MARIONETTES Sneak Preview

MARIONETTES Synopsis:

Resuscitated after he drowns and dies in a flood, David Flint discovers he has returned from the other side with an uncanny ability: He can “jump” into people’s bodies and minds, and control their thoughts and actions.

David believes it's a gift, and wants to use it to help people. Then four members of a ruthless drug ring savagely attack his fiancée and leave her in a coma, and David tries to use his new power to destroy the whole ring. But the ringleader, a voodoo priest known as the Zombie Master, is a formidable man with a deadly secret: He has the same incredible ability as David.

The two human marionette masters clash in a brutal bloody showdown, using the ring’s members as their puppets, and David discovers he’s battling for much more than his life—he’s fighting to rid the world of an evil human abomination.

Marionettes illuminates the greatest achievements of the human spirit and the darkest corridors of our minds, and answers the age-old question: What are the consequences of absolute power?

PART ONE:
MARIONETTE MAN

CHAPTER 1
WEDNESDAY

     My whole life changed after I drowned and died in the flood.
    Upon my resurrection, I thought I was dreaming. My head felt fuzzy. A little man inside it was drilling away at my brain with a tiny but immensely effective jack- hammer. My mouth felt like it was glued shut, my tongue ten times normal size and made of sandpaper. A crew of little men sliced furrows in my throat with dull rusty swords, cackling merrily as they destroyed my trachea.
    Some sadistic bastard apparently burned a branding iron into my corneas.
    It was far worse than any hangover I ever had—and I’d had some doozies since Karin died and left me alone, lost, and unmoored in a callous world.
    When I woke, the acrid tang of antiseptic mixing with an unpleasant odor stung my nostrils. Through a crimson haze, I saw a pretty nurse gaze down at me and smile. She looked like an angel.
    “Hi, David!” she sang, her perfect white teeth gleaming as if lit from within. “Welcome back.” She caressed my face with a warm hand, glanced at some moni- toring equipment beside the bed I lay in, and turned and hit a switch behind me. “Laura, page Dr. Yamaguchi. Mr. Flint’s awake.”
    The angel turned back to me. “I bet you’re thirsty. We’ll fix that shortly, okay? After the doctor sees you, maybe we can give you some ice chips.”
    I shut my eyes to block out the combined glare of her smile and the overhead fluorescence. When I opened them again, an attractive Asian woman in her forties with close-cropped black hair streaked with gray stood over me. Her brow wrinkled, a tentative smile curling the corners of her lips upward.
    “Welcome back, Mr. Flint,” she said. “I’m Dr. Yamaguchi. You’re lucky to be alive. It’s a miracle the couple who brought you in were able to resuscitate you. We almost lost you twice last night. Apparently you lead a charmed existence. Don’t try to speak yet.”
    I tried anyway, but couldn’t. The miniature swordsmen in my throat were having a blast trying to cut their way out. I nodded, then grimaced as the movement made the mad Lilliputian with the jackhammer pound more little holes in my brain. I shut my eyes again and drifted off.
   It was all surreal. I remembered my name and profession, but I couldn’t remem- ber what happened to me. Every time I strained for the memory, it receded while raging torrents of dark waters overwhelmed me.
    Consciousness was an assault upon my senses. But in what I initially mistook for dreams, my perception and sense of taste, touch, and smell were immaculate.
    In the first “dream” I was a plump black woman striding down a hospital corridor, joyfully belting out a gospel tune. Although I’d never heard it before, I knew all the lyrics and melodies. This was odd, for though I was a luthier by trade, I could barely carry a tune in a bucket. My specialty was wood and strings, so it was a joy to hear “my” mellifluous voice ring out in the hospital hallway.
    “Hi, Danielle,” an attractive nurse greeted me as I passed her.
    “Hey, Julia,” I said, returning to the tune without losing rhythm.
    How did I know who Julia was? I looked down at my feet, clad in regulation white shoes, and heard the swish of my green scrubs as my thick thighs rubbed them together.
    “Trippy” didn’t come close to defining the moment. It was as real as anything I ever felt or knew.
    I’m a thirty-five-year-old white man, not a fifty-something stout black female nurse with enormous breasts. And yet I was, now. I was intimately familiar with “my” body, and suddenly knowledgeable about medical terminology and equipment.
    I/Danielle turned and entered a patient’s room, still singing about Jesus. I knew it was grumpy old Mr. Dayton’s room, but was clueless as to how I knew that. I also knew Mr. Dayton suffered from cirrhosis and hepatitis because he couldn’t stay off the sauce, and though they were only words denoting diseases to David Flint the guitar and violin maker, the “me" that was Danielle knew exactly what they meant.
    “I need a damn drink,” Dayton grumbled.
    “We don’t serve alcohol in this hospital, Mr. Dayton.”
    “Wanna go home. Shouldn’t have to be here.”
    “You know you have to have that surgery, Mr. D,” I said, and clucked my tongue, which is something I would never do.
    “Changed my mind. Need a drink. Bad.”
    “Drinking is what put you here in the first place.”
    “Don’t care. Hurtin’ for a drink.”
    This was too much for me, too real to be a dream. Mr. Dayton reminded me too much of my father, after Mother died.
    I wanted out of the dream, and just like that, as if my wish precipitated it, I woke in my hospital bed, head pounding and throat on fire. For a while there was pain, my dependable old friend, but this was pain of the body and mind, not of the heart and spirit. I struggled again for the memory of what happened to me, but the harder I strained for it, the darker and more forbidding the encroaching waters became.
    Unable to find the elusive memory, I turned what was left of my mind to trying to discern which was the dream and which was reality—if, in fact, there was any reality for me anymore. The blend became even more confusing when the pretty angel/nurse visited me again.
    “Try to turn your head face up, David, so I can give you some ice chips,” she said.
    My head was turned sideways, and I struggled to push myself into a sitting position only to find another sadistic little swordsman was trying to slice his way out of my gut.
     “Let me adjust your bed. Take your time, sweetie,” the angel said. She used the bed’s controls to raise it so I could sit up.
    The combination of the brutal swordsman in my gut, the vicious little bastards in my throat, and jackhammer-man in my head made me want out of this bad dream. That’s when things got mega-weird: I found myself inexplicably staring down at… me. My face was slack, my features drooping, and my open eyes looked empty and barely aware.
    It scared the hell out of me, dream or not.
    I saw the angel’s delicate hands gently adjust my shoulders and brush strands of my long dark hair out of my eyes from her perspective, as though her hands were mine.
    I’m Cynthia, a nurse, I realized. I have two kids—Johnny and Leah—and a doting husband named Paul who is a wonderful father to our children. I want more than ever to help my patient, David Flint—the subject of much gossip among the second floor nursing staff—to be well and whole again.
   “Little pieces, David,” Cynthia said, feeding ice chips from a spoon to the bedridden zombie who looked like me. I worried about the slack look on my face. “Let them melt in your mouth.”
    Cynthia knew about Karin’s tragic death, and felt sorry for me at the same time that she felt hopeful for my continued recovery. This screwed with my mind, and because pity is something I can’t tolerate, I found myself jerked out of Cynthia’s perspective and back into my own.
    I felt the cool, soothing comfort of the melting ice slide down my throat and wash away some of the little swordsmen. Take that, you bastards. But the pleasant sensation triggered a darker, nasty memory of brackish waters involuntarily swallowed recently.
    My body shook with spasms as the memory rose to the surface of my mind and hit me like a sledgehammer blow crushing my skull. The surrounding dark waters engulfed me, and I panicked.
    “Can’t… breathe,” I rasped, grabbing Cynthia’s arm. “Save me.”
    “Oh honey, you’re remembering, aren’t you?” Cynthia took my hand and set the cup of ice chips on the rotating bedside table.
    “Drowning,” I croaked, squeezing her hand. “Save me.”
    “No, David, you’re not drowning. You’re in the hospital, safe and alive, and I’m right here with you.”
    “Don’t leave me.”
    “I’m not going anywhere.”
    I looked up into her kind eyes, and saw worry etch lines in her brow. I suddenly remembered the razor-sharp chunk of glass penetrating my gut as I submerged beneath dark waters, unable to stay afloat any longer. That was when I gave in to the merciless deluge, seeing Karin’s face before me as I drowned.
    Cynthia caressed my cheek. “David, you’re remembering what already happened. It’s over now. You’re safe here.”
    “Already… drowned, didn’t I?”
    “Yes. You were dead for nearly five minutes. It’s a miracle the couple who pulled you out were able to revive you.”
    “Died.”
    “Mmm-hmm. Your rescuers brought you to the hospital, and the doctors removed a glass shard from your abdomen. We nearly lost you again twice last night. But now you’re back, and okay and getting better.”
    I closed my eyes. Five minutes. That’s long enough, from what I’ve heard, to lose some brain cells. Maybe that’s what was wrong with me.
    Maybe I was crazy.
    I opened my eyes and gazed into Cynthia’s smiling face. “Can I… have some more ice, please?”
    Cynthia released my hand, retrieved the cup, and spoon-fed me more. “Slow and easy, David. Take your time.”
    I held the chips in my mouth and felt the ice melt, smoothly roll down my throat, and slaughter more little swordsmen. It was the best thing I could ever remember tasting.
    Then I closed my eyes again, relaxed, and slept.
    And dreamed.
    In the next dream I was a little girl, also in a hospital bed. I figured at the time that it was a recurring dream theme, but it felt more real than my experiences with Cynthia and the doctor. I ached, in different ways than the dream-David ached. Broken bones, cuts, bruises, and abrasions abounded all over my body.
    Charlene Porter was my name. I turned ten years old last week, May the second. Momma and my friends call me Charlie. I’d been in a car accident, riding with my best friend Alisha and her mom to the ice-skating rink—their birthday present to me. Momma couldn’t come because she was working late. She supported us by herself since Daddy left. Neither Alisha nor her mom had anything worse than cuts and bruises. I was the one who really got hurt.
    Some birthday present, huh?
   I’ve had dreams where I was some unidentifiable other person. But never a female until Danielle the gospel-loving nurse. And this time I had a full name and birth date. Part of me wanted out of this too-real dream, but a more insistent part wanted to know more about this dream-Charlie.
