The Diseased

C.12

Chapter Twelve


I woke up to someone shaking my arm. They shook it rather roughly, so I instantly knew it wasn't Ben, which made me sit up instantly, and try to wake myself up as much as I could, due to the fact that it was incredibly difficult for me to wake myself.
As I sat up, I looked at my surroundings: a forest setting. The dirty people who broke into the car where there in front of us, watching our movements. To my left was Ben, then Madeline, then Greg, and one of the blood covered men was waking him up using the same technique he used to wake me up, by shaking his arm roughly.
He immediately awoke, sitting up and looking around. He was bound to say something, I knew it, so I tried to raise my index finger to my lips to shush him, but I found that my hands where behind my back, tied with rope. But he looked towards me, and I reassured him that we would be okay, and that he needed to shut his mouth before he got us into more trouble than we were already in.
He nodded, and I looked down to not draw attention to myself, or towards Ben. As I did, though, I noticed my shirt was torn where I was stabbed, and my entire side was bounded in medical tape and gauze. The sight made me gag, with my blood as red as an apple seeping through the white bandages, so I looked up and tried to forget the image that was most likely etched in my memory forever.
I turned to Ben again, and saw Madeline awake and Greg currently being shaken awake. When he was, the man who was waking everyone up stepped back with the other twelve he was with.
They didn't say anything for a while, until Greg made a sort of coughing noise and the thirteen people, men and women, lined up in front of us, shot him a look.
"You don't deserve to speak, you sinner," A woman with dark red hair with streaks of grey spat. "You've committed a horrible crime, indeed." She finished with an eerie smile, the crows feet she had gained over the ears crinkled when she did so.
"What did we do?" Greg shouted, wriggling and trying to free himself from the rope bounded around his wrists.
A man, a boy, really, he was only fifteen, younger than Ben and I, glared at Greg, and strode up to him, bending down to view him and grabbing his chin forcefully. "We saw you were shot, right here," he spoke slowly, practically showering in the joy he got from our pain. "We meant to ask, does it still hurt?" He snarled and dug his thumb into his wound, causing more blood to seep out. Greg howled in pain, earning the boy a smirk as he stood up straight and ran his fingers through his auburn hair. "You'll get over it, old one." He scoffed the nickname, and walked backwards into the line of people.
"But what-" He spoke, seething in pain. "-did we do? I just-" he stopped again, breathing heavily, causing the fifteen year old to roll his eyes, "-want to know!"
One of the thirteen, a girl with short, choppy blonde hair picked up in an ugly ponytail and a pair of tacky brown eyeglasses pushed to the dorsum of her nose, fumbled with something shoved in by her belt. As soon as she pulled it out, did I realize, was a gun, in which she aimed quickly at Greg, and shot his forearm, though she probably meant to shoot his shoulder once again, to cause more pain and trauma to the area.
He wailed in agony, and slumped to his side. Madeline looked over at him with fear in her eyes, but she didn't dare say anything.
"He's not dead, is he?" A twenty or so year old male asked the blonde, and she shook her head, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with her index finger.
"N-no, Michael. I-I just caused trauma to the area, just so that it would get infected and cause possible death, but there's many ways to avoid it-"
"Well, aren't we lucky you went to medical school before the apocalypse, Beatrice?" He interrupted her, and rested his hand on top of her head, messing up her ponytail by ruffling his hand up in her hair.
"Please stop," She hissed, smacking his hand away. "Just because you're older than me, doesn't me you have the upper hand!" She shouted. "Anyways, if this family was ranked by a level of brilliance, I would have far more rights than you, so you can just shut your mouth-"
"Shut up, Beatrice-"
The man who shook us awake stepped out from the line and straightened out his leather gloves, before striding up to the feuding siblings and punching them both, square in the jaw. Beatrice, the blonde, fell to her knees and clenched her jaw in her hands, groaning in pain, while Michael, the boy who messed up her hair, merely just stumbled back, obviously holding in his pain, though his jaw was bruised an ugly purple color.
"Ah, now that you've all settled in, we'd like to introduce ourselves." An older woman, around her later fifties, or earlier sixties announced.
"Alright, dearies, my name is Ramona, and these are my two loving children, Michael and Beatrice. My brother, their uncle, is Edison, the man who presumably just awoke you, of course." She smiled, pointing out each family member. "His wife is that nice lady, with the grey-ish hair? That's Winifred, and their three children Elliot, Leroy, and Augustine. Elliot's wife, over there, see, her name is Rebecca, and they have a daughter named Ava, now isn't she the sweetest thing you've ever seen?" She paused to shove past the people and snatch the toddler out of her mother's, Rebecca, arms. "Aw, your great-auntie loves you! Yes she does!" She cooed and babbled, continued to baby-talk to the toddler, even when Rebecca beckoned for her child back.
