Hope And Undead Elvis Part 18

"Good. So I was thinking I'd look for my car, see how bad it's wrecked. Maybe you could help fix it so we can be off."

"What kind of car was it?"

Hope paused. "I don't remember. All I remember is that it was called The Way. I was in a coma."

Nur waved at the neat rows of wrecks. "You're welcome to look around. Let me know if you find it. Or if you don't, maybe there's another one you'd like to use instead. It's not like I need all of them."

"Thank you. I promise to make some noise before I startle you again." She smiled at him to let him know she didn't have any hard feelings.

He smiled back.

Fidel loped over from where he'd been lying in the sun to press against Hope's legs, begging for ear scratches. She obliged him and turned to explore the first aisle of cars. Fidel walked beside her, tongue lolling out.

"He can go with you if you want," said Nur without looking up from the Nissan's engine compartment.

"But he's your dog," said Hope.

"He's his own dog."

Hope looked down at the mixed breed. He grinned up at her and then sneezed in the sunlight. "Oh thank you." Hope wiped her arm on her overalls. "Come on, Infidel. You can help me find The Way."

Hope's cheerful spirits lasted the first row of cars. She counted twenty in the row. Some had collided with heavy, solid objects. Others were undamaged as if they'd rolled to stops or hadn't been in motion when the people disappeared. Some had burned. A few had disturbing holes in the winds.h.i.+elds with powdery brown residue around them. Hope knew in those vehicles, the drivers had been hurled through the gla.s.s. She wondered if the bodies had lain where they fell, were eaten by animals, or sucked into the ground.

By the second row of damaged vehicles, Hope's demeanor had turned grave, and she walked slower past the wrecks, trying to decide which one might be The Way.

By the third row, she'd lost count of tbe number of vehicles Nur had salvaged. Instead of doors, trunks, and hoods hanging or pried open, the wrecks lay undisturbed like bodies awaiting autopsies. He hadn't searched them yet, cataloguing their useful parts and taking what supplies he needed. How could he keep up? There must have been a couple hundred wrecks, and he was just one man.

Then a cold chill hit her despite the warm suns.h.i.+ne on her back. She stared at a car like a flattened pickup truck. The front was heavily damaged and the winds.h.i.+eld completely gone. The roof was crushed along one side as if it had rolled onto its top. The driver's side door hung askew, off balance just enough to tap against the frame in the slightest breeze.

Tap... Tap... Tap...

Hope knew it was The Way, and she had come close to dying within its rusty steel embrace. The baby fluttered in her belly, sensing her distress. She steeled herself and touched the front corner of the car, half afraid it would crumble into dust or be sucked into the ground or something, but nothing happened. The wreck sat with the patience of the dead, awaiting its eventual fate.

Hope bent down to look inside, wondering if Undead Elvis was still inside the car, perhaps wedged down in the footwell or something. No such luck. As she straightened up, she b.u.mped the mirror and it tilted inward and downward to allow a ray of sunlight to illuminate an object in the footwell...

Undead Elvis's sungla.s.ses.

Hope chewed on her knuckles. He wouldn't have left his sungla.s.ses behind. In the time she'd traveled with him, he'd only taken them off once, and he'd turned his back so she couldn't see his eyes. It was like they were part of him, but now they sat untended in the pa.s.senger footwell.

She was afraid to touch them. She didn't know what kind of strange power they might have. On the other hand, perhaps they were a sign that she was on the right path. She reached down and picked them up before they vanished or something. There was no flash of light, no surge of energy as she picked up the aluminum frames with their dark gla.s.s lenses. She felt their weight in her hand and pulled herself back from the car. Sunlight sparkled on the curve of the lenses. Hope held them up to look at her reflection in the curved gla.s.s, and gasped.

Gone was the floozy stripper with bottle-blonde hair with the too-tight Catholic school girl top. In her place was a woman she almost didn't recognize. Even with the curve of the gla.s.s distorting her, she could see her face had filled out in spite of never seeming to have enough to eat. Her cheekbones, which she'd once been so proud of, were now but high points from which rosy apple cheeks now hung. Her hair had become a mop top of mouse brown with faded dirty blonde tips. She touched her fingers to her face and in the curved reflection, so did the woman who didn't look like her.

