Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) (7 page)

Will saw the panic in Jessica’s eyes, and just as she started to point and shout out his name, he turned and thrust the knife toward the creature’s head, getting lucky to hit it just above its right eye. The nails on one of its hands scratched Will’s arm in the process, but the Empty fell to the ground at Will’s feet.

After leaning down and pulling the knife from the monster’s head, Will turned back to look at his counterparts. “Ready to keep going?” He had to yell so he could be heard over the constant banging at the door behind them.

Now apparently feeling better, Jessica walked over to Will and slapped him on the arm. He grimaced and put his hand over the burn.

“What was that back there?” Jessica said, anger in her voice.

“We’re here, aren’t we?” Will said. “You see how many of them there were? There’s no way we were going to make it past those things.”

“You didn’t have to damn near commit suicide!” Jessica shouted.

“She’s right, man,”
Sam
said. “That was pretty careless.”

Will drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Come on, guys,” Brandon said. “This isn’t helping.” He looked over to Jessica. “Will’s right, we’re here.” Then he looked over to Will. “But why don’t you try to give us a little more of a heads-up next time instead of acting on a whim?”

Will stared at Jessica for a moment and she returned his gaze. Then he looked back to Brandon and nodded.

“Good,” Brandon said. “Now, we still have one more door to get through.”

Will turned around and walked toward it. There was a sign on the wall next to it that read: “Parking Garage”. He pressed his ear to the door, hoping to hear whether there were any Empties on the other side, but the continuous slams on the door behind him prevented him from being able to pinpoint if anything was out there. If they were lucky, the garage would be clear, and they could take a little more time getting a vehicle to start. But luck hadn’t exactly been his best friend as of late.

“I’m not sure we’re gonna know what’s out there without just opening this door,” Will said, looking back to them.

“Well, we aren’t going back, so I’m not sure it really matters at this point,” Brandon replied.

“Right.”

Will glanced past them when the door they’d come from made a funny noise. The three of them followed his gaze as well. He looked at the door and noticed it beginning to cave toward them. The Empties on the other side were putting enough force on it to nearly knock it down.

“Time to go,” Will said.

Jessica,
Sam
, and Brandon rushed to the middle of the room, and without hesitation, Will opened the door outward to the parking garage.

***

After stepping out into the garage, Will made sure the door securely shut behind them. He was thankful the knob on the door was round instead of a handle, making it much more unlikely that the creatures would accidentally open it. They’d likely have to crash through it in order to get out to the garage, as they hadn’t yet shown the intelligence to do something so simple as turning a door knob.

Screams of the beasts echoed through the garage. Though, to his relief and surprise, this level of the garage was vacant of any creeping shadows. Will wondered if most the creatures who’d been loitering out here had migrated upstairs after the commotion David had caused when he’d fled.

He turned when he heard a loud crash again behind them, and after a few moments, banging started on the door they’d just exited.

“We’ve gotta hurry,”
Sam
said.

Will scanned the parking garage, and his eyes immediately fell on a Ford Escape twenty yards away from where they stood. Not on the vehicle necessarily, as much as the body he could see sprawled beside it.

“Come on,” he called back as he jogged toward the vehicle.

Flies buzzed around the rotted flesh. The corpse wore what was left of a long-sleeve plaid shirt and a pair of khakis. Like the body they’d passed inside the hospital, the bones had been nearly picked clean. It lay in a pool of blood which was infested with small worm-like insects. Will covered his nose to try and mask the smell, but its strength couldn’t be ignored. He wondered if he’d ever become accustomed to the smell of the rotting dead, the longer he lived in this new world. He knelt down next to the body just as Jessica,
Sam
, and Brandon arrived behind him.

“What’re you doing?” Jessica asked.

Will ignored her and began rummaging through the dead man’s pockets. He also tried to put into the back of his mind what he was doing. The inside of the man’s pockets were wet, likely from all the blood. He felt something crawling on his hand and withdrew it quickly to find a small white worm slugging across his knuckles. He slapped at it, then turned and gagged. Behind him, someone threw up, but he didn’t look to see who in the group it had been.

The banging at the door grew louder, and Will knew it was only a matter of time before the horde made it through. He reached back into the pockets of the corpse and continued to search for keys to the Escape. Finally, he found them in the breast pocket of the man’s shirt after having rolled him over onto his side, and after seeing the man’s battered face. It was a strange place for someone to put their keys, but he was thankful to find them. He looked back and flashed them toward the others. Will could tell from the way Brandon wiped his mouth that he was the one who’d vomited.

“Beats the hell out of trying to hotwire it,” Will said. “Come on, get in.”

Will opened the back door and Jessica jumped in, followed closely by
Sam
. Brandon ran around to the side of the vehicle and joined Will up front as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine turned over without a fuss, and a stream of static blared through the speakers. Will shut off the stereo with a swipe of his hand and looked at the gas gauge. It was three-quarters of the way full, and he let out a sigh of relief.

Putting the vehicle into reverse, Will backed out of the parking spot and came to a stop with a clear path in front of him. He stared into the rearview mirror.

“What are you waiting on?” Brandon asked. “Go!”

