Everlost (24 page)

N
ick had made it out, but there was nowhere on the
Sulphur Queen
for him to go. Everywhere, at every staircase, every gangway, every hatchway was some Ugloid cleaning. True, the ship was full of dark corners in which to hide, but dark corners were useless to him, because he couldn't douse his Afterlight glow. A corner was no longer dark once he was in it. He didn't have a plan yet for getting off the ship, but maybe if he could find Allie they could work together. By now she must know the ship better than he did. The problem was, he had no idea where she was, and he wasn't in any position to go traipsing around the ship looking for her. In the end, he retreated back into the bowels of the ship. Not the chiming chamber, but one of the treasure holds. It was the best place to hide, for no one dared to come down and disturb the McGill's possessions. He would hide here until the night hours, when the crew was down below, engaged in games, or brawls, or whatever. Those were the hours when he could more easily sneak around the ship. Then he would search for Allie. But for now, he found himself a large oak cabinet. He slipped inside, pulled the doors tightly closed and waited.

***

The dragons hoard in the central treasure hold was a treacherous mountain of mismatched booty. Allie, who had been here several times hunting for books worth reading and other things to pass the time, knew she had seen an old-fashioned typewriter, she just wasn't sure where. The stuff in the chamber was a mixture of pure junk and treasure. The McGill did not discriminate; if an object crossed over, and he could get his hot little hands on it, it came onboard, and got dumped here. Jewels sat side by side with empty beer bottles.

The McGill was currently in his “war room,” planning a landing party to a Greensoul trap in Rockaway Point. As he was occupied, this gave Allie time to search. Climbing between the old filing cabinets and car tires, coat racks, and bed frames was no easy chore, and with no light but her own glow to guide her through the debris, it was rough going. She nearly got pinned beneath an airplane propeller, and flattened by an iron lung, but finally she found the typewriter beneath an old table. It was made of black dull metal. The keys were faded from many years of use before it had crossed over. A little emblem on its face said “Smith-Corona.”

Her grandmother had an old-fashioned typewriter like this one—she still used it. “Words aren't words unless you pound them out,” she used to say. Allie found a slip of paper among the mess, and figured out how to load it into the machine.

Typing, Allie discovered, was a lot like keyboarding, with none of the speed and five times the effort. She shuddered to
think of people spending day after day plunging their fingers against the little circular keys, which sank down a whole inch before flinging up an iron arm to smack the ribbon and leave a single letter imprinted on the page. She was thankful she had only a short phrase to type, but even so, she made enough mistakes to slow her down. The little typing arms kept getting stuck together like too many people trying to fit through a door. It took her four attempts before she had typed her message perfectly, then she put the typewriter back where she found it, and went looking for scissors. In the end she had to settle for the tiny scissors on a Swiss army knife she had found on the floor. When she was done, she slipped the little piece of paper into her pocket. She was about to put down the Swiss army knife when she heard the voice behind her.

“Admiring my treasure?”

She spun so fast, the Swiss army knife flew from her hand and embedded itself in the McGill's dangling eye. He pulled it out and dropped it to the floor. The wound healed instantaneously, as did all wounds in Everlost.

“Careful,” he said. “You'll put out an eye with that thing.”

Allie gave him a weak little chuckle.

“If you're trying to steal something, I wouldn't if I were you,” he said. “Anything you steal I will make you eat. It might not hurt but you'll feel it sitting heavy in your stomach forever.”

“I'm not stealing,” Allie told him. “I'm just exploring.”

The McGill turned to look toward the door leading to the chiming chamber. “I'm surprised you're not visiting your friends.”

“I don't need to visit them,” she said. “You'll free them soon enough.”

“Are you so sure of that? How do you know I'll keep my word?”

“I don't. But what choice do I have but to trust you?”

The McGill pulled his lips back in a smile, and reached a hand toward her. She grimaced, not wanting to feel his dry bloated touch, but instead her cheek was met by something soft. She looked down to see that his right hand was no longer covered in peeling scales, but instead in soft, minklike fur. The fingertips still had sharpened yellow nails, but the hand itself was soft.

