The Diseased

C.13

Chapter Thirteen


They didn't take the car.
I suppose they thought it was the least they could do, for murdering an innocent boy's mother, or for murdering an innocent husband's wife.
Nonetheless, we had a car.
We didn't know this, though, until it felt like hours of sitting there around Madeline, sobbing and then we would look around at each other, and stop sobbing and we would sniffle a bit, and then Ben or Greg would look down at Madeline again and we would all eventually start crying once again.
I felt that I needed to cry, though. It had been years since I did, and I think I would've started to feel a little less human because of the lack of emotions I displayed if I didn't cry.
No one said anything, as we sat in silence, tears falling and our arms limp from being tied behind our backs.
Eventually, my sore throat aching, I spoke up.
"Should we...bury her?"
And then, Ben started to say something, but we all knew we would end up in a fit of tears once again. So he didn't say anything. But he nodded, and we looked at Greg, tears falling, and he nodded, too.
So I fumbled for knife, sitting in an awkward position to get it out of my boot, and when I finally was able to get it out, I carefully used the blade to cut the rope, looking behind my shoulder and going through the process slowly to make sure I didn't cut my own flesh.
Evidently, I did, about three times, but I was able to complete the task. When the rope was no longer bounded around my wrists, I used the knife to cut the rope around Ben's wrists, and then Greg's. I stuffed the knife back in my boot, and rubbed my wrists to try and make the rope burn not hurt as much, while they both did the same as I did.
"W-we don't have a shovel." Ben murmured, staring at his irritated wrists.
"We'll improvise." I suggested, and eventually found ourselves wandering deeper and deeper inside the forest, where we found campsites.
"Hello?" I called, stepping inside the territory. "We don't mean any harm, we just...we just need to borrow a shovel...if you have one?"
I found a tent, pitched up poorly, but still pitched, with a zipper half way open, half way closed.
I couldn't see the inside from my position, so I needed to unzip the rest of it. I did so cautiously, to find a rotting corpse on the inside, with a bullet wound in its forehead.
I let out a sigh of relief, and began searching through the person's supplies.
"It's safe," I called to them, picking through the materials. "We should take some stuff back, too." I added, putting as many canned items as I could hold in my arms. Greg came out from behind me and started searching through the items.
"I, uh, I found a shovel, Beth." He mumbled, crouching down to pick up the tool.
I nodded in acknowledgement, as we all continued to hold as much as we could hold in our arms. When we finished collecting all we thought was necessary, we wandered back to where we started-at Madeline's corpse.
Ben stared at the limp, pale body, his face contorted in a way that was obvious he was trying to hold in his tears. Greg walked up behind his son, his hand on his shoulder.
I watched as they stood there, as if they were one being themselves, consoling each other. It was such a sad sight to see, as they both seemed to give each other the strength and the power to hold in their tears and not start crying.
But eventually, Ben broke. He didn't make wailing noises like the ones he did before, but his tears did fall down his cheeks, and his nose reddened. The same for Greg, tears silently slipping down his cheeks.
"Hey, guys?" I asked softly, not wanting to be rude or anything. They looked towards me.
"I'll get started on this...why don't you go see if they left the car or not, and put the cans and everything in there if it's there." I suggested, and they both nodded.
Greg walked quickly, and I wasn't sure if he was doing this so that he wouldn't start sobbing once again, but I didn't judge him for it.
I thought over this, lost in my own thoughts, which made me not release the body hurtling towards me, Ben. His arms embraced me in a hug, his chin on my shoulder as he started weeping again. I wasn't sure if I was meant to hug him back, or just let him be, but something stupid inside of me had just told me to hug him, he needs it. So I did.
It felt like ages, ages that I didn't mind being spent, that had passed until he pulled away and held his hands on my shoulders and he gave me this look, his smile showing no teeth like his typical smile, and his eyes read a look of hope, or thank you, but it was something positive, I knew it.
He told me he was going to go help his father, and I nodded, telling him okay. When he turned around, after he picked up some cans, I turned to the dead body behind me.
Her eyes were shut, and she looked like she was at rest, and like she was peaceful.
