Everlost

CHAPTER 15 The Brimstone Ship

On February 7, 1963, a ship called the Marine Sulphur Queen left the world of the living. A few days after setting sail from Beaumont, Texas, the ship vanished off the coast of Florida without as much as a single radio message. All they found was an oil slick, a few life jackets, and the persistent smell of brimstone—the awful odor associated with rotten eggs, and, coincidentally, the smell also associated with hell.

There was, of course, a perfectly logical and nondemonic explanation for the smell. The Sulphur Queen was an old World War II tanker that was now being used to transport liquid sulphur—also known as brimstone. However the eerie smell, combined with the fact that the ship mysteriously vanished in the Bermuda Triangle, naturally led people to consider a dark, supernatural end to the unlucky brimstone barge.

In truth, the death of the Sulphur Queen was extremely bizarre, but not exactly supernatural. Stated simply, the Sulphur Queen was overcome by a very large ocean fart.

On that fateful February day, a massive ball of natural gas, two hundred feet wide, burst up from beneath the ocean floor, and when the bubble surfaced, the entire ship dropped into it in less than a second. The bubble burst, water rushed in, covering the ship, and it was gone. The Sulphur Queen was very literally swallowed by the sea.

There were the expected few moments of utter panic and mortal terror as the crew of the tragically submerged vessel made their final journey down that path of light, to wherever they were going. Then, less than a minute later, the ship itself got to where it was going—namely the bottom of the sea.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Because what no one knew was that the old vessel was the last of its kind. It was the final ship built by a failing shipyard, which closed down the day the Sulphur Queen first launched out of dry dock. The workers, knowing an era was coming to an end, built the ship with as much care as a team of shipbuilders could muster. Their love of this ship was welded into every rivet. Such an ignoble death to this well-loved vessel could not be suffered lightly by the fabric of eternity. And so, when the waters surging about in the methane-heavy air finally settled, a ghost of the Queen remained, permanently afloat in the half-world of Everlost.

Since no soul had crossed over with it, the ghost of the Sulphur Queen drifted for years; no crew, no passengers. It drifted, that is, until the McGill found it, and turned it into the greatest pirate ship ever to sail the waters of eternity—and, except for one nasty run—in with the Flying Dutchman, its supremacy on the seas had never been challenged.

Since the evil smell of brimstone still surrounded the vessel, the McGill found it useful for inspiring fear, because the McGill knew that when it came to being a monster, image was everything. One only needed to sniff the brimstone to be convinced that the Sulphur Queen was a ship from hell, rather than a ship from Texas.

The McGill had remodeled the tanker into as proper a pirate ship as possible. It wasn’t too hard to make it menacing, for the ship was already rusted and rancid when it crossed into Everlost. That, the smell, and the McGill’s fearsome reputation were ail it took to make the Sulphur Queen the floating terror of Everlost.

On the open deck, the McGill had fashioned himself a throne made from pieces of this and that: pipes torn from the ship, fancy portrait frames, curtains from old buildings that had crossed over. The throne was studded with jewels that were glued on with old bubble gum. It was, in short, a monstrosity—just like the McGill himself—and it suited him just fine.

The McGill’s most recent adventure had been a raid in New York. He had long heard rumors of the Haunter, and his mystical little dojo where he taught kids to haunt, with weird discipline, like it was some sort of martial art. The McGill had no patience for legends that didn’t involve him. As far as he was concerned, such legends were competition, and needed to be silenced.

The Haunter was silenced well. Oh, he had put up a fight, levitating, and summoning up wraiths in black robes that walked like human beings—as if any of this could impress the McGill. He had learned early on that one’s physical strength in Everlost had nothing to do with muscle mass. It had all to do with the strength of one’s will—and the McGill was surely the most willful creature that ever lived. After he had shredded the wraith-warriors with his claws, the McGill took on the Haunter himself. The little Neanderthal had put up a fight – but in the end he was no match for the McGill.

“If you ever get out of there,” he had shouted at the barrel where the Haunter had been sealed, “you had better NEVER cross my path again. Or I’ll find something worse for you.”

He wasn’t sure if the Haunter had even heard him, because he never stopped cursing from within the barrel.

The McGill had dined royally on the spread of food that this Haunter had somehow pulled from the living world. He feasted for hours, and threw his scraps to his associates, who were happy to have them. That’s what he called his crew: “associates.”

Now, still full from the feast, they had returned to the ship with a dozen barrels, leaving behind only the one that contained the Haunter.

“So what do we do with them?” asked Pinhead, as the McGill sat in his throne, looking at the barrels now arranged haphazardly on the deck. Pinhead was the McGill’s chief associate. Somewhere along the line, Pinhead had forgotten the correct proportion of a human head to its body, and so the size of his head had receded like an apple left on a windowsill. The difference was not so profound that he looked like a complete freak. It was subtle. When you looked at Pinhead, you knew something was wrong, but you weren’t quite sure what it was.

“Sir? The barrels—what should we do with them?”

“I heard you,” the McGill snapped.

He rose from his throne, and loped in his awful crooked stride toward the barrels.

“According to the Haunter, there’s someone inside every single one of them,” Pinhead told him, with a certain excitement in his voice. In life, Pinhead must have been the kind of kid who would rip through a cereal box to get to the prize at the bottom.

“We’ll see,” the McGill snapped.

“And I’ll bet these kids have been pickling for so long,” Pinhead said, “that they’ll worship whoever sets them free.”

This gave the McGill pause for thought. He stroked his chin, a bulbous thing as rough and unshapely as a potato. It was an interesting idea. Others feared him, but never was he the subject of worship and complete adoration. “You think so?”

“Only one way to find out.” And then Pinhead added, “If they’re ingrates, we’ll put ‘em back in the barrels and dump them into the sea.”

“All right, then,” said the McGill, and he gestured to his associates lurking in the shadows. “Open them up.”

Although not even the Haunter knew this, Afterlights were very much like wine when sealed in a barrel. The longer a wine is left to age, the better it gets…unless of course something goes wrong, and it turns to vinegar.

Neither Nick nor Lief had turned to vinegar, however. Both had adapted in his own unique way to their situation. While Lief became like a baby in a womb, and lost any sense of time and space, Nick did the opposite. He was aware of every passing moment, never forgot exactly where he was—and didn’t even forget WHO he was, so those stupid little pieces of paper he had written his name on weren’t an entire waste of time.

Nick found he could pass the time by taking an inventory of everything he remembered from his life, and his afterlife. Even though some key memories had already been lost, he was still close enough to his earthly existence to remember quite a lot. He tried to list alphabetically every single song he knew, and sang each one. He cataloged every movie he remembered ever seeing, and tried to watch them in his head. With nothing to reflect on but himself, he came to realize that he had spent far too much time complaining and worrying. If he ever managed to get out of that barrel, he knew he’d be a different person, because nothing—not even sinking into the Earth—could be worse than this. And so, both Nick and Lief had been profoundly changed by their pickling experience: Lief had found a bizarre state of spiritual bliss, and Nick became strong and fearless.

Nick felt the commotion of his barrel being removed from the Haunter’s lair. He had no idea where he was being hauled off to, but the very fact that there was activity around him was a hopeful sign. Counting out the seconds in his mind, he waited for something momentous to happen.

Nick had counted 61,259 seconds from the time his barrel had first begun to move until the top was pried off. The tops were pried off of three barrels simultaneously. Nick stood up right away, ready to thank his rescuer. Having had nothing but darkness and pickle brine in his eyes for many weeks, he couldn’t really see much of anything at first. There were other kids around him. To his left was an open barrel with someone still submerged beneath the surface. To his right standing up in another barrel was a kid Nick did not recognize, who began screaming and never stopped. Nick stood there in amazement, wondering how his lungs could hold out—he sounded like a human air—raid siren. Then he realized that since the kid didn’t actually have lungs anymore, being a spirit and all, he never had to stop for breath. He could just scream until the universe ended, which might have actually been his plan. This kid had clearly turned to vinegar in his barrel.

“Get the screamer out of here!” said a slobbery voice. “Take him and chime him!”

Several kids nearby took the screamer out of his barrel, and carried him away.

All the while he never stopped screaming. Poor kid, thought Nick. That could have been me.

But it wasn’t. And it was a great consolation to know that he had survived his time in pickle purgatory. Nick blinked, and blinked again, forcing his eyes into focus, ready to face whatever situation he would now find himself in. He was on the deck of a ship that was sprinkled with crumbs of some sort. There were crewmen around him, all of them kids, and standing in front of an ugly throne was what could only be described as a monster.

Lief did not know the top of his barrel had been pried off. He didn’t know much of anything. He heard a kid screaming, but it sounded far away. Not in his universe. Not his concern. Lief now existed without time or space. He was everything and nothing. It was wonderful. Then when someone grabbed his hair and hauled him upright, he found that the place of infinite peace he had discovered within himself did not leave him. Whether he had lost his mind, or had become “one with the universe” was a matter of opinion.

“Who are you?” a wet, distorted voice asked. “What can you do? What use will you be to me?”

Lief was still on the first question.

“His name is Lief,” said a familiar voice. He remembered the voice belonged to someone named Nick. All at once Lief’s memories came back to him. He remembered his journey from the forest, his time in front of the video game, the fact that he had been in a barrel.

Someone approached him. No, not someone, some “thing.” It had one eye the size of a grapefruit, filled with squiggly veins. The other eye was normal-size, but dangled from its socket.

“I don’t like the look of him!” the monster said. “He looks like someone made him out of clay, and forgot to finish him.”

“I think he’s forgotten what he looks like,” said a boy with an unusually small head.

The monster raised a three-fingered claw and pointed it at Lief. “I order you to remember what you look like!”

“Leave him alone!” shouted Nick.

“I order you to remember!”

Lief suspected he knew what this creature was, and he knew he should have been terrified of it, but he was not.

The creature moved closer to Lief. When it opened its mouth, a tongue lashed out that forked into three octopus tentacles. “I order you to remember what you look like, or you’re going overboard.”

Lief smiled happily. “Okay.” Then he closed his eyes, and rummaged around through his mind until he found a memory of his face. The moment he did, he could actually feel his features changing. When he opened his eyes, he knew he was himself again—or at least something close.

The creature studied him with his huge eye, and grunted. “Good enough,” he said.

Nick, still waist-deep in his barrel, watched the creature closely, ready to fight it if necessary. Then something occurred to Nick that almost crushed his newfound courage. “Are you…Are you… the McGill?”

The creature laughed, and limped across the deck over to Nick, crumbs crunching beneath his fungus-ridden feet as he walked.

“Yes, I am,” the creature said. “You’ve heard about me! Tell me what you heard.”

Nick grimaced from the creature’s awful stench. “I heard that you were the devil’s pet dog, and you chewed through your leash.”

That was the wrong thing to say. The McGill roared, and kicked Nick’s barrel so hard it shattered, spilling brine all over the deck. “Pet dog? Who said I was a dog? I’ll put them on a leash!”

“Just some kid,” Nick said, trying not to look at Lief. “If you’re not a dog, then what are you?”

The McGill poked a sharp claw against Nick’s chest. “I’m your king and commander. I own you now.”

Nick didn’t like the sound of that. “So…we’re slaves?”

“Associates,” said the boy with the unusually small head.

The McGill ordered their pockets checked for anything of value, and when nothing was found, the McGill raised his claw, and pointed to the hatch. “Take them below!” he said to a group of associates. “Find out what they can do, and make them do it.”

The McGill watched them go with one eye, and kept the other eye trained on Pinhead. Once the two new kids were gone, the McGill waved a clawed hand. “Open the next one.”

Pinhead did as he was told. The next barrel, however, was empty, as was the next, and the next. Just brine with no one inside.

“I can’t understand it,” Pinhead said. “The Haunter said there was someone in each barrel.”

“He lied,” the McGill grunted, and retired to the captain’s quarters, which were just behind his great open-air throne.

Fourteen barrels, and only three occupants. It did not sit well with the McGill.

This wasn’t the first time such a thing had happened. If he had a nickel for every time he expected to find an Afterlight and didn’t, he’d be a rich monster.

It was the thought of nickels that made the McGill turn to his safe. It was a bulky iron thing built right into the wall. Only the McGill knew the combination. It had taken him more than a year of trying until he found the right one, and now the safe was his prize possession. He turned the wheel, feeling the familiar rattle of the tumblers, then he closed his claw around the lever, and pulled it open.

Inside was a bucket filled with coins so worn it was impossible to tell their denominations, or what country they had come from. The coins had been taken from enemies or associates—and anyone who was not an associate was an enemy. It was common knowledge that money in Everlost was of no real use, but the McGill kept the coins, all the same.

“If they’re so worthless, why do you keep them in your safe?” Pinhead had once asked.

