Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) (20 page)

The creature’s weight shifted down onto Will, and it buried its teeth into his shoulder.

Will screamed again.

This was it. He was going to lie in this ditch and be eaten alive by the human monster turned supernatural beast that had killed his mother. Somehow, through all his panic, Will found a very brief moment to wonder whether any part of David Ellis’ human mind was still intact. Was he completely vanished from the world? Or did he have any sort of realization that he was on top of Will, ending his life at this moment? Was the bastard enjoying this?

Will couldn’t muster the energy to fight back. Pinned down in the mud, he closed his eyes, just trying to focus on something that wasn’t the pain or the thought of impending death.

A thundering bang filled the space in the air, and the snarling in Will’s ear stopped. All the weight of his assailant fell on top of him, and the pain of teeth digging into his flesh was replaced by a sudden panic that he had to fight for air.

“Help,” a voice said.

He heard the plea, but the gunmetal sky above slowly faded to black, like the end of a dramatic movie about to roll the credits.

The two wounds on his arm pulsated, the pain intense.

Everything went dark.

***

Jessica

Shadows of the night draped over the pale asphalt, and Jessica ran as fast as she could. She wasn’t quite sure why she’d started running from the farm. Something, a premonition perhaps, had urged her not to wait for Will to return. It had encouraged her to take chase and run after him.

In the distance, she heard the cries.

“Help!”

It sounded like the voice of a child, apparently pleading for someone, anyone, to help.

As she passed over a small hill, the scene of the accident came into sight. It was almost as if her legs churned faster and with more urgency now, like a conductor throwing coal over an engine. She saw both of the vehicles on the side of the road, one jammed against a tree and the other rolled onto its side in a nearby ditch. And as her feet slapped the concrete, the young boy appeared from between the two trucks, waving her down.

“Help! Please!” he called out. The boy was jumping up and down, pulling at his hair. Panic colored his voice.

A man sat in the back seat of the car, and with her vision bouncing up and down with the rhythm of her sprint, she was unable to tell if he was moving or not. All she wanted was to reach the boy and see why he’d called for help. In the back of her mind, she feared the worst.

That fear reared its ugly face when she finally saw what the boy had been crying about.

Will
.

He lay facing up to the coming darkness above, his stomach rising up and down at a more frantic pace than it should have been. A stilled body pinned one of his arms to the ground, laying halfway up the limb. Jessica slowed to something between a walk and a stand-still. Will’s eyes were open, but they looked lifeless. They looked… empty.

She hurried to his side and pushed the body of the dead creature the rest of the way off of him.

His other arm folded across his chest, and she saw the two open wounds pulsating.

“He got bit,” Dylan said, wiping his eyes.

Jessica looked to the body she’d just pushed off of Will. Blood pooled from a hole in one of his cheeks, and his pale eyes seemed to look up at her. She remembered his face from the hospital; it was David.

She refocused her attention to Will.

Grabbing his hand, she watched as he continued to fight for air. He stared with wide eyes, as if he was looking past the darkening sky. Like he was being pulled somewhere—out of this body, out of this life.

“Stay with me,” she said, his face in her palm.

For the first time, he looked up at her. He looked so scared, yet as if he wasn’t sure he was even looking at her. She felt a chill stretch through her body.

His mouth moved, but the dialogue was inaudible.

“What?” Jessica asked.

She put her ear down close to his face.

“It’s beautiful,” he mumbled.

Tears rolled down her face. “Don’t. Stay here, Will. Don’t you leave us.”

Still gripping his hand, she moved their hands down to his stomach, where she could feel his stomach rising and falling much more slowly now.

“So beautiful.” Will hissed, reaching to taste another breath.

When the gasp had passed, his stomach fell and she waited for it to rise again. Jessica looked into his eyes, and he appeared to be staring past her now, over her shoulder. He didn’t make a noise.

And his stomach didn’t rise again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Jessica

The sun had almost completely hidden behind the horizon now, and it would soon be pitch black outside. They wouldn’t be able to stay here much longer. But Jessica couldn’t leave his side.

Will was dead.

She lay over his body, the side of her head pressed against his stomach. The only thing she was conscious of was staying clear of the open wounds, not sure if the bite could somehow spread to her. She couldn’t stop crying, and her weeps were loud and unforgiving. She was so distraught that she’d completely forgotten about the young boy, and she finally looked up when she heard him sniffle.

Dylan sat on his legs in the middle of the road, a stark face absent of emotion. She scurried to her feet and went to him.

Kneeling down, she hugged him.

“Dylan, I’m so sorry.”

The boy didn’t hug her back and he didn’t respond. She pulled away to look him in the face, and she concluded that the child was in shock. He then looked her dead in the eyes.

“When will he change?” Dylan mumbled.

Oh, shit.

Through all her grief, Jessica hadn’t even thought about the fact that Will would soon turn into one of the creatures. There hadn’t seemed to be a set timetable on how quickly people had changed: it had varied from person to person, based on her little experience seeing the transformation happen.

“We’ve gotta get back to the farm,” Jessica said.

“No!” Dylan cried.

