“How you doing in there, pal?” Nicole asked, using the voice she usually reserved for the few times she had gotten babysitting jobs. “Need anything?”
Ryan didn’t need anything. He never did. Or, if he did, he wouldn’t let her know.
“We’re both back.”
He had been nervous the first few times they had left the building, but since he built his fort, he had gotten better with it. “And there’s a new boy. His name is Alex. I gotta tell you, Ryan, he seems even stupider than David!”
Ryan gave a slight smile. That made Nicole feel good.
“But, he has a dog!” She realized that while she had thought of having a dog as good news, she didn’t know how Ryan would take it. Maybe he was afraid of dogs. That would be disastrous. She knew that if she had to make a choice—and of course it would have to be her to make it—the dog would have to go. That hurt her. Maybe they could build a house for it outside, within the fence. Maybe Ryan would just be okay with it. “Do you like dogs, Ryan?”
Ryan did nothing. Of course he didn’t answer, she thought. That would be easy. “Oh well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
DAVID
David stood in the doorway for a few seconds, watching Alex patting his sleeping dog, staring out the window they had recently climbed through. He knew what Alex saw. The same thing that was always out there: a few of those things—mudmen; he liked that—clambering at the fence. Not aggressive, not even really aware. Just ... there.
It was something that David had witnessed several times since they arrived.
“Hey,” he finally said, making Alex jump. “Want a tour of the place?”
Alex nodded.
“Well, let’s go then!”
The room they had entered—what David and his sister had taken to calling “the hard way”—was at the far end from the stairs. The long, dark hallway had only one small window at this end. The floor and walls were all bland yellowish white. Each side of the hall held five doors, though they became less distinct the farther down the hall they were—farther from the light. David wished there was a way to get more light up there, but with no power, they had very few options. Halfway down was a water fountain which no longer worked. This was flanked by two doors—one with a stick figure boy, the other a stick figure girl. Both bathrooms were open, but without working plumbing, they only offered privacy rather than functionality.
At the opposite end was the staircase to the first floor lobby which lead to the main entrance—“the easy way.” He would show that to Alex later.
Only two of the eight remaining rooms on the second floor were open when they had arrived two days before. After re-locking the easy way door and boarding up the window they had smashed to get in—the first act of vandalism either of the siblings had ever committed—the three of them, David, Ryan and Nicole, all passed out in the second floor room that would become their bedroom. It gave them a view of the front of the building and street, though no one had any interest in looking.
They had checked all the doors when they woke up and found that only the farthest room on the opposite side of the hall—the hard way room—was unlocked. It gave them more space, but it was completely empty. No food. No supplies. Nothing useful at all beyond the window that would become their second entrance. Now it was littered with things that David had hauled up until he found uses for them.
David knew that Nicole was in the bedroom—he could hear her talking to Ryan—so he merely pointed it out to Alex when they got to the end of the hall. There was no need to get more aggression from his sister when he didn’t have to.
David had jimmied the door next to their bedroom open and found that it had an unlocked door to the room on the other side. There, he found the motherlode: tools of all shapes and sizes—the room was being renovated before the recent catastrophe began. He also found office supplies, including the paper-cutter that he almost immediately took apart. He had always been at his best when he was working on a project, so he knew that’s why Nicole didn’t question him.
The room between the bedroom and tool-room became a supply room where the new residents could store everything they would need: food from the kitchen downstairs (though frozen goods were kept in the freezer), a first aid kit (though it was mostly just slings and medical tape), and a few extra cushions from the karate school.
The room with the tools became David’s workshop, which only differed from the storage room in that it held far more junk. Scattered there were pieces of wood, metal, wires, rope, and whatever else David could find in the building that didn’t prove of immediate use elsewhere. He had plenty to work with. Granted, most of the tools wouldn’t work without electricity, but they still had multiple uses in the mind of the inventive ninth grader.
Alex headed for a sheet of springs and coiled metal. He pulled back one of the springs and let go with a satisfying SPROING!
“That’s from an old couch we found downstairs,” David told him. “The cushions are damp and smell pretty bad, so we just left them down there. I cut up some of the frame for wood.” He too pulled back one of the springs. “And all these.”
“What are you gonna do with them?” Alex asked, glancing over the dozen or so springs “Make a launching pad or something?”
David smiled at him—a mischievous sort of smile. “Better than that, Alex,” he said almost laughing. He crossed to a pile of papers and bristol board. “I’ll show you.”
ALEX
Alex, with a combination of awe and confusion, stared at the unrolled piece of bristol board that came from a pile of at least twenty others. The awe came from the sheer scale of the diagrams. They covered the entire page: descriptions of what each piece did; exact lengths and sizes and weights; multiple angles so you could see a top view, side view, front view, rear view, and other things that Alex didn’t exactly understand. It looked impressive.
“How long did it take you to—?” he couldn’t really finish the question since he had no real idea of what any of it meant.
“Not long!” David laughed. “It’s called the SPLICER! Or the SPLITTER!” He paused, with a serious look. “I’m not sure which one sounds better, but I’m thinking SPLITTER! actually.”
