�prmoments, �prmoments, Table of Contents Title Page Table of Contents Copyright Dedication Acknowledgments Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Post Mortem Read More from Gina Damico About the Author �prmoments, Copyright © 2013 by Gina Damico All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. www.hmhbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file. eISBN 978-0-544-15153-6 v1.0913 �prmoments, For Gamma and Papa �prmoments, �prmoments, Acknowledgments This may sound weird, but I must first and foremost give thanks to the following things: bread, boredom, and crossword puzzles. This is because the idea for Croak first popped into my head while I was working at a bread store, bored out of my mind, and doing a crossword puzzle. This is the definitive, winning formula for book ideas, folks. Write it down. And what a strange, wonderful, carbo-loaded journey it’s been since then! It’s hard to believe this series is over, and even harder to say goodbye to the characters that have been renting a room in my noggin for all these years. I know, I know—someone prep the straitjacket—but in my mind they’re all Velveteen Rabbits: when you love them, they become real. I’ll miss them. What’s that? I’m supposed to be thanking people who aren’t works of fiction? Fine. As always, huge thanks to my agent, Tina Wexler, the dollop of ice creiss>am to my deep-fried Oreo, who has truly made me a better writer, and who, if she ever left her job as an agent—which she must NEVER EVER DO—I think could make a real career out of being one of those cops who talks troubled people down from very tall precipices. Thank you to my editor, Julie Tibbott, for believing in these little stories of mine, and for paying me awesome compliments like “I admire your willingness to kill off your characters,” which is really just a polite way of saying, “I think you might actually be a serial killer, and I’m fine with it.” These books would be nothing but doorstops without the tireless efforts of everyone at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, including my publicist Jenny Groves— who, when I tell her I want to plan borderline insane things like a two-week road trip book tour, somehow approves of such madness—and Carol Chu, Betsy Groban, Julia Richardson, and Maxine Bartow. Thanks also to Stephanie Thwaites and Catherine Saunders at Curtis Brown UK, who think that my stories have enough potential to cause international incidents, and Liz Farrell and Katie O’Connor at ICM, and Audible, for allowing me to assault my readers’ ears as well as their eyes. Thank you to Kelley Travers, photographer extraordinaire, whom I have unforgivably forgotten to thank until now, which is why she gets her very own paragraph. To the Apocalypsies and all the other authors I’ve had the fortune to meet in the past year or so: you are some amazing people. Maybe a little too amazing, actually. Knock it off. Teachers and librarians: You are the glue that holds this world together. You hear me? YOU ARE GLUE. Whenever I get to meet one of you, I’m bowled over by your enthusiasm and love for spreading the magic of reading to students. You make my cold, shriveled heart grow three sizes every time, and I so appreciate and respect what you do. To all the bloggers and booksellers that have spread the Croaky love: Thank you so much for embracing these books, in all their offbeat glory. You, in all your offbeat glory, rock. Thank you to my family and friends, many of whom probably never would have picked up a YA series about grim reapers on their own, but who genuinely seem to enjoy it now that it’s been foisted upon them. I’m very grateful for your love and support, and I promise next time to not write something so dark and morbid. (Note: I will not keep this promise.) To Alphonse Damico, Mary Damico, and Laurie Mezza-lingua: You are missed. I hope you’re knocking elbows with some very cool people in the afterlife. To all the creatures living in my house: Will, thanks for staying married to me even though the vows did not read “in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, through first drafts and revisions, to the brink of insanity and back”; Fezzik, you’re distracting, and you’ve now eaten roughly 85 percent of my possessions but you’re still a very cute dog; Lenny and Carl, sorry we got a dog; and to the squirrel that took up residence in our walls and basement during the writing of this book, WTF GET OUT. No thanks to leaf blowers, and the neighbors who use them constantly. It’s called a rake, people. Finally, thank you times a billion to you, the readers and fans. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear back from all sorts of people—guys and gals, teens and not-so-teens, humans and cyborgs—and learn that these stories and characters have resonated with so many of you. It’s nice to know that if these places I go to inside my head were real, there’d be a whole bunch of friends there to hang out and drink Yoricks with me. I love you all. Which is why I feel so bad about spring-loading these pages with blow darts. Duck and enjoy! �prmoments, �prmoments,