The McGill had chosen not to answer him, and Pinhead was wise enough not to ask again. The easy answer was that the McGill kept everything…but the real answer was that the coins were the most plentiful objects in Everlost, and as such were of special interest to him.

The only other item he kept in the safe was hidden beneath the bucket of coins.

It was a small slip of paper half an inch wide, and two inches long. On the tiny paper were printed the following words:

A brave man’s life is worth a thousand cowardly souls.

He would read and reread that slip of paper to remind him why he patrolled the shores and went on raids of Everlost encampments. Then he would return it to its hiding place beneath the bucket of coins. Although few knew it, there was more to the McGill than mindless looting and pillaging. That little slip of paper was a constant reminder to him that he had a larger goal.

Nick, still disoriented from his rebirth into the world of the almost-living, stumbled from the light of the deck into the dim, narrow corridors of the ship.

The McGill’s “associates” prodded him and Lief forward, while around them the rest of the McGill’s crew jeered at them as they passed. Lief waved and smiled like some returning hero, and it just made Nick mad.

“Will you stop that?” Nick demanded. “What are you so happy about?”

The jeering kids, Nick noticed, all had crooked teeth and mismatched features; ears slightly off, noses twisted, tweaked, or flattened, like their faces were putty that the McGill had played with. Some were girls, some were boys, but in truth, it was impossible to tell the difference anymore. Nick dubbed them “Ugloids,” and wondered if they were as ugly inside as out. They all seemed somewhat dimwitted—perhaps service to the McGill had made them that way—and since none of them seemed too highly motivated, Nick took a calculated risk. He pulled out of the grip of the two Ugloids holding him, grabbed Lief’s hand, and began to run. As he suspected, the Ugloids were slow on the uptake, and by the time they took to chasing them, Nick and Lief had a nice lead down the hall.

“Where are we going?” asked Lief.

“We’ll know when we get there.” The truth was, Nick had no idea. Courage and spontaneity were new to him. It hadn’t occurred to him until after he had run from the Ugloids that perhaps he had confused courage with stupidity. He should have had a plan for escape—after all this was a ship, and there were a limited number of places they could go. But now he was committed, so he kept on running, turning down corridors and climbing through hatches hoping he wouldn’t take a wrong turn, which, of course, he eventually did.

With the Ugloids gaining on them, Nick pushed open a hatch, and found that it opened onto one of the ship’s holds—a cavernous space thirty-feet deep, forty-feet long, and smelling horribly of rotten eggs. There was a steep iron stairway winding down into it, but he had come through the hatch with such speed that he and Lief missed the stairway completely, flipped over the railing and dropped into the depths of the hold.

The fall would have killed them, had they been alive, but things being what they were, it was merely a nuisance. They crashed loudly into furniture and picture frames and statues, and when they managed to get their bearings, they found themselves in the middle of the McGill’s grand treasure trove. It looked more like a dragon’s hoard than anything else. Shiny things like chandeliers, thrown together with chests of drawers, and automobile axles – like several moving trucks had just dumped the contents of a city—wide garage sale here, and left.

Mary would know what to do with all of that, Nick thought. She would organize it, distribute it, put it to good use. Clearly the McGill had no purpose beyond hoarding it—as evidenced by the fact that everything was painted with the words PROPERTY OF THE MCGILL. His purpose was greed, nothing more. Nick could imagine the McGill capturing Finders and taking everything they had. Maybe he even forced the Finders to work for him, collecting items that had crossed over, just so the McGill could store them here.

By the time Nick and Lief had made their way through the treasure trove to the nearest hatch, Pinhead was there, with plenty of associates to back him up.

“Hi,” said Lief, all sunshine and joy, “did you miss us?”

Pinhead took Lief’s weirdness as sarcasm, and tossed Lief aside. Then he grabbed Nick and pushed him against the wall. “The McGill wants to know how you can be useful to him.”

“We’re nobody’s slaves,” Nick said.

Pinhead nodded. “I knew you’d be too defiant to be of any use.”

“Does that mean I can go back into my barrel now?” asked Lief. Pinhead ignored him.

“Chime them!” Pinhead ordered. “Chime them along with all the other useless ones.” Then the crew came forward, grabbing them, forcing them through the hatch and down a narrow dim hallway toward another hatch labeled CHIMING CHAMBUR with sloppy childlike paint strokes. Nick struggled against them, but it was no use – and although his first instinct was to try to talk his way out of this, he wasn’t going to give Pinhead the satisfaction of seeing him plead.

Pinhead pulled open the hatch. “Have fun,” Pinhead said with a nasty snicker.

Nick suspected there was no fun to be had at all.

CHAPTER 16 A Dangerous Crossing

Allie knew the risks of traveling on water before she climbed aboard the Staten Island Ferry, but seeing the McGill’s ghost ship right there in the bay made her realize she had to take a chance. If she didn’t, there was no telling where that ship would go next, and no telling if she’d ever find it again.

She had raced from the old pickle factory to Battery Park, and from there she could see, just as the Haunter had said, the McGill’s ship. She knew it was a ghost ship because it left no wake behind it as it powered forward. She knew it was the McGill’s, because painted in sloppy black letters beneath the words “Sulphur Queen,” were the words PROPERTY OF THE MCGILL. The only way to reach it, though, was on another vessel. The Staten Island Ferry seemed the best candidate for the job.

Allie made her way to the ferry landing, and pushed through the bustle of people piling on and off the boat, ignoring the thoughts that shot like bullets through her mind each time someone passed through her. All their thoughts were about the wind and the snow, which made no difference to her. She didn’t let herself slow down, because she could already tell the ferry deck was as treacherous for her as the surface of a bridge. It was like walking on tissue paper; every footfall left her ankle-deep in the floor, and she had to step quickly to keep from sinking too far into the deck.

The toot of a horn, and the ferry pulled away from the dock, bound for Staten Island. The way Allie figured it, the bay was large, but not all that large.

Living-world boats would often have to adjust their courses to avoid collision.

Right now, the McGill’s ship was in between them and Staten Island, invisible to the ferry’s pilot. With any luck, the ferry would pass right though it, delivering Allie to her destination.

All around her, living folk spoke of meals and sales, inconsiderate husbands and unsatisfied wives. Small talk now seemed so small from her perspective, she wondered how people could engage in it altogether. Such pettiness filled the lives of the living. She could begin to see why Mary would have nothing to do with it.

Mary. Almost reflexively, she turned to look back at the city. Through the falling snow, the buildings of the city were just a faded shadow, but the Twin Towers of Mary’s domain were bright and bold, as if painted on the skyline, standing in proud defiance of everything Allie once thought she knew about the nature of the world. Someday, thought Allie, I will write a book too. It wouldn’t be a book of rules and etiquette, but one of experience, because each day in Everlost brought a fresh experience. How Mary could think she knew so much, without ever leaving the comfort of her tower, was one of the greatest mysteries of Everlost.

But now there were other things to deal with, like the ghost ship looming closer before her. In her excitement Allie tried to lean against the ferry’s rail, only to lean right through it. She spun her arms, trying to catch her balance, and nearly fell off the ferry into the bay. She saved herself by letting her knees buckle, and falling backward, but that didn’t turn out to be a good thing either. Her rear hit the deck, and passed through it. She reached out her hands, but they went straight through the wood and the steel beneath that. She could feel the warmer air of the lower deck on her fingertips and felt herself sinking even farther.

As she tried to right herself, her body kept falling, and she dropped right through a row of benches on the lower deck, not as much as ruffling the pages of a man’s newspaper as she fell through him. She didn’t stop there. The force of her fall left her embedded in the floor of that deck. Frantically she tried to pull herself up, but again, only succeeded in sinking farther.

She fell through the lower passenger deck, right into the auto deck, where cars sat, their engines off as they crossed the bay. Even the steel of cars didn’t stop her, and now she began to panic.

“Help!” she screamed, “Somebody help me!”

But of course there was no one to hear her cries, and she cursed herself for not thinking to make herself a pair of road-shoes before attempting this crossing.

She fell through the floor of the auto deck into the engine room. Gears grinded, pistons pounded, echoing all around her, and as she tried to stand up, her feet passed through the hull of the boat.

She could feel the icy bay water around her ankles, and then her shins, and she knew that if she didn’t think of something fast, she would sink straight through the bottom of this boat and, as Mary wrote, “that would be that.”

“Help me!” she screamed again, if not to anyone in the living world, then to some force in the heavens as invisible to her as she was invisible to the living.

There was a man in the engine room with her. Unkempt gray hair, two-day beard stubble; his blue uniform told her he was part of the ferry crew—one of the ferry’s pilots on break. He quietly sipped coffee, raising and lowering his eyebrows as if in some silent conversation with himself.

Allie was up to her waist now, her legs dangling through the bottom of the boat, into the water. That’s when something occurred to her.

The preppie girl at the pizza place!

When Allie had “surfed” that girl, she had felt like a kite lifted off the ground by the girl’s thoughts. What if Allie could do that again—this time with the old man?

It was a long shot, but she had to try. Slogging her way through the steel of the ship’s hull took everything she was worth. The hull was thick enough to slow her descent, but also so thick that pulling herself through it took a huge effort of will. In the end, she had to resort to kicking; her feet in the water below and moving her hands through the air, as if she were swimming. She was down to her belly button by the time she got near the man, who sat in his chair, oblivious to her. She could feel the cold water of the bay passing through her middle, filling the spot where her stomach had once been.

Just a few more moments and I’ll be gone, she thought.

And so with a last bit of strength she leaned forward, toward the man in the chair, and touched him. She felt a rush of blood, the pumping of a heart, and she became a kite lifted into the air. Allie could no longer feel the cold of the water, and—

—i’ll never win i have to win i have no chance i have every chance numbers numbers which numbers lucky numbers four twenty-five birthday seven twelve fourteen ages of the grandkids thirty-nine years we’ve been married eighteen million and if i win that lottery i’ll never go to staten island again—

Allie couldn’t feel her feet, she couldn’t feel her hands, she couldn’t feel anything, and all she could hear were his thoughts. It was as if her body had suddenly ceased to exist and she was just pure spirit, cocooned within another person’s being. She opened her eyes, not realizing she had even closed them, and now what she saw seemed very different from what she’d seen before. There had been a green coffee mug on the table, but now looking at it, she couldn’t tell whether it was green or red. Her eyes jerked toward a red light above the engine involuntarily, only the light wasn’t red anymore, just pale white. Now she finally realized what was going on.

I am seeing through his eyes, and he’s color-blind.

She watched the coffee cup come up to her lips and then back down again. She could almost taste the coffee.

—win gotta win numbers all in the numbers—

His lottery thoughts assaulted her mind and he didn’t even know she was there.

The next time he brought the coffee cup to his lips she could swear she actually tasted the brew, and then in a few more moments she began to feel something spectacular: she felt hot. Hot from the coffee, hot from the heat of the engine.

She could feel fingertips touching the handle of the mug, the pressure against skin, the tag of the shirt at the back of the neck. There was a numbness about it, true – as if her entire body had been shot with novocaine—but there was no doubting that she was feeling with the nerves of living flesh once again. It was all so startling, she forgot for a moment why she was there.

—numbers numbers lucky numbers, the man’s thoughts droned on, i have as good a chance as any ten times the chance if I buy ten tickets—

And then it hit her that she had spent at least a minute here, while the ferry was still moving. She may have already missed her chance to intercept the McGill’s ship! She could leap out of him now, but the fear of sinking through the bottom of the hull was so great in her that she didn’t dare. If only the pilot would go to the upper decks instead of just sitting here, he would carry her with him.

—numbers, lucky numbers what if I add them all together and divide by 7?—

Her frustration kept on building. “Stop thinking about the stupid lottery and get up!”

And suddenly the man put down his coffee cup and stood.

Was it coincidence? Allie didn’t know for sure.

The man remained standing for a moment, then slowly settled back down in his chair, slightly bewildered.

If her thoughts had made him get up, maybe she could do it again. Allie filled herself with the same frustration and determination. “Stand up!” she insisted.

Again the man stood.

—numbers lottery numbers why did i just stand up?—

Okay, thought Allie. This was something new. It was clear that the man still had no idea she was there, and he couldn’t tell the difference between her thoughts and his own, Allie tried to take advantage of that.

“Go to the upper deck,” Allie said. “You always take your break down below, and you never enjoy the view.”

—it’s too hot down here anyway, i should go on deck—the man thought.

Allie felt the strange, numb sensation of fabric against skin as he rose and climbed the stairs. The cold of the auto level hit Allie suddenly. She couldn’t actually feel the chill, but she could feel him feeling cold, and she realized she had pushed him up here with such a strength of will, he had forgotten to take his coat.

“Next deck,” Allie whispered. He obeyed.

The first passenger deck was warm, although not as warm as the engine room. He continued climbing up to the top level, which was open to the snowy day. Now, through this man, Allie could lean against the railing without falling through it.

