A closer inspection of the suspended spacecraft revealed that there was a rickety scaffold right beside it, just a few feet wide, and randomly pieced together. It looked more like a vertical beaver dam, stretching up to the engines, and clinging to the craft itself, all the way up to the orbiter’s hatch. There was also something else on the huge deadspot beneath the suspended craft. Something that shouldn’t be there at all.

“That’s … a dog… .” said Nick.

“Well, I can see that.”

But Johnnie-O didn’t quite get it. The dog had been barking nonstop for the past few minutes. Nick was used to tuning out barking dogs, just like most other sounds of the living world. But this dog wasn’t part of that world. It was here in Everlost. It was barking at them.

The dog was some kind of unholy mismatched genetic mutt. Something like Rottweiler, crossed with Pomeranian. It was both huge and annoying at the same time.

“Wait a second!” said Johnnie-O, one beat behind. “That dog’s in Everlost!”

The Pomerrott mutt was chained to a spike in the middle of the deadspot. Which meant someone had to put it there. Johnnie-O still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “But … but, there are no dogs here. You know what they say, ‘All dogs go to heaven,’ right? Right?”

“Not this one. Maybe dog heaven took one look at it and sent it back.”

Just then another sound cut between the Pomerrott’s barks. It sounded like a loud snapping twig. Nick realized it was a gunshot the same instant the bullet caught him in the eye. It spun him around and knocked him to the ground. Chocolate splattered the underbrush and the Pomerrott barked like there was no tomorrow.

Johnnie-O screamed and ducked for cover. So much for him being a bodyguard. Not that Nick needed protection from bullets. He pushed himself up on all fours, blinked a few times, and the painless “wound” healed itself closed. In a few moments, his eye returned to normal. He had been caught off guard, that’s all—in Everlost, a sniper is little more than a nuisance. Still there’s nothing fun about being shot in the eye. He looked at the chocolate splattered around him, and wondered whether it had just splattered off of his face or come from inside when the bullet hit him? Were his insides turning to chocolate as well? He tried not to think about it, because thinking about it too much would make it so.

Johnnie-O, quickly remembering his own relative invulnerability, stood up and looked toward the spacecraft looming before them. “Whoever it is, he’s going down!”