Harrow

Welcome to the quiet town of Harrow, a picturesque community found in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. To the outside world, this charming little town was a dreamland vacation spot.

UNTIL SORROW FELL UPON IT...

Hidden deep within the Harrowing Hills is a secret pathway to the realm of mist and darkness—an unsanctified land where a dark enemy seeks to destroy everything in existence.

NOW ALL MAY BE LOST...

What can this normally-sleepy village harbor that could not only devour this close-knit community, but the universe itself?

KUDOS FOR HARROW

Henson seemingly fuses religion, science, and philosophy in a horrific tale that will keep you turning pages into the night. – Christopher Allan Poe, author of The Portal

The beginning has a strong hook and the ending was a stroke of absolute brilliance. – Mike Kingsly, editor

Have to say I’m surprised. I had no idea Henson could pose the pen like this. – Elvis Thompson

Harrow gave me goosebumps. Scared the bejesus out of me, actually. Still, I couldn’t put it down until I’d finished...The story was almost too well-written. – Taylor Jones, reviewer

It is a chilling story, made more so by the quality of Henson’s writing. – Regan Murphy, reviewer

HARROW – BOOK 1

ERIC HENSON

A BLACK OPAL BOOKS PUBLICATION

Copyright 2012 by Eric Henson

Cover Art by Eric Henson

Copyright 2012 All Rights Reserved

EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-937329-66-2

EXCERPT

They thought the tsunami was the worst of their problems—until they saw what it brought with it...

From the balcony outside, Bruce heard Liz give off a small, almost frightened shriek. He knew how she felt. He had suspicions this place would never be the same again.

Bruce! she said, coming up behind him.

He turned, hearing something strange in her voice. What’s wrong?

Her eyes looked frozen and more terrified than at any point during the hour-and-a-half tsunami.

Outside. She paused, swallowing hard. There’s something outside—on the balcony

He walked over and wrapped his arms around her.

I know, it’s awful. We’ll leave here as soon as we can.

She pulled back and looked at him. On the balcony there’s...something—not real— She shook her head. It can’t be real.

Not understanding, he frowned. Not real? What do you mean, not real? Don’t you mean unreal?

Liz shook her head no.

Stepping away from her, he headed toward the balcony. How could something be not real? But with everything Liz had been through today, her reaction was normal. Bruce just hoped some wreckage had found its way to them, not a dead body.

I’m sure it’s just mangled debris— He stopped cold in mid-sentence, even colder in his tracks. He now saw what she had—he now saw what lay on the balcony.

For my Psychotic Puzzle Piece

PROLOGUE

Using the Crescent Realm to conceal his actions, the cacodemon Báalzbub conspired with an unimaginable adversary to destroy the very existence he helped create.

Believing, although cruel and unfair, existence deserved to be saved, a small group of fallen angels decided to act. Fully aware that forgiveness was unattainable, these former Messengers-of-Light, reached out for help from those they once betrayed, sending word to their one-time ally—and now enemy—the archangel Gabrielus.

Unable to ignore the information, Gabrielus replied that Sariel agreed to meet them in the human realm. Hearing this, Abaddon and his small number of followers attempted to escape the realm of Hell.

Only to discover one of their own had betrayed them.

Báalzbub slaughtered them as they fled. Only Abaddon and another named Ezziel survived the massacre. Forced to separate in battle, the two, now fatigued and wounded, had to regroup in the realm of man to find Sariel—the dreaded Angel of Death.

PART I

Arrival

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear,

and the strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

H.P. Lovecraft

CHAPTER 1

October 12th:

In the Indian Ocean, just off the western coast of North Sumatra, about one hundred miles north of the Simeulue Islands, an entity of negative energy caused a colossal earthquake nineteen miles below on the ocean’s floor. Lifting the seabed up twenty feet and forcing nine hundred, ninety-four miles of fault line to slip fifty feet along the subduction zone, where the India plate slides under the Burma plate, this slip happened in two phases over a period of several minutes.

