An Accidental Messiah: A Novel (The Dry Bones Society Book 2)

by Dan Sofer

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just… happy.”

  Her lips parted as her smile widened. She shifted on the recliner and returned to her suntanning. “Let’s stay here forever,” she said.

  “I wish we could.” He wanted to seal this moment in a jar for eternity, but he couldn’t. The black, clawed hand of dread closed over his heart. For the first time in his life, he had something to lose.

  “Nothing lasts forever,” he continued. “Not even islands. Take Santorini. People lived here for thousands of years until one day the mountain exploded and sank into the sea. A whole civilization wiped out in an instant. The ash cloud spread for hundreds of miles and hung in the air for weeks.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  How indeed? In his mind’s eye, a little boy stepped outside a mudbrick home as heavy, gray clouds crawled from the horizon and covered Goshen, shrouding the villages in gloom, and seeding stories of miraculous darkness and cities that sank into the sea. He could still taste the ash in the air.

  “I read it somewhere,” he said. His mind still played tricks on him, conjuring false memories of the ancient past and zombies on the streets of the present. Noga’s theories about the Ten Lost Tribes had not helped him separate fact from delusion. He had to hold onto reality at all costs; reality was all that had kept Noga in his life.

  He leaned back on the recliner, returning to the sun and the soft crashing of the waves on the shore. In a few hours, he and Noga would return to the boat and move on. A few hours of heaven was more than any mortal could hope for.

  CHAPTER 50

  Avi yanked open the sliding door of the old warehouse in Talpiot and marched inside. He wanted answers. Just when things were going his way, the eleven o’clock news had spoiled his morning.

  Fluorescents suspended from the rafters illuminated the warehouse, which reeked of singed metal and stood empty except for a large glass cube the size of an elevator in the center. A lanky Ethiopian crouched beside the cube and applied the flame of a welding gun to a corner. As Avi approached, the Ethiopian stood, extinguished the flame, and lifted the welding mask from his face.

  “Where’s Boris?”

  With a toss of his head, the Ethiopian indicated the supervisor’s office in a corner two floors up.

  Avi made for the metal staircase. The stairs clanked underfoot. Boris had given him the address of the warehouse for emergencies. Today was an emergency and if his so-called partner didn’t fix things, there’d be hell to pay.

  He marched along the narrow walkway and burst through the door of the corner office. Boris looked up from behind a cheap desk. His large Russian bodyguard stood at the wall behind him, his tree-trunk arms folded over his chest, making Avi reconsider the wisdom of his visit, but only for a moment.

  “You said you’d destroy Moshe Karlin.”

  Boris peered at him beneath droopy eyelids, unmoved by the accusation. “I said that we’d bring him down together. And what of it—Gurion dropped him for you, didn’t he?”

  “Moshe started his own party. He’s running in the elections as an independent.”

  The gray-haired thug grinned. “And there I thought you were upset that he married your old girlfriend.”

  Avi’s thoughts scattered. “What? When?”

  “Ramat Rachel, Monday last week.” He chuckled. “You didn’t know?”

  Avi’s throat constricted and he couldn’t breathe. That scumbag Moshe had stolen his tactic and brought the wedding forward. Only this time, the ploy had worked.

  Boris seemed to soften at Avi’s loss for words. “Your friend is more resilient than we thought, but I wouldn’t worry about his little experiment.”

  The Russian’s dismissive attitude sparked Avi’s temper. “Then start worrying—they say he could win seats in the next government all on his own. You have got to stop him.”

  The grin faded from the Russian’s face. “I don’t got to do anything.”

  “Oh, yes you do, Boris.” Avi puffed out his chest. “I’m Isaac Gurion’s rising star, remember. I’m going to be a member of Knesset. You clean up this mess. I can’t get my hands dirty.”

  Boris stared at him. “What do you want me to do—kill him?”

