Hope and Undead Elvis

chapter Twenty-Six

Hope and the Grave Yard





Hope and Rae spent the night on Nur's pull-out couch. Rae had been so exhausted she'd fallen asleep at the table, and Nur had carried her to the bed. Hope noticed the tender way he'd touched her cheek. The poor man seemed to have fallen for the young woman, and Hope feared he'd be disappointed if Rae couldn't reciprocate because of her faith.

She hoped his disappointment wouldn't cause difficulties. Maybe it would be best if she and Rae departed as soon as they were able. She resolved to look for The Way in the morning, or barring that, some other vehicle in which they could continue their journey to Graceland.

She fell asleep with Elvis songs running through her head.

Persistent hammering awakened Hope. Bright sunlight streamed through the dusty blinds and a cool, refreshing breeze blew past her from the open front door. Rae still slept on the bed beside her, thin blanket pulled up to her chin. Hope was careful not to wake her as she slipped out of bed and pulled the overalls back on over her t-shirt.

The hammering noise that had awakened her started anew and she went outside to investigate. Nur was bent at the waist, his shoulders and arms buried in the engine compartment of a wrecked Nissan, trying to knock something loose and cursing at it under his breath.

"Good morning," said Hope.

Nur whirled in fright, a pistol in his hands pointed right at her.

Hope grabbed the Shepherds' pistol from her pocket and leveled it at Nur. "What are you doing?" she cried. "All I said was good morning, for God's sake!"

"I'm sorry! You startled me," said Nur. His pistol was unlike Hope's, a semi-automatic instead of a revolver. The mouth of the barrel looked gigantic from her perspective.

"I'm sorry too! God, I'll warn you next time."

"I'm not used to other people being around," he said. For a long moment they stared at each other, gazes unwavering, hands trembling.

"Why are you still pointing that gun at me?" asked Hope.

"Because you're still pointing yours at me."

With exaggerated care, Hope lowered the Shepherds' pistol and slipped it back into her pocket. A moment later, Nur tucked his into a pocket as well. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just as jumpy as you are."

Nur bowed his head. "I'm embarrassed. I'm not a violent man. It's just that…"

"I understand," said Hope. "I really do. Listen, I don't think I should stay here very long. People have been dying around me since the world ended, and I'd hate for it to happen to you."

"Itchy trigger finger?" Nur wiped his hands on a shop rag and turned away from the Nissan.

Hope laughed. "No. Well, once… but it was to shoot a guy who killed a friend."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Nothing anyone could have done to stop it." Hope paused. "You haven't seen any black birds hanging around here, have you? They seem to be turning up before bad things happen."

"No, no birds except the chickens."

"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 windshields with powdery brown residue around them. Hope knew in those vehicles, the drivers had been hurled through the glass. 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 sunshine on her back. She stared at a car like a flattened pickup truck. The front was heavily damaged and the windshield 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 bumped the mirror and it tilted inward and downward to allow a ray of sunlight to illuminate an object in the footwell…

Undead Elvis's sunglasses.

Hope chewed on her knuckles. He wouldn't have left his sunglasses 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 passenger 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 glass 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 glass, 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 glass 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 sunglasses 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 glasses 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 sunglasses. 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 bumped 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 sunglasses 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."

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

Hope couldn't meet his gaze.

"She is part of God'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 sunglasses 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.