Jericho: A Novel

by Alex Gordon

  “Ow. That sonofa—” Heath doubled over as heat like an acid burn laced around his neck, up the back of his skull and down his spine. Dying—I’m dying. His heart slowed, then picked up speed, faster and faster until all he felt was one long beat.

  Then it ended. He had fallen to his hands and knees at some point, and he struggled to his feet, brushed grime from his trousers. His head felt clearer now. Or maybe different was the better word.

  “Are you ready?” Sam took his hand again and pulled him toward the steps.

  Heath looked up at the house, saw faces in some of the windows, figures looking down at them from the roof. Quite a few faces—he hadn’t realized that there were that many people there. No, not people. The faces were all wrong. The bodies. They reminded him of Celia’s statues, the same squat silhouettes. “Who are they?”

  “They were here first.” Sam led him down the path that wound around the house to the backyard. “They’ve been waiting a long time.”

  “Does Carmody know they’re here?”

  “He will.”

  Soon they left the house behind. Heath squinted into the gloom. He could barely see more than a few feet in front of him. Even Sam seemed to blend with the dark. “Sam, something isn’t right.” His tongue felt thick, as though the dentist had given him a shot.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie.” Sam smiled back at him. “It’ll be better soon.”

  They veered off the path and cut across the sloping lawn. At first Heath thought they were headed for the helipad, but Sam stopped him short, then stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. “Just wait.”

  Heath caught a whiff of Sam’s breath. It had smelled horrible before, but now it reminded him of soil, fresh, warm, teeming with life. Cleansing rot, the great equalizer. It broke everyone in the end, king and commoner, and made them all one.

  I’m a poet. The thought made him smile. Then he heard a rumble, the grind of metal on metal. Looked toward the house, and stared as the small train emerged from the darkness.

  “Isn’t this nice?” Sam bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet, and stepped into the first car as soon as the train stopped.

  Heath hesitated. “No one’s driving this thing, Sam.”

  “It’ll be fine, monkey.”

  “But how can it move if there’s no one to hit all the buttons?” He waited for Sam to answer, but she just looked up at him with those weird eyes until he gave up and got in the car and sat next to her. “I don’t know how this can work if—” Before he could finish, the train lurched forward, then slowly settled into a steady chug.

  Heath tried to figure out where they were, and which direction they were headed. Tried to recall the trail that Carmody had driven down earlier that day. But the darkness ate everything—all he could see were vague shapes on either side, which might have been trees or rocks, or concrete abutments on the freeway for all he could tell. The only indications of forward motion were the gentle rumble of the train and the sensation of the breeze through his hair.

  Time passed. Every so often he sensed that someone sat behind him, that they rested their hand on his shoulder. But each time he turned around, there was no one there.

  Heath started to check his watch, then remembered that Carmody had removed it back at the house. He squinted into the gloom and tried to recall whether he had seen any sign of the railroad tracks near the trails. As far as he could remember, just enough had been laid for the little train to take visitors to the house from the helipad. If that were true, then why in hell was this trip taking so long?

  If it wasn’t, then where in the hell were they headed?

  “Is this track going around the mountain?” Heath looked at Sam, then shrugged. Her face had that focused look she used to get when she listened to music. She always felt that she could detect sounds on recordings that no one else could hear. “Who are you listening to, baby?”

  “The children.” Still with the smile, only this time Sam placed her hand on his knee.

  He yawned, rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, he stared. He had seen Jericho only once, when Carmody had parked the Rover at the top of the hill, but he would have bet what little money remained in his bank account that the circle of wooden structures he looked at now was the same place. Only—

  “The driver told us that we couldn’t ride this from the house to Jericho. He said that the track at the house and the one here were different widths.”

  “Shows you what he knew.” Sam stepped out of the car, then held out her hand. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Heath gripped her hand, and flinched at the sensation of chill, damp slickness. “Your hand’s gotten cold, baby.” He looked back over his shoulder at the train, but it had already gone. Thought he heard rustlings in the grass, sounds of whispering and chalked them up to small animals, and the night breeze.

