Joshua Ryder's hands gripped his steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white from the strain, as he watched the scene unfolding in front of the occult shop. A car with a broken window had pulled in front of the shop, and in the dim light, Joshua could see a man in an orange jumpsuit step out. Joshua recognized the jumpsuit as a prisoner's outfit. This man was an escaped prisoner, roaming free in his town. As the man entered the occult shop, Joshua seethed with anger. Not only were the people in the shop worshipping Satan... now they were giving safe harbor to dangerous fugitives? Truly, this shop must have been the very heart of sin on earth. It was no wonder God had struck the town with the body-switching curse, if this kind of evil existed here.
Joshua picked up his beloved shotgun, Ruth... then he hesitated. Yes, these people were sinners. Yes, they deserved to die. But the bible forbade murder. Was it right for him to take another life, even the life of a sinner? Then again, just as his pastor, Reverend Foster, had said,the body-swapping was a clear sign that God was displeased with the sinners in the occult shop and the rest of town. Surely the Lord wanted this town purged of sinners, by whatever means necessary. Still... "Thou shalt not kill"... that was a pretty clear directive, wasn't it? But if war and the death penalty were just acts--and they were--then wasn't this? How was killing a devil worshipper who God had marked for death any different than executing a murderer?
Joshua stared at the occult shop for a long time. He watched as the escaped prisoner entered the shop, watched as his car drove away, watched as the warm light of sunset faded into dusk. He tried to pray, but he was too agitated, his thoughts to scattered, for it to give him much comfort. Picking up the copy of the bible he had brought with him, Joshua sought its pages for guidance, for some clear answer. At last he fell on Deuteronomy, and he thought about the law of God, and on the provisions about stoning sinners and the unfaithful... and he knew he had his answer.
Picking up Ruth again, Joshua climbed out of his truck, loaded his shotgun, and checked to make sure his knife and his handgun were still strapped over his waist. Then he spoke a short prayer and strode boldly in the direction of the occult shop. He had to do this fast, before he lost his nerve.
As he burst through the door of the shop, Joshua was horrified by the scene around him. The occult shop was cramped and dimly lit, and its shelves overflowed with all manner of arcane and obscene items. There was not a single Christian item in the room, as far as he could see, but there were a number of foul pagan idols. The shop smelled musty, and on top of that, there was a strong, spicy aroma that Joshua didn't recognize... though he was sure the substance that had produced the smell was probably illegal. What filled him with even more rage than the shop and its supplies, though, was the people he saw at the back of the shop.
There were four people gathered around a witches' cauldron near the back of the store, surrounded by lit candles... these must have been the sinners Joshua had come to cleanse. Joshua recognized one of them, the one who slowly stirred the liquid in the cauldron with a large stick of some sort: this was the prisoner who had entered the shop a while ago. He was still dressed in his prison uniform, as though he were shamelessly flaunting whatever sinful crimes had landed him in prison in the first place. He had the devil's own red hair, and he was covered with bruises and scars, probably from a fight with the police as he had fled the prison. Across the cauldron from the man, Joshua saw a negro woman, dressed in the trashy kind of clothing negroes liked to wear. Her clothing was tiny, far more scanty even than the halter top and skirt that Joshua himself was wearing. This negro oozed sexuality, and it made Joshua sick. To the negro's right there was a Mexican girl wearing an elaborate dress. He liked that the dress was large and long and full; it reminded Joshua of the kind of dress a Southern debutante might wear. It showed far too much shoulder and back for Joshua's comfort, though. In any case, though, Joshua didn't care much for Mexicans. They were dirty and poor and brought crime and disease wherever they went, and they took jobs from good, hard-working Americans. And besides, most Mexicans Joshua had met were Catholics, and Joshua hated Catholics. They were nothing but devil worshippers masquerading as Catholics. The very fact that this girl was here was proof of that.
It was the figure on the far side of the cauldron who truly horrified Joshua, though. His body burst with rage as he looked upon her. For there, holding a book and chanting slowly in some foul language, was none other than Mary Foster, Reverand Foster's own daughter. Had the whole world gone mad? Mary Foster was a good Christian woman, or so Joshua had always believed, anyway. Now it appeared that she had fallen in league with these devil worshippers and was trying to perform some kind of foul pagan ritual.
"Mary!" Joshua shouted as he stared at the pastor's daughter.
Mary stopped her chanting for a second and looked up at Joshua, but then she quickly looked down at her book and began speaking in that strange language again, faster now. She was visibly shaken, but apparently determined to go on with her black ritual. The other three people around the cauldron, meanwhile, looked back and forth between Joshua, Mary, and each other, but none of them moved.
"Mary, stop this," Joshua yelled, charging through the store. "Stop this right now! You're a good woman, Mary... what's happened to you?"
