The Golem of Hollywood

Enoch

A sham learned as a girl to mark the days by the cycle of the sun, but in a featureless land, a seasonless land, risings and settings mock her.

She stops counting. Then she forgets that a count ever existed.

She forgets where she is going. Forgets why she wanted to go there.

It isn’t a question of failing resolve; she simply cannot recall what was done or who did it. She forgets there was something to forget.

Her own voice says Go home.

She doesn’t know what that means.

One day she is no longer looking for her brother or her home but for the tree-tall man Michael. She will fall at his feet and beg him to end her torment.

If he is as merciful as she remembers, he will do it gladly.

Perhaps she misremembers, though. Perhaps she imagined him.

The heat pummels her. The world flickers and glints.

She travels at twilight like the rodents whose eyes flash in the dusk. Snakes molting against the stones teach her to scrub her limbs with sand. She darts lizardlike after lizards, stomping their heads and sucking out their hot slick innards.

Seeing people, she runs toward them. Like the pools of cool water that appear when the sun is high, their faces evaporate as she draws near. Beckoning hands sprout spikes. In fury she slashes them open, licking at the astringent moisture inside.

Every day is the same.

Every day, the earth shakes.

The first time she felt it, she thought it was her own body trembling. A bone-splitting crack, followed by the appearance of a jagged cleft in

the otherwise uniform plain, showed her the truth. She was too confused, and it ended too quickly, for her to feel genuinely frightened.

The next time, however, her mind was primed. She felt the movement and heard the roar and began screaming and running in circles until it ended. There was no place to hide, no reason to think she could.

The wrath of the Lord was upon her.

When, after days without number, a new shape appears on the horizon, she initially takes it as another mirage.

Rather than shrink and dissolve, however, the shape grows larger and sharper as she approaches, casting a lengthy rectangular shadow.

It is a lone wall, fissured and wind-worn. Made not of lashed branches, like the walls of her family’s hut (for a happy instant she remembers that; remembers them), but of dried clay — the same ocher clay she stands on, the same clay she has wandered forever.

Somehow it has been summoned up from the bed of the plain, commanded to take shape and to remain erect.

She studies the seams between the blocks; scrapes at the wall’s surface, grit collecting under her fingernails.

More blocks demarcate the intended outline of the structure. The other walls have collapsed, if they ever stood. There is no roof. It appears as though the builder gave up midway through.

The symmetry, the ingenuity: she is looking at Cain’s handiwork.

Why would he abandon his efforts?

She has her answer that afternoon.

Curled up in the shadow of the wall, she jolts awake with the angry earth. Luck saves her, for she has not managed to move before the wall buckles and heaves away from her, collapsing into rubble.

Eventually the shaking stops, and she uncovers her head and rises in a cloud of fine clay dust. The pile of broken blocks sighs as it settles, disappointed to have missed her.

Had she slept on the other side — or had the wall chosen to fall toward her — she would surely be dead.

The futility of building on such fickle ground is clear to her. Cain must have understood, too. He will keep going until he finds a more sensible place to camp.

She experiences a stab of kinship.

Kinship rekindles memory.

Memory rekindles hatred.

She waits till evening to strike out, the anger in her heart reborn.

Several months later, she finds the second hut.

All that time she has been walking in a straight line, away from the setting sun. She has done so because it’s what Cain would do. She turns her thoughts to his, and signs of him begin to reappear, and the path glows anew.

She will not falter again.

Within days, the sameness of the plain gives way to isolated stands of trees. Grass appears, first furtively, then with confidence, and then overwhelmingly, swarming forth like so many locusts. Thorny grass; sticky grass; a grass that makes Asham’s mouth feel cold and another that smells spicy and makes her itch for a week if she is so unwise as to brush against it.

Against this pale terrain, the black stains of campfires long abandoned stand out, and the glowing path leads her to the broken skeleton of a medium-sized beast, its bones finely scored by a stone blade.

The cut marks are efficient, the product of a practiced hand.

