Reapers Never Smile

  “Huh? What?” I asked, trying to focus.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Derek peered down through his glasses at me.

  The knowledge that for once I was completely safe from anything Samantha might do was a huge relief for me. Knowing that someone who probably hates you could be spying on you and planning your demise at any time was obviously stressful. But I hadn’t realized just how stressed I was until I knew I had a few minutes where I didn’t have to worry about her. I was so relieved, in fact, that I’d just passed right out.

  “Sorry.” I told Derek, straightening. “I’m fine.”

  “This is important, James. We’re talking about your ghost here.” Derek was clearly annoyed, and I didn’t really blame him.

  “I know. I really do. I just haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

  “Why not?” Mindy asked. “If we’re going to get rid of this ghost, you’re going to need to be awake.”

  “It’s just this whole thing with Samantha.” I told her. “Just knowing she could be spying on me at any given time makes it really hard to relax enough to go to sleep.”

  “I thought she couldn’t see you unless that oil lamp you summoned her with was burning?” Derek asked.

  “No,” I told him. “I can only see her when it’s lit. But she can see us any time she wants.”

  Derek paused a minute, and I thought he was going to point out that this wasn’t what I’d said before. Instead, he just said, “So? Just because she can watch you doesn’t mean she actually is, you know.”

  “She told me she has been.” I said, somewhat quietly.

  “When did she tell you this?” Mindy cut in. I paused for a second, not liking the look in her eye. I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to answer, but I could tell that wasn’t going to be an option. Mindy just waited patiently until I answered; she was really good at ignoring those awkward silences.

  “About four days ago.” I mumbled.

  “What happened four days ago?” I could already see the clouds forming behind her eyes; she already knew what I was going to say.

  I hadn’t told either of them I’d talked to Samantha again; I’d been planning on keeping that little piece of information to myself. But, somehow I’d manage to walk straight into an admission.

  As quickly as I could, I ran through the details, skipping over the unimportant things like how scared I was and how I thought I was going to die. I hadn’t wanted to tell Mindy and Derek about what I’d done; I knew they’d be upset. And I was completely right. Derek shook his head slowly, his eyes wide. Mindy was even less impressed.

  “So you risked your life to talk to Samantha Corben when you were specifically told not to?” she asked, her voice rising. “What were you thinking? She could have killed you!”

  “Yeah, I know.” I said glumly. When she said it like that, I sounded like a moron. “I just needed to talk to her, you know? She was one of the first people I met when I moved here, and I just wanted to give her a chance. To make sure I was right about her.”

  I felt pretty mushy saying it, but apparently Mindy didn’t think so. Her eyes softened just a little bit and she even managed a small smile. I couldn’t quite tell if it was pity in her eyes, but I decided to pretend it was sympathy.

  “At least you’re ok.” she said grudgingly.

  “She actually told you she’d been watching you for the last couple months?” Derek asked. When I nodded he added, “Creepy.”

  “You have no idea.” I told him.

  There was silence for a few minutes, but Derek quickly filled it with the sound of his coughing.

  “What is this stuff?” he asked, swatting at the smoke that was still streaming out of the bowl in the center of our circle.

  “Sage.” Mindy told him somewhat defensively.

  “Oh, great. Sage. Why do we have it?”

  “To keep Samantha from spying on us while we make our plans.”

  “Wait, what?” I broke in. “You mean to tell me you knew all along that Samantha could be watching us at any moment?”

  “Of course.” Mindy said sounding exasperated. “Why don’t you listen to me when I tell you I’ve done this before?”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “I didn’t see the point in worrying you. Since you’ve found out, do you feel any better? Or are you just a lot more paranoid?”

  I could see her point. Knowing I could be being watched hadn’t really changed anything I did. It just made me feel weird every time I did anything. She was right – I really did wish I didn’t know. Mindy took my silence for the acknowledgement it was.

  “So, let’s make a plan.” she said.

  “All I care about is doing it as soon as possible.” I told her.

