Croak (7 page)

“Lex, this is Zara,” Uncle Mort said, pronouncing both syllables in her name with an
ah
sound, which Lex thought was an unnecessarily fancy way to say it. “She’s here to help with training.”

The girl smiled and extended her hand, all while gazing deep into Lex’s eyes, as if attempting to decipher some secret hidden within them. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said in a strong voice.

“Really?” Lex numbly shook her hand, then willed herself to stop staring at the girl as if she were a freak. Which she definitely was.

“Okay, Lex,” said Uncle Mort. “For your first time, all you have to do is watch. But pay close attention, because it’s the only observation run you’re gonna get.”

“Um—huh?”

Zara laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said, the intensity fading from her wintry gray eyes. “You’ll get the hang of it soon enough.”

“All right.” Uncle Mort slapped his hands together. “Suit up.” Both he and Zara unfolded the balls of black fabric they had been carrying and slid them over their heads. Uncle Mort reached into his pocket. “And for you, Lex, a lightweight, durable, thermoregulated—oh.” He stopped and scrutinized her. “You already have the uniform?”

They looked at one another. All three were wearing identical black hoodies.

Uncle Mort scratched his head. “Did I give that to you this morning?”

“No, this is what I always wear. Actually,” she said, a curious memory suddenly occurring to her, “didn’t you send this as a thirteenth birthday present?”

“Did I?” he said, his mouth upturning ever so slightly. “How reprehensibly irresponsible of me.”

Lex looked at Zara, who shrugged.

Lex clapped her hands together. “Well, let’s get this show on the road!” she said in an overly chipper voice. “Bring on the death! These souls aren’t going to reap themselves!”

Uncle Mort looked about ready to smack her, but instead stretched a tight smile across his lips. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face,” he muttered to Zara, who snickered. He turned back to Lex. “You. Hop up onto my back.”

Lex’s sarcastic smile disappeared. “Huh?”

“Get onto my back and hold on as tight as you can.”

She backed away. “Hell no. Last time I did that, you almost splattered me across the pavement.”

“I know it’s weird, but it’s only for training purposes. Come on.”

“No way. You’re probably going to fling me into a volcano or something.”

“If you don’t climb up here right now, I absolutely will.”

Lex ultimately decided not to test this. She put her hands on her uncle’s shoulders, hopped up off the ground, and tucked her legs into his sides. “And no kicking the yarbles,” he warned.

“No promises.”

He secured her grip around his neck. “We’ll take it easy for your first time, start off with a simple geezer. After that, it’s full throttle. Like I said, pay close attention, because it’ll be over before you even know it. But the most important thing is: don’t panic. Don’t scream, don’t close your eyes, and above all, do not let go of me. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, but—” Lex swallowed, a small lump of nerves now forming in her stomach. What was going on?

Staring at nothing but each other, Zara and Uncle Mort raised their right arms high above their heads—the sun glittering off something shiny in their hands—then brought them down in unison with a quick slicing motion.

Lex, meanwhile, continued to survey the scene in apprehension, trying to guess what could possibly warrant all this melodrama. Here they were, standing perfectly still in the middle of a placid, sun-dappled valley, where it seemed as though nothing exciting had ever happened and probably never would—except there was that rustling bush again. Was there someone behind it? Someone watching?

But it no longer mattered. Lex had been blinked out of existence.

Her first sensation was one of dizziness. Lex couldn’t tell which way was up, down, in, or out. Her stomach dropped with a lurch, that disquieting but oddly pleasant feeling one gets on the plunge down the first hill of a roller coaster. She sped through the deepest bowels of space, wormholed through galaxies, the whole of the universe swirling around in one unending vortex.

She saw colors—every color, even ones beyond the visible spectrum. The air whipping through her lungs—if one could even call it air, it was more like a gale-force wind that ripped and fought its way down her trachea—stung her nostrils like icy mint. Every inch of her skin prickled, the entire arsenal of its nerve endings exploding into a shivery chill.

But the noise—the noise was deafening. It was as if every sound that had ever been uttered in the history of the world were being played backwards, on maximum volume, at the same time.

Lex fought hard to make sense of it all, tried to focus the distorted images, to extrapolate a single sound from the cacophony (she thought she might have heard a cow mooing), but eventually she gave up and surrendered to the moment. Exhilarated, she screamed into the void, half shrieking, half laughing.