Deep in the grasslands, the earth no longer stinks or smokes or shakes. The weather turns mild enough to sustain streams and ponds. They return a horrifying reflection when she kneels to drink: flaking skin lies tight against her bones. Her scalp shows through where clumps of hair have fallen out.

The second hut, when she comes to it, is no surprise. She has been sensing it for some days. Nor is she surprised to observe Cain refining his methods. Three thick walls, a mat of woven grass, a pile of unused clay blocks.

Animal bones abound, some of them fashioned into tools she cannot identify. She selects one the length of her arm, its point menacingly honed, before setting out again.

Each of the next two huts is larger and more elaborate than its predecessor. The fifth is more impressive still; it’s more than a hut, really, consisting of several outer structures arrayed around a dominant central building.

Curiously, while the smaller buildings contain the by now familiar signs of habitation — seed husks, bone tools, ash — the largest building houses nothing but a towering clay pillar, painstakingly worked smooth.

Something important occurred here. It is not like the Cain she knows to build without a practical purpose in mind.

And having built, it is not like him to run.

He must know that she is behind.

That night, she sits before the fire with a handful of berries. Since entering the grasslands, she has returned to surviving on plants.

How disturbed she is, then, to find herself yearning for a taste of flesh.

And how convenient to turn and find a bloody hunk before her.

Without hesitation she buries her face in it. Quiveringly fresh, unimaginably delicious, and best of all, it never runs short: new flesh grows in to fill in the cavities where she tears at it with her teeth. Her stomach swells to bursting but she cannot stop eating, not until she hears her name called and looks up to see that the meat is not a detached slab but a living limb.

It is Cain’s thigh, raggedly joined to his body at the socket.

He gazes at her kindly. Satisfy yourself.

She awakes from the dream with her face and neck wet: saliva has pooled in the hollow of her throat and dried across her chin.

While traveling one evening, she feels a wet sensation and glances down to see that she has cut her thigh. She didn’t feel it happen, but as soon as she probes the wound and discovers its depth, it begins to throb. A long trail of red drops follows her. She tears a strip of soiled linen from her blanket, binds herself up, and presses on.

Within minutes, the fabric is saturated and dripping. She grimaces and hurries ahead to a small clearing, easing down to retie the linen. She jerks it tight, steadies herself to stand, pauses.

She is not alone.

Unseen bodies ripple the grass. She reaches for a stone and whips it into the grass with a shout. The movement stops.

A low growl follows. Another in reply.

Silence.

They’re moving again.

She hurls another rock. The rippling of grass tips continues, undeterred. Her first shot missed. They know she cannot harm them.

She stands, clutching the bone spear in one hand, her injured leg with the other.

Waits.

Black snouts appear, twitching greedily.

Tongues swing from yellow spotted faces set in round skulls. Idiot grins.

She counts four, five, six, seven. They are bony, haloed by fleas. They stand as high as her waist. She would tower over them, if she weren’t bent awkwardly, holding her bleeding leg.

The largest one raises its snout and begins to laugh.

It is a demon sound.

The rest of the pack joins in, a mad cackling chorus.

The first attack comes from behind and is meant to test her. She swings the spear, raking the ground but missing the animal by a wide margin. It sinks into the grass, laughing.

The others laugh, as well.

They are enjoying themselves.

You go first they seem to be saying. No, please. I insist.

A charge for her flank: she swings, making contact with the side of the spear. The animal yelps and bolts, and in its wake come two more, one for her leg, the other leaping at her throat.

She screams and stabs and slices and moments later an animal lies whimpering, its belly leaking offal, one leg scrabbling as it tries to push itself to safety.

She limps to it and kneels and drives the spear through its throat, silencing it for good.

She yanks the spear free and stands, her arms running red.

The leader growls.

They’ve underestimated her.

They all come at once, from every direction, and soon she has been punctured and bitten and clawed insensate, no longer feeling pain but a numb disappointment that she should fail so ingloriously, to such inglorious adversaries. It’s not like her to go without a fight.

