Merkabah Rider: High Planes Drifter

by Edward M. Erdelac

  What if it meant to derail the train? A wreck out here in the desert would mean plenty of time alone with plenty of dead bodies.

  The Rider gingerly rose to a crouch and made his way as quickly as he dared after it. The fantastic colors of the Yenne Velt were a distraction up here, and he took the spectacles off and shoved them in his shirt pocket. He shielded his face with his arm and made his way carefully but swiftly through the roaring wind and smoke, leaning into the blow.

  The desert was blue and bare all around and the stars in the night sky above were lost in the glow of the moon. The train shuddered beneath his feet and the car swayed dangerously as he followed the creature’s path, heart hammering in his chest, lungs burning from the smoke.

  The Bowie knife had been proof against many creatures. The mystic etchings on the blade and pommel usually took care of what the cold iron did not. He drew it now.

  He slowed as the smoke thickened to an impenetrable degree, and waded through it carefully, the knife before him. Denied of sight, it was almost impossible to navigate, let alone listen for the ghuleh above the clamor of the train. He only hoped it was at the same disadvantage.

  He nearly stepped off the edge and into the deadly clanking gap between the coal tender and the baggage car.

  He waited for one of the wispy gaps in the smoke and leapt down onto the U-shaped water jacket behind the coal bunker. Dashing his knees on the iron, he clung with one hand to the rim of the bunker and blinked through his tearing eyes, looking around.

  Then, atop the black coal pile, he saw it; a naked old woman outlined briefly against the night sky, long, ragged hair blowing in the wind. It looked over its shoulder at him, then scampered the length of the tender.

  He scrabbled onto the pile after it, losing his footing again and again, struggling to find a grip and keep from being buried in the shifting coal, or plunging over the sides.

  He was beneath the smoke plume now, and could breathe and see, but it was still pitch dark. He could see the engineer moving obliviously about his work in the cab, the fireman crossing the platform between the tender and the engine with a shovelful of coal to the open firebox. They hadn’t heard the gunshots then. They didn’t see the nightmarish skeletal figure creeping low across the coal bunker.

  The Rider drew his pistol again and fired twice after the thing.

  He grazed it once in the shoulder, but the thing only staggered and kept on. The shots however, bore fruit. The fireman flinched. He had seen the gunman, not the gray horror slipping towards him. However, he dropped his shovel and fled the tender. In a moment The Rider could see him in the cab shaking the engineer from his apathy and pointing frantically out the back of the locomotive.

  The engineer gave a few shrill blasts on the train whistle, evidently a signal for the other trainmen to come to the front.

  But no one was coming.

  The thing had reached the decline of the coal bunker and was skating down the slope toward the connecting platform.

  The Rider stowed his pistol and dove after it, flying a few feet through the air before he came down hard on his belly and skidded down the coal pile.

  But the gamble worked. He caught the ghuleh by the ankle as it lunged, and brought it down hard on the iron platform.

  It slashed down at him angrily, painting the back of his hand red. He withdrew, but came back with the knife and chopped into its limb just above the hard hoof.

  It did not cry out, but turned on him and erupted into a slashing frenzy which he did his best to batter aside with the knife. Suddenly the quarry had been cornered and turned.

  The Rider was an annoyance. He couldn’t damage the ghuleh, but he was hindering it from its purpose.

  The engineer and the fireman huddled in the cab, suddenly unsure of who to root for. The man in black had fired on them, yes, but the grey wraith slicing his coat to tatters and yowling like a wild catamount didn’t look to have their best interests in mind either.

  The Rider now blinked through blood as well as soot and cinder. The pungent smell of the burning coal in the firebox was close in the air, and hot, but the thing that straddled him, battering him with its powerful limbs, smothering him with its pendulous withered breasts and every instant growing more and more inhuman, gave off a powerful stench too. As he slid the blade of the Bowie knife between its teeth to keep it from biting into his face, he smelled its breath, and it was like a swampy grave brimming with bloated floating corpses.

  Then he noticed its forearm. All the blows he had dealt it with bullet and blade had left neither cut nor bruise, but the mark on the forearm from the muzzle flash remained a black and festering burn.

