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    Abraham's Boys
    Abraham's Boys
    Abraham's Boys
    Ebook46 pages39 minutes

    Abraham's Boys

    By Joe Hill

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    From the New York Times bestselling author of NOS4A2 and Horns comes this e-short story—from Joe Hill’s award-winning collection 20th Century Ghosts.

    Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945. . . .

    Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town. . . .

    Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .

    John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 3, 2009
    ISBN9780061843020
    Author

    Joe Hill

    Joe Hill is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Fireman, NOS4A2, Horns, and Heart-Shaped Box; Strange Weather, a collection of novellas; and the acclaimed story collections Full Throttle and 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the Eisner Award–winning writer of a seven-volume comic book series, Locke & Key. Much of his work has been adapted for film and TV, including NOS4A2 (AMC), Locke & Key (Netflix), In the Tall Grass (Netflix), and The Black Phone (Blumhouse).

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    3.5/5

    14 ratings1 review

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    • 3/5
       An interesting couple short novellas. Clearly a snippet of larger work, and it suffers for that.

    Book preview

    Abraham's Boys - Joe Hill

    Abraham’s Boys

    A Story from the Collection

    20th Century Ghosts

    Joe Hill

    To Leanora:

    WE ARE MY FAVORITE STORY

    Contents

    Begin Reading Abraham’s Boys

    Acknowledgments

    About the Author

    Other Books by Joe Hill

    Credits

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    ABRAHAM’S BOYS

    Maximilian searched for them in the carriage house and the cattle shed, even had a look in the springhouse, although he knew almost at first glance he wouldn’t find them there. Rudy wouldn’t hide in a place like that, dank and chill, no windows and so no light, a place that smelled of bats. It was too much like a basement. Rudy never went in their basement back home if he could help it, was afraid the door would shut behind him, and he’d find himself trapped in the suffocating dark.

    Max checked the barn last, but they weren’t hiding there either, and when he came into the dooryard, he saw with a shock that dusk had come. He had never imagined it could be so late.

    No more this game, he shouted. Rudolf! We have to go. Only when he said have it came out hoff, a noise like a horse sneezing. He hated the sound of his own voice, envied his younger brother’s confident American pronunciations. Rudolf had been born here, had never seen Amsterdam. Max had lived the first five years of his life there, in a dimly lit apartment that smelled of mildewed velvet curtains and the latrine stink of the canal below.

    Max hollered until his throat was raw, but in the end, all his shouting brought only Mrs. Kutchner, who shuffled slowly across the porch, hugging herself for warmth, although it was not cold. When she reached the railing she took it in both hands and sagged forward, using it to hold herself up.

    This time last fall, Mrs. Kutchner had been agreeably plump, dimples in her fleshy cheeks, her face always flushed from the heat of the kitchen. Now her face was starved, the skin pulled tight across the skull beneath, her eyes feverish and bird-bright in their bony hollows. Her daughter, Arlene—who at this very moment was hiding with Rudy somewhere—had whispered that her mother kept a tin bucket next to the bed, and when her father carried it to the outhouse in the morning to empty it, it sloshed with a quarter inch of bad-smelling blood.

    You’n go on if you want, dear, she said. I’ll tell your brother to run on home when he crawls out from whatever hole he’s in.

    Did I wake you, Mrs. Kutchner? he asked. She shook her head, but his guilt was not eased. I’m sorry to get you out of bed. My loud mouth. Then, his tone uncertain: "Do

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