Hope And Undead Elvis Part 5

"I guess."

"When that happens, you have to clean things out and reboot the computer."

"Are you saying that's what happened here? The world got... got rebooted?"

"Not yet. This is when it's all locked up. Nothing's working right. Rules have been suspended. It requires a reboot, and that's where you come in."

"Me? Am I supposed to heal the world or something?"

"No." Gabe. "You misunderstand me. The world doesn't need healing. It was broken beyond repair. It must be started anew. The child you carry within you will be instrumental to that task."

"G.o.d, you mean I'm Mother Mary?"

"After a fashion."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"You must carry and deliver the child safely, and raise him or her the best you can, senorita."

"I'd be a s.h.i.tty mother in the best of circ.u.mstances. I smoke. I drink. I'm a G.o.dd.a.m.n stripper! And look at the world, Gabe. Until we found this place, I didn't even know where my next meal was going to come from."

"And yet, you made it here alive when so many others in the world didn't."

"I didn't ask for this!"

"No, but it was given to you, as was a protector to help see you to the journey's end."

"Uh-huh," said Undead Elvis with his trademark tw.a.n.g.

"But where am I supposed to go?"

"Graceland, Li'l lady."

"Why there?"

"It's a safe place to raise a child in this broken world," said Gabe.

"Safe from what? Those birds?"

Gabe lowered his voice. "There are things roaming the land far worse than the birds, senorita."

Hope leaned back to stare into the sky. "Of course there are. It can't be easy, right? I've got to be tested." Her temper arose again and she shouted into the sky, "Well, you know what? I reject you! I don't want to be a mother! Pick somebody else who believes in you and gives a s.h.i.t about the world. It never did anything but s.h.i.t all over me, so why should 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, senorita."

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 a.s.saulted 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 ma.s.s 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 sungla.s.ses. "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 was approaching, and they needed to leave the desert oasis before it arrived to devour them.

Carrying water would be more difficult. Besides the gallon jug Gabe had carried in The Way, Hope found no other containers. She drank her fill, then topped off the jug. "I hope we find more."

"Let's hope, Hope," said Undead Elvis with a smile.

"Too much to hope for a car with air conditioning."

"It wouldn't be much good with that broken window, Li'l lady."

"True."

They looked at the pile of fruit in the bed of the car. It didn't seem like much at all. Hope wondered how long it would last. Then on the heels of that thought, she wondered how she would manage to eat enough of the right foods to grow a baby. She knew nothing about motherhood or pregnancy except that she'd planned to avoid it at all costs. So much for that.

In spite of the hot sun, she shivered. "I wish Gabe was still with us."

Undead Elvis touched her breastbone in an intimate but nons.e.xual way, the touch of a friend. "He's still with you in here. That was a h.e.l.l of a shot to avenge him, Li'l lady. Where'd you learn to shoot like that?"

"You taught me."

"How many bullets you got left?"

"Five." She stared back at the patch of flowers where Gabe had fallen, and the blackening crimson stain where the man-bird-thing had crumpled. "What is that?"

"The enemy."

"Is it a bird or a man?"

"Neither, I'd guess."

"You didn't see it fly or walk in?"

"No, Li'l lady. I wasn't payin' attention. Got lost in my songwriting. I'm awful sorry about that."

"Two fewer eyes without Gabe around," she said. "If we're going to survive a trip all the way to Graceland, however far that actually is, you're going to have to work harder."

He nodded. "I'm not afraid of a little hard work. Never was."

"Do you think he was an angel?"

"I don't know, but he was a good person. He came to your aid when you needed it."

Hope sat in the driver's seat of The Way and adjusted the bench as best she could. The car wasn't comfortable, but at least that should help her stay awake. She yawned. "I wish I could take a nap. That short one didn't get me rested at all. Do you want to drive?"

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

"Are you sure?" Hope wiggled the shifter. "I've never driven a stick before. Don't even know how, honestly."

"It's not hard. And you're right. I don't think we should stick around here any longer." He pointed toward the trees. Hope followed the line of sight from his finger.

A black bird perched on a low branch, watching them with its beady little eyes.

With Undead Elvis coaching her, Hope managed to let out the clutch slow enough not to stall the car. She turned around on the gravel patch and ran The Way down the road in first gear until remembering to shift up. Paradise faded away behind them, swallowed up by the sea of sand dunes as if it had never existed. As she looked in her rear view mirror, the gravel track seemed to vanish. She suspected that if they stopped, the disappearing road would overtake them and leave them stranded in the middle of the desert. That fear made her hammer down the accelerator until The Way fishtailed around a corner like a skittish wild mare. She panicked, jammed both feet on the brake, and stalled the engine.

"Easy, Li'l lady," said Undead Elvis into the silence marred by the ticking of hot oil in the motor. "We don't have to get there tonight."

Hope made herself relax her hands, which were wrapped white-knuckled around the dirty white plastic steering wheel. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was afraid of this road disappearing and then we'd be stuck in the sand again."

"It is disappearing, but it's waiting to advance until we move again."

Hope looked behind again and couldn't see the gravel track any longer. She opened the door and leaned out to look back. The gravel stopped under The Way's rear b.u.mper.

"G.o.d," she said. "I don't understand anything about how the world is supposed to be now."

Undead Elvis leaned back and laced his blue fingers behind his head behind his head. "I wouldn't even try too hard, Li'l lady. Otherwise, I might up and disappear on you too. And I'm pretty sure neither of us wants that. Uh-huh."

"Will it ever make sense again?"

"I dunno." He turned his head a little. "Don't forget the clutch when you start it up again."

"I won't. I'm not really blonde."

Undead Elvis snickered.

"Probably the last bottle job I'll ever have. I'm sure there aren't any more now." She pulled down the visor and checked her reflection. G.o.d, she looked so old. Or maybe she was just tired. Either way, her mouse-brown roots were already peeking from underneath locks the color of corn silk.

When would her face start showing her pregnancy? She'd always heard about the healthy glow of pregnant women, but Hope saw nothing but exhaustion in her eyes and skin. She stuck her tongue out at herself, a juvenile gesture that made her feel a little better, and then slapped the visor back up to the roof.

Clutch in... key turned... and The Way's engine returned to its throaty rumble once more. Hope drove with more caution and had no further losses of control. As she glanced in the mirror from time to time, she could see the gravel track disappearing into the dunes behind them as if it had never existed. "Hey, the fruit isn't vanishing, is it?"

"No, Li'l lady," said Undead Elvis after checking the bed through the broken window.

"Well, that's something."

"Sure is."

"There's the road up ahead." The paved two-lane highway stretched through the desert sands like a black ribbon on a pale golden package. "Which way to Graceland from here?"

Undead Elvis didn't hesitate. "Left."

"Left it is." As Hope slowed, she flipped on the turn signal. Just because the world had ended didn't mean she couldn't follow the old rules. It made her feel comfortable to do so. She even kept her speed at fifty-five once on the main road, not because she expected to get pulled over, but because she needed to feel something hadn't changed.

She glanced down at the fuel gauge. It hadn't moved in all the time she'd been in the car. Maybe it was frozen in time like the sun. Did that mean they could drive forever? "Hey, Elvis, how much gas do you think we have?"

"More than none."

"Enough to get to Graceland?"

"I dunno."

"What if we run out?"

"We can try to find some more."