Rogue

by Gina Damico

  “He knows we’re trying to destroy the portals?”

  “Maybe not that specifically, but he knows we’re up to something nefarious. He’ll want to stop us, and you can bet he’ll convince the president of it too. By the time we get to Necropolis, it’s likely the whole city will be on the lookout, ready to stop us at any cost. Especially Lex.”

  Lex flinched. Elysia—who apparently didn’t give a fig that Lex now had a record of strangling her peers—noticed her discomfort and gave her arm a loving squeeze. Lex let out a long breath toward the ceiling, half expecting the coursing air to be filled with gnats and locusts. She was evil, after all. And she sure didn’t deserve friends like this. They should all be as mad at her as Ferbus was, especially Driggs. She didn’t deserve sympathetic squeezes. She didn’t even deserve to be in the same solar system as these people.

  She should be punished. She should be in the Hole.

  Her nerves jolted at the thought. The Hole was the worst imaginable kind of punishment for Grims—a deep, dark pit in the middle of Necropolis. It deprived them of the bliss of the Afterlife for as long as possible, keeping them alive but under horrific conditions. Lex and the Juniors had been sentenced to it but had managed to escape before anyone could drag them there.

  She doubted they’d be that lucky again.

  “So we’ll drive as far as we can,” Uncle Mort said, finishing up his talk, “and then hide out for the night. I know a place that should be able to hold all nine of us.”

  “Nine?” Pip asked after getting an elbow to the ribs from Bang, who’d quickly re-counted heads. “We’re only eight.”

  Uncle Mort glanced at Pandora, then back at the Juniors. “Okay, kids. Brace yourselves. And try not to yell too much.”

  Elysia’s hand tensed on Lex’s arm. “I hate when he says that,” she whispered.

  Uncle Mort gave them a sympathetic smile. “Remember that old chestnut about the wickedest Grim of all time?”

  He pounded on the roof. Grotton’s head popped down through the ceiling, a snaky grin stretching from ear to ear.

  The screams were so loud, Dora nearly drove into a tree.

  4

  The stuffed buffalo head on the wall stared straight ahead, its dead eyes unconcerned with the plight of the odd crew that had just pulled in off the highway.

  “You really think stopping here is a good idea?” Lex asked her uncle, eyeing the buffalo. A strange decoration for a small-town deli, to be sure, but then again Lex wasn’t really up to date on the interior design trends of small-town upstate New York.

  “Of course,” Uncle Mort said, counting out a stack of bills and placing them on the counter. “Don’t you think a cross-country run-for-our-lives road trip just screams ‘time for a picnic’?”

  “I would not have thought that, no.”

  “Well, that’s because you’re a total noob.”

  The girl reappeared behind the counter with two bagfuls of wrapped sandwiches. “That’ll be sixty-seven dollars and two cents,” she said, smiling sweetly at Uncle Mort.

  “Thanks,” he said, giving her a wink as he handed her the bills. “Keep the change, hon.”

  She giggled. Lex rolled her eyes.

  “Smooth move, Clooney,” Lex said as they exited the deli. “Do we need to pencil in some time for a sexy rendezvous? I think there’s a motel down the street that rents rooms by the hour.”

  “Pop quiz, hotshot: Let’s say someone shows up in this town and starts asking questions about a hooligan band of teenagers accompanied by two ghosts, an ancient woman, and a devastatingly attractive chaperone. Which one do you think that girl will be more likely to remember?”

  Lex grumbled. “The chaperone.”

  “You seem to have forgotten a couple of key adjectives there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t forget.”

  “Believe me, that girl won’t dream of ratting us out. Especially now that I’ve bestowed upon her the Wink of Trust.”

  Lex snorted. “The Wink of Trust?”

  “Has gotten me out of more trouble than you can imagine. I suggest you try it some time. Add it to your already overflowing arsenal of charm.”

  As they crossed the street, a car pulled up alongside them. The driver’s side window rolled down to reveal a grinning Wicket. “Hey, guys,” she said. “You okay? Lex, how you holding up?”

  Lex shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

  Wicket twisted her mouth in sympathy. “Well, don’t worry. I’ve got your backs. Anyone try to mess with my Juniors, I’ll rocket grenade them straight into the next century.”

