by Sean Platt
Stacy is off the bed, hugging Tommy, both of them crying.
I hear police just outside. They’ll storm the house any second. Then one of two things will happen. They’ll arrest me, they’ll arrest Frank, or they’ll take both of us and sort things out later at the station.
This fucker can’t walk.
I won’t allow it.
I turn to Stacy and Tommy. “Go tell the police we’re in here.”
Stacy looks at me, eyes wide and hopeful, thankful that I intervened, sparing her son. But I think a part of her also knows that this isn’t over by a long shot.
She escorts Tommy out.
Frank looks at me, knife in hand, fueling my rage with his fucking smile.
He laughs. “She ain’t yours, you know.”
“I never said she was. But you and she are done.”
“I don’t think so, partner. You see, me and her got something you can’t understand. The kind of love that lasts forever. And ain’t no faggy teacher gonna take her away.”
I look down at Tommy’s gun on the ground.
Frank follows my eyes.
His nostrils flare, his body tenses, his fist tightens around the blade.
I drop to the ground and raise the gun.
He’s off the bed and coming right at me, blade arcing, inches from my gut.
I fall back, aiming as I do, and blast Frank four times in the chest.
He stumbles back, but then hurls himself forward. Momentum takes him straight into me, knocking me back.
His body on top of me, wild eyes glaring at me, I blast twice more until I’m certain that he’s dead.
I shove him off of me and get to my feet, gun still on him, half expecting him to make one final lunge.
Behind me, I hear the boom of a man’s voice.
“Drop the gun! Hands on your head.”
I follow the officer’s orders.
The cop wrestles my hands from my head to behind my back, then cuffs me.
I don’t resist.
I stare at Frank, lying on his back, face up, wide-open eyes staring up at the ceiling. I watch the blood pool beneath him. I watch his eyes to make sure they don’t move, to make sure he’s dead.
To make sure this is over.
Finally, it is.
Epilogue
I wake up far from Baker Street.
Today my name is Bo Jackson, a 21-year-old DJ. It’s eight in the morning, and I’m glad to wake up alone in his apartment.
I go to his computer and do a news search for any information on Stacy, Tommy, and Craig. So far, there are not many details. Frank was dead on the scene. Both Stacy and her child, not named in the articles due to his age, were safe. Craig’s situation was still up in the air with “charges pending.”
I’m hoping that means he’ll get off, that it’ll be obvious that he shot Frank in self-defense. Things will get murky when you factor in that Craig had had a fight with the victim just hours earlier and had gone to Ruby’s house asking for a gun. Also, Tommy’s situation could get dicey if police find out that he took Ruby’s gun.
But at least they’re all alive, and Frank is dead. Not the happiest of endings, but better than the ones that seemed destined to play out. Hopefully better than whatever the assassin said would happen if Frank didn’t die.
Bo’s cell phone buzzes.
I pick it up, look at the screen to see the name Jinx, along with a picture of a blue-haired girl with a small butterfly henna tattoo on her cheek — his girlfriend, and a text:
Can you pick up some soy milk and organic grapes before you pick me up?
Bo’s mind fills me in on the details. He is supposed to pick Jinx up and drive her to the garage to get her car, which needed a new transmission.
Okay, I text back.
I shower, throw on some blue jeans and a gray T-shirt, and head out the door.
I drive to the closest grocery store, searching the cooler for a soy milk that I see in Bo’s memories. I find it, then head over to the produce section. There are several bags of grapes on display, but none that specifically say organic.
I look around for someone to help me, find a short guy pushing a cart of produce through double doors into the back of the store.
I try to call out to him, but he doesn’t hear me as he disappears through the double doors.
I wait for him, or another employee, so I can ask for help. It’s funny how you can never find help in a store when you need it. So many times, in so many different bodies, I’ve been accosted by salespeople, “Can I help you?” the second I walked into a store, before I’ve even had a chance to browse. But the moment I need help finding something, the employees vanish like ghosts.
The double doors open, and the man resurfaces, pushing a cart filled with boxes of bananas.
“Excuse me,” I say, “do you carry organic grapes?”
The guy looks over to where I’d been looking, then says, “What kind you looking for?”
I’m not sure. Jinx didn’t specify, and I’m not getting any grape-related memories from Bo.
“Red?”
“Okay, lemme check the back,” the guy says as he leaves the cart next to the double doors, then returns to the stock room.
I watch as a young couple pushes their cart into the produce section. They stick out because they’re both wearing tight workout clothes that accentuate bodies built through sweat and great genes. They’re arguing about something, but I’m too far away to hear. The guy, wearing a baseball cap to hide seemingly thinning hair, is bitching about something, his hands moving frantically as he tries to understand why the woman is so unreasonable. “It’s not for you to decide,” the woman says, not even looking at him, her attention on her phone. I wonder if she’s doing that to annoy him further. If so, it’s working.
He looks like he’s on the verge of violence, though maybe not, as he’s doing a pretty good job of keeping his voice down. Usually, people prone to violent outbursts in public aren’t all that concerned about lowering their voice.
