A Premature Apocalypse Read online

  He let the words linger in the air like fairy dust. The members of the Opposition eyed the documents on the table and tried not to drool.

  “How long do we have to decide?”

  Moshe stifled a grin. The negotiations had proceeded faster than expected. During his days at the helm of Karlin & Son, his father’s taxi dispatch business, Moshe had used deadlines to great effect in clinching deals; now would be no different.

  “The agreements are ready for signing,” he said. Sivan withdrew a second wad of documents from her briefcase and slid them down the table. “I’ve arranged for a press conference ten minutes from now. They’re setting up in the next room.”

  Cries of protest erupted around the table. “Ten minutes? That’s preposterous! We need more time!”

  “We’ve wasted enough time,” Moshe said. “Let’s work together.”

  The assembled politicians pored over the agreements, and Sivan handed out pens. They would sign, Moshe could feel it. He would have his unity government and push through the new legislation with far less friction.

  Justice. Equality. Those elusive values would become an everyday reality. But the coalition was the first hurdle; more lay ahead. Good thing Dr. Klein, his cardiologist, had implanted those stents in Moshe’s clogged arteries. He’d need a strong heart to survive the rest of the way.

  The door opened, and Rafi poked his head inside. “Mr. Prime Minister, a word?”

  There you are. From the balding Yemenite’s pinched expression and his unexplained absence, Moshe knew the matter was urgent.

  He joined Rafi in the corridor outside where a team of uniformed military personnel waited. “What’s going on, Rafi?”

  “You need to see something,” Rafi said. He looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “Your helicopter is ready to leave.”

  Helicopter? Moshe sent a longing glance toward the conference room. “But they’re about to sign. And there’s the press conference in ten minutes. Can’t this wait a few hours?”

  “No,” Rafi said. “It can’t.”

  Chapter 3

  The IDF chopper headed west toward the Mediterranean coastline, then banked south toward the Gaza Strip. Moshe peered out the back-seat window and swore under his breath.

  Perfect. Just what he needed—a war during his first month in office. Instead of making meaningful political change, he’d have to mobilize reserve forces and manage a military crisis. But if the Gazan border had flared up again, surely Rafi wouldn’t risk a helicopter ride so close to the Strip?

  “Over there,” Rafi said, his voice a crackle in the headset over the roar of the rotors. He pointed.

  Far below, a dozen streams emerged from empty fields on the Israeli side of the border wall and flowed toward the villages. The tributaries converged and pooled beside a clump of large brown military tents.

  The chopper dived toward the encampment, and Moshe’s stomach churned.

  He squinted at the streams, which before his eyes, became long columns of moving human beings. Hundreds of them—no thousands—and they were all naked.

  Dear Lord! For months, volunteers at the Dry Bones Society had collected the newly resurrected from cemeteries across the country. The new arrivals arrived each morning, naked and confused, in dribs and drabs. Moshe had never witnessed such a large influx of resurrected people and never in the middle of nowhere.

  The chopper landed at a makeshift helipad at the edge of the campsite. Moshe, Rafi, and Sivan disembarked, keeping their heads low to avoid the whining rotors.

  A soldier stood at attention. “Prime Minister Karlin,” he said. A badge depicting a sword crossed with a leafy branch perched on his shoulder. “I’m Brigadier General Levi. The Chief is expecting you.”

  He escorted them along the edge of the enclosure formed by lengths of plastic tape between metal stakes. On the other side, men, women, and children with rough blankets draped over their shoulders gaped at the people who had just stepped out of the giant metal bird.

  The First Responder Guidelines, which Moshe had written for the Dry Bones Society, advised volunteers not to disorient the new arrivals with displays of modern technology. But the guidelines did not prepare the volunteers for such a wave of new members.

  The Prime Minister and his entourage climbed into the back seat of a waiting Humvee and sped off. The driver rounded the tents, hurried past a stream of returning humanity, and then stopped beside a second Humvee.

  Chief of Staff Eitan stood in green military fatigues, arms akimbo, as he observed the steady march through dark sunglasses.

  “Seen nothing like it,” he said, after greeting the visitors. A team of soldiers handed out blankets and directed the pale-skinned arrivals to the enclosure.

