“No,” Alex disagreed. “It’s Thursday. We’ve ... well, I’ve been here for five days, and the day of the evacuation was ... I think it was Friday. Then there were two days. And then four more days here …”
“What are you talking about?” Nicole asked, shaking her head. “You’ve only been here three days.”
“Really?” Alex asked, surprised. It had felt like much more.
“It’s Saturday,” Hannah said.
They all thought about it. Eventually they all nodded, mostly because the little girl sounded the most confident with her answer.
“Okay,” Alex started again, “but Saturday the what? Is it the thirty-first? I think Halloween is on a Saturday this year! Is it today?”
“It’s on a Friday.”
“Okay, but what’s today?”
They all stood thinking about it, but no one had an answer. It had been so long since they thought about the date that they had no frame of reference anymore.
“We’ll check a calendar when we get in,” Nicole said, rushing across the lawn to the house, avoiding scattered mudman bits and pieces.
Alex understood; as important as his question was, and as calm as it was outside, they didn’t want to push it. The longer they stayed out, the more chance there was of running into trouble.
Assuming, of course, that trouble wasn’t already waiting for them inside the dark and quiet house.
The screen door had pulled itself shut, but that was all that protected the house. Curtains billowed out of the gaping hole where the picture window used to be. When Nicole got to the door she stopped with her hand in the air, motioning for the group behind her to be quiet; to listen.
“What are we listening for?” Alex asked from the back of the line.
“Shh!” Nicole blasted back. After another few seconds of silence, she struck the door frame with her board and jumped back, almost knocking Kaitlyn and Hannah over.
Nothing happened.
“I’m just checking to see or hear if there’s any ... mudmen inside,” Nicole answered.
“Oh,” Alex nodded as he peeked around the group to the door. He smiled, happy in the fact that Nicole was finally using his word for those things.
“But, it looks like we’re clear,” Nicole said, looking into the empty house. “At least on this floor.”
“Okay,” Alex said, readying himself to go in. “You guys have the list?” he asked Kaitlyn and Hannah.
“Yup!” Hannah replied, almost cheerily.
Nicole went over the details one more time. “So go in, find as much as you can quickly—don’t spend too much time looking around in drawers and stuff. Just what’s easy to get, okay?”
Everyone nodded.
“Okay,” she said, turning back to the door. “I’ll go in first, make sure that everything is clear, then you guys go check the kitchen. We’ll do the upstairs after that.”
Again, the rest of the group nodded.
Nicole took a deep breath before turning to the door. Bracing herself, Alex thought. Again. If being in charge means that you have to be the one that goes in first every time, she can have it.
Once she yanked the door open, Alex craned to see past the group. In the light of day, the mess inside the house was much more noticeable, even from six feet back. Red and brown and black footprints smeared the floor, surrounded by shards of bloody glass. Filthy handprints covered the walls.
But there were no mudmen. Just pieces.
Nicole pushed the door open. “Coast’s clear.”
“Isn’t it ‘ghosts clear’?” Alex asked.
“That ... makes no sense,” Nicole shook her head as she watched the group pass into the house.
Alex muttered as he entered. He almost gagged when he saw a head, alone on the floor. He quickly looked away from it, worried that it had looked back at him, and headed for the kitchen; Kaitlyn and Hannah quickly followed, avoiding the mess of body parts in the living room.
The kitchen was a virtual grocery store after the meagre provisions they had found at the community centre. Bottles of juice, soups, canned fruit, vegetables, meat, pasta, crackers, cookies, jam, butter, and a great deal of once-frozen goods. They also found matches, candles, batteries, and, thankfully, a can-opener. Alex mentally thanked Bob and Florence for grocery shopping the day before the mudmen showed up. He wondered if he knew them; if he had ever seen them around stores or going for walks.
How many of the mudmen are people I’ve met before?
“Hey,” Kaitlyn said, shaking him out of his thoughts, “I said that’s pretty much all we can get from here. Did you hear me?”
