The Death Catchers (4 page)

“One thing's for sure,” Bizzy continued, “there's no doubt left in my mind that you're a card-carrying member of the Hands a' Fate.”

“The Hands of Fate?”

The room began to spin. My grandma eyed me curiously. She swung around her walker and sat down on the edge of the couch. Taking my whole head in one of her arms, she squeezed. Using her free arm, she took my Hand of Fate and put her fingers over Jodi's name.

“That's what we've been callin' ourselves for hundreds of years. I know it's a lot to take in all at once, but you'll get used to it in time,” she said. “I promise you, as sure as the sun'll shine, you will. I'll be with you every step.”

“It's not possible.”

“The one thing I've learned in all this is that anything's possible … First things first, though. We gotta figger out a way to save your friend before that headline you saw turns true.”

 

Man (or, in This Case, Old Lady) vs Machine

This bit of advice will probably never be much use to you, Mrs. Tweedy, but let me give it to you anyway: if you suddenly tell your granddaughter that she had a vision of death and is part of a strange cult called the Hands of Fate, don't just leave her all alone.

At least, not right away.

Almost as soon as Bizzy told me that I'd seen my first death-specter, she left me lying on the couch. I was about to ask if Jodi's name would ever disappear from my hand when Bizzy told me she had to “go gather her materials, lightnin' quick.”

Those minutes alone were absolute misery. At first, I weighed the possibility that my grandma, Beatrice Mildred Mortimer, was legitimately unbalanced. People had all sorts of mental “breaks” that came on all at once. Just last year, in fact, Mrs. Frackle, owner of the Camelot Theater, refused to get dressed and started living in pajamas in the crawl space above the theater. Maybe I'd imagined some strange thing appearing in the paper exactly like I'd imagined the woman in the cemetery. Maybe the raised bloodred letters on my hand were a figment of my imagination, too. Or maybe Bizzy had drawn them in my sleep when I wasn't looking. I was unable to take my eyes off my hand. It was as if it had been replaced with someone else's.

But maybe it was real. After all, Bizzy was eccentric, but surely she wasn't deranged.

Somehow, it seemed to be the only scenario that
was
possible. Because it was certainly Jodi's name, spelled correctly, right there, engraved on my palm. I grew incredibly sad, thinking about Jodi and her plans for the Destiny Strummers. I wasn't sure I'd be able to survive Crabapple High without her.

I looked at the clock—6:32 a.m. Miss Mora would have just arrived in her store. Jodi would be right beside her, helping her open up the market. If Jodi were alive, I'd be able to spot her through the front store window. Bizzy said I couldn't warn her, but I
could
make sure she didn't cross Ocean Avenue without me. Heck, I'd tackle her if I had to.

If I could lay eyes on her, at least, I wouldn't feel so terrible inside.

I stripped off my elephant trunk, sparkly gloves, and big rubber bow tie. I didn't look normal, but I wouldn't be completely conspicuous. I ran out the screen door toward Miss Mora's Market.

The ballet slippers made negotiating the mist-slicked pavement harder than normal. I raced down the hill anyway. The shortcut through the Ramblings' yard would get me there quicker, so I took it. I nearly tripped on their Oregon or Bust house name placard, sticking up in the middle of their lawn.

I reached the corner of Dolores and Ocean Avenue in no time. I bent over, trying to catch my breath before dashing on.

Crabapple was dark and damp at dawn. And empty. There wasn't a person or car anywhere. The streetlights were still glimmering. One shone on Miss Mora's green awning across the street. I was positioned diagonally from the entrance to the store.

The lights were on. I squinted, trying to locate Miss Mora or Jodi through the store's plate-glass window.

Magically, there she was.

Jodi came through the front door of the store, wearing a red apron that matched her red Converse high-tops. She was wheeling crates of fruit on a dolly.

“Jodi!” I exclaimed.

I couldn't help it. I was overjoyed. Jodi turned around and saw me across the street. She smiled widely, the slight gap in her two front teeth on display.

She walked toward me, stepping down from the curb and into the street with her hands on her hips.

“You're up early!” She shook her head in surprise. “Did you run out of eggs or something?”

I had to get ahold of her—to make sure she got out of the street.

What happened next was a blur.

I still can't be sure what I saw first: the black car turning onto Ocean Avenue from a side street, or my grandma, gaining speed, on the opposite side of the street.