  Moshe had trouble believing his eyes too. What could account for this mass of resurrected people?

  “Is there a cemetery nearby? Mass grave?”

  “Beats me.”

  “An old burial site or battlefield?”

  “Unlikely. Our officers interviewed a bunch of them. They’re from all over history. But they’re sure making our regular jobs easy—they’re surfacing from terror tunnels based in Gaza.”

  “Gaza?” Rafi said. “They don’t look like Arabs.”

  “No sir, they do not. They speak English, mostly, although we’re getting a lot of French and Spanish too.”

  Moshe rubbed his forehead. Europeans in Gaza—that made no sense at all.

  Sivan said, “What’s that noise?”

  Moshe heard it too—a low moaning from further down the line.

  “Oh, that,” Eitan said. “Follow me. And try not to freak out.”

  He marched a few feet toward the eerie sounds, then stopped.

  “Notice anything… different?”

  The men and women lumbered forward like sleepwalkers, their heads hanging loosely at the shoulders, their mouths open, and their unseeing eyes glazed over.

  “Dear Lord!” Rafi said.

  “Oh my God!” Sivan gripped Moshe’s arm. “They’re like… like…”

  “Zombies,” Eitan said, and he cleared his throat.

  A shiver ran down Moshe’s spine. During the elections, Avi Segal had branded the resurrected as the unnatural undead and stirred up fears about a zombie invasion.

  “That’s how they emerge from the tunnels. After a few steps, they come to. Good luck falling asleep tonight, folks.”

  A vague memory roused Moshe from shock. “Resurrection Tunnels,” he said, and won blank stares from his companions. “Rabbi Yosef mentioned those once. It’s an ancient tradition. During the Resurrection, righteous people buried abroad will roll through the tunnels to get back to the Holy Land.”

  “Strange as this sounds,” Eitan said, “that might explain it. Some tunnels merge with natural subterranean caves. The network of caves could run beneath the sea floor.”

  Moshe shook his head in wonder. “Another ancient prediction checked off the list. Rabbi Yosef will be glad to hear that. We must call in the Dry Bones Society.”

  “No way,” Sivan said.

  “You’re right—this job is too big for the DBS. We’ll need to allocate funds in the new government budget.”

  “I mean,” Sivan said, “we can’t tell anyone. This has to stay here.”

  Her refusal to help caught Moshe off guard. “But they’ll need food and clothing and accommodation.”

  “Nobody can know about this. Not until the coalition is signed and sealed. Do you know what a media circus this will become if anyone finds out? Imagine this”—she framed the scene of lurching naked people with her fingers—“on prime time TV. An army of zombies is all the Opposition needs to make our lives a misery. We’ll need time to spin this in a positive light.”

  She had a point. “OK, let’s keep this top secret for now. Rafi, what can we do in the short term without causing a fuss?”

  “We have emergency stores in case of war and disaster.”

  “Excellent. Release those.”


  “And fast,” Eitan said. “We’re running out of blankets and food.”

  Moshe asked, “What about shelter?”

  “We’re setting up campsites. But we’ll need a long-term solution soon, especially if this keeps up.” He glanced at the zombies and swallowed hard. “Winter is coming.”

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday morning, Yosef tried not to retch.

  “Minister Lev!” gushed Rabbi Mendel of the Torah True party. He gripped Yosef’s hand over the large oak desk of Yosef’s chamber within the Prime Minister’s Office building. “Pardon me. I meant to say, Vice Prime Minister Lev!” He plopped onto one of the leather visitor’s seats and took in the room. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Yosef glanced around his new spacious room. The only thing he had changed since taking office was the framed photo of the Prime Minister, which now displayed Moshe Karlin in a stately blue suit and tie. Yosef still didn’t feel like he belonged behind the heavy desk. If he was a fraud, he was now in very good company.

  A few weeks ago, Rabbi Mendel’s puppeteers at the Great Council of Torah Sages had branded Yosef an agent of the Sitrah Achrah, the evil Other Side. They had fired him from his teaching job at Daas Torah Primary. During the election campaign, Mendel’s political allies had libeled Yosef on national television as an alcoholic pedophile. But now that Yosef had attained a position of power, Rabbi Mendel pretended that none of that had happened.