“As I said, I've been working on giving myself a soft touch.”

Allie still pulled away. “Don't change yourself for me.”

“I'll change myself anyway I like.”

“It's still monstrous.”

“Good. That's how I like it.”

The McGill looked around proudly at his treasure trove. “There are girls' clothes in here. You could find something nicer to wear.”

“I can't take off what I'm wearing. It's what I died in.”

“You can wear something over it.”

Then the McGill spotted a big oak cabinet. “I think there might be something in here,” and with both hands he grabbed the handles and pulled it open wide.

Nick had heard the whole conversation between Allie and the McGill, and through it all he counted the seconds until the McGill would leave. When he heard the McGill mention the cabinet, his heart sank. It was just his luck wasn't it? If the McGill opened the cabinet and saw him, he'd
probably hurl the entire thing over the side with Nick still in it. Nick pulled his knees to his chest, tried desperately to hide behind a wedding dress that was hanging there, and closed his eyes.

The cabinet creaked open, and Allie, who was standing a few feet back, saw Nick immediately. She gasped. She couldn't help it. The McGill, however, standing right in front of the cabinet, had a view of the wedding dress, and not the boy behind it. The McGill turned to Allie, obviously thinking her gasp was about the gown.

Allie forced her eyes away from Nick, so the McGill couldn't follow her gaze. The tip of Nick's shoe was sticking out from under the dress, so Allie approached it, and fluffed the petticoat out a bit, pretending to admire the lacy fabric. It hid the tip of the shoe from view. Thankfully the dress was thick enough to hide Nick's glow, and the cabinet had a strong camphor stench of mothballs, which overpowered any hint of chocolate in the air.

“I won't be a monster's bride,” Allie said, then she grabbed the doors of the cabinet and forced them closed, nearly catching the McGill's hand in the process. The McGill glared at her. “Who said I'd ask you?” Then he stormed away.

Allie waited until she was sure he was gone, then waited twice that long again before she returned to the cabinet and pulled it open.

“What are you doing in here! Do you know how dangerous it is? If they find out you escaped—”

“They won't find out. There are hundreds of kids in
there—its not like they count us all the time”

“If you're caught, you're history.”

“So I won't get caught.”

Allie looked around. “Did Lief come with you? Is he hiding somewhere else?”

Nick shook his head. “He's still in there with the others.” Then he smiled. “It's a mess in there, I got them all tangled up.”

“How is hiding in here any better than hanging in there?”

“I'm not staying in this cabinet. As soon as I can, I'm getting off this ship, and I'm bringing back help.”

“And exactly how are you going to do that?”

“That's the part I haven't figured out yet.”

“I'm
the one with the plan,” said Allie. “Escaping now will just screw things up!”

“We've been waiting on your ‘plan' for weeks.”

Weeks,
thought Allie.
Has it been weeks?
“The best plans take time,” she told him.

Nick took a moment to look her over, then said, “I think you like it with the McGill. You've got some kind of power over him, don't you? I don't know what it is, but you do, and you like it.”

Allie wanted to just grab him and shake him. It was an insulting suggestion. It was preposterous. It was true.

“I have a scheme to get us all out of here, if you just wait.”

“I'm not waiting anymore. And anyway, two schemes are better than one.”

Allie clenched her fists and growled, sounding more like
the McGill than she cared to admit. “Even if you get off the ship, who do you think is going to help you?”

“Mary,” Nick said.

Allie laughed at that, and realized how loud her voice had gotten. She looked around to make sure they were still alone, then brought her voice down to an intense whisper. “She didn't help us before, and she won't help us now.”

“I can convince her to. I know I can.”

“You're an idiot!”

“We'll see who's the idiot!”

As frustrating as this was, Allie did not want to stand around and argue. Every moment they spoke was another moment they were in danger of being caught.

“I can steal a lifeboat,” Nick said.

