From Final Portfolio for 100F: "Pop Dystopia" - Golem

Golem

The temple doors were strong, but zombies are persistent. Mordecai had always been braver than his father, so while Gershom tended to the candles and prayed for one last miracle, Mordecai sharpened his knife and listened carefully to the scratching at the door. He wondered, how many could there be? It was hard to tell from the cracks between the boards on the windows. So he focused on the blade, as meditative as his father reciting Shacharit. 

It was easy at first. The blade was sharp, the sun hadn’t set yet. The zombies moved like a liquid, all together like they were of one mind. But he was clever. Not the smartest boy in his class, but he understood people. And zombies were people once. He could sense their movements before they happened. But the other zombies heard the half-human strangled melodies getting cut short, and soon enough there were just too many of them. It was only one bite. A single partly rotted tooth on the side of his narrow wrist. He knew this might happen. He had hoped it wouldn’t. He had liked living, even once life had become harder. 

He went back inside, a few zombies still scratching at the door. Gershom was angry but understanding. He knew this might happen. He helped his son sharpen another knife and held his hand while he carefully sliced off the wound as best he could, and then bandaged it tightly. 

They took every precaution, but the poison had already started to work its way into Mordecai’s mind. It started with twitching, then it got harder to breathe. His father sat with him. Made him tea. Told him stories. 

As the seizures started, Gershom propped him up with pillows and tried to not feel afraid. He was no warrior. He had been a rabbi once, before the apocalypse. When there were still people with faith. He wasn’t entirely sure that there was anyone left at all. He could only be sure of himself and his son. 

Mordecai was a boy once, and later a man. His skin was greying now. His half shut eyes turned jaundiced. Gershom thought of how much he looked like his own mother. They had the same resting expression: just ever-so-slightly amused. Even now, Mordecai’s lips twitched to the side like he knew something Gershom didn’t. 

It took three days for Mordecai to turn. If Gershom had been braver he would have killed his son. Taken him out of his misery. But he couldn’t bear it. Every time he placed the blade near his throat he remembered the feel of his son’s heartbeat against his newborn chest. 

The zombies were still scratching. They would be people he knew. It was a small village. He knew he wouldn’t be able to kill the village people. He knew he wouldn’t be able to kill his boy. He was the only one he had left. He knew that there were other options. He decided this was the best one.

With the knife he had used to slice Mordecai’s arm a few days before he carved “emet” into his forehead. Three letters for truth. His little warrior would guide him. 

Mordecai’s deep brown eyes turned icy blue; his irises disappearing into the powdered hue. There was something beyond knowing, beyond good and evil, that Moredaci experienced in that moment. His awareness was nearly gone after the tremoring, but he could hear the singing now. Just beyond the doorway. They wanted something.

When Mordecai was still a man he had thought that they wanted flesh. That their hunger was something that could be satisfied, if even for a moment. But now, even in his altered state, he understood that it was just an expanded emptiness. He knew because he felt it too. It started when he was so young. Sitting with the other yeshiva boys at lunch time, the boys laughing together. He had felt so lonely. So distant from the rest of them. That feeling was back now. But maybe this time it could be different. He could fix this. 

Gershom watched in a removed state as his son rose from the pillows on the floor, his eyes glowing, his brow furrowed. His little boy reached for the blade with the exacting movements of a skilled fighter. What proceeded was brutal. He hadn’t witnessed such violence since he was a child when his family had fled their home. There was no blood. Only pitch-black dust, which flew through the air in sweeping arches that for a moment, almost seemed beautiful. The heads of the villagers crunched when they hit the ground like they were only shells. Entire lives had existed inside of those shells. 

When there was no one left, the unspoken became inevitable. Gershom wondered, why was it me who survived? I’m no different from the rest. G-d’s word should not have protected me anymore than the girl down the street who spoke in riddles or the man who sold roasted nuts by the bag on the corner. There was no answer. He knew there was no answer. So he wondered, what will I do with the life I have left? He wasn’t sure. But what came next was clear. 

He started by cradling his son’s stony face in his hands. His skin had lost its warmth but flesh is still flesh. He tried to cement the image in his mind as best he could in transportable fragments: the gentle curve of his nose, the feathered brush of eyebrow, well-engraved smile lines. He cut away the final letter on his son’s forehead. Powdered black trickled down the side of his nose. He held the knife to his son’s throat, closed his eyes, and breathed in.