  Avi almost swallowed his tongue. He had punched Moshe in the face and threatened his life, but he had never actually intended to murder him. Boris, however, wasn’t joking, and Avi had the sudden urge to pee. “Jeez, no. No, don’t kill him. Just destroy his party.”

  “And how do you propose I do that?”

  Another silence. Moshe had been the brains behind Karlin & Son. He had always had a plan. Ronen was right—Avi had only followed in Moshe’s footsteps, and now Moshe was outmaneuvering him again. It wasn’t fair.

  “How should I know? You’re the criminal mastermind. Think of something.”

  Avi had gone too far and he knew it. But Boris didn’t set his thug on him. He didn’t throw him out either. Instead, he drew a deep breath, leaned forward, and clasped his hands over the desk.

  “Growing up in the Soviet Union,” he said, “you learn a thing or two about power politics. When the Bolsheviks took control of the country, they didn’t use physical force alone.” He tapped his temple. “They invaded people’s minds as well, and their memories, causing confusion and uncertainty. Soon people had difficulty predicting the past.”

  Invading minds. Predicting the past. What was he going on about? “What are you trying to say?”

  The Russian’s mustache wriggled. “It’s simple,” he said. “If you want to rule the future, you have to change the past.”

  CHAPTER 51

  A week later, Noga stepped out of the golden elevator and into the dark yet familiar penthouse on Jaffa Road. Motors hummed as the blinds parted, revealing the Jerusalem skyline in orange sunset hues through the large French windows.

  Eli wheeled their bags inside. “Home sweet home,” he said.

  Home. The cruise had surpassed her wildest dreams of the perfect romantic vacation, but she was glad to return to the place where she belonged, here with this man who made dreams come true. She wrapped her arms about his neck and he dropped the bags.

  “Let’s celebrate,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

  She laughed. “We celebrated every day of the trip.”

  “Why stop now?” He scooped her up in his arms and made for the bedroom. Their bags remained in the hall all night.

  Early the next morning, she fixed herself a cup of coffee and flopped on the living room couch. A muffled car horn blared from the street below. Monday morning and not a care in the world.

  She aimed the remote at the TV and switched channels, settling on a rerun of Friends on the HOT Comedy Channel.

  Her laptop lay shut on the coffee table. With the scant Wi-Fi access on the trip, she hadn’t bothered to check her email. She hadn’t even powered on her phone, and now she dismissed all sixty-one notifications. At some point, she’d have to wrap up her doctoral paper, but she could muster little motivation to sum up her failed experiment. At least she’d get her piece of paper.

  Hannah might need some convincing. Or had she stepped back from her messianic theory as well? Probably. Eli was right—no serious academic would commit career suicide over a few equivocal data points.

  On the screen, Joey bet a hundred dollars that he and Chandler knew more about Rachel and Monica than the girls knew about them. Where was Phoebe?

  Doctorate finally in hand, Noga would have to decide what to do with the rest of her life. She was leaning toward doing another degree. An ironic laugh escaped her lips. She was becoming like Sarit, her old friend from Hebrew U. They hadn’t spoken in ages. Romance trumped girlfriends. Of all people, Sarit would understand that. Noga would call her later.

  In the Friends universe, Ross pointed at a score board on a chair. The couples had tied and started a thirty-second lightning round of questions. The stakes had risen: if the girls won, the guys would get rid of their pet rooster and duck; if the gu
ys won, the girls would switch apartments with them.

  Noga’s laptop beckoned to her from the coffee table. She opened the lid, nudged the screen to life, and scanned her inbox. Two hundred new messages, mostly adverts and newsletters. Hannah had emailed her three times.

  Friday, the day after they had left in the limo: “How is the paper going? Call me. I have some ideas to discuss.”

  Monday, last week: “Send me your first draft ASAP. The university has approved a discussion paper slot for their website. The print journal closes for submissions next week. On second thought, the university journal is too small a platform for this sort of paper. We should submit to Nature Genetics.”

  Nature Genetics! Noga’s pulse quickened. Hannah wanted to submit their paper to one of the most esteemed peer review academic journals in the world. During Noga’s cooling-off period, her advisor had only heated up.

