The Snow by Caroline B. Cooney Read Free Book Online

weighed down by a heavy briefcase.
    It came so close Christina could even smell it. It smelled like low tide — like the ocean in summer.
    Christina swerved into the gym.
    It was black as velvet in there. She turned off her flashlight and scooted under the bleachers. She ran down into the middle of them and crouched, motionless.
    Her lungs refused to stay motionless. They heaved, sucking in air as if they belonged to somebody else entirely. Sssssshhhh, she said to her lungs and Hhhhhhhhh, her lungs said back, screaming for oxygen.
    The gym doors clanked open.
    For a horrible moment the gleaming creature was framed in the faint pinkish light from the center hall.
    Then the gym door closed.
    It was in the gym with Christina.
    Getting closer, coming toward her as if he could see in the dark. As if the whites of her eyes or the heaving of her lungs was a sign to him. The giggle was part groan, part insanity.
    The scent of the sea was so strong it was like the tide coming in. Did he live underwater? Was he human? Did the Shevvingtons’ evil extend to some other world Christina could not even imagine?
    The thing approached the bleachers — not from the side, where he could slip in where she hid and grab her — but from the front, where he could push the bleachers together. Shove them against the wall.
    Crush Christina.
    She was hollowed out with fear. So this was how Anya felt — kneeling, helpless, caught — a victim. Without an exit, without hope.
    The creature in the wet suit pushed the first row of bleachers under the second row. She was staring at his knees, and then his knees vanished because he shoved both those rows under the third row. He was making a wood-and-metal wall. He would shove on until there was no room for Christina. Until there was no Christina.
    The bleachers protested. They clanked. Their joints fought back a little bit.
    Christina, of the island, strong as granite, choked back sobs. She would not beg. She would not plead. She would not give in!
    She had her proof in her hand, but there would be a different kind of proof in the morning.
    The body of Christina Romney.
    I want my mother! Christina thought. She clung to the mittens her mother had knit her. They gave her strength. There was love knit into that wool. Duck walking, Christina crept toward the side.
    Now the thing pushed the three stacked bleachers under the fourth. He had to use his shoulder to force them, but all it cost him was a little grunt. Usually it took the whole basketball team to shut the bleachers.
    He’s so strong, she thought.
    Christina emerged at her edge.
    If he catches me … Christina thought.
    She waited until he was throwing his shoulder against the stacked seats. Then she ran.
    She fled the gym, flinging the door open. She skidded on the waxed linoleum and raced down the hall to the girls’ room. Please let me get in here and close the door before he sees where I’m going! she prayed.
    In the bathroom she was reflected in the mirrors: fear was painted on her face like a melted, deformed Barbie doll.
    She climbed up onto the window sill but couldn’t get a grip with her mittens on. She slipped back onto the floor.
    Behind her the bathroom door opened and the giggle pierced the room like knives.
    Christina dived face first out the window, missing the trash can by inches, and falling instead onto a mattress of new-fallen snow.
    The weather had changed as it did in Maine, instantly and without warning. She leaped to her feet and ran on. In the parking lot horrible buzzing lights illuminated her like a moth to be stabbed on a pin.
    She ran across the playing fields toward the village.
    Snow blew in her face and obscured her vision.
    For three steps she ran on top of the snow. Then her foot broke through the crust. She floundered up to her knees. The wind whistled around her head and through the three colors of her hair as if she were a barn roof.
    She could not hear the giggle, but that was because the snow had become a