Looking across the room, he saw Ryan, still in his mat-fort but leaning out, looking to the commotion. When Ryan saw Alex, he ducked back, only a sliver of his face visible in the light.
Nicole and David stood at the window facing the street, craning to get a good view. The curtain ruffled in around them.
Alex stretched and worked a kink out of his neck. “What’s up?”
David turned excitedly to Alex. “The barricades! They worked!”
“They kept the mudmen away?” Alex said. “How do you know? Did you see them?”
“Kinda,” said Nicole, still looking out the window. “I can’t look at ‘em anymore.” She turned away from the window. David jumped back to his previous position to look out.
Alex’s curiosity was piqued. He rolled to his feet quickly, adrenaline and excitement pushing him toward whatever they were looking at. Before he got to the window, the feeling turned to dread. Shadow began barking. An angry bark. The way she had barked at Mr. Watts. Something was wrong. Something dangerous.
“Calm down, buddy,” he said, scratching the top of her head. His eyes were stuck on the window. The dog gave a few more snarling barks before sniffing at the air. She whimpered, but followed Alex to the window. They had seen a lot of gross things over the past few days. Whatever had happened outside—according to Nicole—was worse.
There were four of them. One, he recognized from the yard the previous evening. The other three were new. All four were impaled on the barricade pikes, held in place, in standing positions.
“Oh, gross!” he exclaimed. They didn’t look real. They were motionless and limp, like puppets hung up to keep their strings from getting tangled when they were no longer being used.
“Yeah, it’s super gross,” David said. “But, that’s what the spikes are there for.”
“I thought they were just to scare them off,” Alex said, turning to the other boy.
“Naw,” David said, still looking out at them. “I don’t think they get scared. Or anything. I don’t think they think.”
“You would know, spaz,” Nicole said from behind them, over her shoulder.
Above the dead creatures on spikes, leaves rustled in the morning breeze. Some flitted to the ground in spiralling arcs. Alex took a deep breath, hoping to get a revitalizing lungful of fresh air; the scent of a brand new day.
What he got was a terrible stench.
“Oh my God!” he gasped, coughing out the smell. He staggered back from the window.
“What?” David asked, turning to him, concerned.
“That stink,” Alex said, wiping his nose to wipe away the odour. “What is it?”
“Oh, that,” David said, nonchalantly. “I guess it’s coming from them.” He gestured to the impaled figures through the window.
“Ugh, it’s gross!” Alex said, pulling his shirt up over his mouth and nose. The smell of his own sweat was like a breath of fresh air in comparison. He went back to the window to continue watching the mudmen dangle.
“Oh my God, you can smell them from here!” Nicole said behind them, plugging her nose. “We have to do something about them!”
“We’ll just close the windows,” David said, as he tried to do so. It budged an inch, but not nearly enough to stop the rank breeze from coming in.
“Nice try, Hulk,” Alex said to him with a smirk. It was the first joke he’d made since they found him. Maybe since this whole thing started. With some effort, he slowly shut the window completely.
The smell lingered.
Nicole looked back out at the bodies. “We can’t just leave them out there!”
“Why not?” asked David. “Maybe they’ll act as a warning, like ... like when tribes or whatever put heads on pikes outside their villages!”
“Yeah,” she replied, her arms crossed in front of her, “but you just said that they can’t think. If they can’t think, they probably don’t care if their buddies are dead.”
David thought about that. “Probably not, no. But, I mean, they’re not hurting anyone out there.”
“They stink,” she said flatly. “And it’s not even noon yet.”
“So?”
“So if it stays nice and sunny out, they’re just gonna bake and stink more and more.”
“So? We’ll have the window closed.”
“Yeah, but the stink might bring more of them!”
“Yeah, but the barricades will stop them too!”
“Not if there’s like a hundred of them!”
“There’s not a hundred of them!”
“How do you know?!”
“There’s not.”
“Just go get rid of them!”
“I—” David stopped the rapid back and forth.
“What?” Nicole took a step back. She had gotten closer and closer to her brother with each argument she made.
David chewed on his lip. “I don’t wanna go out there. With those ... things.”
“Oh my God,” Nicole said shaking her head. “You killed them!”
“What?” David said, wide-eyed. “No, I didn’t! The spikes did! And they might have been dead before that! You’re the one that was calling them ‘deadies’!”
“You killed them this time, David! Your stupid trap!”
“My stupid trap saved our lives!”
“Whatever!”
“Oh, good one, Nicole!”
“I’ll help.”
Nicole and David both stopped and looked at Alex.
“What?” they said in unison.
Alex swallowed. “If you guys wanna go out and move those ... things ... out there, I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said, insincerely. She then turned back to David, glaring. “Glad to see that someone is being helpful today.”
“Helpful?” David said, shocked. “I built those things! I’ve been building things this whole time! Those are my spikes!”
“So they stopped because of you?”
“Yes!”
“They are stuck on your spikes?”
“Yes!”
“Glad to hear you admit it,” Nicole said with a smile. “Go grab some gloves from your little workshop. We’re gonna help you move those things.”
David looked defeated. “But ...”
Nicole walked away. “But you’re dealing with the grossest ones.”
David stared after her, not knowing what to