As he continued explaining, growing increasingly excited, Alex got the impression that David hadn’t talked to anyone else in a while. Other than his sister, of course, and based on what he had learned about Nicole, maybe not even her. When he noticed that David had stopped talking and was waiting for some kind of reaction, Alex blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. “What does it do?”
“Well,” David sighed, deflated “it splits things.” Alex said nothing, so he continued. “It’s ... it’s like a big arm—that’s what this thing here is,” he shoved Alex aside and pointed at the drawing—a long piece extended from the main body of the machine. “And it’s got a big blade at the end.”
Alex remembered David swinging the paper-cutter blade around like a sword. “Whoa! That thing was, like, two feet long!”
“Well, eighteen inches,” David corrected, “but yeah. It’d definitely do some damage with some of those springs attached! They don’t look like much, but they have a lot of spring left in ‘em!”
“Wicked,” Alex replied. He looked at David, apprehensively. “Will it work?”
“Of course! I wouldn’t build it if it didn’t work.”
“Yeah,” Alex said, a bit unsure. “But, have you ever built anything like that before? I mean, I saw the SMASHER! thing outside, but that’s different, I guess. It just smashes, right? This looks ... complicated.” He looked back at the pile of rolled plans. “And are you even sure it would smash anything?”
“What?” David gasped.
Alex realized he had likely insulted the boy. He was not having a lot of luck with either of these kids.
“Did you see that thing up there? How could it not work? It took the two of us to lift it up there with ropes and stuff! If it swung down, the force of the wood alone would
tear someone’s head off, but all those spikes and stuff? That would destroy them!”
“Okay,” Alex replied, not sure any of that counted as proof.
“Look,” David shook his head, “it doesn’t really matter. The reason we don’t know if it works is that no one has gotten to it yet. The barricades and spikes and stuff have kept them all from even getting near it, and that’s a good thing.”
Alex nodded.
“And if they do get through that? SMASH!” David swung his arms in an explosive demonstration.
Even though he still wasn’t one hundred percent sure it would work, Alex couldn’t help but picture the large SMASHER! hitting a row of the mudmen and sending them all flying. It wasn’t the SMASHER! that lingered in his mind, but rather its intended targets.
“David,” Alex started, unsure of what he wanted to ask. “Those things ... you guys called them deadies, right?”
“Yeah. Well, Nicole did. I didn’t really call them anything. I like mudmen better. It’s apt, I think.”
“But,” Alex continued slowly, “you think that they’re actually, you know ... dead?”
David paused for so long Alex was certain he wasn’t going to say anything. His eventual answer wasn’t much better. “I don’t know. Probably. I think so. I saw some at St. Joe’s ... the hospital ... thing ... before they started attacking people. They looked dead ... before they got back up.”
The mention of the school—where the evacuation centre was; where he had visited just the day before to witness the aftermath of the outbreak and fire—made him remember.
That’s where my dad was.
Tears started to blur his eyes. He sniffed them back so that David wouldn’t see. “Did you ... did you see my dad at the school?” He watched David’s confused face for a moment before he realized that they barely knew each other—why would David know what his dad looked like?
“He’s tall. Kinda skinny. He was wearing ...” Alex tried to think back to the last time he had seen him for something to help with his embarrassingly vague description. The morning that all of this started. It was only four days ago, but it seemed much longer. “... a shirt and tie. I think it was blue and red? Blue shirt and red tie?” He nodded as if assuring himself that the description was accurate. “Did you see him? He probably had my sister with him. She’s a baby.”
David paused again, but Alex could tell he was trying to think back. Maybe he has a telegraphic memory, or whatever it’s called.
“I don’t know,” David eventually shrugged. “There were a lot of people there, and a lot of them were looking for their families and friends. Your dad was probably one of them.”
This wasn’t helping. Wiping his eyes, Alex knew his next question, though he didn’t want to ask it. “Before they ... attacked everyone ... did anyone ... did anyone else…?”
“A bunch of people got away,” David said, putting his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “If he’s anything like you, which would make sense since he’s your dad, then he probably got away and hid. Just like you did.”
Alex nodded, looking at the floor, sniffing, no longer trying to hide his tears. David had seen them and he was trying to be reassuring—to be helpful—so, no sense in shutting him out. He had one more question, but he kept his eyes on the floor. “Where are they now?”
David paused. “I don’t know.” He looked at the floor, and sniffed before taking his hand off Alex’s shoulder and rubbing his own arm.
Alex couldn’t get his last question out.
Is there anybody else?
For a while, Alex tried to help David with his plans, but he found he had nothing to offer. His mind was a mess. He just wanted to sit and think. To figure out what was going on and what he would do next. He headed to the bedroom, but when he looked in, he saw Nicole talking to a pile of mats. He didn’t pass judgment on the girl, but decided to not involve himself.
David told him none of the other doors were open, but he still tried all of them, hoping to find a space of his own. Each door that didn’t open created new disappointment, as if behind the door lay some solution to the problem; or that somehow his dad and sister had been hiding in there all along, waiting for him. And they were okay.
