Hope and Undead Elvis

chapter Thirteen

Hope and Mercy





Hope's stomach clenched and she doubled over, teeth gritted and arms wrapped around her middle. "No," she hissed. "Don't you dare!" With food as scarce as it had been in the broken world, she wasn't going to let herself throw up if she could avoid it. She concentrated on her guts until they quieted down. Undead Elvis stroked her hair until she straightened up and could look down at the two burnt victims in the valley below.

"Are you all right, Li'l lady?"

"No, I'm not. I'm horrified, Elvis. What a terrible thing to do to someone. I guess I was hoping everyone we might meet here in the end of the world would be decent people, but to do something like this…" She shuddered. "That's just evil."

Undead Elvis said nothing, but his bowed head spoke volumes about his feelings.

Hope wondered how a dead man could even have feelings, but then, he was a reanimated corpse, so she presumed anything was possible. She steeled herself for what she knew they had to do. "Come on, Elvis. We shouldn't leave them like that."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. They died because somebody wanted to send a message. Nobody needs to see it after us."

"You're a good person, Hope."

Hope shrugged. "I guess this kind of puts it in perspective. I never really thought of myself as a very good person. Certainly more a sinner than a saint. But I could never even imagine doing something like that. That's true evil, and it terrifies me that people are still around who would do it." She took Undead Elvis's cool hand in her grimy one and they descended the slope together. An idea occurred to her. "Hey, do you think those black bird men things could have done this?"

"I don't know, Li'l lady."

"I think they're like demons or something. They don't belong in this world."

"Like me."

"Well, no. It's not that you don't belong here. You're just… misplaced. You belong in Graceland, Elvis."

"That I do, Li'l lady."

Hope grew somber as they approached the dead victims. The sweet burnt smell of their flesh was making it difficult for her to keep from vomiting in spite of her efforts to the contrary. "Do you think you'll die when we get there?"

"I'm already dead," said Undead Elvis.

The wood piled beneath the victims still smoldered, which had created the columns of smoke Hope had seen from the road. The people—she couldn't tell if they were men or women--had died in agony as their skin and hair blackened and burned away. One had thrown his or her head back as if to scream "Why?" at the heavens above. The other's head was bowed, perhaps in a final prayer. They looked so much like the lamb's heart which Asher had burned in his grill that Hope swore off all meat ever again. On the heels of that thought, she wondered if food would be so scarce that survivors would have to resort to cannibalism. And then, unbidden, she wondered how they might taste.

"Stop it," she said aloud. "That's horrible."

"What's the matter, Li'l lady?"

"Nothing. Bad thoughts."

"Thoughts aren't bad. They're just thoughts. It's what you do with them that defines good and bad."

"Actions over thoughts?"

"Yep."

"I'd like to think we're doing a good thing by taking these bodies down." Hope reached out a hand. Residual heat washed across it, but she didn't think the chains holding the victims to the crosses would be too hot to handle. She walked around the crosses and saw that the chains had been cinched down to cruel tightness using ratchet binders like truck drivers used. The poor victims must have already been suffering in agony well before the fires were lit beneath them. She walked back around to the front of the crosses once more. She wanted to look upon the people who'd died on them, to fix the image in her mind forever that there were still people in the world evil enough to do such things, because this was what her baby would grow up to stop.

One victim's eyes opened.

Hope staggered back in horror, tripped on a stone, and plopped down amid the ashes. The victim took a deep shuddering breath as if in preparation for a scream. Bits of charred flesh flaked off ribs as they expanded, showing for the first time lumps of charcoal that might have been breasts. Hope didn't want to look closer, but now that she realized the victim was a woman, she couldn't help but see the swell of hips, the slender waist. She'd had a beautiful body before she'd been burned. A dancer's body, like Hope's. The woman's eyes were nothing but charred, empty sockets. Hope winced in anticipation of the agonized scream, but no shriek came.

"Please…" The woman's voice was only a hoarse whisper, and smoke escaped her mouth when she spoke. "Please… kill me."

"God…" Hope wanted to say more, but she felt paralyzed.

The woman shifted a little at the sound of Hope's voice. Soot fell from her charred skin like snow. "I can hear you. I thought you might be an animal at first. Or maybe I'm dreaming. Are you real?"

Hope found her voice. "Yes."

"I'm Mercy." She coughed. Black chunks hit the ashes below her. Hope cringed. "Nice to meet you."

