by Sean Platt
“Please, you don’t have to do this. I don’t know what happened to make you this way, but you don’t have to do this.”
His eyes look suddenly sad. I don’t know if he’s messing with me, or if he’s seriously considering what I’m saying.
“Do you want to know what happened to me? What made me this way?” His eyes meet mine.
I fight the tears, open my eyes as wide as I can to show I’m listening.
“No, you don’t care.”
“Tell me.”
He sets the ball gag aside and paces. “It all started when I was eleven.”
I listen, but not because I care what made this man into the monster he is. He killed Lara. He kidnapped Allie. Whatever excuse he has will do nothing to dampen my white-hot hate. But I paint an accommodating expression onto my face, anyway.
“I grew up the son of a poor alcoholic who abused my sister and me. My mother never loved me. She saw me as a curse.”
He covers his face with his hands, seeming to sob.
While I feel no sympathy for him, it’s impossible to not feel something for a child in hell.
Then his sobs turn to laughing, and he removes his hands from his face. “You were buying that?”
My face is on fire. I glare at him, wishing I could break free of my restraints. I don’t even need Vinnie’s bladed buckle. I’ll gouge his eyes with my fingers.
Just give me a chance.
He turns to me and smiles. “I’m sorry. I just hate hearing people’s sob stories of why they’re so fucked up. I have no idea why I am the way I am. I had a rich father and a loving mother. What more could a child want?”
I continue glaring at him.
He crosses his arms.
“Oh, come on, lighten up, or neither one of us will have a good time.”
He turns to the counter and sink, his back to me, doing something I can’t see. Then he turns around, holding a scalpel in his gloved hands.
He walks toward me, slowly, deliberately, milking the terror in my eyes.
“Help! Help!”
He raises his hands as if conducting an orchestra. “Scream all you want. Nobody will hear you. No one can save you.”
He continues toward me.
I scream louder, shaking in a vain attempt to break free from the restraints.
He stops beside my face, looks down, tracing the scalpel against my breast.
A cold chill runs through me.
I whimper, “Please, don’t.”
His hand stops.
He’s staring into my eyes.
I don’t know if he’s messing with me again, but something has him spooked.
He shakes his head.
“No, it can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?” I ask, sure there’s a punchline coming. The minute I fall for his joke, he’ll sink the blade into me.
“I killed you. Twice.”
And now I’m the one frozen.
He can see through me, can see the me that is in here, just as he had seemed to see me in Lara.
I don’t know what to say. Words leave my mouth anyway.
“Yes, it is me. And I’ll keep coming back to haunt you. Every time you kill me, I’ll come back, until I get what I want.”
He shakes his head, slowly, whispering, “No, no, no.”
Then he screams, violently shaking his head.
He returns to the counter.
My heart races, unsure of what to expect. Will he set me free? Or is he getting another instrument to finish me quicker?
He turns around, a hypodermic in his hand.
He rushes forward.
I cry out, “No!”
He injects whatever it is into my neck then turns and runs from the room.
Whatever he put in me is acting quickly. So quickly, I —
I don’t remember passing out.
I wake up back in the dungeon, chained to the rail.
My head is fuzzy, again, as I try to make sense of what happened. But I can barely remember. My head is stuffed with memories that aren’t mine, or Allie’s. Instead, I have bits of Vinnie and Yvonne bouncing around my head, but not the memories I experienced while trapped in their bodies. Bits of their pasts are jumbled with my present.
Everything feels so confusing.
Is this some effect of whatever drug Gavin injected me with?
If so, how is it affecting my mind?
It’s not like my physical self, or my brain in particular, jumped into Allie’s body. Yet it’s as if it has. Like I’ve somehow collected these people’s memories and carried them with me into Allie’s shell, and now the drugs are causing them to flood my senses.
I try to focus on the present, the room I’m in, this current body, as some way to anchor myself. If I don’t, I’m afraid the memories will carry me off into madness. And maybe bring Allie along.
I focus on the ceiling light.
I don’t want to fall asleep.
I want to stay in this body.
I need to stay with Allie, to protect her.
It’s an incandescent bulb, clear, small dark spot on the tip, glass stem, tungsten filament, bright burning yellow light.
I focus on that light.
If I could only harness the light in some way, use it to transport us both away from this dungeon.
Chapter Five
Wednesday
I’m awake.
I’m no longer in Allie.
And I’m not in Bay Cove. I’m in Las Orillas, California.
I’m in the body of a forty-one-year-old black man named Charles Tompkins. Someone moves beneath the sheets beside me. I turn to see Charles’s boyfriend, Danny, smiling up at me in the soft blue glow of light bleeding through the bedroom curtains. He’s not just white, but maybe the palest man I’ve ever seen, with blue eyes, and shoulder-length red hair. Despite his trim goatee, Danny has delicate, feminine features, which I find attractive even though I believe my true soul belongs to a straight male.
Gender and sex are fluid for me. I tend to absorb my host’s feelings when it comes to these things, which I suppose makes my job a lot easier. To have no feelings or attraction to the person I’m forced to be with for a day or so would make things so much more difficult.
