The Harbinger Break
By Zachary Adams
Copyright © 2014 Zachary Adams
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law unless document receives visible attribution and author/s notified beforehand. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address below.
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Published in the United States of America
Table of Contents
- Prologue: Such Deliberate Disguises
- Part 1: By the Sins of the Father
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Part 2: It Ran With Terror and With Cunning Crept
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Part 3: Abashed the Devil Stood
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Epilogue
To my mother–I dedicate this dedication page to you, so in this entire book there may be a single page that you enjoy.
Harbinger Break (här-bən-jər brāk) noun
: The moment just before the magnitude of an event is revealed.
Prologue: Such Deliberate Disguises
On a cosmic scale, Doctor Simon Fischer knew it wasn't too important that he struggled to lock his office door–but he just wanted to feel secure, regardless of how false and almost laughable that feeling was in this period of human existence.
His keys rattled as he tried. The lock was old and rusted, and would fight against being turned–a desperate battle that often left Fischer with aching fingers. He'd talk to Rachel in the morning–he's told her for weeks now to get that thing fixed.
The lock finally submitted, and as he turned from the door he heard leaves rustle, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood rigid. It was a windless night.
The last patient that evening, Patches Shane, irked Fischer like a painting with scattered lines and arbitrary colors hinting at a meaning beyond face-value–a meaning incomprehensible, yet haunting. Patches, or Pat as he preferred, was tall, thin, well-built, and had a handsome face which was marred by shadows lining his pale, scared, compassionate eyes.
Fischer couldn't pinpoint exactly why he sat further from Pat than he did his other patients, or why his hand trembled when they shook, or why he failed to return a smile when Pat cordially greeted him four times a week, always on time. Maybe he was just paranoid–but he didn't think so.
Fischer was a renowned psychiatrist–if asked, he would rank himself top five in the state. And the Federal Bureau of Eugenics, a division of the FBI that regulated the human gene pool, certainly thought so, considering how much they were paying him to take on Pat Shane as a patient.
But the sessions with Pat went nowhere. He would sit on Fischer's black leather sofa, grin, and proceed to tell story after meaningless story built out of cracked glass and wet tape.
"So how are you today, Pat?" Fischer would begin.
"Good, Doctor. And yourself?”
"Fine, fine. Everything's just great,” Fischer said. He always lied when asked.
He pushed back his chair and crossed his legs before continuing, speaking only once he felt secure.
"So tell me, Pat: have you been able to relax?"
Pat would smile, but Fischer routinely noted that he only did so with his mouth–his eyes remained pale, grim, and scared.
"More so than I've been in years," he would say slowly. "Thanks entirely to you and those dolls at the Bureau.”
Fischer always took note of Pat’s responses for his files, which he sent copies of to the Federal Bureau of Eugenics (the FBE) every week. Although this case was complex, his job was simple: confirm Pat’s mentality as stable before green-lighting his highly sought-after genes.
Pat had been Fischer's patient for about a year, and in that time he’d maintained a normal lifestyle–on the surface. Fischer knew he was hiding something. But what?
Fischer wasn't quite yet sure, but during today’s session a new door opened in the mystery–interesting because the session went, for lack of a better term, poorly. In hindsight, he felt "poorly" was as much an understatement as one saying that the Titanic's maiden voyage went "poorly.”
About halfway into their session, Pat had an episode, something the FBE had warned Fischer about but something he'd yet seen.
It began almost out of nowhere. Pat had been boring Fischer with a highly detailed, yet obviously fabricated retelling of a fishing trip, when all of a sudden he stopped speaking and his eyes widened. Fischer began scribbling on his notepad. He watched Pat’s twitching hands, darting eyes, and already pale complexion pale further.
Then Pat stood, and Fischer fingered the FBE issued panic button in his pocket as he took the sedative from his drawer.
“Relax, Pat,” Fischer had said. No response.
Pat, trancelike, made for the door–keeping his wide, haunted eyes locked upon the doctor.
Fischer had no choice. He couldn’t allow Pat to leave like this–when he might be dangerous. Reluctantly, he activated the panic button as he jabbed the syringe into Pat’s forearm.
He eased Pat back down onto the couch. Sessions had been going so smoothly, he thought as Pat collapsed. Well... relatively smooth.
After leopard print urticaria and apparent anaphylactic shock, Pat lost consciousness, but as he did so he mumbled nonsense.
“You betrayed us," he said. “You're one of them".
"You betrayed us," and “You're one of them.” Just when Fischer’s doubt concerning Pat's stability had begun to subside. He’d been mere days away from signing off on Pat’s genes, and with enough evidence to do so ethically. He’d almost been free of that feeling in his gut... and the source of his nightmares.