“Uh, yeah,” Alex said, staring at the broken back window. “I was just checking out the backyard. Making sure that the ghost is clear.”
Hannah followed his gaze out the window. She ran to it, pulled herself up on the counter and shouted, “We have to go to my house!”
Kaitlyn said, “We have a plan to get out of here pretty quick, so—”
“My daddy is over there! We have to go get him!”
“Hannah, we can’t! We have to—” Kaitlyn broke off because Hannah was already crying.
“What’s going on in there?” Nicole shouted from the hallway.
Alex and Kaitlyn said nothing as Hannah continued to cry.
Alex took a deep breath. “I’m going to check next door!” he called into the hallway.
“What?!” Nicole shouted, “No! You can’t! You have to—”
“Well,” he called back, “I’m going, so ... bye!” He ran out the back door and across the yard. He didn’t look back; he knew that if he did, he’d realize how stupid this was and turn around. So, he kept his eyes locked on the house in front of him. Hannah’s house.
“Oh my God,” he heard Nicole say behind him. “What the hell is he—”
“He’s going to see if Hannah’s dad is okay,” Kaitlyn told her.
He didn’t hear anything else from them. Either they had closed the door, or he was too far away. Whichever it was, he was on his own again. Just for a minute.
He hoped.
“Hello?” Alex called, as he walked through the back door of Hannah’s house. It wasn’t broken open, which he thought was good, until he realized that it was likely open since the girls fled. So probably no one was there ... or someone was there who didn’t care that the door was open for mudmen to come and join them.
No more shouting.
He walked through the kitchen, checking cupboards on his way, but Hannah meant it when she said that her dad had cleared everything out. If the school hadn’t burned down, all of the Moores’ food and then some would have been theirs for the taking. In the front hall, he was faced with another open door. This one was propped open by the body lying in front of it.
He readied his weapon, but it was clear that this one was dead. To make sure, he gave it a solid poke in the shoulder. When it didn’t move, he felt safe. He turned just in time to see a still-moving mudman stumble down the stairs.
It landed on him.
Alex’s board became a shield as he writhed on the floor, keeping the thing’s chomping face away from his own. It drooled sickening, thick, discoloured saliva. He wanted to scream, but it might get in his mouth, so he clamped his lips shut. He wrestled with the mudman—mudwoman in this case—before he realized that it wasn’t actually that strong. He rolled it off him with a shove and quickly got to his feet. It looked up at him, on all fours, still drooling and growling. Its eyes were that weird, white, filmy colour, and it had a wound on its shoulder, but otherwise it—she—looked almost normal.
That would only make it harder.
Alex whispered “sorry” as he brought his board crashing into the creature’s head. It dropped immediately.
Once he caught his breath, he called up the stairs once again. “Hello?” His weapon was ready in case another one came down on top of him. “Anyone up there?” When he got no answer, he looked around the hallway—bloody foot and handprints all over the walls, f
loor, even smeared on the ceiling.
But there were no people. Hannah’s dad wasn’t there.
A few minutes later, Alex trudged back across the yard, coated in black goo. He turned in circles, to get a better view of the area. He wasn’t going to get ambushed by two mudmen today. The door flung open, and Kaitlyn and Hannah stood there waiting for him. He felt upset that they had closed the door, ensuring he was on his own while he was outside. He also felt relieved that it was over.
“What happened?” Kaitlyn asked, backing away from him as if the black stuff were toxic.
Crap. It almost definitely is toxic. He was about to hit the grass to stop-drop-and roll the stuff off, but the girls looked eager to hear his story. Worry about it later. Act cool.
“Mudmen over there,” he panted at the door, unable to act even remotely cool. “Two of them. One was still ... ‘alive,’ so I—”
Kaitlyn looked at Hannah, eyes glistening with fresh tears.
