Croak (16 page)

“Hey, I remember that,” Lex said. “It was on the news.”

“Right,” Ferbus said, “but no one could figure out why they were doing it. We thought that if we poked around their rooms a little, we could figure out what was going on. But someone ratted us out.” He shot a scornful glance at Zara.

“I’ve told you a hundred times, it was for our own protection,” she said, pursing her lips. “And if you want my opinion, I don’t think it’s right to keep quiet about this either. Mort would want to know.”

“I
don’t
want your opinion.” Ferbus made a face at her. “Quit being such a teacher’s pet, Bizarra.”

“Shut up, Fungus.”

“
You’re
a fungus!”

“Anyway,” Elysia said, “we got in a ton of trouble.”

“Why?” asked Lex. “You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Grims aren’t allowed to get personally involved, remember?” Zara gave her a pointed look. “Under any circumstances.”

Lex let her gaze drift out the window. “So I’ve heard,” she murmured.

“Turns out it was all a virginity pact gone wrong, or something lame like that,” said Elysia. “But Norwood got real mad at us for even investigating in the first place.”

“Hey!” a loud voice blared through the diner.

“Great,” Driggs groaned. “You’ve summoned the beasts.”

Norwood and Heloise marched toward the Junior table, their thin nostrils flaring. “You. Mongrel.” Heloise pointed at Lex. “I just completed the first-week review of your logs. Why did you leave in the middle of your shift the other day?”

Lex inhaled sharply. The girl in the woods—now everyone would know what Lex had almost done.

She ventured a glance at Zara, who was staring straight back. Not with a look of contempt, but rather one of mild interest, as if Lex had something large and possibly hilarious stuck in her teeth.

“Calm down, Hellspawn,” Driggs said to Heloise. “It was no big deal. Why don’t you go back to the hub? I’m sure there are other, more important people who need to be yelled at.”

Norwood put his hands on the table and loomed over Driggs. “Listen, you little pissant,” he said icily. “One day—and I pray that it’s not far off—this deluded arrogance of yours is gonna get you into a lot more trouble than your ignorant excuse for a brain could ever imagine. All of you.” He motioned to the table. “Nothing but goddamned punks. Mort sees potential in you? All I see is a swarm of reckless imbeciles who shouldn’t be trusted with a toothbrush, let alone the responsibility of harvesting the dead. If it were up to me—”

“But it’s not up to you,” Driggs pointed out.

Heloise briskly grabbed her husband before anyone could throw a punch, which is undoubtedly what would have happened next if she hadn’t intervened. Norwood straightened up, his lip still curled in a malevolent sneer. “Degenerates,” he muttered.

Driggs eyed them as they left. “
That’s
why we’re doing this,” he told everyone. “To prove to those asshats that we’re not as useless as they think we are. So keep your mouths shut.”

The rest of the Juniors nodded, even Zara. Seemingly uninterested in the source of Norwood’s accusations, they soon finished lunch without another word about it. Lex exhaled, relieved.

“So I’ll see you . . .” Driggs said, giving a queer, suggestive nod to the crowd as they walked out of the diner, “tonight?”

Ayjay grinned, forming his hand into the shape of a gun. “Definitely.”

As Driggs and Elysia headed up to the counter to buy some milkshakes to go, Lex hurried out the door. Unfortunately, Zara was outside waiting for her.

“You did something stupid again, didn’t you?” she said in a quiet voice. “Nice job, rookie.”

Lex simmered irritably, but said nothing. Zara’s attempt to mark her territory was so obvious, Lex wouldn’t be surprised if she had peed all over the Ghost Gum tree.

“Onion ring?” Zara said, handing her a leftover carton.

As everyone knows, the offer of an onion ring is not to be taken lightly. Onion rings are far more valuable than their throwaway side dish counterparts—french fries and potato chips —and, as such, have brought about numerous reconciliations throughout history.

So Lex was torn. Zara wasn’t exactly a friend, as evidenced by her snooty attitude and incessant dirty looks. But neither was she an enemy, really, and this certain brand of gray area was foreign to Lex, who had previously categorized people into two groups: those to be pummeled, and those to be pummeled harder.

Cautiously, Lex took a greasy ring from the carton and placed it in her mouth. “What’s your problem, Zara?”

“Oh, come on. You’re the new kid. I’m allowed to have a little fun with you.”

“Yeah, except no one else seems to have gotten the hazing memo, so you’re the only one coming off as a major bitch.”

