by J M Lassen
This is what I know: One night, my father picked up our toaster and left the house. I’m not overly attached to the toaster, but he didn’t often leave. I feed him good hamburger, nice and raw, and I don’t knock him in his brainpan with a bat. Zombies know a good thing.
The next night he took the hallway mirror. Then the microwave, then the coffeepot, then a sack full of pots and pans. All the zombie movies in the world do not prepare you to see your father, his hair matted with blood, his bathrobe torn and seeping, packing your cooking materiel into a flowered king-size pillowcase. And then one night he took a picture off of the bookshelf. My mother, himself, and me, smiling in one of those terrible posed portraits. I was eight or nine in the picture, wearing a green corduroy jumper and big, long brown pigtails. I was smiling so wide, and so were they. You have to, in those kinds of portraits. The photographer makes you, and if you don’t, he practically starts turning cartwheels to get you to smile like an angel just appeared over his left shoulder clutching a handful of pins. My mother, her glasses way too big for her face. My father, in plaid flannel, his big hand holding me protectively.
I followed him. It wasn’t difficult; his hearing went about the same time as his tongue. In a way, I guess it’s a lot like getting old. Your body starts failing in all sorts of weird ways, and you can’t talk right or hear well or see clearly, and you just rage at things because everything is slipping away and you’re never going to get any better. If one person goes that way, it’s tragic. If everyone does, it’s the end of the world.
It gets really dark in Augusta, and the streetlights have all been shot out or burned out. There is no darker night than a Maine night before the first snow, all starless and cold. No friendly pools of orange chemical light to break the long, black street. Just my father, shuffling along with his portrait clutched to his suppurating chest. He turned toward downtown, crossing Front Street after looking both ways out of sheer muscle memory. I crept behind him, down past the riverside shops, past the Java Shack, down to the riverbank and the empty parking lots along the waterfront.
Hundreds of zombies gathered down there by the slowly lapping water. Maybe the whole of dead Augusta, everyone left. My father joined the crowd. I tried not to breathe; I’d never seen so many in one place. They weren’t fighting or hunting, either. They moaned, a little. Most of them had brought something—more toasters, dresser drawers, light bulbs, broken kitchen chairs, coat racks, televisions, car doors. All junk, gouged out of houses, out of their old lives. They arranged it, almost lovingly, around a massive tower of garbage, teetering, swaying in the wet night wind. A light bulb fell from the top, shattering with a bright pop. They didn’t notice. The tower was sloppy, but even I could see that it was meant to be a tower, more than a tower—bed-slats formed flying buttresses between the main column and a smaller one, still being built. Masses of electric devices, dead and inert, piled up between them, showing their screens and gray, lifeless displays to the water. And below the screens rested dozens of family portraits just like ours, leaning against the dark plasma screens and speakers. A few zombies added to the pile—and some of them lay photos down that clearly belonged to some other family. I thought I saw Mrs. Halloway, my first grade teacher, among them, and she treated her portrait of a Chinese family as tenderly as a child. I don’t think they knew who exactly the pictures showed. They just understood the general sense they conveyed, of happiness and family. My father added his picture to the crowd and rocked back and forth, howling, crying, holding his head in his hands.
I wriggled down between a dark streetlamp and a park bench, trying to turn invisible as quickly as possible. But they paid no attention to me. And then the moon crowned the spikes of junk, cresting between the two towers.
The zombies all fell to their knees, their arms outstretched to the white, full moon, horrible black tears streaming down their ruined faces, keening and ululating, throwing their faces down into the river-mud, bits of them falling off in their rapture, their eagerness to abase themselves before their cathedral. I think it was a cathedral, when I think about it now. I think it had to be. They sent up their awful crooning moan, and I clapped my hands over my ears to escape it. Finally, Mrs. Halloway stood up and turned to the rest of them. She dragged her nails across her cheeks and shrieked wordlessly into the night. My father went to her and I thought he was going to bite her, the way he bit me, the way zombies bite anyone when they want to.
