Read Online Wuftoom by Mary G. Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

strange sound, weak and whiny. He could not look up, but he didn’t have to look to see what had fallen with it.
    â€œRunning children into their trap, proem,” Foul hissed. “Shall I
trust
you? Shall I presume it
forced
you?”
    â€œIt was only one,” Evan whispered. His voice was barely audible and garbled by the membrane. “You should be happy. It’s just more for you to eat.” Evan heard its wings beating the air.
    â€œNever mind what they have offered. Or what they have
threatened.
You will meet us here in this room, at this time, three weeks from now. You will deliver on our bargain. Or it will not be just you who we tear into, piece by piece, then bone by bone.” Its wings flapped harder. “We don’t like to eat humans, but we can.” The sound of its wings flapping rose up and up, and with a sucking noise, the thing was swallowed into its hole.
    Without knocking, his mother burst into the room. Her tears were worse than just a few minutes before. And then she really saw him.
    â€œEvan!” she cried, and raced over to his bedside. She tore the blanket away from his body and sobbed over him. His legs were now fused together, too, the thick yellow membranes like plastic tubing, not flexible at all like the webbing of his hands. His toes were curled under, and the membranes glued them to the bottom of his feet. “It can’t be true. Don’t go yet!”
    â€œDon’t . . . watch . . . this . . .” he growled, but it came out like a painful squeak. His mother just went on sobbing. Tears fell from Evan’s eyes and filled up the membranes covering his face, so it looked like he was in a fish tank.
    â€œI love you,” he squeaked. “Please don’t watch.”
    His mother stared at him. “I love you!” she sobbed, and she threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight. Some of the tears escaped the membranes at the top of Evan’s cheeks and dripped down onto her head. She kissed him on the head and, with one last squeeze, ran shaking from the room. She slammed the door behind her, and Evan heard her drop down on the other side, shaking the door frame with her sobs.

Twelve
    E VAN TRIED AGAIN to move his head, but it was still stuck to his chest. A few tears were trapped between the membrane and his skin, or what was once skin, and they tickled him. He flexed his cheeks to move them, but they wouldn’t go.
    His organs twisted and heaved, sliding around his body and tearing the tissue as they slid. They had shifted slowly over the years, so that Evan was not sure where his liver, kidneys, or stomach were. His heart was near the center of his chest now, and his lungs . . . he had no idea where they were. He seemed to be breathing from his whole body at once.
    He tried to scream in pain, but his mouth was nearly pulled shut, and nothing but a hum came out. He jumped like a suffocating fish, flopping on the bed, reaching his hands toward the cracked ceiling. But a force greater than Evan’s pulled them down again and wrapped them to his flopping body.
    All at once, the membranes beneath his chin softened and his head popped back from his chest. He was staring at the ceiling, but the picture was distorted through the growing membranes. They covered all of his face and were thick over his eyes. As soon as they had let his head up, they reworked themselves and extended from his chin to meet the membranes that grew quickly up his neck. As they met, he was immobilized again, like a long, stiff Popsicle stick.
    His hearing suddenly became much more acute. He heard his mother sobbing from behind the door so loudly that she might have been right next to him, sobbing into a megaphone next to his ear. He tried to cry out again, but his mouth was still too tightly shut. The rustle of his sheets as he tossed and twisted was as loud as the banging of hundred-foot sails in a storm.
    He would have covered his