Suddenly, another sound has my attention, though — static.
And a woman’s voice saying something inaudible.
I look around, trying to see where the sound might be coming from.
But then I realize it’s just like that broadcast I heard in the parking lot just before I first saw the assassin.
I look around for any sign of the assassin, not that I’d know what body he or she will show up in this time.
Is that why I’m here? To prevent another murder, or perhaps screw up something again?
The broadcast gets a bit louder as if I’m getting closer to the source of the signal.
“Wearing blue jeans and a gray shirt. No weapon.”
I look around for someone wearing blue jeans and a gray shirt.
I’m the only one.
Shit. Am I a target?
There are only three other people in the produce section: the arguing couple and an old lady who is hunched over the melon section testing each and every one, it seems, to find the perfect fruit.
Suddenly, another person steps into the produce section, a Latin girl in her twenties, with bright pink cotton candy-colored hair, wearing shades, blue jeans, and a sky-blue shirt.
She’s making a beeline right at me.
Her hand is in her purse.
Oh, shit.
I try not to panic. Try to tell myself she’s just looking for squash or something, but no, she is passing all the fruit and veggies, heading toward the rear of the store where I’m standing.
I don’t know what to do.
I look around for something I can use as a weapon but come up empty. I doubt even a ninja could put a box of bananas to use in self-defense.
Even though I’m in someone else’s body, and I don’t think I can be harmed even if my host is killed, the fight-or-flight response is always there.
And right now it’s telling me to run away — fast.
She’s twenty feet away.
I wan
t to run, but I’m frozen in place.
I can’t understand why my host’s body is refusing to cooperate with my instruction to get the hell out of here.
Pink Hair reaches me, removes her glasses.
I see the flash of blue light in her eyes, just barely there, and then gone.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” she says, keeping her voice low.
“Why?” I ask, relieved she doesn’t seem like she’s going to kill me, but anxious to know why she’s here, and why she’s telling me to flee.
“They’re here.”
“Who?”
“The Collectors.”
“Who are The Collectors?”
“No time to explain, Ella. But you need to go, or they will eat your soul.”
She knows my name. Is this the assassin from before? Or … another one?
“Eat my soul? What? How?” I say, trying to pull reason from her words.
The confirmation that I, the person jumping between hosts, can die sends a chill to my core.
Suddenly, a loud crash, someone dropping something.
I turn to see the blonde fitness freak standing over her phone lying broken on the ground.
She’s staring at it blankly as if struggling to figure out how it got there.
As I try to determine whether or not her boyfriend snapped and knocked the phone from her, another realization dawns on me.
She’s no longer looking at the phone.
She’s looking at me.
As is her boyfriend.
Their faces suddenly flicker. For a moment, it’s their faces. But then, for just a second, I see something else — almost a blank face, as if the details of their faces were sanded down.
Then their faces are normal again — except the vacant stares.
What the hell is happening?
They begin walking toward us, vacant stares marred only by the slightest flash of white light in their eyes.
“Go!” Pink Hair yells, pulling out a gun and firing at the male fitness freak.
Two shots hit him, but he keeps coming.
I turn to run along the rear aisle along the back of the store, then stop dead in my tracks when I see two more people with flickering faces — a stock man in a blue apron and an old black man clutching a cane, blocking my escape. They have the same vacant look in their eyes — almost like marionettes being controlled by someone or something.
The stock man grabs me before I can react.
I kick and thrash, trying to break free, but his grip is like a vice.
As he holds me, the old man approaches, his mouth open impossibly wide, as if his jaw were unhinged.
Behind me, I hear Pink Hair shooting: one, two, three shots.
Are there more Collectors, or is she just shooting the same ones and not doing any damage?
Suddenly, a terrible shrieking sound screams from the old man’s gaping maw as he comes closer.
I can’t move. The stock man’s grip is almost supernaturally strong.
But there’s something else. I find myself struggling to move at all, transfixed, staring into the old man’s wide open mouth.
I can feel a part of myself being sucked out of my host and toward the old man’s mouth — as if it were some horrible soul-sucking vacuum.
And in a sickening instant, I realize that Pink Hair was speaking literally when she said that The Collectors were here to eat my soul.
I cry out, straining to turn my gaze away from the old man Collector and his wide-open mouth and its terrible shriek that sounds like the end of the universe.
Pink Hair turns and sees the situation I’m in.
“Help!” I scream.
She runs toward us.
But instead of shooting the Collectors, she brings the gun to my head, “Sorry, this is the only way.”
She pulls the trigger.
I wake, in another body.
Safe.
But for how long?
The Collectors
Prologue
I wake up in a chaos of light, sound, and movement.
Someone is violently shaking me.
A man’s voice, commanding: “Chelsea, Chelsea, wake up!”
I open my eyes, gasping for air in shallow hitches, desperately attempting to fill my lungs with air.
My eyes are blurry, my burning throat is sour with vomit, and my face is sticky with sickness. My head feels like someone’s been at it with a hammer.
