Hope and Undead Elvis - By Ian Thomas Healy Page 0,11

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 passage 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 tits and asses. 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, señorita."

"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 passenger 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