CHAPTER 27

Last National Life

It would soon be one of the tallest buildings in San Antonio. It was still months from completion, but one could already see how impressive it would be. Just the kind of high-profile office building Last National Life Insurance Company needed.

. . . And across from the construction site sat Blue Harvest Academy, a very private, very expensive school, preparing the next generation for whatever future their parents left them. Blue Harvest boasted the best teachers, the best computers, and an awesome jungle gym. The one-of-a-kind play apparatus was a blue and gray starship made of the newest polymer plastic, guaranteed not to fade in the sun or crack under the abuse of countless children. Filled with slides, tubes, and climbing bars, as well as a “landing gear” swing set, it was easily the coolest playground in San Antonio—maybe the coolest one anywhere.

Since no nearby play-places had crossed into Everlost, Milos had decided one was needed for the Afterlights in his care—and this was the one he chose. Since playgrounds were much loved, causing it to cross would be a simple matter; the trick was bringing a fresh harvest of souls along with it. But Milos had that covered too.

Thanks to Lacey’s tip, Allie arrived long before the so-called “Angels of Life.” In fact, she had been waiting for them since dawn, hiding within walls of nearby buildings, and slipping in and out of people to keep herself concealed from Everlost eyes. She had spent much of her time since the concert disaster going into the minds of grieving families to comfort them. She knew it had to be done, yet she couldn’t help but feel that cleaning up the emotional mess Milos had left behind somehow made her an accomplice.

Miranda wanted to help, but Allie worried that it might put her in danger. She didn’t want her to become an “accident” victim as well. Allie came to Miranda one last time, visiting her in a dream to tell her good-bye. Allie could no longer justify using her, even if Miranda was willing. It made Allie feel dirty. It made her feel like Milos.

Now, on Friday morning, Allie scoped out the spot where Lacey had said the next reaping would happen. Finally, halfway through the morning, while a group of schoolchildren were out in the playground for recess, Allie saw Afterlights approaching—but it wasn’t what she saw that stopped her cold, it was what she smelled.

The unmistakable aroma of chocolate.

She saw Nick almost immediately, walking side by side with Milos, Moose, and Squirrel. The last time she had seen Nick he was a bubbling mess of molten chocolate, without form whatsoever. Now he looked unusually thin, but at least he had something resembling human form. She wanted to leap out and call to him, but she fought the urge. First things first. She didn’t even know why Nick was with Milos. Certainly not as a coconspirator. No matter how much Nick had changed, he couldn’t have changed that much. Even when he had served Mary, Nick had known enough to quickly switch sides—even if he was in love with her.

Allie lingered, peeking out from behind trees in a street-corner Christmas tree lot. She watched as Milos directed dozens of Afterlights to position themselves all around the school playground. The living moved through them, never knowing that almost fifty invisible spirits were there, waiting. Lacey was among them and she looked around conspicuously, obviously waiting for Allie to show up and stop them—but Allie couldn’t reveal herself—not even to Lacey. Allie also noticed that Nick did not join them; he waited across the street.

“It’s time,” Milos said. Moose rolled his shoulders and stretched as if he were a linebacker coming off the bench for a big game. Squirrel rubbed his hands together, which was a nervous gesture, but in a way was also threatening, like a burglar getting ready to pick a lock. Then the three skinjackers vanished into pedestrians, taking over three living bodies.

Allie quickly made her move, knowing she could lose them if she didn’t quickly skinjack. She leaped into a woman who was picking out a Christmas tree and—

—Too small / too tall / too dry / too expensive

the fake trees are looking better and better—

Allie quickly put her to sleep and hurried off the lot. She looked at the street in front of the school, searching for anyone who seemed to have a moment of sudden disorientation. Three people were standing still among the other moving pedestrians: a mailman, a well-dressed woman, and a jogger in shorts that were too bright for his pasty legs. They nodded to one another, then split up: The mailman and the woman went into the school, while the jogger trotted across the street toward a busy construction site.

Allie had no idea who was who, or which of them it would be best to follow. She chose to go into the school. If need be, she could pretend to be a parent picking up a child.

Once inside, the mailman turned right and went into the main office, but the woman continued on. Again, Allie had to decide who to follow—but even before she could make a decision, the well-dressed woman was stopped by a portly teacher with a gray goatee.

“Excuse me,” he told the woman, “but you’ll have to check in at the office first.”

“Right, right,” said the woman—but then both the woman and the teacher seemed to change. The woman reached out to the wall for balance and looked around, disoriented, while the teacher suddenly looked . . . well . . . squirrelly. Then he turned and hurried off down the hallway.

