Hope and Undead Elvis (3 page)

A wave of sand pushed out from the bathroom door. They retreated from its onslaught. Inside the bathroom, through the dust in the air, Hope could see fountains of sand spewing from every spigot and every drain. She looked at Undead Elvis in real fear. Behind him, sand was trickling out of an outlet on the wall and the windows were beginning to darken from the bottoms up.

"I think we all oughtta get out of here," he said.

Hip-deep sand poured in through the front door of the bar as Hope yanked it open. It was like the desert was trying to
eat
them. Choking dust filled the air, making Hope's eyes sting and her lungs burn.

Beside her, Undead Elvis pulled a microphone from somewhere inside his sparkling jumpsuit.

Hope coughed. "What are you doing?"

"I move better with a mic in hand." He cocked his hips in that way only Elvis could. "Uh-huh!"

"Oh, for God's sake!" Hope grabbed his outstretched hand and plunged into the onrushing sand. It was like trying to wade through deep snow. She knew somewhere above her was sun and clear air. The entire world couldn't be turning to sand, could it? She held fast to that belief as sand blinded her and tried to force itself into her nostrils. Undead Elvis's hand was like her compass; as long as she could feel his weight behind her, she knew she was still heading in the right direction.

Then instead of climbing, she was crawling, pulling herself up the side of a slippery sand slope as Yancy Cleveland's sank without complaint beneath the silica tide. The rushing hiss of the sand lessened to a whisper and Hope wasn't being pulled downward any longer. She gasped for air and coughed grain after grain of sand out of her lungs. At last, she rolled onto her back, eyes streaming from being scratched and felt like she ought to cry.

A moment later, she sat bolt upright. "Elvis?"

There was no sign of the undead man who'd been right behind her.

"Oh, Jesus. Elvis? Where are you? Can you hear me? Make a noise if you can hear me!" The only sound was blood thundering in her ears.

She dug.

Her nails broke and her fingers cracked and split as she flung away handfuls of the pernicious sand.

Nothing. He wasn't there. He couldn't be that much below the surface, could he? A frisson of terror shook Hope to the ends of her hair. She wondered if he'd disappeared the same as everything else had.

Alone. Her skin rippled with goosebumps in spite of the heat. What should she do? What
could
she do?

Just then, a blue-green hand clutching a microphone burst out of the sand only a few feet from her. Hope shrieked something wordless and flopped across the sand to close her hands around Undead Elvis's wrist. His other hand emerged from the sand to grasp one of hers. She pulled, straining against the greedy sand. Her feet started to dig in and for a moment she thought it had her as her ankles, then calves disappeared beneath the yellow mass.

Even as Hope sank into the sand, Undead Elvis came out, inch by inch. His head uncovered and his first words to her were "Don't y'all worry about a thing, Li'l lady. I got you."

"Yeah," gasped Hope. "But who's got you?" Nevertheless, she tugged and heaved and with a sucking sound, Undead Elvis's hips came free from the sand and she fell backward with him on top of her in a parody of coitus.

Spent, she gasped for air and coughed as dust flew into her lungs. His weight comforted her and she put her arms around him.

"Thanks kindly, Li'l lady." He didn't sound any worse for the wear. His voice was as mellow as ever. "I might've got out eventually, but it could have been a real long wait."

"I was afraid you were gone, like… like everything else. I was afraid I'd be alone here, wherever this is."

"Not if I can help it," he said.

"Why? What are you even doing here? I mean, you're dead, right? You died before I was even born."

"I did. I'm back, Li'l lady. Uh-huh."

"How? And why?" Another thought occurred to her. "Hey, get off me."

"Sorry 'bout that." He rolled off her and sat up in the sand. He blew grains off his microphone, almost going so far as to take off his sunglasses to examine it. "Can't say how it happened. All I know is, one day I knew I needed to be here, in this place, at this time. So I got up and came here."

"You're not making any sense." Hope looked around at the sandy, forlorn surroundings. Nothing but dunes as far as she could see in every direction. "I don't even know what I'm doing here," she said in a voice so soft it seemed the sand might swallow it up as well.

"Nevertheless, here we are, and it's the end of the world," said Undead Elvis.

"Yeah, I think you're right about that. What do we do about it?"

"Ain't sure we can do anything about it. When it's your time, it's your time. Same thing for the world, I figure."

For a few minutes, the only sound was the wisp of shifting sand as Hope's breathing slowed to a normal pace.

"What do we do now?" she asked into the silence. "We didn't disappear with everything else. Are we supposed to go somewhere or do something?"

Undead Elvis shrugged. "If we stay here, you're gonna die of thirst."

"What about you?

"I'm already dead. Ain't got a thing to worry about."

"You were eating when we were playing cards. Drinking, too."

"That's different. I chose to, because I love me a big old mess of french fries with gravy. But I don't need to eat."

"Because you're dead."

"That's right, Li'l lady."

"I'm sitting here in a desert, talking to a dead man after the world ended. Shit, I wonder if I'm already hallucinating."

Undead Elvis patted her arm. "I don't think so."

She sighed. "I keep thinking I should be freaking out, you know? I mean, if this is the end of everything, I should be screaming and crying and stuff. Instead, I'm just kind of… I don't know. Annoyed." She burped a little and made a sour face. "And nauseated. Crap, I hope I'm not getting sick. I don't want to spend my last days in the world barfing."

