The Harvest Cycle - an apocalyptic novel

2012-01-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

A Lovecraftian sci-fi/horror novel by David Dunwoody - coming in print from Permuted Press and in audio from Audible.com.

The first 5 chapters are free to read at this site.

It has been fifty years since the first Harvest. Hideous creatures, lethal and lightning-fast, were sown into the beds of Earth's oceans eons ago. Now every year, in service to a mad god, they rise from the depths and hunt humans.

Man hides underground in fear of the Harvesters. But he is also sought by other predators: the robots that for years were his companions are now driven to exterminate him in a warped mission of mercy.

In a race against time, a group of humans cross the United States in a desperate plot to destroy the Harvesters before the next cycle. As if psychotic robots, lobotomized cops and flesh-eating nomads weren't enough of a challenge, they may just invoke the wrath of the ancient god itself...

Four. The Plan.

2008-06-03T17:10:00.000-07:00

“The maps you’ve given me over these last few weeks, Hitch, have been a big help.” West folded the papers over his arm. He was standing in front of the van, its headlights illuminating the cavern in which the dreamers all stood. Ira Buchanan up front, Amanda at West’s side, Lucy and Walter and their puppy front and center among the audience of citizens.

“What we know about the Harvesters,” West began. “That they come from the sea, that for thirty days they have one purpose: to tear through the streets and tunnels in search of us, to harvest. To kill and eat, to take in our dreams, to sleep, and then to wake and kill again. And at the end of thirty days they return to the sea. They cloister.

“I’ve seen them fall into the surf like corpses, tentacles unfurling from their backs. They cloister and turn themselves off – hibernate - save for whatever psychic means they use to transmit those stolen dreams – and they wait for the next year.”

West had everyone’s attention. With or without his doctorate he commanded them, inspired them. Amanda sat by his leg and hugged him.

“Now, last year’s Forty-Ninth Harvest, came in late winter. Those cloisters out there in the sea are still new. They’re new and they’re fragile, I know this. I know it because of things I’ve seen. I know that the Harvesters, like the Others, share one hive mind.”

West looked out over the faces of his people. They believed it too. They were willing to believe anything he taught them in the light of this van in a cavern beneath the city their ancestors had built and lost.

“That’s how they communicate with it...the one called Nightmare...that’s how they communicate with each other. And I have seen this link disrupted, in times when we were fleeing and fighting; I saw a grenade go off and it killed one of the Harvesters dead, blew it right up. But I also saw those around it, those far outside the range of the blast, stumbling and falling. I saw them die too, and for no reason other than their proximity to the one that was actually killed by the explosion. It was like they’d been hit by some psychic shockwave.

“I believe that, if we can induce a major trauma – and I’m talking cataclysmic – among the cloistered Harvesters, it will kill them all. At least those in this region. At least.”

Everyone was nodding, was understanding. Going with it. Hitch couldn’t believe it.

“I happen to know of a naval base in what was California, in Humboldt County – a base they had just opened when the First Harvest happened. Thanks to my friend Hitch and his maps, I know that we’re about thirty-nine hours away from that base if the main roads are clear. That’s notwithstanding breaks and blocks and all the rest, but what I know is that NBHC has a cache of weapons that might be able to cripple the Harvesters before they surface to make their next run.”

“What about the bots?” someone shouted.

“What about Gotham?”

“If we can do this, then there’s no reason for them to threaten us, ever again!” West shouted. “This can be a new beginning for all of us! We can go back to the way things were before, don’t you see? Never another Harvest! Never another Harvest!”

The crowd took up the cry. It filled the cavern and became a thundering force that made the walls tremble. Hitch watched faces change and souls light up, watched West and Amanda embrace, watched the Plan erupt into life.

“We need a team. I’m thinking five of us.” West sat in the back of the van with Hitch.

It was Hitch’s first time in the vehicle. The walls had been re-paneled and shelves installed, along with some cots. Looked like it would sleep five easy.

“We want to keep our load light. Need every last drop of fuel to get us to the Pacific,” West said. “Now, we’ll need someone tough, someone who’s really been there, out there, in it with the bots and the Harvesters.”

“Haven’t you been there?”

“I mean a guy who stayed and fought. I mean Cutter.”

“Cutter. Really.”

“He’s a rough customer, but he’s not crazy. Strong as hell. I think he might have some military-slash-technical knowledge too, and I know I’m gonna need some help once we get to NBHC.”

“And it’s decided that I’m on the crew?” Hitch asked.

“It’s always been that way. C’mon.”

“Me and you and Cutter.”

“And Mandy.”

Hitch brought his fist down hard.

“She doesn’t need to be part of this.”

“Actually, she does. Let me tell you why.”

“Don’t fucking start Mike, we don’t need this--”

“She’s been having some intense dreams,” West said quietly. “She thinks she might be touching that thing out there...Nightmare.”

“So you want to use her to keep tabs on the Harvesters, is that it?”

“I’m not using her! She’s fully aware of her abilities and I think she wants to hone them.”

“Why didn’t I ever hear of this before?” Hitch spat.

West shrugged. “It’s just...you know, as we approach the Plan date here and stress builds, I think it’s opened her mind.”

“Yes, you opened her mind.”

“I didn’t say ‘I’, did I? Do we have to do this like we’re fucking teenagers?”