  Yosef suppressed his gag reflex and held his tongue for the same reason he had not redecorated his office. Soon he would vacate the room along with his ministerial positions as part of Moshe’s coalition agreement.

  Yosef didn’t mind. “You’re a good man,” his wife, Rocheleh, had said. She had meant “gullible.” A little less gullible now, after all he had experienced, but still she was right: he did not belong in politics. As a regular Member of Knesset, he’d be able to help Moshe pass laws in Knesset and still have time to counsel new arrivals at the Dry Bones Society.

  He drew a deep breath. “How can I help you, Member of Knesset Mendel?” The greedy politician did not deserve the title “Rabbi.” True rabbis had a working moral compass.

  “About the coalition agreement,” Mendel said. “As you surely know, the gravity and demands of the Department of Religious Affairs require a number of deputy minister positions that appear to be missing from the list.”

  Yosef guessed where this was going. “And you were wondering whether I’d have a word with the Prime Minister about adding a few jobs?”

  Mendel winced at the word “jobs” but didn’t let the veiled condemnation derail his greed. “Five positions, to be specific.”

  “I see.” Five extra ministerial positions with the associated salaries and benefits. Moshe wanted to reduce government expenses, but for the sake of the coalition, he would compromise.

  Now that he had Mendel’s attention, Yosef wanted to scratch an itch of his own. “I’m curious—why you? Member of Parliament Emden has known me for years. Surely he’d be the one to approach me?”

  Spite boiled within him and Yosef flushed with shame. He knew perfectly well why Emden hadn’t shown his face. His former mentor and confidant had turned their years of friendship into a political weapon when he had exposed Yosef’s secrets in the smear campaign. The memory was a knife twisting in Yosef’s back.

  Mendel touched his nose. “Rabbi Emden went home early. He wasn’t feeling well.”

  Yosef gave a short and mirthless laugh. Did Emden regret the betrayal, or did he fear that his presence would hamper Yosef’s willingness to cooperate?

  “A speedy recovery to him,” Yosef said. “I’ll speak with the Prime Minister and see what he can do.”

  He dismissed Mendel, along with the poison in his own heart. The Torah forbade bearing a grudge. Soon, he’d be able to wave it all goodbye and leave the politics to the politicians.

  The phone buzzed on his desk. “Yes, Ram?”

  Of the many ministerial perks, the personal assistant had taken the most getting used to. The Knesset bureaucrats had tried to pair him with a pretty young girl. Although Yosef had not doubted her secretarial credentials, he had requested a male replacement. One smear campaign was more than enough, and Yosef did not want to feed the rumormongers.

  Ram had not disappointed him, although his effeminate lisp created the nagging suspicion that the bureaucrats had played their little joke on him all the same.

  “Tom Levi is on the line for you.”

  “Tom Levi?” The name sounded familiar.

  “He says he represents the Temple Faithful.”

  Yosef remembered.

  “The Messiah is coming,” Gavri the grocer had told him, and so, early on the morning of Election Day, Yosef had rushed to the Old City. Dressed in white shepherd’s robes and a matching cotton beanie, the bearded and drunken messiah had stood atop the Western Wall and attempted to walk on air. Then reality hit in the form of the hard-stone floor of the plaza, and the paramedics rushed his broken body away on a stretcher.

  While the stunning failure of the Messiah on the Wall had brought Yosef face-to-face with his own naivety, the catastrophe had not discouraged the messiah’s followers in the slightest. Then and there, his red-bearded spokesman had tried to rope Yosef into a scheme to demolish the Islamic Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and to rebuild the Jewish Temple in its place. “I’m Tom,” the lunatic had said. “Tom Levi.” Yosef, the lunatic magnet, had fled the scene.

  “Shall I transfer the call?” Ram asked.

  “No.”

  “Schedule an appointment?”

  “No! Tell him I’m unavailable.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Yosef exhaled, long and slow. A secretary provided definite advantages. Tom Levi would no doubt try again, but by then Yosef would have relinquished his ministerial position, and the lunatic would be somebody else’s problem. Good luck with that, Mendel. Ha!

