Strangers in the Land (The Zombie Bible)

by Stant Litore

  “We didn’t come here to run,” Devora said quietly. “Are you bitten?”

  “No,” he muttered. “I’m likely to end up the only man in this forsaken land who isn’t.” He considered her with that look the northern men gave her that meant she was strange to them, a woman but something else as well. That look that meant they didn’t know how to speak to her.

  “I’m Heber,” he said.

  “You’re a Kenite.” Devora recognized his accent.

  One side of his mouth curved, half a smile. “I am.”

  The Kenites were desert men. Rare to see one west of the river. They were not of the twelve tribes, but had bound themselves to the Hebrews with many covenants in the wilderness years, and had sheltered vulnerable Israel out where the wind screamed in the rocks. The Lawgiver himself had taken a Kenite wife, and the Kenites had sworn to live by the same Law, worship the same God. The Kenites were known in the land as a wild tribe, hot-tempered and skilled with bronze.

  “You have a camp nearby?” Barak asked.

  “Up there.” Heber waved his hand vaguely upriver. “Had four men with me. Dead ate them. Ate my horse. Ate theirs. I crawled through the river a while and lost them. Fell a few times, then got up and went on. No use dying in the water, unburied, for anything to eat. Two nights back. So dark, those clouds, no moon even. Couldn’t see anything. Even God must have been blind in that. Finally find a little place to get out of the water, up onto the high bank. Can’t get back to my camp—too many between here and there.” He shook his head. “We’d had a good raid,” Heber said. “Against the heathen,” he added quickly, seeing the look Devora gave him. Hurriya must have heard him, but she didn’t look up from her grief. Impossible to know if she was even listening.

  “I don’t care to get the blood of the People on my knife,” Heber went on. “A good raid, though. Loaded most of our goods on horseback. We meant to trade at Refuge and hear who had seen the dead and where. Set out that way, didn’t make it. Our horses. They ate our horses.”

  “Your camp. How large is it?” Barak asked. “Is anyone left there?”

  “No, just my goods. Some woven rugs, a slave girl. And my other horse, Ira.” He scowled. “I did not come easily by that horse, and now I’m on foot, with the dead on every side.”

  Devora gave him a sharp, appalled look. His other horse. When she and Zadok had left Shiloh, they had taken with them two of the only three horses in the camp. Barak’s camp had only eleven. And this raider, who lived by taking the possessions of other men, spoke casually of his other horse. She glanced at Hurriya, but she was still leaning against the doorway, silent in her grief.

  “At dawn, there were dead along the bank, just wandering there,” Heber muttered. “So I lowered myself over the edge before I was seen, and there was a wolf’s den under the weeds, in the wall of the bank. I slipped in. No wolves now. They don’t like the dead either, they don’t. Nothing living does.” He glanced up at Barak and Devora, and his look was haggard with memory. “Had to stay there in the dirt all of the last day and this last night and most of this day too. No food. Didn’t dare crawl down to the river for water. Didn’t dare sleep. One of the dead fell from the bank once, right into the water, made my heart nearly stop. Waited for it to get up—where it was standing it would have seen me—but its body broke in the fall, its back maybe. It just moved its head from the left to the right, facedown in the water. Couldn’t even moan with its face in the water like that. Probably still there. Hope it rots there.” He lowered his voice fiercely.

  “Sometime this morning, the dead wandered on, all but that one in the water. So I got up, climbed quietly as I could onto the bank. Walked downriver a bit, climbed back down for water, then up. Kept moving. Have to keep moving now. Found refugees coming up the river to meet me. From Walls.”

  “They’re alive!” Devora cried.

  Hurriya looked up quickly. It had been her vision of survivors that had sent them here.

  Devora felt a surge of sudden hope. If this were true—if there were truly refugees from Walls, men and women who still lived and breathed and had survived the death of their settlement—if Barak’s men could find them and protect them—perhaps everything would be all right. If they could save some of the People, surely they could cleanse all the land. Surely it would mean God had not forsaken them. Whatever reason God had for sending no visions to his servant Devora since their coming to the north, for sending visions of what might come only to a Canaanite girl who did not worship him—whatever it all meant, if they could save these people, they would know, they would know God was with them. And all these deaths—the children in that town, and this pregnant woman who lay dead on the floor of Barak’s house, and Zadok—these deaths would not be without meaning.