Instead, he kissed her.
x/{}
THE
BARROW
MAID
CHRISTINE MORGAN
The death-cry of Sveinthor Otkelsson ripped through the din of battle as harsh and sudden as the blade that had ripped through his mail-coat. Friend and foe, ally and enemy, all who heard it fell silent. The fighting ceased as men looked to one another, astonished. Could such a cry truly have come from the throat of Sveinthor Otkelsson? Sveinthor Wolf-Helmet? Sveinthor, called the Unkillable?
He had led the first assault against the shield-wall in defense of his uncle Kjartan’s fortress, plunging deep into the armies of King Hallgeir the Proud. Arrows had rained all around him but never once touched his flesh. He had beheaded Hallgeir’s standard-bearer, then cleaved Hallgeir himself in the shoulder so that the king’s torso was hewn nearly to the belt.
A death-cry? Sveinthor Otkelsson, voicing a death-cry?
It could not be believed.
No one moved. No living thing made a sound. Even the cawing of ravens was stilled, and it seemed that the wind itself paused in scudding dark clouds across the sky.
Then, as one, those nearest Sveinthor drew back. He stood alone amidst a mound of bodies, most slain by the thirsty work of his own sword, Wolf’s Tooth. And the blood ran thick from his belly, spreading over the earth in a wide red stain.
He was Sveinthor Otkelsson, whose ship Wulfdrakkar had gone a’viking to far lands, bringing back plunder of gold and silver, slaves, amber, ivory and jet. He had rescued the beautiful Hildirid from becoming an unwilling bride, unmanning her captor with a knife-stroke.
Even if not for the wyrd that had been prophesied by the sorceress, Sigritha, when Sveinthor was no more than a boy, this moment could not have been foreseen. But now Wolf’s Tooth had dropped from his grasp, and his hands went to his wound, and the blood was a waterfall between his fingers. His wolf-headed helm, its gilded nasal and eye-pieces red-spattered but still glittering gold, turned this way and that as if seeking out his killer.
A single raven screeched. All who heard it knew it to be an omen of the most fearsome sort. The raven was Odin’s own bird, and surely Odin had taken notice of the battle. Perhaps Odin was, even now, dispatching the dreaded Valkyries.
Then, as Sveinthor toppled with his belly split open and the tangle of his guts spilling out of him, there came another cry, furious with rage. It was torn from the throat of Ulfgrim the Squint, long a friend and blood-brother and oathsman of Sveinthor.
In his fury, Ulfgrim charged. Rallied by his actions, the others of Sveinthor’s men followed, as did Kjartan’s own forces. What came next was not so much battle as butchery. Some of the defenders tried again to form their shield-wall, but too many fled in terror and the rest were soon cut down. The victors moved among the fallen, giving aid to their allies and the final mercy to their enemies, and stripping the dead of their valuables.
Kjartan himself, aged and white-bearded, rode from his fort to the place where Sveinthor had stood. He wept openly and without shame. There had been talk in the mead-halls that Kjartan might make Sveinthor his heir. Now that hope was gone, dashed to pieces like a ship storm-hurled against unforgiving stony shores. Sveinthor was dead. With his last breath, he had closed his blood-soaked fingers around the hilt of Wolf’s Tooth and held it now in an unbreakable grip.
They bore him back to Kjartan’s hall. The day was won, the enemy scattered and fleeing, but there was precious little joy and celebration. Three others of Sveinthor’s men had perished bravely in the battle. In honor
, Eyjolf Rust-Beard, and Bork Gunnarsson, and Thrain the Merry were to be placed alongside Sveinthor.
Kjartan had for them a great burial-mound built, a chamber filled with goods for the afterlife. There were bundles of firewood, jugs of mead, furs and blankets, tools, weapons, grain, meat and cheese. Into this tomb was placed Sveinthor’s wealth, the plunder of villages and forts and monasteries. Silver cups and platters, gold brooches, piles of hack-silver, beads of amber and jet. Kjartan added many more treasures, so that the mound was as rich as any gold-vault of the dwarfs below the earth.
Sveinthor was laid upon his barrow at the center of the chamber. His helm was polished and shining, the wolf’s tail that hung from its crown brushed smooth. He was covered with the pelts of wolves, and his sword, Wolf’s Tooth, was set across his breast, its hilt still clutched tightly in his dead hand and its blade still clotted dark with the blood of his enemies.
