On the third day

“Get a move on!” Barrabas hissed to his companion “We gotta be there and back before sunrise!”

“I can’t see a bloody thing!” the small man complained. “I’ve already stubbed my toe on a rock twice and I stepped in something that’s gotten right into my sandal. I can feel it squishing around in there! Why can’t we use the lantern?”

“For fucks sake Simon! Are you an idiot? I’ll tell you why we can’t use the lantern! Because then the guards would see us and arrest us for grave robbing! Look – I only need you to help move the stone, so can you please try to keep quiet and keep up until we get there?”

“Alright – but I hope you realize that this is really unpleasant. I think that goat…” Simon stopped as the moon appeared from behind a cloud and revealed Barrabas’s murderous expression.

“I’ll be quiet now” he muttered and continued to walk up the hill behind his companion.

The moon bathed the landscape in a cool monochrome as the men slowly picked their way across the rocky slope. Occasionally one of the men would lose their footing, and a small landslide of sandstone pebbles and fist sized rocks would cascade down the hillside. When this happened, they both would freeze and wait for the sounds of alarm from the town below – and when none came, would continue on their journey.

Eventually the men arrived at their destination. A large boulder leaned against the sheer wall of a small outcropping of rock, away from the path and bathed in shadows.

“Right – we’re here then. Let’s get that boulder out of the way and get on with it” Barrabus said.

“It’s fucking HUGE!!” Simon exclaimed. “How the hell are we going to move that?”

Barrabus leaned around to the side of the boulder and produced two large wooden poles, a grin spreading across his face.

“With these!”

Simon and Barrabus wedged the ends of the poles into a gap began to push.

“So why exactly are we robbing this grave?” Simon asked. “Is he an Egyptian immigrant who was buried with all of his money?”

“Na” replied Barrabus. “He was a prophet –had loads of followers.”

“A prophet?” Simon exclaimed, dropping his pole. “A bloody prophet! I could go into town and find you a dead prophet in any backstreet between the fish market and the Thirsty Camel tavern!”

“You don’t get it do you – he had hundreds of people following him. Do you have any idea how much money his sandals will be worth? Now shut up and push!”

“Crappy way to spend a Saturday night.”

Finally the boulder began to move; slowly at first but then gaining momentum until it rolled free and bounced away down the hillside, gaining speed until a small avalance descended on Jerusalem.

The two men faced each other in shock.

“Shit!”

“Do you think that bastard Barnabus is guarding the east wall tonight?”

“I really hope so!”

“Did you just hear something?”

The moon passed behind a cloud, and darkness swept the hillside.

“Great – now I can’t see anything AGAIN!”

“Shut up – I can hear something. Let me just light this lantern.”

Simon’s eyes strained against the curtain of darkness, willing them to see what lay beyond its veil. He could hear the sound of Barrabus searching in his pack and something else. A slow scraping sound like a sack of wheat being dragged across a dusty stone floor, followed by a short, sharp sound that seemed like a footstep.

The sounds were getting closer. The long dragging sound followed by the lurching step.

“Can you hurry up with that lantern?” Simon hissed at his friend.

“Almost got it…there!” Barrabas struck the flint and the lantern ignited.

Barrabas turned towards the cave and let out a small involuntary shriek. Standing right next to him was a tall, bearded man.

The man was around six feet in height, with long dark hair and was draped in a white funeral shroud. His eyes were milky and opaque, almost as if he were blind. A large centipede crawled out of his right nostril and fell to the floor. Blood stained the mans shroud, and a loop of intestine could be seen through a large wound on his side.

Barrabas looked in horror at the creature before him and backed away. The thing’s arms shot out in front of him – searching and grasping the empty air until they connected with Barrabus’s tunic. Its hands gripped tightly and it pulled itself towards the terrified grave robber and sank its teeth into the man’s neck.

Barrabas began to scream as he flailed at his attacker. The creature responded by clenching its jaw and whipping its head from side to side. The skin on the grave robbers neck stretched and split – finally giving way as the creature tore its head back. A fine spray of arterial blood misted Simons face, staining his tunic a deep wet crimson and Barrabus fell to the ground – no longer screaming, but simply making a surprised gurgling sound as his essence drained away onto the sand.

“What the..” Simon stammered, his stomach lurching and his legs suddenly becoming numb. He stumbled backwards, unable to take his eyes from his friend as the bearded man pounced upon him and tore a ragged hole in Barrabas’s cheek with his teeth.

The heel of Simon’s sandal caught on a small boulder and he fell backwards, arms flailing until he landed solidly on the rock strewn hillside. A particularly large pointed rock fortunately prevented his head from striking the floor. Simon’s eyes rolled back in his head and he passed into oblivion.

