn’t had the support.

  The men on either side of him began to walk, much faster than he’d anticipated. They apparently didn’t care that he’d been in a car accident, and then had been lying on his back for however long. Gabriel pulled from the little strength he had to keep himself from falling down. He knew he’d much rather try to move on rubbery legs than have to go through the agony of being peeled off the ground if he fell.

  As they moved, his vision finally started to come back, and he was able to keep his eyes open at a squint. For the first time, he was able to look around the room he’d been held in. Just before they exited through the door, Gabriel glanced around to see nothing but men scattered around the room. Their faces appeared old and tired, though many of the men looked around Gabriel’s age or younger. Most of them sat on the ground, and a few sat in small desks like the ones they had in high school classrooms.

  They moved out of the doorway, and then the desks made sense. They entered a long hallway, lined on either side by two rows of lockers, one on top of the other. Gabriel had indeed been brought to a school. The sun bleeding in through the windows provided the hallway’s only light. It was dim, telling Gabriel it was either later in the day or overcast outside.

  At the end of the long corridor they hung a left. They came into an almost identical hallway. It appeared just as long, and was lined on either side with the same lockers. Every twenty feet or so there was a doorway, each presumably leading into a classroom. One difference was that this corridor had a light at the end. The place did have at least some power.

  Halfway to the light, an intense cramp crept into Gabriel’s right thigh. He groaned and started to fall. The two people on either side held him up, and he used his other leg to keep himself from falling.

  “You don’t wanna fall,” the man on his left said. “Trust me.”

  Gabriel believed him. He had no reason to believe that whatever group had brought him here were good people. The whole shooting at their SUV and taking their tires out thing had basically stamped out that possibility.

  Somehow, Gabriel managed to stay on his feet. They made it to the light at the end of the hall and came to a wide open atrium with ceilings at least twenty-five feet tall. The men led him left again.

  Gabriel could now see the front doors of the school. Through the glass doors, he could see the flagpole and the parking lot. Two armed guards stood at the entrance. They didn’t appear to be soldiers or anything—just two normal people. Each guard held a rifle across his chest. Sidearms sat in holsters on their waists.

  The men holding Gabriel led him to a door. A plate beside the wooden brown door read: Office.

  One of the guards opened the door.

  “In we go,” the man still holding Gabriel said.

  They entered the office.

  ***

  It had been years since Gabriel had been inside the main office of a school. Since he’d spent so much time traveling for work, Katie had typically handled all the parent-teacher conferences and any other formalities that had to do with Sarah and her school. Gabriel hadn’t been inside one of these offices since he’d been a senior in high school.

  The inside of the office had electricity, which came as a surprise to Gabriel. There had been the lights in the room when he’d woken up, but the rest of the school had seemed absent of power. He wondered how these people had afforded the resources to keep a generator running.

  The men led him to the rear of the open office, where they came to a door with no windows. The door was lighter in one spot in the shape of a rectangle. Gabriel guessed that there had once been a nameplate for the school’s principal. One of the men knocked on the door. A voice said something from the other side, and then the man opened the door.

  A large mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room. Behind the desk was a large bookshelf filled with many books. A man stood in the corner of the office, his back turned to Gabriel.

  “This is the man you asked to see, sir,” the man holding Gabriel said.

  The man in the corner of the room said, “Have a seat.”

  One of Gabriel’s captors moved him in front of a chair and then pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him to sit. Gabriel groaned.

  “Leave,” the man in the corner of the room said. His voice was deep and authoritative, his body large and muscular.

  Gabriel watched the man in the corner as the other two men exited the room, shutting the door behind them. He was somewhat surprised that they’d left him with his hands unbound. Then he noticed the revolver holstered onto the large man’s hip.

  The man had a broad backside, and wore a black shirt tucked into matching pants. He had a full head of silver hair, but it was hard to gauge his age from behind. A file cabinet sat in front of where he stood. On top was a small wooden box. The man opened the box, and pulled out a single cigar. He ran it under his nose, then let out a relieved sigh.

