Running Scared Read Online Free PDF

Sammy,” Ashley insisted, and to Jack, “Don’t say anything about this to Consuela. Can you imagine how she’d feel? That would be so insulting.”
    â€œDo you think I’d say anything? No way. Anyhow, she’s coming back right now.”
    â€œI’m so sorry,” Consuela apologized. “My watch was slow, and we missed the start of the tour. We’re about five minutes late. They’re going to let us in anyway, but we’ll have to wait for another one of the rangers to come down from the visitor center and unlock the door to Left Hand Tunnel. It’s kept locked at all times except to let the tour groups in and out.”
    â€œIt was those people who made us late,” Ashley complained. “The ones who kept talking and talking to you and wouldn’t even let you eat your chicken strips. What was all that about?”
    â€œOh, they just wanted to tell me the latest news about the Chupacabras .”
    â€œThe Chew—pa—” Ashley tried unsuccessfully to repeat it, mangling the word worse than Sam would have. “What’re they?”
    â€œAlso known as the Goatsuckers. They’re monsters that are supposed to be three feet tall with big ears and wide, folded wings like bats, with fangs and claws and spikes down their backs. And they suck blood. At least that’s what the rumors say. People from Puerto Rico to Tijuana to Texas and even as far as Oregon claim to have seen them.”
    Dr. Rhodes’s words came back to Jack. “Are you talking about vampire bats?” he asked, incredulous.
    Consuela shook her head. “My boss, Dr. Rhodes, would get upset if she heard me even repeat what those people said. But lots of people say they’ve seen Chupacabras. They call them vampire bats, but you know, actual vampire bats are quite small. Tiny, even. The people who believe in Chupacabras describe them as huge. Some think they might be genetic experiments that escaped from a laboratory. Or even creatures from outer space. Aliens.”
    â€œBut you don’t believe anything like that, do you?” Ashley pressed.
    â€œOf course not.” But for a few seconds, Consuela hesitated. “Still…my cousin in Juarez, Mexico, wrote to me that three of her goats were killed one night, with puncture wounds in their necks and all the blood sucked out of them. And those people talking to me at lunch—they were from Arecibo in Puerto Rico—they said at a village near Arecibo, 34 hogs were killed by a Chupacabra in just one night.”
    When Consuela saw the concern growing in Sam’s eyes, she quickly added, “But it’s all just fairy tales. People will believe in all kinds of imaginary things, like Bigfoot or the aliens that were supposed to have landed at Roswell, New Mexico. Did you know that Roswell is not all that far from here?”
    Jack had begun to worry about Sam. First the boy had thought he’d seen Consuela taking drugs. Now he was hearing stories about the Chupacabras, the Goatsuckers who supposedly sucked the blood out of farm animals.
    No wonder Sammy was clinging so tightly to Jack’s arm that it hurt. Even Ashley looked a little nervous.
    â€œI’m going to call upstairs again to make sure the ranger’s coming to unlock the door for us,” Consuela was saying. “You kids wait here. I’ll be right back.”
    â€œWow!” Ashley breathed. “You know, Jack, those people who were talking to Consuela about the Chupacabras didn’t look like weirdos or anything. They looked like perfectly normal people. What if they were telling the truth? Vampire bats—oooh—yuck!”
    â€œDon’t be silly,” Jack told her, moving a little behind Sammy and pointing down at him with his free hand, trying to give Ashley the message that she shouldn’t scare Sam over a fairy tale. “People make up all kinds of stories all the time. They see movies or