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

  ***

  As the door swung open to the 30,000 square foot warehouse, Will found himself alone. He could hear groaning and inhuman vocalizing off in the distance, but nothing in the corner of the warehouse where he stood.

  He pulled another clip out of his pocket and popped it into the pistol, putting the gun under his shirt to mute the click.

  With the gun now drawn in front of him, Will began to creep through the warehouse. Fifteen foot high racking ran from the front of the warehouse to the back, separated in eight aisles. The orange, steel racking that housed pallets filled with Element’s products, began twenty feet from the front of the warehouse and ended fifteen feet from the back wall, leaving an open, well-lit path along the back of the warehouse. And if things went south, he would have a quick path back into the office through the showroom door.

  When he approached the first aisle, he looked around the corner.

  Nothing.

  As he moved further along the back of the warehouse, he heard more snarls in the distance. The tongue of the inhuman, an adopted language of the new world.

  The next few aisles had puddles of blood and matter on the floor, but nothing moved.

  Will had to walk past four more of the eight aisles before he came across more of the dead.

  Three people who had been his co-workers stood in front of him, their faces hardly recognizable now from the sudden change. Each of them were men that he had spent countless lunches, pisses, and meetings with. But now, all of them were gone; their bodies left behind only to hunt him down.

  Their backs were turned until the gun went off, spilling the vacant brains of one of them all over a pallet of brown boxes.

  The other two came at him and he pointed the gun at the one to his left. It was Jay, one of his fellow warehouse workers. Jay was only twenty-three, had gotten married four months prior, and had a child on the way. Will thought back to the day Jay had told everyone in the office that he was going to be a father. He’d been elated, going up to each of his co-workers individually to tell them about it. Now, as Will raised the gun to Jay’s head, he couldn’t help but remember the cheerful face of the father-to-be from that happy day, which now seemed so long ago.

  He took a few steps back and looked into the other’s eyes. His name had been Rick. He was the company’s accountant, an awkward fellow that Will had never really gotten to know. Rick had been an introvert and kept to himself most of the time. They’d pass each other in the restroom from time to time, but didn’t have to deal with each other much on a day-to-day basis, as their jobs rarely called for it. The fact that Will had almost no relationship with the man didn’t make it any easier to look into his eyes and put a bullet between them.

  After Rick’s mangled body hit the concrete floor, an echoing shrill came from the front of the warehouse.

  Will ran toward the sound and saw one of the creatures straddling someone.

  Someone who was screaming.

  Fighting back.

  Someone who was alive.

  The identity of the person was hidden by a pallet of boxes.

  Just as Will drew the gun, the creature got the upper hand in the struggle and dug its face into the stomach of its prey.

  The person behind the pallet sat up, screaming, and Will saw the face. It was Jordan, a fellow warehouse worker who had become one of Will’s best friends over their time working at Element. They hung out a lot on the weekend and spent many evenings after work drinking beers together at a bar down the street called McKinney’s Pub.

  “No!” Will yelled out.

  The creature looked up and, even through the blood caked over its jaw, Will knew the face instantly.

  It was his boss, Andrew.

  Andrew stood and came at Will, who didn’t hesitate to point the gun and fire a single shot into the head of his former boss.

  As Andrew’s body hit the ground, Will thought of every time his old boss had been an asshole to him. He thought of one specific time when he had shrink-wrapped a pallet of boxes too loosely, and when he’d moved it, the pallet had tipped over and the boxes had fallen all over the ground. Andrew had called all the employees to the front of the warehouse, pointed out Will’s mistake, and demonstrated to the whole crew how to properly shrink-wrap a pallet. It had humiliated Will, and he had no remorse for the man lying dead before him.

  His attention shifted as he looked down and saw Jordan’s stomach open, his intestines letting go and beginning to pour over his ribs.

  “Oh shit, Jordan,” he said.

  “Kill me,” Jordan said through the blood coming out of his mouth.

  Will just stared at him.

  “Kill me.”

  Jordan turned his head to the side and looked away. His eyes welling, Will pushed the hammer down with his thumb. And he still hesitated to pull the trigger, wondering how he had been put in the middle of this.

  “Do it,” Jordan mumbled.

  Will saw Jordan close his eyes and begin to move his lips. He couldn’t make the words out, but he assumed that Jordan—a well-devout Christian—was praying to God in his final moments.

  “I’m so sorry,” Will said.

  The echo of the gunshot harmonized beautifully with the heightened cry from Will’s lungs.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GABRIEL

  Austin, TX

  Laying on the desk on the other side of the room, the cell phone began to vibrate, startling Gabriel Alexander.

  He rubbed his hair with the towel as he walked from the bathroom to the desk to grab his phone.

  As Gabriel saw the name across the tiny screen, he smiled. “Hey, sweetie,” he said to his wife, putting the phone on speaker so that he could continue to dry off and get dressed.

  “Hey, honey. Are you still coming home today?” Katie asked.

  Gabriel grabbed his brush and started running it through his black hair.

  “I was planning on it. Is that okay?” He presented the question with sarcasm.

