Doubt - Among Us Trilogy Book 1 - a Truth Seekers end of the world religious thriller series

by Anne-Rae Vasquez

  He stumbled backwards, bumping into the boxes of supplies behind him. Quickly regaining his balance, he turned and ran out of the closet and back into the lab. He had to get the hell out of there.

  He ran to the doors, flinging them open. Behind him, he swore he could hear a weird “wooshing” sound.

  Holy crap. Don’t look back.

  He sprinted down the hallway, rushing past the security guards. They both called out for him to stop. No f’ing way!

  He made it into the stairwell, picking up the pace as he sped like a bullet down two flights of stairs to the bottom floor where he reached the emergency exit doors. Power reading a sign written in Hebrew that was pasted on one door, “Alarmed. In case of fire, push to open,” he slammed his body against the handles, shoving the doors open.

  The clanging of the alarms rang into the air.

  He bolted towards the parking lot. What the hell am I running from?

  The rational side of his brain told him he was being paranoid. But his natural instincts told him to run even faster.

  He reached the parking lot and saw that his car was one of only three left in the lot. He ran towards it, ripped open the driver-side door, and jumped in, slamming the door behind him. He jabbed the button to lock the doors while he shoved his foot on the brakes and pushed the button to start the engine.

  Why I am so frigging terrified? It’s just Dr. Saeed, for crying out loud.

  Out of desperation he called out, “Mom, if you can hear me, please help.”

  He couldn’t believe that he would resort to calling out for his missing mother. He must be losing it.

  Check your phone. The answer is there.

  “Mom?”

  He whipped his head around. He was certain that the sound of her voice was coming from the back seat of the car. But his anticipation was replaced with a sad disappointment. No one was there.

  “Freak, I must be hallucinating.”

  Hurry, Harry, there isn’t much time.

  He spun around again. No one else was in the car. I must be going nuts. Why is my mind playing tricks on me? Something inside him made him pause and reach for his phone. When he swiped the screen to unlock his phone, he saw that he had a text message waiting for him.

  He wondered if his mother was trying to communicate with him.

  Text message received.

  Graphix: Update: We picked up Lioness from airport. Mist and Shadow are here in Akko. Sending you video of Shadow talking to Raffe. Looks intense but u need to translate. Awaiting your orders.

  There was no time to psychoanalyze the situation. He shoved the gear stick into the Drive position and pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

  In the distance, the sound of the sirens from the fire trucks was approaching fast. He breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever was after him, if there was anything, was gone.

  Hearing a “wooshing” noise again behind his head, he glanced into his rearview mirror to see what it was. His heart started pounding fast and hard; fear surged through his veins.

  Something was staring back at him in the mirror—it resembled Dr. Saeed’s face, but from the yellow glow in its eyes, Harry was definitely sure it wasn’t human.

  Chapter 23

  Akko

  THE SALTY KISS OF THE balmy sea breeze caressed Cristal’s cheeks while the evening sun was setting on the horizon, producing a fiery orange emblem against an angry red sky.

  Will we ever see blue skies again? She wondered to herself. Since the earthquake, the sky remained a shade of red. Some countries reported a blood-red color, while others described the sky as being red with pockets of blue peeking through the orange and white clouds.

  Experts claimed it was simply due to the refraction of light related to the sun’s position and the scattering of electromagnetic radiation through the atmosphere. Basically, it was mankind’s fault for using the Earth as its toilet.

  Global Nation, founders of the group, “A Sustainable Planet,” blamed the red color on global warming caused by environmental pollution destroying the Earth’s ozone layer.

  Scientists countered this theory proving global warming could not be the cause, due to the fact that the planet was becoming colder, not warmer. If the scientists were correct, then what was really causing the sky to turn red? Deep down inside, she feared that she was the cause of it.

  Kerim and Cristal sat on a four-foot high wall of sandstone blocks, which stretched for miles along the shoreline. Over the wall was a steep drop to the crashing waves of the Mediterranean Sea below.

