Rise of the Mudmen

by Thompson, James FW

  As she sat against the dresser, trying to get her breath and her bearings, she saw Hannah sitting on the bed, staring at her. The little girl’s face was wet with tears.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know!” Kaitlyn almost sobbed. “I don’t know!”

  “What’s that?” Hannah asked, pointing outside.

  “I don’t know!” Kaitlyn said, almost afraid to look. She picked herself up, her limbs aching from the strain she had just put them through, and moved slowly to the window. Outside she couldn’t see much. Just darkness.

  Hannah pressed up against her, sobbing and holding her as tightly as she could.

  Then Kaitlyn saw it.

  A light.

  Someone is out there with a light! she thought, with hope. Mom, or Dave, or anyone!

  It was someone with a light and they would help them.

  For a moment Kaitlyn and Hannah watched the light coming from the building across the street. Occasionally, it bounced off glass. They both started yelling.

  “Help!”

  “We’re over here!”

  “Help us!”

  When the light finally stayed on them, they screamed harder.

  They continued to scream and cry as those things crashed and stomped downstairs.

  NICOLE

  “Holy crap!” Alex said. “It ... it blew them apart!”

  “Blew what apart?” Nicole said, still comforting Ryan. “What are you guys seeing?”

  David moved the beam around. “Well,” he started, “there’s a leg. Just standing there. And ... bits of others.”

  “Other what?”

  “Other—them. Mudmen. Lots of pieces. And ... oh ... there’s a full one. Well ... mostly full. He’s ... he’s a head and a body ... no arms or legs, though. He ... he got blown apart.”

  “That’s ... that’s crazy,” Alex said, sounding more confused than impressed.

  “There’s blood everywhere!” David said, continuing his report. “It’s ... just a sec.” He moved the beam back to the SMASHER! “Yeah, there’s blood coming off of it, and there’s little pieces of ... stuff stuck to it. And ... woah, the blood goes far!” He moved the light in a straight line from the SMASHER! farther out into the parking lot. “It must have thrown them right across the—”

  Nicole waited for him to finish the sentence.

  He didn’t.

  “Across the what?” she waited, but got no response. “David? Across the what?”

  “Um ... Nicole?” It was Alex who responded. “Come here.”

  “I’m kinda busy right now.”

  Alex turned to face her. “Nicole. Come here. Please.”

  His face held something urgent. She gave Ryan a hug, “Stay here, okay?” As if on cue, Shadow walked over to them; Nicole felt her tail against her leg. “Okay, yeah,” she said with a smile. “Stay with the dog. She’ll protect you.” She couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he reached out a tentative hand to pet Shadow. He’d be okay for the time being.

  This better not be something gross, she thought as she approached the window. If they just want me to see a bunch of arms or a pile of heads or something ...

  Her mind went blank as she looked out into the street.

  The first thing she noticed was the mudmen. Still moving. A lot of them. The SMASHER! might have killed a few—maybe four or five—but there were at least twenty more of them out there, still moving around.

  But that wasn’t what kept her from speaking.

  At the end of their beam of light, just a little over a hundred feet away, was the house across the street. It had a splatter on it, likely from what the SMASHER! had just smashed. In the upstairs window, two pale faces stared out. They, too, were looking down at the carnage in the beam of light.

  Two little girls.

  Above the gurgling, sloppy moans coming from the street, she could hear them screaming.

  They stared in shock for a few silent moments. As far as Nicole knew, none of them had seen any other people—any living people—since they had all come together.

  “Who are they?” asked Alex.

  “How long have they been there?” asked Nicole.

  “Have they been watching us the whole time?” asked David.

  No one answered; they just stared as the two girls kept screaming. The sound was audible, but they couldn’t make out any actual words. One thing was clear: the more noise they made, the more the mudmen were drawn to them. More and more shambled toward the house.

  Nicole grabbed the flashlight away from David. “They need to shut up,” she said, flashing the beam of light at the creatures as they moved across the street. “Those things are headed right for them. And ...” She found the broken window. “... they can get in!”

  “We gotta help them!” David said, in a loud whisper.

  “Well, duh, spaz” said Nicole. “We can’t just leave ‘em there.” She paused, and narrowed her eyes at her brother. “Happy now? You know your SMASHER works.” She turned back to the window as his eyes widened and his head hung.

  The girls continued calling out. The mudmen continued their approach.

  “They need to stop screaming for starters,” said Nicole. She waved her arms and the flashlight frantically at the girls. With the light in her own face she mouthed the words ‘STOP SCREAMING!’

  They kept screaming.

  “They either can’t see me, or they don’t care,” she said, shaking her head. “Or, you know, they’re terrified.”

  “I think they’re terrified,” said Alex.

  Nicole sighed, shaking her head. “Yeah, I know. Never mind.” She shone the flashlight back on the girls. The older one was now looking behind her. “Okay, so what can we do? They need to stop making so much noise.”

  All three thought for a moment.

  “A-ha!” exclaimed David suddenly, grabbing the flashlight from his sister. He began flicking the button on and off at the girls across the street.

  “What are you doing?” Nicole demanded.

