Everlost: Chapters 1–6

As the Mercedes careened over the double yellow line, into oncoming traffic, both Allie and Nick looked up and saw the other's car moving closer very quickly.

This boy’s hair was unkempt, and his clothes were weird—sort of too heavy, too tight, and buttoned way too high.

“A dead forest," Dad had said from the driver's seat, pointing it out. "It happens like that sometimes. A fungus, or some other kind of blight—it can kill acres at a time."

Nick began to pace, losing himself in morbid thoughts of doom.

They tried to get the attention of passing drivers, but nobody stopped for hitchhikers nowadays. Standing at the edge of the road simply wasn’t enough. When there was a lull in the traffic, Allie stepped over the line separating the shoulder from the road.

She lost her balance, but didn't fall. Her feet wouldn't let her. She looked down, and at first it looked like she had no feet. It was a moment before she realized that she had sunk six inches into the asphalt, clear past her ankles, like the road was made of mud.

Today, Lief learned how long Greensouls slept before awaking to their new afterlife.

He didn't tell them how every day for nine months he kicked and prodded them, and hit them with sticks hoping it would jar them awake.

Nick landed beside her, disoriented, with eyes spinning like he just came off a carnival ride. Lief landed beside them, whooping and laughing.

He watched Nick and Allie, waiting for their tears to subside, and that's when the unthinkable occurred to him.

He felt queasy, and wondered how that could be if, technically, he didn’t actually have a stomach anymore.

Well, this place was not purgatory, Nirvana, or any sort of rebirth, and it occurred to Nick that regardless of what people believed, the universe had its own ideas.

“'Ghost’ implies a whole lot of things that I am NOT. Do I look like Casper to you?"
“Fine," said Nick. “We’re not ghosts, we’re Undefined Spectral Doohickies. USDs. Are you happy now?"

It seemed the trees themselves held the thought, sifting it through their boughs, giving it resonance.

Allie had always been a goal-oriented girl. It was both her strength and her weakness. She had a drive to completion that always got things done, but it also made her inflexible, and stubborn. Even though she adamantly denied being stubborn, she knew deep down it was true.

The coin-on-its-edge business might have been fine for Nick, but Allie was not at ease with all this metaphysical talk.

Going home, however—that was a goal she could buy into. Whether she was dead or half-dead, whether she was spirit or wraith, didn't matter.

Lief put his hands in his pockets and sullenly looked at the ground. "Good luck, then," he said. "And watch out for the McGill."

Whether or not careless children actually sink down to the center of the Earth, no one can say for sure. Certainly many do disappear, but as it always seems to happen when no one else is looking, it confounds all attempts to discover where they actually go.

A knock at the door drew her attention away from the view. In a moment Stradivarius stepped in, a mousy boy with tufts of tightly curled blond hair.

Just as this boy was condemned to travel eternity in a wet bathing suit, she was consigned to the most uncomfortable school dress she owned.

This wasn’t just a slice of bread, or a gnawed chicken bone, as many of the Food-Finders brought; this was an entire birthday cake, round and white, completely unmarred. It said "Happy 5th Birthday Suzie."

Everyone knew the only food that ever crossed over was food lovingly prepared—and it only happened when that lovingly prepared food met an untimely, unlikely end.

Hiking was not one of Nick’s favorite activities. In life it would make his joints ache, and he would invariably stumble on some rude protrusion of nature, and skin a knee.

They rested on one of the so-called dead-spots, close together, because the spot was so small, and as they basked in the light of their own glows, they allowed themselves the luxury of small talk.

The thought made Nick look at his hands and arms, studying his own peculiar incandescence; his gentle Afterlight glow.

They were still in Upstate New York, many miles away from their respective destinations. At this rate it would take weeks, maybe months to get there.

The stars, however, were not sufficiently exciting to keep him awake. In fact, they were sedating. He fell asleep before Allie did, leaving her to ponder their predicament. What if she got home, and her parents weren’t there?

The stars, however, were not sufficiently exciting to keep him awake. In fact, they were sedating. He fell asleep before Allie did, leaving her to ponder their predicament. What if she got home, and her parents weren’t there?

"Yeah, so I guess you'll just have to kill us," Allie said snidely, and added, "Oh, sorry, guess you can't."

“I said hand it over," Johnnie-O held his upturned palm right before the boy. You didn't say no to a palm that big. Purple-puss gingerly put the small, round wad into Johnnie-O's hand.

It only gave them a brief moment’s pause, and when the beast did not materialize out of thin air, they kept on pushing.

They didn’t wait until dawn, figuring Johnnie-O and his gang might come back. Rather than being troubled by the encounter, Allie found herself heartened by it.

Nick was his usual gloom and doom, talking about Lord of the Flies and the dangers of rogue bands of parentless kids—but even in his worry, there was a new energy—because running into Johnnie-O proved that there were lots of Afterlights around.

Lief was overwhelmed by the sight of the great city looming before him.