“No, it’s just that my passion and my vision never opened her up, never excited her. Then there’s this and...you really want me in this van with you two? You really think it’s good for the Plan, Mike?”

“Yeah, I do.” West sighed. “This is work, important work. And we work well together.”

“Think Cutter’s gonna fit right in with us?”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Who’s your fifth?”

“If we need one...Buchanan really wants to come along. We’ve gone back and forth for a while now and he really thinks he’ll be an asset. We’ll be leaving this place without a leader, though. I mean, Joe will step in but I think Ira is just in it for the adventure.”

“You like a little bit of adventure yourself,” Hitch said.

“What the hell, we’ll need the extra set of hands.” West clapped Hitch on the back. “So let’s go talk to Cutter.”

Cutter was a rough customer, all right, but not without reason.

It had been the Year of the Forty-Second Harvest. Another winter Harvest, one in which Cutter had been traveling alone across the Midwest in search of a dreamer community. The last community he’d lived in had been crippled by the previous year’s Harvest, and their numbers were dwindling to nothing. There was nothing more he could do for them. It had been time to save his own skin.

He mostly traveled at night, though he’d begun braving the daylight, what with the harsh weather. The Harvesters and the possibility of their appearance had been the farthest thing from his mind; he was worried about undreamers, and about cannibals, those rumored few who had chosen to live above ground and who had lost their sanity in the process. If, that was, they’d been sane to begin with. He couldn’t imagine.

One morning, sleeping in the remains of a cabin somewhere in rural Ohio, Cutter had been stirred by a noise, a noise that despite its subtlety carried above the howling winds and chilled him to the bone in a way that no wind could.

It was a gentle clinking noise, like chimes. It was the claws of a Harvester.

He’d heard it before, the previous year. The Harvesters, whose frenzied speed required a high metabolic rate, often rested after feeding on victims. Huddled like gargoyles on rooftops and rocks, they sat quietly, the only sound their glassy, foot-long claws clinking together. Cutter believed it was a means of communication, seeing as the Harvesters never made a single sound with their mouths, never roared or screamed or grunted, even in the heights of their killing sprees. The chimes were a way of staying in contact with one another during those periods of respite. And, if stirred, the chimes would suddenly stop, and their raw pink limbs would tense, and their milky-white, pupilless eyes would snap open...

Hearing the chimes, Cutter slowly got to his feet and crept toward the nearest window. Snowflakes drifted down through the rotted ceiling and settled on the blanket draped over his shoulders. He reached down toward the floor and grabbed his rifle.

He looked out upon a barren field, beyond which was a small forest. Not a sign of a single Harvester.

Dammit, how long had they been out there, roaming the countryside? When had they risen from the sea to embark on another hunt? How many times had he unwittingly come within miles – or less – of certain death?

Something moved in the trees.

Cutter raised the rifle to his shoulder and watched, and waited.

A Harvester emerged from the forest. It was moving slowly, with a slight limp. Wounded. He didn’t see any other sign of injury, but he knew he was right. And he knew the Harvester was alone.

Then it saw him.ow

Pushing itself along on tired legs, claws splayed, massive jaw unhinging to reveal rows of razor teeth, the Harvester came. It staggered across the field...then stopped.

It fell to its knees. Planting its claws in the frozen earth, it began to pull itself forward.

Cutter took aim with the rifle and, with fingers numbed by the cold, pulled the trigger.

A hunk of flesh tore away from the Harvester’s shoulder. The creature recoiled, but kept its claws buried in the soil and pulled itself upright again. It struggled forward.

Cutter pulled the trigger again...the hollow click nearly stopped his heart.

He had to have more ammo! He dropped the rifle and searched through his pockets. There, a few stray rounds. He painstakingly loaded the rifle, glancing out the window to see the Harvester making slow but steady progress toward the cabin.

Cutter raised the rifle once more. “Come and get it, bastard. Come on!”

He fired. The creature’s broad chest ruptured, its twin hearts thundering. But the bullet must have missed both, because the damned thing kept coming.

“No!” Cutter cried, his own heart beating hard against his ribs. He fired again, wildly. Missed.

He had one fucking bullet left. It had to be a head shot this time. He had to end it. And to be sure, he had to let the creature get as close as possible.

Cutter fought to hold the rifle steady. He looked into the Harvester’s eyes. Don’t shoot till you see the whites of their eyes, he’d once heard. There was nothing but white in its eyes, a terrible emptiness.

The creature pulled its claws free and summoned all the strength it had, limbs trembling. It prepared to leap at him.

He fired.

The Harvester’s left eye exploded, bits of flesh and skull flying out the back of its head, and it sank down into the snow without a sound.

He didn’t leave the cabin for several days after that. He lay huddled under his blanket, arms wrapped around his useless rifle, and stared up through the broken roof at the snow-bleached sky.

“You want me to come along on this suicide mission?” Cutter laughed at West. “What’d I ever do to you?”

“It’s not a suicide mission,” West assured him. “I’ve taken everything into account, taken every possible precaution.”

“And if the Harvesters come?”

“Look, Cutter. I know what happened to you before you got here. I understand your fear.”

“I’m not afraid,” Cutter snapped. “I’m just not a fool.”

“This is our chance to be done with the Harvesters.”

