Dead End

by C. P. Rider

  My anger activated my ability, and the ground beneath my sneakers rumbled like the hungry stomach of a god. I gritted my teeth and tried to slow my breathing. I was tired, frustrated, and scared to death.

  The worm let out a steaming hiss—the sound of a boiling kettle if it doesn't have one of those whistles on the spout—and opened a mouth that half circled its head. A ten-foot skinny purple tongue rolled out and wrapped around Toby's body like a lasso. Jerked him toward the worm's mouth.

  "Toby!" I jumped on the tongue between Toby and the worm. Yanked at the thing where it was wrapped around my dog's furry body. The tongue was strong—a slimy, leathery muscle. It wouldn't budge.

  The rumbling under my feet turned into a cracking sound, like thunder rolling closer.

  "Let him go, please." I don't know why I said please. If the beast didn't pay attention to my yelling, it wasn't going to pay attention to my begging.

  Toby yelped in wheezy puffs of air. I pulled my knee to my chest, then stomped my heel into the worm's tongue. Did it again. Again. It didn't even slow the beast down.

  Tears rolled down my face as I threw myself on the tongue, wrapped my hands around the belt of muscle, and held on. I would not lose Toby. I'd lost Mom, Dad, and my world. It wasn't fair of the universe to ask me to lose something else.

  "Stop it." I choked out the words.

  Shallow fractures appeared on the blacktop. If this thing took Toby, it was taking me, too. I would throw every drop of power I had into the ground and swallow up the three of us in a crater deep enough to reach the blazing center of the earth.

  I rolled closer to the worm's gaping mouth. Close enough to see its teeth. Clear, rectangular, and jagged—sharp. Toby gasped out a weak little bark.

  "Don't take him," I shrieked. Hysterical with panic, I pulled my legs up to my chin and kicked at the teeth. It was like kicking a steel door. The energy reverberated back up my legs and hips.

  I wasn't going to be able to save Toby. I couldn't fight this thing. It was too strong and too relentless, and I'd never been either of those things.

  The fight drained out of me. I wrapped myself around my dog and, just as I had that day at the pool back home, waited for the darkness to take me.

  Whomp.

  The blade of a solid black ax slammed into the narrow space between the worm’s mouth and Toby and me. The creature screamed, its mouth shooting out a yellowish liquid I took to be blood, seeing as how it was squirting out of one end of its severed tongue. With a frantic twitch, the worm reared back, let out another squeaking scream, then rammed itself back into the sand hole it had popped out of.

  The detached tongue relaxed, releasing Toby. My pup lay panting on his side, but his eyes were bright. "You're okay." I pulled him into my arms, kissed his furry head. "You're okay."

  "Yeah, he's a strong little guy."

  Samuel Bekker, the cute guy from the café, knelt beside Toby and me. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt, and his biceps made the sleeves seem too tight as he wiped the ax head on his jeans, then slid the weapon into a leather loop on his back.

  "Thank you," I whispered.

  His upper lip curled. "What are you guys doing out here after dark? It's not safe."

  "I know that now." I shivered, hugged Toby close.

  I felt Samuel's gaze on me, probably judging my stupidity on a scale of one to ten and giving me an eleven. It annoyed me, but he was right, so it wasn't as if I could argue.

  "Come on, you two." He helped me to my feet.

  "Okay." I shivered and Toby did, too.

  "Uh, Maria?"

  "Yes?"

  "I think we both agree I saved your life, right?"

  "Right. Thank you."

  "You're welcome." He frowned at the deepening cracks in the asphalt. "Can we agree that the danger is now over?"

  Shifting Toby higher in my arms, I said, "It would seem to be, yes."

  "Then could you do me a favor?"

  "What is it?"

  "Can you please stop shaking the earth?"

  13

  "W-What makes you think it's me?"

  Fear sent icicles into my blood, and Dad's voice into my head. You can never tell anyone what you are, Loops. It's too dangerous.

  "Uh, because you're an earthmover? Look, you were scared and probably pissed off at the limpid worm, so you made the ground shake. No big deal."

  "I'm an earthmover?"

