She came back from her own thoughts when she noticed everyone else had stopped talking. “Okay. So, there’s food in that house. We know that. We don’t know about the other places, so we shouldn’t risk it yet. It’s gonna be hard enough to get over to that house and get stuff back here.”
“Plus,” Alex added, “there might still be some mudmen in there. There was a bunch when we left, remember?”
Nicole nodded. “So.” She slowly looked at each of them. “We need a plan.”
ALEX
They kept their plan simple: make a list, go to the house across the street, find as many of the items on the list as they could, come back to the community centre as quickly as possible.
A four-person team would go to the house: Alex, Nicole, Kaitlyn, and Hannah. Hannah was the key person as she was familiar with the house. She would know where supplies could be located. Kaitlyn was going because Hannah demanded it. As logical as the little girl had proven to be since the mudmen first showed up, she would break down if separated from Kaitlyn for too long. The two girls would be gatherers. Alex would move through the house with them. He would help them search and carry, but his main job was protection. Nicole would stay downstairs as a look-out. She was quite vocal that she did not want to do this job, but that someone had to—she had experience and vowed not to get caught with mudmen between them and safety again.
David would stay at the community centre as a second look-out, and also to open and close the door. If anything looked like trouble, he’d yell, Nicole would gather the team and head back. If Ryan somehow snapped into action again, it would make things that much easier, but no one assumed that he would. Kyle stayed locked in his room. Shadow could roam around the building. No one knew where the cat was.
The parking lot was empty, other than the dead-dead mudmen and their accompanying feasting crows. Beyond the visual and olfactory horrors, the walk across the street was quite easy. They looked up and down the street, scoping out other houses that they might visit in later days to find more supplies.
Pumpkins and plastic ghosts lined the walkways. Even the house they were approaching had a pumpkin with a severed hand stuck to it. Alex couldn’t tell if the hand was a prop or something thrown from the SMASHER! He hoped for the former. A thought occurred to him.
“What day is it?” he asked.
“I dunno,” Kaitlyn whispered. “Why?”
“Is it Halloween yet?” he replied, looking from face to face. It suddenly became the most important thought he’d had in days.
“Well,” Nicole said, stopping to think, “what day is it? Like, what day of the week?”
“I think it’s Friday,” Kaitlyn said, but she seemed to be guessing.
“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
