This One is Deadly by Daniel J. Kirk

that.
    “She’s…dead.”
    Mommy squeezed me too hard. Told me she loved me and would never let anything happen to me. She cried and cried and cried. Because she thought Jenny was dead.
    “It’s okay,” I told my mommy. “Jenny is made of magic. She told me so. She said she can’t die. She’ll be back. She promised me.”

REGINALD:
     
    I saw her today. Just now. I threw rocks as she drove by with her boyfriend.  No. It was her husband. There was strain on her face, anticipation on his.
    After all these years I found her—and on this very day!
    So many wasted opportunities, so many false births.
    No. They all guided me to this very moment. Put me in this very street.
    Bless the gods that gave her to me. Bless their foresight.
    Bless their blessing.
    “I’ve found her,” I said aloud.
    The man next to me tugged my arm. “What’s that, Reggie?”
    “Let go.” I jerked my arm free and jumped into the street.
    I didn’t die right away.
    The sounds around me echoed in my head, but I couldn’t differentiate which ones were what. All I could think about was her.
    Focus on her.
    Shadow her.
    Be ready, I told myself.
    I could’ve made it a long while just like I was. I had good parents, and a trust fund for my 18 th birthday. I could’ve done a lot with it all. But I couldn’t have done what I wanted. It would never be enough as Reginald. There was one way to torment her. One way she would never forget.

THE PRESENT
KRISTEN:
    I was never a mother.
    “You have to look at it like this, honey. You did well as a mother,” my husband Michael said. He always told me that, even when I felt like I abandoned our son by working when he was just a toddler. Michael let me quit my job, he worked overtime to pay the mortgage. He did everything right.
    Benjamin loved him.
    Michael always took everything in stride.
    Even this.
    Even the death of our son.
    No. He’s not dead. He never was.
    Benjamin lives.
    Benjamin is free.
    All anyone wants to remind me is that if they don’t get him, he might return to make us look like terrible parents. He could frame us for abuse…or murder. And just who would believe us?
    They try to steer my thoughts away from remembering that he was my child.
    Wasn’t he?
    His anatomy was that of a child. The only thing different, they told me, was his soul. It was beyond what we know.
    Michael wants to have another—no—it would be our first child together. He tried to shove a pamphlet in my face.
    “They can run tests to make sure it’s not another one of these things,” he said. “It’s all right there in the brochure.”
    I punched it away.
    The man, who told me all about Benjamin, grabbed Michael’s shoulder. “Maybe you should just let her grieve,” he said.
    Michael tried to hug me.
    I swatted that attempt as well.
    “Jack, right?” Michael asked the know-it-all. “Is there any reason we were selected?”
    I wanted to know this answer, too. I looked right at the man, this Jack. He just shrugged, then added, “Sometimes they are particular, most the time they chose based on convenience. If his original host body died, he might’ve had little time to choose selectively. I won’t pretend to understand these things. They only want to cause us pain.”
    “How’s your partner doing?” I asked. I don’t know why I said it so meanly.
    “He’ll probably live,” Jack said. He didn’t sound confident at all. It made me feel worse for asking. Just for a split second, and then my anger returned. I hadn’t been this angry in years. Not since…
    “You guys deal with this quite often though,” Michael said. “So you’re used to this.”
    Jack nodded.
    “How come people aren’t allowed to know? I mean this should be explained in Sex-Ed class don’t you think? I mean if I was told, don’t have unprotected sex you might be birthing a demon child into this world…and believed it, I might’ve gone through college a little more carefully.” Michael’s poor attempt at a joke