Not reproducible here. Apparently your system or ISP is returning an 11004 (valid name, no data record) error when AFAIK everybody else returns a 11001 (invalid host). But "nothing" is definitely not a valid name!
So you're *not* getting a -2 (unreachable) response; you're getting a DNS error and then an error return (-2). @PING will only return a -1, -2, or -3 (with no error message & exit) if you have a non-fatal error.