Hope And Undead Elvis Part 7

He wrapped his arms around her. She buried her face against the dazzling white of his jumpsuit. She wished he smelled like sweat, or dirt, or anything, but she couldn't detect any scents not her own. It was like being held by a ghost.

Ghost or not, his arms were strong and Hope felt his strength flow into her as gentle as a warm morning breeze. He was tall, and she had to stand on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

"What was that for, Li'l lady?"

"For everything. Thank you. I couldn't have made it this far without you, Elvis."

"My pleasure."

"What was that song about fools rushing in?"

"Wise men say only fools rush in," he sang.

"I guess that makes us a couple of fools." She looked up the road toward the bridge. She wished it were much further away. She wished it was whole. She wished the world was unbroken. "Let's go, before I talk myself out of this."

She trailed her fingertips along the hood of The Way as she returned to her seat, caressing it in the hope that it wouldn't let her down. She buckled her seat belt. Undead Elvis handed her a chunk of wood that looked like it might have come from a broom handle.

"What's this?"

"Pop that sucker in your mouth and bite down on it. You don't wanna accidentally bite off your own tongue."

"Well, what about your tongue?"

Undead Elvis only smiled.

Hope shrugged and slipped the lump lengthwise between her lips and clamped down on it. It tasted dusty, with overtones of a sharp petroleum scent. She didn't care; one way or another, she'd only have to suffer it for a minute. She looked at Undead Elvis and nodded. He nodded back at her.

She started hard. The tires shrieked and left twin black streaks of smoking rubber down the center of the pavement. The Way blasted forward as Hope hammered it through the gear changes, keeping one eye on the road and one on the speedometer. Forty... sixty miles per hour.

The Way hugged the inside lane as they rounded the last curve on the ascending straightaway toward the near end of the bridge. Rocks along the roadside blurred into a pastiche of red and pink. Seventy... eighty...

Something black and feathery dove at the speeding car, but Hope didn't slow for it at all. The bird splattered against the grill in a cloud of feathers and gore. Dust billowed out behind The Way, swirling eddies of crimson and gold. Gravel kicked up by the tires pattered against the car's underbody like rain. Ninety... ninety-five...

Hope screamed against the wood clutched in her mouth. They weren't going to make it. They were going too fast to stop. Every instinct told her to slam both feet on the brake and pray they'd skid to a stop in time. One hundred...

The Way's front wheels. .h.i.t the lip of the bridge just as the speedometer needle slipped past the 105 mark, and the car flew into open s.p.a.ce over the canyon.

Chapter Ten.

Hope and the Night The Way sailed through open air, much slower than seemed possible to Hope. She watched in shock as the shadows shifted inside the cab, not because of their motion, but because the sun was, at last, moving through the sky. As the car reached the zenith of its flight, the sun dropped low behind them and Hope had to shut her eyes against the reflection in the rear view mirror. And still the car flew on, its nose beginning to dip as the heavy engine pulled it down.

Hope didn't want to open her eyes, didn't want to see the landing, but didn't dare land blind. She forced them open and saw The Way was still drifting toward the far bridge section at a gentle pace. A fat white moon popped up from behind the horizon as the last lingering bit of sunlight vanished into the night. Surprised that she even had time, Hope reached down and turned on the headlights.

The lights snapped on and it was like a trigger for the world to move back at full speed once more. The Way hit the bridge with a terrific crash, jerking the wheel out of Hope's hand. Something hit her hard in the face and she couldn't see. Her flailing feet found the brake pedal and she stomped it down as hard as she could. The car slewed sideways and the nose dipped as if they'd dropped into a ditch. Sand and dust flew in through Undead Elvis's window in a choking cloud.

Then it was quiet but for the sound of hot oil dripping into The Way's pan and the blood thundering in Hope's ears.

She tried to open her eyes but couldn't see anything except a shadowy blur. She coughed. "Elvis?"

"I'm here." His voice was soothing. "I got sand in my jumpsuit."

The simple phrase made Hope snort, then break into full-fledged laughter. "Oh G.o.d," she said and gasped for breath. "That's funny. Why is that so funny?"

"Because you're alive to laugh at it."

Hope giggled. "I am. I can't see, but I did it. I jumped a car. Over a bridge."

Brightness flooded the cabin as Undead Elvis flipped on the dome light. Hope tried to focus on him, but her eyes were flooded with pain tears and her head throbbed like a ba.s.s drum. "Man, oh man," said Undead Elvis. "Looks like maybe your forehead bounced off the steering wheel. You've got a welt like a crescent moon up there."

