F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Page 6

  But after the Bensonhurst and Kew Gardens holocausts, the people in the Lakewood communities should not have taken quite so long to figure out what was going to happen. The Reformed and Conservative synagogues started handing out crosses at Shabbes—too late for many but it saved a few. Did the Orthodox congregations follow suit? No. They hid in their homes and shuls and yeshivas and read and prayed.

  And were liquidated.

  A cross, a crucifix — they held power over the undead, drove them away. Zev's fellow rabbis did not want to accept that simple fact because they could not face its devastating ramifications. To hold up a cross was to negate two thousand years of Jewish history, it was to say that the Messiah had come and they had missed him.

  Did it say that? Zev didn't know. For all he knew, the undead predated Christianity, and their fear of crosses might be related to something else. Argue about it later—people were dying. But the rabbis had to argue it then and there. And as they argued, their people were slaughtered like cattle.

  How Zev had railed at them, how he'd pleaded with them! Blind, stubborn fools! If a fire was consuming your house, would you refuse to throw water on it just because you'd always been taught not to believe in water? Zev had arrived at the rabbinical council wearing a cross and had been thrown out—literally sent hurding through the front door. But at least he had managed to save a few of his own people. Too few.

  He remembered his fellow Orthodox rabbis, though. All the ones who had refused to face the reality of the vampires' fear of crosses, who had forbidden their students and their congregations to wear crosses, who had watched those same students and congregations die en masse. And soon those very same rabbis were roaming their own community, hunting the survivors, preying on other yeshivas, other congregations, until the entire community was liquidated and its leaders incorporated into the brotherhood of the undead.

  This was the most brilliant aspect of the undead tactics: turn all the community leaders into their own kind and set them loose among the population. What could be more dismaying, more devastating than seeing the very people who should have been leading the resistance become enthusiastic participants in the slaughter?

  The rabbis could have saved themselves, could have saved their people, but they would not bend to the reality of what was happening around them. Which, when Zev thought about it, was not at all out of character. Hadn't they spent generations learning to turn away from the rest of the world?

  But now their greatest fear had come to pass: they'd been assimilated— with a vengeance.

  Those early days of anarchic slaughter were over. Now that the undead held the ruling hand, the bloodletting had become more organized. But the damage to Zev's people had been done—and it was irreparable. Hitler would have been proud. His Nazi "final solution" was an afternoon picnic compared to the work of the undead. In a matter of months, in Israel and Eastern Europe, the undead did what Hitler's Reich could not do in all the years of the Second World War. Muslims and Hindus had fared just as poorly, but that was not Zev's concern. His heart did not bleed for Islam and India.

  There's only a few of us now. So few and so scattered. A final Diaspora.

  For a moment Zev was almost overwhelmed by grief, but he pushed it down, locked it back into that place where he kept his sorrows, and thought of how fortunate it was for his wife Chana that she died of natural causes before the horror began. Her soul had been too gentle to weather what had happened to their community.

  Forcing himself back to the present, he looked around. Not such a bad place for a retreat, he thought. He wondered how many houses like this the Catholic Church owned.

  A series of clicks and clacks drew his attention back to the door as numerous bolts were pulled in rapid succession. The door swung inward, revealing a nervous-looking young man in a long black cassock. As he looked at Zev his mouth twisted and he rubbed the back of his wrist across it to hide a smile.

  "And what should be so funny?" Zev asked.

  "I'm sorry. It's just—"

  "I know," Zev said, waving off any explanation as he glanced down at the wooden cross slung on a cord around his neck. "I know."

  A bearded Jew in a baggy serge suit wearing a yarmulke and a cross. Hilarious, no?

  Nu? This was what the times demanded, this was what it came down to if he wanted to survive. And Zev did want to survive. Someone had to live to carry on the traditions of the Talmud and the Torah, even if there were hardly any Jews left alive in the world.

  Zev stood on the sunny porch, waiting. The priest watched him in silence.

  Finally Zev said, "Well, may a wandering Jew come in?"

  "I won't stop you," the priest said, "but surely you don't expect me to invite you."

