5

Throwing my entire body into the door that Beth had disappeared behind, I found it to be barricaded on the other side just as Joyce came huffing and puffing up the stairs. "Get... Get out of our house!! Leave my daughter this instant, or I'll head to the gun cabinet and make you leave myself!"

"Do you even hear what you're saying?! Beth is not your daughter!! She's mi-"

Stopping myself, I shook my head from the confusion of the last five minutes. "She belongs with us. Her aunt is waiting for her, and I don't know what kind of sick game you and your husband are playing here... but it ends right now."

Banging against the little girl's bedroom door, I called out to her as the old woman grumbled to herself before pottering off, most likely to fetch me a present from the gun cabinet.

"Beth, it's me!! She isn't here anymore... We don't have time for this, let me in!!" The gravity of the situation only dawned on me when I realised that she still wasn't speaking to me, even without her 'mother' looming around.

After a short moment of silence, I almost strained to hear her sobs on the other side. "...Go... Go away, Mister. I'm going to get in trouble if I tell you..."

"Tell me what?! Beth, you know me, don't you? We need to get you out of here! Why do they think that your name is Caroline?!" There seemed to be an air of hesitation, although it lifted as soon as the furniture blocking the door dragged itself out of the way.

Pushing it open warily, I was surprised to see Caroline Todd's bedroom decorated right down to the dollhouse and sticker-emblazoned dresser with the brightest shade of pink. It was as though someone had exploded a large ball of bubble-gum all over the walls, coating it with various glitters and childish drawings.

As I glanced around the girly room in bewilderment, I could tell that Beth was equally uncomfortable staying in a place like this. It was the kind of room she might have had when her parents were still alive, but living in such a place now would only bring sad memories.

There was a framed picture beside her frilly bed. It showed a familiar couple on a sandy beach with their child, the only oddity being that the photo was grainy and faded-yellow...

A young Joyce and Harold, with their arms joined around a small blonde girl. Her features were similar to the current 'Caroline', although this one was dressed in drab 70's clothes. As I expected, she looked to be a ten-year-old, the same age that Beth claimed to be downstairs.

"I have to be her..." Beth mumbled at my side, causing me to jump a little. "If I don't do as they say... I'm sorry, Mister. You need to leave before someone else gets hurt."

"Someone... else...?" Before I could question her, an audible click snapped at me from the doorway, and I knew to raise my hands in the fashion that I was used to by now.

Joyce shakily poked me with the double-barrel of a shotgun to the pink wall of the room, carefully scrutinising my proximity from her fake daughter. "I thought we'd met some nice kids for once... but you're just like the rest of those hoodlums out there. Now, go on... out with you."

Shuffling my legs along the floor carefully, I stole a glance from behind her at Beth, who couldn't make herself watch the tension. I resisted the urge to spit at my captor venomously. "Lady, you've done something... You're threatening her to stay here, aren't you-"

"Enough!! We're just trying to get by with these riots going on, we don't need you spreading these lies to our daughter!" I could see the anger swelling between her eyes, and I knew that it was time to get out of the way.

Darting out of the bedroom, a loud gunshot echoed inches behind me into the lobby wall as I practically flew down the steps. It was all I could do to hope that she wouldn't hurt Beth... One way or another, I had to separate them.

While I looked around for any sign of Tomás or Alisha, I kicked at and toppled the furniture in the living room to get the mad old woman's attention. As the footsteps slowly came down the staircase, I brought my Colt out of retirement as I prepared for a stand-off. I didn't want to kill an elderly person, but she was already breaking my one rule...

"...D...Dan...iel..." The groan sent a shiver running up my spine, and I had to scan the area for a good couple of seconds before finding The Found's musician crawling into the room through the garage's side door. His forehead was terribly swollen, like someone had smacked him upside the head with a bar or something.

"Tom...? What the hell happened? Did that old geezer-"

"The... The basement... Help her..." It was all he could croak before letting his head slump to the skirting board in pain. Trying to coax him back to consciousness, another click stabbed at me from behind as Joyce huffed with a face as unamused as her husband's.

Speaking of Harold, he was still nowhere to be found. I could only hope that Alisha hadn't had the pleasure of seeing him first... Perhaps they were in the basement, God only knows what was down there.

"Caroline... She's your daughter, right? A long time ago, she was around Beth's age in that picture..." I held onto my pistol tighter, taking aim as she forced me back further into the living room. "...She's not around anymore, is she?"

"You don't know what you're talking about! Caroline's always been with us... She's a good girl, so don't you dare come in between us!" Bumping into a chest of drawers as I was steered backwards, the whole thing came crashing down as old magazines and newspapers spilled out onto the floor.

Somewhat-hidden under the messy pile, there was a large folder with polly-pockets that seemed to be neatly arranged, with the calligraphic title 'Caroline Todd's Photo Album'.

The cover was meticulously glossed and cared for, like something you'd find in a shrine. It was a gamble, but Joyce had flinched at the binder with just enough guilt to let me gradually bend over and pick it up.

She knew exactly what was inside... I was surprised that she didn't protest more, because the look on my horrified face when I came across the contents must have been more distressing than simply blowing my brains out right there. Maybe she wanted me to understand, why Beth had to stay with her...

——

Caroline Todd was born in June 1967. Five years later, she won an advanced grammar award at school. When she was seven years old, she got to go to Disneyland and meet all of the different characters in costume. 

