“Harmony House” is a serial novel with episodes released every Tuesday morning. You can read the setup for the story or start from the beginning. Each episode comes with high-quality audio narration for you to enjoy on the go with the Substack mobile app.
Previously…
In the last episode, the contestants defied Schultz’s direct instructions and defended their decision not to vote anyone out of Houze. After, members of the group reflected on their newfound connection to one another and what that connection could mean to the very nature of a show that is winner-takes-all. At the close of the episode, Jessie and Deepu decided to use their outside time to walk out to the edge of the woods to collect some walnuts Jessie discovered the day before.
The storm the night before had been brutal. Her flannel shirt clung to her dimpled gooseflesh like wet papier mâché. Everything she owned was soaked. Hidden in the lower branches of an old oak, she shivered convulsively, her teeth chattering like a wind-up toy which made it nearly impossible to hold the binoculars steady as she watched the two figures leave the structure.
The strap on the binoculars was broken, and she feared dropping them. They were her only prized possession, a gift from her late grandpa who had taught her all about birds and everything else that mattered. She watched the old guy and the young Indian one make their way across the field in the late morning sun. What were they up to now? Having drawn the short straw, she had been the one charged with surveilling the contestants during their little outdoor adventure.
She honestly thought it would be game over as she watched them try to cobble together a shelter with the rain falling in buckets, but they had somehow lasted the night and by all appearances, were going strong this morning. Darrow had been pleased when she radioed to tell him they made it back into Houze. He hadn’t been pleased enough to tell her she could come back to base camp and warm up. That was okay. She was tough. She had endured much worse for lesser causes. She needed to tell him about this new development. Steadying herself in the fork of two branches, she jammed the binoculars into her backpack and pulled out the small walkie.
“Starling, this is Barred Owl, do you copy?”
The walkie squawked and produced a loud burst of static making her nearly fall out of the tree as she tried to turn down the volume.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Darrow responded, his voice much clearer without the competing weather.
“A couple of them have left Houze now. I’m not sure what they’re doing.”
“Which ones?”
“It’s the old guy and the Indian guy,” she said. “It looks like they’re walking toward the woods on the western edge of the field.”
“Okay, this may be our shot. They won’t be visible over the rise of the hill, especially if they go into the woods. We’re mobilizing here. Make your way around. We don’t have much time.”
“Are you sure? I mean, the plan was never to take two of them…”
“But Jessie’s the one we really want. We can deal with the younger one. Don’t get cold feet now. We planned this. It was supposed to happen yesterday. It has to happen today. You hear me?”
“Yes. I’m on my way,” she said.
She unzipped her backpack and put the walkie into the main compartment. She could see the butt of the gun poking out from the wool scarf she had wrapped it in. Her heart began to pound as she climbed down from the tree. On the ground, she took a moment to stretch her legs which had started to cramp. This was crazy. What was she doing? She began to walk, careful to stay within the cover of trees as she kept an eye on the two men walking through the field.
It was her turn to do the hard part. She knew it was but that didn’t make it easier. With the pipeline, she hadn’t been required to be on the frontline. It had been enough for her to help with the planning and to run interference. But they had lost Ruby and Gage so now it was up to her. Anytime she felt fear or pangs of guilt, Darrow reminded her of the cause. He was good at that. He reminded her of the hundreds of thousands of nameless, faceless lives crushed beneath the heel of industry and progress. He reminded her of the millions of refugees who had to flee their homes to escape the rising sea as it completely erased the existence of a place where seven generations had lived. Those people didn’t have a choice. We have a choice, Darrow would say. We are the privileged. If we can’t make a radical choice to change things, no one will. There is no one else but us.
Freja took a deep breath, set her jaw, and continued walking. She reviewed the plan in her head which didn’t bring her much comfort because they were already deviating from it. They were supposed to be targeting the women. The thought was that they would be easier to capture and hold and their disappearance would cause more of a public outcry and as a result, shine a bigger spotlight. The old guy, Jessie seemed like a tough, unlovable bastard if what happened on the stupid show was anything like reality. Unlike the others, he was at least woke, not a complete drone like the rest of them. Still, he was a fucking hypocrite. For all his performative awareness, he was still a consumer working for a big tech company, competing for a prize that would set him up comfortably while the rest of the world burned. Fuck him along with the rest.
