Everwild (The Skinjacker Trilogy)

by Neal Shusterman

  "We shall find her quickly, and get back to the river in time to help Jill and Moose," he had said. "I promise I will not disappoint you."

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  It was his idea to have the Sniffer seek Allie out. Mary was impressed by his quick thinking and resourcefulness. She had once told Pugsy Capone that they were a team, but that was just a means to an end. This partnership with Milos was very different, and he kept proving himself time and time again to be a worthy counterpart. In time, Mary dared to hope that someday he might even take Nick's place in her heart.

  "I know you won't disappoint me," she had told Milos. "In fact, I expect I'll be pleasantly surprised by you again."

  --Swim, Danny!--

  --I can't!--

  --Just move your arms and legs!--

  --But it's not working!--

  --It's not that hard--

  --I don't know how!--

  As they floundered in the pool, Allie seized control, but the same muscle memory that had worked in her favor before now failed her miserably. The same body that was so adept at climbing trees could not perform the motions that would keep it afloat. Danny couldn't swim ... which meant Allie couldn't swim either.

  Panicked, Danny drew water deep into his lungs as he went down. They looked up to see through the shimmering water, Milos and Moose just standing there in the bodies of the pool men, watching. Waiting for them to drown.

  This was Milos's plan! Allie should have realized it. There was only one way to separate a soul that's bound to a body. She should have known!

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  --I'm scared-- cried Danny.

  --I'll save you!--Allie told him-- Somehow I'll save you!--She had promised that Milos wouldn't hurt him, and he did. She was an accomplice to this, whether she liked it or not.

  Another gasp of water. Their arms thrashed as their body sank. Angry squirms of darkness bore in from the edge of their vision. Danny's heart pounded, screaming for oxygen to power it. Their chest felt like it would explode. Allie could not remember such awful pain.

  --Help us! Somebody help us!--

  The living world closed in ... then it went away ... the pain faded ... and for the second time, Allie Johnson died.

  She felt herself leaving Danny's body--not peeling out, but more like evaporating. She was herself again, back in Everlost, and sinking quickly through the bottom of the pool, into the earth, while Danny's body settled against the blue-painted steel of the pool floor. The moment Danny came to rest, a circular patch spread out beneath his body, bright and solid. A deadspot was born. Quickly Allie grabbed for it, pulling herself onto it. She reached for Danny's body, but now that she was an Afterlight again, her hand passed right through.

  Suddenly there was commotion in the water. Bubbles, and a billowing flowered blouse. A woman in the water, frantically diving down, grabbing at the boy's body. Danny's mother!

  Allie reached her hand toward the woman, and was immediately swept up, drawn inside her, skinjacking her.

  The woman was crazed beyond belief, her body in a full panic state--which is exactly what was needed, for although

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  she was not a strong woman, she could swim, and with all that adrenaline in her, she could swim for two. Allie took over her body completely, and set herself to the task of saving Danny.

  She fought her way to the surface, pulling Danny with her. He was sandbag-heavy, a limp, dead weight. She broke surface to find that all hell had broken loose. Allie could instantly tell that Milos and Moose had left their hosts, because Curtis was on his knees screaming at the top of his lungs, and ripping his hair out of his head. Chainsaw was in enough control of his senses to leap into the pool to help her.

  "I got him, Mrs. Rozelli!" With one hand he hurled Danny out of the pool, and climbed out after him."I can do this! I know CPR!" Chainsaw began chest compressions on the boy as Allie, still within Mrs. Rozelli, climbed out of the water. Chainsaw valiantly fought to resuscitate the little boy, but it was no use. Danny was dead. His soul was long gone.

  Or was it?

  Allie peeled out of Mrs. Rozelli, and back into Everlost, where she could see Milos and Moose still standing there, observing everything.

  "Welcome back to Everlost!" Milos said cheerfully. "I knew it would work!"