  “Morse code!” David said with a smile.

  “You don’t know Morse code!”

  “Yeah, but they might!”

  “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  Alex put his hand the flashlight. “David, stop it.” He directed the light to the ground. Some of the mudmen had noticed the flashing and were headed back toward them.

  KAITLYN

  “What’s happening?” asked Hannah. “Why are they flashing the light so much?”

  “I think it’s Morse code.”

  “What’s More’s code?”

  “It’s something you do with lights. I don’t know.”

  The noises downstairs grew louder. Smashing, crunching, glass shattering. Footsteps on the staircase.

  They were coming for them, and Kaitlyn knew that they wouldn’t stop. With each step they heard, the girls grew more frantic. Why aren’t they doing anything? Kaitlyn wondered. Maybe they’re just like the others. Maybe the building across the street is their base, she thought, suddenly horrified. Maybe it’s crawling with them! She drew a deep breath, trying to think. No. There’s a girl. She looked normal. She waved to us. They are normal.

  When something fell right outside the bedroom door, she screamed again.

  The light went out of the window. Some of the things were leaving, heading to the building across the street, following the light.

  Both girls yelped again as something hit and clawed at the bedroom door, which moved an inch inward against the toppled dresser that Kaitlyn had shoved against it. A gurgling moan followed.

  Kaitlyn ran to the dresser and shoved back against it. The door slammed shut again, but the moan intensified. She continued to push and she felt the intruder doing the same, but she didn’t budge. She was stronger or heavier than it was.

  But if there’s more ...

  She held her breath; she could only clearly hear one.

  Hannah had stopped screaming.

  “Hannah?” she y
elled into the semi-darkness. “Are you—”

  “They want us to stop screaming.”

  “What?”

  “Shhh!” Hannah said, aggressively. Then she whispered, hoping Kaitlyn would do the same. “They want us to be quiet.”

  “They who?” Kaitlyn whispered back.

  “The people across the street.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Hannah paused, thinking. “I think we were making the people outside crazy.”

  Of course! Kaitlyn almost shouted, but caught herself before she did. She only broke her silence when she thought of a question that had to be asked. “How do you know what they are saying?”

  Hannah shrugged. “They wrote it down.”

  NICOLE

  Seeing that her idea had worked, Nicole scribbled another note on the bristol board.

  ARE YOU ALONE?

  “We know they’re not alone,” David said as she wrote. “Mudmen have been breaking in this whole time!”

  “I mean other people, stupid,” Nicole said, shining the flashlight on the new note. “You know, like their parents?”

  “Right.”

  The little girl across the street held up two fingers.

  “It looks like it’s just the two of them,” Nicole said, “but I want to make sure. This kid looks like she’s only Ryan’s age.”

  ANY ADULTS?

  The girl shook her head, then quickly jumped back.

  Nicole shifted the light, futilely trying to see farther through the girls’ window.

  The girl came back quickly, clearly panicking. Tears streamed down her face.

  Nicole quickly wrote another note.

  HOW MANY ARE IN THERE?

  The girl stared at the note for a long while, then shook her head.

  “She doesn’t know what that means,” said Alex. “Here, gimme the light!” He grabbed the light from Nicole who let him take it. He shone the light into the street, hitting as many of the mudmen as possible, then pointed it back to the sign.

  When he put the light back on the window, the girl was gone.

  KAITLYN

  “They ... want to know ... how many people ... are in the house,” Hannah said to Kaitlyn, out of breath from screaming and crying.

  “There’s two of us!” Kaitlyn whispered.

  “No, I know!” Hannah’s whisper grew louder with frustration. “How many ... bad people?”

  The question made Kaitlyn afraid. She had no idea. When she had looked outside, there were dozens of them. But maybe more. Maybe hundreds. Or thousands! Everyone in town! She had no idea.

  “Lots,” she said, gulping.

  Another wave of confusion passed over Hannah’s face. “How do I say ‘lots’? They can’t hear me.”

  “I don’t know!” Kaitlyn blurted out, her own frustration coming through. She covered her mouth when the thing outside the door responded with more scratching. “Give them a big number with your hands. Fifty.”

  “Fifty?!” Hannah gasped.

  More footsteps on the stairs. In the hall. Right outside the door.

  “Not fifty,” Kaitlyn whispered, remembering that she had to keep Hannah calm. “Just a big number. More like ... ten.”

  Hannah sighed with relief and went back to the window to respond. Kaitlyn felt ashamed. She didn’t know for sure, but she’d probably lied.

  NICOLE

  “Ten!” David shouted.

  “I can see that,” Nicole said. “Thank you.”

  She couldn’t think of their next step. The girls were only across the street, but they might as well have been on the other side of town. Nicole pointed the flashlight to the street. Still too many mudmen to go outside.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  Alex looked at his watch. “It’s ... 6:47 a.m. Holy crap, I didn’t think it was that late.”

  “Late?” David asked.

  “Yeah,” Alex shrugged, “I thought it was, like, two or something. So, I dunno ... later than that?”

  “Or earlier? I dunno.”

  “Me neither. What if it was—”

  “Shut up!” Nicole yelled. “Jesus, you two! Just shut up for a minute and let me think!”