The first rupture proceeded at a momentum of six thousand, three hundred miles per hour, beginning off the coast of Aceh, proceeding northwesterly over a period of about one hundred seconds. The split stopped, paused, and then continued on as a second rupture begun to move northward at a speed of four thousand, seven hundred miles per hour, heading toward the Andama and Nicobar Islands.

This first rupture was about two hundred fifty miles long and sixty miles wide—the longest rupture ever known to be caused by an earthquake, and reaching a moment magnitude of nine-point-three on the seismograph, making it the second largest tremor ever recorded.

It was also the longest duration of faulting ever observed, lasting between five hundred and six hundred seconds, and large enough to cause the entire planet to vibrate as much as half an inch, triggering earthquakes as far away as Alaska. And tremors were felt in Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore and the Maldives Islands.

The total energy released was equivalent to 0.08 gigatons of TNT, about as much energy used in the United States in eleven days.

***

On the Mai Khao Beach in the northern part of Phuket Island, Thailand, Bruce Wren and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bernhardt, were on a working holiday. Bruce, an Investment banker, had come to Phuket for a client, the owner of one of the largest rubber tree plantations on the island.

There was a time when tin mining was the major source of income for the island, but since the price of tin fell, the local economy had used two other sources for its income. One of those resources came from their rubber trees, making Thailand the largest producer of rubber in the world. The other resource was tourism, and Bruce happened to be on the island for both.

The decision came easy to ask Liz to join him on the trip. It had been awhile since either one of them had gotten away. The last trip the two of them took together was to New York City last year for New Year’s Eve. The packed Times Square was freezing, but with the two of them being New Englanders, and with the amount of alcohol they consumed, the cold was not a problem. They kept warm just fine. They had a good time, but this trip to an exotic beach was a little more special, and Bruce took advantage of the opportunity handed to him. When the business trip came up, by some miracle, Liz, a tax lawyer working for a mid-size firm out of Boston, was free to join him.

They were now on the amazing five and a half miles of Mai Khao Beach where sea turtles came to lay eggs on the pristine white sand. Bruce had hoped for a remote and isolated place, and he found it. After all, he had special plans this week.

He walked out onto their room’s balcony at the Mai Khao Resort & Spa, a five-star hotel right off the beach, to have a quick smoke, and saw the oranges and reds of the early morning sky that foretold the heat of the coming day.

He turned and looked into the room, just as Liz rolled over in her sleep, and smiled as he watched her. The two of them had been together for almost three years. He remembered the moment he became infatuated with her at a mutual friend’s birthday party, how helpless he was in keeping his mind and eyes off her. The way her blue dress perfectly embraced her body, how her hair fell across and framed her face. And then there was that smile of hers.

He became so besotted he had trouble engaging in conversations with friends. Every time he heard her voice and laugher his blood ran cold. Just the sound of her shoes walking across the floor caused his heart to race. He had always heard the expression love at first sight and thought it was just that, an expression. And then at thirty-three years old it happened to him.

When someone kindly introduced him to her, he fell head over heels in love with just a touch of her hand, reducing him to nothing and her into everything.

Last night, he took her to the southernmost point of the Island, the popular Brahman Cape, to watch the sunset. This was where he’d planned to take advantage of the rare vacation and scenery.

Packing a picnic, he led her up a small lush hillside, and while the two watched the sunset melt into the blue sea, he asked her to be his wife, to which she had ecstatically responded, Yes.

He walked back inside and closed the screen door, allowing the morning sea air in. With no intention of going back to sleep, he climbed into bed, slid over to his still naked fiancée, and started kissing her neck. She slowly came around with a smile, letting him move on top. Liz had always enjoyed making love in the morning most of all.

CHAPTER 2

Within the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, barely noticeable and harmless looking waves traveled at an unusually high speed of six hundred twenty miles per hour, en route to the surrounding seacoast areas with absolutely no forewarning. The radar satellites orbiting above recorded the heights of the waves, but these observations would not provide any warning. This was not their intended function.

There was no network of sensors in this area necessary for detection like in the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire, where ninety percent of the world’s earthquakes and eighty-one percent of the largest earthquakes occurred.

Beneath these small fast moving ripples, the wounded Ezziel unintentionally advanced toward unknown land to change Bruce and Liz’s kismet forever.

