One day Johnnie-O came to Nick with a copy of The World Weekly Herald— a tabloid with questionable news. “I think you’d better read this,” Johnnie-O told him. On page two, a headline read SOUTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD SUES PARALLEL UNIVERSE. The article spoke of train cars gone missing from Southern train yards with no explanation— and a promise by one railroad line to take matters into its own hands … but since the headline right next to it read A LIEN BABY DEVOURS AREA 51, Nick really wasn’t concerned. Besides, the living world had bigger things to worry about than missing train cars, anyway. And so did Everlost.

Nick had not heard news of Mary Hightower for quite a while, and he couldn’t help but worry what kind of mischief she was up to. If Mary had her way, all the world’s Afterlights would be trapped in her smothering embrace, and no doubt she was still working toward that end. She had to be stopped at all costs, and Nick had a plan to do it.

That plan depended on Zinnia.

It had been more than a month since wrangling her in at Cape Canaveral.

“I gots no use for you!” she had told Nick and Johnnie-O that first day, as they made their way back through the Florida forests to the train. “But now that ya blowed up my artillery, I gots no use for myself, neither.”

Charlie had been waiting with the train, and was more than happy to stay in the conductor’s booth rather than have any dealings whatsoever with an ecto-ripper. Johnnie-O, on the other hand, would keep taunting her, until she would rip out some random part of his anatomy, threatening to feed it to Kudzu, and he’d have to chase her to get it back. Johnnie-O did this so often, Nick was convinced that he actually liked it.

Their first challenge was Atlanta—and Nick knew if he failed there, there’d be little hope after that.

When they rolled back into the Atlanta Underground many weeks ago, the crowd of Afterlights that had been so threatening the first time still came out with their bats and their bricks, but this time it was just for show. They were more curious than anything. Word had gotten around that the Chocolate Ogre was looking for Zach the Ripper, which meant he probably wouldn’t be coming back. The fact that he had actually returned elevated him to Monster Supreme in their eyes. Everybody wanted to know what he had found in the Florida Everwilds.