Scratch Read Online Free PDF

on, instead.  
    “Damn WSBA is off the air. I’m betting lightning hit their tower. And that station out of Hanover only plays rap music. I don’t need to hear that crap. Especially now. My nerves are already shot.”  
    Jeff struggled with the gearshift and the transmission made a grinding noise. We lurched forward. Wet gravel crunched beneath the tires. Jeff turned on the wipers to clear away the mist.  
    “Where’s the rifle?” he asked.  
    “I don’t have any bullets for it, but I brought this.” I pulled out the .357 and showed it to him.  
    “It’ll have to do, I guess. I’ve got the 30.06 in the back.”  
    I turned around and sure enough, the rifle rack, which was mounted behind the seat, held a gun. He’d wrapped the stock with camouflage tape. A box of shells sat on the seat between us.  
    “I want to know what’s going on,” I said, as we reached the top of the driveway. “What the hell was that thing?”  
    “I thought you said you knew what it looked like?”  
    “Yeah, I did. It looked like a big fucking tentacle.”  
    He made a left out of our driveway. No other vehicles passed us. The road was a mess—full of fallen branches and limbs. Muddy water streamed along the sides. I noticed with dismay that my mailbox had fallen over. The embankment around the post had eroded from all the rain.  
    “It wasn’t a tentacle, Evan. It was a tail.”  
    “A tail? The tail to what?”  
    He paused. “You ever hear of Old Scratch?”  
    “Sure. That was a nickname for the Devil, back in medieval times. You mentioned it earlier, too.”  
    “It’s also the name for a Central Pennsylvanian legend. Old Scratch is a giant water snake. He’s supposed to live in the Susquehanna River, between Wrightsville and Walnut Island. You don’t hear much about him these days. He was sort of like our Loch Ness Monster. People used to see him all the time, up until the Thirties, when they built the Holtwood and Safe Harbor dams. After that, sightings were less frequent—but he still popped up from time to time.”  
    “A giant water snake ...”  
    Frowning, Jeff slowed down as we neared the bridge. The waters churned and crashed beneath it. More debris floated by.  
    “Looks sturdy,” he muttered, and then rolled across the bridge. “Yeah, a giant snake. I’m surprised you never heard about it, what with you drawing funny books and all.”  
    “They’re not ...”  
    “I’ll tell you something else,” he interrupted. “Old Scratch isn’t the only giant snake in the State. From the early 1900’s up until last year, there’s been sightings of a forty-foot long snake on Big Top Mountain up north. And Lake Raystown supposedly has one swimming around in it, too. They call him Raystown Ray. I know, it’s kind of a stupid name. I think the chamber of commerce came up with it so they could sell t-shirts. But people have seen it. You and Marlena ever take Dylan to Gettysburg?”  
    I stared at him, unblinking.  
    “You know Devil’s Den?” He continued, oblivious to my silence. “That big jumble of rocks and boulders where the soldiers hid? It had that name before the Civil War. Supposedly, there was a giant snake named Devil that lived inside one of the crevices. Devil’s Den—get it? All the farmers said he was real. He used to eat people’s livestock. The Indians have legends about giant snakes, too. They knew all about this stuff. They carved petroglyphs of Old Scratch on rocks along the Susquehanna.”  
    I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell him that there was no such thing as giant snakes in Pennsylvania—unless somebody’s pet boa constrictor escaped or something like that. But even then, a boa constrictor couldn’t reach the size of the thing we’d seen. I didn’t tell him any of this. I didn’t speak at all, because I knew better. I had to believe because I’d seen it with my own eyes. So had Sanchez. What Jeff was saying—bizarre as it sounded—was true. I