My people are called the Nayjeed.

There are many names, but this is the one that best describes us. A word from a forgotten language, it best suits beings that were not only forgotten, but never really acknowledged as real.

You might say the word means nomad.

Literally it means: that which is lost to roam forever.

We are not angels, or demons. Though for humans that would be the closest description you have of us. Your race has not learned to define life outside the thin spectrum of carbon and oxygen. You have no scientific measurement of us.

We are creatures of the spirit. We don’t fear that you’ll know us, because you believe that we are you.

There is a moment, between life and death, a time window, when the body of a human functions just as the soul leaves it. Like a radio that plays for a second after the plug is pulled, the body can sustain for a moment after its occupant has left.

And this is the moment when the Nayjeed can enter.

We cannot stay inside the body with the spirit of a living occupant. But we can move in at the moment the human relinquishes, and take hold before the body begins to deteriorate.

Nayjeed are very jealous of humans, as we have no bodies of our own. We roam Earth. We don’t know the realms of underworld or overworld as angels do. So we wait. And we take the cloaks as the humans cast them off. We inhabit them.

We live inside their skins.

I don’t know when we as a people began, but I can tell you of the many times that I have been here. The time Nayjeed spend in their primal form moves differently. Once inside a skin, time is fast, speeding past like nothing. Your lives are brief, hectic, stifling at times.

But the skin itself is a house of pleasure, and this is what Nayjeed enjoy possessing.

Humans are built to live and die, but Nayjeed do not know an end. Unless they chose one.

And some of us have made that choice, to die and go into nothingness than willingly relinquish the flesh. Skin is so intoxicating. It makes you think that you are so much more than you really are.

I have passed through many skins, many lives. And I remember each one. Unlike a human I cannot forget. Each leaves its own impression, a groove into parts of my being.

At night, I dream of my other lives, my other skins.

The most vivid dream is about the night I entered the skin of the young woman that I dwell within now. I possessed her as she lay dying, and I felt her soul pass me as I entered. She died screaming, and the scream filled me in the breadth of her body and my soul. The light ahead awaited her, and in that moment I would have given anything to follow.

But it was not for me. That light, was hers alone, and it was the only thing that stopped her screaming.

I was not so lucky, because the body knew pain. If flooded into me like a wave, wiping away any thought or reasoning. Animal pain wrenched through my limbs and made them toss about.

The body - I - lay bleeding beneath a loose cover of dirt and leaves. And I screamed. Or tried to. Dirty water sloshed down my throat, nearly choking me. The sounds died within my chest.

That one dream I have, every night. I don’t ever see the face of the person who drove the owner from this body, but I could feel him watching. Blinded by the mud and the rain and debris, it was only a sense of a presence, not a form I could define.

***

Weeks later, I slept fitfully in the house that belonged to the skin I inhabited.

Headlights rolled past my bedroom window.

The first time those lights moved across my curtains, it was enough to shake me from the edge of an unpleasant dream.

The same dream that I had every night; cold air. Darkness. The sound of rain. The smell of wet soil and dead leaves.

And the screaming….

I sat up in bed, and took a deep breath. I waited a moment before going to the window.

My fingers skimmed the edge of the curtain.

On the street below, a car is parked on the empty cul-de-sac. The headlights are out.

I stood there for a moment, waiting.

The car does not belong here; along a street lined with BMW’s and luxury SUV’s . It was a dark sedan of American make. So ordinary that it stuck out like a sore thumb, like the cars plain clothes policemen drove.

I watched as the driver’s side window came down.

I waited.

A second later I saw the flicker of a lighter. It wasn’t enough for me to distinguish a face or form, but I knew who it was.

***

I didn’t bother turning on lights.

In the bathroom, I started pulling things out from the cabinet beneath the sink. Toiletries, boxes, bottles of shampoo got tossed on the floor as my fingers searched for one object. Panic started rising up in my throat until I found it.

The little box was cool and dry in my hands. The gun laid undisturbed inside.

I pulled a box of bullets from their hiding place in a bedroom drawer and loaded the gun.

While I handled the weapon I felt calm. But my hands shook as I dressed.

I had the sense of time running down. I should have known it was no use.

I’d just passed the den when I heard a sound behind me.

I turn slowly, aware of the gun’s heft on the inside of my jacket.

His cigarette made a little dot of red light in the darkness. He exhaled, and stepped forward, closing the few yards between us.

“Evangeline,” he said. “You’re not going to even say hello?”

Little Mandy’s brow furrowed in concentration, as she poured a ring of salt onto the pavement.

The slug oozed forward until it came into contact with the small white crystals, and then curled up into a tight ball as it turned inside out. Mandy giggled and poked it with a stick, then poured more salt onto the unfortunate creature.

“Aw, does Mister Slug not want to play anymore?” she said.

When no answer came, she ground the mass of ready salted slug under her heel until it spurted out from the edges of her shoe, then skipped off to the bottom of her aunts garden to see what else she could find.