It was so odd, knowing that she was living and breathing and talking and eating just a few hours ago, and now she's dead, and she's not breathing, nor talking or eating. I wanted so desperately to rewind back to a few days ago, before the journey to Massachusetts was delayed, and to go back and be in the car we started in, being ridiculously annoyed by her obnoxious talking and her loud voice and how she would call me 'Bethany,' and she would call Ben his full name, "Benjamin Lawler!", and he would shout back at her, "That's not my real name!", and, "Yes it is, don't use that shortened version when you have such a nice name already!"
The woman who seemed so alive was now feet away from me, dead. In a way, it was all so overwhelming, that I couldn't help but not do anything for a moment, and just stare at the corpse, paralyzed.
When I did start moving, though, I still wasn't able to take my eyes off the dead body. As I bent down to pick up the shovel, I felt a presence staring at me. I knew there wasn't anyone, but I couldn't help but wonder if it was Madeline's soul or something.



I sat there, on a throw pillow large enough to fit me and Aaron, freezing cold in our backyard. My mother was on her own pillow, and my father was there on his own, too, and at the moment, we were all staring at the flame in front of us, sparkling and crackling.
"It's cold." Aaron muttered, his teeth chattering.
"We've realized." My father scoffed, rubbing his glove clad hands together.
"Why are we doing this?" I asked, leaning forwards the flame to feel the least bit of warmth.
"Yeah, mom, what's the point, again?" Aaron whined, and got on his hands and knees to crawl towards the flame, in a lion-esque way to feel the heat of the fire.
Aaron, at the moment, had an obsession with pretending he was an animal, and for the past week or so, he's decided that he's a baby lion with an injured paw who's being rehabilitated at the Macoy home. He begs for me to pretend I'm a nurse, or a zoo keeper, or something of that sort, but whenever I'd tell him my shift was over, my mother would tell me that I was being rude, and he's my brother, and I need to be nicer and play with him because she played with me when I was his age-it would go on for ages.
"Because!" She cried, scooting forward on her pillow towards the fire. "It's a tradition-every coldest night of the year, we have to come out and pretend we're from the old times with dinosaurs and everything, and we tell scary stories and it's just fun."
"It's not fun to me!" Aaron shouted, holding his hands over the warm fire. "How did this become a tradition?"He whined.
"Oh! I can answer that." My father announced. "Once Upon a Time, it was an extremely cold night, and Amber, here, forgot to pay the air conditioning bill, even though she was certain she did. So as we were dying of heat, she called the air condition company, and she went crazy on them. Long story short, she was wrong but refused to believe it, and somewhere along those lines of her screaming at those poor people, she said that she would rather sleep outside in the wilderness and be 'one with nature', was it, Amber? Anyway, I got it fixed the next day, but I had held it to her that night to be 'one with nature', and sleep outside. And weren't you whining and complaining it was cold?" He laughed and shook his head as she shot him a glare. Then, he stood up and walked over to where Aaron was, scooping him up in his arms and cradling him as if he was still a child. "So, Amber, you shouldn't judge your son if he's cold."
Aaron giggled and nodded towards his mother. "Yeah, mommy, don't judge."
She rolled her eyes playfully, then patted the extra pillow next to her, beckoning me to sit with her.
"Aaron can be with his dad, but I can have my baby." She murmured as I sat down next to her, and was immediately pulled into her embrace.
I laughed at her remark and nodded gleefully in agreement. "Yeah, they can go to baseball games, and we can go shopping."
This comment, however, made my mother squeal excitedly, and begin kissing the top of my head repeatedly. I had guessed that she thought I would turn out to be sort of tomboy-ish, which actually did end up happening, but at the moment, she was pleased that her ten year old was embracing the fact that she was going through a girl phase.
After we all sat in silence for a few moments, staring at the fire and it's flickering flames, Aaron groaned.
"I'm bored."
My mother gasped, throwing her hands to her mouth in excitement. "Ooh, why don't we tell scary stories?"
My father nodded in agreement with the idea.
"So? Who wants to go first?"
"ME!" I cried, wriggling out of her grip to prepare the story. "Please?"
