Neal Shusterman - Everlost

She surprised a team of unlikely pirates, who grabbed her the second she was on board. They were even more unpleasantly distorted than the Altar Boys. They practically carried her to the highest deck, where something slouched on a gaudy throne.

The thing on the throne was far from human. Allie found it horrifying to look, yet harder to look away. It had sharp, three-fingered talons for hands, and skin as red as a lobster and pocked like the moon. Its mismatched eyes wandered of their own accord, and its nasty tuft of spidery hair looked like it might crawl off the creature’s head at any moment. This thing was beyond grotesque—so far beyond that Allie found her fear balanced by fascination. How could something so horrible exist?

“What are you?” she said. She thought she said it to herself but realized she had spoken aloud.

“I am the McGill,” it said. “Hear my name and tremble.”

And Allie laughed. She didn’t mean to, but that line was so goofy, she couldn’t help herself.

The McGill frowned, or at least she thought it frowned. It waved a dirty claw, and all the assembled “pirates” scrambled away like rats, except for the small-headed one standing beside her.

“I will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine,” the McGill said, and although Allie believed it, she wasn’t going to let this beast see her fear the way she had let the Haunter see it. If there was one thing she had learned, it was that monsters only had the power that you gave them. But she also knew that monsters didn’t deal well with blatant disrespect. She had already disrespected the McGill once; she would probably not get away with it again.

“I’ve heard that you are the greatest creature in all of Everlost.” She nodded respectfully. “Now I see that it’s true.”

The McGill smiled, or at least Allie thought it smiled. It turned its dangling eye toward the misproportioned boy beside it. “What do you think, Pinhead, should I throw her overboard, or something worse?”

“Worse,” answered Pinhead. Somehow Allie knew he’d say that.

The McGill shifted in its throne, trying to make that unsightly body more comfortable, which seemed an impossibility. “But first I want to know how you snuck on board my ship.”

Allie grinned. “No one’s ever done that before, have they?”

“Actually, no,” said Pinhead, and the McGill threw him a burning gaze before turning back to Allie.

“How did you do it?” demanded the McGill.

“I’ll tell you, but only if— “

The McGill didn’t let her finish. It waved a clawed hand. “‘Only if’ nothing, I don’t make deals. Throw her overboard, I’ve lost interest in her.”

Pinhead moved to grab her, but she slipped out of his grasp.

“No,” said Allie. “Wait—I’ll tell you how I got on your ship.”

Pinhead hesitated. She thought she might get what she wanted if she played this right, but realized that she could not play at all. The McGill did not play games, and truly intended to toss her over. The best she could do was to stall with hopes of finding some way to bargain for the lives of Nick and Lief…assuming they hadn’t already been hurled overboard themselves.

“I took the Staten Island Ferry,” she said quickly, “and I slipped on board as it passed through your ship.”

Suddenly both of the McGill’s wandering eyes zeroed in on her. It gripped the edge of the throne with its claws and pushed itself up.

“That ferry changed course,” the McGill said, “almost as if it was intentional.

Did you do that?”

Allie wondered which response would keep her from being thrown overboard, yes or no. In the end she realized her answer was really the best of both worlds. “Yes and no,” she said.

The McGill took a step closer. “Explain.”

“I couldn’t make the ship turn myself, so I sort of leaped into the pilot’s body and took over for a few seconds.”

The McGill maintained its hideous stare in silence. “You expect me to believe this,” it finally said.

“Believe what you want, but I’m telling you the truth.”

The creature eyed her for a few moments more. “So then, you’re telling me that you know how to usurp, possess, and control the living? You can actually skinjack ?

Allie didn’t like the sound of that. Is that what she had done? Had she possessed the pilot? Had she skinjacked him? It sounded so… criminal. “I prefer to think of it as ‘body-surfing.’”

The McGill laughed at that. “Body-surfing. Very good.” It scratched thoughtfully for a moment at the stalk of its smaller, dangling eye. “What’s your name?”

“Allie,” she answered. “Allie the Outcast.”

The McGill, not at all impressed by her title, dug a single claw into its oversized nose, pulling out a booger the size of a roach, and flicked it to the wall where it stuck. Allie grimaced.

“Take her below,” The McGill told Pinhead.

“Shall I chime her with the others?”

“No,” the McGill said. “Put her in the guest quarters.”

Pinhead nodded obediently and took Allies arm with slightly more respect than he might have a moment ago. Allie, however, sensing her bargaining position had now changed, shrugged Pinhead off.

“You took two of my friends from the Haunter.”

The McGill became very attentive. “Friends,” the monster said slowly.

“Are they here?”

“Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. For now you will go to your quarters.

When I want you, I’ll call for you.”

She sighed, knowing she couldn’t push it any further. “Thank you for being so… merciful,” Allie said. “But I would appreciate it if Pea-brain here would keep his hands off me.”

“That’s Pinhead,” corrected the boy. “Pea-brain works in the engine room.”

The McGill waved a hand in dismissal, Pinhead bowed to Allie in a mock gesture of courtesy, and she was led to the guest quarters with more dignity than any Afterlight had experienced on the Sulphur Queen since its crossing into Everlost.

Once the girl was gone, the McGill lumbered back to his throne and sat down.

From the little perch where the throne sat, he had a view of the ocean before him…They had crossed beneath the Verrazano Bridge, and the Sulphur Queen would soon be out in the Atlantic, on its endless journey up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

The McGill rarely allowed himself flights of fancy—he kept his existence pessimistic, always expecting the negative, and reveling when the worst didn’t come to pass—but this girl had struck a chord in him.

Skinjacking! This was a power more useful than any of the powers he already possessed. To be able to leap from one body to another at will; intruding into the living world, then finding new flesh to inhabit whenever it suited him—how powerful that would make him! Could this girl teach him how to do that? If so, it would be worth putting all of his other plans on hold. Yes, this new associate offered some exciting possibilities.

The closest Mary Hightower comes to mentioning the McGill is in her book Caution, This Means You! Between paragraphs on the dangers of gravitational vortexes and reality television, Mary writes, “If you find a dead—spot containing something of great value, like jewelry, food that has crossed over, or any other object that seems too good to be true, chances are that it is too good to be true. Stay away from these places, or you may find yourself in a very unpleasant circumstance.” It is commonly believed that she is referring to the McGill’s Greensoul traps, which are rumored to be strategically placed up and down the East Coast. Of course, their existence has never been proven…