  Another email, Thursday last week: “Are you OK? Can’t reach you by phone. Did you get my messages?”

  Noga should have at least told her she was going away. Her fear of confrontation had caused her mentor unnecessary worry.

  She dashed off a reply. “Sorry for not responding earlier,” she wrote. “Went overseas on short notice. Will call soon.”

  Eli padded down the hallway behind her. She hit send and closed the laptop.

  “Hey,” he said. He kissed her on the ear and moved to the kitchen. “What are you watching?”

  “Friends.”

  “Funny name for a movie.”

  She turned to look at him. He wasn’t joking. “How can you not know Friends?”

  He shrugged. “I must have been sick that day.”

  Oh, right. Messianic delusions were a full-time job, and the old Eli had spared little time for petty entertainment. She relented. “It’s about a group of guys and girls who share apartments near each other. This is a great episode. Joey and Chandler are playing a game of ‘Who Knows Each Other Better’ against Rachel and Monica. If the guys win, they switch apartments with the girls. If the girls win, the guys have to get rid of their pets.”

  “Their pets? That’s a bit harsh.”

  “A rooster and a duck.”

  “Oh. And who’s that?”

  “That’s Ross. He’s facilitating.”

  “It’s his apartment?”

  “No, Monica’s—just watch already.”

  Eli sat beside her and sipped his coffee.

  In Monica’s living room, the girls failed to answer the question “What is Chandler’s job?” The boys got to keep their pets and won the better apartment. The credits rolled.

  How would Noga fare if she were to play that game with Eli? Not very well.

  “What is Chandler’s job?”

  “Some hi-tech thingy.”

  Noga switched channels. The camera panned over a sprawl of low buildings, the familiar campus of the Hebrew University.

  “We return to Professor Yakov Malkovich,” said the voice of the Channel Ten reporter.

  A bespectacled old man hunched behind a large desk in an office plastered with certificates and awards. His bush of untamed white hair defied gravity, standing out in haphazard tufts as though he had spent hours pulling at the ends. He spoke with a wild enthusiasm and waved his hands.

  “We have measured elevated levels of magnetism in the air,” he said. “Perhaps the result of a recent solar flare, which appears to have had a peculiar effect on human remains, although we have yet to reproduce the regeneration in the laboratory. We are calling on volunteers from the undead community to assist with our research.”

  Did he say “undead”?

  Eli shifted on the couch.

  “Professor,” the balding reporter said. A smirk pulled at the edge of his mouth. “The last time we spoke you claimed that these self-professed resurrected men and women were part of an elaborate hoax. Does this mean that you’ve changed your mind?”

  At the word “resurrected,” Noga’s intestines tied in a knot.

  The professor’s lips trembled. “It’s hard to argue with an empirical phenomenon. We just need to understand it better.”

  The camera switched to Clal Center on Jaffa Road, a few blocks down from their apartment complex. A mass of angry protesters covered the wide sidewalk. What were they chanting? “Death to Zombies”?

  “Meanwhile,” the reporter narrated, “other reactions to the new demographic have been less welcoming.”

  Noga had noticed a crowd on the street a few days before their trip, but had found a detour to get around them. Just another political demonstration, she had thought.

  The reporter held a microphone to the mouth of a young woman with long, brown hair and spectacles. She wore a yellow shirt with a black nuclear hazard sign. “They’re not natural,” she shouted above the roar of the crowd. “They’re taking our jobs and overloading public services. The dead should stay dead. Life is for the living.”

  Another protester faced the mike—a man with black curls. “My neighbor died five years ago,” he said. He spoke with a heavy Moroccan accent. “Scared the crap out of me when he got in the elevator with me.” He shivered. “Still gives me the creeps, and now he kidnapped my cat, I swear it. She’s probably dead by now, poor thing. The undead did it. They eat the brains.” He nodded his head. “They’re screwed up, man. It’s them or us.”

