Hope and Undead Elvis

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."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't know. Maybe they disappeared with the rest of the world."

"It's hard for a body to continue when the spirit has passed." Undead Elvis walked up the side of a dune.

"Maybe that's the opposite of what happened to you. Maybe your body passed but your spirit never did, and that's why you came back."

"Maybe so." He trudged down the other side. Hope bounced in his arms.

"I'm sorry. I never really listened to a lot of your music. It wasn't real popular for, you know, dancing in clubs."

"Lots of folks didn't like my singin' when I was alive."

"Elvis, would you sing to me now?"

"Li'l lady, it would be my honor."

Undead Elvis walked, and sang song after song for Hope. She rested her cheek against his shoulder as he strode the sands, keeping her eyes shut against the glare of the unmoving sun. The sound of his voice helped to alleviate the worst of her discomfort, but the gnawing ache of thirst and exhaustion circled around her like wolves beyond the light of a campfire.

She drifted off into a fitful sleep, his voice her only lifeline to the desert of reality. She was too tired to dream; instead, her consciousness absorbed his high baritone and she found herself feeling at peace for perhaps the first time in her life. It saddened her that it had taken the end of the world to find that feeling.

He stopped singing, and the silence brought her back to some level of consciousness. "What happened? Why did you stop?" she croaked.

"I'm finished," he said. "I sang them all."

"You sang every song you know?"

"I did."

"But that must have taken hours."

"I imagine so."

Hope coughed. She had no spit left, no tears left, not even any sweat. She imagined she was nothing but a dry leaf, ready to spin away on a gentle breeze or crumble under the incautious hands of a child. She forced open her eyes against the crust that sealed them. The bright blur of the ended world resolved into cloudless blue sky, overhead sun, and sand dunes.

And a bird.

At first she thought she was hallucinating as she looked back over Undead Elvis's shoulder, but there it was as plain as day. The dark feathers shone like polished hardwood in the sunlight as the creature wheeled about.

"Bird," she said in a dry whisper, all she could manage.

Undead Elvis stopped in his measured gait and turned to look. The avian flitted to and fro like a child's toy airplane. It approached close enough once that Hope could see the sparkle of its dark eyes above its black beak. It cawed at them, the first sound Hope had heard not made by her or Elvis in hours.

An answering chorus of caws sounded from somewhere off to the side. When Hope turned to look, she saw a tall wooden cross sticking up into the sky some distance away. Black birds crowded along the crossbeam. They shuffled along the beam, jockeying for position. One dove from the beam to flutter around the shaft before returning to force its way back, drawing caws of ire from its fellows.

"Down," said Hope.

Undead Elvis set her gently onto the sand. She swayed and clutched at him for support as she stared at the cross. It was a familiar shape, rife with religious connotations and symbolism, but something more urgent worried at her. Those gray nubs along the crossbeam meant something. So did that gray cylinder affixed to the shaft. Her mind drew black curvy lines extending from it and she realized it was a telephone pole. She didn't know why this particular pole still stood when it seemed like the rest of mankind's works had been absorbed by the ubiquitous sands, but along with the knowledge of its name came another important datum.

Telephone poles were beside roads.

She raised a hand, shaking with fatigue. "Road," she whispered.

Undead Elvis swept her up into his arms once more and carried her across the sea of dunes. She struggled to keep her eyes on the telephone pole, terrified it might suddenly vanish into the sand or thin air, but it remained in place even when Undead Elvis stopped in the narrow band of shade it provided and set Hope down beside it.

She reached out to touch it. The wood was old, splintering, and soaked in oil to keep it from rotting away. The sharp smell of creosote was like the delicate bouquet of fresh-cut flowers to Hope. It was a real scent; something in which she could believe. She turned her head to press her cheek against the warm wood and there it was.

A silvery gray ribbon cut through the sand like a line on a map. The sand threatened to encroach upon its edges, but somehow the ribbon kept itself clear but for the broken yellow line painted along its center.

"Someone's coming," said Undead Elvis. A cloud of dust loomed on the western horizon and something flashed in the distance. "They ain't gonna stop just for me, Li'l lady, what with me being dead and all."

Hope had no strength left, but nevertheless she crawled to the edge of the road. When she put a hand down on the asphalt, all the birds shrieked and flapped away in a mad rush of black feathers. The sound jolted Hope and helped her to stagger to her feet. The distant vehicle drew closer and she could hear its engine over the fleeing birds.

She forced her face into a rictus of a smile and stuck out a thumb.