"That spike was never meant for me. It was for Brett all along. We should have realised that. In the photo, the pole was pointing at Brett, not me," said Casper.
Drew nodded. "But Brett's dead now, Casper. We have to get over it."
"He was my best friend!" said Casper hotly. "We've been friends since we were five!"
"Two years of friendship, then," said Drew, attempting to smile. She caught Casper's look. "Sorry," she said.
They were in the back of a taxi. Fortunately, the driver was separated from them by a glass partition, and so couldn't hear their discussion.
Drew had done some research, after they had attended Brett's funeral. It had been four days since he died. And no one else had died so far.
Alexa was next on the list. Drew had tried phoning her, but couldn't seem to reach her. She knew why. After Seb's death, Alexa had stopped speaking to Drew altogether.
But as far as she knew, Alexa was still alive.
"Maybe Death is going to leave us alone. Maybe, if you cheat it twice, that stops it," she had suggested. Casper had replied that he didn't know.
So Drew had done her research. She discovered that her premonition of the bus accident was not the first of its kind. There were, in fact, three previous cases.
First, some guy called Alex Browning had had a premonition that the plane he and his friends were on would explode. Seven people got off the plane. And then it did explode.
But after that, the seven survivors began to die, one by one. They were now all dead.
The second event was a motorway pileup. Again, a girl called Kimberly Corman had a premonition of the accident. She prevented a number of cars from getting on the motorway. And later, the survivors again started to die.
The third happened much more recently. A rollercoaster called the Devil's Flight had derailed and killed some school kids. But not before a girl called Wendy Christensen had got most of her friends off it. However, they all died in bizarre accidents.
But there was an odd one out. Alex was dead – killed by a falling brick. And Wendy was also dead – she died in a subway accident. But Kimberly was still alive. So was Thomas Burke, a police officer who she had prevented from getting on the motorway. They were the only people who had stopped Death. They had found a way to beat it.
So Drew and Casper were on their way to see them now. They lived out in the country.
They arrived at the house. Casper paid the driver, and said, "Could you stick around? We'll probably need a ride back again."
The driver considered this.
"You can keep the meter running while we're in there," said Casper.
"Done," said the driver immediately.
Drew meanwhile had rung the doorbell. A middle-aged woman opened it. "Kimberly Corman?" she asked hopefully.
The woman regarded her. "Was. Now I'm Kimberly Burke. Who are you?"
Drew explained why they had come. Kimberly nodded, and invited them into the house.
They were taken into the lounge. Casper immediately threw himself down on the sofa. He suddenly sprang to his feet again.
"No, no, please sit," said a voice. Drew turned. A man who logically must be Thomas Burke had entered.
Everyone sat. "Well, Drew, why don't you tell us all about it?" said Kimberly kindly.
So Drew did, with occasional help from Casper. She told them the whole story. The bus accident. Jerry's death. Them seeing Seb get killed. Realising the order of deaths. Drew's near-death experience and Zack's subsequent death. The realisation that the photographs contained clues to how each person would die. Their attempts to warn Phoebe, and failing to save her. Their mistake over how Casper would die, and how it resulted in Brett's death.
She only realised, when she had finished, that she had been talking for over an hour.
There was silence in the room. The only sound was the ticking of the clock. Drew hated the sound. Every tick brought Death a step closer to them all. Alexa particularly. But then again, for all she knew, all the others had died, and it was her turn again.
But she had looked at her own photo. It was, of course, her falling into the fountain. And there were no fountains around. But would Death try and kill her the same way? Was the photo only good for the first attempt?
Kimberly spoke. "It was just as bad for me, believe me. I saw things I still have nightmares about. I saw a fifteen-year-old boy crushed under a pane of glass. I saw a girl be scorched by a jet of flame."
Thomas interrupted. "And I saw a guy get sliced up by flying barbed wire. It was not pleasant."
"But you beat Death!" insisted Drew. "How?"
"Yeah, how?" added Casper.
"New life," said Kimberly.
"Excuse me?"
""Only new life can defeat death". That's what we were told."
"And what does that mean?" asked Casper.
Kimberly explained. "I died, once. I drowned. But a doctor managed to revive me. I had another chance at life. I had new life. And that was a life that didn't fit into Death's design. So, we screwed His plan up, and ended that nightmare."
"So one of us has to die… and be brought back to life?"
"Sounds risky," commented Casper.
"It's the only way," said Thomas.
Drew nodded decisively. "Okay. Thanks for all your help." She got up and was about to leave, when she saw something. "What's that?" she asked.
It was a plaque on the wall. On it were two words in Latin – Temetis Messor.
"What does "Temetis Messor" mean?" she asked Thomas.
"We thought it was appropriate," he said. "It sums up our lives. It means "Fear the Reaper." Good motto, huh?"
Drew smiled. "It certainly is."
"It's not over," Drew remarked on the way home.
Casper sighed. "I guess we better go and warn the next on the list. Alexa."
"Yeah." Drew drummed her fingers on the door handle. "New life… one of us must die. That's a big chance we'd be taking."
"But it would be worth it," Casper reminded her.
"It would. But we can work that out later. In the meantime, we need to look at Alexa's photo, and then get to her as fast as possible."
The taxi drove on, carrying them back to the city – back to where Death had claimed a lot of their friends.
Would it claim any more?