  “How’s Thursday?” Today was Tuesday. I could wait two days.

  “Thursday’s good.”

  “I’ll have to ask my mom, but I think it’ll be ok.” Derek told us.

  “Great. So now all we have to do is figure out a location. The rest is pretty simple.” Mindy said.

  It didn’t seem like it would be simple to me, but what did I know? Mindy was fond of pointing out to me how much she knew about all this stuff, so I decided for once to take her word for it. We talked for another two hours, going over every single detail. I knew Mindy was getting annoyed at my insistence that we repeat every part of the plan at least twice, but I didn’t care. After my experiences with Samantha, there was no way I was doing this unprepared. Finally, when I couldn’t come up with any more questions, we decided to call it a day. Derek and I headed one way, and Mindy started off the other. The two of them seemed so confident in the plan. I tried my best not to worry, but I still had that nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I just hoped it would work.

  Chapter 37

  Thursday afternoon, I was surprisingly calm. I’d thought I’d be more nervous about this whole thing, but I guess it hadn’t really hit me yet how hard it was going to be. Right now, all I was thinking about was how soon I wouldn’t have to worry about someone peeking over my shoulder at any given moment.

  Derek got to the cafeteria first as usual, and when I spotted him I saw he’d already grabbed a couple seats at one of the tables. I sat down and started unpacking the lunch I’d brought from home.

  “So, today’s the day.” he said. “Are you nervous?”

  “Not yet. I probably will be tonight, though.”

  “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.” Easy for him to say. He hadn’t actually seen Samantha in over a year. And even then, she’d at least been alive. “Oh. Before I forget – I can’t walk home today. Something came up.”

  “Really? What happened?” I asked, curious.

  “I just have to talk to someone. It’s no big deal, really. I just wanted to let you know.”

  He was acting a little strange, so I figured it must be a teacher. Or maybe a tutor. Either way, he was probably too embarrassed to tell me. I would have liked the company, but this would give me a chance to go over the plan one more time in my mind before getting ready. I knew I was starting to obsess over it, but I couldn’t help it. There were just so many things that could go wrong.

  The walk home was long enough I was able to go over every detail twice. We’d covered everything that was going to happen from the moment we met up to the moment Samantha was gone. We’d even managed to come up with a few back up plans in case something unexpected happened.

  As I walked in the front door, I forced myself to put tonight aside. I only had a few hours, and I really needed to relax. I turned on the TV and somehow managed not to think about Samantha for almost four hours. When it was finally time to go, I walked as calmly as I could upstairs. I took my books out of my backpack and threw them on the bed. Then, I carefully took the lamp and set it inside. I tossed a pack of matches in on top, zipped it up, and headed for the door.

  ……

  We walked into the parking lot of the abandoned grocery store near the north end of town. It was kind of a pain to go
all the way out there, and I’d wanted to just use the field out behind the school; it was a big enough area, right? But Mindy was quick to reject it; the field was covered in dead weeds. And we all knew how much Samantha loved fire. No, it was better to come out here, where we’d be surrounded by nice, safe asphalt.

  Despite everything, I still wasn’t really sure what to expect. Mindy had brought that same large black bag with her that I’d seen when we planned this whole thing. I, of course, brought the only thing I was allowed to: the oil lamp. I’d offered to bring more, but since Samantha was most likely to be following me, Derek and Mindy thought it would be best if she didn’t see any of the tools we were planning on using.

  I set the lamp down in the middle of the parking lot and stepped back. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that thing if I could help it, especially knowing what that I would soon be confronted by a very angry Samantha. Mindy set her bag on the ground and pulled out three ornate and matching bottles: the green one I’d already seen, a blue one, and a gold one.

  She grabbed the green bottle and spaced herself about ten feet away from the lamp. She turned the bottle sideways and started to walk, pouring the contents on the ground as she went. When she was done, a thick line of salt formed a perfect circle around the lamp.

  “There.” She said. “The salt will keep her here – she shouldn’t be able to go past that line.”

