Hope and Undead Elvis

chapter Twenty

Hope and the Smoke





Hope raised her hands. "That's mine, Sister Agatha."

"Not right now, it's not." The pistol's barrel wavered in the woman's grip. Anger, fear, and indecision competed for control of her face. "Sister Rae, come away from that woman."

Sister Rae bowed her head and retreated to stand behind Agatha. She looked miserable and tears of silent fury ran unchecked down her cheeks to soak her wimple.

"Look, whatever you think, it's a mistake," said Hope. "You're terrifying these women by hanging onto whatever outdated beliefs you still have."

Agatha gave a short, scathing laugh. "Outdated beliefs? What do you even know about it, whore?"

Hope took a slow, deep breath. She would not devolve into screaming or petty name-calling, even if it would make her feel better. That path would only lead to her death, and her baby's death. "I told you not to call me that. Things have changed, Agatha. The world has changed. It's broken. What you thought before isn't valid now. Nobody's going to come check on you. Nobody's going to bring you a carload of groceries. The only people who are going to come for you will probably burn this place down and eat you. I've seen it happen."

Sister Rae gnawed on her knuckles as she read Hope's lips. Hope wished she could spare a soothing glance in the young woman's direction, but she didn't dare take her eyes off Agatha for more than a fraction of a second.

"The world is broken, is it? And how would you know? Only God can undo what He created. How could a common whore like you pretend to know God's plan?"

"I don't. I don't really even believe in God. All I know is the world is broken, and maybe this baby I'm carrying can fix it." Hope looked down at her rounded belly. "Would you risk losing that?"

"You shut up. Blasphemer. Whore!"

Despite the nun's righteous fury, Hope saw a flicker of doubt in her face. She lowered her voice in the hope it would fan the flame further. "You don't want to shoot me, Agatha. You're not a killer. You don't want to take two lives, do you?"

"My soul is already forfeit" Agatha's voice grated. "I don't have to kill you. Your baby can be born if you're comatose again. God may not forgive me my sins, but I pray He will forgive you yours."

"God knows there's a lot I need to be forgiven for," said Hope. "But staying here is a recipe for either slow death by starvation or faster death at someone else's hands. Of course, you already know about that, don't you? You're killing the sisters one by one so your food supplies will last longer."

"You shut your filthy mouth!" screamed Agatha. "I am saving their souls!"

"By killing them?" Hope was, in spite of her intention, beginning to get angry. "Isn't that what they call cutting off your nose to spite your face?" A hint of tangy wood smoke crossed her nostrils and a chill ran down the middle of her back. The baby fluttered back and forth as if sensing her sudden dismay. "The truth is that I never asked for this baby. But I'm getting used to the idea. The truth is that you should all run away from this place right now. There are bad, bad people coming. Can't you smell it on the wind?"

"You be quiet!" Agatha sounded panicked.

"It's time to stop hiding the truth from the sisters," said Hope. The scent of smoke grew stronger. "The world is over. Done. If you're waiting for God or someone to come take you to Heaven, well, it's not going to happen. The only thing coming for you is death by fire. Don't keep blinding yourself and your friends."

Sister Rae brought a tree branch down on Sister Agatha's wrist. Hope hadn't even seen the younger woman pick it up. Agatha shrieked and dropped the pistol. Hope cringed as it hit the ground, fearing it might go off, but no report issued from the muzzle. Maybe she'd left the safety on, and Agatha hadn't known how to take it off.

Whatever the reason, Hope didn't waste the opportunity. She lunged forward and picked up the gun. The safety was still on. She popped out the cylinder. Two bullets still nestled in their tubes, awaiting their opportunity to fulfill their deadly missions. She clicked the gun shut again and turned her attention back to Agatha and Rae.

The older woman knelt on the ground, massaging her wrist and glaring at Hope. Rae huddled beside her, her head in her hands, grieving in unnatural silence.

"What are you going to do, whore? Kill me?" hissed Agatha.

"I told you not to call me that." Hope felt shivers of fear as a tendril of smoke wafted through the trees. "But I'm trying to save your life. All of you. Get the sisters together. Gather up what supplies you can carry, and for the love of God, let's get out of here."

Agatha scrabbled backward, her eyes never leaving Hope. "No, no," she whispered. She made the sign of the cross. "This is a holy place. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…"

A black bird fluttered down through the forest canopy to perch above Agatha's head as the woman prayed in loud defiance. It regarded Hope with its beady, insolent eyes. "Agatha…" she whispered.

A man, gaunt and leathery, burst from the underbrush. He wrapped his arms around Agatha's mouth and neck and yanked her back into the bushes. Hope caught a glimpse of desperate fear in the woman's eyes before she vanished. It happened so fast Hope never had time to even raise her pistol.

Sister Rae shrieked in wordless terror at Agatha's sudden disappearance. Another bird settled down nearby Rae.

Every one of Hope's nerves screamed at her to run away. Instead, she grabbed Rae's hand. "No," she cried. "You can't have her."

By God, maybe she couldn't save everyone in the convent, but she would try hard to save Rae. She owed the frightened young girl that much. She hauled Rae onto her feet, trying to look and point her gun in every direction at once. Rae screamed and beat against Hope with her fists in blind terror. Hope risked letting go of her long enough to slap her across the face. "Get a hold of yourself or we are going to die, Rae!"

