Everlost (28 page)

“He's getting what he deserves” said Nick.

“But we should do something” said Allie. “This is awful!”

“No,” said Pinhead, sadly. “He came here to find his destiny, and he did. We have to let destiny take its course.”

They watched the mob push closer to the end of the pier with Mikey somewhere in the middle, and Allie found, like Mary, she couldn't look. Instead she turned to Pinhead, who picked up the two fortunes Mikey had dropped.

“Your victory waits at the piers of defeat.”
he read. “You wrote this, didn't you?”

“Yes,” Allie admitted, “but that one about the thousand souls—that was real.”

“Not exactly,” said Pinhead. “You see, I found that old typewriter long before you did.”

Allie was both impressed and horrified. Pinhead shrugged. “I had to think of something to keep the McGill busy for the last twenty years.”

The mob was almost down to the far end of the pier now. Allie almost hoped that Mikey would find a way to escape back onto the
Sulphur Queen,
but that wouldn't really be escape at all, because the mob would simply chime him, and spend the rest of time using him as an unbreakable piñata.

Allie could do nothing to help Mikey McGill, and so rather than pondering his fate, she tried to fill her mind with the job that was now at hand.
Her
plan.
Her
goal. Allie knew what she had to do now, because she had imagined it and worked out every angle even before arriving in Atlantic
City. Although Mikey McGill didn't know it, by coming to Atlantic City, he was bringing her within sixty miles of home—the closest she'd been since arriving in Everlost.

Allie had freed her friends, and now she was free from the McGill. All that remained was for her to complete her journey home.

“Gotta go,” she said, catching the others by surprise. She quickly hugged Lief, and then Nick, thanking him for everything, and for being her accidental companion on the journey.

“Allie, I—” but Allie put up her hand to shut him up. She despised long emotional good-byes, and refused to let this turn into one.

Then she turned to Mary. In spite of everything that had gone on between them, she gave Mary a respectful nod, and glanced at the
Hindenburg.
“You win the award for Best Grand Entrance.”

“We've got a lot to do here,” Mary told her. “Why don't you stay and help us?”

“I would, but I've got other plans.”

Mary accepted it without asking what those plans were. Allie figured she knew. “We could have been friends,” said Mary, with some regret.

“I don't think so,” Allie said, as politely as she could, “but I'm glad we're not enemies.”

Then Allie turned, and, forcing herself not to look back, she strode past the giant airship, and left the pier.

The mob levied its fury on Mikey McGill as he fought his way toward the end of the pier to escape. He was fully prepared to take the plunge once more.

Fate, however, had other plans for him.

As he neared the end of the pier a sound came to his ears, faint behind the raging mob, but he heard it all the same. Hoof beats. A whinny. A splash. He turned to see, through the flailing arms and legs of the mob, Shiloh, the Famous Diving Horse, climbing out of his water tank, onto the ramp that would take him up to the high dive again.

Out of the water will come your salvation.

Mikey McGill made a sharp turn, pushing his way through the angry mob, and toward the horse.

Allie once more had to get used to the soft, sucking nature of living ground. The Atlantic City boardwalk kept drawing her feet into it, and she had to stay on the move to keep from sinking. She could walk the sixty miles home. She could even make a fresh pair of road-shoes to make the journey easier, but she didn't even know which roads to take.

“Excuse me,” she said to a passing couple, “could you please tell me how to—”

But the couple walked by as if they didn't see her.

Well duh, of
course
they didn't see her. Had she forgotten the simple fact that she was a ghost? Yes. She could admit it now. “Afterlight,” and all the other nice words for it, didn't change the fact. She was dead. She was a ghost. But she was also a ghost with powers….