But Will hesitated. “We can’t. We have to wait.”

Sam
put up his arms. “What the hell for?”

“We need to wait on those things to bust out of that door so they follow us out of here. If we don’t, we’re either gonna have a hell of a time getting back into the hospital when we get back, or they could even join their friends upstairs and bust through
that
door.”

Will looked over to Brandon and could see he wasn’t sure about the plan. They were silent, and it sounded like the door could come down at any moment. When he looked at it in the mirror, he could see it starting to give.

“He’s right,” Jessica said. Brandon looked back at her, and Will’s gaze went to her in the rearview mirror. “We need to let them get through that door and then ease out of here so they follow us outside. It might even keep them out of the garage for good.”

Brandon sighed and looked back to Will. “I hope you’re right about this. If the garage fills up in front of us, we’re gonna be trapped. Not sure this little thing is gonna be able to pound over too many of them.”

Will tightened his grip on the steering wheel, and the monsters roared behind them as the door slammed to the ground.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Gabriel

A clock above the door leading to the garage ticked with every second that passed, and Gabriel eyed it intently. He’d moved a small table out into the main corridor so that he could wait and listen for his friends to return. At the other end of the hall, near the elevators, Holly and Sarah shared a similar task, manning the door to the stairwell in case the four re-entered the hospital from that direction. A shadow caught Gabriel’s attention, and he turned to see Marcus setting down a cup of hot tea on the table before sitting down.

They sat in silence for a moment, the ticking clock fighting to be heard above their steadied breaths.

“You think they’ve even made it out of here yet?” Marcus asked.

“Hope so.”

Marcus took no time changing over to a deeper subject. “You still got that same plan of headin’ to D.C. once we go and get the boy?”

Gabriel simply nodded.

Marcus took another sip of his tea and was silent.

Gabriel could see in Marcus’ eyes that he had more to add, so he decided to ask the next obvious question.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “Thinkin’ of taggin’ along if you wouldn’t mind.”

Gabriel furrowed his brow. “You don’t wanna stay here? I assumed you’d all stay in your new little utopia here. Hell, I would if I didn’t have a family to get back to, and the responsibility to get Dylan back to his parents.”

“Shit, man. Ain’t nothin’ left for me here. I’ve lived in Tennessee all my life. And considerin’ I’m not sure how much life I got left, I may as well go out and see what else the world has to offer.”

Gabriel turned and smiled. “You’re not dyin’, man. Not anytime soon.”

“Come pretty close the last few days. Shit gets you thinkin’, ya know?”

Thinking about his downtrodden relationship with his wife, Gabriel knew exactly what Marcus meant. If he died before finding his family, his final emotion would be regret. And if he made it to Washington and couldn’t find them—or worse, discovered them either dead or turned Empty—he wasn’t quite sure how he’d live with himself. He’d tried not to think too much about either of those two scenarios, but times like these where he had little to do but swim in his thoughts made it all the more difficult not to ponder what
could
be awaiting
 
him.

“Alright,” Gabriel said. “I’m gonna run to my room for a few minutes, then we can go gather the bodies.”

Marcus nodded. “Go do your thing, brother.”

Gabriel patted Marcus on the back, then stood.

On the way to his room, he tried to think of other things he could do to procrastinate having to go move Will’s mother.

***

Jessica

As the vehicle eased forward, Jessica kept an eye on the large group lumbering behind them, allowing Will to stay focused on getting them out of the parking garage. So far, Will’s plan was going off without a hitch. He’d turned a corner to head down to the next level of the garage, and the creatures had followed.

“This speed is perfect,” she said. “They’re coming after us like they think they’re gonna catch us.”

“But we’re not gonna let that happen,” Brandon said, presenting it almost like a question.

“Not planning on it,” Will said. “But maybe if they do, you can jump out and distract ‘em for us.”

Jessica smiled, but Brandon didn’t find it funny, narrowing his eyes.

As they passed the third level, Jessica watched another small group of Empties join the existing horde. If Will had driven past a few moments later, this new group would have been blocking the way in front of them.

“Hey, I think your plan garnered the attention of their friends,” Jessica said.

“Good,” Will said. “Hopefully that’ll make for a clearer path when we get back.”

They reached the exit unscathed. The fire truck Will’s group had come to the hospital in still sat in the same spot they’d parked it.

“Looks like the tires are blown out,” Will said, speaking of the fire truck.

“David must’ve shot ‘em on his way out,” Sam said.

Jessica looked ahead as Will exited the well-lit garage and entered the pitch black darkness of the night. He was finally forced to turn the headlights on. When he did, three Empties appeared in the beams, standing just yards away from the hood of the SUV. He tried to swerve, but ended up hitting one of them. A second creature slammed its hands on the hood while another banged against the glass. Jessica looked back and saw the oncoming horde approaching fast.

“Go!” Brandon yelled.

Will hesitated. “I’ve gotta make sure this group follows me.”

The Empty screamed, continuing to pound on the glass. Jessica had remained calm and trusted Will this entire time, but now even she was becoming nervous. She looked back again and saw the group getting closer. The SUV began to shake, and she looked to the side of the vehicle to see the three beasts pushing against it.