  Her senses were captivated by everything around her. The breeze from the water tickled her skin while the vibrant smells filled her nose with a combination of scents—salt from the sea, seaweed, kelp entwining their leaves across the seabed, and families of fish inhabiting the warm water.

  When they had first arrived in Akko, Kerim had seemed edgier than usual.

  “Can’t believe I forgot my smokes,” he had mumbled over and over as they walked down the streets of the ancient town looking for a shop that sold Lucky Strike, the only brand of cigarettes he smoked.

  Despite being an anti-smoker herself, the fact that Kerim was a smoker never bothered her. It seemed to be a natural part of his makeup.

  She glanced over at Kerim, and it looked as if he was deep in thought. The scene reminded her of Apollo, the Greek god—handsome, confident, and strong.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked quietly, taking one last drag from his cigarette before tossing it on the ground.

  “What’s taking Gabriel so long?” she asked.

  “He probably stopped to get something to eat. I heard Rinaldo saying he wanted to grab a baguette.”

  “I see…” she said, and looked off into the distance.

  How do I tell him about what happened at the hotel?

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Kerim said softly.

  “You do?” Are you reading my thoughts again?

  He gave her a smug grin. “Yeah, actually, I could hear you the whole time. I didn’t realize that I resembled a Greek god.”

  Cristal felt her cheeks grow hot with embarrassment. She took a breath to regain her composure, and said, “The lady from the plane, the one you switched seats with, she’s a National Security Agent.”

  Kerim’s eyebrow rose up slightly. “You mean Ms. Full-Bodied Mama? You’re joking.”

  She shook her head, and answered, “No, she’s for real. She showed us some photos she had taken while you were sleeping on the plane.”

  Kerim clenched his hand, and then said, “And?”

  “There was this weird glow around your head in all the photos,” she said quietly. “And she also had a video clip to prove to Harry that it wasn’t a Photoshop job.”

  “Wow, and you both believed that crap?” he asked.

  “It looked very real.”

  Kerim wrapped his arms around her and pulled her towards him. She enjoyed the embrace.

  Why did she feel so safe in his arms?

  “Let’s say that this is true,” he began. “What do you think this light around my head could be?”

  She stared deeply into his eyes.

  “Yaffa called it a halo.”

  “Ah, Yaffa,” he mumbled. “She called it a halo.”

  He repeated the words as if trying to understand the full meaning behind them.

  “It did look like a halo, Kerim. But I also took a photo of you. Remember? You were doing the peace sign and there was no halo around you.”

  “Victory sign,” he interrupted.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, victory sign. My point is, when I took the photo of you, there was no light around your head. I don’t know how to explain why there was a light in Yaffa’s photos.”

  “It’s the music,” he murmured to himself.

  “What did you say?” Cristal asked.

  “When you and I were listening to the music, we were connected to each other in our minds. I could read your thoughts and you could read mine. It’s
possible maybe that with the human eye, the light is not visible. But on digital photos, this light is visible.”

  Cristal shook her head, trying to process what Kerim had just said.

  “I don’t know. That sounds pretty far-fetched.”

  Kerim looked at her then, his eyes probing into hers.

  “Isn’t everything that happened after the earthquake, as you say, ‘far-fetched?’ Like the fact we can communicate without words, and how about you seeing Harry’s mother’s image in the sky on the day of the earthquake? Isn’t that far-fetched? Something is happening with us. With the world.”

  She was about to say something, ready to argue his points, but instead, she fell silent. He was right. Right about everything.

  He continued talking to her while his fingers gently stroked her arms, waking the hidden passion inside her.

  “I’ve been having strange dreams and visions lately. And my headaches seem to be getting worse. I feel like my brain is trying to tell me that there is something I’m supposed to do. But I can’t remember what it is.”

  She still didn’t know what to think or what to say.

  “Do you know that being here could be dangerous?” he asked her quietly.

