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whositmcwhatsit · 6 months

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Chapter 1?

Okay, so technically this is an introduction... taster... of the fic to come? I have been desperately trying to finish this for today, but didn't quite make it, so I'm posting this hoping it'll hold me accountable.

A fall/Halloweeny story Inspired by a brief stop Elvis and co made on their way to the World's Fair in 1962. @thatbanditqueen I apologise for messing with your era Elvis and the naughty, terrible things I plan to do with him later in the fic...

All the love to my coven of wicked sisters of the night @be-my-ally, @vintageshanny, @ellie-24, @from-memphis-with-love, @peskybedtime, @missmaywemeetagain, @lookingforrainbows

“You have got to be kidding me! What is your problem?!” Cheryl slammed on the brakes as the station wagon in front of her was forced to drop below ten miles an hour because of the Dodge motorhome in front of it. It was the third time it had happened in the past ten minutes and, just like before, both vehicles abruptly started speeding up again soon afterwards. “I’m going to pass ‘em and there’ll be a monkey at the wheel. It's the only explanation!”

The height and size of the motorhome meant that Cheryl couldn’t get a clear look of the road ahead and this had stopped her from trying to go around before, but with time ticking on and so many miles ahead of her, she decided to take a chance. She pulled out into the oncoming lane and stamped her foot on the gas.

It was all going so well, she passed the station wagon and was coming up alongside the motorhome. She had been expecting to see some silver haired, doddery grandpa at the wheel; that would have been the most reasonable explanation for the erratic driving. Instead, with a dark captain’s hat over his dyed black hair, she found Elvis Presley eyeing her curiously as she floored it to try and get ahead of him. And that was when the truck pulled out of a hidden junction from within the tall trees ahead.

Cheryl had ten seconds to choose her fate: splattered face first into the broadside of a pick up or swerve into the ditch at the side of the road and take her chances. Ditch it was. There was a deafening chorus of blaring horns followed by a finale of grinding, crunching metal. The ditch was wider than it looked and the front end of her car dipped before smashing face first into the earth bank and turning sideways.

Ears ringing, Cheryl was glad later that she didn’t have to explain or justify her vanity as she checked her face for injury first. She worked her way down after that and was just discovering that she had managed to survive with only a cut across her knuckle where her flailing hand had caught a knob on the dashboard, when the door was opened above her and, appearing unexpectedly for the second time that day, Elvis Presley peered in.

“I think so?” she called back, wriggling her toes and, she could only blame it on shock, hissing in annoyance at the ladder in her stockings.

“Miss? Miss, are you okay?”

“Good, good,” he murmured, seemingly in relief. “Honey, can you reach my hand? Let’s get you outta there.” More faces appeared around the doorway and Cheryl did not have the time or inclination to worry about the hands gripping her body and pulling her up through the gap and into the damp autumn air.

“Christ, you should be dead!” one of the other men marveled, standing on the near bank of the ditch. Cheryl stared blankly at the dented and torn hood and the shattered windshield of her car, before reality penetrated the high-pitched whistling that filled her brain.

“No, no, no, this can’t be happening!” She wrapped her hands over the top of her head. “I can’t… I need… What am I going to do?! I’ve got a show tomorrow a couple hundred miles from here!”

“You some kind of singer or something?” asked another of the men, his voice more twang than words.

“Or something. I’m- I’m a clairvoyant.”

“Clairvoyant? And you didn’t see this coming?” scoffed a short, round balding man, eagerly looking for approval from his boss.

“I’m a spiritualist, not a fortune teller,” she snapped. “I see spirits of loved ones watching over us, I don’t get tips on horse races and car crashes.”

The captain’s hat slipped slightly askew with the speed at which Elvis turned from the crumpled hood to her. His gaze was deep and it felt like he too was seeing more of her than just her earthly form. Her face heated despite the cold, damp air and the chilling effects of shock.

“We’ll make sure you make your show,” he said, letting his hands drop from just below his hips to help with his balance as he climbed up the side of the ditch. His gait was a little awkward and Cheryl wondered if it had something to do with the tightness of his tailored pants or the height of the heels on his eye-catching shiny shoes, before she focused back on her mess of a car and wanted to cry again.

