Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

Hauser stopped and stood. He slowly paced around the small, musty cabin, almost as if he was looking for something. He opened all of the kitchen cabinets, finally reaching high on the top shelf and fumbling about with its contents. A moment later he withdrew a dingy bottle with a dark liquid inside. He removed the cork and brought the bottle to his lips. Tilting his head back, he poured half of the amber liquid down his throat.

“Whoa! That’s got a kick,” Hauser said as he offered the bottle of bourbon to me.

Nervously, I accepted the bottle and took a swallow. The phenolic sting glided down my throat and warmed me instantly. I handed the bottle back to Hauser, and he recorked it before returning to his chair.

“All in all, I killed nearly a thousand soldiers and innocent civilians between the years 1809 and 1811.”

I gasped, much louder than I expected. I was speechless, but my mind was in overdrive, wondering what all that killing would do to a person’s psyche. I couldn’t imagine what Hauser had to cope with over the centuries, when here I was, unable to take a single soul from an unborn child.

“Sometime in the middle of 1811, Napoleon was beginning to lose his control. His victories in battle were becoming fewer and farther between. His defeats were increasing by the number. He began to lose focus at what he was fighting for, and I was eliminated.”

“You mean, you were the reason for the decline of Napoleon?” I asked.

Hauser shrugged. “If you asked Napoleon at the time, that’s precisely what he’d say. I was his scapegoat.”

“So how did it happen?” I asked.

“How my life ended is not important. What came next is.” Hauser remained seated as he uncorked the bottle and finished off the remaining bourbon in one long draw. “Sorry, kid. There’s none left for you.”

“No worries,” I said. “I’m more of a Scotch guy anyway.”

“Before I was killed, I suffered through four days of horrific torture at the hands of Napoleon himself. In between sessions I drifted in and out of consciousness. I struggled to maintain clarity on what was real and what were hallucinations. At one point, two men came into my cell and told me that they were there to collect my soul. I was sure at the time that they were simply hallucinations caused by the various concoctions given to me by Napoleon or his guards. I was further convinced they were hallucinations when they offered me to live beyond my death. They promised me a long life if I agreed to become a soul collector myself.”

“So they recruited you?” I asked.

“Yep. After a few more encounters with the two gentlemen, it became clear that they in fact were real, and I wasn’t conjuring them up as a form of mental escape. I listened to everything they had to say and figured that I had nothing to lose.”

“If you’ve committed all of those murders, why did the Sentinel want you? Wouldn’t they want to cleanse your soul of all its evil?”

“It was precisely because of all of those murders that they wanted me. They saw me as an emotionless individual and felt that having the ability to collect a soul regardless of how I felt about human life was an attribute they desired.”

I was beginning to understand more about life and death and everything in between. “Then I might be a liability to the Sentinel.”

Hauser nodded. “You might be, Jack. But a man can change.”

“But I don’t want to change, Hauser. I like caring for humankind. I can’t become like you, an emotionless killer.

Hauser nodded. “Toward the end of my tenure as Napoleon’s personal assassin, I began to grow a conscience. Something happened in the last year of my life that I can’t quite put a finger on. I began to feel. I started letting people go that I was sent to kill. The feeling that flowed inside of me with each life that I saved was far more rewarding than that when I took a life. When the two collectors were sent for my soul, I knew I had an opportunity for redemption.”

“So why did they send two collectors for you? Were they afraid that you might not come quietly?” I asked

Hauser chuckled. “No, not quite. One of the two collectors was retiring, and the other man would became my trainer.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the shot of bourbon that I had taken or if it was hearing everything that Hauser had just revealed, but I began to feel lightheaded.

“I know exactly how you feel, buddy,” Hauser said, tossing the empty bottle into the fireplace, the glass exploding upon impact.

For several moments Hauser and I stared at the settling ash in silence.

“So is your trainer still around?”

Hauser’s hands returned to his lap, once again fidgeting nervously. “Yes, and no.”

“I don’t understand. Do you know or not?”

“The man who trained me was Enoch Gant.”

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “The same Enoch from my dreams?”

“The very one,” Hauser said. “At the time, Enoch was the Sentinel’s head trainer. He was the best at what he did, and he knew more about our line of work than anyone else… including most of the Sentinel’s council. He, like myself, was quite young when the Sentinel brought him on. Also, like myself at the time, he had been a cold-blooded killer. Then, a few months after my training was complete, Enoch went rogue.”

“Rogue? You mean he quit? Like me?”

“Not at all the same, Jack. The reasons for your resignation were righteous. Enoch became power hungry. He saw the potential in life, and death, and took it upon himself to live a different path on the run.”

“And the Sentinel can’t locate him? Maybe he died.”

“He’s believed to be alive, but unfortunately, the Sentinel has no way of locating him.”

“What about your new spectacles? You were able to find me pretty easily.”

“It’s ironic that you bring up the glasses. You see, the Sentinel has been trying to develop an item that might have the ability to locate Enoch Gant. In fact, that whole R&D department, as you appropriately coined it earlier, was established with the sole purpose of locating Enoch. This latest item,” Hauser said as he tapped his pocket where the glasses resided, “tracks any soul box. But Enoch is without a box in his possession.”

“How did he—I mean, how did he—”

“Exactly. We don’t know how he eliminated his last soul collection chamber. It happened so long ago that we don’t even know where to look.”

“Wow. You’re really blowing my mind, Hauser. First you tell me you were a mass killer, and now you tell me that Enoch Gant, a man from my dreams, is real and is a wanted felon in the afterlife. What next? Are you going to tell me that God isn’t real?”

“First off, God is in all of us. He is as real as the day is long.”

“So God is a he, then?” I asked.

Hauser chuckled again. “God is neither he nor she. And both at the same time. He, or she, just is.”

“Wow, thanks. Thanks for clearing that up for me,” I smiled.

“As for my regrettable past, I continue, every day, to try to right the wrongs that I’ve done.”

“Then why not let me save Calvin? He’s an innocent child that could have a bright future.”

“Like I said, Jack, not all souls can be saved.”

“So you keep saying. Why is it that we can’t save Calvin?”

“Because, Calvin will be born with a disease that will take him moments after birth. There is no cure for what he’ll have, and if we were to allow him to live, his burden would far outweigh the sacrifice.”

“My God, I had no idea. Why didn’t you—hold on… wait a minute. How did you know, and why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re in training, and I was trying to teach you patience and self-reliance. Also, the Sentinel believes that limited knowledge is best, in most circumstances. The council knows nearly every specific detail of literally every impending death in the pipeline.”