“And what about the undreamers? The bots? The cannibals? What are you going to do about them, wiseguy?”

“The hope is that those problems will resolve themselves once we’ve done this.”

“Yeah,” Cutter snorted. “I see you’ve got everything figured out.” Turning from West, he busied himself assembling torches in the firelight.

Hitch stepped in. “Can I ask you something, Cutter?”

“What’s that?”

“What have you got to lose?”

“Other than my head?” Cutter sighed. “Don’t be taken in by West’s bullshit. You really believe he can stop the Harvesters? Nightmare? You really think that, even if it was possible, Nightmare wouldn’t just send more?”

“It’s worth a try,” Hitch said. “Anything’s worth a try in this hell we live in.”

“Excuse me? I thought you were content to sit down here and map the tunnels. Suddenly we’re in Hell?”

“I—” Hitch looked at West. The doctor nodded.

“I don’t want to live like this anymore,” Hitch said. “I can’t.”

I can’t, because Amanda can’t. And even if she’s not mine anymore, I can’t live with knowing that. Worse, I can’t live with wondering.

What if Mike’s right?

Cutter stared hard at Hitch, as if trying to read his thoughts. What he saw was sincere. Maybe West was trying to sell something, but Hitch had never had much of an ego. His public breakup with what’s-her-face was proof of that.

“What have I got to lose?” Cutter muttered. “This life isn’t much of a life anyway.”

Three. Other Dreams.

2008-05-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

It had been the bots’ nanotechnology – the ability to plug into a human body, connect with the mind and interpret brain signals – that had introduced the bots to the entity known as Nightmare, in the Year of the First Harvest.

In Goar Head, Alaska, Bruce and Delmar had been at work breaking down a section of decommissioned UFC pipeline. Out there in the bitter wilderness, they had been focused on their work all day, and were alone with one another - shunned by those who'd only just learned they were bots - when they received a call on the radio from back in town: they were under attack. The seaplane, their only means of escape from the town, had been torn apart. People were dead in the street, and those still alive were holed up in the local tavern.

With no further information, they’d hastened into town. And there, they saw the swarm coming, saw the Harvesters in all their horrible glory.

Using their Gyros, they fought their way into the tavern. Though Bruce hadn’t taken notice at the time, there had been little actual resistance from the Harvesters, who only struck at the bots in defense against their fiery charge. After the frantic barricading of the tavern, the next priority was the mortal wound of a corporate employee. The man was ranting feverishly, as if infected by the razor claws that had pierced him, slipping in and out of consciousness and saying one word again and again: “Nightmare...” And the tremulous inflection of his voice indicated a fear greater than his pain. He seemed to know something, to have gained a fragment of terrible knowledge from his near-fatal brush with the creatures; and Bruce needed to know too.

So he had plugged in with his nanotech. And there the first encounter occurred.

It was twilight when Bruce was ready. Seated beside the unconscious man, the synth closed his eyes and disabled his external sensors. He was now alone with this human’s subconscious.

It came to him in a convoluted rush, a mess of blurred images and overlapping sounds that surrounded him in his "mind's eye" as he stood calmly. The storm of sensations began to resolve itself. There was earth beneath Bruce's feet. A warm, whispering wind that pushed clouds across a mountainous horizon. Sunlight from some indistinct point overhead.

Bruce knelt and touched the ground. Even though he was merely translating the man’s electrical impulses within his own positronic brain, it all felt authentic. Remarkable.

But the man himself was not there.

No, a voice said, he isn't. It's just you and me. And what are you?

The voice was a strange, lilting one that seemed to come from all around Bruce. "What are you?" he asked back.

I am...Nightmare.

This is the name Man has given me. I rather like it, though. You see, this dear boy isn't the first human I've made deep contact with. So many of them, in fact, have powers of perception that they don't even realize...

Now, what are you?

"I am one of the dreams of men," Bruce replied.

Clever, came the response.

"He said that they--that you--want dreams. What does that mean?"

Yes, the Harvesters have been sent for the dream-meat, to bring it to us, so that we may dream... so that we might not go MAD in our infinite slumber! To think that humans have the ability to do this, but not the gods!

"You believe yourself a god, then?"

One among many.

"And you're not one of the creatures outside... you merely sent them."

Made them, as Man made you. We slumber far from your world, in the court of chaos. Here, we awaken only to dance our infernal dance around the throne of Azathoth, before our mounting terror--a terror beyond your understanding!--begs a respite...

The respite of dreams...

But I tire of you, machine. Soon we will have this man’s dream-meat, along with the others.

And suddenly Bruce realized what this Nightmare meant by dream-meat--he knew what the Harvesters were after, what they sought to devour.

He tore himself from the human’s subconscious just in time to see a rain of claws tearing through the tavern door.

All this time, Delmar had been sitting prone in a chair by the wall. He sprang into action, throwing his bulk against the barricade and the blindly grasping the hands of the Harvesters and shouting, "Give me a gun, Bruce!"

Then a single claw burst through his head, jutting rudely from one sparking eyeball. Delmar shook and gibbered while the humans screamed.

The synth collapsed against the barricade, which itself began to come apart. Bruce detached himself from the human and drew the Gyros. "Everyone away from the door!"

I'm still here, Nightmare sang in Bruce's head.

"What?" he cried. "How?"

