Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) (11 page)

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 ELEVEN

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?”

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.