Empty Bodies 3: Deliverance (Empty Bodies Series Book 3) (21 page)

A kind of roar came from the area where the two men were. It was more of a desperate shriek than a declaration of dominance. Like something was in a fight, but losing. With Dylan in her embrace, Jessica scampered back to a few steps away from Will and Samuel. Dylan cried out and buried his face into Jessica’s side. He then let go of her so he could bring his hands up to his ears and cover them, and began bawling, a muffled cry of terror sinking into her shirt.

Samuel’s eyes opened and he slowly lowered his head to look down to Will. Still speaking in a strange dialect, he slowly brought his outstretched hand in to clasp at his chest with the other. His strong voice went away, and he now mumbled. An uneasy feeling panned Jessica’s mind, but she couldn’t look away.

In an instant, Samuel went silent. When this happened, Dylan stopped crying and looked down at the two men, still hugging his chest to Jessica’s side. Samuel simply stared at Will. He still held something tight at his chest, but the only sound was that of rain pattering down on the cooling asphalt.

Jessica took another few steps back, now standing on the shoulder of the road, across from Will and Samuel.

Opening his mouth wide, Samuel made a grotesque sound that startled her. It was as if he’d tried to inhale all the air around them at once, and made this painful sounding gasp in reaction. Streetlights illuminated the road, and Jessica caught a glimpse of Samuel’s face. The whites in his eyes showed, pupils apparently lost somewhere in the back of his head. It looked demonic, and she wondered if she should just take the boy and run. But she couldn’t.

Will’s back arched violently. Stranger still, he let out a more ghostly gasp than Samuel had. Dylan started to race to Will’s side, but Jessica managed to catch his collar and pull him back.

“No,” she said.

Samuel spoke. This time, it was in English. Four simple words that Jessica knew she would never forget.

“Fly into me, demon.”

Will’s head jerked up, and his eyes were stark white, much like Samuel’s. He gasped and let out a hellish scream before falling back onto the asphalt.

Jessica couldn’t believe her eyes. She thought she was dreaming.

A gunmetal cloud of smoke flowed from Will’s mouth. It was thick, with no particular shape or consistency. The cloud rose out of Will and flew its way into Samuel’s mouth. He made a strange sound as he began to swallow the cloud, inch by inch. Some time had passed, and the tail of the cloud left Will’s body, Samuel inhaling it like smoke, taking in the last little bit and closing his mouth.

Samuel’s eyes closed, and he slumped over onto the concrete.

Both Will and Samuel’s bodies lay still.

Jessica left the boy’s side and faltered toward the two unmoving bodies. The storm had slowed, but rain still fell in scattered drops. Her hair was soaked, parted flat and straight from the downpour, and her clothes were drenched. Her eyes were on Will, trying to see if he was breathing. His stomach was flat and his eyes were closed, the skin on his face still so pale.

All the while, the young woman fought to process what she’d just seen. How was she supposed to explain to the rest of the group what had happened?

She stood over Will. It felt like she was looking directly into a coffin as he lay there with his arms crossed, similar to how you’d see those placed on the deceased. Falling to one knee, she took his hand.

“Go to them,” she said. “Go to your par—”

Her words were interrupted by a horrific growl behind her. She turned just in time to see Samuel rise up into a sitting position and reach for her. His hands clasped her shoulders, and she screamed.

The eyes. Empty and pale. Samuel was one of
them.

He worked to try and pull her toward him and she fought it off, even grasping Will’s pants leg to try and gain leverage. The beast clicked its teeth and continued to spit and snarl. Her shirt sleeve ripped, and it was almost as if this angered the creature. It bellowed louder. She felt a sharp pain on her shoulder blade as she fought her way to her feet, the creature having dug its nails into her.

There was a loud ‘boom’ then, and then a thud.

The beast Samuel lay flat on its back. The thud had apparently been its head smacking the concrete.

Then Jessica faced forward and saw Dylan standing a mere five yards away, a pistol drawn and exhaling smoke from its barrel.

“Dylan.”

She jumped to her feet and scurried to the boy. Carefully removing the gun from his grip, she held it aside and embraced him. Dylan returned the gesture, wrapping his short arms around her.

A gasp, and then the boy pulled away. It was a terrifying sound, like someone raising their head above water just as they’d been on the verge of drowning.

She turned around.

And he was alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Gabriel

Blink.

Blink.

A haze washed over him as he opened his eyes.

Gabriel wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, and as he started to come to, a familiar voice spoke to him.

“Gabriel, you okay?”

The voice belonged to Holly. She squeezed his arm.

“Wake up.”

Blink
.

His eyes opened wide, looking up at the slatted ceiling. His attention shifted toward Holly, who sat on her legs beside him.
 

“How long have I been out?”

“Not really sure,” Holly said. “You ran into the house a while ago, and we started to get really worried when you never came back out. But we were pinned down and unable to come after you. Do you remember what happened?’

Gabriel sat up and felt the blood rush to his head. Holly tried to urge him to lie back down, but he wanted to try and adjust his body to being upright again. His lips were dry, and he circled them with his tongue to wet them. He tasted something on his upper lip, and brought his hand to his face. When he pulled it away, he saw the blood on his fingertips. His nose throbbed, and he realized that’s where the blood had come from.

