THE SOUL COLLECTOR

Tommy had never believed in magic, cursed objects or haunted houses. As far as he was concerned, stories about people swapping bodies or being transformed belonged in cheap paperbacks.
Then he bought the old house.
It needed rewiring, new plumbing and more work than he cared to admit, but he enjoyed doing things himself. One Saturday afternoon, while pulling up the rotten dining-room floorboards, his crowbar struck something wedged between two joists.
A wooden box.
He lifted it out and brushed away the dust. Rusted metal bands held the lid shut. Someone had scratched a warning deep into the wood:
DO NOT OPEN IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE.
Tommy smiled.
"Well, that's one way to get someone interested."
It took him several minutes to prise it open.
Inside, wrapped in a yellowing cloth, lay an old Polaroid camera.
He picked it up and turned it towards him, searching for a model number.
The shutter clicked.
A flash burst directly into his eyes.
Tommy squeezed them shut, swore and waited for the bright spots to fade.
When he opened them, the dining room had vanished.
Music played somewhere nearby. The air smelled of cigarette smoke, perfume and spilt whisky. A man in a brown dinner jacket stood in front of him, lowering a camera.
"Lovely," the stranger said. "One for the album."
Tommy tried to ask what was happening.
A woman's voice came out.
He looked down.
White cuffs circled his wrists. A small bow tie sat at his throat. He wore a fitted black satin Bunny costume, dark tights and high heels. Long blonde curls rested against his bare shoulders.
For several seconds, he could only stare.
Then somebody laughed.
The sound came from inside his head.
Thank you for letting me out.
Tommy went rigid.
Who said that?
Someone who spent a very long time waiting for a curious fool.
He clutched the edge of the little table beside him.
What have you done to me?
People used to call me a soul collector.
The voice sounded pleased with itself.
This woman was to be my next body. I had already fastened her soul to the camera when someone interrupted me. Someone who understood my methods well enough to turn my own trap against me.
Tommy looked at the camera in the stranger's hands. A small scratch sat beside its lens, exactly like the one on the camera beneath his floor.
They imprisoned me inside it, the voice continued. Then they sealed the thing away. But they never broke my connection to her.
Where am I?
Where she was when I tried to take her.
Tommy's mouth went dry.
And where is she?
There was a pause.
Inside the camera you opened. Your photograph completed the exchange. I came out, you took her place, and she slipped into mine.
Then send me back!
The laughter returned.
Why would I do that? I have your body now. Your house. Your money. Whatever remains of your life.
Far away, Tommy thought he could hear his own voice.
You aren't quite my usual taste, the collector added, but you'll do until my strength returns. Then I can find something more suitable.
Wait—
Good luck, Tommy.
The presence withdrew.
The silence it left inside his head was worse than the laughter.
He lurched to his feet. His heels caught awkwardly beneath him, and he grabbed the table to keep from falling.
"Easy, love," said the man with the camera. "You all right?"
Tommy snatched it from him.
"Here! What do you think you're doing?"
He turned the lens towards himself and pressed the shutter.
Another flash.
He closed his eyes.
Please.
He opened them.
Black satin. White cuffs. The same smoky room.
A photograph began sliding out of the camera.
Tommy pressed the shutter again.
Nothing happened.
"Give that back!" The man pulled it from his trembling hands. "If you wanted another picture, you only had to ask."
Tommy watched the first photograph develop.
A frightened blonde woman stared back at him.
The camera was only a camera here. Whatever had lived inside it was decades away, standing in his dining room.
He backed away from the table.
Everything around him began to register in terrible detail: the flared trousers, the wide jacket lapels, the elaborate hairstyles. No mobile phones sat on the tables. Behind the bar stood a bulky cash register with mechanical keys.
A newspaper lay beside an abandoned drink.
Tommy bent to read the date.
1974.
He read it twice.
Then a hand touched his arm.
"Mary? There you are."
Another Bunny stood beside him, carrying a tray.
"Come on. They need us in the champagne lounge."
"Mary?"
She frowned. "Yes, Mary. You haven't forgotten your own name, have you?"
"My name's Tommy."
Her smile faded.
"Are you feeling ill?"
He wanted to tell her everything. About the house, the box and the thing that had stolen his life.
But he could already imagine how it would sound.
"I think I need to sit down."
"Take a minute in the dressing room, then. I'll tell them you're coming."
She hurried away.
Tommy found the dressing room by following two other women down a narrow corridor. Inside, light bulbs framed a long mirror. Handbags, powder compacts and spare tights covered the counter.
He stopped before the glass.
Mary looked about twenty-five. He lifted a hand to his cheek, and she did the same.
A staff rota was pinned beside the mirror. Her name appeared throughout the week.
Mary had a job. She would have a home, friends, perhaps somebody waiting for her after work.
And somewhere in the future, she was trapped in the dark.
Tommy searched the handbag beneath the name MARY. Inside were a purse, keys, a lipstick and a folded wage slip. He found an address on an envelope and held it tightly, grateful for one small thing he could use.
The dressing-room door opened.
"Mary, darling, we're busy"
He turned towards the woman in the doorway.
"I'm… ", he said.
The words emerged so naturally that they frightened him.
He set down the envelope, checked his balance and followed her towards the champagne lounge.
Men turned as they entered. Someone beckoned him over. Another raised an empty glass.
Tommy accepted a tray and tried to stop his hands shaking.
Back in the old house, the collector stood over the open box.
It examined Tommy's, flexed its fingers, and smiled.
A faint tapping came from inside the camera.
"Now," Mary said in Tommy's. "You know how this works"
It wrapped the camera in the yellowing cloth.
Then it carried the box upstairs, where the estate agent's particulars still lay on the kitchen counter.
Every page had photographs of the house.
The collector picked one up and studied it.
After a moment, it laughed.