“Once they realize it's gone, it won't take long to figure out who took it. The McGill will punish Lief, and probably me, too.”

“We can cut Lief down—all three of us can go!”

Allie thought about it, but shook her head. “The McGill thinks I'm teaching him how to possess people. The second he realizes I'm gone, he'll come after me.” No, thought Allie. The best way to get Nick off the ship would be to do it secretly, and in such a way that there were no telltale signs that he had gone.

“How about this?” Allie said. “Tomorrow morning the McGill is sending out a landing party to check one of his Greensoul traps. If you can somehow get aboard that boat when it heads for shore …”

“Okay. That might work.”

“I'll stay on deck, and try to keep anyone there distracted.
But it's up to you to find a way to hide on that boat.” Allie thought about it. “I'll put some blankets in the boat—maybe you can hide beneath them.” Allie looked around again, and leaned closer to Nick. “If you get through to Mary, tell her that if she wants to face the McGill, then she has to go to Atlantic City. There's a gang there that can help her fight the McGill, if she can convince them to join forces.” Allie shut the doors to the cabinet, closing Nick in once more. “Remember—tomorrow at dawn.”

“How will I know when it's dawn?” said Nick from inside. She left Nick to work that one out for himself. She climbed up to the quarterdecks, then out into the open air. It was twilight, and the McGill was at the bow, watching the sun set over the land. He did this each day. The McGill was such an odd beast-reveling in his own putrescence, and yet taking joy from the beauty of a world he was no longer a part of.

Nick said they had been there for weeks, and Allie couldn't deny it. For the life of her she had no feel for the time that had passed. Well, she had stalled long enough. Nick was right; it was time for action.

She quietly went to the McGill's throne, dipped her hand into the spittoon and pulled out a fortune cookie. Gently she found a corner of the paper inside, and carefully pulled it out, crumbled it, and inserted the fake fortune that she had typed. Then she dropped the cookie back in the container, where it sat like a little time bomb, waiting for the McGill's grubby, greedy claw.

At dawn the following day, the McGill and a crew of five left the
Sulphur Queen
on a lifeboat for a brief trip to
Rockaway Point. Someone had left several blankets in the corner of the boat, and the McGill removed them, ordering they be thrown into the hold with the rest of his belongings. There was no need of them here. The boat was lowered to the water, the McGill ordered the motor started, and they were off.

No one paid much attention to the mooring rope tied to the lifeboat's bow, which dragged in the water. Had they pulled that rope in, they would have found Nick, submerged beneath the waves, holding on with the rope wrapped around his arm twice as the boat powered its way to shore.

T
here was one flaw in Allie's plan. She had no idea when the McGill would get to the particular fortune cookie she had planted. She thought she would have to add a few more to the mix to better her odds, but before she could, her whole situation changed.

Just before she planned to leave for the treasure hold to write more fortunes, Pinhead and four Ugloids broke into her room without knocking.

“He wants you on deck,” Pinhead said. “He wants you on deck now.”

This wasn't unusual. The McGill called for people on a whim, as if all the clocks in Everlost were set by his personal schedule. This was the first time, however, that Pinhead had barged in without as much as knocking.

“What does he want?”

“You,” was all Pinhead said, and although he had been helpful to her in the past, he offered no hint of an explanation, not a wink, not a grin. “You'd better not keep him waiting.”

When Allie came to the throne deck, the McGill sat
there, his claws clenched together, the look in his terrible eyes more terrible than usual. Next to the McGill stood a large Afterlight Allie hadn't seen for a while. The one dressed in that ridiculous wrestler's outfit.

“Good evening” the McGill said.

“You wanted to see me?” said Allie.

“Yes. I would like to know steps eight through twelve.”

“Finish step seven,” Allie said, “and then I'll let you know step eight.” Allie had really come up with a good one for step seven. As the McGill was so fond of bullying people around, Allie decided that the seventh step would be a seventy-two-hour vow of silence. So far the McGill couldn't even make twenty-four. “You just spoke,” she said. “I guess you'll have to start all over again.”