The Harbinger’s Redemption (Monster Research Facility #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

Iroll into Ash Valley, Arizona, just after sunset. It’s a quiet town. Little stucco houses, small businesses with wooden signs, all desert neutrals and pale pastels. Most businesses are already closing down for the night, house lights clicking off one by one as I drive by.

I’m admiring the sight of a small town falling asleep and acquainting myself with a place that might be my new home for a while when I see the man.

Standing on a corner downtown, he has haunted eyes above a dirty, overgrown beard.

But it’s the hand-painted sign that catches my attention, lifted in my direction as I approach: And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke…

The sign’s dripping red letters end there, but my memory finishes the passage. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.

Joel 2:30. I haven’t picked up a Bible since I was six years old. Twenty-five years ago, now, and I still remember. Funny how the brain works like that.

I stop beside the man and roll down my window. His face is a mask of zealotry that I find all too familiar, but I ignore that as I dig into my wallet and pull out a few singles.

“Repent,” the man is saying, spraying spittle in my direction. “Repent!”

I dangle the cash out the window. “Yeah, yeah,” I say. “What’s it look like I’m trying to do?”

He hesitates, his bulging eyes blinking at the money I’m offering, and then my face. Maybe it’s the dyed-dark hair and heavy eyeliner that give him pause. But after a moment, he steps forward and yanks the cash from my grip like he expects me to fight him for it.

As I roll the window back up, his tirade resumes. “The end is nigh!” he shouts, just before I take off.

“You’re a bit late, buddy,” I mutter to myself.

I hoped a donation would help alleviate some of the guilt that’s as familiar to me as my own shadow, but instead the interaction leaves me with lingering unease.

It calls to the surface memories of hymns and stained glass, floorboards creaking beneath my knees and rosary beads slipping between my fingers.

It makes me think that it could’ve been me standing on a corner with a sign, if things had been just a little bit different.

I shake off the feeling as I drive through town.

There’s so little light pollution out here that the sky is awe-inspiring, a whole world of glittering stars hanging overhead that I’ve never seen so clearly before.

The town is surrounded by vast swathes of empty desert dotted by the silhouettes of saguaros and little else.

Mountains line the horizon in every direction.

It’s peaceful, and yet, it feels like the desert is holding its breath. Waiting for something.

And on the edge of town stands one building in stark contrast. Huge and metal and windowless, lit up like a beacon in the quiet night.

The building doesn’t seem to belong in this quiet town.

It’s also the reason I’m here. It’s almost a surprise to see that it truly exists.

Online, I could hardly find a word about it.

Seeing the research facility in person gives me the same feeling I got when I saw the salary range on the job listing: a thrill underlaid with a shiver of uncertainty, the thought something isn’t right chased by the inevitable but what if…?

It’s late by the time I reach my hotel. There are no signs of life other than a bored college-aged kid at the front desk who shrugs when I ask if there’s anywhere still open to eat around here.

I make a quick dinner out of vending machine snacks, scrub off the long day of travel in the shower, and fall into bed.

The closer I get to the Melsbach Research Facility, the more details I can make out. Huge fences topped with barbed wire guard the perimeter. The towering front gate stands locked. Nobody gets in or out of this place without being noticed.

I’ve worked as a security officer for hospitals and corporations, malls and personal security firms, but nowhere quite like this.

Supposedly it’s a research facility, but it looks more like a prison.

Yet, I’ve worked for a prison, too, and that didn’t feel as secretive as this does. Something feels different.

I don’t know exactly what I’m getting into.

But I do know that the only reason to have a facility like this in a town like Ash Valley is to hide it…

or to minimalize casualties if something goes wrong.

It makes me think of all the rumors about Area 51 buried deep in the Nevada Desert.

Of the Manhattan Project out in New Mexico.

What kind of secrets are hidden out in this isolated corner of the Sonoran Desert?

I guess I’m about to find out.

A man at the gate checks my ID while other guards watch from above; all of them are armed.

Inside, I pass through another security check involving metal detectors and a pat-down.

Finally, I’m allowed to step into the interior of the Facility.

