She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror Read online

  Advanced Praise for She Nailed a Stake Through His Head

  This book takes the Bible back from those right-wing fascists who want to rewrite it as a tedious book of loving and caring. These are stories as bawdy and lustful and horrifying as the original Good Book - wild sex, savage violence, horrific curses...and, of course, vampires.

  - Matthue Roth, author of Never Mind the Goldbergs and

  Candy in Action

  You don't need to be Jewish or Christian to appreciate She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror. Still, you may find yourself groping for a religious icon for protection given the unholy places these weird tales will take you.

  Meandering between desert sands and skyscrapers, between past, present and alternate timelines, She Nailed a Stake Through His Head is a gallery of horrors inspired by the most nightmarish images of Near Eastern cultures. There are wild-eyed, drug-crazed prophets, witches drawing the dead from the depths of the Underworld, sacred prostitutes, an English Delilah trapped in a house falling down around her, epic beheadings and a living tomb in the foul and slimy body of a whale.

  Regardless of religion (or lack thereof), lovers of speculative fiction will swallow up these provocative stories.

  - Erin O'Riordan, author of Beltane and Midsummer Night

  "Lyrical, horrifying, beautiful and thought provoking, She Nailed a Stake Through His Head is a sharp read and well worth your time whether or not you are familiar with the biblical tales the stories reference."

  - Jennifer Brozek, winner of the 2009 Australian Shadows Award for edited publication

  Sex, death, passion and blood - all the best secrets of the so-called "Good Book." Give a copy to the holy roller on your block...then stand back and watch his head explode!

  - SatyrPhil Brucato, Witches & Pagans Magazine

  Who knew the bible contained chillers? It’s widely acknowledged that the bible is filled to the brim with tales of romance, heroism, violence, and mysticism. She Nailed a Stake through his Head: Tales of Biblical Terror shines a spotlight on the suspense stories lingering in biblical shadows. If you know your bible, then the territory is familiar but I doubt if you’ve ever considered the landscape from this perspective before. Consider, for example, what actually caused the deaths of Ruth’s husband, brother-in-law and father-in-law? Do crucifixes really drive vampires away? She Nailed a Stake through His Head contains genuine tales of horror plus much food for thought. An excellent and diverse collection of stories, special highlights include Gerri Leen’s “Whither Thou Goest” and “Last Respects” by D.K. Thompson.

  • Judika Illes, author of The Encyclopedia of Spirits,

  The Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells and The Weiser Field Guide to Witches

  Variety, interpretation, Bible stories with a bite where half the fun is in figuring out which part of Scripture provided the source!

  - James S. Dorr, author Darker Loves: Tales of Mystery and Regret

  She Nailed a Stake Through His Head:

  Tales of Biblical Terror

  Edited by Tim Lieder

  Dybbuk Press

  New York, NY

  October 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Dybbuk Press

  http://www.dybbuk-press.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher and the authors therein, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in New York

  ISBN: 0-9766546-7-9

  13-number ISBN: 978-0-9766546-7-4

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010924983

  Copyright History

  “Swallowed!” © 2005 Stephen M. Wilson, originally appeared in Wicked Karnival

  “Babylon’s Burning” © 2010 Daniel Kaysen, originally appeared in Black Static, Feb-March 2010 issue.

  “Last Respects” © 2007 Dave Thompson, originally appeared in Pseudopod.

  “Whither Thou Goest” © 2010 Gerri Leen

  “Jawbone of an Ass” © 2010 Lyda Morehouse

  “Judgment at Naioth” © 2010 Elissa Malcohn

  “Judith & Holofernes” © 2010 Romie Stott

  “As if Favorites of their God” © 2010 Christi Krug

  “Psalm of the Second Body” © 2005 Catherynne M. Valente, originally appeared in PEN Book of Voices, edited by Michael Butscher

  Introduction © 2010 Tim Lieder

  Cover designed by Tim Lieder

  Cover painting is Jael and Sisera by Jacopo Amigoni

  Dedicated to Dr. Dassie Naiman

  Great friend, Torah enthusiast and the strangest woman I’ve ever met. This book would not have been possible without her encouragement.

  Table of Contents

  Editor’s Introduction

  9

  Whither Thou Goest by Gerri Leen

  13

  Babylon’s Burning by Daniel Kaysen

  25

  As if Favorites of their God by Christi Krug

  39

  Psalm of the Second Body by Catherynne Valente

  53

  Judgment at Naioth by Elissa Malcohn

  65

  Judith & Holofernes by Romie Stott

  89

  Jawbone of an Ass by Lyda Morehouse

  93

  Swallowed! by Stephen M. Wilson

  109

  Last Respects by D.K. Thompson

  127

  Author Biographies

  141

  Introduction

  Blame Joseph Heller. Many bad influences led to this anthology, but Joseph Heller wrote God Knows, which I read after taking a rather mind-blowing class entitled The Bible: Wisdom, Poetry and Apocalyptic. When you’re a college student, mind-blowing religious books are standard, but you expect to get your mind blown by Starhawk, Tom Robbins, Robert Anton Wilson and the Maharishi. You don’t expect to find much in a text that you’ve already dismissed as patriarchal, hierarchal, racist and the basis for every evil in the world from genocide to Christian rock. After writing my final paper comparing the Book of Koheleth (Ecclesiastes) to the Tao Teh Ching, I was eager for more and Heller filled the niche.

