The Borrowed Souls: A Novel

by Paul B. Kohler

  The sun had just gone down and I’d tracked Noah to a rather seedy part of town. The neighborhood was not his normal stomping ground, and I knew of no reason for him to be there. But as I was relatively new to this job, who was I to reason why?

  As we walked down Forty-Second, an old neon sign blinked sporadically above the entrance to an alley. ENTER HERE glowed in dark amber, and an arrow pointed into the alley. Noah stopped and looked around. Besides me, whom he couldn’t see even if I’d been standing right in front of him, he was alone. Without hesitation, he walked directly toward the obscure alley and disappeared into the darkness.

  As I recalled my last visit to a location such as this, visions of the horrific gang fight flooded my mind. I was certain that now was the time—the time for Noah to die. I slipped my hand into my pocket, touching the wooden box assuredly. Good, I was prepared.

  I chased after Noah, entering the alley without delay. When I stepped into the shadows, the stench of rotting flash invaded my nose. Something was dead down there, and I suddenly had an uneasy feeling about everything. I caught up to Noah and fell into stride next to him.

  “Hey, buddy, do you know what you’re really doing down here?” I asked. He ignored me.

  Noah continued moving forward, slowly, his eyes on a solitary door midway down the alley. His final destination, I assumed. Along the sides of the alley, garbage was scattered around the overflowing dumpsters. I noticed a rat scurry along the edge of the wall, looking for a hiding place. It amazed me that a squalid place like this could exist just moments away from a lively civilization.

  My thoughts were interrupted when Noah stepped up to the door and rapped loudly. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  After several minutes, the door cracked open slightly and a vertically challenged man peered out from just below the door handle.

  “What do you want?” The dwarf asked.

  Noah quickly looked up and down the alley before replying. “I’m . . . looking for . . . McGuire,” Noah said.

  The dwarf looked sternly at Noah, sizing him up before responding. “He’s occupied. Come back later,” he said, then slammed the door.

  Noah clenched his fists and tilted his head from side to side, cracking his neck in the process. He reached out and banged on the door again.

  “Let me in. McGuire is expecting me,” Noah protested.

  Besides the faint buzz emanating from the neon sign at the alley entrance, silence enveloped us. As we waited, I questioned whether the dwarf would return at all. I racked my brain for a reason why Noah would be here. Was he involved in something sinister? Before my mind could form an answer, the door opened abruptly. Just inside the standard-sized doorframe stood a behemoth man who looked severely agitated. He ducked through the opening and into the alley.

  “My little friend said McGuire is busy,” said the beast of a man.

  “My name is . . . Clayton. My friend Leonard sent me,” Noah said.

  The large man’s brow rose considerably at hearing Leonard’s name. He ducked back inside and said something to the dwarf. A second later the little man wobbled down the dingy hallway and disappeared around the corner.

  “Stay here,” the beast said as he closed the door.

  “Last chance, Noah. Let’s get out of here,” I said, not terribly eager to find out who McGuire was. Strangely, Noah still couldn’t hear me. Perhaps his death was not as imminent as I’d expected.

  Suddenly I heard what I thought were footfalls on the pavement behind me. I spun around to see who was there but found no one. When I turned back to face Noah, another man stood on the opposite side of him. He wore a silk blue suit and a matching bowler hat. He stared straight ahead, as if waiting for McGuire as well. I looked at Noah. He didn’t react to the man’s presence.

  “Hey,” I said, testing the new man’s ability to see or hear me.

  “Hey, yourself,” he said stiffly, and turned in my direction.

  I wasn’t expecting a response from the man, but now that I had his attention, my curiosity piqued.

  “You can hear me?” I asked.

  “You’d be surprised at how many people can see and hear you, that are not about to die,” he said, stepping directly in front of Noah. “I’ve actually been keeping tabs on you, Jack.”

  “Keeping tabs on me?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Ah, anytime Hauser gets a new recruit, I kind of . . . pop in to see what all the hubbub’s about. And I have to tell you, I think Hauser’s way off his game lately.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been watching you, and I’m a little surprised at your ineptitude,” he said.

