PART I

CHAPTER 1

Sometime in the often cited not-too-distant future…

Elvis Presley—the ’68 comeback special version, replete with black-leather ensemble—swung a roundhouse at Ramona Funk. Ramona ducked, grabbing Elvis’s ankle as it passed over her head. She gave it just enough push to put the swarthy (and surprisingly svelte) King of Rock and Roll off balance. Before falling, however, Elvis managed to shoot the opposite leg forward, rallying his momentum into a twisting grand jete, capping that off with a quick, spinning pike.

He landed in a squat, his fist to the ground, one leg thrust straight out to the side. It was a pose that Ramona would put in a category somewhere between Spider-Man and Playmate of the Year.

It was quite a finish, and she was impressed. She complimented her foe, saying, “Not bad, Elvis.”

Elvis looked up at her with his angry, rock-and-roll eyes. It was possible, Ramona guessed, that this was his wind up prior to “busting out” with his famous rendition of “C.C. Ryder.” At this point, Ramona thought, anything was possible.

But there was no invisible Buddy Rich to play his invisible drums to cue an invisible band to bring Elvis onstage strutting and singing. Elvis was breathing hard, his sweat glinting purple as it mixed with his cheap hair dye.

“Baby,” he snarled, “You gonna die!”

So much for getting my rockabilly groove on, Ramona thought.

“No worries, sweet cakes,” she told Elvis. “I been dead already.”

“Yeah?” he retorted. “Me too!”

Ramona cocked her head toward the now crouching, sidestepping Elvis as they circled one another. “Kinda takes the edge off, huh?”

“Take the edge off-ah this, bitch!”

With a speed remarkable even for the satanic foot soldier he had become, he lunged at Ramona. But Ramona was already in the air, having sprung straight up and into a forward somersault.

She came down in time to give Elvis an elbow to the back as he whooshed past. The blow was timed perfectly to take full advantage of his forward momentum and send him sailing into the Jungle Room. He slammed into the wall next to the fireplace, smashing the various porcelain mantle trinkets, and leaving an Elvis-shaped crater right next to the tiger-on-black-velvet painting. Various animal-skin wall hangings, dislodged by the Elvis impact, came drifting down on top of him.

Making a show of dusting her hands, Ramona stepped into the Jungle Room doorway, saying, “Now that just felt all kinds of good.”

Brushing the drywall from the shoulders of his leather jacket, Elvis rose up through the snow leopard spots and white tiger stripes. His upper lip curled and quivered with rage. Glaring at Ramona through the strands of stringy, jet-black hair hanging over his eyes, he said, “Okay, you’re good.”

Ramona gave a slight curtsey. “Thank you.”

Suddenly, the floor began to rumble.

A smile came to Elvis’s lips. Adopting an evangelistic tone, he announced, “Praise Billy, the pipeline is clear! The demons of hell are upon us, darlin’! They have traversed the globe to reach this most holy of places and suck the very soul from your flesh to be damned through all of eternity!”

Ramona laughed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She whirled around as a thunderous crash rang out through the halls of the mansion. From the direction of the front foyer, she could hear the war cry of Beelzebub’s so-called Demon Horde.

Elvis strutted over to the fireplace mantle, leaned back against it, and struck his best James Dean-type pose. With a double-finger-pistol salute, he declared, “Get ready to be rent asunder, baby."

It was in that moment that the ultra-surreality of the situation hit Ramona with full force. Here she was inside Graceland Mansion, regarding the long-dead most-popular rock and roll star of all time, who was hell-bent (no pun intended) on sending her back to the outer rim of the Milky Way.

The Demon Horde’s wings flapped and fwished ever nearer until they rounded the corner and thundered down the hall toward the Jungle Room.

“Come on fellas!” Elvis cried zealously, “Let’s introduce her to the band!”

Ramona took a long, deep breath as she prepared to defend herself against the oncoming gaggle of flying, zombie-faced reptiles, all the while wondering:

How the hell did I get here?

¶ 7:32 AM