Waking the Zed

Morning at the Mediterranean



Hercules Onassis stood five feet five inches in his stocking feet, though he normally wore expensive shoes with cleverly inserted lifts to help him appear a couple of inches taller. The last time a doctor had weighed him, he had tipped the scale’s balance bar at over two hundred and fifty pounds. He had promised that doctor to lose weight after that last visit and then never returned. This extra girth sat mostly around Hercules’s middle, and from a certain angle he seemed almost as wide as he was tall.

Hercules had risen slightly later than normal, having lost electricity sometime during the night. The old electric alarm clock he had relied upon since his school days was still and dark. He had overslept a couple of times in the fifteen years since his parents had retired and moved to Florida, but Marina the morning prep cook usually called up to his apartment after she arrived to begin the morning prep work in the kitchen. Most days, he was already showed, dressed, and working in the kitchen when she arrived.

This morning, he dressed quickly, forgoing his usual morning shower, and found the ground floor café kitchen empty. Marina had worked for his parents before working for him, and he could not remember her ever missing a day at work without calling in. Even the days when she called in to explain an absence were rare.

Concerned, but not angry, he tried to call her. The phone went through to voice mail immediately. Then he tried to call her son. The young man helped with The Mediterranean’s evening deliveries after attending a full day of classes at the local university. But now he could not make a phone connection at all. The café’s kitchen phone was dead too. Hercules’ cell phone just beeped when he tried to dial out. He tried to use the cell phone to access the Internet to see if there was news. Maybe the power outage was all over the city, and Marina was just held up somewhere. Even the omnipresent Internet was down by either trying a Wi-Fi or 4G connection.

Hercules fiddled with the phone for a few minutes trying to get a connection and finally gave up. Something was amiss. He was certain that as soon as the situation cleared up, Marina would contact him.

Right now, Hercules tried to figure out how he could handle the morning’s usual rush by himself with no electricity. A frugal man, he could certainly afford to close the popular café for the day, but he hated to disappoint his regulars. Some of the older folks had been coming here for breakfast or lunch several times a week since his parents had opened the place three decades ago. Hercules felt a duty to be ready to serve them strong coffee, sweet pastries, or a hearty country breakfast.

Within an hour, the place could be full of breakfast customers, and he still had no power, much less a selection of pastries to serve them. The two waitresses and the morning cook had not appeared yet either. While Hercules was happy to pitch in to help with any job in his small café, there was little chance he could handle food preparation and serve customers. Without electricity he would not be able to collect credit card payments either. If the situation did not improve quickly, he might just have to close the café for breakfast for the first time in his memory.

He thought he should just close the café now and venture out in the delivery van to find Marina. Then he thought he would delay the trip until at least one of the employees showed up to relieve him. They might have some information about the situation, and it seemed too impulsive to venture out without any knowledge about the world outside.

Besides, he still felt groggy from so recently being roused and skipping his shower. All he could do right now was light the gas burners to boil some strong Greek coffee for his own breakfast. The grinders were electric, and he did not have enough finely ground coffee to serve more than a few customers, but he had plenty for himself.

They had run out of fresh pastries yesterday before the lunch rush even ended. He had meant to ask Marina to make a larger batch this morning as the place had gotten increasingly busy. He had even meant to ask her if she knew anybody who could be trained to help her. In the last few years, the older neighborhood had gotten more popular, and The Mediterranean had really outgrown the small staff his parents had always relied upon. Hercules scratched his head and figured he might be able to offer customers eggs and toast.

While he thought about handling his business this morning, Hercules added sugar, water, and finely ground coffee to a small pot for his breakfast coffee. He had originally entered the café’s kitchen from the stairs that led to his small upstairs apartment. In all this time he had not actually entered the dining room or looked out at the street. He remembered that Marina usually unlocked the front door when she arrived so the waitresses and morning cook could get in.

Perhaps they are locked outside and I have not been able to hear them knocking. He should let them in and offer them coffee. If they did show up, whether or not he decided to conduct business, Hercules decided to give each of the women some money from petty cash to compensate them for their lost tips. He would also let them punch in for the day, and he could punch them out later so they would still be paid. He had learned from his parents that it was always good business to treat employees as fairly as possible. He had not thought to clock Marina’s time, but he could do that later. Then he recalled that the electronic time system would not work without electricity anyway. Hercules shrugged. He would figure something else out.

He turned down the flame on the burner under his coffee before making his way out of the kitchen. Daylight already streamed in through the barred windows. He made out several indistinct shapes on the street which was unusual for this time of the morning. Normally people would enter the café in small groups when they first opened, but he still had the better part of an hour before that would happen. Maybe the loss of electricity and the number of people on the street were related. Was there something he should know?

Hercules casually stepped up to the window to get a good look at the street. The scene was so shocking that Hercules stared in open mouthed horror. A prone woman crawled on the ground directly in front of him. A man passed her without even glancing down. The man dragged his leg and his head seemed perched on his neck at an odd angle. Hercules looked back down at the woman and she seemed to be missing part of the back of her head. Her hair and scalp had been scraped off, and he could see the white bones of her skull. He forced himself to look beyond the part of the sidewalk where he had set out a few tables and chairs for diners who preferred to eat outside on pleasant days, and he saw stopped cars with about a dozen of the injured looking people moving slowly between them. The lurching man brushed into one of Hercules’s ornate sidewalk chairs and knocked it over without pausing.

What horror is this? Has somebody dropped a bomb on the city?