Bizzy was straddling the bottom rails of Dixie, riding her souped-up walker like a skateboard, holding on for dear life. She was wearing a red helmet and her face had a fierceness to it—like her jaw was reinforced with iron.

I spun back around. The black car was headed straight toward Jodi.

Bizzy, riding Dixie, careened out into the intersection.

The black car picked up speed, still gunning right for Jodi.

Bizzy angled toward Jodi, who was turned toward me, waiting for me to explain myself.

Both the black car and my grandma were converging toward one central point: Jodi, still standing in the middle of the street.

“Nooooo!” I shouted, watching the black car as it zoomed within feet of both Bizzy and Jodi.

My arms swung back and forth like two haywire windshield wipers attached to my shoulders.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, trying to get the car to slow down.

But it didn't.

Bizzy cried out as Dixie rammed full speed into Jodi. Both of them went flying back toward the sidewalk. An instant later, I heard the crunch of bone meeting pavement. Bizzy's helmeted head cracked against the concrete. Dixie flew the other direction, slamming into the sidewalk, pieces breaking off as it bounced toward Jodi.

I inhaled deeply.

The black car had missed them by inches.

The car zoomed away and I ran toward the curb, where Jodi groaned in pain. Dixie had rolled on top of her. Bizzy was flat on her back nearby. Her eyes were closed, her face frozen in pain. Jodi moaned as she tried to move the walker. The suffering in her voice made me wince.

“You okay?” I pulled Dixie off Jodi. She opened her eyes and looked at me.

“I'm all right, I think,” she said softly, her eyelids fluttering like dancing butterflies. “Your … grandma … the car … she … saved … me.”

I turned to my grandma and took a step toward her. Her eyes were still closed. She was unconscious.

“Bizzy! Can you hear me?” My voice broke.

Jodi slowly rose to her feet and brushed herself off. We both stood over Bizzy's prone body.

“Bizzy?” Jodi said, concerned. “Bizzy, if you can hear me, we're going to call and get you help, okay?”

Nothing.

“Bizzy, hang on!” I insisted.

Still nothing. I began to think it was too much for a seventy-four-year-old to handle. I also started to think the accident was my fault.

“I'll go call an ambulance,” Jodi said loudly.

“I'll stay with her. Hurry.”

The sound of footsteps drew my eyes away from Bizzy and toward the corner where the black car had first emerged.

A little girl with long straight white hair and a black dress was determinedly skipping down the sidewalk toward my grandma and me. Her expression was as plain as her pale face. I could hear her humming; her small voice was faint in the morning air. Her dress was lined with black ruffles and black lace and there was something unnatural about her joyless face. She looked like a demented doll.

All at once, Bizzy's left eye popped open. She turned her head and eyed the girl.

“The miiiir …,” she wheezed, unable to form the word she wanted.

“Bizzy! You're awake! Don't try to talk,” I said. “Help is on the way.”

“N-ack … No! Mirror!” Her eyeballs focused with frantic desperation. She weakly motioned toward one of Dixie's side-view mirrors, partially cracked, lying on the sidewalk a few feet away from her.

“Neeeeoooow! Now!” Bizzy implored, with all of the strength she could muster. I looked at her confused, my pulse still racing, wondering what Bizzy wanted with a mirror, now of all times.

I crawled toward the mirror, grabbed it, and carefully placed it on Bizzy's chest.

Her eyes were focused on something just over my shoulder. I looked up, and the little girl in the black dress was less than a foot away from us, humming softly to herself.

“
You have a date. A date with fate. We shall not be late,
” she sang in an eerie singsong. Her voice was tiny and thin, like a parakeet's, as she repeated it again, in a hypnotic chant. “
The time is here, there's nothing to fear. You have a date. A date with fate. We shall not be late.
”

I stared at the strange little girl in her black dress, completely confused, and then looked back at Bizzy. In her eyes, I saw abject fear.

“What is it, Bizzy? Who is she?”

“
You have a date. A date with fate. We shall not be late,
” the girl continued.

Bizzy groaned as she struggled to lift the mirror with her weak arms. “Show the mirra to the girl,” she said, gulping for air and then making a gurgling noise.

I looked back at the sullen girl. She'd stopped singing. She peered at me with her big sand dollar–sized eyes, then at Bizzy. She turned her head and saw Jodi through the plate-glass window, behind the counter, on the phone. I looked at her face and noticed her eyes had become swirling black holes. Suddenly, tears were spilling from them. She opened her mouth and let out a small whimper. The whimper turned into sob.