Everyone nodded, causing me to break out in a grin. I stood up and headed for the small shed in the corner of the backyard, and I swung the door open, causing an eerie 'creeeaaakkk' noise to come from it. I didn't plan for it to be squeaking, but it did sound like I was prepared to tell it, and like I had an excellent story line up my sleeve.
I rummaged through the shed, making extra loud noises to sort of set the scene and the mood for the story, but at the same time, I was looking for last year's Halloween decorations.
I pulled out a bag of some of the smaller decorations that didn't need to be stored in boxes, along with a flashlight. I slammed the door shut, making my mother, father, and Aaron in his arms, startled and jump in their pillow seats. It made good use as a distraction, too, as they all turned towards the shed.
Without their knowing, I quietly tiptoed over to the other side of the patio, sitting with my legs crisscrossed.
I flicked the flashlight on, and darted it on at a corner of the patio, catching their attention, as if they were cats. I flicked the light off, leaving us to darkness once again, until I held the flashlight over my face, and then flicked it on once again.
"Coulrophobia," I started, turning the flashlight off once again. "Is the fear of clowns."
I flicked the light on pointed it to behind where my family sat. This bought me enough time to pull out a fake, severed clown head mask out of the bag, and then dart the light over to it. This caused my mother and Aaron to scream, and my father to gasp.
"Sixteen year old Eliza Peterson had this phobia, but it was much worse than the average person. She would break out in a sweat, become dizzy, and if it wasn't gone within the next few seconds, she was faint."
I flicked the light off, then resumed with the story.
"Now, Eliza was a good person. She was a good student, and she volunteered whenever she could. She also wanted to help people as much as possible, so when Mr. and Mrs. Ross went out for dinner, she was there to babysit their two sons, Ivan and Vick." I paused, then looked at Aaron. "Little boys...just like you."
Aaron clung closer to my father at that remark.
"As I was saying-Mr. and Mrs. Ross were very wealthy, and they had a large home. Now, they didn't want people going through their things, so they gave Eliza very strict instructions. 'Feed the children, put them to bed, and then go to the first room in the west wing to watch television'. And that was it. She was told she could eat anything she wanted, and that she could do whatever she wanted, but just not go into any other rooms. And she was told that they would be home at around two in the morning."
"She has a late bed time, dad."
"Shh."
"As soon as they left, Eliza let the children play in the kitchen while she cooked their dinner. They had wanted macaroni and cheese, and Eliza had intended to make it for the children. When they had finished eating, it was around nine o'clock, so Eliza had figured they should be put to bed."
I flicked the flashlight on and pointed it to the opposite end of the patio from where I was, which allowed me to sneak up behind the three when they weren't looking. I held the clown head up, and shined the light on its face, so that when my they looked up at it, they screamed ever so loudly, as I turned the light off and quietly retreated to where I had sat originally.
"Eliza made her way down the whole, towards the west wing where Mr. Ross had instructed her to stay. As she walked, she couldn't help but feel as if something was...watching her..." I trailed off mysteriously, then shone the light on random spots in the patio, as I continued reciting the story.
"Eliza entered the room, and sat on the bed, where a TV remote was placed for her. On top of it, was a note. It read the following.

Dear Miss Eliza Peterson,
Thank you so very much for caring for our boys while we are out. Even though you so kindly and graciously turned it down, we will send you a check at our earliest convenience.
If you are in this room now, it is most likely because you have put Ivan and Vick to bed. If you have yet to do so, please go and do this now.
Again, we appreciate you doing this. Please watch any channel you'd like. We hope you're familiar with our TV provider and know what channels you like.
Sincerely,
Harold and Patricia Ross."
After I recited the note, I continued with the story.
"Eliza put the note aside, and sat comfortably in the bed. She kept the room light off, though, because her eyes were not quick to adjust to bright lights, and she much rather preferred the dark. But even so, the TV would provide just as much light as she needed. Eliza picked up the remote, and turned the TV on. As soon as the light illuminated from the screen, however, in the corner of the room...was a clown statue."
After those words, I immediately tossed the clown head I had been using towards the three of them. They couldn't distinguish it at first, so I shone the light at the mask, brightening the face and their view of the clown face.
