Harvest Earth

by J. D. Laird

  Harvest

  Earth

  J.D. Laird

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  Harvest

  Earth

  J. D. Laird

  Amazon Kindle

  Harvest Earth

  Copyright © 2016 by J.D. Laird

  Harvest Earth is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author. For information e-mail info.jdlaird@gmail.com

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  Prologue

  “They reap what they sow.”

  The words are written in black scattered blots of ink, bordered by the blue lines of a college-ruled paper both above and below. They are the last lines of a poem, a poem written in the dark. The only light is the moon and the stars that fill the void of space overhead.

  A sigh and puff of cigarette smoke fills the air. A teenager sits alone in the dirt, a notebook in his lap. Between the fingers of his left hand he holds a smoldering cigarette. Between the fingers of his right hand a black pen.

  Tobias Whitehorn should be working on his homework. He has a math assignment due, algebra. He hates algebra. Instead he decides to write, something his school guidance counselor has advised him to do when he is too angry to do anything else. Tobias looks over his poem and doesn’t think that his counselor would approve. There are allusions to sex, violence and drugs. All the components of substance for a quality life as a teenage male. Or at least that’s what Tobias feels he is being taught.

  Everyday someone is warning him about the dangers of sex. Tobias could spell chlamydia by the time he was twelve, but that didn’t stop every health, gym or biology teacher from continuing to tell him about it. At this point Tobias wants to catch the sexually transmitted infection just so he could see what all the fuss is about.

  Tobias clenches his pen tighter and takes another puff of his cigarette. Tobias is tall, he is wide, and he is “native”. His hair is long and tangled. His face is speckled with blemishes. His chin has black stubs of hair on it, evidence of puberty taking over his body. His mother never has any money and so Tobias’ clothes also don’t fit. Their family gets some money from the Tribe, but Tobias knows where that goes.

  This brings Tobias to the second theme of his poem, drugs. By the time a police officer came to Tobias’ school to teach him about the dangers of drugs he had already been carrying vials of methamphetamine home with him for his mother in his backpack. There was a man who would come by in the mornings while Tobias was at school. Tobias thought he worked at the school but never saw him in any of the classrooms. He would give Tobias the vial and then Tobias would hide it until he got home. Sometimes his teachers would ask to search his backpack to look for homework that Tobias had “misplaced”. This was always nerve racking, so Tobias had gotten better at hiding the vials overtime. He had even sown a hidden pocket into the inside of his backpack for the safekeeping of his contraband. Lately, however, no one checked Tobias’ bags for missing homework and Tobias no longer gave his teachers any excuses when he didn’t have it.

  Shouting from the house behind him causes Tobias to momentarily freeze. He hugs his notebook to his chest, shielding the cigarette underneath it. He never knows what type of mood his mother is going to be in. He isn’t allowed to smoke, she tells him this between benders. Tobias’ mother tells him lots of rules when she is sober, a list of things not to do. But most of the time she is high. When she is high she is different. If she caught Tobias smoking she would do one of two things. One, either not care and probably ask for a drag. This version of his mother Tobias didn’t mind so much and was almost tolerable. It was either that or she would be his other mother. The one who beat him for crying as a child when all he wanted was some attention.

  Tobias was bigger now but his mother didn’t care. He could fight back, could give his mother back one-hundred times all the beatings that he had ever received. But Tobias never did. He was still too afraid and thought he always would be.

  From years of experience, Tobias hones his ears in on the shouting coming from the house. The words are distinct and crisp in the air. Like a series of gunshots going off. The house is isolated. It is located atop a mesa with no neighbors for miles around. Tobias suspects this is intentional, both on the part of his mother and the other members of the tribe. People whisper in the market and at the gas station that Tobias’ mother has been cursed, taken over by the dark spirits. Tobias knows the name of the spirit well enough, and it comes in the form of small crystal rocks that his mother smokes.

  The shouting dies down and Tobias relaxes. He can see shapes in the windows of the house, his mother walking into the kitchen and a man in the living room. There is no electricity in the house, just the glow of candles and lanterns. Tobias watches the shadows, they dance across the ceilings and walls. They are distorted, human forms that stretch and form monstrous beings that shift through the space. This was where violence comes in, Tobias’ poem’s third theme.

  It isn’t the beatings. Tobias knows lots of other kids that get beat, and though Tobias dreams of standing up to his mother he never wants to hurt her. No, the violence is directed at the man who becomes the shadow monster in his living room. The man who comes and invades his house. The one who comes in, invited, like a leprous vampire looking to feed on what little they have. He seeks to drain Tobias and his mother dry till they have nothing left.

