Skinjacker 02 Everwild

by Neal Shusterman

  "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.

  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!"

  Allie felt her borrowed face flush, and she decided that less is more when it came to living-world conversation. She thanked the woman for the hot dog, paid with some cash from her purse, and downed the hot dog in three bites. Then she headed outside to the main event.

  The rain!

  It drummed against her poncho, teasing her, daring her to pull back her hood, and she did, closing her eyes and turning up her face to receive it. In an instant her hair was drenched, and rivers of rain ran down her cheeks. It was all she remembered it was! She opened her mouth and felt the drops on her tongue, but it still wasn't enough, so she grabbed the poncho, and pulled it off, exposing her flower-print blouse to the rain. She was drenched, she was chilled, and it was wonderful! All caution had been lost in this glorious moment--she didn't care who saw her, or how wet she got. Wanda would not catch her death of cold. She'd be soaked and confused, but in the end, Wanda would have the benefit of that warm fire to dry her off, as she sat beside Sam, the TV-watching dog.

  Allie twirled in the rain, laughing, and dizzy... . But then, as the rain began to let up, the guilt began to set in. She had used Wanda to satisfy her own selfish desire. How could she have done that? She had to end this now, and get back to Mikey. Somewhere in her rain dance, she had dropped the poncho, and it had blown to the feet of the gas station attendant, a dozen yards away, who picked it up, and came toward her.

  "Looks like you dropped this," he said.

  "I'm sorry," Allie said. "I got a little carried away."

  "Nothing wrong with that. Not at all, not at all." He handed her back the poncho, smiling a lopsided smile that Allie could swear she'd seen before. "Not from around here, are you?" he asked.

  Only now did Allie notice that he was just as wet as she, and didn't seem to care. "Yes, I am," Allie said, figuring that Wanda must live nearby.

  His smile got wider. More crooked. "Right, right, but I'm not talking about the fleshie," he said. "I'm talking about you."

  Then his hand thrust out and grabbed Allie's wrist-- grabbed it hard. It hurt--maybe more than it should have because it was the first time in a very long time Allie had felt pain. Fleshie? Did he say fleshie? Then that must mean ... She ripped herself from his grasp, and turned to run, but then found herself running right into a drenched man in a business suit--a man with beady eyes colder than the rain. "First a candy bar, then a hot dog," he said. "Always hungry, aren't you!"

  All at once Allie knew where she had seen these two before. It wasn't their faces she recognized--because the faces were different--but their presence was the same. This was the old man and the little boy she had run into in the last town. But they had never been a little boy or an old man, any more than she had been the chubby girl eating a snickers bar. They were skinjackers!

  The "businessman" pushed her painfully back against the gas pump, jarring loose the nozzle, which clattered to the ground. "Looks like we've finally caught up with Jackin' Jill!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!"

  "Don't lie to us!" And his grip on her shoulders got tighter.

  Well, they weren't the only ones who could use flesh to their advantage. Pain was a two-way street. She lifted her knee sharply, nailing the "businessman" where it counts. His cold eyes went wide, and he doubled over in pain, yowling. Then, as the "gas station attendant" reached for her, she grabbed the gas hose, and swung the nozzle at his head. It connected with his jaw, spinning him around.

  Wasting no time, she peeled herself out of Wanda, returning to Everlost. The two men were on the ground now, and Allie could see the skinjackers inside them beginning to squirm their way out. They must have been spying on her the other day when she jumped into the Snickers girl. If they had been there to watch her skinjack, and saw her peel out, too, it would be easy to follow Allie all the way here, jacking these two men as soon as she took over Wanda.

  Well, Wanda and those poor men would have to sort this out for themselves, because Allie wasn't about to stand there and wait to be attacked again. She turned and ran to the dock, where Mikey was waiting.

  Mikey, however, was having his own problems. He had hopped off the horse right after Allie had left, and as soon as she was out of view, he began to practice changing again.

  It took a minute or two to gain enough focus to do it-- especially with the rain, which was an unpleasant distraction. Just as before, he trai
ned all of his attention on his right hand--this time trying to force the growth of a sixth finger. It worked! The finger sprouted right between his thumb and index finger, growing to be just as long as his pinky-- but then kept on growing. Soon it was as long as his index finger--and still it didn't stop. No big deal, he thought. He just needed to regain his focus. He started this, so he could stop it. But then a seventh finger began to grow next to his pinky--and an eighth sprouted from his palm.

  Changing himself, it seemed, was becoming easier and easier. The problem was stopping the process of mutation, and reversing it.

  Now the knuckles of his fingers were growing fingers of their own, like branches of a tree. There were too many to count. Beginning to panic, he put all of his focus into reining it in. He looked at his hand, imagining his will to be a relentless wave washing across his many misbegotten fingers. The growth finally slowed and stopped. He sent forth his will in a second wave, hoping--praying--that the extra fingers would shrivel and disappear, for how could he face Allie like this? Slowly the many fingers began to shrink.

  So focused was Mikey on his current plight that he never noticed the sudden absence of the horse.

  Shiloh the Famous Diving Horse was a loyal, if not entirely intelligent, animal. Only one thing was stronger than its loyalty: its desire to perform the death-defying, crowd-pleasing high dive. This was the creature's grand purpose. It had performed this feat before cheering crowds for most of its life on Atlantic City's Steel Pier, and had continued to do so in Everlost, until the day Mikey McGill climbed on its back to escape a marauding mob.

  The steel pier was far away now ... however, the dock that extended into the lake looked very much like a pier. The sight of it filled the horse's spirit. True, there was no highdive platform. True, there was no tank to land in--but there certainly was water! Although Shiloh's time with Allie and Mikey had been somewhat entertaining, when the chance to perform one final leap presented itself, how could any self-respecting high-diving horse resist?