Mister Creecher Read Online Free PDF

recoiling.
    Creecher stood up and tossed a pie at Billy’s feet before walking to the other side of the attic and dropping to his haunches.
    ‘Eat,’ he said.
    ‘Give us a chance,’ Billy replied, yawning.
    He picked up the pie and took a bite out of the pastry crust, crumbs tumbling to the floor. He nodded his approval to the giant, who smiled back out of the gloom, his white teeth glowing horribly.
    ‘Well, you seem to be in a good mood at any rate,’ said Billy.
    The giant’s white smile was instantaneously eclipsed.
    ‘You are feeling stronger today,’ he said.
    It was less a question than a statement of fact, and Billy nodded in agreement.
    ‘Bon. Then tomorrow you are ready to work?’
    ‘I suppose,’ said Billy.
    ‘You will follow the men I showed you and tell me everything – everything , you understand.’
    Billy nodded.
    ‘I want to know where they go, what they do, who they speak to,’ said Creecher. ‘I want to know –’
    ‘Everything,’ interrupted Billy. ‘Yeah – you said.’
    The giant looked as though he was going to say more but thought better of it and sat back, head bowed. Billy swallowed the last mouthful of pie and stared at him, trying to work out what was going on in that head of his.
    ‘Won’t you even tell me a little about them?’ Billy asked. ‘It don’t have to be no great secret, but it might help for me to know something about them.’
    Creecher made no response.
    ‘All I’m saying,’ continued Billy, ‘is that the more I know, the more advantage I have over them and the easier it gets to guess their moves. If I knew why they was here I might –’
    ‘If you knew that, you would piss in your pants, English boy,’ hissed Creecher.
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Billy. ‘They don’t look very frightening to me.’ He cast a sideways look at Creecher. ‘Leastwise not compared to you.’
    Creecher lurched forward until his terrible face was only inches from Billy’s. His dry, parchment-like skin seemed unable to contain the workings of his body and appeared slightly too large, gathering here and there in wrinkles. Billy could see the blood coursing through his veins.
    ‘You do not know what you are dealing with,’ the giant growled. ‘You must believe me.’
    Must I? thought Billy. What had he done to deserve his very own demon? Was Creecher really going to protect him from Fletcher? It was beginning to feel like, rather than being relieved of one peril, he was now placed between two.
    ‘Why not kill them, then?’ he said quietly, almost to himself.
    ‘What was that?’ asked Creecher, though Billy was sure the giant had heard him.
    ‘If they’re so dangerous,’ said Billy more forcefully, ‘why not kill them? You’d be doing us all a favour, wouldn’t you? Why not kill them and be done with it? You obviously hate them.’
    ‘Hate . . . ?’ said Creecher, shaking his head. ‘No. If he had shown me but one drop of kindness, one tiny crumb of understanding – oh, then I would have loved him. No son would have been more loving.’
    Billy frowned at Creecher, who seemed lost for a moment in the rapture of these thoughts. Who was he talking about? Billy strained to make sense of what it all meant but he could not.
    ‘But no,’ said Creecher. ‘I was shunned. He treated me as though I were some sort of abomination, as if I am the one to blame. He recoiled from me in horror, yet it was he who made me as I am.’
    ‘What?’ said Billy. ‘What do you mean?’
    Creecher suddenly seemed to come to his senses.
    ‘Enough!’ he snapped. ‘I have told you enough.’ He slammed his fist into the floor, making Billy jump.
    Billy knew when to hold his tongue and stared sullenly at the new crack in the floorboard in front of him. A spider emerged from the hole, as if it had been waiting for a lull, and took the opportunity to scurry away.
    ‘Please,’ said the giant quietly. ‘I am sorry about losing my temper. There are things I cannot