Empty Bodies: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Dystopian Survival (Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Praise

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Revelation 17:8

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  Coming Soon

  The Witness

  Free eBook

  Acknowledgements

  Author's Note

  Review

  About the Author

  Keep Reading

  “Zach comes out with suspense that will haunt you, and you won’t be able to look away.”

  J. Thorn, Amazon Top 100 Horror Author

  “Few horror writers work as hard as Zach Bohannon. Turn the lights low, and don’t let the blood splatter hit you.”

  Dan Padavona, author of Storberry

  “Bohannon’s Empty Bodies is dark, enthralling, and offers an impressive look into a terrifying post-apocalyptic world.”

  Taylor Krauss, Horror Blogger

  “Zach Bohannon takes dark thriller and suspense to a terrifying new level, with spine tingling tales of the macabre that will keep you turning the page deep into the night.”

  David J. Delaney, Author of The Vanishing

  EMPTY BODIES

  BOOK ONE OF THE EMPTY BODIES SERIES

  Zach Bohannon

  EMPTY BODIES

  Zach Bohannon

  www.zachbohannon.com

  Copyright © 2015 by Zach Bohannon. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events or locales is purely coincidental. Reproduction of this publication in whole or in part without express written consent is strictly prohibited.

  Edited by Jennifer Collins

  Cover design by Johnny Digges

  www.diggescreative.com

  For my girls:

  Kathryn and Haley

  The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

  Revelation 17:8

  CHAPTER ONE

  WILL

  Nashville, TN

  The warehouse sat at the end of a long line of almost identical facilities; the last building on the left of a single, inclined, dead-end road that was sixty yards wide and parted two rows of buildings. They were large, brick-front structures with foundations five feet tall—just high enough to keep them out.

  On a normal weekday in the industrial park, the road would be a fury of semi-trucks backing up to loading docks, as blue-collar Americans inside the warehouses pushed boxes and drove forklifts, all in hopes of making a buck to live off of.

  But things had changed.

  Now, all the vehicles were vacant and still. Rows of cars sat where their owners had left them, parked to the top of the hill. Eighteen-wheel trucks remained backed into many of the docks along the street, but their cabs were empty, just like the cars.

  And while the automobiles lay still and the workdays were over, plenty of shadows still crept along the dead-end road. They walked up and down the street all day and all night, sometimes bumping into each other, but unaware of doing so. No life was left inside them, only the ability to make illegible noises and to hunt.

  At the top of the hill, a large group of them loitered in front of Element Distributors; the company occupying the last building on the left. They gathered around it like it was a famous person, clawing at the cracked, brick walls.

  Inside, Will Kessler looked out of a peephole that he’d made in one of the four aluminum, garage-style doors. He watched as hundreds of the creatures fought to get inside. They knew he was in there. He sensed that they could smell him. But Will wasn’t worried. Standing over five feet tall, the loading dock seemed to make a good barrier between him and the things outside, as they had shown no ability to climb. His main concern was that he would run out of food, as he had very little.

  Element was one of the country’s top distributors of musical instruments. Since the late 1960’s, their parent company in Belgium had been producing guitars and percussion instruments all around the world and, ten years ago, had opened a distribution office in Nashville, Tennessee. The facility consisted of a 30,000 square foot warehouse with rows upon rows of metal uprights, crossed with matching beams, holding pallets of merchandise in each slot. Additionally, the building had an 8,000 square foot office where twenty employees spent their days running the small company.

  But Will was alone now.

  Leaving the decrepit howls of the dead behind, he backed away from the doors, turned, and made his way back into the office.

  ***

  Earlier that day…

  Nearly every day, Will Kessler spent his lunches the same way: he’d go to the lunch room, make a turkey and cheese sandwich in the toaster oven, scarf it down, and then go to the vacant office across the hall and take a forty-five minute power nap. He was young, just shy of twenty-five, but working in the warehouse was hard work. Unloading forty-foot containers by hand and lifting boxes onto pallets all day wore him down. He’d often go home sore from head to toe, but because he was a night owl and suffered from regular bouts of insomnia, often sitting in his room, and playing guitar. So he was glad that the company had left one of the offices vacant when they moved into the newly-built office two months ago. The only thing in the room was a small desk with a computer for employees to use on their lunch breaks. Other than that, there was plenty of floor space for Will to snooze.

  He was twenty minutes into a nap when he was suddenly awoken by a scream down the hall. He was sitting up before he knew he was even awake, and shot a sour look toward the door. The company consisted of thirty guys and no women—not on purpose, it’s just that women never applied to work there—so there was always a lot of joking going on.

