Writers of the Future, Volume 30

  He will heal from this, she told herself. He must.

  Lacra turned her horse toward the north, and prepared to cross another range of mountains.

  Shifter

  written by

  Paul Eckheart

  illustrated by

  Michael Talbot

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Paul Eckheart wrote his first story as an assignment for his second-grade class. It earned a C, but he still remembers how much fun he had writing it.

  Though he dabbled in storytelling throughout his youth, Paul did not get serious about writing until a high school drama teacher told him about the Utah Young Playwrights contest. He entered and became a finalist. This earned him an observership and the opportunity to work as a stage manager at the Sundance Institute’s Playwrights Laboratory.

  Paul graduated college with degrees in computer science and creative writing. He had this crazy idea that he’d program during the day and write at night. After five computer games, a 3-D graphics system for driving simulation, and an engine room simulator for the U.S. Army, Paul realized that he finally needed to figure out how to balance his work on software with his storytelling.

  During that time, Paul stayed active in his local theater community, performing with The Off Broadway Theatre and ComedySportz Salt Lake. He also cofounded two improv troupes: The Village Idiots and Improvables Utah. He credits his work in improv theater with giving him a solid foundation for characters and scenes.

  Paul is excited to continue his adventures in storytelling. He writes science fiction, fantasy, mysteries and stage plays.

  For the latest news on Paul’s publications visit his website: pauleckheart.com.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Michael Talbot is probably not the average Jamaican, but at the same time, he isn’t much different from everyone else who might be out there striving to do what they love and longing to fulfill dreams.

  He currently lives in the States, furthering his education at the Lesley University College of Art and Design (LUCAD) in graphic design and illustration. Michael wishes to not necessarily become a world-renowned artist, but to inspire and speak to others through his artwork, leaving everyone who sees his work “hanging in the balance” of reality and wonder.

  Growing up in Jamaica, Michael had always had a passion for art. While all the other kids were outside playing, he would usually be sitting inside with his coloring book, content with life. Michael’s passion only grew as his years attending school in Jamaica progressed, and in a few years he left his home country to live in America with his mom and stepdad.

  “To be honest I don’t think I’m anything extraordinary or beyond the typical artist or art lover, but I do believe I’m able to make an impact on people through my art, and that’s precisely what I will strive to do.”

  You can contact Michael on Facebook at TalbotsArt or view his portfolio on Behance (behance.net/talbotsart).

  Shifter

  The black and white give it away before Fat Reggie even gets back home. He knows they’s there for him, but dang if he knows why. Still, driving a black and white into the hood ain’t no way to track someone. Might as well leave the sirens blaring—everyone knows they’s there.

  And that’s just fine with Fat Reggie.

  He ducks hisself into the stairwell of that fortress white people call The Projects—ain’t no one goes in unless they belong there. The stairwell smells a piss and there be thick stuff dribbling down the walls, all thick like snot.

  When Fat Reggie first moved to the hood, old Ms. Baxter told him some folks sends their kids into the stairwell to take a pee. The smell keeps the hos from turning tricks there. Fat Reggie understands that—he don’t want to stay in there any longer than he got to.

  He pulls a pen and a pad a paper out from his backpack. He touches the tip of the pen to his tongue. He starts to write. As he writes Fat Reggie starts to change—with a few words he gives himself a tumor on the right side a his face. Makes it big and purple with veins all sticking out. Makes it squish his eye shut.

  While he’s at it, Fat Reggie writes off about forty pounds of fat. Writes it clean out of existence. Doesn’t quite go so far as to make hisself Thin Reggie, but he feels the skin round his midsection go slack. Then he tightens up the skin to make it fit right.

  After that he changes his black t-shirt for a red one he keeps in his backpack. When he’s done, ain’t no one going to recognize Fat Reggie, that’s for sure.

  He walks right down the hall, past old Ms. Baxter’s place, and marches right in through the door of the pit he and his dad share.

  Sure enough, there be two Uniforms and a fine ponytailed blonde number wearing a tan trench, sitting there with Reggie’s dad, waiting for him. “Hi,” he says.

  The two Uniforms, they look on edge. One of them with more muscle than brains practically jumps when Reggie bursts through the door.

  The blondie looks at Reggie, looks at his tumor, and turns to the muscleheaded cop. “This is him?”

  Musclehead looks like someone stole his Christmas. Mutters something that sounds like an apology.

  Blondie struggles to her feet—everyone struggles to get out a their butt-eating couch. She wipes her trench like someone sneezed on it. To Reggie’s dad, she says, “I’m sorry we bothered you, Mr. Williams.”

  Reggie’s dad don’t bother getting up. “I told you wasn’t Reggie. Maybe you should start trusting people, stead a thinking you right all the time.”

  The blonde looks around the room, examining the walls. Reggie knows what she’s looking for, but she ain’t going to find it. All the walls got on them is a bunch of dings and places where the paint been chipped off. Other than that, they’s barren.

  She says, “In the future, you should think about getting some pictures of you and your son. We could have cleared this up a long time ago.”

