by Mazlow, J.
Paul grinned at me as I left the kitchen smiling and the sound of talking was broken with some good-natured chuckling and even a couple of whistles. I blushed but not from embarrassment but from the unusual attention. As I walked towards Paul’s table the popping sound of gunfire not too far off in the distance drove away the conversation and left only murmuring in its wake. Everyone got to their feet and I followed them out onto the porch with a bowl of grits in my hand eating as quickly as the molten food would allow. We stood lining the porch edge in silence shading our eyes against the rising sun. I was shoulder to shoulder with Paul and Ryan the bowl of grits forgotten in my hand. In the pasture a truck-like contraption was rolling through the pasture. It was powered by a team of six thralls who chased after a man standing on a platform in front of them. He steered the vehicle from there as if he were on the deck of a ship. Two vampires knelt at the back of the truck bed with rifles at their shoulders while another operated a large mounted gun firing wildly in the direction of straw targets which remained untouched as they rode by whooping. The truck turned and made another pass and the gun turned and fired again ripping up grass and dirt in a spray that rained down in their wake but missing the targets. The vamp’s chilling whooping echoed through the village and down the valley pushing the cattle slowly to the most far corners of their pastures and causing the dogs to join them in wild ferocious howling. The sounds brought with it an oppressive gloom that fell on the scowling faces of the men and drove away the warmth of Mary’s smile. An unidentified voice muttered shit. Finally, Paul roused himself. “There isn’t any use standing around here boys,” he said and stepped off the porch. We all followed him, the men around me muttering. “It won’t be long now,” someone muttered.
The next couple of days passed in a slow march of corn harvesting and the rush of nights spent on the farmhouse porch talking quietly with Mary. She looked away from every glance and the two of us blushed at every comment. We tried to ignore the old men and women who often sat rocking in their chairs on the porch. Sometimes we sat together on the steps, other times with our legs hanging off the porch and sometimes we’d have a couple of chairs for ourselves. The nights were clear with the moon and stars hanging just out of reach over the glint of the camp’s tin roofs. We’d sit and shiver and chat our voices hanging in puffs of fog in front of our faces.
As near as anyone could tell Mary was near twenty and she’d never known anything but the camp and its people. Her mother and father had died when she’d been a young girl and after their passing, she and her brother had taken care of one another on the treacherous migrations. She described the camp as a godsend, a shelter and a rock against the storms that ravaged the outside world and my brother was practically a god, their savior, only eclipsed by the memory of old John. Prior to my brother’s arrival the people of the camp had been nomadic farmers who’d scattered seed in the spring and then marched north into the lake country. Often vamps raided them just as they were preparing for their migration and some years, they would come back to find that only weeds had taken root in their fields.
“Why would you come back year after year to the same place if you know that vampires were going to be waiting for you?” I’d asked.
“Oh, we didn’t come back to the same exact place, sometimes it was farther west, sometimes farther south. Still they always seemed to find us.” I thought of the camp without the vampires and their weaponry and I nodded. “Old John would help us even though he said we were foolish. He’d come in out of the forest, his necklace of dried vampire tongues grown larger and his beard grayer. He used to say, ‘I always liked stubbornness.’ Then he’d help us fight off the vampires for a time before our march north. I’ll never forget him walking into the camp where I was crouched over a campfire one night. They were walking arm and arm as if they were drunk, the two of them grinning and laughing hysterically. What a sight that was, old John all in his leathers and furs and my brother in a pair of holey sneakers. As my brother recounted the tale of Old John saving him from a vamp’s bite, he strung his prize tongue over the fire and let it dry in the smoke. He never went north with us though. Said it was a might bit cold for him.
“Sounds like a hell of a man,” I’d said imagining a grizzled old man version of my mother. “What happened to him?”
Her face went dark and her eyes glistened briefly, and I regretted asking the question.
“He died,” she said simply, and the conversation lapsed into silence. I thought about telling her about my mother but the idea of telling Mary of her death was too painful and I sat stiffly.
Nowhere in the village was my mother’s presence more heavily palpable than at the small wooden chapel that sat on the village square across from the farmhouse. It was a simple structure of smooth white boards, longer than it was wide and taller than the shacks and cabins of the rest of the village. Facing the square at the top of its peaked roof sitting over a large door an unadorned wooden cross sat that was visible from almost anywhere in the village and the surrounding fields. In its plain way it was more beautiful than any other building in the village, even the farmhouse, and less haphazardly constructed than all but the farmhouse which had obviously survived from the time before the vampires. The chapel embodied a concerted effort outside of my brother’s direction by the people of the village to build something that was not necessary for their survival and was used solely for the purpose of worship. For all the meals I’d taken at the farmhouse and the few precious nights I’d spent talking with Mary no one had ever entered outside of services except for a pair of elderly women who swept and polished the building. Several villagers had invited me to services or to worship though none had felt the need to illuminate the term and I had declined until after the preacher’s son had approached me with his father’s wishes. No one had seemed to mind when I’d rejected their offer, my brother never attended services so it seemed natural that I would refuse as well, but they seemed genuinely happy when I changed my mind.