  His expression of concern was unnerving, but his caresses were numbing the anxiety in her mind.

  “Because of what happened in New York?” she asked.

  “We’re going to enter one of the black holes,” he said, very matter-of-factly as he stared straight into her eyes. “We don’t know what will happen. You do know that Harry didn’t want us to bring you, don’t you?”

  “If that’s the case, why did you?”

  Kerim reached into his leather jacket and took out his smart phone.

  “I want you to see something.” He swiped the phone’s surface, tapped a few buttons, and handed the phone to her. On the screen, there was a photo of what looked like an open journal with handwritten notes.

  She glanced over at him, and asked, “What is this?”

  He tipped his chin up slightly. It was his way of telling her to go check it out. She had hung around him long enough by now to understand the subtle meaning behind his mannerisms and gestures.

  She swiped the screen to zoom in on the photo until the words were legible.

  The dreams are coming all the time now. They used to scare me but now I welcome them. I am able to remember in detail the last one. The numbers keep repeating in my brain. 11132013, 56609, 14350109, 57740910, 17300304.

  I’m writing this before sleep steals me back into the darkness of my nightmares.

  The darkness enclosed around me, like it always did in my dreams. I was wandering the streets of an old city surrounded by walls that towered high above. Everything seemed familiar to me. The sights, the sounds the smells. The air was filled with a salty mugginess. Behind the walls, must be the sea, I thought as I stumbled down the street. I wanted to go towards the water but I could hear voices ahead of me. For some unexplainable reason, I felt drawn towards the sound.

  By the wall, there was a young couple. The woman was remarkably pretty; the man, dark and mysterious. Their voices sounded concerned but I couldn’t make out the words. I inched closer, wondering why I was here and why I was seeing this.

  Suddenly, someone grabbed me. I turned to see who it was but saw nothing. I tried to break free, to scream for help but I was paralyzed. I watched as a dark cloud descended onto the woman. It had tentacle-like arms wrapping around her, strangling and choking her. The man was trying to pull her free but he was no match for this thing. I could see the woman’s eyes wide with fright. The tentacles were literally squeezing the life out of her right before my eyes. It was then that the man lifted his arms and looked up to the heavens crying out in a language that sounded like Latin. A brilliant white light exploded across the sky. The earth began upheaving beneath my feet. I struggled to move and realized that I had been freed. I turned to run, to save my cowardly self.

  But I could see the woman was also freed from the arms of the dark cloud. She was screaming, or seemed to be. I could not hear over the thunderous roar. I could see why she was overwrought. The man was being torn apart by the rays of the white light that had snaked its way down from the sky. I saw him explode into a white light, a transparent being. It was then that he rose up, as if a force were pulling him. He reached out to the woman, she reaching out to him. But their hands never touched. He was pulled away, almost violently, like a rag doll, up into the sky.

  And then I awoke.

  Bina Schwartz

  Chapter 24

  ‘48

  CRISTAL LOOKED UP FROM the phone, meeting Kerim’s gaze.

  “Where did you get a hold of the journal?” she managed to say.

  Her mind was reeling, her brain still trying to process the information.

  “I broke into Harry’s office this morning and found it in a hidden safe under his desk,” he said.

  She handed the phone back to him.

  “Was this all that was in it?”

  “No, there’s a lot more.”

  “I noticed the numbers. I thought they looked familiar. They are the same ones Harry asked us to find out what the correlation between them were.”

  “And?”

  He raised one eyebrow.

  “He never told us what the numbers were or where they came from. So we thought they were secret codes and we tried to break them. But now, it is so obvious.”

  She couldn’t believe how simple it was.

  Kerim was watching, waiting for her to continue.

  “11132013, 56609, 14350109, 57740910, 17300304. It’s a date, not a code. It’s today’s date formatted by the different calendars—Gregorian, Julian, Islamic, Hebrew, Coptic.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Today’s date? November 13, 2013. Did Harry know?”

