Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages Read online

  ZOMBIES: SHAMBLING THROUGH THE AGES

  STEVE BERMAN

  For Kelly Link, the only person who can answer what happens next: “A leper, a gingerbread man, and a zombie stumble into a pub . . . ”

  Copyright © 2013 by Steve Berman.

  Cover art by Timothy Lantz.

  Cover design by Sherin Nicole.

  Ebook design by Neil Clarke.

  All stories are copyrighted to their respective authors, and used here with their permission.

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-417-1 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-1-60701-395-2 (trade paperback)

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  Contents

  BEFORE LAZARUS

  Blood Marker, Victoria Janssen

  Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE), Alex Dally MacFarlane

  Immortals, Nate Southard

  The Cost of Moving the Dead, E.L. Kemper

  Hauntings and Hungers on the Banks of the Vipasa, Rajan Khanna

  AFTER LAZARUS

  Antiquity

  A Frenzy of Ravens, Christopher M. Cevasco

  The Wedding of Osiris, Adam Morrow

  The Middle Ages

  The Hyena’s Blessing, Alex Jeffers

  The Good Shepherdess, S. J. Chambers

  The Fledglings of Time, Carrie Laben

  16th and 17th Centuries

  Hung from a Hairy Tree, Samantha Henderson

  Good Deaths, Paul M. Berger

  Dead Reckoning, Elaine Pascale

  Grit in a Diseased Eye, Lee Thomas

  Theatre is Dead, Raoul Wainscoting

  18th Century

  Deathless, Ed Kurtz

  Tantivy, Molly Tanzer

  Cinereous, Livia Llewellyn

  19th Century

  The Wailing Hills, L Lark

  As the Crow Flies, Rita Oakes

  Seneca Falls: First Recorded Outbreak of Strain Z, Dayna Ingram

  Pegleg and Paddy Save the World, Jonathan Maberry

  Dead in the Water, Richard Larson

  Starvation Army, Joe McKinney

  Lonegan’s Luck, Stephen Graham Jones

  The Rickshaw Pusher, Mercurio D. Rivera

  The Revenge of Oscar Wilde, Sean Eads

  Early 20th Century

  The Gringo, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  The End of the Carroll A. Deering, Bob Hole

  Promised Land (Wineville, 1928), Richard E. Gropp

  Tell Me Like You Done Before, Scott Edelman

  The Fated Sky, Aimee Payne

  The Crocodiles, Steven Popkes

  Historians are gossips who tease the dead.

  —Voltaire

  The Past lies upon the Present like a giant’s dead body.

  —Nathaniel Hawthorne

  From the October 1st, 1968 resignation speech of Dr. Stephen Berman, George Andrew Romero Professor of Folklore and Director of the Romero Center for Folklore Studies, Evans University:

  It is a sad truth that the studies of necrochronology and cryptozoology have, with this twentieth century, become as scorned in the academic community as phrenology or Lysenkoism or the once cherished field of ghost hunting. No, necrochronology, or as the mass media is wont to refer to it in baser terms, the historical study of the undead, deserves not to be relegated to roadside attractions charging a dollar or consultants for the lurid cinema plaguing drive-in movie theaters. For as long as there has been death, there has been cause for the resurgence of man, whether pure spirit, as in ghosts, or the rotting remains, the ghoul or, as some have referred to the creature, the zombie.

  To deny that these ravenous entities exist is to deny the wisdom of the Ancients, to deny the work of such historians as Pliny the Elder—who was recording an undead infestation in the city of Pompeii that was wiped from memory by Vesuvius—or the writings of Eleazar ben Judah of Worms on the real reason a golem was created to deal with a revenant threat to the ghetto. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I would hate to envision a zombie outbreak because it could well lead to a veritable disaster so vast one might dare use the term apocalyptic.

  That is why I have asked learned colleagues from around the globe, men and women who have spent years studying necrochronology, to present their findings tonight to you, our most gracious audience, in the hopes you will be moved to donate to the program and prevent our research from mouldering away in the university’s morgue.

