Chapter 8

"Any luck on your team yet?" I asked Rube and Betty. After our meeting the other day, Mark had grouped us into 3 teams with each team having one member that can reap Gravelings. Mark took Rube and Betty to his team. I was paired with Mason, while Reggie teamed up with Roxy and Daisy.

Rube took a sip on his coffee and shook his head. "No. No luck at all. The Boss did everything that he can to find even just a piece of clue. But it's really hard to find something which doesn't exist yet. It's like finding a straw in a pile of straw. How about you?"

"Not a thing too," I told them. "We looked through hotels, restaurants, and even bars for possible meetings or gathering that might be held 2 days from now but they don't have any."

"How about your sister's team?"

"No luck too," Reggie said out of nowhere. Turning to her, I gape when I found her standing beside us with a percolator full of coffee at hand and wearing the Waffle House's waitress uniform. "Coffee?" she offered with a grin.

"What are you doing here?"

Reggie stared at me what that 'duh' look, "I'm working here."

"Since when?"

"Yesterday, Kiffany offered me the job."

Wow! They said that God gave all his creation a freewill but why is it that no matter what we do the universe always find a way to gather us up in a single place called Waffle House. "Okay," I said. "So no luck too."

Reggie shook her head. "Nope," he said and poured coffee on Rube's half-empty cup. "And what's worst from being empty-handed is endure the mouths of Roxy and Daisy. I was having a headache the entire time."

"Wow, so we are at square one and ground zero. Nice." I moaned, and then returned my attention back to Rube and Betty. "How about you two?"

"What about us?" Rube asked.

"What did Mark said about pulling the two of you down here?"

"Well, the Boss said that we will return to Heaven after three days whether we succeed or not. It's just that we will go back there with half of Seattle on our backs if we screw this up."

"That sounds tough. Getting pulled down from Heaven to do mission impossible and return with your failures tailing you." I shuddered, that will surely feel awful.

"Anyway," Betty inserted. "George, you keep calling the Boss on his first name. What's your relationship with him?"

"Mark is George's boyfriend," Reggie giggled.

"Reggie!" I exclaimed, my face getting tomato red from sheer embarrassment.

"What?" my little sister batted her eyes with a wide, innocent expression. "Like I don't hear your bed squeaking every time he spends a night at our house."

"Shut up!" I shouted now, not caring that all of the costumers inside the Waffle House are gazing to me now.

"Geez, why are you getting angry on something which is obvious," she said before leaving.

Gritting my teeth, I glared at her as she walks away. "I'm gonna kill that bitch."

"I always thought that you're kind of crazy, peanut. But I didn't expect that you're this bad already."

"Shut up Rube."

"So you're really dating him?" Betty asked again.

"For the last time, shut the fuck up!"

"Okay," Betty raised her palms in surrender…or maybe, that's what I just thought. "She's dating him," he whispered to Rube.

Rube chuckled, I groaned.

I tried to find clues by asking again on some establishments that might host any meeting, seminars, or any kind of celebration that might consist of 30 people or more. But all of those that I called gave the same answer. They don't have any reservation of such variety and most of all not something that will occur in anytime tomorrow.

Mason is looking though the city for any events of such form and I told him to call in case of any luck. It had been four hours since we depart ways and not a single call was given. So it appears that we are in the same situation.

No call from the groups of Mark and Reggie too and we're literally running out of time. It's only 24 hours or less now before the Graveling rampage will occur and we still don't have a single clue where it will happen.

Without noticing it, four hours had passed already and we are still as blind as ever. Still no calls from Mason or the other groups and I'm still in the phone calling all the places that I can think about that might give just a little hunch on this.

Midnight had arrived and Reggie is not home yet. Roxy called me earlier and said that Reggie had parted from them and says that she's going to check on something that might help.

I certainly hope so. I don't want to let thousands of people die without a schedule, that's just cruel. Dying is something awful that could happen to anyone. But dying ahead of the designated time is a lot worst.

It was already 5:30 in the morning when my cellphone ring. It was Reggie. "Hey Reg, where are you? You've been out all night."

"Don't fuss about that right now," she said, a little breathless. "I think I have a clue about our problem here."

"Really? Where?"

"I have no time to explain. Just call Mark and the other Reapers, tell them to meet me at school as soon as possible." And the line died.

I did what she asked and Mark zapped immediately into my house. "Is it true? Reggie found something?"

I nodded. "Yeah, she told me gather all the Reapers on her school as much as possible."

"That's not going to be a problem I can transport them immediately on that place. Just inform them first, I don't want to bring any of them there while they're taking a shower."

"No problem, I already informed them to go there. They're probably on their ways now."

"Then let's go," he took my hand and that weird electrifying feeling took over again.

We materialize behind Reggie inside their school's parking lot. And it weren't just us, Rube and the others were transmitted there too. "Reggie," I called to her. Reggie turn around as I approached her for a hug, "Where have you been?" I asked when I pulled away. "I've been worried for you the entire night."

"I'm okay, George. I just remembered something last night so I gave it a try. That's how I ended up here."

"What's that?"

"I remembered that there was a gas leak not far away from here. It's where our school buses usually passed everyday so I thought that that might be what we're looking for. But then when I checked it out, it was already fixed. I thought that that's it and I'm back to zero again. But when I thought about the buses, I suddenly remember that they are under maintenance today. One of them almost had an accident the other day due to break problems. So I went here and waited for Mr. Hanson, the mechanic who was supposed to fix them."