The summer was hot. The hottest one she could remember in her short life. Instead of playing with her friends however, her parents had shipped her off to her aunt’s house the moment that the school term had ended. It was so unfair! She kicked at a small pile of stones that clattered across the sandstone paving slabs.

“Oi! Watch what you’re doing,” said a voice from the long grass.

Mandy crouched down and parted the grass. A tiny man with a white beard and green cloth hat stood glaring at her, with his hands on his hips.

“Those bloody rocks could have killed me – hey! Stopit! Whatchadoing?” he said, as the girl reached down and grabbed him with a pudgy fist.

“Ooh! A fairy!” she said, lifting the furious little man up to her face.

“A fairy! You can bugger off. You’ll never catch me mincing about among the flowers and abusing rodents,” said the man. “I’m a gnome, and don’t you forget it!”

“I shall call you Mr Tiddlywinks,” she said. “Can I have my three wishes now?”

“Mr Tiddlywinks? My names Geoff!”

“First, I want to be a princess.”

“Sorry Luv – I don’t do wishes. I’m more a sitting by a pond, fishing sort of bloke.”

Mandy’s face darkened and her bottom lip puffed out.

“No wishes! NO WISHES!! Then Mr Tiddlywinks, I think I am going to squeeze you till you pop and see what your insides look like!”

The girl tightened her sweaty fist and squeezed. The gnome squeaked but could not escape the fleshy prison that was crushing the life out of him.

“Hang on a second luv, just because I can’t grant you wishes, doesn’t mean I can’t help,” he gasped.

“I’m listening…”

“There’s this ring, see. In the forest. A magic ring.”

“Go on…”

“Well, it’s said that only the fairest and bravest little girl can go into the enchanted forest and steal it away from the wicked witch.”

“I’m brave! And fair!”

“That’s what I’m saying. You’ll be able to get it, no problem.”

“And the ring will give me my three wishes?”

“The ring will give you a million wishes…just…stop squeezing so hard.”

“Oh! Sorry Mr Tiddlywinks,” she said, relaxing her grip a little. “But if you’re lying to me…if you try anything funny…I’ll squish you into goo. Got it?”

“Got it,” said the gnome, rubbing his bruised ribs. “Shall we go then?”

They set off into the woods, along well worn trails where shafts of sunlight penetrated the foliage to make shifting patterns on the forest floor. Mandy skipped along, pausing only to smell the flowers along the side of the path, or to hurl rocks at squirrels that scampered among the branches. After a while the path faded amidst the undergrowth and the trees became dark and unfriendly.

“Are you sure we’re going the right way Mr Tiddlywinks?”

“Of course I’m sure. Its right up ahead…unless you’re scared – in which case you can skip along home and I’ll find another brave and fair little girl to get the magic ring.”

“I’m not scared!” she said, “and if you even THINK of giving that ring to anyone else then it will be bad for you. Very very bad.”

“OK, OK – just up ahead there’s a fallen tree. You need to go under that and straight ahead.”

The tree lay across the trail, rotten and worm eaten. A small gap was visible under the ivy that crawled over the decomposing wooden corpse of the once towering forest giant. Mandy crawled underneath.

“It’s dirty under here, and it smells!”

“Never mind that, just get past the tree and go straight ahead. We’re almost there.”

Mandy wriggled through the gap and climbed to her feet on the other side. The forest seemed different, the light taking on a strange purple cast. No birds sang in the trees, and there were no squirrels to throw things at. The woods were silent, as if they were holding their breath in anticipation. Ahead of them, thick gossamer strands stretched between the tree trunks.

“Eew! Spiders!”

“It’s not real. It’s just a trick of the wicked witch to keep little girls away. This is why you need to be brave. Just walk through them – they are not really there.”

Mandy frowned, closed her eyes and walked straight ahead. Within seconds she was entangled in thick oozing silk.

A shape detached itself from the dark canopy above and scurried down the webs towards the terrified girl. A huge black spider regarded her with hundreds of eyes. Hairy fangs dripped venom onto the rotten leaf carpet of the forest floor. Mandy screamed as the creature descended and wrapped her in a tight silken cocoon.

“Mr Tiddlywinks! Help!” she yelled, but it was no good. Within moments her body was completely encased in a sticky white shroud, with only her tear filled eyes visible.

The spider dropped a small bag of coins into the gnome’s outstretched hands.

“Thanks Shelob, pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

A jingling came from his pocket. He reached in and produced a small mobile phone.

“Hello, Geoff’s fast food delivery service….a boy AND a girl?…at the Gingerbread house?…
OK, give me an hour…I know, but what can I say…business is booming…better make it an hour and a half.”

__________________

©2010 Graeme Reynolds
Graeme Reynolds has been called many things over the years, most of which are unprintable. By day, he breaks computer programs for a living, but when the sun goes down he hunches over a laptop and thinks of new and interesting ways to offend people with delicate sensibilities.
He lives somewhere in England with two cats, three delinquent chickens and a girlfriend that is beginning to suspect that there is something deeply wrong with him.

You can visit him at http://www.graemereynolds.com