A crow fluttered down and settled on the roof of her car, cawing judgmentally at her. She scowled at it, but it just impassively ruffled its tail feathers and shouted at her a little louder. She rolled her eyes and turned from it, surveying the little huddle that had formed around Elvis on the bank of the ditch. She noticed now that all the guys around him were wearing black coveralls like they were his own personal squad of mechanics. They each had a fancy ‘EP’ printed on the breast pocket.

“... I mean we’re on a tight schedule, shooting starts in two days and the Colonel-”

“And if we happen to break down on the road and end up a day or two late, ain’t no helpin’ that, you know.” He winked at Cheryl, smiling so much like a mischievous little boy that she found herself mirroring him, her smile only fading when she glanced back at her car.

“Ain’t gonna know what I don’t want him to know,” Elvis interjected, not bothering to hush his voice the way his lackeys were, which Cheryl appreciated from an eavesdropping perspective. “Man, we’ll make it for shooting, don’t worry about it.” He slapped the shorter man on the shoulder, adding over his shoulder:

As she stood watching a couple of Elvis’ guys scramble down into the ditch to retrieve her belongings, the man himself came to her side with his arms folded, looking down his nose like he was supervising.

“What’s your name, honey?”

“Why are you all the way up here?” she asked. “Taking a vacation from all that sunshine and dry air?”

“Cheryl,” she sighed, turning and giving him a rueful smile. “And you’re Elvis.” He stared at her a beat too long and she realized he was trying to get a handle on her, figure out if she was a fraud. “It’s not like I live in a coffin. I know who you are.” He ducked his head as he laughed a little and shrugged. He was very sparkly, she noted, sparkly white teeth, sparkly, twinkly eyes. Yes, she may have hit her head a little in the crash.

“We’re heading up to film on location,” he explained, sticking his hands into his pockets. “At the World’s Fair.”

“Oh. Still, I bet you’d rather be warm in California right now, huh?”

“I wouldn’t say that, honey. Wouldn’t have got to meet a pretty little thing like you now, would I?” His left eyebrow twitched up playfully and there was a hint of a smirk on his lips as he turned away towards the motorhome.

Ignoring the way her stomach churned with excitement, Cheryl reflected that at least her car would have still been intact. She would have to call home as soon as she got to a phone, and get them to wire some cash for repairs. Her mother would be furious, as if it was her fault that Elvis Presley couldn’t drive and some idiot in a truck decided to commit a hit and run.

The air inside the motorhome was warm and kind of musky with so many men crammed in together. The guy who had been fretting about getting to location on time climbed in behind her, settling on her other side, Elvis was obviously behind the wheel to her left.

“We’ll just follow the highway until we hit a town,” Elvis said like he was thinking out loud. “Even a one-horse backwater place’ll have a fella with a tow truck. I know a little about cars and I’m betting your ride looks worse than it is.”

One of the guys in the back murmured something in a low voice that Cheryl didn’t catch, but she didn’t miss the sharp look that Elvis gave the rear view mirror.

“It’ll need to have a Western Union, I don’t have enough money on me to even cover a tow. Not until after my show anyway.”

“Well, honey, don’t worry about that,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder as he pulled out from the side of the road. “I said I’d get you to your show, didn’t I.”

After a couple of minutes, she asked if a window could be opened as it was a bit stuffy and a skinny man behind her with a wispy mustache informed her that Elvis didn’t like the window open ‘on account of his hair’.

At the same time, Elvis instructed the man to shut up in Pig Latin. Cheryl recognised it because it was how she and her brothers had communicated in front of townies when they were growing up. She was impressed with Elvis’ fluency and the way the curse words flowed so nicely off his tongue.

Elvis rolled down his window as she sat pretending with wide-eyes not to have understood what he had said. There was no real need for the deception, but it was just in her nature and part of her upbringing to build up ammunition and jealously guard secrets and information like a secret agent. You never knew when it would come in handy.

“So, what does your show entail really?” he asked, glancing at her before turning back to the road. “You’re up there on the stage and you… do what exactly…?” He met her eyes briefly. “I ain’t making fun, I’m just curious, honey.”

“Well, it’s probably a lot less interesting than your shows,” she murmured, wiping at the beads of moisture sitting on the surface of her wool coat. “People come to me to make a connection or get reassurance or to find peace, and I try to help them. It’s a fluid thing, there’s no set script so to speak.”

