Hope And Undead Elvis Part 3

Gabe shivered. "I saw them too. I don't think I could be hungry enough to eat one of them."

"I could." Hope's stomach growled in agreement.

"Those birds didn't seem right to me," said Undead Elvis. "Like they didn't belong here."

"How can you tell what belongs here? How can you tell anything? It's like the rules don't apply anymore." Hope surprised herself by bursting into tears. Her great, braying sobs got the better of her and she started to retch.

Gabe braked hard and the car skidded to a stop. Hope fell out of the pa.s.senger door and heaved up water onto the sand beside the road. Gentle hands the color of seawater held her hair back from getting soiled. When she was finished, she was too weak to do anything except clutch at Undead Elvis's legs and bawl. He knelt down beside her and put his arms around her. She shrank into them, her chest hitching.

Tall sand dunes on either side of the road made it feel as if they were in a canyon. A gentle breeze ruffled Undead Elvis's cape and made an errant lock of Hope's hair flutter around her nose.

Gabe stood off to one side, staying quiet and letting Hope finish her cry. He could have climbed back into his car and left them behind, but instead he waited.

Hope's crying jag wound itself down as she huddled in Undead Elvis's arms. The tears stopped and she wiped her eyes and looked around. Her eyes fixed on the chromed plastic logo on the side of Gabe's car: El Camino. She sniffled and stared at the letters, as if they had something important to tell her. "What does that mean, el camino?"

"It means the way, senorita."

"I like that. On The Way. We're taking The Way home."

Undead Elvis chuckled. "I like that too, Li'l lady."

Gabe reached down and offered her his hand. She took it and let him help her to her feet. "I'm sorry I freaked out," she said. "This whole weird end of the world thing has me so on edge. I don't know whether to stand my ground or run like h.e.l.l."

"Run from what?" asked Undead Elvis.

Hope pointed to the back of The Way.

A black bird perched on the tailgate and watched them with beady eyes like polished obsidian. Gabe stepped back and crossed himself. Even Undead Elvis looked startled. "Go on, get out of here," he shouted. The bird canted its head to one side and blinked, but didn't move.

Hope didn't have a rock handy, but she did have some sand that had clumped from her vomit. She tried not to think about it as she picked up a handful of gritty wet sand and threw it at the bird. It squawked its indignation at her and flapped away.

"We'd better get going before more of them birds show up," said Gabe. "They scare me."

"Yeah, those birds are bad news in my book," said Undead Elvis. "That was a sharp throw, Li'l lady."

Hope wiped her hand dry on clean sand. "I used to play catch with my brother." A lump formed in her throat. "I haven't talked to him in years, and he's probably gone now. G.o.d, I miss him. I didn't miss him before all this happened."

Undead Elvis climbed into the back of The Way. "Maybe he'll come on back. I did."

Gabe started the car. "Even if he doesn't, senorita, he's probably happy to know you're thinking of him."

"Wherever he is, he's probably in a better place than this," said Hope. "Stupid desert."

"What makes the desert beautiful is somewhere it hides a well," said Gabe. "Antoine de Saint-Exupery said that."

"We could use a well right now. And a drive-through." Hope's abused stomach turned over. She wished she had some crackers or bread or anything to help settle the gnawing emptiness.

The Way topped a rise in the road and beyond it they saw the source of the smoke. The smoldering remains of an overturned minivan lay in the middle of the road.

Chapter Five.

Hope and the Shepherds In Hope's mind's eye, she could picture the minivan as it had looked before the accident. It would have been a typical budget box, several years old, maybe with some rust spots on the lower quarter panels and a dent in one door from a grocery buggy mishap. The inside would have been a jumble of food crumbs, bits of broken toys, and lost homework. There would have been a soccer ball sticker in the back window and a b.u.mper sticker that said My child is an honor student.

Grim reality had taken the minivan from that imagined state, blown a front tire at high speed, and set it on fire after it rolled several times.

A charred corpse hung from shreds of a seat belt in the pa.s.senger seat. Hope didn't see any evidence of smaller corpses in the middle or rear seats, for which she was grateful. She'd have broken apart into splinters if there had been dead children.

When the van tumbled, pieces of it had torn away, as well as whatever items the occupants had packed inside it. Many of these objects were already sinking into the sand where they'd landed.

Gabe shut off The Way. "Quick, grab what you can and get it onto the road so we can search it."

The thought of food helped Hope to move her feet with urgency. She and Undead Elvis waded into the soft sand on one side of the road and tossed or dragged whatever they could reach onto the pavement. Gabe worked the opposite side.