  Ah, yes. Another precaution. The undead couldn't cross the threshold of a home unless invited, so don't invite. A good habit to cultivate, he supposed.

  He stepped inside and the priest immediately closed the door behind him, relatching all the locks one by one. When he turned around Zev held out his hand.

  "Rabbi Zev Wolpin, Father. I thank you for allowing me in."

  "Brother Christopher, sir," he said, smiling and shaking Zev's hand. His suspicions seemed to have been allayed. "I'm not a priest yet. We can't offer you much here, but—"

  "Oh, I won't be staying long. I just came to talk to Father Joseph Cahill."

  Brother Christopher frowned. "Father Cahill isn't here at the moment."

  "When will he be back?"

  "I—I'm not sure. You see—"

  "Father Cahill is on another bender," said a stentorian voice behind Zev.

  He turned to see an elderly priest facing him from the far end of the foyer. White-haired, heavyset, also wearing a black cassock.

  "I'm Rabbi Wolpin."

  "Father Adams," the priest said, stepping forward and extending his hand.

  As they shook Zev said, "Did you say he was on 'another' bender? I never knew Father Cahill to be much of a drinker."

  The priest's face turned stony. "Apparently there was a lot we never knew about Father Cahill."

  "If you're referring to that nastiness last year," Zev said, feeling the old anger rise in him, "I for one never believed it for a minute. I'm surprised anyone gave it the slightest credence."

  "The veracity of the accusation was irrelevant in the final analysis. The damage to Father Cahill's reputation was a fait accompli. The bishops' rules are clear. Father Palmeri was forced to request his removal for the good of St. Anthony's parish."

  Zev was sure that sort of attitude had something to do with Father Joe being on "another bender."

  "Where can I find Father Cahill?"

  "He's in town somewhere, I suppose, making a spectacle of himself. If there's any way you can talk some sense into him, please do. Not only is he killing himself with drink but he's become a public embarrassment to the priesthood and to the Church."

  Zev wondered which bothered Father Adams more. And as for embarrassing the priesthood, he was tempted to point out that too many others had done a bang-up job of that already. But he held his tongue.

  I'll try."

  He waited for Brother Christopher to undo all the locks, then stepped toward the sunlight.

  "Try Morton's down on Seventy-one," the younger man whispered as Zev passed.

  * * *

  Zev rode his bicycle south on route 71. So strange to see people on the streets. Not many, but more than he'd ever see in Lakewood again. Yet he knew that as the undead consolidated their grip on the rest of the coast, they'd start arriving with their living minions in the Catholic communities like Spring Lake, and then these streets would be as empty as Lakewood's.

  He thought he remembered passing a place named Morton's on his way in. And then up ahead he saw it, by the railroad track crossing, a white stucco one-story box of a building with "Morton's Liquors" painted in big black letters along the side.

  Father Adams' words echoed back to him ...on another bender ...

  Zev pus
hed his bicycle to the front door and tried the knob. Locked up tight. A look inside showed a litter of trash, broken bottles, and empty shelves. The windows were barred; the back door was steel and locked as securely as the front. So where was Father Joe?

  Then, by the overflowing trash Dumpster, he spotted the basement window at ground level. It wasn't latched. Zev went down on his knees and pushed it open.

  Cool, damp, musty air wafted against his face as he peered into the Stygian darkness. It occurred to him that he might be asking for trouble by sticking his head inside, but he had to give it a try. If Father Cahill wasn't here, Zev would begin the return trek to Lakewood and write off this whole trip as wasted effort.

  "Father Joe?" he called. "Father Cahill?"

  "That you again, Chris?" said a slightly slurred voice. "Go home, will you? I'm all right. I'll be back later."

  "It's me, Joe. Zev. From Lakewood."

  He heard shoes scraping on the floor and then a familiar face appeared in the shaft of light from the window.

  "Well I'll be damned. It is you! Thought you were Brother Chris come to drag me back to the retreat house. Gets scared I'm gonna get stuck out after dark. So how ya doin', Reb? Glad to see you're still alive. Come on in!"