Rae's mouth shut with a snap, cutting off her scream except for a hoarse, whining cry in the back of her throat that Hope found even more disturbing. She grabbed hold of the nun again, this time taking her hand. "Rae, look at me." The nun stared at her, eyes wide. "We're going to get out of here. You and me. But you've got to trust me, okay?"

Rae nodded.

"Which way is the car? Where you found me?"

The nun pointed past the convent into the trees.

"Shit. Okay, stay close and don't stop for anything." Hope tugged on Rae and finally the young woman understood and they ran.

Flames were already licking at underbrush, glowing red and orange through gaps in the trees around the convent. Hope could hear women screaming inside the convent and male voices shouting at them. Beneath the anguished cries of the brutalized and the gleeful yells of their assailants, behind the persistent crackle of fire that seemed to pervade everything, was the amplified voice of the man who led the Righteous Flame, exhorting them to do their utmost to cleanse the world of impurity. Hope knew that she would hear that voice to the end of her days, in her darkest nightmares.

A door banged open and an emaciated man dragged a screaming, naked nun out of it by her hair. Blood stained the inside of her thighs and ran from what looked like bite marks on her breasts. The man dashed her head against a large rock and she stopped struggling. He sank down and started to rip at her flesh with his teeth, growling and snarling like a wild dog.

Rae screamed, and so did Hope. She'd never been so frightened before, not even when she was trapped in a bar sinking into the sands so many weeks ago. Hand in hand, they staggered past the convent, limping through the forest in their soft slippers as they tried to outrun the flames and the screams. The smoke made Hope dizzy, and the change in her body had never been more apparent than when running. Her entire center of gravity had shifted, and it made her feel clumsy and awkward, like she was going to trip and fall headlong at any moment.

And then her ankle turned, and she lost her grip on Rae's hand to sprawl onto the forest floor. Her first thought was of the baby in her belly, and hoped she hadn't hurt it. Then she noticed the taste of blood in her mouth; she'd bitten her tongue when she hit the ground. She rolled over to look back at Rae and a man rose up behind the nun and grabbed her. He wrapped one arm around her neck and pulled her arm back with the other. Rae's eyes bulged in terror but the man's wiry arm prevented her from drawing breath to scream.

Hope didn't have time to reach for her fallen pistol. She flung herself forward and grabbed hold of Rae's ankle and pulled. She wasn't going to let the young woman be carried away and raped, burned, or eaten. Rae slumped forward as the man tightened the pressure around her throat. The young nun became the rope in a desperate contest of tug-of-war.

The man's silence unnerved Hope as she grunted and pulled, trying to keep her new friend. He began nosing along the curve of the nun's neck, licking his lips like a dog anticipating a treat. He released Rae's limp arm and reached around to grope one of her breasts. His filthy hand left a sooty print on her habit. Behind him, a tree erupted in flames. The wash of heat made Hope's skin prickle. The man's hips convulsed in a peculiar way and his eyes rolled as he snarled and laughed. She realized in revulsion that he was coming. The very act of wanton destruction and violent lust had aroused him to an orgasmic plateau.

He staggered as his muscles celebrated the ejaculation and Hope yanked on Rae with all her strength. The nun slipped from the man's grasp and fell to the ground with a dull thud like a child's doll dropped on the floor. The man's smoke-reddened eyes fastened upon Hope as if he'd just noticed her. His face transformed into a leer and he licked his black lips with a gray tongue. Hope tried to scrabble away, but he sprang forward with inhuman speed and locked his hands around her ankle.

She kicked at his hands, at his face, but he clung to her with the burning lust of the fanatic. She glanced back and realized in horror his hair had caught on fire. It burned in bright counterpoint to the blazing tree behind him. As ashes fell around his face, he showed no sign of feeling the least bit of pain. He raised her ankle to his mouth.

Hope's fingers closed on the fallen Shepherds' pistol. She twisted at her waist and snapped off a shot. She could have blown a hole in her foot or missed altogether, wasting one of her two remaining precious bullets, but instead her aim was true. The bullet made an unspectacular third eye in the man's forehead, where a Hindu woman would have worn a red dot. The mark Hope made was a shiny, liquid black amid the soot and ash of his face. For a moment, she thought she'd have to shoot him again, but then he released her foot and fell the the forest floor.

Hope gasped for breath. She'd fought off the immediate threat, but the fire still approached and she didn't know how many more men were wandering the woods, looking to void their lust and satiate their appetites upon her. She crawled over to Rae, keeping the gun clutched tight in case anyone else dared to show his face.

Rae was deathly pale. Hope held the back of her hand against the young woman's lips and felt a slight tickle of breath. "Rae, get up. Come on, get up. I can't carry you. Please, get up."

Another tree burst into flame. Hope looked up and saw the sparks leaping between branches. Soon the entire canopy around her would be afire. She had no more time. She tucked the gun into a pocket of her robe and wrestled Rae's limp body up and across her shoulders into a passable fireman's carry. The nun would be her cross to bear on this next leg of her journey.

With that, Hope took one step, then another, then a third. Legs shaking and back aching with the strain of carrying Rae, she staggered deeper into the forest and away from the tortured screams of the dying in the convent behind her.