Joe Golem and the Drowning City: An Illustrated Novel Read online

  Back in the entry room, the junkie fisherman cried out in fear and Molly knew the gas-man was in the building. A crash came from below and she wondered if the fisherman had gotten in his way somehow. Looking down, she saw the gas-man hurrying toward the spiral staircase, and she thought she could hear his labored breathing. Fear brought bile into the back of her throat, and it tasted like rust.

  Molly ducked through a small doorway into what had once been a storage space, or some tiny child’s room, closing the door quickly and quietly behind her. The gas-man wouldn’t have seen her enter, so if she only stayed silent, she would be safe here. Yet with only a flimsy door—not even locked—between them, she felt too vulnerable. Fortunately, she knew this building well. Once upon a time, it had been an elegant apartment building catering to the privileged from out of town who wished to have a second home in Manhattan.

  At the back of the room was an enormous wooden wardrobe, dusty and moldy with age. It had been pulled away from the wall, and behind it was another small door to match the first, only four feet high. Moving as quietly as she was able, Molly slipped through that door as well, listening for the gas-man as she emerged on a landing. There were narrow, carpeted stairs here. The building had been constructed with a warren of corridors and stairways so that servants could move through the building without being seen, like rats in the walls.

  Silently, quite like a rat herself, she scurried through those narrow halls. She paused when she heard the crash of the wardrobe being thrown aside, a tremor in her heart. How had the gas-man known which way she had gone? He could not possibly have seen her enter through that small door, and she had made virtually no sound.

  Shaken, Molly moved through the warren of old servants’ corridors. More than once, she ducked through forgotten doors and up or down small stairways, and yet when she paused to listen, she could still hear the gas-man in pursuit. It should have been impossible.

  At last, she crouched in a tiny attic storage space, waiting for him to pass by beneath her. A crack in the attic door let her watch the corridor below, and when she heard him come lumbering down the hall, she remained entirely still. Even her heart stopped in that moment, or so it seemed, fearful of making any sound the gas-man might detect.

  He passed by the narrow, almost hidden attic stairway. Molly watched him go past, and her heart gave a small leap of triumph, thinking she had eluded him at last. But then the massive gas-man hesitated and voices cried out in alarm inside her mind. He turned halfway, his massive bulk filling the narrow corridor, and she saw the dim light from the guttering flames in the wall sconces gleaming on the black rubber of his mask. The people who occupied this building now either were out or had heard the crash and terror of the gas-man’s pursuit, for no one had emerged to interfere or lend a hand.

  Please, no, Molly thought. I’m not here. Just keep going.

  But he did not. Instead, the gas-man reached up to touch his mask, loosened a strap behind his head, and began to lift it from his face. A hiss of air emitted from within, and a sickly yellow gas jetted from the gap. He raised the mask only a little, and as his features were clouded with gas, Molly could barely make out his face, but what she saw filled her with a horror that stabbed to her marrow and filled her veins with ice.

  Then the creature began to sniff at the air, that wet, snuffling sound more disgusting than ever, and she understood.

  He was following her scent.

  Molly stifled a scream. She wanted to cry, but she was fourteen years old and had vowed that all of her tears were behind her. A foolish promise, even if made only to herself, and she knew it. But today wouldn’t be the day. Felix needed her. As long as he was alive, she would not abandon him.

  She bolted, running the length of the attic room and down the main stairs, where she threw open the door and found herself in a hall only ten feet from the top of the spiral staircase she had used when she had first entered the building. For all of her furtiveness and knowledge of this maze of a building, she had gained only seconds.

  To the left, the door to the roof was open and she shot outside, into the sunlight. She climbed a pitted metal ladder, and then she was truly on top of the building, the attic she had just been hiding in now underfoot.

  A couple had spread a picnic on the roof, a guy and a girl, maybe twentyish. They were looking Uptown, probably dreaming of a life beyond the poverty and ruin of the Drowning City, making the best of a faded blanket, a bottle of homemade wine, and some meager sandwiches, until they saw the fear on Molly’s face.