Simon slowly awoke. It was as if he was being pulled from somewhere warm and comfortable into a world of burning pain. He did not want to go, but the terrible searing agony in his legs and abdomen would not let him sleep.

He opened his eyes and immediately wished that he hadn’t. His legs were no more than bones, stripped of their flesh apart from a few fibers of muscle that had not yet been devoured. The strange bearded man and Barrabas had their hands deep into his stomach and were feasting on the strange bulging tubes that they were pulling out of the hole in his middle.

Realization combined with the terrible pain and Simon returned to reality. He started to scream. The scream was cut short however as his former friend reached into his chest cavity and tore Simon’s lungs from his torso.

#

The sun was still low in the sky, but already the temperatures were soaring as the four figures left the east gate and started their journey.

“I still don’t understand why we had to wait three days to go and move the body”

“He was very specific about it John. I asked him the same question and he said that it was really important that we didn’t go anywhere near the body until sunrise on the third day, otherwise, and I quote, ‘Bad Things would happen.’”

“What kind of Bad Things?”

“I don’t know – he started going on and I stopped paying attention. Something about demons inhabiting the empty shell I think, and it taking him three days to sort all the paperwork out. I was just nodding and smiling at that point. He wasn’t making a great deal of sense.”

“Do you have any idea what three days in a hot cave will do to a dead body? Can you begin to imagine what the SMELL is going to be like?”

“That’s why we brought Mary with us.” Peter nodded his head in the direction of the woman trailing behind the two men. She was talking to another man, who was, in turn attempting to coax a belligerent looking Donkey into motion with a carrot on a stick.

“She brought a load of spices with her, to try and cover the stink.”

“Great” said John without much conviction, “instead of liquefying rotten corpse stench we get curried liquefying rotten corpse stench. That will be an improvement.”

The group trudged on in silence, the heat from the sun robbing them of the energy to hold a conversation. The quiet only occasionally broken by sporadic cursing from Mark when the Donkey decided to bite him or turn round and go back the way it had come from.

After an hour, the group arrived at the cave.

“Where’s that boulder gone?” said John. “There was definitely a big boulder here”.

“Like that one they were trying to move down by the east wall this morning?” said Mary. “The one that came down the hill in the middle of the night and crushed that guard?”

Peter and John exchanged worried glances and hurried inside the open cave.

“Where are the other two?” panted Mark as he appeared over the crest of the ridge, physically dragging the Donkey behind him.

Mary looked up from her nails, a bored expression on her face.

“Inside. I suppose they are going to go get the body or something. When exactly am I going to get paid for this?”

“I already told you. You will get paid when…..hang on a second, where did all this blood come from?”

There was blood all over the dusty floor by the entrance to the cave. Several large puddles were thickening in the morning sun, along with areas that seemed to have been covered in a fine spray adjacent to the large pools. The air was thick with flies and a pungent coppery tang that was unmistakable. One of the pools had a wide trail leading away from it as if something had been dragged through it. Along the course of the trail were a number of small red and brown chunks that Mark really did not want to look too closely at.

Mary’s eyes widened as she registered the scene before her, and, clamping a hand firmly over her mouth, ran for the nearest boulder.

“We had better check this out, in case anyone is hurt” said Mark, but was only answered by the sounds of Mary being noisily unwell behind a large rock.

“Why don’t I take a look” he mumbled to himself and set off to follow the trail, the Donkey trotting along behind him quite happily now that he had let go of the reins.

The blood trail carried on for almost 100 yards, across the loose rock of the hillside and around a large outcrop of sandstone. Mark peered around the rock and almost screamed as the donkey came up behind him and nudged him to one side so that it could get a better look.

The trail ended at a man, or what was left of him. His legs were no more than bones covered in strips of red sinew. Similarly his pelvis and waist were stripped of flesh up to his rib cage. This would have been disconcerting enough without the fact that the man was dragging himself along with his hands, down the hillside towards Jerusalem. As he clawed his way along something that looked like his liver plopped out of his chest cavity onto the dusty ground.

“Erm….are you alright?” Mark asked.

The injured man looked over his shoulder and, on seeing Mark, turned and scrambled up the hillside towards him.

The man did not look much better from the front. His eyes were an opaque white colour, and dried blood was caked all around his mouth and chin. His teeth were stained bright red, and as he moved up the hillside (quite quickly for someone with no legs, Mark thought), fresh blood welled up inside his mouth and streamed in rivulets down his face and neck.

“Maybe you should lie still..” Mark said, backing away from him

The man ignored him and, now only a few feet away, launched himself into the air at Mark. Something slithered from his open chest and landed with a squelching sound behind him in a wet, red heap.