It wasn’t until I was waiting for Mary on the porch the night prior to my first Sabbath in the camp that I received an insight into the nature of the chapel and its services. By that time, I’d already committed myself to attending, though I had little interest outside of learning more about the preacher and his disputes with my brother and the fact that the decision had pleased Mary. When I’d told her that I’d decided to attend she’d told me that that would have gotten me in good with her mother. I’d just smiled enjoying her happiness but not really understanding. As I’d sat there enjoying the early night and the sounds of the camp as it settled down an elderly black man with close cut gray hair walked through the square carrying a book and waved to me. As he did moonlight fell on the golden edges of the book’s pages and I sprang to my feet and careened down the steps so quickly that I almost fell. He pulled up short as I ran up to him a mixture of curiosity and concern wrinkling his face. “What book is that?” I gasped.
“The Holy Bible,” he said in a strong voice as if he were issuing an edict.
I didn’t recognize the name. “The Good book?” I asked and he smiled nodding. “Can I see it?” He handed the book over and stood watching me as I turned it over in my hands. It was intensely dense with thin crispy pages that rustled against one another as I moved it and were bound in smooth soft red leather that was cold to the touch. It looked as if it was kept swaddled in wool and only brought out on occasion. I opened it and the small precise words that proceeded across the page in unyielding order left me with no doubt that this was the same book that my mother had carried with her throughout her life. I was staggered and felt as if someone had walloped me upside the head. Indiscriminate tears slipped down my face splattering the page. I wiped it ashamed.
The old man said, “It’s ok son,” but I ignored him entranced as I flipped through the pages struggling to read as my mother had taught us long ago. As a child learning to read had been fun, a game filled with stories of giants and magic, and then as I grew I loathed it as a wa
ste of time, but now I realized that she hadn’t taught me for my own good. Just as the chapel didn’t serve any survival purpose and just as she always made us meet with and help other men, teaching us to read was her way of reminding herself of civilization and of trying to preserve that civilization in some small way. Eventually I found a passage that my mother had often recited to us, not even needing to consult the book that she held in her lap as we sat around a fire or walked down a deer path.
The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As I read the verses my eyes filled even more with tears so that the world blurred around me. I closed the book and handed it back to the old man murmuring my thanks. He took it and stood awkwardly looking at me as if he didn’t know what to do with me. The night was clear and cool. I walked towards the chapel leaving the old man behind in the square until he continued along his way. I felt as if my mother was with me again and smiling as if her spirit had settled into the white walled building. As we’d roamed the land together, we’d often visited churches we’d discovered along the way. Their steeples had collapsed, and their stained glass lined the floor in rough granules, but my mother had spoken lovingly of singing hymns and eating potluck meals as we’d walked somberly through the aisles. She’d told us that in the time before men had worshipped in those churches, but she never prayed or sang or worshipped when we’d walked through them. She’d only gingerly laid her hand on a fallen cross or a pew and bow her head silently. When Mary had finally finished cleaning up in the kitchen after the village’s dinner, she’d found me sitting on the steps of the little steeple sitting in a daze and murmuring to myself. I didn’t notice her until she sat down beside me and slipped her arm around me. Her body was warm against my side and brought me out of my grief. She lay her head against my shoulder and held me tightly not saying anything just shivering with me as the night grew colder.
On the next morning, the Sabbath, my stomach was clenched so tightly that I could hardly eat, and my nerves were shot. I forced myself to eat a hardboiled egg and some grits. I spoke as little as possible not trusting myself to maintain the surface calm that Mary had helped to establish. Emotions roiled inside me; grief over the loss of my mother, suspicion of the preacher, warmth at the thought of Mary sitting across the aisle from me and sadness at my brother’s unwillingness to attend with the men and women who followed him unquestioningly. The men grumbled loudly when they heard rounds being fired on the hillside. The vampires were drilling again and the men and women who attended the services spoke loudly of how they were profaning the Sabbath. I filed out at the knelling of a bell walking close to Paul and looking for Mary though I knew that I would not be able to sit with her once inside the building. The villagers spoke to one another quietly but jovially as they crossed the courtyard for once devoid of drying laundry. The men had doffed their hats and the women had wrapped their hair in bonnets and bandanas. As we filed into the chapel and I passed through the narrow door I felt a flicker of fear creep up my back at the sight of so many people crammed into such a small building with no entrance other than the door at my back visible and vampires around. The villagers showed no concern on their smiling faces as they filtered onto the pews, men on the left and women on the right, filling the room with the hum of their voices as they put their heads together.