  The phone buzzed again.

  “Yes, Ram?”

  “Reverend Adams is here to see you.”

  Yosef’s pulse quickened. “Please send him in.”

  He stood and wiped his palms on his trousers as the broad-chested American burst into the room like a force of nature in an expensive suit. The silver-haired Christian gave Yosef’s hand a mighty double-handed squeeze that threatened to dislocate the rabbi’s shoulder. “Vice President Lev, my congratulations,” he said in his Texas drawl. “What an honor to meet with you again.” His ivory teeth glinted as he smiled.

  “Vice Prime Minister,” Yosef corrected.

  “Right, yes, of course!”

  Adams was not a stickler for details. He took a seat, and his spindly, briefcase-toting assistant followed suit.

  Yosef’s heart palpitated faster, and not just because he had to deploy his minimal English skills. He knew which question his benefactor had dropped by to ask, and Yosef’s answer would break his heart.

  The New Evangelical Church of America had created a wholly owned subsidiary, The Flesh and Blood Fund, to bankroll the Dry Bones Society. He had also given the nascent Restart party the infusion of funds needed to jumpstart their winning election campaign. Would he turn off the tap when he realized that his church’s key motivation for supporting those enterprises had not borne fruit?

  Adams got straight to business. “You’re a busy man, so I won’t hog your time. Tell me, Rabbi,” a smile sparkled in his eyes, “have we reached the Roman Period?” He sent a gleeful glance at his associate, who smiled and blinked at Yosef with expectation.

  Each morning, the dead returned from further back in history. Casualties of the Israeli wars had preceded resistance fighters of the British Mandate period. The hapless dead of the Ottoman Empire, and Islamic and Crusader eras, had followed.

  “Yes, we have,” Yosef said. “The Roman Period and earlier. We find professors to speak with the new arrivals. Latin. Ancient Greek. Aramaic. And, how you say, Phoenician?
Or Proto-Canaanite? I forget.” Yosef chuckled, but his delay tactics failed.

  Adams leaned forward. “Excellent. So, has He stopped by yet to visit his colleagues?”

  “He?” Yosef clasped his trembling fingers on his lap.

  “Yes. He. With a capital H. Our charismatic friend. The Aramaic speaker.”

  “M-many new arrivals speak A-Aramaic. And some are very… charismatic?”

  Adams’s smile froze. It thawed. Then it evaporated. He flopped against the backrest, and all that good cheer left him like air escaping a balloon. He glanced at his concerned assistant, then at the wall behind Yosef. “I… I don’t understand. Surely by now…”

  He shook his head, and his eyes glistened. The reverend had predicted that his Savior would descend from Heaven to rejoin the resurrected of His generation. Although this Second Coming would have created very awkward theological issues for the rabbi, Yosef felt a stab of empathy.

  Yosef had tasted bitter disillusion too. The Resurrection rewarded the world’s victims with a second chance at life. But then Shmuel had unmasked a suicide bomber among the members of the Dry Bones Society, and that understanding had come crashing down. Did a cold-blooded mass murderer deserve a second chance?

  And so, ironically, just as Yosef reached the pinnacle of success and power, he had lost his naïve faith both in the rabbinate and in cosmic justice.

  Yosef searched for words to comfort both his fellow believer and himself. “Perhaps this resurrection is not what we thought.”

  Chapter 5

  Eli Katz glanced at the whiteboard on the easel that Noga had set up in the living room of his penthouse on Jaffa Road. He had not felt this hopeful in, literally, a thousand years.

  “I like it,” he said. “It’s a great plan.”

  “Honest?”

  “Definitely.”

  Noga jumped on him and kissed him long and hard.

  Eli came up for air. “And it’s looking better by the minute.”

  “You’re not just saying that because I kissed you, are you?”

  “Nope, although that did help. Hey!” He evaded her jabbing fingers. “Here’s why I like it,” he added, to avoid death by tickling. He cleared his throat and read the three-step plan out loud. “‘Publish paper. Contact media. Meet Prime Minister.’ It’s short, simple, and doable. Once Nature Genetics gives us our academic creds, the newspapers will carry the story. Once the story spreads, Moshe Karlin will come calling.”