As these preparations were being done, Ulfgrim the Squint sought out Hildirid, who had been Sveinthor’s woman. “Kjartan has promised to provide a slave-girl to accompany Sveinthor into the mound,” he told her. “There is no need for you to die with him.”
Hildirid, who was tall, slender, and proud-figured, said nothing. She had hair the color of gold seen by torchlight, which fell past her waist in long plaits tucked through the belt of her tunic. Her cloak was seal’s skin, pinned at the breast with a brooch of walrus-ivory, and her eyes were sea-blue and steady.
“You can escape this dire fate,” Ulfgrim urged her. “Already, Kjartan’s wise-woman is preparing the poison. You have but to agree, and the slave-girl will go in your place.”
“Does not Unn of the dimpled cheeks go with Eyjolf, her husband?” Hildirid asked. “Is not Ainslinn, Bork’s favorite, being readied to follow him? You would have Sveinthor, who loved you like a brother, go to his grave-barrow with a stranger slave-girl?”
“Thrain does,” argued Ulfgrim, “for Thrain had no woman of his own and will need one to tend him in the afterlife. You can live, sweet Hildirid. Live and go forth from here, and marry a strong man and have many fine sons and fair daughters.”
He touched her hand then, but Hildirid drew away. “I was fated to be his and his alone, forever,” she said. “Skarri the Blind prophesied it to us. It is my wyrd.”
Ulfgrim scoffed. “And we have seen for ourselves how well the wyrd prophesied for Sveinthor came to pass. Mad old women and blind old men! Pah!” And he spat on the ground.
“I was fated to be his,” Hildirid said again.
“There is no fate but what a man makes his own. Sveinthor went wrapped in the confidence of his wyrd, and it did make him bold and daunted his enemies, but in the end, did his wyrd prove true? Look there, Hildirid. Sveinthor the Unkillable … covered with gold and glory, but as cold and dead as a haunch of beef.” He clutched at her hand again. “Come away with me, instead. I may not be as handsome as Sveinthor, but I swear I can love you as much if not better.”
This time she did not merely draw away but slapped him so that her palm cracked smartly across his cheek. “I will follow Sveinthor,” she said, and her voice was like ice.
Ulfgrim flushed dark, angered and embarrassed. His eyes, already narrow, narrowed further. “It was I who learned of your capture,” he said in a snarl. “It was my cunning that formed the plan to rescue you. I would have done it myself, but Sveinthor insisted. By rights, Hildirid, you should have been mine.”
She walked away from him then without a word, head high and back straight in her dignity.
Later, when the burial mound was all but finished, Kjartan assembled his people to bid farewell to Sveinthor and his men. There were many verses and poems spoken by skalds, recounting the deeds and honor of their lives, mourning their passing and celebrating their entrance into Valhalla.
Then Kjartan’s wise-woman brought forth the cups of poison. Unn of the dimpled cheeks drank first, and kissed Eyjolf’s lips before lying down beside him. The woman Kjartan had chosen to accompany Thrain smiled at the great honor she had been given as she raised the cup. Thrain’s favorite dog, a great shaggy mongrel called Bryn-Loki, was strangled with a rope and set at his master’s feet.
The slave-girl, Ainslinn, wailed and screamed and would not drink. She tried to flee, then tried to fight, and finally had to be strangled as Bryn-Loki had been. A disgrace, but only to be expected from an Irish girl and a Christian.
And then the cup came to Hildirid, who was arrayed like a queen with her long hair loose and shining.
As she took the cup, she saw Ulfgrim with his dark eyes pleading. But she drank deep of the bitter liquid, and as she felt its torpor begin to creep through her limbs, she kissed Sveinthor and sank down next to his barrow, on a blanket of soft wool.
She opened her eyes to the chill, misty dark, and felt a pain all throughout her body so sharp and crushing that it was as if she were being rent asunder by beasts. It was Niflheim, kingdom of the dead, realm of the goddess, Hel. And was it Hel’s own hound, Garm, grinding her bones in its fierce mouth? Was it the dragon, Nidhug, leaving off its eternal gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil the World-Tree?