    I liked her, found her charming and lovable, as did the entire nursing staff. Don’t ask how I knew that; I didn’t find out until later. Charlie had a prevailing optimism and cheerfulness that was a lot like mine before Karin died, and I wanted a piece of it, wanted that back.
    One leg and one arm in a cast, I was talking to two nurses in my room. I knew what Charlie was thinking and what she was going to say, as if I was really her.
    “So why don’t you tell her you want a puppy, honey?” Julia the nurse asked. They were talking about Charlie’s mother. I knew the nurse’s name was Julia—the same nurse Danielle passed in the hallway in my other “dream”—as well as things Julia had told Charlie about her own kids.
    “Because of Polly,” we said, frowning. That drew sad looks from Julia and the other nurse, whose name was Kristen.
    “Who is Polly?” Kristen asked.
   I knew the whole story about Polly. It had broken Charlie’s heart, and her mother’s too.
    “She was our Labrador Retriever,” we answered, tears brimming in our eyes. “She died.”
    “Oh, Charlie,” Julia said. “What happened to her?”
    “She was on a leash that was on a runner, so she could run. We had to keep her on it ’cause we didn’t have a fence. We left her there, and went shopping one day. There was this pretty white dress I wanted, and Momma bought it for me.”
    Tears rolled down our cheeks. There was an aching pressure in our chest that had nothing to do with Charlie’s accident, where there had been nothing but a hollow emptiness in mine since I lost Karin. We choked back a sob, wanting to be strong and tell the rest of the story without making a blubbering idiot of ourselves.
    “When we got home, I was so happy. I put on my dress. I wanted to show it to Polly. When I got to her, she was… wrapped around the tree at the end of the runner. She choked on it.”
    We drew a shuddering breath as Julia rushed with Kristen to our bedside.
    “I wish I’d never seen that stupid dress!”
    “Oh, Charlie,” Kristen said, running her hand through our blond curls.
    “Charlie, I’m so sorry,” Julia whispered, rubbing our shoulder from the bed’s other side.
    We were all gushy, crying like a bunch of babies.
    “Momma’ll never let me get another puppy now. Not without a fence so we don’t have to tie him up. We threw that runner away for good.”
    “Honey, you have to ask her,” Julia said, wiping tears from her eyes.
    “Yeah, Charlie,” Kristen said. “You have to.”
    “She’ll never say yes.”
    This was too much for me. I wanted out of this too-real sad dream.
   Again, as with Danielle, snap and I woke up in my own bed. Everything was blurry. The dream had put tears in my own eyes.
   I tried to sort out what was happening to me. Was I losing my mind? With newfound clarity, a deeply disturbing thought popped into my head: What if I did drown and die in the flood, but was never revived? What if these unnervingly real dreams weren’t dreams at all? What if I was dead, a ghost trapped on the earthly plane, popping in and out of different people in some hospital and experiencing their lives, their emotions, their thoughts and sensations?
    The idea scared the crap out of me.
    Karin always told me I have a vivid, overactive imagination, but she said it was one of the things she loved most about me, what attracted and endeared her to me in the first place.
    I hated my imagination right then.
    Contemplating this concept could send me spiraling irretrievably downward into psychoses—if I wasn’t already there. Fortunately, at that crucial moment Dr. Yamaguchi entered the room, rescuing me from my demented reverie.
    “Hey, big fella,” she said. She flashed a little penlight into my eyes. “Hmm.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that. “What?”
    “Nothing.” She put the light away, pulled out her stethoscope, and set its cold metal tip against my chest. “Breathe. As deep as you can.”
    I did.
    “Again.” She moved the metal tip around on my chest.
    I drew another deep breath, liking the feel of clear, clean air entering and exiting my lungs without pain or rattling noises.
    “And again.”
    I did, feeling my head clear some.
    “Sounds good, David. Clear. You’re recovering nicely. Let’s check your abdominal wound.”
    She lifted my standard-issue hospital gown and pushed around my wound with her fingers, saying, “Does that hurt?” and “How about here?”
    I answered mostly in the affirmative, interspersed with grunts of pain, but when she was finished she seemed satisfied.
    “You’re a quick healer. I bet you’d like to go home soon, wouldn’t you?”
    Another memory surfaced with the question. “Uhh, yeah.” I had nowhere to go. My home—my and Karin’s home—was destroyed in the flood.
    “Well, we’d like to do some more tests. You’re somewhat of a medical miracle, you know.”
    Boy, could I show her all about miracles. “No. No tests.” No way they were turning me into their human lab rat; they might find something in my brain never seen before that would knock the medical community on their collective asses. Then I could permanently kiss privacy goodbye.
    She frowned, then nodded. “Well, that’s understandable. We’re shorthanded around here anyway ever since Holly hit the coast. I strongly urge you to let us conduct some neurological tests, but we can let you go in a day or two if you continue to improve. You’re a very lucky man, David.”
    “So I’ve heard.” I didn’t feel lucky. I felt confused, lonely, and sleepy.
    So I slept.
    And dreamed again.
    This one was the worst of them all. It was nasty, even. It didn’t start that way, but it quickly took a turn for the worse. But it helped me determine beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t crazy.
    And I wasn’t dreaming.
    Again, the setting was a hospital, in the emergency room. The theme recurred too often to be mere coincidence. This time I was Consuela Alonzo, an eight-year-old Hispanic girl. I was there with my mother, who was suffering from abdom- inal pain, and I was scared and worried for her.
    There was a commotion at the entrance, and several paramedics wheeled in a screaming man on a gurney flanked by two police officers.
    “What’s wrong with him, Momma?” I/Consuela said in Spanish. I only knew rudimentary Spanish, yet somehow I understood everything she said.
     Before my mother could answer, the screaming man kicked one of the policemen in the gut, pushing him away. The other officer flinched, and the man on the gurney snatched the officer’s pistol out of its holster and jumped off the gurney. He ran straight toward me/Consuela and pulled the slide back on the semi-automatic to jack a cartridge into the chamber.
    The man’s shirt was bloody, and he had a wild look in his darting eyes.
    Consuela and her mother screamed. I felt Consuela’s terror flow through me. The man grabbed our arm and yanked us out of our seat. He pulled us close, using us to shield his body as he backed against the wall, and pressed the pistol’s barrel against our head.
    We screamed again, my mother screamed again, and the man shouted, “Nobody move or I kill the girl!”
    The disarmed officer patted his hands at us. “Please don’t hurt the girl.”
    The other officer had risen and was about to draw his pistol.
    “Draw that gun and I blow her fucking brains out!” the deranged man said.
    “Don’t hurt my baby!” our mother pleaded in Spanish, on her knees at our feet.
    A doctor had approached from down the hallway and stood still fifteen feet away, gazing into the madman’s eyes. In a calm voice, she said, “Please, we only want to help you. Don’t hurt the child.”
    It was Dr. Yamaguchi.
   Outrage at the wounded man’s deed combined with seeing my doctor in my dream made something inside me snap. With a flash like lightning inside my brain, my perspective shifted.
    I was looking down at Consuela, the officer’s stolen pistol in my hand, pointed at her temple. I suddenly knew who the man was: Robert Foster, a twenty-seven-year-old heroin junkie. He was pumped up on smack, but even through his jumbled, manic thoughts, I deciphered the sequence of events that brought him here.
    I’ll never know how anyone could do to themselves what Robert did over the course of several years, destroying his body and his mind in an ever-downward spiral of self-destruction. But I knew everything about him, everything that had happened. Armed with a knife, he’d tried to rob a harmless looking young couple. They’d been leaving some theater after a concert and took a shortcut down a dark alley back to their car when he jumped them.
    What Robert didn’t know was that the man and the woman accompanying him were martial arts experts. They fought him off, twisted his arm holding the knife, and knocked him down. In the process, Robert landed on the point of his blade and stabbed himself. Shaking their heads at his stupidity, the couple called nine-one-one and waited for the paramedics to arrive.
    All this knowledge hit me in an instantaneous flash of realization, not distracting me from the tense moment.
    “Get him out of my head!” Robert screamed, and that clinched it for me.
    Without even knowing I could do it, I took over.
    You worthless scumbag, I’m not going to let you hurt this little girl! I screamed at him inside our head.
    No! he silently screamed back, no longer able to give voice to his thoughts.
    I was in charge now. I was pulling all the strings.
    Get out of my head! he shrieked, impotent and imprisoned in a dark corner of his mind—by me. He tried to fight me, but even in the muddled thought processes of his heroin-induced psychosis, I controlled his every voluntary muscular function.
    I pulled the pistol away from Consuela’s head and lowered her to the floor. She ran into her mother’s arms. Everyone shouted and pleaded with me, but I paid no attention to them. This piece of trash really pissed me off, and as I thought of Karin, of everything I lost when I lost her, rage consumed me.
    I pointed the pistol’s barrel at his knee and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered and bone chips flew out of his shattered kneecap. Howling from the pain but glad I hurt the son of a bitch, I dropped the pistol. It hurt far worse than the little swords- men and jackhammer-man, but it felt good too. Then I fled his tortured body and sicker mind and woke up as me back in my hospital bed.
    Laughing.
    I imagined the shock and surprise on the faces of all the people in the emergency room, and took immense satisfaction in what I just did. As far as I was concerned, the asshole deserved it for threatening Consuela’s life.
    Perhaps I’d never know what happened to me after I drowned. Maybe I brought something back with me, some incorporeal entity. But it didn’t rule my thoughts or actions. It didn’t control me.
    Maybe it opened some door in my mind, triggered some latent ability I had always possessed. Maybe the talent is inside us all, waiting to be switched on.
    Or maybe some God I didn’t believe in had given me a gift.
    Whatever it was, at the intense, liberating moment, I felt good about it. I was tremendously pleased with myself and what I’d done.
    Somehow, some way, I could jump into other people’s bodies and minds and control their actions. And maybe, just maybe, I could use this bizarre talent to change things for the better and help people. And if I could, I damn well intended to.
    I had become the human puppet master.
    I am the Marionette Man.

