Croak

“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.”

  They were silent for a moment. Lex looked up at the ghostly branches of the tree. “This can’t be real,” she muttered to herself.

  Zara looked at her. “Doesn’t get much realer.”

  “But seriously. We really have the power to whack people?”

  Zara let out an exasperated huff, as if she’d been over this countless times before. “We’re not hit men, Lex. We don’t cause death. We’re just there to pick up the pieces.”

  “Huh?”

  “Okay, a guy’s head is chopped off. He’s dead, right? But his soul isn’t. Our job is to remove that live soul from the dead body. In the space of a yoctosecond—that’s one septillionth of a second—after death, we jump in through the ether to within an arm’s length of the target, Kill and Cull, then leave.”

  “Then why is the term ‘Killer,’ if the targets are already dead?”

  Zara looked almost surprised at the question. “Gammas are our entire lives. Everything that’s happened to us, everyone we’ve met, every feeling we’ve ever felt. A body—even a physically dead one—is technically still alive if the soul is inside. So what a Killer really does is remove the very last part of what makes a person human. If that’s not Killing, I don’t know what is.” She eyed Lex. “Souls live on without their bodies. But bodies without souls a
re nothing but compost.”

  With that, Zara settled into a patient stance and looked at her fingernails, her silver hair blinding in the sunlight. Lex, on the other hand, felt strongly that she should start screaming. The very curious part of her brain that Uncle Mort had talked about had swelled and expanded so pervasively that Lex feared she’d have to bore a hole in her skull to relieve the pressure.

  Zara turned to her. “Are you having fun?”

  Lex was thrown. “Am I supposed to?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zara with a quizzical stare. “But I bet you’ll do really well here. You’re . . . different.”

  Lex narrowed her eyes. “Different how?”

  “Ready, kiddo?” Uncle Mort interrupted as he approached. “You’re good to go. You’ll do a short shift of five targets with Zara, and then tomorrow we’ll set you up with your new partner.”

  “Zara’s not my partner?”

  “Nope, she’s a sub, just here today to help with training,” he said as Zara removed a Cuff from her own pocket and put it on. “Now, under most circumstances, threesomes aren’t allowed, but I’ll be jumping in for the first target to observe your work. Pay no attention to me, just concentrate on what you’re doing. Zara will call for help if you run into any problems.” He tapped his Cuff. “Cooperate with her, follow her lead, and never lose focus. But most important of all,” he said, his voice lowering, “you must believe with every fiber of your being that these people’s lives have come to a close. Trust that you’re doing the right thing by touching them, because you are—no matter what.”

  Lex gulped. “What happens if I don’t?”

  “Then their souls will be trapped in their bodies forever. Believe me, you do not want to be the one responsible for obliterating someone’s right to an everlasting afterlife.” He leaned in almost threateningly. “But that’s not going to happen, is it? You have a job to do now, Lex, and you sure as shit are going to do it. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah, but—” Her mouth felt like a desert. What was wrong with her? Back home, Tyrannosaurus Lex would have had no problem with dishing out this sort of destruction. She would have jumped into the ether in an instant, breezing past these two without a care in the world and maybe even giving them concussions on the way.

  But Lex knew how hollow that badass part of her really was. All those little outbursts of violence—they seemed so empty and meaningless now that she faced a task of such profound importance. Nothing had prepared her for this.

  Lex gazed up at her uncle, the weight and reality of the situation finally sinking in. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  He nodded warmly, sensing the change in her. “I think you can.”

  Lex licked her lips, looked around at her small circle of compatriots, and tightened her grip on the scythe. Inhaling deeply, she raised it above her head and sliced it down through the air just as Zara had instructed.

  Her body immediately tensed. She hadn’t expected to meet resistance—in the middle of thin air? Still, she kept tearing, remembering to cut the scythe at an angle toward the bottom, until a rip in the fabric of space eerily appeared before her—a defined yet wavy line, like the blurred wetness rising from a highway in the scorching sun.

  “Slide in,” Uncle Mort said.

  Lex eyed the breach. Unsure, she leaned closer and closer until the laws of gravity imploded once more. A whirlwind of invigoration washed over her like a monsoon, drenching every atom of her body.

  Eventually the chaos screeched to a bizarrely silent halt. Frozen in front of her was a middle-aged man on a gurney, his chest cracked open and exposed in all of its shiny, disgusting glory. Lex peered through the smudged air at the sterile white walls, the kind that could only belong to an operating room. A team of doctors and nurses surrounded the man, their faces locked into expressions of worry and determination. One surgeon had cupped his hands around the patient’s heart to massage it back to life.

  His efforts had obviously been fruitless. “Do it!” Zara said to Lex. “It’s safe, go ahead!”

  Lex swallowed, the image of the glistening heart searing itself into her memory. She’d never seen anything so terrifyingly real.

  Wincing, she held up her hand, slowly extended her finger, and touched it to the man’s shoulder.

  A jolt shot through her body with the sheer force and brilliance of an exploding supernova.

  Lex gasped.

