"'I was dreaming - dreaming my dick was out 'and I was checking if that infected bump on the head of it had filled with pus." "'If it had, I was gonna name it after my ex-wife Cilla and bust it by jacking off." "'Or I'd like to think that's what I'd do." "'Dreams let you think like that." "'Truth was, I hadn't had a hard-on in years.'" "Oh, man." "'My God, man." "How long have I been here?" "'Am I really awake now or am I just dreaming I'm awake?" "'How could my plans have gone so wrong?" "'When the hell are they gonna serve lunch?" "Considering what they serve, why the hell do I care?" "'If Priscilla discovered I was alive, would she come and see me?" "'Would we still wanna fuck or would we merely have to talk about it?" "'Is there finally and really anything to life other than food, shit and sex?" "'Well, goddamn it." "'How could I have gone from the King of Rock and Roll to this?" "'Old guy in a rest-home in east Texas with a growth on his pecker.'" "'What is that growth, man?" "Cancer?" "'Nobody's talking." "'No one seems to know, or wants to.'" "Makes you wonder what kind of life this old guy had." " Huh?" " What kind of life he had." "His kids, his grandkids, his legacy." "Look at him now." "Ah, who gives a shit?" "Hm?" "Make you comfy." "No." "Oh!" "I'm gonna squish you, cockroach." "Help me." "You know, I was thinking..." "What?" "You gonna get all weepy on my again?" "No." "I was gonna suggest that you spray some deodoriser on the corpse because she's smelling pretty ripe." "Ugh!" "Good idea." "Excuse me, miss." "You gonna throw all that stuff out?" "Yeah." "Could I have one of them pictures of Bull?" "Maybe his Purple Heart?" "I mean, he was pretty proud of that." "And maybe that tin of chocolates there." "I suppose." "'The revealing of her panties wasn't intentional or unintentional." "'She just didn't give a damn." "'She saw me as so physically and sexually non-threatening, 'she didn't mind if I got a bird's-eye view of her love nest." "'It was the same to her as a house cat sneaking a peek." "'I felt my pecker flutter once, like a pigeon having a heart attack, 'then lay back down and remain limp and still." "'Course, these days, even a flutter was reassuring.'" "Thank you." "Say, er..." " Bull your kin?" " My daddy." "Never seen you here before." "I've only been here once before - when I checked him in." "That was three years ago, wasn't it?" "You and him friends?" "No." "He never felt good enough to say much." "I just hated to see what was left of him go away so easy." "Seemed like an all right guy." "Mentioned you a lot." "You're Callie, right?" "Yeah." "Well, he was all right." "But not enough to come see him?" "Don't lay some guilt trip on me." "I did what I could." "If it hadn't been for Medicaid or Medicare or whatever, he'd have been in a ditch." "I sure didn't have the money to take care of him." "'My own daughter - lost long ago to me." "'If she knew I lived, would she come and see me?" "Would she even care?" "'" "You could have come and seen him." "They don't charge for that." "Mind your own business." "I was busy." "Well, well, well, if it isn't my favourite patient?" "How are you, Mr Haff?" "I'm all right, but I prefer "Mr Presley" or "Elvis"." "I keep telling you that." "I don't go by Sebastian Haff any more." " I'm not trying to hide any more." " I knew that, but I forgot." "Good morning, Elvis." "Did you know we have a celebrity here, Miss Thomas?" "Elvis Presley - the rock and roll singer." "I thought he was dead." "Well, Elvis is dead." "Mr Haff knows that, don't you?" "Hell, no." "I'm right here." "I ain't dead... yet." "Now, Mr Haff!" "I don't mind calling you Elvis, but you're a little confused and you like to play." "You were an Elvis impersonator, remember?" "You fell off the stage and broke your hip." "When was it?" "20 years ago." "It got infected and you were in a coma for quite a while." "You came out with a few "problems"." "I was just impersonating myself." "I couldn't do nothing else." "I don't have any problems." "Are you trying to say my brain's messed up?" "Why would you wanna be somebody else?" "I got tired of it." "I was hooked on pills, you know?" "I wanted out." "This boy, Sebastian Haff, he was an Elvis imitator - he was the best of 'em." "He took