Jack Chalker: Midnight at the Well of Souls

She raised her head slightly and looked down at her body. Something was definitely different.

Two extremely large but perfectly formed breasts met her eye, and her skin seemed creamy smooth, dark-complexioned but unpigmented.

Her gaze slid down a little more, and she saw that the rest of her body matched the breasts—curving in all the right places, definitely.

She felt—strange. Tingly all over, but particularly in the areas of her breasts and crotch.

She was nude from the waist up, but hanging on sultry hips was a pantslike garment of fine-woven black lace, to which hundreds of tiny sequins of various colors were attached.

She felt her face, and found that she had some sort of hairdo. There were also long, plastic earrings hanging from pierced ears.

She looked around in the gloom, found a small cosmetics case with a mirror in it, and looked at her face.

It is a beautiful face, she thought, and she was not being vain. Maybe the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen. Cosmetics had been carefully applied to bring out just the right highlights, but the face was so perfect that they seemed almost intrusive on its beauty.

But whose face was it? she wondered.

She noticed a box next to the cosmetics case on the floor, and picked it up idly. It was a pillbox—open, and empty. There was a universal caution symbol on it, but she couldn’t read the writing. She didn’t need to.

This girl, whoever and whatever she was, had killed herself. She had taken all those pills and overdosed. She had died here, in this room, moments before—alone. And the moment that girl had died, she had been somehow inserted into the body, and the physical processes righted.

She stared again at that beautiful face in the mirror.

What would make someone who looked like this and experienced such feelings as she now did commit suicide? So very young, she thought—perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen. And so very beautiful.

She tried to get up, but felt suddenly light-headed and strange. She flopped back down on the bed and stared up at the light bulb, which, for some reason, had become fascinating.

She found herself gently caressing her own body, and it felt fantastic, like tingling jolts of pleasure at each nerve juncture.

It’s the pills, a corner of her mind told her. You didn’t get all of them out of your system.

The door opened suddenly, and a man looked in. He was dressed in white work clothes, like kitchen help. He was balding and fiftyish, but he had a tough, hard look to him. “Okay, Nova, time to—” he began, then stopped and looked at her, the empty box, and the bile and vomited-up pills on the floor and the side of her bed.

“Oh, shit!” he snarled angrily, and exploded. “You went for the happy pills again, didn’t you? I warned you, dammit! I wondered why a sexy high-top like you would work this jerkwater! They tossed you out of the others!” He stopped, his tone going from fury to disgust.

“You’re no good to anybody, not even yourself,” he snapped. “I told you if you did this again, I’d toss you in the street. Come on! You hear me?” he started yelling. “You’re going out and now! Come on, get up!”

She heard him, but the words didn’t register. He looked and sounded somehow funny, and she laughed and pointed to him, giggling stupidly.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “You’re a hell of a piece. Too bad your insides don’t match your outsides. Come on!”

He pulled her out into the hall and dragged her down a flight of wooden stairs. She felt as if she were floating, and made flying motions with her free arm and motor sounds with her voice.

A few other young women peered out from second floor rooms. None of ’em pretty as me, she thought smugly.

“Stop that giggling!” the man commanded, but it sounded so funny she giggled more.

The downstairs was a bar, some sawdust on the floor, a few round tables, and a small service bar to one side. It was dimly lit, and empty.

“Oh, hell,” he said, almost sadly, reaching into a cash drawer behind the bar. “You ain’t even earned your keep here, and you burned your clothes on the last flyer. Here—fifty reals,” he continued, stuffing a few bills in the lace panty. “When you come to out in the street or the woods or the sheriff’s office, buy some clothes and a ticket out. I’ve had it!”

He picked her up as if she weighed nothing, and, opening the door with one hand, tossed her rudely into the darkening street. The chilly air and the hard landing brought her down a bit, and she looked around, feeling lost and alone.

She suddenly didn’t want to be seen. Although there were few people about, there were some nearby who would see her in a few moments. She saw a dark alleyway between the bar and a store and crawled into it. It was very dark and cold, and smelled a little of old garbage. But at least she was concealed.

Suddenly the streetlights popped on, and deepened the shadows in which she sat confused. The shock of where she was and her situation broke through into her conscious mind. She was still high, and her body still tingled, particularly when rubbed. She still wanted to rub it, but she was aware of her circumstances.

I’m alone in a crazy place I don’t know, practically nude and with the temperature dropping fast, she thought miserably. How much worse can things get?

As if in answer, there was a rumbling and a series of static discharges, and the temperature dropped even more.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she started crying at the helplessness of her position. She had never been more miserable in her life.

A man was crossing the street, walking toward the bar. He stopped suddenly. Lightning flashed, illuminating her for a brief moment. He looked puzzled, and came toward the alley. She was folded up, arms around her knees, head down against them. She rocked as she cried.

He saw her and stared in disbelief. Now what the hell? he thought.

He reached out and touched her bare shoulder, and she started, looked up at him, saw the concern on his face.

“What’s the matter, little lady?” he asked gently.

She looked up with anguished face and started to speak, but couldn’t.

She was, even in this state, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Nothing’s that bad,” he tried to soothe her. “Where do you live? I’ll take you home. You’re not hurt, are you?”

She shook her head negatively, and coughed a little. “No, no,” she managed. “Don’t have a home. Thrown out.”

He squatted next to her. The lightning and thunder continued, but the rain held off still.

“Come on with me, then,” he said in that same soft tone. “I’ve got a place just down the road. Nobody there but me. You can stay until you decide what to do.”

Her head shook in confusion. She didn’t know what to do. Could she trust him? Dare she take this opportunity?

A strange, distant voice whispered in her brain. It said, “ Can you feel it? Fear, greed, horror, ambition, burning within you, consuming you!… Perfection is the object of the experiment, not the component… Don’t torture yourself, run away from your fears. Face them! Stand up to them! Fight them with goodness, mercy, charity, compassion…”

And trust? she wondered suddenly. Oh, hell! What have I got to lose if I go? What do I have if I don’t?

“I’ll go,” she said softly. He helped her up, gently, carefully, and brushed the dirt off her. He’s very big, she realized. I only come up to his neck.

“Come on,” he urged, and took her hand.

She hesitated. “I don’t want—want to go out there looking like this,” she said nervously.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you look,” he replied in a tone that had nothing if not sincerity. “Nothing at all. Besides, the storm’s about to break, I think. Most folks will stay inside.”