"Uh, Aunt Ramona, please?" Elliot gestured to his toddler, and the woman scoffed and carelessly handed the child back over to her parents.
"Ah yes, as I was saying, that's baby Ava...who's next-ooh! My baby sister Susan!" Ramona cried, and pointed out her sister.
"That's my baby sister, and she's, what, fifty, now?"
The younger woman scoffed, rolling her eyes. "You're only un-flattering yourself, Mona," She said calmly, using the term of endearment as a sort of peace offering of sorts. "And I'm forty two, not fifty, so that makes you fifty nine. Anyways, guests, this is my husband, James, and is our daughter, Madison." She rested her hand on top of her daughter's mess of dark hair, who was frantically looking around. She looked like a nervous wreck, topped off with the dreary, purple bags under her eyes as if she hadn't slept within a month or so.
"Don't we have a lovely family?" Ramona smiled, the corners of her lips raising to form an odd grin.
Ben, Madeline, and I didn't say anything; meanwhile Greg was slumped over on his side wriggling in pain.
"Well?"
"I-yes, ma'am, you have a gorgeous family," Madeline spoke up, stuttering.
"And what do your children think?"
Ben and I stayed quiet, staring at our shoes, worn and dirty and breaking at the seams and soles.
"Hmm, they're quite shy, huh?" Ramona frowned.
Madeline coughed, and I saw the pain it took for her to speak to the group.
"Ah, yes. T-they are. Shy."
"Oh, well that's a shame. We hate soft spoken folks. I guess we'll have to teach them otherwise."
Ramona crept up to Ben on her knees, and she gripped onto his chin, her nails digging into his skin.
"You're a pretty little fella, huh?" She cooed, admiring his profile view. "What's your name, honey?"
"B-Ben." He muttered.
"What's that?"
"Ben," He said, a bit louder. "Ben Lawler."
"Goodness, you don't have to shout!" She cried, and turned to me, holding my chin between her fingers.
"And your na-"
"Beth." I spat out, not wanting her disgusting breath in my face, a mix of alcohols and cigarette smoke. "Beth Macoy."
"Oh? So you're not siblings?" The woman stood up, and walked back to the line of relatives. "Are you related in any way?"
I questioned giving away all this information to her, but I had figured that my main priority was to earn their trust so that they wouldn't kill any of us. It was sort of difficult to regain their trust, though, being that we didn't let them into our car when they had been begging us to let them in.
"We're dating," I spat out, and as soon as I did, I felt heat rise to my cheeks, as Ben looked over at me with widened eyes.
"Yeah. We met when he saved me from a bunch of those Diseased things, and we just clicked, didn't we, Benny?" I cooed, and looked over at him adoringly.
"U-uh, yeah! Love at first sight, huh?" He cried, speaking it with such a fake acting tone that I wanted to slap him for being so unbelievably horrible at making the family believe we were actually a couple.
"He's a real goofball, but I do love him!" I exclaimed. "N-now I would hate to die, but if I did, I would want to be laid to rest in his arms!"
"You don't want to die?" Ramona questioned, causing me to blink in confusion and shake my head 'no'.
"But honey, you deserve to die...you all do. You've all sinned!"
"Excuse me, miss Ramona, but what on earth did we do to you and your family?"
Ben cut in. "I-we're sorry for not letting you into the car, my father, you see, he's...deaf!"
"Boy, quit lying, you are only digging your hole deeper."
He pursed his lips, and then nodded. "Uh, yeah, sorry ma'am."
"As for the sins, my dear folks, allow me to enlighten you." Ramona smiled, and sat herself down in the center of the ground. It was odd, as she smiled as if she was sitting on a thrown, but no one questioned it. In fact, they all looked to her as if she was a queen or a baroness, or something of that sort, about to declare that her kingdom has caused treason-something of that sort.
"My dear friends, you've killed my husband."
Madeline gasped, shaking her head. "Ma'am, you're mistaking us for some other family! You see, we've only killed the Diseased-"
"SHUT. UP." Ramona shouted, evil in her eyes. After she calmed down, her brother Edison stepping forward to whisper something in her ear, making her relax and calm down.
"Alright...I'll forgive them for speaking up."
Edison nodded, and stepped back to his spot in the line.
"As I was saying," Ramona cleared her throat, and then continued.
