The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale Read Free Book Online Page A

That was the address. Mark had been there a thousand times. Ever since kindergarten they’d trade off playing at each other’s house. Bobby’s house was like his second home. Mrs. Pendragon called Mark her second son. That’s why nothing could prepare him for what he was about to see. Courtney and Mark walked up the sidewalk that led to the splitrail fence that surrounded Bobby’s front yard, and stopped cold. They both looked at 2 Linden Place, stunned.
    â€œOh my god,” was all Courtney could whisper.
    Mark couldn’t even get that much out.
    Two Linden Place was gone. The two of them stood together, wide-eyed, looking at a vacant lot. There were no signs that a house had ever been there. Not a single piece of wood, brick, stone, or blade of grass existed in the space. The ground was nothing but dirt. Mark looked to the huge maple tree where years before Mr. Pendragon had hung a tire swing for the boys. The tree was there, but there was no swing. Even the branch that had been rope-scarred by years of swinging was clean. No marks. Nothing.
    Courtney broke first. “It’s the wrong address.”
    Mark said softly, “It’s not the wrong address.”
    Courtney wouldn’t accept it. She stormed onto the empty lot. “But I was here last night! There was a sidewalk to the house right here! And the front door was here! And Bobby and I were standing . . .” Her voice trailed off. She looked to Mark with dread. “Mark, what happened?”
    Now was as good a time as any. Even though he had no idea what had happened, seeing the empty lot confirmed his worst fears. Everything he had read on the pages from Bobby was true. He had more questions than he had answers, but he did have some answers, as strange as they were. He wanted to share them with Courtney. Knowing all this by himself was too tough. So he reached for his backpack and took out the yellow parchmentpapers.
    â€œI want you to read something,” he said. “It’s from Bobby.” He held out the pages to Courtney, who looked at them, then back to Mark. Reluctantly, she took the pages from him and sat down. Right there. Right in the middle of the empty lot at Two Linden Place, not far from the spot where she and Bobby shared their first kiss.
    She looked down at the pages and started to read.

JOURNAL #1
(CONTINUED)
DENDURON
    I thought my life was over. All that was left was to wait for the pain. Would it come fast and hit me hard? Or would it start at my feet and gradually work its way up my legs, over my body, and zero in right on my head in a brilliant, searing flash of agony before everything went dark?
    I was voting for fast. But it didn’t come fast. In fact it didn’t come at all. There was no pain. I didn’t die. Instead I found myself falling through this snaking tunnel. It was like sailing down one of those water-park rides. But the water-park rides are actually more violent than this. Now that it’s over, I can look back on it and actually say it was kind of fun. But that’s now. At the time, I was freaking out.
    Once I realized I wasn’t being sucked into some giant garbage disposal, I opened my eyes and looked around. It felt like I was moving fast.
    Like I wrote before, the walls of the tunnel were craggy, like rocks. But they were translucent, too, as if they were crystal. The strange thing was, it wasn’t a bumpy ride. I was flying along, feet first like on a playground slide, but it felt like I was floating. I couldn’t feel the walls of the tunnel. There weremany twists and turns, but I didn’t get slammed against the walls or anything, like you do when you hit the turns on a water slide. It felt like I was floating on a magic carpet that knew exactly where it was taking me.
    There were sounds, too. They were soft notes, like from a tuning fork. All different notes. Pretty notes. They were the same kind of notes I heard when the tunnel came to life,