A warehouse in the distance probably contains many candidates.

Jonny waddled his overweight body along in the night next to Lisa as the two of them heard waves crashing in the distance. “Master?” Lisa said as the two walked. “Yes,” Jonny said. “What did you look like when you were alive?” Jonny thought for a moment. It had been so long since he thought about it. It had been so long since he looked into the mirror and saw his own, human face looking back. “Um,” he said, “I think I was about six feet tall, and I worked out a bunch, and I had dark hair and a small scar above my eye from a fight I had when I was a kid,” he said. “And how did you become . . .” “A demon?” Jonny said. “Yes,” Lisa answered. “Well, I was killed on October 13th of 1924. I was coming back from a party with my partner when we got word that a mob boss we were after was maybe holding a meeting nearby, and we were go to there and recon the place and wait for back-up.”

“So we drove the car to the place, which was a grave yard. The night was dark ‘cause it was really late. There was mist in the graveyard; it was like something out of a movie,” Jonny continued. “We got there, and me and my partner split up ‘cause we didn’t know where the guy was. As I moved through the yard I see this guy in trench coat and a hat, you know, built like the guy we’re after, so I held up my gun and I told him to freeze. He laughed at me. I moved close. My gun was still trained on the guy. He made a sudden move, and I shot him,” Jonny explained. “He fell to the ground and, when I ran up to him and turned him over, he was still laughing at me like I’d just told the greatest joke he’d ever heard. The man’s name was Mike Marshall, a youth pastor in town. The Old Man had jumped inside his body one night and used that meat suit to get to me. He laid his hand on my belly, and it was the hottest thing I had ever felt. It was like al my humanity was burning away. I passed out, and my body never woke up.” Jonny said.

“Medical records showed that my body somehow stayed alive for another three or four days in the hospital, but I was in a coma. The next thing I remember, I looked down at my body, pale as a ghost, and I saw that I was this swirlin’ mass of black and red smoke. I heard a scream, and there was this nurse in the room there with me who was there when my spirit came out. I **** my way down inside her body ‘cause it was the only thing I knew how to do. I forger her name. She had big boobs. I remember that—those were new to me,” he said with a laugh. “Within a couple hours, the Old Man—this time outside Mike Marshall’s body of course—found me and ripped me out of the nurse. He killed her, and he took me to the mansion, where I stayed for decades.”

Lisa was surprised by all this. She hadn’t heard it before. “So did you have a wif—“ she started, but was cut off. “Here we are,” Jonny said as the two reached the warehouse, and stepped inside, seeing various people huddled over in the corners with no place else to go. Jonny looked around for a little bit, then quickly headed in the direction of someone who was of interest to him.

“Hey there, son,” he called out to a young man. The boy motioned to himself, as if to ask whether Jonny was talking to him. “Yeah, you,” Jonny said as the two got closer, “what’s your name kid?” “Eddie Rollins,” the boy said meekly. Jonny shook his hand. Eddie was a boy of sixteen with a face that looked a bit younger. He was small of stature, standing no taller than probably five foot five and weighing perhaps 125 pounds. He had a ragged set of clothes and messy hair, as well as a set of geeky-looking glasses. “How’d you get here, Eddie?” Jonny asked as he sat his fat body down on a wooden crate. Lisa stood.

“My dad died a long time ago,” he said, “and my mom just a few years ago.” “How’d your mom die?” Lisa asked. “It’s a long story,” Eddie began, “ . . . started a few about five years ago. “I was eleven. We got this knock at the door one morning after Mom had had been running herself ragged at work. She said she was going to take me to the movie that night, but then this guy showed up. He wore a white suit and looked like a slick used car salesman. He came selling Bibles in the morning and said he could grant any wish my mom might have, and he said she should try him, she should wish for something. She thought about it, and she wished that she could know what it was like to be other people, to understand them better,” Eddie explained.

“Well, I was watching from the top of the stairs, and nobody thought I was, but I was, and so I saw what happened next. This guy at the table . . . said his name was Zeke,” Eddie recounted. Jonny perked up, immediately more interested, as though he had heard the name before. “This guy grabbed my mom by the hand, and his eyes glowed this bright red color, and so did hers. He said he’d granted her wish and that the spirits would be with her soon, and then he disappeared in this big puff of smoke. Mom sat at the table in a daze. I went downstairs to see if she was okay. I was just about to touch her, but I heard this guy behind me. It was a fat old man in a Hawaiian shirt with a straw hat. He looked to be about seventy. He said ‘she’s mine first, kid,” and he just sort of walked up to my mom and sat down, but he sat down into her body. She shook a bit when it happened, but then her eyes shot open. She looked down at herself like she was seeing her body for the first time. She even started playing with her own boobs, and she seemed to be enjoying herself. ‘Back in a couple days, kid,’ she said in the man’s voice, and she came back in a couple days later smelling like beer. The old fat man got out of her body and just disappeared,” Eddie said.

“Can you give us a second?” Jonny said, and Eddie did. Jonny and Lisa stood and walked some distance away so that the two could talk. “I’ve heard of this Zeke guy before,” Jonny said, “he grants wishes, but only kind of. The kid’s mom said she wanted to know what it was like to be other people, so this Zeke guy made her body a clearing house for every spirit willing to pony up to Zeke for just a couple extra days on Earth. The jumped into her body and rode her ragged. They’d use her body to eat, drink, fuck, anything they wanted. She’d have been awake for the whole things so that she would know what it was like to be them, but she had no control over her own meat suit.” “Sounds terrible,” Lisa said. “It is, I’m sure,” Jonny said. “Kid’s mom probably offed herself for one of the couple-hour stretches every few days when she actually had control of her body, and Eddie would have had no other place to go when that happened. He’s only sixteen . . . kid doesn’t even look like he has to shave yet.”

“I feel sorry for the boy,” Lisa said, looking at Jonny. “Are you saying you want me to jump inside his body?” Jonny asked, “I picked my last body myself, and it ended up getting shot, so I’ll leave this one to you. Do you want me to make Eddie Rollins my new home?”