Soul Standard

by Richard Thomas

  “Yes,” I reply. “How is she?”

  “Malnourished, exhausted, as expected. Didn’t touch her plate of food, but she drank the chocolate milk I brought her. Doc had some spare clothes for her. I didn’t dare ask. She fell asleep again.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “No.”

  “Any signs of—” I can’t finish my sentence.

  Watson shakes his head. “Didn’t check for abuse. She squirmed and made terrified sounds when the doc touched her. I told him to stop. Was scared it might make the kid think she’s back in hell.”

  “Okay.”

  “But we do have a problem.” Watson points at the computer.

  I sit down in front of the screen. Tools by the computer: fingerprint scanner, black box, blood samples, a picture of the girl taken while she slept. On the monitor, an open program connected to the governmental database. The text reads: ALERT: NO MATCH FOUND. PLEASE CONTACT THE RELEVANT AUTHORITIES IMMEDIATELY.

  “What does it mean?”

  “She’s not registered, Jules. Wasn’t scanned at birth.”

  “How?”

  Watson shrugs. “Junkie parents, back-alley birth, illegal immigrants popping kids out in the Outskirts or anywhere outside of the City. Or a kid from one of those baby farms, raised to be sold later. No better way to store organs than a human body. What’d you think?”

  “Fuck.”

  “She’s an orphan. Or she may as well be.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” I say.

  “No, but it’s true enough. The question now is what to do with her.”

  “Wait for—”

  Watson shushes me.

  Below us: the sounds of a struggle, punctuated by the little girl screaming.

  We rush downstairs. Watson has his gun in hand. In the middle of the living room, the doctor is holding the girl by the hair, the glint of a knife at her throat.

  “Shhh,” whispers the doc.

  “The fuck did you do?” asks Watson.

  “Let her go,” I say.

  “I don’t think so,” says the doc. “You know how much an unregistered child is worth out there?”

  “I have money,” says Watson. “Let her go and I’ll cut you a check or set up Favors.”

  “No, thank you,” he says. “But do put the gun down.”

  “No.”

  Noise in the distance. The ugly tune of police sirens.

  “You called the pigs on me?” the doctor spits.

  Watson keeps the gun pointed at him. “No.” Then, understanding: “The scan.”

  “Fucking tracers,” says the doctor. He presses the blade deeper into the girl’s neck, and she lets out a whimper. He takes a step back.

  The girl’s eyes are on me. Her eyes are not the eyes of my daughter, yet they are exactly the same. In this moment, I know the doc will not leave this room alive. Should that blade cut into her skin, I will scoop out the bastard’s eyeballs and curb-stomp his head. Because I may have failed at protecting Amelie, but I will not fail her.

  And at the end of it all, this is why I turned my back on God, yeah—because he called for the death of a child. If Abraham had a shred of a soul, he would have taken Isaac in his arms and told the omnipotent old man to go fuck himself, because love does not ever come with fine print or fear.

  It does not come with or else.

  And because I still have Watson’s other gun in my pocket, the one from the glove compartment.

  The doctor takes another step back. The girl uses this moment to writhe away from the blade, pushes the doc’s arm away with both hands.

  Watson pulls the trigger.

  And I don’t have to rush to her, in the midst of gun smoke and another puddle of blood and a fresh corpse.

  She runs for me, crashes so hard into my chest it drives the air out of my lungs. Watson walks over to the doc’s corpse, cool as a panther, and kicks him in the stomach, spits.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. We have to go,” I say.

  I check her neck. There’s a faint line of blood there, but nothing worrisome. I grab her hand and follow Watson out the front door. I put her in the backseat, worry about the seatbelt later, dive into the passenger seat and slam the door as the engine lets out a vicious roar and the police cars materialize in our rearview mirror.

  Pedal to the metal and smoking tires temporarily scarring the road as they melt, hammering past mud paths and backyards, the car drifting as if it were on perpetual black ice. Watson unleashes a string of profanities. I extend my arm and hold the girl’s hand while I check our tail. The sirens make themselves heard but stay unseen, wailing from multiple directions. Watson takes another turn, lost in a crumbling maze of foreclosed homes.

  “Did they see us? Did they see the car?”

  “Maybe the color,” he says. “No plates or model. Pray they don’t dispatch a chopper.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Anywhere but here would be a start.”