  “You don’t even know me, what gives you the right to judge—”

  “I’ve seen many a soul collector in my time, and you have to be the worst. Is this really the way you want to handle this collection?” he asked, nodding to Noah, who was oblivious to our conversation.

  “I think I’m doing just fine,” I stated firmly.

  “So that must be the way Hauser’s telling you to do things these days. If this was my mark, I’d have had this soul collected weeks ago.”

  Before I could respond, the behemoth opened the door and motioned for Noah to enter. Noah stepped forward, passing directly through the man in the blue suit. At that moment, I realized that he was not any normal person whatsoever.

  “Well it’s a good thing that this isn’t your soul to collect,” I said as I followed Noah through the door. A moment later, beast man shut the door and bolted it behind us. He slipped past us and led us down the corridor to where it veered to the right. As we turned the corner, I noticed several smaller doors spaced evenly along a much longer hallway. The enormity of the man leading us gave him great strides so that Noah and I had to practically run to keep up with him. When we reached the end of the hallway, he stopped and knocked on the last door. Before a response came, a voice echoed from behind me.

  “Hey now, don’t you walk away from me. Don’t you know who I am?”

  I turned and found the man in blue right on my heels. I looked him square in the face. “No, as a matter of fact I don’t know who you are. I’ve never seen you in my life.”

  “Ah, I’m Enoch. Enoch Gant,” he said, lifting his chin into the air slightly. “How is it that nobody’s told you about me?”

  “It must have slipped everyone’s mind,” I replied. “So who are you, then? Are you here to help with my training, or are you just another soul collector?”

  Enoch blinked slowly and shrugged his shoulders. He stepped past me and right up to Noah’s side. “That’s neither here nor there. What I can tell you is that you’re going about this collection all wrong.”

  “Care to enlighten me?” I asked.

  “Well, I would’ve ended Noah’s life much sooner than now. You know, move things on a bit faster.”

  “Do you mean you would’ve killed him just to get your next soul box sooner?”

  “Sometimes, Jack, you have to advance the protocol in order to keep the flow of soul boxes moving. And sometimes that means taking matters into your own hands.”

  Shocked, I said, “That doesn’t quite sound like appropriate procedure for a soul collector. And strangely, Hauser has never mentioned anything about it. Neither had Wilson, for that matter.”

  “Well, that’s because Wilson and Hauser are a bunch of pansy-ass wimps. Let me tell ya’, I’ve been around for a lot longer than those two yahoos, and if you want to rise to the top, you’ll have to actually take a life every once in a while,” Enoch said calmly.

  The sound of the door opening grabbed our attention. Beast man stepped to the side and Noah walked through the door. Enoch and I followed close behind. Once we were inside, the door closed, and the three of us stood in front of a wildly attractive woman wearing a white pencil skirt and platform heels.

  “I’m McGuire. Who’s asking?”

  McGuire wasn’t a he after all, I thought.

  “I . . . I’m Noah. My friend—”

>   McGuire cut Noah off as her phone rang. She stepped around the desk and picked up the receiver. “Go,” she said to the caller.

  “You know, you can do it right now,” Enoch said.

  “Do what? Actually kill Noah right here? You’re crazy. Just leave me alone and let me do my job, at my own pace.”

  As I stepped away from Enoch out of utter repulsion, I wished with all my might that Hauser would appear. He was always popping in when he was least expected, and this would be a particularly opportune moment.

  “Well, if you’re not man enough to do the job right, I might as well help you out. And trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

  Enoch stepped toward Noah and suddenly produced a sawed-off shotgun from his inside his jacket. He raised the barrel of the gun to the back of Noah’s head, pulled back the hammer, and released the trigger. The enormous chamber explosion reverberated in my eardrums and startled me awake.

