Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

“Penny, I’m coming in. I don’t want you to do something that you’ll regret,” I said before jumping to the other side of the bathroom door.

I was instantly filled with rage by who stood before me. It was Enoch Gant, holding Penny’s head beneath the water in a nearly full tub.

“Penny!” I said as I rushed forward. Her lifeless eyes looked up at me through the water, unaware.

“You bastard!” I screamed, launching myself into Enoch’s torso. The force driving him backward, causing him to lose his balance. As we dropped to the floor, the momentum drove our bodies toward the commode. I saw the impending collision and rolled to the side. Enoch, however, slid right into the base of the toilet, his head firmly connecting with the porcelain.

Slowly, I pulled myself up to my knees and rested on my haunches. Enoch was out cold. Blood began to trickle from his temple.

“Take that, you fuck,” I said, then rushed to Penny and pulled her out of the water. I laid her dead body on the floor and tilted her head back. I tried to recall the company-sponsored CPR training that I’d reluctantly gone through several years before.

I pinched her nose and blew deeply into her mouth, watching her chest rise. Next I placed my hand over my fist and began to rhythmically pump her chest at a pace I hoped was correct. I alternated the procedures for several minutes, praying to God that I could save her fragile life. I was about to concede defeat when I heard a voice from behind me.

“Jack! Look out!” Hauser yelled from just outside the now open bathroom door. I whipped my head around in Enoch’s direction just as he pointed his shotgun right at my head. Instinctively I dropped to the ground, landing directly on Penny’s chest, just as Enoch fired. The buckshot flew over my head, and the report of the gun caused my ears to ring loudly. I knew I only had seconds before Enoch would reload to shoot again.

I pushed myself off of Penny and noticed that she had begun to convulse, spewing water from her mouth and nose. I rolled her over on her side before I attempted to disarm Enoch.

A guardian angel must have been looking over me, because Enoch’s gun jammed. He continued to point it at me, constantly trying to squeeze the trigger to get it to fire. I knew I only had one shot at disarming him as I dove for the gun. I knocked it from his hands as he attempted to clear the chamber.

As Enoch and I thrashed about on the floor next to Penny in the compact bathroom, I called out to Hauser. “Quick! Throw me the injector.”

Hauser slid the device across the bathroom floor. As Enoch rolled to his side in chase of his gun, I scooped up the pen and jabbed it in the side of his neck, injecting its contents into his system.

Hauser squeezed into the small bathroom, straddling Enoch and I on the floor. By then, Penny had sat up and was coughing uncontrollably. Hauser placed his foot on Enoch’s hand, before leaning over to grab his gun.

Suddenly Enoch launched his body up with great force, driving both Hauser and me back into the tub. In all the commotion, Hauser dropped Enoch’s gun in the water.

“I’m not sure what you just shot me up with, but let me tell you, this isn’t over. You’ve not seen the last of me,” Enoch stated, then vanished.

As soon as Enoch was gone, Hauser and I stepped out of the tub and tended to Penny. “Are you okay?” I asked as I knelt down beside her.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and the side of her face was bruised. She nodded in between coughing fits.

“Can you move?” I asked.

Penny rolled to her side and tried to stand, but fell back against the wall. Hauser and I lifted her and carried her into the living room. We laid her down on the sofa, propping her head up with a seat cushion.

“Why don’t you rest for a bit?” I said. “I think you’re out of danger for the moment. Either way, I’ll be here to protect you if Enoch returns.”

She tried to speak, but it only induced more coughing.

“It’s okay, Penny. You can trust me,” I said as I stroked the hair away from her eyes.

Hauser motioned for me to join him in the kitchen, just out of Penny’s earshot. I nodded, then said to Penny, “I’m just going to be right over there. If you need anything, just… throw something my way.” I winked.

Joining Hauser in the kitchen, I had a million questions, but first I gave him a big hug. “Hauser, you’re alive.”

“Yep. I seemed to have dodged yet another bullet,” he said, patting me on the back. “Although it was touch and go there for a while.”

“What happened? I brought Penny to the city, but when I got back to the cabin, I heard gunshots and then the entire place exploded.”

“Sorry about that, champ. It looks like your homestead is in need of a bit of repair. After you two left, Enoch and I had a fairly drawn-out battle. We each went for the gun and the auto-injector, but thankfully I was able to secure them before he had a chance to. Unfortunately, though, he threw a gas lantern across the room at me, spreading fuel throughout the cabin. As I tried to maneuver closer to him, he continued to throw crap across the room at me. We both jumped in and out of space, trying to get the upper hand on one another. Finally, I’d had enough and decided to take a shot at him with his own shotgun. It was all so fast, I don’t really know what happened. The gas fumes must have ignited or Enoch had a stick of dynamite. As soon as I pulled the trigger, the cabin exploded, and Enoch and I both jumped out of there.”

“Then where’d you go? If he wasn’t tagged yet, how were you able to follow him?”

“Well I’ve been trying to narrow down where he stays, as you’ve seen from all the news reports and research that I’ve done at my place. So I had a pretty good idea of the region. As we jumped out of the cabin, I was able to follow him a number of jumps before he lost me. Finally, I called off the hunt. It would be just a matter of time before he jumped in the middle of a volcano or something and bye-bye, Hauser. Then I came back and found you lying unconscious on the ground and figured the best bet would be to put you as close to the Sentinel as possible before I went back out after Enoch.”

“That is how I got there, then,” I said. “Just so you know, Wilson and the Sentinel believe that you and Enoch are both dead. With no contact from you, they don’t know what to think. They’ve made some changes, and—”

“Jesus, I wasn’t gone for that long. Just a few days really,” Hauser said, shaking his head.

“Well? What did you expect? Anyway, they’ve made Wilson my new trainer and sent me here to finish Penny’s soul collection,” I said, nodding in her direction on the couch.

“Well I’ll stop by the Sentinel and straighten them out before I go on the hunt. A hunt that was only made possible by you, Jack. We would not have been able to get this far without your help.”

“You mean you’re going to go after him yourself?”

“Yep. I wouldn’t miss this opportunity for the world. That bastard has been a thorn in my side ever since he went AWOL.”

Hauser then looked at Penny resting on the couch not ten feet from us. “And whatever your play is here with Penny, I will back you up. Whatever it takes,” Hauser said as he slyly slipped a glass vial from his pocket and handed it to me.

I held the vial up to the light and, seeing a faint silvery mist inside, knew instantly what it was.

“Use your imagination, kid,” Hauser said, nodding in Penny’s direction. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I need to go catch me an Enoch.”

I stashed the vile in my inside pocket and nodded. “Thanks for everything, Hauser. You’ve done so much for me in the past six months, and I don’t know how I would’ve made it without you. You really are a good person, and it’s been a real pleasure to have known you,” I said, hugging him again.