"You, my guests, have murdered my husband. These two, Ben and Beth, have fooled my husband into stepping out of our one mode of transportation, and then that evil man, bound to die, shot him from afar." She said, with no sign of emotion in her voice.
"We know this, because Elliot and Rebecca were finding berries, you see, in the bushes by where my husband was driving to trade some items with a stranger who contacted us with a messenger. They had been watching us, they had seen our supplies, blah blah blah, but nonetheless, he was in his car, Rebecca and Elliot were berry picking, and they saw Ben and Beth stop them, get him out of the car, and shoot him, so that you could take the car!" She screamed out the last part in anger, her face almost as red as a tomato, making her dark, stringy red hair appear a darker shade then it was.
She sighed, relaxing herself once again, the redness leaving her face as she opened her eyes, staring at our faces that read pure horror and terror and fear of what the woman was capable of doing.
"So, my friends, you have sinned, so you must be punished-"
"NO!" Madeline cried, tears slipping down her cheeks. "N-no! I can't die, please, Ramona, spare us? You can take the car back, you can take all our supplies, we just want to live!"
"No." She replied simply, with a shake of her head, causing Madeline to start sobbing even more than she already was, tears slipping down her plump cheeks.
"So, my guests, as much as it pains me to say it, I am afraid that you must be killed," she sighed, and shook her head. Michael, who was no longer phased by the punch that Edison threw at him, took out his gun, and busied himself by reloading it, while the fifteen year old, Leroy, I remembered his name was, took out his gun and mocked Michael's actions, reloading the gun, which was actually an embarrassingly smaller version of Michael's, but it still had the same functions.
"Ma'am..." Greg spoke as he seethed through his pain. "P-please, d-don't shoot the c-children," he muttered, sort of wriggling closer to Madeline, but the pain of the gunshot and the rope that bounded his wrists prevented him from performing the task.
"Oh, but we must," Ramona stated with a sympathetic frown. "They took part in your deceitful plan to murder my husband while he was performing a good deed himself." She made tsk-tsk-tsk noise while she shook her head. "Enlighten them, Winifred, would you? On how this operation will go down?"
Winifred, Edison's husband, prepared to speak, but immediately, Ramona cut her off, with her eyes widened.
"Wait! Do our guests have any questions?"
Madeline immediately began sobbing harder then she was before, causing the fifteen year old, Leroy, his aspiration of a cousin Michael to roll their eyes pathetically.
"Why did you bandage me up when you knew you would kill me?" I spoke up, my eyebrows furrowed.
James, Ramona's sister's husband, spoke up, his hand rested on his daughter Madison's shoulder, calming the nervous thirteen year old down.
"Well," he said, and cleared his throat with a cough. "That, was actually mine and Beatrice's idea. Edison, I believe, was the one who stabbed you? Yes, yes, because you kept fighting against us, we need to do something about that. That idea of stabbing you was made on a whim, and so we needed to think of what to do with you, but we didn't want you to die before we had come to a conclusion, now, would we? So, Beatrice, being the medical genius she is, was able to prevent a major loss of blood and bandage you up. Oh, and our conclusion was my idea, sweetheart, we wanted you to say goodbye to your family before, you know, your death." He smiled bitterly, then looked down to pet and stroke his daughter's hair.
"Why would you waste supplies on someone you would kill immediately after?"
"We're decent people, Beth, goodness!" Susan, James' wife, scoffed, turning to Winifred. "Aren't we?"
Winifred nodded. "Mhm! You should be thanking us!"
"W-who's going to..." Madeline sniffled, "s-shoot us?"
"Hmm...that's an excellent question!" Winifred cried, then turned to her husband, Edison.
"Hon, I think Leroy needs practice shooting, maybe it should be him?"
Edison nodded in agreement, which caused Leroy to shout at them both.
"I don't need practice! I have excellent aim! Like...like Michael! Right, Michael?"
Michael laughed, shaking his head. "Dear God, no! You're actually quite horrible-we missed out on a rabbit stew because of you and your terrible aim!"
Leroy shot Michael a glare, causing the boy to erupt in more fits of laughter.
"So, Leroy'll shoot..."
"What if I want my baby girl Beatrice to shoot?" Ramona cried. "Avenge the death of her father! Oh, and she needs practice, too! She's smart but she's horrible when it comes to defending herself."
"That's true." Michael smirked, earning Beatrice the right to punch his stomach-might I say try to punch his stomach, because he dodged her.
"See? She's horrible!" He chuckled, with a roll of his eyes.
"Okay! So Leroy can shoot with Beatrice! Maybe we should have two others try and shoot, too..." Winifred suggested.