It just so happened that in his profession there were times that instinct proved itself correct against completely contradicting evidence. Pride, hubris, and feelings of professional satisfaction enveloped, warmth flowed, and mental champagne poured–he was good at his life's work, his life had meaning–go celebrate. Fischer had a great relationship with his instinct, and relished moments when it steered him through the fog. It felt good, being correct–
This, however, was not one of those times.
Fischer sighed and rubbed his hands together. His fingers were still sore from that damn lock. He grabbed the lapel of his overcoat and turned from the door, casting his gaze across the dark and foreboding parking lot. The light of a single streetlamp overhead cast a circular glow on the ground, its yellow beam visible in the night's mist. Directly in the glow's center was his new red 2017 Mercedes Benz, the only car left in that rundown, cold, and otherwise empty strip mall.
He parked beneath that streetlamp intentionally. Every action was a meager attempt at security–that was all he had. From his perpetual days spent behind the multiple doors of his office, subconsciously crossing his l
egs, tracing the same cold walls by now laced with a cold memory of his youth, he resigned to obstinate selflessness, hazardous enough as it was. At least he had his locks indoors.
The night was different. Every night he crossed the dark parking lot that felt less like a gateway home and more like a hiatus between recurrent nightmares, praying that his profession and solitude wouldn't lead to an untimely death.
He felt a painful grinding in his head and assumed the worst.
Opening the driver's side door, he tossed his large leather-bound daytimer to the backseat and as he did so he quickly scanned for anything malicious, but found his beige leather seats void of evil.
He sat down and shut the door, shivering off the idea of an attacker prowling, shaking bushes, and watching him like a jungle cat. He hit the lock button and the knobs of all four doors fell like tiny prison cells. A familiar sense of security enveloped him. False security, of course. It wasn't like the windows were impenetrable, but for eighty thousand dollars they sure as hell felt like they were.
He sat for a minute and rubbed his temples, waiting for the headache to subside. After a moment it did–as quickly as it had onset.
He turned his key in the ignition and the car rumbled to life. The oddly calming "Welcome to the Jungle" destroyed the cold silence like wildfire. Fischer took one last look at his office, then pulled from the parking lot.
He drove home, heading as always towards the I-95 Skyway, trying not to think about the day's events–about Pat Shane. He told himself that you just can't win 'em all, and assured his brain that the matter was settled, and he'd hear no more of it. But his brain was persistent.
What exactly was bothering him? He'd had patients freak out on him before–although those patients were never remotely as smart nor as seemingly capable of evil as Pat Shane. It was rare that Fischer had a patient whom he considered as intelligent as himself, and not only was Pat as smart, he was decidedly smarter.
"You betrayed us."
Chills became spiders on his arms and spine at the thought, and he resorted to calming himself with thoughts of the scotch on his mantle, and relaxing with a glass or two to take the edge off, then maybe a third and a fourth glass to wash down the previous two. It had been one of those days.
Engaging magnetically to the metal lift, the Mercedes was yanked airborne as if a prize in a claw crane. Fischer loved the view from the Skyway, which was like a long metal ski-lift for cars about thirty feet above I-95. Despite this new and exciting method of transportation, however, many people still preferred the highway. Fischer enjoyed watching the cars below as he passed them by, but he understood their drivers’ reluctance. He knew from experience that not everyone adjusted well to new technology–a good reason why his profession was so lucrative.
That, and of course, the aliens.
After a ten minute gondola-esque ride, his car disengaged from the Skyway. Paying the buck-fifty toll, he turned left and continued the short drive, checking his rear view mirror every few seconds. As far as he could tell, he wasn't being followed. So what on Earth was bothering him?
Following the bend of the road, he sighed with relief as he pulled up to his neighborhood.
Winter Oaks was a gated development, and a damn nice one at that. Filled with million dollar two-story mansions, customized mailboxes, a gym, a golf course, tennis courts, pools, jacuzzis, and with a guard posted at the gated entrance through all hours of the day and night–only the richest, most elite members of society could afford its offered luxury. Harry Samuels was on duty tonight, who was Fischer's least favorite guard. Samuels had a habit of reclining in his chair, resting his feet on the desk, and snoring audibly until a car pulled up, sometimes sleeping through a few honks. Which was what Fischer had to do.
"S-sorry 'bout that Doctor."
Frustrated as he was, Fischer wasn't going to berate the man. At this point he just wanted to get back home to his chair and his scotch.
"How's the night going, Samuels?" Fischer asked.
"Good sir, very pleasant."
“If you don’t mind me asking–have you noticed anything suspicious around tonight?"
Samuels laughed, but stopped when he realized Fischer wasn't joking. "No sir, nothing suspicious."
Fischer nodded as Samuels opened the gate. He drove through his neighborhood, practically speeding in anticipation of the calming release hidden within that amber tonic. Unlocking his front door, he sighed with relief that not only was it still locked, but it showed no signs of foreign tampering. That settled it–he hadn’t been followed. He was finally secure.