She turned the sungla.s.ses around and raised them to her face, but hesitated before actually putting them on. Was this some kind of blasphemy? No, it couldn't be that. Whatever else he might have been, Undead Elvis had been her friend and if he was truly gone, she would honor his memory.

She slipped the gla.s.ses over her ears and pushed them up her nose. They hugged her face like a diving mask and had poor peripheral vision. Beyond that, they were ordinary sungla.s.ses. She was a little disappointed. She'd hoped that perhaps the secrets of the Universe might be revealed to her through those lenses. Instead, they darkened the morning sunlight enough that she didn't have to squint, which she supposed was good enough in the end.

She looked down at Fidel, who thumped his tail and lolled his tongue out the side of his mouth at her. "Well, what do you think? How do I look?"

Fidel barked; he must have been overjoyed to be asked his opinion. But then he pounced on an errant stick and b.u.mped his insistent nose against Hope's hand until she relented and tossed it.

With a joyful bark and the exuberance only a dog can muster, he charged after it. A few seconds later he returned, drooling around the edges of the stick, tail held high and proud.

"Good dog, Fidel," said Hope. Her thoughts were on Undead Elvis, but Fidel was unwilling to give her a moment's peace. She tossed the stick again and again for him and he retrieved it every time. Sometimes he dropped it at her feet. Other times he growled and tugged at it when she tried to take it away. She didn't mind; she couldn't remember the last time she'd had such innocent fun. It must have been years since she'd played.

At last, Fidel tired of the games and flopped down in the shade of The Way's wreckage. His panting sounded like a tiny motor idling. Hope's stomach growled and the baby wriggled to remind her it was time to eat.

"Come on, Fidel," she said. "Let's get some food."

Fidel scrambled to his feet and shook out his fur. He held his head and tail high as he walked beside Hope back toward Nur's trailer.

Nur was still working on the same car when Hope returned, and Rae was helping him. Hope stopped dead and watched in amazement. Nur, his head and shoulders deep in the car's bowels, would reach up and touch Rae's arm with a tapping, gentle caress. She, in turn, would brush her fingers over the tools until she found the one he sought and then hand it to him.

Hope hung back, afraid to interrupt the two in their magical communication. She felt guilty, like an interloper witnessing something she shouldn't. She'd just decided to leave them alone and head to the trailer to attempt cooking something when Nur pulled his head from the car, saw her, and smiled. Rae intertwined an arm around one of his as he wiped his hands on a rag.

"Did you find your car?" he asked.

"Yes, I did. But it's pretty wrecked. I mean, uh, compared to some of these others."

"There are plenty here which are barely damaged at all. If you must leave, you may take any of them you wish." Nur stared at the sungla.s.ses that rode atop Hope's head but didn't mention them.

"That's very kind of you. I just... I just feel like I'm supposed to take the car I started out in. That probably doesn't make any sense."

"G.o.d works in mysterious ways," said Nur. "If He has chosen that path for you, who are you to go against the plan of G.o.d?"

Hope couldn't meet his gaze.

"She is part of G.o.d's plan," said Rae in a solemn voice. "As are we all."

"Wait, can she hear? Can you hear, Rae?"

"She wishes to know if you can hear her," murmured Nur.

Rae smiled. "No, I can't. But I can feel the vibrations of Nur's voice. It will suffice." She turned her sightless eyes toward him and touched his lips with her fingers to feel him smile back.

Hope felt tears threaten and pulled Undead Elvis's sungla.s.ses down over her eyes to hide them. Rae looked so happy, and something seemed to be developing between her and Nur which Hope hadn't seen coming.

If there was room for hope in the new world, perhaps there was room for love as well.

Chapter Twenty-Seven.

Hope and the Token Some days it felt to Hope like The Way would never get repaired, and others it felt like she could leave at a moment's notice. Regardless, she measured the pa.s.sage of time by the slow but steady expansion of her belly.

She, Rae, and Nur had settled into a peaceful, domestic sort of daily routine. In the mornings, Nur and Rae would depart on their search for parts to repair The Way as well as any other supplies. Sometimes they'd be gone all day and would return with a wrecked or abandoned car behind the tow truck, often as not filled up with parts, cans of food, or bars of soap. Other times they disappeared into the ranks of the automobile graveyard to strip cars Nur already knew about.

