Mysteries & Detective Stories
One day, Johnny stuck his nose in his grandpa's closet and found a bottle. It was made of dark green glass. A sandy cork was plugged in the top. The sand was as hard as cement. Johnny took the bottle to the sunroom where his grandpa was snoozing. He jumped on the sofa. "What's in the bottle?" he demanded. "Well now, that's a puzzle," his grandpa said. "I never did figure that out." Johnny held the bottle up to the sun. A shadow lurked inside the green glass. There was something inside for sure.
I sucked down the icy air, but all too soon my lungs grew ragged from the cold. It felt like I was breathing in air from a red-hot furnace. My broken fingers throbbed, but that was the least of my worries. The bulldozer stayed directly behind me. It wouldn't get tired. There was no way I could stay ahead of it, not with all the miles between me and where the Mackenzie entered the Arctic Ocean.
Directly in front of him, leaves rustled and branches parted. Tommy's blood ran cold. What was staring back at him didn't look like an animal. It didn't look human either.
