Absalom: The Undead - Part 1

 

Illustration © by O. Douglas Jennings

History states that after Absalom's death, his body was treated with a lack of honor. Absalom, the third son of King David, was killed by Joab, David's military commander, during a battle in the forest of Ephraim. Joab found Absalom caught by his hair in an oak tree and killed him. Following his death, Absalom's body was thrown into a large pit in the forest and covered with a heap of stones, a burial typically reserved for criminals and those who died in disgrace. But that is not the whole story.

DATELINE 979 BCE...

The moonlight filtered through the gnarled trees in the Forest of Ephraim the night the disgraced prince was reborn –if that is what it could dare be called. A hunched and shadowy figure clamored over the rubble of heavy stones under which the royal assassinated body had been discarded. 

With uncommon, supernatural speed and strength, the form shifted the burial boulders aside in the cool desolate hours when no one could hear the scrape of rock against rock as the bloody and broken body with its tragic yet still handsome form could be discerned with glowing crimson eyes.

Like a spider approaching its prey, the dark, cloaked interloper drew closer to the now-exposed neck of the corpse and extended a talon-sharp fingernail that made a thin yet deep scratch along the jugular vein from which came a small trickle of dark blood . If a witness had been present they just might have heard the faint, raspy murmur, “The life blood has not fully congealed, praise be to the Dark Lord!” 

“You’ve done well, Tubal,” hissed a dulcet yet sinister voice behind the miscreant.

Whipping around, the startled scavenger beheld a tall, slender but imperious woman in a hooded yet resplendent black robe adorned with gleaming silver clasps that matched the tresses that could barely be seen underneath the additional scarves framing her chiseled, icily composed face. 

Now bowing low in the still night air along the rubble, Tubal hoarsely exclaimed, “You honor me, my mistress. The sleeping prince awaits you!”

As if transported without the slightest gesture the woman was instantaneously poised with her face near the neck of the broken corpse. Tubal, in anticipation even as he had spoken, moved synchronistically with similar speed out of the way of his darting mistress.  

Obscured, now, by the crouching body and flowing cloak of the eerie lady, the corpse of the slain royal became a hidden object from which emanated sickeningly gurgled sounds of an unholy and disturbingly unclean communion taking place. 

Tubal averted his gaze and looked toward the densely darkened treeline near the cast aside boulders. Nor did he turn back around when the sound of a hacking cough, then a croaking breath and finally a sudden and chilling, ominous silence took hold. He knew the process had been completed. His eyes gleamed and a twisted smile curled his cracked lips in knowing his mistress would now have a fitting consort. 

To be continued.

© by O. Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.