CHAPTER 2
THURSDAY

    I woke the next morning from a pleasant and exciting dream—a real dream this time—of Karin, and better times. The previous night, my head cleared enough for me to worry about more mundane things, specifically whether the shard of glass that punctured my belly sliced something vital that ruined my ability to… well, do important things with all my equipment down there, if you get my drift.
    What can I say, it’s a guy thing. It’s something we’re naturally preoccupied with.
    Apparently I had nothing to worry about. In my dream, Karin and I were strolling the beach on the Gulf at night with some exciting plans in mind, carrying a blanket and looking for a semi-secluded spot to get into some intimate mischief.
    I woke hard as a rock. As consciousness assailed me, the realization that Karin was gone hit me like a kick in the teeth, and the swelling started subsiding—but not before another pretty nurse decided, with impeccable timing, to come into my room.
    “It’s time to remove your catheter, Mr. Flint,” she sang, her head bouncing to and fro in rhythm, as if I was supposed to think this was good news.
    “Uhh, maybe we should wait,” I said, reaching for the bed sheet covering me.
    She beat me to it, all business as she pulled the cover down. “Don’t worry, it’s not painful. Just a little discomfort, then it’s… oh, my.” She smiled, showing off her dimples. “Maybe we should wait a minute.” She pulled the cover back over my attentive member and flashed her teeth at me with a wicked glint in her eyes. “Seems to me you’re healing just fine.”
    I smirked, trying to turn it into a smile, certain my face was beet-red. The nurse—her name tag read “Poqui”—bustled about the room, making small talk and checking my IV tube and the monitors. She had an accent I couldn’t identify, and I asked her about it.
    “We’re from Pakistan,” she explained. “My husband and children and I moved here a year ago.”
    “Do you like it here?” I asked, hoping the redness in my face was diminishing along with the stiffness down below.
    “There’s no bombs.” She smiled, as if that explained everything.
    I guess it did.
    A minute or so later my excitable friend hibernated again and Poqui removed the catheter. She grinned at me when she pulled it out, and gave me a sly glance when she left the room. I knew she couldn’t wait to share her interesting new hospital anecdote with her colleagues.
    I wasn’t about to try hopping into her. I wasn’t ready to start experimenting with that yet, especially not with her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she was thinking.
    Dr. Yamaguchi checked in on me twenty minutes later. If she’d heard the latest scuttlebutt about me, she gave no indication of it, and maintained her professional demeanor. I wanted to ask her about Robert Foster, but that might raise some suspicions—theoretically, there was no way I could know what “he” did.
    “Looking good, big fella,” she said upon completing her examination. “Unless you’ve changed your mind and are willing to let us conduct some tests, I’m going to release you tomorrow morning.”
    “No more tests. Wanna go home.” I didn’t bother mentioning I had no home to return to. There was no way I was going to stay with my friend and business partner Pete, for reasons I’ll explain later. I figured I’d get a hotel room, and rent an apartment or house later. Thanks to Karin’s financial savvy and frugality—and the life insurance policy she had insisted on both of us purchasing—though I wasn’t rich by any stretch of the imagination, I wasn’t hurting either.
    As my financial advisor, Karin had hooked me up with a great website. It quad- rupled my sales and got rid of every violin and guitar collecting dust around my workshop, and generated advance orders for several unfinished instruments.
    Also thanks to her, we’d been insured to the hilt, including flood insurance, though it was expensive. The settlement would be substantial, and eventually I’d rebuild my workshop, as soon as I found a new home.
    I missed her so badly it left a hole inside me that dwarfed the Grand Canyon.
    “Walk around the hallway some today, see how it feels,” Dr. Yamaguchi said. She disconnected the intravenous tube. “I’ll see you again in the morning, and if every- thing still looks good, we’ll set you free. I’ll write you a prescription for an antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, and some codeine for the pain. Set up an appointment with my office in a couple of weeks and we’ll remove those staples from your belly.”
    “Allrighty then.”
    One of the nurses had told me Pete came by and brought me some clean clothes while I was comatose. He’d heard about what happened to me, and about my subsequent revival. He hadn’t returned to visit. After the doctor left, I happily discarded my standard hospital issue butt-flaunting gown and dressed in the shorts and T-shirt Pete provided, then put on my still-damp shoes and took a painful but liberating stroll down the second floor corridor.
    I was in room 201 and hung a right out of my room. I passed room 208, remembering it as Mr. Dayton’s room from when I was in Danielle. I peeked in as I passed it. The old drunk wasn’t there; maybe he was in surgery. I didn’t want to visit him anyway.
    Two nurses passed me going the other way and smiled at me and said, “Hi.” They giggled softly after they passed me. Then a big black nurse came toward me. It was Danielle, singing another tune about her sweet baby Jesus. She stopped singing as we passed each other.
    “Good to see you’re up and about, Mr. Flint.” She belted out a jolly baritone laugh after she passed me.
    Oh, boy. Word apparently got around here fast. I smiled, waved, and continued hobbling down the busy hallway.
    I came upon the nurse’s station, feeling good, just glad to be alive—and excited about my uncanny newfound ability. I wasn’t going to try it out yet, but the temptation was compelling. I wasn’t even sure if I could do it deliberately, and this was neither the time nor the place to test it.
    I had a particular destination in mind anyway.
   Cynthia was at the nurse’s station. She smiled at me as I passed, maybe remembering my fear upon regaining consciousness.
    “Hi, David. Feeling better today?”
    “Hi, Cynthia. Much better, thanks.”
    One of the candy stripers standing beside her couldn’t resist the compulsion to crack a zinger.
    “Hard to get moving after your body’s been stiff from lying still so long, isn’t it, Mr. Flint?” She giggled, and another candy striper beside her joined her.
    Tough audience on the second floor.
    “Let him be, y’all,” Cynthia said, grinning wider as I passed.
    I stumbled to room 214, stopped in the open doorway, and looked in. Charlie was awake and reading—a real book, too, not a kiddie book with pictures. She looked at me and her face lit up. She beamed, and I could easily see why anyone would wish she was their daughter.
    Hell, I wished she were mine. Karin and I started planning a family well before the wedding date. Then she up and died on me, leaving me more alone than I was before we met.
    “Hi, David,” Charlie said, a knowing look well beyond her years in her eyes. “I was wondering when you were going to come visit me.”
    I didn’t bother feigning surprise or pretending we didn’t know each other. I think it would have insulted her, and I wasn’t about to do that.
    I don’t know if the others I had jumped into knew who I was, or if they knew I’d been inside them. But Charlie obviously did. Somehow we shared intimate know- ledge of each other when I was in her. I’d sort out the how and why of my bizarre talent later.