“Hey,” Zara said with a sudden ferocity. “Golden child. Let’s get one thing straight. You can swoop in here on your uncle’s coattails, and you can win the hearts and minds of all these hopeless ignoramuses, but the one thing you are
not
allowed to do is talk back to me.”

Lex felt her knuckles instinctively tighten. “I can talk back to anyone I want.”

“Wrong,” Zara said, her eyes flashing. “And here’s why. You know that feeling you get when you Kill people? That lightning-grade shock?”

Lex’s mouth fell open. She thought back to her first day of training, to that look on Zara’s face after her first Kill. So much for keeping the shocks a secret.

Zara held up her hand to reveal a matching red finger. “Well, I get it too, when I Cull,” she said, softening. “So we need to stick together, because the thing is . . .” Her voice dropped even lower. “We’re the only ones.”

Lex was stunned. She’d been so wrapped up in her own shocks that day that she hadn’t even noticed Zara’s. She opened her mouth, but Elysia and Driggs were now exiting the Morgue, milkshakes in hand. Zara shot one last glance at Lex. “We’ll talk later,” she mouthed, taking off down the street.

Lex became lost in her thoughts as she and Driggs walked back to the Bank with Elysia, who talked the whole way. “This week is destroying me,” she said, taking a sip of her milkshake. “Ford won’t shut up about his stupid assembly line, Emily’s weeping all over the place, Grant and Lee are at it again—oh, and Dewey will
not
stop poking Truman in the eye. He keeps saying it’s an accident, but I know better.” She sighed. “I wish for once they’d act as dead as they are.”

They parted ways once they arrived at the Bank. “Bye, Lex!” Elysia said, heading up the stairs to the Afterlife. “See you tonight!”

“What? Why?” Lex turned to Driggs. “Huh?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

She crossed her arms. “You do realize that stringing me along across all these little mysteries is one day going to come back to bite you in the ass, right?”

“I fail to see how that could possibly stop me from continuing.”

***

In the hub, Lex grumpily found herself sitting in front of a desk adorned with several pictures of dolphins, a collection of Hello Kitty toys, and a pink iPod. Sofi sat in the middle of it all, beaming at Driggs.

“Now that you’ve been here for a week,” Driggs told Lex, “we don’t have to check in with Norwood or Heloise anymore.” He plugged his scythe into the Smack and sat on the desk. “We can pick whoever we want.”

“And I’m your favorite, right, Driggs?” Sofi said.

“That’s right.”

Lex watched this little exchange with something resembling unbridled vexation. Sofi’s relentless reapplying of her lip gloss and fluffing of her hair and smoothing of her skirt (which Lex estimated to be about two sizes too tight) were just too much. She plugged in her own scythe, then looked over at the jellyfish to distract herself. One of them had its tentacles raised in a friendly wave.

“Lex?” Driggs said moments later, in a way that suggested he had already repeated himself several times. “Care to join us?”

“Hmm?” she said. “Oh, sorry. Did I miss your fascinating conversation?”

Driggs and Sofi exchanged mystified glances. “Sofi’s looking up the toilet woman from this morning.”

Sofi pounded at the Smack’s incomprehensible keys. “Susan Karliak,” she read off the screen. “Ten twenty-seven a.m., Richmond, Virginia.” She let out an alarmed squeal. “Cause of death: unknown.”

Driggs went pale. “What?”

Their faces were so flabbergasted, Lex almost burst out laughing. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve never seen an unknown before,” Sofi said in awe.

“Me neither. I didn’t think they existed,” said Driggs. “Look up the baseball guy from the other day.”

“What’s the big deal?” Lex said as Sofi typed. “People die of unknown causes all the time.”

“Unknown to medical examiners,” Driggs said. “Not to the Smacks.”

“Arnold Scadden,” Sofi read off the screen. “Eleven fifty-four a.m., Boston, Massachusetts. Cause of death: unknown.”

Driggs looked across the hub. “I wonder if Norwood and Heloise know about this.”

“Doubtful,” said Sofi. “Causes of death are just listed as a formality, Etceteras never look at them. Up until now, there hasn’t been a reason to.”

Driggs thought for a moment. “Is there any way to route these kinds of targets out to just us Juniors?”

Sofi twisted her mouth. “I’m not supposed to do special requests, but—” Driggs gave her a pleading look. “Fine. You’re lucky I like you.” Her fingers danced around the keyboard. “Okay, I created a filter,” she said proudly.

