Harry Hooper is an awkward seventeen-year-old boy in a new town, struggling to fit in at his new school just as he had his last. Again he finds himself the target of relentless bullying by his peers.
Then a mysterious boy named Harvey appears. Har...
Excerpt from The Harbinger Valley Tribune (Saturday October 24, 1958)
This morning the small town of Harbinger Valley was awakened from the comfort of their beds at approximately 12:00 AM by a large-scale earthquake. Many homes and local businesses have been left in disrepair. Those citizens having sustained injury were rushed to Haven Crest Hospital. As of this morning several local teenagers have been reported missing. An investigation into the possible connection between these disappearances and a large sinkhole on the outskirts of town believed to be created by the earthquake is underway. "Searching efforts will continue. Locating those missing and reuniting them with their families is our top priority." says Mayor Scott McPherson, as he addressed the town.
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There was an all too familiar smell in the air, a thick smokiness clung to the back of Capri Jackson's throat causing mouth to dry. It was the scent of roasting flesh. It permeated the crimson skies. A thickening smoke spread across the stratosphere.
The town of Harbinger Valley was lost in a chaotic frenzy. , Buildings set ablaze came crashing down, cries of agony bellowing indistinguishable from the orchestra of pain and destruction surrounding her.
Hundreds of corpses lied on the streets, some charred so entirely they no longer resembled any human form. Fire engine sirens sounded off in the distance, seeming so far, they may as well have been a million miles away.
She was paralyzed; an all-encompassing dread had taken hold of her.
This isn't real! It's not real!!
She repeated to herself trying with all her might to force herself awake from this living nightmare she had relived time and time again, but the taste of smog on her teeth offered her no console.
That was when she felt something beckon her towards the sky; flashes of red lightning crackled above, blinding her momentarily. When her eyes had at last adjusted, she saw a man sitting atop a motorcycle suspended in mid-air. He wore a leather jacket, his hair styled in a slick pompadour, he and bike were both engulfed in raging flames, but he was floating; unbothered. He smiled down at her, an unsettling grin as two goat-like horns began to protrude from the temples of his head, his pale, angular face had contorted into something otherworldly and demented. Demonic.
His eyes began to glow like vermilion pinpricks burning and burning, she was now certain she was not the one he was staring at. She followed his gaze to find a strange boy, standing at the end of the sidewalk, his eyes were also fixated on the floating man, there was a twinkling light emitting from in his hand, a small shining red light radiating from it. The strange boy lifted his hand, and a tracking beam of red light shot up in a thin line up toward the floating man, he then began walking in forward. As though being called forth.
" Hey!" She yelled to him, but he kept his trance-like march forward.
The floor began shaking violently, car alarms going off, and several buildings began crashing down throwing clouds of debris up into the air. The asphalt had begun to split and crumble underneath her feet. She watched as a large sinkhole appeared. Its massive pulling force swallowing multiple vehicles and utility poles down into it.
Undeterred the boy kept walking. She stuck out her arm, her hand reaching for him in desperation, but it was pointless, her legs refused to move; was it the fear that kept her stranded, unable to do anything but watch helplessly or had some supernatural force taken hold of her?
In the end all she could do was watch in horror as the otherworldly force drew him in faster and faster, until he was inevitably pulled into the void. And all that remained was darkness.