***

After making love to Bruce, Liz got out of bed to get ready for her ten-thirty appointment with the spa downstairs. She still couldn’t believe Bruce proposed last night. She hadn’t seen it coming. She thought she could always tell when he was up to something, that he could never surprise her. That was up until the big one and then—wham, he got her. She’d actually lost her breath for a moment.

She could not help but look at her new ring. It all seemed like a dream still. She half expected to look down at her hand this morning and see just her plain bare finger, but the ring was there. It really happened.

While making love her eyes kept falling on it. She loved the way it made her feel. She’d never felt more complete than when looking at that ring while making love to the man who gave it to her.

After freshening up, she walked to the balcony to catch the morning sky before it disappeared. The landscape looked stunning in the early dawn light, the sea was smooth and blue and already people were swimming, boating, and taking their morning stroll along the beach.

Liz then looked around the resort where she and Bruce had spent the past few days. She loved the way it looked here and wished there was somewhere like this back home. As a little girl, she fantasized about being a princess. Too bad, she couldn’t have visited this fairy-tale palace back then.

Smiling, she left for the spa.

***

Due to how close the northern regions of the Indonesian Islands were to the epicenter, the three phases of the tsunami hit there first. It only took fifteen minutes for the first wave to reach them.

On the Island of Simeulue, local legend spoke of an earthquake and tsunami from 1907, and after the initial shaking the islanders fled to the hills, being one of the few coastal areas to evacuate before the tsunami struck.

Not all were so lucky.

In the minutes before the tsunami, the sea receded temporarily from the coast. This rare sight induced people, especially children, to visit the coast to investigate and collect stranded fish. It ended with lethal results.

In Indonesia, there were over one hundred, thirty thousand people killed, thirty-seven thousand missing and another one hundred, sixty-seven thousand people injured.

In some regions, the water killed four times more women than men as they waited for their anglers to return home, and searched the beaches for their children.

Two hours later waves started to enter the waters of India and Thailand. Slowing down in shallow water, these waves started to form into large destructive tsunamis.

***

Bruce opened the fridge. His original plan was to get a glass of ice tea, when the bottles of Corona caught his eye. Normally he wouldn’t drink beer this early in the day, but his work with the rubber tree man was over and this was his last full day here. He was on vacation and he had reason to celebrate.

With the Mexican beer in hand, he walked through the large apartment-sized suite and entered the bedroom, picked up his laptop, and stepped out onto the terrace. This was by far his favorite part of the room. He laid the computer on the table. Even on semi-vacation, he checked work e-mail and the stock market. Citigroup might be able to go without him for a few days, but Bruce could not go without Citigroup.

Finished, he logged off and heard people yelling on the ground. He walked over to the balcony and recognized the family from a few rooms down. The majority of the commotion came from their ten-year-old daughter, something about geography class and a tsunami.

What’s going on out there? asked Liz as she entered the terrace.

"Not sure, how was your appointment?

Great, you should give it a go.

Not the least bit interested, Bruce smiled.

She glanced out at the ocean and frowned. Does the water look weird to you?

A little, it receded a bit earlier, but seems to be coming back now.

Could it be some kind of storm coming in?

He shrugged, uncertain. Could be. The water has begun to bubble and boats on the horizon are bobbing.

What kind of storm starts like this? Sure looks different from anything I’ve seen in New England.

They watched a yacht tip vertically in the bay.

Hold on a second. Bruce ran inside for a pair of binoculars. Putting them to his eyes, he watched the yacht. Coming in beyond it was what looked like a large wave. He mentioned this to Liz and she looked at him questioningly.

Did you just say large wave?

"Looks like it, yeah, in fact, it looks like a very large wave."

CHAPTER 3

October 13th:

The New England town of Harrow was a small, friendly community found in the State of New Hampshire’s White Mountain region. The kind of place you could imagine Norman Rockwell would love. Whether Mr. Rockwell ever made it up to Harrow was unknown, but the town was that sort of small New England town. Unfortunately, just like the Saturday Evening Post, those days were long gone, but that spirit and atmosphere could still linger in a few communities and this was one of them.