  This wasn’t like the ether.

  The ether was giddy and fun, but this—whatever it was—this was excruciating.

  Both body and mind were racked with an electrical current the likes of which Lex had never experienced—an almost otherworldly sensation pulsing up and down her twitching nerves, tearing into the very depths of her—

  “Lex?” Uncle Mort said.

  She blinked hard as the surge subsided. She threw a desperate glance at her uncle, who for some reason looked impressed rather than concerned. Zara’s expression, on the other hand, was the strangest conglomeration of awe, horror, surprise, jealousy, anger, and the slightest hint of—was it curiosity?

  But it passed just as quickly as it had surfaced, her face melting back into a look of concentration as she finished Culling the glowing Gamma and placed it in the Vessel. “Scythe, now,” Zara instructed.

  Lex could barely breathe. “Wait—I can’t—”

  “Come on.” Zara grabbed Lex’s hand as they simultaneously scythed back into the ether—

  —and out just as fast, this time without Uncle Mort. They now stood in an alley. A homeless person of indeterminable gender lay slumped on the ground.

  “Go,” Zara said.

  “But it burns,” Lex gasped.

  This time Zara’s face gave away nothing. “Come on, hurry up.”

  Lex shot her a pained, pleading look, but she knew now that it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She had a job to do, and she sure as shit was going to do it. So she closed her eyes, held out her finger, and entered the world of pain once more.

  Once Zara finished Culling and they had scythed to the mangled wreckage of a car accident, Lex didn’t even bother to glance at the blood splattered across the broken windshield before jabbing her finger into the driver’s arm. Anything to get it over with as soon as possible. Upon their arrival at a hospital, she barely noticed the sobbing family members alongside the cancer patient’s bed as she extended her touch. And when they landed in a posh living room where a young man lay splayed out across a couch, it wasn’t until after she had rapped him on the noggin that she registered the gleaming red bullet hole in his chest. And the startled look on his face. And the—

  “Good job,” Zara said in a voice that sounded less than sincere. “Let’s head back.”

  Zara prepared to scythe, but Lex had not joined her. She was staring at the door to the kitchen.

  A figure was standing there, watching them.

  And aiming a gun.

  7

  “Who is that?” Lex asked.

  Zara looked up. “Who?”

  “That woman over there—she’s watching us!”

  “No she’s not, no one can see us. Come on, scythe upward—that’ll always automatically return you back to Croak.”

  “But she has a gun!”

  “It doesn’t matter! She’s frozen in time, she can’t shoot it.”

  Lex felt a stab of relief, one that quickly melted into dread. “She murdered him.”

  “Let’s go, Lex.”

  Lex’s hands suddenly grew very hot. “But we can’t just let her get away with it!” she protested, lunging toward the woman. Something had taken hold of her. It was similar to the inexplicable rage she felt all the time, but—no, it was so much more than that—

  “Lex!”

  Without missing a beat, Zara grabbed her arm, slashed the silver blade up through the air, and yanked her back into the ether.

  ***

  Whereas Zara landed back in the Field with a graceful hop, Lex crashed to the ground like a newborn giraf
fe. She was about to begin yelling, and maybe even punching, but Uncle Mort started in before she could ball her hand into a fist.

  “Damn, Lex!” he said as she jumped to her feet, his face beaming with pride. “That was the smoothest first Kill I’ve ever seen! How do you feel?”

  Her rage briefly subsided at this generous outpouring of praise, though her hands still felt abnormally warm and tingly. “I feel . . .” She was at a loss for words. What exactly should she be feeling? Guilt over the lives she had just ended? Lingering pain from the brutal shocks? Rage over the woman who had gotten away? Or—and she suspected this was the most appropriate option—shame over the fact that she was apparently so good at it all?

  “Conflicted,” she finally said.

  “I knew it from the start, you’re a natural.” He patted her on the back. “How did you do on the others?”

  “Actually—”

  “Fine,” Zara said.

  Lex’s jaw dropped. She started to object, but the look Zara shot her could have silenced a pack of screech monkeys.

  “Overdose, car wreck, cancer, GSW,” Zara rattled off. “Great job, all around.”

  They were interrupted by Uncle Mort’s Cuff. “That’ll be Norwood. Hang on a sec,” he said, walking away to yell at his wrist.

  Zara looked at Lex. “You’re welcome.”

  “Are you out of your mind? We just let a murderer off the hook for no reason!”

  “We have plenty of reason,” Zara said under her breath. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have gotten into? I just saved your ass back there! Just stick to the plan from now on, okay?”

  Lex opened her mouth to tell Zara exactly where she’d like to stick such a plan, but Uncle Mort had finished his call, so she was forced to let it go. But she continued to glare at Zara, who now had a smug look on her face.

  “Getting late,” Uncle Mort said. “You ready to head home?”

  “Already?” Lex glanced up in disbelief at the darkening sky. Hadn’t she eaten breakfast only a little while ago?

  “I told you time flies.” He turned to face Zara. “Thanks for your help, Zar.”