But when Allie scanned the waters she was shocked to see the McGill’s ship was no longer there! She could see nothing but the shore of Staten Island in the distance. She panicked for a moment, until understanding set in.

I’m seeing through his eyes, she reminded herself, and he can’t see the ghost ship.

She stepped out of him. It was easy, like slipping out of an overcoat, and the second she did, the nature of the world changed again. The McGill’s ship reappeared now that she was viewing the world through her own ghostly eyes. The McGill’s ship was off to the right, but the ferry was moving too fast. At this rate the ferry would pass in front of it, not coming any closer than a hundred yards!

Filled with a sense of fury and despair, she turned to the old ferry pilot, but he was no longer there. She found him heading toward the ferry’s bridge. She hurried after him, and stepped right back into the old man, stealthily.

Immediately the world she saw became his color-blind living world, as he opened the door to the bridge, and went in.

The ferry’s bridge was small and smelled of old varnish. Another, younger pilot was at the controls.

“Winds are killer today,” said the younger ferryman. “They oughta make these things more aerodynamic.”

“Yah,” said the old man, absently.

The younger man glanced over at him for a second. “Something wrong? “

“Nah, nah,” he said, “it’s just…nothing, I don’t know. Something weird.”

Allie knew he was sensing her. Even though she was hiding beneath the threshold of his understanding, he was feeling the hint of her presence. A plan was forming in her mind, but if he was becoming aware of her, she would have to make her move quickly, or it would be too late.

“Tell him to take his break early,” Allie demanded. “Take over the controls.”

Suddenly Allie felt the body of the old man turn, looking around as if searching for someone behind him. “What the—?”

“Something bite yah?” asked the younger pilot. “I’ll tell yah, the bugs here don’t know it’s winter. They breed down in the engine room, and crawl up here between the bulkheads.”

“Do it!” Allie insisted. “Take control of the ferry now!”

But the old man said—

—no!—

There was a panic in his thoughts and Allie knew she had been exposed.

—who are you? what do you want?—

In her panic, she considered leaping out of him, and right into the other pilot—but she had never done a person-to-person leap before. No, it was best to stay where she was and work with the old man. She calmed herself down, and spoke to him through her thoughts.

“That doesn’t matter,” she told him, “all that matters is that you take the wheel and change course.”

“No!” He said it aloud, this time.

The other man looked at him. “No, what?”

“No… uh… it wasn’t a bug,” he said. “At least not the kind you’re talking about.”

The other guy didn’t know what to make of it, so he just turned his attention forward.

“Never mind who I am,” Allie thought. “You have to take the wheel! You have to change course!”

But he wouldn’t. That’s when Allie made a calculated move. This was a battle of wills, and although she was a stranger in his skin, her sense of touch didn’t seem as numb as it had before. Maybe…just maybe… Allie thrust a hand forward and found that the hand moved. It wasn’t her hand but the old pilots. His fingers quivered as two spirits struggled to control it, but in the end Allie won. She wasn’t just mind-surfing now, she was body-surfing, and could use this man’s body as if it were her own. She grasped the shoulder of the younger pilot and spoke, but when her voice came out it was the dry, raspy voice of a man who had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day his whole life.

“You can go below,” Allie heard herself say in the old man’s voice. “I’ll finish off this run.” The younger ferryman offered no argument. He nodded and left, happy for some break time.

Inside her thoughts, the old pilot clawed for control of his limbs again.

“Patience!” Allie told him. “Patience, it will be over soon.”

But that only made him more terrified.

Gripping on to the wheel Allie pulled to the right. Now she could not see where the McGill’s ship was, but she remembered the spot where it had been. The boat began a turn that took it off its well-run course.

All at once it occurred to Allie, I am alive again! I am flesh, blood and bone.

Is that what the kid had meant when he said there were other ways to be alive again? She knew she had discovered something major here, but she couldn’t deal with that right now.

She held the new course for a full minute. By the time that minute had passed, the body she wore was shaking with the force of the man’s spirit trying to reclaim himself, and finally she let him, because she had done what she had set out to do.

The moment she stepped out of his body, the man yelped, then quickly gained control of himself. He blotted his sweating forehead, and rather than letting the shock of what had happened fill him, he instead turned his attention to the wheel, quickly pulling it back on course toward Staten Island. She did, however, hear him praying beneath his breath, whispering a series of Hail Marys. She wanted to tell him that it was okay—that this was a one-shot deal that would never happen to him again, but with the McGill’s ship so close, she didn’t have time.

Her change of course had brought them right into the path of the oncoming ghost ship. The bow of the McGill’s huge vessel rammed right into the ferry’s starboard side, but rather than slicing it in half, it simply passed through, as if the ferry wasn’t there. Around her the details of the ferry seemed to fade into nothing, as the Everlost reality of the ghost ship cancelled it out, plowing forward – and Allie remembered what Mary had said about how hard it was to see two things occupying the same space.

The bow of the McGill’s ship hit her, catching her solidly, and she realized she could not pass through this steel! If she didn’t find something to hold on to, the McGill’s ship would push her out of the ferry, and right into the sea. She reached for anything that she could grab on to and finally the anchor hanging from a hole in the bow swept past. She grabbed it, held on to it, and was lifted out of the ferry’s airspace. In a moment the ferry was gone, chugging steadily toward Staten Island, and Allie was clinging for all she was worth to an anchor suspended above the churning water of New York bay. Silently thanking her parents for forcing her to stay in gymnastics for four years, she climbed the anchor chain, and deftly flipped onto the deck of the ghost ship.

She surprised a team of unlikely pirates, who grabbed her the second she was on board. They were even more unpleasantly distorted than the Altar Boys. They practically carried her to the highest deck, where something slouched on a gaudy throne.

The thing on the throne was far from human. Allie found it horrifying to look, yet harder to look away. It had sharp, three-fingered talons for hands, and skin as red as a lobster and pocked like the moon. Its mismatched eyes wandered of their own accord, and its nasty tuft of spidery hair looked like it might crawl off the creature’s head at any moment. This thing was beyond grotesque—so far beyond that Allie found her fear balanced by fascination. How could something so horrible exist?

“What are you?” she said. She thought she said it to herself but realized she had spoken aloud.

“I am the McGill,” it said. “Hear my name and tremble.”

And Allie laughed. She didn’t mean to, but that line was so goofy, she couldn’t help herself.

The McGill frowned, or at least she thought it frowned. It waved a dirty claw, and all the assembled “pirates” scrambled away like rats, except for the small-headed one standing beside her.

“I will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine,” the McGill said, and although Allie believed it, she wasn’t going to let this beast see her fear the way she had let the Haunter see it. If there was one thing she had learned, it was that monsters only had the power that you gave them. But she also knew that monsters didn’t deal well with blatant disrespect. She had already disrespected the McGill once; she would probably not get away with it again.

“I’ve heard that you are the greatest creature in all of Everlost.” She nodded respectfully. “Now I see that it’s true.”

The McGill smiled, or at least Allie thought it smiled. It turned its dangling eye toward the misproportioned boy beside it. “What do you think, Pinhead, should I throw her overboard, or something worse?”

“Worse,” answered Pinhead. Somehow Allie knew he’d say that.

The McGill shifted in its throne, trying to make that unsightly body more comfortable, which seemed an impossibility. “But first I want to know how you snuck on board my ship.”

Allie grinned. “No one’s ever done that before, have they?”

“Actually, no,” said Pinhead, and the McGill threw him a burning gaze before turning back to Allie.

“How did you do it?” demanded the McGill.

“I’ll tell you, but only if— “

The McGill didn’t let her finish. It waved a clawed hand. “‘Only if’ nothing, I don’t make deals. Throw her overboard, I’ve lost interest in her.”

Pinhead moved to grab her, but she slipped out of his grasp.

“No,” said Allie. “Wait—I’ll tell you how I got on your ship.”

Pinhead hesitated. She thought she might get what she wanted if she played this right, but realized that she could not play at all. The McGill did not play games, and truly intended to toss her over. The best she could do was to stall with hopes of finding some way to bargain for the lives of Nick and Lief…assuming they hadn’t already been hurled overboard themselves.

“I took the Staten Island Ferry,” she said quickly, “and I slipped on board as it passed through your ship.”

Suddenly both of the McGill’s wandering eyes zeroed in on her. It gripped the edge of the throne with its claws and pushed itself up.

“That ferry changed course,” the McGill said, “almost as if it was intentional.

Did you do that?”

Allie wondered which response would keep her from being thrown overboard, yes or no. In the end she realized her answer was really the best of both worlds. “Yes and no,” she said.

The McGill took a step closer. “Explain.”

“I couldn’t make the ship turn myself, so I sort of leaped into the pilot’s body and took over for a few seconds.”

The McGill maintained its hideous stare in silence. “You expect me to believe this,” it finally said.

“Believe what you want, but I’m telling you the truth.”

The creature eyed her for a few moments more. “So then, you’re telling me that you know how to usurp, possess, and control the living? You can actually skinjack?

Allie didn’t like the sound of that. Is that what she had done? Had she possessed the pilot? Had she skinjacked him? It sounded so… criminal. “I prefer to think of it as ‘body-surfing.’”

The McGill laughed at that. “Body-surfing. Very good.” It scratched thoughtfully for a moment at the stalk of its smaller, dangling eye. “What’s your name?”

“Allie,” she answered. “Allie the Outcast.”

The McGill, not at all impressed by her title, dug a single claw into its oversized nose, pulling out a booger the size of a roach, and flicked it to the wall where it stuck. Allie grimaced.

“Take her below,” The McGill told Pinhead.

“Shall I chime her with the others?”

“No,” the McGill said. “Put her in the guest quarters.”

Pinhead nodded obediently and took Allies arm with slightly more respect than he might have a moment ago. Allie, however, sensing her bargaining position had now changed, shrugged Pinhead off.

“You took two of my friends from the Haunter.”

The McGill became very attentive. “Friends,” the monster said slowly.

“Are they here?”

“Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. For now you will go to your quarters.

When I want you, I’ll call for you.”

She sighed, knowing she couldn’t push it any further. “Thank you for being so… merciful,” Allie said. “But I would appreciate it if Pea-brain here would keep his hands off me.”

“That’s Pinhead,” corrected the boy. “Pea-brain works in the engine room.”

The McGill waved a hand in dismissal, Pinhead bowed to Allie in a mock gesture of courtesy, and she was led to the guest quarters with more dignity than any Afterlight had experienced on the Sulphur Queen since its crossing into Everlost.

Once the girl was gone, the McGill lumbered back to his throne and sat down.

From the little perch where the throne sat, he had a view of the ocean before him…They had crossed beneath the Verrazano Bridge, and the Sulphur Queen would soon be out in the Atlantic, on its endless journey up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

The McGill rarely allowed himself flights of fancy—he kept his existence pessimistic, always expecting the negative, and reveling when the worst didn’t come to pass—but this girl had struck a chord in him.

Skinjacking! This was a power more useful than any of the powers he already possessed. To be able to leap from one body to another at will; intruding into the living world, then finding new flesh to inhabit whenever it suited him—how powerful that would make him! Could this girl teach him how to do that? If so, it would be worth putting all of his other plans on hold. Yes, this new associate offered some exciting possibilities.

CHAPTER 17 The Chiming Chamber

Unlike Mary Hightower, the McGill did not write any books. The way he saw it, information was best hoarded, much like the objects in his treasure hold. The less information others knew, the more power he had over them. Still, the McGill secretly read every book that Mary Hightower had written. At first he found it all very amusing, because Mary’s information was wrong as often as it was right.

The more he read, however, the more he realized that Mary was not getting her facts wrong at all. She was deliberately distorting what she knew when it suited her. In this way, she was very much like the McGill, holding all the best information in. The fact that Mary did not mention the McGill in any of her writings was a constant thorn in his side. He was a legend. He was, after all, the One True Monster of Everlost, and he deserved at the very least a chapter.

Was that so much to ask? Someday, he would take on this Mary, defeat her, enslave her, and then force her to write an entire encyclopedia about him. But for now his interest was in a different girl.

Allie knew her welcome on board the Sulphur Queen would last only until the McGill got tired of her or got what it wanted. What he wanted, because Allie was reasonably certain this beast was male. Either way, her time was limited.

Besides, she didn’t have the patience to wait; she simply had to find out if Nick and Lief were here. Once in the “guest cabin,” Allie waited until the sound of Pinhead’s footsteps faded, then she quietly opened the door and snuck out.

The ship was large and the McGill’s crew was small, so she was able to slip through the hatchways and corridors unseen. On the occasions that she did encounter the McGill’s ugly young minions, they made so much noise that Allie had plenty of time to hide.

A ship has many places to stow prisoners, so she methodically explored every dark corner, ignoring the hideous rotten-egg smell, which grew as she went deeper into the bowels of the ship. Finally she found the ship’s massive holds.

