Sherman didn’t like his tone.

“I can’t go back to town.”

“You’ll survive. Isn’t that the important thing right now?”

“The important thing is that I find my family.”

“They’ll turn up at one of the camps eventually.”

“No, they won’t. We don’t live in town. Our house wasn’t washed away by the dam breaking.”

Glen raised an eyebrow at this revelation.

Sherman had said too much already. He just needed to get away from here.

“If you don’t live in town and your home is okay, then why are you all the way out here?”

Shit.

Sherman didn’t want to tell them about his family getting caught by a gang and marched off to who knows where. Given what he had already seen in the house, he couldn’t trust Glen, assuming it was Glen’s desk the papers were on. He couldn’t come out and ask who had drawn the images.

“Maybe he was looking for refugees and got turned around,” Renee asked.

Sherman didn’t like her off-the-wall explanations. It was like she was trying to trap him. Each step seemed logical and innocent enough, but the end result might be completely wrong.

“No,” Sherman said. “I wasn’t looking for refugees. Smitty and I were tired of being indoors since the rain started, so we went exploring.”

That made some kind of sense. Not a lot, and not normal, because no one in their right mind would go slogging through the mud because they got tired of being dry and comfortable. But it was a kind of sense that Sherman thought might appeal to Renee. If Renee went with it, Glen might as well.

“We followed the creek and didn’t realize how dark it was getting. The clouds hide where the sun is.”

True enough. It was difficult to tell exactly what time of day it was just from the sun. He didn’t have a watch on him. With the pad, he didn’t need one most of the time. Without power, though, a watch would have been helpful.

Renee nodded as if understanding the stupidity of what he was saying but playing along to see where it might go.

“So when it got dark, you decided to come in here because that was a lot easier than finding your way back home?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sherman said, encouraging her. “We saw the porch light through the trees and decided to camp out here for the night instead of heading back through the dark.”

Now to figure out how to close the deal on the story.

“We ran into a wild hog on the way, and we didn’t want to risk running into it again in the dark.”

A little truth went a long way in making a lie seem real. A few high points that could be dots between which she and Glen could draw their own lines.

“Those hogs are mean,” Glen said. “I’ve seen dogs get torn up by them. I’m surprised you and your dog survived.”

“Barely,” Sherman said. “I helped out a bit, but Smitty did most of it. The hog had a hard time getting hold of him with the rain slicking him down.”

“Smitty.” Glen turned the name over as he said it. “Nice enough. Does he answer to it?”

Smitty’s ears had picked up his name. It wasn’t a voice he was used to. He was looking around to see how Sherman reacted. Glen watched as well.

“No matter,” Glen said. “Let’s go inside and get you packed up. The sooner you’re gone, the sooner we can get back to normal. Renee has a full day ahead of her tomorrow, don’t you?”

Glen squeezed her shoulder as he passed her into the house.

Sherman followed him. They were both damp now from the rain. He felt as if his hair had a wet shell on top of it. It reminded him weirdly of the way ice could form on top of snow, though his hair didn’t have a hard crust on it.

Renee closed the door, making sure Smitty didn’t get into the house.

Glen brought a towel from the back of the house and let Sherman dry off.

“Might as well, since you have rain gear,” Glen said. “Nothing’s more uncomfortable than being wet under a bunch of plastic that doesn’t breathe.”

Sherman could think of a lot of things that were more uncomfortable. Having the monster staring at him in the dark. Being in a house with something bumping the floor. Rolling around in the mud. That was just from the last day or two. Then there were funerals and dentists, vaccinations, and needles. If he thought about it, he was sure he could always come up with something that would be worse than whatever situation was presenting itself.

He gave the towel back to Glen and thanked him. It wouldn’t hurt to be polite. That gave him more time to come up with an escape plan.

Sherman took the pad from the table and was going to stuff it in the back of his pants when he thought to ask if they had a charger. Even a little time charging would be better than none. He hadn’t found a charger earlier, so he was curious where they might have it.

Glen went down into the basement. It didn’t take him long to come back with one, so it was either easily found or Glen knew exactly where to get it. Sherman suspected the latter since he hadn’t seen it down there.

Sherman plugged the pad in and set it back on the table.