  Lex stooped down to look at the passenger’s side, but surprisingly, it was empty. “Where’s Lazlo?”

  Wicket shot a quick glance at Uncle Mort. “Working security detail. Elsewhere.”

  Lex was about to ask what in the dickens that was supposed to mean, but then Uncle Mort nodded at Wicket in a secretive manner, which translated roughly as Screw you and your curiosities, Lex. We’re telling you NOTHING.

  So she swallowed her irritation and moved on to matters that they might actually discuss with her. “How did you two get out of Croak in the first place?” she asked Wicket. “Norwood had it on total lockdown. And when Lazlo helped the Juniors escape into the tunnel—I thought he was dead!”

  Wicket smirked. “Big difference between dead and playing dead.”

  Lex thought of his trampled body on the ground as the scene had erupted into bedlam. “Well, he fooled me.”

  “He fooled everyone.”

  “Then Wicket did the rest,” Uncle Mort said, nudging her. “Tell her what you did.”

  Wicket gave Lex a shy smile. “I stole Norwood’s car.”

  Lex stood back to look at the rusted gray thing. “No way!”

  “Yes way. In all the confusion after the trial, I was able to slip out unnoticed. Ran to Norwood’s house, hot-wired his car, then drove this baby right back into the chaos. Everyone was so surprised, they didn’t even notice when Lazlo rose from the dead to hop in.”

  “Punching Norwood in the nads on the way, I hear,” Uncle Mort added with no small amount of glee.

  “As a longtime Bank employee,” Wicket continued, “I already knew where the tunnel under the Bank porch came out. So we just headed up to the top of Greycliff, picked up Mort and the Juniors, and headed for the hotel.”

  “Wow,” said Lex. “Well, thank you.”

  “Happy to help,” Wicket said. “Kick a ton of capital city ass and we’ll call it even.”

  Uncle Mort leaned into the window and spoke quietly. “You know our route, right? In case we get separated?”

  “Roger, chief,” she said with a wink—possibly a Wink of Trust. “Over and out.”

  Uncle Mort and Lex walked back to the Stiff, which was parked in a small lot near the center of town. Lex let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Driggs was fully solid, so he could actually eat the food they’d just bought. Ferbus had tried to feed him a couple of Oreos earlier, but they’d just fallen through Driggs’s mouth to the seat of the car.

  If there were such a thing as an atomic bomb of uncomfortableness, that had been the moment of impact. Driggs looked around the car, unable to make eye contact with anyone, then said, “Okay, for the thirty-seventh time, I understand that you all feel really bad for me. And that you feel the need to be careful not to say anything that’s going to make me lose it. But acting like I have Ebola is, in fact, the fastest possible way to make me lose it. So if we can all at least pretend that nothing has changed, that I’m still fully living and functional and the same old moron I was before, that would be great. Mmkay?”

  The others finally agreed, Pip launching into a whole tangent on the coolness of being able to go through walls. Even Ferbus, who, after a couple hours of driving and growing a fraction of a percentage more comfortable with his best friend’s condition, had cracked a smile, though it was probably more for Driggs’s benefit than his own.

  Or it might have had something to do wit
h the bottled Yoricks from DeMyse that he’d smuggled in his bag and decided to crack open at lunchtime. “There he is!” Ferbus drunkenly shouted as Uncle Mort and Lex returned to the car with the food, sloshing his Yorick all over Driggs. “Captain Sandwich and the Condiment Kid!” He snickered. “Heh. Condom mint.”

  Uncle Mort distributed the lunches, and they tore in. Then, just as they would have done if they were back at the Morgue in Croak, they immediately started throwing food at one another.

  “Hey!” Ferbus yelled as Driggs walloped him with his wrapper. “No fair, I wasn’t ready!”

  Driggs grinned. “Ghost perk: you can’t get mad at me, I’m too dejected and pathetic.”

  “But you got pickle juice in my ear!” Ferbus turned to Elysia with a saucy smirk. “Wanna lick it out?”

  Elysia made a horrified face. “Oh my hell. Are you serious?” She surveyed the group. “Is he serious?”