"Hope. I'm Hope. God, are you in a lot of pain?"

"No," croaked Mercy. "I can't feel anything at all."

"Who did this to you?"

"The Righteous Flame."

"Who is that?"

Mercy gasped and more black slime trickled from her mouth. "Please. Please kill me. I can't… I don't want to remember. My eyes are burned up and I can't cry."

With a fluttering of wings, two of the familiar dark birds settled onto the top of Mercy's cross and regarded Hope with their baleful eyes.

"Those f*cking birds again," she whispered. "Why are they following us?"

"I wish I could see them," said Mercy. "I miss birds."

"Not these birds. They're evil. Like demons or something." Hope thought about trying to take a shot at them, but she only had four bullets left and one was already earmarked for Mercy.

"Like the Righteous Flame." Mercy shifted a little in her bonds. Charred flesh crumbled away from her.

"Who is that?"

"They."

"Who are they?" Hope shivered at the thought of people who would do things like this. Had they burned up the forest?

"They're bad people, Li'l lady." Undead Elvis's voice was hushed as he held a hand down to Hope.

"How do you know?"

He bent his head forward, eyes still hidden behind his sunglasses. "Good people wouldn't do this."

Hope reached back for the Shepherds' pistol. It fit in her hand like it had been made for her. She raised it toward Mercy. "I can't. I'm not a killer."

"Hope…" Undead Elvis startled her by using her name. "Look at her. She's dead already. You need to set her soul free."

Hope wiped her eyes and nodded. Since Mercy couldn't cry, Hope would cry for her. "Who was your companion, Mercy?"

"Her name was J-Justice. We were… traveling together."

"I understand." Hope stepped over to stand beside the burned woman. "I'm going to set you free now."

"Thank you. I… I love you." Mercy choked out the words. Despite her profession to not feel any pain, Hope could tell the woman was in agony. She raised the pistol up and placed it underneath Mercy's chin. Before she gave herself any more time to think it over, she pulled the trigger.

Mercy's skull and the tissue within it muffled the gun's report, but the black birds squawked and flew away nevertheless. The woman slumped forward, her life extinguished at last.

The pistol dropped from Hope's nerveless fingers. It made a small puff of ash where it hit the ground.

Hope collapsed, sobbing. "It's me, isn't it?"

"What is?" Undead Elvis knelt beside her and touched her cheek with an intimate tenderness.

"All these people, they're all dying because of me. The Shepherds, Gabe, Asher, and now Mercy and Justice."

"Justice was already dead when you got here." Undead Elvis stroked her face as if he could caress away her tears.

"And I killed Mercy myself. Oh God, Elvis, I never believed. I never believed in God or Jesus or any of that crap and look at me. Look at me now." She raised her eyes and saw her reflection in his sunglasses. Her face was streaked black like the horrible monstrosity that she felt she'd become. "I'm the Angel of Death. Everywhere I go, I bring death to those who look upon me. The world has ended, and I'm left behind to mop up the remainder."

"You don't believe that, do you?"

"I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds." Hope's voice was bitter. "Everyone, everything around me dies. Even you, Elvis. You're a goddamn walking dead man. What am I doing? What did I do wrong?"

She jumped up and ran to the top of a hill. Ash clouded in her wake like the eddies behind a boat. She raised her fists and screamed at the sky. "Why me? What did I do? Did I offend you, somehow? Is this some kind of lesson? I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry for everything I ever did wrong. I'm sorry for never going to church, and for cussing, and for being a f*cking stripper. I'm sorry for my mistakes, and I'm sorry for never believing." She fell to her knees, gasping for breath. Her throat stung from the smoky air and her lungs ached. She'd have killed for a cigarette.

Of course she would; she was the Angel of Death. Such a callous, simple turn of phrase, and yet now it meant something new that it never had for her before. It struck her as funny, and her gasps turned into odd, braying laughter. It was a joke, all a joke that someone was playing on her.

Well, she knew how to deal with that.

Still laughing, she ran back down the hill, past Undead Elvis, and picked up the Shepherds' pistol. The barrel was still warm from killing Mercy. That pun set her off into fresh peals of amusement. She raised the gun underneath her own chin, looked up, and shouted, "Is this what you want? Is this what you want me to do? Because I will. I'll f*cking do it. I'll blow my brains out right here and you can find someone else to do your goddamn dirty work and bear your goddamn baby!"

Undead Elvis said, "Please, don't."