  "Well, yeah. It makes sense, doesn't it? Your grandfather is one, and that sort of ability is usually inherited."

  The ice in my blood melted. "Grandpa Holli?"

  "No, your other grandfather. Emilio Flores."

  "Oh. I didn't know." But I should have. He was my mother's father. Apparently, they'd shared more than eye color and an affinity for mariachi music. "I don't really tell people about it."

  "That's weird. It's a cool ability." He jumped to the side when a crack in the road widened. "Usually."

  I needed to make it stop. "Can you give me a minute?"

  "Yeah, sure."

  I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. Another. Again, I heard my dad's voice: "Relax, Loops. Breathe. Just breathe."

  As my brain and body calmed, the rumbling slowed. Toby helped. Just knowing he was all right made me feel balanced.

  When it had stopped, I opened my eyes and caught Samuel staring at me. "I don't understand why you don't talk about your ability, but hey, it's your life. Thing is, I need your help. So, we're going to have to talk about it a little."

  "No." I took a step back.

  Samuel's eyes narrowed. "Don't you even think about running."

  "I wasn't." I was. It was a reflex, something Samuel wouldn't understand, living in a place where, apparently, people told anyone and everyone what they could do.

  "Right." One eyebrow shot up. "You ever heard of the ripper fields?"

  I shifted Toby in my arms. He was quietly snoring now, exhausted from the ordeal. "I've heard about rippers. My abuelo said they're tears in the fabric between worlds. He didn't say anything about a ripper field, though."

  "It's over there." Samuel pointed to the west side of Dead End. The sky over that area was different from the rest of town. It was gloomy, dark as night, with stormy purple clouds overhead. "Did you know rippers can be used as doorways to other worlds?"

  "Yes. I also heard that the last person who tried to cross one was torn to shreds."

  "Not true. I saw the last person who crossed to your world from here. I watched her walk through the ripper, and I saw her standing on the other side. She was fine."

  Could it be true? Could the answer I'd been looking for have fallen right into my lap? It sounded perfect.

  "What's the catch?"

  Samuel frowned. "What makes you think there's a catch?"

  "There's always a catch when something seems perfect. So, could you please get on with it? I'm cold, covered in worm gunk, and I want to take my dog home."

  He sighed. "The catch, as you say, is that the rippers have been getting more and more unstable. The odds of us finding the one that leads to your home—at least, right away—are pretty slim."

  "How slim?"

  "Struck by lightning, hit by a meteorite, surviving-an-encounter-with-a-chimera slim. But not impossible."

  That's the second time someone had mentioned a chimera. I hoped it was just a figure of speech, but this was Dead End, so anything was possible. "My grandfather told me that the rippers have killed people. Are you saying he lied about that?"

  "It wasn't a lie. But those people died because they tried to cross unstable rippers. Stable rippers are few and far between, but they do form naturally. The thing is, you and I don't have to wait for one to naturally form because you can stabilize them."

  "Me?"

  "Yes, you. You're an earthmover." He folded his arms over his chest. "How do I know more about this than you do? According to my sister, Mr. Flores is the strongest earthmover in Sanctum. I heard your mom was strong, too. Didn't she teach you anythi
ng?"

  "She taught me how to hide," I said.

  "If she left here through a ripper, she either found a stable one or she figured out a way to stabilize one with her ability. Too bad she didn't teach you how."

  "I didn't even know she was from here."

  The half-truths and lies by omission were starting to add up. My mom had never told me about her part of the world, and now my grandfathers were keeping me in the dark about how I could stabilize a ripper. The fact that they were keeping something like that from me made me angry, and a little sad.

  "You need to back-burner whatever is causing that look, Maria. Get all moody and pissed off later. I need an answer. Will you help me?"

  "When you ask all sweet like that, how can I refuse?" I smirked. "Why do you want to get to my world so badly?"

  "There's someone there I need to find."

  "The person you said you saw go through? The one you asked me about when we first met?"

  Sadness seeped into his eyes. I knew that look all too well, because I'd seen it in the mirror every morning since Dad left me behind. Samuel had lost someone important to him.