By the stench and the yellow residue on the ground, Allie suspected the holds once carried sulphur, but now they held the spoils of the McGill’s pillaging raids. She marveled at what she saw in each of the chambers, wondering how these things had crossed over. Had someone died in this leather recliner? Was this stained-glass window so lovingly made that it crossed over when the church burned down? And what about this armoire, complete with wedding dress and tuxedo hanging inside? Did the bride and groom “get where they were going” on an ill-fated wedding night? Was their love, like Romeo and Juliet’s, not meant for the living world?

Each object held a story that no one would ever know, and the fact that the McGill treated these things with such thoughtless disrespect made Allie hate the creature even more.

She opened the door to the fourth and final hold, expecting to find more piles of the McGill’s treasure. This room was different, however.

As she peered in, her mind did not entirely comprehend what she saw. Her first impression was that of a giant hanging mobile, like something she once saw in the Museum of Modern Art. Large, lumpy objects hung from chains, all at different heights, all glowing dimly like low-wattage lightbulbs.

Then one of the objects spoke.

“What time is it?” the glowing lump said.

Allie let out a yelp, stepped back, and hit the steel bulkhead behind her. The wall rang out with a dull, hollow thud.

“What time is it?” the lump said again. It was a boy, maybe a year or two younger than her, wearing gray flannel pajamas, hanging upside down from his ankles around five feet from the ground. His pjs had a dorsal fin on the back, and a cartoon of a shark on the front.

“I… I don’t know…,” Allie answered.

“Oh. Okay.” The boy didn’t seem disappointed. He just seemed resigned.

“Careful,” said a girl hanging next to him. “He’s a biter.”

The pajama-boy smiled, showing a set of razor-sharp, sharklike teeth, like the picture on his pajamas. “It’s in a sea predator’s nature,” he said.

Only now did the truth begin to dawn on her as she took in the larger scene around her. The hanging lumps were Afterlights. Every single one of them. There had to be hundreds of kids, all hanging upside down.

The act of churning was invented by the McGill and he was proud to claim responsibility for the idea. Since it was impossible to hurt someone in Everlost, and since the McGill so wanted to inflict distress, he came up with a whole new form of torture, functional in several different ways: first, because it provided an efficient way of storing those Afterlights he had no immediate use for, and second, because he created a hopeless sense of abject boredom in his victims.

Simply stated, the act of chiming was to hang someone upside down from their ankles by a long chain, or rope. It didn’t actually hurt the spirit being chimed, but it was a pretty dull way to spend one’s days, and if boredom was the closest thing to suffering that the McGill could inflict, he would have to live with that. In any case it was entertaining for him, because he would often go down to the hold and begin swinging people. They would collide into one another, grunting and oofing as they bumped, like human wind chimes, and hence it became known as “being chimed.”

When Nick was first chimed, he wasn’t sure whether it was better or worse than being in the pickle barrel. The rotten-egg smell was certainly worse than the garlic and dill of the pickle brine, but then, at least here, he did not feel so alone. Lief, who had reached a state of nirvana in his barrel, took it in stride, smiling all the while, and Nick eventually decided being alone would be better than hanging upside down next to a happy camper—but then, it was better than being next to the screamer, or that kid who was trying to turn himself into a shark.

As soon as the Ugloids had finished stringing them up, they painted numbers on their chests in black. For reasons Nick could not figure out, he was number 966, and Lief was number 266, although the kid had drawn the two backward.

“Your hair looks funny,” Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids had left. “It stands straight up.”

“No,” said Nick, intensely irritated, “it’s hanging straight down.”

Lief just gave him an upside-down shrug. “Up is down in China and you’re part-Chinese.”

“Japanese, dweeb!” Nick reached out and slugged him on the shoulder, but that just started them both swinging into the others who were around them.

“Hey watch it,” some kid said. “It’s bad enough when the McGill comes down here to swing us. We don’t need a couple of idiots making us chime, too.”

His dangling comrades also complained each time Nick tried to climb his own rope, to get to the grate high up above. Through that grate he could see the sky, and he knew if he could get out on the open deck, he’d figure out a way to escape. Unfortunately, the ropes had all been greased, and he never got more than ten feet up his rope before falling down again and swinging into the kids around him, setting off a chain reaction of whining, which in turn reminded the screamer to start screaming, and everyone blamed Nick.

So aside from the occasional fight, and group sing-along, there was nothing to do but wait until the McGill found a use for them. Nick had this fantasy that Mary would come with a hundred of her kids to rescue him. He never dreamed that his rescuer would be Allie.

“Oh my God!”

Allie stood there on the sulphur-dusted floor of the chiming chamber, still unable to believe what she saw. She tried to count how many of them there were, but there were simply too many to count. There were numbers scrawled on their chests, and some of those numbers were up in the high hundreds.

“Are you here to free us?” girl 342 asked.

Since Allie didn’t know if a rescue of this many Afterlights would ever be possible, Allie didn’t answer her. Instead she asked, “I’m looking for two boys.

They wouldn’t have been here long. One is named Nick, the other Lief.”

Then a voice from high above called down to her.

“They’re on the other side.” It was an older boy in a Boy Scout uniform, with rust-colored hair sticking straight down like an upside-down flame. His was the shortest rope; he hung about fifteen feet above the floor, making him the highest one, and the one with the best view of the chamber. “All they do is talk talk talk,” he said. “Tell them to shut up, it’s annoying.”

Allie pushed her way forward into the mass of “chimed” kids. They swung like pendulums as she pushed through them, all of them grumbling and griping at having been disturbed. She tried to be gentle, but the forest of dangling spirits clearly did not appreciate her intrusion.

“Shut up, you idiots,” the high-chimed Boy Scout said. Allie wondered if being strung the highest made the kid the automatic leader of the group, or did it merely make him high-strung?

“I said shut up!” he yelled more loudly. “Keep making noise, and you’ll set off the screamer.”

And next to Allie, the screamer, once more reminded of his job, began to wail in Allies ear. Reflexively Allie clapped her hand over his mouth. “That,” she said, “is totally uncalled for. Don’t do that again. Ever.” The screamer looked at her with worried eyes. “Are we clear on this subject?” said Allie. The screamer nodded, and she removed her hand.

“Can I scream a little?” he asked.

“No,” said Allie. “Your screaming days are over.”

“Darn.” And he was quiet thereafter.

“Hey,” someone called out. “She shut down the screamer!” The chamber rang out with upside-down applause.

“Allie, is that you?” It was Nick. She pushed her way past a few more danglers, and found both of them. Nick hung about five feet from the ground, his head at about eye level. Lief hung about a foot higher.

“How did you get here?” Nick asked. “I thought for sure the Haunter put you in a barrel, too!”

“I got away before he could,” Allie explained.

“And you just left us there?!”

Allie sighed. They had no idea what she had gone through to get here, and now was not the time to tell them. She looked at Lief, who smiled and gave her an upside-down wave with his dangling arms. “Hi.”

Lief’s calm acceptance of his plight just made Allie feel all the more miserable. “This is horrible! How could the McGill do this!?”

“He’s a monster,” Nick reminded her. “It’s what monsters do.”

“Are you going to hang here with us?” Lief asked, happily. “There’s room next to me!”

“Ignore him,” Nick told Allie. “He’s completely lost it.” Nick squirmed, and bent his knees until his hands could get a grip on his ankles. “Can you cut us down?”

Then the kid up top called down to them. “If you free them, the McGill will throw all three of you overboard. He may get so mad, he’ll throw us all overboard.”

Allie knew he was right. The McGill was both mean-spirited and unpredictable—and besides, if she cut them down, where would they go? Even if they got out of the hold, they were still trapped on the ship.

“I can’t free you now,” she told them, “but I will soon. Hang tight.” She grimaced at her poor choice of words.

“So you’re just going to leave us here?” Nick said.

“Don’t be a stranger!” Lief said, merrily.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

“You promise? You also promised the visit to the Haunter wouldn’t be dangerous,” Nick reminded her. “And look how that turned out.”

Allie made no excuses because he was right. This was all her fault. Allie rarely apologized for anything, but when she said “I’m sorry,” this time, it carried the weight of all the apologies she had never given when she was alive. Then she hugged them awkwardly, setting them both slightly swinging, and left before her emotions could get the better of her.

CHAPTER 18 Skinjacking for Dummies

The Sulphur Queen hugged the shore of the East Coast, stopping now and again to send out a landing party in a lifeboat to see if any of the McGill’s Greensoul traps had snagged any new Afterlights. They were simple devices really; camouflaged nets tied to Everlost trees. A Greensoul would see a candy bar, or a bucket of popcorn, or whatever else the McGill was able to use as bait, but the second the kid grabbed it, the trap sprung, and there the kid was caught until the McGill’s crew came to cut him down. Easy as catching a rabbit.

The McGill was pleased with the current state of his world. Things were coming together nicely. He had to believe that finding this girl Allie was no coincidence. Forces in the universe were conspiring in his favor. Whether they were forces of light or forces of darkness…well, that was yet to be determined.

The morning after Allie’s unexpected arrival, the McGill went down to her quarters, and found her there, reading one of those blasted books by Mary Queen of Snots.

When he entered, Allie casually glanced at him from her bed, then returned her attention to the book. “Mary’s books are sooo annoying,” she told the McGill.

“You can’t tell the truth from the lies. Someday I’ll set her straight.”

It was hard for him not to smile. She disliked Mary, just as he did. This was a good sign.

The McGill tossed his head in a calculated gesture of disdain. His greasy hair whipped around, and flung some slime against the wall. “You will teach me how to skinjack now.”

She turned a page in her book, ignoring him. “I don’t follow orders.”

The McGill paused, not sure whether to spit worms at her, or treat her with uncharacteristic patience. He chose patience. “You will teach me how to skinjack now…please.”

Allie put down the book and sat up. “Well, as long as you used the magic word, sure, why not.”

She did not appear disgusted in the least when she looked at him. This was troublesome. Everybody, even his own crew, found him utterly repulsive. His power to repel was a matter of pride. He made a mental note that he would have to come up with new and inventive ways to disgust her.

What the McGill didn’t realize was that Allie was disgusted, but she was extremely good at keeping her emotions to herself when she wanted to.

Allie had decided that the McGill already had enough power over her; she wasn’t willing to give him the satisfaction of nausea.

“The art of skinjacking,” Allie began; “lesson number one.”

“I’m listening.”

Allie hesitated. She had truly painted herself into a corner here, because if there was ever a spirit that should not know how to skinjack, it was the McGill.

She barely knew how to do it herself, having only tried it once with the ferry pilot—but the McGill didn’t know that. As far as he knew, she ‘was an expert. As long as she acted like an expert, she could get away with just about anything.

“Possessing the living is a very complicated thing,” she said with authority.

“First we must find…uh… a Vortex of Spirit.”

“A Vortex of Spirit,” repeated the McGill. “I don’t know what that is.”

Neither did Allie, but that really didn’t matter.

“Do you mean a place that’s already haunted?” the McGill asked.

“Yes, that’s it.”

“A place that’s haunted without explanation?”

“Exactly!”

The McGill stroked his swollen chin as he thought. “I know a place like that. A house in Long Island. We went there in search of Afterlights to capture. We didn’t find a single one, but the walls of the house kept telling us to get out.”

“Okay,” said Allie. “Then that’s where our lessons will begin.”

The McGill nodded. “I will call for you when we arrive.”

Once he was gone, Allie let her revulsion out, shivering and squirming, and then she returned to her bed, disgusting herself further with Mary Hightower’s volume of misinformation. She hoped that couched between Mary’s useless tips there might be a clue to defeating the McGill—the trick was finding it.

The McGill, being an arrogant creature, believed he could see through anyone who was lying. It was that arrogance that kept him from seeing how completely Allie was tricking him. He strolled along the deck, pleased with this new wrinkle in his existence. Around him, his crew did their busywork on deck. There was little point to all the cleaning, the swabbing, and the polishing the crew did. What was rusty now would always be rusty. What was covered in sulphur dust would stay that way, no matter how much the crew tried to wipe it away. The best they could do was to clear away the cookie crumbs the McGill often left behind. Still, the McGill insisted that his ship be like a real ship. his crew like a real crew, and cleaning is what crews did. It was always the same crew members cleaning the same things, and at the same time of day. Routine. It’s what made a ghost ship a ghost ship. Allie, however, was a break from the routine.

He proudly strolled past his crewmen, flicking little black bugs at them, or spitting on their shoes—just to remind them who was boss. Then he returned to the bridge and ordered the ship turned around, heading back toward Long Island and the haunted house he had told Allie about. Then he sat in his throne, reaching toward a tarnished brass spittoon that sat next to it. The bowl was originally used for spitting tobacco, phlegm, and other vile things, but it served a different function here. The McGill dug his claw in, and pulled out a fortune cookie—one of many that filled the copper pot.

