Empty Bodies (Book 5): Damnation (12 page)

“It doesn’t matter. Some piece of shit,” Lance said.

Stephanie smiled, looking Gabriel up and down. “He sure doesn’t look like it.”

“All right, well, thanks, Stephanie,” Derek said, running his hands through his hair. Gabriel felt a light punch to his kidneys and grimaced.

“Move,” Lance said.

Gabriel could feel both Stephanie’s and Lance’s eyes on him as he stepped through the turnstile. Each staring at him for different reasons. He could hear Lance sigh behind him, and smirked at the thought that he’d made him jealous.

They started the walk around the stadium. Closed concessions stands were to the left. They varied in condition, all looking like they’d been raided. Popcorn machines had been broken and the doors of the beverage coolers had been left open.

They didn’t walk far before Derek turned into section 114.

Gabriel followed Derek up the open-air tunnel. At the top, the open football field came into plain view, and Gabriel’s eyes widened.

“Oh, my God.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When Will woke up, he rolled over to find that Holly no longer lay at his side. After a few minutes of allowing his mind and body to transition from sleep, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. He dressed, used the restroom, and then headed for the room next door.

The door to Dylan’s room was open. The linens were scattered all over the bed, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.

The clanking of pots and pans sounded from the kitchen, and Will heard a laugh.

He walked down the hallway, arriving in the living room. When he looked into the kitchen, he saw Holly looking down at the counter. In the dining room next to the kitchen, Dylan sat at a table large enough to seat six people, leaning over a bowl with a spoon in his hand. The boy looked up at Will and smiled. Holly looked over to Dylan, and followed his gaze to Will.

“It worked,” Holly said, smiling.

“What?” Will asked.

“I was kinda banging those pots and pans around on purpose, hoping that it might wake you.”

“Gee, thanks,” Will said, returning a crooked smile. “It’s not like I need sleep.”

Lumbering toward the dining room table, Will scratched the scruff on his face and ran his hand through his hair. He had shaved while at the cabin, but the hair on his face had already returned to the annoying itchy stage of growing a beard.

Placing his hand on Dylan’s back, Will asked, “How you doin’ this morning?”

Dylan kept his head buried in his fruity cereal, which he was eating with water. “I’m okay,” he mumbled.

“He’s hungry,” Holly said.

“Where’s Mary Beth?”

“Still sleeping,” Dylan said, with cereal stuffed in his mouth.

Will walked into the kitchen and kissed her. Staying leaned in near her ear, he asked, “How’s he really doing?”

She pulled away and looked him in the face. “I think he’s in a little bit of pain, but it’s better than yesterday. He woke up hungry, and I think he’ll be in a better mood once he’s done eating.”

Will looked back over his shoulder. “Cereal and water?” He sounded disgusted.

Dylan looked over to him and shrugged. “Hey, I actually like it.”

Will smiled. “Well, that’s good, I guess.”

Holly took Will by the hand and pulled him to the far end of the kitchen. Standing in the corner, she asked, “When are you guys leaving?”

Shaking his head, Will said, “I’m not sure. I’ve gotta go check with Charlie and Karl here in a little bit and see.”

“You have to go, don’t you?”

Will sighed. “Yeah.” He looked over his shoulder at Dylan, who was eating the last few bites of his watered-down cereal. “If it wasn’t for Karl, Laurie, Doug, and Timothy, I’m not sure he’d be here.”

Holly moved her hair from in front of her eyes, and wouldn’t look at Will.

“Hey,” Will said, pushing her chin up. “Everything’s going to be fine. We aren’t going far.”

“But what if those people you guys are going to see aren’t… good?”

“I trust Karl’s sense of that sort of thing,” Will said. “The way he handled the situation with us showed me a lot. He was extra cautious and didn’t allow his guard to come down too quickly.”

“Can I have some more?”

Will turned around to Dylan, who was looking at him and Holly, his bowl now empty in front of him. Will smiled.

“Of course, buddy.”

He turned back and kissed Holly once more. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Will opened the cabinets until he found a bowl, and then grabbed the box of cereal and walked over to the table. He set the box in the middle of the table and took a seat across from Dylan.

“I’ve gotta try this.”

Dylan poured himself another bowl, then handed the box to Will. Will topped it off with water from a pitcher, and dipped the spoon in for the first bite. He scrunched his face as if he’d just eaten something sour.

Dylan laughed. “That bad, huh?”

“Just gonna take a little bit of adjusting.”

Will sat and ate with Dylan. They talked mostly about Dylan’s favorite comic book characters. Holly stood and watched from the kitchen, absorbing the moment.

For Will, it was a welcome distraction. It pulled his mind away from thinking about going back into the world.

***

About half an hour after Will and Dylan finished breakfast, Laurie stopped by and asked Will if he could be ready to leave in twenty minutes. Will said he could, and that he would meet Karl outside.

Twenty minutes passed, and Will stood in the foyer with Holly. Her face was pale, her arms crossed over her chest.

“We shouldn’t be gone too long,” Will said. “Hopefully just a couple of hours. Maybe less.”

“All right,” Holly said. She sounded almost disconnected.

Dylan and Mary Beth approached them from the living room.

“Take care of them,” Will told Dylan, speaking of Holly and Mary Beth. “Can you do that for me?”

“Of course,” Dylan said.