  The boys looked at each other, but neither said anything back to Nicole.

  After a few seconds Nicole broke the silence. “The sun should come up in about half an hour or so,” she said, pointing the flashlight toward the sky. “Assuming it’s not still cloudy. Which it is, or we’d have at least some light right now.”

  “But,” David said, trying to be helpful, “it’ll be a little brighter. At least, there’s not a lot of buildings east of here, so ... so we’ll get some sun when it comes up, even if it’s not super bright above us.”

  “Yeah,” Nicole said, not looking at him, “that might be enough.”

  After more silence, Alex decided to chance speaking. “But, we know how to kill them, right?”

  Nicole looked at him. “Well, we do. But, except for your SMASHER, so far we’ve only killed three stuck on spikes, and someone couldn’t even do that.”

  “I got scared!” David said, pouting. “I’m sorry I don’t like killing people! I guess that makes me a bad guy!”

  “Stop being a baby,” Nicole said quickly. “So yeah. We killed three, and that was pretty hard. There’s ... I dunno ... probably like fifty of ‘em down there.”

  “Where’d they all come from, anyway?” Alex asked, looking out the window.

  “Those girls probably started screaming when the window got smashed,” David answered, “and they all heard it, and came after them.”

  Nicole and Alex both turned to David.

  “What window smashed?” Nicole asked, taking a step toward her brother.

  David looked uncomfortable. “The ... window of their house. It’s broken. Maybe ... maybe one of those mudmen broke it and they got scared and started screaming and stuff and then all the rest of them heard it and yeah.”

  “David,” Nicole said, recognizing his guilty rambling. “What did you do?”

  Before David could answer, Alex jumped in. “They go towards noise, right?”

  “Obviously,” Nicole said, sarcastically. Then she thought she knew what Alex meant. “So, if we made noise ...”

  “Then we could distract them to somewhere else and then run across the street, get the girls out, and bring them back here!”

  Nicole nodded, smiling. “But not till after the sun is up so we can see them.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said, excitedly.

  Let him be excited, Nicole thought. At least he’s starting to be useful.

  “Couldn’t they just ... I dunno ... run across when we get them all to move?” David said, unable to hide the fear in his voice. “I mean ... we don’t have to go over there, do we?”

  “What if some of the mudmen stay in the house?” Alex asked. “We have weapons. They don’t have anything over there to protect themselves.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “David!” Nicole jumped in. “I’ll go with Alex. You can stay here.”

  David smiled, which he definitely would not have done if he knew what Nicole had in mind for him instead.

  KAITLYN

  The last sign they had seen read 30 MINUTES. That was at least ten minutes ago. Then the light was gone and, from what she could see, the people in the other building had left the window.

  They were alone again.

  “Thirty minutes till what?” asked Kaitlyn, wishing that she had thought to take a watch.

  “I dunno,” Hannah replied, still looking out the window. “That’s all it said.”

  “Thirty minutes till they come get us? Thirty minutes till we run over there? Thirty minutes till—”

  Kaitlyn, still sitting against the dresser, was cut off by another hard shove. More had joined, pushing to get in.

  “Thirty minutes till the door breaks?” Kaitlyn whispered to herself. She did not want Hannah to hear, but she was running out of hope. The door coul
dn’t last forever, and neither could her own strength. They had only pushed in an inch. But that’s just for now, she thought. Soon they’ll get through, then they’ll grab us, and do ... whatever it is they’re here to do. She had no idea what the intruders were doing. Were they killing people? Were they kidnapping them? Making more like them? She couldn’t clearly remember what had happened at the school just three days before. Panic and running and screaming and ... that was all. Everything else was a blur.

  She remembered her mother screaming. Her eyes started to water when she heard a noise from outside. Someone yelling, “HEY! What? NO!”

  NICOLE

  “No!” shouted David, as Nicole and Alex pulled on their armour. “I am not doing that! You can’t make me!”

  “First of all,” Nicole said calmly, as she pulled hockey pads up over her jeans, “I can make you do whatever I want. That’s the way it works. Second, you volunteered, so—”

  “I did not!” David screeched.

  Nicole was enjoying herself. “You volunteered when you said—when you begged—to not have to go across the street. You wanted to stay here.”

  “I wanted to stay here, as in upstairs keeping watch, or at the door!” He shook his head. “You want me to be bait!”

  “You’re not bait,” Alex said as he pushed the hockey helmet over his head. “We’re not going to let them eat you!”

  “What?” David said, sounding horrified at the thought.

  “He’s right,” Nicole said, hefting her own helmet. “You’re going to be ... I dunno ... more like a target.”

  “Oh!” said Alex, laughing. “You’ll be like, when you want a horse or something to go, you tie a carrot to a stick or something and then put that in front of it and then it goes!”

  Nicole burst out laughing. “Exactly! See, David? You’re not bait. You’re a carrot on a stick!”

  “I don’t wanna be a carrot on a stick!”

  “Well, then you shouldn’t have said you didn’t want to go across the street.”

  “I don’t want to do either,” David said quietly into his own chest.