Skinjacker 02 Everwild

by Neal Shusterman

  They left the two bewildered fans and the usher behind. In a moment Allie had surfed herself down the aisle, and out the back doors of the theater again, finding herself on the stairs. Going down, she discovered, was a little trickier than coming up, because everyone was hurrying up the stairs to get to their seats. It was like running down an "up" escalator. She surfed through dozens of people, fighting the current, not lingering for more than an instant in any one person until she was back on the ground floor, and in the theater's main aisle again.

  She pushed off in a smooth regular rhythm, relaying herself through various people trying to find their seats, then she surged up onto the stage--and Milos was right beside her, reaching the stage the same moment she did.

  "I win!" Allie said.

  "No, I win!" said Milos.

  "All right, a tie, then."

  Milos laughed. "Very good! We both win!"

  Allie could not believe how exhilarating this had been. She wanted to do it again and again.

  Milos must have read the excitement in her face, because he said, "You see? There are many, many joys to being a skinjacker."

  Around them, the house lights began to dim. The audience roared in anticipation, and Allie looked out to the darkening theater, pretending that they were all cheering for her.

  "Another game!" she said to Milos. "Hide-and-seek! I'll hide in a fleshie, and you have to find me!"

  Milos crossed his arms. "How could I do that?--there are thousands of fleshies here!"

  She grinned mischievously. "I'll be the one thumbing my nose at Travis Dix!" And before he could respond, she was off, surfing her way through the theater.

  Travis Dix took the stage with his band, and the audience cheered. In a moment he was singing his big hit, "Stomp My Heart and Shave my Mullet," and most of the audience was singing along.

  Stomp my heart and shave my mullet

  All your lies stick in my gullet

  No more cash is in my wullet

  Baby, we're through

  But now I've got a better 'do' Allie chose to inhabit a college-age girl in the left mezzanine who was standing and dancing to the song with her friends. Allie carefully balanced herself within the girl, taking physical control of most of her body, but not putting her to sleep. It would be more interesting this way! Keeping her awake would be tricky, but Allie successfully hid in a blind spot of the girl's consciousness, so her presence wouldn't be detected. As soon as Allie took over, the girl's body stopped gyrating, and Allie raised her right hand, putting the tip of her thumb to her nose, and spread out her fingers.

  "What are you doing?" asked one of the girl's friends.

  The girl, fully awake, and still in control of her mouth said, "I ... don't know. My thumb is stuck to my nose!"

  "Suzie, honestly!" said the friend. "Travis might see you, and then we'll never get backstage!"

  Allie silently giggled, and began to waggle her fingers.

  "Suzie!"

  "I know! I'm trying to stop!" Clearly Suzie had no idea what had possessed her to behave like this. It probably never occurred to her that she actually was possessed.

  Travis Dix continued to sing. Then, toward the end of the song, a beefy security guard came down the aisle and pointed a flashlight right at Suzie.

  Great, thought Allie, now I got the girl into trouble.

  But the guard smiled. "Got you!" the guard yelled, over the blasting music. "Now it's my turn!"

  It was Milos!

  Allie peeled herself out of Suzie, who shook her head, looked at her hands, and in a few moments, had put the weird incident aside and was dancing to the music again. Milos was gone, off to find someone to hide in, and Allie counted to ten, then went looking for him.

  She found that this game required more than just surfing. She had to jump from person to person to get around, but also had to linger every now and then to get a good view of the different sections of the audience, because in Everlost the crowd was pretty much a blur.

  She started with the upper balcony, then worked her way across, then down. There was no sign of Milos, and Allie began to wonder if maybe he wasn't playing fair.

  Meanwhile, Travis Dix finished his song, and the crowd roared.

  "Hello, Nashville!" he said, and the crowd roared even louder. He waited until the cheers died down before he spoke again. "This song goes out to a very special girl," he announced. "This song is for ... Allie the Outcast."

  Allie snapped her eyes to the stage and watched in disbelief as Travis Dix--the Travis Dix--lifted his thumb to his nose, and wiggled his fingers at the audience. To Allie's amazement, the entire audience responded by doing it right back to him!