And then Bruce was assailed by a vision, a frequency-jamming transmission from the very heart of chaos, from Nightmare's mind to his own--he saw city streets overrun by Harvesters, mountain roads littered with headless corpses, ships adrift in tossing seas, dead crewmen floating in crimson froth.

Just let them come, machine. The minds of all men will live on in us. You see? Even now, all over your world, the Harvest is taking place. The minds of all men will serve us through eternity.

It was a simple statement, simple and true. And it allowed Bruce to make a simple decision.

The door caved in and the Harvesters forced their way through. Bruce took aim with the Gyros. He wouldn't--couldn't--allow any human mind to suffer in the infinite with these mad gods. It was a fate worse than death.

He emptied both guns.

When it was done, the Harvesters stared blankly at him, claws dragging along the floor, jaws slack. Then they trudged back out into the cold.

Bruce surveyed the scene. He'd hit every intended target. There was no dream-meat remaining for the harvest.

They all looked peaceful there on the floor. He thought he detected the slightest hint of a smile among what little remained of them.

An arm wrapped around his neck and tightened with the brute strength of a python. His feet left the floor, kicking, and he thrashed in the relentless grip, feeling the wall of his throat begin to crack.

"Why?" Cinnamon yelled into his ear. "What have you done? We are made to protect and serve them, not--not--"

"I had to!" Bruce barked. "It was to save them!"

Cinnamon relinquished her hold; he heard her stepping back and kneeling on the floor. Bruce turned, gingerly fingering his neck.

"I don't understand," she said softly, cradling the body of Paulie, her employer, in her arms.

"I'll explain," Bruce said, and, ignoring the screaming in his brain, the wailing and gnashing of the angry gods, he did.

Filing away his memory of the account, Bruce said to Delmar, “We need a plan.”

“For what?”

“For Gotham.”

Two. The Others.

2008-05-27T11:49:00.000-07:00

Thirty miles east of Gotham, a pack of dogs walked down an empty street in a small town. German Shepherds, they sniffed the air and the ground, moving together, a feral pack perhaps, only too well-groomed and too synchronized with one another to be feral.

No, a hunting party.

The lead dog stopped and stared straight ahead. The others read the cues of its body and halted likewise, following its intent gaze to a manhole in the center of the street.

The manhole cover was ajar. There was the faintest splash from within.

With a low growl, the lead dog stepped forward.

Then, a snapping of fingers.

Without another sound, all the dogs retreated, padding off into an alley and out of sight.

A man stepped out of the alleyway. Across the street, another. And another, and another, and another. Exiting side streets and abandoned buildings, the men hefted enormous handguns, smoothed their coats with their hands and approached the manhole.

Without the slightest twitch of the mouth or shifting of the eye, they communicated.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Gyro, it carries a .55-caliber chemical payload. The firing system, free of primer and powder, allows the chemical payload to remain stable. Gyroscopic system also increases bullet velocity three hundred percent over conventional firearms. The gun will stay balanced in your grip, so don’t attempt to compensate for recoil.

And don’t hesitate. Don’t bother to explain. Shoot to kill.

The lead man stepped over the manhole. He glanced down. All clear.

He dropped into the sewer.

Striking a shallow pool of water, he immediately rolled aside and swept the tunnel for any sign of life. There were ripples up ahead, in another pool, indicating the targets had moved south. As the others entered the tunnel at his back, he ran forward.

There were torches in the walls up ahead. A couple of them appeared to be set lower, in the shadows...they were being held by hands...

The man raised his gun to fire. Before he could, the torches flared blinding white as a magnesium compound was added to the flame.

“I’ve got no visual! Hold your fire!” the man shouted. He shut his eyes and listened intently, filtered out the splashing at his back, focused on what was up ahead. Heard a footfall, calculated the location, taking the environment’s unique acoustics into account, and fired.

There was a scream. A long, wet, human scream. Then silence.

“Go go go!” the man shouted, opening his eyes and seeing the torch go out as it fell in fetid water.

“Bots!!” someone up ahead yelled. A cacophony of screams erupted within the tunnel. The lead man sent a message to his comrades:

Delmar, there’s a junction up ahead. Take the west tunnel. Macendale, your men go east. I’m going straight.

He stumbled as two bullets punched into his chest. The targets had silenced firearms. He listened for footsteps and fired into the darkness.

“Please!” someone cried. “Please leave us alone! Don’t!”

He ignored them and unleashed a hail of chemical rounds. Bursts of flame and shrapnel lit up the junction as he entered. He saw men and women flailing as the meat of their faces was scorched and shredded.

His pack split up. There were more cries, some cut off abruptly. The sound of Gyros cutting through flesh and bone and rock.

A wall up ahead. No, a door. The man crossed his arms in front of his face and plowed through.

In the light of a single torch, he saw a woman huddled over three children, the lot of them wrapped in a filthy blanket.

The woman wept. “Please. Let us live. Just let us live.”

“I can’t allow you to suffer,” the man said, and fired four rounds.

The cleanup crew took the dogs down into the tunnels. One of the shepherds was being uncooperative. Smelling the blood on Macendale’s clothing and hands, it whimpered.

“Go on, dog,” Macendale snapped. He grabbed the scruff of its neck and dragged it toward the manhole.

The lead man stopped him. “Macendale.”

