Thieves I've Known by Tom Kealey

Author:Tom Kealey [Kealey, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780820345376
Amazon: 0820345377
Barnesnoble: 0820345377
Goodreads: 17574927
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2013-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

The two boys keep the rats away with splintered wooden boards that someone had thrown down the elevator shaft. They build a wall of garbage with food and empty vials and needles, and the rats—two or three at a time—try to break through. A milk carton floats in the muck, and half a skeleton of a rat or cat is half-submerged next to it. Toomey, the younger of the two boys, stands on a burned tire near the corner of the shaft, and Eli, fourteen, pushes the rats away. The smell is terrible. They take shallow breaths and think about suffocation. Above them, the drug dealer and his men enter the elevator, and when it lowers to the bottom floor the boys kneel in the muck and try to keep their heads from being crushed in the gears.

In the second hour, and in the third, the light in the shaft begins to fade, and the roaches emerge from the walls. The boys slap at their necks and legs.

The elevator shaft door opens on the second floor and a thick beam of blue light illuminates the cinder blocks. The boys squint in the brightness and press themselves against the wall. The elevator is well above. A figure stands in the light and something heavy is tossed down. They hear it slap against the walls—a plastic bag—and tumble down the shaft. It splashes in the muck and sends the rats scrambling for the hole. Another bag follows. It just misses Toomey but breaks their wall of garbage. Two bags more. Eli closes his eyes and tries to make himself smaller, but the last bag hits him hard in the shoulder and neck. He feels something sharp, then something warm. The shaft doors close and they are left in darkness again.

Eli brushes the broken glass out of his hair, wipes the blood at his neck. They rebuild their wall and sink further into the muck.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.