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 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.
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 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." 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 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 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 jus
t a few minutes. Once she was on Elvis Presley Boulevard, traffic slowed, and it was faster to surf than drive. She launched out of 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. 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 where an eye should be, and an eye instead of a nose. His cheeks were at different heights, and his mouth was entirely upside down. It was as if someone had been playing Evil Mr. Potato Head with his face.
"Who are you? Let me go!"
There were more of them now. A dozen of them, and they were still coming out of the woodwork, grabbing her, keeping her from moving. Every one of them had skewed features, but no two were exactly alike. Picassoids, Allie decided to call them, because they looked like something Pablo Picasso might have painted on a very, very bad day.
"Don't let her skinjack!" shouted the Picassoid in charge, who had blue hair that was somehow familiar.
"You have to let me go!" she shouted, while behind her, the tour bus left for the mansion.
"I don't think so," their leader said. "We've been looking everywhere for you, Miss Allie."
She had to talk her way out of this, and she thought she knew just the thing. "Are you Mary's children? I'm here to help her," Allie said. "I've seen the error of my ways, and I'm here to beg for forgiveness-now LET ME GO!"
The Picassoids looked to one another, then back to Allie. "We don't work for the Sky Witch," the blue-haired Picassoid said. "We serve a monster. The one true monster of Everlost."
Allie did not like the sound of that. "What monster do you mean?"
Then he gave her an unpleasant upside-down smile. "We serve the McGill." *** Mikey McGill was not blessed with good timing.
In life he would get his knuckles rapped repeatedly for looking at his neighbor's paper at precisely the moment the schoolmaster would look at him. He jumped in front of a speeding train at precisely the wrong moment, sending him and his sister to Everlost-and even in Everlost, he had chosen to spy on Allie at precisely the moment she had kissed Milos.
Naturally it would follow that he would capture Allie at the worst possible moment in this, or any other, universe.
His new minions-the Afterlights he had picked up in Nashville-feared him, and obeyed his commands, but that wasn't enough. He made them pledge themselves to him, but that still wasn't enough. He twisted and tweaked their faces using his talent of change to change them, but none of this could fill the hole inside him. Allie was the only one who could fill it, and so he followed her to Memphis. Since he was convinced he would never win Allie back, he decided the next best thing was to steal her away.
The Picassoids brought Allie to Mikey in an old-fashioned paddy wagon-a cell on wheels that had crossed into Everlost, God knows when.
When Mikey saw them approaching with Allie in the cage, he felt a heart begin to swell in his chest, threatening to transform his entire body into a bloody beating thing. He allowed his bad emotions to overwhelm the good, forced his heart back down his throat, and he strode forward encased in the same armor that had grown the day he ran away. Every step shook the ground as he approached her. Then, when he was right in front of her, he spilled himself through his open mouth, turning inside out, revealing the horrible thing he had become.
"Look at me!" he demanded. "Look at me." Although he didn't have to say it, because she was already looking. He wanted her to scream, he wanted her to cry, he wanted her to feel the misery of what she had done to him… but she did not react the way he expected. He sprouted himself an extra eye so he could read her more clearly.
"Mikey!" she grabbed the bars, peering through at him, not repulsed, not averting her eyes in the least. "Mikey! You didn't leave! You're still here!"
There was a good reason why Mikey, even with an extra eye, couldn't read Allie. That was because Allie found her emotions were such a strange mix, they all blended together into something unidentifiable. There was incredible joy in knowing that Mikey hadn't left Everlost, but confusion as to why he had turned into this nasty-looking thing. Rather than being horrified, she found herself impressed by it and deeply saddened at the same time. She knew him well enough now to know that his shell was merely that: a mask that he used to express the things he couldn't put into words. Was this, then, the manifestation of what he had been feeling? She couldn't deny that Mikey had been sullen and subdued while he was locked into simple human form-and although she never wanted to see him as a monster again, there were parts of the monster she missed. The truth was, Mikey was boring when he was beautiful.
But what was she thinking? None of this mattered at the moment. Nick was in danger! She had to save Nick!
"Mikey, listen to me!" "No, you listen to ME!" He didn't care what she had to say. She would not rob him of this moment! He reached into a fold in his awful body that had once been a pocket, and he pulled out a coin. "You chose Milos over me!" Then he grabbed Allie's hand. "If I can't have you, then no one will!" and he placed the coin firmly in her palm, closing her fingers around it. He was determined to stay silent as she vanished into the light, but he couldn't stop himself from saying the words he could never before say out loud.
"I love you, Allie…"
Then he waited for her to get where she was going.
He waited.
And he waited.
But Allie's eyes did not grow wide with cosmic wonder. The light of infinity did not shine on her face. She did not disappear in a rainbow twinkling of light. She stood there mesmerized-dazzled by his heartfelt confession, but she did not vanish. Then, she squeezed his hand firmly, but lovingly, and said:
"Mikey, we need to talk."
He let go of her hand, not knowing what to do, because he had not seen anything beyond this moment. The way he imagined it, Allie would be gone, he would wallow forever in the misery of it, and that would be that. But instead, Allie gave the coin back to him. "It doesn't work for skinjackers," she said. "There's a lot I have to tell you, but now's not the time. You have to let me go now. I have to help Nick."
Mikey turned his transformed hand back to the hand of a boy and gently took the coin. "It doesn't work for me, either. So neither of us is ready." Allie looked at his humanized hand, surprised. "How did you do that?"
"I can do a lot of things," Mikey said, and to prove it, he took on his normal boyish face once more, on the body of the monster. Allie was amazed.
"You can change at will?"
"You have a power," said M
ikey, "and so do I."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I thought you hated the monster."
"You were never the monster you pretend to be, Mikey. Not then, and not now."
"I am if I want to be. I am whatever I want to be."
Allie shook her head and smiled. "Then I love all the things you choose to be, because beneath it all, you're still Mikey McGill."
Mikey took a step back. Was she trying to trick him into freeing her? "But… but you love Milos…"
Allie laughed. "Is that what you think? Is that why you left?"
"I saw you kiss him…"
She gasped at the realization that he had seen the kiss. But then she said, "Mikey, you are such an idiot." Then she looked him in the eye and said, "You're the one I love."
Mikey found his ears starting to grow larger all by themselves-as if by doubling his hearing it would help him to understand. "Prove it."
"Okay, fine!" Allie said. "Give me your worst. The most horrible thing you can imagine-but do it quickly!"
And so Mikey dug inside himself to find the worst of all his feelings, the worst of all his fears, the very worst of himself. Then he pushed forth a face so hideous his followers turned their eyes away in terror. A face that could melt the living, or at the very least turn them to stone. A face so God-awful it defied the ability of any language to describe.
And yet Allie not only looked at him, but she reached out through the bars, pulled the horrible head to hers, and she kissed him.
The kiss was the definition of perfect. True, it lacked the heat, the passion, the breathlessness of the living-world kiss she had given Milos, but this had something greater. More than a flash of fire, it had an unbreakable, perhaps eternal bond of connection. Mikey had transformed back into himself by the end of the kiss, and the moment their lips parted he knew, as he should have known long, long ago, that no one-not Milos, not another Afterlight, not anyone in any world-could ever come between him and Allie, from now until the day they met their maker.
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