  Chapter 2

  “You know, Jack. I think you’re really onto something here. This park bench is much nicer than my own place,” Hauser said as he sat next to me and, flipping through a magazine. “I see you’ve decided not to heed my warning about sleeping,”

  “I, uh . . . what?” I asked, straightening myself up on the bench and tussling my hair to the side. “Well, it’s been a long three weeks. I’ve been following that guy around and he just won’t die. Kinda wears a person out.”

  Hauser nodded his head. “You’re preaching to the choir, buddy. I’ve had countless jobs just like your guy.” Hauser closed the magazine and focused his attention on me. “So, you give in to sleep just like that?”

  “It’s not like I planned on it. I’ve been following Noah around for nearly every moment that he’s been awake. And most nights, too. I just sit in the corner of his room while he sleeps. You know, in case he dies before he wakes. So I decided to take a break here. As soon as the sun went down and the lights dimmed, it was out of my control.”

  “Listen, Jack. You can control it. You need to control it. What was this latest dream about?” Hauser pressed.

  “Yeah, this one was a little bit . . . different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Well, different from the last couple of dreams,” I confessed.

  “Couple of dreams? Jesus, Jack. How often have you been sleeping?”

  “No, it’s not like that. This is maybe my third or fourth nap. The first one was more of a nightmare than anything else. It was about Cyndi.”

  “And the other ones?”

  “Well, they kind of jump around. I am myself in all of the dreams, and Cyndi was there at the beginning. But then the dreams kind of took on a life of their own, drifting around the city, but not exactly. It’s strange. It’s this city but it’s just . . .”

  “It’s different. I’ve heard that. Anything else?”

  “With this last one, I was able to speak to somebody in the dream. I was following Noah around, and I tried to talk to him. And it was just like it is here in real life—he couldn’t hear me. Then all of a sudden this other guy walks up and starts talking to me, questioning me about how I do my job and why don’t I speed things up.”

  Hauser’s head cocked to the side. “Describe him.”

  “Well, he was . . . middle-aged, maybe? He wore a blue suit and a matching hat. He had no visible hair.”

  “He was bald?” Hauser asked.

  “From what I could tell. He did have his hat on the whole time.” I paused, trying to remember the dream more clearly. “Strange. I don’t recall seeing any eyebrows or eyelashes on the guy, either. Should I be worried? It’s just some apparition created by my mind, right?”

  Hauser shrugged and sat up straight. “Mmm. What else did he say?” His eyes were penetrating, as if staring into my own soul.

  “That’s where it got weird. He told me that I needed to hurry up so that I could get to the next soul. He seemed to know everything about what we do. It was as if he was a soul collector himself.”

  Hauser nodded his head as his eyes scanned the surrounding park. “Is that it? Did he say anything else?”

  “Yeah, he said that sometimes we have to take things into our own hands. Hauser, he wanted me to kill my mark.”

  Hauser gasped before standing abruptly.

  “Hauser? It was just a dream. Right?” I asked, hoping that it really was nothing more than just my mind playing tricks on me.

  Hauser ignored my question and started to pace around my park bench. “Did the man tell you his name?”

  “Enoch Gant.”

  Hauser stopped pacing and stood directly in front of me. “Listen, Jack. You have to promise me that you will refrain from sleeping until I tell you otherwise. Do you understand me?”

  In the short few months that I’d known Hauser, I’d never seen him so riled. Especially over something as innocuous as resting. “Yeah, sure,” I muttered, wondering what was really going on.

  “Now, fill me in on your current collection. You say you’ve been with him nonstop?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. From what I can tell, Noah is as healthy as an ox. He’s young, married, and has two kids. He has a good job over on Griffin Street, earning enough so that his wife can be a stay-at-home mom,” I said, fully realizing that Noah was living my life, or the life I had wanted with Cyndi. Only better. “Honestly, I think this box is a mistake. There’s nothing remotely wrong with this guy. He’s happy, he’s healthy, and he has no vices to speak of.”

  “Come now, Jack. Do I need to draw it out for you?” Hauser asked, returning to the bench next to me.