my place." "The problem is he had a bad heart." "He liked drugs too - more than I did - so it was him that died, not me." "I just took his place." "'Why would you want to leave all that fame, Mr Presley?" "'All that money?" "'" "'I don't know." "Cos I got old." "'The women I loved, Priscilla, she was gone." "'The rest of the women were just women." "'I mean, the music wasn't mine any more." "'I wasn't even me any more, just this thing they'd made up." "'And my friends..." "'Well, they were sucking me dry." "'So I took a little road trip down to Nacogdoches 'to check out this Sebastian Haff.'" "It's all right, boys." "Just wait here." "Oh, my God!" "I didn't think you'd really..." "It's all right, boys." "Just another freak." "Let's split." " Whoa!" " Sorry, man." " I got it, I got it." " It's all yours, baby." "'So I signed everything over to Sebastian." "'Except for enough money to sustain me if things got bad." "'I was determined to make myself a new life." "'A better one." "'For me and Sebastian, we had us a deal." "'If I wanted to trade back, he'd let me." "'It was all written up in the contract." "'The thing was, I lost my copy in a barbecue accident." "'But that wasn't so bad." "I was making new friends and enjoying myself.'" "Cheers!" "Oh, my!" "Did you see that thing?" "Just standing here!" "It just went up like that." "'Now, Elvis... '" "Yes..." "Don't carry it too far." "You may just get way out there and not come back." "Oh, fuck you." "Shit." "Get old, you can't even cuss someone and have it bother 'em." "Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing." "Well..." "I've got what I want." " The clothes can go to Goodwill." " Very well." "And I'm sorry about your father." "He was a nice man." "Yeah." "Nice to meet you, Mr Presley." " Get the hell out." " Now, now." "I'll be back later to do that little... thing that has to be done." "You know." " Elvis!" " Ssh!" "Poor Bull." "In the end, does anything really matter?" "'No one here ever listened to me." "'Except this one guy - only he was certifiable.'" "That's where they took a piece of my brain." "They got it back in DC in that goddamn jar." "I got a little bag of sand up there now." "Jack, no offence, but..." "President Kennedy was a white man." "That's how clever they are." "They dyed me this colour, all over." "Can you think of a better way to hide the truth than that?" "'I was living simple... the way Haff had been." "'Going from town to town doing the Elvis act." "'I felt like I was really me again.'" " Can you dig that?" " We're digging it, Mr Haff." "Mr Presley." "Mr Presley." "'Women threw themselves at me because they could imagine I was Elvis." "'Only I was Elvis - playing Sebastian Haff playing Elvis." "'It was good." "I didn't mind the contract being burnt." "'I didn't even try to convince anybody." "'Then I had the accident." "'I was gyrating and my hip went out.'" " Oh-h!" "'I'd been having trouble with it.'" "Damn, it's cold in here." "No way." "That's it." "This time I'll make it." "No more piss or crap in the bed." "Whoa!" "Man!" "That is one big bitch cockroach." "Oh!" "All right, man." "Let's go." "Damn." "Hot damn!" "Got you, you six-legged bastard." "Where..." "Even a big bitch cockroach like you should know... never, never fuck with the King." "Oh-hh!" "Hey!" "Is anybody out here?" "I think we got some major bug problems in this place, man." "Oh, man." "Jack?" "Jack?" "Hey, man, you OK?" "What the Sam Hill is that?" "Mr Kennedy?" "Hey, man." "You're on the floor." "No shit?" "Who are you?" "Look, I'm..." "Sebastian." "Sebastian Haff." "Did you see him go by in the hall?" " He scuttled, like." " Who, man?" "The one they sent." " Who's they?" " Oh, you know who." "No, Jack, I don't." "Come on, man." "Lyndon Johnson." "Castro, maybe." "They sent somebody to finish me off." "I think maybe it was Johnson himself." "Real ugly." "Real goddamn ugly!" "Hey, look, man." "President Johnson's dead." "Shit." "That ain't gonna stop him." "Go to sleep." "So you say you heard a... a noise?" "Yeah." "I followed a sound." "I heard something." "It was like a..." "I don't know." "Like a..." "like a scuttling." " A scuttling sound?" " Yes, sir." "Were you awake or were you in bed when you heard this noise?" "I was in bed first, then