When I woke up a little later, I was looking at myself. It took me a second to figure that out because it was hard to think for some reason. First I stared stupidly at myself snoring in the easy chair. Then I noticed I had a beer can in my hand. Well, that explained why I was having trouble thinking. I was drunk. I looked down at myself and I was sprawled out on the plaid couch with my big belly sticking up in the air. I was inside Bill.
I was thinking to myself that this was about the worst thing that could happen, when my mom came home. She walked in without looking at us and slowly put her bag on the kitchen counter. Bill stood up, stumbling a little. I’d had a few beers here and there with Max, but I’d never felt drunk like this. It was weird how slow his body was. It felt kind of numb, too. As he walked over to the kitchen, he banged his shin on the coffee table and it barely felt like anything.
“What you doin’ home so early?” he said. He didn’t sound happy about it.
“They sent me home because of my face,” she said. Then she turned toward us. Toward him I mean. And what had been a small bruise before now covered half her face. It had a weird purple shine to it, except around the eye, which was leaking some kind of fluid.
“What the hell happened to you?!” he said, stepping back.
“You happened, Bill,” she said quietly.
“Bullshit. I didn’t do that. Yesterday, that was an accident. I said I was sorry. But this? No way in hell I did this.”
“I’m telling you,” she said. “Nothing else happened. It just keeps getting worse and worse. It’s what you did.”
“You better shut the hell up, woman, or I will make it worse.”
“Not with Sabe over there sleeping!”
“Who gives a rat’s ass about that whiny little bitch?”
“Don’t you talk like that about my son!”
“Or what?”
“Or . . . ,” she said, her one good eye wide, angry, and desperate. “Or I’ll leave you.”
“That’s it,” Bill said. I could feel the blood pounding through his drunk brain, feel him make a fist, feel his shoulder tense as he hauled off to hit her. For a split second I felt and watched it all start to happen, and I was so scared I wanted to scream.
Then I thought, I can stop this.
His fist was halfway to the good side of her face when I stopped it in midair. Mom stared at me. I mean him. Us. Stared at us, looking scared and surprised. I wasn’t sure if I could talk to her, or what I’d say. Hey, Mom, don’t worry. It’s just me, Sabe, possessing Bill’s body. Yeah, I knew that probably wouldn’t work, so I just didn’t say anything.
I made him walk to the front door. It wasn’t easy. Controlling someone else’s body was already pretty awkward, and being drunk made it even harder. After stumbling back and forth a little, I made it to the door. It was hard to turn the knob and open the door, too. Finally we made it out onto our rickety old front porch. Thankfully, Mom didn’t follow.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with him at first. I just knew I had to get him away from Mom before I lost control of him. But once I got outside into the cold night air, I started to think maybe I could solve this problem forever. We lived real close to the freeway. Everybody in the neighborhood knew Bill was a useless drunk, and it wouldn’t surprise any of them to find out tomorrow that he’d walked out in front of a semi truck going seventy miles an hour.
It took a little while to stumble up the steep grassy hill to the short metal guardrail that ran along the side of the freeway. But finally we were there, right on the shoulder. It was still way before midnight, so there was plenty of traffic zipping by. The wind hit our face every time a car or truck blew past. If I stepped us out now, it would happen in seconds.
But I hesitated. Because now that I was here, now that I was feeling less drunk and a little more calm, this looked a lot like murder.
“Do it,” said a voice like rock scraping tar.
I turned toward the voice. It looked like a man, big and muscular, with gold armor that shone in the fluorescent freeway lights. He sat on a white horse with a sword sheathed at his side and a long wooden spear in his hand. But even weirder than all that, he had a lion head. His mouth was open slightly and I could see his big canines. His cat eyes flashed as he stared down at me.
“What the hell . . . ,” I whispered with Bill’s voice.
“An amusing choice of words,” he said. “I am Sabnack, and I am here to take you away from this banal and tedious existence to a place better suited for you. But first, destroy this useless meat sack. I want to make sure you can follow orders.”
“I don’t think he’s going to do that,” said another voice. That one I recognized. I turned to my other side and saw the old black guy with the gray dreadlocks.
“You!” I said.
“Hello, little nightwalker,” he said with a tired smile. “It looks like you’ve picked up some unwanted company.”
“You are the unwanted company, bokur!” said the lion-headed guy on the horse. “I have been watching this one for weeks, working in the background, waiting until his abilities had acceptably matured. Your sudden appearance has forced my hand.” Then he turned to me. “This old fool is weak and poor. What can he possibly give you? I am strong. I am powerful. I have lived for five centuries and have forgotten more than he will ever know.”
“You said you’ll take me away from here?” I asked. “What, like some magic land?”
“More strange and magical than you can imagine,” he said. “A world of heroes and beasts, beautiful maidens and cruel, villainous foes. Kill this mortal whom you hate so much and prove your loyalty to me. Then I will take you there.”
“It’s true,” said the old man. “I’m old and weak. Sabnack is far more powerful than me. He can take you to a world so unlike this one, you’d scarcely believe your own eyes. A world that contains both breathtaking beauty and horrifying destruction. But think about what he asks of you. To kill, even a man as wretched as this one?”
“I deal out life and death without hesitation,” said Sabnack. “And if I tell him to kill this mortal, that is the only justification he needs.”
The old man’s eyes narrowed. “It’s true you deal in death. I’ve heard that the sword and spear you carry are only symbols. That your real weapon is sickness and decay.” He turned to me then. To Bill and me. “How’s your friend? Your teacher? Sick, aren’t they? Very suddenly?”
“Mortals are weak,” said Sabnack. “They get sick constantly.”
“What about your mother?” the old man said to me. “And even the body you occupy now is in the grip of a cancer. You can feel it yourself, can’t you? Try and look—you’ll see.”
I could feel something dark and heavy at the bottom of Bill’s lungs.
“This is what he is: disease and decay,” said the old man. He turned back to Sabnack. “Will you deny your nature, demon?”
“Why would I deny it?” asked Sabnack. “Disease strikes down the weak. Decay repurposes them so that the strong may thrive. This is a fundamental law of the universe.”
I noticed that what Sabnack was sitting on wasn’t really a horse. It was a white, horse-shaped creature. But its eyes were red, its teeth were sharp, and it had claws instead of hooves.
“You’re making everybody around here sick?” I asked Sabnack. “On purpose?”