Young Writers Society

Bo smiled, his eye lighting up a little when he realized they’d come to an agreement. He was relieved they had a plan to ditch Trey without completely screwing him over. Granted, he’d still ve confused about waking in a motel with less money, a bloody towel lying around, and no idea where his car was, but... that was just how things were gonna have to be.

“Sweet,” he said. “Well, if you wanna uh, lie down beside yourself and do the switch, you can maybe save Trey from a few more aches and bruises.”

"He'll be fine," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. "It doesn't really hurt."

It would definitely hurt when he woke up, but something told me he'd deserve it - this guy was just too nice for his own good.

I reached over the side of the bed and my body, tapped him for the briefest of seconds, and then watched as Trey's body awkwardly collapsed over mine - and notably whacked the back of the bed on the way down.

There, I said, already having trouble getting used to saying things internally instead of out loud. All set. By the way, are you going to grab all of that food?

Oh. Well that had to hurt. Bo winced and frowned as Trey collapsed, wishing he’d seen that coming so he could catch him.

With a sigh, he reached down and picked Trey up first, gently moving him to the other side of the queen bed.

“In a moment. I have storage space in my motorcycle in the back,” he said aloud, even though Skull’s communication was from within. Who was there to listen and watch anyways? It didn’t matter.

Bo fluffed a pillow under Trey’s head, pausing to look down at him for just a moment.

This was so weird.

He walked back around the bed to Skull’s body. First, he positioned the jacket so it covered the blood stain. Next, he looked over at all the snacks on the table. He grabbed all of them and shoved them into his pockets. He shoved what was remaining into Skull’s pockets. He could always make two trips, but he had a feeling that their antics had already drawn suspicion, and he wanted to limit the amount of exposure he got outside.

He flipped up his hood.

It’d blow off when he started driving, but for the carrying-a-limp-body-to-his-motorcycle bit, he preferred to have his face shadowed for posterity.

And then finally, he put one arm under Skull’s legs, and one behind his back. As he cradled the body in his arms, he made sure Skull’s head was gently tucked into the crook between his bicep and his chest. Skull was far from a baby, but he always remembered when holding babies it was important to support their head. Or their Skull.

He chuckled to himself, inwardly. Wait. Could Skull hear that? Did they share thoughts now?

I had to admit - I was impressed. He was carrying my body with an ease I could only dream of. Asmira could almost carry my body as well, when I was possessing her, but it was nowhere near as easy as it was right now.

I wasn't going to say anything about that, anyways. It wasn't really in my style. I was just grateful that he had grabbed all the food, and hadn't made a fuss about me letting Trey get hit on the head.

This definitely isn't suspicious, I said. It was suspicious when I brought my body in here as Trey, but I hadn't been too worried about it then. I still wasn't worried about it. I just felt like I had to be saying or doing something, or else I'd be bored out of my mind.

Bo chuffed. “Yeah? You didn’t think that on the way in?” he whispered as he made his way to the door, turning the knob with the hand under Skull’s legs and then shimmying the door open with his foot, then his butt. He carefully kept Skull steady, keenly aware of the placement of the wound and what might aggravate it (apart from moving him already, which was unavoidable at this point).

When he got out, he kept heading down the hall. His room was at the end of the building, and he’d parked out back. There was a door that led to the back lot in the little inlet where the storage room was. He headed that direction, pushing it open with a little booty bump on the steel bar and heading out.

The back lot was dark. The only light came from the Motel sign by the street - faint, barely giving a yellow glow over everything. The pavement was wet and riddled with puddles, but his bike had a cover over it, so it would be dry.

Unfortunately, before he could get in his bike, he had to take off the cover and stash the snacks away, so he had to shift his body again.

With steady arms, he let Skull’s legs down. He was going to do this one-armed.

He put one arm around Skull’s waist, slipping under the boy’s arms so he wouldn’t slip out. He held Skull up against him as he used his free hand to pull off the tarp, roll it up into his stomach, and stash it in the compartment for his bike. As the tarp and the snacks went in, his helmet came out.

He only had one, and it was going on Skull. He knew how idiotic that was - yeah, put the helmet on the body with nobody in it - but Skull has said he’d already died once, and didn’t want to find out if he could die again. Bo didn’t want to take any chances.

