Call Me Grim (21 page)

“Everybody makes mistakes.” His voice echoes around us. “Nobody’s perfect. You can’t blame me for that. You can’t. You can’t blame me.”

“It’s time.” Aaron grasps Jon’s upper arm.

Jon snaps his eyes open and gawps at Aaron, his lower lip quivering. Then his eyes narrow and he rips his arm out of Aaron’s hand and stumbles back. His head ticks back and forth a few times between Aaron and me before he spins on his heel and sprints for the open doorway back to Carroll Falls.

Aaron reacts instantly. He transforms into Grim-Reaper-Aaron before Jon has a chance to take two steps toward the door. One moment my Aaron stands next to me, and the next he’s the tall, faceless figure in the black hood.

He darts after Jon. His tattered robe swells and flaps behind him like black fire. Jon glances back and whimpers, but he doesn’t stop. He runs faster. As his silhouette darkens the doorway, Aaron lunges. A swooshing sound slices the air and the business end of the Scythe pierces Jon’s back.

Jon’s eyes bulge and he cries out in pain as his chest tents forward and his head and feet collapse back. His body bends backward, covering Aaron’s blade as if he were made of a thin sheet of silk. The Scythe finishes its long swipe and Aaron swings it up to rest on his bony shoulder. Jon’s glowing, sheet-like soul dangles from the tip of the blade like a coat on a particularly lethal coat rack.

“D-did you kill him?” I whisper.

“He’s already dead,” Grim-Reaper-Aaron growls from the black hole where his face belongs. “I just stopped him from running.”

He plucks Jon’s soul from the end of the Scythe and holds it at arm’s length like it’s a dirty rag. Aaron’s legs shorten and his body shrinks as he returns to normal. The Scythe folds in on itself, smaller and smaller, and wraps Aaron’s thumb with a soft metal-on-metal clang.

Free from the blade, Jon’s sheet-like soul ripples and then plumps out. His arms and legs and body reform, and his face becomes recognizable. Aaron holds Jon’s arm in a tight grip.

“I guess you ran because you think you won’t get to that light in the distance,” Aaron says as he spins Jon around and marches him away from the doorway back to Carroll Falls and toward the pinpoint of light. “Well, I can’t tell you where you’re going, my friend. But I will tell you this: You can’t outrun me. I’m not your uncle. I’m Death. And I’m inescapable.” Aaron steps in front of him and grips his shoulders. His fingers dig into Jon’s ghostly flesh. “Are we clear on that?”

Jon nods.

“Now, you have to do the rest on your own. I can’t go with you, and neither can she.” Aaron tilts his head in my direction and Jon glances my way, but quickly looks back at Aaron. “But if you decide to run again, I will catch you. And believe me, I won’t be nearly as nice the second time. Do you understand?”

Jon nods again and Aaron steps aside. He nudges Jon in the middle of his back and the guy lurches a step or two toward the white light. The blackness stretches out in front of him like a spiraling funhouse tunnel. A very long funhouse tunnel.

“Now walk. Your life choices will be measured as you go. If you can make it to that light”—Aaron points to the distant star—“your life has been mostly good. But…well, I think you can guess what happens if you don’t make it to the light.”

Jon stares over his shoulder at Aaron with innocent saucer-eyes, as if Aaron has any say in the matter. After a few seconds, Aaron nudges him again.

“Go,” he says.

Jon takes one step and then looks back at me.

I don’t know Jon. For all I know, he could be a sex-crazed Nazi who enjoys kicking babies and tripping old ladies in his spare time, but when he looks back at me with that petrified-out-of-his-mind look on his face, I feel sorry for him.

“You were awfully rough on him,” I say when Aaron rejoins me and I can touch him, ensuring our conversation is private.

“I had to be rough or he would’ve run again. Or worse, he would’ve tried to fight.”

We watch Jon take a step toward the light and then another. After a few dozen steps without him looking back at us, Aaron’s warm hand curls around mine and he gently tugs me away.

“Let’s go, Libbi.”

“Don’t we need to wait until…?” Until what? I have no idea how to finish that sentence.

“We could, but I wouldn’t.” Aaron’s thumb makes small, warm circles over the back of my hand. “There’s probably a good reason Jon ran away, and I don’t like sticking around for that.” He shivers. “It gives me nightmares.”

