Maurice stood before Bill and held his arms straight out from his sides. Bill watched intently as Maurice’s body changed. He grew a few inches taller, his hair color changed, and his clothing was different. Bill hadn’t seen him since the family moved to Florida. His hair was longer than he remembered and he perhaps gained a few pounds, but he was positive that Jeff was now standing before him.
“See? We can impersonate anyone.”
Jeff now held his arms out in the same fashion and Bill watched as he transformed back into Maurice.
“Holy shit!” gasped Bill. “I have to be dreaming. No way is this real.”
“Oh, this is real, Mr. Anderson, we assure you. If we touch the person, we can even gain their thoughts and memories. It’s how we’ve survived all these years. We drain their life force. It keeps us young.”
“You mean you and the chief and the foreman?”
“No, we mean everyone. All the missing people. They are within. Their physical bodies have to be discarded for the transformation to be permanent. This hotel is the perfect hunting ground for us. It provides us with an endless supply of travelers, people who might never be missed.”
Maurice paused for a moment. He could tell Bill was struggling to comprehend the situation.
“Did it just occur to you that all of your, shall we say strange, encounters were us?”
“The thought did cross my mind,” replied Bill.
“Did you think your poor Sara was imagining you knocking on the door? How do you think we were able to give her the answers to her questions? Because we know you, Bill. We touched your hand when you were checking in. We know all about you. Those hidden cameras? We know where you’re going to hide them, fifty years from now.”
“What about the police? Won’t they catch on and stop you?”
“You forget, we are the police—the chief of this town. Well, not yet. In a few years we’ll become who’s known as the chief. Once that happens, we can do whatever we please with essentially no threat of being caught.”
“I guess you’ve thought of everything then, huh?” asked Bill while carefully working on loosening the bindings that were tying his hands together.
“Yes, and like we said—we need you. Another identity with no ties to this year will be helpful. So we’ll do you a favor, Mr. Marine, Mr. Police Detective, and make your death a quick one. We just have to take care of Sara first.”
“Touch her and I swear to God I’ll kill you!” yelled Bill, trying to jump out of the chair.
“You’re in no position to threaten us. Now sit tight, we’ll be right back.”
Maurice touched his nametag and with a bright flash, disappeared. Bill continued to struggle to get free of the rope. Since Maurice was gone, he was able to work harder on getting loose without worrying that his actions might be discovered.
Finally able to get a hand free, he reached down to his ankle and retrieved a hidden knife from under his pant leg. Bill cut the other ropes and was at last able to stand. He placed the knife back in its holster on his ankle. Before he could decide what to do, a light began to build in the corner of the room. Bill suspected it was Maurice returning, so he sat back down and pretended he was still tied to the chair.
As Bill suspected, he returned. Standing in the corner of the room was the chief, holding a gun.
“Well, that’s done. All out of bullets and killed with your own gun. We found it lying on the floor in the pool. It won’t look good for you when they investigate her death,” said the chief.
“Bastard!” yelled Bill.
The Chief morphed into Sara.
“What do you think, Bill?” asked Sara, who began unbuttoning her blouse. “See anything you like?”
“You monster, I’ll kill you!”
Sara morphed back to Maurice and said, “And how do you plan to do that? Your gun is gone, back in 2013. You’ve got nothing left except impossible ambitions and cheap words.”
Maurice approached Bill and spit into his face. Bill kicked up with all his might into Maurice’s groin, causing him to double over in pain. He jumped from the chair and quickly moved behind Maurice, wrapping one arm around his neck in a choke hold. He squeezed tighter, but Maurice was surprisingly strong. He stood up and rushed backwards, slamming Bill against the wall. After hitting the wall three times, Bill fell to the ground. His knife fell from its holster and spun across the floor, coming to a rest three feet away from Bill’s waist.
Maurice saw the knife and lunged down on top of Bill before he could get to it. The two traded punches and head-butts, writhing around the floor. Bill was finally able to stretch his arm out far enough to reach the knife. He grabbed it and with a firm grip, he jammed it into Maurice’s throat. A shocked look came over his face and, with a gurgle, Maurice fell motionless on top of Bill. Bill pushed him off to the side and stood up, giving him one last kick to the ribs for pleasure.
Bill now stood next to the lifeless corpse of Maurice, wondering what to do and how to get back to the right year. Was it the nametag? He reached down and touched it as he had seen Maurice do, but nothing happened. Bill stood back up and looked around the room. On the desk was the newspaper that Maurice had shown him to prove the year was 1958. He picked it up and looked at the headline, which read, “Williams' Bat Injures Woman Fan in Stands.”
“Holy crap, Ted Williams? This really is 1958. What do I do? Did I screw up history by killing him? Maybe this is good. If Maurice is dead, then there shouldn’t be anyone around to kill all those people in the future.”
Bill stood bewildered for a moment.
“Wait. So if nobody kills those people, then I shouldn’t have been asked to investigate Jeff’s disappearance, which means I shouldn’t be here right now. Why am I still here?”
As Bill wondered what had happened and how he was going to get home, Maurice’s body began to purge a thick black liquid from its nose. It ran down his face and onto the floor. Slowly, it slid across the floor, leaving a little trail behind like a slug crawling up a window pane. It found its way to Bill’s shoe, which it then climbed and disappeared up his pant leg.
Bill let out a one-second scream, then went silent. He sat down in the chair and stared at the wall for just a second before reaching down and plucking the nametag off Maurice’s body. He carefully pinned it onto his shirt, taking the time to ensure it was straight and proper.
Bill got up from the chair, left the office, and went to the front desk. Several people were busy moving boxes and furniture across the lobby.
“Hey!” Bill yelled. “Did you finish hanging that mirror?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Raymond,” replied one of the men.
“Good job, and I told you to call me Maurice. You’re free to leave for the day.”
“Thanks, Maurice,” replied the man.
Bill headed back to the pool area. When he entered the doors, he could see the mirror properly hung on the wall as directed. He stood and looked at it across the room. It seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. He circled around the pool and approached the mirror.
As he stared into the mirror, the reflection shook like a stone thrown into a pond. Staring back at him was Bill, smiling. Two seconds later, the reflection shook again and the face looking at him now was Maurice’s.
Looking directly into the mirror, he said, “Yes, you told us everything would work out.”
He paused momentarily.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Okay, so as long as we keep swapping out bodies–”
He paused again.
“Yes, we know that taking this body was planned. We work our way up–”
He stood and listened, as if the mirror was actually talking to him.
“Yes. One day some nobody kid, then chief of police. Given enough time, of which we have plenty, President of the United States.”
He paused one last time.
“You’re correct. Together we’ll rule the world.”
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