Hope and Undead Elvis (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hope and Nur

The bear died overnight.

When Hope awakened in the morning, a trail of blood and ropy gray strands she feared were intestines led from the riverbank into the trees. Flies buzzed thick and joyful around the feast, and a few small birds either pecked at the gruesome entrails or snapped at the flies. Hope saw a hulking shadow under the forest canopy nearby, black fur matted with blood from the vicious slashes of the wolves. She heard no sounds of breath, only the incessant insectile buzz. She swallowed the bile that threatened to leap from her throat and crept up to the animal.

The bear had died with its face twisted into a snarl, claws splayed, as if it had fought death with every last inch of its body. Its belly had been laid waste and was a sticky mess of ruined organs and sharp-scented fluids.

Hope cried for the bear. Whether or not it had intended to defend her and Rae, it had given its life in their service and for that she was grateful.

"Hope?" Rae's panicked cry made Hope leave the bear's side and hurry back to the young woman. "I smelled death." Rae whimpered and clutched at Hope. Her hands reached up to touch Hope's face. "I was afraid it was you."

"I'm fine," said Hope. "But we should get going."

"We should leave this place." Rae turned her sightless head from side to side as if she were looking around.

They pushed the boat back into the river and started paddling upstream.

The baby kicked at Hope to remind her neither of them had eaten. "We will soon," she muttered. "Maybe something besides raw fish. I'm so tired of raw fish."

Whether or not her words were the culprit, the baby settled himself down and left Hope to paddle in silence. Fleeting gray shadows moved in the corners of her vision along the river bank, but whenever she turned her head to look, they vanished into the trees. She shivered, for she suspected the wolf pack that had slain the bear was now stalking her and Rae, and she didn't think the wolves would be content to leave them alone as the bear had.

As the hours passed, and Hope's energy reserves began to flag, a line that had stretched across the river resolved itself into a bridge. No crumbling span across an endless chasm was this; instead it was a solid, two-lane paved construct of concrete and steel. Hope steered the boat over to the sloping bank beside it.

Rae staggered from exhaustion, but still helped to pull the boat up onto the rocks. "I smell asphalt. Is there a road?"

"Yes," said Hope. She knew she had a decision to make. They could continue paddling up the river in search of… what? Did she hope to find The Way somewhere? Or Undead Elvis? Or Graceland? Hope shook her head; she knew she'd been lying to herself. The journey upstream had been one of convenience. She'd chosen that direction because she had to choose something. If they'd gone downstream, they might have found the Gulf of Mexico, or civilization. Instead, she'd chosen the more difficult path, and once again faced a similar decision.

The flowing river of Nature or the asphalt river of Man?

She looked around, wondering if there might be a sign, although she didn't know if she was looking for a sign from men or a sign from God.

Rae squeezed Hope's arm. "Someone's coming. I feel it in the ground."

Hope couldn't see or hear anyone, but she'd learned that as Rae's own sight and sound had been taken, her other senses had grown uncanny and sharp.

Then, in the trees beyond the far river bank, she saw flashing lights. They weren't the red and blue of an approaching fire engine, but the flickering amber of a service vehicle instead. "Come on," said Hope to Rae, and led the young woman up the slope beside the bridge. She didn't think the approaching vehicle was of the Righteous Flame, but would risk anything to avoid being eaten by the wolf pack.

The rattling roar of a Diesel added itself to the flashing lights and a moment later a beat-up red tow truck rolled out of the trees and onto the bridge. Its roof lights flashed bright but one headlamp was out, and Hope felt an irrational urge to yell out, "Padiddle!" like the game she'd played with her brother whenever they spotted cars with headlights out as children. Instead, she put on her best smile and stuck out her thumb.

Rae shrank against her as the driver pulled over in a heady cloud of black smoke. The dingy, flaking paint on the passenger door was still legible enough to read—
Light of God 24-hour Wrecker Service
—and went on to inform that Visa and Mastercard were cheerfully accepted, but no checks, please. The windows were down and he leaned across the seat to look at the two women. Hope regarded his black hair, mustache and stubble, and dark eyes set deep in his olive-hued face, which gave him an exotic look. "May I help you?" His voice was a cheerful tenor.

Hope noticed he kept one hand well out of her view. She reached behind her to feel the comforting handle of the Shepherd's pistol against the small of her back. "We're stranded," she said. "Wrecked our car days ago. And there are bad men in the forest. And wolves. Can you please help us? Please?" She knew she sounded frantic, but any pretension at being suave had disappeared with the realization that despite the dingy appearance of the truck, he appeared to be neat and clean. His skin gave off the shine of regular bathing and his work shirt, though rough and patched, wasn't sweat-stained. She could even smell a hint of his soap underneath the odious Diesel fumes, and beyond that some other sweet, spicy scent that made her stomach do delirious flip-flops.

He smiled. "Wrecked car? Maybe I've found it. I've been salvaging wrecks I find ever since everything stopped."

"Do you have any food?" asked Rae. "You smell like rice and curry and vegetables. And soap. I'd love a bath. A real one." She bowed her head, demure. "I would pay whatever price you require."

"Rae, no," whispered Hope.

The tow truck driver's eyes grew wide. "No, of course I will help you. I've seen enough hatred to last several lifetimes and I'm not going to be the one to perpetrate it further." He paused and met Hope's gaze. "A lot of folks assume that I'm a terrorist or worse because of my lineage. Are you planning to shoot me?"

"Not if you're not going to shoot me either," said Hope. Her skin crawled as she sensed rather than saw the gun in his hidden hand.

"I'd rather not," he said.

Rae squeezed Hope's arm. "I don't think he's dangerous," she said, loud enough for him to hear.