“Bruce.”

“Use positive reinforcement.” Bruce removed Macendale’s hand from the animal and knelt. He patted its head. “C’mon now boy. Let’s go. Down there. C’mon!”

He clapped his hands and headed for the manhole. The dog followed him, staying at his side.

“Negative reinforcement is detrimental to their whole training program,” Bruce reminded Macendale. “Use praise. Simulate love and acceptance. You can still be firm, but always remember, respect over fear.”

The other bot nodded curtly.

Delmar walked over to Bruce, thick fingers fumbling across his torso. “I think some of my armor’s loose. This old Army-grade material just isn’t going to hold up any longer.”

“We’ll see what we have back at the base,” Bruce replied. Delmar was a modified military bot, unlike most of the first-gens on Bruce’s team. They were a civilian peacekeeper class that had worked for the United Fuel Cooperative prior to the First Harvest.

Macendale was one of the second-gens, built by the first-gens. Their emotive programming wasn’t quite as mature as that of their parents, but they were still good as infiltrators. Macendale, like many other children, just needed to learn to follow his field training. There was a time and a place for improvisation. A sweep wasn’t it.

Cinnamon came up from the sewer. Bruce gave her a hand as she brushed the scarlet hair from her eyes. He’d asked her why she hadn’t removed the synthetic locks, as most did, and she’d said it complimented her programming. She’d been a personal recreation model, working in a bar up in Alaska in the same Cooperative town as Bruce and Delmar. He conceded that her uniquely human look often gave her an advantage with the targets, even if it was form over function.

“It’s clear down there,” she said. “The bodies are being destroyed.”

“Good work all around. We’ll want to review this one frequently.” Bruce turned and patted the dog’s head again. “Guess we won’t need you down there after all. Good boy.”

One. Under Gotham.

2008-05-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

An older passage deep within the sewer tunnel - one that had formerly been closed off, prior to the First Harvest and man’s exodus into the underground - led down into an early system of tunnels which eventually connected with a long-defunct network of mines. As they entered this older system, West erected columns of mossy timber to block it off behind them.

Hitch had exhaustively mapped this area over the years. As he discovered natural caverns off of the mine network and receded further into the earth, further back in time, he imagined himself as an ancient ghoul, having shed his evolved skin and mind and regressed into a pale, blind animal. It was a fantasy he hadn’t shared with anyone, even Amanda.

And she wouldn’t have understood anyway. She’d long felt that Hitch was stagnating, giving in to the subterranean existence that the Harvesters and the Others had forced them into. She’d been taken by West’s passion for circumventing their terrible enemies and finding a true home in the surface world. And, eventually, when she could take no more, when she’d complained and pleaded to no avail, she’d left Hitch for the doctor.

He tried to be understanding, or at least civil. He didn’t want a war among the dreamers, although he wasn’t really certain if anyone else would have even sided with him. No, he’d played along and watched them work together and talk of the plan.

West and Hitch walked through darkness, knowing the passages by heart, waiting to see the flicker of torches up ahead. The mines were cool but not altogether freezing. Some areas were actually a bit humid. Hitch believed that there was water down here, though he had yet to locate it.

“Arms are getting tired,” West said, and set down his tanks of fuel. They stood quietly in pitch darkness.

“Do you think DaVinci will come looking for us?” Hitch asked. “He said he wouldn’t, and I tend to believe him, but--”

“I don’t believe him for a second,” West grumbled. “Just the same, they haven’t found us yet, and I don’t think they will. At least not until we’ve left.”

“So are we all going to leave at once? How? The van will hold what, six, eight people at best? There are a hundred of us down here, West.”

“That’s not what the van’s for,” West replied. “Just wait and I’ll explain. I’ll explain it this evening, all right?”

“And how will you know when it’s evening?” Hitch smirked. He heard the doctor sigh.

“The same way I always know.” West picked his tanks back up, the gas sloshing about. “Look, Hitch – thanks for coming out with me today. I didn’t know we’d be putting our necks on the line, but thank you.”

Hitch nodded. “Anything for the plan.”

“I’m trying to be a nice guy here.”

“So am I.”

“Should we talk about this?”

“You mean about her? What more is there to say?”

“Hitch...we used to be friends, you know. And I’m not going to lie, I miss that. I love her, I really do...but I miss that.”

“I loved her too.”

“You still do.”

Hitch nodded again, unseen in the darkness, but West was right and they both knew it.

“Let’s go,” West said, and trudged off down the tunnel.

Ira Buchanan was the community’s informal leader. He was a good speaker, a good listener, and a peacekeeper. Not a particularly inspiring or energetic man, Buchanan was simply familiar, comforting. A man in his late fifties with smooth gray hair and small, smiling eyes, he sat on a rock beneath a torch and held out a hand in greeting as Hitch and West entered the room, a large junction from which a few tunnels branched off.

“Looks like it was a success,” Buchanan said, eyeing the tanks.

“Almost wasn’t,” West replied. “Jack DaVinci. Took a few potshots at us.”

“Did he follow you into the tunnels?” Buchanan asked worriedly.

West shook his head. “Looks like we’ve been granted a reprieve for the moment. But we’ve got to move forward with the plan.”

“Is the van ready?”

“I think so.” West set his tanks down again and stretched his arms. “Once it’s gassed up I might take a test run. We’ll have to be damn careful, though, out on the streets.”

