Empty Bodies (Book 2): Adaptation (23 page)
When she came around the corner, she stopped. On the floor, Will was curled up, crying with his cheek pressed against the tile. She could also see Marcus, who was sitting up against a wall, not moving. She focused her attention back to Will and ran to his side.
“Oh, my God. What happened?”
Will didn’t answer. He only continued to sob onto the floor. She noticed his hands were bound and Jessica tried to console him by putting her hand on him, but he didn’t react. It was as if he didn’t even know she was there. Behind her, she could hear what sounded like the rest of the group calling for help inside of a small room.
When she stood up to go help them, she was facing the lit room where the creature had been. Before turning around, her eyes naturally looked into the room, and Jessica saw her.
Melissa.
The creature was hollowing out Melissa Kessler’s stomach, while the woman lay motionless with her wide-open eyes looking to the ceiling. Her throat had been ripped open, but her face was still intact. The tears came pouring from Jessica’s eyes, and she immediately crumbled to the ground next to Will.
She lay next to him on her stomach, not even concerned with her injured shoulder. Even with the people yelling out from inside the room behind her, Jessica couldn’t block out the sound of the monster inside the room feasting on her friend. But, next to her, Will Kessler’s words were becoming clear.
“I’ll fucking kill him. I’ll fucking kill him. I’ll fucking kill him!”
***
EPILOGUE
Dylan
When the trunk opened, there were three men and a woman waiting to pull him out. He recognized only one of the men from the gas station they’d abducted him from. He’d screamed so loud all the way here that he was too hoarse to even cry out, and his hand hurt from repeatedly pounding the inside of the trunk.
“Come’on you little shit,” one of the men said as he reached down toward Dylan.
“No, wait,” the woman said, grabbing onto the man’s arm.
She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a bandana. She folded it to where it was long and rectangular.
“Hold him,” she said.
Two of the men reached down and pinned Dylan as he tried to break free, yelling out. His hands were restrained, but he still had a lot of fight in him, especially for a child. The woman managed to get the bandana around his eyes as a makeshift blindfold, and then the men lifted him up and out of the trunk of the car.
“Where are you taking me?” Dylan asked as they dragged him through grass.
None of the people responded.
“Please, where are—“
He felt a hand hit him in the back of the head.
“Shut the fuck up!” one of the men demanded.
Dylan cried harder now, and he fell down onto the ground.
“Get his ass up,” the woman said.
He felt hands under his arms and he was on his feet again. Then one of the people grabbed his shoulders and he could feel their warm, stank breath hit his face.
One of the men spoke. “You pull that shit again, I’ll start cuttin’ them little God damn fingers off, you understand me, boy?”
As he trembled, Dylan nodded.
They continued to walk until they finally stopped, and Dylan heard the protracted squeak of what sounded like a large door opening.
“Come on,” one of the male voices instructed.
They started walking again, presumably entering the door that had just opened. Dylan listened carefully and heard the muffled cries of others.
“Well, hello again,” one of the male voices said. When he did, the indistinct cries became louder.
“Hello?” Dylan called out.
“Gag this little prick,” one of the men said.
“No, please don’t,” Dylan cried, but before he knew it, one of the people was stuffing a sock into his mouth.
He tried to speak, but it only came out as garbled and inarticulate.
As he felt a chill in his arms, and his chest hurt from the stress his little heart was putting on him, he heard the rattling of metal in front of him.
“Bring him here,” a male voice said.
A push on his back forced him over toward the voice, and then he felt one of the people force his arms straight up.
Some kind of shackles were clamped around one of his wrists, and he gripped onto the chain that they were attached to. He used his free arm to fight and tried yelling out, until a backhand slap across his face stopped him, and he let his head fall to his chest as they restrained his other arm, leaving him hanging in the middle of the place with his feet barely touching the ground.
Dylan felt the blood around his lips. Laughing and talking amongst themselves, the people walked away from him, back toward the way they’d come in.
He heard the door shut and their voices fade, leaving him hanging there while the people next to him tried to scream through their gags.
Dylan looked up for a moment, before letting his head fall again and passing out.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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EMPTY BODIES SERIES
EMPTY BODIES
EMPTY BODIES 2: ADAPTATION
EMPTY BODIES 3: DELIVERANCE
AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER AT:
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ADAPTATION?
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to all the readers who came across Empty Bodies on Amazon and took a chance on it.
Thank you, Taylor Krauss and Meghan Cowhan.
Thanks, Johnny for another amazing cover.
Thanks to my friends in the author community:
J. Thorn, David J. Delaney, Dan Padavona, Richard Brown, Mat Morris, Michelle Read, Wade Finnegan, Xavier Granville, C.C. Wall, John Oakes, Simon Whistler, Robert Chazz Chute, Carl Sinclair, Darren Wearmouth, T.W. Piperbrook, J. Scott Sharp, and Nancy Elliot Pertu
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Something about the dark side of life has always appealed to me. Whether I experience it through reading and watching horror or listening to my favorite heavy metal bands, I have been forever fascinated with the shadow of human emotion.
While in my 20's, I discovered my passion to create through playing drums in two heavy metal bands: Kerygma and Twelve Winters. While playing in Twelve Winters (a power metal band with a thrash edge fronted by my now wife Kathryn), I was able to indulge myself in my love of writing by penning the lyrics for all our music. My love of telling a story started here, as many of the songs became connected to the same concept and characters in one way or another.
Now in my 30's, my creative passion is being passed to willing readers through the art of stories. While I have a particular fascination for real life scenarios, I also love dark fantasy. So, you'll find a little bit of everything in my stories, from zombies to serial killers, angels and demons to mindless psychopaths, and even ghosts and parallel dimensions.
My influences as a writer come primarily from the works of Clive Barker, Stephen King, and Blake Crouch in the written form; the beautifully dark, rich lyrics of Mikael Akerfeldt from the band Opeth; and an array of movies, going back to the root of my fascination at a young age with 70's and 80's slasher films such as
Halloween, Friday the 13th,
and
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
I live in Nashville, Tennessee with my wife Kathryn, our daughter Haley, and our German Shepherd Guinness. When I'm not writing, I enjoy playing hockey, watching hockey and football, cycling, watching some of my favorite television shows and movies, and, of course, reading.
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