  Alas, a number of academics who studied the prehistoric, the Iron Age, and classical eras Before Lazarus—forgive me, but, in our field, the passage of history is divided by the emergence of the most famous undead, Lazarus of Bethany. The year you call 30 C.E. to us is the year 0 A.L. As I was saying, most of the scholars studying the years Before Lazarus, or B.L., have been stranded due to the annoying mass cancellation of flights to the Eastern United States by these freak meteorological, “supposedly radioactive” disturbances. So most of the papers given tonight in my honor will focus on ghouls and zombies A.L., especially the periods of Industrialization and up to World War II.

  Oh, one last thing before we begin. One of the librarians has brought to my attention that a disheveled man has been seen near the front entrance. He is most likely a student demonstrator. I would not be surprised if, upon exiting after our lectures, we find the number of these ragamuffins has exponentially multiplied. Do not be alarmed by their groaning at current political affairs or their hunger to be heard. I myself plan on exiting this building, and, most likely, my career here at Evans University, with my head held high and pushing through the mindless hordes of ignorance.

  Just so we can all meet at the pub afterwards, of course. And now . . . our first speaker:

  Before Lazarus

  Blood Marker

  Victoria Janssen

  Lubbosh is covered head to toe in animal furs, his head mantled by a huge wolf’s snarling mouth—an old kill, his proudest moment. He peers through its teeth into heavy, blowing whiteness. His flint hand axe is bound to his left palm, the stone so cold he can feel its bite through the fur wrapping. In his right hand he clasps a spear, the butt serving to find safe footing as he clambers over heaps of ice-crusted, tumbled rock. Thanks to the wind, the snowfall, he isn’t leaving much of a visible trail, but his deadly pursuers can smell him.

  He knows that is how they found his clan, picking them off one by one, screams swirling up into the wind, not animal or kinfolk but spirit. He caught glimpses of carnage as he raced to save his mate, his sire, old and slow. The unknown hunters appeared as his kind, clothed in gore-stained furs, but the stink of death came from their mouths. The unknown hunters ripped apart victims with hands and broken teeth. They devoured flesh uncooked and in bloody gobbets. The hunters were not story creatures but real.

  With his axe, his spear, he stabbed and slashed the unknown hunters. Their rotting bodies broke but they did not fall. How can he kill the dead that still hunts? Soon he will fall as well, but he will do one thing first.

  The cave lip juts; he is just tall enough to hoist himself up. The cave smells only of cold stone. There are no dead creatures here, not even bears. Once past the entrance, blown clean by wind, the floor drops. It is thickly littered with layer upon layer of bones, singed and cracked open for marrow. It is too dark to see much, but he knows there is a firepit, further back, out of the wind.

  Catching his breath, he listens. Above the wind’s howl, he hears other, t
hinner cries, advancing.

  So be it. All lives come to an end. He will leave his mark first so his spirit can be proud.

  Bones crackle and crunch beneath his feet. He finds the wall and follows it back. A dank breeze, bearing the faintest memory of burnt fat, brushes the skin around his eyes. He squeezes into the tunnel, back, back. His breathing speeds as the eerie wails of his pursuers come closer, begin to echo off stone. When he can progress no further, he leans his spear against the wall and struggles to untie the axe with numbed fingers. He peels free strips of hide and scores his rough palms with his axe.

  The unknown hunters gurgle and growl, bones crunching beneath their shambling feet. Their foul reek obliterates all else. Lubbosh rubs his bloodied hands together and slams them against the freezing stone wall. Again, leaving wet prints he cannot see—will anyone ever see?

  When the first dead hands shove into the narrow space, he batters them fruitlessly with his axe. Their clawed fingers tear through his wolf’s-head, rip out fistfuls of his hair, slam Lubbosh’s head against the walls to crack open his skull.

  He lays one last bloodied handprint on the floor, then all is quiet.

  Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE)

  Alex Dally MacFarlane

  Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya, daughter of King Nabu-kudurri-usur, in Uruk. Cuneiform inscription dating to the neo-Assyrian Empire:

  To the king, my lord: your servant Nabu’a. May Nabu and Marduk bless the king, my lord! On the 7th of Kislev a fox entered the Inner City, and fell into a well in the garden of Aššur. It was hauled up and killed.

  Later annotation on the letter of Nabu’a in Aramaic, using ink:

  What omen is this? What did Nabu’a prevent? It is a time of terrible plague in Babylon. With your wisdom, perhaps this tablet will help to explain one of the omens presaging the events here: the dead fox seen walking into the temple of Marduk.

  Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya:

  Innin-Etirat to Kaššaya, my sister, may Anu keep you well in this time of plague! May the plague that afflicts us in Babylon never reach the great city of Uruk!

  I send this letter with four tablets that have been brought from the ruins of Nineveh in the north. Everyone in Babylon with the wisdom to understand these tablets—the omens and the measures taken as a result of them—is dead. They are dead, but they walk, they eat the flesh of living people, who then sicken and die and walk through the city, spreading the illness further. Before this terrible plague, there were four omens here in Babylon: the right-hand quadrant of the sun darkened without the moon passing across it, the king dreamed of a dead woman with teeth as sharp as knives, a dead fox was seen walking into the temple of Marduk, bones fell from the noon sky like rain.

  Kaššaya, my sister, if you or your scholars can interpret the past omens described in the tablets and whether they relate to our omens, then you will know what measures to take to prevent this plague from reaching Uruk.

  I have sent this letter and these tablets with a soldier I know well. I will remain within Babylon, unless the palace becomes unsafe.

  Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya, either an archival copy or the unsent original:

  Kaššaya to Innin-Etirat, my sister, may Anu keep you safe! May Nabu and Marduk keep Nabu-kudurri-usur, the king, our father, safe! May the great city of Babylon be unharmed by this calamity! Your letter arrived with only one tablet, carried by a woman fleeing Babylon, who tells me that she found your soldier dying on the road. I have given her food. I have ensured that she is watched for signs of this sickness.

  You write: “the right-hand quadrant of the sun darkened without the moon passing across it, the King dreamed of a dead woman with teeth as sharp as knives.” I too have dreamed this. I too have witnessed this brief darkening of the sun.

  I have been to every temple to report the news you have sent me. Offerings are being made to every god in my name and the king’s name. The signs of plague are being watched for in Uruk.

  Innin-Etirat, my sister, may you remain safe in the palace of Babylon!

  Tablet found in the Eanna temple in Uruk:

  Eight minas and five shekels of blue-coloured wool for an ullakku garment, the property of Innin-Etirat, the king’s daughter, brought to Eanna by Innin-Etirat herself on the day she arrived in Uruk, after the outbreak of the plague. Month Šabatu, 7th day, 33rd year of Nabu-kudurri-usur, king of Babylon.

  A story passed orally among the women of Uruk (now in southern Iraq) and surviving to this day in several variants (including a Safavid Dynasty manuscript, the only written variant), from which this original has been tentatively constructed:

  Long ago there was a terrible plague in the city of Uruk. Can you imagine! The dead in the streets of Uruk, attacking those who still lived. Feasting on those who were too slow. Even the animals could get this sickness: dead dogs and foxes ran through the city, biting the legs of the living. No offering to the gods could end this plague. No medicine could cure it.

  All of Uruk’s men were given bows and swords to fight the dead, but even this was not enough. Many were bitten. Many found that the dead would not die again no matter how many arrows sank into their chests—even the headless would still stumble, even the teeth would still try to bite them from the ground!

  At this time lived three women, daughters of the king, called Kaššaya, Innin-Etirat and Ba’u-Asitu, who all owned land in Uruk.