"Do you want to spend them here?"

"What?"

He made an expansive gesture, encompassing the entire sandy horizon. "Your last days. Do you want to spend them here, Li'l lady? Surrounded by sand with an undead celebrity your only companion?"

Hope stared around at the silica ocean around her. The stark landscape
was
beautiful in a surreal, sterile kind of way. She'd heard that deserts harbored much life among their sands, but she suspected this one was as empty as it looked. "Not a really, Elvis. If I've got to die, I'd rather it was somewhere prettier than this. Someplace green."

"I know just the place."

"Do you, now?"

"Yep, I sure do. Graceland. Most beautiful place in the whole world." Undead Elvis's face grew wistful.

"Maybe it used to be," said Hope. "But then the world ended."

Undead Elvis paused and raised his head, as if sniffing the air. "No, it's still there."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Like you know your toes are still there."

Hope looked down at her feet, just in case. "Even so, it must be a thousand miles from here."

He tucked his microphone back into his outfit and extended a hand to her. "Then I guess we better start walkin'."

Chapter Three

Hope and the Desert

They walked.

The sun beat down upon Hope without semblance of mercy or kindness until her ears rang and head pounded with each step. The glare from the bright sand threatened to steal away her vision. At first her eyes had watered from it. Then they'd watered because she was crying. At long last, they stopped watering, because her body wouldn't spare any more of its precious fluids; emotional outpourings were anathema to survival. Every time she blinked, it felt like her eyelids dragged hot sand over her corneas. She wondered how long before she went blind.

At least if she did, she would no longer have to stare out at the endless waves of unmoving sand.

"Elvis," she said after a lengthy period of silence.

"Yes, Li'l lady?"

"What if this desert never ends?"

"What if it does?"

Hope had no answer for that.

They walked.

Her shoes shredded after awhile. They had been expensive watersnake-leather Christian Louboutin boots that she'd bought in a Hollywood Boulevard boutique. The four-inch stilettos had made her legs and ass look fantastic, which in turn helped her get her last job. They were impractical for walking on soft sand, and when one of the heels broke off, Hope kicked them off and left them behind to be swallowed up by the hungry desert. Maybe they were the last Christian Louboutins in the world. She didn't care, and didn't look back.

She'd never felt her feet were all that attractive, even though a guy in Reno had paid her forty bucks to rub them against his chest while he rubbed another portion of his anatomy. Dancing had toughened the skin, but even so, the sharp grains were scratching patterns into her soles. "My feet hurt."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Undead Elvis.

"How long do you think we've been walking?"

"I dunno, Li'l lady. Maybe a few hours. Hard to say, because the sun ain't moving."

Hope shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted upward into the cloudless sky. The sun must have moved. It hadn't been in that spot the whole time, had it? "I think you're wrong. There just aren't any landmarks. It's got to be moving." She paused. "Doesn't it?"

Undead Elvis didn't reply.

They walked.

Time passed, but Hope had no way to measure it except her growing weariness. She'd finally accepted that the Sun
wasn't
moving across the sky anymore. It was like when the world ended, time stopped. "Hey, Elvis. You know that saying about falling trees making no sound if nobody's around to hear them?"

"Uh-huh."

"You think time passes if nobody's around to watch it?"

"I dunno."

"I'm really thirsty."

"I'm sorry, Li'l lady. I wish I had something to give you to drink."

"You're not thirsty?"

"I'm undead. I'll be all right."

They walked.

Hope felt dizzy. Her head reeled with every step as dehydration took its merciless toll upon her body. She wondered if she was the last living creature in the remnants of the world; an epilogue, a coda. When she died, the world might no longer exist at all, because why keep it up if no living eyes could gaze upon it? She would have cried if she had any tears left.

"I'm dying, Elvis." Her voice had transformed from its pleasant contralto to the croak of an ancient crone. The act of swallowing made her tonsils stick together. "Promise me… promise you won't leave me here in the sand. I want… to be buried… somewhere green."

"I promise." Even Undead Elvis sounded subdued, as if he too were about to surrender to the elements.

Hope couldn't walk anymore. Her legs folded and she dropped to the sand with a dull thud. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry."

"I can carry you," said Undead Elvis. He leaned down and his arms went underneath her. He lifted her up like a father carrying a sleepy child. His skin was cool and dry, and Hope laid her cheek against his shoulder, closed her eyes, and thought about dying.

The motion of Undead Elvis's body as he trudged through the sand soothed Hope, but she knew if she gave in to unconsciousness, she would never again awaken. Such finality didn't bother her as much as it might have before the world's end. She could resign herself to whatever fate had been left her in the cruelty of her survival.

Undead Elvis started to hum as he walked. The tune was haunting and familiar to Hope. Without opening her eyes, she asked, "What is that song?"

"Can't Help Falling in Love," he said. "
Wise men say only fools rush in… But I can't help falling in love with you
." His singing voice was as strong as ever, and he gave each word such nuanced vibrato and feeling that Hope felt a little of her strength return.

"You sing it beautifully," she said.

"Thankya, thankyaverymuch."

"You're not, are you?"

"I'm not what?"

"Falling in love with me."

"No, Li'l lady, I'm afraid not. Dead men don't love."

"How about undead men?"

"I'm sorry."

She sighed. "You don't seem dead, or undead, or whatever. I've met people who had a lot less life in them than you. People who gave up and died years ago and were just going through the motions."