Aaron lets go of my hand and steps through the doorway, out of the darkness and into the clearing on the outskirts of town. Before I follow, I sneak one more peek over my shoulder at Jon. He seems so small, so alone back there. His glowing soul is the only source of light, other than the star in the distance, but that could be hundreds of miles away.

Something huge and black shifts in the darkness between us.

I snap my head forward and leap though the doorway. Before the Gateway slams closed and my feet hit the grass of the clearing, something behind me growls. I hear a nauseating crunch and a squish.

And Jon screams.

My legs buckle on impact and I crumple to the ground in the middle of the clearing. Aaron walks over to me as I push myself up off the dirt and scramble backward on all fours. Away from the Gateway. Away from the monster hidden inside. When I’m as far from the center of the clearing as I can get without sitting in the underbrush, I draw my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my legs, hugging myself.

“I’m so sorry, Libbi.” Aaron offers his hand, but I look away from him. “I was hoping your first would be one of the nice ones. Most of them aren’t like Jon.”

“What the hell was that?” I glare up at him. “I thought you said only marked people get ‘the works.’ Jon wasn’t marked, Aaron. He wasn’t marked.”

“No, you’re right. He wasn’t marked,” he says with a shake of the head. “But I think you misunderstood me. When I said marked people get ‘the works,’ I only meant I have to show up as the traditional Grim Reaper for marked people. I don’t know why. But I can’t predict what the Blackness will do with any of them.”

Aaron settles in the grass next to me, pulls his own legs up to his chest, and rests his chin on his knees.

“The Blackness? Is that what you call that…that thing?” I restrain the intense desire to look over my shoulder. It’s not behind me. I know it’s not. “What did Jon do that was so bad he deserved that?”

Aaron runs a hand over his face and then looks at me with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t know. And I don’t think I want to know.”

I lean my forehead against my knees and watch the patterns of light on my legs change as the trees behind me sway in the breeze.

“I lied to him, you know,” I say.

“I know.”

“I told him he’d be able to spend time with his mother and uncle now.”

“You didn’t know it was a lie when you said it. I should have warned you not to say stuff like that.”

“And I thought you were being a jerk to him.” A humorless laugh escapes me. “Shows how much I know.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Libbi.” Aaron’s warm hand rests on my shoulder. “So you made a mistake. It’s no big deal. You’re still learning. You’re bound to make more.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I hug my legs closer. “It just sucks. I wish all of this was different.”

“Me too.” Aaron’s voice is sad and small. “I can’t tell you how much I wish things were different.”

I meet his eyes, blue jewels above sleepy, dark smudges. Forty years. He’s been doing this crappy job for forty years. And it is crappy, no matter what Aaron said. As I sit at the edge of this clearing with the Gateway and the thing Aaron calls the Blackness twenty feet in front of me, I can’t imagine doing this job for forty seconds, much less forty years. I don’t blame him for wanting out of it.

“Why have you done it for so long?” I say. “I’m sure there have been plenty of teen deaths over the years. I’m not the first.”

Aaron sighs and picks at the grass between us. “Part of it has to do with my commitment and the rules of being a Reaper. Once I committed, I really didn’t have a choice anymore. Same as you.” Aaron glances up at me. “And I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready.”

“But you’re ready now?”

“I have to be.” He stares straight ahead into the heart of the clearing. I cover Aaron’s busy hand and curl my fingers around his. He turns his over so we are palm to palm, weaving our fingers together.

“You shouldn’t have to die,” I say. “There has to be a way out of this.”

“There isn’t.” His thumb traces a soft line over my skin. “I’ve spent most of my free time researching every Grim Reaper story and myth I could find. It’s mostly useless garbage. But I know that everything Charlotte said during my training has been true, and she said when I choose a replacement I have to die. It’s one of Abaddon’s rules.”

“Did you ever think of running?” I whisper to the dandelion between my feet. “Just crossing the border of your territory and never looking back?”

“Yeah. Once.” Aaron shakes his head. “Right after my mother and stepfather died, Sara went to live with our aunt in Harrisburg. I had to see her, you know? To make sure she was okay. To make sure all that had happened wasn’t too much for her.” The breeze lifts his hair out of his eyes and one tear sneaks down his cheek. Aaron quickly wipes it away.

“Charlotte told me about the invisible force field holding us in town. She said it’s impossible to get through and when you get too close it throws you back and stings like hell. But I had to see for myself. For Sara. She needed me. Even if she couldn’t see or hear me, I knew if I could get to her I’d be able to help her, somehow.” His voice quivers and he clears his throat.