Mary Hightower was not a fan of fortune cookies, and told her readers so. Just thinking about it made the McGill laugh. What Mary didn’t tell her readers is that fortune cookies were plentiful in Everlost—not quite as plentiful as those faceless coins, but far more useful. For once, Mary had done him a service. If others stayed away from the cookies, it meant there were more for him!

The McGill crushed the fortune cookie in his fingers, hurling the crumbs out on the deck for his crew to fight over like seagulls, then he settled into his throne and read the small slip of paper that had been hidden in the cookie.

Out of the water will come your salvation.

Allie had come to him out of the water, hadn’t she? He leaned back, well satisfied with himself.

The house on Long Island did, indeed, tell them to get out.

It told them loudly, it told them often. It was an annoying house. It was, however, all bark and no bite. There was a young couple living in the house – and although it yelled at them, too, they apparently could not hear it as they were both deaf. Since the house had no appendages by which to communicate in American sign language, it was profoundly frustrated. It must have been very satisfying for the house to finally have spirits within its walls who could hear it—even if they weren’t inclined to listen. Regardless, Allie had to admit it was the perfect location for her first bogus lesson in skinjacking.

“Okay,” Allie told the McGill, “first find a dead-spot in the room,” which was not very difficult since the whole house was spotted with them like Swiss cheese. Apparently many people had died here. Allie didn’t want to think about it.

The McGill took a spot near a window facing the sea. “Now what?”

“Close your eyes.”

“My eyes don’t close,” the McGill reminded her.

“Right. Okay then, keep your eyes open. Face the ocean…and wait for the sun to rise.”

“It’s noon,” the McGill pointed out.

“Yes, I know. You have to stand here, and wait until tomorrow when the sun rises, then stare into the rising sun.”

“Get…Owwwwwwwwt,” said the house.

“If we have to be here at dawn, why didn’t you tell me that before we came?”

“You know what your problem is?” Allie said. “You have no patience. You’re immortal, it’s not like you’re going anywhere. Skinjacking takes patience. Stand here, and wait until dawn.”

The McGill gave her an evil eye, spat out a wad of something brown on her shoe, and said, “Fine. But you wait with me. If I have to listen to this stupid house, then so do you.”

So they waited, ignoring the pointless activities of the people who lived there, and turning a deaf ear to the house.

The next morning however was overcast, and instead of a rising sun, the horizon was filled with a ribbon of gray.

“You’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” Allie told the McGill.

“Why? What does this have to do with possessing the living?”

Allie rolled her eyes as if the answer was obvious. “Staring at the sun at dawn gives you soul-sight. Not every living person can be possessed. Soul-sight allows you to see which ones you’ll be able to skinjack, and which ones you won’t.”

The McGill looked at her doubtfully. “And this is how you learned?”

“Well,” said Allie, “it’s the first step.”

“How many steps are there?”

“Twelve.”

The McGill regarded her with his wandering, mismatched eyes, then asked, “Is anyone in this house possessible?”

Allie thought back to when she caught glimpses of the occupants speaking to one another by means of complex hand gestures. In truth, anyone was possessible, but she wouldn’t let the McGill know that. The whole point of this was to make sure she didn’t teach the McGill anything at all. The whole point was to stall long enough to learn the McGill’s weaknesses. If she could drag him through twelve ridiculous steps, convincing him that at the end he’d learn how to skinjack, she might find the key to defeating him—or at least, a way to free her friends.

Either way, she knew she’d have to make a quick escape when it was all over, because when the McGill finally figured out that he was being duped, his fury would reverberate through all of Everlost.

“The woman is possessible,” Allie told the McGill.

“Show me,” the creature said. “Skinjack her now.”

Allie clenched her teeth. Her experience taking control of the ferry pilot had been exciting, but frightening. It had been an intense experience, but also fundamentally gross—like wearing someone else’s sweaty clothes. Still, if she were going to keep stringing the McGill along, she would have to deliver.

“Okay, I’ll do it. But only if you tell me why you’ve got all those kids strung up in your ship. And why you put numbers on them.”

He considered the question, then said, “I’ll tell you AFTER you skinjack the woman.”

“Fine.” Allie rolled her shoulders like a runner getting ready for a race, then approached the woman in the kitchen. Stepping in was easier this time than it had been with the ferry pilot, perhaps because she was a woman, or perhaps because practice made perfect. The woman never quite knew what hit her. What struck Allie first was the absolute silence. She almost panicked, thinking something was wrong, until she remembered the woman was deaf. The world around Allie now was brighter—the way it appeared to the living—and she could feel the seductive density of flesh. She flexed her fingers, and found that it had only taken a few moments to push the woman’s consciousness down, and take control.

Allie looked around. Through the woman’s eyes she could no longer see the McGill, but she knew he was there. If he wanted proof that she could possess people, he would have proof. She rummaged around in the kitchen drawers until she found a permanent marker, then went to the wall and wrote in big block letters:

BEWARE THE MCGILL

Then she hopped out of the woman, not wanting to spend a second more there than she had to. The living world faded into the muted colors of Everlost, her hearing returned, and there was the McGill smiling through sharp, rotten teeth.

“Very good!” he said. “Very, very good.”

“Now tell me about the Afterlights in your ship.”

“No.”

“You promised.”

“I lied.”

“Then I won’t teach you what I know.”

“Then I’ll throw your friends over the side.”

“Get… Owwwwwwt!!!!”

Allie clenched her fists and let off an angry growl that only made the McGill laugh. She might have held some of the cards, but the McGill would not let her forget that he held all the aces.

“We will come back each morning,” the McGill said, “until we have a bright sunrise. Then we will go on to step two.”

Allie had no choice but to agree. She rode the lifeboat in furious silence back to the Sulphur Queen, even more determined than ever to outsmart the McGill.

As for the woman Allie had possessed, once she regained control of her body, she took one look at the words scrawled on the wall, and concluded that all the stories about this house were true. She immediately contacted her Realtor, and put the house up for sale, determined that she and her husband would move as far away from Amityville as possible.

CHAPTER 19 Evil Chinese Pastry of Death

The McGill followed Allies lead, letting her direct him through the first three steps of human possession. He supposedly now had “soulsight,” allowing him to see which humans were possessible and which were not, however when he looked at the living, he saw no difference between them. He wouldn’t tell Allie this, though. Soulsight would come, he convinced himself. Once he worked his way through the remaining steps it would come. It had better.

The second step was to follow the actions of a living person for twenty-four hours. “The point,” Allie explained, “is to become in tune with the things living people do.” It was a deceptively difficult chore, because the living could travel through the world in ways that the McGill could not. Every single time the McGill chose someone to follow, they would eventually get into a car, or a train, or, in one strange instance, a helicopter, and be carried away too quickly for the McGill to follow on foot.

It took several days until he finally settled on someone who wasn’t going anywhere; an inmate at a local jail. He spent twenty-four hours observing the prisoner’s various limited activities, and the McGill returned to the Sulphur Queen triumphant.

The third step, however, was much more difficult. According to Allie, he was required to commit an act of selflessness. The McGill didn’t think it was possible.

“You could release one or two kids from the chiming chamber,” Allie suggested.

But the McGill flatly refused. “It wouldn’t be selfless,” he told her, “because I’d be doing it to gain something.”

No—if selflessness was what was required then it would be a difficult task indeed. This required consulting with the cookies. After Allie had gone to her quarters, the McGill once more pushed his hand into the spittoon and withdrew a fortune cookie, crushed it, and pulled out the slip of paper. This time it read:

The answer comes when the question is forgotten.

Annoyed, the McGill threw the cookie crumbs over the side, rather than giving them to his crew.

The McGill wasn’t the only one annoyed by this turn of events. Allie silently cursed herself for not being more clever. Did she actually think the McGill would be tricked into releasing her friends? True, the challenge of this “third step” bought her time, but if the McGill was truly incapable of selflessness, it would only serve to make him angrier and angrier.

She now had freedom on the ship—more than any of the McGill’s actual crew—but something was happening to her. Each time she looked in a mirror, her reflection looked a little off. Did one ear look larger than the other? Was this bottom tooth always crooked? She wondered how long it would be until she became no better than the rest of his crew. Allie pondered all this as she stood on deck one afternoon, looking toward shore—only she couldn’t find it. The sky was clear, but all she could see was ocean. It seemed to her that the Sulphur Queen always hugged the coastline, but now they were out in the open sea. It was unsettling, for although she knew she could no longer be a part of the living world, seeing it gave her some connection to the life she once had. By her calculation, they should have been off” the coast of New Jersey—the southern part of the state, where her family lived—but the shore was nowhere in sight.

As she stared out at the horizon, the McGill approached her, lumbering in that awful way of his.

“Why are we all the way out here,” Allie asked him, “if you’re supposed to be checking your traps?”

“I have no traps in New Jersey,” was his only answer.

“But what’s the point of coming all the way out to sea?”

“I didn’t come here to answer stupid questions,” he said.

“Then why did you come?”

“I was on the bridge,” the McGill said, “and I saw you staring over the side. I came down to see if you were all right.”

Allie found this show of concern even more disturbing than the slime that so freely oozed from the McGill’s various bodily openings. The McGill brought his flaking three-fingered claw to her face and lifted her chin. Allie took one look at that swollen, turgid finger, purple and pale like a dead fish three days in the sun, and she pulled away from him, revolted.

“I disgust you,” the McGill said.

“Isn’t that what you want?” Allie answered. From the start she knew he took great pride in his high gross-out factor. He never passed up an opportunity to be repulsive, and was skilled at thinking up new disgusting things to do. At that moment, however, he didn’t seem pleased with himself at all.

“Perhaps my hand could use a softer, gentler touch,” he said. “I’ll work on it.”

Allie resisted the urge to look at him. Please don’t tell me the monster is falling in love with me, she thought. She was simply not the compassionate kind of girl who could handle it. “Don’t try to charm me,” she told him. “The ‘Beauty and the Beast’ thing doesn’t work with me, okay? “

“I’m not trying to charm you. I just came down here to make sure you weren’t planning to jump.”

“Why would I jump?”

“Sometimes people do,” the McGill told her. “Crew members who think sinking would be better than serving me.’ “Maybe they have the right idea,” Allie told him. “You won’t release my friends, you won’t answer my questions – maybe I’d be better off down there.”

The McGill shook his head. “You’re just saying that because you don’t know—but I know what happens when you sink.” And then the McGill became quiet. His dangling eyes, which never seemed to be looking in the same direction, now seemed to be looking off somewhere else entirely. Somewhere no one else could see.

“It may begin with water,” he said, “but it always ends with dirt. Dirt, then stone. When you first pass into the Earth, it’s stifling dark, and cold. You feel the stone in your body.”

Allie thought back to the time Johnnie-O had almost pushed her down. She remembered that feeling of the earth in her body. It was not something she ever wanted to experience again.

“You feel the pressure growing greater all around you as gravity pulls you down,” the McGill said. “And then it begins to get hot. It gets hotter than a living body could stand. The stone glows red. It turns liquid. You feel the heat. It should burn you into nothing but it doesn’t. It doesn’t even hurt, because you can’t feel hurt, but you do feel the intensity of the heat… it’s maddening. All you see is the bright molten red, then molten white the hotter it gets. And that’s all there is for you. The light, and the heat, and the steady drop down and down.”

Allie wanted to make him stop, but found she couldn’t, for as much as she didn’t want to know, she felt she had to know.

“You sink for years, and from time to time, you come across others,” the McGill said. “You feel their presence around you. Their voices are muffled by the molten rock. They tell you their names, if they remember them. And then in twenty years tame, you reach a place where the world is so thick around you with sunken spirits, you stop. Once you’re there, once you’ve stopped falling and realize you’re not going anywhere anymore, that’s when you begin waiting.”

“Waiting for what? ‘ “Isn’t it obvious?”

Allie didn’t dare guess what he was talking about.

“Waiting for the end of the world,” the McGill said.

“The world… is going to end?”

“Of course it’s going to end,” the McGill told her. “Probably not for a hundred billion years, but eventually the sun will die, the Earth will blow up, and every kid who’s ever sunk to the core will be free to zoom around the universe, or do whatever it is Afterlights do when there’s no gravity to deal with anymore.”

Allie tried to imagine waiting for a billion years, but couldn’t. “It’s horrible.”

“No, it’s not horrible,” the McGill said, “and that’s what makes it worse than horrible.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You see, when you’re at the center of the Earth, you forget you have arms and legs, because you don’t need them. You can’t use them. You become nothing but spirit. Pretty soon you can’t tell where you end, and where the Earth begins…and you suddenly find that you don’t care. You suddenly find that you have endless patience. Enough patience to wait until the end of the world.”

“‘Rest in peace,’” Allie said. “Maybe that’s what they mean.” It was perhaps a great mercy of the universe, that lost souls who could do nothing but wait were blessed with everlasting peace. It was kind of like the weird bliss Lief had found in his barrel.

