The Diseased

C.11

Chapter Eleven


Hours and hours of just staring out the window of the stolen car passed. It was horribly boring, but the fact that it was boring was somewhat comforting.
After a while, Ben mumbled something, which caused me to glance over at him. He was asleep, though, his brown hair a sloppy mess, drool at the edge of his lips. The image was actually quite hilarious, seeing him this way and everything. When he wasn't asleep, he was so utterly live like and loud and energetic. But at the moment, he was completely dull and limp. Not-Ben, in a way.
He stirred in his sleep, and after a while of him mumbling indistinct words, tossing and turning in the seat, he eventually started to blink, and open his eyes slowly and sleepily. I immediately turned and looked out the window, praying that he didn't see me looking at him.

"I'm bored."
"I'm bored, too."
He coughed, clearing his throat, and turned to face me directly.
"Can I tell you a pizza joke?"
I shook my head 'no', frowning. "Too tired."
He puffed out his lower lip, and made a sort of puppy, feel sorry for me, kind of face.
"Please?"
"Fine."
"Okay, can I tell you a pizza joke?"
"I just said yes-"
"Never mind!" He exclaimed, interrupting me. "It's too cheesy."
I slapped his arm.
"What?"
"That joke is too incredibly stupid to exist."
"I thought it was pretty funny."
"It really isn't, though."

"I'm kind of hungry."
"Oh, should we stop at McDonalds or something?"
Ben looked over at me, scoffing in a joking way. "Ha ha."
"That's a funny joke."

Madeline hadn't spoken in a while, which was a bit odd in a way. She always had something to say, and now she was just being eerily quiet. I told Ben this, in a whisper, and he nodded in agreement. He leaned forward, and tapped her shoulder.
"Mom? Are you tired, or..."
"Hm? Oh, yeah honey, just sleepy."
He frowned. "Are you sure?"
She bit her lip, and then nodded.
"How's your hand, sweetie?"
"It's fine-"
"You're sure?"
He nodded convincingly. "I'm positive. But seriously, are you okay?"
She smiled wearily and nodded.
"I'm just tired."

I turned on my side, staring outside the window as we passed by barren trees that sort of looked sad, with their drooping branches and the emptiness vibe that came about them.
Then there we came across some people. A group of five, who looked like they had been living in the apocalypse for more than ten years or so. They were covered in mud, blood, guts, and gore, which was probably to blend in with the Diseased.
Or maybe they had actually been attacked by the Diseased.
Whatever the case was, when they saw us driving in the car, hope fled in their faces. I tried to not directly look at them, knowing that I would feel immediate despair and sorrow, but it was hard not to just glance at them.
"Can you drive any faster to get rid of these people, Dad?" Ben asked, staring at their bloodied faces.
"We'll burn gasoline faster, and we have less than I thought. We just need to go slower. It'll be fine, they'll give up any time soon." Greg convinced.
But they didn't give up. They kept crying and begging and slamming their fists against the car, perhaps wanting to slow it down or break it, or get us to pull over, I don't know, but they were so convinced that it would work and their eyes were so full of hope, that they just fought on and wouldn't let go of that desire to get the car to stop driving and make the passengers come out and speak to them or something.
Madeline huffed, and from what I could see from the back seats of the car, was about to lower her window to speak to the people on her side of the car, but Greg caught her arm and shook his head.
"What's that going to do, Madeline? Make them get even more upset? Fire them on to keep causing this ruckus? No, just don't pay them any more attention, they'll leave sooner or later." He ordered.