“Oh, but you made plenty of connections at your shows, right, Boss?” chuckled one of the guys behind him.

“The road!” she reminded him nervously, reflexively hitting his thigh. He jerked slightly, tightening his grip on the wheel as he turned back to look through the windshield. Luckily, they were only going about twenty miles an hour at the time.

“Shut up, Charlie,” he murmured perfunctorily, still staring at her, eyes slightly narrowed.

Suddenly, a lot of things made sense to Cheryl.

Cheryl tried to not ask too many questions and distract him, but Elvis still told her about the movie he was making, talked about how security was going to be a pain in the ass because of all the visitors to the fair, but that he thought that it would make the movie look better than if everything was filmed on the lot with a backdrop. He said he always found that distracting when he was watching a movie, especially if the film in the background was repeated over and over. Cheryl did not doubt him since he seemed to get distracted extremely easily.

They had been traveling on the highway for about thirty minutes when a big logging rig headed their way on the other side of the road. Elvis enthusiastically gestured for the driver to sound the horn and Cheryl side-eyed him, but couldn’t help breaking into an indulgent laugh at the glee on his face when a booming honk filled the air.

“Hey, what you laughing at?” His entire face was radiant when he smiled. Cheryl almost felt like she needed sunglasses. “You know, I always dreamed of driving one of ‘em big muth- trucks when I was a little fella.”

“Oh well, at least you had this little sideline to fall back on when that dream didn’t work out.”

He laughed too late and with a touch of incredulity, like he couldn’t believe that she could be funny. “Yeah, it’s my, uh, consolation prize.” He couldn’t let that stand even as a joke and quickly included an addendum. “Naw, I’ve been very lucky, I got more than I ever dreamed.”

“You don’t want to tempt fate, huh,” Cheryl remarked.

“Just don’t wanna seem ungrateful, honey, ‘cause I’m not.”

She frowned at his earnest insistence, but smiled and nodded when he glanced from the windshield to look at her.

Finally, Elvis pulled the motorhome into the parking lot of the Cozy Pines motel, sounding slightly baffled as he mused that he’d never seen a cozy pine tree.

It certainly looked like a motel designed by someone who thought a pine tree was cozy. It was the usual two storey L-shape concrete structure with a leaf strewn concrete rectangle sunk into the middle of the parking lot with a little fence around it that looked like it might have been intended to be a pool.

“Welcome to the Bates Motel,” one of the guys in the back muttered, face pressed up against the window.

“It ain’t so bad,” Elvis remarked gently, seeing the dubious expression on Cheryl’s face. “Honey, you just gotta find yourself a car mechanic and have ‘em send me the bill. Won’t take long and you’ll be on your way.”

“Or else you’ll end up dumped in a swamp.”

Cheryl swallowed as she peered at the squat office building, its window dominated by a flashing neon sign that promised/threatened ‘vacancies’.

“Goddamn it, Marty, shut your damn trap!” Elvis snapped, ripping off one of his leather driving gloves and pitching it behind him at the guy who had spoken.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Cheryl murmured, but only softly, because if he didn’t do that, she would slash his tyres to stop him leaving her.

“Okay, change of plan. Listen up, so here’s what we’re gonna do,” said Elvis, talking fast as he grabbed her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Joe here’s gonna get his lazy ass into that office and get us some rooms. And then we’re gonna rustle you up a car and straighten everything out so that you’re on your way in a blink of an eye. Okay, honey?” He snapped his fingers at the dark haired man with wavy black hair on her right, who nodded, but rolled his eyes once he was out of Elvis’ eye line, climbing out of the truck.

It started to rain while Joe was in the manager’s office, and not just flecks but a massive biblical downpour. They all peered through the windshield at it, bemused by how suddenly the clouds had converged.

“Might be better off leaving the car and buying a boat,” Elvis remarked, leaning forward so that his shoulder pressed against hers. Cheryl looked at his lashes, marveling at how long and dark they were. Then she noticed the dark smudge underneath his lower lashes, recognising it as someone who frequently applied make-up and then absently rubbed her eyes. She was growing more and more intrigued by this man.

