Zombie Jesus (9 page)

              The older biker finished his final few entries into the handwritten logbook, and showed the last lines to Romeo, who nodded and laughed warmly. The two of them shared a cigarette, and then set about moving the body of the undead messiah. They worked slowly and with much difficulty, wounded as they were, though managed to haul the body and the head up to the top of the salt mound.

              Both men waded into the spring up to their waists, taking care not to step off into the center of the pool where the floor dropped away into a dark chasm of deep water. They did not speak as they gingerly washed the messiah’s body, cleaning away the blood and the gore. Using a crudely fashioned needle from one of the safety pins in Romeo’s jacket and strips of leather cut from Cisco’s jacket they stitched the messiah’s head back onto his neck as best they could.

              Romeo had seen the same visions of the blue world as Zombie Jesus, and thought they should send the messiah on his journey through the hole in the pool. Cisco agreed, and was convinced that the book he’d been writing belonged to the messiah, as upon the death of Zombie Jesus the voice in his head had since grown silent. Once the body was washed and clothed as best they could manage, the men held Zombie Jesus over the hole, his arms crossed over one another, holding the logbook to his chest, and then the men let go. The corpse sank down several feet and came to rest over the hole, and then as if they had been waiting for this moment, several pairs of black and white painted arms emerged from the hole to pull the body inwards. In moments all that remained was an empty pool, stained a dirty red.

              The two men sat down at the edge of the pool, looking out across the canyon as the walkers pressed ever closer. Cisco remarked that perhaps now that Zombie Jesus had made his journey normal people could die and stay dead. Romeo wondered aloud how Cisco could know, and then both laughed when he said the word ‘faith’, and then followed with observing that soon they’d be dead and then would know for themselves. Romeo agreed, as his sight was already blurry and his speech slurred. Cisco kept nodding off and coming back to awareness, and both men know that death would be coming for them soon.

              What had they fought for? What purpose did their journey serve, Romeo had asked. Cisco could only answer with a shrug, saying that perhaps through all of this they’d been part of a greater story in which they had only been supporting characters. If they had the time to revisit all that they’d experienced perhaps they could see the myth hidden in plain sight. Romeo liked that, thinking of himself as a hero in a grand tale, even if it didn’t help that soon they would die. Though such is the fate of heroes and prophets, they agreed, and it had been a good ride.

              By the time the walkers reached the bodies of Cisco and Romeo both men had been dead for nearly an hour, and neither rose again.

HEAVY MEDICINE

The sun burned brightly in the mid-day sky, its harsh light washing out the shadows cast by the shrouded figure that walked the winding path to the top of the sacred mesa. She had awakened in the desert several hours ago, knowing not by what grace she had arrived on the lonely sands, though sure of her purpose and clear in her path. The Dying God had to be set free, and the Son of Man must rise. Alone she walked, driven by a relentless purpose, the lodge at the top of the mesa fixed in her mind’s eye.

              The divine power was a terrible mystery, she thought to herself, to return her to this world that had treated her so cruelly. She and her lover had been torn from each other’s grasp once before, when their hearts pumped the blood of life through their veins, and again he had been taken to walk this world. She shuddered as she thought of him, a shambling undead thing counted among the walking dead. After the price he had once paid, it seemed unjust that he be denied his rest. She had paid her own price, and was cast out from the fellowship by jealous men.

              She walked alone then, and she walked alone now, marveling at how little had changed since those old bad days. As her awareness came into focus she found herself dressed in simple clothes, covered by a coarse robe and with sandals on her feet. From her waist hung a simple thong belt, and fastened to it was a large sheathed knife. She looked ahead and saw the mesa looming before her, and walked.

              When she reached the top of the mesa the great bonfire had become only smoldering ashes. Inside the lodge she would find the first piece of her quest, this much she knew, and she pushed aside the door. Inside the kachina man hovered above the stool, blood seeping from the wounds in his head. Skulls from beasts adorned the walls, and she knew that she stood before the Dying God. His eyes opened and he looked down upon her, the slightest smile touching the edges of his mouth.

