Soul Man

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

I tried to follow where we were going, which wasn’t easy, as I had no control over where he looked. The darkness made the task more difficult, with blowing snow further impairing vision. I tracked our location for a bit but became lost when he turned off Ward Parkway. Host never glanced at any road signs. He stared straight ahead, and I could not clearly see the surroundings out of his peripheral vision with the darkness and falling snow. I just knew we were headed south. Still, I concentrated on what I saw in case something provided a clue as to our location.

Why do I care? It's not as though I can walk home.

Once I got over the initial shock of, you know, being killed, then finding myself in my killer's body, my anger grew. This gave me pause.

If emotions are only biochemical reactions, how am I experiencing anger? Or sadness?

I don't know, but I am.

My feelings, though, apparently had no impact on the body I was in. My killer/Host remained stoic.

Why? Why? I screamed out in silence, getting no response from within or above.

This made me even angrier. I am not sure what made me madder—being dead, being murdered, being in a body I could not control, being in my killer's body, or knowing my assassin was getting away with my murder.

Where are the police?

As soon as the thought occurred, I realized the irony.

If my murderer is punished, won't I share in his sentence? His fate is now mine, at least for the time being.

There was no way to know whether my newfound state was temporary or if I was now permanently attached to my Host/killer. Given that, I did not exactly want to spend the rest of my existence in prison, especially for my own murder, and since this body seemed relatively young, that might be a long time. While hating the thought of Host getting away with killing me, for now, I had to root for our escape. Justice, or vengeance, would have to wait.

I pushed aside my moral quandary of what was more important—revenge or my new well-being. There was nothing I could do about it anyway. My situation had to be temporary. Maybe, if I ever escaped and could do something about it, I would bring him to justice. First, though, I had some big questions to answer.

Who is Host? Why did he shoot me? Could he be someone I know? Or the boyfriend or ex-husband of my former girlfriend or a client? Or is he connected to someone else?

Another thought occurred to me.

Could my wife have hired him? Was she that angry with me?

I dismissed that thought instantly.

No. Linda is not a killer. I am sure of that.

However, I could not think of anyone else with motive to kill me or who hated me enough to want me dead.

Was it a random killing? He didn’t rob me, didn’t even look, and I had on an expensive watch.

No, he had a silencer and a disguise. This wasn’t random. He planned it too carefully.

Speaking of control, my killer Host had it in spades. He displayed no overt reactions to shooting someone in cold blood. There was no elevation in our heart rate, nor a quickening of our breath, despite running a distance since murdering me. No, it was as though he were used to killing. A professional killer or a serial killer? But would a serial killer use a silencer? And why would a professional killer be after me?

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up at Sandy's Extended Stay Suites—not precisely the luxury hotel I was hoping for. The neon sign had just five of the letters of the name lit, along with "v ca y" below. The paint was peeling from the once white exterior of the three two-story buildings, which were arranged in a U, facing the parking lot and main road.

We parked in front of the building on the right. Judging by the few cars in the lot, not many of the rooms were occupied.

Host hopped out of the truck, grabbed the backpack, and we made our way up the outdoor metal stairs to the second floor and room twenty-five. He unlocked the door using a key with an oversized nameplate. It squeaked open.

Flipping on the light switch by the door, Host entered and flopped the backpack on an old stuffed chair next to the door. The outer sweatshirt was taken off, carefully folded, and laid on top of the backpack before he closed the door, bolted the deadbolt, and slid on the chain.

As he did, the room's musty odor, mixed with the smell of various cleaning solutions and an overworked baseboard heating system framing the floor, assaulted our senses. The reason why became quickly apparent. The room held a few pieces of well-used furniture, including the stuffed chair, an old sofa, a floor lamp, coffee table, and cabinet, on top of an excessively-worn beige carpet. I suspected little had changed in the room since at least the turn of the century.

A 32" TV bolted to the top of the cabinet faced the couch. In the rear was a kitchenette with a counter with two stools. One of which did not appear safe to sit on. A small table with three chairs sat in front of the counter. To the right were two open doors, leading to a bedroom and a small bathroom.

Host took off his holster, with the gun still in place, and hung it on the end of the couch. He then peeled off the next sweatshirt, again, carefully folding it and placing it on top of the other one. From what I could tell, he still wore a t-shirt or something similar.

Host headed to the kitchenette, where he retrieved a bottle of Tank 7 ale from the small fridge. We retreated to the living room and sank into the sofa, which had stuffing showing through several holes in the fabric. It’s not a couch on which I would have voluntarily sat, suspecting it would light up like a Christmas tree under a black light.