He had the initial thought to venture out to help the prone woman, but a sudden flash of memory stopped him. His grandmother had frightened a young Hercules into behaving with stories of the Twice Dead from Greek legends. She even had an old book with engraved images that reminded him of the bloody spectacle in front of him. He knew enough of the old language to struggle through the ornate book and his grandmother had filled in the gaps.

Necromancers, or witches, could revive the newly dead for advice or favors before returning them into the underworld. He had not thought about those stories for years, but suddenly the image had popped into his brain.

His grandmother had fancied herself as a sort of a white witch, and the rest of the family mostly put her claims down to eccentricity. But as a child, Hercules had a creative and sensitive nature, and her stories sparked his imagination. Plus when Hercules was a child, a steady stream of visitors called on her. She seemed able to produce cures for everything from high blood pressure to depression.

At least that’s what her clients claimed. Hercules own mother had mostly insisted on taking him to a regular doctor for childhood checkups and treatments. His own mother was a modern woman, and she insisted that the old woman’s tinctures only made people feel better because the healing herbs had been dissolved in strong alcohol.

How had the dead been revived? He thought it had something to do with pleas to the old gods, but perhaps one of the narratives had mentioned a potion too. More importantly, he remembered that the dead had been sent back to the afterlife by burning them on a funeral pyre. Since these creatures seemed mobile despite various severe injuries, Hercules wondered if there was another way to rouse them. As he contemplated this fantastic scenario, he stared at the street in wide eyed horror.

He finally tore his eyes from the street and glanced up. He believed he saw the shadow of a woman staring down at him from a second floor window across the street. The apartment had a small balcony but the woman did not venture outside. He wondered if he knew her. He knew she could not make out his features because he had the windows treated to block light from the outside. He could see out, but people on the outside could only see shadows from the café.

None of the creatures seemed to pay him any attention, but he stepped back from the window. He wondered if the old book had been left in the small apartment over the shop or if his parents had taken it with them to Florida. He doubted his mother would bother to pack such a thing, and his father never bothered with what he called women’s lore.

Then he recalled again that the Twice Dead had been revived because the dead were supposed to know everything. They were used as oracles before being sent back to the underworld. He did not dare open the outside door to listen, but it did not look as if the amblers in the street had anything to say. As Hercules had observed them, they seemed brainless and without purpose. This might be something else, but also more unlike anything else in his experience than to his grandmother’s stories of the Twice Dead.

Hercules did not own a gun. He had long ago resolved to protect himself with a good alarm system, heavy locks, and the resolution to give any thieves whatever money he had on hand. So far the alarm system and locks had thwarted the few burglary attempts he had suffered.

All he had on hand was an old hunting bow that had been handed down from his grandfather. It was a beautiful hand carved artifact from the old country and he had it hung on the wall with a quiver of twenty arrows. Back when Hercules was a child his grandfather had taken the boy out to the country so he could practice shooting at targets.

Hercules remembered asking during one hunting trip, “Are we ever going to actually hunt anything?”

“You want to hunt something?” his grandfather asked. “Ah, maybe I am a spoiled old man. But I prefer to take pictures of the beautiful wild animals. I’ll get my meat from the store if it’s all the same to you.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” young Hercules had replied, agreeing seriously. “I guess if I had to kill my own food, I’d stick to hummus.” Then both he and his grandfather had laughed.

But Hercules had learned the hunting bow could shoot sturdy bolts with surprising power; especially know when strung with modern fibers. He had learned to shoot well enough to send bolts right through wooden targets. He knew this type of bow could penetrate armor or skulls. It was especially effective because each arrow was tipped with a razor sharp steel head as fine as Hercules’ best chefs knives. Hercules grandfather had told him that a skilled archer could shoot arrows as fast an armed gunman. Of course, that was in the days before automatic weapons were so prevalent on the streets.

Hercules nodded at the thought and pulled his bulk back up the stairs to fetch the bow and quiver. He had forgotten that a sturdy hunting knife and a short ax were sheathed on the same strap that held the quiver. Those seemed like useful tools for a man in the woods, or in the midst of an urban apocalypse.

After a quick glance through the closet, he also found the old book which his grandmother had claimed was the source of most of her knowledge of the old wisdom. It was wrapped in its own finely tooled leather bag. He climbed back down to the dining room, glanced out the window to find the scene unchanged, and then remembered the coffee.

He set the bow, quiver, and dusty old book bag on a booth so he could read by the light of the window. Just a year ago he had the windows treated so they let light in, but looked shaded from the street. His father had been against it, saying that seeing the busy café would attract more business from the outside. But the salesman had told him it was energy efficient and would save on utility bills in the future. Hercules wanted to invest in money-saving and ecologically responsible ideas so he had the windows treated. Just now that investment had saved him from being seen by the Twice Dead on the streets and seemed like a fortuitous decision.

Hercules had left the sturdy door untreated, but covered it with a decorative shade. He decided against uncovering the door to see if he could get a better view.

Then he returned to the kitchen to pour himself a double serving of strong Greek coffee. His grandmother had always joked that this stuff had the power to wake the dead, so perhaps it would fortify him.

He opened the small cooler over the counter and found a few slices of pita bread, yesterday’s leftover hummus, and some butter. It would have to do for his breakfast. He took a moment to warm the bread on the gas burner. Then he settled himself in the customer booth, something he rarely did. He picked at the food, and sipped his coffee while trying to learn more about the Twice Dead.

He struggled with the old language, wishing he had his grandmother here to refresh his memory of a character here or a word there. It was hard to concentrate on such a difficult task while those things were lurching about outside and poor Marina was missing. But somehow it seemed important.