  The car thrusts through bushes, avoiding an empty pool at the last second, diving through another bush and into an empty street. The sirens don’t sound as close as they were and this is a signal for Watson to do anything but slow down. The car rockets down the street until we blow past a sign directing us to the nearest highway ramp.

  Not five kilometers out and Watson’s phone rings. He picks it up, steering with one hand. In the backseat, the girl beholds the City, entranced by its ugliness, its skyscrapers draped in smog.

  I wonder if I will take her there one day.

  “Hello,” says Watson. “Yes. I understand. I will.”

  He hangs up and veers to the side of the road, slows down until we stop.

  Watson nods at the girl’s new braid. He sticks his fingers in his nose, prompting an eruption of laughter.

  “They want you, Jules,” he says, making faces for her.

  “Why?”

  “Amir died from his wounds.”

  “Are you going to turn me in?”

  He glares at me like I’m supposed to feel something. “I have to head back to the City,” he says.

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Your question is a fucking insult.”

  “Then come with me. With us.”

  “My wife and daughter are alive, Jules. No matter how much they hate me. They’re still here.”

  “I understand.”

  “Ditch the car as soon as you can. There’s some money under the seat. Contact via email only, for now.”

  “Yes,” I reply, holding back a sob.

  “Plus,” he says, “I’m curious to see what kind of shit you’ve started.”

  He’s beaming. The third honest smile today. We share a mutual goodbye with eyes only, and this is when I reach for my jacket pocket, coolly slide out the camera and seal a moment my brain would dare steal from me. Then more time I wish I could trap, doomed to decay: him recoiling from the flash, understanding, calling me an asshole, Watson pinching the girl’s nose, her laughter. Another shared look between us, gratefulness too powerful to measure. Watson opening the door, tossing a pack of cigarettes my way, and last words: Don’t be a stranger.

  We ride the highway until the sun has sunk into the horizon. We stop for the night in a cheap motel. I park the car in a nearby cul-de-sac, grab the money Watson kept under the seat.

  In the room, we share a bowl of vanilla ice cream in silence. We watch cartoons and for a nanosecond, all of this seems perfectly normal. When the cartoon is replaced by images of war, I turn off the television. I look at her, sniff loudly.

  “You stink.”

  She does not reply. She reaches for my face and feels the wrinkles, the beard.

  Her eyes are blue.

  In the bathroom, I brush her teeth for her as she stares at my reflection in the mirror. I turn the shower on, point at it. She has no clothes of her own and I leave her with one of my own T-shirts.

  In bed, she waits with her eyes open, studying my every move. I won
der if she expects me to slip under the cover with her, if once the lights are off, I will show her the true ugliness of men. I approach the bed with my hands behind my back. I smile and place Amelie’s monkey plush next to the pillow. The child turns her head toward it. The monkey’s face has been sewn into a permanent grin. She grabs the monkey’s hand, grips it tight. The monkey has comically oversized arms and legs. My daughter used to wrap those long limbs around random objects in our home, tie them into knots. I’d find the monkey hanging from the coat rack or inside the fridge, hugging a pile of bananas. At dawn he could be in the bathtub wearing a shower cap, or sitting at the table with a glass of milk. Sometimes she would leave him in my bed and I would fake outrage, order the monkey to get out loud enough for Amelie to hear. I hope this child will have the same urge, to toy with reality and make it better. I plant a kiss on her forehead. I kiss the furry monkey the same way. I whisper goodnight, you two, and exit the bedroom but leave the lights on.

  I lie on the couch and all night long dream of my daughter, but her face is a swirling vortex and I’m not certain if she is called Amelie or if I have yet to find out what her name is.

  In the morning I check up on the girl and she is still sleeping. I have the urge to study her knee once more, desperate for a scar that will not be there, cannot be there. I retreat from the bedroom and turn on the television.

  Images: riots in the streets, police hiding behind shields as rocks and detritus crash around them. I stare slack-jawed as I flip through more channels. Censored shots of missing or dead children flash by.

  My pictures.

  Reporters talk about the City, about police officers and the military being deployed to restore order. Politicians and students and citizens offer their thoughts, often with anger. Arthur Reiss, according to captions, viper-eyed and resolute, offering to do everything in his power to help. Next: the mayor. His words are the words of politicians. I doubt he truly cares. He carries the expression of a man walking around handcuffed. He makes assurances about the future. I wonder if being forced into doing good counts as such, but I do not believe it matters.

