Everwild (Skinjacker 2)

Then she got a troubled look in her eye, perhaps thinking about something she had seen or read during her little skinjacking expedition.

"Let's get out of here," she said. "I don't like this place."

Mikey glanced at the horse--and that's when she grabbed his wrist, pulling his right hand into full view. He grimaced, realizing he had been caught red-handed--or web-handed, as it were ... But to his surprise the flaps of skin linking his knuckles were gone.

"Hmmm," said Allie. "Nothing. I guess you were telling the truth."

He folded his fingers over hers, interlocking them. "What reason would I have to lie to you?"

Allie squeezed his fingers tighter and smiled. "You're human now; lying is a favorite human pastime."

As they climbed onto the horse, Mikey decided he must be more human than he thought--because not only had he lied, but he had gotten away with it.

The town soon gave way to countryside, and they came across an old rural route that was no longer a part of the living world. Here, Mikey dug his heels into the horse and the horse took off in a cantor that was so much more efficient, something it couldn't do while plodding through that soft stuff that made up the living world. With Allie so close to him on the horse, Mikey wished he could read her mind, for even with her so close behind him, she felt miles away. He was still frustrated by the time she spent skinjacking, but he knew better than to make an argument of it. Allie was the sharpest, most argument-winning girl he had ever met. He knew she would make a convincing case for why she had every right to skinjack whenever she felt like it, and leave him waiting. After all, it wasn't her fault he couldn't do it.

"If I understood how it worked," she had once told him, "don't you think I would teach you?"

Well, maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn't. After all, he had been a monster and who knew if such power in his hands would be a good thing? Now as he rode up and down the hills of Virginia and into Tennessee, he had to admit to himself something he had been avoiding for all their time together. He was very good at being a monster-- but as a boy he was mediocre at best.

As it happens, Mikey's sense that Allie was a bit distant was right on target. At that moment, her thoughts were wandering far from the horse they rode. Her mind kept being drawn back to the town they had just left, and the one before that, and the one before that. She was relieved to be away from civilization, and yet in her thoughts, she couldn't leave it all behind, because the taste of the living was becoming too tempting--and it was a taste--an inner hunger that was powerful and all-consuming. She felt herself becoming like a vampire, feasting not on blood, but on experience. The silky smooth sensation of flesh. The flavor of other people's lives. Even now she longed to be wrapped in the living--but she could share none of this with Mikey. He wouldn't understand. Empathy was not his strongest point--even the nature of his own feelings were still a mystery to him, so how could Allie expect him to understand hers? And so even though she sat in a close saddleback embrace, a wall had fallen between them. Allie kept her yearning for flesh a secret, certain that she could control it ... but then it started to rain.

In life, Allie had always loved the rain. When other people would bundle up and pull out their umbrellas, Allie would revel in the feel of the rain against her hair, against her face. "You'll catch your death of cold!" her mother would always tell her, never imagining that Allie would soon catch her death in an entirely different way.

In Everlost, however, rain was different. It washed through you instead of over you, tickling your insides like an itch you couldn't scratch. It was an unpleasant sensation that Allie had never gotten used to.

As a drizzle became a shower, and the shower became a downpour, Allie longed for the feel of it on her instead of in her. She longed to be wet--not just wet but so completely drenched that the only remedy was a warm fire.

On their travels, they stuck more to rural routes than highways, but the route they now traveled ended at a large lake, with a road continuing to the left and right. They paused for a few moments, and the rain became heavier.

"Which way?" Mikey asked. It was part of Allie's job to check maps when she skinjacked, and navigate their course. She already knew that they needed to go to the left, and yet she said, "I don't know, I'll have to check."

Mikey grunted his disapproval, but Allie ignored him as she dismounted. There was a small boat dock in front of them, and a few hundred yards away, a convenience store and gas station. Needless to say, she had no intention of checking a map. This skinjacking would serve an entirely different purpose, and as Allie made her way toward the convenience store, she hoped she hadn't missed the worst of the rain.

In the store was a tattooed man buying beer. He was a skinjacking possibility, but only as a last resort. The cashier was a tired-looking old woman, whose joints were probably already aching from the weather, and wouldn't appreciate being thrust out into the rain. Allie was beginning to fear she'd have to settle for the tattooed guy, but then a woman hurried inside, wearing one of those hideous plastic rain ponchos the color of a traffic cone.

"Wet enough for ya, Wanda?" said the old woman behind the counter.

"Don't mind it; seen worse," Wanda said.

"I hear ya!"

Allie had no idea what had brought Wanda to a convenience store in this weather, but frankly she didn't care. Allie stepped inside her without a second thought, sliding in smooth and easy.

--Rolling rolling--how long them dogs been rolling--long enough to give me gas--or worse--I shouldn't go near those things, no sir--

She experienced the usual moment of disorientation, filled with the static of Wanda's thoughts, and then Allie flipped that mental switch that sent Wanda off to dreamland. Instantly Allie knew why Wanda was here. She was hungry--famished--it seemed fleshies were always hungry, and Allie liked it that way! Now in complete control of the woman, Allie looked toward the hot dogs rolling on the stainless steel poles of the industrial cooker. She had already been thinking about them, hadn't she?

"I'll have a cheese dog, please," Allie said.

The old woman was happy to oblige. "How's Sam these days?"

"Fine, fine," said Allie--and getting bold, she added, "You know Sam--I can't pry him away from the TV."

The old woman laughed. "So he watches television now?"

"Uh ... yeah. Well, weekends mostly. You know--the games."

The old woman laughed. "Don't that beat all, a dog that watches sports!"