“Well, you’re up early,” Danny says. “I guess you are excited about today?”
I have no idea what he means.
I have a feeling that Danny is teasing me, so I nod and shrug.
He says, “I promise, it’s not going to be that bad.”
“That bad? So, in other words, it’s going to be at least a little bad?”
“She changed my life. And I’m sure she’ll do the same for you.”
I search Charles’s memories for a clue, but I don't see much. An overload of leftovers from Vinnie, Yvonne, and now Allie still runs through my head. I’ve never carried so many memories before, and I’m getting scared.
It’s tough enough to do this thing I do — this body jumping — under normal circumstances. But now carrying their thoughts and fears with me into the next body makes it nearly impossible to focus on the memories of my host. Add to that my fear for Allie’s well-being and trying to figure out how Charles fits into any of this, and my current state is a chaotic mess.
And being out of Washington scares me. Does this mean I can no longer help Allie? Did I blow my chance, and now I’m back to jumping into randoms without any connection to Allie?
Danny hits me on the shoulder. “Right?”
“Right what?” I ask, only now aware that he was talking while I tuned him out.
“Hello? Earth to Charles. You want to do this, right? If you think it’s stupid and you’re only doing it for me, please, don’t do me any favors.”
I still don’t know what he’s going on about. I do my best with what I have. “No, I want to do this. Really. Just thinking about a dream I had.”
Danny sits up in bed, wraps an arm around me, and pulls me back to lie beside him. “What did you dream about?” He
circles his fingers in my chest hair.
A flash of memory informs me that Danny is very much into analyzing dreams. Charles, not so much. He tends to see dreams as the body’s way of processing memories. Nothing to examine, no tea leaves to read. But Charles usually humors him and tells him his dreams, anyway.
From what I can tell, these two couldn’t be more different. Charles is a copywriter, straight-laced, and rather conservative. Danny, five years younger, is a carefree art teacher, with a mystical bent, evidenced by the plethora of crystals hanging from the dresser mirror, and the long row of psychic-themed books lined up on the headboard’s built-in bookshelf. He also partakes of various recreational drugs while Charles will barely drink more than a glass of wine with dinner. Somehow, they’ve made their relationship work for more than two years.
“Go on,” Danny says, smiling, “You always have the weirdest dreams.” This is a compliment coming from him. I can tell that he uses these little sessions to loosen Charles, coaxing him to enjoy the moment and embrace the unknown.
In other words, pull the stick from his ass.
I’m not sure why, if I’m agitated with Danny’s inquiries, or annoyed at being stuck in this body rather than being in someone who can help Allie, I decide to tell him something really weird.
“I dreamed I was stuck in these other people’s bodies. Every day or so, I’d wake up in someone else, and I kept jumping around from body to body for almost a year.”
“Really?” he asks, eyebrows arched.
“Yes. And my last body was a teenage girl who’d been abducted by a serial killer. He had her in a dungeon, tied to some chair, and was going to perform some sick ritual or experiment or something on her.”
Danny stares at me with no expression.
I worry that maybe I said too much, something that gave away the truth.
“So,” I ask, “what do you think that means?”
I’m smiling inside, like the petulant toddler who throws his plate on the floor when he isn’t getting his way, to rock the boat and see how his parents deal with that.
“Wait, wait, I think I have an idea.” Danny sits up in bed, his eyes alight like he is about to solve a puzzle he’s been working for years.
I sit up beside him as if he might illuminate the enigma I’ve been working on, too.
“Okay, here’s what I think. I think you waking up in different bodies is a dream manifestation of your need to be all these different things to different people. Maybe it’s also because you’re still in the closet to your family and some of your oldest friends.”
I can sense that this is an old discussion, something that Danny has tried to move Charles on many times. I suppose I could do an eye roll or something to indicate impatience with his interpretation’s direction, but I’m curious to hear more, so I hold his eyes to mine.
“I think the girl represents your soul. Your authentic self, and the more you have to hide in these various guises, the more you’re killing your authentic self. It’s something you’re barely aware of on a conscious level, but your subconscious sees it, and is trying to tell you to stop living a lie, to be yourself, with everyone in your life.”
Danny rests his hands on his lap, looking at me with expectant eyes. “Well? Does that sound right to you?”
“It sounds more like psychoanalyzing than dream interpretation.”
“Sometimes, they’re one and the same.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to tell the world that I’m gay because of some dream.”
“Hey, I don’t want to tell you what to do. I’m just saying that maybe hiding this part of yourself is bothering you a lot more than you realize. You’re creating a cognitive dissonance, which is manifesting itself in depression and bad dreams.”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t deny that Charles is depressed since I have no idea. This isn’t my argument to have, nor my decision to come out. It’s Charles’s. While I agree with Danny that people can’t truly be happy while living according to the rules and expectations of others, Charles must have his reasons for not coming out. While it might make him happier in the long run for me to act on his behalf and leave the closet for him, I can’t be cavalier with someone’s life enough to force them.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Fine,” Danny huffs. “Okay, I’m gonna get ready for school.”