  “Hey. What are you—”

  “Get away,” she said, flapping her hands to shoo them like they were gulls. “Hide. Or run. Just don’t try to stop him!”

  “Stop who?” the girl asked.

  But her guy seemed to get it right away, to understand the only part of this that he needed to be concerned about. Someone was coming that could hurt them, and he wouldn’t let anything happen to his girlfriend. He broke the wine bottle against a chimney, standing up and brandishing the jagged glass, his eyes full of dark expectation.

  Molly raced past him, running to the rear of the building. The one behind it, on Twenty-seventh Street, was only a ten-foot drop below. Wooden stairs had been built decades before, but they were rickety and unreliable, and a heavy cable hung nearby. Molly stripped off her shirt, wrapped it around the cable, and held tight as she rappelled the short drop and kept running, her hair flying behind her, trying to drag her shirt back on without falling.

  Back on the last roof, the girl started to scream. Her boyfriend made not a sound, and Molly wondered if he was as dead as the Mendehlsons.

  At the edge of the building, she slowed, the width of Twenty-seventh Street stretching out in front of her. A wood and rope bridge hung across the gap, but it had been built recently and she had never crossed it, did not know if it could be trusted. Yet she had come this way knowing that she would have to rely on it, and so she did not stop.

  She gathered up the guide ropes on either side in her hands and ran, the ropes burning her palms. The bridge swayed and the boards rattled underfoot, but it was sturdy and well-built. Molly released her grip and reached within herself to find a fresh burst of speed, hurtling toward the opposite roof. If she could reach Twenty-fifth Street she would find one of the busiest parts of the Drowning City, the street a web of bridges, a busy marketplace above the water, taverns in the upper floors of well-preserved buildings.

  A crash came from behind her. Startled, Molly began to turn and caught her foot, falling. Throwing out her arms, she landed on her belly and scrabbled to get a grip, praying she wouldn’t slide off the bridge. Catching herself, heart thundering, she turned to see the massive gas-man climbing from the wreckage of the ruined steps back on the last roof. His weight had made them give way beneath him.

  Could she jump? Swim beneath the waves and find somewhere to hide?

  Then he leaped, hurtling through the air above the bridge, and landed ahead of her, on the roof at the end of the bridge. Impossible. Yet there he was.

  Molly fell to her knees on the bridge, grabbed one of the guide ropes to which the wooden slats were attached, and dropped over the edge. She weighed barely ninety pounds, but the bridge swayed as she began to swing with all her strength … once, twice, a third time, and then she let go, arms flailing, legs tucked up to her chest.

  Molly crashed down onto the metal catwalk below the bridge and slammed into the building. From above she could hear the sticky, snuffling breathing of the gas-man. Molly pushed off the wall and bolted along the catwalk, running to the corner of the building and turning into the narrow, shaded alley where the fire escape descended down and into the water.

  She had no time to be careful now. Caution would kill her. She threw one leg over the railing, slid down, and searched with her feet for the railing below. There was no time left to take the stairs. Instead she climbed down, agile from a lifetime of surviving in this strange, flooded jungle of stone and iron.

  Glancin
g down, Molly let go and dropped to an ornate wooden walkway built just above the high-tide line. The water washed against the buildings but never reached the bridge, with its Chinese lanterns and little altar shrines spaced at intervals along its length. The walkway led between buildings, from Twenty-seventh Street through to Twenty-sixth, where a small enclave of Chinese lived apart from the much larger community farther Downtown.

  At night the walkway would be beautiful, gaslights burning inside the colored-glass lanterns, casting a rainbow of soft hues against the walls on either side. This morning it was just the path to survival.

  Something struck the wooden walkway, shaking the boards beneath her feet, and she didn’t have to look back to know it was the gas-man. A rush of fury swept through her. For a moment she had let herself believe that she might make it, but once again the hulking man had closed the gap. Molly had let Felix down. Dying, she would let him down yet again.

  Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, making her angrier. She would not cry. And yet the tears came despite her refusal.

  She glanced back, still running, her footfalls echoing on the wood and off the walls. The gas-man was gaining, only twenty feet behind her now.

  Molly collided with a huge man and staggered backward, disoriented, beating at his arms as his powerful hands locked on her shoulders and held her still. The hulking gas-man … but it couldn’t be; he was right behind her.

  She looked up into cold gray eyes, sad but wise, set into a scarred, grizzled face. The newcomer had the solid, imposing build of an old-time boxer, or some back-alley legbreaker. With his huge neck and square jaw, flat nose, and ears that looked too small for his head, he was an ugly man, to be sure. But he had a quiet, inner nobility Molly sensed instantly. Though he had no jacket or tie, his trousers were clean and pressed and his suspenders harkened back to an earlier era. In the first moment, she thought he might be fifty, but then decided he couldn’t be much more than thirty. But it had been a rough thirty years, from the look of him.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “You’re Molly McHugh?” he said, his voice a low rumble, full of sandpaper grit.

  Surprised he knew her name, she flinched away from him. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Joe.”

  He said this like it was the only answer required, then paused a moment, as if memorizing her face. When she opened her mouth to ask for more explanation, he shoved her out of the way. Molly hit the railing, twisting in time to see the hulking gas-man barreling toward them along the Chinese walkway.

  The huge man—Joe—slipped out of his long coat, clenching his enormous hands into fists. The gas-man thundered ahead, reaching for him, but Joe only smiled.

  Chapter Four

  Joe took one step forward and hit the hulking gas-man so hard that yellow mist puffed from the seams of his slick yellow bodysuit with a hiss like a steam engine. As Molly stumbled back against the railing of the bridge, she realized it was the same gas she’d seen escaping from beneath the creature’s mask.

  Poison. Oh-God-what-if-it’s-poison?

  She grabbed Joe by the cuff of his rolled-up shirtsleeve and tried to pull him back, but his strength was such that she could not tug him even an inch toward her. She hooked her fingers on his suspenders, but with the flick of a wrist, he shoved her away. Then the gas-man lunged at him, swinging a fist with unnatural speed. The blow struck Joe in the temple with such ferocious power that for a second Molly held her breath, sure he would topple over dead.

  Joe shook it off, then waded in, swinging his fists. He took as many blows as he gave, but though the gas-man was staggered by his assault, Joe only seemed more determined every time his opponent landed a punch. The gas-man turned as if to flee, but instead he grabbed hold of one of the posts holding up a Chinese lantern and snapped it off, twisting to swing the lantern.

  “Watch out!” Molly shouted, caught between fear for her rescuer and the urge to flee for her life. But the man had intervened to save her—she couldn’t just run away.

  She needn’t have worried. Joe dodged the lantern, then stepped in and punched the gas-man twice more in the abdomen. More yellow mist jetted from the seams of his clothing. The gas-man began to moan, and Molly thought she saw his flesh ripple underneath the rubber casing. He spun around again, with even greater speed, and this time he found his target. The Chinese lantern shattered against Joe’s jaw, and the big man stumbled backward, momentarily stunned.

  The gas-man clutched the broken lamppost in his gloved hands and charged, aiming for Joe’s heart. But Joe sidestepped, and the jagged post never touched him. He grabbed hold of the post and pulled his attacker nearer, stepping inside the gas-man’s reach. He caught the gas-man’s wrist and twisted it hard enough to snap bone, though no sound issued from within the wet suit. The gas-man let out a kind of shriek, muffled by his mask, and lunged for Joe’s throat. Molly watched in horror as Joe tightened his grip on the gas-man’s wrist and yanked, moving him as if he were some kind of puppet.

  The wetsuit split along the shoulder seam. Blood and sickly yellow mist jetted from the rip in the material, and Joe twisted with such strength that he tore the gas-man’s arm off with a wet rip of tendon and fabric.

  Molly let out a small cry of revulsion.