  Allie laughed out loud--a big, booming belly laugh, because now she was in a huge man with a voice that echoed like a bass drum. She skipped out of him and surfed her way back to the stage.

  When she got there, Milos was peeling himself out of Travis, who now looked strangely at the audience thumbing their noses at him. Then he looked to his band, shrugged, and began the next song.

  Allie couldn't stop laughing. "You win!" she told Milos. "That was great! No one's ever dedicated a song to me before!"

  "Now we shall enjoy the concert," Milos said. "After all, we can have front-row seats," and he gestured to any number of fleshies in the front row, but Allie shook her head. She didn't feel right stealing the concert from fans by putting them to sleep for the entire performance--and keeping a fleshie conscious was bound to be problematic. From where they stood on the stage, Allie could see off into the wings, where a couple of roadies stood, not doing much of anything.

  "Those roadies probably travel with the band," Allie said. "They won't care if they sleep through a performance."

  "Excellent--but we should switch places a few times--it is never a good idea to stay in the same fleshie for too long."

  So they jacked the two roadies, and watched the whole concert from backstage. Then, when it was done, to make their concertgoing experience complete, they jacked a couple of fans in the audience, so they could flow out with the crowd, and enjoy, if only for a few minutes, the charged excitement of the audience around them.

  Allie almost gasped as they left the warmth of the theater, and stepped out into the cool night. It was a subtle change, but powerful to an Afterlight, because temperature change meant nothing without flesh to feel it. A gentle breeze blew through the parking lot, and it felt soft and feathery on her arms. She swore she could feel each and every goose bump, and it was wonderful!

  "I think you liked this, yes?" said Milos.

  She turned, and his fleshie was right next to hers, bringing up a hand, to gently caress Allie's cheek. Allie was caught off guard. "Don't," she said, taking a step away from him.

  "Why not?"

  "Well, for one, your fleshie's a girl!"

  He shrugged. "So what? Yours is a boy."

  Allie looked at herself. Her arms were covered with hair. No wonder the breeze felt so feathery.

  "This is just too weird," she said, and peeled herself out. The living world shifted into soft focus, and the breeze now passed through her, so easy to ignore.

  Milos peeled out of his fleshie. "I never thought to play hide-and-seek before," he told Allie. "I came here to teach you, and it is you who teaches me!"

  "So what's tomorrow's lesson?" she asked.

  "Ah," said Milos. "Tomorrow's is the best lesson of all!"

  As they left to rejoin the others, Milos held his hand out to her as always, and as always Allie didn't take it, but she couldn't deny that she felt more and more tempted.

  While Allie spent her days being tutored by Milos, Mikey spent his time practicing his own skills as well, although he practiced alone. Each day he went off to some secret and solitary deadspot, and there he would spend the day focusing on the one thing he could do better than anyone else. Change. It was the one aspect of his existence that he still had control over--or at least he could have control if he practiced enough.

  Alli
e was off with Milos. Fine. He couldn't change that. He couldn't control what they did or said to each other. But he could grow feathers and scales. He could sprout extra arms and legs. He could even grow a rhino horn and moose antlers. And just like skinjacking, changing himself was irresistible--for who can resist their nature?

  The transformations were becoming easier and easier to achieve. The hard part was changing back ... but just as Allie was beginning to master the finer points of skinjacking, Mikey was mastering the art of bringing himself back to normal. It was all a matter of wanting to be Mikey McGill more than he wanted to be all those other tweaked and twisted creations. What made it difficult was that, with all the things he could be, he found it harder and harder to want to be Mikey McGill.

  On the night that Allie and Milos played games at the Grand Ole Opry, Mikey was caught in the act.

  He had found a nice sized deadspot--a street that had been torn down to build a freeway overpass. None of the buildings had crossed into Everlost, but someone must have had fond feelings for the street itself, because it had crossed over, along with all the streetlights, which still cast a pale glow all around him. It was careless of him to be practicing his transformations in such a wide-open, brightly lit space. Considering the transformation he was working, he shouldn't have been caught at all, because he quite literally had eyes in the back of his head, among other places. He had been trying to see how many eyeballs he could sprout. He had gotten up to fifty-three--they were popping up all over his body like large blue-eyed chicken pox, and each of them had a unique perspective on the world around him.