  Sam led him to the largest building and knocked on the door. Still bouncing, still smiling. The last time she had acted this mysterious, she had led him to the upstairs room of their favorite restaurant for what turned out to be a surprise birthday party. Heath had pretended to have a good time for her sake, but truth was, he hated surprises.

  He heard footsteps from inside the building. The click of a lock. Then the door opened.

  “Ah, Mr. Jameson. We’ve been expecting you.” A middle-aged man in a lab coat waved him inside. “Please, come in.”

  Heath tried to put the brakes on as Sam got behind him and pushed. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Not to worry, Mr. Jameson.” The man picked up a clipboard from a nearby desk. “We just need to run a few preliminary tests before entering you into the program.” He pointed to the chair in the middle of the room, a vinyl-covered recliner that resembled something from a dentist’s office. “Have a seat.”

  “I don’t want to have a seat. I want to know what’s going on?” Yet a beat later he found himself seated, the chair tilted back so his feet were elevated and Sam bent over his legs, buckling restraints around his ankles.

  “I—” Heath tried to raise his hand, realized that the wrist restraints had already been tightened.

  “You have been selected for a very special program, Mr. Jameson.” The man in the lab coat stood opposite him. He still held the clipboard in one hand, and with the other he shook a fountain pen as though trying to get the ink to flow. A name had been picked out in black thread over his right breast pocket. Dr. E. Rickard.

  “Program?” Heath tried to attract Sam’s attention, but she had gone to stand against the far wall.

  “A program of discovery. Of self-realization.” Rickard continued to make notes, his pen scratching across the paper. “What if I told you that there was another world that existed alongside the one in which you lived for fifty-seven years? A world of knowledge that, once joined with yours, will allow humanity to attain heretofore unimaginable depths.”

  Through the fog that had settled in his brain, Heath detected the mismatch, the words that didn’t fit. “You mean heights, don’t you?”

  “A common error.” Rickard took hold of Heath’s wrist. “You have never seen the signs of this new world. A witch of your poor powers could never know its existence without taking certain measures. But others have. We follow in the footsteps of giants, Mr. Jameson. Men who had the foresight to act when others cowered, who saw when others remained blind.” He pressed two fingers to the pulse point. “Just making sure.” After a few moments, he smiled. “Zero beats per minute. Excellent.”

  “Bullshit.” Heath tried to move his hands, but the restraints held him fast. “I’m alive.”

  Rickard chuckled, a weird, wet sound. He started writing again, then shook his head and held out the pen to Sam. “More ink, please.”

  “Yes, Dr. Rickard.” Sam walked to Heath’s side. “This won’t hurt a bit, monkey.” She pressed the pen to the crook of his arm and pulled back the little lever one used to draw ink into the cartridge.

  Heath flinched as he felt a needle-like prick, the warm
weirdness of blood being drawn. He looked down at his arm, watched Sam manipulate the pen, pressing the nib more deeply into the crook, turning it one way, then the other, as the cartridge filled with silvery-black. “That doesn’t look right.”

  “It’s perfect.” Every so often, Sam flicked the cartridge with her finger. “Have to get rid of the bubbles,” she said by way of explanation. Then it was finished—she withdrew the nib and handed the refilled pen to Rickard.

  Heath looked at his arm, saw no sign of a needle entry, no bead of blood, and the realization settled that this was no dream. He had gone down the rabbit hole, and he would never, ever be able to climb back out.

  As he watched, the walls took on a different aspect, plain white giving way to grey, then to black that pulsed and vibrated. Buzzing filled his head. The room darkened. He could no longer see Sam. Rickard, meanwhile, was visible only as a vague shadow against the far wall.