  “I think I know what you’re going to say.”

  “Not everybody needs to be old or have some kind of disease in order for them to die. Accident, murder”—Hauser paused—”and, well, suicide. All of those could be a factor here.”

  I squinched my eyes tight at hearing his latest rationale.

  “Listen, champ. You’re just gonna have to keep with it. Keep following your target. Stay with him, and death will come. I wish there was more I could say to make this easier for you.”

  I opened my eyes and nodded, staring straight ahead. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Hauser stood. “Anything else before I take off?”

  “Now that you mention it, do you mind if I borrow your monocle for a moment? Will that help me see the exact moment Noah dies?”

  Hauser smiled. “Well, the monocle isn’t really used in that way. It has a completely other purpose. There are, however, other items that are useful in our profession. But at this moment, you do not have access to any of them. You’ll have to just stick with it. Do it old school. Think of it as paying your dues.” Hauser winked. “You’ll earn your first apparatus soon enough.”

  “Other items?” I asked, my interest piqued.

  “Not quite yet, compadre. In due time,” Hauser said. “And one more thing. I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him, getting to know his life, his habits, his family. Just try to keep everything in perspective. Don’t get too close. It’ll just make the collection that much more difficult in the end.”

  I shrugged, disappointed at the lack of information. Before I could form another question, Hauser disappeared.

  “No, no. It’s okay. I’ll just chat with you later,” I said sarcastically before I jumped back to Noah’s apartment.

  Chapter 3

  When I popped into the Claytons’ apartment, I landed in their bedroom. Noah and his wife were still fast asleep. The alarm clock on the nightstand shone 5:47 in vivid red numerals.

  “Any chance you want to wake up and die?” I asked. Not surprisingly, there was no response.

  I made my way to the corner of the bedroom where I’d spent far too many mind-numbingly boring nights, waiting. I leaned back into the intersection of the two walls and slid my back down until my butt was firmly resting on the floor, my legs crossed beneath me, Lotus style. As I settled in for the early morning, I thought back to what Hauser had said. There are other items useful in our
profession. I wondered, besides the coin, what else there was that might help me. Wilson must have had something else, something more that he’d earned along the way.

  I remembered the rosary and pulled it out. While I fumbled with it, I began to hear stirrings from the bed next to me. Initially ignoring the sounds, I continued my inspection of the beaded crucifix. After a few moments of review, I dismissed its magical potential and thought about what else Wilson might have had. The only other thing he’d had with him was his sunglasses. Panic overwhelmed me at the thought of me haphazardly placing them on the dead man’s face just as an attempt to add humor to the situation. What if that pair of sunglasses allowed me to see something in the future? What if they somehow enhanced the wearer’s perception in some magical way?

  “Crap,” I yelled. How could I have been so oblivious to even the most remote possibility? I thought about what Hauser had said, that Wilson’s body might very well remain in the coroner’s freezer until they determined who he was or until somebody claimed him as a long-lost relative twice removed. Knowing good and well that that event would never happen, I wondered just how long an unidentified body would continue to take up space in the city morgue. I made a mental note to ask Hauser about it.

  As these thoughts coursed through my mind, I was interrupted by voices from the bed.

  “Hey, baby. Are you awake?” asked Ashley, Noah’s wife.

  Noah rolled over onto his back, and Ashley slid her body next to his, spooning his side with her feminine curves.

  I slipped the rosary back into my breast pocket and focused completely on the couple. Was this the moment? Could Noah be having chest pains? An aneurysm? A fatal bout of halitosis?

  Ashley caressed Noah’s chest for a few moments before speaking again. “What do you want to do today?

  “Hrmm rmm,” Noah shrugged, not putting any more effort into the morning conversation than was necessary. “You?” he asked.

  Ashley’s hand continued to weave in and out of Noah’s chest hairs, inching lower down his abdomen with each pass. “It’s up to you, Babe. You worked hard all week. It’s the weekend, and you deserve a little fun.”