  It is said of Kaššaya that she was wise, of Innin-Etirat that she was determined, of Ba’u-Asitu that she was bold.

  During the time of the plague, each of the daughters gathered all of the women and children working for her into her main property, each well provisioned with water and grain and dates, and built sturdy defences. There they planned to wait until the plague passed, as all terrible illnesses eventually do. They sought to keep everyone from dwelling on the horrors beyond their walls: Kaššaya organised storytelling competitions, Innin-Etirat led the women and children in song, Ba’u-Asitu invented a new dance every morning.

  It was Ba’u-Asitu who noticed three foxes below the walls of her home.

  A dead fox, its legs shattered, unable to walk but biting out at anything that passed. Two living foxes pinned it down and ate the remnants of its flesh. You wince, but such is the nature of foxes.

  Ba’u-Asitu observed that when the living foxes had torn the flesh from the dead fox, it stopped trying to bite. It lay still, a skeleton, truly dead.

  Being bold, she darted from the security of her walls with two other women and with great care and stealth took one of the walking dead men from outside. They covered his head with thick cloth so that he could not bite, and secured the door once they brought him inside. Then with tools they stripped the rotting flesh from him.

  The bared skeleton of the man stopped moving. The teeth lay in their sockets like needles in a pouch: sharp but unused.

  Ba’u-Asitu sent letters to her sisters, to the temples and to the leaders of the soldiers, telling them of this discovery. Letters were also sent to Babylon and the other cities. From then on, the living were able to fight the dead, although it was not easy and many more died.

  The flesh of the dead was immediately burnt. The stench filled the city for weeks. The bones were buried far from the cities, in tracts of desert where none lingered long. The teeth were not touched with bare hands.

  Eventually the plague passed, as all terrible illnesses do.

  In one oral version of this tale, Ba’u-Asitu becomes so famed for her skill at stripping the flesh from the dead that she is known as Ba’u-Asitu the Fox-Woman: an immortal figure who still hunts under an occluded moon with an army of foxes. Screams in the night are attributed to her work. The plague has never spread far again.

  Letter (clay tablet) found in the property of Kaššaya:

  To Kaššaya, my lady, and Innin-Etirat, my lady: your servant Šamaš-ereš. May Anu and Ishtar keep you
both well!

  You write: “No one in Uruk or Babylon can say whether the omens we saw before the plague have appeared before. Is there anything in the ruined cities of the north that will help us understand these omens and how to respond to them?”

  Nothing I have found yet will help. I do not think that this plague ever afflicted these old cities. The fox in the well of Aššur may have been alive, signifying a different omen. The omens described on the tablets found by Innin-Etirat’s servant and lost between Babylon and Uruk may have been the same. Nothing I have found suggests that they were important.

  I will continue to search the ruins.

  Let us hope that this plague never afflicts Babylon again!

  Saying uttered by Uruk women when falling ill with any ailment, recorded on a tablet in Eanna temple:

  Let the foxes of Ba’u-Asitu watch over us!

  Immortals

  Nate Southard

  Five days after the Persians arrived at the Hot Gates, we started cutting them down. Xerxes, that mad tyrant, sent waves the size of cities at us, but our spears stuck them. Our shields held them back. Those who walked inside our spear points felt the venom of our swords. For King Leonidas, we fought. For Sparta. This is what Spartans do.

  When the battle broke, we cast insults at Xerxes and his throne. Our shouts echoed through the rocky valley. We had heard such talk of his army, of his horrible legions, and still we bested the first waves he sent with only a few casualties. Our shields were too superior, a wall of bronze and wood that held back the tide of violence so that we might counter with our own.

  Shortly after noon, a scout approached at a full sprint. His face flushed with panic as he shouted.

  “The Immortals! Xerxes sends the Immortals!”

  We had heard of the dreaded Immortals. Xerxes’ finest warriors, they were said to feel no pain, to be impossible to kill. In countless battles, we had faced worse. These filthy bastards would fall like the rest. We were not afraid.