Empty Bodies (Book 5): Damnation (8 page)

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 weak.

“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.

The original knob on the door had been replaced with one that locked from the outside. It clicked, and then swung open.

Two men appeared in the doorway. One wore a baseball cap and the other had stringy long hair almost down to his shoulders. Each man carried a shotgun. Jessica wondered if either of the weapons had been stolen from the SUV. She stood there, staring at the men, still ready to swing the stool at them if they came closer. It wasn’t like the chair would be a match for the slugs in those guns the men held, though.

“You’re gonna want to put that down,” Baseball Cap said.

“Go to hell,” Jessica spat back.

Baseball Cap sighed and said, “Ma’am, we don’t—”

But before Baseball Cap could finish, Long Hair had apparently lost his patience.

Long Hair withdrew something from his side. Jessica’s eyes widened as Long Hair fired a taser. The two prongs entered her skin and sent a jolt of electricity through her. Jessica’s legs gave out and she fell to her knees.

She leaned over and threw up all over the tile floor. Then she fell forward, right into her own vomit, and passed out.

***

When Jessica’s eyes fluttered open again, she was looking up at the ceiling. The tiles above her were moving, yet her legs were not. She was lying on something, and when she looked around, she saw the two men who’d just come into the science lab to get her. Leather held her arms and legs to the surface of the moving table.

Both men looked down, not having noticed she’d woken up. If she’d had the ability to be smarter about it, she may have been able to jump off the cart and run away. Instead, she lay still, focusing on her breathing and blanking everything else out.

Once she had found her composure, she looked around. She was on some kind of cart and that the two men were rolling her through a hallway in the school. Someone, a woman, cried out from one of the rooms they passed, and Jessica lifted her head up. One of the two men quickly pushed her back down onto the cart.

“Stay down,” he said.

“Where are you taking me?” Jessica asked.

Neither of the men responded. She heard another scream, but this time the voice was that of a man’s.

“Please, where are you—”

“Quiet,” Baseball Cap said, “or I’ll take off my underwear and stuff it into your mouth.”

Jessica gagged at the mere thought of it. She kept her mouth shut.

Long Hair walked away from the cart and opened two double doors ahead of them. This room’s ceiling was at least three times as high as the hallway they’d just left. Long tables were arranged throughout the large space, and Jessica noticed a buffet line at the far side of the room. It was the school’s cafeteria.

They crossed the room and came to another set of double doors. Baseball Cap coughed and it echoed throughout the vast, open and vacant space. Jessica wondered where everyone else was, and just how many people were here at the school. More than that, how many of them were prisoners like she was?

The men pushed the cart through yet another set of double doors and they were now in the school’s gymnasium. Bleachers lined each side of the basketball court and Jessica saw a large Jaguars logo on the wall.

“What’ve you got for me?”

The voice came from a man on the other side of the gym. Jessica looked over and saw a gangly guy, no younger than 45, standing in front of a door. Above the door was a sign that read: Men’s Locker Room.

“We’ve got one female for processing,” Long Hair said. “Her name’s Jessica Davies.”

Jessica started to ask how the guy knew her name, and then remembered that her ID had been in her bag. Her eyes widened as a more immediate fear came to mind.

Her journal.

Jessica had spent so much time writing in that book and chronicling the past weeks. Now, the book was out of her possession and owned by a group of people who’d taken her prisoner.

“She’s a pretty one,” Gangly said. “Much prettier than the others.” His voice made Jessica beyond uneasy.

“Don’t even think about doing anything to her, Bruce,” Baseball Cap said. “Unless you want Ambrose down your fuckin’ throat.”

Bruce chuckled and said, “Now, Lance, you think I’d do anything to her?” Jessica faced him in time to see him morph his face into some kind of disgusting smirk.

Lance shook his head, mumbled something to himself, and then looked down at Jessica. He undid her restraints.

“Get up,” Lance said.

Jessica tried to push herself up off the cart, but apparently moved too slowly for the men’s liking. Lance and Long Hair reached down and picked her up off the cart. When she landed on her feet, she felt like her knees might buckle beneath her. Bruce took her hands, offering her assistance, but she quickly pulled away.

“Just follow me,” Bruce said.

Behind her, the other two men retreated. Bruce headed for the men’s locker room door.

Jessica reluctantly followed.

The next word that the gangly, disgusting man said sent a chill down Jessica’s spine.

“Strip.”

“What?”

“You fucking heard me,” Bruce said. “Don’t play those games. Take off your fucking clothes.”

He reached over and grabbed a fresh pair of latex gloves out of a box sitting on top of the long vanity. After he’d put them on and Jessica still hadn’t followed his instructions, he grew impatient.

“Look, we have a procedure here. We can either do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way.” He smiled at her. “Based on the way you’ve been looking at me, I don’t think you wanna do this the hard way.” His face had now returned to that grotesque ‘fuck me’ smirk.

Knowing that she should comply, Jessica went to remove her shirt, but her shaking hands wouldn’t cooperate. In this moment of terror, she hated herself for leaving the campground. Hated herself for being jealous. How could she have allowed something so petty to put her in this situation? Part of her wanted to reach for the gun on the man’s hip, put a bullet in his head, and then push the gun to her own chin and fire. In the end, she did the smart thing and resisted that urge.