  God Knows depicts King David with borsht belt comedian pathos. He’s complaining about Michal. He’s trying to shtup Bathsheba one last time. He’s very defensive when it comes to his relationship with Jonathan. He dismisses Samson as a messhuggah out to put his putz into as many shiksas as possible (Mad Magazine had conditioned me for the equation “Yiddish=Hilarity” so this bit had me laughing for days. I was also under a lot of stress.) And like Heller’s Catch-22, the humor serves to barely conceal the tragic nature of the tale. Ultimately, Heller’s David is a sad and lonely man whose life’s work has isolated him from all loved ones. His only true father figure tried to kill him. His wives despise him and his best general killed his favorite son. In the final page, David is left uncertain whether any of it was worth the sacrifice.

  When I read the Book of Samuel, I was pleasantly surprised to find Heller’s mixture of low humor and high tragedy consistent with the original. The story of David has all the rape, patricide, fratricide, betrayal and civil war that you’re ever going to want in an epic - but also a terrible beauty and a sense of joy that cannot be mitigated even in the most tragic moments. Josep
h Heller not only introduced me to the concept of the Bible as literature, but also put his own unique stamp on a story that I only thought I knew. Since then, I’ve had a particular appreciation for Biblical literature.

  Sadly, much of the modern fare relies on children’s stories and apocalyptic screeching. Where once stood Paradise Lost now resides Left Behind. For every intelligent Bible series like NBC’s short lived Kings, there are dozens of uninspired “Biblical Epics” featuring actors droning in potato sacks and Richard Gere disco dancing in a diaper.

  With this anthology, I hope to fill that void and honor the writers who have used Biblical themes brilliantly without resorting to puerile themes. Out of the nine stories, six are based on Tanakh (also known as The Old Testament), one is New Testament, one is from Apocrypha and one is a meditation on the Epic of Gilgamesh. Within that framework, the stories embrace many styles including alternate history, experimental, Lovecraftian terror, midrash and historical romance. This is only a small sampling of the vast wealth of literary possibilities.

  For further discussion of the Bible’s literary themes, I’d recommend Robert Alter’s pair of books, The Art of Biblical Poetry and The Art of Biblical Prose as well as Rabbi Hayyim Angel’s Through an Opaque Lens. There are also several excellent graphic novels dealing with Biblical themes including The Cartoon History of the Universe by Larry Gonick and Robert Crumb’s Genesis. If you can find a copy of Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament, buy it. Neil Gaiman contributed and it’s out of print, so it might be pricey. Of course, reading the Bible itself is recommended but try to find a decent translation. Even though King James is considered the most beautiful version, there are other fine translations including the Jewish Publication Society’s translation and Everett Fox’s The Five Books of Moses which preserves the original poetic tropes.

  Whither Thou Goest

  By Gerri Leen

  In the stories of those who survive, I am a heroine. In the stories of my own people, those of us descended from Lot's daughter, from her incestuous union with her own father, I am also a heroine. If two such noble peoples see me as such, who am I to complain?

  They both love me because I endure. Because I survive. Because I cling with holy (or is it unholy) fervor to the woman who bore the man I sucked dry. Once she knew what I was, Naomi would have killed me if she could, but her life is forfeit if I should cease to draw breath. I saw to that when I said the ancient words, binding me to her, twining my very breath with hers.

  "Wherever you go, I will go…”

  Beautiful, aren't they, these words of power? Of control. Lot's daughters were forced to follow their father into the desert, their mother covering herself with salt for protection against the demon that had overtaken her husband - a demon who burned her in place, leaving only her salted, charred corpse. Lot's daughters, unnamed in the books of the survivors, but known to my people, learned to turn the words of servitude into words of angry potency after their father raped them. The survivors changed the story, turned the girls into the ones who sought their father to ensure their progeny's life, but we remember. Those of us who hold fast, who suck dry. Who never leave once we latch on.

  "Wherever you lodge, I will lodge…"

  None can rid themselves of us once we take hold. Not while we cling.

  "Don't beg me to leave you, or to stop following you…"

  Once there were words of rebuke, designed to claw my kind from the lives of the faithful. But they were lost long before I found Naomi, and her husband, and her sons. My sister Orpah and I flipped a coin, the hammered side meaning she would take hold and follow this woman to a new land. But the carved side fell instead, and it was up to me.

