Free Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection by Gordon Kessler Page B

couldn’t go into work today? No, there was too much to be done. I’d be okay. I just needed to get past this.
    I slowly released the doorknob and took a tentative step, then another and stood on the edge of our front stoop. I gazed around me at the trees and houses that lined our lovely street, and I breathed in deeply once again. It was so calm. No birds, no breeze, not even a car passing in the street — a sort of quiet before the storm , I thought. But why should I think of something like that? What brought on that idea? What storm?
    The voice came again . Hey, Superman, it said. But this time, the voice was different — somewhat clandestine, a gruff whisper . Where are you? it continued.
    I knew the question came from my own mind, still I queried myself in my thoughts What do you mean, where am I? I imagined the Harvey character again. But this time, I couldn’t see him. Gazing out at the brightening day, I imagined him somehow in the shadows, hooded, only his eyes apparent, glowing from the dark. And they were yellow, reptilian slits for pupils.
    Whe-air-r-r are-r yo-ou? he sung.
    I frowned at my surroundings. I am going mad , I thought. I wanted to yell out, You’re not Harvey! You’re something evil. Leave me alone! How ridiculous my thoughts had become.
    Still, I considered what the voice was asking. As I looked out through the trees and behind the houses on the other side of the street, I could see the nearby mountains. This was my home. I had gazed upon those mountains — that same ridgeline — for thirty-five years.
    But as I gazed my point of view seemed to travel past the mountains, and I felt my body follow, as if suddenly being yanked, slingshot at supersonic speed through the air. With the sound of rushing air, pressure built inside my skull and the agoraphobic feeling spun my thoughts again. The din increased, like white noise on a radio, it blared louder and louder, a tremendous cacophony. Soon I saw stars, but not the kind you see when you’re whacked on the head and about to pass out — these were real stars, the ones you don’t see on bright, sunny days.
    Now the disruptive clamor that had blasted in my ears slowly decreased and, for a moment, sounded like some kind of ethereal choir.  The harmonic noise finally calmed to a light hiss as the dark universe lit up with billions of pinpoints of light. It was like what I’d seen when I’d been camping, way up in the mountains, and there were no city lights in any direction on the horizon to interfere. But I was closer to these stars, I realized, and the world became completely silent again. The silence became loud, indescribable. The stars grew larger and I sped by them, now, not at supersonic speed but at light speed — Star Trek warp speed. I zoomed past the celestial bodies, and they appeared all around me like bright streaks of intense light.
    As quickly as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers, I suddenly was back on my front stoop, standing in the advancing morning light once again. The agoraphobic sensation had evaporated. I blinked several times and noticed a squirrel on a low tree branch in our front yard staring at me. Below the grey, tree-dwelling rodent, a walnut lay on the sidewalk. He had dropped it — the hypnotist’s finger snap. The squirrel’s tail flipped in the air as he chewed — or was he only chewing?
    I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard a whisper, Get ready! Here they come!
    I scanned around me, fearfully, as my heart hammered. But I saw nothing to be alarmed about.
    This was not normal. What was wrong with me?
    “Good lord,” I said, shaking my head. Again, I knew the words I’d heard only came from my own thoughts, but that knowledge did little to settle my nerves. I hustled out to the sidewalk, kicked the walnut up close to the tree trunk and walked on briskly without looking back.
    *  *  *
    Located four miles up the snaking blacktop from Gold Rush, Mount Rainy Biotronics was built into the south face of