The Harvester

Sean A. Murtaugh

Copyright © 2014 Sean A. Murtaugh

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2014

ISBN 978-1-62838-840-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-62838-841-1 (digital)

ISBN 978-1-62838-842-8 (hardcover)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

I dedicate this novel to my family, especially to my mother, the strongest person I know and who always believed in my dreams. And to my father who told me to never give up on them.

M
y name is Harvey. At least, that’s my real name.

I’ve had a lot of nicknames over the years, most of ’em derogatory. My official job title: Harvester Agent number 2748. My job description: to keep the balance of the Here and the After equal and to capture and extradite the ones who have slipped through the cracks of this world and the After and refuse to stay dead. Well, they’re already dead, but they refuse to stay in the After—either Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory—and want to stay in this world, the Here.

Some of ’em look like any other person, and some are very tricky. But I’ve been successfully employed in this career for over nine hundred years now for a reason. I know how to sniff out the bastards.

I quietly walk further into a very old cemetery at two or so in the morning. My Harvester uniform is quite unconventional. I’m clad in a white button-up dress shirt, black trench coat, black Harley-Davidson style boots with razor-sharp spurs, white dress slacks, and tight black leather gloves. A certain odor floats by me and I stop in my place and deeply inhale through my nostrils. Suddenly, I see him step out from behind a moderately-sized mausoleum.

He’s the very definition, the personification of being a punker mixed with the cliché-gothic type. He wears black leather pants, a torn rocker-style T-shirt, skateboarder-style shoes, with spiked hair and lots of gel in it. He also wears a spiked neck collar, a red jacket and sports a bit of eye shadow, and is my age, thirty-two. His name is Vega. He sprints toward me, jumps onto a tombstone, and flips into the air at me like a gymnast. I’m quicker than that, and I snatch him out of midair and toss him to the patchy grass. He rolls a few feet, hops up, and pulls out two daggers from under his jacket and stares at me with his piercing yellow eyes. Vega smirks at me and I realize he has sharp fangs like an animal of the twisted sort.

“Nice teeth, Vega. I see you’ve been experimenting on yourself.”

Vega shrugs his shoulders with a boyish grin, to be sarcastic, of course.

“Genetics. The possibilities are endless.” Vega squints and observes me more closely. “No weapons, Harvester? This is very unlike you.”

I undrape my trench coat to the right to reveal my one of a kind, priceless katana, a Japanese sword fastened to my backside. It was a gift from an old Japanese friend.

Vega releases a quick chuckle. “You need to learn to contemporize, old friend. You’re still living in the primitive days.”

I’m anxious to bring Vega in to be tried and convicted by the six Heads for his multitude of crimes, so I begin to pace. I can’t help but pace. “They were primitive days when I first began hunting you. Using this body to hide, then that body. First, you’re in Spain during the Inquisition, then France with Napoleon. Colombia was fun. Pablo Escobar? Really? Very tricky.”

Vega scoffs with an attitude. “Tricky? No. Absolutely fun.”

“Well, the fun ends here. Under Article XIII of the Agency, I’m taking you in.”

Vega peers around the cemetery. “Kind of fitting, don’t you think? That the end takes place in this old cemetery. The same cemetery we began our partnership so many damn years ago.”

“Stop with the nostalgic memories, Vega. I’m getting goose bumps all over.”

Vega takes a combative stance. “Dispense with the pleasantries? Fine. Let’s do this.”

I’m confident that I can win this battle, but I know Vega is not one to be trifled with. He’s just as old as me and knows plenty about war and combat. And yes, we were partners once upon a time and he knows a lot about me. But even he doesn’t know one crucial part of my history.

O
ver six hundred years ago, for fifty years, I studied one-on-one with the greatest warrior of all time. I know what you’re thinking. What about Napoleon? Hannibal? Alexander the Great? Genghis Khan? Julius Caesar? Yes, they were great warriors too, but they had their own armies.

Who I’m referring to was a ronin, a true samurai without a master, which is the meaning of a ronin. He had no army and battled on his own. Now, to say that, well, makes the others I named no way in his circle of battle. His name was Miyamoto Musashi. Yes, he was Japanese. He dueled over sixty warriors, sometimes outnumbered, and he never lost once. He even battled twelve well-trained warriors at once and killed them all.

His first duel and kill was at the tender age of eleven when he strolled into a village in Kyoto, Japan, and wanted to make a name for himself, which is important for a warrior looking to be employed. So he went to the number one dojo—a house for training martial artists—taught usually by a topnotch sensei, a master teacher in the arts, and challenged him to a duel to the death. At first, the sensei, in front of his students, laughed and tried to usher the young Miyamoto away. But Miyamoto slapped his hand off his shoulder, slapped the sensei’s face, and called him a coward. To not lose credibility, which a sensei treasures, and to just teach the child a lesson, the sensei drew his sword. Miyamoto, thinking this was the sign to begin battle, drew his brilliant sword and, with patience, waited for the sensei to make the first move.

However, he did not.

He yelled at the sensei, “I knew it! You’re a coward, and you bring disgrace to yourself, your students, and your dojo!”

Even at his young age, this was a tactic of his, and I would eventually learn and utilize this numerous times in the future. A crowd gathered. Some made fun of the disgraced sensei and congratulated Miyamoto for his courage. The sensei—enraged, hostile, high-tempered—allowed his emotions to get to him and rushed Miyamoto with his sword raised. Miyamoto, only eleven, mind you, had already learned the ways to make somebody uncomfortable, off balance, and out of their element by playing to their emotions. This, and many more techniques, he learned over five decades of dueling and warring and he never lost a duel in his life .

The sensei—enraged, hostile, humiliated—hastily tried a deathblow on Miyamoto, who easily dodged it and delivered a swipe of his sword across the back of the sensei’s neck.

Everyone was shocked. A well known, well-trained master was struck first by a stranger, a child. He dropped to the ground and died within seconds. All who were watching cheered and saluted Miyamoto, even the sensei’s students. But it was short-lived due to Miyamoto, with zero arrogance, leaving to challenge more talented duelists to gain even more skills, styles, and knowledge in the ways of the warrior.

He was fifty-seven when he chose to train me. I was personally handpicked out of three thousand in the Harvester Agency by he himself. I said what he was capable of at eleven. Can you imagine what he was capable of at fifty-seven? All the things he learned by then. Damn! I felt like the luckiest Harvester Agent, period. It was an honor to simply meet this man, who, at the time, was already a legend in all the civilized world.

There are over a hundred books on this man, movies made about him, and even the book
Art of War
—considered to be one of the greatest, wisest, most intelligent combat books and guide, if you will—took a lot of information from Miyamoto’s books and memoirs.

However, with that said, Vega, my once friend and now nemesis, has been off the radar for over twenty years. I have no idea what he has learned or even mastered in that timeframe. A chance I’m willing to take. This is my job, my life. It’s funny to say “my life” considering I’ve been dead for longer than I can remember. What I’ve learned in my many years is that most have a tendency to run away from confrontations, danger. But people, rare people like Vega and myself, run headlong into it, without a doubt or second thought. We thrive and even enjoy it. I need it. That’s all I’ve known.