Everlost (Skinjacker 1)

“Send her down!” the other kids started yelling. “Down! Down!”

They advanced on her. She knew she only had a split second before mob mentality took over, and then nothing she could say would save her.

“I lied!” she shouted. “I lied about the McGill to stop you from sending me down —but this time I’m telling the truth.” Johnnie-O put up his hand, and the kids hesitated, waiting for his signal.

“The Haunter captured my friends, and I can’t rescue them alone! I need somebody strong,” Allie said, looking right into Johnnie-O’s eyes. “I need somebody smart.”

Allie watched the tip of his cigarette. Would it tip up, or would it tilt down?

It wavered for the longest time, and finally it tilted upward. “You came to the right guy.”

They took Allie to the nearest town, the place Johnnie-O and his band of juvenile hoods called home. Johnnie-O made a point of crossing the main street several times, for no sensible reason.

“It’s because of the Chinese restaurants,” Raggedy Andy explained. “They’re supposed to be bad luck or something—at least that’s what Johnnie-O heard.’ And so they wove a serpentine path down the street, crossing to avoid all four Chinese restaurants in town, proving that superstition was not limited to the living.

They brought Allie to their hideout. Stupid that they called it a hideout, because they didn’t have to hide from the living, who couldn’t see them anyway.

Like Mary, Johnnie-O had found a building that had crossed over, and had made it home. His was a white clapboard church—which struck Allie as funny. This kid probably never went to a church in his life, and now he was stuck living in one.

At least there was some justice in the universe. There were about thirty kids total, all disciples of Johnnie-O, like he was running a tough-guy school. They called themselves “The Altar Boys,” because they lived in a church, but the way Allie saw it, they were also “alter” boys—that is, every single one of them had something about him slightly altered from his living self; like Johnnie-O’s hands, or Raggedy Andy’s hair.

“How come there are no girls?” Allie asked.

“Girls come by once in a while, wantin’ to join,” Johnnie-O said. “We send ‘em packing.” And then he added, “I don’t like girls much.”

Allie couldn’t help but grin. “I think you died about a year too young.”

“Yeah,” Johnnie-O admitted. “And it really ticks me off.”

Now that she was accepted by their leader, the other kids kept stealing glimpses at her, like she was some sort of exotic creature. Great, she thought, I’m playing Wendy to a delinquent Peter Pan and the Lost Boys of Juvie Hall.

She told them all about the pickle factory, and the Haunter’s air-soldiers.

“His magic ain’t no match for us,” Johnnie-O said proudly. Allie wasn’t entirely convinced, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“The hard part will be getting in. There’s a big steel door—not living-world steel, but steel that crossed over with the building. I pounded on it for hours and couldn’t make a dent.”

Johnnie-O wasn’t bothered. “That ain’t a problem. We’ll use explosives.”

“You’ve got explosives!?”

He called to a kid on the other side of the church. “Hey, Stubs, get your fat butt over here!”

The kid came running.

“A few years back,” Johnnie explained, “Stubs here was sellin’ illegal fireworks out of his garage. They caught on fire, and Stubs won himself a one-way trip to Everlost. Anyways, it turns out part of his fireworks stash came over with him.”

And then Johnnie added, “Which is more than I can say for most of his fingers.”

“Yeah,” said Raggedy Andy, laughing. “That’s how come Stubs can only count to three.”

Allie and the “Alter” Boys left at dawn, the members of the gang all carrying baseball bats, chains, and various other makeshift weapons that had somehow crossed over. They would have been terrifying in the living world, but with the threat of pain and death not applicable in Everlost, it was all pretty much for show; fashion accessories for bad boys who didn’t get where they were going.

All the while as they marched south toward the city, Purple-puss kept giving Allie dirty looks. Not too long into their journey, he broke his silence. “I don’t like this, Johnnie-O,” he said, the bulge in his neck ping-ponging up and down. “She’s not one of us, we shouldn’t oughta be trusting her.”

Johnnie-O smirked. “Heimlich here don’t trust nobody.”

“For all we know,” Heimlich said, “she could be leading us straight to the Sky Witch.”