May Bird Among the Stars (8 page)

Down in the vale, echoes of cracking coconuts rang against the cliffs. Bongos and guitars came levitating down into the canyon in the arms of their levitating owners, and a bonfire was lit by the lake, where everyone was gathered. Zero, wearing his usual grin and a T-shirt that read
DEATH IS GOOD,
said that it was a tradition on festival nights for everyone to get up and recount how they'd died.

The stories of daring deaths stretched and stitched themselves through the night. One woman had fallen down a crevice in the Andes and had never emerged. Another had been taming lions in Africa and turned her back on them for a moment, dazzled by an unfortunately timed Serengeti sunset. One salty old veteran had been traversing Papua New Guinea on foot when he'd waded into a nest of hungry
leeches. While these stories were told, the bongo drummers drummed.

Some spirits had tales of adventures in the Afterlife as well. Several had met up with poltergeists. One had slept in a seemingly deserted grotto, only to wake to find he had been hog-tied by goblins and was being dragged to the Dead Sea as a souvenir. Fortunately, it was Fashion Week in Glow-So, the avant-garde garment district of Ether, and the goblins had come across a sale. They'd forgotten about him long enough for him to chew off his ropes.

At the end of the story Pumpkin shot up. “May is supposed to save the Ever After from certain doom.”

Everyone went silent for a moment. Pumpkin looked about uncertainly, the color rising on his pale, wrinkled cheeks. Somebody said, “Cool.” A couple of spirits stood up and drifted away. Another began to strum on a guitar.

“That reminds me, my cousin got into a fistfight with a zombie at the Pit of Despair.”

And so the spirits continued with their stories. Pumpkin looked rather deflated until a round of singing started up. Apparently, the song was very popular in the Afterlife, because even Fabbio knew the words. They both joined in.

“In our island paradise
That volcano sure looked nice
You fell in and so did I
I screamed once, but you screamed twice
The lava was hotta than any spice
In our island paradise.”

Pumpkin's singing rang out louder than the others, but nobody minded because of his beautiful singing voice. Bea sang along, gazing at the others. May watched silently.

“Why don't you sing?” Bea eventually asked her, happy in the moment.

“Oh, I can't sing,” May said, shaking her head. That wasn't exactly true. She sang along with
The Sound of Music
sometimes, but only when she was alone. And she sang very badly. Though, now that she thought about it, she probably hadn't been alone at all. She had only recently discovered Pumpkin had been haunting her house for years.

“Oh, go on, anybody can sing,” Beatrice encouraged her gently.

May smiled, but even when the chorus came around a second and third time, she kept her smiling mouth closed.

A few spirits got up to dance. Zero spun by a few times, dancing in a jokey, kicky, dashing kind of way. On the third pass he yanked Beatrice up in one deft motion, spinning her under his arm, the two floating lopsidedly off into the crowd. Beatrice, shooting a
Please help me
face at May, nevertheless glided gracefully as a feather. A smile snuck across her face from one ear to the other, which she turned to the ground to hide.

May half wanted to be asked to dance and half didn't. She tapped her feet. When the boy with the alligator scars looked at her across the grass and winked, May looked away quickly and frowned, shy Somber Kitty, who loved to dance more than anything except for May, leaped up and did some interpretive ballet. Pumpkin and May laughed and clapped.

A limbo contest was held, and Somber Kitty won. But then something seemed to turn him serious. He sniffed the air solemnly and retired to May's side, looking worried.

The bonfire flickered on the water. May hugged her knees tighter, watching through her big eyes. “What is it, Kitty?”

Kitty stared at her and whispered, “Meay.”

May looked back out at the dancers, then back at him. “Is something wrong?”

Suddenly, the spirits on the grass went silent and still.

“What's everybody—?” Pumpkin began loudly, but Zero held his finger to his lips.

“Shhh!” He floated onto his knees and pressed his ear against the ground. A moment later Zero sat back up, nodding at the others, his eyes wide and round. He smiled from ear to ear.

He stood, reached out, and grabbed May's hand. “Something's coming!”

