Croak (17 page)

“I have to ask. I’m your mother.”

“Yes,” she said, getting flustered. “Yes to all of your questions. Everything’s fine.”

Her uncle leaned in with a devilish look. “Tell them how many people you Killed today.”

“Uncle Mort says hi.” She shoved him away. “Look, I can’t talk long. I’ve got lots of, uh . . . hay to pitchfork.”

“He’s not making you shovel cow poop, is he?” her mother screeched.

“Sure he is,” her father said. “It’s part of the job.”

“But that’s disgusting!”

“How’s she ever gonna learn to behave unless she gets knee-deep in manure?”

“Hey, guys?” Lex interrupted desperately. “I gotta go. The goats are getting restless. And the cock is crowing—or something. I’ll call again soon, okay?”

A lengthy goodbye ensued, ending with a fervent promise to never get within ten yards of a functioning wheat thresher, as Mom had seen a special on
Dateline
and had grown Concerned.

“Okay, bye!” As her parents clicked off, Lex exhaled for the first time in minutes. She had been evasive, she had been robotic, and she had somehow managed not to spout out a full-blown profession of her love for Croak. “
That
was—”

“Painful,” a voice sounded through the phone.

Lex nearly dropped the receiver. “Cordy! What are you doing?”

“Eavesdropping. And having quite the chuckle at your attempts at lying.”

“I’m—” Lex snuck a glimpse at her uncle. “Doing no such thing.”

“Yeah, right. Why aren’t you answering your phone? I’ve called like a hundred times.”

“There’s no reception here. But—”

“What’s Uncle Mort got you doing up there? Forced labor? Drugs?”

“Yes, Cordy. Plus a lobotomy just for fun.”

“What else would explain your sudden enthusiasm for agriculture?”

Lex glanced out the window at the yard, where Driggs was aiming a hose at something on the ground. “Cordy, listen. Just—trust me, okay? I’m fine. Everyone here is nice and not on drugs and extremely normal.” The hose had gotten away from Driggs and was now prancing around the yard, soaking him. Uncle Mort, meanwhile, was rooting around in the toaster with a fork. “Or close enough.”

“Oh please, Lex. How dumb do you think I am?”

Lex hesitated. For a moment she thought about telling her everything, spilling each and every forbidden bean right there in front of Uncle Mort. She couldn’t keep lying to her sister, especially since Cordy was the one person it never, ever worked on.

But Cordy would easily detect the excitement in her voice. She’d realize that Lex liked it there, even preferred it to being stuck at home all summer. Cordy already felt miserable for getting ditched; how would she take the news that Lex was having the time of her life?

She wouldn’t take it well, that was for sure. “I really can’t talk,” Lex said, deciding to postpone the confessions for another day. “I’ll call soon, okay? Eat gobs of ice cream for me.”

“But—”

“Bye,” Lex said, slamming the phone into the receiver.

From the counter, her uncle let out a snort. “So how’s the fam?”

She glared at him. “You truly suck.”

***

That night, after a paltry supper of Chef Boyardee’s finest, Lex tore herself away from the online news about the airplane explosion (apparently caused by faulty wiring) and banged on Driggs’s bedroom door. He didn’t answer.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Wake up!”

Nothing.

She knocked again, glancing down the basement stairs to Uncle Mort’s lab. Through the smoke she could just make out a series of marked-up maps tacked on the walls. “If you’ve lapsed into an Oreo-induced coma, I’m not reviving you.”

Still nothing.

She walked into the kitchen and noticed that the front door was slightly open. Furtively, she pushed it open to find Driggs sitting on the front steps of the porch between two covered buckets, his head bowed.

She snuck up behind him and noticed that he was smiling down at something. The closer she got, the more distinctly she could make out an item in his hands: a photo of someone . . . a girl . . .

“Who’s that?”

Driggs practically jumped into another time zone. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelped, crumpling the picture in his hand.

“Who is it?” she repeated, her voice rising. “Your girlfriend?”

His cheeks turned a lovely shade of crimson. “No,” he said, scowling. “It’s no one. Forget it. Shut up.”

He shoved the photo into his pocket. Lex frowned. She’d never get to it now. Then again, why did she even care? “Isn’t it time for us to go to this mystery thing?” she said testily.

“Yes, it is,” he said, picking up the buckets.

“If you can tear yourself away from your betrothed, that is.”

