Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

"More like tele-phoned," Milos answered. "Wires conduct electrical impulses, yes? Well, the living conduct us."

"I don't understand."

"I call it soul-surfing. It is a very good way to travel, when there are many people nearby." When Allie first learned to skinjack--before she knew what it was called-- she had called it body-surfing. But this feat of relaying oneself across a crowd in seconds--this truly deserved to be called surfing. She wondered if it felt as invigorating as riding a wave. Milos looked around at the modest crowd of the little street fair. "Okay, your turn."

"Wh-what?" Allie sputtered. "I can't do that! I wouldn't know where to start."

"Start with her." Milos pointed to a woman sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper.

"Make as if you mean to skinjack her, but don't take full control. Instead, you must use her to slingshot to the next person, then the next, then the next. Once you get a rhythm, you can work your way to the end of any crowd in seconds."

He climbed into a passing pedestrian, vanished, then a few seconds later appeared across the street. "Try it!" he called. "From there to here. Short hop."

Allie leaped into the woman on the bench, but lingered too long, and had to peel herself out, which never happened quickly--it was like peeling off a glove. Since Allie didn't immediately put her to sleep, the woman knew something funny was going on. She stood up, looked around, and walked away, unnerved.

Milos had already surfed back and was beside her.

"Well, that didn't work," said Allie.

"Because you took hold. Do not stay long enough to hear the thoughts--just long enough to get a small glimpse through the eyes, then push off."

Allie tried it again with a different person, but still stayed an instant too long, and got drawn in. Milos was patient with her, and encouraging. "Think of Tarzan," he said. "It is like Tarzan swinging on ropes." Then he beat his chest and made a Tarzan yell that made Allie laugh. She tried it again, and the third time was the charm. She began to jump out before she was done jumping in, and it worked! She pushed off from one person to another. Images passed before her like snapshots, but all unrelated and random. Every fleshie was looking in a slightly different direction, and saw things differently. Colors changed, eyesight changed. Each person she surfed was focusing on something different within their field of vision--but now that Allie had the rhythm she could keep herself moving. She began to feel dizzy, and finally took root in a fleshie to stop herself, and--

--nagging nagging nagging--if she doesn't stop nagging I'll go crazy--nagging nagging nagging-- She found herself sitting in a restaurant, holding a spoon and looking across the table at a very old woman.

"Harold? Harold? How's the soup, Harold?" the old woman said to her.

Allie, in the body of the woman's elderly husband, tried to speak, but could only burp.

"Too spicy. I knew it!" Then the old woman called for the waitress.

Allie peeled herself out of Harold the Henpecked Husband, and when she was back in Everlost she made her way out into the street. Once outside, she got her bearings, and realized she had crossed the avenue, turned a corner, and had unexpectedly bounced herself into a delicatessen. Milos found her a few moments later.

"What happened?"

"I guess I got lost."

Milos laughed. "It happens. It is hard to keep a sense of direction, yes? You will get better, it just takes practice."

And so they practiced. It got a bit harder once the crowd thinned, but it just served as a challenge to her. She found that if she pushed off hard enough, she could leap from one person to another who was about ten feet away.

"Moose and Squirrel have been doing this for years, and they can not jump that far," Milos told her. "You are, as they say, a natural!"

After a couple of hours Allie was exhausted. She had surfed her way through hundreds of people--some of them several times, and she had begun to recognize the "signature" of their bodies. "Do they know we're here?" Allie asked Milos. "We're only in them for an instant, but still ... can they sense us the way we sense them?"

Milos raised his eyebrows. "Do you remember when you were alive," he asked, "and you suddenly forgot what you were about to say?"

"Yes ..."

Milos smiled. "Perhaps someone was surfing through you."

The thought gave Allie a shiver. Even though she was no longer in flesh, having surfed through so much of it, her spirit held onto some phantom physical feelings. One of those phantom feelings echoed within her when she looked at Milos, and she shivered again. She resisted the urge to move closer to him, and feel his afterglow mingle with hers. It was, after all, just a phantom feeling, easy to dismiss, wasn't it?

looked down and aimlessly kicked the ground. The living world rippled like waves in a pond. "I trust you," he said, his voice a low grumble. "Go learn something useful."

"Thank you." She gave him a gentle peck on the cheek, then went off to join Milos.

Once they were gone, Moose and Squirrel approached him.