The Haunted (Harbingers): Episode 2

By Frank E. Peretti

Professor McKinney, an atheist ex-priest, and the Harbingers team confront a supernatural mystery, a case of murder, and an exploration into the darkness of the human heart--all centering around a mysterious house that seems to have the ability to appear and disappear at certain times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781441231321

Frank E. Peretti

Frank E. Peretti is one of American Christianity's best-known authors. His novels have sold over 10 million copies, and he is widely credited with reinventing Christian fiction. He and his wife, Barbara, live in the Pacific Northwest. www.frankperetti.com.

Book preview

Peretti

CHAPTER

1

Clyde Morris

Clyde Morris looked entirely the part of a wraith: neck tendons tuned like a harp, white hair wild, fogging corneas following unseen demons about the old dining room. My life, my years, all over. Done! Can’t reach them from here, can’t change them, no more chances!

His frumpish wife, Nadine, could make no sense of his ravings, his clenching and unclenching hands, his rising, pacing, sitting again, his seeing horrible things. She reached across the table to touch him but drew her hand back—it felt chilled as with frost.

He leaned, nearly lunged over the table, his face close to hers. It knows me! It knows all about me!

From down the hall came the shriek of door hinges. Clyde’s eyes rolled toward the sound, his veiny face contorted. A wind rustled the curtains, fluttered a newspaper, swung the chandelier so it jangled.

Clyde stood and the wind hit him broadside, pushing him toward the hall.

Clyde!

He reached across the space between them but the wind, roaring, carried him down the hall along with cushions, newspapers, the tablecloth.

A doorway in the hall, glowing furnace red, pulled him. He craned forward to fight it, stumbled, grappled, and slid backward toward it.

The doorway sucked him in like a dust particle. A high-pitched scream faded into infinite distance until cut off when the door slammed shut.

The wind stopped. The newspaper pages settled to the floor. A doily fluttered down like a snowflake. The chandelier jangled through two diminishing swings, then stopped and hung still.

Now the only sound was the wailing of the widow, flung to the floor in the old Victorian house.

CHAPTER

2

The Phenomenon

When A.J. Van Epps first called to relate what had happened—or allegedly happened—to crusty old Clyde Morris, I fidgeted, perused lecture notes, indulged him. Why would a learned academic and researcher like Van Epps trouble himself—and now me—with a campfire tale too easily debunked to warrant the effort? The largely one-sided conversation took a feeble turn toward interesting only when I discerned in Van Epps’ voice a tone of dread so unlike him, and it was after that hook was set that he sprang his proposal: Would I come and assist in the investigation? Would I help him regain his objectivity? Would I lend my knowledge and experience?

Oh yes, exactly what my frayed nerves needed. Being in a near plane crash and hauled into a misadventure in a so-called Institute for Advanced Psychic Studies, not to mention having my personal and deepest fears vivisected by one and the same, was a sleepy, monotonous ordeal. I needed the change.

Besides . . .

We were old friends and associates. I would be lecturing at Evergreen State College in the Puget Sound area in the next few days. Of course I could afford a side trip to help him look into the matter. I agreed to come—and kicked myself the moment I ended the call.

McKinney here. Dr. James McKinney, sixty, professor of philosophy and comparative religions, emeritus, at large, published, and so on and so forth. Generally, a scholar of religious claims and systems, but specifically, a skeptic, and it is to that last title I devote the most attention. This, I trust, lends explanation for why I and Andrea Goldstein, my young assistant, drove our rental car through the meandering and sloping village of Port Avalon and located the quaint Victorian residence of Dr. A.J. Van Epps.

Van Epps, thinner and grayer than I remembered, took our coats, then expended no more than a minute or two on greetings and how-are-yous before he led us to his kitchen table and brought up a photograph on his computer: A two-story Victorian home, dull purple, richly detailed, turreted, with a covered porch and sleepy front windows.

My interest, of course, is to ascertain how it works, what empowers it, what measure or means of controlled stimuli will produce predictable results.

Andi and I studied the photo. I saw a house; it was Andi’s way to see more, always more, which was one reason I took her along.

Seven panels in the door, she said. Each window has seven panes. There are seven front steps.

Not that I appreciated her timing. Save it for later, I advised, then asked Van Epps, So this is a house here in town?

Van Epps inserted an artful pause before answering, Sometimes.

This whole affair was ludicrous enough. A.J., I’m not known for my patience.

Check out the landmarks: This tree with the large knot; this fire hydrant; this seam in the street. He arrow-keyed to a second photograph, what one would call a vacant lot: some brush, some trees, nothing else . . . save for the same knotted tree, fire hydrant, and seam in the street in front. I took this soon after the first. The house was there, and then it wasn’t.

I didn’t stifle an irritated sigh. If I may—just to cover the obvious—these photos are digital.

He sighed back. I didn’t alter them. No Photoshop.

