Danny Hacker.

Chapter 13: Worrying.

Ben's P.O.V:

I decided I wanted to stop by Walker's house after school because people were beginning to worry about her. I'd heard at least five remarks from students and teachers wondering where she was and also about the way she looked. Seeing other people worry made me worry about her too. When I got to her front door I hesitated at first and then I finally got up the courage to knock. The things people were saying about her looks began to get to my head. 'Great now I'm probably going to see her exactly how they described her' I thought as I sighed and waited on the porch. "Who is it?" I hear Walker call from inside. She sounded far away from the door. "It's Ben!" I yell back.
"Oh! I'll be right there in just a second!" Her voice sounds completely normal. Still bright and happy sounding, not that I was expecting anything different, but like I said the worried remarks got to my head.
I waited around for about 2 minutes before the door finally creaked open. When I saw her I jumped a bit with surprise and lost my balance, almost falling down her porch stairs. I knew I shouldn't have listened to what everyone else was saying about how she looked. I was right when I said I would see her how they described her. Shawn was right.. she looked exactly like a corpse. "Oh my goodness are you okay?" She asked, I guess my reaction scared her a little too because her eyes were wide with shock. "Y-yeah sorry I just got a little lightheaded" I said grabbing my head to make it look more convincing. "Here, come in and sit down I'll get you some water." She said helping me to the couch. The living room looked nothing like how it did the other times I came over. The furniture was moved and the wall paper was torn. The wood flooring was a bit messed up and some of the planks were even missing. The inside literally matched the creepy exterior of the house now. From the outside you could see broken windows with wood nailed on them and it just looked completely abandoned, and now the inside was the same. It looked as if a tornado had blown through. 'Maybe she's just moving
out— yeah that must be it!' I thought to myself.
She came back from the kitchen and handed me a glass of water.
"Are you feeling any better?" She asked not even looking at me. She was focused on a broken mirror connected to an old, dusty hutch, messing with her hair. "Yes thank you. I'm really sorry about that I don't know what happened." I said shaking my head. "I bet it was the heat. It must be at least a hundred degrees out there" she said, finally looking away from her reflection. "Yeah it usually gets pretty hot around here" I said fidgeting with my fingers. I started to get a strange feeling. Something I'd never felt before and I didn't like it.
Then she walked over to a turntable that sat by a shelf in the corner of the room, and put a record on it. "Sorry I hope you don't mind, it's just too quiet in here!" She said with what sounded like a nervous chuckle. Then she sat down next to me and just stared at her feet. I noticed strange purple and black splotches covering parts of her arms and legs. There was a little bit on her neck too. My dad used to work at the morgue and I could swear I've seen those exact same marks on the—
"so do you wanna go out and go to the park or something?" She asked, interrupting my train of thought. "Yeah that sounds great" I said itching to get out of that unsettling house.
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As we walked I stopped suddenly, staring at my feet. She turned around and looked to see what I was looking at.
I took a deep breath and looked up at her. "Are you okay?" I blurted, and gave her a concerned look. "Well yeah.. why wouldn't I be?" She said as she started to walk towards me slowly. I knew I shouldn't say anything about they way she looked because first off she's a girl and second it could be something really bad. "Well you just weren't at school today and I wanted to make sure you were alright." I said giving her a sympathetic look. I was hoping she would give me a real answer but instead she just said "oh, I promised that I would work a shift at the flower shop today. I'm sorry if I worried you."
We started walking again and I couldn't stop wondering why she would lie to me like that. I had to find out what was really going on.
When we got to the park we started to swing a little on the swing set but mostly just talked about school and stuff like that. At one moment when she was swinging forward I saw that same tan netting at her hairline that I had seen at Earl's the other day. I didn't draw attention to myself looking at it so she wouldn't be embarrassed or anything.
She really did look dead.. her eyes were glassy, her skin was pale with a slight purple tint and you could see a lot of her veins pretty clearly. She was also much skinnier than how I remember her and her collar bones left shadows on her chest. But one thing about her hadn't changed and that was the way she dressed. She had on her mom jeans and her white shoes and a bright yellow sweater with sleeves that only went down to her elbows. I saw goosebumps all over the skin that wasn't covered by clothes and that concerned me. "Hey, do you want my jacket?"
I begin pulling my jacket off and she smiles and nods.
It was almost one hundred degrees outside. There is definitely something horribly wrong.
As I kept swinging beside her I closed my eyes and tried to picture her the way she looked when she first came here. I could just barely picture her face but her body was more like a blob. I opened my eyes and accepted the fact that I probably wouldn't be able to picture her that way again.