She fights.

She takes another creature and a third but they are too numerous and too coordinated, she can smell their fetid breath as she falls and pulls into a ball and they try to snap her spine through her neck and she flexes in terror as they must have known she would and snouts burrow into her belly which tightens in anticipation and she waits to die and then there is a howl, deeper and stronger than the howls of the beasts devouring her.

Instantly the air clears; instantly it refills with movement. A white cloud hovers over her, leaps over her, circles her; it snarls and lunges at her attackers, driving them back, laughing, into the grass, until the last of them is gone and she is alive.

Their cackles fade.

Quiet panting.

She uncurls.

Aside from the two she killed, a third beast lies savaged, its head nearly torn off.

Beyond it, a familiar shape stands watching her.

Abel’s sheepdog, its mouth smeared with gore.

She reaches for it with a trembling hand.

It trots forward and licks her bloody palm clean. Stands back.

She struggles to her feet, steadies herself on the spear.

The dog crosses the clearing, pausing to make sure she follows.

The distance they travel ought to take no more than half a day. In her current state, it takes two. Her thirst never seems to abate, and she stops frequently to rebind her wounds. The smallest have already scabbed. Others sting in the open air but are dry.

It’s the gash on her leg that worries her. It continues to ooze blood as well as a greenish slime that reeks of rot. The pain roots into her flesh, knotting up close to the bone, an ache that expands and contracts in time with her heartbeat. Her skin burns, tender to the touch, and the swelling has climbed to swallow her knee, slowing her further.

Sensing that she is not well, the dog keeps its distance, walking far enough ahead to urge her on, close enough to ward off danger. It’s limping, too; one of the beasts must have bitten it. She tries to show how sorry she is for having dragged it into a fight. She apologizes, aloud.

It never betrays impatience. It never seems to tire, patrolling as she sleeps.

On the second day, it leads her to the rim of a new valley, a smaller, drier version of the place she grew up.

What it cradles transfixes her.

A massive complex of clay buildings stretches on and on and on, a rough tan rash cut at regular intervals by open passages allowing free transit from one place to the next.

Transit for the hundreds of people therein.

The dog barks and begins its descent.

The slope is severe and rocky and Asham is light-headed. Her wounded leg can bear weight for only a moment before agony shoots up through her groin and into her torso. She balances with her hands, reaching the valley floor with palms scraped raw.

The dog knows where it’s going. Otherwise, she would be instantly lost in the maze of buildings. Ranging from modest to grand, they reflect their inhabitants, who are young and old, fat and thin, diversely dressed, with skins milk-white or tar-black and every shade in between.

Their reactions to her are identical: they drop what they’re doing to gawk. What a spectacle she must present, filthy and half dead. As she limps along, a crowd collects behind her, their whispers a gathering storm of mistrust.

A man steps out to bar her way.

“Who are you?”

She says, “My name is Asham.”

More men appear beside him, each armed with a bone spear, similar to hers but made longer by the addition of a wooden handle.

“What crime have you committed?” the man asks.

“None.”

“Then why have you come here?”

“I don’t know where here is,” she says.

The people murmur.

“This is the city of Enoch,” the man says.

“What’s a city?”

Laughter. Asham’s leg pulses with pain. Her throat sticks to itself. She has not drunk in hours — a mistake.

“I was attacked by beasts,” she says. “The dog saved me and brought me here.”

“And why would it do that?”

“It knows me,” she says. “It belongs to my brother.”

Silence.

Then the crowd erupts, shouting at one another, at the man, at her. They surge forward to take hold of her, but the dog rushes to her side, barking and snapping, just as it did before.

The crowd withdraws, quieting to a resentful simmer.

“You speak truly,” the man says.

“Of course I do,” Asham says.

A smile plays at the man’s lips. He bows and stands aside.

The crowd parts.

The dog leads her on.

Nobody touches her, but she can feel them following at a distance.

