“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.
By the time they reached the Manhattan side of the tunnel, the flurries had grown into a full-fledged snowstorm, the first of the winter. A violent wind tore at the coats of the living.
Snow felt different than rain or sleet as it passed through Allie. It tickled.
As for the wind, she felt it, and it was indeed cold. But like all other weather conditions, feeling it and being affected by it were two different things. The cold did not, could not, make her shiver. And yet as unpleasant as it seemed for the living people fighting the snowstorm, Allie wished she could be one of them.
But Johnnie-O, like Mary, had no interest in the living. Allie wondered how long until she became like that.
The going was slow, because it seemed every single city block had a Chinese restaurant, and Johnnie-O was making them cross the street, or turning down side streets again and again to avoid them.
“This is ridiculous,” Allie said. “Chow mein does not carry the plague.” The next time, she refused to cross the street, and walked right in front of Wan Foo’s Mandarin Emporium.
“Wow, she’s brave,” said one of the little kids, and so Johnnie-O was forced to do the same, just to prove he was just as brave as Allie.
When they finally reached the Haunter’s place, Allie could tell something was wrong. The steel door that had been so securely sealed now hung wide open and was slightly bent.
Johnnie-O looked to Allie as if she could explain, but she only shrugged.
Maybe, she thought, Nick and Lief fought their way out.
Johnnie-O, for all his swagger and big-fisted boisterousness, wasn’t about to be the first one in, so Allie took the lead and cautiously stepped inside.
The scene inside was not at all what Allie expected. There was no longer food hanging from the ceiling. Instead, half-gnawed carcasses of roast chickens and pieces of meat lay strewn about the floor.
“My God,” said Allie.
“You said it,” said Johnnie-O. “I haven’t seen so much food in fifty years!”
Unable to control himself, he raced forward and the Altar Boys followed, grabbing the carcasses and meat off the floor and shoving them into their mouths. There was no need to fight because there was enough for everybody.
“No!” yelled Allie. “The Haunter! He could be anywhere!”
But they weren’t listening.
Allie braced for the moment the Haunter’s hollow minions would descend on them, slapping them into barrels, but as she looked around she realized the barrels were all gone. All, that is, but one single barrel that sat in the center of the mess.
Allie noticed shredded bits of black cloth mixed in among the scraps of food-and then something else caught her eye. It was a turkey- a big one-a twenty-five pounder, maybe. It was a bird the Haunter had probably ecto- ripped into Everlost right off someone’s Thanksgiving dinner table. One thing though…the turkey had a bite out of it. A huge jagged bite. It was as if a dinosaur had sunk its teeth into it and ripped it apart-you could still see the teeth marks.
What, thought Allie, could leave an awful bite mark like that?
Suddenly her attention was drawn to the single barrel in the center of the room.
Someone was inside it, pounding and screaming. She couldn’t make out the words but she recognized the voice. Just hearing it chilled her far more than the blizzard ever could.
“Johnnie-O! Over here!” she called.
With a chicken in each of his fists and grease dripping down his chin, Johnnie-O looked a bit more comical and less menacing than usual. Reluctantly he handed his chickens to Heimlich with a look that said, You eat them, you ‘re dead.
He came over to the barrel, and both he and Allie knelt down, putting their ears close to the wood.
“Who’s out there?” the voice inside said. “Let me out, let me out and I shall give you whatever you want!”
It was the Haunter.
Johnnie-O looked to Allie for direction. She had, after all, led them to the biggest feast of their afterlives, so she was now held in some sort of reverence.
“Let me out!”yelled the Haunter. “I demand you let me out!”
Allie spoke loudly enough to be heard through the wood and brine. “What happened here? Who did this to you?”
“Let me out!” screeched the Haunter. “Let me out and I shall rip food from the finest restaurants in the living world and lay it at your feet.”
But Allie ignored him. “Where are the other barrels?”
“They were taken.”
“By whom?” Allie demanded.
“By the McGill.”
Johnnie-O gasped, and his mouth dropped open in astonishment. His cigarette would have fallen out if it could. “The McGill?!”