Until everything came to a crashing halt.

Lex couldn’t guess how much time had passed. It could have been seconds, it could have been hours. She looked around, disoriented. The only thing she could really be sure of was her uncle’s neck, still clenched firmly between her arms.

They were in a dark place. As her vision adjusted, Lex realized that it was a bedroom—cool, quiet, and smelling of musk and chicken soup. Everything seemed blurred around the edges. She scrunched up her eyes.

Lying asleep on a bed in a near-fetal position was an old woman. Framed photos of grandchildren smiled down from the walls, while a veritable pharmacy of pill bottles stood like a tiny city on her nightstand. It was a peaceful scene, what Lex could see of it. She was afraid to breathe, not wanting to disturb anything or wake the woman up—until she noticed that one of the pill bottles had tipped over. It lay on its side, small green pills spilling out over the edge of the table.

But they weren’t falling. They were frozen in midair.

Lex’s eyes bugged. “What—”

Uncle Mort shushed her. “Watch.” He reached out a single white finger and touched the woman on the cheek.

A brilliant flash of white light briefly illuminated the room —the same sort of blaze Lex had seen on the bus ride—along with the strangest noise: a loud pop mixed with a shrill, piercing screech. A sort of mist began to emerge from the woman—a bluish-tinged light gently flowing out of her body, floating through the air like an unearthly aurora.

Lex exhaled. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Zara stretched her hand toward the light. It seemed to obey her movements, gracefully swirling into her open fingers as if it were eager to be collected. She carefully guided it into a spherical container—Lex couldn’t tell what it was—until the last wisps disappeared and the light was gone, fading from the air with an almost human sigh.

Zara put the container back into her pocket and withdrew the shiny object again. She and Uncle Mort swiped them through the air in unison—drawing them upward this time—and blustered back into the vortex.

Lex let out another screech, every one of her organs flopping in delight. She was still screaming when they landed, minutes or eons later, in the same spot from which they had left. All air gone from her lungs, she slumped down off her uncle’s back and began staggering around the grass.

Zara made a face. “Is she going to throw up?”

“Lex?” asked Uncle Mort. “Are you going to throw up?”

“No.” Lex coughed. “No, I’m fine. Just give me a sec.”

She put her hands over her eyes and tried to breathe evenly. After a beat, she exhaled and dropped her hands to her sides.

“Oh my GOD!” she yelled.

“That’s it.” Uncle Mort elbowed Zara. “That’s the face.”

“How did we—where did we—
what was that?
”

“Let me answer that question,” Uncle Mort said, reaching into his hoodie pocket, “with a present.”

He removed a polished, oblong black rock made of stone so dark it seemed to negate the very idea of light. Riveted, Lex took it from him and ran her fingers over its smooth, impossibly hard surface, ultimately reaching a bump. She grabbed the small protrusion and unfolded it like a penknife, her heart beginning to race as she realized what it was: a curved, razor-sharp blade made out of the same pitch-black stone. It pivoted noiselessly outward and came to a stop at a ninety-degree angle to the handle, forming a crooked
L.

She held the weapon as if it were made of the brittlest glass, turning it over and over in her hands. She never would have thought it possible to fall in love with an inanimate object, but in this case, as in many cases, love didn’t follow any particular set of rules.

“What is this? A knife?”

“Nope,” Uncle Mort said, his eye glinting. “A scythe.”

Lex just stared.

“Allow me to explain.” Uncle Mort sat on the ground and leaned against the Ghost Gum. “The nothingness—or rather, everythingness—from which we just returned is called the ether,” he said as the two girls joined him on the grass. “It is the method of transportation that we use to transfer souls from this life to the next.”

Lex listened, engrossed. She hadn’t blinked in minutes.

Uncle Mort was pleased with her reaction, as it was finally not one of disgust or outrage or both. “We always work in pairs, because there are two types of Field jobs—Killers and Cullers. You and I are Killers,” he said plainly. “With a single touch, a Killer officially ends the life of a human being by releasing the Gamma, or soul, from the body.”

“That was a soul?” Lex said in awe.

