The Harbinger Break

by Adams, Zachary

  Summers turned off the car and studied his friend's building. The daylight made the apartment look even more decrepit, and Summers felt a pang of guilt at the thought of leaving his friend, who'd been shot on his behalf, at a dump like this. He reminded himself that it wasn't a financial issue of Penelope's, it was a privacy issue. He remembered the cleanliness of Penelope's apartment. It wasn't too ratty once past the somehow-not-broken elevator and the carpet swamp.

  Summers stepped out of his car and began to walk Penelope into his apartment, but Penelope stopped him. "I'm fine," he said, grinning. "Go chill with your girlfriend."

  So he'd just been pretending to be asleep.

  Summers sighed. It was one of those things he'd rather not have to talk about–at least not yet. Penelope sensed his hesitation and motioned for him to leave. "It's okay," he said. "Go away."

  Summers smiled. "Alright alright," he said, shaking his friend's outstretched hand. "Call me if you need anything."

  "Will do, brother."

  Penelope turned and ascended the steps to his building, and Summers watched him, ensuring he could make it on his own. Once satisfied, he returned to the car, took out his phone, and dialed Paige. He glanced up as the phone rang to find Penelope grinning at him oddly. He resisted the urge to flick him off and pulled out of the parking lot with a wave.

  "You're finally back?" Paige asked, never one to begin a telephone conversation with a simple 'hey'.

  "Yeah," Summers said. He took a breath. "Do you want to grab dinner?"

  Silence followed, but a special kind. Maybe it was for only a second, but to him it felt much longer, at least in his gut it did. It was the kind of silence only experienced during moments like a shared meteor shower, or flying a kite, or the instant a sliver of the sun is visible on the horizon–when something so cosmically significant is experienced that the only possible reaction is silence, to just fall into the overwhelming incomprehensible and be perfectly okay. That was this silence, which wasn't just about dinner–it was his realization that the person whom had taken over his mind in that moment back at GenDec, when he'd been a coin-flip from death, had been her.

  "Finally. Obviously I do, Chris," she said, and he grinned.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Once safely on the byway south Sam reasoned his best bet to find Pat was in Savannah, where Pat stole the ambulance. It didn't make a lot of sense that Pat would return the ambulance, seeing as how he could simply abandon it in the woods somewhere, but it was the only lead Sam had, so that was his stop.

  He arrived in Savannah from Knoxville eight hours later, to find that shit had hit the fan and splattered across the city in such an aggressive manner that he found himself hard-pressed to find a single civilian not making a stink over the nature of the food. Was Pat here now, or had he and Pat made such an impression those two weeks ago that things had gotten this out of hand in their absence?

  Apparently the need for supernatural consultation was abnormally high in Savannah. What had happened, Sam soon discovered, was that the psychics he and Pat spoke to relayed the information concerning the food to their psychic friends, who then used the poison in the food as an explanation for the problems in their clients’ lives. Thus: "The aliens are poisoning us–the government is poisoning us!" screamed signs and the protesters holding them.

  The great thing about psychics, Sam realized, was that nobody questioned how psychics knew what they knew. Maybe that meant he could reveal what he'd learned–not as Sam Higgins, but as Theron Thurston.

  So it was time for his magnificent return to the Quarter Moon Inn. He drove through the blocked streets jammed with picketers and parked at the familiar hotel where, less than two weeks ago, Pat violently set him up as bait to abed his escape from the police.

  He left his car and entered the hotel. Hopefully someone who knew him or knew of him would be there, and he could play for them the recording on his phone–which would do nothing if not spur these already angry civilians to an outrage. Sam knew word would spread.

  He stepped out of his car, and not a moment later–

  "Theron Thurston himself!"

  Sam turned, and the owner of the voice was none other than Ron Howard, approaching with a few other psychics Sam had never met.

  "This is the guy I'd been telling you guys about," Ron said. "The psychic apparently wanted by the government for spreading word of the poisoned food–"

  Sam stopped him, eyes wide. "What do you mean 'wanted by the government' ?"