    “Hi, Charlie.” I smiled, waved, and stepped into her room.
    She put down her book. “Feeling better?”
    “Yeah. They’re gonna let me go tomorrow. Whatcha reading?”
    “My Golden Friend. It’s a story about a Golden Retriever that saves this girl’s life, and they become best friends. I want a Golden Retriever puppy. I’d take such good care of him, and train him, and play with him, and walk him, and clean up his poop and pee, and love him so much, and never let anything bad happen to him.”
    “I know.”
   “I know you know.” She giggled over our little secret. Then her smile dimmed. “Momma will never let me have one, though. ’Cause of Polly.”
    “But you’ll ask her anyway, right?”
    “I guess. She’s on her way here.”
    “Now?”
    “Yeah. I really love her very much even though she’s sad. Like you.”
    “Yeah.” I looked down, amazed that she saw so deeply into my heart. “I’m working on it, though.”
    “I know.”
   I looked up, finding a smile for her. “Listen, Charlie. I had a great idea this morning. There’s this special dog collar called a wireless invisible boundary system. A friend of mine uses it on his dog, and it doesn’t hurt them. If they go beyond a certain parameter it gives them a tiny static sting and keeps them from running away. They won’t go beyond the area you set. My friend said it’s humane and harmless, that it doesn’t really hurt his dog. It just taught him what his boundaries are.”
    Charlie’s eyes widened. “Are you sure it won’t hurt ’em, or make ’em all mean and stuff?”
    I shrugged. “Veterinarians recommend them.”
    “I guess I could ask her.”
    “It’s worth a try. Hey.” I snapped my fingers, pretending I just had another idea, though I already intended on bringing it up. “You said your mom’s on her way here. I could introduce myself to her and tell her about it. I could pretend like you told me about Polly, and ask her for you. What do you think?”
    “Would you?” Charlie was beaming again.
    Seeing that smile, I realized nothing could stop me from at least trying. “I’ll see what I can do, Charlie.” I smiled and winked at her, secret friends.
    She winked back at me, and my heart ached for the children Karin and I had wanted.
    Charlie’s room phone rang. “That’s probably her right now!” She picked it up, chatted briefly, and hung up. “That was her. She’s in the gift shop downstairs, asked did I want anything special. I told her I’d tell her when she got here, that it wasn’t something she could get in any old gift shop.”
    “Sneaky girl.”
    Charlie put her uninjured hand to her mouth and giggled again.
    “Think I’ll go for a stroll down the hallway now, Charlie.”
    “Thank you, David.” She grinned, making me want to conquer the universe.
    I left her room moving slowly, intending on intercepting Rebecca Porter as she came down the hallway. I knew her name and what she looked like—I got all that when I was inside Charlie.
    I leaned against the wall to give Rebecca time to make her gift shop purchase and ride the elevator up to the second floor. I didn’t have to wait long. Down the hall, I heard the ding of the elevator bell. The doors opened, and out stepped Rebecca Porter.
    An attractive woman in her early thirties, she was dressed in the attire of the modern conservative businesswoman: pressed white blouse, burgundy skirt, matching suit jacket, and black pumps. She looked harried, the worries of a single working mother with an injured daughter etching lines on her face that shouldn’t be there.
    She strode briskly down the hallway toward me clutching a laptop case in one hand. A gift shop bag was tenderly cradled in her other arm. The head of a stuffed toy dog peeked out of the top, cute little red tongue poking out, looking as if he was anxiously waiting to meet somebody special.
    This was a good sign.
    Karin often told me I have a disarming smile and that I used it to my advantage whenever I didn’t get what I wanted. I poured it on double thick with chocolate icing as Rebecca approached me, and stepped directly in her path.
    “Ms. Porter? Rebecca Porter?”
    She faltered and squinted at me. “Yes. Do I know you?”
    “No, ma’am, but I met your daughter Charlie. She’s a charming little girl and—”
    “How do you know Charlie?”
    In her eyes I saw the natural fear of predatory men, and I turned up the smile factory full-force.
    “I know everybody on this floor,” I lied, shrugging. “It beats laying around in my hospital bed and draining my brain watching TV.” I knew that was the right thing to say; Rebecca limited Charlie’s television time, believing, as I did, that it was mind-numbing and counterproductive to a child’s developing psyche.
    She hesitated. “I don’t approve of… strangers talking to my daughter, Mister…”
    “Flint. David Flint.” I offered her my hand. “Room 201. I drowned in the flood.”
    She shifted the gift shop bag under her armpit and tentatively shook my hand. “Mr. Flint.”
    “David, please. I wonder if I might have a brief moment of your time.”
    “I really don’t have the time—”
    “It’s for Charlie. It won’t take but a moment.”
    She relented, but remained stiff. “What about Charlie?”
    I quickly launched into a little white lie about meeting Charlie. I told Rebecca how Charlie told me about Polly, and about her earnest wish for a puppy.
    “After Polly, I really don’t think we could. It really broke our hearts, David. Without a fence, we can’t—”
    “That’s just it, Ms. Porter—”
    “Rebecca,” she said, loosening up some. She must have seen something safe in my eyes. I didn’t want to cheat by hopping into her—if I even could—and making her agree to Charlie’s wish. This needed to be handled the right and honest way, for Charlie’s sake. I quickly explained about the wireless invisible boundary system and collar.
    “I don’t know, David. It’s kind of you to offer to… It’s an interesting idea. I hadn’t heard of it.”
    I glanced at the stuffed toy dog in her arms and gave my best sad-puppy-eyes look. “Will you at least consider it? For Charlie?”
    “Well… I’ll have to see. Now I really must be going.”
    “Thank you, Rebecca. I know it would make Charlie so happy.”
    She finally smiled, albeit a little crookedly. I’d hit her in a soft spot. “Well. Good day to you, David. Nice to meet you.”
    “And you, Rebecca.” With that, we both turned and went our separate ways.
    In my experience, when a mother says, “We’ll see” and “I’ll think about it,” it usually means “yes.”
    Score one for the Flint-meister. I had a funny feeling Karin was smiling down upon me as I returned to my room. An hour later my room phone rang. The display read Room 214, and I answered with a smile.
    “David!” Charlie squeaked, excited and out of breath. “It’s Charlie. Momma said ‘we’ll see.’ That means yes!”
    “It sure does, Charlie.” I chuckled. We had the same take on that philosophy.
    “She told me what you said. I told her you were nice, and she agreed. She got me this toy doggie, and I told her I love him, and hugged him. I named him Jingles ’cause of the bells on his collar. Then I said I love her and hugged her and kissed her. Then I told her I wished he was a real dog, and gave her these sad eyes. I think it worked. Thank you, David.”
    “You’re welcome. You did all the work. I just buttered her up.”
    She hesitated, then asked in a tiny voice, “Will I ever see you again?”
    “I don’t know, Charlie.” The abyss in my heart filled in a little as a smile bloomed on my face. “We’ll see.”
    Charlie giggled and we said goodbye and hung up. One little special favor down, several thousand more to go.
    I had important work to do.

