Why are you even doing this? he asked himself. This whole thing has to be a joke.
But he couldn’t stop himself. He read through the words for the hundredth time. The same ones jumped out at him without fail.
Dreadful time of need.
Indubitably and despicably deadly.
Very frightening things are coming.
Lives are at stake.
Courage to choose the difficult path.
Who would send him such a—
A noise from the other side of the room cut him out of his thoughts. He leaned on his elbow to look, a quick shiver running down his spine. It had sounded like the clank of metal against wood, followed by a quick burst of whirring—almost like the hum of a computer fan, but sharper, stronger—and it had only lasted a second or two before stopping.
What in the world . . .
He stared at the dark shadow that arrowed across the floor between his dresser and the closet. He reached for his lamp to point it at the spot, but froze when he heard the noise again—the same mechanical whirr, but this time followed by a series of soft thumps that pattered along the carpet toward him. He looked down from the lamp too late to see anything. Tick froze. It sounded like a small animal had just run across the room and under his bed.
Tick pulled his legs to his body with both arms, holding himself in a ball, squeezing. What was it? A squirrel? A rat? What had that weird sound been?
He closed his eyes, knowing he was acting like the biggest baby on the planet but not caring. Every kid’s nightmare had just come true for him. Some . . . thing was under his bed. Probably something hideous. Something crouching, ready to spring at him as soon as he got the nerve to peek.
He waited, scared to open his eyes. Straining his ears, he heard nothing. A minute went by, then two. He hoped an ounce of courage would magically well up inside him from somewhere, but no such luck. He was thoroughly and completely creeped out.
A sudden image from an old movie popped in his head: a horrible, monstrous gremlin eating through the bottom of his bed, straight through to the mattress, biting and chewing and snarling. It was all Tick needed.
Moving faster than he’d thought possible, Tick jumped off the bed and sprinted for the door, ripping it open even as he heard the sound of small feet scampering across the carpet behind him. He bolted out of his room and quickly closed the door.
Something slammed into it from the other side with a loud clunk.
Chapter
4
Edgar the Brave
Five minutes later, Tick’s dad stood next to him in front of the closed door to his room, robed and slippered, flashlight in hand. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice still deep and rough from having woken up. “Did you see it?”
“No, but I heard it loud and clear.” Tick shuddered at the memory.
“Was it a rat?”
“I don’t know. It . . . It sounded like a machine or something.” Tick winced, sure his dad would finally send him to an insane asylum—first his bizarre behavior at breakfast that morning, now this.
“A machine? Tick, what book were you reading before you went to bed? Stephen King or something?”
“No.”
“Was it the movie we watched?”
“No, Dad. I promise I didn’t imagine it. The thing had to have been huge—more like a . . . a dog or something.” Tick felt stupid and resolved to quit babbling.
“Well, I guess opening the door is all there is to it, then.”
Tick looked up at his dad, whose face wore a scared, tense expression, and felt oddly relieved that his old man was just as spooked as he was. “Let’s do it, Dad.”
Dad smiled, flicking on the flashlight. The hallway light was on as well, but Tick thought you could never have too much light when searching for mechanical demons that ate through the bottom of beds before gobbling up the child who slept on it.
Several seconds passed, the two of them staring down at the brass doorknob.
“Well?” Tick asked.
“Oh . . . yeah.” Somewhat sheepish, Dad reached forward and twisted the handle, pushed, then pulled his hand back like he expected a troll to jump out and bite it off.
As the door swung open with a long, groaning creak that echoed through the house, a wave of light from the hallway spread over the carpet like a rising tide. Tick tensed, sure the strange something would dart at them the second it had a chance, scuttling across the floor like a possessed badger. But he saw nothing unusual.
Dad reached around the edge of the doorframe and turned on the bedroom light. In an instant, every last shadow in the room disappeared, bringing a completely different feel to everything.
Tick felt his fear go down a notch. Just a notch. “Maybe it went under the bed again.”
Letting out a big sigh, Dad walked over and knelt down next to the bed, where a heavy quilt draped nearly to the floor, hiding the space underneath. “Listen, Tick, I’m not gonna lie to you—you’ve got me just as freaked out as you.”
“Really?”
“Let’s just say if something runs out at me, I’m going to scream like a little girl and run to your mom.”
Tick laughed. “Me, too.”
Dad quickly pulled up the quilt and beamed the flashlight under the bed, sweeping it back and forth like a sword of sunshine. Nothing but a few random books scattered across the dusty carpet. “Not under there,” he said with relief. He leaned against the bed to push himself to his feet—no small effort for a man the size of Edgar Higginbottom.
“The closet?” Tick said, licking his dry lips.
“Yeah, the closet. Where every monster that’s ever eaten a child dwells. Just great.”