  Then he remembered what the imam had advised him.

  When dealing with ghulan, always lahab. Fire.

  He ceased to try and keep the thing on him, away from the engine. Instead he pushed, and the surprised ghuleh slipped backwards, stumbling across the platform into the engine cab, still flailing, still clawing, hooves clomping on the iron. The knife clattered to the floor of the cab.

  The Rider drove the ghuleh against the firebox door, pressing it against the dark iron. Its skin sizzled and scorched. It let out a horrible, withering screech.

  The Rider held a desperate grip on its wrists. He turned his attention from the terrible contorted face for a moment and saw the coal blackened fireman and the engineer standing by, stricken at the sight of them.

  “Get this door open!” The Rider yelled. “We have to get it inside!”

  The fireman blinked and nodded dumbly, and the engineer pressed his back to the wall of the cab, almost ready to leap out the window.

  He had to get the thing away from the door long enough for the fireman to get it open. That, at least, would be easy. The ghuleh was bucking in his hands to do so anyway. Getting it back to the firebox door however, would be next to impossible. It had tasted the heat, knew there was fire there.

  Still, The Rider had to try. He pivoted, intending to once again use its own momentum to fling it to the floor across his outstretched ankle and then keeping hold of its wrists, drag it into the open flame. But he lost his grip on the bony wrists and it broke free and hopped easily over his leg.

  The fireman kicked open the door with his boot. The fire inside crackled and yawned, the heat coming out like a devil’s excited breath, the blazing coals like infernal teeth waiting to grind.

  The Rider lost his balance and nearly pitched off the platform, off the train. He wheeled. The thing would bound back up the coal pile, head back to the passenger cars.

  But no, sliding down the coal pile came Noah Leitner. He barreled into the raving thing that was barely holding onto the visage of his deceased mother.

  Once again surprised, it flailed backwards.

  The Rider picked up the fireman’s fallen coal shovel and swung it from the shoulder, smashing the ghuleh’s face with a hollow metallic ring, moving it faster along its backward path, toward the raging firebox.

  It fell in ass first. It howled and quickly began to extricate itself.

  The engineer reacted at last, and drew a heavy wrench from his belt. He swung it two handed, smashing it against the outstretched fingers, snapping them.

  The Rider charged in with the blade of the shovel, chopping at the torso, the face, the neck, not severing, not cutting, but bashing the ghuleh, stuffing it backward into the too small aperture. Limbs snapped. The dirty hair caught fire and the flame raced up to the ugly skull, ate the sunken gray flesh as hungrily as it had eaten the corpse of Noah’s mother. The face shriveled and drew back from the wicked teeth. The black gums sizzled, the pop eyes burst in the sockets and began to run, as if melted by its own agonized tears.

  The thing howled nightmarishly, but The Rider didn’t stop. He shoved the heavy shovel blade against the face until the body folded, and the torso and burning head disappeared inside the iron enclosed holocaust. The broken hands and hoofed feet were the last to disappear inside. The body flopped on the coals, thrust and knocke
d and kicked against the white iron.

  The Rider slammed the door shut with the butt end of the shovel and knocked the latch closed.

  The three men in the engine cab fell back and panted against the rocking walls, their burning lungs gasping for the cool night air to exorcise the stench of burning flesh coming now from the firebox. The engineer clamped his hands over his ears to shut out the mad howling.

  They watched the iron door rattle on its hinges a few times, the din within growing progressively more feeble until the door settled at last in its housing and was still.

  Noah fell to his hands and knees on the coal scattered platform, the wind whipping the fringes of his tallit.

  “Mister,” said the engineer at last, “what in God’s own name was that thing?”

  The Rider stared at Noah and Noah shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he lied, stooping to retrieve his knife from the corner of the cab. “But it killed your brakeman, and the conductor, and one of the passengers.”

  “Hell,” said the fireman, “we wouldn’t have heard the goddamn thing coming. It was damn lucky you were back there.”

  He reached out one blackened hand. The Rider took it, and then the engineer’s, and finally Noah’s.

