Harbinger

Charles Jordan, a Vietnam vet and retired literature professor, goes fishing on Thanksgiving, but doesn't return home. Sandy Morone is on the case, not her first in recent weeks. Same scenario. A senior missing, no signs of foul play, no evidence. When Jordan's wife also goes missing, Morone discovers a message when the Jordan's bathroom mirror fogs over. The words drizzle out of the steam, "Don’t worry." Sandy and her partner Detective Rudy Sanchez question Freddy Marin, who supplies the police with tapes of nearly all the missing people. He knows where they've gone: they've been abducted by aliens for experiments. When he labels the missing as "Time Wasters" who travel back to a pre-abduction time, he's quickly dismissed as a suspect. With Sandy already spending too much time on the job to suit inventor/husband and stay-at-home dad, Tommy, she can't let go of this or any of the cases. In her own mirror, she even thinks she sees Jordan's wife, Marie. Is she going nuts? Could be. She employs one of Tommy inventions, a sound/vibration detector, and with the help of her 7 year old son, trains it on her Queen Anne cheval mirror... just as Tommy walks in, only to make light of Sandy's mirror antics. No leads. More seniors go missing. Even her dreams are now haunted by Freddy’s alien-abduction scenario. When it seems she’s drained, she reaches out to a message in her own mirror: “Wel-come”... and Sandy Morone disappears into her own mirror, while Tommy watches aghast. Where once he poked fun, Tommy now employs his own invention, asking himself all the while, "Am I going crazy?" Sandy enters a parallel world where life is in harmony. This is the outpost of hope for the future. But she hears the grim news from sector leader Will: the old world is on its last legs. This new one will take over. The seniors, all lonely, forgotten or unforgiven, will lead the way into a new beginning, as their youthful vigor returns. With Sandy now missing, Tommy becomes a suspect. Things at home get dicey. The kids want the mirrors taken out of their rooms. Tommy's own father tells him to stop the mirror bullshit and lay it on the line. In the parallel world, Sandy chooses life with her family, but goes back with the knowledge that all around her are living on borrowed time. When she returns, it is to the point just before she had left. She is, in effect, one of Freddy's "time wasters", minus the aliens... and she lets him know it. Back in the old world, Sandy is just one person, but she also becomes a harbinger of change.