Doubt (19 page)

Sneak peek excerpt from RESIST, book 2 of the Among Us Trilogy

Harry stepped through the light, his foot landing on thin air. He keeled forward expecting to hit the ground headfirst but instead he was suspended in a void of emptiness—a dark vacuum.

“Anyone out there?” he asked.

He was met with dead silence. Funny he should think that. Wasn’t this what being dead felt like?

Enough. Focus on completing the mission.

He had to find his mother, Cristal’s father and bring them back to the land of the living.

“Mom, can you hear me?” he called out.

Nothing but silence. He began to wonder if he had made the right decision to cross over to the spiritual world. What if crossing over meant he had to die doing it? 

A sharp pain stabbed his heart. He grabbed his chest until the pain subsided to a dull ache. He was somewhat relieved that he still had a beating heart. Guess he wasn’t dead after all.

Maybe time stood still on this side. What if he ended up floating here in spiritual emptiness forever?

“Harry?” his mother’s voice entered the void.

“Mom?” he called out. “Mom!”

Twisting his body, he tried to float towards the sound.

Something icy grabbed his arm and yanked him downward. He began free falling into the abysmal blackness.

Should he brace himself for the landing?

Before another thought could enter his mind, his body slammed into a solid surface knocking him out on impact.

***

What seemed like hours later, but could have been minutes, (Harry wasn’t entirely sure) he gained consciousness. He was laying flat on his back. Sounds and voices of people around him and the bleating of car horns jolted him awake.

“Harry!”

The voice sounded so familiar and yet. His eyes were trying to adjust to the bright light.

“Thank God! It is you, Harry.”

Harry felt someone pull himself into a sitting position.

“Are you okay?”

He glanced up to see who the Good Samaritan was but instead, he was staring dumbfounded at the lopsided grin of someone he didn’t expect to ever see again.

“Harry! I'm so glad I found you! I thought I was going crazy!”

“Gabriel?”

“I don’t know what happened. I was rushing towards you and Kerim and then you all disappeared.”

Harry racked his brain to comprehend what was happening. He, along with Cristal and the others, had watched Gabriel get shot in the back and die on the street. But here was Gabriel in the flesh right in front of him. He reached out to touch Gabriel’s arm half expecting to feel nothingness. Surely, he must be hallucinating. 

“I’ve been trying to find the others but nobody here has seen them,” Gabriel said. “Here, let me help you up.”

Gabriel grabbed a hold of Harry’s arm and put it over his shoulder, easing him up to his feet.

Harry took a deep breath. The salty sea air mixed with the smell of diesel smoke spewing from the tailpipes of cars driving by filled his lungs.

Wait a minute.  Where am I?

He looked around, checking his surroundings.

It was incredible. They were standing in the same spot where Yaffa and her security thugs had shot Gabriel down. 

He glanced around, feeling disoriented. The sun was setting against the turquoise blue sky. The streets were busy with young men smoking
sheesha
water pipes, laughing and horsing around on the beach.  This was not what Harry had expected to see in Limbo or Purgatory or whatever this place was.

“Harry, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gabriel said.

Harry swallowed hard and forced a smile.

Doesn’t he remember getting killed?

Harry’s Truth Seeker skills kicked in. He did not know what would happen if he told Gabriel the cold hard facts. Better go along with the situation until he can figure out what is happening.

“I am not feeling well. Why don’t we go find a place to talk?” Harry said.

“Sure thing. We can get you something to eat.”

Harry let Gabriel walk ahead while he scanned landmarks around him, making note of the location of where the portal would have been on the “other side”.  It was the place where the walls of Akko used to stand before they crumbled into dust during the earthquake.  Here on this side of reality, instead of walls there stood sixty-foot high steel bars.

If I’m going to get back to the other side, I have to come back to this spot.

“Harry, c’mon. The others will be relieved to see you.”

Others?

“Uh, Gabriel. What others?” Harry asked but Gabriel had darted ahead.

He followed Gabriel into the small shop.  It was a typical fast food restaurant in the area. Sharp smells of spices and greasy food hit his nostrils while the sound of Arabic pop music blasted from a boom box sitting on a shelf behind the front counter. Groups of young people sat at the wooden tables spread across the room.  A number of the guys glanced up, eyeing him suspiciously as he walked past.

Gabriel waved to someone sitting at a table in the back of the shop.

“Look who I’ve found!”

As he walked closer, Harry could see two people sitting across from each other at the table. One was a woman with her back to him and the other was a middle-aged man with Latino features, olive complexion, dark wavy hair, and a pointed nose. 

When they reached the table, the woman stood up and turned to face him. Harry’s heart started racing when their eyes met.

“Mom?”

It had been a year since he last saw his mother Bina. She was thinner; her hair was greyer and the wrinkles around her eyes deeper than he remembered.

Waves of emotion ran through him. Every cell in his body wanted to run to her and hug her just as he did when he was a terrified six-year-old child lost in a crowded shopping mall.

The look of concern on her face and the way she glanced over her shoulder forced him to realize that this was not the time or the place.  The reunion celebration would have to wait until their safety was established.

“Harry, we need to be discreet,” she said in a hushed voice. “Sit down beside me and face Roberto.”

She motioned with her hand towards the man sitting across from her. Roberto lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgement.

Gabriel asked, “So you know Rose?”

Harry shot a glance at his mother. Was
Rose
her alias?

Harry’s mother turned to Gabriel.

“Please keep your voice down and take a seat.” 

Gabriel took the chair beside Roberto while Harry sat down beside her. There were many questions he wanted to ask but he remained quiet.  The answers will come, all in good time.

The loud music and the noise from the different conversations in the room decreased in volume. Harry checked over his shoulder to see that all eyes were on them.

Roberto lowered his voice, speaking with a subtle Spanish accent, “Harry, your mother Bina has taken the alias
Rose
and you must refer to her as this until we get out of here.”

Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened as if to say something.

Harry pulled his focus back on Roberto.

“I’m assuming that Roberto is not your real name either,” Harry said.

“Correct. I’m Carlos Hernandez. Cristal’s father.”

Anne-Rae Vasquez
is currently writing
Resist
– Book 2 of the
Among Us Trilogy
.
 
Among Us
is a book series about a group of outcasts (online gamers) who band together to investigate who or what is behind the catastrophic events happening around the world. 
Among Us
will attract fans of the TV shows Fringe, Lost, and 4400. Doubt, Book 1 of the
Among Us Trilogy
was released in November 2013 at the Raindance Book Festival.

Anne-Rae also freelances as a journalist for
Digital Journal
, an online news magazine. Her previous work includes writing the novel and screenplay for Almost a Turkish Soap Opera, an award winning feature film and series.
  Her other projects include:  Salha’s Secrets to Middle Eastern Cooking Cookbook, Gathering Dust – a collection of poems (published by AR Publishing Inc.) and Teach Yourself Great Web Design in a Week, published by Sams.net (a division of Macmillan Publishing).

To find out more about Anne-Rae’s work, visit her
GoodReads’ profile page
.