Dark Resurrection

by Frederick Preston

* * *

  “Are you crazy?” came the angry reply from Joseph after Jesus suggested that they leave. “We’ve lived here for over thirty years!”

  “Yes, but we’ve killed most of the people here, so there isn’t really a town left after all. Besides, you said they were all bastards anyway, what do you care?”

  “I don’t, but where can we go?” demanded Joseph, “I can’t even sell this goddamn dump now – you slaughtered anyone who could have bought it!”

  “You don’t have to worry about money father, I robbed them all too.”

  “Oh Jesus,” said his mother, looking to her son, wondering what happened to the moral training she and Joseph had given him.

  “My son, the thieving vampire,” Joseph spat, “First you rob them of their lives, and then you steal their money!”

  “He steals their jewelry too, and any other valuables they have when he breaks into their houses,” added the Magdalene, playing with a bejeweled bauble around her neck. “Look at this necklace I’m wearing, isn’t it lovely?”

  “My God,” said Joseph, “I finally understand the meaning of blood money!”

  “Really father, they don’t have any further use for it, since they’re dead after we’re through with them. So, I figured we can use it for ourselves.”

  “You have a point there,” Joseph replied. Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “Just how much money do you have?”

  “A lot of silver, some gold, rubies, diamonds, emeralds – ”

  “A small fortune in other words.”

  “Yes.”

  “Joseph, we can’t take stolen money!”

  “Shut up Mary,” said Joseph, “I’ve put up with this shit for years, having an idiot wife, working as a carpenter who never gets paid, having an eldest son who thought he was God, who now is a vampire for God’s sake! Now he tells us we’ll be killed if we don’t leave this forsaken town. I’m taking the money and leaving, and don’t tell me that I can’t!”

  “It’s not all money, some is stolen jewelry,” the Magdalene corrected, still playing with her necklace.

  “Whatever,” retorted Joseph, looking to the bejeweled Magdalene.

  “But what will God think?” asked his wife, still devout in her Hebrew faith, even after all the tragedy that had happened in her life. Reflecting, she recalled the painful humiliation of becoming pregnant before marriage, and the slow, agonizing death of her firstborn son, nailed to a cross only months earlier, standing before her as a risen vampire.

  “In my opinion Mary dear, God must be thinking some strange things lately,” said Joseph, glancing at his vampiric son, Jesus looking to the ceiling.

  “But – ” started his wife, a hand out.

  “But my ass, look at it this way woman, with the crazy Pharisees, the goofy Romans, and vampires walking about Judea, I suspect God must be loony too if he permits all these things to happen!”

  Mary fell silent and looked to the floor.

  “Like I said, if you need money dad, I have plenty,” said Jesus.

  “That’s good to know,” Joseph replied, exhaling heavily.

  “It is indeed,” said Jesus, “I’ve stashed most of the loot in a cave north of town. A hundred aurei should be more than enough to buy a house or perhaps a nice farm, and I’ll give you a pile of silver coins too. Incidentally, do you folks need diamonds or other gems, we have lots of them.”

  Joseph broke into a smile and replied, “Sure, at least I’m finally getting some sort of return on my investment in this farce.”

  “Excellent,” said Jesus, “We’ll take off tomorrow night.”

  They prepared to leave the next evening. Joseph had filled a large leather satchel with his carpentry tools during the afternoon while his wife filled two linen sacks with provisions, clothing, bedrolls, blankets and precious family heirlooms, including an antique Roman latrunculi game board. Joseph and wife sat down for dinner, as Jesus called from the living room, “Mary and I are heading out for someone to eat.”

  “Enjoy your meals,” Joseph replied, eating his stew, hearing the door close.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this,” said Mary.

  “You will, it’s human nature,” Joseph retorted, grabbing a piece of bread to soak up the remainder of his meal in the wooden bowl.