  “What do you fear most, Mr. Jameson?” Shadow Rickard had taken the refilled pen from Sam, and now added more notes, the sound of the nib moving across the paper like the scratch of claws on glass. “Wait, I see we already have something here. We can go ahead and get started.”

  “What? I never said—” Heath stopped, then coughed as something thick and cold filled his throat. The smooth vinyl on which he sat changed, grew rough, chilly. His restraints vanished, but even so, he still couldn’t move. Yet he sensed motion around him, rustling noises. Heard birds, so faint. Felt a ruffling sensation, like a soft breeze.

  “Loss of control, isn’t it, Mr. Jameson? Dependent on others for mercy you know they will not show?” Another damp laugh. “How unexpectedly reflective. I wouldn’t have thought it of you.”

  Heath felt movement inside him, deep in his gut, his limbs, his brain. Things that didn’t belong there, destroying what he had been and taking over what remained. Using it. Letting it be used.

  All his nightmares returned at once. All those fears of the dark, the cold, how it felt to be . . .

  “Eww—what is that?”

  . . . alone . . .

  “Touch it, Heath. Touch it.”

  . . . forgotten . . .

  “Poke it—see what happens.”

  . . . taken apart . . .

  “I can see inside it.”

  . . . exposed for all to see.

  Now it was his turn to be the fox.

  CHAPTER 20

  Lauren rose with the sun, showered, and dressed. The morning promised the same heat and high humidity as the day before and the day before that. Not a great day for a hike.

  Yes, she had to go back to Jericho, to search for answers that Carmody and the others refused to give her. They would go nuts when they found she had gone, and she had no doubt they would come after her. Maybe by then she would have learned something useful.

  She would have preferred light clothing, but couldn’t risk it because of the flies. That meant long pants made from ripstop fabric. A long-sleeve shirt of the same material. Her boots. She tied a bandanna around her neck and stuffed several more into the day pack some previous occupant had left in a dresser drawer. Dug through her toiletry bag and suitcase for anything else that might come in handy—nail scissors, emery boards, a hotel room sewing kit. Finally, she added the toy car, because it held something of Jericho in its cast metal body.

  She stepped out onto the balcony, looked overhead at the sunrise sky, robin’s-egg blue tinged with gold and coral, and wondered if she would ever see it again. I need to stop this. Virginia called it Gideon fatalism, that ever-present undercurrent of unease, the realization that one wrong step at the wrong time could mire you in some in-between place from which you would never escape.

  Lauren watched the sky lighten, until the other colors vanished and only eye-watering blue remained. Listened to the birds sing until they were overwhelmed by the now-familiar thumping sounds of Carmody’s approaching chopper.

  A few minutes later, she heard the soft beat of running footsteps coming from the hallway, and went to see what the commotion was about. She opened the door and walked out and barely missed colliding with Peter, clad in running gear.

  “Have you seen Heath?” Peter continued to jog in place. Sweat coated his skin, soaked through his Corbin College T-shirt—this trip had apparently been a detour from his morning workout. “The chopper’s out there waiting for him, and no one can find him.”

  “I assume he’s not in his room.”

  “You assume correctly. All his stuff is still there, though.”

  “Bed been slept in?”

  “Yes, but only because Andrew and I undressed him and wrestled him into it last night.” Peter shook his head. “Add that to the list of things I will never be able to unsee.” He resumed his jog down the hall. “Tell him if you see him, okay? They can’t wait for him forever.” Then he clumped down the stairs and across the living room in the direction of the bar. “Hey, have you seen Heath?”

  Lauren walked to the railing and looked out over the living room. Early morning quiet eventually reasserted itself, the only sounds the distant clatter of dishes and, from outside, the giant insect buzz of a lawn mower. She ambled downstairs and cut through the dining room to the outdoors, picking up a cup of coffee and a handful of granola along the way. Walked along the patio, and watched bees and butterflies flit here and there. Stood at the top of the steps that led down to the garden, and wondered where Heath Jameson had gone.