  “Assholes,” Will mumbled as he curled back up on the ground and closed his eyes.

  Then he heard another scream. Much closer this time.

  He opened his eyes and shot to his feet, just as he caught a flash of something going by the window at the front of the tiny office.

  Will crept over to the window and, right as he was about to press his face against it, saw Dean, one of the guys who’d worked with him in the warehouse, hit the floor on the other side of the door. Will looked down and saw blood spraying into the air, out of Dean’s arm.

  As Will put his hand on the handle and started to rush to Dean’s side, two figures pounced on Dean, who was only able to get a single yell out before one of the things tore his throat out.

  Will thought quickly. While the two things were distracted, ending his friend’s life in the worst way he could imagine, Will grabbed the desk from the middle of the room and put it in front of the door, making as little noise as possible. Then
he stood in the dark corner, behind the door and out of sight.

  He stood still in the middle of the room; his whole body quivered, his lips danced, and he waited. The silent air between the screams and the howls was filled with echoes of his heart beating in his chest.

  Then he heard a slam against the window. He kept himself hidden in the corner behind the door. One of the things pressed against the window, trying to see into the room. Will heard it but couldn’t see it. The snarl went into his ears and made him cringe.

  Banging continued on the door. It sensed that something was inside the room. With nothing to defend himself with, Will’s mind began to race about what he might do if the thing broke through the door. He looked to the exterior window on the opposite wall. There was no way of opening it, but if he had to, he could throw the chair through it and escape that way. But he decided that should be a last resort.

  Then the banging stopped. He heard a voice down the hall.

  “What the fuck?” The male voice demanded.

  Will couldn’t quite make out who it was, but from the Northeastern accent, it sounded like Mel, one of the sales representatives who traveled to the New England area on a regular basis, selling Element’s products to local music shops. He was supposed to be on a sales trip, but had canceled it at the last minute, which now appeared to be the biggest mistake of his life.

  Will heard a howl from the same voice and the sound of heavy foot steps moving down the hall, away from him and toward the voice.

  He poked his head around the door to look out the window. It was clear. He walked over to the desk and opened the top drawer. There has to be something in here to defend myself with, he thought. There was nothing in the top drawer that would do any harm to anyone or anything.

  In the second drawer, he found a Phillips-head screwdriver. That’ll have to do.

  The only plan he could think of was to try and make it to his bosses’ office near the front of the building. He knew there was a gun in there because his boss, a forty-year old outdoorsman named Andrew, was a card-toting member of the NRA, and had often bragged about keeping a gun at the office. If Will could make it there, he would at least have something tangible to defend himself with, assuming it was still there. If he could make it.

  Will slid the desk away from the door, making as little noise as he possibly could. Andrew’s office was only about thirty yards away, but Will had no idea what he might encounter when he left the small office.

  He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Put his hand on the door handle, pushed down, and pulled it toward him.

  When he poked his head out the door, he looked to the right first and immediately brought his hand over his mouth to keep from yelling out.

  Two more of his co-workers were on the ground with their entrails pouring out and hanging over their ribs.

  He turned back into the room and emptied his stomach all over the carpet. After a few moments, he gained back his composure. Wiping the vomit from his lips, Will stood, hinged at the hips, facing the ground for a few moments before he remembered he needed to move.

  His eyes went straight to Dean, his friend who he’d watched get eaten alive just minutes before.

  For a moment, he stood over him. Stared into his eyes. They were still open, even though he knew that Dean’s soul had left.

  Will picked his head up and stepped over Dean.

  As he did, he heard the snarl and stopped.

  A hand grabbed ahold of his ankle and he fell face first to the ground, letting loose of his screwdriver in the process. He clawed his hands against the floor and looked back to see Dean resurrected. Only it wasn’t really Dean. His eyes had grayed, and intangible noises came out of his mouth. He squeezed Will’s leg, chomping his jaws.

  Will kicked his legs and turned back to look for the screwdriver. He could feel Dean spitting at him. He saw the screwdriver, but it was just out of his reach. Stretching as far as he could, he still couldn’t quite reach it.

  He felt his shoe come off and looked back to see Dean trying to pull his foot toward his mouth. In a panic, sweat dripping down his cheek, Will kicked his feet as hard as he could toward Dean. The grip on his ankle tightened.

  Again, he reached for the screwdriver, and his fingertips brushed the edge of it.

  He looked back and saw his foot moving closer to Dean’s mouth.

  At last, one of his kicks connected. Will’s foot hit Dean square in the forehead and the grip around his ankle loosened enough for him to crawl forward and grab the screwdriver.

