Hope and Undead Elvis - By Ian Thomas Healy Page 0,31
Way, brushing ash from the radiator with a small unburnt twig, Hope gathered up handfuls of sand and ash and polished the lamb bone until no gristle or moisture remained on it. She slipped it under the seat, just in case she thought of a need for it later. Saving seeds and bones. What would be next, living in a cave and putting up mysterious paintings on the walls for future generations to decipher? We were here once. These things had meaning to us.
She stood and looked around through the gray air and noticed a couple pillars of smoke she hadn't seen before. "Hey, something's still burning over there."
Undead Elvis straightened and looked where she pointed. "So there is, Li'l lady."
"Maybe we should go check it out."
"Uh-huh." He brushed ash away from his hands. It fell as if unwilling to cling to a dead man's hands.
Hope made sure the pistol's comforting weight still rode in the waistband of her short plaid skirt. She wished she had a change of clothes. And as long as she was wishing for what she might never have, she added a clean bed and a bathtub in a hotel with room service to the list. She took a last swallow of clean water, knowing she'd have to refill the bottle from the ash-filled stream, and then set out.
Hope and Undead Elvis kept their pace measured as they hiked up and down rolling hills covered with still-warm soot. Some plants still looked like they were unharmed but for a thin coating of ash, but when Hope touched one, it crumbled like a shattered lattice.
At the crest of a hill, they saw what caused the smoke columns. Hope had entertained the notion that perhaps they were related to God somehow. She recalled hearing that God liked to appear to people as a pillar of smoke or a burning bush or something. Not that she believed any such thing. But seeing the tableau before her convinced her even more that there was no God, for what God would have allowed people to be bound to crosses and then burned?
The land had been cleared of flammable materials around two metal crosses that might have been power line trestles at one point. Fuel had been piled around the bases of the crosses and set alight, burning the poor souls who'd been chained to them. The words SINNERS WILL PERISH had been spelled out against the sandy dirt in fist-sized rocks.
Hope bowed her head. It seemed the breaking of the world had brought out the worst in some people, and she feared for herself and her baby.
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."