“I could never imagine being that patient,” Allie said.

“Neither could I,” said the McGill. “So I clawed my way back to the surface.”

Allie snapped her eyes back to the McGill, whose eyes were no longer far away—they were both looking right at her.

“You mean…”

The McGill nodded. “It took me more than fifty years, but I wanted to be back on the surface again, and when you want something badly enough, you can do anything. No one has ever wanted it as much as me; I’m the only one who’s ever come back from the center of the Earth.” Then the McGill looked at his gnarled claws. “It helped to imagine myself as a monster clawing my way up from the depths, and so when I finally reached the surface that’s exactly what I was. A monster. And it’s exactly what I want to be.”

Although nothing about the McGill’s horrible face had changed since he began his tale, Allie could swear he somehow looked different. “Why did you tell me this?”

Allie asked.

The McGill shrugged. “I thought you should know. I thought you deserved a little bit of truth in return for all your help.”

And although the picture the McGill painted was not a pretty one, it somehow made Allie feel a bit better. A bit less in the dark. “Thank you,” she said.

“That was very thoughtful.”

The McGill lifted his head. “Thoughtful…Do you think maybe it was selfless?”

Allie nodded. “Yes, I think it was.”

The McGill smiled wide enough to show his rotten gums. “The answer was found when the question was forgotten, just as the fortune cookie said.”

“Fortune cookie?” asked Allie. “What do you mean?”

But the McGill ignored her. “I’ve achieved the selfless act,” the McGill said.

“I’m ready for step four.”

Allie dug through what writings of Mary’s she could find, until she discovered the entry on fortune cookies – how they were evil, flesh-rotting little pastries, and should be avoided like nuclear waste. If Mary was frightened enough of fortune cookies to ban them, Allie knew there must be something important about them.

Allie sought out Pinhead. He was down in the mess hall with the rest of the crew, who were all entertaining themselves with the same games they played over and over again. They flipped and traded old baseball cards from long-dead players. They argued over who was cheating in checkers. As in Mary’s world, these crew members, if not rousted from their games by the McGill, would sit in their eternal ruts, and get into the same fights over and over again. Remember that, Allie told herself. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t let yourself fall into routine again.

When the crew saw her enter the mess hall, either they ignored her, or they scowled at her. She was not well loved among the crew. Mostly they resented the fact that she had found the McGill’s favor, where they had not. Still, they had to grudgingly admit that since she had been on board, their situation had improved. The McGill was distracted and was far less demanding of them now.

Pinhead, more than any of the others, understood the value of having Allie aboard. At first she had thought he’d be resentful the way Vari had been resentful of Nick, but since Pinhead was often the scapegoat for the McGill’s anger when things didn’t go his way, Allie was a bit of a savior to Pinhead. She could hardly call him a friend, but neither was he an enemy. One thing Allie was certain of: He had more brains than his small head would suggest, and was pretty much the glue that held things together around the Sulphur Queen.

Pinhead stood in a corner acting as referee for two other young crewmembers who were playing the flinching game—the one where you slap each others hands, and get a free slap if your opponent flinches.

“Tell me about fortune cookies,” she said. He immediately left the two flinchers to their game, and took Allie aside, sitting down with her at a table where they could talk without being overheard.

“What do you want to know?” Pinhead asked.

“Mary Hightower says they’re evil. Is that true?”

Pinhead laughed. “Mary must have had a bad fortune.”

“So tell me the truth.”

Pinhead looked around as if it was some big secret, then said quietly, “Fortune cookies all cross over.”

Allie took a moment to process that. “What do you mean all?”

“I mean all. Every single fortune cookie that was ever made anywhere in the world crosses into Everlost. Living people might break them open, but the ghosts of all those cookies cross over, unbroken, just waiting for some Afterlight to find them.”

“Interesting,” Allie said, “but why is that such a big deal?”

Pinhead grinned. “It’s a very big deal,” he said, and then he leaned in close.

“Because in Everlost, all fortunes are true.”

Allie wasn’t sure whether to believe Pinhead. Just as Mary’s information had been wrong, it was possible Pinhead’s was wrong as well. It was just rumor. It was just myth. There was, however, one way to find out: She had to open one up.

Since the McGill had talked about the cookies, she reasoned that he must have a stash somewhere, so while the McGill was off inspecting a trap on the coast of Maine, Allie went up to his throne deck, and began the search.

They weren’t too hard to find. In fact, she would have found them sooner, if she didn’t have a certain disgust at getting anywhere near the McGill’s spittoon. It was only after a pause for thought that she realized the McGill had no reason to actually have a spittoon. Since he prided himself on his repulsiveness, he never actually used it. Instead, he spat everywhere else. That being the case, the spittoon was probably the most mucous-free object on the entire ship.

It turned out that she was right. She reached into the spittoon and found the McGill’s collection of fortune cookies.

She held one in her hand, grit her teeth, and watched what happened, hoping that Mary was wrong about her hand rotting off. Her hand didn’t rot. It didn’t wither. Allie was not at all surprised.

Now there was a sense of anticipation in her as she held the little pastry. She had never believed in fortune-tellers, but then, she had never believed in ghosts either. She closed her eyes, made a fist around the cookie and squeezed.

It crumbled with a satisfying crunch, then she pulled the little slip of paper out from the remains.

Selfish ambition leaves friends in a pickle.

Allie wasn’t sure whether she was more amazed or annoyed. It was like the universe wagging an accusing finger at her for having brought Nick and Lief to the Haunter. She tried another one, because the first only spoke of what had been, not what will be. Perhaps this second one would be more helpful. She broke another cookie, and read the fortune.

You shall be the last. You shall be the first.

Since it made no sense to her, she went for a third.

Linger or light; the choice will be yours.

It was like eating pistachios, and she found herself getting into a rhythm of cracking open one after another…until she reached for the fourth one, broke it open, and the fortune said:

Look behind you.

CHAPTER 20 The Day the McGill Got Chimed

The McGill held his temper as he stood behind Allie in the throne room, watching her steal his fortunes. Never before had anyone pilfered his fortune cookies, and his fury at her was deep, but for once he resisted the urge to lash out. He had successfully completed the first four steps. Only eight remained. If his temper caused him to be rash and hurl the girl over the side, he would never know the secret of possessing the living. But since anger was the only way the McGill knew how to react, he just stood there, not reacting at all.

The girl, her back still to him, suddenly stiffened as she read her fourth fortune, and slowly turned around to see him there. The moment she saw him, he recognized the look of fear in her eyes. It was the first time he had seen her show fear since arriving on the ship. At first it had troubled the McGill that she seemed unafraid of him, but now, he found himself troubled by the fact that she was. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him. This new sensitivity in himself was deeply disturbing.

“Explain yourself!” The McGill s voice came out in deep guttural tones, like the growl of a tiger at the moment it pounces.

Allie stood straight and opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. The McGill knew what that hesitation meant. She’d going to lie, he thought—and he knew if she did lie, there would be no containing his temper. He would hurl her with such force, she would reach the mainland like a cannonball.

Then, after a moment, she relaxed her shoulders, and said, “I just learned about fortune cookies, and wanted to see for myself if it was true. I guess I got carried away.”

It smelled of honesty—enough honesty for the McGill to keep his temper in check.

He lumbered toward her, keeping one eye trained on her face, and the other on the spittoon. “Give me your hand,” he demanded, and when Allie didn’t do it, he grabbed her hand, holding it out.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

He didn’t answer. Instead he reached into the spittoon with his free claw, grabbed a fortune cookie and placed it in her palm, then closed his hand around hers. “Let’s find out what our fortune is,” he said. The McGill squeezed Allie’s hand so hard, not only did the cookie shatter, but her knuckles cracked as well.

Then the McGill released her hand, and pulled out the fortune slip with his sharp nails.

Forgiveness keeps destiny on track.

The McGill found his anger slipping away. The cookies never lied. “Very well,” he said. “I forgive you.” He sat down on his throne, satisfied. “Now get out of my sight.”

Allie turned to leave, but stopped at the threshold. “Forgiveness is the fifth step,” she said, and then she left.

Allie’s brain—or her memory of a brain—or whatever you called the thought processes of an Afterlight—was working overtime. Granting the McGill the fifth step had been an impulsive thing to do, but at the moment it had felt like the right thing to do. But what was she thinking? There was no right thing, because there was no fifth step! All this stalling was buying her nothing, and in all her time here, she was no closer to freeing her friends. If they were to have any hope, she would have to find the McGill’s weakness—and Allie suspected if he had one, it would lie in the questions he refused to answer.

“Why does the McGill stay away from New Jersey?” Allie asked Pinhead, the next time she caught him alone.

“It’s something he doesn’t like to talk about,” Pinhead told her.

“That’s why I’m asking you, not him.”

Pinhead held his silence as a few crew members passed by. When they were gone, Pinhead began to whisper.

“It’s not all of New Jersey he stays away from,” Pinhead said. “It’s just Atlantic City.”

Allie knew all about Atlantic City. It was the Las Vegas of the East Coast: dozens of hotels and casinos, a boardwalk full of fudge and saltwater taffy shops. “Why would the McGill be afraid of a place like that?”

“He was defeated there,” Pinhead told her. “It happened at the Steel Pier. See, there are two amusement piers in Atlantic City that burned down years ago, and crossed over into Everlost. The Steel Pier, and the Steeplechase Pier. They became a hangout for ‘The Twin Pier Marauders,’ a gang of really rough Afterlights—probably the nastiest gang there is. Anyway, the McGill raided them twenty years ago, and they fought back. It was a terrible battle, and in the end, they had hurled the McGill’s entire crew into the sea, and captured the McGill.”

“Captured him?”

Pinhead nodded. “They took him to the Steeplechase Pier, and chained him upside down from his feet to the parachute-drop ride, and up and down he went every thirty seconds for four years…until one of the Marauders turned traitor, and set him free.”

“I’m surprised he told you something like that.”

“He didn’t,” Pinhead said. “I was the one who set him free.” Then Pinhead looked at her, studying her face. “I’ve answered your questions,” Pinhead said. “Now I have a question for you. I want to know if you really are teaching the McGill to skinjack.”

Allie carefully sidestepped the question. “Well, it’s what he wants.”

“The McGill shouldn’t always get what he wants.”

She wasn’t expecting that response from Pinhead. “But…don’t you want your master to have that skill?”

“He’s my captain, not my master,” Pinhead said, some indignance in his voice. He thought for a moment, looking down, then returned his gaze to Allie. It was now a powerful gaze, full of urgency, and maybe a little accusation. “I don’t remember a lot from my living days, but I do remember that my father—or was it my mother—worked in a madhouse.”

“A mental institution,” Allie corrected.

“When I was alive, they didn’t have such nice words for them. Sometimes, I would get to go in. The people there were very sick—but some were more than sick. Some were possessed.”

“Things have changed,” Allie pointed out. “They don’t think that kind of thing anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter what they think; I know what I know.”

Pinhead’s thoughts drifted away for a moment. Allie couldn’t imagine what it would be like to walk through an old-world asylum. She didn’t want to know.

“Even when I was alive, I knew the difference between the sick ones and the possessed ones. You can see it in their eyes. My mother—or was it my father – said there was no such thing as possession, but you know it happens, because you’ve done it yourself.”

“I didn’t drive anyone crazy.”

“Well,” said Pinhead, “all I know is that if I were a living, breathing person, I wouldn’t want something like the McGill living inside of me.”

“Why should you care? If he skinjacks someone and leaves Everlost, you get to be captain.”

“I’m not the captain type,” he said, and he offered her a slanted mudslide of a grin. “Don’t have the head for it.”

Allie went back to her cabin and lay down, running what Pinhead had said about the Steel and Steeplechase Piers over and over again in her mind, until an idea came to her: a way to defeat the McGill, or at least a way to distract him enough for her and her friends to escape. The plan was simple, and it was dangerous, but it was the best hope she had.

All she needed was a small slip of paper…and a typewriter.

Although the McGill liked no one, he was beginning to suspect that if he ever did like someone, it might be Allie. This troubled him, because he knew she would abandon him and escape with her friends if she could. The McGill, however, believed in the power of blackmail. As long as he had her friends dangling like carrots before her, she would do what he wanted. He knew he would never trust her, because, for the McGill, trust had been left behind with the human condition. The McGill trusted no one but himself, and even then, he was often suspicious of his own motives. He wondered, for instance, if he believed Allie’s twelve-steps-to-possession only because he wanted it so badly. Or worse, did he believe her only because he had begun to like her?

Since he couldn’t trust himself, he decided he needed verification of Allie s honesty, and so, once Allie was below deck, he called up an oversize kid known as Piledriver. Piledriver’s claim to fame was that he had died in a living-room wrestling mishap, while costumed as his favorite professional wrestler. The McGill often brought him along on shore raids to inspire fear in Greensouls who had not yet realized that pain and joint dislocation were no longer an issue.