“Did he have brown hair and a beard and brown boots and ... and—”
“And a green vest?” Kaitlyn jumped in. “He had this green jacket-vest thing! And—”
“The one that was dead in your front door was an old guy. Gray hair and pyjamas,” he answered, then turned to Hannah with a smile. “That sound like your dad?”
Hannah shook her head, her sobs slowing.
“The one that I ...” He mimed smashing its head. “... was a lady. So, probably not your dad either.”
Hannah shook her head, this time with a slight giggle.
Kaitlyn, however, looked alarmed. “What did she look like?”
Crap. Alex thought. Forgot about her mom ...
“Well,” he started, hoping that his answer would not make her cry, “she was blonde. She was ...” He was at a loss. It had happened so fast. “Oh!” he said, remembering that it had been so easy to push the thing off. “She was really little. Like, short and skinny and stuff.”
He saw Kaitlyn let out a sigh of relief. Evidently those were not words to describe her mother. He was glad she didn’t cry.
“No one else was there?” Hannah asked, pulling his attention away from Kaitlyn.
“Uh, no,” Alex said. “I called out and looked around and stuff, but it didn’t look like anyone else was around, no.”
Hannah looked like she was about to cry again, but Kaitlyn knelt in front of her.
“He probably ran away and is hiding,” she said, wiping tears from Hannah’s face. “He’s probably looking for us, right Alex?”
Alex was caught off guard by the question. He had assumed that Hannah’s father was eaten with nothing left behind. “Yeah. Probably,” he lied.
Nicole ducked around the corner. “Now that that’s settled,” she said, “you guys need to check upstairs. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can go back home.” She paused. “Home. Then we just wait for your dad—for all of our parents—to find us, okay?”
Hannah nodded. Kaitlyn and Alex both called back, “Okay.”
Upstairs they found another treasure trove: blankets, towels, Band-aids, toothpaste, soap, even a well-supplied first aid kit. Checking out the house was one of their better ideas, and they managed to pull it off completely. Had Alex not gone to Hannah’s house, they wouldn’t have even encountered any mudmen.
“You guys ready to go?” Nicole called up the stairs. “I can see a few you-know-whats up the street.”
The three kids upstairs grew silent and still.
“They’re still pretty far away, and they don’t look like they are coming this way or anything,” Nicole continued. “But, you know, hurry up! Don’t wanna push it.”
With a few garbage bags stuffed with supplies, they headed down. Altogether they had gathered six bags. The mission was a success.
When they reached the living room, Kaitlyn evidently felt so confident that she broke from the group—from the plan—for a moment. Everyone stopped, confused by this sudden deviation.
Alex relaxed when he saw what she was going for: a flashlight on the floor nearby.
“It would be good to have another—” he said, when the words caught in his throat.
With a scream and a sickening squish, Kaitlyn grabbed the flashlight and smashed it into the severed head they had passed earlier—the head that he thought might have been looking at him. As Alex looked on in horror, it took chomps out of the air, until Kaitlyn bashed its brains out.
She stood, staring at the caved in head, breathing heavily. “It ... it ... the head tried to bite me ...” She could barely get the words out.
“It’s okay,” Hannah said, hugging the older girl. “It’s gone now.” She took Kaitlyn’s hand and led her outside. Alex hadn’t even noticed Hannah move across the room to comfort Kaitlyn. He was dumbstruck.
He looked to Nicole and took some solace that she looked just as baffled as he did. He wasn’t sure which shocked him more: the still-animated severed head, or the maturity of the youngest member of the group.
Nicole cut the tension when she motioned to the flashlight, still embedded in the head. “Well,” she said, “go get it.”
Alex looked at her in shock. “I’m not getting it! You go get it!”
“I’m not getting it!”
“We need another flashlight,” Alex said.
“I know. That’s why you should go get it!”
“I just had to fight one of those things already!” Alex stated, thinking he had a winning argument. “And she had a whole body!”
Nicole stared at him for a moment, then back at the flashlight. “Fine! But if you see that thing start to move again—” She didn’t finish the thought.