Mark ducked to his left, and the creature landed next to the startled donkey, sinking his teeth into its foreleg and tearing off a long strip of fur and flesh.

The donkey let out long bray of pain and outrage, and, as John and Peter came hurrying around the sandstone outcrop, turned around and kicked its attacker firmly in the centre of his forehead, causing his skull to cave in. Gray particles of brain matter oozed through the splintered bone and the ruined body lay still. The donkey kicked him again anyway, for good measure, and then fled down the hillside, leaving a cloud of dust and the receding sounds of angry braying in its wake.

John and Peter looked at one another.

“I think we might have a problem” Peter said.

#

Thomas sighed to himself as he headed towards the market. The events of the last two days had been catching up with his friends and some of them were beginning to sound quite unbalanced, he decided.

“They should go away for a few days, have a nice long lie down away from the hot sun” he muttered to himself. “I mean, I know we’re all taking this hard, but to suggest he has come back from the dead and is wandering around Jerusalem – it’s just bloody stupid!”

The market was now only a few streets away. Already the deafening noise of the place was growing in intensity – from a faint murmur a few streets back, to sounding like a hive of angry wasps that someone had kicked into a herd of camels. Thomas would catch the occasional scent of spices and animal excrement on the breeze.

He hated the market.

Thomas pushed his way out of the crowded street into an empty alley, savoring the cool shade of the high walls. The alley was deserted apart from two men at the far end that were coming in his direction. Thomas began to walk towards them, when he stopped and looked at one of the men.

“Is this a fucking wind up?” he said.

The man did not reply and instead carried on down the alley. His head was tilted at an odd angle, and his arms were held out infront of him, clawing at the empty air.

“Yeah – NICE ONE PETER!” he yelled, looking around. The bastards were all having a good laugh at his expense. They would pop over the top of the walls and point and laugh any second now.

“I hate it when they point and laugh” he muttered.

“OK smart arse” he said to the man with the beard and the bloodstained white robe who was now only a few feet away from Thomas. “If you are REALLY him, show me the wound in your side from that big fucking spear they stuck you with.”

The man lurched forwards, and put his hands on Thomas’s shoulders. Thomas pushed his right hand into the side of the man, and his eyes widened with horror as it slid inside something cold, wet and slippery that felt like a squirming bucket of eels. He yanked his hand out, pulling the tubes out as he did. They began to unravel into a wet pile on the floor besides the man.

Thomas opened his mouth to scream, but before any sound could come, the bearded man drove his head forward and bit down into Thomas’s tongue.

He squealed in pain, trying to push away from the strong arms that held him fast and those terrible, tearing teeth, but to no avail. The man that appeared to be his dead friend tore Thomas’s tongue from his mouth, swallowing it in one go, before thrusting his head forwards towards his victims throat.

#

The first thing that he was aware of was an agonizing pain in his head and the crush of bodies around him. His stomach lurched, and he snapped open his eyes – immediately wishing he had not as the burning light of the sun shone into the room through the partly open shutter. There was a persistent banging on his front door that was making his head pound in time to it. He clambered over the two sleeping prostitutes on his bed and stumbled towards the door, kicking over a half full gourd of wine as he went.

“This better be good” he growled as he slid back the bolt.

Of all the things he had expected to see when he opened the door, the two worried looking men standing there were pretty far down the list.

“Peter? John? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hello Judas. Can we have a word?”

#

The morning was taking on a rather surreal slant thought Judas as he took another sip of the strong coffee and looked up through bleary eyes at the two men before him.

“So what you are telling me is that he has come back to life and is now attacking the living – and when they die they also come back to life. Is that about right?”

“Basically yes” said Peter, his eyes cast down at the floor.

“When he spent all that time going on about life after death we didn’t expect things to be quite so….literal” John chimed in.

“and you want ME to stop him?”

“Well, yes, if you wouldn’t mind” said Peter, looking up hopefully.

“Why the hell would I do something like that? Go and beat his head in yourself. He used to call you his rock – so go and find a big pointy one and get on with it!”

“Well, the thing is…that wouldn’t look very good from a public relations point of view. You already more or less killed him once, so all we are really asking is that you do it again. Just more permanently this time. Before things get out of hand.”

“Thirty pieces of silver was your fee I believe” said John, holding up a small brown leather purse and jingling it in front of Judas’s face.

Judas looked at the purse and sighed. “Bugger!” he said, taking it from Johns outstretched hands.

#

The sun beat down upon the heads of the three men crouched behind the wall.

“Did I mention that this is a bloody stupid idea?” said Judas.

“It might be stupid, but it’s the only idea we have. Anyway, it was YOUR idea!” said Peter. “Do you think we got them all?”

