Aphasiac

Chapter Six

Charleston, South Carolina

Harold stepped from the comforts of his black Cadillac onto the cold January streets. This was a bad place to be alone at night but he needed another girl if he was going to succeed to the level of his dreams. He started down the street after shoving a ham sandwich into a deep pocket of his black, London Fog over-coat. Bait.

It was dark. Almost every streetlight had been busted with stones. Maybe guns. His boots sounded loud and hollow against the pavement and broken glass occasionally crunched beneath his feet. The world seemed abandoned. Silence interrupted only by his boots, an almost rude noise in the stillness. There was the suggested scurrying of a rodent. Harold fought against the shivers creeping up his back and pushed forward. He could feel, rather than hear, the pulsing bass from a club somewhere.

He walked for almost ten minutes before he found her. She was curled up over a heating grate in front of a sleazy hotel, chewing on a stale cruller, ignored by the few men that ducked out and hurried away, faces disguised behind the faux fir lining their hats and hoods.

She seemed almost featureless in the dim light escaping from beneath the door. Greasy strands of dark hair hid her face and she was shivering. The hunting cap she had pulled down to her eyes seemed to do little against the cruel wind that scattered papers around the alley.

Harold reached out and touched her shoulder. He felt her cringe. He could feel her tension through the jacket she wore, not quite warm enough for this weather. She moved away from him, pushing herself further into the shadows.

"Sweetheart, why don't you come with me?" he asked her gently.

She lifted a grubby face and glared at him. "I wouldn't go with you if you were the last man on earth."

"I want to help you," Harold said.

"Sure you do," she responded sarcastically. "So does everyone else."

"I can give you a warm place to sleep and some good food," Harold told her.

She moved farther away from him and spoke quietly. "Sir, what do you think I am? Some filthy whore who waits around for the first man to offer her a warm bed? I may be poor and I may be hungry but I'm not that kind of girl."

"I don't want you like that," Harold said. "I want to help you. I've got a place where you can stay with other girls that I found on the street. What's your name, sweetheart?"

She was hesitant. "Megan."

"Megan. That's pretty," he said. "I'm Harold."

She still didn't trust him. She needed to know his angle. "What do you get out of this deal?" she asked him. Two guardian angels couldn't possibly visit her.

"You have to let me get you pregnant," Harold told her.

She immediately pulled back into her corner. "Are you sick or something?" she asked.

"Honey, listen, it's asexual," he said. "I just implant an already growing baby into you and you carry it to full term and give birth and take care of it for a while."

"Why would you do that?"

"It's part of an experiment and it'll make a lot of people happy. I'm a doctor. You'll be in good hands. What I'm offering you is much better than what you've got now." He offered her the sandwich and she grabbed it from him, taking a huge bite.

He held out his hand. "So, will you come with me?" he asked.

"How do I know you're for real?" she inquired through a mouthful.