  Zev noted Father Cahill's glassy eyes and how he swayed ever so slightly, like a skyscraper in the wind. His hair was uncombed, and his faded jeans and worn Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love Tour sweatshirt made him look more like a laborer than a priest.

  Zev's heart twisted at the sight of his friend in such condition. Such a mensch like Father Joe shouldn't be acting like a shikker. Maybe it was a mistake coming here.

  "I don't have that much time, Joe. I came to tell you—"

  "Get your bearded ass down here and have a drink or I'll come up and drag you down."

  "All right," Zev said. "I'll come in but I won't have a drink."

  He hid his bike behind the Dumpster, then squeezed through the window. Joe helped him to the floor. They embraced, slapping each other on the back. Father Joe was a bigger man, a giant from Zev's perspective. At six-four he was ten inches taller, at thirty-five he was a quarter-century younger; he had a muscular frame, thick brown hair, and—on better days—clear blue eyes.

  "You're grayer, Zev, and you've lost weight."

  "Kosher food is not so easily come by these days."

  "All kinds of food are getting scarce." He touched the cross slung from Zev's neck and smiled. "Nice touch. Goes well with your zizith."

  Zev fingered the fringe protruding from under his shirt. Old habits didn't die easily.

  "Actually, I've grown rather fond of it."

  "So what can I pour you?" the priest said, waving an arm at the crates of liquor stacked around him. "My own private reserve. Name your poison."

  "I don't want a drink."

  "Come on, Reb. I've got some nice hundred-proof Stoli here. You've got to have at least one drink—"

  "Why? Because you think maybe you shouldn't drink alone?"

  Father Joe winced. "Ouch!"

  "All right," Zev said. "Bisel. I'll have one drink on the condition that you don't have one. Because I wish to talk to you."

  The priest considered that a moment, then reached for the vodka bottle.

  "Deal."

  He poured a generous amount into a paper cup and handed it over. Zev took a sip. He was not a drinker and when he did imbibe he preferred his vodka ice cold from a freezer. But this was tasty. Father Cahill sat back on a case of Jack Daniel's and folded his arms.

  "Nu?" the priest said with a Jackie Mason shrug.

  Zev had to laugh. "Joe, I still say that somewhere in your family tree is Jewish blood."

  For a moment he felt light, almost happy. When was the last time he had laughed? Probably at their table near the back of Horovitz's deli, shortly before the St. Anthony's nastiness began, well before the undead came.

  Zev thought of the day they'd met. He'd been standing at the counter at Horovitz's waiting for Yussel to wrap up the stuffed derma he'd ordered when this young giant walked in. He towered over the rabbis and yeshiva students in the place, looking as Irish as Paddy's pig, and wearing a Roman collar. He said he'd heard this was the only place on the whole Jersey Shore where you could get a decent corned beef sandwich. He ordered one and cheerfully warned that it better be good. Yussel asked him what could he know about good corned beef and the priest replied that he'd grown up in Bensonhurst. Well, about half the people in Horovitz's on that day—and on any other day, for that matter—had grown up in Bensonhurst, and before you knew it they were all asking him if he knew such-and-such a store and so-and-so's deli.

  Zev then informed the priest—with all due respect to Yussel Horovitz behind the counter—that the best corned beef sandwich in the world was to be had at Shmuel Rosenberg's Jerusalem Deli in Bensonhurst. Father Cahill said he'd been there and agreed one hundred percent.

  Yussel served him his sandwich then. As the priest took a huge bite out of the corned beef on rye, the normal tumel of a deli at lunchtime died away until Horovitz's was as quiet as a shul on Sunday morning. Everyone watched him chew, watched him swallow. Then they waited. Suddenly his face broke into this big Irish grin.

  "I'm afraid I'm going to have to change my vote," he said. "Horovitz's of Lakewood makes the best corned beef sandwich in the world."

