Echoes of Memory by Sara Driscoll

Author:Sara Driscoll [Driscoll, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2024-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Quinn slipped silently into the alley. In the silence, everything was magnified: the scurry of rodent feet and the drip of water from a downspout, a remnant of last night’s rain; the nearly suffocating thickness of the warm night as air filled her lungs; the putrid stench of rotten food and garbage mingling sickeningly in her nose with the scent of lilies and roses; the flash of headlights as they streaked by on F Street, transiently lighting the alley before it sunk into gloom again; the sour taste of unease on her tongue.

She shouldn’t be here, but she wasn’t sure why.

The slick plastic of the garbage bag clenched in her fist was too slippery to hold securely, and she struggled to keep her fingers around it as she crossed the alley to the click click click of her heeled sandals on grimy pavement strewn with garbage. She needed to get rid of the bag and get back inside.

Evil things lurked in the dark.

Reaching the garbage bin, she moved to hurl the bag into it, but it abruptly felt weighed down when she tried to drag it off the ground to heft it into the air and over the lip of the bin. With a groan, she released the bag, wondering how it could suddenly be so heavy. Grasping both hands around the knot at the top, she put all her strength behind lifting it, and it came off the ground two inches, then four, before the plastic tore just under her fists, leaving her holding the knot as the bag tumbled to the ground.

With a growl of frustration, she bent over the bag, reaching for the ragged edges to gather them together and try again, when a horrible odor rose from the contents, assaulting her nose and making her eyes water. Blinking, she leaned in, unsure how the refuse from the shop—scraps of ribbon, plastic sleeves, disinfecting wipes, and miscellaneous trash—could smell that bad. All their scrap greenery and spent flowers went into the organic waste bin, not the garbage, but what was inside the bag smelled like rotten eggs or meat spoiling in the sun. Also, it shouldn’t be that heavy. She folded back one edge of the bag to see what was amiss.

Her scream echoed endlessly off the brick walls.

The murdered man lay inside the bag, his body contorted in ways no live person’s ever could. His head lay tipped back, his eyes, frosted white with death, staring up at her, as if pleading for help. His skin was almost ghostly white in the pale light, yet still she could see the undertones of green and purple—the muted tones of death almost glowed in the gloom. As she watched in horror, pale, wriggling maggots began to pour from his open mouth and out through his nostrils, filling the bag as if to drown him.

She screamed again as bitter vomit rose in the back of her throat.

A noise from the end of the alley had her jerking her head up.

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