Today, however, the McGill had a different mission for Piledriver.

“Take two crewmen and a lifeboat,” the McGill told him, after he explained the nature of the mission. “Leave in the middle of the night, when the rest of the crew is below. Don’t tell anyone, and once you find what you’re looking for, meet us at Rockaway Point. I’ll hold the Sulphur Queen there until you return.”

Piledriver dutifully left, pleased to be given such an important task.

The McGill reclined in his throne, picking at the jewels on the armrests. If Piledriver did the job right, they would soon know if Allie was telling the truth.

CHAPTER 21 Web of the Psychotic Spider

Down in the chiming chamber, Nick had grown more and more determined to throw off his shackles. So much of his life had been a game of follow the leader.

During his living days he had followed friends and trends, never sticking his neck out to do anything on his own. Then, when he first arrived in Everlost, he had followed Allie, because she was the one with momentum. She had always been the one with a goal, and a plan to reach it, however misguided it might be. His time in a pickle barrel had certainly changed his perspective on things. During all that time, he could do nothing but wait for rescue to come from the outside.

Nothing was worse than that limp, lonely feeling that he had no power over his own fate – and yet here he was again, strung up like a side of beef, just waiting for someone else to help him.

So many of the kids chimed beside him had grown to accept this. Lief, with his weird post-traumatic bliss, was a constant reminder to Nick that he, too, might someday just leave his will behind, and grow as passive as a plant, waiting for time to do whatever time does to Afterlights. The thought frightened him—it made him anxious, and that anxiety spurred him on to action.

“I’m finding a way out of here,” he announced to any of the other chimed kids who cared to listen.

“Ah, shut up,” said the high-strung kid. “Nobody wants to hear it.”

A few others echoed their halfhearted agreement.

“You new chimers just complain, complain, complain,” said some kid from deep in the middle of the chiming chamber—perhaps a kid who had been there for many years, and had lost anything resembling hope.

“I’m not complaining,” Nick announced, and he realized that, for once, he wasn’t. “I’m doing something about it.” Then he began to bend at the waist and swing his arms, making himself move like a pendulum.

Lief smiled at him. “Looks like fun,” he said, and he joined Nick, until they were both swinging together, bounding off of all the other kids around them—kids who were not at all pleased to be jostled out of their semi-vegetative state.

Grumbles of “Stop it!” and “Leave us alone,” began to echo around the chamber, but Nick would not be deterred.

He couldn’t quite swing to the door, and even if he could, it was locked from the outside, so that was out of the question, and there were so many kids, he couldn’t build up the momentum to swing free, like a true pendulum. In the end, he wound up accidentally locking elbows with Lief as he swung past him, and they spun around each other, like an upside-down square dance. Their ropes tangled, and they ended up pressed to one another like dance partners.

The high-strung kid laughed. “Serves you right!” he said. “Now you’ll be stuck like that!”

Their ropes were hopelessly tangled, and now they were even farther from the ground than when they started.

Farther from the ground…

A stray thought sparked through Nick’s mind so sharply and suddenly, it burst out of his chocolate-covered mouth before he understood what he meant.

“Macrame,” he said.

“Huh?” said Lief.

One day long ago, when Nick was home from school, too sick to do much of anything else, his grandmother gave him some twine, and showed him how to weave it together into fancy patterns. It was called macrame. He had made a hanging-plant holder that was probably still holding a big old spider plant in his living room.

“Lief! ” he said. “Twist around me some more.” And without waiting for Lief to respond, Nick grabbed him and made Lief twist around him again and again until the torque of their tangled ropes made them spin backward, like a rubber band that was wound too tight. But before they could spin too far, Nick said, “Just follow me—do what I do.”

Nick reached out and grabbed another kid.

“Hey!” complained the kid.

Nick ignored him and twisted the kid’s position so that high above their upside-down feet, their ropes tangled. Lief did the same to a kid next to him.

By now there were mumbles of kids around them taking notice. This wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill swinging—this had purpose and design. This was something new.

“What are you doing down there?” demanded the high-strung kid.

“Everybody!” Nick shouted. “Grab the people around you and start crossing your ropes. Get as tangled as you can!”

“Why?” the high-strung kid said.

Nick tried to think of something the high-strung kid would understand. As he was wearing a Boy Scout uniform, Nick figured he knew just the thing. “Ever make a lanyard at Boy Scout camp?” Nick asked. “You know—those plastic strings you weave together to make whistle chains, and stuff?

“Yeah…”

“You start with tons and tons of string, right? But when it’s done it’s really short, once all the strings are woven together.”

“Yeah…” said the kid, beginning to get it.

“And if we keep tangling and tying up our ropes like a lanyard, we’ll get higher and higher off the ground—and maybe if we’re high enough, we could reach that grate up there and—”

“—get out!” said the kid, finishing Nick’s thought.

“I don’t wanna get tangled,” whined some kid far off.

“Shut up!” said the high-strung Boy Scout. “I think it might work. Everybody do what he says. Start tangling yourselves!”

All it took was an order from their leader for every single kid to start tangling. It was a strange dance of kids weaving in and out of one another, grabbing hands, pulling, swinging, stitching their ropes together, and with each stitch made, the collection of hanging kids rose farther off the ground.

It took more than an hour, and when it was done, and there was not an inch of give left in their ropes, they had risen at least twenty feet. The result was hardly a lanyard, or even a macrame plant holder. Their ropes were a tangled mess, and the kids themselves were all tied up inside it like flies caught in the web of a large, psychotic spider. From where Nick hung, he could see the opening above them, so much closer now, only about ten feet away. If he were free from that blasted rope, he could climb up the tangle, and get out. If only there were rats to chew through these ropes.

He looked around him. None of the kids who had been near him before were near him now—he was faced with an entire new set of neighbors. In fact everyone was chatting; those who remembered their names were introducing themselves. This was more life than any of these kids had shown for years. Even the screamer, who had pouted ever since Allie forbid him to scream, was happily talking away. Still, while the tangle brought some much needed variety to their dangling existence, it hadn’t freed anyone. Nick had to think—there had to be more he could do. And then, among all the chatty voices he heard one kid ask:

“What time is it?”

Through the interwoven ropes, he saw the kid in pajamas who everyone called Hammerhead. An idea came to him, and it amazed Nick that no one in the chiming chamber had thought of this before, being so deep and docile in their upside-down ruts. But then, Nick himself hadn’t really been thinking outside the box until today, had he? There “wasn’t much slack left in Nick’s rope, but he pulled his way through the clog of kids, and got them to shift positions, enabling him to inch forward until finally he was just a few feet away from Hammerhead, who smiled at him, showing his pointy teeth. “This is more fun than a feeding frenzy!”

“Uh… right. Hey, how’d you like to help me out?”

“Sure. What do you want me to do?” It took Hammerhead less than five minutes to gnaw through Nick’s rope.

“There’s a problem in the chiming chamber,” a nervous crewman told the McGill.

The McGill sat forward in his throne. “What kind of problem?”

“Well… sir… they all seem to have gotten…tangled.”

“So untangle them.”

“Well…it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

Frustrated, the McGill came out on deck, and went over to the grate above the chiming chamber. He pulled it open, and looked down into the depths to see the situation for himself. His captives weren’t just tangled, they were talking.

They sounded…happy. This was entirely unacceptable.

“Do we have something vile to pour on them?”

“I’ll go check,” said the crewman, and he ran off.

The McGill looked down at the tangled mob of kids again. “They look very uncomfortable,” he said. Certainly they were talking now, but in time, they’d grow tired of this new situation, and realize how much more unpleasant this tangle was than simply hanging upside down.

“Pour something on them, then let them be,” the McGill told the crewman when he returned. “They’ll be miserable again soon enough.”

As he walked off, for an instant the McGill thought he caught a whiff of chocolate somewhere on the open deck, but decided it must have just been his imagination.

CHAPTER 22 Member of the Cabinet

Nick had made it out, but there was nowhere on the Sulphur Queen for him to go.

Everywhere, at every staircase, every gangway, every hatchway was some Ugloid cleaning. True, the ship was full of dark corners in which to hide, but dark corners were useless to him, because he couldn’t douse his Afterlight glow. A corner was no longer dark once he was in it. He didn’t have a plan yet for getting off the ship, but maybe if he could find Allie they could work together.

By now she must know the ship better than he did. The problem was, he had no idea where she was, and he wasn’t in any position to go traipsing around the ship looking for her. In the end, he retreated back into the bowels of the ship.

Not the chiming chamber, but one of the treasure holds. It was the best place to hide, for no one dared to come down and disturb the McGill’s possessions. He would hide here until the night hours, when the crew was down below, engaged in games, or brawls, or whatever. Those were the hours when he could more easily sneak around the ship. Then he would search for Allie. But for now, he found himself a large oak cabinet. He slipped inside, pulled the doors tightly closed and waited.

The dragon’s hoard in the central treasure hold was a treacherous mountain of mismatched booty. Allie, who had been here several times hunting for books worth reading and other things to pass the time, knew she had seen an old-fashioned typewriter, she just wasn’t sure ‘where. The stuff in the chamber was a mixture of pure junk and treasure. The McGill did not discriminate; if an object crossed over, and he could get his hot little hands on it, it came onboard, and got dumped here. Jewels sat side by side with empty beer bottles.

The McGill was currently in his “war room,” planning a landing party to a Greensoul trap in Rockaway Point. As he was occupied, this gave Allie time to search. Climbing between the old filing cabinets and car tires, coat racks, and bed frames was no easy chore, and with no light but her own glow to guide her through the debris, it was rough going. She nearly got pinned beneath an airplane propeller, and flattened by an iron lung, but finally she found the typewriter beneath an old table. It was made of black dull metal. The keys were faded from many years of use before it had crossed over. A little emblem on its face said “Smith-Corona.”

Her grandmother had an old-fashioned typewriter like this one—she still used it.

“Words aren’t words unless you pound them out,” she used to say. Allie found a slip of paper among the mess, and figured out how to load it into the machine.

Typing, Allie discovered, was a lot like key-boarding, with none of the speed and five times the effort. She shuddered to think of people spending day after day plunging their fingers against the little circular keys, which sank down a whole inch before flinging up an iron arm to smack the ribbon and leave a single letter imprinted on the page. She was thankful she had only a short phrase to type, but even so, she made enough mistakes to slow her down. The little typing arms kept getting stuck together like too many people trying to fit through a door. It took her four attempts before she had typed her message perfectly, then she put the typewriter back where she found it, and went looking for scissors.

In the end she had to settle for the tiny scissors on a Swiss Army knife she had found on the floor. When she was done, she slipped the little piece of paper into her pocket. She was about to put down the Swiss Army knife when she heard the voice behind her.

“Admiring my treasure?”

She spun so fast, the Swiss Army knife flew from her hand and embedded itself in the McGill’s dangling eye. He pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. The wound healed instantaneously, as did all wounds in Everlost.

“Careful,” he said. “You’ll put out an eye with that thing.”

Allie gave him a weak little chuckle.

“If you’re trying to steal something, I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said.

“Anything you steal I will make you eat. It might not hurt but you’ll feel it sitting heavy in your stomach forever.”

“I’m not stealing,” Allie told him. “I’m just exploring.”

The McGill turned to look toward the door leading to the chiming chamber. “I’m surprised you’re not visiting your friends.’ “I don’t need to visit them,” she said. “You’ll free them soon enough.”

“Are you so sure of that? How do you know I’ll keep my word?”

“I don’t. But what choice do I have but to trust you?”

The McGill pulled his lips back in a smile, and reached a hand toward her. She grimaced, not wanting to feel his dry bloated touch, but instead her cheek was met by something soft. She looked down to see that his right hand was no longer covered in peeling scales, but instead in soft, mink-like fur. The fingertips still had sharpened yellow nails, but the hand itself was soft.

“As I said, I’ve been working on giving myself a soft touch.”

Allie still pulled away. “Don’t change yourself for me.”

“I’ll change myself anyway I like.”

“It’s still monstrous.”

“Good. That’s how I like it.”

The McGill looked around proudly at his treasure trove. “There are girls’ clothes in here. You could find something nicer to wear.”

“I can’t take off what I’m wearing. It’s what I died in.”

“You can wear something over it.”

Then the McGill spotted a big oak cabinet. “I think there might be something in here,” and with both hands he grabbed the handles and pulled it open wide.

Nick had heard the whole conversation between Allie and the McGill, and through it all he counted the seconds until the McGill would leave. When he heard the McGill mention the cabinet, his heart sank. It was just his luck wasn’t it? If the McGill opened the cabinet and saw him, he’d probably hurl the entire thing over the side with Nick still in it. Nick pulled his knees to his chest, tried desperately to hide behind a wedding dress that was hanging there, and closed his eyes.