  After he and the Magdalene slaughtered two of his fellow Nazarenes and returned to the house, Jesus voiced his plans for the evening. “Mary and I will be taking you north toward Syria, first we’ll stop at the cave where I have the loot stashed. After we arrive, I’ll fly back here as a bat and set fire to the house. That way everyone will think you perished when the house burned down.”

  “They probably won’t even notice, considering most of them are dead thanks to you and your friend, but it is a good idea,” said Joseph. “I’ll stoke up the fire to make it easier for you.”

  “Thanks dad.”

  “Don’t mention it, I’ve always hated this dump anyway,” Joseph spat, walking to the fireplace.

  They started off later in the evening, each laden with a sack, satchel or bedroll, leaving the nearly empty town of Nazareth behind. Arriving at the secluded cave near midnight, Jesus and Mary entered.

  “Come in folks,” said Jesus.

  “Are you insane, we can’t see a thing!” Joseph exclaimed, standing at the mouth of the pitch-black cavern.

  “I’m sorry,” said Jesus, “We can see in the dark but you can’t.”

  “Obviously, that’s because we’re normal.”

  Jesus quickly fashioned and lit torches for his parents, using flint and iron to set them off, and they entered the cave. “I’m heading back to burn the house down,” he said while his mother set out bedrolls for herself and Joseph.

  “Hold on, before you incinerate my home, where’s the money you have stashed?” Joseph asked, demanding proof of his son’s wealth.

  “Please follow me,” said Jesus, beckoning his father, both walking by torchlight several hundred feet into the cave.

  Arriving at a bend, they headed through a narrow crevice and continued on to a widening area of the cavern, where Joseph beheld a glittering pile of gold and silver coins, a set of golden goblets, two silver menorahs and a pile of precious gems.

  “You’ve collected a king’s ransom!” Joseph exclaimed, overwhelmed by the sight of the hoard.

  “I’ve found many of our victims are loaded,” said Jesus with a smile. “Religious clerics and highwaymen seem to have the most loot, along with plenty of jewelry. That’s fortunate, as the Magdalene seems to have quite an appetite for precious gems.”

  “She was a whore son; a lot of them go for gaudy baubles.”

  “True,” said Jesus, handing his father the torch, “Let’s get you loaded up and we’ll make our way back to the encampment.” Producing a leather satchel, he filled it with 200 aurei in Roman gold, thirty or so pounds of silver coins and several handfuls of glittering diamonds, rubies, sapphires, precious lapis lazuli, and emeralds. “This will make you set,” he declared, taking the torch and handing the bag to his father. Joseph, at first not realizing the weight of such a hoard, dropped the bag to the floor as his arm was pulled down, almost wrenching it from its socket.

  “It’s a bit heavy father, if you like I can remove some of the silver and gold to reduce the weight.”

  “No, I’ll manage,” Joseph answered, lifting the heavy bag and swinging it over his shoulder.

  “Let me carry it,” offered Jesus, taking the bag with one arm.

  “You’re certainly a hell of a lot stronger than I ever remember,” Joseph said with a surprised look, Jesus lifting the bag as if it were nothing.

  “As a vampire I have at least ten times the strength of any mortal.”

  “That sure would’ve come in handy when I was doing carpentry, except you always struck me as too lazy to do re
al work,” Joseph replied, getting in yet another dig at Jesus as they started back.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, you usually had your head in the clouds,” said Joseph, heading through the crevice.

  “I never liked working; it was too much trouble to bother with that.”

  “You found even more trouble by not working, or haven’t you realized that?”

  “Yes, I have father,” Jesus replied, making their way by torchlight to the mouth of the cave.

  Sitting on a bedroll, Joseph opened the bag and called to his wife. “Look at this Mary, we have a fortune!”

  “That’s nice, but I don’t think God will like us very much for taking it,” said Mary, eyeing the treasure in the satchel.

  “God doesn’t care Mary, if God didn’t want us to have it he wouldn’t have lead us to it, now would he?”

  “Jesus led you to it.”

