Darkness Creeping Read Online Free

he had just devoured. He tried to climb out of the service window, but the steel gate came crashing down and sealed the window shut. He went to the driver’s door, but there was no handle to open it.
    Then he felt a strange rising sensation. It’s the wheels! Marty thought. The wheels are healing themselves, and filling with air!
    In his fear, Marty found himself hyperventilating and getting dizzy, so he slowed his breathing down, closed his eyes, and tried to face the reality of his situation. Fact : he had made a bargain with Jim-Jim Jeffries for the ice cream in this truck. Fact : Jim-Jim had been trapped in this freezing place for thirty-nine years. Fact : Marty wasn’t going anywhere.
    But that wasn’t exactly true, was it? Yes, he was trapped in a cursed truck, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go anywhere. The truth was, he could go everywhere. . .
    . . . because even a cursed truck needs a driver.
    When Marty opened his eyes again, he felt much calmer. Calm enough to reach into the freezer and pull himself out another ice-cream bar. That freezer was full of them. In fact, it seemed bottomless. Then he sat in the driver’s seat, put his hands on the steering wheel, and stepped on the accelerator, feeling the engine rev. He didn’t know how to drive, but that hadn’t stopped Jim-Jim, had it?
    With frost forming in his hair, he grabbed the stick shift, threw the truck into gear, and peeled out. As he did, he heard the music begin to play, blasting out of the speaker on his roof.
    “All around the mulberry bush . . . the monkey chased the weasel . . .”
    There were neighborhoods to visit. Hundreds of them. And there were thousands of kids to roust out of the warmth of their homes, all clutching dollar bills and spare change, running through the streets in search of an ice-cream man that they’d never catch.
    Just the thought of it made Marty floor the accelerator, and he let loose a wild cackling laugh . . . because for the first time in his life, Marty Zybeck was fast!

WHO DO WE APPRECIATE?
    This is one of my newest stories. My sons, and now my daughters, play soccer, and quite often I ref the games. I don’t want to give away what happens in this story, but let’s just say that think we once played against the Red team.
    WHO DO ME APPRECIATE?
     
     
     
     
    Fair. It’s a word I truly know. It’s a word I understand inside and out. Fairness is the reason why I get the job. It’s the reason why they pick me. Who are they? Well, I’ll let you figure that out for yourself.
    It starts on a Saturday morning. My mother figures out a way to unlock my door, as she always does, and manages to get in, pushing away the various obstacles I’ve put in front of the door to keep her out. The obstacles are there because every Saturday morning I hold out a thread of hope that maybe this time she’ll give up, and let me sleep. Unfortunately my mother, like me, is not the surrendering type.
    “Danielle, there was a call on the machine. They need you for an early game today.”
    I groan and put a pillow over my head. “I’m sick.”
    She takes the pillow away.“No, you’re not.”
    “I’ve got the flu.”
    “No, you don’t.”
    “But what if I do?”
    She sighs. “If you’re really sick, I won’t make you go.” She pauses to make it clear she wants the truth. I hate the Truth-Pause. “Are you sick, or aren’t you?”
    It annoys me that I can’t lie to her when she gives me the Truth-Pause. I’m just not the lying type, as much as I’d like to be sometimes.
    Instead of answering her, I sit up in bed. “So how early is the game?”
    “Seven o’clock.”
    “ What? I didn’t even know there were league games at seven!”
    “Apparently there are, and they need a referee. They need you .”
    I had thought I was going to get out of it this week. There were no calls last night. No calls this morning, and yet sure enough, there’s a message on the machine, like it just magically appeared there. This