“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 couldn’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.
“Well, too bad,” Nicole replied, relying on the old argument. “Now, get back to yelling, would ya? We don’t want to lose them!”
“I want to,” David mumbled, as he walked back to the window and continued yelling, though his “HEY!” became far less aggressive.
“You ready?” Alex asked, pulling on the last of his armour.
“Just about,” Nicole replied as she put her helmet on.
They wore the thick, long coats and gloves that Alex and David had worn earlier, with ancient hockey pads and ice hockey helmets. Alex had a couch cushion tied to his chest and back. On his arms, he tied small pieces of wood, with room left at the joints. Nicole used smaller cushions from the karate school and tied as many of them as she could all around her torso. Over her arms, she put dryer hoses.
They each took a long board with sharp screwdrivers on the ends. Anything heavier would slow them down and be too hard to handle. While they hoped all of the mudmen would go for David’s distraction, they knew that they’d have to fight a few.
“What time is it?” Nicole asked.
“It’s 7:09,” he said after tugging back his gloves. “We still have a few minutes, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Nicole said, trying to think of something—anything—to motivate them into moving. Nothing came to her.
“You guys should get going soon!” yelled David from across the hall. “It’s starting to get bright out!”
Alex and Nicole peered out the window. Sure enough, to the east was a faint line of yellowy-orange. The cloud cover stayed, but the light might be enough. They could already see the outlines of the dark mudmen below them more clearly. Fewer than before, but still some. A dozen at least.
They had to get moving.
“Just a sec,” Nicole said, heading for the room David was in.
“HEY!” David yelped as she entered.
“David?”
“What?”
“I just wanted to say ... you know ... be careful.”
“Do I actually have to go down there?”
Nicole joined him and looked down.
At least a dozen mudmen stood at the fence, pushing and