"Madison should try!" James confirmed, shoving his daughter forward, making her eyes widened and her breathing quicken.
"N-no, Dad, I don't want to. I'm not ready for that-it's too scary. Please-"
"Nonsense," he hissed. "You need to practice, just don't think about it!"
Her eyes began to water, because she knew she couldn't convince him otherwise. She nodded towards him, making him smile brightly in her direction.
"Does anyone else want to shoot 'em? It could be excellent practice!" Winifred hollered, like it was some sort of auction.
"I'll do it?" One of Winifred's daughters, Augustine, stepped forward, and began pulling out a gun.
"Oh, great!" Winifred gleamed, and kissed her daughter's forehead. "Mama's proud of you-"
"I'm practically twenty," Augustine hissed under her breath. "You can stop treating me like a little girl, already."
As Leroy, Beatrice, Madison, and Augustine all readied their guns, I had thought about what a sick, twisted way their thought process worked, like they were selling off the opportunity to shoot someone. It was ridiculously messed up.
"Who are you shooting first?" Ben said suddenly, looking at the line of people.
"Huh-never thought of that! You folks are so wise!" Ramona stated, then looked to the group of four, who were reloading their guns.
"Okay, pick a number from one to ten." She said to them.
They didn't hesitate.
"Ready?"
"Yep." They all replied in unison.
"Okay, Leroy?"
"Nine."
"Madison?"
"One..." she murmured, barely a whisper.
"Alright, Beatrice?"
"Three."
"And Augustine?"
"Six."
"I was thinking of number nine! So, Leroy gets to shoot first, then Augustine, then Beatrice, then Madison. Whew! Okay, Leroy, who do you wanna shoot?"
Leroy toward the four of us, rubbing his thumb and his index finger on his chin.
"Hmm...I think I wanna shoot that scrawny punk...Benny, was his name?"
"Ben," He corrected, his eyebrows furrowed.
I would've laughed, because it was so typical of Ben for him to correct someone, even under the circumstances of death.
"Okay! Now, remember how we taught you to shoot, now, and don't hold the gun so close-"
"I got it!" Leroy shouted, shoving Ramona off of him.
I looked towards Ben, and saw his face full of fear and worry.
And then, I looked to Madeline, who looked like pure regret and guilt.
I couldn't see Greg, but just by knowing his character and his personality, I knew he was already grieving.
"Prepare for death-" the heartless fifteen year old growled, earning him and eye roll from Michael.
"Get on with it, stupid!"
"Right, have to be cool," He murmured to himself, and then raised the gun hesitantly at Ben.
He held the trigger, and then released it.
It was slow, for a moment, very slow. Like when I was in the basement of the preschool, and I was convinced I was going to die.
His eyes were shut, waiting for the impact. And I was, too, waiting for him to gasp, and then slump to his side, and take his final breath before he perished.
But that moment never came.
Instead, it came for Madeline, who was able to lurch to her right just enough so that she blocked Ben's body from the bullet, and so that it hit her.
As soon as Ben realized the weight of his mother on his lap, his eyes opened, and he looked down. At first, I wasn't sure if he realized it or not, but when he noticed the bloody gash in her chest, his eyes were as wide as saucers, his face filled with grief, as he threw his arms around his dying mother.
His sobs masked his inaudible words, making Leroy's eyes widen and his arms droop to his sides and drop his gun, then go running to Winifred, wrapping his arms around her. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean-"
"GET. OUT. OF. HERE. NOW!" He shouted, his face red as they all backed away slowly, mixed emotions on all of their faces as they realized that this boy, this boy wouldn't have a mother any longer.
He then drooped down once again over his mother, sobbing as her skin paled. Greg was eventually able to come to his senses and realize what just occurred, as he whispered faintly, "Madeline?", and come wriggling with all his might to the dead body, and throw himself over her, joining Ben in the embrace of tears.
My eyes watered, thinking of how lucky he was to be able to see his mother before she perished. I tried to imagine what I would have done, if that door wasn't locked, separating me from saving my parents, like a barrier.
But I diminished the thought, and just continued to let my eyes water and let tears slip down my cheeks for his mother.

[ If possible, please just disregard the photo. I clicked that one by accident...yeah. I wanted to replace it with something else and I know how but it's a word document and I was trying to link it, but it wasn't working, so I tried to make a photo version of it but it was way too small...whatever! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. c: ]

I apologize in advance if you're looking for a Walking Dead fanfic. Just so you know, I adore theWalking Dead, but none of the characters are in my novel. thank you for understanding & enjoy!x