CHAPTER 3

    I spent that evening making plans for the immediate future. Though tempted to try out my new ability, I decided to wait until I was in a more secure setting and my body and mind had some time to heal.
    I didn’t know if I could control the human puppet thing, and had no idea what happened to my body when I was in someone else. I didn’t want any more nasty surprises.
    Needing a clear head, I only took half the pain medication I was offered. Pain I could tolerate. Nothing else could hurt as much as losing Karin.
My memory had returned, bringing with it pictures in my mind of utter destruc- tion and chaos. Hurricane Holly had devastated coastal parts of Gulfport, Missis-sippi—my hometown—flooding much of the lower lying areas. I had some warning, but was trying to salvage as many of my tools and partially finished instruments as I could. I guess I waited too long.
    I was medevaced to Highland Community Hospital in Picayune, twenty-some miles northwest of Gulfport. If Karin had been with me when it happened I never would have drowned. She would’ve had our butts out of there at the first sign of danger, and I would’ve happily complied. She had been all that mattered. After she died, I thought my craft was all I had left that was precious to me. Funny how your perspective changes when your life is on the line.
    I realize now I’d been a fool. What I tried to save was nothing but wood and wire, easily replaceable. I could just as easily buy new tools. I’d been given a new lease on life—along with a special gift—and I wasn’t about to spit this incomparable opportunity back in the face of whatever God gave it to me. I was going to use it to make up for my mistakes, to try to live my life in a way that Karin would be proud of me, a way that would honor her, though she was no longer anywhere but in my revitalized heart.
    Charlie might never know it, but she helped me see that. She did me a much bigger favor than I did for her. Maybe someday I could show her and thank her for it.
    In the meantime, I had to attend to more mundane matters. After I was released tomorrow I’d go to the library, get on the ’net, and find a temporary place to stay. Then I’d go shopping for some clothes and buy some shoes that didn’t squish when I walked.
    Thoughts of Pete brought remembrance of his unfounded feelings of guilt and complicity in Karin’s death. I really didn’t blame him, and never had. I had told him so countless times, but he still blamed himself. Even though it happened over a year ago he still wallowed in that guilt, and I couldn’t reach him anymore. In that respect, he was more lost than I was.
    Pete was with Karin when she died.
   Elena DiMarco’s irrepressibly cheerful voice saved me from my somber reverie. Elena bustled into my room somewhat like Holly had crashed into the Mississippi coastline. Her husband Benedict followed close behind her.
    Benny and Elena were Karin’s parents.
    “David, honey, why didn’t you call us? We just found out what happened a couple of hours ago. Are they feeding you well? You look emaciated. Are they taking good care of you? Heaven knows you’re not taking good care of yourself. Drowning in the flood? Karin would have never let that happen. What were you thinking? Where’s your doctor? Why are there stitches in your belly? And why did Pete have to be the one to call us and tell us about this? You have to help him cope with his guilt, sweetie. Have you called him? Did he come visit you? And when are they going to let you out? You have to come stay with us, you know.”
    Elena kissed my cheek and hugged me, nearly popping the staples in my gut. I squeezed back as well as I could. “Hi, Elena.”
    Her eyes still glistened with the loss of the light of both our lives, but in them shone the love of life that was the mark of the DiMarco clan.
    “Our bodies are seventy-five percent water, David,” Benny said, as if reciting a biology lesson. “I think you were supposed to hold your breath, not suck the water in.”
    “Hush, Benny. You talk too much. Can’t you see what the poor boy’s been through?” Elena brushed her hand through my thick hair. “David, why didn’t you call us? You know we love you like our own even though you and Karin never made it to your wedding day. Talk to me. You haven’t answered a single question I’ve asked you. I’m starting to worry the whole incident has affected your mind.”
    Boy, if she only knew.
    “It’s good to see you, Elena. Benny. I’m okay. I get out tomorrow morning.”
    “Finally, thank God. I thought they were going to keep you here forever. You are going to come stay with us, aren’t you?”
    “Always a place for you with us, David,” Benny said, nodding at me behind his wife’s back.
    “Of course there’s always a place for him with us, Benny. Why wouldn’t there be? So, David, what do you say? You can stay in our guest bedroom until you work things out. I know you couldn’t stay in Karin’s room. I’d never ask you to do that. So? You know I won’t take no for an answer.”
    Did you ever stand in front of an attentive classroom and have a pushy teacher ask you a question that the only intelligent response you could come up with was “Duh”? I searched for a way to convince her I already made arrangements for a place to stay. She’d never believe I was going to Pete’s. She was too discerning to swallow that lie, and she already knew I’d lost touch with my other old friends. After I met Karin, she became my universe, and Elena knew it.
    “Thanks, Elena. You don’t know how much that means to me.” It wasn’t entirely an untruth. I had no brothers or sisters. Though they could be overbearing and smothering at times, Elena and Benny were the closest thing to a mother and father I had since my mother died and my father turned into a lush. But I still couldn’t figure out why they wanted anything to do with me now that the driving force of all our lives was dead and buried.
    “Well of course we do, doll. We wouldn’t have it any other way, would we, Benny? Don’t answer that. We don’t need any smart-alecky comments right now; we’re bonding again. About time too, don’t you think, David? It’s been too long since you’ve called or come over. We miss you. And Shaina will be delighted to know you’re staying with us. I’ll call her and have her come over tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll want to take off work to see you. I’ll tell her to leave that oaf of a boyfriend—or whatever he is—behind when she comes.”
    My brain was spinning, but Elena kept going, making the Energizer Bunny look like decomposing roadkill.
    “So it’s settled, right? What time are they letting you go? Never mind; we’ll be here at nine a.m. tomorrow and take you home with us. If they won’t let you out then… well, I’ll just have to insist. There’s no reason for you to stay here any longer. You’re obviously fine. I’m sure these nurses want to keep you all to themselves, but they’ll just have to get along without their new darling. I’ll bet there are some pretty ones here, too. But they can’t have you. You’re mine now. Oh, this’ll be so fun, won’t it? It’ll be just like old times. Except that Karin won’t be there.”
    At that, Elena frowned. But she never allowed sadness time to set in; this little compact package of dynamite had too much spunk and was too damn stubborn to let sorrow rule.
    She sighed. “Well, we’ll just have to make do without her. It’s not like we have any choice, do we? I know if it was up to you and I, things would have happened differently. If we’d only known what was going to happen we never would have let Karin go over to Pete’s in that awful storm. But even I can’t turn back the hands of time, can I?
    “We’ll get you settled in tomorrow morning, then I’ll take you shopping for some clothes, and we’ll see about getting you some transportation. Heaven knows, I know you don’t want to have me chauffeuring you around everywhere. I know you’d quickly get tired of that. You know I know I’m overbearing at times, don’t you? Don’t answer that, sweetie.” Elena patted my cheek and winked at me.
    “Maybe Shaina could take him shopping, dear,” Benny said, valiantly attempting to rescue me from what would surely be a grueling day of shopping with Elena, replete with her endless chatter. “I’m sure she’d like that.”
    “Hush, Benny. Lord, do you always have to keep interrupting? Can’t you see David and I are busy making plans? But that is a wonderful idea, isn’t it, David? I was just about to suggest that.” Elena grasped my hand, smiling, and winked again. “So that’s settled too. I’ll call Shaina when we get home and arrange it. I’m sure she’d rather spend her time with you than with that useless lunkhead she’s been seeing. He’s hardly ever home with her anyway, which is just fine with me. Lord only knows what he does with all his time, and I’m not sure I want to know. Shaina’s probably supporting him. I don’t see how she does that, working in a flower shop for a living. For the life of me, I don’t understand what she sees in him. She should find herself a nice, responsible young man with some talent, good looks, and brains like you, David. But enough about that vagabond. We all know my youngest baby marches to the beat of a different drum, don’t we? I swear, I don’t know where Benny and I went wrong with her. But I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you, David. Maybe you can even straighten her out some. That would certainly be nice. But look at you, sweetie. You look all worn out. You need your beauty rest. We have a big day planned for you tomorrow. Come on, Benny-boo. Let’s let David get some sleep.”
    “Let’s.” Benny glanced at me, shaking his head. “David, since we’re on the sec- ond floor, I don’t suppose we need to worry about any repeat incidents. When you come over to the house, I’ll give you a crash course on that whole float-slash-breathe thing.”
    “Benny, quit teasing the poor boy. He’s been through enough already without having to put up with you haranguing him. Lord, sometimes I think you can never hold that tongue of yours.”
    Benny smirked at me, and Elena kissed my forehead. “See you in the morning, David!” she warbled, and they hustled out of my room, leaving me in blessed silence again.
    I surrendered to the inevitability of a few oppressive days with the DiMarcos. Don’t get me wrong; they’re good and kind people, but a little over the top. I couldn’t have refused their offer anyway. But no way in hell was I letting them find out about my unusual new talent.
    I shuddered as the thought of being inside either Elena or Shaina crossed my mind. I’d have to be on my guard around them in case my body-jumping was involuntary. I had to figure out how to control this ability, and pronto.
     I closed my eyes, and drifted away.
     And had some fun nightmares.

