After a silence, David slowly walked to the window to see how long they had, how close they were to the door, how many others had come to join them.
“Um ...” he said, not turning back to the others.
“What?” Nicole said, panicking. “What? What?”
“They’re ... um ...” David continued, confusion in his voice. “They’re not moving.”
Both Nicole and Alex stared in disbelief.
“What?” Nicole asked, confused.
“They’re not moving.”
Alex moved to the window and looked out. The two boys stood, infuriatingly silent.Nicole pushed them aside. Looking out, she couldn’t understand their fascination. The mudmen weren’t moving. No, she realized. They were. They were also still on the spikes, and it looked like they weren’t getting off them.
“They’re… stuck,” Alex said.
“Ugh ... that’s ... grosser,” Nicole said.
“Grosser than when they were dead?” David asked.
“Yes, grosser than that,” she replied, unable to take her eyes off the creatures as they writhed against the spikes. “They’re ... pushing them in.”
“Ugh,” Alex added, pointing. “More stuff is falling out of that one!”
“Aw, gross!” David said, with a bit of a laugh.
All three kept staring.
Nicole eventually walked away. “It’s gross. You guys are gross for looking at them.” She sat against the far wall and tried to ignore the boys as they gawked.
They watched the mudmen struggle—sometimes moving a bit farther into the spikes, sometimes trying to back up without success—for fifteen minutes. They were silent, other than the occasional “Oh!” or “Gross!” if one of the impaled figures did something particularly disgusting.
“What’s up with that one?” Alex asked after a while.
“What do you mean?” David asked, looking where Alex pointed. “Nothing, why?”
“It’s not moving,” Alex replied.
“Are you sure?” David asked, moving to get a better view of it.
“Yeah, I don’t think he moved at all since we saw them.”
“Really? They were all moving.”
“No. No. I don’t think that one moved.” He paused, looking at the four figures outside. “Look, the other three—they’re moving right now, trying to get us, or whatever, but that one isn’t. He’s just ... dead.”
“They’re all dead,” Nicole said flatly, from her seat. “They just don’t know it yet.” She thought that was a clever way of explaining the things.
“Yeah, I guess,” Alex said. “But that one is really dead. Like, dead-dead.”
David now also focused on the singled-out mudman. “Dead-dead.” After another moment of silent staring, “I think you’re right. I think he’s dead-dead.”
“I’m not allowed to say ‘deadies’,” Nicole said, finally standing up, “but you guys think ‘dead-dead’ is a real term.”
Both boys ignored her. They were much more interested in why one of the four impaled mudmen was dead-dead while the other three barely noticed that they were impaled at all.
They discussed the situation, tossing out theories and comparing the states of all four mudmen, looking for some differences: they all looked to be in the same condition, more or less, same damage, a similar amount of stuff had fallen out of each of them. If anything, there was less stuff piled up under the dead-dead one. It was as if it had died on contact with the pikes and hadn’t tried to struggle off as the others did.
“The spike is in his head,” Alex thought aloud.
“What?” Nicole and David said simultaneously.
“The spike is going through his head!” He pointed again.
Nicole and David looked out. Sure enough, of the three that were still moving, two were impaled through the chest and the third through the shoulder. The dead-dead one was impaled through the eye. The pike went through the other side of his skull with bits of brain hanging off the point.
He hung much more limply than his three not-quite-dead companions.
“So ... is that one ...dead?” David asked, as if just to make sure.
“Looks that way,” Nicole answered. As she turned to face him, she had a smile on her face. She added, “And now we know how to kill ‘em.”
KAITLYN
The hour passed.
Then another; then another; then another.
Kaitlyn couldn’t keep away from the windows. The fact that there was nothing to see was both fortunate, and horribly draining.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Kaitlyn,” Dave said. She knew she had asked for the time every few minutes since her mother left. “It’s not—”
“What time is it?”
He sighed. “It’s 3:25.”
“Exactly 3:25?”
He looked as his watch to double check. “Yes. Exactly 3:25.” He paused. “She’s probably just ...”
“Just what?” Kaitlyn asked, looking away from the window for the first time in an hour. “Just what? Just hanging around? Just waiting ‘til it gets dark?” She sniffed back a tear. “She said she’d be back in an hour! She said ... she said ...” Her lip quivered, and her eyes watered over. She looked back to the window.
“She’ll be back,” Dave said. “I genuinely believe that.”
Kaitlyn nodded as fresh tears washed over the old ones.
The sun continued to shine, as it had since Joanne left. The street looked the same way it did every October. Wet leaves lay on the ground. Some people had put their Halloween decorations out already. Jack-o-lanterns lined front steps. Only one house was boarded up. No one else had come back.
Everyone else was gone.
There were no cars. No people walking. No animals. None of those things either; those monsters. It was possible that everything was over.
“What time is it?”
“3:31.”
DAVID
David’s first plan didn’t work.