While they were gone, Hope would spend her mornings cleaning up the trailer that they all shared, organizing supplies, or walking through the rows of dead cars. Fidel was her constant companion, and it became plain that he had adopted her as much as Nur had taken in Hope and Rae.

She often had to take a nap after whatever she managed to throw together for lunch. Then in the afternoons, while Nur and Rae worked on repairing The Way, Hope would try her hand at cooking something edible for dinner. As the days wore on, she found she was not just enjoying her kitchen experimentation, but she was coming up with palatable dishes more often than not. At least, that's what Nur and Rae told her. "Just call me Suzie Homemaker," she said to Fidel one day, and he barked and wagged his stump at her the way he always did.

At night, Nur would sleep in one end of the trailer and Rae and Hope would cuddle on the fold-out couch while Fidel curled up between their feet. Then, one night, Rae stopped sleeping beside Hope and went to Nur's room instead. Hope wept silent, selfish tears into her pillow as the soft gasps of lovemaking filtered under the door. She was mad at herself; she had no right to be jealous of her friends. They'd fallen deeply in love and had a mystical connection Hope couldn't begin to understand. It wasn't like she'd had designs upon Nur herself. But it wasn't fair that Rae was getting laid and enjoying herself while Hope was several months pregnant and hadn't been touched once.

She berated herself for those thoughts. That kind of negative thinking would lead to darker thoughts, and somebody might get hurt because of them. Fidel sensed her discomfiture and crawled up the mattress to offer a solemn, consoling lick upon the tip of her nose. She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face against the fur on the back of his neck, and went to sleep.

In the morning, Hope awakened to find Rae waiting for her instead of having disappeared with Nur. She sat down beside Hope and rested her fingertips lightly against Hope's lips. Once, that might have made her uncomfortable, but Hope had accepted that it was the only way Rae could converse anymore.

"I wanted to explain, and to say I'm sorry," said Rae.

"You don't have to do either," said Hope.

"Yes, I do. I want to. I should have talked to you about Nur and I before now."

"It's okay, Rae. Love happens. I'm so happy that you've found someone special to you."

"You found someone special too," said Rae. "But I can tell you've lost him. I hope you find him."

"I hope I do too." Hope couldn't tell Rae the truth. She missed Undead Elvis. Not that she loved him; she couldn't love a walking dead man. But he'd been so kind to her. He'd been unselfish about lending her his strength when she had no more.

"What was he like?" asked Rae.

"He... had a beautiful singing voice. One that could change the world."

"Or fix it?"

"Maybe. I don't know." Hope sniffled a little. "I do miss it."

"I wish I could have heard him."

"Maybe someday you will."

Rae shook her head. "I'm deaf, Hope. I accepted that years ago."

"I hope that after you die, you can spend eternity listening to all the beautiful music in the universe."

Rae threw her arms around Hope and they sat that way for a long time, taking comfort in their friends.h.i.+p. "I'm going to have a baby too," Rae whispered in Hope's ear. "In the summer, I think."

And that set both women bawling. Fidel sat in front of them, wrinkling his doggy brow in concern and thumping his tail when he thought it would help.

At last, Rae pulled away. "I have to go help Nur. We're tuning the engine in your car today. Then he says you can leave anytime you want." She kissed Hope on the cheek, her lips coming away wet with tears. She rubbed Hope's belly and the baby kicked in response. Then she left the trailer.

Hope took a few minutes to settle herself down. Her sadness and jealousy had transformed into joy and, well, hope. The world might be broken, but her son, and Rae and Nur's child, and all the children born after-they would be the ones to fix it.

Fidel jumped up onto the couch mattress, rolled over with his legs splayed in the air, and laid his head upside-down on Hope's lap. His tongue lolled out and he groaned and whined in the hope that a tummy rub would be forthcoming.

"Good old dog," Hope told him, scratching his chest. He thumped his tail. Hope climbed out of the bed. It was getting harder to do that every day, it seemed. Surely she couldn't be pregnant for very much longer. She wondered if Rae or Nur knew anything about delivering babies, because Hope hadn't a clue. She stretched and arched her back, trying to work out the kinks, but it seemed those kinks were there to stay. "Come on, Fidel. Let's go for a walk. Clear my head."

