"Well, it worked."

"Just one thing," Lou said.

"What?"

"How do we get it back to our world without Grace? We need a Throwaway to bring it back."

Or a Never-was, I said to myself. "I may have been wrong about that," I said. "I think I'm the only one who can't be seen or interact with this world."

"That doesn't make sense," Lou said.

"Look where we are," I said. "Does any of this make sense? The staff in the mansion saw you but not me."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean..." she bent down and reached for the package. Part of me wanted her hand to pass right through it. She was real. She had to be. Just as I convinced myself that she wasn't a Never-was, I saw her hand land gently, but solidly, on top of the canvas wrapped package. She screeched. "You were right. It must just be you."

I nodded. "Must be."

She picked up the package, and we heard a scream from the woods. "C'mon," she said running for the trees.

"No!"

"What?" she asked.

"We can't," I said.

"But that was Grace."

"Maybe," I said.

"That was Grace," she repeated in a tone that suggested that she could not be talked out of believing it.

"Listen," I said. "We have to get that package back to our world. That's the only thing that matters. If we leave the Land of the Dead without it, it's over."

"But..."

"Nothing else matters."

She looked at me with fire in her eyes. "I'm not leaving her."

I groaned. I was mad, but not at her. I was mad at me for being so willing to leave Grace behind. "I'll go after her. You get back to the pool."

She thought about arguing, but she knew deep down that I was right. The package mattered more than Grace. She kissed me on the cheek and said, "You better make it back."

I nodded and sent her on her way.

Entering the woods, it was easy to spot Fish and Grace's path. They had stomped their way through some pretty thick bush, breaking off limbs and leaving footprints along the way.

I reached a clearing and spotted something lying in the tall thick grass. The closer I go to it the more I realized that it wasn't just something. It was Grace. I picked up my pace and scanned the area for the old man as I ran. He was nowhere to be seen.

Kneeling down beside Grace, I saw her eyes flutter. She was alive, alive as a Throwaway could be. "Grace, are you okay?"

She didn't answer. She just smiled.

"Did he hurt you?"

She nodded.

"Where did he go?"

"He's gone to get his tools."

Her eyes started to close. "I'm taking you back."

She pushed herself away from me. "You have to find Lou before he does."

"I can't just leave you."

"I'll be okay." Her smile got bigger.

"Why are you smiling?"

"I got to be part of the story." With that, her eyes closed and her smile continued to grow.

I stood. "I'll come back," I said knowing in my gut that I wouldn't be able to return for her. "You were always part of the story. All of you." With that, I ran towards the mansion.

I stood on the edge of the pool looking for Lou. There was no sign of her. I was breathing heavily with my hands on my knees. My head felt like a lead weight. Every cell in my body ached from the sprint I had just completed. How could she not be here?

I glanced at the water and saw a dark object... no, two dark objects. It was Lou and the old man. He had her by the throat. Without a thought to my state of exhaustion, I dove into the pool, never taking into consideration that I was totally helpless in this world.

I swam at the old man and passed right through him. I turned and headed for him again. Lou kicked her way loose and swam for the surface. The old man did his best to go after her, but a current had hold of him and started to pull him back. I got caught in it, too. I even started to see Lou struggle against it.

Suddenly, the pool became pitch black, and I hit the ground with a crunching pop. I heard Lou moan in agony. We had made it out of the Land of the Dead.

I coughed and worked hard to breathe normally. "Lou, you okay?"

"Been better," she said.

The room, still dark, got bright enough for me to see her sitting up. "The package?"

She looked at me. "I don't have it."

DAY 9.

TWENTY.

"What do you mean you don't have it?" I said lying back down and covering my face with my hands. We were done without that package. We had one more day to make it back to the Land of the Dead and get the package to Detective King. That was the plan. Now we had nothing to deliver to the detective.

"I mean I don't have it," she said. I could hear her getting to her feet. "But that doesn't mean it's not here."

I sat up. "What?"

"I knew the old man was after me, so I hid it," she said.

I got to my feet. "You hid it?"

"I figured we didn't have to actually bring it back with us. If I hid it somewhere in the mansion, it would be waiting for us when we got back."

"You figured?" I asked sounding more than a little skeptical.

"It makes sense, right?"

"Where did you hide it?"

She headed for the shallow area of the pool, and I followed her hoping against hope that she figured right. She reached behind the ladder and popped out a screen to a filtering system. Her hand disappeared into the rectangular hole, and it seemed like an eternity passed before she pulled it out holding the package.

"Told you," she said.

"That was your hiding place?" I said in disbelief.

"It's not like I had a lot of time. I was lucky I found this spot."

We both climbed the ladder.

"Where's Ajax?" Lou asked as she stood waiting for me at the top of the ladder.

"Something's wrong," I said. "He wouldn't leave without a reason."

Lou took off running before I suggested we go looking for him. She headed directly for the bowling alley. Ariabod was gone, too. Gordy was propped up against the wall mumbling to himself. I kept my distance while Lou questioned him. I was so far away I couldn't make out what they were saying. I could tell that Gordy was on his last legs. He had lost a lot of blood, and he'd had nothing to eat or drink in days. He was sick. I could smell it.

Lou said one word that told me everything I needed to know about what was going on.

"Delons."

I could feel the blood rush through my veins. As soon as the word left her mouth, I could tell that they had been here. I could still feel their thoughts lingering in the air. I was still tuned into their collective.

"Ajax and Ariabod took on six of them in the basement."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Where are the dead Delons?" I asked.

"There aren't any. They fought for a while and then as suddenly as they arrived they retreated."

"That's not very Delon-like," I said.

"Maybe they're still here. Upstairs."

"No, they're gone. I'd know it if they were still here... Upstairs?" It came out like a question to her, but it wasn't. I was basically asking myself how I could be so stupid. "C'mon," I said, and we raced through the Halloween Room and headed for the stairs.

I couldn't bring myself to look at his face. Archie lay on a wooden table, still alive, but most likely wishing he was dead. The shunter attached to his face was sucking out his humanity.

Ajax and Lou signed to each other, while Kimball and Ariabod waited at the entrance to the fourth floor observatory.

Lou finished her conversation with Ajax and joined me by Archie's side.

"The six Delons in the basement were a decoy. They were sent down to keep Ajax and Ariabod busy while General Roy and his men came up here and took Bobby."

"What about Wes, Tyrone, and April?"

"They're alive. The Delons had no interest in them."

"They came for the Storyteller."

She nodded. "There's something else."

She handed me a note. "They left this note on Archie's body."

I took it from her and read it to myself. "Fulfill his destiny."

"What does it mean?" Lou asked.

I looked at the translucent jellyfish-like mass on Archie's face. I could see the unbearable pain leaking from his eyes. I thought back to the facility where I knew Archie as Scoop-face. His eyes and nose were missing. I did it to him. That's what he had said.

"I don't know what it means," I answered.

"We can't leave him like this," she said.

She was right, and I almost hated her for it. I wanted her to tell me that he wasn't our responsibility. That we should just leave him, but that's not why Lou was here. She was here to make sure I did the right thing no matter how wrong it felt.

"Take the gorillas and Kimball and check on the others. Let them know that this will all be over soon. They just have to hold out for one more day."