Unholy Night

“In thirty years of ruling over Jews, I’ve come to believe in one very simple truth,” said Herod. “That their time on this earth is almost at an end. All they have are old stories. Old traditions. All they have are tales of ancient leaders and kings, ancient magic, and a messiah who keeps promising to arrive but never does. Everything about them is old. Everything about them is the past.

“I’m interested in new traditions. New empires. I build new things, and they protest. I pass new laws, and they protest. But I don’t listen to them, because I’m the future. And I certainly don’t fear them, or their God. Because the time of Moses and David has passed to dust. The world belongs to Caesar now. To men. And I’m here to makes sure it stays that way.”

“All the same, Your Highness, my men are frightened. They fear the wrath of this power. This God.”

“If I were them, I would fear the wrath of Augustus more.”

Vision. It was the most important quality a leader possessed. It’s why Herod had reigned as long and successfully as he had. He’d already summed up this young officer. This “Pilate.” He was a leader, sure. Aggressive and thorough. Cautious enough to avoid kissing a diseased hand but clever enough to find a suitable alternative in a fraction of a second. But he lacked imagination. He lacked vision. And this would keep him from achieving the heights his cleverness made him aspire to. As always, it would be up to Herod to make sure things ran smoothly from here on.

“They’re headed south, yes?” asked Herod.

“Yes. To Egypt.”

“And the fastest way to Egypt is through the Kadesh Valley.… ” Vision, boy. I’ll show you the meaning of it. “I understand you have a shaman traveling with you,” said Herod. “Some kind of… seer.”

“The magus.”

“I’d very much like to talk with him.”

V

“What is it, an earthquake?” asked Joseph.

Balthazar remembered hearing a similar sound as a boy in Antioch. A low rumble. The slow groan of the earth moving beneath your feet. But these rumbles were usually accompanied by violent shaking, followed almost immediately by the screams of a panicked citizenry. Neither followed in this case. Yet that slow, low complaint of rock moving over rock persisted. And the five fugitives found themselves looking for the source of the growing noise, which seemed now to be coming from all around them.

“What is it?” Joseph repeated.

The desert had funneled them into the Kadesh Valley — a long, lifeless passage between two mountains. Long ago, a river had snaked over the dry ground they now walked upon, and the early Egyptians — believers in the power of water to carry souls into the afterlife — had buried their dead on both sides of its banks in tombs of all sizes and lavishness. There were still remnants of those long-forgotten tombs all around them, some chiseled into the rock of the ravine, others made of piled stones, their riches long since taken by grave robbers.

After looking for the source of the rumbling, Balthazar’s eyes at last found the culprit:

The tombs.

The first one he spotted was nearly 200 yards behind them. It was one of the bigger tombs, chiseled into the side of the hill to their left and adorned with carvings that had been worn away by the desert winds. The tomb’s large stone slab was sliding open, revealing the long-suffering darkness within and producing the low groan of rock moving over rock, not unlike the rumbling of an earthquake. And Balthazar now saw the whole, stupid truth of the matter:

They were being ambushed.

Knowing they were headed to Egypt, the Romans had overtaken them — again. They’d lain in wait — again. And here they were, popping out of their hiding places — again — with their swords and arrows, utterly pleased with themselves for pulling off such a clever ruse.

Enough already.       

It was exhausting. Balthazar was sick and tired of being surprised, and somewhat surprised that he was surprised at all.

Of course they’re ambushing us. That’s all they’ve done. Why don’t they just attack us head-on and save everyone the trouble?

Sure enough, one of the Romans stuck his head out from behind the open door and began moving quickly but awkwardly toward them, moving over the rocks of the ravine like an oversized insect. But on closer inspection, Balthazar once again found himself awash in doubt. For the being that was crawling toward them — too fast… it’s moving too fast — wasn’t a Roman. It wasn’t a soldier. It wasn’t even a man.

It was a corpse.

More groans joined the first as slabs were pushed open all around them. The dead emerged from the shadowy depths of tomb after tomb. Dozens of them. The mummified remains of men, women, and children stepping into the long-lost sunlight, finally free from the prison of sleep, and moving toward the fugitives with unusual speed, crawling insectlike across the ravine.

Their bodies were in varying states of decay, but they all had the brittle, leathery look that comes with centuries of decomposition, their eyes and brains rotted out of their skulls. Skin stretched tightly over their faces and teeth exposed in sickly grimaces. They moved deliberately, forming ranks and closing in, as if controlled by a single, unseen mind, just as the locusts had been. But unlike the locusts, the fugitives sensed this swarm was very interested in doing them harm, and it was less than 150 yards away.

“Balthazar?” asked Joseph.

“I know.”

“What do we do?”

“Give me a minute… ”

“But they’re getting clo — ”

“I said give me a minute.”

He had to focus himself, had to pull his mind back from the edge of panic and come up with a plan. But all he could do was watch as a wave of resurrected beings crept closer, and fear washed over him. All he could do was watch the horde moving toward them, faster than nature intended most men to move. Too fast for the others to outrun. Their dry sinew cracking with every movement, loud enough to be heard clear across the ravine.

Balthazar had been wandering through his own mind a lot in recent days, trying to sift through his doubts. Trying to reconcile what his beliefs told him with what his eyes and ears had been telling him in recent days. It had been a rambling walk. Aimless. Inconclusive. But now he’d reached a fork in the road.

Either he had to accept that he was dead or dreaming, in which case nothing mattered and there were no consequences, or he had to accept that what he was looking at was real. In which case, everything he believed was wrong, and he was probably cursed to spend eternity in the flames of hell. But eternity would have to wait. It was decision time.

Better to pretend it’s real and be wrong, right? Plus, I’m sure something miraculous will happen when all hope seems lost. I’m sure we’ll make another last-second escape. Isn’t that how it’s been lately? Maybe it’ll be a flood this time. A wall of water from nowhere crashing through the valley, washing these things away but somehow sparing us. In fact, I’m sure that’s what it’ll be. A flood.

Balthazar turned to the others.

“Run,” he said.

But they didn’t. Joseph and Mary were paralyzed with fear, watching the dead stagger ever closer — inside 100 yards now. Sela seemed frozen, too, until she lunged toward Balthazar and pulled a dagger from his belt. She did this so suddenly, so violently, that at first he wasn’t sure what her intentions were. Maybe this is