Billy Hooten by Tom Sniegoski Read Free Book Online

except for the four stone crypts, the only hint that somebody had been there being the charred remains of Archebold's fire. Even the old bones from the broken stone coffin had been cleaned up.
    “Okay, let's get this over with,” he muttered under his breath, walking toward the stone crypt with the open cover that Archebold had dropped into.
    Billy peered over the edge of the coffin, not quite sure what he would find. The shriveled old body of a dead Sprylock
should
have been what he saw, but instead there was only darkness. He shone his flashlight inside, watching as the deep pool of black swallowed up the beam.
    How is this even possible?
he wondered, resisting the urge to place his hand inside the coffin and feel around for the bottom. Something told him he wasn't likely to find it.
    He leaned over the edge. “Hello!” he called out, listening to the sound of his voice echoing back from within. “Archebold, it's me … Billy. I've come to give you back the costume. It doesn't fit and I look like a dork in it.”
    He listened for a response that didn't come.
    Probably doesn't know I'm here,
he thought.
    And then he remembered the whistle.
    Billy set the flashlight and box down on top of the coffin and searched his coat pockets. He found some old gum wrapped in a Kleenex, five elastic bands and the head of an action figure he'd discovered last year in the gutter on his way home from school, but no whistle.
    “C'mon,” he muttered, digging deeper. “I know you're in here somewhere.”
    And then he felt his fingers brush against it, hidden in the deepest fold of his pocket.
    “Gotcha!” he said, snagging the whistle and pulling it out.
    Carefully, he brushed away the dust and lint, then brought the whistle to his mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs, and blew with all his might.
    Billy had no idea what the whistle would sound like, but he would never in a million years have imagined the sound that did come from it. It was like hundreds of owls hooting loudly all at the same time. And the freakiest thing was—it didn't stop, even after he had taken the whistle from his mouth.
    Suddenly, there was another sound, a ghostly moan that he realized was the wind outside only after it had blown the heavy mausoleum door open with enough force to smash it against the inside wall of the crypt.
    Billy jumped back, startled by the crack of the door. The backs of his legs hit the lip of the coffin, and he stumbled backward. His arms flailed crazily as he tried to grab hold of something—anything—to prevent himself from falling backward into the open coffin.
    But no such luck.
    His fingers brushed across the top of the costume box, knocking it into the coffin with him. And Billy fell, tumbling down, down, down.
    Into the bottomless dark.

CHAPTER 5
    I t felt as if he'd been falling for days.
    Just when Billy thought there was no end in sight and that he was going to continue to plummet for who knew how long, he hit bottom.
    Well, he hit
something.
    One second he was drifting through an ocean of black, the next he hit what felt like a flight of stairs, and after a bit of a tumble he found himself lying on a cold stone floor.
    He lay there moaning. It took him a minute to recover from the abrupt landing, but then he realized the continued absence of all light. He couldn't even see his hand in front of his face, it was so dark. Cautiously he reached out, searching.
    A light switch would be nice,
he thought, fumbling in the dark, but he found nothing.
    He didn't even want to think about where he might be. If he had been reading about something like this—
the room of eternal blackness
—in one of his comics, he'd probably think it was pretty cool, but this was different. This was real.
    Billy's leg bumped against something in the dark and he just about fainted. Happy that it didn't appear to be alive, or dangerous, he reached down, finding the cardboard box that contained the Owlboy costume.
    What would Owlboy do