The Harbinger Break

by Adams, Zachary

  Just then Belinda Scott, Bernard's wife, walked behind Nick and gave his rear a small pinch, which Cameron thought was wildly inappropriate, but not unlike her. She was normally one of a few who drank more than socially acceptable at their neighborhood's suburban parties.

  Cameron remembered that Nick was openly homosexual, and wondered how Bernard Scott felt about his wife's antics. If Nick had been straight, Cameron was certain that Bernard would be upset. Then again, being much older than his wife and an advocate of sobriety, Bernard was already likely upset with Belinda.

  By then, Nick had turned to talk with Belinda about a television show they both watched, so Cameron excused himself and made his way to the bar. At this rate he'd be drunk before his third conversation he thought as he refilled his glass for a fourth time.

  Brandon appeared next to him and stared unblinking at the kitchen cabinets straight ahead. "Notice anything suspicious yet?" he asked, barely moving his mouth.

  Cameron turned to his friend and raised an eyebrow.

  "Yeah. You," he said. "We're allowed to talk, you know."

  "Roger," Brandon replied, then grabbed what appeared to be his fifth beer and wandered off. Somehow, this was going poorer than expected, and he'd had low expectations to begin with.

  He looked across his living room at the couch, at Mark Herman and his wife Marilyn as they spoke with a clearly bored and irritated Jordan and Opal Wood. The Hermans were the most straight-laced religious couple in town. Mark was in his late fifties, his wife much younger and incredibly gorgeous, and it annoyed Cameron to no end how obviously obsessed she was with her controlling, stuck-up husband.

  Cameron sighed. Duty called however, and he left the bar to approach the group, making sure to take the bottle of champagne with him.

  Jordan turned and locked eyes with Cameron, and a wide grin split his face as he took the opportunity to excuse himself.

  "Great party, Cam!" he said. Opal glared at him as he stood and walked from the couch.

  He and Cameron shook hands. "So what do you make of the UFO?" he asked.

  Almost as if by force of habit, Cameron took another sip of champagne. At this point he was Pavlov'ed to drink every-damn-time someone mentioned the damn aliens.

  "Not sure," Cameron said. "What do you think?"

  "I think that if our little community wasn't fucked before, we sure as hell are now," Jordan replied with a grin.

  Jordan was a pessimist, a grinning pessimist. If asked, he'd agree with a smile and tell you how he was religious because he could only attribute the fact that he wasn't yet dead to divine intervention. Cameron thought this interesting, to say the least, because Jordan was a highly successful author, and his books, which Cameron had fingered through, were wildly depressing. He'd introduce a single character and allow the reader to grow close with that character over the course of the book, and at the end kill him, her, or it off brutally, randomly, and without a trace of poetry. This lack of poetry was referred to by critics as poetic on a grand scheme, a subtle allegory that life is meaningless. This led Jordan to laugh angrily at his success. It seemed to Cameron as if he wanted the critics to shred his books and devise a rebuttal, stating his books weren't true to life and that existence has meaning. But none would, so Jordan Wood continued to write his depressing books and drink.

  "You think Sherwood Hills was in trouble before this?" Cameron asked, certain that he wouldn't like the answer and immediately regretted his question. "Why?"

  "I'd tell you, Cam–but the look on your face tells me you'd really rather not know."

  Cameron laughed, then took another sip of champagne, polishing off his fifth glass.

  "Maybe you're right," he said.

  He checked his watch. It was ten to eleven. In ten minutes the time they'd agreed to reveal the true reason for the party would be upon them. He felt his anxiety wash into his stomach with another sip, and could almost feel it bubbling like a dissolvable gas-relief tablet inside his stomach, but doing exactly the opposite.

  Well, better get ready. Cameron ascended the stairs, walked down the hall and into his bedroom.

  Inside sat the professor and Caroline, mid conversation.

  "…and from there I spent three years in DC as a resident under Dr Ron Howard, who confirmed my research with his own," Shane said. "We wrote countless papers on the subject, but all were rejected by every which journal of psychology and medicine, and the problem never gained traction. It was all hypothesis anyway, and the rejection never concerned us on a conspiracy level. It wasn't until my mentor was found murdered that I wondered if we'd stepped into something bigger than we'd thought. The aliens hiding among us, albeit logical, never seemed as dire as we'd imagined. But learning what we'd learned, it was clear that this problem was more than we'd first realized, and time was running out."