In a sudden burst, every spirit within hearing distance dropped what they were doing and swarmed onto the cliffs like ants, disappearing behind the falls. Before May and the others could react, they began to reappear, holding various vehicles in their hands: rickety old scooters, unicycles, pogo sticks. Zero himself squeaked to a halt in front of the gang on a dirt bike, twisting the handles impatiently.

“Well, come on, then.” Zero yanked May by the hand and pulled her onto the back of his bike. “Hold on!”

“Kitty!” May looked behind her as she was spirited away on the bike. Kitty was running after them.

May clutched the back of Zero's T-shirt as he navigated the bike.

“Stop! Wait! Why are we going
toward
it?” she yelled, pushing onto her tiptoes to get close to Zero's ear.

Zero banked the bike sharply around a rock and they wobbled, May clinging tighter to his middle.
“Thrills”
he called back. “Most of the stuff we do gets old, since we're dead and all already. Last time we had a good shake-up was when a bunch of goblins were looking for some Live One. Bogus Breath Brenda or something.”

May's stomach gave a little lurch.

“But what if they—?”

“Don't worry. It'll be great.” He looked over his shoulder at May and caught a glimpse of her face. “Probably just some ghouls. They're easy to mess with. You'll see.”

May balked.
Just some ghouls?
“But, Zero—”

“Hey, don't worry! Death is good!”

May clenched her hands tighter as they rode into the darkness.

The cyclists came to a halt at the very edge of a rolling, rocky pasture, punctuated on one side, far in the distance, with a tiny stone church silhouetted in the starlight, surrounded by a sprawling, abandoned cemetery. The spirits hovered on their bikes steadily—about twenty in number—making a long row. Several bikes had two or more riders, their legs hanging all askew as they perched on handlebars and crowded onto seats. All eyes watched the horizon. May watched too, over Zero's shoulder.

And then, from somewhere in the dark ahead, came the sound of an invisible bugle. A rustle went through the crowd.
A moment later, muted and barely audible, came the
thud, thud, thud
of feet. It sounded like they belonged to some huge animal.

Tiny shadows moved on the horizon, so small that at first May couldn't tell for sure if they were actually there. The line of cyclists bristled again, rubbing their hands together, testing their pedals, leaning into their pogo sticks, turning their handlebars just slightly.

May looked at Beatrice, sitting primly sidesaddle on another bike, curled against her rider and squinting into the distance with a frown. May looked behind her for Somber Kitty, but he was far behind them—still running, but unable to keep up.

“Steady,” Zero whispered. “Steady …”

As the shadows up ahead came into focus, a surprised murmur went through the crowd.

On the horizon were six dark shapes. They rode astride six winged gargoyles with flames spouting from their nostrils.

Zero gasped. “Oh!”

Sighting the line of bikers, one of the figures let out a blood-curdling screech. Then they launched into a full-on gallop.

May's arms and legs went numb. She watched in horror as the figures hurtled toward them, becoming more and more distinct. Six horrible faces emerged from the darkness. They were a ghastly blue, gaunt and lifeless, with sunken cheeks, twisted, toothless mouths, and gaping holes for eyes. Long, oily black hair hung out of their black top hats. They spurred on the gargoyles beneath them with their riding crops.

“Pull back!” Zero turned his bike on a dime and began to pedal furiously. All around them, the line of Risk Fallers erupted
back in the direction they'd come, skidding and swerving, hopping, falling into their pedals and pushing ahead with all their might.

Behind them, May could hear the
huff-huff
of gargoyle breath. Zero hit a rock, and the bike went wobbly. As they lurched, May couldn't help but fling a look over her shoulder.

The riders weren't far behind. They were executing flips in the air, flying sideways and even upside down.

“Faster, Zero!” May screamed. Most of the other cyclists had disappeared into the trees. May searched the remaining crowd for Beatrice, or Pumpkin or Fabbio, but they had disappeared too.

Zero veered left, then right, sending May wobbling and scrabbling her fingers in the folds of his T-shirt to hang on. She felt herself start to slide backward off the seat. “Zeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee …!”

