Young Writers Society

Wrote it on the spot for a contest over at the Contest Section. That means I wrote it directly into the post. That doesn't mean I didn't re-read it, and corrected it though. It's a nice little piece, I think. One of the shortest ones I've done. I like doing this Sci-Fi short stories. Please read and comment. Please. Puh-leaaaase.

Rated [R] For Fucking. =D

SHIFT, SHAPE. SHIFT!

It begins with a pain in the back of my neck, a wound that opens, followed by the feeling of blood slivering down my shoulders, and a splitting headache, like heartburn inside my eyes. I can feel my body changing, adapting, and it's like torture. Worse than that, even. It never lasts more that fifteen minutes. Shedding skin, I call it. It´s a bit more complicated than that.

Who do I want to be today?

I've been living as Robert Sherman for weeks, collecting his bills, going to his workplace, fucking his wife. The guilt is almost non-existent now, but I can still remember the name of my first one, that first kill which happened out of necessity rather than comfort. Chose him carefully. Not too important, not too poor. Somebody with no friends, or family. Stabbed him three times in the chest. I think I was more scared than he was. His name was Gabriel Howard and I lived as him for months before switching again.

I doubt they're looking for me anymore.

Robert Sherman is a file clerk in the hospital. His wife, Sarah, is fairly attractive. Things I learned from Robert before dumping him in the swamp-- One, he and Sarah met in college. Two, they married while drunk in Las Vegas. Three, he is left-handed. Four, he hates his father. Little details that seem unimportant at the time are most likely the ones that matter in the long run. When I was living as Charlie Burke in Minneapolis I forgot one of his children's birthdays and then the whole thing fell apart. I couldn't stay as him for much longer. Sherman is a fairly comfortable identity. Easy job. Big house. Sarah. I intend to be him for at least a year, but today I need something different.

Movie stars are the easiest. It takes a much higher degree of concentration trying to become a mirror image of someone people expect not to be perfect than it does becoming an icon. People don't expect movie stars to have scars, or zits. They expect them to look like they do in movies. So I pick one-- George Clooney in Ocean's Eleven, and hit a bar. Fairly obviously, shifting into George Clooney isn't the same as shifting into Charlie Burke, Robert Sherman or Gabriel Howard. It entails having to keep out of the sight of paparazzis, and screaming fans. Rule number one: avoid at all costs appearing in the cover of some magazine. One phone call is all it takes. Clooney telling the SunTimes he wasn't in Los Angeles this weekend, and bam, the Service is all over my ass again. I bet they think I'm dead. I'm sure they think I'm dead.

Getting tail is incredibly easy for movie stars. Easier than you might think. I'm sitting in the bar for less than four minutes, and some girl is already buying me a drink. She's a brunette, which I haven't had for quite some time (lovely Sarah is a blonde). I wave at her, tell her to come over. She just smiles, and does as she's told. There's no watching your manners or being a gentlemen when your name appears in billboards. The bar is an elegant place not too far away from Robert Sherman's house. It's also convinient. In other words, not too crowded-- including the girl and me, there's only four other guys, all sitting in the same table, sipping bourbon and chatting about the weather.

"I know all about you, Mr. Clooney," she says before sitting down next to me. A bit too close, which is not close enough for what I want to do. "Really. I know absolutely everything there is to know."

"I'm sure you do, hon."

Sometimes I miss certain things. It doesn't last long, but I do. The sweet voice of somebody else's children, the taste of somebody else's food, the sweet embrace of somebody else's wife. I like to think of them as disposable, and try not to get too attached, but I keep having that dreadful feeling, like I am becoming the person I am pretending to be. I try to remember the way my actual face looks, or the way my life was before the experiment, before the murders, before Robert Sherman, and I can't. I am no-one. And I am everybody.

"No, but I'm not sure you understand, Mr. Clooney. I mean, I am your biggest fan. I got posters of you all over my bedroom. I know your pet's name, your favorite meal. I know you went to Filmore Highschool. I know that you double-majored in Biochemistry and Physics in MIT."

Wait. What?

"What are you saying...? What the fuck is this--?"

"And I know that you participated in an illegal experiment under the supervision of Dr. Elias Cuttler, now deceased."

Can't breathe. How did they--?

"You look surprised, Mr. Clooney. I told you I was your biggest fan. Wanna know what else I know? How about the fact that you've been living as Robert Sherman for a month. Hell, I even know your real name. We've been following you for quite some time."

"I-- I don't even--" Words tangle inside my mind. Can't think. "I don't know what you're--"

The girl leans forward. The bartender is gone. The door behind me is locked, and the four men sitting in the table at the back of the place are already standing up. They're walking towards me. There's a huge mirror hanging from the wall across the bar. In it I can see movie star extraordinaire George Clooney shitting his pants. They found me. I can't believe they found me-- I mean, just how in the fuck did they find me? I think about standing up. I think about running away. But I just want to here what she's got to say, what she's whispering so lovingly in my ear:

"We found the bodies, honey."

And then a needle-- Or something stings my neck. I feel the pain one more time. My head exploding, the four men grabbing my arms, my legs, the wound opening up, the pain behind my eyeballs. And in the mirror, Clooney's face turns inside out, revealing throbbing red flesh. I try to fight it. I try to keep it from happening but I can't, and I move around, and scream, plead, cry, and those four men are still holding me down.

I can't escape.

I feel something inside me shift. I feel my beard growing by the second. I feel my skin darken, I hear my fat burning. And then I look at the mirror again, and see a man I don't know, a face I've never seen before. I stare at him as he struggles and screams, and stares right back at me.

"I don´t know that man!" I tell them. "I don't know who that even is! I swear I don't know who that man even is!"

The brunette just looks at me, and I can tell I make her sick. She waves her hand, mumbles something, and the four men pick me up and take me away. I'm thinking about Sarah. About how I won't be home for supper. I think she'll be disappointed.