Lockwood & Co.: The Creeping Shadow

Lockwood and I stood transfixed at the top of the bank.

Then I realized he was still holding my hand.

He realized it at the same instant. Our fingers kind of fell away, swinging back into vigilant positions at our work belts, ready to seize a salt-bomb or rapier at a moment’s notice. Lockwood cleared his throat; I pushed my hair out of my eyes. Our boots did small, intricate shuffles on the frosty ground.

“What the heck was that?” I said.

“The Shadow?” Lockwood glanced at me from under his bangs. “Of course the Shadow…” He shook his head.

“We call it…the Creeping Shadow.”

He sat back and surveyed us with triumphant, hard-eyed finality, as if expecting us to utter groans and gasps of terror, throw ourselves off our seats, and roll on the floor in panic with our legs wiggling in the air.

Take it from me, if you had to choose between him and a basketful of supercute puppies to toss out of a sinking hot-air balloon, it would have been the pups sent spiraling down to earth

We smiled at each other, and gazed out at the woods and fields. It was a beautiful spring scene.

Sometimes fries are the only way to keep you sane.

“Probably just clap us in prison,” George said. “Arson, burglary, general assault…Let’s face it, he’d have some tasty options.”

We sat on the slope, the five of us, watching the destruction.

So my numbness went away and I just felt…angry. Next thing I knew, I was setting fire to a perfectly good research facility.

“What happened,” Kipps said from the grass, “was that George went mad.”

So then Kipps said that if he was going to jump off a cliff he’d do it with a gun in his hand, and he started loading us up with all the weapons we could carry.