“Hardly,” Gabriel replied. “I found Dylan, but then David showed up and we got into a fight. He was going to kill me, but these two girls stopped him. That’s all I remember.

Moving his hand up to a place on his head where his skull throbbed, Gabriel felt a lump. It brought back the memory of him being leveled with the butt-end of a shotgun. The blur in his vision disappeared and he was finally able to get a good look at Holly. The beautiful girl looked like she’d aged almost ten years since he’d seen her last. Blood stains rode up her arms, and spots of red were scattered on her dirt-covered face. Her eyes were bloodshot and weak.

“What happened?” Gabriel asked.

She spoke slowly, as if in shock, but she didn’t falter and she didn’t cry. She explained to Gabriel how they’d been in the middle of a firefight with the people who occupied this farm, when a truck came soaring at them. Will had stepped out in front of it when he saw David was driving, and fired at him. Just before David had hit Will with the truck, Marcus had pushed Will out of the way and had sacrificed himself for Will.

“I’m not even sure he felt anything,” Holly mumbled.

It hit Gabriel like a brick. Marcus had become a good friend over a short period of time, and he’d sacrificed his own life for another one of their own. But there was unfortunately no time to grieve, not with others still out there.

“David had Dylan with him. Did you see him in the truck with him? And where’s Will now?”

Holly looked away and stared at the adjacent wall.

“What?” Gabriel asked. “What’s the matter? Are they okay?”

She looked back toward him now, but not directly at him.

“I don’t know,” Holly said. “Will jumped into the truck and took off after them.”

Grumbling, the joints in both his knees popping, Gabriel managed himself to his feet. His back had stiffened from lying on the hardwood, but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t work itself out, the longer he stood. By the time he had worked his way down the hall, to the stairs, Holly was already at the bottom, making her way over to the exit. A car door slammed outside. Holly peeked through the drapes that dressed a window next to the entrance.

“Oh my God.”

Holly swung the door open and ran outside.

Holding onto the banister, Gabriel shuffled down the stairs with haste, ignoring the pain in his sciatic nerve and the lump on his head.

The front door was ajar, and when he looked out, he saw Holly running toward a vehicle. The passenger side door was open, and a small figure stepped out and looked around. Gabriel’s heart thumped in his chest. He moved to the middle of the archway, then stepped out onto the old patio.

The boy turned to look toward the house, and the moon shone down enough light to show his smile.

Dylan ran to the front porch.

***

Jessica

The car door creaked as it opened. Smoke rose from the engine, and it finally puttered out. Jessica tried to crank the pickup again, but it wouldn’t turn over. She was surprised the car had started at all, to even get them back to the farm. The damage to the engine appeared to have been catastrophic after David had run the car off the road and into a tree.

No one seemed to notice that the vehicle wouldn’t re-start. On the other side of the car, Holly held Will in a tight embrace, crying into his shoulder. And Dylan had run up to the house and jumped into Gabriel’s arms.

Jessica was looking out toward the barn when, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Will pulling away from Holly. Jessica turned around, and watched as Will stepped around the back side of the vehicle and walked twenty yards over to where two bodies lay on the ground.
 

Stepping through the tall grass, Jessica moved close enough to where she could see Marcus lying on the ground closest to him, and then a female body another five to ten yards off which appeared to be that of the nurse, Sarah. Her body had apparently fallen out of the truck when Will raced after David.

Will knelt down next to Marcus’ body and grabbed his friend’s hands, setting them one over another on top of his chest. It was difficult to tell what exactly had happened, though part of Marcus’ mid-section appeared disfigured. Jessica knew she’d later find out what had happened, and opted not to force the subject now.

Footsteps approached from behind, ruffling in the grass, and a hand clasped Jessica’s. She looked over to see Holly. The slightly shorter woman held a neutral expression on her face, her eyes and cheeks blushed from weeping, and she kept ahold of Jessica’s hand and looked over to Will. Jessica didn’t question her, but took the act as a form of truce-making. If they were to survive, she knew that the remaining five in the group would need to stick together, and she was grateful to see that Holly appeared to be coming to that same conclusion.

More rustling in the grass, and Jessica turned to see Gabriel and Dylan walk up beside them, the boy’s small hand joined with Gabriel’s.

“We have to bury them,” Will said, not looking up from Marcus’ corpse. “Including Samuel.”

“Who?” Gabriel asked.

“The man who saved me,” Will said. “His body is in the back seat of the car.”

Everyone remained silent for a moment. Jessica thought to herself how she’d never seen anyone die in her life up until a week ago, and now it seemed routine. It sickened her to think she was almost immune to the look and the smell, though the sad, dark feeling of loss hadn’t seemed as if it would ever go away.

“What happened to Mary Beth?” Dylan asked.

“To who?” Gabriel asked.

“The girl that the bad people took away. Is she okay?”

Gabriel looked toward the others, apparently seeking help on how to respond.

“She ran away,” Will said honestly.

“But is she okay? We have to go find her!”

“We can’t go find her, buddy,” Gabriel said. “We don’t know where she went.”

The boy bowed his head, crossing his arms over his chest.

Jessica looked up and glanced over to the barn.

“I’m gonna go see if I can find a couple of shovels,” she said. “You wanna come with me, Dylan?”