CHAPTER 4
FRIDAY

   The next morning Dr. Yamaguchi came in at eight-thirty, examined me, pro- nounced me fit to go home, and set me free. She tried one last time to talk me into further tests, but I refused. The hospital staff was too busy treating injured flood refugees for the doc to push the issue, so she was in and out before Elena showed up to grill her.
    Elena and Benny arrived right on time. An orderly brought a wheelchair and my waterlogged wallet—my only personal item that survived the flood. I wanted to walk out on my own but he insisted it was hospital policy, so I didn’t argue, and let him roll me out. I wanted the hell out of there, even though my next destination was the DiMarco hacienda in Picayune.
    On the way there, amid Elena’s constant chatter, we stopped at a branch of my bank and I made a cash withdrawal. Then we went to a drug store and I picked up some toiletry items and had the pharmacy fill my prescriptions. I hoped I wouldn’t need the pain pills for long.
    We finally pulled into Benny and Elena’s driveway and went inside. I had to clean up, and used the bathroom in the guest bedroom to shave and wash. I couldn’t take a shower with staples in my gut, so I made do with a washcloth and soap, washed my hair in the sink, then re-dressed in my grungy clothes and went into the living room to face the music. I chatted with Benny for a few minutes about my plans and options until Elena announced that lunch was ready.
    We had chicken salad sandwiches with grapes and carrots. I dug into it with relish, glad to have an appetite after all that had happened. Elena was her usual bubbly self, chattering incessantly about everything from the recent inclement weather to the escalating price of eggs, milk, meats, gasoline, and produce.
    There was no mention of Karin at the table, although she was conspicuously absent. The subject wasn’t taboo; the DiMarcos were stoic and accepting of the ways of the world. But the heartache and grief still weighed heavily on us all even after over a year had passed since she left us to endure life without her.
    Karin had been one in a million, gracious and compassionate nobility among the proletariat. I wasn’t just painting a prettier picture of her than she portrayed in life, wasn’t just remembering the good and discarding the bad. She had brought joy and hope into the lives of everyone who was fortunate enough to know her.
    I was finishing my second sandwich when we heard the double-bleat of a car horn coming from the driveway.
    “Shaina’s here!” Elena’s merrily twinkling eyes erased all doubt in my mind that she didn’t have aspirations of becoming a matchmaker.
    “Lord only knows why she can’t come to the door like a normal person and say hello to her mother and father,” Elena said, and clucked her tongue. But her disgust was clearly feigned; in her eyes was all the love she had for her youngest child despite their estrangement.
    “Maybe she wants to see David without us cramping their style,” Benny said. “It has been a while since they spoke.”
    “Well, I don’t see why she can’t pop her little head in and say hello to her dear mumsy, Benny-boo. It’s not like I didn’t spend nine months carrying her in my womb, and eighteen stressful years raising her and putting up with her idiosyn- crasies.”
    I hesitated, not sure what I was expected to do. Maybe I was a bit intimidated at the prospect of seeing Karin’s quirky younger sister again.
    “Well? Don’t just sit there like a knot on a log, David.” Elena winked at Benny. “Go outside and see her. She’s obviously not coming in to pay her respects to her inessential parents.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” I said, rising as Benny nodded at me to go ahead.
   “Call us if you need us, sweetie.” Elena was delighted with herself and wasn’t trying to hide it. “You two have fun. And see if you can sweet-talk my little wild child into joining the three of us for dinner, would you, dear? We’re having broiled fresh snapper. Six p.m. sharp. Let’s see her try and refuse that.”
    I headed for the front door, hearing another double-blast of the car horn as Benny said something about “the poor boy” maybe wanting to make his own dinner plans.
     I guess Elena had already decided that for me. I was okay with that; it was hard not to like the irrepressible dynamo. Plus she was an excellent cook, and my appetite was definitely back. Drowning, dying, and subsequently being resurrected apparently rustles up a hearty appetite.
    I stepped out on the front porch and saw Shaina standing beside her Camry. Her medium-length blond hair fluttered in the light breeze. She wore a tight, low-cut, white summer dress with thin shoulder straps, its hem barely falling to mid-thigh. Her emerald eyes sparkled as she twirled a pair of sunglasses in her hand. She had Karin’s bright, winning smile; there was no doubt the two were sisters.
    Though not as elegant or poised as her sister, Shaina was still a real head-turner. She was a bit too thin for my taste—I like a woman with lots of curves and some meat on her bones—but she was a fine and sexy woman. Any man would be a fool to turn her away. That is, unless they’d been so unbelievably lucky as to have won her sister’s heart, as I had.
    A year and a half younger than Karin at thirty, Shaina still put most women her age to shame. I figured the day wouldn’t turn out to be a total loss. After all, though somewhat eccentric and clearly the black sheep of the family, Shaina still shone brightly with the DiMarco family’s joie de vivre.
    I was likely making an idiot of myself ogling her, and I hobbled down the front porch steps to meet her.
    Her supple, darkly tanned legs moved sensuously as she sauntered toward me, her eyes never leaving mine. Her thin leather sandals slapped against the sidewalk as she approached me; her multiple toe rings winked at me in the bright sunlight breaking through the puffy white clouds.
     I think at that point I remembered how good it was to be alive.
    I stumbled to the bottom of the steps. She approached me, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed my cheek. “Hi, David,” she whispered, her sultry voice husky. She stepped back, placed her hands on my biceps, and rubbed them.
    “Hi, Shaina.”
    “You look good, babe, considering what all you’ve been through.”
    “Thanks. You look… pretty fantastic yourself.” Her eyes were a bit haunted, may- be by the loss of her childhood playmate and confidante, maybe by some personal experience, maybe a little of both. But despite that, she was a sight for sore eyes.
    She cupped my cheek in one palm and grinned. “Thanks. You’re a little green, and look a bit worn down. But then Mother does that to everybody.” I chuckled, and she snickered. “So, Lazarus. What do you say we blow this Popsicle stand before mommy dearest comes out and tells me everything I’m doing wrong with my life? Let’s go find you some better threads.”
    I looked down at my grungy duds and nodded. “Let’s do it. I’m feeling like an urban outdoorsman right about now.”
    Shaina took my hand and I hobbled to her Camry and climbed into the passenger seat. My gut protested with the effort. Then we were off, ready to take Picayune’s haberdasheries by storm.
    On the ride, conversation came easily. We talked about everything from my relocation plans and rebuilding my workshop to amusing anecdotes from her child- hood, and some of the misadventures she and Karin had growing up together.
    We hit several shops, purchasing a couple of weeks’ worth of underwear (“Boxers or briefs, David?” Shaina asked me loudly in one store, giggling as she flaunted a package of each), socks, shorts, jeans, and various shirts, along with a new leather wallet, two pairs of high-top Reeboks, and a pair of sandals to replenish my lost wardrobe. Other than the discomfort I suffered from all the walking and dressing and undressing, I had a blast. Shaina had an irrepressible sense of humor just like her sister and father, and was good company—and a frugal shopper to boot.
    I was a little uncomfortable with her hands-on approach. She was a touchy-feely woman, tugging on this or that shirt or pair of shorts as I modeled them for her, brushing the fabric smooth as she checked the fit.
