Read Gustav Gloom and the People Taker (9781101620748) for Free Online Page A

those three front steps after her cat.
    By the time she reached the front stoop, Harrington’s question mark of an upright tail was wagging a little good-bye wave as he nosed his way into the darkness.
    â€œNo!” Fernie yelled. “Harrington, stop!”
    She grabbed for him, but by then she was past the front door herself, watching the tip of his tail turn the corner at the end of the long front hall.
    The end of the hall was too far away to make sense even for a house this big, and the blackness too thick even for a house this dark.
    When Fernie shone her flashlight down the hall, the beam had no trouble casting light on the framed paintings lining the walls or the dusty chandeliers hanging from the ceiling or the long, narrow dingy red carpet marking the path she’d have to walk if she decided to go any farther. But it wouldn’t light up that blackness at the end of the hall.
    Fernie almost turned back. As much as she hated to give up on Harrington, she had read a number of books and been to a number of movies about haunted houses and knew that the people reading those books or watching those movies always yell at the girl who walks deeper into the haunted house for being so stupid.
    Fernie had to admit that this was pretty much the same situation, and if her life ever became a book or a movie, she wouldn’t want anybody reading it to call her stupid for continuing to chase her cat into darkness. So she glanced over her shoulder just long enough to make sure that the way out was still clear and saw that it wasn’t.
    The doorway was full of dark shapes coming in after her.
    There were too many to count: things shaped like people and things shaped like dogs and things shaped like big black birds and things shaped like giant clutching hands and things that looked like about six or seven of all those other things mashed together so they didn’t look like people or dogs or birds or hands but what happens when you melt them all together into a big wriggling mess.
    The Harrington shadow was just one of them, and though it wasn’t as big as a tiger anymore, it was still a cat Fernie could see through. It leaped past all the other shadows to dart through the gap between Fernie’s legs and down the hall after the real cat.
    The dark shapes approaching her all spoke in soft, whispery voices.
    â€œLittle girl,” one said.
    â€œYou’re trespassing,” another said.
    â€œYou shouldn’t be out tonight,” a third said.
    â€œThe People Taker is loose,” a fourth warned.
    They reached for her, their long, gray see-through hands giving off a smoky mist wherever they passed through the bright light of Fernie’s flashlight beam.
    Fernie did something she had never done before in her life, something that she had often promised herself she would never ever do if attacked by monsters. She screamed like a girl.
    She turned around and ran farther into the house, her Frankenstein’s monster–head slippers pounding the red carpet as she fled down the long hallway. She ran past framed paintings that didn’t seem to be anything but big black squares, past walls that seemed to shift and dance as she ran by, past decorative vases twice her size and dark shapes that poked their gray heads out of them as if disturbed from their slumber. Other dark shapes raced along the walls and ceiling, their long arms reaching out for her as she ran, and their voices whispering things like “Get out,” and “You should not be here,” and “Stay away from the Pit.”
    Scared as she was, Fernie didn’t like that “Stay away from the Pit” business, especially since she still couldn’t see past the darkness at the end of the hall. It crossed her mind that maybe she should stop, but somehow that idea didn’t get to her legs, which were quite happy running.
    She ran past the end of the hall into a grand parlor of some kind, many stories taller