I was awake co the damn bugs woke me up." "You got bugs all over this place." "Bugs." "Well, Mr Haff, what kind of bugs have you been seeing?" "Do I look like an icky-ologist to you?" "Big damn bugs." "The size of my fist, of a peanut butter and banana sandwich." "What do I care?" "I got a growth on my pecker." "OK, Mr Haff." "Don't worry about a thing." "We'll call the exterminator tomorrow and take care of it." "Thank you." "Thank you very much." "It's time for that little thing again." "'A doll like this handling me without warmth or emotion." "'20 years ago - just 20, man " "'I could have made with the curly-lipped smile and had her eating outta my asshole.'" "Doctor says this cream ought to do the trick." "Corticosteroids." "Should heal the inflammation." "Stop the pus." "'Where did my youth go?" "'Why didn't fame hold off old age and death?" "'Why the hell did I leave the fame?" "'Do I want it back and could I have it, and if I could, 'would it make any damn difference?" "'" "Mr Haff!" "Huh?" "'Lord almighty.'" "You old rascal." "I think you'd better take a cold shower, Mr Haff." "'There had been two presidential elections since I had a boner like that one." "'What gave here?" "Then I realised what gave." "'I was thinking about something that interested me - 'not my next meal or going to the crapper." "'I'd been given a dose of life again.'" "You get in there with me, I'll take a shower." "You silly thing." "Come on, now." "Why don't you pull on it a little?" "You ought to be ashamed." "Whe-he." "Whe-he." "It's an ambush." "Under the bridge." "I saw him under the bridge." "It's an ambush!" "Tonto." "My boots, Tonto." "'That's my friend, Kemosabe." "We used to play cards together." " My boots!" " 'Now he doesn't know who I am.'" "Daddy." "Baby?" " Sebastian." "Sebastian." "It's loose." " What's loose?" "Lt. Listen." "Jesus Christ." "What's that?" "I thought it was Lyndon Johnson, but I was wrong." "I've come across new evidence to suggest another assassin." "Assassin?" "He's after another target tonight." "Come on, I want to show you something." "I don't think it's safe to go to sleep." "For Christ's sake." "Tell the administrators." "Suits and white starches?" "No, thank you!" "I trusted them in Dallas and look where that got my brain and me." "I'm thinking with sand here." "I pick up some waves maybe from my brain, but someday, somebody might just disconnect the battery at the White House." "Oh, yeah." "That's something to worry about, all right." "Listen here." "Listen." "I know you're Elvis." "There was a rumour, you know, that you hated me." "But I thought about that." "If you hated me, you could have finished me off the other night." "All I want from you is that you look me straight in the eye and assure me you had nothing at all to do with that day in Dallas, and that you did not know Lee Harvey Oswald or Jack Ruby." "Hey, look, man." "I had nothing to do with Dallas and I knew neither Lee Harvey Oswald nor Jack Ruby." "Good." "May I call you Elvis instead of Sebastian?" " You may." " Excellent." " You wear glasses to read?" " I wear glasses when I want to see." "Get 'em, but come on." "Come on." "Right down the hall." "'The walker was swinging along easier tonight." "Not even like I needed it." "'Damn, this here Jack was a nut." "'Maybe I was nuts too, but there was an adventure going on.'" "It's in here." "In here." "That's it?" "We're trying to figure out who attacked you and you bring me to look at stick pictures on the shithouse wall?" "Look close." " It's Egyptian." " Right." "Hey, you're not as stupid as some folks made you out." "Thank you." "I copied this down yesterday." "I came in to take a shit because they hadn't cleaned my bathroom, saw that on the wall, took it back to my room, and looked it up in my books." "This top line translates roughly into," ""Pharaoh gobbles donkey goobers"" "and the bottom line, "Cleopatra does the nasty"." " Say what?" " That's the best I can translate it." "So one of the nuts in here, present company excluded, thinks he's Tutankhamen, writes hieroglyphics on the wall?" "What's the connection?" "Why are we standing in a toilet?" "I don't know what the connection is, exactly." "Not yet." "But that thing caught me asleep last night and I came