But there was nothing behind the doors. He knew that. Maybe more office supplies. Maybe stuff that they could use. Nothing that he actually wanted—needed—to find.
He entered the room they had climbed into through the window. Shadow lifted her head and turned to him. Her tongue rolled out of her mouth, panting. Dog smiles, Alex thought. She was glad to see him. “I’m glad to see you too, girl,” he said as she approached him. She sat in front of him and he patted her on the head as he passed into the room.
“How did you get out of there?” He’d been thinking about it regularly since they had been reunited. “Did you give them the slip? Did you fight them off? Was there no one left alive?” He laughed, bitterly. “Did you—” He stopped, feeling ill. For the briefest of moments, he had forgotten what had happened. Who he was talking about. Not a crazed, cartoon villain. Not a murderous maniac. It was Mark. His friend. Who was likely dead. He crumpled to the ground and pulled his dog close to him, sobbing into her fur. It didn’t matter how she had gotten away. She’d followed him. She always did.
NICOLE
Nicole talked to Ryan as much as she could until he rolled over in his mat-fort and fell asleep. For all she knew, he might have been just lying there staring at the wall a few inches from his face. She could see that he was breathing, so she was fine with either option. She left him to check on David and Alex. As much as she wanted to say she didn’t care, she had a responsibility as the oldest to take care of those around her. David was making noise in his workshop, so he was fine.
She found Alex in the room where she had left him, staring out the window in the direction of the former Colby Elementary, now just a bit of smoke floating over the colourful autumn leaves. If he had stuck his head out, he would have seen what she just had from another window: the beginning of a beautiful sunset, the leaves made more vibrant in the dying light; the sky a lovely pinkish-orange; the lingering smoke from the fire giving the air all around the building a sense of warmth.
Sunlight danced in the puddles and in the little brook that flowed by.
All of this was just outside the window to the right. Despite everything, the world had the same beauty that it did the week before or year before. Every autumn day that either of them could remember.
But she knew that wasn’t what Alex was looking at. He saw only the same things she had seen for the past two nights as she looked out the same window. Those things—the deadies or whatever he wanted to call them—were out there, gathering. If they bothered to look up, they would see him. They didn’t. They just wandered, making their awful, sloppy moaning sounds.
Poor kid, she found herself thinking as she watched him and his dog. He has no clue what is happening out there.
She turned away to find something to do, to keep her mind off the fact that she didn’t have a clue either. Plus, the smoke reminded her of what had happened. Of how she had screwed everything up. Of how—
“Why won’t they go away?”
She looked back at Alex. He was still looking out the window. She doubted he had turned to see her at all. He may even have been talking to himself, but she answered. “I dunno, kid,” she sighed. “They just suck, I guess.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah.”
The dog lay down with a heavy sigh at Alex’s feet, looking at her. She knew just as much as they did.
“Anyway,” Nicole continued, now that the conversation had started, “we should probably eat something soon. When’s the last time you ate?”
“I dunno.”
“Okay, well, now’s probably a good time then.” She turned again to leave, but stopped. “I’m Nicole, by the way.”
“Yeah, I know. David told me.” He still didn’t turn away from the window.
“Well,” she could think of nothing more to
say. “All right then.” She turned to leave again. This time, she heard steps behind her.
“Nicole?” Alex stood just a few feet from her. “Thanks.”
She stared at him, taken back by the sincerity of that one word. Eventually, she nodded. “No problem. Now let’s get something to eat, all right?”
Alex simply nodded and followed her.
After introducing Alex to Ryan—who seemed afraid of the new boy—they all ate peanut butter sandwiches using a jar from one of Nicole’s survival packs.
ALEX
After sunset, since there was very little to do in the dark, the four new residents of the community centre went to bed. Alex stared at the book David was reading by flashlight—he couldn’t tell what it said from across the room, but the cover showed a big hand with a thumb out and a weird green blob creature.
Alex wished he had taken his Simon, or even the dead electronic Yahtzee game from the Wilson’s house, or some comics, or anything! He didn’t think he would sleep at all in these new surroundings. Each time he slept recently, he’d awoken to a new terror.
Within a few minutes of watching the dim light flick from page to page across the room, he was fast asleep. Shadow curled up next to him, making sure he stayed safe through the night.
DAY 5
KAITLYN
Dave repeated his explanation over and over—both as a comfort for his daughter and for himself, Kaitlyn thought.
“I have to, Boo. I have to.” He picked her up from the floor where she sat, clinging to his pant legs after he had put on his boots. “I’ll be back. I’m only going for one hour.”
That was the plan they had made together. Dave would look through houses on the way to Kaitlyn’s house, coming back every hour to check in. If there was food at the first house, it would just be the one trip. Or maybe they would move to the new place. Maybe they would find more people, or a more secure location. All options were better than sitting and waiting with no food. Dave and Joanne even allowed Kaitlyn and Hannah to be involved in the discussion in the hopes that it would calm them down and let them see that it really was for the best. Now that the plan was in motion, it seemed a wasted effort.
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