As she considered her options, she heard a sound that made her look back toward the two dead piers. It was the sound of hoofbeats on wood. She waited for the telltale splash of the diving horse, but this time there was none. Instead she saw the horse—now with a rider—race out
from behind the giant zeppelin. Following the horse was a mob of kids in pursuit, but the horse was too fast. The moment the horse hit the living-world boardwalk, the sound of its hoofbeats stopped, but its momentum barely slowed. It turned toward her, surging forward—and in a moment it was close enough for her to see the rider. Mikey McGill. He saw her at the same moment she saw him, and she could see the anger in his eyes.

Allie was terrified. To her, the eyes of this angry boy were even more frightening than the eyes of the monster.

She tried to run, but it was useless, the horse was too fast. Mikey was bearing down on her, and there was nothing she could do. He would trample her, he would capture her. He would punish her for betraying him. She looked back again; his eyes were still on her. Those eyes said,
“You will suffer for what you did to me.”
Those eyes said,
“You can't hide from me!”

And then Allie realized that maybe she could.

In front of her was a girl in sweats, jogging down the boardwalk. She was nineteen or so, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Allie turned to look behind her once more. Mikey McGill was only a few yards away. The horse was in a full gallop, and he was already leaning to the side, reaching for her. With no time to lose, Allie leaped into the girl, catching the wave of her body, and surfing it for all she was worth.

In the hiccup of an instant, Mikey McGill and his horse vanished. The piers and the
Hindenburg
vanished. All she could see was the misty morning of the living world through this living girl's eyes. Allie felt the full chill of the day and
goose bumps on her skin. She felt the pounding of a heart. She felt the exhaustion of a body that had jogged up and down the boardwalk for at least an hour.

Mikey McGill and the mob of kids that chased him were still there, but they were invisible, and she was untouchable. Nothing and no one in Everlost could get to her now, for she had hitched herself a ride into the living world.

What's going on?
said the confused soul who owned the body Allie had skinjacked.
Why can't I move my arms and legs? What's wrong with me?

“Shhhh …”
Allie told her.
“It's going to be all right.”
Then Allie turned and jogged away.

M
ikey had gotten away, and although Mary accepted that the monster known as the McGill deserved the mob's wrath, she was secretly relieved that her brother was not sent back to the center of the Earth. Whatever had happened to make him such a monster, she would never know. But now the monster was gone—at least on the outside. What Mikey made of himself now would be entirely up to him.

The crowd had returned from their fruitless chase of her brother, and now looked to her for guidance.

Beside her, Nick surveyed the sheer mass of the crowd. “There didn't seem to be this many when we were hanging upside down.”

Mary looked at the airship. It was only designed to carry about a hundred passengers. It would be crowded but it could be done. The passenger compartment was only a small portion of the ship. Most of it was catwalks and girders, holding the massive hydrogen bladders that gave the airship lift. There was room up inside for a thousand Afterlights, and Speedo assured her that weight wouldn't be
a problem since, technically, Afterlights had no actual
weight,
only the memory of it—memory enough to sink the unwary to the center of the Earth, but not enough to ground an airship determined to fly.

“What time is it?” asked a boy who looked curiously like a shark.

“Time to go home,” she told him, then she called out to the crowd. “Listen to me, everyone. We have much to do. I know some of you have been imprisoned for a very long time, but now you're free—and I have a wonderful place for you! There's room for everyone, and you'll never have to suffer again!”

“Are you the Sky Witch?” asked a small girl, no older than five.

Mary smiled, and knelt down to her. “Of course not,” she said. “There's no such thing.”

“All right,” said Nick, “let's form a single line right here—and line up by the numbers on your chest, so we know we're not missing anyone!” The kids began to rearrange themselves, like it was a game. “No pushing—there's room for everyone!”

Mary smiled. She and Nick were a team now. She could get used to this.

“Hey!” someone called. “Look what I got!”

They both turned to see Lief struggling with a heavy bucket. While the others went off chasing Mikey, Lief had gone back on board the
Sulphur Queen.
“The McGill left his safe open! I got the McGill's treasure!”

Mary took the bucket from Lief. It was full of old, faceless coins.

“Some treasure,” mumbled Nick.