He shrugged a little and showed his hidden hand. It was empty. Hope wondered if he'd even been armed at all. She left the Shepherds' pistol where it was and showed her own empty hand. "I'd rather not shoot you either," said Hope. "Will you help us? Any… any price you'd like. Charge it to me, though. Not to her. She's—" She swallowed, the fresh memory like stepping on a sticker weed in the dark. "—been traumatized enough."

"I'm no rapist," said the driver. "And I'd welcome the company. I've had nobody but God to talk to for months now, and I'm not even sure He's listening any longer." He reached down and unlatched the passenger door.

Hope extended her hand to him. "I'm Hope, and this is Rae."

"Nur," he said. "Nur Salaam. Nice to meet you. I've got some food and clean water back at my little shop if you want to go there."

"That sounds lovely," said Hope. She rubbed her swelling belly and marveled that it seemed to have distended further even in just a few days.

Rae fumbled her way into the cab before Hope could stop her. The young woman settled herself in and smiled in her unnerving, unfocused way. Hope sat beside her and rolled down the window; Nur may have been clean, but she and Rae both reeked of sweat, fish, and the stink of river mud.

"Nice to meet you," said Nur to Rae. When she didn't respond, he looked her up and down. "Is she deaf?"

"And blind," said Hope. "I don't know if she lost her sight when she hit her head or… or if she saw something horrible."

"There are some horrible things to be seen these days," said Nur. "But God is merciful, and with His blessing I have avoided the worst of it." He shifted the truck into Drive and they rolled down the roaad.

"Are you a pious man, Nur?"

"I am. Does that bother you?"

"No."

"Do you have beliefs of your own?"

Hope hesitated before replying, "No." She didn't know if her dogma had changed over the past few months or not. She felt lost most of the time, and had so little to guide her. She couldn't hand her destiny over to some deity.

"I believe that in these end times, we must cling to whatever beliefs we can. Not because we have been told to by our spiritual leaders, but because belief in that which is greater than ourselves is one of the things which defines us as human."

Hope rolled that around her mind for awhile. "So if I don't believe in God, I'm not human?"

Nur smiled. "I said it was one of the things which defines us as human. Not the sole reason. That's fundamentalist thinking. But if you aspire toward something greater than yourself, isn't that a highly spiritual philosophy, even if it's not based on religion?"

"You're making my brain hurt. I'm so hungry I can't even think straight."

Nur reached over toward the glove compartment. The motion startled Hope and she reached for her pistol before she saw he wasn't doing anything to threaten or harm. He pulled a small aluminum pot from the compartment and offered it to her. "It's not much," he said. "Just some rice with curry and tomatoes. I have more back at my shop, but I wasn't expecting to find anyone on the road. Please eat it. I hate to see you suffering."

"Thank you." Hope opened the pot and let the scents waft through the cabin. Rae's nose wrinkled and she gasped in pleasure. The two women ate with their fingers, making short work of the rice and tomatoes. The curry was mild enough that in better times, Hope would have turned up her nose at it as flavorless, but after starving for days, she couldn't remember a meal which had tasted better to her.

Nur reached up to look at a watch which was wrapped around his rear view mirror. "Excuse me a moment, please." He braked and pulled the truck to the side of the road. Without further explanation, he removed a bundle from behind the seat and went out to the edge of the treeline with it.

As Hope watched, Nur unrolled a small carpet atop the dark loam. He unfolded a contraption of cloth and wood and set it in front of him. He knelt, recited words of prayer, and prostrated himself.

Hope looked at Rae and a great sadness came over her. The young nun's God hadn't listened to Rae's prayers.

Would Nur's God even listen to his?

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hope and the Homestead

After his prayer, Nur drove Hope and Rae to his shop, well past the borders of the forest. The woodland became replaced with gentle rolling hills covered in a yellow-green sward that waved and flowed like the tide in the swirling breezes. The two-lane blacktop cut through it, an unnatural scar in the Earth's pelt. Hope had drifted in and out of sleep, lulled by the drone of the Diesel and the whispers of highway markers as they passed.

Besides the road and marker posts, she saw no evidence of people. "Are you the only one out here, Nur?"

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I am now."

"What happened?"

"The grass swallowed up the people and buildings, although there never were that many along this road. They're all gone now except for their cars."

"Their cars?"

"They were wrecked all up and down the road, like the drivers and passengers were taken into the Earth. Everyone but me and I don't know why." He shot a tight glance at Hope past Rae's sleeping head. "The road isn't even the same as what it was before."

"The world is broken," said Hope. "Things changed."

"I'm a mechanic. Fixing broken things is what I do, but the world is a little beyond my league." Nur slowed the truck as it approached a dirt lane. A forlorn post with a cracked wooden mailbox sat at the corner. The mailbox door hung open like the jawbone of a skull. "So I've done what I can do. Cleared the road, brought the wrecks back to my yard to search and strip."

"Why?"

"Because if I don't do something to stay busy, I'll go crazy." He gestured to the windshield. "Look."

A wooden windmill poked up from the grasses, built beside a ramshackle building that looked like an old barn with a couple of trailers attached to it. Off to one side was a mowed field filled with rows and rows of wrecked vehicles, each laid out on its own little plot like a gravestone. Most of the wrecks were intact, in whatever condition they'd been found. Some had been torn apart as Nur must have begun stripping their usable parts.

Hope looked at row after row of broken headlights and dented grills and shivered; it was like the cars had died screaming.

"Don't be afraid, Hope," said Rae, who had awakened when they turned onto the dirt road. "This is a safe place for now."

"For now," repeated Hope under her breath. She wondered if she would ever feel safe again.

"It's been safe for me ever since whatever-it-was happened," said Nur. "Just lonely. I'm glad to have people to talk to again."