Golem E-Book

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

• Herausgeber: Wayne Kyle Spitzer
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

I watched as Aaron approached one of the workbenches and fetched an intricately-crafted gold box. “Ah, yes. The shem, you see, is what gives the Golem its power—thank you, son, a sheynem dank. It is what gives it the ability to move and become animated.” I glanced at Aaron, who only looked back at me uncertainly, as his father approached the Golem and opened the box, the gold plating of which gleamed like a fire before the candelabrums. “This one consists of only one word—one of the Names of God, which is too sacred to be uttered here.” He withdrew a slip of paper and placed it into the Golem’s mouth. “I shall only say emet, which means ‘truth’ … and have done with it. And so it is finished. Tetelestai.” He turned and looked directly at me, I have no idea why. “The debt will be paid in full.” Nobody said anything for a long time, even as the birds tweeted outside and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. We just stood there and stared at his creation. At last I said, “So are you going to enter in the Fair, Mr. Moss, or what? How will you even move it?” At which Old Man Moss only smiled, ruffling my hair, and said, “No—it is only for this moment. That is the nature of Art. Tsaytvaylik. Tomorrow it will be gone. Now run along and finish your lawn. I’ve involved you enough.” And the next day it was gone, at least according to Aaron, and both of us, I think, promptly forgot about it. At least until the first of the Benton Boys turned up dead, Sheriff Donner directing the recovery while his ashen-blue body bobbed listlessly against the Benedict A. Saltweather Dam. It was June.

Leseprobe

GOLEM

by

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Table of Contents

Title Page

Golem

The End

Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. All Rights Reserved. Published by Hobb’s End Books, a division of ACME Sprockets & Visions. Cover design Copyright © 2019 Wayne Kyle Spitzer. Please direct all inquiries to: [email protected]

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this book is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Why did I do it? Because I was meant to. Because that’s why I had been allowed to live. This was the whole of the affair in one simple statement.

Memory, of course, can be a dodgy thing: why else would my recall of the Benton Boys—and how Old Man Moss had brought their reign of terror to an end—have lain dormant for so long (forty years, to be exact), right up until that moment I saw what I’d at first taken to be a man—but quickly realized was not—ascending the tower crane just beyond our encampment?

The obvious answer is that a lot can happen in forty years. A man could go from being an innocent kid in Benton, Washington (population one-hundred and seventeen) to a scary homeless dude in Seattle—Belltown, to be precise—just as I had. But there’s another answer, too, one we don’t talk about as much, which is that some things get buried not for any lack of a mental space to put them but for their very unfathomableness and steadfast refusal to make sense. For me, Old Man Moss’ handling of the Benton Boys had been just that, something I’d sublimated completely in the years following not because the event—the events—had been forgotten, but because I simply hadn’t the means of processing them up until that night; the night I climbed the massive tower crane in downtown Seattle and came face to face with the brute. The night the string of gruesome murders that had plagued the city for months had, at last, come to an end.

“I don’t see anything,” said Billy the Skid, his boozy breath seeming to billow with each syllable, as he stood beside me and squinted up at the crane. “Who would it be? Construction’s been halted for months, even I know that.”

“I didn’t say ‘who,’ I said ‘what,’ as in what is that, right there?” I pointed to where the gray figure could once again be seen (ascending not the ladder inside the scaffolding but the tower itself, like some kind of huge spider). “Do you see it? Like a man, and yet somehow not a man. And look, it’s got someone thrown over its shoulder. It’s right there, damn you!”

Billy only shook his head. “Whatever you say, boss.” He chuckled as he made his way back to his shopping cart. “Someone thrown over his shoulder. I say if you can’t handle Thunderbird you ought to leave the drinking to me. Who the hell did ’ya think it was? The Belltown Brute? Ha! And I suppose he ...”

But I wasn’t listening, not really. I was still watching the gray man, the gray thing, ascend the tower—the hammerhead, I’ve heard them called—its tail swinging like a cobra (yes, yes, it had a tail), its ashen skin seeming to catch the lightning and throw it back, its cone-shaped head turning to face me.

Yes. Yes, it could be. Still ... was it even possible? Well, no, to be frank—it wasn’t. But then, everything about the summer of ’79 and what had happened to the Benton Boys and Old Man Moss’ ancient Jewish magik had been impossible. That didn’t change the fact that it had happened—and it had happened—hadn’t it?