  "But what about the ambulance?" Caroline asked.

  "Ah, yes. I'd been conducting experiments with food, and with my medical license I'd been granted a permit to have one on scene in case of an emergency. I was just returning it to Savannah when I took a left at the fork and ended up here."

  Caroline shrugged. "In any case, I'm glad you did. We'd be lost without your guidance."

  Shane nodded. "It's exciting and frightening simultaneously to see my research so confirmed. We haven't much time to act, if we'd hope to expel them."

  "Well," Cameron said, looking at his watch. "Now's the time. You ready?"

  Shane nodded. Together the three of them descended the stairs. As they did so, Cameron locked eyes with Jack, then with Brandon, and the two approached while the other party-goers stared, confusion washed upon their drunk, tired faces.

  "Can I have your attention," Cameron said loudly, needlessly–he already had their attention. He continued.

  "Thanks. As you're all probably aware, three days ago Sherwood Hills was visited by aliens. What you don't know is that the aliens have likely taken the place or places of one or more people in our small community."

  At this point, a few of the attendees gasped. Cameron continued.

  "It's impossible for us to find out who–or it would've been if not for our guest here. Pat Shane is a professor of aliens and stuff, and it's fortunate that he agreed to stay and help us."

  Cameron held a hand out towards Shane. "Professor Shane, if you would…"

  Shane stepped forward and glanced around at faces staring back at him. Cameron assumed he was mentally preparing himself.

  "I'm not going to mince my words," he said after a moment. "Every last one of you is in grave danger. This alien threat is a subject I've researched incessantly for the past eight years, and I have reason to believe that the aliens are hiding amongst you. But do not look at this as a death sentence–instead, see this as it is: the first historic battle with the extra-terrestrials. And make no mistake, if we win this battle, we may just dissuade an invasion, prevent a war, and save humanity."

  "And how do you intend we do that?" Mitch Anderson asked, arms crossed and brow furrowed, drunk and alone by the bar.

  Cameron never got on with the man–his obvious history of steroid abuse and permanent head damage from his professional hockey career made talking to him more tedious than it was worth. Mitch was retired now, and Cameron knew from experience that retired athletes who had faded from the spotlight were usually more aggressive and angry than the usual homebody.

  The professor held Mitch's skeptical gaze for a moment before responding. "Do you know why man doesn't eat lion?" he asked.

  "Because it tastes bad?" Mitch said, attempting a joke. No one laughed.

  "No," the professor said. "It's because the first man to hunt lion got his head ripped off, and humanity learned that there are far simpler prey."

  He looked around the room at their confused faces, then continued.

  "What I'm saying is that it might only take the death of one alien to get the rest to retreat. Let's be the lion, not the elk."

  "So what do you suggest we do?" Mitch asked.<
br />
  "Find the alien and kill it. Find the aliens and kill them all."

  "What do you mean by that?" asked Nick.

  "Kill whoever isn't themselves."

  "These are our friends you're talking about!" Stanley Lang said.

  Cameron looked at Stanley and his wife, Lindsey Lang. He regretted not talking to them earlier. He and Caroline got on well with the couple, pleasant enough to talk to, and Cameron often wondered why the four of them weren't closer. It seemed the Langs didn't put much effort into making friends, which was odd in their small community.

  Shane glared before responding. "This is the world I'm talking about."

  His words seemed to echo around the room, riding the silence. "Drastic is the name of the game," he continued.

  "How long to we have?" Jack asked.

  "Impossible to tell. The sooner we expel them, the better."

  "How will we know when we do?" asked Opal Wood.

  "We may not."

  Mitch Anderson turned and casually left through the patio door, odd considering the situation. Andy Perkins stood and followed him, calling after him, but Mitch kept walking. Cameron and the rest exchanged skeptical glances

  "Mitch, what are you doing?" they heard Andy say through the open back door.

  "I'm going home."