  “Nothing beats that smell,” the man said.

  Gabriel didn’t say anything as the man reached into his pocket, withdrawing a box of matches. He pressed the cigar between his lips, then struck a match, watching the flame spread from the head before settling into a gentle glow. Pressing the flame against the tip of the cigar, he puffed until it was fully lit. Then he turned around.

  He had distinct features, but Gabriel had trouble telling what nationality he might be. He spoke with a Southern accent, but he looked to be of Russian descent. He had a full beard which matched the color of his silver hair. Wrinkles in his face put him at around sixty years old, Gabriel guessed. The tip of the cigar glowed orange, and the man puffed on it, sending a cloud of smoke into the air.

  He locked eyes with Gabriel as he made his way over to the desk. The man pulled the chair out from under the desk, sat down, and leaned back, propping his large boots up on the mahogany top. He picked up the cigar again, and then pulled it out of his mouth as he blew the smoke into the air. Leaving the cigar between his fingers, his elbows resting on the armrests of the chair, he finally spoke again.

  “You’re probably wondering who I am and what you’re doing here,” the man said.

  Gabriel didn’t respond.

  After a few moments of waiting for a response, the man smiled. “Ah, I see. Going to play the quiet game, Gabriel?” He took another drag off the cigar.

  Gabriel wondered how this man knew his name, but he managed to remain silent.

  “My name is Nathan Ambrose. The reason that you’re here at this place and the reason that you’re here in this room are two different things. In time, you’ll learn why you’re here at the school. I won’t spoil that for you. But the reason you’re in here talking to me right now is because I see value in you. You and your people seem far more experienced than most others we’ve picked up. It’s got me curious. I’m interested to know where you came from. What y’all’ve been up to since half the damn world turned into upright corpses.”

  Gabriel remained silent. Nathan picked his size 13 boots up off of the table, setting them down onto the ground. He took another puff of the cigar, and then set it into a gold ashtray lying on the desk. Resting his elbows on the desk, he leaned in toward Gabriel.

  “Where’d you get all those guns?” Nathan asked.

  Gabriel put his elbows on his knees, and leaned toward Nathan. From this position, he had trouble lifting his neck toward Ambrose, and he held in a groan to keep from coming off as w
eak.

  “Fuck you,” Gabriel said.

  Nathan laughed. “No matter. They’re our guns now, anyway. If you’re lucky and make it far enough, you might just see them again.”

  Holding an unflinching stare, Gabriel wondered what Nathan had meant by ‘make it far enough’.

  The door opened, and the two men who’d brought Gabriel to Nathan reappeared in the room.

  Nathan stood up and put his hands on his waist.

  Not taking his gaze from Gabriel, he said, “Get this piece of shit outta my sight.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jessica sat on a barstool in what had once been a high school science lab. About twenty minutes earlier, some woman claiming to be a nurse had come into the room to check her out. Jessica had pried into the nurse for answers, but the woman hadn’t responded. She’d simply run a few checks on Jessica and then left.

  Now Jessica was alone. She hadn’t seen her friends since being pulled half-conscious out of the SUV. Jessica had been awake when they’d recovered her from the SUV, though just barely. Once they had pulled her out of the mangled vehicle, they’d covered her head with a pillow case. She’d been too disoriented from the accident to even get a look at her captors before they took her vision from her.

  Tables filled the room. Fifteen of them—Jessica had counted them three times. Two windows allowed light into the room, though that faded fast as night approached. There had been bars placed over them, making this a perfect holding cell. The large dry erase board at the front of the classroom still had the teacher’s last lesson written on it. Jessica ran her hand across the steel-top table in front of her and wondered for a moment what it had been like here when the world had changed. How many students had fallen in this classroom?

  Jessica looked up when she heard footsteps coming down the long hallway.

  “Hello?” she called out.

  The boots stomped over the tile floor outside until they came to a stop at the door.

  Jessica stood up, her legs still shaky from the accident, and picked up the barstool she’d been sitting on. She held it up, prepared to use it as a weapon.