The dog turns to a clay building of surpassing size and perfection. It is magnificent to behold, as are the two bare-chested men guarding its stepped entrance. The dog skips up the stairs, pausing to bark at her before disappearing through the doorway.

Leg throbbing, she limps forward. The guards cross their spears, blocking her.

The crowd that followed her is murmuring again.

“Please let me pass,” she says.

The guards do not bat an eye. They do not move a muscle, and there are a lot of muscles to move. She tries to peer around them, but they are broad as oxen and they shift to obstruct her view.

The dog comes wriggling out through the guards’ legs, barking.

A voice from behind them says, “Open, please.”

The guards slide apart to reveal a young boy dressed in clean skins. A bright yellow band encircles his head. A yellow flower hangs on a thong around his neck. His eyes are dark and curious.

The dog runs to Asham, wagging its tail and barking impatiently.

“Hello,” the boy says. “I’m Enoch. Who’re you?”

“Asham.”

“Hello, Asham.”

“Is this your dog?”

The boy nods.

“He’s very nice,” she says.

The boy nods again. “What happened to your leg?”

A clammy wave breaks over her. “I hurt it.”

“I’m sorry,” Enoch says. “Would you like to come inside?”

The interior temperature comes as a shock. She begins to shiver. The room is cavernous, littered with carved wooden stools and broken up by doorways that open onto darkness. Torches along the wall partially relieve the dim.

“I’ve never seen you before,” Enoch says. It’s an observation made without malice. “Where do you come from?”

“Far away.”

“That’s interesting,” he says.

She smiles despite her discomfort. “Do you have any water, please?”

Enoch takes the yellow flower around his neck and shakes it, producing a sharp sound.

A bare-chested man silently materializes in one of the doorways.

“Water, please,” Enoch says.

The man disappears.

Asham is still staring at the flower. “What is that?”

“A bell, silly.”

“I’ve never seen one before.”

“Why not?”

“I just — I haven’t. They don’t have bells where I come from.”

“Far away.”

“Yes, far away.”

“That’s interesting,” the boy says.

“Can I try?”

Enoch removes the thong and hands it to her. She shakes the bell, but the sound she produces is muted, nothing like the clear, piercing ring.

“No, no,” he says. “Like this.” He grasps the bell by its top and rings. “See?”

A new bare-chested man steps through a different door.

The boy giggles and hands the bell back to Asham. “Now you.”

She rings.

A third bare-chested man appears.

“Does that happen every time?” she asks.

“Oh, yes. Try it and see.”

Asham summons two more men, one of whom jostles the first man, hurrying in with a shining vessel that coughs water onto the floor. The three other men run to wipe it up, while the boy giggles and claps his hands and says, “Again, again,” and Asham complies, ringing the bell, bringing yet more men and resulting in confusion and dancing and more spilled water, and then footsteps approach and all the men withdraw rapidly to the wall, standing at attention as a new voice, tight with exasperation, cuts through the commotion.

“I’ve warned you: if you can’t stop that nonsense, I’m going to take it away.”

He emerges wearing a cape of skin, and carrying a flaming staff, and immediately she sees how the years have changed him. He is harder and leaner, and though he wears his hair long, it has receded at the front, so that the cord of scar tissue bisecting his forehead stands out. The sight of it causes Asham to swoon.

“It wasn’t me,” Enoch says. “She asked to try it.”

Cain does not reply.

“He’s right,” Asham says. Another wave of light-headedness overtakes her, more powerful than the last. She digs her fingernails into the flesh of her palm. “Don’t blame him.”

“Leave us,” Cain says.

The bare-chested men disperse.

“You, too.”

“Why?” Enoch asks.

“Go.”

The boy frowns but obeys.

Save the memory of the bell and the hiss of flames, the room is perfectly still.

Asham says, “You stole his dog, too.”

Cain smiles. “You must be tired.” He draws out a wooden stool. “Why don’t you sit down?”

She cannot move. Her body tingles unaccountably. Her knees knock together.

The torches shrink. The room shrinks and spins.

She has so much to say.

She faints.