  "Just like that?"

  "A man isn't allowed to go home anymore?"

  "Not just like that. Not in the middle of a talk like this."

  "I heard everything I needed to. I'm going home now. Is that okay with you guys, or do I need to sign something first?"

  Shane walked to the back door. "You can go," he said. The manner which he spoke was so weightless that Cameron knew even Mitch must suspect hidden weight behind his words.

  "I can go?"

  "Nobody's stopping you. Leave," Shane replied coldly.

  Mitch hesitated, then Cameron heard his feet on the moist grass as he lurched back to his house.

  "He's going to blow it," Brandon said, leaning against the wall with a slight, drunken grin.

  "Do you want me to go talk to him?" Andy asked, returning inside.

  "No," Shane said. "But it's now your job to keep an eye on him. Has he always been like that?"

  Andy nodded. "Yeah. Brain damage."

  Shane turned to the others. "That's our first step. If we're lucky, the aliens will have trouble acting as the person they'd replaced. Keep your eyes peeled for any abnormal behavior, conduct, temperament, or routine. Even someone trying abnormally hard to behave normally is suspicious. We'll figure out our next step depending on the success or failure of this."

  "What about you?" Nick asked the professor.

  "What about me?"

  "What if you're an alien?"

  "Why would he be telling us all of this if he was the alien?" asked Brandon.

  "Queen's gambit," said Andy.

  Brandon shook his head. "What would he have to gain?"

  "I don't know," replied Nick. "Ask the aliens."

  "That's the plan," said Cameron. "Doesn't make sense that he'd be the alien after telling us this.

  Nick eyed Cameron suspiciously. Brandon noticed. "Cut it out, Nick. If Cameron trusts him than so do I."

  Nick sighed and shrugged. "Fine. You're right. Sorry about that professor."

  "Don't apologize," said Shane. "That's exactly the mindset that might save us all. Question everything and everyone."

  "You do realize that, with your plan, someone innocent might get hurt," said Andy.

  "Someone innocent will get hurt," Shane replied. "We're in the dark, all of us, but the darkness is coming to an end. And if that doesn't scare you, it should. There exists a philosophy called a 'Harbinger Break', describing a state of complete darkness preceding inevitable pain, where turning on the light isn't an assessment of pain–it's a realization of how much pain. That's the one-way road we're walking, and friends, the sun is rising, and when its light disintegrates the darkness, bodies of countless innocents will pave the road from our feet to the horizon. Let's just make sure that the aliens are among the corpses."

  The next few days of foraging friendships and alliances were like a cold war between households. Tension rose between households that were once friends, and the uneasy alliance grew rockier as passing days brought to light various betrayals, albeit slight, going on around town.

  Mitch Anderson built a fence separating his backyard from the Perkins's after he'd discovered Andy watching him from afar.

  "Mitch, if you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about," Andy had called out from his backyard, shotgun on his lap.

  Cameron noted that he was the first one to drastically change, but the others soon followed.

  Mitch Anderson became angrier than usual, yelling at anyone who held their gaze longer than he felt comfortable. Cameron hadn't heard from the Langs after the meeting until Caroline received a frantic phone call from Lindsey about a deranged Jack Evans, who'd jumped in front of their car and asked them questions when they we're leaving to buy groceries.

  "…and then he asked if Andy spoke to us as we drove past his house," Lindsey said over the phone. "We hadn't even seen him. Then Jack starts almost yelling at us, like a lunatic, like who he thinks the aliens are. He asked us if we were siding with Andy, and then tried to convince us that Andy was an alien, saying that Andy's been acting so strangely, when, let's be honest, it's Jack that seems crazy."

  Caroline had put the call on speaker, and she and Cameron exchanged glances as Lindsey finished her rant.

  "Yeah, well, you know, we just want this over with as quickly as possible," Caroline said.

  "Stanley had to put the car in reverse and zoom around Jack. It was terrible! I mean, if someone's an alien, it has to be Jack, don't you think?"

  Caroline sighed, "Yeah, maybe," she said. "We'll figure it out. Either way, I've got to go–bath time for Charlie."

