Chapter 1

This time Death chose to move me quickly, and without the drama of other chapters in my life ... lives ... or death ... uh-deaths.

One of those...

I’m pretty sure ... it’s one of those.

One second I was bleeding out from a massive, sucking chest wound, screaming in fury at my killers, and the next I was staring up at a group of teenage girls, crowding around and staring at me. Don’t get me wrong. I like girls, but it was a shock to find myself not dead, and lying on the pavement ... somewhere, with a small posse of young ladies obviously concerned about my well being, from the looks on their faces. In my previous deaths I had time in between life and death to think about the circumstances that got me dead.

Moving instantly into another body was frightening and challenging. My instinct was to wake up shooting, and only the shock of finding myself in a completely different setting, surrounded by schoolgirls kept me from lashing out and screaming in rage. To buy time while I figured out how to fit into this completely foreign setting, I coughed a few times and took my time sitting up.

Things immediately began to make some sense.

A woman who had to be a high school teacher shooed the girls away and leaned in to look me over. She had that air of command that teachers develop that lets them deal with anything that happens during a school day. This one was of intermediate age, slender but not skinny, with short-ish blond hair and blue eyes hidden behind the frames of her oversized eyeglasses. She looked at and all around me before speaking.

“Tommy? Are you OK? That was one heck of a fall and I was certain you were badly hurt just by the sound your head made when you hit the ground.”

She looked deeply into my eyes and decided that I must be not all that badly hurt, because I smiled right up into hers. That caused her to look at the small gaggle of girls around us and ask? “Did anyone see who tripped him? You need to tell me now, because if I have to find out through the video, or by interviewing your classmates it won’t be pretty.” The girls seemed to shrink right before our eyes, and I wondered how long before the real story would come out.

Instead of drawing the drama out any longer, I started to sit up and dust my new body off. The teacher put her hand gently on my chest, and said, “Why don’t you take it a little slower until we’re sure you haven’t seriously injured yourself?”

I was pretty sure that my head was fine and that the person who used to reside in it was dead. Another death by gunfire followed another new body by way of a head injury.

What a shock...

To prove to myself and everyone else that I was fine, I slid both hands beneath me and boosted myself up pushing slightly against the palm of the here-to-fore unidentified school teacher. She relented when it was obvious I was rising from the pavement whether she liked it or not, and stepped back to give me room to shake off the cobwebs. There was a deep pain in my hips that seemed out of place, and a dull ache across the center of my chest, to go with the soreness at the back of my head. As I shook the detritus of the parking lot off, I inconspicuously checked for bleeding, or damage that might make things complicated later.

The teacher seemed to want to help. Her mothering instinct kicked in, and her hands felt ... kind ... when she brushed the dust and small pebbles off the shoulders of the golf shirt I was wearing. The shirt was not typical teenage boy. It looked and felt soft and well made. It fit the body that I currently inhabited like a glove and accentuated my new svelte frame and budding muscle tone.

“Judy, is Tommy hurt?” This came from a very pretty young woman who walked up just as the gentle ministrations ended. When she withdrew her hands I felt the loss of contact like a sharp tap in the stomach. Now that I knew her name I felt a little better.

“No. I think he’s fine. We need to get these kids loaded up, and harass Harold into getting his lazy self onto the bus and driving. Otherwise we’ll never get there.”

Done with me for the moment, Judy and the other teacher walked off towards an old, beat-up, school bus, waiting nearby. As they approached I could see Judy wanted the driver to get the bus running and leave. She was somewhat fierce in her determination to herd the teenagers aboard with the other teacher and the old, grumpy, driver.

Almost as one the group of girls started for the bus. Not knowing my role in this activity - or even if I had one - I hung back until another girl tapped my arm and said, “Hey! Let’s go. You’re the only boy in our advanced study class and this trip won’t be nearly as much fun without you. So, grab your backpack, and go take your usual seat in the back.” She was slim, lean and pretty, with that fresh look that young girls sometimes have.

As I trailed my classmates into the school bus, I took stock of my new body. Whoever I was - this time - was about six feet tall and weighed around one-hundred and sixty-five pounds. I later learned that he had a thick head of wavy blond hair and blue eyes when I stepped into the restroom when we stopped for a comfort break. Tommy must have been quite a girl magnet with those dimensions, and I prayed I could pull off this body switch, without completely losing it and winding up institutionalized. The rage I felt still bubbled within me, and it took all my concentration to separate myself from the events prior to my death and the current circumstances.

I was still dwelling on my rage when one of the girls turned and said, “Hey! Yoo-hoo!?! Earth to Tommy. Your backpack is still back there on the ground. Don’t you think you will need a change of clothes sometime before Monday?” She was quite cute. Her sandy brown hair flowed off her shoulders in the sunlight and framed a pretty face. Her words got me moving and I grabbed the backpack before hustling to catch up with the group.

The school bus was just that; a school bus. The bench seats were hard, worn and ugly, exactly the way they’ve always been. There were only about a half dozen girls, two teachers - which were the ones I’d already met, sort of - and a bus driver, who was decidedly senior and disconnected to everything that was south of the steering wheel. There was an opaque, plastic divider that gave the driver some separation from the kids and the noise, but it wasn’t going to be nearly enough to make a difference. Judy took the shotgun seat by the front door and her co-worker sat across from her where they could easily look back and see what every student was up to. All in all, it was a typical high school field trip ... somewhere.

I intended to sit in the far back but she put out her hand and said, “I want you to sit right there,” indicating the seat behind the driver. “You hit your head. We need to make sure there isn’t anything more than a bump on the noggin, so you’re sitting near us until I’m convinced.”