Driggs gritted his teeth. “What are the odds of you dropping this completely?”

“Slim to none.”

“Great.” He glowered for a moment. “Unless . . .”

“Yes?”

“Can you be bribed?”

Lex raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“Are you a fan of intoxication?”

“What self-respecting sixteen-year-old isn’t?”

He took out a wad of dollar bills and fanned them in front of her face. “Then how about I just buy you some drinks and we forget this whole thing ever happened?”

Lex stifled a laugh. “Don’t you mean
steal
some drinks and chug them behind a Seven-Eleven? Last time I checked, we’re still underage.”

Driggs threw an arm around her shoulder. “Not in Croak.”

As Driggs led her into town, Lex became convinced that all his claims of bars and drinking were complete fabrications. Lying, after all, is what eighteen-year-old boys do best.

“You’re gonna love this place,” Driggs told her, stopping just past the Morgue at an unmarked wooden door and turning its knob. “Corpp’s is the best pub in the Grimsphere. It won an award.”

“For what? Invisibility?”

Her skepticism turned to confusion as they stepped into what appeared to be the unholy union of an old-fashioned Irish pub and a schizophrenic art gallery. Every single surface was coated in varying shades of thick, goopy paint. A gigantic mural—depicting what Lex could only guess was the ether, as it featured a whirlpool of colors, shapes, people, and hundreds of other abstract designs—stretched across the canopy of the vaulted ceiling. The walls ranged in design from vast patches of color to long, winding stripes, from speckled flecks to swirling spirals. A
Starry Night
motif seemed to be forming in one corner, whereas the scribbled beginnings of a novel sprawled across the floor of another. A warm, sweet smell pervaded the tavern, which just so happened to be incredibly welcoming and packed with laughing patrons.

Lex stood gawking in awe. This was not at all how she had imagined the only bar in a town full of executioners.

“Evenin’, Driggs,” said the dark-skinned elderly man behind the bar as they approached. “Evenin’, Lex.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

“Pandora’s my wife. I get all the gossip, whether I want it or not,” he said, his freckles dancing. He pushed a bowl of peanuts toward them. “Plus, your uncle never stops jabbering about you.”

“This is Corpp,” Driggs told Lex. “Bartender extraordinaire for fifty years and counting.”

“Hi,” Lex said shyly. Something about the man’s face was very kind. She liked him immediately.

Driggs heaved one of the buckets onto the counter. “For safekeeping.”

Corpp grabbed it with a knowing smile and stored it behind the bar. “Ah, yes. Been here a week already?” he said to Lex.

She raised an eyebrow as Driggs lifted the second bucket. “What’s in there?” she asked him.

“A human head.”

“You’re delightful, you know that?”

“What can I get for you kids?” Corpp asked after putting away the buckets, wiping his gnarled hands on a dishrag.

“Two Yoricks.” Driggs pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket and began to thumb through it. “Here’s your paycheck,” he said, handing Lex a few twenties. “One hundred dollars for Juniors, three hundred dollars for Seniors.”

“One hundred dollars for a billion-hour workweek? What are we, slave labor?”

“Pretty much. But Grims aren’t really in it for the money. Plus, libations are cheap.”

“Here we go.” Corpp set down two enormous mugs that looked like hollowed-out skulls.

Lex recoiled from the thick brown swill within. “Uh, I’m more of a beer fan.”

Driggs made a loud gagging noise. “Beer is disgusting. Trust me, once you’ve had a Yorick, you’ll never touch any of that piss again.” He handed her one of the bulbous skulls and then grabbed his own. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his mug with hers and downing a gigantic gulp.

Lex did not follow. She gazed into the muddy goop, wishing that she had not prefaced this evening with the ever-perilous combination of milk and SpaghettiOs.

“It’s not a real skull,” Driggs reassured her, a frothy mustache now on his upper lip. “And even if it is, I’m sure Corpp gave it a thorough cleaning.”

They glanced at the venerable bartender. He waved, a peanut shell ensconced within his bushy eyebrow.

Lex eyed her mug. “This is weird and gross.”

“As are you. A winning combination.”

“Lex, Driggs!” A chipper voice rang out from across the room. “Over here!”

Lex made her way through the crowd to find a smiling Elysia and an unsurprisingly dour Ferbus nursing their own Yoricks. Kloo and Ayjay were making out behind them, while Zara and Sofi played a drinking game called Skulls, Driggs informed her.