“Zara, on the other hand, is a Culler. It’s her job to collect the soul, place it in a secure Vessel, and provide safe passage back here to Croak, where it’s processed and put into storage, so to speak.”

“Vessel?”

Zara handed her a small white sphere about the size of a baseball. Lex cupped her hands around its soft surface and marveled at the silky strands that were woven together to form its shape.

Lex gave it back to Zara, then scanned Uncle Mort’s face for an explanation. “So wait,” she said, her mind numb. “I actually have to Kill people?”

“Have to? No. You don’t
have
to do anything. But you’re here because you’re special, and you’re special because—well, I don’t like throwing around words like ‘destiny,’ but let’s put it this way: this job chose you. Whether or not you reciprocate is completely your call.”

Lex didn’t know what to say. Her throat was dry.

She flicked open her scythe again and began absent-mindedly pitching it from one hand to the other, but Uncle Mort quickly snatched it out of the air. “A scythe is not a toy,” he scolded. “It’s your closest friend, most valuable tool, and a handy lockpick in a pinch, but never a toy.” He gingerly placed it back in her hand. “Scything is how we break into the ether to get to our targets. In order for us to do our work, we need to get in and out as quickly and effectively as possible. That’s where the scythe comes in.” He pulled out his own scythe, a slightly larger weapon made out of—

Lex nearly choked. “Is that
diamond?
”

“Yes. Each scythe is made from a different metal, rock, or mineral. The material of your scythe says something about your personality . . . or something. I don’t know, I don’t really buy into any of that hippie crap.” Zara stifled a laugh. “Suffice it to say that your scythe is tailored to you, and you alone,” he said. “Treat it right, and it’ll serve you with the utmost faith and loyalty to the bitter end.”

“But how did you get diamond?”

“Beats me. It’s the hardest naturally occurring mineral, right? And I’m . . . hardheaded? A hard nut to crack? Hard on the eyes? I don’t know, pick your favorite. Check out Zara’s.”

Zara held up her scythe, made from a brilliant silver. “Self- explanatory.”

“What’s mine?” asked Lex, running her fingers over the cold stone.

“Obsidian,” said Uncle Mort. “One of the smoothest, sharpest blades known to man. Used in surgeries, actually.”

Lex interrupted before he could launch into what was undoubtedly a creepily vast knowledge of medical supplies. “But what does it mean?”

He scratched at his stubbly chin. “Obsidian is a type of glass formed from igneous rock, found in lava flows around volcanoes. Fiery and explosive—I’d say that’s you in a nutshell.”

Lex turned her scythe over in her hands once more, unable to take her eyes off it. “It’s amazing.”

“And so dark, too,” said Zara. “I’ve never seen one that dark before.”

Uncle Mort rolled his eyes. “So it’s agreed, the scythe is totally dreamy.” He stood up and grinned that unglued smile again. “But it’s nothing more than a butter knife until you put it into action.”

“Um—”

“Unfortunately,” he continued in a voice that suggested there was nothing unfortunate about this at all, “there’s no such thing as a practice run when it comes to scything. You just have to jump right in and pray that all of your body parts make it with you.”

Lex got to her feet, her knuckles blazingly white against the ebony of the scythe. “Now?” she said nervously. “Just like that?”

“I thought you wanted to be spared the pleasantries.”

Zara stood up. “Try to visualize the air around you as a viscous, fluid substance that can be physically ripped,” she told Lex. “Grasp the scythe firmly in your hands—you’ll want to use both for your first time—then bring it down as hard and fast as you can in a sort of hacking motion and give your wrist a little flick at the end, like you’re throwing a Frisbee.”

“Then jump through,” added Uncle Mort. “Simple.”

“Wait,” Lex said. “Jump through what?”

“Be ready to go in a couple minutes.” He twirled his own scythe like a pistol, shoved it into his pocket, and walked a few feet away, poking at his Cuff. “I just need to call the Bank, tell them you’re ready to go.”

Lex turned to Zara. “What does the Bank have to do with anything?”

“Well, the Bank isn’t really a bank,” Zara said. “It’s more like command central for all of Croak. The people who work there are like air traffic controllers, programming our scythes for transport routes to the appropriate targets. Each time a new death is put into play, they relay it out to whichever team is free to grab it.”