Hope and Undead Elvis - By Ian Thomas Healy Page 0,17

I do it any favors? Why should I do you any favors? If this is all your Creation, you fix it! Why use me? All I've got left is my life and now you're taking it away from me!" She bowed her head and dropped her voice to a whisper. "It's not fair."

Gabe knelt down beside her and took her hands. "It's not like that, Hope. You have a choice. You always have a choice. That's the greatest gift you've ever been given. The choice to live or die, to act or not to act. To believe or not to believe. The ability to choose is a wonderful thing that you shouldn't take for granted. I don't even have that ability."

"Why not? Because of your vows?"

Gabe smiled. "Yes, señorita."

The way he sat, with the sun just behind him, made the white bandana tied around his head gleam. The glow awakened something buried deep in Hope's primitive brain, some ancient racial memory of beings of light. "Gabe… Gabrial… Are you an angel?"

He smiled again. "I'm—"

A third eye appeared in the middle of his forehead. A moment later a loud crack assaulted Hope's ears. Gabe fell backward in seeming slow motion, his beatific smile frozen on his face.

Hope whirled to see a beady-eyed man in frayed black denim and a mohawk with a gun held out. "Ha, ha, ha!" he croaked through a mouth with neither teeth nor tongue. The man was going to shoot her; she could see it in his eyes. No… he aimed too low. He was going to shoot her baby.

Her baby!

The Shepherds' pistol was in her grasp then, even though she didn't remember pulling it from her purse. She squeezed the trigger the way Undead Elvis had shown her. The gun's thunderous report echoed across the pond and the kick felt like she'd been punched in the shoulder.

The man fell backward without a sound and when he hit the ground, he became a small, blood-sodden mass of black feathers. It was one of the birds that had so frightened Gabe earlier. Now, Hope understood why. "Make sure it's dead," she called to Undead Elvis, and ran to where Gabe lay with his knees folded under him and his face serene and staring up into the heavens.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She touched his face. It was warm from the sunlight. She raised her own face as well. "I'm sorry!" she shouted. "You didn't have to do that! He was doing your work! He stuck to his vows. He did a good job." She cried some more. It felt better that she was crying over someone besides herself for a change. She'd liked Gabe. She'd have been happy to give up her virginity to him. She understood at last why he'd rejected her. Not out of dislike, but out of love—a love greater than she had ever known, or ever expected to. She envied him for that, and hoped he'd find a reward wherever his ultimate destination might be.

She reached down to shut his eyes, but Undead Elvis intercepted her wrist.

"No, Li'l lady. Let him look to Heaven forever. He delivered his message. He was a good soldier."

Hope nodded. "Goodbye, Gabe. I'm glad I met you, even briefly."

She gasped as light sparkled around Gabe's body. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare and squeezed Undead Elvis's cold hand. When she opened them once more, Gabe was gone. Where his body had lain, a patch of white flowers shaped like tiny trumpets had sprouted. Their scent was sweet without being cloying, and reminded Hope of being a toddler and watching her mother taking laundry from the dryer.

Hope looked up at Undead Elvis, but saw only herself reflected in his sunglasses. "I think he must have done okay."

"I think so too, Li'l lady."

Hope rubbed a hand over her taut dancer's tummy. Soon, she knew it would become distended as the baby grew within her. Somehow, the idea didn't repulse her any longer.

She hoped she could live up to the expectations that had been set for her. She looked toward The Way, still parked where Gabe left it. "Those bird things found us here. I guess we can't stay here any longer."

"I don't guess so, Li'l lady."

"Pick as much fruit as you can carry," said Hope. "Let's go to Graceland."

Chapter Eight

Hope and The Way

They filled the back of The Way with as much fruit as they could pick. Hope exhorted Undead Elvis to hurry. She had a sense that something bad