meanwhile the girl who had seen his face was God knows where, saying God knows what to God knows whom.
He had to leave. Now. Never mind his things. Catch a taxi straight to the airport and depart posthaste for jolly old, never to return to this awful place.
He turned and ran and crashed into a wall.
A wall that hadnât been there before.
A wall of mud.
Broad as an avenue, taller than the synagogue, soaring upward like some manic cancer, climbing, expanding, ballooning, reeking of stagnant waters, rotting fish, mold, oily reeds.
He slipped and fled in the opposite direction, hitting another wall.
And then it surrounded him, the mud, mud walls, a city of mud, a megalopolis, vast and dense and formless. He raised his gaze to an indifferent sky, the stars blotted out by mud. Weeping, he cast his eyes down to the earth, where mud black as dried blood began to creep across his shoes, starting at the toes and inching upward. He screamed. He tried to lift his feet and found his shoes cemented to the stones; tried to kick them off but the mud had reached his ankles and grasped his shins and begun to climb. It was the source of the smell, viscous and putrid. It was an absence of color and an absence of space, an aggressive burning emptiness swallowing him alive.
He screamed and screamed and his voice came back close and wet and dead.
The blackness rose to his knees, grinding his bones in their joints; it moved up his thighs like too-tight stockings rolled incrementally up, and Heapâs bowels opened of their own accord, and he felt his genitals pressed, slowly, back up into his body cavity; he felt his abdomen cinched and his ribs snapped and his windpipe collapsing and his innards forced up into his neck, and he ceased to scream because he could no longer draw breath.
In the wall of mud, two slits yawned, a pair of cherry-red holes at eye level.
Studying him. As he had once studied his own prey.
Heap could not speak, but he could move his lips.
He mouthed, âNo.â
The answer came: a weary sigh.
Muddy fingers closed around him and squeezed.
As Heapâs skull popped free of its spinal moorings, millions of neurons made their final salvo, and he experienced several sensations at once.
There was, of course, pain, and beyond that, the agony of insight. His was a death without benefit of ignorance, for he understood that he understood nothing, that his sins had not gone unnoticed, and that something unspeakable waited for him on the other side.
Finally there were the fugitive images that imprinted themselves on his fizzling, fading brain as his gape-mouthed head spun in the air: a night sky flocked with gentle clouds; the saffron glow of the lamps along the riverbank; the door to the synagogue garret, flapping open in the breeze.
CHAPTER TWO
LOS ANGELES
SPRING 2012
T he brunette puzzled Jacob.
First off, his memory of last nightâa stunted memory, admittedlyâfeatured a blonde. Now, in the light of morning, sitting at his kitchenette table, she was clearly dark-haired.
Second, while he could recall some frantic groping in a sticky vinyl booth, he was pretty sure he had gone home alone. And if he hadnât, he couldnât remember it, and that was a bad sign, a sign that the time had come to cut back.
Third, she was museum-quality gorgeous. As a rule he gravitated more toward average. It went beyond low standards: all that need and vulnerability and mutual comfort could turn the act more than physical. Two people agreeing to make the world a kinder place.
Looking at her, so far above his pay grade, he decided he could make an exception.
The fourth thing was that she was wearing his
tallis
.
The fifth thing was that she wasnât wearing anything else.
He smelled fresh coffee.
He said, âIâm sorry I donât know your name.â
She placed a hand on her throat. âIâm wounded.â
âPlease try to be forgiving. I canât remember
He had to leave. Now. Never mind his things. Catch a taxi straight to the airport and depart posthaste for jolly old, never to return to this awful place.
He turned and ran and crashed into a wall.
A wall that hadnât been there before.
A wall of mud.
Broad as an avenue, taller than the synagogue, soaring upward like some manic cancer, climbing, expanding, ballooning, reeking of stagnant waters, rotting fish, mold, oily reeds.
He slipped and fled in the opposite direction, hitting another wall.
And then it surrounded him, the mud, mud walls, a city of mud, a megalopolis, vast and dense and formless. He raised his gaze to an indifferent sky, the stars blotted out by mud. Weeping, he cast his eyes down to the earth, where mud black as dried blood began to creep across his shoes, starting at the toes and inching upward. He screamed. He tried to lift his feet and found his shoes cemented to the stones; tried to kick them off but the mud had reached his ankles and grasped his shins and begun to climb. It was the source of the smell, viscous and putrid. It was an absence of color and an absence of space, an aggressive burning emptiness swallowing him alive.
He screamed and screamed and his voice came back close and wet and dead.
The blackness rose to his knees, grinding his bones in their joints; it moved up his thighs like too-tight stockings rolled incrementally up, and Heapâs bowels opened of their own accord, and he felt his genitals pressed, slowly, back up into his body cavity; he felt his abdomen cinched and his ribs snapped and his windpipe collapsing and his innards forced up into his neck, and he ceased to scream because he could no longer draw breath.
In the wall of mud, two slits yawned, a pair of cherry-red holes at eye level.
Studying him. As he had once studied his own prey.
Heap could not speak, but he could move his lips.
He mouthed, âNo.â
The answer came: a weary sigh.
Muddy fingers closed around him and squeezed.
As Heapâs skull popped free of its spinal moorings, millions of neurons made their final salvo, and he experienced several sensations at once.
There was, of course, pain, and beyond that, the agony of insight. His was a death without benefit of ignorance, for he understood that he understood nothing, that his sins had not gone unnoticed, and that something unspeakable waited for him on the other side.
Finally there were the fugitive images that imprinted themselves on his fizzling, fading brain as his gape-mouthed head spun in the air: a night sky flocked with gentle clouds; the saffron glow of the lamps along the riverbank; the door to the synagogue garret, flapping open in the breeze.
CHAPTER TWO
LOS ANGELES
SPRING 2012
T he brunette puzzled Jacob.
First off, his memory of last nightâa stunted memory, admittedlyâfeatured a blonde. Now, in the light of morning, sitting at his kitchenette table, she was clearly dark-haired.
Second, while he could recall some frantic groping in a sticky vinyl booth, he was pretty sure he had gone home alone. And if he hadnât, he couldnât remember it, and that was a bad sign, a sign that the time had come to cut back.
Third, she was museum-quality gorgeous. As a rule he gravitated more toward average. It went beyond low standards: all that need and vulnerability and mutual comfort could turn the act more than physical. Two people agreeing to make the world a kinder place.
Looking at her, so far above his pay grade, he decided he could make an exception.
The fourth thing was that she was wearing his
tallis
.
The fifth thing was that she wasnât wearing anything else.
He smelled fresh coffee.
He said, âIâm sorry I donât know your name.â
She placed a hand on her throat. âIâm wounded.â
âPlease try to be forgiving. I canât remember
Similar Books
The Legacy of Gird
Elizabeth Moon
No More Dead Dogs
Gordon Korman
Claiming Her Innocence
Ava Sinclair
Warrior
Zoe Archer
Find My Baby
Mitzi Pool Bridges
Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek)
Violet Duke
ARC: Cracked
Eliza Crewe
Silent Witness
Diane Burke
Bea
Peggy Webb