“Getting it up to the surface is gonna be an ordeal in itself,” Hitch said.

“Shouldn’t be too tough.” West smiled. “You’re welcome to come along. You and Mandy.”

Mandy. That stung.

“Could be worse, when all is said and done,” Buchanan said. “Just think, what if the next Harvest were to come along right now?”

“Jesus.” West shook his head. “I don’t even want to think about it. I’ve been trying to calculate the cycle, looking back on previous years...but I’ve got nothing. It appears to be completely random.”

“Or maybe it’s whenever Nightmare chooses,” Hitch said.

They all grew quiet. Nightmare. To even breathe its name chilled every man to the bone. Among the dreamers, there were some who seemed to have what West called “psychic abilities”, a certain sensitivity to something out there...something that had sent the Harvesters to Earth, had seeded the ocean floor with them long before the dawn of Man...something that called itself Nightmare.

What they knew for certain was that Nightmare considered itself a god. It was an alien entity from light years away, perhaps from the very nucleus of existence. And it had sent the Harvesters to reap human minds on a yearly basis, to rip and tear and suck the neoplasmic ventricle from each victim’s skull...to steal the dreams of men.

The psychics who had encountered Nightmare in their sleep had each given it a different form, a different sort of terrifying manifestation. One thing they all agreed on was the voice: an off-key, sing-song voice, telling them to surrender themselves, to give in, that their animal species would be hunted and reaped every year until the end of time; allowed to recuperate and reproduce in the Harvesters’ wake, only to be assaulted again in the next year. The cycle was a cycle of chaos and horror. And Nightmare, the eternal being from the very court of chaos, was its engineer.

When the Harvesters rose from the sea they would swarm onto land and hunt the dreamers down. Hitch had never seen one himself, though he’d heard all of the tales, the legends. The Harvesters would stalk and reap for approximately thirty days before returning to the ocean, flopping into the surf and forming great cloisters deep underwater. From these cloisters, it was believed, they gathered together and sent out the stolen dreams of Man to their creator.

The Harvesters themselves were a vision born of nightmares. West was said to have seen them. Hitch had refrained thus far from asking him about it, but morbid curiosity would overcome him sooner or later. Maybe after West explained the plan, maybe then.

“You’re back!” she cried.

West and Hitch turned. Emerging from one of the other tunnels, Amanda pulled back her long auburn hair and threw herself into the doctor’s arms. Glancing over his shoulder at Hitch, she offered a warm smile. God, her eyes were so dark and deep in the torchlight. They absorbed what was left of his confidence. He looked down at his feet, face reddening.

“Lucy was right behind me.” Amanda turned with a frown and peered down the tunnel. “There she is!”

A small dog, Lucy’s, ran into the light. It was a lab-hound mutt, maybe a year or so old, and the girl herself was right on its heels. Nine years old, Lucy was a fragile little ginger-haired child who was barely able to catch her breath in pursuit of the puppy. Wrapping her arms around it, she waved to Hitch and West. “Me and Daddy missed you. And puppy too. Did you get the gas for your trip?”

“Sure did.” West pointed to the tanks. “How is your dad?”

“Tired. A lot.” Lucy tugged at her hair. “He’s not talking again. Just tired I guess. I wish he wasn’t.”

West nodded. He’d been monitoring Lucy’s father Walter for a while now, and was pretty sure that his botched neoplastomy, shortly before his escape into the mines, had left him lobotomized. Hitch wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but it seemed as if Walter was even worse off than the undreamers who’d done it. It seemed like he’d lost his soul and then some.

“Well, let’s get down to the common area. We’ll get the gas put away, and then I’ll see your dad.” West gestured to Hitch. “Let’s go.”

As he passed Amanda, Hitch forced a smile. She touched his arm. “Good to have you back.”

Further up, not quite above ground, in the subway tunnels, Jack DaVinci sat in his living quarters and folded his overcoat in the harsh glow of a halogen lamp. Then, he crawled across the floor to the lamp and removed a panel in the wall behind it. There was a jar filled with a greenish preserving fluid. Floating in the fluid were a dozen white, pea-sized nodules.

They were the ventricles removed from the city’s newest citizens. DaVinci stared at the jar, turning it in front of the lamp and studying the smooth marbles of tissue.

Then, unscrewing the lid, he scooped out a handful of them and shoved them into his mouth.

They were sickly-sweet going down his throat. He closed his eyes, leaned back, waited as they were digested, absorbed into his blood, waited for the blood to reach his brain and then...

God! The feeling. The void within him suddenly filled with warmth, the colors behind his eyelids, the exuberance in his very bones. Imagination! Spirit!

He opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. He turned them, saw not the hands of a simple survivor but the hands of an artist, a sculptor, a painter, a writer. An investigator, examining clues and imagining scenarios and motives and detecting the truth in a grand mystery.

He thought about the dreamers. They’d been plundering fuel. For what? Generators? They would have had to have stolen the generators first, and that meant encroaching on undreamer territory here in the underground. No, it was a vehicle. For what purpose? There was only enough fuel for maybe one or two cars, and with their severely limited resources he couldn’t see them having more than one. So what was it for? Certainly not a mass migration. No, it was for a mission.

