The worst part: This was but one of the 40 pushes required to mimic one quadrant of Brad's face. And there were three other quadrants to go.

Robert had explained it to me this way: Each mental-push of button sends a complex message to my brain to electrically jolt the nerves in the corresponding area of the face. The jolt forces the flesh and bone to react. After enough pushes, that part of the face is more or less reshaped.

“Great,” I'd said. “How about the button that supplies the novocaine?"

Robert smiled. “If only the afterlife were that simple, my friend."

Still, I've gotta think there's a way to apply some mental painkiller to this process. If I can drink a Brain scotch, then why can't I concoct some superdrug to numb my physical body? If I could, I'd be invincible, and would be able to swap faces at will. I'd be the unstoppable detective. The ultimate mystery man. I'd uncover and crush the Association in a matter of days-nay, hours-then move on to wipe out all evil from the face of the earth.

I pushed the button again, and whined like a whipped dog.

A few minutes later, I pushed it again. And again. And again.

Soon I settled into a horrific rhythm, pressing the other buttons of the other quadrants of my face in a slow sequence. It always progressed this way. It reminded me of the times my father punished me when I was a child. Dad was a card-carrying member of the Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child Social Club. The Rod in his case was a thick brown leather belt he wore. Wore, that is, until I came home with a bad grade, or stayed out past curfew, or committed some other terrible childhood crime. Then the belt would be released from its loops, folded in half, and smacked across my ass cheeks. The first was always the worst. After a while, I would start to float above the pain. Still feeling it, to be sure, but also outside of it. In a roundabout way, Dad and his belt did prepare me for my future. Just like he always said.

About a half-hour later I reached the final punches of the button. My face was alive and on fire. At some fundamental level, my own cells and nerves asked: What the fuck are you doing?

A few more pushes and it was over. I passed out.

In my dreams, a pointy-detailed demon with oversized mitts kept punching me in the face. It wore the face of Charles Manson.

It was night when I finally woke up. I had been slumped forward, hanging on my strained seat belt. I wiped away some eye-funk and immediately winced. Ow. Still fresh. Gotta be careful with the new mug.

I took a look at my new face in the rear view mirror, then compared it with the picture of Larsen taped to the visor. Not bad. I looked exactly like Larsen, if Larsen had gained a couple of pounds. My hair was still dark, and too short, but nothing Miss Clairol and a few hours couldn't fix.

Or course, the biggest difference would be my height and build-basically, everything from the neck down. The body was the one constant, no matter how many souls I collected, or how many times I switched faces. It wasn't even my original body (it'd burned in the car fire) or Robert's. Maybe it belonged to the guy who had collected Robert's soul. Robert only mentioned him twice by name-"Ralph"-and never talked about where he'd ended up. I figured original ownership couldn't have gone too far back; the body was still in decent physical condition. Sure, a few sagging lines here and there, and I wasn't pitching a tent every morning, but that was to be expected. Maybe it was 40 years old? 45, tops? I wished this thing had come with insurance papers and a title.

What this all boiled down to, of course, was that this job wasn't going to go on forever. At some point, like a car, this body was going to hit a certain mileage and fizzle out. I hoped I wasn't in the driver's seat when it happened.

Six

The Face They Feared

The next morning I woke up and brushed my teeth-carefully-combed my hair, and tried to substitute my coffee with a piss-warm Fresca. It didn't work.

It was time for a talk with Brad. No excuses now. Yeah, he'd been through a brutal murder. Sure, he'd watched his wife die. But enough was enough. It was time for him to start blabbing.

Besides, it was something to distract me from the raw, throbbing pain in my newly-crafted face.

I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes and transported myself to the new Brain Hotel room where I'd been keeping Brad. I didn't bother to knock.

There wasn't much to it. Just your college dorm room basics: single bed, wooden desk, metal chair, sink, mirror, wastebasket, couch, mounted shelf. (In fact, I had modeled most new rooms after my own college dorm room, from Nevada State, circa 1963.) Brad was sitting on the couch, fully awake, reading a newspaper. Or at least the pieces I'd absorbed last night. I wonder how it looked-random sentences and images, interrupted by white space?

“Good morning,” I said.

Brad looked at me for a moment, then nodded and looked back down at the paper.

“We have some business to discuss."

“Yes, we do,” he replied, his voice quaking.

“Do you have any questions?"

“Only one,” Brad said.

“Go ahead."

“What year is this?"

I hadn't expected that. Usually, a newly-collected soul will spit out something like, “Are you Jesus?” or “Where's my momma?” or “Where are the gates and the clouds?"

I frowned at him. “Why do you ask?"

Brad folded the newspaper and tucked it between the cushions. “Well, the last thing I remember, it was Sunday, August 31st, 1975, and I was being stabbed to death on my back porch. But today I wake up, and I appear to be fully healed. A rational mind would assume quite a few years-not to mention, extensive plastic surgery-were to have passed for this to happen."

“I saw you reading the paper,” I said. “Check at the date."

“Yeah, I know. It says September 5th, 1975. But if it's September 5th, then how can my body be completely healed?"

I smiled. “Because that isn't your body."

Brad's eyes narrowed. “Oh no?"

“Nope."

“Okay. I'll bite. Whose is it?"

“Nobody's. When you look down at yourself, you're seeing your own mental projection."

“Oh,” Brad said.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Aren't you going to ask where you are?” I said, finally.

“Well there's no need, is there?” he said. “It's clear than I'm dead, and have gone to Hell. To be honest, I had considered the option. But it all felt so real to the touch-my face, the feel of air in my lungs…"

“The brain is a powerful tool,” I said. “Even back when you were alive, everything you think you ‘felt’ came to you through your brain."

“Ah-hah!” Brad exclaimed. “I still have a brain, thus I am still alive."

“No,” I said. “You aren't alive, and you don't have a brain. You're inside mine."

It took him a while to wrap his brain-er, his mind-around the concept. It had taken me a while, too, when Robert had collected me. This was not something they taught in Sunday school. When you got down to it, most people thought death resulted in one of several options: (1.) Absolutely nothing. (2.) An afterlife of eternal bliss. (3.) An afterlife of eternal suffering. Maybe even (4.) Reincarnation, or (5.) Entrance into a higher plane of spiritual being, or something.

No one ever considered (6.) An afterlife in someone else's brain. But I'm here to tell you, brother and sisters, believe. Amen and Alleluia.

Once Brad was relatively at ease with the concept, the questions poured out of him.” If I don't have a brain, how can I think? Or speak?"