Page 34 (1/2)

To those around him--to Nick, to Allie, to the crowd and the crew, the transfor short of miraculous The McGill went from beast to boy in seconds His head shrunk, and his spidery tuft of hair coiffed into a short, neat cut His dangling eye drew back into his face, and his swollen one deflated He sprouted five ers where once claws had been Even the fetid rags that covered his body stitched themselves back into the memory of the clothes he wore in the photo, and when it was done, the McGill was nothing more than a clean-cut fourteen-year-old boy who could have been his mother’s pride and joy

Mikey touched his face, realizing what had happened and screamed "You can’t do this to me! I am the McGill! You can’t do this!" But it had already been done

The one, replaced by his own humanity Mary closed her locket Mission accomplished

Allie could only stare This boy, this Mikey-- could this be the same person who had captured and chimed a thousand kids? Allie had to remember that humanity had returned to his face, but it would take raph to return it to his soul

While everyone else just gawked, it was the high-strung Boy Scout who saw this moment for what it was This was the e

"Get him!" he screamed, and he raced forward With his hands still tied behind his back, he hurled hiround The others were quick to follow, and in a few seconds, a thousand kids were pushing forward With their feet their only weapons, they began kicking him, and with so many of them, they could have kicked Mikey clear into the next world

"No!"yelled Mary, "Stop!" Butto her The crowd became louder, wilder, as if the spirit of the Twin Pier Marauders had filled them

In theof this nightmare dance It could not kill him It could not even bruise hireater than any physical pain could have been

"Stop them!" he yelled to his crew, but he had no power over the his orders, his entire crew deserted, running fro into Atlantic City just as the lone Marauder had Mikey was now truly alone

Then so the ropes that bound his captives’ hands, and they weren’t just kicking hi their best to tear him apart

This was not what the fortune predicted The fortune rong! How could the fortune be wrong? It was only nohipped and beaten down by the fury of the Afterlights he had enslaved, that he came to see the truth He was not the brave man the fortune spoke of He was the cowardly soul

With what strength Mikey McGill had left in hiryinto the sea and sinking back to the center of the Earth would be a better fate than this

There were very feho did not participate in the punishment of Mikey McGill

Allie, Nick, and Lief did not Neither did Mary, Vari, or even Pinhead, as the only creith the courage to stay They didn’t join theto the crowd, begging them to calm down and leave her brother be, but her voice was not even heard In the end, she could only turn away

"He’s getting what he deserves," said Nick

"But we should do so," said Allie "This is awful!"

"No," said Pinhead, sadly "He came here to find his destiny, and he did We have to let destiny take its course"

They watched the mob push closer to the end of the pier with Mikey somewhere in the middle and Allie found, like Mary, she couldn’t look Instead she turned to Pinhead, who picked up the two fortunes Mikey had dropped

" ‘Your victory waits at the piers of defeat’" he read "You wrote this, didn’t you?"

"Yes," Allie admitted, "but that one about the thousand souls--that was real"

"Not exactly," said Pinhead "You see, I found that old typewriter long before you did"

Allie was both ied "I had to think of so to keep the McGill busy for the last twenty years"

The mob was almost down to the far end of the pier now Allie almost hoped that Mikey would find a way to escape back onto the Sulphur Queen, but that wouldn’t really be escape at all, because thehim as an unbreakable piñata

Allie could do nothing to help Mikey McGill, and so rather than pondering his fate, she tried to fill her mind with the job that was now at hand Her plan

Her goal Allie knehat she had to do now, because she had i in Atlantic City Although Mikey McGill didn’t know it, by co her within sixtyin Everlost

Allie had freed her friends, and now she was free from the McGill All that remained was for her to coo," she said, catching the others by surprise She quickly hugged Lief, and then Nick, thanking hi her accidental companion on the journey

"Allie, I --" but Allie put up her hand to shut hiood-byes, and refused to let this turn into one

Then she turned to Mary In spite of everything that had gone on between thelanced at the Hindenburg "You win the award for Best Grand Entrance"

"We’ve got a lot to do here," Mary told her "Why don’t you stay and help us?"