    Once, she ran her hand through my thick brown hair, smiling as she gazed up into my eyes. Another time, I donned a snug pair of blue jeans and she smacked me on the rump and said, “You have a fine tight ass, Mr. Flint.”
    It was flattering, but it made me uneasy. She hadn’t said a word about her boyfriend Cole, making it clear in not-so-subtle ways that she was still interested in me.
    She had already made that clear when Karin and I first met. But Karin’s ghost still haunted me. I was nowhere near ready for anything serious with a woman yet, especially not the sister of my recently deceased fiancée.
    After that we hit one of Picayune’s malls, and picked up a few more nice shirts for me that Shaina particularly liked. I told her I’d had enough of shopping for the day. As we passed a lingerie store called Enticingly Yours on our way to the exit, she grabbed my hands and steered me inside, giggling. “Come here, David. I want to show you something.”
    “I don’t know, Shaina—”
    “Come on, you stuffy old fart. It’ll be fun.”
    I relented. I should have known what she had in mind, but we were having fun, and I was about shopped out anyway. What the hell. How badly could she embarrass me?
    Inside, Shaina dragged me toward what I called the “ultra-kinky” section by the changing rooms. Her tantalizing smile had my heart pounding double-time. Karin and I had some exciting times with sex, and I wasn’t a novice to experimental foreplay. But this wasn’t playing fair.
    “Shaina, I—”
   “Hush, David. You’ve been living in a shell since Karin died. I loved her too, remember? Live a little. It’s just for fun.”
    Something told me it was more than that.
    “Okay, babe. Close your eyes,” she said. “No peeking.”
    I did as she asked, my new shorts feeling a little tighter than when I tried them on earlier. I felt like a teenage boy at his first high school dance. I wasn’t ready for this, but it was too late to turn back now.
    “Keep your eyes closed and come here,” she said a few minutes later. She grasped my wrists and pulled me forward. I staggered while she giggled and led me, until she finally spoke again.
    “Okay, big boy. Open ’em up.”
    I did as she asked, my heart about to burst out of my chest. Something else was about to burst out of somewhere else, too. We were in a hallway bounded by dressing rooms, and it was spinning in the opposite direction of my head.
    “What do you think, babe?” she asked, twirling around.
    She wore a black bustier with red trim, her firm nipples provocatively poking out of the tight lacy top. Her flat belly advertised a silver belly-button ring studded with garnets. A black garter belt and black frilly stockings interwoven with red lace trim made my head spin faster.
    A skimpy, crotchless black thong finished off the delectable ensemble. Her vulva poked out between the open folds of the panties, inviting exploration. I probably would have seen the invitation in Shaina’s eyes if I could have engaged them.
    My little buddy liked it, though my bigger head was scared out of its wits. It’s a scientific fact that when a man’s one head is thinking hard, the other one is a moron.
    “Jesus, Shaina.”
    She ran her hands up her thighs and moved them toward her swollen lips down below, then did a slow one-eighty. She stood on the tips of her toes, poked her rear out at me, and smacked it with both hands, one on each cheek.
    “You like?” She twirled back around, and I looked into her eyes as she gazed up into mine. “Well? Whaddaya think? David? Hello?”
    In her eyes, hidden behind the playfulness and excitement, I saw quiet des- peration and a desire to be wanted, needed.
     “Shaina, I can’t… I’m not…”
    “You don’t like it.” Her lips poked out in a pout. Disappointment shone in her eyes, and I saw tears brimming in them. Somewhere along the line, she had been burned, and had her heart broken.
    I didn’t think there was anything weird or abnormal about what she was doing; it was exciting, and very sexy. But she was clearly aching for acceptance and real love. And it hurt her that she wasn’t getting it from me.
    “It’s not that. I just…” I sighed, and finally had to ask. “Do you dress like this for Cole?”
    She sighed too. She looked like she wanted to reveal a secret. “David, Cole’s just my… We’re not lovers anymore.” She frowned and threw her hands up. “He just uses my place as a crash pad in between his trips to pick up… oh, never mind.”
    “Jesus, Shaina. No wonder he doesn’t have a regular job. You’re not…” I let the question hang in the air between us. Cole was apparently a drug dealer, according to what I read between the lines and in Shaina’s eyes.
    “Don’t judge me, okay?” She shook her head, almost looking ridiculous in the outfit now. “No, I don’t wear things like this for Cole. But I’d wear it for you.” With that, she turned and slouched back into the dressing room.
    She came out a couple of minutes later scowling with the exuberance missing from her step, and that made me sad. I’d taken the wind out of her sails, and wanted to make it up to her.
    She took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, David. I should’ve known you weren’t ready. I know how much Karin meant to you.”
    “No, Shaina. I’m an idiot. Any guy would be a fool to turn you down. I’m the one who should be apologizing.”
    “It’s okay. I understand. Really.”
    “Shaina, I—”
    “Shhh.” She put her hand to my lips as the ghost of a smile crept back onto her face. “Come on, Lazarus.”
    Still clutching my hand, she led me to the checkout counter. Because the store had a strict “you try it, you buy it” policy on intimate lingerie, she purchased the outfit. I insisted on paying for it, but Shaina wouldn’t let me. I confess that while she whipped out her debit card and the grinning clerk rang it up, I imagined Shaina wearing the getup again just for me, in a more private setting. When the purchase was completed, Shaina stuffed the bag in her purse, grabbed my hand, and led me out of the store. I was searching for something to say to make her feel better when she solved that problem for me.
    “Think I can talk you into coming back to my place? I promise I’ll behave, and be a good girl. Even though it goes against my nature.” She looked up at me and winked, which made me feel much better. “We can sort out your new clothes, have a beer, and keep you out of Elena’s clutches for a while. We’ll go online and see if we can find you some wheels and a temporary hidey-hole till you can find a more permanent place. Sound okay?”
    A cold beer, wheels, and a future in mind after wandering lost for so long renewed life in my heart. A compelling new awareness—along with a unique new ability—and the chance to spend more time with Shaina, as unpredictable as she was, made up my mind for me.
     Her mischievous smile had crept back on her face, curling the corners of her lips upward and dimpling her cheeks. It was enough to sustain me, for the moment.
     “Sounds good to me,” I said, my voice catching in my throat.
    There was a special magic to the moment that I couldn’t define, and I opened myself to it. Shaina wrapped her arm around my waist, rested her cheek on my shoulder, and sighed again. She gazed up into my eyes with a look that reminded me that Karin had involuntarily abandoned us both, that we had both loved and lost her.
    I suddenly realized people had spent so many years of their lives wondering what it would be like to be in someone else’s mind, to understand their thoughts and control their actions, that it was almost human nature. And I was somehow the one—or possibly one of the rare few—who was given the opportunity to breach that barrier.
    Though the possibility had intimidated the hell out of me earlier, I wanted to jump into Shaina’s mind right then, to truly know what she thought and felt.
    We could all learn so much from each other if we could only know each other’s minds. Though wars could be started and new enemies made, new bridges could also be built, and many old ones repaired.
    Instead of testing my impulse I pushed the thought away. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, pulled her closer, and kissed the top of her head. Under- standing could wait. We had the moment, whatever it was, and our common bond with Karin.
    We walked out of the mall holding each other and steered toward a nightmare which still haunts me today, amid all the other nightmares soon to come.