  Tobias knows this man. He knows that he has chosen his mother for a reason. For her habit, no doubt, but he knows that she is weak too. This man lures Tobias’ mother in with promises, making her think it is her own choice. He deludes her into thinking that she has free will. And then he offers her the poison and she takes it every time. She becomes instantly frail as a result, even more susceptible to his influence. It is then that the man collects his bounty. Tobias doesn’t like to think about that part. Instead he daydreams about hurting the man, his imagination is the most elaborate torture device.

  But it is just a dream. A dream written in a poem, which is the only true weapon he has. Tobias is no murderer. He doesn’t have it in him. His mother has told him he is “too soft”. A long time ago Tobias had taken it to heart and made the words a part of him. He is soft, but he still has rage. It is a rage that has built up inside him. He channels it into
his writing, fearing what would happen should it ever burst out.

  Another deep exhale and Tobias turns away from the house. He takes another puff of his cigarette. The burning sensation in his mouth and in his lungs feels comforting. It is fire to match the welling heat that burns within him. As the smoke drifts out of his parted lips, he dreams it is coming from inside. It is the anger being released from the boiler of his soul, released in a slow steady puff of steam. The wisps of vapor float up and disappear amongst the stars. As the stream of heated gas dances amongst the lights in the sky, Tobias watches, taking his body to a far off place.

  It takes a while before Tobias even notices that one of the stars is moving. The smoke playing amongst the lights make it difficult to tell. By the time he does notice, his first thought is that it is a plane, one that he hasn’t noticed streaking across the sky. Or maybe a satellite, one of thousands that encircle the globe, sparkling as the sun hits its metallic hull.

  Taking another drag from his cigarette Tobias neglects to see that the light in the sky is growing increasingly bright. He doesn’t notice that the ground around him is humming with life, the rocks in the dirt start to dance and jump. It isn’t until he feels the vibrations that Tobias senses that something is wrong, though his mind can’t grasp the fullness of it. His brain is having difficulty allowing him to accept the evidence his eyes feed him. It isn’t until the light engulfs him and Tobias is gone that he is finally able to put a word to what he sees.

  The light vanishes. All that is left behind is a circular imprint in the dirt where the teenager has been sitting. Just beyond the impression lay an open notebook. An angry poem, the last evidence of what has become of Tobias Whitehorn.

  1 Gabriel

  Even when he opens his eyelids he still finds the world to be dark. He can feel his eyelids moving. He feels them fluttering as he tries to make the eyes beneath them work. But there is nothing but darkness. Gabriel rubs his fingertips across his face to make sure he is in fact awake.

  He is indeed awake but can’t remember falling asleep. Where is he? The darkness is disorienting and he can’t recall where he is supposed to be. There is nothing to orientate him, no clues. He can’t even see his own palm as he waves it and feels its wind against his face. Using his arms likes antenna Gabriel moves them around in sweeping circles feeling for anything to help familiarize him to his surroundings. He is sitting, he knows that much. Sitting in what feels like a chair, a hard chair made of wood. Gabriel’s fingertips confirm this as they run across the grain on the armrest.

  The chair of his desk at work, he resigns. The grooves in the grain and the thickness of the armrest are familiar. He must be in his office. Gabriel holds his palms out and his suspicions are confirmed as he rests them against the top surface of his metal desk. He reaches into the darkness where his lamp should be and grazes the base of it with his thumb. Using his hands as his eyes he works them up the shaft of the small desk lamp. His senses are heightened waiting for the feel of the power switch. When he finds it, Gabriel pushes it on and off several times, but there is no light.

  His flashlight! The thought comes to Gabriel like the light bulb that should have come on in his lamp. Gabriel’s hand gropes around his waist, feeling around his belt for where he usually keeps the device. His hand moves too quickly. He feels his fingers fumble for the strap that attaches the flashlight to his belt and the strap slips through them. There is a loud clang as the industrial-sized flashlight smashes into the cement floor. The sound is startling, out of place in the stillness of the dark.

  Gabriel rises slowly from his chair. He hopes that the flashlight has fallen nearby and hasn’t rolled too far. He moves cautiously, dropping to his knees, holding one hand up to protect his head from bumping into his metal desk. The knees of his overalls scuff against the hard cement. He is hit then by a smell, foul and pungent. Gabriel gags. It is the smell of urine, stale and strong. It only takes a moment to realize the odor is coming from his own lap. He holds his breath and tries not to think about what may have happened.

  With one hand still raised to protect his head from accidentally colliding into something, Gabriel uses his other hand like a probe, reaching it out in front of him. His hand guides him, resting just off where Gabriel assumes the dirt-covered floor is. He crawls very deliberately across the ground, still holding his breath to block out the odor. His other senses are raised, waiting for the feel or sound of the shaft of the flashlight against the cement. All of his attention is focused on the feel of the air around his outstretched fingers, waiting for contact with something. The anticipation in the dark builds in Gabriel’s chest as his lungs threaten to explode.