The two men made it to the edge of the woods, and she had to pick up her pace so she wouldn’t lose sight of them. Luckily the Indian guy was wearing a bright red jacket. As she picked her way through the underbrush in a crouch, she rehearsed what she was going to say. Be menacing and direct. Keep it simple. You don’t need to tell them anything. Having a gun means you don’t have to explain yourself. This was Darrow’s advice. Granted, he had never actually held anyone at gunpoint, but he had lashed himself to trees to stop timber crews. He had blown up huge sections of pipeline. He had many scars from putting himself in harm’s way to save the planet.
Freja wasn’t worried about the gun. She had been practicing with it. She had gotten used to the weight of the thing in her hands. Though she hadn’t been raised with guns and her parents would be horrified to know that she now owned one, it had become a guilty pleasure. It gave her confidence. With every step, she felt the weight of it bump against her back and it thrilled her. She was close enough now to hear the booming resonance of the old guy’s voice. The forest floor was littered with leaves and branches and even soaking wet, it was almost impossible to traverse silently. The bare trees provided little cover so she would have to approach them quickly from behind and rely on the gun to do the rest. After a few more steps, she stopped behind the trunk of a massive poplar tree, shrugged off the pack, and pulled out the weapon.
She zipped up the pack and put it back on. From her vantage point, it was hard to know what the two men were doing as they knelt on the ground, but whatever it was, they were absorbed in the task which was great for her. She looked to her right back across the field. Houze was not visible. This was it. She had to make her move. Freja felt the same way she had as a fourteen-year-old standing on the rocky cliff above a fjord with her friends thirty meters below shouting for her to jump. She pulled the balaclava up from her neck to cover her face and she jumped.
“Don’t fucking move, I’ve got a loaded gun pointed right at your head!” she yelled, bursting from her cover, and quickly approaching the crouching men.
The Indian guy made a high-pitched sound, jumped, lost his balance, and fell onto his butt. The old guy froze. His back was to her, and he didn’t make a move to turn around. She couldn’t see his hands. The Indian guy stared at her, his face a collection of O’s. She closed the distance between them, so she didn’t have to shout.
“Do what I say, and nobody gets hurt. Try anything and I will shoot you. You’re expendable to me. You got that?” she said, hoping the quiver in her voice was only noticeable to her. “You gotta answer me so I know you understand.”
“Yeah,” the old guy said, finally putting his hands up. “Loud and clear. What do you want? We don’t have anything of value.”
“This is not a conversation. You speak when I ask you something. That’s it.”
With her free hand, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out the plastic zip ties. She tossed the bundle on the ground between the two men.
“You,” she said, pointing the gun at the Indian guy. “Tie your friend’s hands behind his back.”
Indian guy didn’t seem to hear her. His eyes were closed, and he was visibly shaking as he whispered in what she guessed was Hindi. She didn’t have much time to get this part done. The two men were too far apart to train the gun on both. It was better to lean on the weaker one. She moved quickly into the space between them, her back partially to the old guy as she aimed the gun at Indian guy’s head.
“Get up,” she said. “Get up if you want to live.”
Indian guy tried to stand but his legs were wobbly. This was taking far too long. He seemed dazed like a bird stunned after hitting a window. He struggled to gain his feet.
“Can you take it easy,” the old guy said. “No one’s questioning your authority here. Just give him a minute to adjust. This is our first time being at gunpoint.”
“Did I ask for your fucking input?” she said, her eyes still trained on Indian guy.
“I bet you haven’t done this before either,” old guy said. “From the looks of it, you’re no mercenary thug. You’re no killer.”
“You want to try me?” she said, trying to sound tougher than she felt. “I’m worse than a killer, I’m a person with a mission more important than you or him or anyone else. You of all people should get that.”
