Crawlers Read Online Free PDF Page A

his teacher’s prone body for a moment, blinking, unable to process what he was seeing. Then suddenly he noticed space all around him: the pressure of the crowd was gone. This, he realized, was for the simple reason that what had happened to Mr Clissold was happening to others too.
    Everywhere people were screaming, going rigid and falling to the floor.
    â€˜
Aaaaaaah!
’ Jasmine was shrieking like a banshee. She couldn’t help it. Some kind of horrible spider had dropped from the ceiling and was clinging to her stomach. She tried to brush it away: there was a repulsive sticky sensation on the side of her hand where she made contact with it, but the creature just clung on stubbornly. It reared up. Jasmine slapped at it again, and this time she dislodged it. But as the creature hit the floor it righted itself, dodged left, climbed her leg, and now it was crawling up her back.
    Jasmine froze to the spot, frantic with horror and disgust. As it climbed, she could feel the tips of its feet through the material of her school bl—
    The blazer
. Jasmine grabbed her lapels and yanked the jacket off. Ripping her arms out of the sleeves, with trembling fingers she threw it down on the floor.
    Still the creature was undeterred. Jasmine watched as first one then the rest of its scrabbling limbs found their way out from underneath the cloth. It was coming for her again. In another second it was going to jump up her legs again, but this time—
    RUTCH!
    The pointed tip of an umbrella speared it where it stood. Its legs quivered for a moment, then went still.
    â€˜Yuck,’ said Ms Gresham. She pulled the umbrella out of the creature’s body and wiped the prong on the side of her shoe with a grimace.
    â€˜What . . .?’ gasped Jasmine. ‘What
is
that thing, miss?’
    â€˜Right now I suggest we don’t hang around to find out,’ said Ms Gresham. ‘We’ll try for the lifts. Everyone follow me!’
    As Jasmine scrambled after Ms Gresham she saw a blur of horrors: shrieking faces; bulging eyes; kicking legs. Everywhere she looked there were the wriggling movements of more of the creatures – on torsos, in hair, scampering over mouths and ears and nostrils. Jasmine glimpsed all this but there was notime to take it in; that would come later, when her mind would play everything back to her in full and excruciating detail. For now she was like an animal, her whole being stripped down to the most primal response there is. For now, Jasmine just ran for her life.
    â€˜This way!’ Ms Gresham shouted, holding the door as Jasmine piled into the metal cubicle, behind Samantha and Lauren. ‘And you!’ she added. ‘You boys! Come on – in here!’
    The voice snapped Ben out of his paralysis. He saw the lift with the lady outside it – the one sheltered spot in the room – and he ran for it.
    At the threshold he hesitated. The lift was small, perhaps only a couple of metres square, and already packed with people. But hands shoved him on and more bodies squashed in behind him.
    â€˜Let’s go, miss!’ said a girl’s voice. ‘Come on! Let’s get out of here!’
    The lady teacher shepherded in one more student (a girl with her hair over her eyes, Ben noticed) before finally forcing her way in herself. The hot crush of bodies in the lift became tighter still.
    â€˜All right,’ she said. ‘Whoever can reach it, press the button for Level Two. There’s another exit with a walkway to street level there, I think.’
    â€˜
Doors closing
,’ said a recorded female voice. With agonizing slowness the lift’s metal panels slid shut.
    The screams from outside were muffled.
    Silence.
    Ben looked around numbly. They had lost Mr Clissold, but he realized that the rest of the tutor group, amazingly, was still intact: it had been Josh and Hugo who had shoved him into the lift, and white-faced Robert’s finger was still on its