Joe scuttled across the parking lot with his hand held over his head like he thought this would shelter him from the rain.

“Okay, good news and bad news- Uh, it’s Sunday, so there is no chance of finding a mechanic willing to go out and look at the car until tomorrow. Good news, they have ten rooms available upstairs, and there’s a restaurant just behind the parking lot there that’ll deliver food to the rooms.”

“Well then, let’s get unloaded before we start to attract a crowd,” said the one Elvis had called Charlie.

Cheryl looked around the deserted parking lot dubiously, but scrambled out when Joe proffered his hand. She thought she glimpsed the silhouette of a couple of girls back behind the office building, but they were gone before she fully turned her head.

“You got room 220,” Joe informed Cheryl, barely looking at her as he deposited the key with the wooden room number keyring into her palm. His annoyance was evident, she could feel him almost vibrating with it, along with his anxiety that this stopover would derail their entire schedule.

Room 220 was at the very end of the concrete walkway, next to a room that Elvis and all his sidekicks disappeared into. All in all, Elvis seemed more normal than she would have expected, except for his need to be followed around by a line of identically dressed ducklings of various sizes and shapes.

The room was surprisingly clean-looking, but otherwise much like other places Cheryl had stayed while plying her trade up and down the coast. When she was younger her father used to insist that she stay in boarding houses, places with doilies and nosy old women that set a curfew and forbade all gentlemen callers. No doubt he would have still insisted on this, but he wasn’t in a position to insist on anything anymore. At least not in person.

Cheryl sidestepped quickly from the window as there was a clonk and a barrage of tapping against the glass. After a second, she cautiously hooked back the curtain with finger and frowned at the crow perched on the railing outside. It tilted its head almost condescendingly as she peered out. She huffed a sigh of annoyance and let the curtain fall back into the place.

“Hey, how come your room’s bigger ‘n’ mine?”

Cheryl whirled round and had to bite back from retorting: ‘How come you think you can just walk into my room?’ She forced herself to be more gracious to the man paying for her room and her car repairs. (Even if he was partially responsible for her needing them).

Elvis was standing in the threshold of what she had assumed was a closet opposite the bed. Apparently it was a connecting door between their rooms.

“I’m happy to switch rooms with you if you’d prefer. I don’t mind being cozy.” She stepped closer so she could peer over his shoulder at his room, but she saw no size difference. The only discrepancy seemed to be that she didn’t have half a dozen men turning down her bed, setting out her toiletries and bringing in creature comforts like a record player.

“As cozy as a pine tree. No, I’ll be a gentleman,” he said softly by her ear, his fingers sliding down from her ribs to the hips. His other hand snagged her fingers and lifted them up for inspection, frowning intently at the little nick on her knuckle.

As she opened her mouth to make a joke about how it was clearly the end of her promising career as a piano player, he pressed his soft, pillowy lips to her knuckles and what came out of her mouth was instead a slurred mumble of vowels. She held her breath, gazing up at his dark blue eyes and watching those long, black lashes flutter, before his pout spread into a sunny grin and whatever spell they had been under dissipated like mist.

“You hungry? I am starving!” he announced. He turned back to his room, “Hey, it’s chow time. Where’s Billy?”

After half an hour, there was a knock on Cheryl’s door and one of the guys stood on the covered walkway, his hands behind his back like he was about to ask Mr Bumble for more gruel.

“Y’all can come eat with us, Boss said,” he informed her. There was no question involved. She reminded herself that her room was being paid for and stretched her mouth into a smile.

“I guess the locals have heard about their special visitor,” she said, slipping her feet into her pumps. “All that screaming, I thought someone was being mur-” She stopped as she looked over the railing at the dreary, gray and empty parking lot. “I could have sworn I heard girls outside.”

“Oh, they’ll be here soon enough,” he sighed with inevitability. “They always are.”

To be continued...

If anyone is any good at yelling at people until they ignore their boring real life commitments and do the fun writing stuff, please feel free to shout at me in comments!

#elvis presley #elvis fanfic #hollywood elvis #elvis x oc #elvis fanfiction #whositmcwhatsit #I'm really just missing one crucial part in the middle that totally makes sense of the smut and horror to follow #How does one make sense of smutty horror?

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