Dark Resurrection

  * * *

  Entering the barracks during early morning, the commander beheld the crushed and mangled corpse of one guard, and the pale, chalklike pallor of the other guard’s cadaver, lying in stretchers on the floor. “What the hell happened out there?” he barked at his second in command, hands on hips, his feet planted firmly one shoulder length apart in a command posture.

  “We don’t know sir,” said the officer, “The relief guards arrived at the graveyard at sunup and found the men dead. One was crushed by the boulder, and as for the other – ” He waved vaguely in the direction of his deceased comrades. His voice trailed off, looking in horror at the strange appearance of the bloodless corpse.

  “Do you see his color?” asked the commander, glancing at the body.

  “Yes sir,” the officer answered, “In twenty years of service, I’ve never seen anything like that!” Staring at the cadaver, he thought, Even bodies with major arteries cut have a bit of color to them, this one’s white as a sheet!

  “Neither have I, we have to find out what killed him, and quick,” said the commander, turning to leave. “Get a physician here immediately and see what he has to say, I’m heading to the cemetery to have a look at the scene.”

  “Yes sir,” answered the officer, giving the air a Roman salute that his superior had not remained for.

  The commander arrived at the sunlit graveyard along with an immunes, or specialist, an engineer named Severus Germanicus, who quickly surveyed the scene, walking about the area and examining the entrance of the tomb, afterward theorizing as to what had happened.

  “As I see it,” the engineer began, “It seems the stone was pushed from the inside, not pried from the outside.”

  “How did you determine this?” the commander asked, folding arms over his chest.

  Pausing and wiping his hands on a rag even though they were clean, the engineer felt a chill run up his spine. Cemeteries had always made him uncomfortable, a weakness he would never admit to anyone. Give me a clean Roman cremation over these barbarian burials any day, he thought.

  “Note the path of the boulder sir,” said Severus, using a thumb to point in the direction of the destroyed house, feeling little sympathy for its deceased occupants. After all, who would be stupid enough to live next to a cemetery, even the pious priests of this god-forsaken country would not think of doing so, something about the rules of uncleanness.

  “Yes,” replied the commander, observing the path of destroyed tombstones, flattened saplings and other debris leading from the opening.

  “It’s practically a straight line from the entrance of the sepulchre,” the engineer continued, pointing to a line a surveyor had run from the tomb to the house. “If someone had attempted to move the stone in this fashion from the outside, it would have either crushed them to death as it moved, or else they would have pried it from the sides, and the boulder would have taken a different path.”

  “I understand, but are you trying to say someone was inside the sepulchre, and pushed a stone of that weight out by himself?”

  “It had to be someone inside the tomb, or perhaps some – thing,” the engineer answered with a hint of foreboding, “There’s no other way the boulder could have taken such a path.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes sir, it would be different if we were in Rome, perhaps a lever machine similar to a siege engine could accomplish such a task there. The backward people here are not technical enough for such a feat.”

  “You think so?”

  “Only a Roman or Greek masterbuilder would be able to do this type of work, and even then there’d be pry marks on the boulder where it was mortared.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Then he’d have to remove the machine without leaving a trace, there are no forgotten tools, no dropped funereal rags, not even fresh animal dung. Aside from that sir, we still can’t account for the soldier who was crushed by the boulder, for he and his comrade would have tried to stop them.”

  “True.”

  “So I ask commander, how could they have made the guard stay still for the boulder to crush him to death?” asked Severus, his arms out.

  “They couldn’t,” said the commander, knowing the disciplined guards would have done their duty, as there were no cowards or traitors in his command.

  “Further, any such grave robbers would have needed draft oxen to haul the machine, the body and their tools away when they were finished, and there are no tracks or ruts from wheels.”

  “Yes, so I suppose there’s no point in rounding up his followers for questioning?”

  “You can talk to them if you want sir, but in my opinion, they had nothing to do with this,” Severus replied, frowning and looking to the open tomb.