Rot & Romance (Rewriting)

Chapter 14

Sienna Falls, Montana 1947

The night was dark and the rain fierce. Benjamin sat in a corner of a mostly empty supermarket parking lot, watching a woman quickly carry groceries to her pale blue station wagon. He was hungry. But it wasn't the food in the woman's grocery bags Benjamin found enticing. It was her living flesh. But Benjamin was fighting the relentless temptation to rip into her with everything he had. He was scared. Terrified. Of himself. Of what he'd recently become.

Only a couple of days ago, Benjamin was living a normal life. As normal a life an eighteen-year-old orphan could possibly live anyway. As he sat in the parking lot watching the woman struggle to open the back of her station wagon, he was brought back to the night he met his first dead walker . . .

He stared into the wooden bowl on his table at what was supposed to be mashed potatoes. Benjamin sat alone in the candlelit supper hall. Like he always did. He didn't have any friends at the orphanage. It was hard making friends when everyone was trying so hard to be a bully.

Benjamin had been an orphan for a few months now. His parents and older brother had been brutally murdered at home. Nobody knew why or who did it but Benjamin felt like he was the only person that still cared about what happened to his family.

Benjamin saw two girls whispering and pointing at him on the other side of the supper hall. Even the girls would bully him sometimes. Everybody made fun of Benjamin Crawford.

Everybody.

Except one girl.

Isabella Morrison.

She was the new girl. An odd girl. Very quiet. And she kept to herself. Everybody at the orphanage feared her.

Except Benjamin Crawford.

She didn't give Benjamin a reason to fear her. Unlike everybody else at the orphanage, she smiled at him.

"Do you think I can 'ave the rest of rest of yer potatoes?"

Benjamin looked up to see Tommy Dunn, the biggest bully at the orphanage, standing above him. He was a rather large kid. Mainly because he always got to eat seconds as a result of his bullying.

"I'm still 'ungry," Tommy continued.

Benjamin idly began stirring his mashed potatoes.

"I-I . . ." he stuttered.

"Thank you," Tommy said as he dipped his spoon into Benjamin's bowl, scooping up a large glop of slimy mashed potatoes and sloppily eating it in front of Benjamin. The other orphans began pointing and laughing. Everyone except Isabella.

"You had your food!" she yelled, standing from her lonely table and making her way toward Benjamin's side.

Everybody looked at Isabella. In awe. Including Tommy.

"Why don't you mind your goddamn business?" he said.

The supper hall was dead silent.

"I grow tired of your constant harassing him," Isabella yelled. "Leave him alone!"

Tommy stepped toward Isabella.

"Or what?"

"Or I'll kill you," she responded defiantly.

Tommy considered Isabella's threat and laughed.

"You can't do anything. You're a girl!"

Isabella grabbed Tommy's hand and squeezed, causing him to expel a high-pitched shriek that echoed throughout the supper hall. Several of the orphans covered their ears, including Benjamin. The doors to the supper hall flew open and the administrator stepped in.