Read Online On the Day I Died by Candace Fleming - Free Book Online Page A

crouched, became statue still. It cocked its hideous head to the right, listening, then flicked its forked tail. A black tongue, slimy and dripping, slicked its grinning lips. Then it focused its gaze on the ice cream man, who unknowingly pedaled straight toward its hiding place.
    “Oh my God,” I whimpered. Then I was running down the sidewalk, my bare feet pounding on the pavement.
    “Mr. Humor!” I yelled. “Stop! Stop!”
    But it was too late.
    A fleshy tentacle whipped from behind the bush and lifted Mr. Humor off his bicycle seat. A second tentacle wrapped around his waist, and I caught a flash of the creature’s hideous underside. It was a gray color like rotten meat, and it was dotted with hundreds of fluttering, hungry suckers.
    Mr. Humor’s eyes bulged. “Get him off me!” he shrieked. “Please, get him off me!”
    I lunged and grabbed Mr. Humor by his ankles. I pulled as hard as I could, falling onto the street, using my legs for leverage—straining, panting.
    Mr. Humor struggled, grabbing the bike’s handle. He held it tightly, his knuckles turning white as the monster tightened its grip.
    I tugged with all my might, feeling as if my arms might tear off.
    The monster’s forked tail whipped around and slithered over my skin. I shuddered as the cold and pulsating thing slipped around Mr. Humor’s neck.
    “Help me!” sobbed the ice cream man as the creature ripped him from my grasp.
    It raised Mr. Humor to its weirdly smiling mouth.
    Mr. Humor kicked frantically, knocking off one of his canvas shoes. It arced through the air, landing in the middle of the street, clean and white. Then the ice cream man screamed, and the shoe was suddenly splattered with blood. There came a wet, crunching sound, and his fingers slowly released their grip on the bike handle. The bike fell and the cooler unit smashed open, sending Popsicles and ice cream sandwiches skittering across the pavement.
    The bell let out one final
cha-ching
.
    The creature burped.
    Mr. Humor was gone.
    And then there was no sound at all, except for the rasping of my breath and the soft, slithery sound of the monster as it squirmed across the melting treats and through Mrs. Ivey’s yard.
    I was sure I was dessert. But the creature didn’t turnback. It never even looked at me. It just slid on past as I lay curled into a numb, terrified ball in the middle of the street.
    Then I heard another sound—a soft, sobbing sound.
    Toni stood on the sidewalk, her round face deadly pale except for her huge dark eyes. They were shiny with tears.
    “This is all my fault!” she cried pitifully.
    I dragged myself up off the pavement and over to her. “We can’t think about that now,” I said. I was in shock, but the look in Toni’s eyes, her little face so full of pain, galvanized me. “We have to get help.”
    We stumbled back to the house and into the kitchen. I snatched up the phone.
    Silence.
    “It’s dead!” I cried.
    Toni looked bewildered. “That makes no sense. Do Insta-Pets know about phone wires?”
    The sunroom door began to rattle on its hinges. One of the monsters pressed its grotesque face to the glass. Which one was it? And—dear God—where was the other one?
    I grabbed Toni’s arm. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here and get help!”
    We raced across an expanse of gold carpeting toward the front door.
    But at that very moment the picture window in the living room was darkened by the mass of the secondmonster. It was peering in, drooling, with something furry and white between its teeth.
    “That’s Mr. Kopecky’s cat,” said Toni. “Aw, poor Bubbles!”
    And then from the sunroom came an explosion of breaking glass and splintering rattan furniture. A moment later the first monster lurched into the kitchen.
    The second monster pressed hard against the living room window. Tiny cracks began to radiate from the corners of the glass.
    In the split second before we bolted down the hall, I noticed something that made my blood