Kaitlyn hurried to the stairs, shining the light back for them to see as they awkwardly picked up the boy between them. Halfway up the stairs, Nicole volunteered to carry the boy herself. Holding him, she thought back to holding Ryan’s cat. There’s almost nothing to him. Just some bones and skin in a ripped up, dirty shirt.
She carried him straight into the room, where David had laid down a few mats for him. He also had two slices of bread, and a bag of chips. “There, um ... isn’t much else,” David said when Nicole glanced at the meagre meal.
“That’s fine,” Nicole said, thinking, who knows how long he was eating mice? Stale bread is great in comparison.
She picked up a piece of the bread, and tried to hand it to the boy, but he wouldn’t take it. Or couldn’t, she realized. She put it in front of his mouth and still got no reaction. “All right,” she said. “That’s okay.” She squeezed the boy’s mouth open and shoved in a piece of bread. Once she let go, he started chewing and swallowing on his own. “Okay, good,” she said, sitting back and relaxing slightly for the first time since she had gone outside to yell at Alex. This would be a challenge, but not impossible, especially if everyone helped. She also realized making that happen could be more difficult.
The group looked at Nicole and the new boy who apparently could not do anything on his own. Hannah let go of Kaitlyn’s hand and took a step forward.
“Hi, Kyle,” she said to the little frail boy.
His eyes flickered for the first time.
“Good job, Hannah!” Nicole said as the rest of the group cheered or let out a sigh of relief. “Do you know him from school or something?”
“Yeah, I—” Hannah started to answer.
Kyle lunged at her, growling.
It was fortunate they had opened the room at the end of the hall, as they needed a place to secure Kyle, away from others.
Hannah had moved quickly enough to dodge his attack, but Nicole became his next target. He clawed at her, and hit her in the nose as he yelled. David and Alex carried the kicking, screaming child to the end of the hall and held the door closed. Soon the rest of the group joined them.
“What was that?” Kaitlyn asked, holding a stunned Hannah. “Is he ... one of those things? Like the people out there?”
“No,” Nicole said, holding a tissue up to her bloody nose.
“Well, what just happened then?” Kaitlyn asked.
“There’s just,” Nicole pulled the tissue away, dabbing at her nose, “something wrong with him. I don’t know.”
“Clearly there’s something wrong with him,” David said, still out of breath from carrying the struggling boy away. “He just about killed you!”
“Oh, he did not,” Nicole argued. “He’s just scared. I mean, who knows how long he was down in the basement by himself? Or out there? Who knows what he saw out there, with those things?”
Nicole and Alex explained clearly to the group why Kyle was not a mudman. That he was on their side.
“Well,” Kaitlyn started, “could we, you know ... leave him locked in there, at least?”
“What?” shouted Nicole.
“You know, instead of making him leave or something,” Kaitlyn said, backing away from Nicole.
“Why would we make him leave?” Nicole asked. “He’s fine!”
“He tried to attack Hannah! We all had to pull him off you!”
“I could have taken care of myself.”
“But Hannah might not have,” Kaitlyn said quietly.
They all fell silent.
“It’s not a terrible idea,” Alex finally said. “I mean, if Shadow—”
“Oh, will you stop going on about your stupid dog being locked up!” Nicole yelled.
Alex stared at her for just a moment before continuing. “If Shadow attacked someone, I would not get rid of her. I would keep her away from people. At least for a while.” He put a hand on Nicole’s shoulder, which she immediately shrugged away. “We’re not going to leave him alone,” he continued. “We’ll visit him, and bring him food and make sure he’s okay. Maybe he’s just like the cat. Maybe he just doesn’t like crowds or noises or something.”
Nicole looked at them, moving from face to face. “Fine,” she said. “But people will have to feed him, you know that, right? You can’t be scared to go near him.”
“Okay,” David interrupted. “That’s actually another problem.”
Nicole sighed. “What’s another problem?”
“Well, when you brought Kyle upstairs, and I said that there wasn’t much other food? That’s the problem.”
Nicole headed to their supply room. “There was plenty of food—”
“Was,” David said, catching up to her. “Was. When there were three of us. Then there were four, then six, and now seven. Plus a dog and a cat. We ate all the hotdogs and the buns. All that’s left is some bread, chips, and a bottle of pop. Flat pop.”
Nicole stormed to the storage room and rummaged through their supplies only to verify that David was correct; they were almost out of food. “Well,” she started, frustrated at adding another problem to her list, “what do you want to do about it, David? Go to the store? I don’t know where the closest store is, but even if I did, I don’t wanna risk walking to it with all of those things out there! Do you? Do you want to do that?”
David shook his head. “We have to get food somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Across the street,” Hannah said from the doorway. “There’s all kinds of food across the street.”
“She’s right,” Kaitlyn jumped in with a smile. “They had stuff for sandwiches, and vegetables, and cereal and all kinds of food, and that was just in the fridge. The cupboards probably have all kinds of other stuff!”
“Probably in other houses too,” Alex added, as he nodded to Kaitlyn. “Stuff other than food, too. Like, blankets and clothes. Maybe a first aid kit.”
Silently, Nicole took in all of this information, feeling ashamed. Why hadn’t she thought of