  “Course I’m serious,” Ferbus said, leaning in. “It’s sexy. It’s a sexy thing.”

  “I actually don’t think it is.”

  “Come on, it’s in all the romancey movies. Isn’t there a whole pickle-juice ear-licking scene in Love Actually?”

  “No, there is not! You’ve never even seen it!”

  “I get the gist. It’s love. Actually.” And before Elysia could stop him, Ferbus planted a big one on her cheek.

  “Ew! Oh God, you smell like pickles. This is so not the way that Hugh Grant does things! So! Not!”

  Ferbus cackled and went back to throwing things at Driggs.

  Lex poked Elysia. “The relationship is going well, it seems.”

  Elysia’s face erupted with worry. “Oh, Lex, I’m so sorry. It just sort of . . . happened. We were in that hotel for so many days, just waiting around to hear word from Croak, waiting for Mort to figure out a way to rescue you guys. And Wicket and Lazlo not letting us leave, we just went a little stir-crazy and—omigod, I must seem like such a bad friend, and all while you were still stuck in that awful jail and poor Driggs and—”

  “Lys,” Lex said, taking her by the shoulders before she could launch into a full-blown monsoon of tears. “It’s fine. I think we’ve all learned a thing or two about taking happiness where you can get it. Plus . . . you know. It’s about time.”

  “About time? What do you mean?”

  “I mean you two have been itching to get into each other’s pants since the dawn of earth.”

  Elysia looked shocked for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said, staring back and forth between her mostly uneaten sandwich and Ferbus. “He’s gross. He’s mean. He’s ugly. He’s a lousy drunk, he’s the biggest nerd on the planet, he looks like a leprechaun, his hair is the color of Cheetos—”

  “And you luuurve him.”

  Elysia scowled and crossed her arms. “And I lurve him.”

  A giggle escaped Lex’s lips, though she tried very hard to keep it in. But even Driggs was smiling, and he was worse off than any of them. They were still allowed to laugh, it seemed. Especially when Yoricks were involved.

  Lex tapped Driggs on the shoulder. “Since we’re in the business of treating you the same and all,” she said, keeping her voice light, “you won’t mind if I point out that you’ve got a glob of mayonnaise in your hair?”

  “Not only do I not mind, but I’m also going to leave it there. As a reminder.”

  “Of?”

  “My indomitable spirit in the face of misfortune.”

  Lex rolled her eyes, but couldn’t hide her grin. “Here,” she said, plopping down the surprise she’d bought. “More Oreos.”

  He lit up. “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He shoved five into his face at once. “Ghost perk: I can eat as much as I want and not gain a pound.”

  “You always eat as much as you want. And you never gain a pound.”

  “This is also true.”

  “I wonder how it’ll work with . . . you know . . . the other end,” Lex said.

  Driggs swallowed, then looked thoughtful. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Wait one flippin’ minute,” Ferbus slurred. “There isn’t any trout in these sandwiches!”

  Everyone stopped chewing to stare at him.

  “Um. Should there be?” Uncle Mort asked.

  “Read the sign!”

  Uncle Mort followed his gaze. “‘Welcome to Roscoe, New York,’” he read off the town sign. “‘Trout Town, USA.’”

  “And no trout! What a waste!”

  Uncle Mort raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry this foodie tour isn’t up to your lofty standards, Ferbus. I’ll be sure to refund the price of your ticket.”

  Ferbus shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder why we even came to Trout Town, USA at ALL,” he moaned, swinging his arms out and accidentally smashing his bottle of Yorick on the ceiling.

  “Aggh!” Pandora yelled as the drink rained down everywhere. “For the love of Mamie Eisenhower, it’s getting into the furs!”

  Elysia turned the shade of a stop sign. “We’ll never be able to go out in public,” she whispered to Lex, her voice furious as she watched Ferbus attempt to mop up the mess. “No restaurants, no movie theaters. Just thirty-one varieties of Hamburger Helper, one per night, month after month”—her voice went up with each word—“for the rest of my life!”

  “Get a towel!” Pandora was still shouting. “In the back there!”