Hope found the jeans-wrapped legs of a shoeless man sticking from a deep drift. Overcoming her squeamishness, she grabbed his ankles and pulled. The sand tried to suck the body further down, but Hope dug in her heels, gritted her teeth, and heaved backward inch by inch until the man lay at the edge of the road.

He might have once been attractive. Gorgeous, even. Hope chose to imagine that he had been, because his face had been completely destroyed from its violent pa.s.sage through the minivan's windshield. Sand-encrusted blood stained his golden hair and cantaloupe-sized shoulders. Whatever top he'd worn had been stripped away and only a few shreds remained wrapped around his muscular frame. Hope had met plenty of men like him in the clubs. They used their muscles like women accentuated their t.i.ts and a.s.ses. They thought they were immortal.

Hope wondered if he'd regretted any of his life decisions before his death. She wondered if he'd even had time.

A shadow fell across Hope and the body. "What have you got there, Li'l lady?"

Hope pulled the man's wallet out of his back pocket. "Mr. David Shepherd," she read from the man's driver's license. "From Albuquerque." She looked down at him. "Dave, meet Elvis. He's also dead. Dave likes driving too fast, lifting weights, and not wearing his seatbelt." She thumbed through the wallet, finding a bit of cash some credit cards, and nothing else of value. Disappointed, she folded it up and tucked it into her own pocket. None of it was probably worth anything since the world ended, but Hope felt like they shouldn't throw anything away.

"Stealing from a dead man?" asked Gabe.

"It's not stealing, it's salvage. Cash and credit cards aren't worth anything now, but maybe the paper and plastic is. It's not like Shepherd can use them." She sniffed. "I'm sure if he could, he'd tell us to take them."

"If he could, it wouldn't be an issue, senorita."

"You would, wouldn't you?" Hope appealed to Undead Elvis.

"I wouldn't begrudge it to you, Li'l lady, but I just don't think we need it."

Hope sighed. She pulled the wallet back out of her pocket and looked at it. She knew there were eighty-four dollars in it, because she'd counted them all. She knew he had three Visa cards, an American Express, and an Amoco gas card, because she'd checked. She hadn't even looked at the pictures inside their degrading plastic sheaths, because they weren't worth anything to her. "I guess I can leave it with him. I mean, he'll go into the sand and there won't be a marker or gravestone or anything for people to know who he was." She tucked the wallet back into Shepherd's pocket. "Now they'll know, whoever digs him up a hundred or a thousand years from now."

They pulled Shepherd's body out into the sand a little way from the road. The desert started claiming him right away and he sank as if in quicksand. Hope, Gabe, and Undead Elvis stood together to one side and watched in silence as the body slipped beneath the golden waves.

"Should we say something?" asked Hope. She'd never been to a funeral and only knew what she'd seen on television, which seemed a whole lifetime ago.

Undead Elvis opened his mouth and sang, "Amazing grace... How sweet a sound..." His powerful baritone, laden with vibrato, carried through the still air. Hope and Gabe bowed their heads.

Hope realized she was crying again as the last note faded away. She glanced at Gabe to see if he'd noticed, and saw tears on his cheeks as well. Maybe this time, it was okay to cry as Shepherd disappeared into the sand, leaving a dimple as the only evidence he'd ever been there.

Hope declared the burned corpse in the minivan's pa.s.senger seat to be Mrs. Shepherd. Gabe used a piece of twisted metal with a sharp edge to cut the last vestiges of seat belt away. Then they carried her charred remains out to the sand beside where they'd laid Mr. Shepherd to rest. They stood in silence while the desert swallowed her like her husband.

When the grains stopped swirling and no trace of the Shepherds remained, Hope, Gabe, and Undead Elvis turned their attention to the view things they'd managed to salvage from the wreck. A search of it all turned up little. One burned suitcase. A locked metal box. Mrs. Shepherd's purse had been lying on the pavement and since neither of the men seemed anxious to explore it, Hope dove right in. First, and most important, she found an undamaged package of Planter's salted peanuts. Her stomach wrenched in agony at the thought of food. Her hands shook as she pa.s.sed the tiny bag to Undead Elvis. "Pl-please," she said. "I'm afraid I'll spill them."

Undead Elvis tore the top off the baggie and the faint aroma of peanuts was the best, most appetizing thing Hope had ever smelled in her life. She held out her hands as Undead Elvis shook some peanuts out into them and gave the rest to Gabe. "I don't need anything right now. Fella like me could stand to lose a little weight, anyhow."