With the helmet secure on Skull, Bo carried him bridal-style again as he straddled the seat. He couldn’t keep Skull like that, though. Not it he wanted to be able to drive. So he carefully, slowly, carefully set Skull seated in his lap, and kept one arm hugged around him for safety.

Okay. He could drive one-handed. He could do that. He used to do it all the time, before the crash.

This was a no-brainer, right? Compared to all the other traumas he’d endured, overcoming this was nothing.

He started the engine, hearing the familiar rumble before he rolled out onto the street.

Riding on a motorcycle wasn't an experience I had ever expected to take part in. But it was actually pretty cool, especially when I wasn't doing any of the hard work of staying on it. I noticed that the only helmet went to my body, but I was okay with that - my skull, after all, was pretty important to me.

This is one of the weirdest experiences I've had so far, I said. Dying and possessing my own skull definitely took the cake, but this came pretty close. How far is it to my apartment?

Unknown to me or the actual driver, two people watched us leave the motel's parking lot from the shadows - and quickly found a way to follow after us.

“Well, I went a bit out of my way to try and lose Trey, because I knew he was following me,” Bo explained. “So it might be ten to fifteen minutes, depending if we hit traffic. Things don’t close early here.”

He slowed at a stop light, looking up as the red reflected off the wet street. It was just a few seconds of nothing before it blinked green again. Foot on the gas, they went forward.

“Can you last that long, you think? Do you need to talk to keep busy?”

Talking would be nice, I admitted. I was itching to do something, but I knew I couldn't risk moving around when my body was so precariously balanced. I was also getting free food out of this, so I really didn't want to get on his bad side.

Bo smiled. His mind was split between focusing on driving and talking, but he could manage. It was about the same as talking while driving a car.

“So what was earth like when you lived here? You remember the time period? The year?”

I think you'd call the time I was actually alive the Victorian era, I said. I died in 1879 - but I was around for awhile after that. I think the year I finally passed on was 2019. It was a little hard for me to whip out a calendar and check.

I only knew the era because I heard Cubbins talk about it, once, back when he was especially interested in knowing more about me. He had guessed right with the era, but could never get more specific than that.

I was happy with it being that way.

What year is it now? I asked.

“Ah! It’s 2020,” Bo answered. “But wow - so I guess that makes you, in a literal sense, a very old soul.”

I am, I agreed, resisting the very strong urge to give a smirk in response.

I paused.

I'm surprised you're taking this so well, I admitted. The people I travel with still have trouble believing that I'm telling the truth about the ghost part.

Bo laughed.

And then he turned a corner, having to focus for a second to keep his and Skull’s balance, but the pause wasn’t just because of that.

Should he get into it? No. He shouldn’t. He could be vague. He wasn’t going to unload all his trauma on some old ghost who just wanted a cinnamon bun and to go home.

“I’ve experienced a lot of crazy things in life. There’s not a lot that I consider outside the realm of possibility anymore, honestly.”

Now that was interesting. I wondered what kind of thing could have prepared him for someone like me - what kind of magic did this Earth possess? Every other Earth I had been to or heard of had been special. Nikko's had superheroes, Nathaniel's and Asmira's had demons, and my world had ghosts. If you add in everything with the library and Esther's Earth, Earth was never boring.

Bo was glad that Skull didn't ask more questions for the time being.

They'd started to hit some night traffic, and it was taking more out of him than he expected. The focusing. The flashing lights reflecting off the road, and off passing cars. He'd gotten used to having no depth perception, but things always felt scarier in the dark, on a bike, in the rain. Nevermind the fact that he'd been in an accident before that almost killed him.

Conversation dwindled. He hoped Skull was okay. It was weird feeling like there was a voice in the back of his mind. A literal person hanging out in there.

But finally, he made it to his place.

He pulled up to a tall, four-story apartment building in an older part of town. It was hard to see the color of it in the dark of night, but it looked like the front of it was brick, and the sides were concrete. The roof was flat, and probably full of puddles.

The roads leading up to it weren't very well kept, and the parking lot was a little uneven. Bo rolled under one of the covered spaces and parked, flipping his keys in his hands so that his apartment key was wedged between his fingers, ready to go.

"I can get your snacks in a bit," he said quietly, for communication's sake. "For now I'm just going to get you in my place, lying down."

When his bike rumbled to a stop, Bo carefully repositioned Skull in his arms so he was cradling him again.

"I'm on the top floor. Just a little bit of walking, and then it'll be over."