"And you’ve presented them in the order you

Reviews for The Haunted (Harbingers)

[jenneth_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 The best of Christian fiction authors come together to write a what I can only describe as a novel written in the spirit of an RPG (role playing game): Bill Meyers writes as the tattoo artist, Brenda; Frank Peretti writes as the atheistic professor; Angela Hunt writes as the geeky professor's assistant, Andi; and Alton Gansky writes as the Christian jock, Tank. In an attempt to write episodically like a TV series, these four Christian authors take turns telling novellas that develop into a larger story.I personally fangirled when I found this book. The series is such a quirky phenomenon that it's actually hard to find much about it online. Almost as if the authors didn't mean for it to be widespread. Almost as if we readers stumbled upon their own writing practices that weren't meant for public viewing.But they are. And I couldn't be happier.With writers such as Meyers and Peretti in the mix, you can assume the book delves into quite a bit of Christian paranormal. Four characters inexplicably come together to repeatedly stop evil, often satanic forces, from disrupting the world. And no matter how much the characters may differ from each other, and no matter how much they try to go about their own lives, they continually are brought back together.The writing of each other is vastly different from the others. This can be both a strength and weakness for the series. Bill Meyers tends to write with very short sentences and enjoys testing your suspicion of disbelief, with little to no description or dialogue tags. In his writing, the characters can only show their greatest emotions with no filter or social grace to keep them reserved as we would expect most people to be in typical situations. Everything is an extreme, and while this works well for a high-risk, fast-paced climax or action scene, it struggles when the entire piece is paced this way. The book as a whole may suffer because Meyers's notable style is the first of the four, and if this style irritates some readers, they may not read beyond the first novella. However, those who enjoy Meyers's writing style will find him as familiar as an old friend and enjoy how he crafts the characters differently from the others.Personally, I most enjoyed Frank Peretti's novella. It reminisced of his and Dekker's 'House' standalone novel because of the mysterious and inexplicable mansion that appeared in different places throughout town. In fact, it seemed as if Peretti took several of his story concepts and reintroduced them here. Not only 'House,' but 'This Present Darkness' seemed to have a few moments of inspiration that then affected the rest of the book. Frank Peretti's style is so intense that it left me, a twenty-year-old college student, afraid of the dark. Ha! After I finished the book, I discovered a YouTube video of Peretti reading the first chapters of his novella in his deep, suspense-radio-drama voice. Definitely worth the search if that kind of stuff interests you.As a disclaimer, this is a grittier Christian fiction than typical in its genre. Few of the main characters are religious, and the one character who does identify as Christian was written as young and naive (though overall still likable). The book handles things like paranormal and satanic influences, and while the characters are all united in fighting the evil, like a TV series, the ending doesn't fully resolve, but instead promises more to come. My one main frustration was that some of the authors chose to insert questionable language. While some of the offensive language is merely crude, others border on taking the name of God in vain, even though I think the authors meant the outbursts to be a prayer of some sort.Each of the four authors do a gripping job at writing the characters in the book and sucking you in with the same kind of attraction Netflix does with 'Stranger Things.' This is a binge-worthy book.Things to Watch Out For:Sex: A comment about "sexual desires" pg 139Language: screw-1 pg 95, a-1 pg 122, p-2 pg 15, 122, crap-1 pg 122, "she flipped me off"-1 pg 123, G-1 (possibly a prayer) pg 142; G's sake-1 pg 146; several prayerful comments in the last quarter from a Lutheran character, but some of them seem to border on being flippant. "Blessed J" (supposedly reverent) pg 288Violence: Characters run from peril and satanic forces. A mysterious house afflicts characters with hyper-realistic nightmares. Child kidnapping. Murder. Several characters are dragged toward a door to Hell. Characters are forced to be presumably possessed with the Devil. A child is stabbed.Drugs: None that I specifically remember.Nudity. NAOther: Demonic activity and situations involving demon possession. A character is a tattoo artist and can see into the future. Characters each have special, unexplainable gifts such as healing, visions, etc.

[bemislibrary · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Like the one hours television shows that flash the forensics and solve the mystery, this book builds on a common supernatural theme. The novella format allows for only superficial character development. The stories, like many TV season finales, leave many issues unresolved. While it is not a satisfying beginning, middle, end story, it is worth reading just to see how the unique format could work. LibraryThing Member Giveaway randomly chose me to receive this book free from the publisher. I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

[vintagebeckie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I didn’t really know what to expect when I chose Invitation to read and review. Oh, I knew that the 4-novella collection was authored by some of the best authors in the field of Christian fiction, and that I have never been disappointed by anything they have written. I also knew that their writing style, characterization, and plot-development suited my reading tastes. But I didn’t know I would be led on a challenging and twisting journey that included mind-bending situations. Invitation is speculative fiction at its best. It has a unique format that suits the genre well — short, episodic novellas, changing points of view, and story lines which at first seem unrelated, but soon come together in a coherent manner. There is something weird going on, and this reader enjoyed every minute.Each novella in the collection has a different author and the unique voice of one of the four main characters. Four very different people with strange gifts are brought together in what can only be called a supernatural way. And try as they might, they cannot keep from forming a team to investigate and somehow impact weird happenings. I loved how the authors’ collaboration brought forth a cohesive whole. This cannot possibly be easy to achieve, but they somehow managed to achieve unique stories within a consistent framework.Evil seems to be having its way in Invitation, but there is a sense that God is at work in big ways in the world and in the lives of the main characters. I think the spiritual journey each character embarks on is my favorite part. As each challenge is met, the characters learn more about themselves and their place within a spiritual world. Each novella is wrapped up in Invitation, but the story is far from over. Invitation is just the first novella collection in this series.Invitation is gritty and edgy; not your typical CF. So don’t be surprised if this book takes you places you didn’t expect with characters that don’t often show up in normal novels. You just need to do what I did — sit back and let the authors take you on a trip you won’t forget.Recommended for fans of speculative fiction.Audience: adults.(Thanks to Bethany House for a complimentary copy. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)