Mary looked at Joshua uneasily but continued her chanting, albeit in a shakier voice now. Joshua could see that he wasn't going to be able to talk Mary out of doing whatever it was she was trying to do... not if she was this determined to keep casting her spell. So Joshua did the only thing he could think to do: he snatched the book from her hands and flung it at one of the lit candles, catching the book on fire. The book's pages smoldered for a second, then burst into brilliant flames, its pages curling and melting in the heat.
Mary stopped chanting and looked at the book in shock as it burned, her eyes wide and her mouth agape. Then she turned to Joshua and screamed, "You fucking idiot! Do you have any idea what the hell you just did? Do you?"
Joshua was startled for a moment to hear such foul language coming from the normally polite and demure Mary Foster. Then, meeting rage with rage, Joshua spat at Mary's feet and said, "You whore. You foul harlot. How could you do this? How could you fall in with these Satan worshippers? You've disgraced your father and your church."
"Actually," the Mexican girl said, "we don't worship Satan... we worship the godde--"
Her words were cut off as Joshua slapped the girl in the face. "Shut up, girl," he growled. "You don't get to speak to me." He turned back to Mary and closed in on her, trying to raise himself up to look more threatening, though he imagine the effect was lost in translation since he now looked like a petite teenage girl. "But as for you--"
"Look," Mary said, standing her ground, "I don't know who you are, but--"
"I'm one of your father's congregationalists, Mary," Joshua said. "Joshua Ryder. You know me. We've sp--"
"I'm not Mary Foster," Mary broke in. "Not really. My name is Rachel Harris, and I just happen to look like your friend... just like I'm guessing you look like a woman, even though you're really a man?"
Joshua looked at the woman who looked like Mary, startled for a moment. He hadn't considered that this woman might not be the real Mary Foster... in his anger it hadn't even occurred to him. Suddenly his befuddlement turned to rage, though, and Joshua grabbed the woman named Rachel and shook her violently. "Bitch!" He shouted. "You've stolen a good woman's body and befouled it with your evil rituals! You're don't deserve Mary's form." He pushed Rachel roughly to the ground and slung Ruth from his back. "You don't deserve to live."
Rachel looked up at Joshua in horror, while the other sinners around the cauldron scattered away from him in shock. "Look," she said, her voice measured but shaky, "I'm sorry I've taken your friend's shape. I didn't mean to. You know these swaps aren't beyond anyone's control. But my friends and I, we have a chance to stop the swaps once and for all... one day we may even be able to return people to their original bodies. Just let us finish our spell, and--"
"No!" Joshua said. "These swaps are the hand of God at work, and you have no right to attempt to interfere with the Lord's will, especially with your black arts. I've burned your book, and I'll burn this whole store down if that's what it takes to stop you."
"Please," Rachel begged. "Let us finish, for your own good and the good of the entire town. We can keep a lot of people from switching, maybe save a lot of people a lot of pain, if you just let us finish."
Joshua snorted. Then he turned to the cauldron and peered into its murky contents. "Is this part of your spell?" he asked, pointing at the cauldron with Ruth's barrell.
"It is," Rachel said. "We're trying to make a potion that will prevent the swaps from spreading any further. We're almost finished... we only have a few more minutes of preparation left. Please, let us finish it. Your god would want that, he would want us to help people, wouldn't he?"
Joshua kicked Rachel again, and she grunted in pain. "You know nothing about my god," he said. Then, turning to the cauldron, he reached down and pushed with all of his strength. It took several long seconds and every bit of strength he had in his body, but at last he topped the cauldron over and spilled its contents across the floor. Rachel watched the liquid flood from the cauldron, then looked up at Joshua with a pained expression.
"That's what I think of your spell," he said.
"You don't know what you've done," Rachel whispered.
Joshua kicked Rachel a third time. Then he began to pace around the toppled cauldron. He took in the sight of the four terrified pagans with some pleasure... but then he saw the filthy arcane artifacts around the room and felt his blood boil again. At last he turned back to Rachel and said, "I want you to destroy the idols and artifacts in this room. Every single one of them. I want everything in here burned or broken by the end of the hour, or else."
"Please," Rachel said, "this is my store. It's my livelihood. I can't afford to destroy my entire stock... I won't be able to make a living..."
"Just like a pagan," Joshua said. "Invoking mammon. Okay, then maybe you need some incentive."
Joshua reached down to the body at his feet--that of the Mexican girl with the poofy black dress--and pulled her up by her hair. The girl shrieked with pain. Wrapping his arms around the girl, Joshua pointed Ruth's barrel at the back of the girl's head and said, "All right. Destroy everything in the store in one hour, or I blow this girl's head off."
The pagans looked at Joshua in horror. Joshua simply smiled. At last he saw the fear of the Lord in their depraved eyes...
