Hope and Undead Elvis - By Ian Thomas Healy Page 0,2

then, to the bartender, "Another beer."

Something passed through the world, as if it were at the end of a whip and someone cracked it.. It ruffled Hope's straw-blonde hair and made the sequins on Undead Elvis's jumpsuit dance. Glass shattered behind her and she looked back at the bartender, who'd been the only other person in Yancy Cleveland's.

He was gone.

Beer glugged onto the floor from where the bottle had broken on the bar.

Hope turned back to Undead Elvis. "You better not have looked at my cards."

"I wouldn't dream of it, Li'l lady. Uh-huh."

"You see where the bartender went?"

"Away."

"So, like, to the back?"

"No." Undead Elvis leaned back from the table and rested one blue-green hand on the curvature of his gut. "One second he was there, pouring your beer, and the next he wasn't there at all."

"He went away when that thing happened?"

"Uh-huh."

"What was that thing, anyway?"

"I dunno. Felt kind of like the end of the world."

"How would you know what the end of the world feels like?"

"I dunno, but I bet it felt kind of like that thing."

"You going to raise or call?"

Undead Elvis adjusted his sunglasses, almost uncovering his eyes, and pulled his cards a little closer to his chest. "The world might have just ended, and all you care about is forty-eight dollars, Li'l lady?"

"Fifty-eight, and ten to you unless you're going to raise, you undead bastard."

He smiled at her. His teeth were dazzling white. "Now, that ain't no way for a sweet young thing like you to talk."

Hope sighed. She was ready to be done with this no-horse town. She'd quit after this hand and leave Undead Elvis, Yancy Cleveland's, and Nowhere with all its little Rock Shoppes as far behind as she could get with what little cash she had. "Shit or get off the pot."

Undead Elvis set a crisp ten dollar bill atop the pile in the center. "I call."

Hope grinned and laid her hand on the table. "Read ‘em and weep. Four, uh …" The cards on the table were not the ones that had been in her hand a moment ago. They weren't even regular playing cards. A seven of blue circles. A five of orange triangles. Something which she could only call the P of green circles that featured an image of a burning man. A symbol she couldn't even name in red. And an ace of, apparently, multicolored squares. "What the hell is all this? These aren't my cards."

Undead Elvis put down his cards, showing a similar mishmash of unfamiliar types, colors, and symbols as well. "Well, that's peculiar."

Hope pointed to one of his cards. "The F of… Hell, I don't even know what that's supposed to be."

"I think it's called a fleur de lis."

"I don't care what it is. What did you do with the cards?"

"I didn't do anything. One second they were the regular cards…"

"And then the end of the world happened, and they changed." Hope rubbed her nose. "What the fuck, Elvis?"

"Language."

"Yeah, yeah. So how come we didn't change?"

"How do you know you didn't?"

Hope started to get up from the table, stopped, and grabbed the pile of money. "I'd have won this. I had four kings before… before whatever."

Undead Elvis shrugged. He was a walking corpse; what did he need the money for, anyway?

On her way across Yancy Cleveland's, Hope noticed the Miller High Life clock on the wall no longer had hands. It still made ticking noises, but gave no indication of the time. She'd worry about the time later, and ducked into the bathroom to check her reflection.

She still looked like a stripper dressed in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit under a windblown mop of blonde hair. She turned on a spigot, intending to splash some water on her face, but instead of water, a stream of sand poured out. "What the hell?" She touched it with a tentative finger. It was cold. The hot water spigot rewarded her with another stream of tepid sand. She watched the grains spiral down into the drain and listened as they tinkled through the pipes below.

She had a horrible, frightening thought that Undead Elvis might disappear on her while she was in the bathroom, and hurried back out into the bar. He might have been Elvis, might have been a zombie, but he was still the only person she knew here.

When she emerged, he was standing behind the bar, pouring her a new glass of beer. "Find anything interesting?" he asked.

"We've got hot and cold running sand in the bathroom."

"Huh."

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