  “We were all lucky,” said Noah, grasping it heartily.

  Lexicon

  Numerous Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic terms necessarily find their way into the chronicles of The Rider. An alphabetized lexicon is here provided for the reader’s convenience. –EME

  Adonay, Prerai, Tetragrammaton, Anaphexeton, Inessenfatall, Pathatumon, and Itemon – Substitutional names for God. Powerful words in most cases considered ineffable. In Kabbalistic circles a 216 letter name broken down into 72 names of three letters each was thought to encompass and channel various facets of God’s power. These names were said to be used in the creation of the universe.

  Aleph Lamed Dalet – Three letters of the Hebrew alphabet representing the initials of one of the 72 names of God, particularly useful against the evil eye.

  avoda zara – Idol worship.

  ba’al koh-rey – The public reader of the Torah during worship services.

  bashert – The Yiddish word for ‘destiny,’ used in a romantic sense to refer to one’s spouse.

  bishul akum – Non-Jewish cooking.

  bracha – A short blessing recited before a meal.

  chevra kadisha – Jewish burial society, who sees to the proper internment of the dead according to Jewish law.

  chumash – A bound edition of the Torah. The Torah in book form.

  Council Of Yahad – The ruling body of the Order of The Sons of the Essenes, composed of the thirty two tzadikim (four rebbes from each of the nine worldwide enclaves). The Council seldom convenes in one location.

  dybbuk (plural: dybbukim) – The departed soul of an evil or sinful person, imprisoned in Gehenna.

  forzikhtig – ‘Careful.’

  gabbai – A layman in a synagogue, responsible for keeping ritual order during the service.

  Gehenna – Hell. One of the four precincts of Sheol. A place of torment reserved for wicked souls.

  goniff (plural: goniffim) - A thief.

  goy (plural: goyim) – A non-Jew.

  hakhnasat orkhim – The Jewish commandment of hospitality.

  halakha – Collective practical Jewish law.

  Hamesh or Hamsa – A hand shaped amulet used as defense against the evil eye. Also called a Hand Of Miriam. The Rider’s Hamesh is inscribed with the Shema prayer - Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad - Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

  Ha-Shem –‘The Name.’ A commonly used substitution for the name of God.

  Hasid – A branch of Orthodox Judaism formed by Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (also called the Ba’al Shem Tov, or Master of The Good Name).

  hasidei ummot ha-olam – A righteous gentile or non-Jew who accepts and follows the seven Noahide laws (so-called because of Noah, who was righteous prior to Abraham’s covenant with God); prohibition against injustice, prohibition against blasphemy, prohibition against idolatry, prohibition against murder and suicide, prohibition against sexual immorality, prohibition against theft, and prohibition against cruelty towards animals.

  hashgaka pratit – Divine providence.

  hekhalot – ‘palace.’ One of the seven holy halls a mystic must pass through before approaching the Divine chariot.

  Kabbalah – A mystical discipline of Jewish thought concerned with defining the relationship between the Creator and His creations.

  kaddish – In this use, the Mourner’s Kaddish. A prayer over the dead.

  kashrut – Jewish dietary laws.

  Kodesh Hakodashim – The Holy of Holies – the inner sanctum of the Temple where the presence of God is said to dwell.

  lili (plural: lilin) – ‘night spirit.’ A succubus. Either Nehema the daughter of Lilith, the first woman, and Samiel the disgraced Angel of Death or one of her three incestuously begotten daughters. They visit mortal men in their dreams and can conceive demonic children by them.

  malakh (plural: malakhim) – ‘messenger.’ An angel of the Lord. A sentient entity of celestial light.

  mazzik (plural: mazzikim) – ‘harmer.’ A demon. (see: lil, shed, ruhin). Also the original fallen angels who sided with Lucifer in the rebellion against God at the time of the creation of man, and the Grigori (‘watchers’) who succumbed to lust for mortal women in the time after the expulsion from Eden.

  menorah – A seven or nine branched candelabrum used in the Temple and during Hanukah celebrations.

  mensch- ‘man.’