  His hand shoots back when Gabriel’s fingers graze something. He is surprised by the discovery of the very object he has been searching for, out of fear and expecting never to find it. He quickly recovers and reaches back where he has felt the cool feel of hardened plastic and wraps his hand around the flashlight handle. Gabriel blinks as the light flickers on. It is blinding at first but Gabriel relishes the light. It means he can see, that the darkness is outside of himself.

  Scanning his surroundings with the light, Gabriel confirms his location. He is in his office, a small closet that has been converted for the use of maintenance staff in the basement of a building. The room is nearly bare. A wooden chair, a metal desk with a work lamp, and various tools and broken things line the walls. On the wall by the door Gabriel searches with the beam of light from his flashlight for the room’s light switch. It is in the “on” position. It confirms Gabriel’s fears that a fuse breaker in the building has been either turned off or broken.

  Gabriel hopes it is the former because he surely will be blamed for the later. Blamed and then asked to fix it. Gabriel is not an electrician and he has told the people who hired him as much but no one seems to care. He is a man willing to work long hours for low wages. “Besides, how hard could it be?” They would tell him whenever he came across something he didn’t know how to fix. Even more demeaning was, “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.” As if it was challenge. As if to say that if he couldn’t do it then it just proved to them that he deserves to be in that basement to begin with. That somehow he deserves the minimum wage salary, the one pair of overalls, and the ancient tools that they gave him to fix the ancient building.

  Gabriel checks the lap of his overalls with the light of his flashlight. It is dry, but there is a stain where he has urinated on himself. He hopes the stain will come out with some soap and water. If not, he’d have to spill some grease on the spot and pretend it was an accident. He can’t afford another pair of overalls. Nor did Gabriel think he could survive the ridicule and embarrassment of what he had done. A million jeers about diapers and infants come to mind. Gabriel pushes them aside, resigning not to let knowledge of the accident leave the basement.

  As these thoughts swirl around Gabriel’s mind, he peers with his flashlight into the hallway that leads down to the boiling room and the other inner workings of the building. Gabriel hopes there is no one else around to see him. He hopes that this isn’t some kind of trick, but the hallway is dark too. Gabriel is relieved, but a queer feeling is creeping up from his stomach. In addition to it being dark, the basement level is silent. There is no hum of the generator or the hissing of steam from a vent. Instead, the only sounds are the occasional drips of water as they find their way through the cracks in the rusted pipes.

  Whatever has turned off the power in Gabriel’s office has also turned the entire building into a lifeless husk. It feels dead. Again, Gabriel thinks about he how will be the first one to be called upon to try and resuscitate it.

  2 Madison

  After the power went out it only took a few moments for the back-up generators to kick on. The monitor at Madison’s station flicked back to life nearly instantly, re-booting the startup protocol for the operating system that ran her machine. There was tension in the air as her superior officer barked orders.

  “Get me sat-com’
s back up now!” He shouts across the room, sweat is already accumulating on his collar. His voice echoes off of the walls of the large control room. Yet despite her supervisor’s yelling, Madison sits momentarily stunned at her station. She isn’t the only one. All around her men and women in Air Force uniforms sit in front of monitors that are coming back to life with perturbed and confounded expressions. Rows of screens blink on with iridescent lights, while the lights overhead have been dimmed, presumably to save power after the blackout. But the base isn’t supposed to ever lose power. Ever. Was this a drill? A test of some kind?

  Madison looks under her console station at the long ream of cords that run underneath. Her eyes try to focus and track each one, making sure none are tangled or disconnected. Helpless, waiting for her station to start up its initialization processes and applications, Madison scans the rest of the room. It has erupted into a mix of controlled and orchestrated chaos.

  Some people, like Madison just sit at their monitors, patiently waiting for their operating systems to finalize their reboot cycles. Others have jumped into action and are scurrying around between the rows of workstations. They hurriedly are checking outlets and connections. The large monitors that sit on the walls that overlook the control room are black except for a single sentence, “signal lost”. They are terrifying words written in a pixelated white font. It is a sharp contrast to the high resolution images that usually fill the screens.

  “I need a medic!” The words ring out over the room and it is another call to action. Everyone rises from their chairs to see where help is needed. A crowd has formed around one work station. Madison stands on her toes to see what is happening. A man appears to have passed out, his head is tilted over the back of his chair and his tongue is flopping out of his mouth. Madison recognizes him but doesn’t know his name. She overhears that he has only just gotten back from leave, a week in a world outside the base. Madison can’t remember what that is like.