  Allie could not believe he could be so casual about the terrible thing he had just done. Somehow Mary had changed him. Like everything else she touched, Mary had turned him rancid.

  In the living world, Mrs. Rozelli fell to her knees, dazed

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  and terrified. She wailed so loudly, it rang out as clearly in Everlost as in the living world.

  "C'mon, kid!" cried Chainsaw, struggling to revive the boy, knowing he was dead, but not willing to stop, for he couldn't face the woman's anguish. And behind him the other poolman dug his nails into his scalp and tore himself apart, his mind shattered from the awful thing Milos had made him do.

  But in Everlost, there was a sight that none of the living could see.

  Allie turned to the pool, and saw Danny's spirit! He was floating in midair just above the surface of the water. He was staring in wonder at something that Allie couldn't see, and a bright, unearthly light painted his face. He reached out toward the source of that light.

  "No, Danny!" screamed Allie.

  "It's so bright... ."

  "Don't go down the tunnel!" Allie shouted to him. "Don't go to the light!"

  "But it wants me to," Danny said, confused. "I think I'm supposed to... ."

  "No! You're not! None of this is supposed to happen!"

  Finally Chainsaw gave up trying to resuscitate the boy, and buried his face in his hands, sobbing. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry... ."

  Allie summoned her most commanding voice.

  "Danny, look at me!" she demanded. "Look at me NOW!"

  Finally Danny's spirit turned to her. "Allie?" And the moment he saw her, the light on his face vanished and he dropped into the pool.

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  Allie was close enough to grab him. She pulled him out, and into her arms. He looked at her with lazy eyes. "So that's what you look like," he said and yawned.

  Behind them, above the cries of the living, came a voice far more pleased with this heart-rending moment than he should be.

  "Well done!" said Milos, practically beaming. "Very well done, Allie!"

  "Yeah, yeah," said Squirrel, "I'll bet she did that even better than Jackin' Jill."

  "Congratulations," Milos said. "You have just brought a new soul into Everlost. Whatever you did to Mary in the past, she will forgive you now."

  "I don't want her forgiveness."

  "You may not want it, but you will need it," Milos said, very seriously. "Otherwise she will destroy you, and I do not wish to see that."

  Danny's eyes rolled as he looked at Allie. "I'm so tired," Danny said.

  Allie realized what would happen next. "Stay awake, Danny!"

  "But I'm so sleepy. Just let me rest."

  "Whatever you do, don't fall asleep!" Because she knew the moment he did, he would lapse into nine months of hibernation. If he fell asleep, he would become an Afterlight. But he wasn't one yet--he had no afterglow--which meant he was not entirely gone from the living world... .

  Allie knew what she had to do. Without wasting an instant, she took Danny's soul and thrust him forward, plunging him back into his own lifeless body.

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  The effect was instantaneous. The moment Danny was plunged back into himself, his body heaved, and he coughed up an explosion of water. The dead boy came back to life.

  Allie's scream of joy and relief could only be matched by his mother's. She tried to grab him, but Chainsaw held her back with a strong arm. "Give him time."

  Chainsaw rolled him over on his side, and Danny coughed up more water, as if he had the entire pool in his lungs. He coughed, coughed some more, then his eyes opened. His mother took him into her arms against Chainsaw's warnings.

  "I'm tired, Mom."


  But that was okay. It was all right for him to be tired now. Chainsaw went over to Curtis, shaking him, screaming at him in fury for what he had done, but Curtis's mind was entirely gone. He would be the victim of all this, but Allie could not save him. She had saved Danny; she couldn't save everyone.

  She turned to Milos, who was surprised, and maybe a little impressed, by what she had done for Danny.

  "Always the good Somalian," he said.

  "That's 'good Samaritan.'"

  "Why does it matter?" Then he held out his hand to her. "Now we go."

  Allie didn't move. "Do you think I would ever come with you after what you just did?"

  "You gave me your word."

  "Then call me a liar."