  Ron gave him a curious look. "Theron, my friend, we all saw the medics carrying you out–cops did quite a number on you from what I could tell." He clasped a hand on Sam's shoulder. "So, how'd you two escape?"

  Sam sighed, relieved. "Well, we–"

  Ron interrupted him. "–Wait, where's John? We didn't see the cops take him. Is he alright?"

  "John, right. John's fine," Sam said. "Off spreading the word, you know."

  "Quite the disappearing act, your partner is," Ron said. He stroked his beard. "Truly extraordinary what we discovered, about the poisoning. Our gift can certainly be burdensome at times!" He laughed and the three other psychics joined in.

  Sam motioned a hand towards the chaos of the city. "So, I see you've effectively spread the word," he said. "Let me warn you, for I've had a second vision: the poison is in the food, but it originates from salt. But removing the salt completely from one's diet can be deadly. I was lucky, many others were not so. We need to proceed with extreme caution."

  Ron nodded gravely. "Interesting. How do you suggest we proceed?"

  "As you are is fine," Sam said after a moment. "We need people to be aware, but not become delirious. I'm working on a plan to find the root of this problem. It's possible that aliens are not the culprits, but instead the culprit is the arrogance of humanity."

  Ron stroked his beard. "Riveting stuff, my friend."

  "Quite," the short flamboyant psychic on his right agreed.

  That was enough for Sam. Word would spread, people wouldn't be ignorant of their poison for longer, but hopefully wouldn't take drastic measures. A few people at a time withdrawing from the substance was bad, but manageable–everyone all at once would be chaos.

  Ron would make aware the public that salt was the culprit, and as long as the word spread slow enough society would maintain its perilous balance.

  Hopefully.

  For now, Sam decided that he'd keep the recording to himself and use it to persuade the remaining addicted, when at least a portion of the country had already withdrawn–hopefully leading to the astatine removal from the salt and some sort of programs developing to help save the rest.

  He felt content, and now he could focus on his second task: killing Pat Shane. He told Ron and the others that he had somewhere to be and, with a wave, returned to his car.

  But should he kill Pat? Now that time had passed and his initial rage had subsided and fear for his safety had magnified, he wondered whether the act of killing Pat was noble, or selfish. He knew he might need him in the future, but Pat was crazy–he was seconds from killing Claire, not to forget himself as well.

  Sam thought about what Pat had said about tremendous good and tremendous evil.

  Well, killing Pat certainly fell under one of those, whichever one though, Sam was unsure–but his path was set, and he resolved once again to kill Shane.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Nick Robins kissed Belinda Scott again, certain now that he wasn't who he'd thought he was.

  She was a striking woman–petite, dark red hair, long legs, full lips–all things Nick had noted even before he'd realized he might be straight. She smiled at him as she pulled away.

  "Nicky Nick Nick," she said. "From openly homosexual to home-wrecker. How's it feel doing this as my husband is downstairs, protecting us?"

  "Bad, actually," Nick said, and shook his head. "Should we be doing this?"

  Belinda laughed. "Who cares? We're probably going to die anyway, and isn't it exciting?"

 
He shrugged. "Kind of…"

  She grinned and kissed him again, "Of course it is."

  Nick really enjoyed kissing her. In his life, he'd only been with one person, a man–and that had made him feel just plain uncomfortable.

  He'd considered himself gay for the first time in middle school–relatively early too–when bullies, posing as his friends, confronted him. He hadn't many friends back then, and didn't know better–didn't know to suspect that someone acting nice might've only been pretending.

  "So you have two moms?" the tallest bully, Ryan, had asked innocently.

  "Yeah," Nick replied, naive, thinking they were just being friendly.

  The bully smirked. "So you know that means you're gay, right?"

  Nick shook his head. "I didn't know that."

  "Well, it does, man. So are you gay?"

