The Creeps: A Samuel Johnson Tale Read Online Free PDF

history of Wreckit & Sons was odd, its oddness didn’t stand out quite so much when monsters and demons began invading Biddlecombe, even if they didn’t leave a lot of proof behind once they went away again, monsters in ponds and spectral voices from golf courses excepted. Psychiatrists spoke of mass hysteria, and comedians made jokes about the townsfolk. Experts arrived and took readings. They dug in the ground, and tested the air, and poked at people who didn’t want to be poked, thank you very much, and warned that, if the experts continued to poke them, they’d find their poking sticks stuck somewhere the sun didn’t shine. 13 With so much strangeness going on, suddenly Mr Wreckit’s old store began to seem not so strange after all. But it was. It was very, very strange, and strange things have a habit of attracting more strangeness to them.
    • • •
    In the basement of Wreckit & Sons, something moved. It was pale and naked, but it eventually managed to find a suit that fitted it, and a shirt that wasn’t too yellowed, and a smart gray tie. As thousands of eyes followed it round the room, it wiped the dust from an old mirror and smoothed its hair.
    “What is my name?” it asked.
    The Voice in the Wall told him.
    You shall be called Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.
    “How do you spell that?”
    The Voice in the Wall spelled the name.
    “But you say it’s pronounced Sinjin-Chumley?”
    Yes.
    “Are you sure that’s right?”
    Yes.
    The Voice in the Wall sounded a bit miffed. It was so difficult to find good help these days.
    The newly animated Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley looked doubtful.
    “If you say so.”
    I do.
    The Voice in the Wall directed Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley to a safe, and told him the combination. Inside the safe was a great deal of gold, along with details of secret bank accounts. The bank accounts were all in the name of St. John-Cholmondeley, even though they had been set up more than a century earlier.
    “What do you want me to do?” asked Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.
    The Voice in the Wall told him, and Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley set to work.
    Wreckit & Sons was about to reopen for business. 14
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    12 . Well, long in human terms, which is all that concerns most people. That’s a little narrow-minded, though, and if you only think in those terms then perhaps you should take a long, critical look at yourself in the mirror. Frankly, you’re not the center of the Multiverse, no matter what your mum and dad might say, or your nan, or your auntie Betty who never got married—mainly because, according to your dad, nobody could get her to shut up long enough to ask her—but comes around to “babysit” occasionally and just seems to drink a lot of your parents’ sherry before falling asleep.
    Sorry, where were we? Oh yes, long lives. Anyway, what seems like a long time to you is the blink of an eye to lots of other species. The Llangernyw Yew is the oldest tree in Europe, and is reckoned to be 4,000 to 5,000 years old, while certain specimens of black coral have been found to be over 4,200 years old. Meanwhile, the giant barrel sponge Xestospongia muta, which lives in the Caribbean, is one of the longest-lived animals on Earth, with some such sponges now over 2,300 years old. Mind you, they don’t do a lot of shopping, your black sponges, and so couldn’t really have done much to help Wreckit & Sons stay open. Then again, Wreckit & Sons did sell sponges, so the black sponges, had they known, would probably have been quite pleased to see it close. Things that live for thousands of years tend to have long memories, and know how to hold a grudge.
    13 . “In a cave?”
    No.
    “In a very deep ocean?”
    No.
    “Hmm. Up someone’s bottom?”
    Possibly.
    14 . Are you on the edge of your seats now? If we had a sound track to this book (of which more later) that kind of ending to a chapter would come with a three-note theme along the lines of “Dun-dun- dah !”
    About that edge-of-the-seat