“Genius,” Lex said in a flat voice. She stood up, yanked their scythes out of the Smack, and looked at Driggs. “Let’s go.”

Sofi pouted her watermelon-flavored lips in a hurt expression. But her smile reappeared when Driggs jumped off the desk, whispered, “See you tonight!” and patted her on the head. Giggling, she tried to swipe back but missed by inches.

Lex, suppressing the urge to throw up, turned wordlessly and headed for the door.

Driggs followed her, stopping only to dump a salt packet into Norwood’s unattended cup of coffee. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked once they were in the hall.

“Nothing,” she said. “I guess I just don’t like that . . . place,” she finished unsurely. But the truth was, Lex was just as bewildered. Sofi had been nothing but nice since they met, yet Lex couldn’t stop picturing her head mounted on some sort of trophy wall.

As they walked out onto Dead End, they spotted Uncle Mort, who stood lecturing a trio of behatted women clutching matching binoculars. “Yeah, fifty-dollar bird-watching tax,” he said. The ladies exchanged puzzled glances as they handed over the money. “Hands tied, it’s the damned government. What can you do?” He shrugged innocently, sneaking a wink at Lex.

After a chorus of thanks, the women hurried to their car. Uncle Mort waved them off, then counted the money. “With a little left over for inebriation.” He grinned, stuffing it into his pocket. “Hey, one week, huh, Lex?” he said, tossing her a Cuff. “Here’s your graduation gift.”

“Sweet.” She slid it onto her wrist. It felt cool, with a slight vibration to it. “Thanks.”

“So, you feel all trained up? Driggs teach you everything he knows?”

“Yes. I’m now fully qualified to operate a can opener.”

Driggs let out a sigh. “What a lovable scamp you’ve bestowed upon our fair town, Mort.”

“My pleasure,” he said to Driggs. “You make the stuff yet?”

“After work,” Driggs said out of the corner of his mouth.

“Great.” He hopped onto his motorcycle. “Come straight home after your shift, okay? Especially you, Lex,” he said, rubbing his hands together in a diabolical manner.

She watched him leave. “That doesn’t bode well.”

***

It didn’t bode well at all. As soon as she and Driggs set foot in the driveway later that afternoon, Uncle Mort bounded out the front door. “Into the house, Lex.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. And because Driggs is wildly gesturing for me to get rid of you.”

Lex whipped around. Driggs stopped whatever form of exaggerated sign language he had been attempting and gave her an innocent wave as he headed for the backyard.

“Come on, kiddo,” Uncle Mort said, holding the door open.

Lex reluctantly allowed herself to be dragged into the kitchen and seated at the table. “What’s going on?”

“You’ve got a date with the telephone.”

He slammed an avocado-colored chunk of plastic down in front of her. She eyed him, apprehension slowly icing through her body. “Excuse me?”

“Call your parents.”

Lex froze. The inevitable had arrived. All her plans of isolation—which had been working so nicely up until now—were about to come crashing down into a giant pile of remorse and useless apologies.

It wasn’t that she didn’t miss her parents. She really did. She’d never gone so long without speaking to them, and the guilt was eating her alive. She knew how much they missed her and loved her—and how hard it had been for them to let her go. But now that she’d gotten a taste of where she truly belonged, her old life might as well have been situated on another planet. She couldn’t bear to hear the hurt in their voices when it became obvious that she was so much happier here than she’d ever been at home.

“I . . . can’t,” she sputtered.

“Malarkey,” Uncle Mort said. “Don’t go into detail, just let them know you’re okay.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Too bad.”

“But I don’t even know how to work this thing. Where are the buttons?”

“It’s a rotary phone, Lex.”

“A what?”

“LEX! Call your damn family!” He dialed the number and shoved the receiver into her hand. “And don’t forget to lie your ass off.”

Lex covered the mouthpiece. “What am I supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t know. The weather?”

She was about to shoot him a vulgar gesture when a voice trilled on the other end of the line. “Hello?
Hello?
”

Lex sighed. “Hi, Mom.”

“Sweetheart! Are you okay? How was the trip? Did you get there safe?”

Another click announced her father’s arrival. “Lexy, how’s it going? How’s Mort?”

“Are you eating well? Why haven’t you called?”

“What have you been up to?”

“Did you pack enough underwear?”

“Mom!” Lex shrieked in embarrassment.