"So what? He didn't arrive?"

"No, he did arrived okay, drunk. And he fiddled the buses under the influence of alcohol. That's when I decided to gather you all here. I believe that this must be it."

"There's only one way to find out," I said. "Mark. Is there anyone scheduled to die here today."

He shook his head. "No, none of them are. And I can also sense a huge distortion on the natural order here. This must be our place. Good job, Reggie."

"Thanks," she said. "However, we have a problem. There are 12 buses here and only 5 of them will depart this morning and I don't know which one of them has the problem. We could check each of them to find out but there's only less than 40 minutes left before they go."

"If that's the case then we have no choice but to go on the other option," said Mark.

"What's that?" I asked.

"We need to ride with them and fixed it from the inside. I can handle one bus. The rest of you can pair with someone and take the others. You can try to stop the accident or reap their souls if it's unmanageable. Either way, we have to stop this disruption before it happen. The lives of thousands of people rest onto this."

We have 5 buses that we need to look after. All are going into different destinations, one is going into a practice game, and four are going into field trips and camping. I paired with Reggie and we took the one that's going into a field trip at Port Angeles.

We seated at the backmost part of the bus to avoid much notice and obtain more space to observe. Excluding Reggie and I, there are almost 30 people inside the bus including the driver and the class advisor.

I suddenly felt Reggie's head fell into my shoulder. She just fell asleep. I adjusted her head better on my shoulder, giving her a more comfortable position. She needed some rest. My poor little sister, it's barely a week when she accepted the job and she's already in this much stress.

An hour had gone by and we just passed the boundary of Seattle. The surroundings had also started turning from concrete to wooden, from gray and white to brown and green.

I looked into my watch, half an hour had passed by again but still nothing odd is happening. Maybe it's not this bus. I thought.

Suddenly, our speed started to get unsteady. "Fuck!" I cursed under my breath. Looks like I spoke too soon. "Reggie," I whispered, shaking her little. "Wake up."

"Hmmm," she moaned, slowly opening her eyes. "What is it?"

"Looks like we got the right bus."

"What's going on?" The class advisor exclaimed. And the students started to panic.

"There's no brake!" The driver shouted as he repetitively stepped on the brake.

"What shall we do, George?" Reggie whispered.

My thought also started to tangle as the shaking of the bus grows fiercer. "Reap them."

"All of them? George we don't have time."

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What shall I do? If only Mark is here, he'll surely know what to do…Yes! That's it, I must get Mark.

The shaking grows continuously with such violence as well as the speed of the bus. I pulled my cellphone out and tried to call Mark but the all the shaking and the shouting of the students make it hard.

Finally, I got my cellphone out but the bus suddenly jumped after hitting hump on the road and my cellphone fell on the floor. "Fuck!" I tried to pick it up but it slides further from due to all of the shaking. I crawled down and followed it, enduring all the bumping and the stepping on my hand. At last, I reclaim possession of it after some beatings and called Mark. "Mark, we got the right bus! We need help!"

I pushed myself to stand and unsteadily returned to Reggie and at the same time Mark flashed in. "Are you okay?" he asked me when he noticed that I was kind of covered in bruises.

"I'm fine," I said. "Fix this."

"Don't worry. I'll just go reap them."

"No!" Reggie stopped him before he could snap his fingers. "Don't let them die, do something! Save them!"

"But we don't have time. This bus is about to fell into a cliff ahead. If we don't reap them, they'll turn into rogue Gravelings."

"No!" Reggie insisted. "There's got to be a way."

"Reggie's right, Mark," I said. "We can't let them die."

"Fine!" Mark groaned. "Hold on to me!"

We both complied and held tight on each of Mark's arms. "What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Just hold tight and trust me!"

The bus was filled with louder screams and the bus driver tried so hard to maneuver the vehicle to safety but to no avail.

As we go nearer into the cliff, I held tighter into Mark. When I die, I never experience anything like panic or the feeling of impending doom. But right now, it's like that I'm experiencing what I had missed during my death and it's really terrifying. However, it feels weird. I'm not scared. Not because I know that I won't die or anything. But because there is someone who holds me and telling me that everything's gonna be okay. "Hold tighter, girls! It's gonna be bumpy," he grinned and the bus fell on the cliff.

Everything went blank for a portion of few seconds or a minute and all that I could remember was two sounds. The old snapping sound of Mark's finger and an explosion.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing at the roadside beside Mark who is gazing on the burning bus below us.

"What happened to them?" I immediately asked.

Mark's gaze shifted to the left side of the burning bus. There, there are 30 bodies lying onto the ground which I can't tell whether they're still breathing or not. "I zapped them out before the bus hit the ground and exploded."

I sighed in huge relief. That's really good to hear. But then, my celebration was interrupted when I realized that Reggie was not with us. "Where's Reggie?" I asked, panicked a little.

"I teleported her back home, she's really tired. She needs a lot of rest."

I breathed deeply again, in complete relief this time. Everything is okay now, and most of them are thanks to Reggie. If it weren't for her and her determination to save people, nothing of these could have been possible.

And even though I'd never admitted this before and I'd spend the rest of my human life ignoring her, Reggie is the best sister that anyone could ever had. And I'm very lucky to have her.

END OF CHAPTER 8