awake just in time." "He had me on the floor and had his mouth over my asshole." " A shit-eater?" " I don't think so." "He was after my soul." "You can get it out of any major orifice of a person's body." "I read about it." "Where, man?" "Hustler?" "The Everyday Man Or Woman's Book Of The Soul by David Webb." "They got some pretty good movie reviews in there about stolen soul movies." "Come on." "I'll show you." "Oh!" "I think there might be an electrical problem in the gardener's shed." "The light looks like it's shorting out." "The whole place is falling apart, but you don't have to think about that." "Miss Biddlestein is waiting on her enema." "All right, all right." "I'm coming." "Just let me finish my cigarette first." "God!" "There's an ugly son of a bitch." "Damn!" "Hey, Jack." "It says here that you can bury some dude and if he gets the right spells said over him and such bullshit, he can come back to life thousands of years later." "But hold on now." "To stay alive, he has to suck on the souls of the living and if the souls are small, his life force doesn't last long." "Small?" "What does that mean?" "Read on." "No, never mind." "I'll tell you myself." "But first, would you like a Ding Dong?" "I don't mean mine." "I mean a chocolate Ding Dong." "Course, mine would be chocolate now that I have been dyed." " You got Ding Dongs, man?" " Mm." " I got Paydays and a box of Baby Ruths." " Oh, mama." "Which will it be?" "Let's get decadent." " I'll take a Baby Ruth." " Mm." "All right." "Now... small souls... are those that don't have much fire for life." "You know a place like that?" "Man, if souls were fires they couldn't burn lower than in here." "Exactamundo." "What we have here at Shady Rest is an Egyptian soul-sucker of some sort." "A mummy hiding out, coming in here, feeding on the sleeping." "It's perfect, you see?" "We're small souls, so we can't provide that much." "But if that thing comes back two or three times in a row and wraps his lips around some elder's asshole, that elder is going to die pretty soon, and who will be the wiser?" "Aah!" "Asshole!" "A mummy can't be getting too much energy from this - not like the big souls - but the prey is easy." "And with new people coming in, he can keep this up forever, this soul robbery." "That's what they brought us here for - to get us out of the way until we die - and those who don't die first from disease or just plain being old, he gets." "That's all well and good, Jack, but there's one thing that still throws me." "How does an Ancient Egyptian wind up in a Texas rest-home and why is he writing on the shithouse walls?" "Well, he went in to take a crap, got bored, started writing on the walls." "He probably wrote on pyramid walls centuries ago." "Come on, man." "What would he crap?" "He hadn't eat..." "Well, he eats souls, so I assume that he would crap soul residue." "By that, I mean that if you die from his mouth, you don't go to the other side where souls go, he digests souls until they don't exist any more." "And you're just so much toilet water decoration." "Uh-huh." "And speaking of toilets, this is how I figured that whole thing out." "He's like anybody else when it comes to taking a dump." "He wants a nice clean place with a flush." "He didn't have that in his time." "No, no." "Don't go out in the hall." " It's all right, man." "I'm not asleep." " That don't mean he won't hurt you." "Oh, he, my ass!" "There isn't any mummy from Egypt." "Nice knowing you, Elvis." "Asshole." "Asshole." "Asshole!" "Asshole!" "Asshole." "Ass..." "Aah!" "'Kemosabe was dead of a ruptured heart before he hit the floor." "'Gone down and out with both guns blazing." "'Soul intact." "'Once again, we got scolded." "'This time, we got quizzed about what had happened to Kemosabe." "'Neither of us told the truth." "'Who was gonna believe a couple of nuts?" "'Elvis and Jack Kennedy explaining 'that Kemosabe was gunning for a mummy in cowboy duds?" "'Some kind of Bubba Ho-tep?" "'So what we did was... we lied.'" " Life sure is fleeting, you know?" " What?" "Life, I'm saying it's fleeting." "You know what I mean?" "One minute you're here and the next minute you're gone!" "Oh, shit!" "Come on." "Asshole!" "Come on, move it." "Get it." " Ow!" " Ah!" "Nonchalant." "Nonchalant." " Get