Hope and Undead Elvis (31 page)

"Come in," said a masculine voice.

The other man opened the door into a small room with a large desk that was dominated by a huge ledger. Bare overhead bulbs cast the room in a dingy yellow.

The man behind the desk stabbed out his cigarette and stood up. The smell of his tobacco mixed with Old Spice wafted across the room and made Hope gasp in shock. Twenty years had put more lines in his face but the features hadn't changed, even with the leather-edged sunglasses hiding his eyes.

Hope managed to say, "D-Daddy?" And then she burst into tears.

The man called Shades leaned on his desk for support, mouth open in surprise. "Hope? Is that you?"

Hope couldn't answer; she was bawling like she was five again.

"She was messing around with that one guy," said Chris. "Wanted us to let him go."

"Out," said Shades. "Now."

"But—"

"Get out of my office. This is my daughter, for God's sake."

Chris and the other man looked at each other, and then left.

Shades sat down. "Jesus. What are you doing here, Hope?"

Hope sniffled, her chest hitching as she tried to calm herself down. Her heart ached. He hadn't hugged her, or apologized, or even been the slightest bit joyful. What was wrong with him? "I was l-looking for someone." She felt her baby kick and it gave her strength.

"And you're pregnant? Does The Deuce know?"

"Yes. Daddy, aren't you going to say anything? I mean, I haven't seen you in forever."

"Forever's a long time, Li'l lady."

Hope gasped. She'd forgotten that was her father's pet name for her as a toddler. No wonder she loved when Undead Elvis used it. "You shouldn't be here. It's not safe for you. Or for your baby."

"Jesus, he's not just
any
baby, he's your grandson." Hope felt her temper rise. How dare he be like this? Why wasn't he down on his knees apologizing for his twenty-year absence? "Why did you go away? Why didn't you ever call, or write? Or even send me a goddamned birthday card, Daddy?"

Shades bowed his head. "Because I'm weak. And I'm a bad person."

"No, don't say that!"

He looked up. Hope could see herself reflected in his sunglasses. Why was he wearing them indoors, in a dimly-lit room? It made her uncomfortable. "I've done bad things, Li'l lady. I hurt people." He rummaged through his desk. "I still do. It's my job." He found what he had been seeking. He leaned back in his chair, tipped his head back, moved his sunglasses aside, and dropped some fluid from a bottle into his eyes. Then he readjusted his glasses and sat up straight, regarding Hope as the droplets coursed down the lines in his cheeks.

"Why?"

He shrugged. "You do what you have to to survive. Even working for a man like The Deuce."

"He scares me."

"He scares me too."

"W-why do you wear those?" she asked.

"You know why The Deuce scares me? I'll tell you why. When I first came here, right after the world went to shit, he put me in charge of getting his power system up and running. No big deal. I've been an electrician forever. Problem was we didn't have any way to run generators. I was joking when I said we ought to just use the goddamn treadmills and stationary bikes and have people do it, but he thought that was a brilliant idea. And he put me in charge of that. Long as the power was flowing, The Deuce was happy. And when he was happy, so was everyone else." Shades shuddered. "But one day I let him down. Had a short somewhere and I couldn't find it. I must have spent a day and a half on my feet trying to find the goddamn thing. Finally I couldn't hack it anymore and curled up to get some shut-eye. He found me and woke me up. Said he didn't appreciate me sleeping on the job. So he took a razor and made sure he couldn't ever catch me with my eyes shut again when I was supposed to be working."

A sick, crawling horror began to squirm its way up Hope's spine, like a spider ascending her vertebrae one at a time.

"He cut my eyelids off. I can't close my eyes at all now. They hurt all the time. Sometimes so bad I can't see. I haven't had a good night's sleep in months. It's killing me, Hope."

Hope overcame her reticence and approached her father. For the first time in two decades, she put her arms around him, not just to seek solace, but to comfort him. He stiffened at first, but then he buried his head against her shoulder, careful of her belly. He sniffled and Hope felt sick at how much crying must hurt him now. "Look at you, all grown up. You're as beautiful as your mother was at your age."

"I'm all fat, now, Daddy. I look like I swallowed a beach ball."

"You look wonderful. Jesus, I didn't know how much I missed you until now, Li'l lady."

"I missed you too." She took a deep, shuddering breath, letting her anger go. She had to; it wouldn't do anyone any good for her to hold a grudge. "And I forgive you for leaving."

He pulled away from her and found his eye drops again. "You shouldn't. I should have stayed. Helped raise you and your brother. Have you seen him at all? Or your mother?"

"Not for years. They might be…"

"Gone, probably, like everyone else. I wish I knew what happened to everything. I didn't used to be this way. Callous. Hurting people."

"It's the world, Daddy. It's broken. But he—" Hope touched her stomach. "—He will fix it."

"I hope to God you're right." He tipped the bottle to his eyes once more. Hope caught a glimpse of angry red scar tissue and bulging orbs rife with crisscrossed veins before he pushed the sunglasses back into place. "Because it's only been getting worse."

"Daddy, as soon as the weather clears up, I'm leaving. There's a safe place I can go, and you can come with me."

Shades' laugh was bitter. "There's no place safe in the world anymore."

Hope squeezed his shoulder. "There is, Daddy. Graceland. The real one."

"Why there, of all places?" Despite his obvious doubt, Hope could see in his face that he was curious, even hopeful.

"Undead Elvis told me, and I believe him."

Shades sat back down again, clasping his hands on his desk and staring at them. "It's that guy, isn't it? He's not really alive. We've known that for months. But with the world all messed up, we weren't that surprised."