  She hung up. This is getting out of hand Cameron thought as he began plucking his mustache fibers. He hated seeing people he'd once considered friends acting so scornfully towards one another. The professor seemed to be the only sane one left in town, and soon, the only one Cameron could trust, and he spent most of his time conversing with Shane, trying to talk his way into the professor's mind and out of this situation.

  "You have to understand," Shane said. "This is only the beginning. I just hope we'll know that we've killed the alien when we eventually do."

  Cameron closed his eyes and groaned. Then shook his head and then held it in his hands, deep in thought. He desperately wanted to leave this town. He had a wife and a kid, and this fight surely had to happen–but he wasn't an alien. Let the others do the fighting, let the others kill each other off–he just wanted to live.

  "Professor, do we seem like aliens to you?"

  "Of course not."

  "I don't want to die. My family doesn't need to die. We aren't aliens."

  "Then trust that your friends will realize that," Shane replied.

  "Let us leave. Come with us. We can call the police, the military, the freakin' Pentagon for all I care, let's just get out of here." He shook his head. "You don't want to die, do you?"

  "No."

  "So let's leave. Let's leave tonight. All four of us. You, me, Caroline, and Charlie. What do you say?"

  Shane closed his eyes. "Okay," he said.

  Cameron nodded. Shane agreed quicker than Cameron had thought he would, but he thought nothing of it and clapped, overjoyed.

  "Yes!" he said, then ran upstairs to tell Caroline and son. As he ascended the staircase, he thought he saw something glisten in the professor's hand, but when he turned to look he saw nothing but the professor's dark, sympathetic eyes staring back at him.

  Later that evening, Cameron and Caroline, with bags packed, began loading their things into the trunk. Charlie, still asleep, was strapped into the car seat and Shane joined him in the back. The car seat was mounted behind the driver's seat. It was a pleasant evening, and
the roads were empty aside from the eerie glow of street lamps.

  Once everyone had entered, Cameron asked "Are we ready?"

  "We have everything. Let's get out of here," Caroline said nervously. The fear of getting caught was on both of their minds.

  He turned the ignition and slowly, headlights off, backed out of his driveway. As he looked in his rearview mirror, he thought he saw something glisten once again in the professor's hand, but thought nothing of it.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  The walls were mustard, and cockroaches seemed to crawl from corner to corner of the seedy apartment complex as if the paint was literally a condiment. Chris Summers wondered if they paid rent. The cracked tile had a faint yellow tinge to it, and the picture of a crucified Jesus above the elevator made him question the whole complex's stability that much more, and couldn't believe that this is where his friend currently hid.

  Deciding that he'd rather take the elevator than risk getting stabbed in the stairwell by a junkie, Summers hit the up-button and waited. He was looking for Penelope Plum. The first thing everyone noticed about Penelope Plum was his sex. He was male, despite the connotation of his name. His birth name was Phillip Quincy, but he found that as a supplier and distributor of illicit information and objects, throwing off potential threats with a name such as that supplied crucial seconds when shit hit the fan. And shit often hit the fan with Penelope Plum, which was why Summers was looking for his help now.

  Many years ago, they were friends who lived in the same neighborhood, and Penelope, or Phillip as he was then, would entertain Summers as he caught and dissolved various small creatures–lizards, roaches, and butterflies–in hydrochloric acid, which his father, a chemist, kept stocked in their home.

  The elevator shook as Summers rode it up to the seventh floor, and he regretfully assumed it was going to free fall at any second. Luckily it didn't, and as the elevator stopped on the seventh floor and the doors slid open, the picture of the crucified Jesus from downstairs popped into his mind and despite not being religious, Summers thanked him.

  As if the apartment complex decided that one could never stop degenerating–it one-upped Summers’ initial horrified disgust by changing from the yellow tile downstairs to a moldy carpet that may have once been purple but was now a mixture of purple, blue, and green. Speckled about it were large spots of faded yellow that couldn't have been paint. Summers half-expected the carpet to squish as he stepped on it, and was thankful that it seemed dry as his foot made contact. Not that he would touch the carpet with any part of himself besides the soles of his shoes, which he made a mental note to wipe on grass once his business finished.