  Heber nodded. “Fifty, sixty of them. Fleeing the dead. Said Refuge was besieged. Said I could join them, they’d be grateful, they would, for another knife and a man who knows what to do with it. But I wasn’t going to try going north again.” He shuddered. “Thought I’d be able to slip by the dead, if I was quiet. I’m used to being quiet. Then I met her.” He nodded toward the corpse behind them. “She wanted to try getting back to Walls. Made a pact with her—”

  He stopped. His face went ashen. He was staring past them at the corpse.

  HURRIYA

  DEVORA GLANCED over her shoulder and froze. The corpse was moving, its fingers twitching against the cedar floor. Though it had a knife wound in its breast.

  “El kadosh,” Heber breathed. Holy God.

  “El adonai,” Devora whispered. She lifted Mishpat and turned toward the body. By the door, Hurriya’s face twisted into an expression of loathing and hate.

  Even as Devora stepped toward the corpse, its eyes opened. Devora gasped. There was nothing in those eyes, no emotion, no awareness, no life. The woman’s eyes did not reflect back either Devora’s face or the blade lifted over her. Devora recalled Hurriya’s words to her amid the ashes of Walls—that in the eyes of anyone living, be she Hebrew or heathen, you could see her life and her need and the reflection of God in whose likeness she was made.

  But not in these eyes.

  These eyes might drink in what the corpse saw, but they gave nothing back.

  The corpse’s lips parted and it drew in its first breath, lifting its heavy womb. Then it let out the breath not in a wail like a new life being born, but in a long, slow moan, a sound that swept into your ears and inside your mind and under your ribs and into your heart, the voicing of a need so great it could never be met, not even if the one voicing it should devour all the world.

  The corpse rose up on its elbows and rolled to its side, those dull eyes turning toward Devora’s legs, the moan dropping to a hiss.

  “God!” Barak choked. “Slay it!”

  Heber stepped near, his bloodied knife ready. “Step aside, woman,” he said.

  Devora could not look away from the corpse’s eyes. She felt cold throughout her entire body. Then the thing’s arm lifted, fingers curling to grasp. It reached for her leg.

  “Damn you,” Devora breathed.

  She brought Mishpat down. The iron sank into the corpse’s head as easily as a keel sinks into water. One shudder and the corpse went still. Devora’s blade held it up on its elbow for a moment, then the body slid from the sword and fell back. Its hands hung limp. A great gash in its head, cleaving it nearly to the eyes. Those eyes were open and unchanged.

  It did not bleed.

  After a moment they heard the sounds of anxious voices outside, the men talking. And a scratching against the wooden floor in the other room, probably the flight of a mouse.

  “God,” Barak breathed again. “God.”

  “It’s what happens,” Heber muttered. “Seen it before. Never get used to it, though.”

  Devora just stared at the corpse’s womb, so large and full. This woman had carried life for the People, had carried within her own body the survival of the Covenant and of her tribe. Now she lay dead and unclean. Devor
a could see no movement against the skin of the corpse’s belly, but still the sight of that distended belly struck her with horror. What if some small, waiting life yet moved in there? She had an almost overwhelming urge to bend and press her hand to that unclean flesh, to feel for some movement or some beating of a tiny heart.

  “Get it out of here, please.” Devora swallowed.

  Barak nodded, his face stunned, and he stepped toward the outer door, then through it. They could hear his voice lifted outside.

  “You did it right, girl,” Heber said. “Went for the head.” He lifted his gaze from the body, gave Devora a bewildered look. “What are you doing with a man’s blade?”

  Devora ignored him, stepped away, and looked to Hurriya. The girl still leaned against the edge of the inner door. Her eyes still glassy from the lingering fever, yet intent on the body.

  “How many have to die?” the Canaanite whispered.

  “Some days a woman can only save one life,” Devora muttered. Glanced at Heber. “It looks like today we saved yours.”

