David Epperson - The Third Day

I now felt like a human being again for the first time since coming to. I pointed to the crowds thronging into the other building with a questioning look. He answered, but either he didn’t speak Greek or the translation software wasn’t working quite right, so I only caught a few random words.

Then I experienced something even more bizarre. Another assistant, bald and dressed exactly like his counterparts, emerged from a back closet grasping a handful of docile brown snakes. He lifted them up to his boss, who appeared to bless them.

As soon as the old man had finished, the kid bowed and headed toward the main building.

This I had to see.

I gestured my request and the priest nodded his approval, signaling me to follow. Surprisingly, given what I had observed earlier, the mob let us pass through with only a minimum of pushing and shoving.

But as soon as I got inside, I wished they hadn’t.

An indescribable stench assaulted my senses. Surrounding an irregularly shaped pool at the courtyard’s center was a veritable sea of human misery. Hundreds of men — they were almost all men — with twisted and broken limbs lay packed, sardine-like, on woven pallets.

Others, who had been shunted off to one side, bore a ghastly array of tumors, pustules, and open wounds. Most of them simply stared up at the sky, alone in their thoughts, while friends or relatives attended to a fortunate few.

My companion, though, paid none of this any heed. Instead, he deposited his serpentine burden at various places near the pool and then scooted out the opposite door, with no more emotion than a package delivery service.

The reptiles slithered out of sight almost immediately, though to my surprise, none of the assembled wretches showed any consternation at their presence.

This seemed to be normal, or whatever passed for normal in this strange place.

And that wasn’t the half of it. A short time thereafter, the air began to buzz in a cacophony of languages as the more vigorous of the sick and injured jostled for position at the edge of the water, pushing and shoving in search of a favorable spot.

I could sense the energy of the crowd. They were waiting for something with eager anticipation, though I didn’t know what.

I gestured to a priest, but he just kept his eyes on the water and shrugged.

A few minutes later, I felt a low rumble, and the crowd suddenly stilled, with every eye riveted on the pool.

Seconds afterward, a bubble broke the surface.

As if a starter’s gun had fired, the entire mass of humanity surged forward as best they could in a pell-mell scramble, leaving dozens of the front ranks to flail about wildly in the churning water.

This went on for some time, until the thrashing finally started to slow. At that point, a priest gave a signal, and a group of younger men — apprentices, maybe — began to shove the crowds back with wooden batons.

Once they had cleared sufficient space to work, a second crew began to fish the soggy unfortunates out of the pool and carry them back toward the walls as the poor creatures squawked in futile protest.

As the laborers were about to leave, though, one of their number pointed down into the water and signaled to an older priest. He sauntered down with a long wooden hook that reminded me of the ones used by theater impresarios in Saturday morning cartoons to yank dreadful performers off the stage.

Only this time, I didn’t laugh. After two tries, the man snagged his quarry and pulled the drowned body to the surface.

Except for that priest, not another soul in the building cared.

I pushed my way toward the south entrance, dodging the dispirited packs of invalids as best I could until I finally made it outside. From there, I kept going for another fifty yards as I strained to recall the details of the map Lavon had shown us before we departed Bryson’s lab.

I stopped for a moment to get my bearings, savoring the fresh air. To my east, a narrow path ran between a disheveled pile of construction materials at the edge of a steep cliff. According to Lavon, this was most likely the initial segment of what would become a third wall surrounding Jerusalem’s growing northern suburbs.

I didn’t see any laborers, though, and this also fit with what the archaeologist had told us earlier: the Third Wall had been a haphazard enterprise for decades until the Revolt finally lent urgency to its completion.

Not that the effort did the Jews much good. When push came to shove, Roman siege engineers broke through it in a matter of days.

But that was forty years into the future. If I wanted to last forty more hours, I needed to find the others.

Looking down, I could see a narrow trail snaking its way down into the valley below before turning back up to the other side. There, a long ridge ran parallel to the city’s eastern walls: the Mount of Olives.

I didn’t see any other man-made path, so I surmised that travelers wanting to go south from where I was would cross over to the Mount and then follow a parallel track along the back side.

If that was where the others had gone, I still had a chance.

I trekked along the path until I reached the base of the Kidron Ravine, where I turned right and headed down my improvised shortcut at a steady jog. Fortunately, the vegetation had not grown too thick, so I made good progress.

The place smelled — I recalled Lavon’s comment about the ravine being the city’s garbage dump — but after what I had experienced already, I couldn’t complain.

I could also see, as I looked up at the city’s imposing eastern walls, why no invader had ever attacked Jerusalem from this direction. From where I stood, the top of the fortifications must have risen over two hundred feet, straight up.

The scrub trees got thicker, and thornier, as I reached the halfway point. The cheap sandals that my friendly snake-charmers had lent me protected my feet, but it didn’t take long for my arms and calves to look like I had wrestled in barbed wire.

I pressed on, though, and after a few more minutes, I spotted a large crowd of people and animals gathering at Jerusalem’s southern gate.

To my relief, I also saw that the main road swung far to the south of the Mount of Olives before turning back north toward the city. As long as the others had traveled at a normal pace, the odds were good that I had managed to reach the gate ahead of them.

I slowed my pace to a fast walk and decided to check in with Sharon.

I inserted my earpiece, but didn’t even have a chance to call out.

“Oh my God,” she said.

I heard some shouting in the background, too, but it didn’t translate.

“Sharon, what is it? Are you OK?”

She didn’t reply for a moment. When she did, I could tell she had seen something horrific.

She struggled to find the right words. “We just stopped again; this man is holding up a cup; he wants me to give him something.”

“What kind of man?” I asked.

“I … I, uh, I’m not sure.”

She finally collected herself enough to give me a rough description.

Hardened spherical nodules, several larger than a quarter, covered his face and neck. Live insects crawled through the remnants of a gray, scraggly beard. Compounding the dreadfulness of his appearance, a strip of cloth fell away as the man edged closer, revealing a huge open red sore.

Except for the insects, I had seen this once, years ago, in central Africa.

I had hoped never to see it again.

“Look at his hands,” I said.

She did so, and gasped.

As I suspected, the fingers had degenerated into stumps, the flesh eaten away.

“It’s leprosy, Sharon; an advanced case. Try not to touch him.”

I needn’t have worried. Sharon’s captor didn’t want him around either. He called out to one of the litter bearers, who stepped up and kicked the man square in the chest. The rest of their crew laughed as the beggar scrambled away, crawling on all fours.