“You are ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head as she continued to the house.
Alex lay in the street, dazed, with his hand still extended as mudmen continued toward him; more since he had screamed.
“Come on!” Nicole yelled. “I’m not going to save you again!”
He scrambled to his feet, pulled the loosened pad off, and bolted for the house. When he got to the front lawn, and had a moment to breathe, he turned back to the street. They had been noticed. A few more came around the corner of the community centre, moving much faster than before. They were on the hunt.
“Dammit!” Nicole yelled behind him. “I should have known! The door is locked! Now what are we going to do?”
Alex, somewhat calmly, approached the window that had been smashed open. “How about this?” he asked, with a smirk, knowing that he was not the dumb one for the moment.
The smirk faded when his arm was grabbed from inside the house.
The hand holding him was bloody. Shards of glass stuck out of it, up the arm, across its chest, and face. He pictured it slithering through the broken window instead of climbing. Red-black ooze poured from its wounds as it snarled and growled, pulling Alex closer to its hideously mangled mouth.
Alex whimpered as he raised his weapon and smashed it down on the creature’s head. Its grip loosened and it fell limp inside the house. Alex, panting, stared at the thing he had just killed even as Nicole went through the window.
“Thanks for clearing the way,” she said, looking back through the opening. “Moron.”
The living room was destroyed. Bloody red glass covered everything.
“Come on!” Nicole said urgently, over her crunching footsteps. Alex could barely see her across the dark room. “We’re taking way longer than five minutes!”
“Yeah” was all he could say. He was trembling and sweating. For the first time since he was rescued from the woods, he thought he might be in shock. He found himself at the stairs, Nicole standing in front of him with the flashlight. He did not remember walking there or her taking out the flashlight, or anything since he entered the house.
“What happened?” he asked, confused.
“Be quiet!” Nicole whispered. “I think I hear more of them upstairs!”
Slowly and quietly they worked their way to the top of the stairs. They could see down the hall in the faint light from the doorways. If not for that trickle of light, they would not have seen the monster that stepped out of the room to their right.
It clumsily attacked them, almost falling over, snarling. Shreds of bloody flesh hung from its face and arms, evidence of its gruesome entrance through the smashed window. A large wound gaped in its gut.
Alex took all of this in after they had both swung their weapons at the mudman’s—mudwoman’s—head, practically crushing it to a red and black mush between the two boards.
The hallway seemed clear, though they were learning that the mudmen, despite their apparent lack of intelligence, were great at appearing when you least expected them. Alex and Nicole walked very slowly down the hall, checking each room they passed by. They were all empty.
They instinctively moved toward the end of the hall. As they approached, Alex took in two facts about the last door. First, deep red and brown claw marks ran along the wood. Something dripped to the floor, pooling into a thick smear.
Second, the door was open.
Two dark red hand prints marked the edge of the door where it had been pried open.
They tried, thought Alex, feeling sick. They tried, and we tried, but ... I guess we’re too late.
A dread-filled silence passed between them as they stood, both too afraid to go any farther. Afraid to see what carnage lay inside.
As if sensing each other’s apprehension, they simultaneously nodded at one another. Each took a deep breath and headed for the room, just a few short feet away.
The dark red smears continued into the room, glistening in the faint light.
One more step.
Then there were feet. Two feet lying on the floor. No shoes. One had a sock, the other was bare. On the bare one, the toenails were painted light blue. The sock had a stitch pattern of a unicorn on it.
One more step.
The legs were covered in blood. Thick, red blood, like what was all over the floor, but redder. Fresher.
One more step.
She was wearing a long shirt. At one point, it had been light blue. Now it was so covered in blood that it was almost unrecognizable as a colour at all.
One final step.
They were in the room.
The little girl lay on the floor, her hands reaching out, trying to stop whatever was coming at her. Above her head was a splatter of blood and what seemed to be brains oozing out of a fresh wound. Next to her was a large bed, splattered with more gore.
“Oh no,” Alex gasped before turning away and throwing up what he had eaten the previous night.
NICOLE
Nicole just stared, listening.
She heard Alex’s retching, and his shoes sticking to the stuff on the floor as he turned out of the room. She heard the things outside—maybe even in the house again by now. Their moaning. Their dragging. Ragged breaths.
Ragged breaths in the room.
Slowly, she moved around the bed, keeping her eyes on the floor as she avoided stepping in anything that had come out of the dead little girl’s head. At the end of the bed, something scurried away. She raised her board, ready to bring it down into the skull of whatever it was.
She stopped.
Curled up between the bed and the wall were the two girls.
“Oh my God!” she yelled, forgetting to keep her voice down. “Are you ... are you guys okay?”
The smaller girl sobbed, her body shaking.
Oh great, another baby, Nicole thought.
“I hit her with a lamp,” said the older girl, to no one in particular. “I hit her with