"So you chained him up and put him to work."

"Have you been upstairs? Had a little something hot to eat out of the storm? Seen the lights in the darkness? Those things couldn't happen without power, and we can't exactly just pay the power bill and get it from the wall outlets anymore."

"They're
slaves
, Daddy! Is that the best you can do? As soon as everything goes to shit, people turn into animals and whoever is the alpha male has free reign over everyone else?" Shades wouldn't look at Hope, so she turned his chair to make him face her.

"It's what we have to work with, Li'l lady. I wish it was different, but things have changed."

Hope stamped her foot in petulance. "So I guess it's pointless for me to even ask you to let Undead Elvis go."

"What is he to you? He's not the father…" Shades nodded at her belly.

"No. He's just… he's just my friend. He saved my life. I have to return that favor."

"But he's not even alive."

"He's a hell of a lot more alive than those people pulling slot machine handles upstairs, or those poor souls on the treadmills. You people are dying by inches here."

Hope's father stared up at her. She wished she could read his eyes behind the sunglasses, but knew she might never again see them, and that made her sad. "What's the alternative?" he asked. "Leave? Wander the wasteland and hope we don't starve?"

"You could come with me." Hope's voice was soft. "You and anyone else who wants to. Come with me to Graceland, Daddy. It'll be safe there."

He shook his head. "That's got to be a good three or four hundred miles. There's not a car here that can get you there."

"Mine can," said Hope, confidant. "And even if it couldn't, we'd find a way. There's always a way."

"You were such an optimistic little girl," said Shades. "It's nice to see you've retained that."

"More like relearned it," said Hope. "Being a mother-to-be has given me a new perspective."

"The father. What was he like?"

Hope felt her cheeks grow hot. "I… I can't really tell you."

The door to Shades' office opened. Duce's bulk filled the doorway, and Hope saw a few men behind him. "I can tell you what kind of father the baby will have now, Shades," he said. "I'll raise him or her as my own. An heir to the throne, as it were." His smile became predatory. "Doesn't that sound like a great future?"

Chapter Thirty-Five

Hope and the Prison

They locked Hope in a suite. There were plenty, so she didn't think they'd displaced anyone on her behalf. They made sure she had food and water available, and all the pillows she could possibly want.

It made for a comfortable prison.

Duce made it clear she wouldn't want for anything because he wanted a healthy baby. On the other hand, he wasn't about to let her slip out of his grasp and risk losing the legacy he'd decided to make for himself.

"There are people here who disapprove of you having a baby," he'd said. "It's important to protect you from anyone who might try to hurt you."

"I want my dog," Hope had responded. "And I want to see Margaret." She'd accepted that for the moment she would be safe, albeit a prisoner. She believed that sooner or later, an opportunity to win her freedom, along with Undead Elvis's, would present itself.

"I'll see what I can do. How far along are you? How long until you have the baby?"

Hope had laughed. "It's not a precise science, Mr. Duce. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen a month from now. Marking days on a calendar hasn't been my priority."

The Deuce had frowned and left her to stew in the room.

She knew she needed to rest; she'd been running on sheer willpower for what felt like days. And she would need to be alert for whatever came next. She ate, drank, and bundled pillows around herself as best she could. She lay on her side and stroked her belly. "I don't know how we're going to get out of this one," she said. "But we will. I promise."

Her baby went to sleep, so Hope did as well.

Bright sunlight on her face awakened her. With more difficulty than ever, she maneuvered herself out of bed and went to the window. The world outside was covered in clean, white snow, but steam rose off the roads as the sun baked away the ice. Three hundred miles to Graceland, she thought. It didn't seem nearly the daunting journey it had before. She only had to plan her escape, rescue Margaret, her father, and Undead Elvis. Nothing to it.

The door latch clicked. She turned to see a pale-faced Josh pushed into the room by people in the hall. He staggered and caught himself against the closet by the entrance.

Hope arched an eyebrow at him. "Well?"

He glanced behind him at the closed door, then looked back at her and put his finger over his lips. He hurried over to the table and found a pen and paper in the drawer.
Ask me what I'm doing here. Play along
, he wrote.

She shrugged. "What are you doing here?"

"Somebody said there's a chemical in semen that triggers labor," said Josh. "I get to deliver it."

Hope felt a chill. "You're
what?!
"

Not going to rape you
, he wrote. "You heard me. Turn around. This won't take long."
They're listening. Fight back. Make it sound good
.

Hope's pulse quickened, not from fear anymore, but from excitement. Something was going on. Plans were being made, perhaps on her behalf. "Get away from me!" she cried, and thumped the desk chair against the desk. "What's going on?" she whispered.

Josh banged the desk and Hope, taking the cue, squealed as if she'd been hurt. "Shades' idea," whispered Josh. "We're getting out of here. You, him, the dead guy, Margaret, and me. Will you lead us to Graceland?"

"What?" Hope forgot herself and asked in her normal voice.

Josh grimaced, held out his hand, and slapped it with the other. Hard. Hope remembered to cry out. He did it again. "Turn around or I'll beat that baby out of you," he snarled.

She made herself sound like she was crying, defeated. "Anything. Just don't hurt me anymore." She leaned in and whispered. "Why are you here and not Duce?"

"He doesn't want to dirty his hands. This way he looks like the hero, saving you. Start moaning."

Hope shrugged and made rhythmic grunts, squeals, and gasps while Josh slapped his own thigh. Conversation was impossible for the next few minutes. After what seemed like a suitable interval, Josh held up his hand.