Then the sob turned into something else entirely.

It sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before, so piercing and loud, I was sure Miss Mora's window would shatter. The shriek was high and deep—it took my breath away.

I crumbled to the ground and covered my ears.

“Stop!” I screamed, looking at the pale-faced, shrieking girl. My brain felt as if someone was pounding it with a rubber mallet. My lungs seemed to be shrinking inside my chest—like two balloons someone had released without remembering to tie them off.

I saw spots and then colors. I rolled toward Bizzy, her face ashen.

If the wailing didn't stop soon, I was certain I wouldn't be able to withstand it. Bizzy grimaced as she pushed the mirror toward me.

I tried to think clearly. Bizzy'd known the girl was trouble even before the wailing—that must've been the reason she was so alarmed. But how did she know?

Show the girl the mirror
, she'd said.

I struggled to grasp Dixie's detached mirror in my hands. I lurched to my feet, so dizzy I couldn't see straight. The girl flashed in front of me. Then blackness. Then the girl. The world was dimming around me, my lungs were running out of air.

The mirror weighed heavy in my hands. I could barely lift it. But lift it I did. Right in front of the girl's contorted face so that she was staring directly into it.

I heard an explosive pop, then a rush of air. I winced as the blast of a thousand tiny particles hit my face.

The screeching finally stopped. I dropped to my knees and collapsed next to Bizzy, unconscious.

Miss Mora was standing over me when my eyes fluttered open. Jodi was beside her.

“Lizzy?” she questioned. “Lizzy, are you okay? What on earth happened? Why is there sand everywhere?” Miss Mora had her arm around Jodi, who was staring at me like I was a stranger.

“She done fainted. Saw me bleedin', poor thing!” Bizzy, still lying on the ground next to me, chuckled. Her voice was weak. I wobbled to my feet and stared at Bizzy, who winked at me.

“Sand's from Dixie,” my grandma continued. “I weighed her down with the stuff so she controls speed easier on downhills.”

“I'm amazed you're conscious, Bizzy!” Miss Mora said.

“An ox ain't got nothin' on me,” Bizzy said. “But criminy, gals. Don't stand there like you're 'bout to put nails in my coffin,” she continued, growing quite animated. “Help an ol' lady up, for Pete's sake!”

“We really shouldn't move you in case you have an injury to your spine, Bizzy,” Miss Mora said. She then turned to me. “Lizzy, are you sure you're all right?”

“I think I just fainted … I'm fine now, I promise,” I said, embarrassed.

“You've all had quite a shock, to be sure,” Miss Mora said sympathetically. “I think I'll just run in and get you some water. Girls, make sure Bizzy does
not
budge!”

“Okay,” I said, catching my breath, my ears still ringing and my brain still throbbing.

Miss Mora's gaze connected with the concerned eyes of her daughter.

“Jodi, honey, Bizzy is going to be fine, okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Jodi mumbled.

I dropped to my knees and took off my vest. Then I grabbed Bizzy's head by the back of her cracked helmet and lifted it ever so slightly. I quickly slid the vest underneath.

“That's awful nice of you, Sweet Pea,” Bizzy said. Her eyes had a shininess to them that gave her a far-off quality, as if her mind was somewhere else.

“What
was
that? The girl and the mirror and the sand and … I thought we were both going to die—”

“Shush up now,” Bizzy said softly, shifting her eyes toward Jodi, who was standing a few feet away, still dazed. “Take a look at your hand,” she whispered.

I turned my left palm upward. The normal lines and wrinkles were there but nothing else. Jodi Sanchez's name had vanished.

Bizzy's eyes flickered closed. “She's safe,” Bizzy said, struggling to form the words, her eyes still closed. “We cheated the death-specter.” I surveyed Bizzy's body.

“But what was that
thing
?” I asked, refusing to believe the girl was an actual human being. “That sound—”

“When we're alone!” Bizzy insisted with a whisper.

“You're bleeding,” I said, noticing the growing pool of shimmering red on the sidewalk underneath Bizzy's hip. The pool was the size of a paper towel and growing.

“It's nothin' more than an itty-bitty scratch,” Bizzy said. “My skin ain't as thick as it used to be, I'm 'fraid.”

Jodi knelt next to me. She took off the red apron and tied one of the straps around Bizzy's bleeding elbow.

“Oh my stars,” Bizzy said, turning her head toward her elbow and reopening her eyes as Jodi applied the cloth to it. “Why, ain't you as sweet as pie.”