  “The men with you did,” Heber said. He nudged the body contemptuously with his foot. “Not that I’m not thankful for it, Hebrew.” He looked around at the dim room, glanced up at the rafters. “May be enough room for the men in here. Could wall up the door, be safe until dawn if we’re quiet.”

  “There are five hundred men by the river,” Devora said. She gave the walls of cedar a look of distaste. “We’ll sleep in the tents.”

  Barak stepped back in, and two men with him. They had gloves. Grimly the two took up the corpse by its feet. Devora stepped aside as they dragged it out through the door. Hurriya stared at the corpse until it was gone.

  “Cairns,” Devora whispered.

  “They gather stones already,” Barak said.

  “Thank you.”

  Heber glanced from one of them to the other, the bewilderment in his face growing. He sucked in his lower lip, chewed on it.

  Barak’s face was drawn with pain, and Devora remembered that his fields and his very house had been defiled. Devora stepped beside him. “We will cleanse the land,” she said for his ears only. “And there will be another vineyard.”

  “I will keep my covenant,” the man said wearily, and Devora realized that though she’d meant to comfort, Barak thought she was doubting him.

  Before she could say anything more, she heard that scratching sound from the inner room again, louder now. Frowning, Devora glanced at the rug hung over the door to the inner room, then gasped. The rug had been pulled aside a little, and a corpse was looking through it. A mangled body on its elbows, most of its face chewed away, only one eye intact, both ears gone, a thing deaf and nearly blind and no longer bleeding or feeling, yet still moving, crawling and scratching its way across the floor in terrible purpose. Even as Devora glimpsed it, the death-stench filled the room, pinned back previously by the heavy rug and now freed to warn them all, though too late.

  It happened fast. Too fast. The thing’s rotted hand reached out, grasped Hurriya’s ankle, and tugged sharply. The Canaanite fell to her knees hard, then slammed down on her face with a startled cry. The corpse tugged Hurriya half under the rug as it pulled itself forward, climbing onto her. Ripping her dress open and gouging into the woman’s side with its fingers and teeth. Even as Devora leapt at the corpse with Mishpat in her hand, she saw the rush of blood, red and thick, and torn meat.

  With a scream Devora swung the blade, slicing through the corpse’s face and carving the top of its head away. The body fell to the side and did not bleed or stir. Devora cast her blade aside and threw herself to her knee beside Hurriya. The wound in the girl’s belly was lethal; the blood coming out was black and sluggish, and her face was pale, so pale. The girl was breathing in shallow little gasps, but she was aware, and her eyes looked helplessly up at the older navi.

  “You didn’t tell us there was a corpse in that room!” Devora cried over her shoulder.

  “I didn’t know!” Heber sounded shaken. Perhaps realizing that it might as easily have been him leaning against that door.

  “Get out. Both of you.”

  The men hesitated.

  “Get out!” Devora screamed.

  Footsteps. She heard Barak take up her blade and wrap a cloth about it—as though to signal her that he would make sure her sword, her waterskin, and her horse were seen to. But Devora didn’t turn or acknowledge him. Another moment, and she and the Canaanite were alone. Heber’s knife lay on the floor near them, forgotten. Devora took up a fold of Hurriya’s torn dress and pressed the fabric to the wound, but the blood welled up, soaking it. There was nothing she could do. Even if Hurriya could survive such a fatal wound—even then—Hurriya looked up at her, kept her gaze on the older navi’s face.

  “I—I’m dying,” Hurriya choked. Her eyes wild with the sudden, terrible knowledge of it.

  Devora reached for her hand, gripped it, brought it to her breast. The girl’s hand was unclean, but Devora was unclean also. Even if she weren’t, in this one moment she could not care. What did it matter?

  “Can’t die,” the girl gasped, her eyes wide. “I didn’t find Anath. I didn’t find her.”

  “Hurriya—” Helplessly, Devora gave the cloth over the wound more pressure. Without effect. She didn’t have long.

  “Please,” Hurriya whispered, “find her.”

  “I’ll try.” Devora could hardly speak through the tightness of her throat. Her promise to try was all she could give.

  “Oh gods.” Hurriya’s face was white, and the pain in her eyes was terrible, like a reflection of the pain in the eyes of God. She gasped for air a moment. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I—hated you. Blamed you.”