  Reggie’s dad grunts, but he don’t say nothing. Never going to happen. No pictures—that’s the first rule Reggie and his dad live by.

  “Again, I’m sorry we bothered you.” She nods to Reggie, nods to the officers, and the three of them, they head for the door. Her ponytail dances as she moves.

  As she walks past Reggie, he can’t help himself. He grabs her wrist, right where the tan trench ends. Her skin is warm and soft. She tries to pull away, but she looks at Reggie, at his tumor, and pity fills her face—especially her deep-blue eyes.

  From feeling the bones in her wrist and the way her muscles move, Reggie knows she’s got an athlete’s body under that coat. Even though she’s about five inches shorter than Reggie, he knows in a fight he’ll lose for sure.

  Reggie lets go of her wrist and does his best to look sorry. “Don’t mean nothing,” he says. “I just wants to know what’s going on.”

  She clears her throat. “I’m Detective Palmer.” She nods at the Uniforms. “These are officers Burke—” (the muscle) “—and Routh. We got a report earlier tonight that you’d been involved in an incident.”

  “An incident? Where?”

  “Well,” she says, “it obviously wasn’t you, so that doesn’t matter.”

  Shoot. He’d so hoped to learn something. Find out who’d got wise to him.

  Blondie Palmer walks past the officers and the three of them head down the hallway past Ms. Baxter’s. As they go Reggie leans out into the hallway to holler, “’Bye now,” but really he’s watching Detective Palmer—the way she walks.

  When Reggie turns round, he’s staring right into the cold-dark eyes of his father. Reggie’s dad bounce-walks him straight back until Reggie’s pinned between the door and the beater shirt covering the rolls a fat currently making up his dad’s body.

  “What did you do?” his dad says.

  “Shoot, man, I don’t kno
w. Been over on King Street, asking after Georgie. Someone got wise.”

  Reggie’s dad pokes a thick finger in Reggie’s chest. “I told you, leave that be.” And he pokes Reggie’s chest again, driving the point home.

  Reggie rubs his chest where the poke left its ache. “Dang, old man. It’s like you don’t care none.”

  “Georgie’s the reason we living in this hellhole. I spent all the time on him he’s going to get. Somebody seen you, figured out who you are and where you live. And that sent the cops to me. And that ain’t never going to happen again. We clear on that, boy?”

  By that, Reggie knows his dad’s talking about appearance. He’s been Reggie for a long time; now he needs to become someone new.

  Reggie slips past his dad, into his room, where he flops down on his mattress. It’s an old mattress with holes in the top. Sometimes when Reggie sleeps, the tops of the springs come through the holes, jabbing his back and legs.

  But it’s under the mattress that Reggie keeps his treasure.

  Two binders full a paper.

  Each one a different person Reggie’s been.

  He flips through them, remembering.

  This one’s a crusty old Asian guy Reggie used to be when he and Georgie drove taxis day in and day out out by the airport.

  And this here is a musclehead like that officer, Burke. Reggie used that one when he lived on his own out by the beach.

  And this page is one a Reggie’s favorites—a teenage cheerleader. Reggie used her when he and Georgie and their father went living the high life over east a High Street.

  Yeah, she’s one of Reggie’s favorites. He loved cheering for the team before a big game.

  Thinking about being a cheerleader starts Reggie thinking about Detective Palmer, the way she moves.

  Shoot. Detective Palmer, she don’t move. She flows.

  And that’s something Reggie thinks he really ought to try.

  He pulls off a piece of paper and begins writing a new body for himself. As he writes, the deep chocolate color of his skin starts to fade. The stiff, short, bristly hair atop his head goes away and new smooth hair, the color a hay before harvest, grows out in its place. He makes the hair long enough to pull back into a nice ponytail, but leaves it loose so that, as he writes, he got to push the hair back over his ear to keep it out of his eyes.

  The air fills with cracks and pops as his backbone shrinks. His ribcage gets smaller, leaving his skin hanging all flopsy-like.

  He writes away the rest a the fat he left on his self out in the stairwell. Before tightening up the skin Reggie adds just a bit a that fat back, giving himself nice round breasts. It’s been a while since Reggie last had ’em, and already he knows that nice, smooth walk he wants will have a bounce in it for awhile while he adjusts to this new body.

  He keeps writing, putting in every detail he can remember ’bout Detective Palmer.

  When he thinks he’s getting close, Reggie checks himself out in the warped full-length mirror mounted on the back a his door. When he stands up, the baggy pants he been wearing, they fall right off.

  He looks pretty funny in them man-briefs with a body that ain’t got no man-parts.

  Reggie makes a few adjustments, raising the butt, slimming the waist, and when he’s finally happy he turns over that sheet a paper and tries to figure out what to write here.

  That first side, that’s easy. That’s all physical.

  This here side, it’s personality.

  The first line, that’s going to be his new name. Reggie takes a while thinking about this, because he’s got to get it right. From now on, when people call this, he’s going to turn round to see what they want.