it in there." "You are one fucking idiot." "Mr Haff?" "Mr Presley." "Mr Presley." "Now, now, Mr Presley." "You are looking much stronger, but you shouldn't be out here too long." "It's time for your nap and it's also time for us to do that little... you know." "You fuck off, you patronising bitch!" "I'm sick of your shit!" "I'll lube my own crankshaft!" "Treat me like a baby again, I'll wrap this goddamn walker round your head!" "How in the hell did that mummy do that?" "Well, what the hell?" "Where did old Bubba Ho-tep go?" "Where did he come from?" "How the hell did he get here?" "Wait a minute." "'I saw him under the bridge.'" "Come on, momma." "'It's a cancer." "'They're keeping it from me cos I'm old." "To them, it don't matter." "'They think age will kill me first and they're probably right." "Well, suck them." "'I know what it is and if it isn't, it might as well be.'" "Ugh." "'Station KROP is proud to present the Elvis Presley Movie Marathon." "'It's 24 hours of Elvis in the roles he made famous." "'Watch that hound dog outstrum, outrace, outfight 'and outwit the bad guys." "'And at the same time, watch the King slay the girls.'" "Shitty bitches, man." "Every single one." "'Here I was complaining about loss of pride and how life had treated me, 'and now I realise I never had any pride." "'Much of how life had treated me had been good 'and the bulk of the bad was my own damn fault." "'Should have fired Colonel Parker when I got into pictures." "'Old fart had been a shark and a fool and I was a bigger fool for following him." "'If only I had treated Priscilla right." "'If I could have told my daughter I loved her." "'Always the questions, never the answers." "'Always the hopes, never the fuIfilments.'" "I had the woman who calls herself my niece come get me." "She took me downtown to the newspaper morgue." "She's been helping me do some research." " Research on what, man?" " On our mummy." " You know something about it?" " I know plenty." "Now, one of the lesser mummies, on loan from the Egyptian government, was being circulated all over the United States - museums, stuff like that." " Like King Tut?" " No." "More like King Tut's brother." "His mummy was flown or carried by the train from state to state." " When it got to Texas, it was stolen." " Stolen?" "Evidence points to it being stolen by a couple of guys in a silver bus." "Bus?" "Hey, I've seen that." "The thieves broke into the museum, stole it in hopes of a ransom, when in comes the worst storm in east Texas history." "Let me guess." "The bus was washed away." "I think I saw it today." "It was back in the creek." "The mummy was imprisoned by the debris." "How did it come back to life, man?" "How did I end up inside its memories?" "Speculation broadens here, but some mummies get buried without their names, a curse on their sarcophagus." "Hey, now." "Maybe our boy's one of them." "When he's in the coffin, he's just a dried-up old corpse." "But when the bus got washed away, maybe it broke open or something and now he's free of coffin and curse, man." "He's free from imprisonment, but he still needs souls." "And now he's free to have them." "He can just keep on feeding unless he's finally destroyed." "So what do we do, Jack?" "Changing rest-homes might be a good idea." "I can't think of much else." "But I will say this." "Our mummy is a night-time kind of guy, so I'm gonna go and sleep now." "Set my alarm for just before dark, then get myself a few cups of coffee." "Damn straight!" "I don't want him slapping his lips on my asshole." "Yes." "Consider it." "He's got the proverbial birds' nest on the ground here." "'What do I really have left in life but this place?" "'It ain't much of a home, 'but it's all I got.'" "Well, goddamn it." "I'll be damned if I let some boring graffiti-writing, soul-sucking son of a bitch in an oversize cowboy hat and boots take my friends' souls and shit 'em down the visitors' toilet!" "'In the movies I always played heroic types, 'but when the stage lights went out, it was time for drugs and stupidity 'and the coveting of women." "'Now it's time." "Time to be a little of what I'd always fantasised being." "'A hero.'" "Hello." "Mr Kennedy?" "Ask not what your rest-home can do for you... ask what