  Good question. It took over fifteen years to deduce an answer to that, a question which had pervaded almost every aspect of his life. A deduction he only made in this moment with Belinda, and he kissed her again, hard, as she began to stroke his upper thigh. Only the second time someone had touched him there.

  The first time had been with a guy was in college. He'd become friends with a guy in class, who invited him over one day, saying he was throwing a party. Nick arrived, surprised at finding himself the only guest, and instead of going out the two stayed in and, as his friend had put it, got wasted.

  And their talk turned from one topic to the next to dirtier and dirtier until his friend exclaimed, "you've honestly never done that to yourself before?"

  "No," Nick said, giggling in drunken stupor. "I've never even thought about it."

  The memory of what happened next caused Nick to cringe in retrospect, and most of it was a blur, but he could remember his friend and himself messing around, and that one moment–ugh–and his eyes were closed and his friend saying repeatedly, "you're probably just too drunk, don't worry about it," and Nick, panicking, stood up, and excused himself. He left, and he remembered how his friend had chased after him, and tried comforting him as he stumbled back to his own place. The entire memory made Nick want to puke.

  He slid his hands beneath Belinda's shirt while kissing her, shoving her backwards, and she giggled as she fell onto the bed under his sudden rush of passion.

  He'd dropped out of college soon after that incident, and spent the next ten years drifting from town to town, doing minor jobs here and there, confused, lost, and depressed. He'd gone to Land's End on the coast of Georgia one dark day, remembering from his youth a specific cliff overlooking the ocean, remembering how beautiful the view was, and how that seemed like a fitting place for him to end it all.

  The cocktail of drugs he'd ingested and injected probably should've killed him anyway, but he didn't want to be found, he just wanted to disappear. The thought of his moms standing over his corpse and crying brought shivers and chills to his mind, and he'd rather them think he just went somewhere far away than finding out the truth.

  Then he saw the man at the cliff. At first, Nick thought that the man might've been a ghost–considering the rumors of hauntings in the area. In retrospect he knew he'd just been hallucinating. The man stood perilously close to the edge, and Nick, his suicidal ambitions forgotten, approached slowly.

  "Hey," he'd said.

  The man turned. "Hey."

  Nick raised an eyebrow. "You thinking about jumping?"

  The man didn't respond at first. He'd turned back towards the water, staring out, and Nick walked over and stood next to him.

  "Yeah," the man choked. Nick noticed a tear roll down the man's cheek. He'd went to wipe it off, but his hand had caused the man, who was not real but a hallucination, to vaporize.

  Belinda stroked his cheek now, bringing him back to reality. "What are you thinking about, hun?" she asked.

  "Just–" Nick said, then paused, exhaling and wondering. "Nothing."

  The hallucination hadn't returned, but Nick had stood at the edge of Land's End for over an hour, hand outstretched as it had been to wipe the man's tear, and listened to the waves crashing to the rhythm of his heart. He knew then he wouldn't jump, that he wouldn't die–resolving that the hallucination was either God or an older version of himself.

  Maybe the only reason he didn't jump that day was because he needed to be there in however many years to convince his past self not to.

  He became religious, and when he'd heard about the small somewhat-religious development nearby, it seemed a plan that was bigger than himself, and he moved in immediately. He hadn't been financially stable enough at the time to afford Sherwood Hills for long, but felt deep down that God would provide, and He had.

  Nick became fast friends with Belinda Scott, who not only got him a job he loved, but who was the first person he'd ever been so open with, whom he could express his doubts with. She suggested a test of sorts, to determine his sexuality, which led them down their infidelity path, first with minor kissing, and now stepping it up a few notches.

  About time too, Nick thought as he unclasped Belinda's bra.

  "Take it off," she whispered.

  He took both ends a pulled it down, letting the bra fall to her waist. She pushed him onto his back and kissed down his chest. As he watched her, his skin tingling with pleasure.

  A small bubble of fear rose to the surface of his mind, and he found himself wondering when Bernard's shift ended–but as her hand deftly unbuttoned his pants and she looked up at him with her big brown eyes and grinned, the curiosity vanished and was replaced by a grin of his own and the thought that he finally, certainly understood himself.