  She tossed the last bits of granola into her mouth, wiped her hand on her pants, then plucked a handful of leaves from an elder tree and stuck them in her pocket. Started down to the next level of the garden, then doubled back and grabbed another handful of leaves. Demons hate the smell. She told herself that would be all the protection required.

  Then she spotted several members of Carmody’s house security team wandering through the lower levels of the garden. Except wandering didn’t describe the way they poked through the shrubbery, checked under benches, kept in constant touch via walkie-talkie.

  Then one of the guards dug behind a rosebush and pulled out a large leather cross-body bag, the metal fastenings shining softly in the daylight.

  “That’s the bag Heath had with him when he arrived last night.” Peter drew up beside Lauren. “What the hell is it doing out here?”

  As they watched, the guard opened the flap and rooted through the contents. Freed a wallet, a small notebook, a phone, and a liquor flask.

  Then she pulled out a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. Unwound it and revealed a pottery boar.

  Peter’s jaw dropped. “Why, that—”

  “–SONOFABITCH.” CARMODY STOOD hands on hips and glared at the collection that the security chief had laid out on a dining room table. He wore his usual denim ensemble, had switched out clogs for sandals, and had tied a bandanna around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes. He had been in his office when Peter collected him—a wireless earpiece still glistened in one ear.

  Lauren looked toward the dining room entry and spotted Nyssa just as she backed out of view. Then she straightened the boar pulled from Heath’s bag, which was set at the end of the table opposite the one that another guard had removed from the outdoor niche. They had arranged the other pieces the same way, the ones found in the bag on one end, the ones found in the niches on the other. The bronze hare, a small deer, and a fist-size pot.

  “Can you tell which ones are yours?” Peter pointed to one grouping of figures, then the other. “They look identical to me.”

  Carmody picked up the pottery boar that had been found in Heath’s bag and turned it over. Examined it for a few moments, then grumped under his breath and pulled a pair of rimless reading glasses from his shirt pocket and maneuvered them on. Resumed his study, and pointed to something just inside a rear leg.

  Lauren leaned close and sighted down where he pointed, and saw a minuscule mark inscribed in the clay. It appeared to be a letter c, but it was backward, and oddly shaped.

  כ

  “That’
s the ID mark.” Carmody pointed it out to Peter and Jenny, while Stef paced nearby. “All the old pieces have it. They were a gift to my grandfather Elias, but there’s no record of who gave them to him.”

  Peter wrote in the air with his finger. “It looks like the Hebrew letter kaf.” He tilted his head. “Could be Aramaic, too. The line is so thickly drawn, I really can’t tell.”

  Carmody shrugged. “I doubt it could tell us anything about the giver at this late date.” He set the boar back down on the table.

  “They were a gift from a grateful investor.”

  They all turned as Kaster entered. He again proved the most formally dressed person in the room in his pale blue cashmere pullover and gray slacks, soft black loafers scuffing softly against the hardwood floor. “They were given to him around the time he started to make a name for himself.” He joined Carmody at the table.

  Carmody frowned. “You never mentioned it before.”

  “It never came up. No one ever had the stones to attempt to steal them before.” Kaster picked up the marked boar, turned it over and studied it for a moment, then set it down. Then he picked through the other pieces, switched the pots and deer, then backed away from the table when he finished.

  “Are you sure you sorted them properly?” Peter picked up the deer that Kaster had designated the fake and turned it over. “You didn’t even look at them.” His brow arched as he examined the piece. “Well, you nailed this one.” He returned it to its place with the rest of the fakes.

  “I have spent my life in this house.” Kaster pointed to the flower-scaped expanse. “I helped design that garden. I know these pieces like I know myself.”

  Jenny took out her phone and started photographing the pieces. “It’s not my business, but given the value of these things, they should be better secured.” She poked the genuine pot with one finger, then motioned for Kaster to turn it over so she could record the identifying mark. “Your insurance company could deny reimbursement if they proved negligence.”