Empty Bodies (Book 5): Damnation (7 page)

“Do those people live here?” Mary Beth asked.

Will set the picture back on the mantle. “I don’t think so.”

“Then why are their pictures in here?”

Forcing a smile, Will ran his hand through Mary Beth’s hair. “Why don’t you hang out on the sofa until that nice lady comes back?”

“But I wanna go look around the house.”

“You need to stay in here with us,” Holly said. “Maureen will be back soon with something to eat.”

Plopping down onto the couch, Mary Beth asked, “When can I see Dylan?”

“Soon,” Holly said.

“Is he gonna be all right?”

“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.