Then the pain ebbed like a tide, receding from her limbs. Hildirid shivered in the blackness. Her mouth felt dry and parched with a terrible thirst, and her innards were a hollow ache. Slowly, stiffly, she moved. The cold wrapped her like a fog, and she pulled her cloak close around her shoulders.
The air was heavy with a reek of corruption so thick it was like a taste. Yet, beneath it, she could smell other scents. Strong cheese. Heady mead. Her dark-blinded hands sought out carefully over the unseen contours and edges. Soft wool. Hard stone. Rushes and pebbles and loose earth. Stacked logs of wood, the bark coarse beneath her fingers. The lushness of fur. Wolf’s fur from the pelts that covered Sveinthor, and that was when she knew where she was. In the barrow. In the burial-mound. Entombed in the black, entombed with the dead.
And was she dead? Was this death? Was this the truth of Niflheim? Alone and sightless and trembling from the chill? Yet she breathed, and when she pressed her hand to her breast she could feel the quick thudding of her heart. With the little knife she kept on her belt, she pricked her thumb and felt warm blood well from it, which she licked away.
Still carefully groping her way, she rose to her knees and found Sveinthor’s chest beneath the pelts. She touched the silver Thor’s-hammer amulet he wore around his neck, touched his wiry beard, touched his face. His flesh was like a lump of cold tallow, greasy with a residue that smeared off onto her fingertips. His mouth gaped and did not stir with breath.
Hildirid rested her brow on his chest. Then she searched blindly through the goods in the barrow until she had a candle and the means to strike a flame. The flickering light sent shadows dancing over the wealth and the weapons and the bodies. Unn and the slave-girl were peaceful in death. Ainslinn had died with her eyes bulging in horror, the bruises from the knotted strangling-rope livid on her slim neck. Bryn-Loki, Thrain’s dog, lay with tongue protruding and death-rigid legs jutting like sticks. The smells of corruption wafted from them. Hildirid saw skin gone waxen and pallid, flesh sunken and slack. They were dead, dead one and all.
Yet she was alive. Somehow, she was alive. She had drunk of the poison. She had drained the cup to its very dregs. It had coursed through her veins. She remembered sinking, sinking like a rock into the bottomless depths.
Her gaze fell upon the jugs of mead, the loaves, the wheels of cheese. Hunger led her to pull off a chunk of bread, but Hildirid hesitated with it at her lips. Should she? Was there any use in eating, in drinking? Why prolong a life that was doomed to a miserable end? Better if she ignored the urges of her body and lay back down to wait for death. Better still if she took out her knife again and seated it in her breast or sliced it across her wrists, to hurry death along.
Yet the bread was in her hand. It was stale and nearly as hard as stone, but could not have been more appetizing had it just come fresh from the baker’s oven. She tore into it wi
th her teeth, and when it soon proved a chore to chew, opened a jug of mead and soaked the bread to soften it in the potent honey-brew.
Sated, she moved the candle so that its light played over the various treasures. Here was a tiny ship, the Wulfdrakkar in miniature, with red shields along the sides above the tiny oars, and its growling wolf’s head prow. There was a set of hnefatafl-men, two armies carved from ivory and soapstone arranged in ranks on their board. A bone flute. A polished-amber figure of a wolf. Chests of silver and gold. Monk’s crosses. A heavy silver plate with designs of Christian saints and angels upon it. A fortune, and all of it useless to her now. Likewise were the many weapons useless. What need did she, Hildirid, have for bows and arrows, axes, shields, and spears? What need for swords? She had her knife, the knife of ivory hilt wrapped in gold wire, and it would do as well as any blade for what she might have to do.
How the men had given good-natured jest to Sveinthor when he’d given it to her. “Provide your woman a weapon,” they had said, “and you’re all but inviting her to use it on you, should you displease her as all men eventually do.”
But Sveinthor had never displeased her. They had never quarreled, not once. He had never raised a hand against her. When he had sought counsel, he had listened to hers with as ready an ear as he had that of any of his men. He had been as fervent in love as he’d been in battle. And when his death-cry had rung out, it had been her own ending in that instant.
