Everlost: Chapter 24–Epilogue

Over a treacherous bridge, and across the entire breadth of Brooklyn, Nick marched from Rockaway Point to Manhattan.

Mary knew something must be horribly wrong. She knew because of the look of anguish on Vari's face. She'd never seen him look so bleak.

It was love—something she had not felt in all her years in Everlost. It had been easier to suppress it when she thought he was lost, but now the emotion came in a wellspring, and she kissed him, giving herself over to the heady smell and rich taste of milk chocolate.

It was love—something she had not felt in all her years in Everlost. It had been easier to suppress it when she thought he was lost, but now the emotion came in a wellspring, and she kissed him, giving herself over to the heady smell and rich taste of milk chocolate.

Mary had a secret cache of clout that ran deeper than anyone knew.

Mary had a secret cache of clout that ran deeper than anyone knew.

"Will you two stop," chided Mary. "We're supposed to fight the McGill, not each other."

It was dusk by the time they reached old Penn Station—a glorious stone-faced, glass-domed building that had been torn down half a century ago, in the questionable name of progress, and replaced with a miserable underground rat warren beneath Madison Square Garden.

The new Penn Station was generally considered the ugliest train station in Western civilization, but luckily, the old Penn persisted in Everlost, if only out of its own indignation.

Nick was duly impressed—and also impressed that Mary was willing to ride a train, considering the nature of her death.

"Yeah, I thought you’d say that," said Speedo, as they pulled onto a huge airfield tarmac. "But I drive."

The living world could no longer see the piers, of course. All the living saw were the casinos that sucked their money away like a riptide, and the garish new Steel Pier, built near the ruins of the original—but like the old and new Penn Stations, there was no comparison.

The two piers were only twenty yards apart from one another, leaving a space between them that was just the right size for the Sulphur Queen to dock. It was the perfect berth, as if it was an intentional part of some greater design.

"What now?” asked Pinhead. His apprehension rolled off him like sweat from the living. After all, Pinhead had abandoned the cutthroat gang that called themselves the Twin Pier Marauders.

That's when the drone of the Sulphur Queen's engines died. A few moments later the entire chimed mob swung forward, then back as the ship ran aground.

The McGill burst into the chiming chamber with the full complement of his crew behind him. He came straight to Allie.

Allie found the McGill even more hideous when looking at him upside down. She could see into his massive misshapen nostrils full of metaphysical nastiness.

Yet even though it was only an hour from Atlantic City, Allie had never been. Her parents despised the crowds and general vulgarity, and so they avoided Atlantic City as if they were making a political statement.

Toward the end of the pier, a horse leapt from a platform that had to be fifty feet high, into a tank of water with a great splash. Then the horse climbed a ramp out of the tank and wended its way up the ramp toward the high dive again.

"Well known for their savagery are the Twin Pier Marauders, who ruled Atlantic City for many years, until they vanished. Although reports are sketchy, more than one Finder has come to me with a story of how the Marauders were lured off their piers and into living world casinos by the seductive ca-ching of the slot machines...."

In Everlost, Pompeii is a pristine city, and the great library of Alexandria still houses the wisdom of the ancient world.

Zeppelin LZ-129, better known as the Hindenburg, crossed into Everlost in May of 1937 in a fiery hydrogen blaze that sent thirty-five passengers where they were going, and brought one German boy with it, crossing him into Everlost.

The McGill was filled with so many conflicting emotions, he felt he would blow into a thousand pieces, and didn’t doubt that such a thing was possible for an Afterlight who was tormented enough. He was filled both with joy at seeing his sister again, and the fury that this was not the deliverance he had waited for.

She reached up and opened the silver locket she wore around her neck, then held it out toward him the way a priest might hold a cross up to a vampire—and although the McGill tried to look away, the gaze of his eyes, both the large and the small, was transfixed by what he saw.

Even the fetid rags that covered his body stitched themselves back into the memory of the clothes he wore in the photo, and when it was done, the McGill was nothing more than a clean-cut fourteen-year-old boy who could have been his mother's pride and joy.

Mikey touched his face, realizing what had happened and screamed. “You can’t do this to me! I am the McGill! You can't do this!” But it had already been done. The monstrous image he had taken years to cultivate was gone, replaced by his own humanity.

There was room up inside for a thousand Afterlights, and Speedo assured her that weight wouldn’t be a problem since, technically, Afterlights had no actual weight, only the memory of it—memory enough to sink the unwary to the center of the Earth, but not enough to ground an airship determined to fly.

In spite of 146 years in Everlost, some things about a small boy never change. A penchant toward moodiness. A limited attention span. And, of course, curiosity.

By the time he emerged back on the deck with as much booty as his small arms could carry, the great zeppelin was gone, and his worst nightmare had finally come true. Mary had forgotten him. He dropped his plunder to the deck with a clatter.

“I am the McGill,” Vari said. “Hear my name and tremble.”
Pinhead gave him a great slanted mudslide of a smile. “Very good, sir,” he said. Then, with an understanding that required no words, Pinhead went to the bridge, started the engine, and manned the tiller.

Allie found a set of keys in her pocket, and the key chain said “Porsche."
“Where's your car?” Allie asked the girl, but she was still being uncooperative, responding in a whole slew of foul thoughts.

Since Allie had no desire to experience death again, she relented, and backed off—not entirely, but enough to let the girl control her arms and legs, so she could drive. To Allie's relief the girl didn’t fight.

"What is it? What do you see?" Whatever it was, Lief was too enthralled to answer. Then, when Nick looked at Lief's eyes, he saw something reflected in his pupils. It was a spot of bright light, growing larger and brighter.

“Who cares what you believe!” It was as if she was looking at a different boy. She had taken him into her confidence—she had trusted him. They were going to be a team, benevolently leading the Afterlights of Everlost forever and ever.

The train had been fast, but an airship didn’t have to worry about tracks. His only hope was that Mary’s learning curve when it came to flying the thing had slowed her down. When she had first taken to the air, the airship was erratic, turning this way and that, unable to set a course.