There was no arguing, so I caved in and spread out to take the second row, driver’s side seat, thinking I might pretend to be asleep to avoid having to answer questions that might give me away. It was certain that no other student wanted to sit with the teachers, so I knew I’d be left alone, which was my best option while I wool gathered.

My mind was going a million miles per hour as I tried to fill in the blanks in this new life before the girls figured out that I have no clue who, or where I was. Mostly my head was full of the picture of Benjamin’s body flying through the air as those murdering bastards opened up on him and the girls. Somehow ... someway ... They were going to pay for their crimes, and it was going to be epic when I tracked them down and paid them back.

Oh, yeah ... I was going to bring some serious hurt to those rat bastards.

My somnolent state fooled the two teachers into thinking I was asleep. With patience learned over my many and varied lifetimes, I eavesdropped on their conversation, which was rather mundane until the younger of the two, who’s name I hoped to learn soon, asked Judy, “I see Tommy is already asleep. What ever happened to cause him to fall obviously doesn’t upset him very much. What do you know about him besides what we see at school?”

There was a pause, and I sensed that Judy was looking to make sure I was not aware of their conversation before answering. “Tommy turned eighteen a few months ago. He’s been a totally different person since the accident.” She paused probably trying to decide how much she wanted to say with the class close by.

After a short time she continued. “This is what I’ve heard. His parents were never, or hardly ever home. His former teachers have commented in his record that he virtually raised himself and never got into trouble. He is something of a loaner but his looks are like a magnet for girls. Even so, I’ve never seen him at a school dance.

“I can tell you this, though, Cheri, he has worked since he was old enough to work. He cut lawns, raked leaves, fixed gutters, trimmed trees and caulked and painted houses all over town. My neighbors used him for their odd jobs right up until the accident. They absolutely rave about his work and sometimes leave their house keys with him when they leave town, so he can bring their mail in while they’re gone.” She stopped talking, and I imagined that she stole a glance to make certain I was still sleeping.

“He is one of the nicest, calmest, gentlest and most respectful student I’ve ever taught. Since the whole family was in that accident and his parents and sister were killed he has drawn a curtain around himself and closed out the rest of us.

“I had him last year for American Studies and he was light years ahead of everyone else in the class. When everyone handed back their textbooks, I could tell his had never been opened. Not even once. He has the kind of intellectual curiosity that makes him inhale history and then apply it to the present like no one I’ve ever taught.

“Honestly, I can’t remember having seen college students with his skills. It’s too bad the jocks can’t let him be. He doesn’t fit in, and the insecure boys can’t help but torment him. I hope he never loses his poise, because the day he loses his temper, people are going to get hurt. I can just see him going from full calm, to full rage and hurting some of those ignorant bullies. When they cross that line, I hope I’m there to write the report and keep him out of trouble.

“You saw him fall. I know one of the insecure jocks caused it, but I wasn’t watching when it happened. He’s become a magnet for every type of bully in the school. It just about breaks my heart to see someone as kind and sweet as Tommy treated like that. I will find out who nearly killed him, and when I do, I’ll see to it that they are arrested for assault.” She sounded mad clean through, and I realized that the boy who died and loaned his body out to me had at least one true friend.

I wondered if he ever realized it.

Cheryl wasn’t ready to let go of talk about Tommy. ‘My niece Dinah, said he’s the only boy she would ever trust herself to be naked with. That kind of admission would have irked me, but she quickly added that she’d never been naked with any boy, just that if she did, it would have to be someone exactly like Tommy, because she just knew he wouldn’t hurt her, take advantage of her, or force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

“Did you notice that he didn’t get mad when he hit the pavement? He just sat still for a moment, gathered his wits about himself, dusted himself off, and then stood up as if nothing out of ordinary had happened. Teenage boys aren’t wired like that. If he didn’t get mad and go after the culprit, I would have expected him to sulk, cry, or at least make a few empty threats.

“He is so different...”

The two women were silent for a little while, and then I felt a cool hand on my face and opened my eyes. Judy was leaning over me, softly brushing the hair off my forehead. The gesture was at once so intimate and so caring that I smiled before I caught myself. Judy smiled too, and asked, “You fell asleep so quickly, I wanted to be sure you didn’t pass out from your head injury. But I guess you really aren’t all that damaged.

“I am going to keep an eye on you. When we get there you stay near me and Miss Anderson. If you start to feel nauseous, dizzy, or feverish, tell one us right away, and we’ll get you to a hospital just to be safe. Don’t try to overdo it this afternoon. Whatever the others are doing doesn’t mean you should join in. If you feel tired or sleepy, come tell me. We don’t want to find out you have a concussion and go into a coma because we aren’t being vigilant.

“So you will cooperate, yes?”

She punctuated her request in such a way as to make it an order, and I smiled my agreement. “Thanks for caring. It means a lot to me,” and I shut up before I made a mistake.

It took a few minutes but I finally found a comfortable position despite the various and sundry pains, and settled down with my thoughts. The last life was so ridiculously out of character with the prior iterations, that I was tempted to wonder if it was some kind of an awake dream. Maybe I’d been in between life and death all that time, and the events that occurred were only in my imagination.

Spending time in the place of the dead was torturous. I had nothing to hold on to except my memories. It was possible that what I thought of as my last life was simply a delusion. As I pondered some of the deeply disturbing times when I was trapped in place of death, it was logical to imagine my brain protecting itself by fabricating an entire alter existence, just to keep me from insanity. I needed to think that through, try to make some inquiries as soon as I knew where in time I currently resided, and see if I could find reference to the people and events that I’d experienced. All that and more were taking up space in my head when I heard Cheryl and Judy talking once more.