CHAPTER 5

    The mewling kittens were what drew us toward the loading dock alley on our way to Shaina’s car. A twelve-foot-high wall separated the loading docks from the parking lot. We had just passed the end of the wall where trucks entered for deliveries when we heard the wailing felines.
    “Oh! David, listen.” Shaina still held my hand, and dragged me toward the source of the whining.
    I half-heartedly tugged her back toward the parking lot. “Shaina, they probably belong to one of the employees of—”
    “We have to go see if they need help. Come on.”
   “What, you got an honor badge in the Feline Rescue Society?” I laughed, no longer resisting. I’d be on her shit list indefinitely if I didn’t let her go play Little Miss Kitty Rescuer.
    “Stop it and come on.”
    I followed as quickly as my aching gut allowed, the bag of shirts swinging in my hand. I had a feeling we were about to adopt a litter of kittens.
    We heard derisive laughter as we rounded a couple of dumpsters beside one of the loading bays. I smelled the burning weed before I saw the smoke or the joint in the hand of one of four young Hispanic men standing around two kittens behind the dumpsters.
    “Oh,” Shaina gasped, releasing my hand as we pulled up short of the quartet.
    They turned toward us, squinting and scowling at the unexpected intrusion. None of them could have been older than eighteen. Each wore a red armband; looked like gang colors to me. These guys were not mall store employees on break.
    The muscular one holding the joint was about four inches shorter than my six feet. He held up a hand at the others, obviously their leader, and started toward us with a sneer on his swarthy face. The two directly behind him were a few inches shorter than he was, and more slightly built. The one standing over the two mewl- ing kittens was a big fellow. He was my height, and probably forty pounds heavier than my one-eighty. His wild eyes had a hollow, soulless look that didn’t belong in someone so young.
    All four looked as mean as a nest of pit vipers to me.
    “David—”
    “Shaina, let’s go, now,” I said, reaching for her hand.
    “Hey, gringo, what you got in the bag for us?” Their leader snickered, tossing the joint butt to the ground. His two smaller sidekicks laughed and sauntered up behind him. The big guy still stood over the kittens. He looked down at them then back up at us, his mean eyes glowering.
    “Look, guys, we don’t want any trouble. We’ll just be leaving now—” I started.
   Before I could grab Shaina’s hand and hustle us away from the quartet, their leader whipped out a switchblade, threw me up against the side of the dumpster, and pushed the blade against my throat. He moved like a panther pouncing on its prey, as if he were accustomed to violence. I smelled the marijuana on his stale breath as he put his sneering face up to mine.
    “Too late for that, pendejo,” he said, and snorted.
    “Don’t hurt him!” Shaina squealed, and moved toward us. What did she think she was going to do to stop them? Before she reached us, the two smaller punks each grabbed her by an arm and threw her against the dumpster beside me, still laugh- ing.
    Big guy stood his ground and grinned. There was no joy in that empty smile.
    “I got money,” I said, feeling the sharp blade dig into my throat, suddenly barter- ing for our lives. I didn’t want to get hurt any worse than I already was, and I definitely didn’t want Shaina hurt. I was in no condition to fight anybody, and these guys could easily take me even on my best day. They appeared to be born for brutality. “You can have everything we got, just let us go.”
    “Yeah? I think your pretty lady friend’s got something else we want, asshole,” the leader said, and his buddies cackled harder.
    I couldn’t tear my eyes from the leader’s, but in my peripheral vision, I saw Shaina looking at the big guy.
    “No!” she shrieked, kicking and fighting the two holding her. “Don’t hurt them!”
    I didn’t know what she was talking about at first, but their leader glanced to his side and pressed the blade tighter against my throat. It felt hot. I was more panicked than when the dark brackish waters of the Gulf enveloped me.
    Top-dog laughed, a guttural bark, and glanced at the big guy. “Show ’em what we do to them if they don’t do what we say, Manny.”
    The big guy smiled wider, splitting his ugly mug into a canyon of malevolent darkness. He raised his big foot and stomped on one of the kittens. Then he stomped on the other, crushing the life out of them and silencing their cries.
    “No!” Shaina screamed. She ripped an arm loose and raked her nails across the face of the man on her left, drawing furrows of blood, fighting like a tigress defending her cubs.
    This lady had more spunk and vigor than Elena and Karin combined.
    And she was going to get us both killed.
    Now was as good a time as any to test my new talent. It was either that or die, and possibly condemn Shaina to a worse fate. I’d already died once, or so I’d been told by the medical experts, and wasn’t ready for a reprise.
    Top-dog forced the decision for me. He rammed his knee up into my groin, and the instantaneous pain sent me flying out of my body.
    I actually felt my spirit flee my earthly shell, incorporeal but still substantial. I thought I would enter Top-dog, but instead I found myself gazing at all of us from the perspective of Manny, the big guy.
    A darkness more ugly than anything I’d ever imagined assailed me, a darkness far greater than the loss of Karin. Manny’s soul-sickness assaulted my mind. A corruption beyond despair ruled his life, and in that brief moment I wondered how anything could ever tear someone’s life so asunder that such madness could permanently ruin compassion.
    I glanced down at the innocent mangled kittens. Horror at such a pointlessly cruel act woke a sleeping giant inside me, a rage so powerful I felt it burn me up from the inside out. Manny’s inner darkness fueled the fury.
    He and his gangsta buds were going to rob us. Maybe kill us.
    And yes, rape Shaina, because that’s what they were. From Manny’s mind, I knew these punks were hardcore drug runners, and that they’d raped and killed before.
    I have no compassion for those who believe they can take whatever they want from others, whether it be something material or something infinitely more personal like virtue or innocence. I wanted to make these dirtbags pay for their depravity.
    I’m all in favor of good, honest, hard-working folks of any ethnic variety coming openly into the great country of my birth and making a better life for themselves and their families. But with the steady influx of Hispanics from Mexico into America had inevitably come a pitiless criminal element that the majority of immigrants, both legal and illegal, surely wished to have left behind.
    I/Manny smiled, this time with me pulling all the strings. Their leader—I knew now his name was Julio—must have seen something new in our eyes. He faltered, his knife hand pulling away from my/David’s throat. Controlling Manny, I glanced at my body slumping to the ground against the dumpster, a slack and empty look on my zombie-like face.
    The shell that carried my spirit and essence was hopefully only temporarily evacuated. I worried a little about that, but I’d figure out the details about what happened to “me” when I was “gone” later.
    For now, I had to teach a harsh lesson to some worthless assholes.
    “Yo, Manny, whassup dog?” Julio asked. It made me feel good to see doubt about his mate’s loyalty wrinkle his face and widen his eyes.
    “Your time, pendejo,” we said, advancing toward him. He must have seen a defiance and fury in Manny’s eyes that wasn’t there before, because he swung his knife hand at our face.
    He was too slow. We grabbed his knife hand and crushed his wrist with all our strength, then twisted his arm behind him. He screeched and we grabbed the knife out of his hand before he could drop it. Then we plunged it into the soft flesh between his scapula and spine.
     Damn, it felt good. Too good.
    Julio howled with a mix of pain and an awareness of total betrayal. Sidekicks numbers one and two released Shaina’s arms. They cursed and yelled at us in Spanish, their faces scrunched up with disbelief.
    “Yo, Manny, chill bro!” one shouted.
    “Manny, what the fuck?” the other said.
    They both looked scared. That felt good too.
    Shaina rushed toward my slumping body and crouched beside it. I’d never been so proud of anyone before, and it might be what saved me from committing murder. She gently slapped my slack face, tugged at my limp arms, and tried to help me up. “David, come on! Let’s go!”
    I wanted to kill all four of the ruthless punks worse than anything I’d ever wanted before. It fueled a lot of nightmares to come, later.
     I was way out of control.
     Hospitalize them if you must, David, but don’t kill them, a voice whispered in my mind. It was stronger and more compelling than mine or Manny’s. It felt like Karin’s voice.
    We slammed Julio face-first into the side of the dumpster, then threw him to the ground and landed atop him, ramming our knees into his lower back. His breath grunted out with the impact. Sidekicks one and two still shouted at us, tugging ineffectively on our stout arms as we grabbed Julio by the hair with both hands and pounded his face into the pavement once, twice, three times, crushing bones in his face. We let go as his body went limp.
    Then we jumped up and beat the living crap out of the two other guys. They fought weakly, looks of incomprehension written all over their faces as their buddy Manny maimed them. We gleefully broke bones, pounded our bloody fists into them.
    Hurricane Holly would have been proud of my ferocity.
    David Flint wasn’t so sure.
   Finished, we turned and faced Shaina, our breath coming ragged and harsh. Shaina was straining to drag my unoccupied body away from the melee. She glared at me/Manny with a mix of outrage and stupefaction as she pleaded with me to wake up.
    There was something proud and fierce about the way she wasn’t willing to run away without me. Manny’s hate and malice blended with my fury, poisoning my thoughts, and I feared all loss of control.
    “Run, Shaina! Get the hell out of here!” we shouted. I instantly wished I hadn’t called her name, knowing that would come back to haunt me.
    Shaina squealed, tears running down her face. She kept shouting, “Get up, David! Come on!”
    Despite her panic, she never let go of my arms. Slender and petite though she was, she exerted every ounce of strength she had and dragged my heavy, limp body across the pavement, away from the madman I/Manny had become. It was clear to me that she would rather be beaten, raped, or killed than leave me behind.
    I think that was when I fell in love with her.
    She rounded the corner of the wall shielding the mall parking lot from the loading dock towing my slack body, and as Manny I turned to look at what I had done.
    You want to feel what you did, you sick twisted son of a bitch? I asked Manny in our shared mind.
    Leave me Satan, demon from Hell, leave me and give me back my body and mind! he pleaded in our head, a scream in unfathomable darkness.
    I knew no mercy.
    Here’s how it felt when you squashed those kittens, you psycho fuck! I screamed back at him.
    I made him grab the upper sides of a corner of the huge metal dumpster. I reared his head back and slammed his face into the unyielding corner with all the force of Holly ramming into the coastline two days ago.
    With the unbearable pain of the bones of his face collapsing, I flew out of Manny and back into my own pain-ravaged body.
    And into Shaina’s loving arms.