  When he heard a gasp behind him, every available eye turned toward it, and he saw Squirrel trying to run away.

  Wasting no time, Mikey took off after him, turning his arms and legs into tentacles that he used to fling himself from one lamppost to another, flying right over Squirrel's head, and landing directly in front of him. Mikey gave himself a set of fangs as he snarled, just to addle Squirrel's acorn-size brain even more.

  "Please, please don't hurt me," Squirrel whined, which was stupid, because Mikey couldn't hurt him. That was the blasted problem with being an Afterlight. He turned one of his tentacles into a jagged green insect claw, and thrust it forward, wedging Squirrel's neck against a lamppost with a clang.

  "You didn't see this," Mikey said, pleased at the slithery, inhuman sound of his own voice. "And if you tell anyone you did, I'll use this claw to snap off your useless little head."

  Whether or not he could follow through on the threat didn't matter; it was enough to scare Squirrel into absolute obedience.

  "Yes, sir," squeaked Squirrel. "I didn't see nothing! I didn't see nothing!"

  Mikey forced his claw and tentacles back into arms and legs, then sucked all his eyeballs back into his body, leaving only the standard two to glare at Squirrel. His voice returned to normal. "Now, we'll go back to the others, pretend this never happened, and everyone will be happy."

  Squirrel gave a few fast, brain-rattling nods. "Sure, sure, everyone will be happy," and Squirrel ran off, stumbling over his own feet.

  Mikey laughed and laughed. The choice to become terrifying--if only for a moment--ensured Squirrel's silence, so it served its purpose. But Mikey could not deny how good it had felt to be a monster once more.

  CHAPTER 13 Bye-bye, Miss American Pie

  Allie couldn't say she particularly enjoyed the company of the Nashville Afterlights. Every vapor of Afterlights was different, and this group was so standoffish--even while attempting to be hospitable--that the time spent with them was awkward at best. It was a relief to leave them behind.

  "Nobody trusts skinjackers," Milos commented as they hit the road once more. "Mary Hightower's books make it difficult for us."

  "Someday," said Allie, "I'll set everyone straight."

  "Someday," said Milos, "I would like to set Mary Hightower straight, personally."

  Mikey was silent on the matter. Allie found Mikey to be silent about everything. He had always been somewhat inscrutable, but now he seemed so distant that Allie found walking beside him had become almost painful.

  "Talk to me, Mikey," she begged him.

  "Why?" he asked. "I've got nothing to say."

  "Say anything! It'll make the day go faster."

  "No, it won't," he said, glancing ahead of them at Milos, Moose, and Squirrel. And that was that. Silence returned--and although Allie was tempted to catch up with the others, where at least there was laughter and conversation, she resisted, and hung back with Mikey, but resented it.

  At dusk they rested, and both Mikey and Milos disappeared. Allie asked Moose and Squirrel about it. Moose, who had limited peripheral vision out of his helmet, hadn't seen much of anything, but Squirrel had.

  "Milos went off that way," he told her, pointing to a neighborhood off the side of the road. "He said he was looking for something."

  "What?"

  "Didn't say, didn't say--but whatever it was, he said he'd be back soon."

  "Did Mikey go with him?"

  At the mention of Mikey, Squirrel got even more squirrelly. "Nope, nope--Mikey don't go places with Milos," Squirrel said. "I saw him go off the other way. Don't know what he's doing either--and I don't want to know."

  Squirrel looked to Moose with a gaze of dread that even Moose didn't understand.

  "Whatsh up with you?" Moose asked.

  "Nuthin'," said Squirrel. "Why should anything be up with me? Huh, huh?"

  This should have been a further indication to Allie that something was wrong, but her thinking had been confused by so many things lately, denial was the easier path to take.

  When Milos returned later that evening, he was all smiles. "I promised you the best lesson of all tonight," he told Allie. "Are you ready to begin?"

