Zombie Jesus (13 page)

Mary watched Jesus climb to the apex, looking back at the sky tentacles as they destroyed the last of the kachina giants and began streaming towards the pyramid. She turned towards Jesus as he rose, her lover and her messiah, the man and the chosen one. She watched him knock a flaming arrow and draw his bow. He pointed straight up at the heavens, and loosed. In rapid succession he loosed two more arrows into the sky, then he let the bow slip from his grasp and tumble into the streets below. He looked one last time at Mary as the three flaming arrows streaked down from the heavens, and smiled.

The arrows slammed into his skull one after the other, and as they did a great roar thundered across the heavens. The sky tentacles began exploding into ashes, and within moments they were gone. Jesus swayed for a moment as the blood ran down his face, then his eyes rolled back and he toppled over. His body fell down the pyramid and disappeared into the smoke of the fires below. Mary whispered a final prayer and closed her eyes, her consciousness sinking back into the comforting darkness as she too faded from the world and returned from whence she came.

THE KINGDOM

His disciples said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"

Harrison awoke from his dream with a profound sense of hope, though he could not tell why. He could not remember his dream, only that Romeo and Cisco were in it, and he could have sworn he'd heard a wolf howling. He walked outside of the house and stretched, the ocean breeze giving him chills even as it refreshed him. They were doing well here, having made their way to the coast.

In the last few days they had discovered that when people died they no longer turned into zombies. The psychopaths had all but disappeared, though gone to where he neither knew nor cared. He just couldn't place the sense of well being, though somewhere deep down he felt the truth of it. He pulled his patch jacket across his shoulders and said a silent prayer for his brothers who had ridden off into the desert, then went down to the main house to start the day's work.

The Calaveras had survived, and now it was time to start living.

"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!'

Rather, the Father's kingdom is already spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it. Open your eyes."

MYTHPUNK GLOSSARY

This story contains a great many mythological figures and concepts, as such a layman's glossary is included below. The curious reader is highly encouraged to investigate these concepts and characters further, because it’s fun and enlightening.  

Wikipedia is Awesome. 

Jesus of Nazareth
- Prophet, carpenter, revolutionary, central historical figure in Christian Mythology. 

Aesir
- Gods and/or spirits that comprise the Norse (Viking) Pantheon. One of which is Fenris, the wolf god who swallows the sun during Ragnarok, the Norse Apocalypse.

Valkyrie
- Norse spirits that choose who lives and who dies in battle, taking the chosen with them to Valhalla, the "Hall of the Slain". 

The Bifrost
- A burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (the physical world) and Asgard, the realm of the gods.

The Horn Resounding
- Called Gjallarhorn in Norse mythology, refers to the great horn that is blown at the onset of Ragnarok. 

The Two Prophets
- The two witnesses are two of God's prophets who are seen in a vision by John of Patmos, who appear during the Second woe in the Book of Revelation 11:1-14.

Calavera
- The flower adorned skull image traditionally associated with the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday focusing on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died.

Horus
- An Egyptian god of the Sky, also of war, hunting, and Life itself. 

The Sun Dance
- A Native American ritual dance tradition, for which a common explanation would be that a flesh offering, or piercing, usually of the chest, is given as a part of a prayer for the benefit of one's family and community.

Kachinas
- In Native American Pueblo cultures the Kachinas are spirits or personifications of things in the real world.

The Sacred Clown
- Pueblo Clowns, often called sacred clowns, is a generic term for jester or trickster in the Kachina religion practiced by the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern USA, often depicted as wearing black and white striped body paint to distinguish themselves from the other kachina representations. 

The Sipapu
- Is a Hopi word for the is a small hole or indentation in the floor of kivas used by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples and modern-day Puebloans, and symbolizes the portal through which their ancient ancestors first emerged to enter the present world.

The Dying God
– This is a pervading belief amongst many of the world’s cultures & religions that the world is created and/or sustained through the death (and often corpse) of a god or divine being.

The Yellow Sign
- Decent people should not pursue the knowledge of such things.