  Merkabah Rider – A Jewish mystic able to leave his physical body and explore the upper and lower worlds of Heaven and Hell through the study of various Solomonic and Hebrew magical texts. The Merkabah or Merkavah is the fiery chariot of the Lord revealed to Ezekiel in a vision.

  meschumad – ‘destroyed one.’ A Jew who has lost his faith.

  meshuggeneh – ‘crazy.’

  mezuzah – A specially prepared piece of parchment kept in a case and set into the doorway of a Jewish home. The parchment is inscribed with Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:12-21, which constitutes in part, the Shema prayer (see Hamesh).

  mitzvah (plural: mitzvot) – The 613 Jewish commandments related in the Torah and the seven Rabbinical mitzvot.

  mikvah – A naturally fed ritual bath used for purposes of purification.

  minuth (plural: minim) – Heretic.

  minyan – A quorum of ten men required for the reading of community prayers.

  mumar (plural: mumarim) – An apostate. One who has rejected one religion for another.

  Nephilim – Half-angels, born from the union of lustful angels (specifically The Grigori) and human women in the early days of the world after the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden and before the Great Flood.

  pe’ah – (plural: payot) ‘forelock.’ The unshorn locks on either side of a Hasid’s head. Mystically thought to divide the front part of the brain governing abstract thought from the back part which controls the physical body.

  Poshea Yisrael – Transgressor of Israel.

  rebbe – ‘teacher.’ The leader or teacher of a Hasidic Jewish movement.

  rekel (plural rekelech) – Black wool frock coat worn by Hasidic Jewish men. Buttoned right over left.

  ruah (plural: ruhin) – ‘spirits.’ Demonic entities without perceivable physical forms, dedicated to the destruction and corruption of mankind. They are the children of Lilith and the succubi, who mate with mortal men through erotic dreams. Capable of possessing physical bodies for a time.

  Seder – The sacred dinner table ceremony held during the first two night of Pesach (Passover).

  Sephiroth – The ten emanations through which God reveals Himself.

  Shabbat – The seventh day of the Jewish week, between sundown Friday and the appearance of three stars on Saturday night. Shabbat is subject to strict rules and rituals including p
rohibition against melakha (‘work,’ but specifically, creative work) and travel.

  shed (plural: shedim) – Half mortal half demon, physically conceived and born from the union of a mortal man and a succubus. Able to perceive the spirit world, but cannot enter or affect it. They are faster, stronger, and more personally magnetic than mortals. They are nearly immortal themselves and cannot be killed by normal physical means. They sustain themselves on a diet of water and slime.

  Sheol – The netherworld. A formless realm where departed souls (the rephaim) await the coming of the Messiah either in comfort (sometimes called the Bosom of Abraham – particularly by Christians) or in torment. (see Gehenna).

  shin – Four-pronged Hebrew letter said to represent the human heart, Shaddai (a name of God), the Shema Yisrael prayer (Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one), or the three valleys of Jerusalem.

  shokhet – ‘slaughterman’ or ‘butcher.’ One who prepares meat according to Jewish law.

  shomer (plural: shomrim) – ‘watcher.’ A Jewish legal guardian entrusted with another’s property. In this case, one who watchers over the dead prior to burial.

  shomer negiah – Observant of Jewish sexual conduct laws.

  shomer shabbo – Observant of Jewish law.

  shtiebel – ‘stable.’

  The Sons of the Essenes – A secret mystic order of Jewish scholars who claim descent from the Essenes, an ancient Hebrew monastic sect mentioned by Philo of Alexandria and Pliny The Elder from around the time of Christ. Their central teachings culminate in the Merkabah Riders. There are nine enclaves located in cities across the world, with the main enclave located at Ein Gedi in Palestine.

  tachliss – ‘ultimate purpose.’ Get to the point.

  tallit katan – ‘small prayer shawl.’ A four-fringed poncho like undergarment worn beneath the shirt.

  talmidei khakhamim – ‘wise student.’ A Torah scholar.

  tefillin –Prayer phylacteries. Black leather straps which are wrapped around the arm (shel yad) and head (shel yosh) and bear two small leather boxes containing parchment scrolls inscribed with Bible verses.