5
By the time the
village came into view, the darkness had thickened so much that I could barely
see the winding path ahead leading into the village.
Neve Emek was
smaller than I had imagined, though, and far stranger. It was nothing but a
scattering of houses crouched together at the edge of the road, their shapes
blurred and angular against the night sky, with no sign of life.
At first, I thought
the people must simply be asleep. It was late, after all, and perhaps they
lived by stricter rules here, far from city life and its routines. But the
closer I drew, the harder it was to convince myself that was the case. No
lamplight flickered behind the shutters, no dogs barked at the sound of my
approach. The houses looked not asleep but… abandoned. As though their
inhabitants had left years ago and never returned.
I forced myself
along a narrow lane that cut through the centre of the village. The shops there
leaned against one another, weathered by the passage of time. A wooden sign
swung from a chain above a grocery store, the letters faded to nothing. Also, the
chain groaned with every gust of wind, a rasping sound that was far too loud in
the quiet. Some of the windows were boarded up, others frostbitten and too
dirty to my liking.
I tried the grocery
store door without thinking, expecting it to be locked. I mean, this whole
place looked desolate, so why would I think otherwise? Instead, it gave way with
a screech and opened. The sound was so sharp I froze in place, before glancing
behind me to see if anyone had heard.
But there was no
one. Just me and the dark.
The smell hit
first. A pungent, suffocating reek of decay that coiled out from every corner like
it was a living thing. I gagged, pressing my sleeve to my face, and stepped
inside before instinct warned me back. What remained of the shop’s shelves
sagged inwards, wood damaged and swollen with damp. Dust too coated everything
in a thick film, but beneath it, dark stains marked the walls where jars had
cracked and leaked downwards in hardened trails. A few, however, lay shattered
on the floor, where the contents had set into misshapen lumps, mouldering, buzzing
with insects.
Something shifted
in the shadows at the back as I staggered back – a faint wet sound, like
something dragging over tile. My gut tightened. I didn’t wait to see what it
was; instead, I stumbled back into the open air and slammed the slanted door
shut behind me. The smell clung to my clothes still – to my bare skin – as if I
had carried a piece of the rot out with me.
I pressed on. What
choice was there? Yet, this wasn’t what I had imagined coming here, this kind
of desertion. Where on earth were the villagers? More pressing, where was I to
stay the night? I came here thinking there had be a guesthouse at least, but
from what I could see, this entire place was abandoned and left to its own
demise, riddled with uneven streets that twisted and ended in sudden dead-ends.
There was nowhere to go.
I searched
desperately for a lit window, some sign that people still resided here. But
every turn revealed only ruin and destruction: blackened timbers, walls scarred
by what seemed like fire, and doors that hung from broken hinges to reveal
nothing but hollow darkness inside. I saw whole roofs collapsed. What on earth
had happened to this place? Had I been right in my suspicions?
The night deepened
as I wandered, the silence thickening until I began to feel like the last
moving thing in the world. Even the stars overhead seemed distant, fading
behind a blurry haze, as though the village swallowed their light.
And then, when I
had all but given up hope, I saw it. A faint glow ahead, so small I thought at
first it was a trick of my eyes. But the closer I came, the more it steadied. A
single source of light at the far edge of the village. Relieved, I took a deep
breath and briefly shut my eyes before advancing.
It seemed to come
from beyond the last row of dilapidated houses, where the land fell away and
merged with the shadows. I frowned. It was the place from the photographs I
received from the solicitor. The burial grounds.
But as I approached
this mysterious place, I couldn’t shake the thought that perhaps the silence
was some kind of foreboding. In hindsight, I guess that was indeed the case.
Why would people just leave behind their entire livelihoods? It made little
sense. I should have put more effort into finding an answer than dismissing it
as nothing, but I didn’t. I just moved on command.
The road narrowed
into a crooked path so that stones jut up through the dirt, until the last of
the houses disappeared behind me at last. For a moment, I thought I had reached
the end of the village entirely, that there was nothing more than earth and the
gloom beyond this point. But then my eyes adjusted, and I saw… shapes. Not
human, just… uneven and sticking up from the dirt.
I broke off,
grimacing and trying to make sense of what I was seeing, when I crept closer
and realised they were nothing but gravestones. Dozens of them, maybe more,
scattered across the sloping field to my right. They leaned at odd angles, some
split down the middle, others swallowed halfway by the ground.
It took me a moment
to ground myself, to convince my frantically beating heart that nothing was out
of the ordinary. It was easier said than done.
The gravestones seemed
like eyes under the moonlight, marking my every step along the pathway like a
shadow. I slowed without meaning to, with my suitcase dragging behind. I wanted
to pass this place without looking too long, but something stopped me from
doing so. I couldn’t tell what. And then I saw it again, that glow of light I
had seen earlier but forgotten about.
It came from just beyond
the graves. In the direction of the towering building up ahead. The structure was
too large for a cemetery, with wings spreading out on either side. A sign at
the gate read Bayt al-Maʿbar. The House of the Crossing. But what was
such a massive building doing in this place, not to mention right at the heart
of a burial ground?
I followed the line
of the narrow road with my eyes, unsure whether to proceed or make my way back
to the other side of the cemetery, when a single building crouched at the edge
of the large building caught my attention. Its shutters were closed, except for
one window lit from within.
Someone was inside.
But why would anybody live in this place? Also, the solicitor said nothing
about people living here. More pressing still, why hadn’t this person left like
the others? Something about this whole situation was off.
I set down the
suitcase, shoulders stiff and moved forwards. Hesitating. It took me a few
seconds to gather my scattered thoughts, to summon enough courage to knock on
the door. I had no other place to go. The nearest town was several hours away
on foot. Not to mention, I had endured a long flight without getting enough
sleep. Calling the solicitor at this hour felt odd, too. I didn’t know the
woman, and she did not know me. The last time I contacted her, we booked a
meeting at her office a few towns over. But I arrived a day earlier to check
the place out for myself. Like I said, I thought this place was supposed to be
a normal village – not whatever this was.
By the third knock,
a shuffle reverberated through the quiet from the inside. I stepped back. A lot
of thoughts raced through my head and weighed me down, but none of them quite
stuck. All I could feel in those harrowing moments where time seemed to stop
was the beat of my frantic heart in my ears.
Then… stillness.
I held my breath.