I sat nervously on the wooden pew beside Paul fidgeting as the rows behind us filled up. When everyone was seated the men’s, side was filled, and men were standing in the back of the chapel, but the women filled only three quarters of the rows even though many of them had children sitting with them. A man stood from the front row and standing in front of the pulpit raised his hand and I followed as everyone around me stood. As everyone stood a woman left her place on the front row as well and sat down at a piano in the front of the church and began to play. The moment the music began it flowed into the room like water and filled it with a pressure that pushed everything out of its way. I had never heard such a pure sound and when the congregation joined in, immediately overwhelming the voice of the leader, the music swelled lifting me to such a plane that I thought I would weep. The voices around me were weak and tremulous, but all the voices merged created an instrument of power and perfection. I didn’t know the song nor did I try to pick out the words but just stood there rapt as the sounds washed over me. Human voices exuberant and unrestricted, unafraid to be heard were too beautiful for me to comprehend. For the first song I forgot about everything but the music even the people surrounding me faded leaving only their voices. Then the voices tapered off and the piano rounded off the song. I saw Mary standing near the end of one of the women’s pews and I stared at the tan skin of her neckline, the sweep of her profile and her delicate arms held loosely at her side. Then the piano began again in a series of deep foreboding notes but this time I watched Mary as she sang. Her eyes shined as her chest rose and fell in time with her deep breaths. I strained my hearing, but I could not make out her voice amongst the crowd’s. I wished that I were standing beside her with her skirts lightly brushing my leg as the music filled the air around us instead of crowded between Paul and another village man. There were no vampires in the church, and I didn’t see the twins or any of the other men that I saw frequently with my brother. With the church full though I imagined that at least two hundred of the villagers were attending that morning’s services.
The second song faded away and the musicians moved back to their seats, but everyone remained standing and silent except for the creak of boards under their feet. The preacher walked down the aisle between the pews greeting his parishioners with a warm glance. There were no handshakes or quiet words here just the steady beat of his freshly shined shoes on the wooden floor and inhaling and exhaling breath all around me. He moved to the front of the church with his easy sauntering shuffle and then stepped up onto the platform and moved behind the pulpit. He rested his arms on the podium so that they disappeared, and he looked out over his flock, his eyes moving slowly from the men on the left to the women in the right. When his eyes passed over me, I felt exposed as if it were I instead of he who stood in front of the crowd and that he was judging me. The shepherd of the village with his beloved sly manner was not present in those eyes of iron and black. I exhaled as his eyes passed beyond me though I hadn’t realized that I was holding my breath and I wondered if everyone in the church felt as if they’d been weighed, measured and found wanting. Perhaps that was why the back aisle was filled with standing men.
The pastor gave no other signal than the bowing of his head and the congregation followed suit closing their eyes. I bowed my head as well but couldn’t help but to peek through squinted eyes as the preacher prayed. He spoke slowly, not as if he was grasping for the words, but confidently as if he were simply allowing for a proper digestion of their meaning.
“Father in heaven, we know that we have sinned in your sight. We know that we are no more than insects in your hands, but we pray that you forgive us our sins as you have promised and that you cradle us lovingly in your grasp. Protect your people Lord, for they love you. Keep us from the bite of the unclean demons in our midst and deliver us onto your promised land. Amen.”
As he finished the rustling of skirts and pants as everyone sat down filled the air and several kids ran happily from the chapel during the commotion. When the preacher’s stern gaze had once again reduced the chapel to silence, he began to speak in a strong even voice. When I’d realized that the book that my mother had borne her whole life was central to the worship of the chapel I’d imagined that the services would somehow be akin to those times when my mother, my bro
ther and I had sat on riverbank or inside a mildewed house and read passages to one another but as soon as the preacher’s first word resonated throughout the building those feelings were squashed. My mother had often admonished us to aid others as the good Samaritan did lest we become less than the animals and she’d often spoken of the land promised within her book, a land free of the undead where she would be with her own parents again. There was nothing of my mother’s sprawling wistfulness in his voice, though he quoted the same words he clads them in armor and armed them with swords. I felt as if my mother had been betrayed and my stomach filled with bile at the words.
“The Lord has visited his wrath upon this once prosperous land. He has culled the greedy and opulent from his creation when they turned their gaze away from him and towards their wealth which they falsely believed to be the work of their own hands. The sinners have been cut down. Many of you may wonder why our Father who loves us would make his beloved children to endure such a severe trial. Why would he gather us up into his hands only to dangle us over the swirling oblivion of the lake of fire? I tell you that he has done this to humble us and to plainly present to us our one choice; turn back to his glory or He will cleanse the earth of wickedness. He already cleansed the earth once with flood. He promised never again to flood the earth and the Lord is good, he has kept his word, but he will cleanse it again with fire. We must be like Noah and love the Lord, follow his commandments, and do his great tasks. Never forget brethren, the Lord is a jealous god.”