“It's a wonderful treasure,” Mary said, and gave Nick a wink. “There's enough here for everyone to get a wish at the fountain.” A few kids tried to look inside, but Mary held the bucket away from them.

They returned to the job at hand. The kids were still rearranging themselves into a line, trying to read their numbers, which were all written upside down. Some kids stood back, not getting in line, not certain if they should—and so those were the kids Mary went to.

She handed Nick the bucket. “Hold this,” she said. “Make sure you keep it away from them until we're at the fountain.” Then she went off to talk to the kids who were reluctant to get in line. In the end, with Mary's kindness and charm, there wasn't a single Afterlight who didn't want to come.

So concerned was Mary with making sure that every Afterlight was accounted for, that there was one she forgot. It wasn't until they were airborne and gently gliding north, thousands of feet above the shoreline, that Mary realized it.

“Where's Vari?”

She turned to Nick, who just shrugged. “I haven't seen him at all.”

Mary searched the airship—the cabins, corridors, and the catwalks up in the ship's infrastructure. Vari was nowhere on board. Somehow they had left him behind.

In spite of 146 years in Everlost, some things about a small boy never change. A penchant toward moodiness. A limited attention span. And, of course, curiosity.

While Mary had loaded the thousand souls aboard the airship, Vari had boarded the deserted
Sulphur Queen,
along with Lief. While Lief might have been satisfied with a bucket of coins, Vari explored deeper until he found the treasure holds. The moment he saw them, Vari was in heaven, and he lost himself in the search and discovery of it all. Toys and jewels, and things he couldn't identify. It was a wonderland of riches and mysteries.

By the time he emerged back on the deck with as much booty as his small arms could carry, the great zeppelin was gone, and his worst nightmare had finally come true. Mary had forgotten him. He dropped his plunder to the deck with a clatter.

“Who are you!”

Vari spun at the sound of the voice.

“Who are you, and why didn't you leave with the others?”

It was a tall boy with a crooked smile, and a head that was just a little too small for his body Although Vari was on the verge of tears, he sucked in his emotions, determined to show no weakness to this single straggler from the monster's crew.

“Maybe I didn't want to go,” said Vari. Although Vari couldn't be sure, the small-headed boy seemed somewhat abandoned himself. “This is a good ship,” Vari said. “I like all the stuff below.”

“It served us for twenty years,” the boy said, and then he introduced himself as Pinhead. Vari could have laughed, but he didn't. The name fit, as did all names in Everlost. Pinhead was waiting for the crew to return, but no one had. Vari suspected no one would.

Vari looked out to the Steel Pier to the right and the Steeplechase Pier to the left. He supposed he could make a home for himself on these piers—but then he spotted a huge jewel-covered chair sitting on a platform on the open deck of the
Sulphur Queen.
The chair was both beautiful and ugly. Vari found himself drawn to it.

“What is that?”

“The McGill's throne,” Pinhead answered. Vari got closer. It was, in its own strange and horrible way, very impressive. Vari climbed into it and sat down. He was so small, he practically disappeared into it, and yet it made him feel big. It made him feel larger than life. Larger than death. Larger than anything.

Pinhead looked at him for a long time, as if preparing to snap a picture with his eyes. “You never told me your name,” Pinhead said.

“My name is Va—” but he cut himself short. Mary had left him. Which meant he no longer had to be her obedient servant. He could be anyone he wanted—any
thing
he wanted.

Vari leaned back in the throne and stretched out his hands, caressing the jewels on the armrests. “I am the McGill,” Vari said. “Hear my name and tremble.”

Pinhead gave him a great slanted mudslide of a smile. “Very good, sir,” he said. Then, with an understanding that required no words, Pinhead went to the bridge, started the engine, and manned the tiller. Together they headed east out of Atlantic City and across the ocean in search of a new crew. And a violin.

T
his jogger girl was a pain. At first Allie thought it was going to be okay, but as soon as the girl realized what was happening to her, she started fighting back. She was much harder to control than the ferry pilot had been.