I can barely keep my eyes open or focus on the man’s face. I turn, frantically searching for something to help me catch my breath. I see others in the room, a woman and a teenage boy standing over the bed, staring down at me, concerned, scared.
While I’m not pulling in any of Chelsea’s memories, I can piece together that this is her family, and they’re trying to save her.
What happened?
Her mother is clutching the phone and half yelling into it. “She’s awake, but she doesn’t look good. Please, hurry.”
My heart is racing, head swimming as I continue to gasp, unable to properly breathe.
What the hell is happening?
Chelsea’s father sits me up, maybe trying to help clear my throat.
Our eyes meet, and for a moment I can focus enough to note his palpable fear, the fear and love of a parent powerless to save his child.
Just when I think I might be catching my breath, everything goes black.
Chapter One
I wake to the sound of chimes coming through a speaker.
I reach out, fumble with the unfamiliar phone, find a way to kill the alarm.
The phone’s calendar tells me it’s Tuesday morning, meaning I’ve missed an entire day since waking up late Sunday evening/early Monday morning as Chelsea. I’m not sure where I go when my host sleeps, passes out, or dies. It’s as if I cease to exist until I rise in another body. Do I sleep when they do? If so, what part of me is sleeping? It’s not as if I have a physical body — that I know of — which needs rest.
Can a soul sleep?
I sit up, wondering how I can learn what happened to Chelsea. I don’t even know her last name, so it’s not like I can search on the Internet. But as I catch my reflection in the mirror above the dresser, I realize that I won’t need to search far.
I’ve woken as Chelsea’s brother, high school freshman, Billy Caldwell. As his brain fills me in, I’m surprised to learn that his father is famous, a Christian self-help author named Jack Caldwell, esteemed for, among other things, books on raising children who won’t succumb to today’s many evils.
Hmm, wonder how he’s taking this.
Billy’s brain fills me in on a few other things, chief among them: Chelsea is still alive, lying in a coma in the hospital. Billy’s mom, Susan, is staying with Chelsea while Dad stays home to look after Billy. I also know that Chelsea left a suicide note. It simply said:
I’m sorry I let you down.
I’m startled by three sharp raps on the door.
Billy’s father opens it, already dressed in a handsome suit.
“Come on, champ. I’ve got a meeting. I need to drop you off early.”
“Okay,” I say, getting out of bed. Billy’s body is tired, likely exhausted from the previous day’s emotional turmoil. I’m surprised his father is sending him to school just one day after his sister tried killing herself, but as Billy’s memories surge forth, I see that Jack Caldwell expects a lot from his children. While Billy did stay home yesterday, there was never any question that he’d be back at school today.
I look around the room. I’ve woken in at least a dozen teenage boys’ rooms since I’ve been body jumping, and Billy’s is, by far, the neatest. Hell, it’s neater than nearly anywhere I’ve woken: designed with an OCD-like compulsion towards sparsity and cleanliness. The perfectly organized walk-in closet looks like a shrine to orderliness, filled with mostly look-alike school uniforms: pressed khakis, starched shirts, six pairs of identical polished black shoes.
I get dressed, run some water
through Billy’s thick blond hair, and brush it back. As I stare at my reflection, I wonder why I’ve woken in this body. Am I being given a chance to save Chelsea, or am I expected to kill someone?
Billy’s father doesn’t say a word on the way to school. At least not to me. Instead, he’s on the phone with his agent, Waylon Carter, discussing “the situation” with Chelsea.
From what I can gather, nobody has figured out why she tried to kill herself or what she was apologizing for in her suicide note. And I don’t think Jack told the police anything about the note. I get the feeling that this was at Waylon’s suggestion, though I’m not quite sure why, since most of their conversation is almost in code, Jack not wanting to say too much in front of me.
I wonder what he’s hiding. Does he know what Chelsea was apologizing for? Am I here to find out?
Jack stops the car in front St. Paul’s Academy. The posh-looking school seems more like a college campus than any high school I’ve been in, with a large brick main building with stone pillars, a spacious courtyard with trees, walkways, and fountains where kids are already hanging out before the morning bell. Another three smaller buildings are pocked around the courtyard, and at the far edge of the sprawling campus looms a large and admittedly gorgeous cathedral.
Jack tells Waylon to hold on. Then he leans over, plants a kiss on my forehead, and says, “Have a good day, Billy.”
“You too,” I say, slipping out of the midnight-blue Porsche Panamera.
I watch Billy’s father drive away, off to do whatever it is he’s doing to take care of “the situation.” I wonder if he’s at all afraid that his daughter might die. I sure couldn’t tell from his call. It was mostly about getting to the bottom of what happened, finding out and controlling the information before it leaked. Maybe he’s afraid a suicide attempt will ruin his reputation as a good Christian parent who tells other people how to raise their kids.
Billy’s memories of his father are fuzzy. I get the impression that he’s a good man, but extremely busy. But not by any neglectful levels. He still makes time for the important things — like Billy’s tennis tournament last summer.