Danny showers and I head to their shared office. There’s a large psychedelic print on the wall of two see-through people engaged in a kiss with all sorts of vibrant lights swirling behind them and through them. Charles’s memory tells me it’s an Alex Gray print that Charles bought for Danny last Christmas.
I turn on the computer and start searching for information, first on Allie. I scan some stories, none of them offering anything new. Then I find a video posted this morning from a Washington news station.
I hope for good news.
The video begins by showing a bunch of people combing nearby woods in the dark, searching for Allie. I hope they’ve found her, and that’s why this is news. Maybe Gavin had second thoughts after seeing me — if it was me he saw — in Allie.
The video switches to a picture of Lara Spencer. A grave reporter talks about how the sheriff’s department believes the death of Lara Spencer and Allie’s disappearance are likely related.
Then the video switches to a reporter standing with someone it takes me a moment to recognize.
I stare in disbelief at the name beneath the woman, Maryanne Martin — Allie’s mother. This is not the person I knew. She’s made up, hair quaffed and colored a less toxic shade of blonde, wearing nice clothes. Nothing at all like the woman who eyed me from her doorway: the puffy-faced, trashy alcoholic with torn clothes and a rat’s nest of hair.
Anger courses through me as I listen to her talking about how much she misses her daughter, and how she’s praying that the “Good Lord will bring her home soon.”
“Liar,” I say to the screen.
“Liar?” Danny is standing behind me in his towel.
I turn, surprised he’s out of the shower so quickly.
“Yeah,” I say, fumbling for an excuse, “she doesn’t look like she gives a damn about her daughter.”
Danny leans on the chair behind me, looking over me at the computer screen. “Oh, this is that missing girl in Washington?”
“Yeah,” I say, surprised that Danny knows the case. But then I figure it is a missing pretty white girl, and add to that the dead pretty white woman, and you have national news. Given another month, you’ll have three Lifetime movies of the week.
“Yeah, her mother looks shifty to me, too.”
I smile. Danny has a good feel for people.
“You think she did it?” he asks.
“What? Kidnapped her daughter?”
“No, maybe she found out the dead woman was having an affair with her daughter then went to break it up and wound up killing them both.”
“Really?” I laugh. “That’s what you think happened?”
So much for Danny having a good feel for people.
“I dunno. Nothing surprises me these days. And that mother looks like she’s guilty of something.”
“Probably, but I don’t think she’s a killer. Just a piece of shit mother.”
Danny laughs. “Maybe this news story is why you’re dreaming of being an abducted teenage girl.”
I’m not sure if he’s really suggesting that the dream could be a random memory misinterpreted, as Charles suspects they are, or if this is Danny’s way of backing down from the earlier escalation. Maybe this is how they avoid getting into bigger fights, broaching subjects with tact then backing away once a line’s been crossed.
“Maybe,” I say, figuring I don’t want to send him off to work all bummed out about our discussion.
Danny heads back to the bedroom to get dressed.
As he finishes getting ready for school, I watch the end of the report to see that Allie is still missing, then sea
rch for information on Vinnie.
I find an article on the Chronicle’s website about the shootings at the club. It isn’t until the end of the story that I see Vinnie listed as a club worker who is still in intensive care at the hospital. That’s it: a single sentence.
A man’s life reduced to thirteen words.
I click off the article and pull up the most recent document in Charles’s folder marked Client Work and pretend to work until Danny is dressed and ready to head out the door.
I walk him to the garage and kiss him goodbye.
“Remember, at six o’ clock we’re going to Madam Monique.”
I nod, having no idea who the hell Madam Monique is. My first impression, from the name, is that she runs some kind of sex club or something. Then I remember all the psychic-themed books lined in a row.
Is he taking me to see a freaking psychic?
This is going to be a long-ass day.
We say goodbye, and I head back into the office to look up Madam Monique. Her website is sparse — a black screen with her name, address, phone number, an image of tarot cards, and a note at the bottom:
Call for rates and to schedule an appointment to change your life.
Call for rates, eh? Is that so she can determine how much you’re worth and how much to milk you for? I have about as much patience for psychics as I do televangelists and other charlatans exploiting the desperate. I’m rather surprised by my strong reaction to the idea of seeing a psychic. I wonder if I’d ever crossed paths with one in my life before this body jumping, or if I’m drawing on memories from other hosts I’ve been in before. Over time, my memories of time spent inside a host always fade. Reminders gnarl in a giant ball that’s impossible to untangle. That’s probably good considering how difficult it’s been managing memories from Lara, Vinnie, and Allie.
I keep searching for information, whatever I can find on any or all of my last three hosts.
Finding nothing but variations on the same regurgitated stories, I end up sitting in front of the computer, staring at the screen, numb.
I spend the rest of the day stabbing at Charles’s client work. Fortunately, he’s well organized and ahead of schedule, so there’s not too much I need to do. I do some light copyediting, but don’t want to write new content. I’m guessing he’d notice new words when he returns to his body, and wonder who the hell wrote them.