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Allie knew her welcome on board the Sulphur Queen would last only until the McGill got tired of her or got what it wanted What he wanted, because Allie was reasonably certain this beast was male Either way, her time was limited

Besides, she didn’t have the patience to wait; she simply had to find out if Nick and Lief were here Once in the "guest cabin," Allie waited until the sound of Pinhead’s footsteps faded, then she quietly opened the door and snuck out

The ship was large and the McGill’s creas sh the hatchways and corridors unseen On the occasions that she did encounter the McGill’s ugly young minions, they made so much noise that Allie had plenty of time to hide

A ship has many places to stow prisoners, so shethe hideous rotten-egg srew as she went deeper into the bowels of the ship Finally she found the ship’s massive holds

By the stench and the yellow residue on the ground, Allie suspected the holds once carried sulphur, but now they held the spoils of the McGill’s pillaging raids Shehow these things had crossed over Had solassso lovingly made that it crossed over when the church burned down? And what about this ar inside? Did the bride and grooht? Was their love, like Ro world?

Each object held a story that no one would ever know, and the fact that the McGill treated these things with such thoughtless disrespect made Allie hate the creature even more

She opened the door to the fourth and final hold, expecting to find more piles of the McGill’s treasure This room was different, however

As she peered in, her mind did not entirely coiant hangingshe once saw in the Museu fro dihtbulbs

Then one of the objects spoke

"What ti lump said

Allie let out a yelp, stepped back, and hit the steel bulkhead behind her The wall rang out with a dull, hollow thud

"What tiain It was a boy, ray flannel paja upside down froround His pjs had a dorsal fin on the back, and a cartoon of a shark on the front

"I … I don’t know…," Allie answered

"Oh Okay" The boy didn’t seened

"Careful," said a girl hanging next to hi a set of razor-sharp, sharklike teeth, like the picture on his pajamas "It’s in a sea predator’s nature," he said

Only now did the truth begin to dawn on her as she took in the larger scene around her The hanging lule one of the upside down

The act of churning was invented by the McGill and he was proud to claim responsibility for the idea Since it was impossible to hurt someone in Everlost, and since the McGill so wanted to inflict distress, he came up with a whole new form of torture, functional in several different ways: first, because it provided an efficient way of storing those Afterlights he had no immediate use for, and second, because he created a hopeless sense of abject boredom in his victi so chain, or rope It didn’t actually hurt the spirit being chimed, but it was a pretty dull way to spend one’s days, and if boredo that the McGill could inflict, he would have to live with that In any case it was entertaining for hiing people They would collide into one another, grunting and oofing as they bumped, like hu chimed"

When Nick was first chi in the pickle barrel The rotten-egg sarlic and dill of the pickle brine, but then, at least here, he did not feel so alone Lief, who had reached a state of nirvana in his barrel, took it in stride, s alone would be better than hanging upside down next to a happy ca next to the screa to turn hiloids had finished stringing them up, they painted nuure out, he was nuh the kid had drawn the two backward

"Your hair looks funny," Lief said, as soon as the Ugloids had left "It stands straight up"

"No," said Nick, intensely irritated, "it’s hanging straight down"

Lief just gave hi "Up is down in China and you’re part-Chinese"

"Japanese, dweeb!" Nick reached out and slugged hi into the others ere around theh when the McGill co us We don’t need a couple of idiotscomrades also coet to the grate high up above Through that grate he could see the sky, and he knew if he could get out on the open deck, he’d figure out a way to escape Unfortunately, the ropes had all been greased, and he never got ain and swinging into the kids around hi, which in turn re, and everyone blaht, and group sing-along, there was nothing to do but wait until the McGill found a use for them Nick had this fantasy that Mary would come with a hundred of her kids to rescue him He never dreamed that his rescuer would be Allie

"Oh my God!"

Allie stood there on the sulphur-dusted floor of the chi chamber, still unable to believe what she saw She tried to count how many of them there were, but there were simply too many to count There were numbers scrawled on their chests, and soh hundreds

"Are you here to free us?" girl 342 asked

Since Allie didn’t know if a rescue of this hts would ever be possible, Allie didn’t answer her Instead she asked, "I’ for two boys

They wouldn’t have been here long One is nah above called down to her