  Katie sighed and Gabriel could hear the smile through the phone. “Of course it’s okay,” she said. “We just can’t wait to see you.”

  The Alexanders lived just outside of Washington D.C. in the town of Alexandria, Virginia. Gabriel was a pharmaceutical sales representative and a large portion of his job was spent traveling. Katie was a stay at home mom to their twelve year old daughter, Sarah. His wife home-schooled Sarah and kept things running smooth around the house since Gabriel had to travel so much.

  “How’s Sarah?” Gabriel asked.

  “Good. She misses you. She was going to stay at Lindsay’s tonight but I think she’s going to stay home now. She really wants to see her daddy.”

  Gabriel smiled. Sarah was nearing the age where she would be too cool to hang with her parents. But she was a daddy’s girl, and that would be hard-pressed to change.

  He looked down at his watch.

  “Look, honey, I gotta run. I don’t wanna miss my flight,” he said.

  “Okay. I love you, Gabriel.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Gabriel hung up the phone and rushed to finish getting ready. He was already running late.

  ***

  The tires of the taxi screeched as it came to a halt in front of the curb of the Departing drop-off at the airport.

  “That’ll be $32.14,” said the driver.

  Gabriel reached into his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.

  “Keep the change,” Gabriel said.

  The driver’s eyes widened and he stuck his thumb up.

  “Thank you, sir! That is so gracious!”

  Gabriel shot him a smile and a quick wave before hurrying out of the taxi. He grabbed his bag out of the trunk and jogged through the front door of the airport.

  When he finally made it past security, Gabriel looked at one of the monitors to check the status of his flight.

  Flight 3427, Gate D, Washington D.C., Now Boarding

  “Shit,” Gabriel said.

  He sprinted throug
h the terminal with his coat over his left arm and his bag in his right, banging his shin with every frantic step.

  In a dead sprint, he took a peek at his watch to check the time. When he looked up again, he saw a stout man standing in his path and it was too late to pivot and dodge him. Gabriel went shoulder to shoulder with the guy, tumbling to the floor. The man, much heavier than Gabriel, barely moved.

  “What the fuck, asshole?” The man said.

  Gabriel looked up, smiled, and waved as a way of apologizing.

  The guy flipped him off and turned back to the woman he’d been talking to when he’d nearly been run through like a brick wall.

  Gabriel hopped up and continued his marathon, running as fast as he could to catch his flight home.

  ***

  The airline associate, a woman in her mid-thirties, was closing the gate as Gabriel barreled toward her, waving his ticket and boarding pass in the air.

  “Wait,” he shouted.

  The disgruntled woman looked to him, tapping her foot on the ground and sighing.

  “I’m sorry, sir, the plane is about to pull away from the gate.”

  Panting, Gabriel shot the woman a desperate look.

  “Please,” he began. “I need to be on this flight.” He pointed out toward the plane. “Come on, it’s right there.”

  She sighed.

  “Please. A beautiful woman like you isn’t going to ruin this for me when I came this close, are you?” He asked, using his charm to woo her.

  Gabriel was a good-looking man. As good as he looked in a suit, he could woo any woman with his business professional sex appeal.

  The woman looked to the ground, shook her head, and laughed. She pulled a radio off her belt.

  “I’ve got one more coming aboard,” she said.

  Gabriel hugged the woman.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She looked him up and down, admiring his physique through the well-fitted custom suit he wore.

  “Guess it’s your lucky day, gorgeous,” she told him, eyebrows raised in approval of his existence.

  He smiled at her, blushing.

  “Guess it is,” he said.

  She opened the door to the tunnel back up for him and he walked through it.

  “Do I at least get your name?” The woman asked.

  Gabriel turned, walking backward. He smiled back at her, lifting his hand in the air to show his wedding ring.

  She shook her head and rolled her eyes in disgust, remembering how her ex-boyfriend had cheated on her and how it had changed her opinion on men, before shutting the doors and pulling the radio out once more to tell the crew inside the plane something else.

  Gabriel smiled, approaching the door to the plane.

  Another attractive woman met him at the door.

  “Just in time,” she said with a smile. “Welcome aboard the very lucky flight 3427.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, Gabriel was settled into his chair, his luggage stowed away above his head and the plane fully populated around him. He could breathe easy now, knowing that he was headed home to his wife’s homemade stir fry, and quality time helping Sarah with her math homework.

  Abrupt rustling in the seat next to him brought him out of his trance. He looked over and saw a young boy; he couldn’t have been more than ten years old, digging through a backpack and throwing its contents on the floor as he did.

  Gabriel turned away and rolled his eyes, wondering just how thankful he really was to catch the plane at the last minute since he was now sitting next to an apparently unsupervised child. His thoughts went back to his family as he was able to relax and settle into the chair. Just as he closed his eyes, one of the flight attendants began to preach the airline’s procedural script, the same one that Gabriel thought everyone on the plane had to have heard at least forty times.

  “This is only the second time I’ve every flown,” the little boy said to him.

  Gabriel looked over to him, giving him a nod and a smile.

