Hope and Undead Elvis - By Ian Thomas Healy Page 0,5

think you're right about that. What do we do about it?"

"Ain't sure we can do anything about it. When it's your time, it's your time. Same thing for the world, I figure."

For a few minutes, the only sound was the wisp of shifting sand as Hope's breathing slowed to a normal pace.

"What do we do now?" she asked into the silence. "We didn't disappear with everything else. Are we supposed to go somewhere or do something?"

Undead Elvis shrugged. "If we stay here, you're gonna die of thirst."

"What about you?

"I'm already dead. Ain't got a thing to worry about."

"You were eating when we were playing cards. Drinking, too."

"That's different. I chose to, because I love me a big old mess of french fries with gravy. But I don't need to eat."

"Because you're dead."

"That's right, Li'l lady."

"I'm sitting here in a desert, talking to a dead man after the world ended. Shit, I wonder if I'm already hallucinating."

Undead Elvis patted her arm. "I don't think so."

She sighed. "I keep thinking I should be freaking out, you know? I mean, if this is the end of everything, I should be screaming and crying and stuff. Instead, I'm just kind of… I don't know. Annoyed." She burped a little and made a sour face. "And nauseated. Crap, I hope I'm not getting sick. I don't want to spend my last days in the world barfing."

"Do you want to spend them here?"

"What?"

He made an expansive gesture, encompassing the entire sandy horizon. "Your last days. Do you want to spend them here, Li'l lady? Surrounded by sand with an undead celebrity your only companion?"

Hope stared around at the silica ocean around her. The stark landscape was beautiful in a surreal, sterile kind of way. She'd heard that deserts harbored much life among their sands, but she suspected this one was as empty as it looked. "Not a really, Elvis. If I've got to die, I'd rather it was somewhere prettier than this. Someplace green."

"I know just the place."

"Do you, now?"

"Yep, I sure do. Graceland. Most beautiful place in the whole world." Undead Elvis's face grew wistful.

"Maybe it used to be," said Hope. "But then the world ended."

Undead Elvis paused and raised his head, as if sniffing the air. "No, it's still there."

"How do you know?"

"I just do. Like you know your toes are still there."

Hope looked down at her feet, just in case. "Even so, it must be a thousand miles from here."

He tucked his microphone back into his outfit and extended a hand to her. "Then I guess we better start walkin'."

Chapter Three

Hope and the Desert

They walked.

The sun beat down upon Hope without semblance of mercy or kindness until her ears rang and head pounded with each step. The glare from the bright sand threatened to steal away her vision. At first her eyes had watered from it. Then they'd watered because she was crying. At long last, they stopped watering, because her body wouldn't spare any more of its precious fluids; emotional outpourings were anathema to survival. Every time she blinked, it felt like her eyelids dragged hot sand over her corneas. She wondered how long before she went blind.

At least if she did, she would no longer have to stare out at the endless waves of unmoving sand.

"Elvis," she said after a lengthy period of silence.

"Yes, Li'l lady?"

"What if this desert never ends?"

"What if it does?"

Hope had no answer for that.

They walked.

Her shoes shredded after awhile. They had been expensive watersnake-leather Christian Louboutin boots that she'd bought in a Hollywood Boulevard boutique. The four-inch stilettos had made her legs and ass look fantastic, which in turn helped her get her last job. They were impractical for walking on soft sand, and when one of the heels broke off, Hope kicked them off and left them behind to be swallowed up by the hungry desert. Maybe they were the last Christian Louboutins in the world. She didn't care, and didn't look back.

She'd never felt her feet were all that attractive, even though a guy in Reno had paid her forty bucks to rub them against his chest while he rubbed another portion of his anatomy. Dancing had toughened the skin, but even so, the sharp grains were scratching patterns into her soles. "My feet hurt."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Undead Elvis.

"How long do you think we've been walking?"

"I dunno, Li'l lady. Maybe a few hours. Hard to say, because the sun ain't moving."

Hope shielded her eyes with her hand and squinted upward into