  “Shouldn’t?” I asked. I’d hoped our security measures would be a little stronger than that.

  “Won’t.” Mindy corrected, rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry so much. I really do know what I’m doing.”

  “Ok.” Derek said. I just nodded.

  “So what’s in the other two bottles?” I asked.

  “The gold one has oil in it, and the blue one has the water.” She looked surprised that I’d asked, and suddenly I wondered if that had been something we covered when I was asleep. When I didn’t say anything else, she looked carefully at Derek, then back to me. “Are you ready?”

  “I guess.” Derek said.

  “Not really.” I mumbled. I’d been right in thinking it wouldn’t hit me until the time finally came, and now that it was here, I was even more nervous than I thought I’d be. I kept having flashbacks to the last time I saw Samantha. And this time would be even worse. Last time, she’d been furious with me for even talking to Mindy. Now, she’d have the added benefit of having heard me telling Mindy all about her. She’d know I’d made plans with Derek and Mindy to get rid of her, and she would know that that’s exactly why we were all out here tonight. If I thought she was mad before, I could only imagine what fury awaited me this time.

  “Did you bring matches?” Mindy asked. I nodded and fumbled nervously around in my now empty backpack. I got them out, and tossed the bag aside. Mindy nodded in approval. “Ok. Go light it.” she said.

  “What? You don’t want to do it?” I asked, gulping.

  “No, I need to stay here and make sure everything’s ready. You can do it. You’ll be fine – it’s just like all those other times you did it, right?”

  “Yeah, right.” Except those times it hadn’t occurred to me that she might try to hurt me.

  “I can do it.” Derek said, his voice wobbling just a little. It was pretty tempting, but in the end I couldn’t let him do it. It was just too easy to picture him lighting himself on fire or tripping and breaking something as he ran away.

  “No, it’s ok. I’ll do it.” I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

  I knelt down and took the glass off the lamp. It took a minute for the wick to light, especially the way my hand was shaking. But as soon as it did I put the glass back on, jumped up, and all but ran back towards my friends. The light shown orange for a minute before the warm glow started changing to that familiar deep blue. I heard Derek suck in his breath at the sight of it.

  Since there were no walls for the small amount of light to bounce off of, the shadows were even darker than they usually were. Instead of swirling around my room, long strange shapes spiraled out from the lamp, reaching out in all directions like black and blue tentacles. I couldn’t tell if it was the darkness preventing me from seeing or if it was really true, but from where I stood, those blue tendrils really didn’t seem to reach past the salt border. Seeing that made me feel a tiny bit better, and I could only hope it was real and not just some trick of the light.

  When Samantha stepped slowly out of the shadows, she did it deliberately, with smoldering eyes. She focused directly on me, completely ignoring my friends. She took a slow, purposeful step forward. I took one back.

  “You.” she practically snarled at me. “You really did it, didn’t you?”

  I was about to ask her what I did, but it turned out I didn’t have to.

  “I can’t believe you actually brought her here. To get rid of me.”

  “Yeah, well, turns out she’s a better friend.” I tried to sound braver than I felt.

  “No, she’s not!” Samantha snapped as if I was just making up lies for the sole purpose of seeing how mad I could get her. “I’m a great friend. I’m the best friend you’ve ever had.”

  “Really? The best friend I’ve ever had?” I repeated skeptically. “You don’t think you’re exaggerating just a little there?”

  Samantha stood up even straighter, threw her balled up fists down by her sides, and began to really let me have it.

  “Of course not!” she screeched. “I was your first friend in this town. I talked to you when no one else did. I helped you with your homework and I even listened to you complain about all your stupid little problems that no one cares about anyway.”

  I blinked and took a step back as if she’d hit me. She continued to yell at me, but I’d stopped paying attention. I was so floored I couldn’t be bothered to listen to her anymore. I mean, I know I should have figured it out ages ago – probably the first time I ever talked to her, honestly. But I hadn’t. Instead, it had taken me almost seven months to realize it. Standing here, listening to her mocking me, it finally dawned on me what it was that had made me start to become friends with Mindy over Samantha. Samantha was completely unable to care about anyone or anything other than herself.