Hope touched her forehead with her fingertips. It was swelling fast, pulling the skin taut around her eyes and bridge of her nose. The shoulder belt had snapped right by the latch, which explained how she'd bounced forward.

The rear view mirror sported a fresh crack down its center, and one corner of the silvered gla.s.s had broken away. The fresh damage didn't make Hope's face look any better. "G.o.d," she whispered. "I wonder if I got a concussion. I fell off a stage once in Mesquite. Some a.s.shole spilled his drink and didn't see it. I slipped and went right off the edge. Hit my head on the floor. I was sick for days after that. Couldn't dance, couldn't do anything except sleep and throw up." She gave a wry, painful smile to Undead Elvis. "In hindsight, it was kind of like being pregnant is."

Undead Elvis chuckled.

Hope undid her remaining seat belt. "Come on, let's see how bad we messed up the car."

"We're not gonna see too much in the dark."

"There's a full moon. We can at least see how bad we're stuck, because I'm not driving anymore tonight." Hope rubbed her head and opened the door.

Undead Elvis couldn't open his; too much sand had piled up against it, so he slid across the seat and followed Hope.

The Way had slid corner first into a sand dune. The right front wheel was submerged and dislodged sand had swarmed along the pa.s.senger side, spilling into the bed and side window. Besides being buried, Hope couldn't see any obvious damage to the car except for a few wrinkles in the sheet metal. She and Undead Elvis looked at each other in the bluish light of the moon.

Hope said, "Wow. I think we were lucky."

"Seems that way."

"Do you think we can get the car out?"

"I don't know."

"I hope the sand isn't as hungry over here as it was on the other side."

"It hasn't taken the car yet. Maybe it won't."

Hope rubbed her throbbing head and squinted up into the sky. "There are so many stars. I'd forgotten they were there at all. I worked so many nights in places like Vegas and Reno where it's never dark... You don't ever see the stars. They're beautiful."

"That they are, Li'l lady."

"When I was younger, I remember my brother showing me the constellations. I never could connect the dots and see what he described, but it was nice that he even took the time to do it. He was always nice to me." She sniffled a little. "I miss him. I've barely thought about him for years and now he's gone."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do. I don't know how, but I do." She pointed toward the heavens. "That's the Big Dipper there, and Ca.s.seiopia. There's the North Star, and that little tiny cl.u.s.ter is the Pleiades. That's all I remember."

The white band of the Milky Way stretched across the sky, the light of a million stars from a million years ago. Hope wondered if any of them had broken worlds...o...b..ting them.

A few black feathers and one clawed leg still clung to the radiator grille from when the black bird had smashed into it. Hope swallowed her distaste and picked them out of the chipped plastic. She flung the leg into the sand and let the breeze carry away the feathers.

The breeze!

Gentle air currents swirled past the top of the canyon, making Hope's hair move. She couldn't quite believe it, so she licked a finger and held it up. Her saliva dried cool on one side as the dry air washed over it.

"Hey Elvis, maybe this part of the world isn't broken," she said. "It's nighttime, there's a breeze blowing, and look!" She pointed toward the horizon at pale shadows lit by the moon. "Clouds, and they're moving!"

"Sure enough, Li'l lady." Undead Elvis turned away from her, took off his sungla.s.ses for a moment and wiped them on his jumpsuit. Hope wanted to make him turn so he could see what his eyes looked like, but the moment pa.s.sed and the sungla.s.ses went right back onto his face once more.

"Do you think we pa.s.sed through the edge of something crossing the canyon?"

"Maybe so." He replaced his sungla.s.ses. "I guess we'll find out if the moon sets and the sun also rises."

"I'm going to eat something and then take a nap," said Hope. "I think I've had quite enough excitement for one day. Or one week. Or one lifetime."

"I'll stay right here."

Hope squeezed Undead Elvis's hand. Maybe she'd name her baby after him. He'd been a prince and perfect gentleman to her. She wasn't used to such treatment, and it made her feel odd, like she was undeserving of positive attention.

She climbed back into The Way to rummage for some fruit and to find the water jug. She retrieved a couple of apples but the jug had split and leaked all but a few swallows into the sand in the pa.s.senger footwell. She lifted the plastic gallon, careful to keep what little water remained from spilling.

"Running low on water. This isn't good."

Undead Elvis looked at it. "Nope. You best drink it all now, Li'l lady. It'll be evaporated by morning."