He ran over to Will and hugged him.

Jessica trembled, her palms sweating. Will could change at any moment. She chewed on her nails, knowing she’d would have to pry the distraught child away from his friend.

“We can’t stay here, sweetie. It’s not safe. He’s going to….” She cut herself off.

“Maybe we can help him,” Dylan pleaded. “Please, we can’t leave him.”

Jessica’s eyes filled and she reached down to grab Dylan.

“I’m so sorry, honey. We have to leave him. He’s dangerous.”

“No!” Dylan shouted.

A voice then came from behind her. Jessica turned, and she saw a trembling hand sticking out of one of the windows of the vehicle, followed by another groan. She rose from her kneel and hurried over.

The man was still strapped into the back seat. His eyes were slightly open, his lips parted as he gasped. When he saw Jessica, he dropped his arm.

“Please, get me out of here,” he said, barely able to speak above his heavy breathing.

Jessica opened the door and reached over to unfasten the seatbelt. As soon as it released, the man slumped over.

“You have to take me over to him,” the man said. “Please.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“Please. Take me over to him.”

“How?” she asked. “Can you walk?”

Gently, the man shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

For whatever reason, Jessica didn’t question the man as to why he needed to be taken to Will. Something inside just told her to do as the man asked.

“Dylan,” she said sharply. The boy looked up from Will, his once stoic face now red from tears. “I need you right now!’

Dylan rose to his feet, then scurried over to the car as he apparently realized the urgency in the situation.

“You have to help me get him over to Will.”

“Why?”

“Just help me!” Jessica demanded. “Let’s see if we can slide him off the seat.”

Jessica could see the man’s pain as he gritted his teeth together, his eyes closed. He groaned the entire time, but they were able to slide him off the seat. His feet hit the ground, and the man grimaced as they sat him up.

“Can you walk?” Jessica asked.

“I think so,” he responded. “Please, just help me.”

Jessica grabbed ahold of his arm and threw it around her, holding his hand on her shoulder. Dylan was too short to mirror Jessica from the other side, but he walked next to the man to help brace him. The man walked like an elderly person with a cane, his back obviously having been injured during the accident.

They came around the front of the vehicle where Will still lay unmoved. Jessica feared he’d have turned by now, and was relieved that there appeared to still be time for the man to possibly help him, given that that seemed to be his intention.

“What’s your name?” Jessica finally asked, as they were halfway to Will now.

“S-Samuel,” the man replied.

For no reason, Jessica didn’t give her name, and Samuel didn’t ask. Perhaps it was because they were both so focused on just trying to get him across the road.

“I need to be on the side of his body where the bite is,” he said.

“There are two,” Jessica informed him.

“Same arm?”

She nodded.

“Good.”

They reached Will, and Jessica wished she had closed his eyes before she’d hurried over to Samuel. They looked up toward the sky, having been abandoned by life inside. It was difficult for her to even look at him.

Samuel managed to kneel next to Will, and he looked back up to Jessica.

“I’m not sure what is going to happen, but you have to make me a promise.”

“What?” Jessica asked.

“That you’ll kill me if I change.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes. “What? No.”

“Please,” Samuel said. “Please, promise. We are running out of time.”

Jessica hesitated, looking down to Will’s lifeless body. She looked again at Samuel and nodded.

“Thank you,” Samuel said. “Now, stand back.”

“What are you doing?” Dylan asked.

Jessica took the boy’s hand and walked back toward the center of the road. She stopped when they were just over five yards back.

Samuel placed his hands on Will’s injured arm and closed his eyes. His mouth began to move, but Jessica couldn’t hear what he said. The wind blew harder, and the dark sky reflected a smoke tint that signaled it could open up again and rain down on them. Samuel’s mouth ceased moving and he opened his eyes, looking straight ahead.

“What’s he doing?” Dylan whispered.

“Shh,” Jessica urged in return.

Reaching under his shirt to his chest, Samuel grasped onto something as he began to speak. The words were indistinguishable.

One time when she’d been a teenager, Jessica had visited one of those churches where the preacher and the congregation would randomly speak in tongues. The noises spilling from the man’s mouth now sounded no different. Samuel raised his free hand to the sky as he looked up, his eyes closing again.

The first new drop of rain fell from the sky and, within moments, heaven seemed to open as thunder sounded in the distance. The rain came down, and Samuel looked as if he were bathing in it, though Jessica wondered if he was even aware it had started to storm.

Dylan hugged Jessica tight, and she looked down at him. A new sense of fear painted his face as he worked to hide his eyes.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

The question drew Jessica’s attention back to Will and Samuel, and her mouth fell agape.

Will’s body shook. At first, she thought it was possibly her eyes playing tricks on her. But she made herself stand completely still, confirming the truth. It wasn’t an intense tremble, but he was moving, apparently involuntarily. His eyes still had the same vacant look to them, staring up at the sky.

Samuel talked louder in the same scattered language. All the fear and worry had left the man’s voice. He spoke with strong intent. Rain continued to fall, and it glistened on his face as it reflected off the full moon and the almost sleeping sun.