  As the broken lamppost clattered to the bridge, Joe turned to look at her, holding the severed arm in his hand.

  “What did you do?” Molly breathed.

  The gas-man collapsed to the planks of the bridge, and they both turned and stared as the huge gas-man deflated, a wilting balloon in the rapidly diminishing shape of a man. Something shuddered inside the wetsuit and then it—and the gas-man’s long coat—flopped to the ground, something undulating inside of it.

  “Good question,” Joe said, staring at the thing flopping inside the wetsuit.

  Now that the gas had escaped from within that slick suit, whatever remained bucked and shook inside like an enormous eel. It lunged toward the edge of the bridge, dragging the suit around it. Joe bent to reach for it, muscles straining the threads of his expensive shirt, but he was not fast enough. The thing dropped over the side and into the water below, vanishing into the sea, leaving only its ugly gas mask behind.

  “Son of a bitch,” the big man rumbled.

  Joe stood watching the rippling sea where the strange, eel-like thing had gone into the water, but it did not emerge. Molly tried not to look at the severed arm that he still clutched in his hand. Her thundering heart began slowly to calm, but she could not help remembering the glimpse she had gotten of the face inside the gas-man’s mask, and she shuddered

  The gas mask lay on the planks of the bridge as if waiting to be picked up.

  Joe picked up his discarded jacket and shrugged it back on. His gray eyes turned stormy as he glanced at Molly. When he started toward her, she took a step back, but she didn’t run. Despite the limb in its tattered sheath that dangled from Joe’s grasp, the worry and kindness in his stony eyes made her feel safe in a way that was entirely foreign to her. Even living with Felix, generous and caring as he’d been, she had always feared the perils of the world. But this man, with his scars and his monstrous size, set her at ease.

  “Thank you,” she said, wondering what had become of Felix, and if he still lived.

  Joe bent to study the gas mask but did not pick it up.

  Then the sound of footfalls farther along the bridge drew their attention and they both looked around to see two more gas-men—these the size of ordinary men, apparently having pursued Molly and their larger comrade from the theater—come running toward them, only to jerk to a halt when they saw the empty gas mask on the planks between Joe and Molly, and the severed arm in Joe’s hand.

  Joe uttered a short, humorless laugh and started to advance on the new arrivals.

  “I hit him too hard, huh?” he said. “Maybe I’ll try to be gentler with you guys.”

  Without a word, the gas-men turned and fled the way they’d come, sprinting toward the other end of
the Chinese bridge and vanishing around a corner.

  Molly felt a spark of hope. Whatever these things were, they had taken Felix. She’d had no chance of finding him, but perhaps that had changed.

  She started to run, pursuing the two gas-men, but she made it only three steps before Joe seized her arm.

  “No,” he said. “You’ll never catch them. And if you do, you’ll regret it.”

  Molly tried to yank her arm free, staring at him. “Let me go! You don’t understand. They kidnapped my friend. Following them is the only way to find him!”

  “It’s not the only way,” Joe insisted, holding her so firmly that she knew she could never break his grip. “We need to go to Church.”

  “Church?” she said. “Are you nuts, mister? Prayer’s not going to help me track them down. I know every bridge and corner in this part of the city. I can catch them. I can do it without being seen. Just let me go, please!”

  Joe shook his head, holding the gas-man’s severed arm in one hand and her in the other.

  “Sorry, kid. Gotta get this to Church.” He narrowed his eyes. “And I better bring you along. No time to argue about it.”

  Molly shook her head, wondering how she had so badly judged him and why she had felt safe in his presence. He was just another predator. Another kind of monster.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, gauging her moment, preparing to attack him. If she went for his eyes, he would release her, and then she could bolt. He’s fast, she thought. But over the bridges and connectors, I’ll be faster. “Especially not some stupid church.”

  If she could make it to the Vault on Twenty-third Street, he would never be able to follow her inside—the building had been closed off except for narrow tunnels in and out, much too small for him to pass through.

  “I don’t want to frighten you,” he said, and he almost sounded like he meant it.