Whoever my murderer is, he does not appear to be a man of means. The hotel may say "extended stay," but it looks like they rent by the hour as well. Based on our surroundings, all his money went into the gun used to kill me—unless this is a front.

Could he be a professional killer? Indeed, his calmness and methodology suggest that possibility. If so, who hired him, and why?

Why am I even wondering about this? I’ve just been murdered, for Christ's sake. Now, I’m somehow a prisoner in his mind, and I'm worrying about how my murderer lives?

Host took a long drink from the bottle before reaching to place it on the coffee table in front of the couch. As he did so, our hands began shaking. Slowly at first, then more violently. It got so bad that beer began to flee the bottle, splattering across the table as Host struggled to place it down in an upright position.

Our whole body trembled. Hands rose to greet our sinking face, covering it as Host began to cry. The soft sobs became an all-out wail.

Finally, my killer is showing an emotional reaction to killing another human being—me. He isn't a hired gun. My murder was personal.

That conclusion hardly reassured me.

Perhaps he is former military or an ex-cop, which would explain how calm he had been. If he had seen much action, he would have learned to compartmentalize, pushing emotions away to complete his mission. With the mission over, the veil comes off.

Our body's crying triggered my own emotional reaction as the realization that I, or rather what had been David Reynolds, was now dead. My defenses crumbled as images of my kids flooded my mind. Thoughts of never seeing them again ripped at my heart and refused to leave.

I will never see them grow up, get married, have children—hell, I won't even see them reach puberty. My family—my sisters, my friends, my wife, my life—are gone.

The body cried for two.

The sobbing eventually slowed, then stopped. Following his example, I tempered my runaway despair. This was not the time to wallow in misery. I could worry about that later. Now, I needed to discover what was happening and why.

Host grabbed the beer, guzzled about half of what remained, and plopped the bottle back on the coffee table with a thump. Looking around, he found the slender black remote half-hidden in the cushion of the couch and turned the TV on to Comedy Central—an interesting and unexpected choice. I guess he needed the escape as much as I did.

His being stationary and preoccupied provided a chance to reflect more on my situation. There was a lot to digest. Top on the list was finding myself in someone else's body—one still occupied. This went against my construct of the universe and everything I knew and triggered numerous questions.

Pushing those aside for the moment, the metaphysical implications of my disembodied presence in another man’s body, two questions dominated my thoughts. Why was I killed? And why am I here sharing a body with my killer?

No answers came to me. Then a third question urgently pressed itself into my awareness:

Will he kill again?

Host did not dispose of the murder weapon. That strongly implies he is not through using it. It also suggests he does not think he will get caught. Or worse for me, doesn't care.

Emotions threatened the clarity of my thoughts. Now was not the time. I needed to think…rationally, not emotionally.

The killing was personal. His reactions suggest that. Yet, nothing about him is familiar to me. While not seeing his face, I think I would recognize his body type and behavioral characteristics. But I can't. Could he have killed me to hurt someone else, like Linda? But why? Who?

Staying in a cheap hotel and driving an out-of-state truck suggested he was not local, which added to the mystery. The only people who would be dramatically hurt by my death, realistically, would be my wife, kids, or her parents.

I can safely rule out my kids. Yet neither my wife nor her parents are the kind of people who would create the type of enemy who would kill to hurt them.

I decided to focus more on why than who or how.

There must be a purpose behind all this, and not just to torment me. To die and then find myself in my killer’s body cannot be a random event. I must be here for a reason.

I thought about it more as Host retained his nearly frozen posture. I’m sure the shows were funny, but they failed to draw out more than a slight smile—the only movements came when he finished a bottle and returned to the kitchenette to grab another.

Two possibilities exist: I am here to learn something or do something. The latter implies it must be possible to either control the body or interact with my Host.

That thought gave me a sliver of much-needed hope. It was much more satisfying to feel I was in this situation to do something rather than being punished or for it to be some random act. It also awoke something I did not know I had, faith. If I were here for a purpose, that meant a higher power was directing it. That alone gave me comfort and confidence.

At 10:00 a.m. sharp, Host switched to Channel 5 to catch the local news—no doubt to see if we made the news. Admittedly, I was also extremely curious. His reaction, though, came as a total shock.

When the typically good-looking female news anchor announced, "Psychiatrist David Reynolds was shot and killed outside the law offices of Warren, Ruth, and Associates—" Host flew into a complete rage.

"f**k!" he screamed, throwing his empty bottle—the fifth of the evening—against the wall, shattering it into dozens of sharp-edged pieces and leaving a sizable hole.