“On a day I knew I didn’t have any scheduled deaths, I tried to go see her. But Charlotte never told me Abaddon monitors the force field. And she didn’t tell me how furious he’d be if I tried to cross it.”

“Who is this Abaddon guy? He sounds like a jerk.”

Aaron laughs humorlessly. “Basically, he’s my—our—boss. If everything runs smoothly and goes as planned, he doesn’t come around. And that’s a good thing.” Aaron shivers, and his hand slides to his abdomen. “Because, when things don’t go as planned…well, he makes the Blackness look like a puppy rolling over for a treat.”

I shiver along with Aaron. Anything that makes that monster seem like a huggable pet is something I want to avoid.

“Did Abaddon do that to you, Aaron?” I touch the hand he holds over his middle. “Did he attack you the day you tried to see your sister?”

Aaron grimaces and glances up at the Gateway. Then he turns to me with clenched jaw and hard eyes and nods.

For once, I don’t know what to say. Aaron sits with his knees drawn up to his chest and one arm curled around his scarred belly, and I have no words for him. None at all. So I go to him.

I move close to him and wrap my arms around him and hold him as tight as I can, pressing my cheek against his firm shoulder.

“You didn’t deserve that,” I finally say, but the words seem cheap.

“What I don’t understand,” Aaron says, “is why. Why did he do it? He kept saying I broke the rules just by
trying
to leave. He said the border’s off limits.” He meets my eyes and frustration and confusion dances across his face. “But I couldn’t get through. No matter how hard I tried, I was stuck in Carroll Falls. Why would he take the time to come here and do that to me if I couldn’t even get through? It doesn’t make sense.”

We sit hand in hand for a while. Neither of us speaks as the sun dips below the canopy of trees. The shadows get darker and longer and creep toward us as the sun sets. A car takes the hairpin curve on Hell’s Highway and the headlights skim over the trees above us. I think I hear a hiss and I’m sure something big and black moves in the shadows to my right, but when I look, there’s nothing there.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron whispers so quietly I would think it was the wind if I didn’t know better.

“For what?” I match his hushed tone.

“For tricking you into this.”

“It’s okay, Aaron.” I squeeze his hand. “I would have taken the job anyway.”

And that’s true. I didn’t take the job because of the lies Aaron told to make it sound appealing. I took it to help Kyle.

Aaron in his Grim Reaper get-up is nothing compared to those screaming faces and that growling, hulking monster in the dark. That’s what could be awaiting Kyle. And soon. For what? Suicide? Murder? I don’t know, not for sure, but neither of those choices makes any sense to me.

It shouldn’t be that way. Kyle shouldn’t have to meet Grim-Reaper-Libbi or the creatures in the Gateway. Not Kyle. It’s not right. I have to stop it.

“Aaron?” I say, and he startles. He blinks his puffy eyes a few times before focusing on me. “Were you asleep?”

“Um…sorry.” He gives me a sheepish grin. “I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

“I have to go.” I stand and brush the dirt from the seat of my pants. My legs feel numb and tingly so I shake them out.

“I can take you home.” Aaron jumps up faster than I do, though he looks exhausted.

“I’d like that.” I smile up at him. “But I’m not going home. I’m going to Kyle’s.”

***

The wind whips through my hair and plasters my clothes against my body. My legs pump and pump, but my feet hit nothing but air. The scenery is too blurry to tell, but I’m sure we’re flying again. Aaron has got to teach me that.

The world comes back into focus a block from my house. Aaron slows our pace to a sprint and my feet smack the earth. A moment later, we stop on the sidewalk in front of Haley and Kyle’s tiny, white house.

I take a step toward the front door and Aaron grabs me by the arm. He leads me to the far corner of the property and squeezes into a tight space between a tall bush and the neighbor’s picket fence, pulling me in behind him.

“What are you doing?” I say. A branch digs into my spine and I wince.

“Hiding you,” he says. “If you hadn’t noticed, you’ve been invisible all day. I don’t want you to just appear out of thin air in the middle of the street.”

“Oh, right.”

The crackling sound that accompanies a change in visibility surrounds me, filling my head with thoughts of fire. Of scorched flesh and screaming faces. Of rotting meat and hungry monsters. Of teeth. Of claws. Of the Blackness.