Zero reached an arm around to grab her, but it was too late. May felt the seat disappear beneath her, and suddenly she was tumbling backward through the air, landing on the grass with a hard thump. Her death shroud fell open on one side.

The plains went silent. Those who were biking away came to a halt and looked over their shoulders at the living girl, her shroud fallen away. Zero circled in an about-face on his bike to stare, his mouth dropping open. Slowly, May sat up. Behind her, across the plain, the Wild Hunters had stopped too.

The leader's eyeless eyes stared at her, frozen. And then he shrieked and kicked his gargoyle forward.

May leaped up, unsteady on her feet, her shroud now hanging limp from her neck. For a moment May met Zero's eyes. His, for the first time, were filled with terror.

“May, run!”

May was frozen in place watching the riders come toward her. And then she looked frantically about. There was the church at the edge of the field.
There!

May ran toward it full tilt. Behind her, she could hear Zero and some of the others racing to catch up, perhaps to bait the hunters.

She hit the front of the church at a sprint, not daring to look behind her. She yanked hard on the door, but it wouldn't give. Turning, she pressed against it with her back. Only three of the terrifying riders were racing in her direction now. The others fanned out behind them, blocking her escape. She dashed around the side of the church and into the cemetery.

The tombstones were as crumbled and crooked as bad teeth. May chose a stone tall enough to hide her—sculpted in the shape of an angel—and crouched behind it. She curled herself into a ball and waited.

Several moments went by, and May began to think that, miraculously, the riders had gone past the church. She peered out from her hiding spot. She could just see, through one of the church windows, a smallish sliver of purplish face.

May gasped and ducked behind the stone again, bending her chin close to her knees and trying not to breathe too loud. Soon she heard the whispery rustling of the riders drifting into the cemetery. She peeked around a second time, just barely. The three hunters had dismounted and were floating among the stones, the mist rising from the graves around them. One seemed to glance in her direction. As smoothly and slickly as a snake, he drifted toward her.

May curled back behind the stone and bit her bottom lip firmly. She looked around for some kind of weapon to defend herself. There was nothing. She held her breath and sat stock-still.

A few seconds went by Then, slowly a white, withered hand reached around the side of the tombstone. It touched May's cheek, then, feeling, moved across her nose.

May opened her mouth and bit down.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeceeeech!

May didn't think. She acted. She leaped forward and wrapped her arm around the hunter's neck. Then she rubbed her knuckles against his head as hard as she could, yelling, “Noogie! Noogie! Noogie!”

The hunter let out a shocked gargling sound, trying to escape but unable to loose himself from May's locked grasp. When he finally stumbled backward, his oily hair making him too slick to hold any longer, May moved quickly She cocked back her left foot and kicked his rotten left shin.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!
The hunter reeled backward, clutching his leg. Hobbled, half crouched, and completely bewildered, he turned and zipped past his two companions—who were levitating across the graveyard, utterly shocked—knocking down small tombstones in his wake, his gargoyle following on his heels.

Stunned, May turned and ran the other way.

T
HIS WAY FOR A GREAT VIEW.

May came to a sudden halt, turning to look behind her and breathing hard. She had been running for as long as she could, turning this way and that. And it looked like it had worked. There was no sign of the hunters. But now, she realized, she was perfectly lost.

May turned back to the sign that had caused her to stop. It hung from a post beside a tunnel carved into a rocky hill. It seemed suspicious, appearing as it did in the middle of nowhere.

She cast another glance behind her. Surely, Somber Kitty would sniff her trail and find her. Until then, she resolved to go on. She set her chin and made her way into the tunnel. A tiny imprint in the stone said
CUSTOM WALLS BY HADRIAN.
A few feet farther a larger sign read
AMUSEMENTS, REFRESHMENTS, THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE, THIS WAY.
A moment later the tunnel poured her out into starlight again. May went to take another step forward, but she gasped and leaped backward instead.

There was nothing in front of her. Nothing but black space and billions of stars zooming past. She had reached a ledge of some sort, and only space lay beyond it.