The cabinet creaked open, and Allie, who was standing a few feet back, saw Nick immediately. She gasped. She couldn’t help it. The McGill, however, standing right in front of the cabinet, had a view of the wedding dress, and not the boy behind it. The McGill turned to Allie, obviously thinking her gasp was about the gown.

Allie forced her eyes away from Nick, so the McGill couldn’t follow her gaze.

The tip of Nick’s shoe was sticking out from under the dress, so Allie approached it, and fluffed the petticoat out a bit, pretending to admire the lacy fabric. It hid the tip of the shoe from view. Thankfully the dress was thick enough to hide Nick’s glow, and the cabinet had a strong camphor stench of mothballs, which overpowered any hint of chocolate in the air.

“I won’t be a monster’s bride,” Allie said, then she grabbed the doors of the cabinet and forced them closed, nearly catching the McGill’s hand in the process. The McGill glared at her. “Who said I’d ask you?” Then he stormed away.

Allie waited until she was sure he was gone, then waited twice that long again before she returned to the cabinet and pulled it open.

“What are you doing in here! Do you know how dangerous it is? If they find out you escaped—”

“They won’t find out. There are hundreds of kids in there—it’s not like they count us all the time.”

“If you’re caught, you’re history.”

“So I won’t get caught.”

Allie looked around. “Did Lief come with you? Is he hiding somewhere else?”

Nick shook his head. “He’s still in there with the others.” Then he smiled.

“It’s a mess in there, I got them all tangled up.”

“How is hiding in here any better than hanging in there?”

“I’m not staying in this cabinet. As soon as I can, I’m getting off this ship, and I’m bringing back help.”

“And exactly how are you going to do that?”

“That’s the part I haven’t figured out yet.”

“I’m the one with the plan,” said Allie. “Escaping now will just screw things up!”

“We’ve been waiting on your ‘plan’ for weeks.”

Weeks, thought Allie. Has it been weeks? “The best plans take time,” she told him.

Nick took a moment to look her over, then said, “I think you like it with the McGill. You’ve got some kind of power over him, don’t you? I don’t know what it is, but you do, and you like it.”

Allie wanted to just grab him and shake him. It was an insulting suggestion. It was preposterous. It was true.

“I have a scheme to get us all out of here, if you just wait.”

“I’m not waiting anymore. And anyway, two schemes are better than one.”

Allie clenched her fists and growled, sounding more like the McGill than she cared to admit. “Even if you get off the ship, who do you think is going to help you?”

“Mary,” Nick said.

Allie laughed at that, and realized how loud her voice had gotten. She looked around to make sure they were still alone, then brought her voice down to an intense whisper. “She didn’t help us before, and she won’t help us now.”

“I can convince her to. I know I can.”

“You ‘re an idiot!”

“We’ll see who’s the idiot!”

As frustrating as this was, Allie did not want to stand around and argue. Every moment they spoke was another moment they were in danger of being caught.

“I can steal a lifeboat,” Nick said.

“Once they realize it’s gone, it won’t take long to figure out who took it. The McGill will punish Lief, and probably me, too.”

“We can cut Lief down—all three of us can go!”

Allie thought about it, but shook her head. “The McGill thinks I’m teaching him how to possess people. The second he realizes I’m gone, he’ll come after me.”

No, thought Allie. The best way to get Nick off the ship would be to do it secretly, and in such a way that there were no telltale signs that he had gone.

“How about this?” Allie said. “Tomorrow morning the McGill is sending out a landing party to check one of his Greensoul traps. If you can somehow get aboard that boat when it heads for shore…”

“Okay. That might work.”

“I’ll stay on deck, and try to keep anyone there distracted. But it’s up to you to find a way to hide on that boat.” Allie thought about it. “I’ll put some blankets in the boat—maybe you can hide beneath them.” Allie looked around again, and leaned closer to Nick. “If you get through to Mary, tell her that if she wants to face the McGill, then she has to go to Atlantic City. There’s a gang there that can help her fight the McGill, if she can convince them to join forces.” Allie shut the doors to the cabinet, closing Nick in once more.

“Remember—tomorrow at dawn.”

“How will I know when it’s dawn?” said Nick from inside. She left Nick to work that one out for himself. She climbed up to the quarterdecks, then out into the open air. It was twilight, and the McGill was at the bow, watching the sun set over the land. He did this each day. The McGill was such an odd beast; reveling in his own putrescence, and yet taking joy from the beauty of a world he was no longer a part of.

Nick said they had been there for weeks, and Allie couldn’t deny it. For the life of her she had no feel for the time that had passed. Well, she had stalled long enough. Nick was right; it was time for action.

She quietly went to the McGill’s throne, dipped her hand into the spittoon and pulled out a fortune cookie. Gently she found a corner of the paper inside, and carefully pulled it out, crumbled it, and inserted the fake fortune that she had typed. Then she dropped the cookie back in the container, where it sat like a little time bomb, waiting for the McGill’s grubby, greedy claw.

At dawn the following day, the McGill and a crew of five left the Sulphur Queen on a lifeboat for a brief trip to Rockaway Point. Someone had left several blankets in the corner of the boat, and the McGill removed them, ordering they be thrown into the hold with the rest of his belongings. There was no need of them here. The boat was lowered to the water, the McGill ordered the motor started, and they were off.

No one paid much attention to the mooring rope tied to the lifeboat’s bow, which dragged in the water. Had they pulled that rope in, they would have found Nick, submerged beneath the waves, holding on with the rope wrapped around his arm twice as the boat powered its way to shore.

CHAPTER 23 Outrageous Fortune

There was one flaw in Allie’s plan. She had no idea when the McGill would get to the particular fortune cookie she had planted. She thought she would have to add a few more to the mix to better her odds, but before she could, her whole situation changed.

Just before she planned to leave for the treasure hold to write more fortunes, Pinhead and four Ugloids broke into her room without knocking.

“He wants you on deck,” Pinhead said. “He wants you on deck now.”

This wasn’t unusual. The McGill called for people on a whim, as if all the clocks in Everlost were set by his personal schedule. This was the first time, however, that Pinhead had barged in without as much as knocking.

“What does he want?”

“You,” was all Pinhead said, and although he had been helpful to her in the past, he offered no hint of an explanation, not a wink, not a grin. “You’d better not keep him waiting.”

When Allie came to the throne deck, the McGill sat there, his claws clenched together, the look in his terrible eyes more terrible than usual. Next to the McGill stood a large Afterlight Allie hadn’t seen for a while. The one dressed in that ridiculous wrestler’s outfit.

“Good evening,” the McGill said.

“You wanted to see me?” said Allie.

“Yes. I would like to know steps eight through twelve.”

“Finish step seven,” Allie said, “and then I’ll let you know step eight.” Allie had really come up with a good one for step seven. As the McGill was so fond of bullying people around, Allie decided that the seventh step would be a seventy-two-hour vow of silence. So far the McGill couldn’t even make twenty-four. “You just spoke,” she said. “I guess you’ll have to start all over again.”

The McGill motioned to the wrestler kid. “Piledriver, you can bring it out now.”

Piledriver dutifully went into a side room, and came back rolling a barrel that he set in the center of the room.

“Are you putting me in there?” Allie asked. “Is that it? If you do you’ll never know the last four steps.”

The McGill nodded to Piledriver again, and he pried open the barrel. It was full of liquid—but there was also something else in the barrel–something that glowed—and once the lid was off, it rose out, dripping in slimy pickle juice.

The moment Allie saw who it was, she knew she was in serious, serious trouble.

It was the Haunter.

“You!” said the Haunter, the moment he saw Allie.

The McGill stood up. “I am the one who brought you here,” the McGill told the Haunter. “You will answer my questions.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then I’ll seal you back in that barrel.”

The Haunter held up his hand, and various loose objects began to fly around the room, striking the McGill.

“Stop that, or your next stop is the center of the Earth!” the McGill roared.

“Your skill at moving objects does not impress me, nor does it bother me. I bested you before, and if you fight me, I’ll do it again—and this time I’ll show no mercy.” Slowly the flying objects fell to the ground. “Good. Now you will answer my questions.”

The Haunter looked at him with hatred so strong it could have warped time. “What do you want to know?”

“Don’t believe a word he says!” Allie blurted out.

The McGill ignored her. “Tell me about this girl and her friends. Tell me what she knows.”

The Haunter laughed. “Her? She knows nothing! I offered to teach her, but she refused.”

“I didn’t need him!” Allie countered. “I was taught by someone else.”

“There is no one else who teaches the things I teach,” the Haunter said, arrogantly. “You knew nothing when you came to me, you know nothing now.”

“I know how to get inside people!” Allie told him. “I know how to skinjack.” She tried to sound strong and sure of herself, but her voice came out crackly and weak.

“It’s true,” said the McGill. “I saw her do it.”

The Haunter climbed out of the barrel and approached her, leaving a trail of salty brine where his moccasins fell. “It’s possible,” he said. “She does have an undeveloped skill to move objects, so it’s possible that she may also have the skill to skinjack.”

The McGill came closer to the two of them. “What I want to know is this: Can the skill be taught? Can she teach it to me?”

The Haunter didn’t bat an eye. “No, she cannot.”

The McGill pointed a crooked, sharp-nailed, furry finger at the Haunter. “Then you teach me how to skinjack.”

The Haunter shook his head. “It can’t be taught. Either you have the skill, or you don’t. You’ve been in Everlost long enough to know what your skills are. If you have not possessed the living by now, then you never will.”

Allie could feel the McGill’s anger like the heat of a furnace. “I see.” Like the heat at the center of the Earth.

“He’s lying!” Allie shouted. “He just wants to win you over, and get you to trust him, so he can betray you the moment you’re not looking! I’m the one who’s been helping you all this time. Who are you going to believe, him or me?”

The McGill looked at both of them, the Haunter on his left, Allie on his right.

“Who are you going to believe?” Allie asked again.

The McGill regarded Allie for a moment more, then turned to Piledriver, and the other crewmen present. “Seal him back in the barrel, then throw him overboard.”

“What?” the Haunter shouted.

“There is only room for ONE monster in Everlost,” the McGill growled.

The Haunter raised his hands, and objects began to fly once more—but although he had powerful magic, he was small and outnumbered. No shower of objects could save him from being shoved back in the barrel. “You will suffer,” the Haunter shouted. “I will find a way to make you suffer!” But soon all that came out were angry gurgles from within the barrel. Piledriver put the lid back on and hammered the nails back into place. Then he and Pinhead grabbed the barrel, and heaved it over the side. It disappeared beneath the waves without as much as a splash, sinking to the sea floor, and beyond. Thus, the Haunter met his destiny.

Once he was gone, Allie felt relief wash through her like a cleansing rain.

“There,” she said. “Now that that’s over with, you need to get on with step seven. No—don’t speak. You can start now. Seventy-two hours. I know you can do it.”

And the McGill didn’t speak. Instead he reached out and a crewman handed the McGill a paintbrush dripping with black paint.

“What are you doing?” Allie asked.

“What I should have done the moment you came on board.”

Then he painted the number 0001 on her blouse, and said:

“Chime her.”

The McGill had not felt his temper rage this powerfully for a very long time. He had forgotten how good it felt.

Anger!

Let it fill him. Let it rage like a dance of flames. Anger at her for her lies, anger at himself for allowing his feelings to cloud his judgment. Anger enough to cauterize any vulnerability, burning closed the wound she had left in his twisted heart by her deception. This girl had played him for a fool, but that was over.

With the addition of Allie to the chiming chamber, his collection was now complete. He went down below to watch. The crew had untangled them, and now they all swung free again. He watched as they turned Allie upside down, so that the 0001 on her shirt read 1000.

A brave man’s life is worth a thousand cowardly souls.

From the first time he read that fortune years ago, he knew what it meant. He could have his life back, in exchange for a thousand Afterlights. Souls were the currency with which he could buy back his life. Imagine it! Flesh and bone, blood and breath. For a short while, he had thought skinjacking would be better, but that option had never really existed, had it? No, there was only one way to return to the world of the living. This bargain: his life for a thousand souls.

Whether the bargain was with deity or demon, it didn’t matter to the McGill. All that mattered were the terms. Well, he had satisfied the terms. He had a thousand souls for payment. Now all he needed was a location to make the exchange.

So he returned to his throne room, and went straight to the spittoon. He reached in, pulled out a cookie, and smashed it against the arm of the throne, extracting the piece of paper. He held the fortune with anticipation for a moment, before gazing upon its words. The instant he saw the message, he knew what it meant, and for the first time in many years, the McGill was afraid… because the fortune said:

Your victory waits at the Piers of Defeat.

Ignoring all the warnings in his mind that told him it was a bad idea, the mighty McGill set the Sulphur Queen on a course toward Atlantic City.