  She unzipped his fly and he closed his eyes as the thought of her husband shrunk to a blip in the depth of his subconscious.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Brandon Holt watched his opposite house guard mirror, Bernard, leave his post–and at that moment he decided his shift was up as well. He wanted to wait until someone volunteered to replace him, but found that he'd begun to fade an hour before, and had since been forcing himself to stay awake. He entered the house and found Mark Herman standing behind the kitchen counter drinking a glass of water.

  "Is it my turn to stand guard now, Brandon?" Mark asked.

  "Yes."

  Mark nodded, placed his glass onto the counter, and walked outside, taking the gun from Brandon as he did so. Something about the way he moved irked Brandon, and he was glad that he wouldn't have to be the only one awake with that creep for much longer.

  He wondered if the professor was awake. It had been Brandon's idea to not let Shane stand guard, thinking that the other side wouldn't hesitate to take him out, given the chance. But even though Shane had never left the house, he was never around either–an observation that concerned Brandon slightly.

  He wasn't the kind of person to doubt himself, but that didn't mean he'd avoid precaution either. He looked at Jack Evans, asleep on the couch, and grinned at the odd manner which his friend slept–eyes slightly open and mouth ajar.

  Opal and Jordan Wood were likely asleep in the guest bedroom–Sandra Evans was guarding the east street, Marilyn Herman the west street, and Mark, of course, the porch.

  Jack must've just been replaced by Sandra, seeing how himself and Jack began their shifts at the same time. But who had Marilyn replaced? The Woods had taken multiple day shifts so they could have a few hours together at night–and it couldn't have been anyone else–it must've been Mark. He must've just finished a shift, and willingly took over the porch.

  Strange guy, Brandon thought.

  He'd planned to pass out on the couch perpendicular to Jack's but decided to find the professor first, if anything simply because he wanted have a conversation about Mark's strange behavior. He checked upstairs first, but found Jordan and Opal Wood sound asleep in the guest room. The bathroom door was open and the bathroom empty, as was his master bedroom, and Brandon began to grow anxious.

  He descended the stairs and on a whim turned to his garage. If Shane wasn't there then he'd likely r
un out to either of the wings, possibly to talk, and if he had, Brandon would be upset. Going out to the wings for a social visit was a huge unnecessary risk.

  He opened the garage door and flicked on the light, but found it empty. So he's out on a wing, Brandon thought–but when something caught his eye, he stopped.

  On his workbench in the garage was a large device he'd never seen before. It was a cylindrical motor looking thing, with wires and fuses jutting out at random intervals. Brandon stepped closer and saw attached to it was the small head of a digital watch, blinking 12:00 repeatedly. He felt his pulse quicken with his understanding–there was no mistaking it–his breath stopped in his throat and he stepped back, feeling like he was choking on his esophagus.

  What he found was a bomb.

  He heard the door open and then shut behind him, and he turned.

  "So you finally found it," Shane said, knife in hand–and for some reason one eye closed. "I'm sorry, Brandon–but I can't take any chances. You have to understand."

  Brandon checked his periphery for anything he could use to defend himself, and eyed a large wrench on the work bench.

  "So you're the alien," he said, attempting to stall.

  "No. But one of you might be, so I have to kill all of you. I'm sorry."

  "I can prove I'm not an alien," Brandon said–anything to give him time.

  "You can't," Shane replied, and at that moment shut off the lights.

  The room was pitch black aside from the faint green glow of his garage door light. He grabbed the wrench, remembering exactly where it was, then dropped to the floor and scuttled backwards as quietly as possibly.

  "Jordan and Opal are dead, aren't they?" he asked. Maybe he could locate Shane by his answer.

  "Yes. Everyone is now dead, aside from you."

  His voice seemed to be bouncing off every wall at once, and Brandon begged his eyes to adjust, staring as hard as he could, mentally willing himself to see.