  He flipped over onto his back, sat up, and drove the screwdriver into Dean’s left eye. Dean let out one last growl before the grip around Will’s ankle became nonexistent.

  Will lay flat on his back then, fighting to catch his breath. His stomach moved up and down like a flaying heart.

  Down the hall, he heard a collection of howls echoing from the showroom.

  “Shit,” Will mumbled to himself.

  He jumped to his feet and headed down the hall towards Andrew’s office.

  ***

  Behind him, he could hear the small horde tearing into another one of his co-workers, and he wanted to move as far away from that as possible.

  Without thinking, he went into the main part of the office. It was a very large room that extended to the exterior wall at the front of the building, with eight desk that the company’s sales reps used lining the wall to his right. The middle of the room was wide open, and there were two additional large offices to the left, one of which was Andrew’s. Will came to an abrupt halt as he realized the mistake of entering the room too quickly.

  In the middle of the office, three figures were on their knees, mounted over a quivering body. He recognized their tattered clothes. It was three of the sales guys he’d worked with.

  One of them, who Will recognized as having been Roger, looked back and hissed as he saw him. This got the attention of the other two.

  Without hesitation, Will ran over and jammed the screwdriver into Roger’s temple. The slimy sound it made as he pulled it out almost made Will throw up again. He held in what remained of his turkey and cheese sandwich and turned to jab the screwdriver into the next body. It was a new guy from accounting that Will barely knew. His first name was Ryan, but Will couldn’t remember his last name.

  The third one came at him and they tumbled to the ground together.

  Flat on his back, working to push the weight off of him, Will was face to face with yet another co-worker, Emanuel.

  He screamed, inches from Will’s face, as saliva dripped down to Will’s neck.

  Right as he was about to bite into Will’s cheek, he jammed the screwdriver into Emanuel’s right temple. The thing became limp on top of him and his darkened blood dripped down onto Will’s face.

  He couldn’t hold back his gut this time, and he spilled it all over the floor once more.

  ***

  Andrew shared his office with three other employees who held various operational positions within the company. A shape that almost resembled a human body, twisted and mangled, lay in the center of the office. While the smell made his empty stomach turn, the person was already torn beyond the point of coming back to life to attack him. It amazed Will how, in moments of survival, he had quickly adapted to seeing the dead. How he could move past them without blinking an eye.

  Will ran to Andrew’s desk and dug through all the drawers until he found the handgun. It had been a few years since Will had hunted deer with his father, and the weapon now in his hand reminded him of cool winter mornings, sitting in a treestand with his old man. He checked to make sure it was loaded. Of course it was. Andrew would never have had an unloaded gun at his side. What was the point?

  Before walking away from Andrew’s desk, Will picked up the phone.

  “Damn,” he said, as he put the dead phone back down on the receiver.

  The next step was to clear the building and look for any survivors. The latter chance seemed grim, as no one so far seemed to h
ave had the luck he had. Being lazy on his lunch break may have been the only thing to save Will Kessler’s life.

  He knew that a small group, at least two of his sick co-workers, were in the showroom. He left his boss’ office and headed back down the hall toward the rear of the building.

  It was hard not to look down at Dean’s body as he passed by it again. He knew that he had only been defending himself from the thing his friend had become when he’d jammed the screwdriver through his head, but it didn’t make it easier.

  As he continued down the hall, he passed the break room on his left. He looked inside and saw blood covering the table, the floor, and some more splattered on the wall. But there were no bodies.

  At the end of the hall, he heard the rustling still coming out of the showroom.

  Will put his ear to the door. As he’d suspected he would, he heard barking on the other side.

  He held the gun up next to his face, drew in a deep breath, and swung the door open.

  Three of them looked at him as he stepped through the doorway.

  They stood less than ten yards away, and Will began firing rounds without paying attention to their faces. He didn’t want to make it any harder than it had to be to put them down.

  After he took all three of them out with consecutive head shots, he looked into their faces to confirm who else was lost. He was fighting to hold in his sadness, regret, and anger, but made a mental note: Danny, Robert, and Jeremy.

  In the middle of the room, there was a large table that was used for meetings. Another one of his co-workers, David, lay on the table half-eaten. Will pushed his body off of the table, watching as his arms and legs landed, twisted through one another.

  The room had two more doors. One of them led out of the office and into the warehouse while the other led outside, behind the building. Since he still didn’t have a complete grasp on the situation, Will decided his best chance of survival was to clear out the building and hold things down here. So, he moved the large table in front of the door that led outside and then made his way through the one that went to the warehouse.