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    The Cold People
    The Cold People
    The Cold People
    Ebook87 pages1 hour

    The Cold People

    By Christopher Pike

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Frozen enemies make for a chilling challenge in this fifth book in New York Times bestselling author Christopher Pike’s Spooksville series—now on TV!

    Adam and his friend are exploring the forest near Spooksville when they come across huge blocks of ice, hidden among the trees. They decide to melt one of the blocks, but when they do, a strange man comes out of the ice and tries to grab them! The man has very cold hands—and his eyes aren’t too warm either. Soon there are dozens of Cold People running around Spooksville, freezing the residents. Adam and his friends have an idea that just might save the day. Or will it get them turned into human popsicles?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateOct 29, 2013
    ISBN9781481410687
    The Cold People
    Author

    Christopher Pike

    Christopher Pike is a bestselling young adult novelist and has published several adult books as well—Sati and The Season of Passage being the most popular. In YA, his Last Vampire series—often called Thirst—is a big favorite among his fans. Pike was born in Brooklyn, New York, but grew up in Los Angeles. He lives in Santa Barbara, California, with his longtime partner, Abir. Currently, several of Pike’s books are being turned into films, including The Midnight Club, which Netflix released as part of a ten-part series. The Midnight Club also draws from a half dozen of Pike’s earlier works. Presently, The Season of Passage is being adapted as a feature film by Universal Studios while Chain Letter—one of Pike all-time bestselling books—is also being adapted by Hollywood. At the moment, Pike is hard at work on a new YA series.  

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    Reviews for The Cold People

    3.5/5

    6 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The fifth book in the series. This one has the kids finding blocks of solid ice on the forest trails. The fact that it's summer but the town is experiencing freezing weather tells them that this is a strange phenomenon found only in Spooksville. The ice turns out to contain cold-blooded creatures who attack humans and quickly overrun the town, and within hours it's up to just Sally to stop it. I'll just note that I was hoping Cindy would be taken out by these creatures.
    • 4/5
      Okay, really good, loved that they added real life history. They really put on the table the strength of their friendship. But the end was completely rushed, I mean, you don't have to do a whole other book, but a couple of chapters would have been nice. More perfect for such a good plot.
    • 2/5
      Story seems as if the author made it up while he was typing. Just a lot of fighting.

    Book preview

    The Cold People - Christopher Pike

    1

    It was another Spooksville mystery.

    The town was freezing, and it was summer still. The cold weather was as strange as the boiling temperatures of a couple weeks earlier, when Adam Freeman and his friends had run into aliens. None of them could understand what had brought on the chilly snap. That Monday morning—when they first got up—every window in town was coated with a fine layer of white frost. Little did they know that by the time the sun went down, there would be frost inside many of the people who lived in Spooksville.

    Adam, Sally Wilcox, Cindy Makey, and Watch started off the day by having their usual milk and doughnuts at the local bakery. Actually, because of the cold, they each had a cup of coffee as well, just to warm their bones. Watch had a thermometer in one of the four watches he regularly wore, and he studied it as they munched their food. He said he doubted the temperature would get above freezing all day.

    It’s still in the low twenties, he added. If we’re going to be outside today, we’d better keep moving.

    They took Watch’s suggestion to heart and decided to spend the day hiking in the woods in the hills around Spooksville. They pedaled their bikes until the road ran out and then hid them in some trees. Adam had been up in the hills before, of course, when he visited the Haunted Cave and the reservoir. But he had never been into the woods. He was amazed at the size and variety of the trees.

    "This forest is like something out of Hansel and Gretel," he said as they hiked along a narrow path covered with pine needles. He wore a heavy jacket, which he unzipped as he walked. The exercise was taking away some of the chill.

    Sally snorted. Hansel and Gretel were light-weights. They had only one witch to kill, and they got famous. We get worse than that every week and no one writes about us.

    We need a press agent, Watch agreed. Our life stories need to be on TV.

    Personally I like being unknown, Cindy said. I don’t need all the money and fame.

    Wait till you’re a few years older, Sally said. Money and fame will be what you crave most.

    I think all that stuff is superficial, Cindy said.

    Sally snickered. Spoken like a true liberal. In this world you’ve got to cash in on whatever, whenever you can. For that reason I’ve started to keep a journal of my experiences. If I don’t die in the next ten years, I figure I’ll be able to auction the movie rights to my life.

    Am I in your journal? Adam asked.

    Sally hesitated. You’re mentioned in a small footnote.

    It was Cindy’s turn to snicker. I bet the whole journal is about Adam.

    That’s not true, Sally said quickly.

    Ha, Cindy said. Prove it. Let us read it.

    You can read it, Sally said. In exchange for a million bucks.

    As usual, Sally had the last word. They continued up the path without further conversation. The path narrowed as the trees grew thicker and pushed in from the sides. The way the heavy branches hung over them, it could have been close to dark—the shade was that deep. Yet Adam could still make out his breath as he exhaled. Once again he wondered about the strange weather, and what could be causing it. He knew there must be a reason.

    They were finished exploring and about to turn back when they spotted the Cold People. Adam saw them first, but thought he was just seeing huge blocks of ice jammed between trees. That in itself would have been strange. Even though there was frost, there was no actual snow or ice.

    Hey, Adam said, pointing to a spot fifty feet off the path. What’s that?

    They all peered in the shadows.

    Looks like a glacier, Sally said.

    The ice age would have to arrive for us to have a glacier here, Cindy said.

    This town is not known for standard weather patterns, Sally said. Two winters ago we had an iceberg float into our harbor. It hung offshore for a couple of months. We had incredible snowball fights, until a polar bear came out of a hidden ice cave and ate Buddy Silverstone.

    Cindy snorted. I don’t believe it.

    There actually was an iceberg, Watch said. But it was an Eskimo who came out of the cave. And he just invited Buddy to dinner.

    Yeah, but he didn’t tell Buddy that he was the main course, Sally lied.

    Would you guys stop arguing and tell me what we’re looking at, Adam said.

    Cindy squinted. Looks like big blocks of ice.

    We know that, Sally said impatiently. But what is the nature of these blocks of ice? Are they composed of frozen water? Are they from this planet? You have to ask yourself these questions.

    Why don’t we walk over and have a closer look, Watch suggested.

    It was a reasonable idea, although it was harder to get to the ice blocks than Adam would have imagined. The trees were so dense that he felt as if they were threatening to squeeze him to a pulp. No pun intended, he thought. But he realized he must be flashing back on his first day in Spooksville, when a tree had, in fact, tried to eat him alive. He had thought at the time that that was a strange day. Looking back, it had been pretty normal for Spooksville.

    There were not the two or three blocks of ice they had seen from the path, but literally dozens. Some were lying down, others stood jammed between tree trunks. They were almost all identical in size, seven feet long by two feet deep and wide. Adam and his friends knelt by the first one they came to—which was lying flat. Watch tried brushing off the outer covering of frost. But still they could not see to the center of it.

    Yet they could make out something in there.

    Something large and dark.

    These are shaped like frozen coffins, Sally said softly.

    Where did they come from? Cindy whispered, fear in her voice.

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