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- Herausgeber: Imaginarium Kim
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In a town where four children have vanished without a trace, one curious first-grader believes he knows the extraterrestrial truth.
When Billy Clifford spots mysterious flashes of light beneath a manhole cover, he embarks on a nocturnal adventure that leads him into the winding passages of Everton’s sewer system. What he discovers below challenges everything he thought he knew about his missing classmates—and himself…
*A bittersweet tale of childhood wonder, plucky courage, and invisible scars that bind outcasts together.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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MOONLIGHT THROUGH THE MANHOLE
A LONG SHORT STORY
ITHAKA O.
IMAGINARIUM KIM
© 2022 Ithaka O.
All rights reserved.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this story may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Also by Ithaka O.
Thank you for reading
1
As soon as Billy saw the reflection of the moonlight flashing from the manhole, he scrambled off his bed. Very little of that light entered his room because he had kept the curtains closed but for one tiny slit through which he’d been observing the manhole. But he wasn’t one to miss the tiniest clue. So, in the near-dark, he touched his way to the open closet.
Shoes—where were the sneakers he had hidden from Mommy? There. Way before he saw them, he smelled the unwashed sweat mixed with blood, spat out during the countless bullying sessions in the locker room. (Billy, the bullied, and the others, the bullies, to be clear. Things hadn’t worked out in Billy’s favor since entering elementary school, around which time he had begun wearing glasses—possibly because of his habit of reading copies of Alien Today in the dark without noticing that the sun had set—but he still had great plans for himself and never ever bullied anyone. He didn’t want to disappoint his future fans.)
Like a dog that could smell its way through anything, Billy snatched the sneakers from the sundries filling the closet, put them on (didn’t bother putting on any socks), groped for the flashlight, the one on his desk—but found nothing. It was supposed to be there.
Come on, hadn’t he practiced for an entire week for this very moment? Blindfold and all? From his bed to the manhole? To get out of the house while Mommy snored in the next room?
Billy whirled and whirled in search of the flashlight—thump.
Mommy’s snoring immediately stopped.
Billy held still. He had whipped the flashlight from the desk. The thing kept rolling across his tiny room for a second until it hit the bed with another, quieter thump.
“Billy?” called Mommy, her voice full of sleep.
She was an extremely light sleeper. That was the funny thing about being tired; one would think that as soon as the head touched the pillow, one would fall asleep and stay that way, but it wasn’t so. Mommy awoke at the tiniest noise.
As quietly as possible, Billy breathed in and out. Only his cotton pajama pants fluttered in rhythm, as if they were protesting how difficult it was for them to attempt to cover Billy’s ankles. He had outgrown them months ago; why did Billy insist on making them labor past retirement age? And especially his mother, shouldn’t she know better? Hadn’t she watched Billy’s grandma die at a premature age from overworking?