Fidel scrambled to the door with a cheerful bark and beat at Hope's legs with his anxious tail until she opened it. He went out like he'd been shot from a cannon and she loped after him at a more measured pace.

The days had grown cool and the nights downright chilly, and Hope wore an oversized hoodie sweats.h.i.+rt over her overalls and a knit cap. She couldn't see her breath but suspected it wouldn't be long before winter would be upon them. Off in the covered carport Nur used as a workshop, she could hear the sounds of tinkering as Nur and Rae worked to finish her car.

Hope couldn't bear walking among the ruined cars again; not after the news of Rae's pregnancy. Instead, she turned to amble up the dirt lane toward the highway. Fidel, nonplussed by the change in routine, cavorted along beside her, now and then stopping for a long sniff and a short pee on stunted, leafless trees or tufts of dry gra.s.s.

After awhile, her feet began to hurt and Hope needed to sit down. She spotted a grove of saplings nearby and limped over to them. The dry leaves rustled beneath her as she found a stone large enough for her ample posterior and close enough to a tree that she could lever herself down onto it. She wished she could take off her shoes, but feared her feet would swell and then she couldn't get them back on again. Instead, she pulled off her knit cap and let the breeze cool her hot brow.

Fidel flitted around the grove, busy as a honeybee. He'd come back and press his cold wet nose against Hope's hand as if to verify she was still real, then tear off again on another doggy errand. At one point he started scrabbling through the dead leaves beneath a tree, nose stuck in the ground like it was glued down.

"What have you got, Fidel? A rabbit? Come on, leave the poor bunny alone." Hope stroked the curve of her belly and wondered what her baby would look like. Would he have her eyes? Her pert upturned nose and high cheekbones? If not, whose features would he bear? Fidel interrupted her daydreaming by sticking his nose against her hands. Hope asked, exasperated, "What, Fidel?"

He ran back to sit behind his treasure and stare at her, panting and smiling as if to say See what I did? Aren't I a good dog?

It appeared that Fidel had dug a dead body from the leaves, naked bones with bits of dried-out gristle still hanging from them.

"Well, let's see what you've found here, Mister." She groaned as she levered herself off the rock upon which she'd been resting. The baby rearranged himself in her belly, giving her instant heartburn. She let out a delicate burp. "I hope you're not going to be one of those obnoxious kids," she muttered.

In spite of the world's end, Hope hadn't seen many dead bodies. The ground had swallowed them up like the Earth was keeping itself tidy.

The dead guy must have been there for months. His flesh had either rotted away or been eaten by animals, leaving only some of his skeleton and remains of clothing behind. "Sorry about this, but you're dead and I'm not." She rifled through the pockets of his stained and tattered jeans. She found a wallet with five hundred pesos and an identification card so faded she couldn't read it except for the man's name. "Martin Laguia," she said aloud. "What were you doing here in the middle of nowhere?"

The only other thing in his pocket was a weathered, round piece of plastic that seemed familiar to her. Hope rubbed the acc.u.mulated grime off it and realized it was a poker chip or a token shaped like one. The paint in its center was bleached and dirty, but the logo was still legible.

Graceland Casino.

All the strength seemed to go out of Hope's legs and she staggered to the nearest tree to lean on it for support. Could it be that she'd found a clue to her final destination after all this time?

The main reason she'd delayed her plans to leave was not having a strong enough destination in mind. Undead Elvis had told her to go to Graceland, and if this wasn't a sign that it was time for her to go, she didn't know what else could be clearer.

Maybe he was there already, waiting for her.

She turned to regard the body by her feet. "I'm sorry, Mr. Laguia. I don't have a shovel to bury you, and I don't think I can convince Fidel to do it for me."

Hearing his name, Fidel barked.

"But I promise I'll remember you." Hope held up the token. "For this."

She paused, wondering what else she ought to say, but couldn't think of anything. She scratched Fidel's ears instead and told him he was a good dog.

The dog stiffened and his hackles raised. A low, rumbling growl issued from his throat. Hope looked around, frantic and afraid of what she knew she would find.

In a nearby tree, a black bird watched her with its beady little eyes aglow with interest. It squawked and Fidel's growl escalated into a furious and protective bark.

"No," whispered Hope. "No, no, no!"