Alex couldn’t look at the head, but he desperately hoped for both his sake and Nicole’s that it was really dead-dead.
Alex didn’t say a word until they were back at the community centre. None of them did. However, before they ate, before they rationed, organized and counted everything, before they even took off their coats and protective gear, they told David and Ryan about the head in the living room.
David seemed unimpressed.
“But the head was still alive!” Alex insisted. “Well, you know what I mean. And it was just going CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!” He used his arms to show David exactly why it was so amazing.
David stared at Alex and his gestures. “So… like Pac-Man?”
Everyone was silent. Everyone who had been there—who had seen the head—glanced at each other. Then, as if on cue, all four burst out laughing. Even Kaitlyn, who just moments before had fallen into gasping sobs.
“Oh my God, David,” Nicole bellowed, between laughs. “You hit the nail on the head with that one!”
Another pause. Alex smiled. “On the head!”
Laughter broke out once again, all their nervous energy coming out in explosive fits.
David stood and watched as they made more jokes. They re-enacted Kaitlyn smashing it with the flashlight; they even took turns being the head, snapping at the air near the terrified girl; adding the wakka-wakka-wakka sounds of Pac-Man as he ate his pellets.
“But it’s dead now, right?” David asked with a chuckle, as if trying to join in the fun.
They all stopped laughing and playing. Alex silently realized how uncomfortable he felt. Uncomfortable with how comfortable they were becoming with everything that had happened. Was still happening, all around them. He thought he could see the same thing in the others’ eyes.
It wasn’t until the food and supplies were organized and written down that they realized no one had thought to check the calendar to see when Halloween was. After a brief discussion, they decided to celebrate the following day, even though they were pretty sure it wasn’t accurate.
They needed something normal again.
DAY 8
ALEX
The next morning, having gotten over the uneasy feeling and still riding the momentum of the successful food run, Alex volunteered to go across the street again to grab some pumpkins. He decided to skip the one from
Bob and Florence’s, remembering the severed limb. Though he wouldn’t tell anyone, he was terrified that the hand might start to move and grab at him if he got too close. There were plenty of others; enough for each member of their group. He could even get one for Kyle, though he was pretty sure they shouldn’t trust him with a knife to carve it.
The excitement of the previous day’s adventure must have gotten to David, because he didn’t even protest when Alex volunteered him to go too. Maybe he was just glad to not be bait.
The two boys suited up and headed out. The parking lot and street were clear again. Not even the crows were out—just the weathered carcasses of the mudmen on the front barricades.
“We’ll have to take them down later,” David said to Alex, then looked like he regretted it, probably worried that Alex would suggest they take care of it then. “Someone should, anyways,” he amended.
“Naw,” Alex said, looking the things over as they passed. “Leave ‘em up for today.” He grinned. “Halloween decorations.” His grin faded as the uncomfortable feeling came back. Did I just say we should leave dead bodies hanging for decoration? He suddenly felt sick as he looked at the piked mudmen. He shook off the feeling and ran across the street, with David quickly following.
There were two good-sized pumpkins at the first house. In his mind, Alex started designating pumpkins to the others. They wouldn’t be for him—he liked weirdly-shaped pumpkins. Ones that had character, his dad would always say when they picked out pumpkins together.
His sick feeling intensified.
Where is my dad? Where’s Mary? Are they even together? Are they looking for—
“What do you think of Kaitlyn?” David asked, snapping him out of his depressing spiral.
He sniffed back some tears. “What?” he asked, not turning for fear the tears might still be obvious.
“Uh, nothing,” David said, as he ran ahead to the next house.
Alex caught up with him. “Did you just ask about Kaitlyn?”
“No,” David said, turning red.
“Why,” Alex said with a grin. “Do you like her?”
“No,” David replied quickly. “I mean, not really, no. She’s my friend now, I guess.”
Rise of the Mudmen Page 25