  It hurt to say goodbye to my sister. Perhaps the only hurt I'd felt for a long time.

  Naomi could tell.

  "Look, your sister-in-law is going back to her people, and to her gods; follow her." My sister-in-truth did go back to our gods, and I pledged myself to Naomi's one god, the boundless skies crackling with delight at my heresy.

  I was consecrated in blood years before. I belonged to the old ones. I would keep my husband's mother in a stranglehold, but not so tight that she ran out of air. For I spoke true when I said, "Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried." I was tied to her as surely as she was to me. And I have a fear of being trapped underground. We were born in caves and we fled them as soon as we could, dancing under the stars, lying naked under the fierce winds of the desert, letting the blowing sand scour any remaining sanctity from us.

  Naomi begged me to stay with Orpah. She wept. She bribed. She even tried to stab me in the night. Fortunately, I am a light sleeper. I cause nightmares; I do not have them.

  In the end, she gave up. I called her hag, doomed one, lost lamb. It amused me to watch her become silent as we traveled together.

  But near Bethlehem, when we stopped for water, I overheard her telling a stout young man who was watering his flock that I was a demon. He laughed at her, but later I caught him following us. I bade him join us, and he basked in the venomous warmth of my smile. I let him into our camp - let him into me - as I sucked him dry, and drained the vitality and goodness out of him. I left him a husk of a man on the road to Bethlehem. His seed died within me. He was not of Naomi's line; my womb rejected his offering.

  Naomi wept bitter tears for him. She thought he looked like my husband, her son. I thought so too. I enjoyed the similarities.

  "You are unnatural," she said as I stood in the creek and washed the last of him out of me.

  "Oh, I exist in the natural world. I don't disappear in the light of day." Some of my kind did; they hunted only in the dark, drinking their victim's life away much faster, more directly through the blood. They lived long, the dark dwellers, not tied to their victims. But my kind lived our shorter lives in the open, and that made us stronger, more alive.

  "You are heinous. A cursed thing. Nothing good lives in you."

  She was right. Inside, if I let myself feel it, beat the remnants of the broken heart of Lot's girl, robbed of her mother, then of her innocence. Her pain passed through our line, diluted in most of the Moabites. But strong in some of us, those who learned how to turn pain into suffering - into slow, ingenious torture of the soul. We lived to break others; it was the only way we could survive, then later it was the only way we could thrive.

  I thought Naomi a broken woman when we arrived in Bethlehem. But she stood before her old neighbors, telling the truth - if those who listened could have understood her words. She said, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord had brought me home again empty. Why call me Naomi, seeing how the Lord has judged me, how the Almighty has afflicted me?"

  None understood. None saw that I was the curse she spoke of. They saw only a young devoted woman. I hugged her as she finished her speech.

  "I like it here," I said as I pulled her close and bit down on her neck, not breaking skin, but sucking hard enough to leave a bruise just behind her ear.

  "Leave me," she said, and her voice seemed to shatter, as if her last hope had been here, in this place, with these people. Had she thought that her homeland could save her from me?

  "I can never leave you. But I can add to our family." And I turned to look at her kinsman Boaz, a handsome, wealthy man who smiled with delight on both of us.

  "No." Naomi's voice was little more than breath, warm across my face as she pulled me to face her. "Do what you will with me. But leave him alone."

  "What you love, I will love."

  She fell away from me with a cry, and I let her go. My eyes met Boaz's, and he was mine. Even if he didn't know it, even if his blood was not yet singing for me, I could feel the spark of attraction that would someday bind him.

  I lowered my eyes, keeping them downcast as a young maiden should. I hurried after Naomi and did not look back. But if I had, Boaz would have been staring after me.

  And now I make plans for him. He k
nows me only as the Moabite who followed her beloved mother-in-law home. "How do I win him?" I ask Naomi, when I find her in our new house, small and not very tidy. Where are all the riches of my father-in-law?

  "I will not help you."

  "This Boaz will care for us. He will spoil us and make us the envy of every woman in town." I do not relish sharing this with Naomi, but the binding works both ways. I cannot forsake her, not once the words have been spoken.

  She will not answer.

  "I will kill him if I cannot win him." I lean in, press my lips against hers and feel her shudder at my touch. "Shall I do that? Shall I kill him?"

  She pulls away and I let her. Her lips are chapped where mine rested against them.

  "You lack the humility to win him," she says.

  "A challenge. I do love those."

  To my surprise, she tells me of the old ways, the gleaning and the barley and corn I must gather. Her eyes gleam in a strange way when she speaks of water vessels that can only be touched with Boaz's permission; of the danger from following strange men in a field.

  "You think they will harm me? You think they can harm me?"

  "If you dishonor us, they will stone us both." She does not care anymore, the old witch. She may dishonor us herself if given half the chance.