              She heard him speak her name, though the voice seemed only to echo in her mind, as his face remained still. The unspoken words hung heavy in the air, as she rolled the name back and forth in her mind, slowly recognizing it as her own, Mary. The memories came flooding into her, the weight of them driving her to the floor as she wept. A still small voice spoke in the lodge, speaking names and whispering of deeds to be done, and she got to her feet. She stood before the kachina man, her posture full of defiance even as her eyes glittered with reverence.

              The kachina man lifted his arms and pulled himself off of the arrows, allowing his feet to land firmly upon the stool. He then calmly sat down upon the stool, crossing his legs in front of him as he closed his eyes. The man breathed in and out deeply several times, and then opened his eyes. When he did the Mary stepped forward and unsheathed her knife. She placed the tip of the obsidian blade upon the man’s breast, the keen edge of the knife drawing a small amount of blood as the flesh beneath parted easily. Mary and the kachina man remained like this for a moment, and then Mary pushed the blade deep into his chest.

              The man did not move despite the grievous wound, and Mary worked the knife through his flesh towards his heart. Once she had opened a large enough wound she removed the knife and reached in with her other hand to grasp the man’s bloody heart. As she pulled the organ free the life finally left the man’s frame, and his painted body fell backwards off of the stool. Mary stood for a moment, looking down on the kachina man’s prone corpse, and then turned to walk outside.

              Mary emerged from the lodge and squinted at the high sun. She walked towards the edge of the mesa, following the motorcycle tracks to a small trailhead. She felt the heart in her hand as it continued beating, and closed her eyes while bowing her head as she gathered her strength. She whipped her head up and stared directly into the sun while she screamed and thrust the heart aloft. The heart pulsed wildly and burst into flames, and yet she held on despite the blinding pain. She continued to scream, her bloodstained face dripping red as fresh tears welled up from her eyes.

              Just when she though she could bear no more she cried out a name and somewhere above a hawk screamed in answer. Out of the blinding glare of the sun a hawk streaked down towards Mary. She stood her ground, the heart burning down to simple ashes in her hand. The hawk swooped across her open hand, throwing the ashes into a swirling cloud as it arced over her. The hawk spread its wings wide and turned upwards, silhouetted for the briefest of moments in the glare of the sun, then tucked its wings and dove down into the canyon below.

              Mary lowered her burned hand and cradled it in her robe as she watched the hawk fade into the long shadows of the distant canyon. He was out there somewhere, lost in the blue world, and Horus had gone to find him. Her part was played out until the Son of Man faced the Grasping Darkness. Until then she had to be patient, a feat made all the more difficult by the knowledge of what awaited them at the end of all things. She prayed that she had the strength, and began walking once more.

VALLEY OF THE GODS

Something in his awareness began to stir, and he slowly understood that he existed, and remembered the meaning of life and death. Whether he was alive or dead he could not tell, though in this place neither seemed to matter. All was spirit and all that was crackled with lightning. The blue world, he thought to himself, then began to wonder who or what he might be. Whatever the answers to his questions might be, he knew that he did not belong here, wondrous though it was. His purpose laid beyond his perception, faraway in a world of blood and flowers, a world of fire. A world of the Sun.

              In that very instant his blue reality was shattered as talons sunk into his chest, and his eyes opened. Memories flooded his spirit, and he knew he was a man, or at least some sort of man. A hawk gripped him in its talons, its wingspan making it larger than himself, and the fact that they were underwater seemed not to impede its flight. We must leave this blue world, the hawk screeched into his spirit as the black trails of ash washed away from its feathers, we are children of the Sun, and to its world we must return.

