Nicole shrugged. “I didn’t. I found Ryan, and he took me to you and your dog. Jared was ... gone by the time I got there. Shadow looked at me but didn’t move. You were out. We carried you out of the woods, and this is the first house we came to. I wanted to take Shadow out first, but she wanted otherwise. She got up as soon as we tried to move her and nudged you. She followed us all the way here.” She reached down and patted the dog’s back legs. “She’s a real good dog, you know.”
“I know,” Alex said with a smile, closing his eyes again. “A real life saver.” He could feel himself starting to relax, his eyes getting heavier, but he didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to know what was happening. What had happened since he went unconscious out in the woods. Again. “Where’s everybody else?” he managed to ask, though the words were mumbled through oncoming sleep.
Nicole answered—he heard her voice, but he was asleep before he could understand what she said.
Alex woke again when the heard the door open.
He tried to sit up, but when his wrist hurt, he stopped. He examined it; the hand was straight again. It felt different. He could feel and move his fingers, though it still hurt.
He leaned on the other arm, which was also sore, but not nearly as much, and peered over the side of the couch to the door. Nicole stood in the doorway with David, Kaitlyn, and Hannah. When the group came into the room and he turned around, he saw Ryan sleeping—or at least lying silently—on the floor, his arm draped over Shadow as she also slept.
After everyone greeted him, giving him hugs—he noticed quite happily that Kaitlyn gave him a particularly long hug—he looked to Nicole. “How did you fix my arm?”
She looked at him. “You don’t want to know. It was gross.”
Kaitlyn smiled at him and shrugged. “Happened to my uncle once. Nicole’s right, though—it was gross actually doing it.”
He looked back at his arm. It was swollen and achy, but that was it. He remembered when his cousin, Dennis, broke his arm and needed pins to hold it together. It was swollen too, but it also turned purple, and had a giant jagged looking scar over it where they had to cut it open. His was just swollen. “Shouldn’t I have a cast or something?”
“That’s only if it’s broken,” Kaitlyn said, shaking her head. “Your wrist was dislocated. I just had to ...” She grabbed onto her own wrist and slowly yanked on it.
“Ugh!” David exclaimed. “Did it make that noise? The popping noise?”
“Worse,” Nicole answered. “It was like that, but there were a few pops. Really sloppy ones. It was actually really gross.” She looked back at Alex, and nodded toward Kaitlyn. “You’re just lucky she likes you, ‘cause that was super gross, and she probably wouldn’t have bothered otherwise.”
They sat around the living room, discussing what had happened since they split up at the community centre. David explained how they had waited at Hannah’s house—with the doors locked and barricaded—until Nicole came back to get them. Nicole explained how she followed Ryan until he ran off with Shadow and she had to call and call for him until he found her. Alex explained everything that happened with Jared.
Then there was silence.
When the sun came up fully, they were all asleep, sharing the couch, the chair, and the floor.
They spent the rest of that day at the new house. With a little help, Alex was able to walk around. He had twisted his ankle in soccer on more than one occasion and he was always told to ‘walk it off,’ and he found that it usually worked. His wrist was sore, but other than that his hand and arm worked fine. He needed to rest—his whole body ached—but so did they all. They wouldn’t have to stay long before they could get back to their plan.
Nicole was in the kitchen with David making a quick lunch—they were all starving since none of them ate much supper the night before, and no one thought to eat breakfast or lunch. With no immediate dangers around them, they felt safe enough to dig into their food supplies.
Kaitlyn sat on the floor, flipping through a newspaper as Hannah did the kids’ crossword puzzle. Both seemed much calmer than they had been the day before. Alex was sure Hannah still had no idea about her father—Kaitlyn wouldn’t have told her what he had seen in the pit. They could do that together later, when they all had a better chance to recuperate.
With Ryan on the other side, Alex sat on the couch next to Shadow, rubbing her head. She slept through most of the day, moving only when Alex or Ryan called her. Alex wasn’t sure how Ryan was calling her. He knew the boy could talk—he had saved Alex’s life by doing so—but he wasn’t verbally calling Shadow. He just looked at her, and she went to him. It was strange.
Eventually, the room darkened again, though the sun had not yet set. They drew the curtains for some sense of protection, and the flashlight provided the only light. Alex felt bored and needed a distraction.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to look. Something outside. He walked as quickly as he could—which was still rather slow due to his limp—to the window. He peeked through the crack in the curtain and saw a group of mudmen. Just three. At first, fear clutched at him, but he realized they weren’t after him. They weren’t even headed for the house. They were simply walking, like they were ordinary people going for a stroll. Or when flocks of birds end up walking in the same direction for no apparent reason. They were just ... there.
And one of them looked familiar.
Its face—or the