Allie leaped from the tree-lot woman, and skinjacked a passing school janitor. She quickly gathered her senses, and continued down the hall, keeping a distance behind the bearded teacher. The teacher turned a corner, but when Allie caught up with him, the man was just standing there bewildered.

“Strange,” he said. “Very strange . . .”

Clearly Squirrel was gone, but there was no one else in the hallway he could have jumped into.

“Damn it!” said Allie, and the teacher, forgetting his confusion, looked to her, appalled.

“Watch your language, Mr. Webber,” the teacher told the janitor. “After all, this is a school.”

Meanwhile, through the wall, and in a classroom that opened to a different hallway, a somewhat squirrelly student excused himself to go to the bathroom . . . but his real destination was the bicycle racks.

The fourth graders were let out into the playground for recess, then, just a few minutes later, the fifth graders came racing out of the school as well, immediately commandeering the plastic starship. Mixing grades in the playground was not the usual routine, and when the principal stepped out behind the flood of fifth graders, one of the teachers on duty was quick to ask what was going on.

“I thought they could use a little bit of extra playtime,” said the principal.

This was odd, because the principal of Blue Harvest never came to the playground unless he was showing it off to prospective families, and never suggested more playtime for anybody.

The teacher looked toward the space-age climbing apparatus, which now held an overabundance of Starfleet personnel. “Do you really think this is a good idea?” she asked. “It’s so crowded—someone’s bound to get hurt with all those bodies.”

“Well,” said the principal, “it is like they say, ‘The morgue, the merrier.’”

Allie had no idea where Squirrel had gone, and so she decided to go out into the danger zone itself. Still in the body of the janitor, Allie found her way out to the playground where kids were fighting over the elaborate equipment. To her right, a teacher was having a heated discussion with a man in a suit who must have been the principal.

“Yes, you did,” said the teacher. “You said the fifth graders needed extra playtime, so you brought them out here.”

“I most certainly did not!” the principal insisted. “What would ever possess me to say such a thing? I don’t even remember coming out here.”

Then Allie noticed a boy in the middle of the playground who was not playing with the others. He was looking up. She followed his gaze to the skeletal skyscraper across the street. The construction site was filled with activity, with workers welding and hammering on almost every floor.

Allie looked down at her janitorial uniform, to remind herself who she was, then knelt down to the boy.

“What is it?” she said, in a gruff male voice. “What do you see?”

The boy never looked at her. “Nothing,” he said. “Just the building.” And then he added, “It is big, yes?”

Allie recoiled. This was Milos! He must have skinjacked the principal, and was now skinjacking this boy—but he was too absorbed in his mission to notice that the janitor had been skinjacked too. Milos then ran off into the starship, disappearing into the many tunnels . . . and the moment he did, a shadow crossed over the playground.

Allie looked up to see a load of steel beams being raised by a huge sky crane high above the construction site. Allie realized with a sinking feeling that the crane had an arc wide enough to swing out over the playground, if that’s what the crane operator—or the person controlling the crane operator—wanted to do.

“We have to get out!” said Allie. “Everyone! We have to get out of here now!”

But nobody listened. After all, the janitor had little authority over children in a school. Allie quickly leaped out of the janitor and into the teacher closest to the door, and tried to open it. The door wouldn’t budge. Then when she turned toward the side gate, which was the only other way out of the playground, she saw a kid securing it with a bicycle lock, so that no one could get out. This time something about the way he moved allowed her to see right through his disguise.

“Squirrel!” she yelled.

He looked up at her and ran. She knew she had given herself away, but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was getting those kids out of there. Moose must have already been in the sky crane, because as the massive load of girders rose higher and higher, the crane began a long, slow arc toward the school.

The principal called to the students, not yet realizing what was going on. “Enough playtime,” he told them. “Everyone line up by your teachers.” The kids all grumbled but immediately abandoned the starship until Milos, skinjacking a scrawny blond boy, poked his head out from one of the tunnels.

“Look, everyone! There is money in here.” Then he held out a few dollar bills. “This is why they sent us out here, to find Christmas money!” Suddenly the kids ran happily back to the starship against their principal’s orders.

“I found a dollar!” said one.

“I found five!” said another.

It was an easy trick to pull off. Allie wondered how many kids Milos had skinjacked just long enough to empty their pockets into the tunnels. They were all finding their own lunch money. Allie peeled out of the teacher and took over a girl climbing through the starship. She found Milos, and pushed him against the curved tunnel wall with a thud.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” she said.

Milos recognized her right away, and smiled. “Allie!” he said in that little-boy voice. “I thought you had sunk. So good to see you.”

She pushed him against the tunnel wall again. “This isn’t going to happen,” Allie told him. “I won’t let it.”