  Milos signaled to Squirrel who began to circle behind

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  her. "I do not wish to take you by force," Milos said, "but if I have to, I will."

  "You'll have to catch me first."

  Allie ran, while behind her Mrs. Rozelli said a quiet, thankful prayer as she carried her little boy into their home, and the deadspot at the bottom of the pool faded away into nothing.

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  CHAPTER 35 Allie-Allie-Oxen-Free

  The Union Avenue Bridge was narrow, always crowded, and nowhere near as efficient as the two interstate bridges that carried the bulk of the city's traffic over the Mississippi into Arkansas. It was the oldest bridge in Memphis, first built for the transcontinental railroad, but it had been modified years ago to add lanes for automobile traffic on either side of the train trestle.

  Reports of its crumbling structure were occasionally seen on the inner pages of the Memphis Daily News, but there were always more immediate things for the living to worry about--like who killed the beauty queen, and who fathered the rock diva's baby.

  Still, the Union Avenue Bridge was an accident waiting to happen. Of course some accidents need to be helped along.

  While Milos was "freeing" Allie from Danny Rozelli's body, Jackin' Jill waited with Moose on the bridge--an impossible feat for most other Afterlights, who would be blown into the river by the Everlost wind--but Jill and Moose were safely packed into two fleshies. They might

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  have looked suspicious just standing around on the bridge, but their fleshies were road workers, and road workers have been known to just stand around on a regular basis.

  "What if Milos and Squirrel don't come?" Moose asked.

  "We can do this without them," Jill told him, annoyed by Milos's absence, and further irritated by her own fleshie's bad teeth and chewing tobacco breath.

  A freight train blared its horn, and rattled down the bridge's central trestle between the east- and westbound lanes of snarled traffic. It startled Jill, and she gagged on her fleshie's chew. She had half a mind just to hurl him off the bridge, and find another fleshie--but that would definitely draw unwanted attention.

  A police car stopped on the bridge beside them, and the officer lowered his window. Moose looked panicked, and Jill told him to go fiddle with some traffic cones.

  "Everything okay here?" the officer asked. "Need us to divert traffic?"

  Jill adjusted her hard hat. "Naah, just filling in a pothole. We'll be done soon enough."

  Once he was gone, Jill glanced down at the gym bag at her feet. Moose, idiot that he was, had left the zipper open. It was just luck that the cop hadn't seen the explosives. All that effort to skinjack a demolition engineer just to get them-- how stupid would it be if their fleshies got busted here on the bridge? They couldn't afford a slipup, and every minute they waited made it more likely they'd get caught.

  "Forget about Milos and Squirrel," Jill finally said. "We'll do this without them."

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  Jill would take care of the bridge, and Mary would know that Milos was a no-show. Maybe then Jill could squirm her way out from underneath Milos's thumb.

  A few miles away, Allie raced from the Rozelli backyard. There was no one in range for her to skinjack, so she had to rely on her own speed, hoping that her will was strong enough to propel her faster than Milos. Twice she felt him grab at her, and twice she shook him off. Then she finally reached a crowded rush hour street, filled with plenty of people and plenty of cars. She could jack to her heart's content. This would be the Grand Ole Opry all over again, soul-surfing as quickly as she could, playing hide-and-seek in fleshies, hoping she had learned enough from Milos's lessons to beat him at his own game.

  She leaped blindly into a car moving through the intersection, grabbing the driver, swinging off of him, and hurling herself into a car moving in the other direction. She grabbed hold of a passenger in that car, then pushed off again, leaping into the air, this time catching a passing truck driver. She bounced from one vehicle to another, playing a human shell game. She was sure Squirrel couldn't keep up, but Milos was another matter. She knew he was surfing just as deftly as her, so Allie surfed random and wild, until landing in the passenger seat of an SUV, diving deep inside a fleshie.