Will smiled and hugged the boy, whose single arm held Will tight. He kissed Mary Beth on the cheek, then went back to Holly.

“Timothy is supposed to come by soon and change out his bandage,” Will said.

“Mm-hmm,” Holly mumbled.

“Hey, look at me.”

Holly lifted her head to look into Will’s eyes.

“We’ll be fine, okay?”

“I just worry about you going out there with people we barely know,” Holly said. “They haven’t seen the things we’ve seen.”

“Charlie will be with me,” Will said, trying to reassure her. “We’ll make it back. All of us.”

Knowing that his words would do little to comfort her, he simply leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. The only thing that would ease her emotions would be for him to live up to the words and to actually come back to this house.

***

As they exited the neighborhood, Karl pointed out the houses which he knew had survivors in them. He showed them one house where a family of four was. Another where a man lived on his own, having lost his family at some point after The Fall. An elderly couple lived in another home.

“And you said that you tried to help these people?” Charlie asked Karl.

“Sure have,” Karl said. “They all have their own reasons for not wanting to join us. The elderly couple told Timothy they’re just waiting for everything to pass over, comparing this situation to Ebola or Anthrax. That the government will find a cure for all this and that everything will be okay soon.”

“Exactly how far away is this place?” Will asked.

“As long as we don’t hit any resistance, I think we should be there in only about fifteen minutes.”

“How are you sure that we can trust these people?” Charlie asked.

Karl laughed. “I’m not. Why the hell do you think I brought y’all long? You think I was really gonna go check out this place with only Spencer back there?”

Spencer was the other person from the campground who Timothy had chosen to ride along with them. He’d been out on a couple of runs with Karl before, and had apparently proven that he could handle himself. He was also one of the few people at the camp who had experience firing guns, having grown up in a home where his parents owned them. He was now in his early 30s and had come to the camp in a way similar to that of Will and the others. He had lived in an apartment complex not too far away from the neighborhood, and had made his way over to the houses at some point after The Fall.

A few miles down the road, Karl hit the brakes. Will looked up from double-checking that his handgun was loaded.

Trees lined either side of the road. Every fifty to a hundred yards was another driveway. The houses out here were older, ranch-style homes, each sitting on several acres of land.

Fifty yards ahead was a herd of Empties—six of the creatures. They spanned the width of the road, making it impassable.

“Shit,” Karl said.

“It’s all right,” Will said. “This happened quite often to us out on the open roads. We’ll have to get out and take care of them.”

Karl reached between the seats and grabbed his pistol. He’d started to check that it was loaded when Will reached over and grabbed onto his wrist.

“If we can, we need to try and use melee weapons. Guns will be far too noisy, and we need to try and conserve ammo. If there’s other creatures or any people in the area, firing guns will surely bring them out.”

“You mean we’ve gotta get close to ‘em?” Spencer asked. “No way, man.”

Great,
Will thought. He said, “Charlie and I will go first, and we’ll try to spread them out. I’ll try to get a couple of them to follow me to the right, and Charlie, you take the left. If we can each draw a couple of them, that’ll make things easier for the two of you.”

Spencer slapped Karl’s shoulder. “We should just shoot ‘em, man. Shoot ‘em, jump back in the car, and get the hell out of here.”

“No,” Will demanded. “Don’t fire unless you absolutely have to.”

Karl peeked over his shoulder. “Listen to them, Spence. They’ve spent a lot more time out here than we have.”

As Will checked his handgun again for the umpteenth time to make sure it was loaded, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Charlie, handing him the same machete he’d used to severe Dylan’s arm. Will accepted the weapon, examining the blade. Charlie had taken the liberty of wiping it clean of Dylan’s blood, though the blade had been forever tainted with a crimson stain.

The other weapons had all been scoured from garages in the cul-de-sac. Charlie and Spencer each held an ax while Karl wielded a large knife.

“That going to work for you?” Will asked, looking at the knife.

“I’ll be fine,” Karl said.

“Want to trade?” In truth, Will would have loved to pass the machete off to someone else after what he’d had to do to Dylan with it, and he’d killed plenty of Empties with a knife.

Shaking his head, Karl said, “Really, I’ll be fine.”

“All right.” Will looked back to Charlie. “Ready?”

Charlie nodded. “Let’s go.”

Sitting behind the driver’s seat, Charlie exited the vehicle just before Will.

The creatures had made it a mere twenty-five yards, cutting the distance to the van in half. A narrow shoulder and shallow ditch divided the trees from the road. The next driveway was past the pack of Empties. Will wondered if he could drive the creatures down into the ditch as he started to make his way for it.

“Come on, you bastards,” Will said, waving his arms with the machete in one hand.

“Hey, ugly,” Charlie said, pointing at the creatures nearest him. “Yeah, you. Come on!”

With that, four of the creatures headed toward Will and two toward Charlie. The plan worked. But when Will glanced back to the van, Karl had remained frozen in the front seat, and Spencer was still in the back.

“Come on!” he yelled, waving toward the van.

The first creature slipped as its feet left the pavement, and it rolled down into the ditch. The second and third kept their footing, and the fourth fell like the first. Under Will’s feet, the ground was still muddy from rain, and he found it hard to keep his own footing. In front of him, the Empties seemed to be having a similar problem. Will stopped moving backward, readying himself to attack.