“Let me take a quick look” said John, and pulled himself up so that he could peer over the wall into the alley below. The sight made his stomach lurch.

There were more than fifty people in the alleyway, and all of them were missing parts of their bodies that would normally be considered important. Most had large sections of their throats missing, the wounds slowly dripping with thick black ichor. Others had limbs that had been stripped of their flesh or that were missing all together. Some of the worse ones however were the people whose internal organs had been torn from gaping holes in their stomachs and chests.

The people were wandering around in the tight alley, seemingly confused as to how to leave again. Wagons had been positioned at each end blocking off their escape routes. On catching sight of Johns head peering over the wall, they moved as one towards him, their arms waving and grasping the air as they reached for the man. John squealed in terror and popped his head back down behind the wall once more.

“That looks like all of them” he said, “let’s get on with this”.

The three men lifted a large barrel of oil and heaved it over the wall. There was a small wet squelching sound as it landed on one of the undead without legs, followed by the splintering of wood as the barrel cracked open, spilling the oil across the alley floor.

Four more barrels followed in rapid succession,  but as the men lifted the final barrel, they heard the sounds of angry voices at the far end of the alley.

“You had better go and see what’s happening” John said to Peter

Peter ran to where Mark was attempting to calm a growing crowd of people who were gathering around him.

“He is risen! Halleluiah!”

“Give us eternal life lord!”

“Look” Mark yelled above the cries of the crowd “There is nothing to see here, so why don’t you just go home. I hear there is a good stoning on by the West Wall this afternoon? Why not go and see that instead!”

“Bollocks!” yelled a man “He’s trying to keep the eternal life to himself!”

“The bastard!Get Him!” cried another man, and the crowd surged forward, hurling abuse and rocks at Mark.

“No! You don’t understand!” cried Mark as he fell to the ground. The mob ignored him and pushed the wagon clear of the alley way entrance, and, once the gap was large enough, pushed and shoved their way inside.

Beyond the makeshift barricades, the heads of the zombies turned towards the commotion, and they lurched towards the fresh meat that was in turn, running directly towards them.

Mark was dazed and bruised from the trampling he had received by dozens of sandaled feet, and as the world became black around him, he was lifted to his feet by Peter.

Both men looked in horror at the carnage taking place. The people were running towards the undead hordes, throwing themselves into the mass of tearing teeth. The screams of those being slowly torn apart filled the air, and, as their ruined corpses then staggered to their feet, those still untouched by the dead pushed their way forward with greater determination. At the front of the pack, stood an all too familiar figure, covered in blood and holding two fists full of dripping red meat that he was cramming into his mouth.

Mark and Peter exchanged glances. It was too late for anyone left alive in the alley now, and the numbers of the walking dead had more than doubled in the last few minutes. Soon there would be no stopping them.

“Light it up!” yelled Peter.

A small puff of smoke appeared from over the top of the wall, and Judas’s head popped up, before taking cover again. A flaming torch tumbled through the air, its arc almost seeming to be in slow motion, before it bounced off the far wall and landed in the throng of feasting corpses.

For a moment, nothing seemed to be happening. Peter and Mark exchanged nervous glances. Then the oil ignited, and the barrels exploded.

The fireball expanded upwards and outwards – tearing along the narrow confines of the alleyway and rising over twenty meters into the air. The wagons at each end burst into flames and were blown over by the blast wave. Seconds later, fist sized chunks of meat rained down on Jerusalem.

A woman who had been trying to force her way to the mass of living dead picked herself up and looked at the now empty alleyway – empty that is, apart from the burning meat that plastered the walls and dripped from the roofs. She turned to Peter

“But where is the lord?” she said.

“erm…Heaven…that’s right! He has ascended into Heaven!” he said to the woman.

He turned to Mark. “I think we may have to edit this bit for the book”.

“Amen to that” Mark replied.

#

The Donkey had run until it decided that it was far enough away from the annoying human that had dragged it up the mountainside, and the human that had bitten it. The Donkey still could not believe it. It was supposed to bite humans, not the other way around!

The throbbing in its leg had gotten worse and it was feeling quite unwell. Its mouth was dry and the water it had drunk from a nearby stream had not made it feel any better. Eventually, it decided to lie down in the shade of an olive palm and have a long sleep.

The donkey lay on the hard ground and tried to sleep. Its breathing became shallow, and then stopped all together. Flies gathered around the donkey’s corpse.

The moon was rising over the desert as the Donkey got to its feet. It wanted to bite something, it decided. It wanted to bite something HARD!

It turned its milky, opaque eyes to the sky and let out a long menacing bray, before heading off towards the small human settlement in the valley below.

copyright Graeme Reynolds 2009