Lex stared quizzically at Zara, yet said nothing. She was dying to know more about what Zara had said earlier, about the shocks, but bringing it up in the middle of a crowded pub probably wasn’t the best way to keep her dirty little secret under wraps.

“Congratulations on your first week!” Elysia said with spirited jazz hands, her fingernails painted a festive purple. “And welcome to Corpp’s!”

“Thanks,” said Lex. “Is this what you guys were whispering about all day?”

“Uh . . . sure. Hey, guess what?” She whacked Ayjay on the elbow, despite his obvious focus on other things. “Ayjay, tell them!”

Ayjay wiped a fleck of spittle from his lips. “We saw one of those white-eye death things.”

“I did too, actually,” said Zara, looking up from her game with Sofi. “I subbed in for a shift this morning.”

“My filter worked!” Sofi said, nudging Driggs.

“So this is officially a thing,” Driggs said. “Which
means—
” He gestured for them to come in closer. “Which means that whoever’s murdering these people
is
a Grim,” he finished, his face serious. “I told you!”

“Hang on a sec,” said Ferbus, still skeptical. “What filter, Sofi?”

Sofi told them how she had rerouted the white-eye deaths to Juniors only. “But you know what’s
really
wackadoodle?” she said in a scandalized voice. “The causes of death for all of them have been listed as unknown.”

A buzz of confusion arose from the group. “That’s impossible,” said Elysia.

“Sure as hell looked unknown to me,” said Ayjay. “Driggs was right—no sign of injury, disease, foul play.”

“It’s like they just stop living,” said Kloo. “Whatever’s killing these people is doing it instantly—even though that’s medically impossible.”

“Not to mention incredibly disturbing,” said Zara.

Elysia shivered. “Yeah.”

“Now do you believe me?” Driggs asked the group. “It’s
gotta
be an inside job. Who other than Grims could sneak in and out in the space of a yoctosecond?”

“Shit. I think he’s right,” said Ferbus, looking disappointed. And worried. “But come on, Driggs, you really think we’re dealing with an honest-to-God
Crasher?
”

Lex put her hand up. “Again I ask, what is a Crasher?”

Ferbus looked around, then lowered his voice. “A Grim who’s found one of the Loopholes.”

“A Loophole is an ancient, obscure document,” Elysia told Lex. “Only a few were made, and they were scattered all over the world, so they’re really hard to find, only popping up about once a century. Probably because no one is sure what they look like—could be books or charts, or who knows what.”

“Whatever they are,” Driggs said, “each Loophole is an identical set of instructions for a secret procedure that, when followed exactly, will give a Grim the ability to Crash the system, to scythe outside of the Etceteras’ jurisdiction and off the radar, not just to programmed targets.”

Lex looked around the circle. “Why is that a big deal?”

“Why?”
Ferbus looked scandalized. “That’s like—like—”

“Think of it this way,” Kloo said. “When we’re working a shift, it’s like we’re riding a one-way train. And the targets that the Etceteras assign us to are the different stations we stop at. But Crashers are able to jump around to other stations, onto other tracks, even to places where there are no tracks.”

“The thing is,” said Elysia, “Crashers aren’t able to control where they scythe to. So a Grim can search his entire life for the Loophole, find it, and become a Crasher, only to end up scything randomly and wildly and getting himself killed by Crashing into the middle of a pack of hungry wolves or something.”

“Which is what makes this case so special,” Driggs said. “This is
directed
Crashing.”

“Sounds a lot like—” Ferbus broke off as he gave the others a meaningful look. Apparently he wasn’t alone in his thinking; soon everyone was looking at one another with such terrified expressions that a wave of goose bumps rushed over Lex’s skin.

“What?” Lex asked. “What am I missing?”

“It’s nothing.” Driggs looked a bit embarrassed. “Just an old legend, really. Supposedly in the fourteenth century there was this psychopath named Grotton who went down in history as the only Grim ever to figure out how to Crash to specific places—and specific people.”

“Interesting. What did he do once he got there?”

“Killed them,” said Ayjay. “Snuck them some poison, stabbed them with his scythe, blew their heads off with a crossbow—”

“We get it, hon,” said Kloo.

“Why didn’t he just touch them?” Lex asked, a nameless craving stirring inside of her.