Free The Next Thing I Knew (Heavenly) by John Corwin Page B

times while alive, despite my cousin Jane's best efforts to get me stoned, drunk, or in other various other states of altered mind.  Nick was pretty drunk and I guessed he'd been drinking even before I arrived.  He reached another shot toward his lips.
    "Stop it," I said, trying to send a message into his alcohol dulled brain.
    His hand stopped partway.  For the first time, I realized I could feel the pressure of his fingers against the glass.  I squeezed.  His fingers responded.  His eyes widened and I realized I had widened them for him.
    "Holy crap," he said.
    I turned his head left and right, set the drink down on the dresser.  I felt static on his leg and looked down.  Nibbles was there rubbing against Nick's leg.  I wondered how I could see Nibbles through Nick's eyes, but decided the scientific explanation would bore me to tears.
    Nick snatched the drink off his dresser and swallowed it, poured another shot.  I tried to stop him, but weakness settled into my limbs and I couldn't muster the strength to do anything.  I flitted across the room before unconsciousness took hold and hovered there, staring at the faint outline of my hands.  I was nearly transparent.  Nibbles walked underneath me and meowed plaintively.  I tried to reach for him, tried to lower myself to the ground, but instead faded out of consciousness.
    When I awoke, I expected to be on the island again or some other place branded into my memories by a special occasion.  Instead, I woke to the sounds of barfing.  Nibbles floated in a furry ball near my stomach.  My body still looked a little translucent but I felt much stronger.  Nick kneeled before the toilet, retching.  I glanced at the clock and saw only a few hours had passed.  I'd never taken note of the time before, so I wasn't sure if my periods of unconsciousness were decreasing in length or not.  I decided to keep track of the time from then on.
    In fact it would be a necessity.  With aliens on the way to the planet, I needed to get Nick to safety as soon as possible.  Antarctica surely wouldn't be the first place they'd colonize, but the continent was so hostile to life that he didn't have much of a choice.
    For the next several days, I merged with Nick at least once a day.  After a week, I was able to do it for longer periods of time without significantly weakening.  But I wasn't trying to take control either.  Nick didn't seem to notice every time I merged with him, or maybe it became so common that he simply thought it was another aspect of going crazy.  Nibbles stayed with me most of the time though he'd take off to explore when he grew bored.
    When the second week rolled around, I decided to attempt controlling Nick.  The attempts ended in abject failure, though I thought I made his pinky finger twitch once.  He seemed much more aware that something strange was happening to him during these attempts, short as they were.  Within minutes, I'd have to withdraw or risk fainting and usually I'd faint anyway.  As with my normal merging encounters, my ghostly body took less time to recover the more I did it.  By the end of the second week, I'd come no closer to physically controlling him than my first attempts but I wasn't passing out all the time either.
    Then he drank himself into a stupor again and bingo, it worked.  He was so drunk this time that although I could make him move, it felt like wearing a lead unitard.  His shoulders sagged and his arms resisted movement.  His vision blurred and it took all my effort to make out details in the room.  Despite my efforts, he slumped backward and passed out.  Sometime soon thereafter, I followed suit.
    The next time he started drinking, I merged when he was buzzed.  I flexed his fingers and wiggled his toes.  A few shots of whiskey later and I could move his arms.  His body became more and more comfortable to me almost like the spandex women in the 80's wore to the gym, except a lot cuter.  He reached a point of