Grim Tuesday Read Online Free PDF Page B

Perhaps if he could track down the Grotesques’ headquarters, he could find their doorway back to the House—
    Something moved at the corner of his eye. Arthur twisted his head around, immediately alert. There was something in the movement he didn’t like. Something that gave him a slight electric tinge across the back of his neck and up behind his ears.
    There it was again—something flitting across the garden of the house opposite. Moving from the letterbox to the tree, from the tree to the car in the driveway.
    Arthur put one foot on the pedal, ready to move off,and watched. Nothing happened for a minute. Everything was quiet, save for the constant drone of the distant helicopters patrolling the perimeter of the city.
    It moved again, and this time Arthur saw it dash from behind the car to a fire hydrant. Something about the size and shape of a rabbit, but one made of pale pink jellylike flesh that changed and rippled as it moved.
    Arthur got off his bike, laid it down, and got out the Atlas, readying himself for its explosive opening. He didn’t like the look of this thing, which he guessed was some sort of Nithling. But at least it was timid, hiding and scuttling.
    Arthur could still see a single paw poking out from behind the hydrant. A paw that slowly melted and reformed through several shapes. Paw, claw, even a rudimentary hand. He concentrated his thoughts on that sight, gripping the green cloth binding of the Atlas tight.
    What is the thing that hides behind the hydrant?
    The Atlas burst open. Even though he was ready, Arthur took a step back and nearly fell over his bike.
    This time, the invisible writer wrote quickly and in instant English, ink splattering all over the page.
    SCOUCHER! RUN!
    Arthur looked up. The Scoucher was leaping towardshim, no longer small and innocuous, but an eight-foot-tall, paper-thin human figure whose arms did not end in hands but split into hundreds of ribbon-thin tentacles that whipped out towards the boy. They sliced the air in front of Arthur’s face, though he was at least fifteen feet away.
    There was no time to get on his bike. Arthur twisted away from the tentacles and threw himself into a sprint, the Atlas still open under his arm. It closed itself and shrank as he ran, but he didn’t try to put it in his pocket. He couldn’t pause even for a second or those tentacles would latch on. They might sting, or paralyze, or hold him tight so the Scoucher could do whatever it did—
    These thoughts drove him to the end of the street. He hesitated for an instant, uncertain of which way to turn, till the Atlas twitched to his right and he instinctively followed its lead. It twitched again at the next corner and then again a minute later, directing him down a partly hidden laneway—all at high speed. A speed Arthur soon realized he couldn’t keep up. Whatever had happened to his lungs in the House had improved them, but he wasn’t cured. He was wheezing heavily and the tightness on his right side was spreading to the left. He’d run farther and faster than he’d ever done before, but he couldn’t sustain his speed.
    Arthur slowed a little as he exited the lane and looked over his shoulder. The Scoucher was nowhere to be seen. He slowed down a bit more, then stopped, panting and wheezing heavily. He looked around. He’d thought he was headed towards home, but in his panic he’d gone in a different direction. Now he wasn’t sure where he was, and he couldn’t think of any possible refuge.
    Something flickered at the corner of his eye. Arthur spun around. The Scoucher was back in its small fluid shape, sneaking again. It was about thirty yards back, zipping from cover to cover, slinking forward whenever he couldn’t see it.
    Arthur wasn’t even sure it was a Nithling. Perhaps it was something else, something made by Grim Tuesday that the Grotesques had set upon him. He needed to know more, but he didn’t dare to stop and look at the Atlas while the thing was creeping up