They all screamed incredibly loud, and I had to hold in my laughter as I covered my ears.
"Eliza dismissed it, and stared at the TV, watching some documentary she had been meaning to see. But it couldn't stop her from looking at it again, and she could've sworn it was facing the opposite way when she last saw it. She ignored it, and went back to watching her documentary. Again, though, she glanced at the statue, and the clown statue was closer-at the foot of the bed."
Aaron started whining and scooted closer to my father. My mother, upset that Aaron was disregarding her, decided to sit on the opposite side of my father, where she clung to his arm, as she was sort of afraid, too.
"Eliza was incredibly nervous and paranoid. She got her phone and dialed Mr. Ross' cell phone, her hands sweating. When he picked up, her voice was nervous and frantic, so she tried to conceal the worry in her voice. 'Mr. Ross? Would you mind at all if I went to a different room to wait for your arrival? The clown statue...it's sort of freaking me out.' Eliza explained. The father responded immediately, and ordered her to get the children, leave the house, and call the police. Eliza tried to ask why, but he just repeated his instructions." I spoke mysteriously, shining the light at random spots once again.
"The young girl did as she was told, and awoke the children, and took them to their neighbors' house. There, she called the cops and told them to come to their address. After they said that they were on their way, Eliza redialed the parents and asked why she couldn't have just gone to a different room."
I flicked the flashlight on, and shone it at my face.
"The parents then told Eliza this: they did not own a clown statue. Their sons had been telling them that a scary, clown man had been watching them while they slept, but they just disregarded it. Now that she had seen it, they knew they weren't kidding."
Aaron, shocked and scared, crawled closer to sit on my father's lap.
"The police did a quick investigation of the house, to find no one there. So now, it's up to you to decide. Was the clown real? Or simply a figment of Ivan, Vick, and Eliza's imagination-their own raging paranoia of worry and anxiety from spending so much time in such a large household?"
I flicked the light off, then back on repeatedly, at no specific interval, acting as if the power was draining on it. Then, I finally flicked it off, as if it had fully ran out of battery, no light illuminating any of our faces.
Except the campfire. It had sort of ruined my story. But nevertheless, I had scared them, and I was pleased with my story telling skills.

I had started to dig the grave, plunging the shovel into the ground and then flinging it backwards, making a semi-large hole in the ground. Every once in a while, I would glance down at Madeline, and the bloody wound in her chest, the bullet sort of visible, causing me to look the other way and dig the whole deeper, and fling the dirt back harder.
"Beth!" a male voice called-a different male voice. It wasn't Ben's voice or Greg's voice. It wasn't as deep as there's. This voice wasn't extremely high pitched, but it wasn't as low as Greg's. It sort of resembled Ben's voice, yet at the same time it didn't sound like Ben at all. "Is that you?"
I turned around, my grip on the shovel extremely tight, so that I could use it as a weapon if necessary. As the unidentifiable boy came closer, I held the shovel up, striking a dangerous pose.
"GET BACK!" I shouted, eyebrows furrowed. "I've had a horrible day, and I don't need someone screwing it up more!"
The boy came to a stop, just feet before me. His hair was a dark, ash brown that sort of resembled mine. His eyes were a hazel color, like mine, too, except my eyes were a bit brighter.
"Is that you?" He murmured, stepping closer to me.
I took a step backwards, holding the shovel closer. "I will use this! Get back!"
"If you're really Beth, then I know you wouldn't. You wouldn't hurt a fly." He explained with a lopsided smile.
His nose...it resembled my father's. And his chin...my mother's.
I dropped the shovel, in utter shock at who I was almost sure stood before me.
"Aaron?"
The boy nodded eagerly, the look on his eyes reading joy, and happiness.
I ran into his open arms, laughing and crying and then laughing some more. He had gotten so tall within two years-he was already taller than me. I wasn't typically a short person, but he was about a few inches taller than me.
"I-hi!" I cried, not leaving his embrace as I stood my toes as I wrapped my arms around his neck. "I'm so sorry I didn't see you, I missed you so much I really hoped you were okay, I mean, I wasn't sure if you were even alive or not but oh my god I'm so happy that you are!" I rambled, stumbling and stuttering over my words. He only laughed and nodded.