He stepped inside, took off his coat, and locked the door behind him. His entrance hallway had red carpet, mirrors on both sides that trapped you within infinity when you stood between them, and white walls with studio lights. He lived on his own–no pets, as he spent too many hours at work, and no family. He kept his home spotless. A housekeeper came three times a week, but even without her help, he cleaned after himself and made his bed every morning.
Inside the freezer portion of his four-door stainless steel fridge he had countless frozen meals. He would pick up dinner on his way home when he was in the mood–which meant he microwaved frozen meals often.
◊ ◊ ◊
In the sky, high above Winter Oaks and even higher, above Jacksonville, above Florida, through silver clouds and above the United States, above North America, into the atmosphere and higher still until the cold Northern Hemisphere emanated like a glowing television in an empty room at night–a galactic silence was broken. A satellite ticked and beeped, and a photograph of an alien civilization about 2,100 light-seconds from Earth downloaded line by line into a 100 by 100 yard cement room with a hedge-maze of stacked processors. This photograph, with a resolution that would've been mediocre for thirty-year-old technology, revealed rectangles. Laced sporadically between these rectangles were dots. A less advanced species than humanity might've thought these dots aliens–but those employed by NASA were certain that those dots were not aliens, but their automobile equivalent.
◊ ◊ ◊
Finally in his parlor, sipping his scotch, relaxing on his velour armchair by the mantle, Fischer had forgotten until the beeping of his microwave that he'd been zapping food. He placed his glass on the mahogany coffee table beside the armchair and walked into the kitchen. The red carpet ended abruptly at the white tile separating the two rooms. Between these rooms stood a four foot marble counter. Left of the counter was a microwave above a stovetop, and past that was his four-door stainless steel refrigerator.
As he walked he looked at the front door and grinned, relieved to see it still shut and locked.
"You betrayed us," his brain repeated much like a time bomb. It was an itch he couldn't scratch. He tried shutting it down, but it was somewhere deep, prickling his subconscious. Something didn't feel right. It was like a wisp from far off–a crack in the hull of his security.
Forgetting his food in the microwave, he left the kitchen and walked past the parlor, up the staircase, and into his bedroom. He flew straight for his nightstand and pulled opened the drawer.
His eyes widened. His lips moved. “No...” he whispered.
His gun was missing. He always kept his gun right by his bedside in his nightstand drawer, and it wasn't there. He couldn't believe it, and scrambled through the drawer as if a large pistol could somehow hide beneath a few sheets of paper and a book. Beads of sweat gathered on his brow as he scrambled, and chills ran down his spine as he succumbed to the truth. Someone took his pistol–he wasn't alone–his instincts were right yet again.
He wanted to call the police, he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. He was both the bear and its cub–he was angry and scared, then furious.
"Is anyone there?" he whispered.
No response.
"Is anyone there?!" he shouted.
His heart froze.
"I'm downstairs, Fischer."
He could recognize that deep and grating voice anywhere–like th
e hum of a revving engine. But the inflection it now carried he'd never heard–only imagined and feared. It was Patches Shane.
Fischer withdrew his cellphone from his pocket, but the moment he did so Shane spoke.
"I wouldn't call the cops if I were you, Fischer. I have nothing to lose, if they show up here I will shoot you–I have your gun."
So his instinct was right yet again, and no feeling of shock enveloped him–only that of inevitability concluded. Fischer felt the weight of the phone in his hand grow infinitely heavier, and stared at the holographic dial pad like a trained dog at trash. Pat Shane was a man who had nothing, who desired nothing, with a tortured past and a bleak future. "Nothing to lose?” Yeah, he could buy that.
Returning the phone to his pocket, Fischer took a few deep breaths. He was a psychiatrist, and arguably the best in the state. One less intelligent might need the cops, he thought–but he, one of the best in the state, could talk his way out of this.
He descended the staircase, and Dante’s Inferno flashed in his mind as he entered the red-carpeted parlor. Shane stood, relaxed and curious, by the microwave, food in hand, evidently enjoying himself. Fischer noted that Shane went so far as to have a glass of Fischer's scotch.
Shane looked different. He towered over Fischer as usual, but his gaunt cheekbones seemed darker, his long hair was unkempt and ragged, and his pale eyes dragged with the dark circles underneath them. He’d morphed from the Empire State Building into the Buffalo City Court Building–a domineering concrete monolith that had frightened a much younger Fischer.
But it had been only five hours since Shane’s decompensation, since the FBE had come and taken him. How had he come here? How did he find Fischer's house?
Fischer eyed his gun on the countertop, which Shane kept in plain sight, right by his glass.
Shane reached towards the gun, and Fischer froze, but he grabbed the scotch instead and held it up.
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