  Allie couldn't imagine an evening of skinjacking better than what they had done at the Grand Ole Opry, but she was willing to take a leap of faith. Milos had taught her so much already-- not just technique, but acceptance of herself, and what she could do. She was truly learning how to enjoy skinjacking. For better or for worse, it was something she needed to learn.

  "Lead the way," she said, and realized she had put out her hand for Milos to take. Milos gave her the biggest smirk she had ever seen him give--and he refused to take her hand. She laughed to mask her own embarrassment that even that little gesture had, for the two of them, become a game--and Milos now had, so to speak, the upper hand.

  He took her to a nearby neighborhood--a wealthy western suburb of Nashville, where tract mansions rose from what was once farmland. Everything was winding streets and culde-sacs. Allie lost all sense of direction in the moonlight but Milos seemed to know exactly where he was going.

  He stopped at a huge house with a rounded driveway that was full of cars. There was music inside, and the sound of a crowd.

  "A party?"

  "Yes! And we are about to crash it!"

  "Interesting," she said, giving him a dubious look. "So is there a name for tonight's lesson?"

  Milos thought about it. "I have no name for what we do tonight. Perhaps after the lesson is over, you can tell me what to call it." They walked right in through the side wall, having no need for the front door, and in an instant, they were in the midst of dozens of teenaged fleshies, doing all those things Allie's parents would have grounded her for when she was alive: drinking, smoking, dancing much too close in clothes that were far too revealing. And, of course, not a single adult was in sight.

  "We were all so stupid when we were alive," Allie noted.

  "Ah, to be that stupid again." Milos looked around, and pointed to the kitchen. "That way."

  The crowd thinned out in the kitchen; there were only about half a dozen kids in there. "There they are!" he said, pointing to a boy, maybe seventeen, talking to a girl about the same age. He wore a shirt that effectively showed off a body in ripped, varsity shape. He was also amazingly easy on the eye.

  "Best-looking boy here, yes?"

  Allie
forced a shrug. "I hadn't noticed."

  "And her." He pointed to the girl the boy was talking to. "Miss American Pie."

  Allie laughed. The girl was too pretty for her own good. A blond cheerleader type that Allie instantly invented a halfdozen negative fictions about: She must be an airhead, she must be a drunk, she must cheat on tests, she must backstab her friends, and that ridiculous rack can't be real.

  "Why don't you skinjack her?"

  "What possible point could that serve?"

  "Listen to teacher," said Milos.

  Allie sighed. "Fine, but I'm not going to like it."

  But to her surprise, she was wrong. About everything. She didn't put the girl to sleep. Not at first anyway. First Allie hid behind her consciousness, to get a good sense of her mental landscape. This girl was not any of the things Allie had imagined. She was smart and honest, never held a pom-pom in her life, and the mug of beer on the counter beside her wasn't even hers. Allie found it annoying that this girl didn't fit any of her preconceived notions.

  "So, are you going to take the UT-Memphis scholarship?" asked the good-looking boy, "because I think you should. That way you'll be closer to home, right? And--" Suddenly he stopped, and something about him changed. It was very slight--the way he held his shoulders, the angle of his head--and although his eyes were brown, it was as if they were also blue with white speckles at the same time.

  Now Allie gently put the girl to sleep, and took full control of her body.

  "She looks good on you," Milos said.

  "Thanks, I think." Allie looked around. The girl had clear vision, and saw everything in colors a little too vibrant. It figured. "So am I Cinderella at the ball now?"

  "That depends. Am I the Prince of Charming?"

  "Prince Charming," Allie corrected, then she looked at him sternly. "Do you think I don't know what this is all about?"

  He didn't deny it. "Indulge me," he said. "One dance is all I ask."

  "Why should I?"

  "Out of simple gratitude for all I have taught you."

  "No--you lied to me! You said tonight would be a lesson, not a free dance ticket." "It is a lesson," Milos insisted. "Come, look here." He led her to a mirror in a nearby hallway. "Look at yourself," he said. "Before I met you, you would never dare to skinjack someone this beautiful."