"Hi there, Bethie-Boo!" He exclaimed, and ruffled the top of my head, messing with my hair. I rolled my eyes and ran my fingers through it, trying to fix it.
"If I were you, I wouldn't do that. Or call me that. I'm still older than you. Oh, and I have that shovel, by the way."
He laughed and shook his head. "It's only fair. You used to do this to me all the time!"
"But that's because you were being mean or something."
"YOU JUST THREATENED TO SHOVEL ME OR SOMETHING!" He whined, pointing to the tool. As he did, his gaze met Madeline's dead body. His eyes widened, as he turned back to me.
"Beth...?"
I looked at Madeline, and then immediately looked back to Aaron, shaking my head and waving my hands. "No-that's Ben's mom, these people thought that we took their car, we kind of did but anyways, they were going to shoot Ben but Madeline jumped in front of the bullet, right? And then she saved his life."
Aaron frowned, shaking his head. "Ryan said we had to shoot crazy people..."
"Who's Ryan?"
"Who's Ben?"
I crossed my arms, raising an eyebrow. "I'm still older than you, Aaron. Who's Ryan?"
He scoffed, and then stepped closer to me. "I'm taller."
"I'm older."
Aaron groaned, and looked down.
"Okay, so, you know how you left me behind-"
"I thought you were behind me!"
"You still left me, though." He pointed out. "Anyways, I didn't know which way you went, you know, when you opened the window and left. So I just went some other, random direction. And I couldn't find you, and I was lost, and I was lost, and I was lost..." he continued to repeat those four words, and I had known him well enough to know that whenever he would repeat a phrase, he was going to start crying. And he would smile, a really weird, distorted smile to hide his true emotions.
"Hey, its okay, Ronnie," I frowned, and threw my arms around him once again, to hug him tightly. "I'm here now, okay?"
He nodded stiffly, and rested his chin on the top of my head.
"Um, okay, I eventually found this group of people, Jace, Ryan, and Ingrid, and Ingrid was Ryan's older sister, so she kind of treated Jace, Ryan and I like her children and she protected us like, big time. She always made us eat first and if there was anything left over, she would eat that-she was really awesome. And I was with them-I'm still with them, too. And...I don't want to leave them." He explained, his eyebrows furrowed, as if we was confused. I wasn't exactly sure about what he was confused about, though, he needed to come with Ben, Greg and I to Massachusetts.
"Beth, there's...they left...they left the car!" I heard a distant voice, running over to me out of breath.
As Ben neared us, he was panting, trying to catch his breath. "Car. They left it. They left the car." He explained, and then turned to Aaron, a frown on his face. I wasn't sure if it was out of jealousy or anything, but the thought was sort of pleasing.
"Ben, this is Aaron. Aaron!" I exclaimed, my eyes gleaming as I turned to him. "Aaron, this is Benjamin, but call him Ben, or else he'll get really upset." I introduced them both, smiling brightly.
Ben sort of smiled, and stuck his hand out stiffly towards Aaron, but he kept his gaze on me. "You're feeling sort of peppy, huh?" He laughed, cocking his head to the side.
I nodded excitedly. "Because, Aaron!" I cried, pointing towards my brother.
Aaron stifled an awkward laugh and shook Ben's hand.
"Why are you making such a big deal, Beth?" He asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I'm just your brother."
"I-I'm just in shock that you're alive, Aaron," I covered my face with my hands, and then dropped them to my sides, smiling brightly. I then turned to Ben, whose face was flooded with immediate relief. It made me break out into a bigger grin, and I don't know why, maybe it was a sudden hormone rush or something, but I had just decided to throw my arms around Ben and hug him tightly.
It didn't shock me when he hugged me back, either.
I knew we still had to wait for Greg to come back, so that we could finally properly bury Madeline so that we could finally start our drive once again to Massachusetts. But at the moment, nothing would've bothered me.
Except for the fact that an older woman, and two younger men were walking towards us, pissed off looks plastered on their faces.
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