  Eli snatched the remote from her hand and the screen went blank.

  “Put it back on.”

  He got up. “Enough TV for one day. Let’s go out.”

  She glared at him. He was trying to change the subject. “Did you know about this?”

  He waved it away with his hand. “Election propaganda,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything? Dead people are walking the streets.” She touched her forehead, which was cold and damp, and her breath came in shallow, rapid bursts. “Eli, you heard the professor—this is real. This is the freaking end of the world!”

  Eli tried to laugh. “The old guy with the crazy hair? Being on TV doesn’t make him a scientist. It’s all scripted, a publicity stunt for a new zombie movie.”

  “That was Channel Ten, Eli. It’s not a joke.”

  He raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “OK. I’m sorry.” He sat down beside her and took her hands in his. “Maybe it’s true; maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is us.”

  She pulled her hands away. “What are you saying—that we should just get on with our lives, with this going on outside?”

  “Why not?” Annoyance hardened his voice.

  The implications rose in her mind. Hannah was right and Noga had made a big mistake. “My research,” she said. “This can’t be a coincidence. I have to call Hannah.” She reached for her phone but he grabbed her wrist.

  “Don’t, Noga. Please, just don’t.”

  “We can’t just turn a blind eye.”

  His nostrils flared. “We can,” he said, raising his voice. “And we will.”

  She broke free of his grip, got to her feet, and stepped away from him. “What’s gotten into you?” She no longer knew the man on the couch. He had known all along. Was the cruise just a distraction to hide the truth from her?

  “You can’t help them,” he said. “No one can.”

  Tears crept into her eyes and her voice cracked. “We have to.”

  “I’m done with humanity. Let them figure it out themselves.”

  Noga recognized that voice. Elijah had spoken, not Eli. But had the prophet forsaken his mission?

  “You were right, Eli. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before, but we have a role to play now. Both of us. Together.”

  He shot her a fiery glance. “Then you’re on your own. I won’t have anything to do with it.”

  Noga’s legs turned to jelly. He had moved from “us” to “you,” and once again, their future teetered on the brink. But this time, the stakes were far greater than her own personal happiness.

  His st
ubborn words sparked a blaze within her too. “Fine,” she said, and she marched to the front door. She pressed the button for the elevator, then folded her arms over her pajama shirt, waiting for him to apologize and beg her to stay. He didn’t.

  The doors opened, so she stepped inside. Then, spotting their bags, she pulled her suitcase into the elevator after her. That’ll show him. But Eli just stared ahead at the view through the windows, his jaw clenched.

  She pressed the button for the lobby. “You know what your problem is?” she said, as the doors closed. “You only care about yourself.”

  CHAPTER 52

  Yosef arrived bright and early Monday morning at the call center of the Dry Bones Society—of Restart, he corrected himself. Over a week into the campaign and he still hadn’t adjusted to the new name. Today, he would take a break from campaigning and return to another urgent task. With the elections only three days away, he could neglect this task no longer.

  “Good morning, Rabbi,” Samira said.

  “Good morning, Samira.”

  She smiled at him and nodded at the wall. The mounted TV screen displayed his own talking head. He hadn’t adjusted to that either.

  His TV self wore a new suit and freshly trimmed beard. “Starting anew each day,” he said, “is what Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught and this is what Restart is about.”

  “How are we doing?” he asked Samira, more to change the subject than to gain information. During the mad flurry of activity in the first week of the campaign, he had starred in infomercials and interviews. The lecture circuit had taken him to synagogues around the country, and during that time he had handed over the management of the Absorption Center to Samira and Irina. They were doing a great job.

  “More new arrivals every day,” she said. “The fifth floor is filling up.”

  “I’ll speak with Mr. Adams about expanding the dormitory,” he said. He preferred not to use the title Reverend. “And the campaign?”

  Her smile widened. “Sivan said that attendance at the rallies is much higher than expected. The polls give us twelve seats.”