Neal Shusterman - Everlost

“The Haunter captured my friends, and I can’t rescue them alone! I need somebody strong,” Allie said, looking right into Johnnie-O’s eyes. “I need somebody smart.”

Allie watched the tip of his cigarette. Would it tip up, or would it tilt down?

It wavered for the longest time, and finally it tilted upward. “You came to the right guy.”

They took Allie to the nearest town, the place Johnnie-O and his band of juvenile hoods called home. Johnnie-O made a point of crossing the main street several times, for no sensible reason.

“It’s because of the Chinese restaurants,” Raggedy Andy explained. “They’re supposed to be bad luck or something—at least that’s what Johnnie-O heard.’ And so they wove a serpentine path down the street, crossing to avoid all four Chinese restaurants in town, proving that superstition was not limited to the living.

They brought Allie to their hideout. Stupid that they called it a hideout, because they didn’t have to hide from the living, who couldn’t see them anyway.

Like Mary, Johnnie-O had found a building that had crossed over, and had made it home. His was a white clapboard church—which struck Allie as funny. This kid probably never went to a church in his life, and now he was stuck living in one.

At least there was some justice in the universe. There were about thirty kids total, all disciples of Johnnie-O, like he was running a tough-guy school. They called themselves “The Altar Boys,” because they lived in a church, but the way Allie saw it, they were also “alter” boys—that is, every single one of them had something about him slightly altered from his living self; like Johnnie-O’s hands, or Raggedy Andy’s hair.

“How come there are no girls?” Allie asked.

“Girls come by once in a while, wantin’ to join,” Johnnie-O said. “We send ‘em packing.” And then he added, “I don’t like girls much.”

Allie couldn’t help but grin. “I think you died about a year too young.”

“Yeah,” Johnnie-O admitted. “And it really ticks me off.”

Now that she was accepted by their leader, the other kids kept stealing glimpses at her, like she was some sort of exotic creature. Great, she thought, I’m playing Wendy to a delinquent Peter Pan and the Lost Boys of Juvie Hall.

She told them all about the pickle factory, and the Haunter’s air-soldiers.

“His magic ain’t no match for us,” Johnnie-O said proudly. Allie wasn’t entirely convinced, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“The hard part will be getting in. There’s a big steel door—not living-world steel, but steel that crossed over with the building. I pounded on it for hours and couldn’t make a dent.”

Johnnie-O wasn’t bothered. “That ain’t a problem. We’ll use explosives.”

“You’ve got explosives!?”

He called to a kid on the other side of the church. “Hey, Stubs, get your fat butt over here!”

The kid came running.

“A few years back,” Johnnie explained, “Stubs here was sellin’ illegal fireworks out of his garage. They caught on fire, and Stubs won himself a one-way trip to Everlost. Anyways, it turns out part of his fireworks stash came over with him.”

And then Johnnie added, “Which is more than I can say for most of his fingers.”

“Yeah,” said Raggedy Andy, laughing. “That’s how come Stubs can only count to three.”

Allie and the “Alter” Boys left at dawn, the members of the gang all carrying baseball bats, chains, and various other makeshift weapons that had somehow crossed over. They would have been terrifying in the living world, but with the threat of pain and death not applicable in Everlost, it was all pretty much for show; fashion accessories for bad boys who didn’t get where they were going.

All the while as they marched south toward the city, Purple-puss kept giving Allie dirty looks. Not too long into their journey, he broke his silence. “I don’t like this, Johnnie-O,” he said, the bulge in his neck ping-ponging up and down. “She’s not one of us, we shouldn’t oughta be trusting her.”

Johnnie-O smirked. “Heimlich here don’t trust nobody.”

“For all we know,” Heimlich said, “she could be leading us straight to the Sky Witch.”

“Shut up,” said Johnny-O, “there ain’t no such thing.”

“Sky Witch?” asked Allie.

Johnnie-O waved it off. “Just a stupid story they tell to scare little kids about some witch who lives in the skies over Manhattan.”

“She devours kids’ souls,” said another kid.

“Yeah,” said Raggedy Andy, baring his teeth and hooking his hands like claws.

“She grabs you and takes a deep breath sucking your soul right up her nose.

That’s why they also call her the ‘Queen of Snot.’”

Johnnie-O gave them a Three Stooges-like slap that got all three of them. “What, were you born stupid or did you just die that way?” He turned to Allie. “Some kids will believe anything.”

Allie, wisely, said nothing.

“We should make her skim,” said Raggedy Andy. “That way we’ll know whether she’s worthy.”

Johnnie-O explained that all prospective members of the Altar Boys had to take a coin and skim it on the Hudson River. If it skimmed at least twice like a stone, then you were worthy of joining the Altar Boys. You had to use a coin you crossed with, and you only got one chance because once your coin sank, it was gone for good.

Allie was confused. “But…how can you skim an Everlost coin on living-world water? It wouldn’t work – it would just fall straight through.”

“Well,” said Johnnie-O with a wink, “I’m the one who decides whether or not I saw it skim.”

The next morning, they came to the George Washington Bridge, which crossed the Hudson into the northern tip of Manhattan. There they halted. Allie looked back to see them all milling around near the on-ramp.

“We don’t do bridges,” Johnnie-O said and Allie smirked.

“Oh, are you scared?”

Johnnie-O narrowed his eyes into a glare. “If you ever tried to cross a bridge you’d know how easy it is to sink right through it, and fall into the river. But I guess you ain’t bright enough to figure that out.”

Allie was about to fire right back at him, about how she had already crossed this bridge, and maybe his name should be Johnnie-Zero, instead of Johnnie-O, because he had zero guts—but then Raggedy Andy said, “We lost more than twenty kids once trying to cross the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was awful.”

Everyone looked down sadly, realized their shoes were sinking into the road, and began to shuffle around again.

“Old news,” said Johnnie-O, clenching his fists, “but we don’t cross bridges no more.”

Allie swallowed everything she was about to say. She wondered if she, Nick, and Lief would have sunk through this bridge, if they hadn’t been wearing their road-shoes.

“Maybe she is working for the Sky Witch,” said one of the little kids. “Maybe she wants us to sink.”

The others looked at her now with frightened eyes, but the look quickly mildewed into threatening.

“Johnnie-O’s right,” Allie said, “we shouldn’t risk it.”

“We’ll take the tunnel,” Johnnie-O announced, and led the way.

Flurries were falling by the time they reached the Lincoln Tunnel four hours later. Although there was a narrow service catwalk along the side, Johnnie-O led his crew right down the middle of the road, intentionally letting oncoming traffic barrel right through them.

The Everlost version of macho , thought Allie. Although she would have much preferred the catwalk, she didn’t want to show any signs of weakness, so she walked side by side with Johnnie-O, ignoring the annoying sensation of through-traffic.