  Devora’s eyes moistened. “I’m sorry too,” she whispered.

  Something passed between them, something for which there were no words and would never be. Hurriya squeezed the older woman’s hand once, and Devora returned it.

  Then Hurriya’s gaze flicked to the side of the room where the dead woman still lay. “Don’t want to be—like her.”

  “You won’t.”

  “My body—should go to the fish—”

  “I can’t,” Devora whispered. “I can’t do that. I’m Hebrew.”

  “I know. Hebrew.” A plea in her eyes. “Devora, we are both women.”

  “Yes,” Devora whispered.

  “Your Law,” Hurriya said faintly. Blood pooling beneath her. “Made to shelter, preserve your People. Your People weren’t—weren’t made to preserve it.”

  “Don’t talk. Just breathe. Just breathe.” Devora moaned. She was losing one more woman she loved. She couldn’t bear it.

  “You’ll lift stones above me?” Hurriya rasped.

  “Yes.”

  “And sing over my body?”

  “Yes.”

  Hurriya’s eyes glistened. “I wish I could—could hold him again. My baby.” Her hands were shaking.

  “I know.” Devora lifted the girl’s hand, pressed it to her cheek, holding back her tears. “I know.”

  “He was so small,” she whispered. “So small.”

  Hurriya’s eyes closed, and Devora could hear her body fighting to breathe now, in little gasps.

  “Hurriya,” the navi whispered, but the girl didn’t open her eyes. With a shock she realized Hurriya’s eyes would only open again if she rose from the dead.

  Her chest tight, Devora hummed the first few notes of Hurriya’s song, in a desperate hope that hearing it, she might come back. But she didn’t. Instead, her breaths grew shallower and shallower. Lifting her hand from the bit of dress she’d pressed uselessly over the wound, Devora took the girl’s hands gently in hers, feeling their warmth. She held them a while. They were so small, like a child’s.

  “Sleep, then,” Devora whispered, sniffing back tears. “You sleep now, daughter. Sleep.”

  One last, small breath. Then Hurriya’s chest no longer moved. She was still. Devora held the girl’s hands fiercely, but there was no longer any puls
e in them. A quiet, keening noise rose in her throat. Hurriya was gone. Her daughter was gone.

  Shaking, Devora folded the young woman’s hands over her breast, then reached and caressed her hair softly, tucking it behind her ears and laying it smoothly about her shoulders. Her tears cooled on her cheeks. “No,” she kept whispering. “No, no.”

  She bent low over Hurriya’s body and kissed her lips, gently. Hurriya’s lips were soft but dry. Devora kissed the girl again, and a third time, and felt that if she were to try and stand and leave the girl’s side, she would break apart, frail as clay.

  Yet she had to. She glanced at the knife Heber had left on the floor. There wasn’t much time. Still she gazed down at Hurriya’s still body. On an impulse she unwound from about her own waist the scarlet cord that she had used there as a sash, the same cord that had once held the furs wrapped about Mishpat and that had come with her all this way into the north.

  Gently Devora wound that faded scarlet cord about Hurriya’s wrist. The cord looked lovely on her, even in its lack of color—as though Hurriya had been wearing it like a bracelet for years, while she gleaned in the fields or picked olives from the branches of the orchard by which she’d lived. As though she’d carried it with her all the way from the north, then all the way back again. It was weathered; it had endured, even as she had. And like a cairn, the cord was a covenant, a promise. The cord bound them both to each other. Like her iron blade, that cord had a history. It had belonged to the navi before her, who had been given it by Rahab herself, the Canaanite girl who had preserved the lives of two Hebrew spies during the taking of the land and who had then hung the scarlet cord from her window, a sign that her house was inviolate and sheltered when the Hebrew raiders burst at last through the walls of that settlement.

  It was not only that the cord had bound Rahab to the People and brought her into the tribe; it also bound the People to her. So that their men would know that Rahab was one of theirs, not to be harmed, and to be treated as a woman of their own People might be treated. A sign that the People had a responsibility now to those women who had survived the falling of their towns’ walls. Devora had a responsibility. Hurriya had tried to tell her that, tried to show her.