The idea was to throw objects from the windows at the mudmen, hitting their heads hard enough to kill them. The problem with the idea was that, even though Alex had told them he had excellent aim in hockey and soccer, it did not translate to throwing knives and rocks out a second-storey window. He did better than David, but not as well as Nicole, though no one hit the creatures’ heads. They hit the bodies, which made them angrier and more desperate to get off of the pikes. This resulted in more innards falling out. Each drop intensified the stench. When the sun and temperature rose, Nicole demanded that they call it quits.
The second plan made more sense, though it would be incredibly unpleasant and terrifying work: hit or impale the heads at much closer range.
No one volunteered.
“You were both willing, albeit begrudgingly, to touch the things before,” Nicole argued. “This new plan is just an extra step.”
“We weren’t killing them before!” David argued.
“You won’t be killing them,” Nicole said, with forced calm. “They’re already dead, remember? You’ll just be making them ... dead-dead.”
Alex nodded, looking at the ground. “Are you sure they’re dead? What if they are alive? What if there’s a cure, or, like, they get over it, or—”
Nicole stopped him. “Alex, they’re dead. Their guts are falling out all over the place. The one in the middle? It looks like his heart is hanging off the end of the stick. If they someday ‘get over it’ they’re dead anyway.”
“But, do we have to be the ones who kill them?” David whined, glancing to the window. He couldn’t see the creatures from where they sat, but he knew they were there. They wouldn’t leave.
“David,” Nicole said, still calm, “be quiet.”
“Don’t tell me to be quiet! I’m just—”
“Be quiet and listen, okay?”
David’s breath grew heavier. He knew tears would soon follow, so he forced himself to get it under control. When his heartbeat and breathing no longer
filled his ears, he could hear what Nicole wanted him to hear.
The things outside were moaning. Loudly.
“You hear that, right?” Nicole asked him.
David nodded, wishing he didn’t have to.
“If they keep that up, they’re gonna bring more here. They’re not all going to get caught on that barricade you made. Some are gonna get through. A lot. And once they’re in ...”
She did not have to finish the thought.
David was very familiar with the building. He knew that if the mudmen got through, they were not only trapped—they were doomed.
Though he didn’t like it it, he accepted what they had to do.
He set to work. They needed at least three strong poles, and they needed to make them as heavy and destructive as possible. They had to get near the mudmen, but they didn’t want to get too close.
The difficult part was finding poles that would be long enough. David had found several very early on in his search of the building: handles for shovels, rakes, hockey sticks—all perfect for this idea. Unfortunately, David had not foreseen such a need and had put all the sticks he found into use outside. Many were currently being used as the pikes that held the mudmen. Others held the SMASHER! in place. They had a rake and gardening hoe (though the rake had been left outside when David dropped it in their earlier efforts). The only remaining boards were two-by-fours, which were great for heft and strength, but much more difficult to actually handle. He’d need to alter them to make them easier to hold onto. None of them were willing to stand for a second against those things—even impaled and trapped—without a weapon in their hands.
NICOLE
While David worked on the boards, Alex and Nicole looked through his pile of useful items to find things to put at the end of them. Things that would cause some head damage and kill the mudmen. They had already found a few possibilities. While checking a brick for weight and balance, Nicole heard Alex leave. Satisfied the brick would do, she followed him into the hall.
He stood in the doorway of the bedroom. His eyes didn’t look right. Not sick, just upset. He was looking at Ryan’s mat-fort.
“What’s wrong with that kid?” he asked, as Nicole got close to him.
Nicole felt a wave of anger sweep over her for some reason. “He’s not ‘that kid’. He’s Ryan, and he’s been here longer than you. YOU are ‘that kid’! Okay?”
“Okay. Sorry, geez. I just—”
“And what’s wrong with him?” She cut him off, feeling a great need to defend the youngest boy. “You know how you’re all upset because you haven’t seen your dad since this all started? Which, by the way, is a lot more than me and David have seen of our parents! Ryan saw his dad since then. Saw him two days ago.”
“Where is he?”
Suddenly, upon hearing the question, Nicole grew less upset—at least, less upset at Alex. She realized that he, too, was defenceless, and very naive about all that happened. “He saw his dad turn,” she said calmly. “He saw him die, and then he saw him turn. Ryan’s dad almost killed him—almost killed me—at the school. He ... he had a hold of me, and he had a hold of Ryan and he ... he got … he killed ...” She couldn’t think of the words to express what she had seen, what had happened. The encounter with Ryan’s father. The teacher. The looks on their faces. The tunnel. Those things following her to Colby.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked, pulling her back from her thoughts.
She felt a tear run down her cheek, and quickly wiped it away. “He’s been like this ever since. That’s what’s wrong with him.”
ALEX
As she turned away, Alex heard her sniffing back more tears. Part of him wanted to go after her, to help her, to say something nice to make her feel better, but he figured that she didn’t want that. Not from him. She wanted to be alone. Or maybe she needed to talk to her brother. Either way, he would let her go do what she needed to do.
Instead, he slowly walked into the bedroom. He kept his eyes on the mat-fort, then lay down, facing away from it.
He didn’t want to think about Ryan.
He didn’t want to think about Ryan’s dad, or anything they had gone through.
He didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to think of his own dad. Of what he might have gone through.
Reaching above his head, he absent-mindedly patted Shadow, who curled up with him as he lay down. He thought it would be comforting, to stroke her soft, warm fur, but it just reminded him of what he had lost. Of what he almost lost. What he might have lost.
What Ryan had already definitely lost.
He sat up, and Shadow sat up beside him, licking his face.
He looked across the room at the little box made of mats. It was really small. How could a kid fit in there and stay there all day? It made him think of the night that he had stayed in the bathtub at his former friend’s house. Sometimes there’s comfort in small spaces.
Alex shuffled toward it a few feet; Shadow followed. He could now see directly into the fort. He could see the shape of Ryan, lying on the floor. His only movement was the smallest of breaths. The faint light reflected in his wide eyes as he looked out at Alex.
Ryan watched him, as he himself was watching Ryan. They stared at each other, not saying a word, for a few minutes. Alex’s headache started to fade, and he finally felt calm.
Evidently Shadow found the whole scene dull, so she sighed heavily as she went to the corner of the room, let out a huge yawn, and lay back down on the floor. She stayed awake, keeping her eyes on Alex, but Alex knew she could sense that he was okay.
He also knew that he should say something.
He rarely talked to little kids other than his sister, and her responses were mostly gibberish. It would be more difficult with Ryan, but he had to say something.
“You like dogs, Ryan?” He felt it was a safe question. Ryan had to have seen Shadow by now if he was aware of anything. Alex wasn’t entirely sure, but he had a feeling that Ryan was taking it all in, aware of everything that was happening. “Her name is Shadow,” he said, thinking he was on the right track to a conversation. “She’s five years old. She’s a black lab. Or a Labrador retriever. Or a mix. Or maybe they’re the same thing. I don’t know. She’s a lab. She ...” He was lost for a moment, searching for another fact about the dog. “She’s my dog.”
Ryan curled up into himself a little tighter—somehow even smaller, making the mat-fort look roomy—as he talked to him. He also noticed that Ryan’s eyes had moved to Shadow.
“Yup, she’s a good dog,” he added, unsure of what to say. He realized that he hadn’t left an opportunity for the younger boy to speak. Maybe Ryan would talk if everyone else would just shut up for a minute to let him. “Do you have a dog?”
Nothing.
Ryan’s impossibly big eyes were back on him.
Alex looked back into them and thought of the perfect thing to say. “Well, you do now, Ryan.” He smiled.
Still no response of any kind.
“For the next little while, Shadow is our dog. Mine, and yours, and David’s, and Nicole’s.” Again, he smiled. He wasn’t certain, but he thought Ryan relaxed a bit in the fort.
He was getting somewhere.
“Yup. And when we get out of this, you can come over to my house and visit her, and I can take her to your house. She really loves going for walks, so I know that she’ll want to. Where do you live?”
Does Ryan even have a house anymore?
Does he have anyone to have a house for him to live in?
Do I?
As these thoughts rushed into his mind, his headache came back. He decided to lie back down, just where he was, next to Ryan.
Time was lost to him as he lay there, listening to his own breathing, and the two other breaths in the room. Occasionally, they got in sync with one another.
He came back to the world when David ran down the hall.
“Alex! Come on!” he shouted into the room. “We’re done. We have to make a plan!”
>
When Alex walked into the workshop, he saw six boards standing up against the wall, each with a different head.
Head smasher, he thought.
“Why six?” he asked.
“Because ...” Nicole started.
“Because,” David cut her off, “if one breaks, then we have back-ups. Right now, there’s two per person, and I have a few other boards ready if we go through those.”
Alex nodded with nothing to add. Clearly they had thought it through.
“Second,” David continued, “each stick is different.” He picked one up; it had an iron as a head. “This one is really heavy and pointy, so it can do a lot of damage. But, it’s really hard to swing.”
“Maybe for you, spaz,” Nicole said, with a smirk.
“Har har,” David replied without glancing in her direction. He picked up another. This one had a long screwdriver on the end, pointing down. “This one is more of a stabber. Like, you can just,” he swung down a few times, “you know, stab it into their heads.”
“Will that work?” Alex asked. He assumed they had to do some real damage to kill the mudmen.
“I think so,” David replied. “It makes some sense that their brains are what keeps them going ... just not any other organs. Actually ...I don’t know.”
Nicole made a loud gasp. “Did His Majesty just admit to not knowing something? Someone call the press!”
“Do you know for a fact, Nicole?” David said, now unable to hide his frustration.
“No, I don’t,” she replied with a smile. “But I’m not the one who claims to know one way or the other. I’m just glad to see that you’re over it. You’re growing!”
“Shut up.”
“There. That’s the David I know and ... well, not love, but—”
“So, we have some smashers and some stabbers,” Alex said, trying to get the siblings back on track. “Which one is better?”
“Well,” David started, then fell silent.
Alex could see him struggling to answer. David didn’t know the answer, but wouldn’t dare say I don’t know again.
“We’re going to have to check to see.”
Rise of the Mudmen Page 16