Hope forced herself not to cram all the peanuts into her mouth at once. She ate them one at a time, savoring the bright saltiness and the oily, sharp flavor of the nuts. Saliva shot into her parched mouth so hard it made her tongue cramp. She pulverized each peanut into paste before swallowing it, making the meager meal last as long as possible. When finished, she licked her palm, oblivious to any dirt or remnants of Mrs. Shepherd's char. She closed her eyes and sighed with contentment. Post-coital bliss couldn't be any better than the feeling of food in one's stomach after being hungry for what could have been days.

She rooted through the rest of the purse. Kleenex. Lipstick. Nail color. Receipts. A packet of Always pads which she knew she would need sooner or later. And at the very bottom of the purse, a pregnancy test, of all things. This last she prepared to hurl into the sand when Gabe's gentle hand closed about her wrist. "What?" she asked.

"It's salvage," he said. "If not now, perhaps later, senorita."

She shrugged. "Okay, if you say so. What have you guys found?"

Gabe found a pair of those ugly boots Hope had seen so many girls wearing. They were in the middle of the burned suitcase and had been protected by layers of charred clothing. Hope slipped her bare feet into them. They were loose but better than running around barefoot on hot pavement in the unending sun.

Undead Elvis couldn't get the locked box open. Hope picked up a broken brake rotor from the debris around the van and held it up, ready to smash open the case, but Gabe stopped her. "Wait, I've got a screwdriver in the car. We can pop open the lock." He went to rummage around in the back of The Way.

"What do you think is in here?" she asked Undead Elvis.

"A pistol," he said.

"Really? Why?"

"A case that size that's locked. What else would it be, Li'l lady?"

"I don't know."

Gabe returned with a flathead screwdriver. The plastic handle looked like it had been chewed on by a dog with a flamethrower. He set the case on its side and placed the tip of the screwdriver against the latch. "Beat on that, senorita."

"You don't have to keep calling me that." Hope raised the brake rotor in both hands. "I keep thinking you're talking to somebody else." She swung it down against the screwdriver. The case popped open without fanfare, spilling a chromed pistol and box of ammunition onto the road.

"Looks like a thirty-eight," said Undead Elvis. "I seen a few of them in my lifetime, long ago."

"Only six bullets in here," said Gabe after opening the bullet box.

"You should carry it," said Hope to Undead Elvis. "You were a soldier before, right?"

"I was indeed, Li'l lady, but I think you ought to carry it instead."

"I agree," said Gabe.

"Why me? I never even held a gun before, much less shot one."

"You have more to protect than do either of us." Gabe stood, glaring at a black-feathered bird which sat on the minivan wreckage and watched them.

"What are you talking about?"

Undead Elvis stood as well and pulled Hope to her feet. "I think we oughtta leave."

"What are those birds?" Hope followed the two men back to The Way. "What do you guys know that you're not telling me?" She staggered as one of her new boots flopped to one side; they were too large for her feet. "Hey, I'm the one with the gun here. Tell me!"

Undead Elvis reached through The Way's broken rear window. "Hand it to me. I'll load it for you, Li'l lady. Then you can threaten us better."

She surrendered the pistol him. "I'm not... I mean..." She glanced at the side mirror and watched the bird flutter away. "I don't like them either."

The wrecked minivan shrank to a speck behind them and after awhile, Hope couldn't see it any longer. Her stomach began to twist around itself as it sought more than the small handful of peanuts.

Undead Elvis helped to distract her by showing her how to use the pistol. Turn the safety on and off with that switch. c.o.c.k it if she knows she's going to fire it. Squeeze the trigger instead of jerking it.

"I wish we'd found a few more bullets," he said. "I'd have liked you to take a couple practice shots. Six ain't gonna get you very far in a real fight."

"You really think we'll run into that kind of trouble? It seems like n.o.body's left but us."

"The Shepherds were around after," said Gabe.

"Were they? We don't know that."

"Still, maybe we can find some more bullets. Thirty-eight ammo's pretty common," said Undead Elvis.

"What happens if I run out of bullets?" asked Hope.

"You better hope you're the only one still standing."

"Oh."

The Way climbed a gentle slope. At the crest, Gabe stood on the brakes and the car fishtailed to a halt. All three occupants stared at the unexpected variation of the road ahead: An intersection.

Chapter Six.

Hope and Paradise A side road connected to the two-lane blacktop. Instead of pavement, hard-packed gravel covered the road. A single green highway marker post sat next to the entrance with a broken yellow reflector riveted onto it.

Hope stared at it through the windshield. It had to be an illusion, a mirage of the heat and sand, fueled by her hunger and dehydration.

But Gabe saw it too, or he wouldn't have stopped The Way.

Undead Elvis leaned his head in through the broken rear window. "What are you thinkin' about doing here?"

"Take it," said Hope without hesitating.