Did they intend to stage an attack on his city? Why would a car be necessary? Why that much gas? A car bomb? But why attack at all? They didn’t come after the undreamers, they ran from them. No, it didn’t fit.

They meant to travel outside Gotham. For what, then? Supplies? Food? Maybe. So they intended to try and get by without burglarizing his community’s resources. That was honorable. Acceptable. Maybe he wouldn’t return to the tunnels with his men after all.

But could he be sure?

He tried to imagine other alternatives, tried not to be distracted by the sheer pleasure of seeing color and possibility.

Maybe this was about the Others, or the Harvesters.

He had to be certain, that was all he knew. He had to return to the tunnels. Not to arrest or assault the dreamers, but to keep tabs on them. He had to know the truth.

DaVinci lay back on the floor and closed his eyes. He watched the colors swim.

Prologue. The Year of the Fiftieth Harvest.

2008-05-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

May 2061 looked down on a Gotham, Indiana that had been given over completely to Nature and her legions. Flora, fauna and fungi had all established kingdoms within the skeleton towers of the city and the barren, cracked streets which threaded through the skyscrapers like stillborn rivers carving out canyons of steel and dust.

The plants had climbed to the peaks of the tallest buildings, the fungus owned the tunnels beneath the city floor and the animals held the streets in their tireless dance of life and death.

Man had gone under, far under, beneath the sewers and subway tunnels into the other city that existed beneath. Access corridors, government warehouses, power plants and water purification facilities were home to a new community under Gotham. Even further down were mine tunnels and natural caverns, but those were left to the dreamers, the ones who still bade the Harvesters to come and reap them.

Some of the hydroelectric plants still functioned, albeit on a limited scale. A few of the city grids were still working, including that which had as its cornerstone the Gotham Hospital tower. Most of its resources had long ago been plundered, its windows shattered, doors torn away; but still there was power, and still surgical suites that could, in theory, be used in times of great need. That was, if anyone dared to venture above ground, to taunt the Harvesters in their secret cloisters.

Jack DaVinci had no business with the Harvesters. He had no business with the surface world, but the bullets jostling about in his guts had gotten to be more than just detritus lying in the gutter, they’d gotten into his good parts and were gumming up the works and now the nurses in their decades-old threadbare scrubs were wheeling him through a dusty main entrance, glass cracking beneath the wheels of the gurney, dead lights overhead. “We’ll have to get him up the stairs somehow,” said one of the doctors. Jack moved a bit and felt the bullets rolling in his belly. Bastards. He’d hoped he’d never have to bother with them. Brushing back his silvery hair, the tired man tried to sit up a little. “I can walk—”

“No sir,” the doc said, “I don’t want them moving again. We know where they are and we’re going to take them out. Just lie back, please, and let’s get you upstairs.”

It’s not worth the trouble, he thought, coming up into the hospital just for him. What did he do that was so important? He supposed he was the best cop that they had under Gotham; he knew all the faces and names and they respected his authority. They all knew him by that jacket, the old thing still clinging to him after all these years. It was an overcoat from the turn of the century, a detective’s jacket, as some described it; he supposed he was a detective of sorts. And he liked it, didn’t he, standing out in off-white among the gray. Everyone else wore scrubs and boiler suits, threads either durable or disposable. Wasn’t much color. No need for it. Everything was practical and that was it. Except Jack’s overcoat was a little something, a little bit of character. And those bullets in his guts told a few stories.

Secretly, Jack liked being somebody. And maybe he was gonna be sad to see the bullets go, excised, like so many of the things that made someone a somebody. But they had to go or else he was going too.

The crew made their way up the staircase, collapsing the gurney’s legs and lifting Jack up the stairs. It was dark and dank and quiet except for little torch lights they’d made with old bulbs and crude batteries culled from magnetic scrap, and now Jack almost felt like he was going to church. Bless these bullets, Father, bless my empty brain. Bless my Colt revolver and my graying hair. Bless these people who are going to sustain me so I can sustain them.

They reached the right floor, and the wheels came back, and now there were lights, chasing the spiders away, warming the vines that threaded through the ceiling structure. Jack stared up at a canopy of steel and leaves as he was brought into the operating room.

“We prepped it last week. Cut all the plants away, tested the equipment – you’re going to be fine, sir.”

“Anesthesia.”

“Vitals, again.”

“Who shot you?” a young nurse asked through her face mask.

Jack smiled. “I don’t remember. I don’t even care.”

There were two of them, he knew, that had stayed with him. Stayed in the bone and had now come out to tour the rest of Jack, to see what further ruin they could cause.

“I appreciate all of you coming up here, doing this...” There was a prick in his arm. It burned at first, briefly, then numbness spread, a sweet warmth. “You’re heroes, you know.”

“Windows are all blocked,” the doctor said. “We’re good. Ready?”

“Ready, Jack?”

“Cut me open.”

#

He’d been cut before. It was something they all did, save the dreamers who went down into the caverns to live a life of fear and flight. Jack had been cut early, as a boy, having been born just after the First Harvest. People had started to realize just what the Harvesters wanted. Then it was a matter of finding it themselves and cutting it out.

The neoplasmic ventricle was a tiny nodule nestled between the frontal lobes. The procedure, once perfected, made for a simple outpatient appointment. Jack had been among the early ones, even before they went underground. They hadn’t gone underground because of the Harvesters, of course. That was because of the Others.