She winced at catching herself monologuing. She couldn’t let him draw her into conversation. It was dangerous.
Indian guy was standing now and seemed to be more in control. He moved to pick up the bundle of zip ties.
“Go,” she said more gently. “Tie him from behind. Don’t try anything. I’ll check to make sure you made it tight.”
His hands were shaking so badly that he had trouble pulling a single zip tie from the bundle. Eventually, he did and as he stood to make his way around to the back of the older one, Freja could see a dark stain at the front of his pants. He pissed himself. He was likely her age, but he looked like a boy. She felt a twinge of guilt that translated as nausea. She swallowed hard as she watched him close the loop of the thick plastic tie around the old guy’s hands. The Indian guy looked to her for approval. She motioned with the gun for him to move away and she approached the old guy, crouching so she could inspect the binding. Indian guy had been a little overzealous and the tie looked like it was already cutting into the old guy’s wrists. That was fine. This was not a pleasure cruise as her dad used to say when she or her sister would complain during one of the many forced march hikes in her childhood.
“Okay, sit on your butt,” she said waving the gun at the old guy who scowled but complied.
This was the trickiest part of the maneuver. She crouched and picked up the bundle of ties never lowering the gun she had trained on the Indian guy. With her teeth, she pulled a tie free of the bundle.
“Now you,” she nodded toward the Indian guy. “Sit down on your butt and put your hands behind your back.”
He did as he was told. Good. She crouched behind him and could feel the old guy’s withering stare, watching her every move, calculating. She didn’t have a choice, she had to set the gun down for a few seconds. There was no other way to fasten the zip tie. She tried to make quick work of it, but her hands were freezing, and it was a struggle to get the end threaded through the slot.
“Whatever you’re thinking, old man. Stop,” she said, looking up to make eye contact. “It won’t end well for you.”
“I’m not worried about that,” he said. “It was never going to end well for me. What are you hoping to do with us? You know who we are I guess which means you know how many people are watching…”
“Shut the fuck up,” she said, turning her attention back to threading the zip tie. “What did I say about conversation?”
She finally got it fastened. She left a bit of slack. Indian guy was not a threat and he’d just whine more if she made it too tight.
“Okay, get up. We’re walking,” she said.
The two men struggled awkwardly, and it took a while but eventually, they made it to their feet. She noticed the large rectangular shape in the front pocket of the Indian guy’s tight khakis. Shit, she had almost forgotten about the phones. That would have been bad. She walked over to him, dug her fingers down into his pocket, and scowled at the dark stain as she wriggled the device free. She powered it down, then dropped it on the ground.
“Where’s yours?” she asked the old guy.
“I left it back in the house,” he said.
She walked over to him and patted the pockets of his pants. There were a lot of pockets on those expensive REI technical pants. Satisfied, she stepped back and began to scan the forest floor looking for a rock. She found a good-sized one, picked it up, and returned to where Indian Guy’s device lay face up in the wet leaves. She knelt beside it, raised the rock above her head, and brought it down with enough force to smash the screen. She gave it two more blows for good measure before standing.
“Alright, we’re going this way,” she said, gesturing with the gun back in the direction she had come from. “You, old guy. Take the lead. Move it.”
As she moved to follow her hostages, she nearly fell, her boot slipping on the scatter of walnuts that littered the ground. Flailing to steady herself, the gun almost flew from her hands. She cursed, straightened up, and retrained the pistol on the Indian guy’s back. In her distracted state, she never saw the knapsack that lay partially buried beneath a layer of orange and gold leaves.
“Let’s go!” she hissed.
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Who’s Who in Harmony House?
Having trouble keeping track of who’s who from one week to the next? It’s tough when you only get to visit once a week. I made a little cheat sheet just for you:
Yea! I’m glad you’re on your toes. I should note that credit goes to you for the terrorists having codenames based on birds. I started writing this chapter a few months back when I was first introduced to your work. 🦉
Didn't see THAT coming! Imma gonna need you to release the next chapter now... Thanks!