  The next day, at a fast-food restaurant, I place a map on the table. The girl frowns. I point at the City, say this is where we came from. I ask her where she wants to go next. Pick anywhere. She places her index finger on the point farthest away from the City. I tell her we will have to take the train, and she doesn’t blink until I explain what a train is and she begins jumping up and down, berserk from excitement.

  Come fall we have a stable roof over our heads and enough of Watson’s money left to keep us safe for a few more weeks. Soon I will venture out into the streets of this new home, camera in hand.

  On the kitchen walls I pinned pictures of Amelie and Mathilda and the smiling photo of Watson. Once things are safe, I will send him a copy of his mug to piss him off.

  I followed what happened in the City.

  Three years of chasing a phantom meant I already knew how this part of my story would end. It could take months or years for DNA tests to be run, for my daughter to be potentially found amongst hundreds of other children.

  Potentially.

  As expected, they didn’t find a boogeyman. Big Charles had seen it coming. Plenty of lesser evils, sure. But no bad guy, no puppet master.

  But this was never about that.

  I sat on the couch and bawled into the palms of my hands. That little girl, she stayed by my side. That little girl who’s not you, yet matters as much as you now. A nameless sister found in grief. She didn’t say anything, just waited for the storm to pass.

  On TV, mourning parents hung on to each other under leaves the color of their children’s blood. Bulldozers unearthed mass graves. Candlelit vigils drifted through the streets, wailing in the shared melody of sorrow. Red rooms wiped from the map. Not all, of course. Some. Strangers finding closure, if such a thing exists. Citizens becoming activists, if only for a season. Watson’s smile. The man rescued from a basement, flashlights revealing his cadaverous face. Tubes wired to his nostrils, ears, and eyes pumped black liquid out of him. Gang members arrested, crime czars and business magnates, whole building blocks busted, their residents cuffed and shredded by the meat grinder they call law. Dozens of organ farms dismantled. From the peaks of the Financial District to the edges of the Outskirts, down in the bowels of the Red Light District, lurking in the cracks of Ghost Town, corruption and filth and gangrene at last dragged out into the sunlight for all to see.

  Not enough. It could never be enough.

  And I wish I were a better person. I wish that, given the chance, I wouldn’t think of trading it all. If the Devil offered a deal sealed in blood. Let the clocks rewind, watch summer retreat into spring, winter, and fall. Let the rot spread—all for you.

  This was always about you, Amelie.

  Did you die alone and in pain? Did you beg for mercy, were you cold? Did they do to you what should never be done to a child? Did you seek refuge in happy memories, ration the best days of your life, try to follow them like leftover crumbs to guide you out of a nightmare? Did you lie to yourself about what happened, what really happened, to make it better? Did you claw and bite and kick at the encroaching darkness?

  Amelie. Black hair, blue eyes. A fading scar on the knee, a beauty spot on the shoulder, a silly monkey left in the bathtub, a laughter designed to break and rebuild me. Amelie.

  Look at this tangle of thoughts.

  Did you wait for me?

  Well, did you?

  Did you scream my name? Did you scream your mother’s name and wither away waiting for us? Did they tell you I’d never come, that you might as well stop crying? Was that enough to make you lose faith in me?

  They lied.

  Because I’m still trying to get there, sweetheart. I’m trying to get to you, and I haven’t stopped crying. Every night I maraud the darkest vestiges of my memory with the hopes of plunder.

  I’m still searching for your face.

  About the Authors

  Caleb J. Ross’s fiction and nonfiction has been widely published. He is the author of five books and is the creator of The Burning Books Channel, a YouTube channel featuring humorous book reviews, literary skits, writing advice, and rants. Ross lives in Olathe, KS. Visit him at calebjross.com.

  Nik Korpon is the author of The Rebellion’s Last Traitor; Stay God, Sweet Angel; and Bar Scars: Stories, among others. His stories blackened eyes in Needle Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Thuglit, and more. He lives in Baltimore.

  Richard Thomas is the author of six novels and over one hundred stories. The editor-in-chief of Dark House Press, he has edited four anthologies, including Burnt Tongues, with Chuck Palahniuk. He lives in Chicago, IL. Visit him at whatdoesnotkillme.com

  Axel Taiari was born and raised in Paris, France. Publishing credits include Abyss & Apex, Fantasy Scroll, The Big Click, and others. He lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. Read more at www.axeltaiari.com.