  “Yes, and God made Jesus, you and me, along with everything else, so I believe God wants us to have it, don’t you?” asked Joseph, attempting to get his wife to accept what the fates had dealt them.

  “I’ll have to think about that for a while.”

  “I’m taking off to torch the house,” Jesus advised, “Mary, please take care of my folks.”

  “Okay,” the Magdalene answered, “Come back soon.”

  “I won’t be long,” said Jesus, heading from the cave.

  Walking outside, Jesus assumed chiropteric form and flew south. Transforming in the courtyard, he walked into his parent’s house, a two-story structure made of stone and wood with an extended kitchen and porch built onto the rear. Looking about for suitable fuel, he dumped two barrels of olive oil onto the rug-covered floor of the living room. Moving several pieces of stuffed furniture to the center of the room, he placed kindling beneath.

  I need something to set the fire, thought Jesus. Looking about, he noticed Torah scrolls on a shelf. Grabbing these, he moved one end of the Leviticus parchment into the lit fireplace, setting it ablaze, tossing the burning scroll toward the kindling. The fire quickly caught, while Jesus moved to the kitchen, holding a flaming copy of Genesis. Lighting Deuteronomy on fire, he tossed it and the remains of Genesis into the rafters, leaving the scrolls of Exodus and Numbers on the kitchen table. The house went up quickly as Jesus flew into the night, flames starting to come through the roof.

  His father had been right regarding the blaze. No one noticed the collapsed ruins until the next day, and none of those who did cared. Some of the greedier among the remaining people thanked their god Yahweh for making certain they didn’t have to pay Joseph the money they owed him.

  Returning to the dimly illuminated cave, Jesus noticed that his father had filled and lit a small oil lamp, as the torches had gone out. Sitting down, he announced the house was in flames and that his parents should remain awake until dawn.

  “Why?” a weary Joseph asked, lying on his side, head resting on his treasure satchel.

  “I’d like to accompany both of you until you’re settled in your new home and for the time being, we must travel by night.”

  “Oh yes, the sun can destroy you and your lady friend, I forgot that.”

  “Aside from that and a few other things, we’re practically invincible father.”

  “What other things are those?” Joseph asked, familiar with the legend of vampires but wanting to hear what Jesus had to say about it.

  “Oak stakes through the heart, and prolonged contact with fire.”

  “Both will kill just about anybody, not just vampires.”

  “Quite true,” said Jesus as his father looked on impassively, thinking his undead son wasn’t quite right in the head.

  For the remainder of the night the group remained awake, discussing such things as the couple’s future plans, why his voice sounded weird at times, and why he had become a vampire in the first place. Jesus replied they planned to dwell in Anatolia for a while and then perhaps proceed west into Europe. As for his voice, he theorized it was a speech impediment, and if he consciously disguised it, he sounded normal. The only times it became apparent was when he grew stressed or angered, and since he was a generally placid individual he didn’t see it being much of a problem.

  “You certainly sound bizarre when you lapse into that silly accent,” Joseph observed.

  “Yes, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it,” said Jesus, Mary Magdalene snickering in the background.

  Giving her a glare, Jesus intoned, “Vellily I say unto you voman, vone day – ”

  “Come off it, you sound hilarious!” she exclaimed with a howling laugh, falling onto her back.

  Jesus sat a moment, breaking into a smile, realizing she was right.

  “Son, how the hell did you become a vampire?” asked Joseph, changing the subject.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Jesus, “All I remember about the whole affair is I was dead and then awoke as a vampire.”

  “You remember that you were dead?” his mother asked in surprise, wondering if he would have remembered an afterlife had he stayed dead a little longer.

  “It’s a figure of speech you half-wit!” Joseph exclaimed.

  “Oh yes,” she replied, realizing what he meant.

  As the sky lightened, the group settled into sleep, but only after Jesus had ripped a large tree from the ground, placing it at the mouth of the cave to hinder discovery. Joseph was amazed to observe his son accomplish such a feat, stating he was better than any saw or axe ever was when it came to felling timber.