  "Will you do it?" he asked.

  "I have a condition."

  "What is it?"

  "If I help you stabilize the ripper enough for us to pass through, you have to promise to help me find my dad."

  "All right."

  "He might be with some very bad people."

  "Not a problem."

  I wasn't sure about that, but I decided to take his word for it. "I have no idea how to do this ripper-stabilizing thing."

  "Yeah, I know. Your ability works similarly to mine, so I've got some ideas."

  "You're an earthmover, too?" I perked up. It would be nice to know someone like me, someone who wasn't ashamed of what we were.

  "No, I'm not. But my ability relies on vibrations, same as yours. Like I said, I've got some ideas. Is it a deal?" He thrust out his hand.

  I hesitated, though I didn't understand why. If helping Samuel was going to get me to Dad, there was nothing to hesitate about.

  "It's a deal."

  "Can I come, too?"

  "Sure, if you want to." After school the next day, Cindy and I were sprawled on her bedroom floor painting our nails prismatic black. It was the only bottle of black polish I brought with me, and she was fascinated with the color. "It's not like I have any idea what I'm doing."

  "Why don't you know more about your ability? Kids here usually learn from their parents or, if they have an ability their parents don't have, another adult with that ability teaches them."

  Toby popped out from under the bed with a lime green sock in his mouth.

  "Like some sixth sense big brother/big sister program?"

  "I don't know what that means." Cindy patted Toby on the head, and he dropped the sock and licked her. "It's a mentor-mentee relationship, if that helps clear it up."

  "My mom taught me some things. Mostly how to suppress my ability. But she died when I was seven, and my dad's ability was different. He did the best that he could."

  "I'm sorry you had to hide." She patted my shoulder with the heel of her hand so as not to smudge her nails. "So how did you learn to control it? From what I hear, earthmoving is one of the more difficult abilities to wield." Cindy wiggled her black sparkly toes in front of a small metal fan that looked like it belonged in a museum.

  "I didn't learn, really. I sort of squeeze it down deep, try to calm myself. It doesn't always work." I put my toes next to hers and let the air flow dry the polish. "What else have you heard about earthmovers?"

  "Only the stories, same as Samuel. That you're supposed to be able to stabilize rippers, that your kind is responsible for rippers in the first place, you know, the stories."

  "What?" Toby trotted over to sniff at the polish, so I screwed the lid on tighter. "My kind is responsible for the rippers?"

  "You haven't heard the story?"

  "No, I haven't. I think I'd remember something like that. Tell me."

  She peered at her painted nails, frowned at a smudge on her thumb. "There's a legend about a group of Sanctum revolutionaries who overthrew the Elite Council."

  "Council? Like the one your dad and my grandpa are on?"

  She shook her head. "Elite Council, not city council. Sanctum used to be a dictatorship rather than a democracy—or maybe you'd call it a meritocracy? This was years ago, when my grandma was a kid. We learned about this in civics, but you missed that lesson."

  First time I ever regretted missing a lesson.

  "Who was the dictator?" The big ones I could think of from my world's history were Saddam Hussein, Chairman Mao, Hitler.

  "It wasn't a person, it was people. The Sanctum Elites. Families with powerful abilities. The more powerful you were, the higher in the council you rose—usually by killing the people above you. Lots of people died before The Seven started the revolution."

  "The Seven?"

  "Seven of the most powerful Sanctumites to ever inhabit these lands joined together and put an end to that regime. But in doing so, they created enemies. One of those enemies killed the original Seven in retaliation, but seven more rose to take their place."

  "This sounds like a fantasy book."

  "It does, huh? But it's no story." She switched off the fan and we went to sit on her bed. "When the next Seven cornered this enemy, they worked together to get rid of him. It was said the earthmover caused the rip in the Divide, and the other six shoved the enemy through it. So, in a way, they saved the day, but it came at a cost. The Divide weakened and more rips appeared. Now there's a lot of them."

  "In the field outside of town?"

  "Yeah. That field is the only place in Sanctum where the Divide is entirely unstable. My dad said that Dead End was founded to monitor the weaknesses in the Divide."

