Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"Shouldn't what?" asked the news clerk.

Allie hadn't even realized she had spoken aloud. "I'm not talking to you."

The clerk gave her a funny look and Allie walked away. Crossing the street, she found a bus stop bench in the shade, and sat down.

I've been in this girl for at least fifteen minutes, she thought. The girl would be frightened once Allie let her have her body back. She'd never know that Allie had been there, but she would certainly miss the time. On the other hand it was only fifteen minutes--and it hadn't been like the girl was doing anything important. She was browsing in a music store, and seemed to be in no great hurry. What was a few more minutes?

Allie pulled out the Snickers bar and slowly ripped the edge then peeled back the paper. The outside layer of chocolate had melted from the heat. It was already getting on her hands and that immediately made her think of Nick--which made her need comfort food all the more.

She raised the Snickers bar to her lips and took that single small bite, feeling her teeth sink into it, feeling the flavor rush over her taste buds. Life is wasted on the living, she thought. They take all this for granted. The feel of the weather, the taste of a candy bar, the inconvenience of time, and the nuisance of uncomfortable shoes. To Allie all of these things were wonderful.

Once she had started the Snickers bar, there simply was no way to stop. One bite became two, became three, and soon the entire bar was gone. Now that the deed was done, she felt guilt that almost, but not quite, outweighed the pleasure. She would go back to that newsstand and buy another candy bar for the girl and put it in her purse. That's what she would do.

"Was it good?" said the high-pitched voice of a child.

She turned to see a very young boy and a very old man standing beside her. The boy, who couldn't be any older than three, stared at her with an expression that seemed a little too cold for such a small child. The old man held his cane with a palsy shake and leered at her with a twisted kind of grin. There was something about the two of them that gave her the creeps.

"He asked you a question," said the old man. "Aren't you going to answer him, huh? Huh?"

"Yes," Allie said. "It was good. It was very good."

"Next time," said the little boy, "you should get some milk to wash it down." He held his cold stare for a moment more, then suddenly he burst out laughing and so did the old man. The moment was too odd, too unsettling. Allie could feel gooseflesh bristling on her borrowed body. She excused herself and crossed back to the newsstand, where she bought another Snickers bar, and dropped it in the purse before returning to the music shop. She would leave the girl exactly where she had found her, browsing in the alternative rock section. Only this time the girl would have to make sense of the twenty minutes missing from her life.

Mikey waited. He waited because he had no choice. He couldn't skinjack, and although he could follow Allie, and watch what she did in the living world, he didn't want to. There was something unpleasant about seeing her disappear into someone else's body.

What made it even worse was her choice of hosts. Mikey couldn't understand why she always chose the sorriest-looking fleshies to skinjack. If you could jump into anyone, why not choose someone you'd want to see in the mirror? Unless of course you were a monster, as he had been, and took pride in an unpleasant appearance. Allie, however, was anything but a monster, so her choice of homely hosts baffled him.

Perhaps I'd understand it if I were more human, Mikey thought. He had spent so many years as a monster, he was still trying to get the hang of thinking the way humans think again. Considering the feelings of others, holding his temper, digging down to the deepest part of himself to find patience.

He had very little patience when Allie skinjacked. He paced and grumbled, he complained to their sad-eyed horse. He steamed and stewed, and wished he were the McGill again, because it was so much more satisfying to be discontent when he was physically repulsive. Now, according to Allie, he was somewhat cute. He often wondered if she said that to punish him.

"I AM NOT CUTE!" he shouted to the horse. The horse tossed its head and whinnied like it had just been shown some sort of great kindness. It just irritated Mikey even more. Although he didn't wish to be a monster again, neither did he want a condemnation of cuteness.

He looked to his right hand. It had once been a deformed claw, covered in growths too unpleasant to mention. He had made it that way himself, for he had the power of change. Of course that was before Mary showed him that blasted picture of himself--the memory-in-a-locket that forced him to remember who he was. He turned his hand over, looking at his palm, his fingertips. They glowed with his faint afterglow, but otherwise, they were plain and human, and they hadn't changed since that day he violently and unexpectedly transformed back to his human self.

Forcing change, however, had always been a different matter. It didn't happen in an explosive burst of memory, it was slow, imperceptible. It took weeks to make the smallest of physical changes stick--but no one else he had ever met could do it. Sure, everyone changed over time as they forgot their lives on earth, but Mikey could choose how he changed. He could make himself into whatever he wanted.

But not anymore. Ever since becoming his former self, he hadn't physically changed in the least. "It's your fault!" he had told Allie in one of his weaker moments, but Allie had just shrugged it off. "Don't blame me for your morphing issues," she had said--but it was her fault in a way ... because for Mikey to change, he had to truly want it. And since Allie liked him just the way he was, he simply didn't want it enough.

But Allie was off skinjacking, wasn't she? She was practicing her unique talent, so why shouldn't Mikey practice his? And if he changed just a little, at least it would prove that he still could do it! It would prove that being Mikey McGill, the all-American Afterlight, was a choice, and not a sentence. So as he waited for Allie at the edge of the small town, he concentrated on his hand, training his thoughts on forcing some new reality upon himself. It didn't matter what the change was, as long as it happened. He concentrated so hard he could swear the sun dimmed slightly in the sky.

And something happened!

As he stared at his fingers, the skin between them began to grow. He watched in building excitement, as the fingers of his right hand became webbed! True, it was only down at the lowest knuckle, but it had happened--and much faster than ever before. This kind of change would take days to cultivate, when he was the McGill. And it occurred to him that perhaps having been nonhuman for so long, had made him more elastic.

All it took was half an hour away from Allie!

It was that thought that brought his euphoria to a sudden end, because as illuminating as the moment was, it also cast a chilling shadow.

Does this mean I'll turn back into a monster if I'm not with her?

Through the space still left between his fingers, he saw Allie, hurrying across the street toward him. The second he saw her, he reflexively hid his hand behind his back. He could have cursed himself for not being more subtle about it.

"We're done here," she said.

"You took way too long!" She shrugged. "Lots of articles to read." Mikey thought he had gotten off easy, until she asked, "Why are you hiding your hand?"

"I'm not." Still he held it behind his back.