  Reggie starts by asking himself: What do I want with this here me?

  And the answer comes, just as he knew it would: I wants to find Georgie.

  Well, shoot. He can’t go ’round looking like no blondie white girl asking questions about her brother—not in the neighborhoods Georgie’s likely to go.

  Unless …

  Reggie gets a truly evil idea. At the top of the page he writes: My name is Detective Trisha Palmer.

  The “Trisha,” that’s just a guess. But Reggie fills in the rest a that page, making up all the details that he thinks would make for a good detective.

  First off, she wouldn’t go thinking of herself as “he.”

  And she’d likely be educated. A college degree.

  Raised in a middle-class family. She still loves her father enough to be a daddy’s girl.

  Her favorite colors are pink and especially blue, because of the way it matches her eyes.

  As the paper fills with text, the scratches that were once so recognizable as Reggie’s writing smooth out, becoming a beautiful, flowing cursive—the handwriting of a girl so detail-oriented that, in third grade, she spent hours practicing every character, above and beyond what the teacher required, until each letter was perfect.

  The identity that once masked Reggie melts away until

  All that was left was Trisha Palmer.

  And she was exhausted. These changes always took so much out of her. It would be several hours before she’d be ready to even write in small changes.

  She hoped what Reggie had done would be good enough.

  She gazed around the room, seeing it with fresh eyes. The dingy mattress, uncomfortable against her tush, stained with dark reds and yellows from years of use before she and her father had even moved in. Sparsely decorated walls—unframed posters of sports teams, mostly, with corners curling where the tape holding them down had dried and cracked.

  The one little table in the corner, on which lay the only possession Trisha would actually miss: a glass football, engraved with Grover Cleveland High School—State Champions 2003. The year she’d been a cheerleader and Georgie (then called Tyson) had been the star running back on the team.

  Georgie’s trophy.

  The only piece of him she still had left.

  No way she could take that with her, but her father knew how important it was to her. He’d keep it safe.

  She stood up, examining herself in the mirror. Overall, she felt pleased with the result. Oh, she was far from perfect. Far from it. But with a few written words—after she’d rested—she could fix the problem areas.

  Now … time to find some decent clothes.

  Trisha pulled on Reggie’s old closet door. It refused to open all the way and, when she tried to force it, the spring-loaded pin holding it in place snapped and the door fell.

  She yelped and tried to catch it, but it was no use. The closet door slammed into the wall, leaving a terrific gash where its corner carved through the wallboard.

  “The hell?” her father called from the other room, and within a few moments he burst through the door. When he saw her, his eyes practically bulged from his head.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said. “My name is Trisha.”

  “Hell no.” Her father waddled forward, trying to intimidate her. “You ain’t doing this to me.”

  She held her ground, but looked down, suddenly embarrassed by herself. She—Reggie—had broken the second rule that had kept them safe for so many years: Never duplicate someone completely. In the past she’d always used pieces of people—eyes from a waitress who’d been kind to her; the chin of an actor she admired. This was the first time she’d copied someone whole cloth.

  Daddy was right to be angry. They’d been through a lot together, she and her father. The sacrifices he’d made for her … some of them were things she couldn’t imagine doing herself. She’d never loved anyone that much.

  Except maybe Georgie.

  Georgie had made it clear that he didn’t like the way they were living—at the time they’d been a refugee family from Cambodia. She guessed they’d stayed too long in the ritzy part of the city before that. Georgie had gotten too used
to wealth; the transition to poverty had been too hard on him.

  So, one day, without even saying “goodbye,” Georgie disappeared, taking the balance in their savings account with him. Seventy years of savings among the three of them—sixty years for Daddy alone before that.

  Living the easy life had been Daddy’s idea. A way to reward his children for years of hard work. If he’d known what it would do to Georgie, her father would never have done it. And now her father seemed to despise Georgie.

  And she …

  She couldn’t forget her twin. She never would. She had to at least know that he was okay.

  No matter what.

  But her father was right—it was unfair of her to do this to him. She would never bring her family back together again. She knew that.

  No, finding her brother was something she had to do for her own peace of mind.

  Trisha felt stubbornness creep into her face as she raised her head. “You’re right, Daddy. I won’t do this to you.”

  “Damn right.”

  “But I will do this. For me.”

  Her father started to shake his head, but she cut him off with a glance before he could speak.

  Fierce determination. That’s what defined Trisha Palmer.

  She’d said so right on that piece of paper that now made the latest page in her binder.

  Her father cursed her several times, but he knew she’d made up her mind. Finally he could do nothing more that wrap his big, heavy arms around her and hold her close.

  He hadn’t showered in days, judging from the smell. At first that bothered her. And then she realized how tightly he held her, the way it made it hard for her to breathe.

  And she knew. He wasn’t wishing her luck. He was saying goodbye.

  Tears began swelling in her eyes, and she returned the hug as hard as she could.

  “Daddy, I—”

  “Hush now,” he said, stroking the back of her head. “I knew this day was coming. Got a little cash-money saved away.”