The hallway is just as I would’ve expected: severe fluorescent lighting and a seemingly endless stretch of metal doors.

It’s disconcertingly artificial without any windows to the outside world.

A bearded man in a black uniform waits for me within. “Willow Hawkins?” he asks. When I nod, he extends his hand. “My name is Hunter Barnes. Head of security.”

I scrutinize him as I shake his hand. The scar across his cheek speaks of danger, but his brown eyes are surprisingly warm. Still, I’m on guard. I’ve met dozens of other men with the same title, and most of them have turned out to be assholes on a power trip.

“I’ll take you to the other applicants,” Barnes says, and leads me down the hallway.

“Others?”

“Right, yeah…” He doesn’t stop walking but slows so I can keep up. “There are individual and group portions of the interview process. We like to evaluate our applicants as both individuals and members of a team.”

“Understood.” I’ve done group interviews in the past, usually when a company was hiring en masse for a large-scale event.

But since nobody mentioned anything of that nature, this kind of high-volume hiring may just mean a particularly high turnover rate.

It’s a potential red flag, but not serious enough for me to back out immediately.

There’s no time to ask more questions as we step into a small lobby at the end of the hall.

A thick, old-fashioned TV sits against one wall, anachronistic in contrast to the rest of the high-tech building.

Rows of folding chairs sit in front of it, two of them already occupied by men filling out paperwork.

“You’ll need to fill out the NDA and some other forms before we proceed with the interview,” Barnes says, handing me my own clipboard and pen. “I’ll be outside waiting for our final applicant. Let me know if you need anything.”

He leaves us there. I hesitate for a split second; my instinct is to take the chair farthest from the others, but Barnes mentioned they were assessing teamwork.

I begrudgingly take a chair near one of the other applicants.

He looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, a handful of years younger than me, and surprisingly boyish for this line of work.

My first thought is that he’ll make me look older and more experienced in comparison, but then he looks up and smiles at me, which makes my stomach twist with guilt.

I nod at him and flip through the papers.

There’s a thorough nondisclosure agreement, some waivers, a warning about drug testing, and a form granting permission to perform a background check.

The latter is the only one that gives me pause.

I have a needling suspicion that this place is going to dig deeper than most of my former employers.

Hopefully not deep enough to find another name, another life, even before the chaotic assortment of foster homes that marked my adolescence.

You were just a child. It wasn’t your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Words I’ve heard from dozens of therapists over the years, and yet they always ring hollow. I’m sure a reasonable person wouldn’t look at my past and see guilt, but they’d see weakness, and that’s almost as bad.

I’m still reading through the papers, searching for anything out of place, when the door opens and the last applicant enters: a reed-thin man with wispy facial hair and eyes that dart all around the room.

His fingers keep shifting toward his hip like he’s used to resting them on the butt of a gun.

He takes a chair in the back row, and my neck prickles with the sensation of crawling eyes.

I regret my decision to sit here instead of alone in the back.

The room is silent except for rustling paper and scratching pens. But after a few moments, the man sitting at my side—the one who smiled at me—clears his throat. “So, any guesses about what this place really is?”

I glance up. The other two men are ignoring him, but he’s smiling at me like he was asking me directly. I’m a little surprised—usually my all-black clothes and heavy eyeliner are enough to sufficiently warn strangers off.

“Some kind of government op,” I say, shrugging.

“Well, yeah, but for what?” He waggles his eyebrows. “I’m guessing aliens.”

I huff a snort. “Ridiculous.”

“Is it? I mean, haven’t you heard the stories about this place?” He leans closer. “And why do you think they’re hiring from all over the country? ’Cause locals refuse to work here. They know something we don’t.”

“I once worked the night shift at a hospital that everyone said was haunted. Patients would wake up to strange marks on the furniture and hear scratching inside the walls…”

His eyes go wide. “And?”

“It was a rat infestation,” I say flatly. “The world’s got enough issues. We don’t need to make up new ones.”

“Huh.” He nods like I’ve said something wise. “I’m Ellis, by the way.”