They edged across the room, which now seemed as wide as the Sahara Desert. Tick noticed his dad tiptoeing, which for some reason made him laugh, though it came out sounding like a panicked hyena cornered by three starving lions.
“What?” Dad asked, settling back down onto his heels.
“Nothing. Go for it.” Tick gestured to the closet door, which stood ajar a couple of inches.
Dad reached out and flung it open, then took a quick step back. Nothing moved in the cluttered pile of dirty clothes, sports balls, Frisbees, and other junk. There didn’t seem to be enough space for a mechanical dog-sized monster to hide.
Tick stepped forward and nudged a pile of clothes with his foot. No response. They spent the next ten minutes searching the room from top to bottom, their initial fear having almost completely melted away, but found nothing.
“It has to be here somewhere, Dad. I’m telling you, there’s no way I imagined that thing. It scared me half to death.”
“Don’t worry, son, I believe you. But sometimes we wake from dreams and they seem very . . . real. You know?”
Tick wanted to argue, but he was smart enough to consider the possibility, even though it kind of made him want to kick his dad in the shins for suggesting it. Tick had been on the bed for a long time—maybe he’d fallen asleep without realizing it. But then the thing that clunked against the door . . . ?
No, he was convinced it’d been real. But why worry his poor dad any longer? He nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Come on,” Dad said, flicking off the flashlight and putting his arm around Tick’s shoulders. “You can sleep on the little couch in our bedroom. It’ll be like old times when the branch outside your window used to give you the heebie-jeebies on a windy night. It’s been years since we’ve had a sleepover.”
Tick felt dumb and embarrassed, but he didn’t hesitate, grabbing his pillow and blanket before following his dad out of the room. In the hallway, they shared a glance, then Dad shut Tick’s bedroom door, pulling on the knob until they both heard the comforting click of the latch taking hold.
Chapter
5
A Most Unwelcome Patch of Smoke
The next Saturday afternoon, still in the bliss of Thanksgiving vacation and full from leftover turkey sandwiches, Tick sat in the front room, staring out the window at the falling snow. His family lived in a heavily wooded area and the east side of the state of Washington made for lots of snow in the wintertime. Many people in town grumbled about it, but Tick never did.
He loved the cold, he loved the snow, and he loved what came with it—Thanksgiving, then Christmas vacation, then the football play-offs, then the annual Jackson County Chess Tournament—where he’d won his age bracket three straight years. But even more than any of that, Tick loved the look of the cold white powder resting in soft clumps on the dozens of evergreen trees outside his house.
He heard a rumble coming down the street and saw the mailman’s truck slugging through the thick snow with chained tires. Tick watched as it pulled up to their mailbox; he saw the mailman reach out and put a stack of letters inside. A flash of yellow in the bunch made Tick’s heart jump-start to super speed. He leaned forward for a better view but it was too late. The truck lumbered away, sending twin sprays of snow shooting out behind the tires.
Tick jumped up from the couch and ran to the front door where he quickly put on his coat and snow boots. The rest of his family seemed busy with their own thing so no one noticed his nervous reaction to seeing the golden piece of mail.
It had been a full week since receiving the letter from Alaska, and he’d thought seriously of burning it every single day. He knew the weird thing in his closet had to be related to the “very frightening things” he’d been warned about. It seemed so simple to throw the letter into the fire to make sure nothing else happened.
But the part of Tick that loved chess and brainteasers and science desperately wanted to see what the “Twelve Clues” were all about, so he hadn’t burned the letter and the week had dragged on worse than the one right before Christmas.
And now, it looked like his choice not to burn the letter may have paid off.
He trudged his way through the few inches of snow to the mailbox. His dad had cleared everything with the blower earlier that morning, grumbling about how early winter had set in this year, but now Tick could barely tell he’d done anything at all. The storm was one of those that just kept on coming. The world lay bathed in white, a wintry wonderland that Tick knew would put even the scroogiest Scrooge in the holiday spirit.
He reached the brick mailbox and opened it up, pulling out the stack left moments earlier. He shuffled through the stack, taking each piece off the top and placing it on the bottom—a JC Penny catalog; power bill; an early Christmas card from Aunt Liz; junk mail; junk mail; junk mail.
And then there it was, the envelope, crinkled and golden, with Tick’s name and address written messily in blue ink across the front; no return address; the stamp an exotic temple perched high on a mountain. As promised, his next message had arrived.
And this time it was postmarked from Kitami, Japan.
Tick couldn’t believe his luck—no one had to know about this second letter. Something inside of him still itched to tell his parents, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not until he knew more, understood more. Not until he’d figured out the puzzle. With a crazy mix of excitement and panic, he locked the door to his room and sat on the bed, the yellow envelope in his sweaty hands.
He paused, considering the creepy thing from his closet one last time. He could still stop, burn both letters, and never look back.