Dark Mondays Read Online Free PDF Page B

lied.
    “Poetry. Stories. Artwork. It’s, like, this necessary corrective for fucking hippie fantasy shit. We want stark images. Bitter truths, okay? We’re reminding the complacent bourgeois assholes out there that
this
is real life, okay?”
    “Okay,” she said.
    He talked a lot more. He told her all about his life, what a rebel he was, how he’d run his high school paper and how angry he’d made the principal when he’d done an article exposing something—Shadow couldn’t quite tell what—but that was just the way he was, he was driven to challenge authority anywhere.
    Eventually he came around to talking about
Negative Pulse
again, and how great it was going to be when they got an issue out.
    “And, see, here’s the thing, Sandra: I think your picture would look great on the cover.” He leaned back, stubbed out his cigarette and raised his eyebrows at her.
    “How much?” she said.
    “What?”
    “How much do you pay?”
    “Well, eventually, I mean, we’re just getting started. It’s a communal effort on the part of all the artists involved, see? We’re all investing in
Negative Pulse
because we believe in it, we believe it’s like this spirit of the times, right? So we’re all making sacrifices to get it up and running.”
    “Shit, look at the time,” said Shadow. “Josh, you know, that sounds great and everything but I really have to go catch a bus now, okay? Got a business card? I’ll call you sometime.”
* * *
    Two nights later, as she walked up the hill from the bus stop, she thought saw the little boy again. He was standing back by the garages, staring at her. No; this must be his older brother. He had the same red hair, but appeared to be about ten. She looked in disbelief at her watch. It was 5 in the morning, and freezing cold. She almost spoke to him, but something in his stare creeped her out.
    Shadow kept walking, wondering why he hadn’t figured out about cutting screens and breaking in through back windows; it had always worked for her, when she’d been locked out.
    She went up to Woodland Court to avoid cutting past the garages, meaning to come down the front steps. Near the top, a dark figure stepped out of the bamboo.
    “We meet again, little one.”
    “Shit.” Shadow stopped. It was Julie, the queen of the coven from Mohawk Manor, in her white makeup and vampire cape. She must have gained thirty pounds since Shadow had seen her last. A figure moved out from behind a parked car, off to her left: Darlene, the other vampire girl. Shadow heard footsteps running up the hill behind her and turned to see Todd, the boy with the spiked collar, holding his cape out to either side as he ran.
    “Yes; we have our ways of tracking you down. We really feel you ought to reconsider
ooof
ohjesuschrist!” said Julie, as Shadow hit her in the stomach with a well-placed Doc Marten. Julie collapsed, clutching her fat gut. Shadow whirled around and bashed Todd right between the eyes with her thermos, but didn’t wait to see the result; she dove under his cape and ran down the hill, then skidded around the corner and raced uphill on Camrose. She had to stop for a minute at Hightower to catch her breath, but they didn’t seem to be following her.
    It was an old neighborhood, never planned; it had evolved as houses had been built up into the hillside. No streets connected with the upper homes. They were reached only by the elevator in the tower that had given the street its name, or by a series of high, narrow flights of stairs and walkways that zigzagged back and forth across the hill. Shadow had explored it all, when she’d first moved into the neighborhood.
    She went to the tower and took its elevator up. At the top she got out and doubled back down toward Woodland Court, walking along in a sort of tunnel formed by bougainvillea branches that overhung the public walk, with white trumpet-vine, plumeria, honeysuckle and jasmine. The night air was like paradise.
    She could see over back fences