              As the hawk flapped its wings in the lightning water the man heard it speak his name. His name was Jesus, and the hawk was Horus, and together they must rise. Below them in the blue darkness giants stirred, and Jesus could see their glowing eyes gazing upwards. Horus worked his wings powerfully, pulling them towards a tiny speck of light that shone in the distance above them.  Horus opened his beak and screeched in high notes that were garbled by the swirling waters as he strained to outrun the giants that were rising towards them.

              Jesus turned his eyes from the speck of light and looked at the ragged wounds the talons were leaving in his chest, then back up at the hawk as it struggled to pull him. He looked down and saw that the giants were rising much more swiftly than he and Horus, and then it struck him. Spirit. Lightning. The blue world. He turned his gaze to Horus and spoke with his spirit, his words flowing through the lightning waters into the soul of the mighty beast. I must let go my friend, he spoke, flesh has no meaning here, only spirit. Horus screamed in answer and kept beating his wings.

              Jesus closed his eyes and let the pain of the talons fade from his mind, all his thought bent towards rising to meet the sun. As his awareness streaked upwards his body went slack, his arms falling back and his head lolling while Horus bore his weight with much greater ease. In moments Horus reached the source of the light and broke through into the world of the Sun.

              Jesus suddenly felt the weight of water upon him, and the stinging of the wound in his chest was painful and immediate. He opened his eyes to find himself submerged in a shallow pool, clothed in a simple robe. He rose and broke the surface of the pool, gasping for air as he came up. Horus had shrunk significantly in size and was perched on the handlebars of a motorcycle parked nearby.

              In a flash the memories of his undead rampage across the world flooded his mind, and he screamed, falling back into the pool. Every terrible moment was played out before him, and he wept. He was pulled from his dark reverie by the moaning of several zombies that still lingered in the canyon near the pool. He stood up and looked down upon the bodies of Cisco and Romeo, sucking in his breath as he looked upon the wounds of the two men he had slain. His hand went to his throat and he felt the scar tissue there, dimly recalling the bite of Romeo’s machete as it sank into his flesh.

              Jesus looked down into the pool and saw the mechanic’s logbook, and fished it from the waters. Two of the zombies had closed distance with the pool and were gnashing their teeth at Jesus. He leapt from the pool and snatched up the tire iron that lay discarded nearby. He turned just in time to slam the lugged end of the iron into the temple of the first zombie, and it collapsed in a heap. Jesus strode forward and buried the pointed end of the iron into the eye socket of the second zombie, and shuddered for a moment as he remembered what that particular wound felt like.

              There is little time Son of Man, spoke the hawk in even tones within the messiah’s mind, the spirits of the blue world rise to feed. Jesus looked at the pool and could see the clear waters crackling with energy, and knew that the giants he’d seen were catching up to them. He silently thanked the two dead prophets for binding his neck wound and sending him to the blue world to be healed. He thanked them again for their clothes and weapons. They had triumphed against the Riders, the psychopaths, and the zombies, all to bring him up from the darkness of undeath.

              Jesus could not fathom what plans had been set in motion by the divine power, the full nature of them he could only guess. Long ago he had accepted that the divine power spoke to him in a still small voice, and he did his best to live by what it told him. He was a prophet, like the men and women before him who had spoken the Word, and like many of them he had died for the wisdom he espoused. He had lost everything, and gladly so to serve the divine power, even his greatest love. Mary, her name felt good on his lips, so long had it been since he’d been able to speak. He gathered that he’d been returned to unlife as a zombie to deliver apocalypse upon the world, that much seemed evident, though his continued part to play he could not see clearly. For him that was troubling, and the voice was silent within him.

              By the time he had dressed and armed himself, several more of the zombies had drawn close. He could see the bow and flaming arrows resting on the motorcycle, and made a dash to get at them. His path was blocked by one of the zombies, and by the time he was able to bring his tire iron down to crush its skull it had sunk its teeth into his forearm. He snatched up the bow and sent a flight of arrows into the three other zombies who had approached, and each of them fell to the ground as they burned.