Harrow was a beautiful town with colonial era buildings and small narrow roads, an old-fashioned township that never totally caught up with the times, and that was part of the charm. The kind of place where fuel station attendants pumped the gas for you, men opened doors for women, homes were unlocked, and everybody knew everyone.

Where else would hayrides and a covered bridge look so natural and part of life.

Bordering beautiful mountains, forests, and lakes, the town was a gorgeous and captivating sight admired by the area’s camping and skiing culture for over a hundred years.

In summertime, Harrow looked picture perfect with its deep green trees and sparkling blue watering holes. Winters had an amazing way of transforming the town into the ideal snow globe, a wintry wonderland covered in snow and ice. Come autumn, the area became a canvas painted with bright, multicolored leaves that shone unlike anywhere else on the planet.

However, not all traveled to Harrow, or the region for that matter, for its natural splendor and beauty. In fact, some made the journey in search of the complete opposite. They sought the hidden unnatural ugliness believed to be lurking somewhere within the Harrowing Hills.

These sightseers scoured the Hills year round, but come fall they arrived in abundance, trampling carelessly through the woods, stomping mindlessly over the dead and fallen beauty so many had come to see.

Scores of these tourists unwisely ignored the town’s superstitions, and instead of avoiding the Harrowing Hills as the skies darkened, they entered them, chasing after twisted tales that had become modern day legends.

Of course, many of these adventurous investigators got themselves lost each year by trailing off marked paths and into the woods unknown. Fortunately, most of these misguided explorers were found, but not all.

The community had a double-edged view of these tourists. Harrow needed the revenue generated by these people, but hated dealing with them for income. Many were mortified that they had gotten into the position where the Harrowing Hills helped support them.

There had always been rumors circling around the township of Harrow. The most legendary being the myth of the Black Forest, a mysterious patch of woodland said to be a source of haunts. Although no one had ever verified the actual existence of this hidden place, they still claimed to hear low screams and cries mixed within the wind blowing from of them.

Many believed these eerie sounds belonged to the long-lost, still crying out for the help they never received. The more level-minded believed them nothing more than wind blowing through simple trees, and snickered at fools cursed with overactive imaginations. They insisted there was no evil in the Hills.

Whatever their source, those tempests of shrieks and squeals could be disheartening to those who heard them.

Reverend Jack Levi was one of these so-called level-minded people. He had lived in Harrow all forty-seven years of his life, and loved the town and his flock. Unsurprisingly, he could not claim the same for the Hills and had avoided entering them most of his life. And then today happened.

It was not the source of those phantom cries that brought him back into the Hills again, but the very real ones from Mrs. Jane Moore.

Her son Thomas was lost, wandered off in the way most ten year olds did. Probably went off looking for bugs, or perhaps chased after some animal into the bushes—either way, while the Moore’s were in the Hills’ picnic area having dinner, they took their eyes off Thomas for a minute. The wrong minute it turned out.

That was over four hours ago. For Mrs. Moore, it was a lifetime.

***

The sun had started setting half an hour ago and Jack knew then he should have turned back, but the thought of that little boy kept him going.

Suddenly Jack stopped and looked around. When was the last time he had seen or heard any of the other volunteers? Had he gotten himself separated and not realized it? Jack strongly hoped this was not the case. It had been almost thirty-five years since he last saw this woodland, and he’d more than forgotten the area.

He turned and walked back in the direction he’d just come. Nothing looked familiar. Every tree and pile of rocks looked the same. He turned in a small circle trying to decide the best direction.

Being from the area, he fully understood the dangers of getting lost in the woods of New England. Even if not, all he would have to do was watch television. The local six and eleven o’clock news was full of people getting lost in those mountains—people heading north in the belief they were walking south, following the wrong paths, or getting caught by surprise weather. There were a number of ways to get lost in mountain woods, and many of them were life threatening.

The sky continued to darken, increasing Jack’s odds of spending the night out here. When he came across a fallen tree, he decided to stop and think.

The call of a raven broke the silence. Jack glanced left, found the large black bird looking down at