  --Late--late--we're always late--it's not my fault--it's his fault--it's always his fault--why do we always have to be late -

  Allie wedged herself behind the woman's thoughts, digging in, certain that she had lost Milos three or four fleshies

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  ago. She could hide here until she was far enough away to peel out and not be noticed.

  Then the driver, a bald man with bad skin, turned to her and said, "Be sensible, Allie. All this fuss is getting you nowhere."

  He let go of the wheel and grabbed Allie with both hands. Allie struggled, and the car veered off the road.

  "Watch out!"

  Horns blared, the car jumped the curb, flattened a mailbox, and rammed into the corner of a restaurant. Airbags blossomed from almost every angle, cushioning the two fleshies, but Milos and Allie were hurled out of their hosts, and into the crowded restaurant they had crashed into.

  Now everything depended on how quick Allie's reflexes were. Before she even hit the ground she reached out and grabbed someone--a waiter, still shielding his face from the crashing plate glass window. His thoughts were loud and panicked.

  --what the--who the--how the--whoa is that a car--am I alive--yes--am I hurt--no--okay keep calm--keep calm--keep calm--

  Allie hid within him, silent and still.Everyone jumped up and scurried deeper into the restaurant to get away from the accident--everyone except for a single woman who stood there scanning the room with eagle eyes. It was Milos.

  "Come out, come out whoever you are," said the eagle-eye woman. "Ollie-ollie-axen-flee."

  How stupid, thought Allie, if she gave herself away by correcting Milos's English. She lingered in the waiter, not

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  taking him over, otherwise Milos might notice. She just hid inside him as he tried to herd diners out the door.

  "This way, c'mon, everything's going to be fine. Is anyone hurt?"

  Milos walked right past, and the second his eagle-eye fleshie was looking the other way, Allie left the waiter, hitched a ride in an exiting diner, then raced down the back alley. Finding herself on another street, she hopped into a man in a mustang who was fiddling with his radio--

  --Hate this song--hate that song even more--there's never a good station--and this song's even worse--

  She took control, floored the accelerator, and headed toward the highway. Once she was sure she had lost Milos, she took a moment to consider her next move. There was really only one place she could go. Nick was here in Memphis and he was in danger. She had to help him. She let the driver surface just long enough to scan his mind for directions to Graceland.

  --what's happening--what's going on--who--who are you--

  --oh shut up!--

  Allie found what she needed, and put him back to sleep.

  She was already heading in the right direction. Traffic was moving, and the Graceland exit came up in just a few minutes. Once she was on Elvis Presley Boulevard, traffic slowed, and it was faster to surf than drive. She launched out o
f Mr. Mustang, to another driver, and another, jumping two and three cars at a time when she could. Milos would know where she was going--but if she was lucky, maybe she could get there first.

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  She surfed her way down the boulevard, until there, between convenience stores and gas stations, stood a mansion on a hill, completely out of place on the ugly urban street. Allie could tell there was something very odd about the place. It seemed to shift in and out of phase. It shimmered like a mirage in unsteady double vision, as if she were seeing two Gracelands--one in Everlost, and one in the living world, both competing for dominance.

  Was this a vortex? She had heard about them, but had never actually seen one.

  All at once she realized that there were Afterlights standing in front of the Graceland mansion. If they were Mary's children, then she was already too late!

  There was no way in without alerting those Afterlights to her presence, which meant she would have to skinjack her way in. She hurried into the nearby visitor's center, looking for a suitable fleshie. Tourists meandered around, fingering gift-shop trinkets. It was a quarter to five, and the last tourist tram of the day was about to ride up the short path to the mansion. She launched forward, surfing every fleshie in her path, building momentum. The tour bus door had closed, but that didn't matter, she could launch right through the door, into the driver. She reached the last person between her and the bus, then bounded forward in a high arc toward it--but halfway there she smashed into another Afterlight, and he brought her down to the ground.

  She was sure it was Milos--it had to be! Yet it wasn't. It was someone else--something else.

  "Gotcha!" it said.

  This kid was all wrong in every way. He had an ear