Hope nodded and swallowed the last few drops. Already she could feel the claws of thirst scrabbling at the back of her mind. She ate the first apple but set the second one aside for when she woke up. "We better see if we lost anything else in that landing," she said.

As it turned out, most of the fruit they'd salvaged from the oasis was either missing or crushed into inedible pulp. Hope set the apple, a pear, and three cherries on the dash. "Breakfast," she said. "What's that saying about giveth and taketh?"

"The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away," said Undead Elvis.

"The Lord needs to quit takething away if I'm supposed to live long enough to deliver this baby."

"Have faith, Li'l lady. I'm sure something will turn up."

"I hope you're right."

The last thing Hope checked before settling in was the Shepherds' gun. The case was still tucked safe beneath her seat, and it still held all five bullets. She didn't plan to shoot any of them anytime soon, but it seemed at every turn, her plans were being subsumed in some greater scheme of the universe.

She brushed as much sand as she could from the bench seat of The Way and lay down across it, her head right by the driver's side door so she could look up into the night sky. The breeze freshened a bit and she kicked off her boots so she could feel the air on her toes. She was so tired that she couldn't fall asleep. Instead she looked for shapes and pictures in the stars.

The Big Dipper seemed to blur and beckon to her and all of a sudden she could see the Great Bear's outline. Her mind traced more patterns, some familiar, others which might have been lost to the vestiges of history. The Little Bear. The Dragon. The Harper. The Dancer.

An orange streak flared high above her. A shooting star. She knew she should make a wish, but what? She thought maybe to wish the world back the way it was, but then realized the old world wasn't all that great of a place. Overpopulation. Starvation. Environmental collapse. War. Lots of miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds crawling the face of the Earth, seeking but never finding solace. She'd been one of those miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Did she really want that back?

No, of course not.

Maybe she should wish something selfish. She could wish away the baby, or to have enough food and water for her trip. She could wish for a peaceful death in her sleep where she wouldn't have the weight of the world upon her any longer. "No," she whispered. "I won't wish for that."

After careful consideration, she decided to wish that the next incarnation of the world would be a nicer place than the last one had been; someplace she'd want a child to grow up in. She formed that thought into some kind of coherency in her mind, and then it vanished.

No, not vanished; it was taken.

Whatever she'd wished for, she thought perhaps it had been heard. Maybe someday she'd know what it was. She hoped it had been a good wish.

"You're not sleeping, Li'l lady." Undead Elvis was a dark shadow blotting out the stars, but moonlight reflected from the corner of his sungla.s.ses.

"Sing to me, Elvis. Sing me to sleep."

"My pleasure." He paused, as if searching for the right song. "Love me tender, love me sweet..."

Hope closed her eyes and let herself be carried into peace on the wings of his voice.

Chapter Eleven.

Hope and Asher Harris The unexpected sound of an approaching engine jolted Hope from a dreamless sleep. She sat up and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. The sky had gone from satiny black to matte navy, and a pinkish orange glow highlighted the horizon. Even though she still felt groggy, the realization that the sun was going to rise brought her a joyous feeling.

"Oh good, you're up. I was just gonna wake you." Undead Elvis leaned into the window. The pre-dawn light gave his white jumpsuit an ethereal glow. "Company's comin'."

Hope shook her head to clear away the sleepy cobwebs. Unwilling to trust a stranger after Gabe's death, she took the Shepherds' gun from its case and tucked it into the waistband of her Catholic Schoolgirl skirt.

A single headlight approached and resolved itself into a dusty motorcycle with a dusty rider. He sported a wild mane of gray hair and a full beard stained yellow from years of nicotine. He raised his old bomber goggles up onto his forehead and looked at The Way, stuck in the sand. "Good morning," he said in a voice worn down with many decades of road dust. "Looks like you folks found yourself a spot of trouble." His accent was a strange amalgam of distant regions.

Hope stood beside Undead Elvis, one hand behind her back and wrapped around the pistol grip. "Hi. Yeah, nothing we can't handle, though."

"Do you need some help? I'm sure I could a.s.sist you."

"That's okay, mister. I think we got it under control."

The man stripped off his riding gloves with slow, deliberate moves. The sound of Velcro tabs reminded Hope of the way the world used to be. "I'm not fixin' to hurt you. Why don't you take your hand off the roscoe, young lady?"

Hope blinked. She didn't think she'd been that obvious about it. Nevertheless... "I don't think so."