The Recycling Kid

By Edwin Stark

A teenager is trapped in a sewer with an undead thing. Find out how he got there and whether he'll escape by reading this amazing short story. This story is part of the author's short story compilation, "Cuentos", and is offered as a stand alone tale for the first time ever

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edwin Stark
• Release date: Dec 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465929167

Edwin Stark

Hello, my name's Edwin Stark, and I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. That's South America for the few geographically-challenged ones out there. I suppose that somehow the stork had just stumbled out from a pub while it was delivering me, (it was confused to say the least) and mishandled my humble persona, leaving me stranded in this unlikely place. Having German ancestry, I spoke that language as a toddler, but my Mom had the misconception that I'd fit better here if I spoke Spanish, so that tongue was lost during my growing years. I grew up dreaming crazy tales and was my teacher's pet when it came to composition class—but not in deportment: that was for certain—and as I grew up I tried to get noticed as a writer by submitting to every magazine and writing contest available in my home country. No such luck; the publishing market in Venezuela is utterly locked out: you can only see your words in print if you're already a notorious politician or a TV celebrity. Since I wasn't in the inclination of becoming a serial murderer to achieve notoriousness and get published, the need to rethink the approach to my writing career became a must. Eventually, I decided to switch languages and start writing in English. I was already proficient in that language... but was I good enough to tell stories in that fashion? I then started to write short stories, effectively dumping my native language. I wrote nearly 200 short stories during a period of about eighteen months, slowly learning the nuances of story-telling in another language than your own. I already had the benefit of having the knack of telling a tale; I only had to adjust. 190 of them short tales certainly sucked; 10 were really neat, but the important thing was the learning process. These ten tales eventually made it into Cuentos, the short story collection which became my third book. I succeeded so well in tearing myself apart from Spanish, that almost everyone I meet online says: "I CAN'T BELIEVE ENGLISH ISN'T YOUR FIRST LANGUAGE!" So far, I wrote four books: AI Rebellion, a rather preachy cyberpunk thriller that still shows the struggle of switching languages (and I only recommend people to read it if they're on an archeological mood, as in if they're interested in seeing my progress as a writer), Eco Station One, a very bizarre and funny satire, the aforementioned Cuentos, and The Clayton Chronicles, a rather cookie-cut vampire tale. All these are available for the Kindle reader on Amazon, in paperbacks and all e-book formats in Smashwords.

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Table Of Contents

The Recycling Kid

Author’s Note

Copyright Information

The Recycling Kid

By Edwin Stark

Copyright 2010

Smashwords Edition

Fifteen year old Timothy Connors—who really hated being called Tiny Tim every time Christmas season came around the corner, mainly because his friends knew about this peculiar trait of his—writhed back into the gloomy corner, where it seemed to be roomier, somehow. He felt the bone of his hips rub painfully against the angle of the two meeting concrete walls, and he heard the gentle rustle of dry leaves crushing under his weight. Tim made an unconscious grimace of disgust at the way the crumbling leaves left a powdery residue all over his exposed skin, and specially at the spots of his hide smeared with black smelly mud.

This time the crooked and long fingered claw had come too close for comfort.

It couldn’t come nearer because the long and thin sunbeam that slanted from overhead would have burnt its skin to a crisp, but Tim knew that its eyes—red and ancient, strongly evident against their dark surroundings—were now mulling on better ways to reach at him. On this occasion, its claw almost had grasped Timothy by one of his sneakers, during his last attempt to scramble to the manhole above this small and dark sewer dungeon. The creature was nearly left without its dinner.

Tim was pondering things, too. Mainly about the sunbeam peeking from the edge of the slightly off-placed metal lid. Someone, sometime, maybe a drunk or a lazy city hall worker, had decided it was too much of a hassle to seat the lid properly into place—and that may have saved Tim’s life just a few hours ago and, more recently, during his last escape attempt. In a later consideration, it occurred to Tim that he might not be in such a dismaying predicament if someone had adequately replaced all the iron covers involved in this mess, but now he was thankful for that life saving gap that let some sunshine in. Luckily the manhole wasn’t under a shady tree, allowing the strong summer sun to pour liberally into the sewer as a thin, darkness piercing beam of light. But that had been at noon, three hours ago, and now the sun had begun to descend in a sky Tim could barely see as a blue half-moon over his head, where the metal lid nearly met the rim of the manhole. The sunbeam was moving slowly toward him, gradually slanting and cutting him off from his increasingly shrinking maneuvering room. He was literally between a beam and a hard place.

Tim knew that if even a small part of his body got out from the sunbeam’s protection, the undead thing that was sharing this rain collector with him would make a final grab for it, and drag him out from his shelter and start to feed. And young Timmy Connors, who had been born and raised in Nosfort, Massachusetts, currently trapped in one of the city’s sewer system rain collectors—and still wondering on how he had managed to get into this mess—would have become a vampire’s late daytime meal.

* * *

Outrageous as it may sound, Timmy Connors could blame his desperate ordeal to computers. Not that a computer error had sent him into this ugly situation; it simply was that he was hooked on computer games. At home, his father kept a really expensive computer system, top notch and with plenty of processing power to spare. Timmy could use it anytime he pleased with only one exception: no games. The computer was a business perk allowed by the company where Tim’s father worked. Along with it, a blazing hot cable-modem connection became another conditional forbidden fruit: no game downloads permitted, either. Tim’s father made regular checks