  “You should probably pay attention to the young lady up front, then,” Gabriel replied.

  “I’ve been staying with my aunt and uncle here in Texas. Now, I’m going home to Alexandria, Virginia. Do you know where that is?” The boy asked.

  Gabriel sighed.

  “No offense, kid. But I’m really tired. Not really in a chatty mood.”

  The little boy shrugged. He adjusted his cap on his head and reached into his bag, pulling out a candy bar.

  One of the flight attendants, a tall and attractive red-head, showed up beside Gabriel.

  “We all buckled in here?” She asked.

  Gabriel nodded.

  “And how about you, little man?” The flight attendant asked, looking over at the boy next to Gabriel. Peeking under the bill of his cap, he gave her a thumbs up.

  The woman smiled and leaned over Gabriel to check the little boy’s seat belt. Her perfume flowed into his nose, smelling like a spring flower and sending a chill through his nerve. He was a happily married man, no doubt, but it was hard to ignore this woman’s beauty.

  “All set, champ,” she said to the boy. “What’s your name?”

  The boy looked up to her, cheeks red, possibly from seeing the beauty in a woman for the first time.

  “Dylan,” the boy said.

  She smiled at him. “Well, Dylan. Go ahead and put that bag all the way under the chair in front of you. You can’t have it out when we take off.”

  The woman gave Dylan a wink, clutching Gabriel’s shoulder before moving to the next row.

  As he looked out the window, Dylan swung his legs back and forth. He hit the back of the chair in front of him a few times, and the man sitting in it looked back to glare at Gabriel, as if the boy was his child. Gabriel ignored the man, turning his head away from Dylan, resting it against his seat back.

  Within twenty minutes, the plane was off the ground and Gabriel was gone to the world, sleeping heavy in his chair.

  ***

  The sound of gunfire woke Gabriel in a stir. He shook in his chair and gasped, looking around to make sure that everything was okay.

  “Whoa, you alright, mister?” Dylan asked.

  Gabriel looked over and saw the boy playing a hand held video game. He wasn’t wearing headphones and the gunshots he’d heard came from the tiny soldiers on the screen. He put his palm over his forehead and let the back of his skull hit the chair, closing his eyes.

  He felt an ache in his stomach that extended to a sting in his penis, as his bladder was full. Gabriel unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the seat back in front of him to help himself stand.

  He narrowed his eyebrows as he moved into the aisle, now noticing how many people on the plane were coughing. A few rows back from him, one of the flight attendants was handing a bag to a woman, just in time for her to empty her lunch into it. The red-headed attendant came hurrying by Gabriel and he stopped her.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “What is going on with all these people?”

  “Sir, we are doing our best to accommodate everyone. Please just have a seat and we will be landing shortly.”

  Clearly, the woman was in a panic. Her answer confused Gabriel, but he felt bad for her as she hurried to one of the passengers, throwing up in a bag like the other he had seen.

  The sting in his genitals reminded him why he’d gotten up, and he made his way back to the restroom.

  He went into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. As soon as he got his belt undone and his pants pulled down, he involuntarily began to relieve himself. He let out a sigh as the pain in his bladder went away. The stream flowed for what seemed like forever, and he looked around the bathroom that, maybe, one other person could fit in, as he daydreamed.

  The urine finally stopped its flow, and he shook a few times to make sure that it was all out.

  He felt a different kind of growl in his stomach. His bowels signaled to him that he had more business to take care of. He turned and sat down on the s
mall toilet.

  As soon as he sat down, Gabriel heard a slam and a collective gasp which caught his attention. When all was quiet after, he shook his head and went about his business for the next few minutes.

  ***

  “Ma’am? Ma’am, are you alright?”

  Dylan’s hands lay as still on his handheld game device as the character on the tiny screen. He stared down at the friendly and beautiful red-headed flight attendant sprawled across the floor. The sound of the soldier being blown up by a grenade in the video game he had been playing made him jump, and he snapped out of his frozen state.

  Looking around the plane, he noticed many people were standing with confused looks on their faces. Two rows ahead of him, a woman stood over a man, shaking him and speaking his name over and over. To his right, an older man around the age of sixty sat slumped over in his chair. And beyond him, two more people looked similar, their limp bodies resting against the chairs in front of them.

  A male flight attendant whose face was blushed with concern was walking down the middle of the plane, attempting to calm everyone.

  When he made it to Dylan’s row, he asked, “Are you okay?”

  Dylan shook, confused and scared. He nodded, but he wasn’t sure if he was okay.

  “Alright, just stay in your seat. Everything is going to be…”

  The man let out a scream and Dylan heard the crunch. He looked down to see the red-headed flight attendant’s chewing the male flight attendant’s ankle like it was a rawhide.

  Then, the howls, barks, and screams escalated.

  The muffled sounds of heavy artillery and bombs exploding disappeared as Dylan dropped his handheld game.

  ***

  Right when he flushed the toilet, Gabriel heard the first scream.

  His eyes got big as he pulled his pants up.

  Then the screams began to come in more rapid succession.