you can do for your rest-home." "Hey, you're copying my best lines." "And let me paraphrase one of my own." ""Let's take care of business."" "Just what are you getting at, Elvis?" "You know what I'm getting at, Mr President." "We're gonna kill us a mummy." "Two bottles of rubbing alcohol." "Check." "Don't even have to toss 'em." "Look here." "Found this in the storage room." " I thought they kept it locked." " They do." " I stole a hairpin and picked the lock, baby." " Great." "Matches." "Check." "I even scrounged up a cigarette lighter." "Good." "Uniform." "Big check on that, baby." "Well..." "I got a nice pair of shoes to go with this." "Check." " Scissors." " Check." "Right." "Now..." "I got my chair oiled and ready to roll." "That's good." "We could use some wheels." "And I picked some words of power from my book of magic." "I don't know if they'll stop a mummy, but they ward off evil." "I wrote 'em down." "One for each of us." "Well, we use what we got, baby." "All right, now." "At 2:45am we hook up back here." "At the rate we travel, maybe we ought to start at 2.30." "Mm." " Say, Jack?" " Mm." "Do we know what the hell we're doing, man?" "No." "But they say that fire cleanses evil." "Let's just hope that they, whoever they are, is right." "Check on that too." "All right, synchronise watches." "And..." "Mark." "The two key words for tonight are "caution" and "flammable"." "And also "Watch your ass"." "What's that around your neck?" "My medicine bag." "Indians used to wear them into battle." "It's got all kinds of lucky stuff." "See here?" "Mucho mojo." "That's my daughter." "I know." "We weren't there for our kids when they needed us, were we?" "Man, if I could just talk to her again, tell her I love her." "Try and make things right somehow." "No time for regrets, Elvis." "We were the best fathers we could be under the circumstances." "Yeah, I guess." "No time for regrets." "We got business to take care of." "Look here." "Top it up with this." "I stole it from the gardener when he wasn't looking." "It's gonna be one hell of a barbecue." "Let's do it, amigo." "Jack?" "I've just got one last question." "Marilyn." "Oh, come on, man." "Marilyn Monroe." "What's she like in the sack?" "That is classified information." "Top secret." "But, between you and me..." "Wow!" "You old dog." "Watch your back, Jack." "Oh." "Time to hop it." "'Shit." "'Bubba Ho-tep comes out that creek bed, he's gonna be hungry and pissed." "'When I try and stop him, he's gonna jam this paint can up my ass 'and jam me and that wheelchair up Jack's ass.'" "Oh, shit!" "Hey, Jack." "Don't make me fuss up on you, baby." "Aaah!" "Damn!" "Where did he go to?" "Hey!" "You stay put!" "I'll flush him out." "You be careful, man." "Oh!" "No, Jack!" "Oh!" "No!" "No!" "Come and get it, you undead sack of shit." "Sorry, man." "Mr Kennedy?" "The President is soon dead." "So now it's up to you, Elvis." "You got to get him." "You... gotta take care of business." "That's right, man." "TCB." "It's just you and me." "Mr President." ""You nasty thing from beyond the dead..." ""No matter what you think or do, good things will never come to you." ""And if evil is your black design," ""you can bet the goodness of the light ones" ""will kick your bad... behind?"" "Christ!" "That's it?" "That's the chant against evil from The Book Of Souls?" "And what kind of decoder ring comes with that, man?" "Shit!" "It don't even rhyme well." "This is dog shit." "It's time for A-C-T-I-O-N." "Here we go." "Whoo!" "Yee-ha!" "'I was going out." "'If I did, not only would I be one dead son of a bitch, but so would my soul." "'I'd just be so much crap." "'No afterlife, no reincarnation, no angels with harps." "'Whatever lay beyond would not be known to me." "'It would all end right here for Elvis Aaron Presley." "'Nothing left but a quick flush.'" "TCB, baby." "Your soul-sucking days are over, amigo." "'I felt something inside grating against something soft." "'I felt like a water balloon with a hole poked in it." "'I was going down for the last count and I knew it.'" "But I still have my soul." "It's still mine." "All mine." "The folks up there in Shady Rest... they have theirs too." "And they're gonna keep 'em." "Every single one." "Thank you." "Thank you very much."