  Pip yanked a towel off a pile of something and tossed it to Driggs, who used it to soak up the liquid. “Exactly what kind of animal did these furs come from, Dora?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “The slow kind.”

  “Hey, Mort?” Pip was looking at something he’d found underneath the towel. He held up an old copy of The Obituary, the Grimsphere’s newspaper. “Is this you?”

  Uncle Mort turned around and looked. A glimmer of recognition passed through his eyes; at the same time, his shoulders deflated. “Twenty years to clean those things out, Dora. Couldn’t find a spare minute?”

  “I’m a busy woman.”

  Pip was studying it more closely. “It is Mort! And look who else!” Bang, looking over his shoulder, signed an excited pair of jazz hands.

  Lex knew what that meant. “LeRoy too? Let me see that.”

  They passed her the paper. Splashed across the front page were the words TANK-BOMBING JUNIORS ARRESTED. The article beneath it had mostly crumbled away except for a large black-and-white photo of four people: a younger but still fabulous version of LeRoy; Uncle Mort at the same age, with blood on his face; a Native American girl with dual pigtail braids; and one other Junior whose face was covered by his or her hands.

  Lex looked at her uncle in disbelief. “You bombed a tank?”

  “No.”

  “Then—what, you bombed something with a tank? Where did you get a tank?”

  He rolled his eyes. “There was no bomb. They got that all wrong.”

  “But—” She took a closer look at the photo, at the slash across his cheek. “Your scar.”

  Something was going on in Uncle Mort’s eyes—sadness, maybe regret, or a hint of anger. Pandora whacked him with a bony arm. “Tell ’em, kid. They’ll probably find out sooner or later.”

  Uncle Mort cracked his knuckles, then, staring out the window, cracked them again. “I was a Junior once, too,” he said so quietly that everyone leaned forward to hear him better. “And much like you, Lex, I somehow got it into my head that I was pretty much right about everything, all the time.”

  “And the times have changed how?” Lex said.

  “Well, back then I only thought I was right.” He turned and grinned at her. “Now I am right.”

  “Ah.”

  “There were four of us Juniors, and we were just as close as all of you are now. We were the dream team, if ever there was one. LeRoy . . .” He smiled, remembering. “LeRoy was brilliant. Smooth talker, knew how to get strange things from strange places, and downright scary when he needed to
be.” He pointed to the girl with braids. “That’s Skyla. A genius mind for planning. She’s the one who fully engineered our attack, detailed our positions and timing right down to the second.”

  “So there was an attack,” Lex pressed.

  “Yes, but we had our reasons. It was this feeling we’d all been getting ever since we first arrived in the Grimsphere—an inkling that something about the Afterlife was off. So we did a little digging, did some calculations. And in the end, the evidence was staring us in the face: the Afterlife was eroding, and it would disappear forever if we didn’t stop, or at least cut down on, human involvement in the area of death.”

  “Which is what we’re trying to do right now,” Driggs said. “Stop the violations.”

  “Right. But back then, we were ahead of our time. We tried to tell the mayor, but he wouldn’t listen to us, thought we were just a bunch of stupid kids. Next we tried to go over his head and tell the president, but again, we were blown off. Everyone thought we were just conspiracy theorists, out to cause trouble because we were bored or couldn’t hold our Yoricks.”

  A spark lit up in his eyes. “But we knew we were right. We knew it. So, desperate to get the attention of those in power, we decided to do something a little . . . drastic.”

  After a moment of silence, Pip couldn’t help himself. “What?” he asked. “What did you do?”

  Uncle Mort managed an expression that was sheepish and proud at the same time. “We smashed the jellyfish tank. Knocked Croak offline for a week.”

  Every one of the Juniors gasped. “You what?” Elysia cried.

  “How did you not get exiled for that?” Lex asked, incredulous. “They’d probably throw me in the Hole just for jaywalking, yet you and LeRoy become mayors? How does that happen?”

  At this, Uncle Mort looked pained. Turning his gaze to the floor, he started rubbing his scar, from his eye to his ear.

  “We got creative,” he said.

  Before he could expand on that, though, his Cuff crackled. He held it up to his ear, frowning. “Hello?”

  A muffled voice came back.