And there were stories rolling around in his bloody gut about them.

Awake. Panic. Voices shouting.

“What are they doing?”

Jack sat up, his fingertips brushing the sutures in his abdomen, and snapped his fingers at the nurses lined up along the no-longer-blocked windows. “What’s going on?”

“Some dreamers have come up, and they’re across the street...” A pretty girl turned towards him and tried to help tie his bedclothes. “You need to recover.”

“Get my jacket.

“And my gun.”

#

Down and across the street, an ages-old fuel station.

Two men siphoning vintage gasoline into plastic tanks. Right up through the concrete, no messing with the dead pumps.

“How much do you think is really left?” asked Hitch.

West shrugged. “Whatever’s left is left.”

“Is it really worth standing out here at high noon?”

“Who else is out here? C’mon Hitch. God damn it. This is our right, don’t you think?”

“Just don’t know what it’s for,” said Hitch. He scratched his beard and looked up at the skeleton towers. “You gonna explain all this once we’re back home?”

“Home,” West spat. “Yes. I’ll explain it. It’s not like I’ve left you in the dark. You know what I’m doing.”

“I know you want to move, but there’s something else.” Hitch narrowed his eyes, so much like West’s eyes. They’d all taken on the same scruffy bearded look, but Hitch’s was shorter and darker, the only difference between himself and the rest these days. They all had those same eyes, though: gleaming, searching.

Richard “Hitch” Haledjian had the wanderlust. That was how he expressed his restlessness. But it wasn’t to wander out across the dead continent...it was, rather, to wander further below. He mapped the caverns and the old mine tunnels, did what he could to expand their humble home. But West wanted to leave. He believed that the surface world was theirs, by birthright, by God.

West spoke. “Yeah, there’s something else. It’s—”

A bullet ricocheted off the nearest pump. It was definitely a bullet. The report echoed for blocks.

“Run.”

Hefting their plastic tanks beneath their arms, West and Hitch sprinted across the cement pad, across the old intersection, and as they did they heard a voice:

“Stop in the name of the law!”

West laughed. “He shot first! He shot first! Are you fucking kidding?” He shouted over his shoulder, “Fucker, we know what’s waiting for us back there and YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN THE OTHERS!!”

Hitch was just pumping his legs as hard as he could, muscles far past burning, past rubbery numbness, just flying down the street toward the sewer outlet from whence they’d come. Bullets! For a little gas, for that heap of rusted shit called a van that had been sitting, rusting and rotting, in the tunnels for months and that might not even start what with all the parts Doctor West had pulled out and rebuilt and put back in...

But he was West. Michael West, doctor of god knew what, robotics or dentistry or whatever was necessary at any given moment.

Hitch’s moccasins were flayed open as he skittered down a concrete abutment toward the tunnel entrance, right on the doctor’s heels.

He was West, the man with the plan, the man with the van, the man with the girl. He had Amanda. It was Amanda and West working under the van. In the van. What had been Hitch’s was now West’s, and he was supposed to just nod along politely and wait to hear what the next great step in the great plan was?

Not now, no time for bullshit, he told himself. Still a chance some bullets could come bouncing down the tunnel and claim him. Splashing now through fetid deadwater, slogging through the shadows, into the sewer...but that voice back there was the voice of the relentless Jack DaVinci, wasn’t it? Gotham’s son. He’d never stop. Just. Like. The. Others.

West pulled Hitch into a side tunnel, a little passage that DaVinci probably wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t a side tunnel so much as a fissure in the wall. West and Hitch huddled together in suffocating darkness, water around their waists.

“You know we want to help you, you know that?” DaVinci cried. His voice reverberated off the walls and stirred the waters here in the tunnel, as if he were a performer in an theatre. Hitch angled his head slightly and spied DaVinci standing out there in the shit, in the river with a little electric torch in his hand, and in his other hand, the gun.

“You take out the ventricle, the Harvesters leave you alone! You have nothing for them then!”

West knew that neoplasia meant abnormal cell growth. They treated the ventricle as an aberration rather than an essential component, all part of the undreamer myth. Its removal had grave consequences, even if it staved off the Harvesters – and it didn’t account for the Others. They’d keep coming, wouldn’t they, in their twisted perfect logic. What did DaVinci have to say about that?

West stared hard at Hitch, willing him to keep quiet. Hitch shrugged as if to say, no shit, and watched DaVinci.

The cop sighed, pressed his hand to his abdomen. “I’ll leave you alone then. I’ll leave you alone, until I see you getting into our resources again. Then I won’t leave you alone. That clear?

“Do you even care?”

West closed his eyes. Hitch watched DaVinci’s face.

“All right then.”

Jack DaVinci trudged out of the sewer tunnel and into the light.

“He’s not like the Others,” Hitch whispered.

“Same difference,” West muttered, “no soul. It’s the soul that makes us dreamers. Got both your tanks?”

“Got ‘em.”

“Let’s go home.”

The Harvest is coming.

2008-05-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

- "Jabberwocky" , Lewis Carroll

Where shall the newly reaped dawn find you?

Nestled quietly in and amongst the fresh dew.

- "The Pumpkin Faire", Bill Snider

We are the things of shapes to come.

- Marilyn Manson