  "Are you saying they created this whole town because of that field?"

  "Well, yeah. The town is like a watchdog." Cindy smiled down at Toby. "Dead Enders keep an eye on the rippers and the things they attract."

  "What, exactly, do they attract?"

  "Dangerous creatures from the Beyond. Used to be that things like the limpid worm that attacked poor Toby stayed away from populated areas. But the rippers have drawn them here. We get a few in town every year. More lately, for some reason."

  Did Abuelo Emilio know anything about the earthmover who created the first ripper? Very likely. Would he tell me about it if he did? Not likely. Unless I published my question in one of those newspapers he always had his nose stuck in, he probably wouldn't even hear me.

  "Maybe your abuelo knows something about it. He's an earthmover. Plus, he's on the city council."

  "So's your dad."

  "Yeah, but my dad won't talk about anything that isn't public knowledge. I mean, how many times can you hear about the dream sprite invasion of ’15? Boring."

  "See…" I rolled off the bed and to my feet, gathered up my polish, remover, and cotton ball. "That sounds like the opposite of boring to me."

  "Dream sprites are these little pests that feed on the energy we release during sleep. If you don't ward your house against them, they can put you in a coma or even kill you if they take too much, which they almost never do because killing your food supply is pretty freaking stupid." She rolled her eyes. "See? Boring."

  "You and I have very different definitions of that word."

  "Well, we are from different realms."

  "True." Speaking of realms, I had another question for her. "This is going to sound weird, but in my world, I had this other ability."

  "Another ability?" Cindy's eyes widened. "That’s unusual, even for Elites. What is it?"

  "I can see, uh, ghosts." I thought of Aedan drawing messages for me in the bathroom. He hadn't been a spirit, but I still thought of him that way. Not that I wished him dead or anything, but things between us had been easier when I thought he was. "The spirits of dead people."

  She gestured that I should continue. "And?"


  "That's it. I kind of thought that was enough."

  "Not really. We get spirits popping in now and then." She shrugged. "Especially during a spectral storm."

  "Spectral storm? What's that?"

  "So you know when the veil between the spirit world and ours thins, pressure builds up between the dead and the living, and it culminates in cyclones of spirits attacking the town?" Cindy admired her fingernails.

  "No, I do not know. Great. Another thing to freak out about."

  "It's no big deal. It's why every house in Dead End has shaman-blessed storm shutters. One or two is no problem, but if you start seeing a bunch of spirits, tell your grandpas so they can activate the shutters."

  "And I'll do that," I said dully. "Because that's a thing that people actually do here."

  "Exactly. Nothing to worry about." She stood, gave me a quick hug. "I really do hope you get to the Other soon, Maria. To find your dad, and also because we're going to need more nail polish. This stuff looks amazing on us."

  14

  "What kind of wards do we need to block out dream sprites?"

  I set a bowl of white rice on the table and took a seat beside Abuelo Emilio and across from Grandpa Holli. We were having stir fry. I only recognized two of the vegetables in the dish, and I still wasn't too sure those orange things were carrots.

  "The standard ones." Grandpa Holli passed me the rice. "Don't worry, we had the city shaman by a couple months ago to renew them. Why? Have you been feeling fatigued?"

  I shook my head. "I'm fine. What about shaman-blessed storm shutters?"

  "Those are up-to-date, too. We had them re-blessed after the spectral storm last year. Is something wrong?"

  "I just realized there's a lot that I don't know about Dead End." Smooth segue, Loops. I heard the words in Dad's voice, and had to hide a smile.

  "What would you like to know?"

  The opening I was hoping for, though I had hoped Abuelo Emilio would answer instead of Grandpa Holli. "Cindy told me that Dead End hasn't been around all that long."

  "It was established fifty-one years ago." He smiled at Abuelo. "I've lived here for forty-three years. Emilio and I met around that time." He leaned in, as if about to tell me a secret. "He applied for a dishwasher job at the restaurant. This was before he went to work doing maintenance for the city, of course." He smiled. "Married him two years later, and we've lived here ever since."