  Amid cheers and warm laughter, Zev led Father Cahill to the rear table that would become theirs, and sat with this canny and charming gentile who had so easily won over a roomful of strangers and provided such a mechaieh for Yussel. He learned that the young priest was the new assistant to Father Palmeri, the pastor at St. Anthony's Catholic Church at the northern end of Lakewood. Father Palmeri had been there for years but Zev had never so much as seen his face. He asked Father Cahill—who wanted to be called Joe—about life in Brooklyn these days and they talked for an hour.

  During the following months they would run into each other so often at Horovitz's that they decided to meet regularly for lunch, on Mondays and Thursdays. They did so for years, discussing religion—oy, the religious discussions!—politics, economics, philosophy, life in general. During those lunchtimes they solved most of the world's problems. Zev was sure they'd have solved them all if the scandal at St. Anthony's hadn't resulted in Father Joe's removal from the parish.

  But that was in another time, another world. The world before the undead took over.

  Zev shook his head as he considered the current state of Father Joe in the dusty basement of Morton's Liquors.

  "It's about the vampires, Joe," he said, taking another sip of the Stoli. "They've taken over St. Anthony's."

  Father Joe snorted and shrugged.

  "They're in the majority now, Zev, remember? They've taken over the whole East Coast. Why should St. Anthony's be different from any other parish?"

  "I didn't mean the parish. I meant the church."

  The priest's eyes widened slightly. "The church? They've taken over the building itself?"

  "Every night," Zev said. "Every night they are there."

  "That's a holy place. How do they manage that?"

  "They've desecrated the altar, destroyed all the crosses. St. Anthony's is no longer a holy place."

  "Too bad," Father Joe said, looking down and shaking his head sadly. "It was a fine old church." He looked up again. "How do you know about what's going on at St. Anthony's? It's not exactly in your neighborhood."

  "A neighborhood I don't exactly have any more."

  Father Joe reached over and gripped his shoulder with a huge hand.

  "I'm sorry, Zev. I heard your people got hit pretty hard over there. Sitting ducks, huh? I'm really sorry."

  Sitting ducks. An appropriate description.

  "Not as sorry as I, Joe," Zev said. "But since my neighborhood is gone, and since I have hardly any friends left, I use the daylight hours to wander. So call me the Wandering Jew. And in my wanderings I meet some of your old parishioners."

  The priest's fa
ce hardened. His voice became acid.

  "Do you, now. And how fare the remnants of my devoted flock?"

  "They've lost all hope, Joe. They wish you were back."

  He barked a bitter laugh. "Sure they do! Just like they rallied behind me when my name and honor were being dragged through the muck. Yeah, they want me back. I'll bet!"

  "Such anger, Joe. It doesn't become you."

  "Bullshit. That was the old Joe Cahill, the naive turkey who believed all his faithful parishioners would back him up. But no. A child points a finger and the bishop removes me. And how do the people I dedicated my life to respond? They all stand by in silence as I'm railroaded out of my parish."

  "It's hard for the commonfolk to buck a bishop."

  "Maybe. But I can't forget how they stood quietly by while I was stripped of my position, my dignity, my integrity, of everything I wanted to be . . ."

  Zev thought Joe's voice was going to break. He was about to reach out to him when the priest coughed and squared his shoulders.

  "Meanwhile, I'm a pariah over here in the retreat house, a goddamn leper. Some of them actually believe—" He broke off in a growl. "Ah, what's the use? It's over and done. Most of the parish is dead anyway, I suppose. And if I'd stayed there I'd probably be dead too. So maybe it worked out for the best. And who gives a shit anyway?"

  "Last night I met someone who does. She saved me from one of the winged ones."

  "You were out at night?"

  "Yes. A long story. She was dressed rather provocatively and knew me because she'd seen me with you."

  Joe looked interested now. "What was her name?"

  "She wouldn't say. But she begged me to find you and bring you back."

  "Really." His interest seemed to be fading.

  "Yes. She said when you heard what they've done to your church you'd come back and teach them a lesson they'll never forget."

  "Sounds like you ran into an escaped mental patient," Joe said as he reached for the bottle of Glenlivet next to him.

  "No-no!" Zev said. "You promised!"

  Father Joe drew his hand back and crossed his arms across his chest.