At nine, she was the top student in her class and an avid animal lover... She even got the opportunity to swim with dolphins that summer.

On her tenth birthday, her mother and father drove her through the scorching heat to the local market, where they secretly bought a chocolate cake and a shaved ice machine as a surprise for her dinner party.

When they got home, her parents prepared the feast for hours on end, the noise from the shaved ice machine was too loud to use inside the house so they ended up moving it to the rear garden.

The guests had already started to arrive through the side gate, and everyone was having a good time on the back porch until some of them had started to ask questions.

Joyce Todd tried to remember, and suddenly found that she couldn't think of an answer. Where was Caroline? She knew that she had to keep the noisy present a secret while setting it up, but not once did she hear her daughter ask what they were hiding in the back garden.

With her favourite flavour of shaved ice in hand, Joyce searched the house for her daughter's whereabouts. Not in her bedroom, not in the bathroom... It was doubtful that she would leave the house to go and play with her friends at such a late hour.

It was only when she retraced her steps, that she finally checked the driveway. That summer day had been exceptionally hot, it was a rush for them to bring all of the groceries inside the house and get her daughter's present in working condition. Harold must have locked the car door when she'd went inside...

The sizzling metal burned to the touch. When Joyce pleaded with one of the guests to break the car window open, the release of hot air almost knocked her backwards. It barely took a second for the scent of seared flesh and singed hair to flare up the surrounding nostrils.

The backseat was like an oven, the heat had been baking in there for several hours. Six hours to be exact, and yet not one scream could be heard over the sound of the shaved ice machine.

Joyce called for the fire brigade, an ambulance, anything... but she knew that it was hopeless. The mother wept hysterically against the pavement as the judgemental crowd gathered around, of all days on her daughter's birthday. Caroline Todd was dead.

——

The book slipped out of my loosening grip, due to the sweat forming in my palms. The mixture of photographs, newspaper clippings and interviews formed a disturbingly-clear image of a tragedy that had occurred over forty years ago.

Joyce Todd... I couldn't imagine what went through her mind, the moment she realised where her daughter was. It was a simple mistake, yet a fatal one all the same.

The scarred old woman had lowered her shotgun from the moment I laid eyes on the book, knowing that she couldn't hide from her past forever. I wanted to offer her my greatest sympathies, but that was probably a line she'd heard far too often over the years... and one that was most definitely a lie coming from her neighbours.

"...We... We had to move to another town, after it happened. Several times, but the media always found us." Brushing her arm gently, she was somehow less angry than before.

"Neighbours whispering behind our backs, the bricks thrown through our window, the graffiti on our car. 'Child murderers', 'baby boilers', it never stopped. In the end... we decided to move back here. Where we were happiest, the three of us."

Her tear-filled eyes flitted across the room, which unnerved me more than it should have done. That back porch across from the kitchen, the same place where Caroline's birthday party was. The driveway we'd passed, coming in here...

"It was an accident, wasn't it? You didn't mean for her to-"

"No, I was irresponsible as a mother. I've prayed for forgiveness every night, for the Lord to take me instead of my sweet baby girl. You know what the last thing I said to her was? To roll up the car window, before the engine went off. How could I forget about her, my own child?!"

Grasping her face desperately, she seemed to be reliving it for a second before shuddering her past off. "Everything's fine now, of course... I mean, she came back to us, didn't she? My darling Caroline... I'll invite our friends around soon enough, and we can continue that party like nothing happened."

Biting my lip, the delusion behind the woman's eyes was apparent now. She knew on some level that Beth wasn't Caroline... Regardless, she forced herself to believe it in complete delirium.

It wasn't uncommon, especially after the outbreak; even Harry had suffered the same denial when we'd lost Ian, and once again with Millie.

"Jo... Joyce. I'm seriously sorry for everything that's happened to you..." I took a step forward, eyes focused on the shotgun that she was dripping her dry tears onto. "You've done everything you could to cope, but... this isn't the answer. Your daughter is dead, and right now there's Beth's real family to think about-"

Her wrinkled face turned sour on me, raising the firearm with a sudden fury as she let a shot burst to my side, shattering a priceless vase towards the right. "No! That's not her name!! Not Beth, not Anna, not Stacie... My little girl is Caroline, and she's right upstairs!! I'm her real fami-"

I didn't see it coming, entirely distracted by the nearby exploding décor. There was a high-pitched scream, almost in anger as something smacked the old woman aside, knocking her into the coffee table.

Everything appeared to occur in slow-motion, watching her frail body gradually teeter over the edge until she collapsed, her head landing awkwardly onto the sharp wooden edge.

It was almost as though nothing had happened for a few seconds. I simply blinked once or twice, and then looked down to see the back of her skull bleeding onto the impeccably-clean beige carpet.

Standing right behind where the elderly woman was, Beth lowered what looked like one of the plastic pink boards from Caroline's dollhouse.

Dropping it onto the floor, we both just stared at the unmoving Joyce until what had just transpired finally sunk in. The blonde girl's face descended into one of complete horror, knowing that there was nothing that could justify what she had done.

"...I... I thought she had... There was a gunshot, and... I didn't mean for that to happen..." Falling to her knees in shock, she prodded her former mother back and forth a couple of times to try and bring her back around.

The more time that passed on the blood-soaked floor, the more frantic her cries became. "I didn't mean it, Mister Daniel... Really, I didn't! Don't be dead, lady... Please don't be dead!!"