The Shadow Arts by Damien Love EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author:Damien Love
- Language: English
- Genre:Science Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
THE SOUVENIR
“You never hang out anymore, man.”
David Anderson cracked his bubblegum in disapproval at Alex as
they walked home from school through drizzling British rain. “Come
on. Just come over. There’s a whole team of us playing online now—
it’s total slaughter. I need you to get my back.”
“I dunno,” Alex muttered. “I’ve got this stuff I have to—”
“What stuff? You don’t have any more homework than me.
Anyway, it’s Saturday tomorrow. You can’t work Saturday. You’re
turning into a proper hermit.”
“Yeah. I dunno.” Alex stole a look behind.
“Just come,” David pressed. “It’s Mum’s gran’s birthday, she’s
like . . . ninety-one or something. Mum’s doing her Old Country
menu in honor: pumpkin soup, rice and beans, pen patat, the whole
Haitian Kitchen Blowout. She’s made tons. You’ll be doing me a
favor. I’ll have to eat it for a fortnight. You loved it last time.”
“Maybe. Can I text to let you know?”
David popped another disappointed green bubble and shrugged,
unconvinced. “Sure.”
They walked on, Alex trying to resist the urge to look back again.
David turned to him, opened his mouth to speak, then frowned off
over his shoulder. “Uh-oh.”
Alex spun in alarm and groaned. Far back along the street, Kenzie
Mitchell was waving, tripping over his oversized feet in a hurry to
catch them.
“Alex!” Kenzie called distantly.
“Guy really seems mighty keen to talk to you these days,” David
mused. “What’s all that about?”
“Don’t know.” Alex squinted ahead to his bus stop. A bus was
approaching through slow traffic. If he sprinted, he might just catch
it. “I’m going to try to get this one.”
“Just come over, Alex,” David called as he set off. “It’ll be a laugh.”
It felt good to run, and not only to put distance between himself
and Kenzie’s lumbering figure. But with every step, Alex felt the
object in his coat pocket hitting against him, reminding him it was
there. As if he could forget. When he jumped onto the half-empty bus
and collapsed panting onto the back seat, he pulled it out.
An old toy robot made of tin.
He twisted around to look back. He spotted David, trotting across
the road, going to meet his dad. Kenzie alone at the street corner,
just standing there, watching Alex’s bus roll away. Nothing out of the
ordinary. Alex studied the rainy scene a second longer, then turned
back to the robot.
He carried it everywhere now. The secret prize he was supposed to
have destroyed far away, but which a compulsion he couldn’t name
had made him keep, sneaking it home like smuggled goods. The
scratched little face leered up with its jagged metal grin. Alex stared
down into the hollow eyes, closed his own, and concentrated.
The bus vibrated suddenly, violently, rattling his skeleton in his
skin. Alex’s eyes snapped open. For a second, he sat caught between
terror and tingling elation. Then he realized. It had only been a
shudd
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