"Mom, why does that man look so dirty?" Ten year old Aaron asked.
"Aaron!" She shrieked, slapping her hand over his mouth (all her actions, at the moment, extenuated and flaunted her hands, because she had just recently gotten her nails done with acrylics, long and painted and shiny and fake). She offered a smile to the man Aaron had pointed out, and then shot a glare at her son.
"What?" He whined with a frown. "I was just wondering-"
"I'll tell you later." She explained, as she had continued to walk with him to the car.
It was night, and was extremely cold. Aaron would breathe in and out in large huffs, to see his breath turn to fog before him for his own amusement. My mother, on the other hand, was very frustrated with the weather, and wanted more than anything than to be with her husband, or much rather, or husband, her daughter, and her son, so that they would huddle all around her and she would be the in the center and be in a little pile of warmth.
The thought of this was delightful, and it made her even more content as she made sure she saw Aaron buckle himself into his car seat (he frequently left it off when she wouldn't check, which would result in him being grounded when she found out) and get herself settled in the driver's seat, flick on the seat warmers, and turn the temperature knobs to a warm, comfortable setting.
She sighed in content and sat there without driving for a moment.
"You said you would tell me why he was dirty, mom?"
Amber's eyes flicked open as she turned in her seat to face her son.
"Oh, I did, didn't I. Hmm, well, he didn't do good in school at all, and he never got a job, so he didn't have enough money to pay for anything, so he couldn't afford a house or a or anything. So, you need to do good in school so that you can get a good job so that you can afford things. Okay?"
"But...what if I get fired from that job? Would I be like him?"
"No, sweetie, you won't ever be like him. Daddy and I would be able to help you for a while until you would get another job, you know?"
"Did he have a mom and a dad to help him pay for things until he got a job?"
"I don't know his history, honey."
"Did his parents die? Is that why he doesn't have them help him?"
Amber sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe."
"Are you going to die?"
The thought at how sweet and concerned he was made her smile and shake her head lovingly.
"Everyone dies, but I won't die for a very long time, and neither will you. So you don't have to worry about that for a long, long time."
They were both quiet for a moment, and still. She still didn't begin driving, and he didn't ask for her cell phone so that he could play on some random game, as if they were both absorbing the information.
"Okay, so, do you want to go home and make s'mores? With the fire pit and everything? " Amber asked her son excitedly, clapping her glove-clad hands together.
"Dad wouldn't get mad that we're starting another fire, right?"

"Psh, of course not! He knows how to put out the fire anyway, and we know what we're doing this time, don't we?"
"Yeah!"

"Do you think they're homeless?" I asked.
"We won't know unless we ask them." Ben replied.
"But I don't want to ask them."
"They we won't know if they're homeless."
I sighed and sat back in my seat.
"Why don't we let them into the car?" I asked Greg, peering over his shoulder.
"Beth, if we let them in, it would be like us just letting them waste our supplies and letting them take up space in this car, mind you, which is already too small to hold all four of us." He rambled, causing Ben to roll his eyes.
"Oh."

I had shut my eyes for a moment, to fall asleep. It was sort of difficult, with the awkward position I was seated in to sleep in the car, and due to the fact that the sun was still shining. And the method I had usually used to put myself to sleep, which was my mother's: singing all the Kiss songs I knew by memory until I was too tired to remember any more, but I had repeated all of songs that I had known twice already.
Before long, I was just pretending I was sleeping, thinking it would hopefully make me tired.
It didn't.
What had actually made me fall asleep was when I had started counting each time a fist had hit the car. I think I had made it to somewhere around three hundred or so.
I dreamt of glimpses of my childhood, from my father cooking the mornings he had decided not to go to work or Saturday mornings, flipping pancakes and Aaron and I staring up at him in awe as he did so. Aaron had actually proclaimed him the "Pancake King".
Other memories were when my mother would force me to be somewhat social and speak to neighbors and friends.
It wasn't that I was antisocial, it was just that I would rather act as if I was, and just do something productive and do homework, or read a book or something of that sort. To be honest, it was much preferable. But I had actually preferred to be secluded in my room, alone. Maybe that was what helped me those years, alone in the abandoned preschool. But my mother did eventually make me socialize with my peers, and I actually did enjoy it in a different way that I enjoyed being by myself.
There were other brief memories, when Aaron had confessed to me that he had a crush on a girl in his class, to when my mother and I were dropping him off at his Kindergarten class for his first day of school.
My memories were awakened, though, as I felt someone shaking my arm.
I blinked my eyes open to see Ben, a worried look on his face.
"They...they cracked the window open!" He whispered in an urgent tone as I opened my eyes groggily.
"Huh?" I mumbled, looking around. It was sometime around noon, and Greg and Madeline were frantically looking around in the front seat while Greg was nervously shaking my arm.
"They can...can break the window and get in, we need to-"
Then, the window where Greg sat shattered, and hands immediately flicked buttons on the part of the door that controlled the door locks and the lowering and raising the windows control button. Greg screamed in horror, but not nearly as loud as Madeline had. He had reached for his knife he had kept in a holster by and started blindly stabbing that area where the hands reached, and it caused a few screams, but not many. The hands still kept clicking the buttons to find the unlock button to the door.
When they did, the doors to the car were opened on all sides, as people had swung the doors open because they had been surrounding the car.
One, two, I'm not sure how many people it was who did it, slammed a bag over my head, and others did the same to Greg, Madeline, and Ben. I screamed, kicking and thrashing as they dragged me out of the car, and into the woods.
I heard Ben's screams, and Greg's, but Madeline's were loudest above all.
It was the last thing I had heard, though, before I was jabbed in my side with a knife, blood seeping out of my abdomen, as a fist came colliding with my jaw, leaving me unconscious.
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