  “My problems that no one cares about?” Now it was my turn to get angry. “My stupid problems?”

  “Oh, come on. Who really wants to hear you whine about how you had to move to a new place where you don’t know anyone?” She gave me a look that clearly let me know she thought this was such an obvious fact that everyone knew it and that I should just admit she was right. Her words really stung. I felt like I’d been punched, and the blood started to rush to my head. I felt dizzy, nauseous.

  “You really are something.” I said. I was still reeling, but I shook my head, trying to focus. “I only told you that because I thought you of all people would understand. But you don’t understand or care about anything unless it’s about you.”

  “I care about Eric.” she shot back. Like that somehow disproved my point.

  “So the only thing you care about is a guy who doesn’t even like you?”

  “He does like me!” she shouted. The sound seemed to echo faintly throughout the parking lot.

  “No he doesn’t.” I said calmly, knowing I finally had the upper hand. “I asked him about you, remember? And if you really were watching me like you say, then you know he pretended he didn’t even know who you were.”

  I’d noticed Mindy had started inching away from me when I’d first started talking back to Samantha. Now Derek was moving away from my other side. I’d been ok when they were both standing next to me, but now that they were starting to split, my confidence was beginning to fade. And the fact that Samantha was beyond furious was only making me feel more uncomfortable.

  She glared down at me, eyes burning, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she stalked towards me, a snarl on her lips, her hair blowing crazily around her. She was only a few feet away from me when I saw her rage finally boil over, contorting her face into
an incredibly disturbing grin.

  “You have no idea what I care about or who cares about me. You don’t know anything about me.” she said it in that quiet tone that people use when they’re thinking about strangling you.

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Samantha lunged at me, arms outstretched. I was almost completely positive she couldn’t physically hurt me, but there was a part of my brain that was not about to take that chance. I leapt as far back as I could, throwing my hands up over my face as I did. Through my hands I saw her rush at me, flying with inhuman speed. She was only inches form my face when I heard a loud crack! A flash of white hot light burned my eyes. I closed my eyes tight, waiting for whatever power had caused that noise to finish me off. When it didn’t, I very slowly opened my eyes. I was still staring at the ground in front of me, trying to work my way up to looking in the direction I knew Samantha would be, when I noticed something. Less than an inch in front of my sneakers was a thick line of salt.

  Chapter 38

  The line of salt might have been smudged a bit, but it was still very much intact. Samantha screeched and howled, unable to reach me but still with plenty of energy left to try. I just stood there, watching dumbly. Mindy and Derek were each several feet away from me, and I didn’t know what to do. All I could do was watch in terror as Samantha tried her best to grab me.

  I looked back at my friends, trying to silently convince either one of them to come help me. I looked over at Derek and saw him give a sharp, quick nod to Mindy. Then, without warning, Mindy grabbed the blue and gold bottles and jumped straight into the salt circle, heading directly for the lamp. I watched in horror, convinced that Samantha would make short work of her, but Samantha was too busy trying to tear me apart to notice that someone else was actually in range.

  I looked through Samantha’s shoulder and watched as Mindy poured liquid from the blue bottle onto her hands. She quickly made some strange marks on the ground around the lamp. Samantha shrieked and hurled herself towards me with even more force – as if somehow I’d done something to her. Her renewed energy pulled my attention away from Mindy and back to her. Even though I knew the salt line was keeping me safe, I was still pretty scared. I wasn’t sure if there was a way she could break through it, and I hoped Mindy would finish whatever she was doing before I’d have a chance to find out. Samantha’s face contorted with rage and she started hurling insults at me all over again. Mindy took the gold bottle and poured the contents onto her hands. She touched the lamp, but I couldn’t tell what she was doing. Samantha was taking up a lot of my attention at the moment.