  She shook her head, giving him a wry smile.

  “I don’t think so. One weakness about Harry, once he’s got his mind focused on something, he gets stuck on that theory for a long time until he figures out that there are other options. He makes the simplest things so complicated sometimes.”

  They fell into an awkward silence—both of them avoiding the real discussion they should be having. What Bina had written could have been a premonition about what was about to happen. Cristal trembled at the thought.

  Kerim reached out and pulled her towards him.

  “Cristal, I don’t want to lose you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “But it seems that time is running out.”

  “No,” she said, pulling away. “Don’t say that. Nothing’s going to happen. We’re all going to be okay. I don’t want to think too far ahead. Let’s just enjoy the moment we have right now.”

  Hot tears burned her cheeks, but she refused to brush them away.

  Kerim reached up and held her face, kissing her cheeks. He gently wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Okay, okay. Let’s stop talking about this.”

  She was relieved that he had closed the topic.

  “Come on, smile for me. You know I hate to see you cry,” he whispered.

  She gave him a small smile—happy to be in his arms, to be in love, and to be loved back.

  The sound of a blaring car horn interrupted her thoughts. Cristal glanced at the street and saw a silver-grey minivan pulling into an empty space behind Kerim’s motorcycle.

  “Kerim, Cristal, let’s go!”

  Gabriel hollered at them as he stuck his head out of the passenger window, his arm waving frantically for them to come.

  Kerim waved his hand back at him.

  “Come on,” he said to her, placing his arm around her shoulder.

  She laced hers around his waist. A part of her was worried that Kerim was right about the fact that time was running out. Stubbornly, she pushed the thought far back in her mind.

  Everything is going to be okay. Dear God, help us.

  A group of young men who had been sitting on a bench nearby was now standing a
round the van. There were four of them—one large guy in a blue T-shirt and black jeans, two of medium build in polo shirts and blue jeans, and the last one was the smallest in a white shirt and black pants. They seemed to be glaring at Kerim warily.

  Cristal felt Kerim’s hand tighten around her shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” he said in a hushed tone.

  He let go of her shoulder and walked cautiously towards the men.

  “Marhaba,” he said.

  She knew this meant hello in Arabic.

  “Ah-layne,” the large one responded, which was a way to say hello or welcome.

  Kerim continued talking in Arabic with them. She could see Gabriel getting out of the van to join them. The conversation sounded tense, their body language strained.

  Although she hated politics, Cristal had been tracking the news about President Roshenbaum’s involvement with the Israeli and Palestinian peace talks. The State of Palestine would finally become a reality at the end of the month when the peace agreement was signed. That was good news for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; not so good news for the Israeli-Arab population, sometimes referred to as “the Arabs of `48.” These were the Palestinians who, as Wikipedia described, were the Palestinians “standing fast, not fleeing during the War of 1948, unlike those who left and became refugees in neighboring countries.”

  Now, generations later, the “Arabs of ‘48” and their children had become Israeli citizens. Facing racism as a minority population within Israel while at the same time considered traitors by Arab countries and other Palestinians outside of Israel, “the Arabs of ‘48” could not embrace their own identity as Palestinians or as Israelis. To the outside world, they were neither Palestinian nor Jew.

  Now with the peace talks, rumors that right wing government parties were going to pass a law to force Israeli-Arabs to transfer to the State of Palestine, thereby losing their Israeli citizenship brought uneasiness between Israeli-Arabs and Israeli-Jews. Although Cristal hated the politics of it all, she understood their uneasiness. As an American-Mexican, the idea of being forced to transfer to Mexico and then stripping her American citizenship was incomprehensible.

  The back door of the van on the passenger’s side opened, and Rinaldo stepped out onto the street. He was followed by a smaller person. When she squinted her eyes, she recognized who it was. Serena.

  Why was she here? Harry probably sent for her without telling me.

  Rinaldo walked towards the larger man, motioning to Gabriel with his head, who moved behind the other three.