Reality Shift

By R. A. Carter-Squire

Reality Shift is the story of six ordinary people who fight against the seemingly impossible. Monsters who live near there town have awakened and are looking for food. Ray, his girlfriend and his childhood friend join forces with several other towns people to battle against the shape shifters who have lived in the area for nearly two hundred years. The problem is those creatures can control minds and the difference between reality and imagination is very slim. Are you awak or are you dreaming? When you can't tell the difference, then you are in a reality shift.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R. A. Carter-Squire
• Release date: Mar 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301668199

R. A. Carter-Squire

Married with children. My wife and I live in Manitoba, Canada. Writing has become my passion because the words can make pictures that others have never seen.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Abner Ames is sitting in a wicker rocker on the front veranda of his house. The heat is baking the dirt front yard with the odd blade of green grass and a few struggling weeds poking through. His big German shepherd is lying out in the sun and Abner grins at the sight and shakes his head. The old dog has always lain in the sun even on the hottest days. Cicadas are making their high pitched fingernails on the blackboard noise and a hawk soaring in the sky screams it’s frustration at not finding anything to eat. It’s hotter than normal for the end of May.

Abner stares out at the county road, about a quarter mile away, at the end of his dusty driveway. Heat haze makes it difficult to see shapes clearly, but he’s been looking at that particular patch of landscape for nearly sixty eight years. At seventy years of age, well his birthday is tomorrow, there has been little change in the property. The three sections of land belonged to his family as far back as anyone knew, but when he leaves the planet, there will be nobody taking on the chores. His wife Myrtle passed away nearly twenty years before and they had no children. After several years of grief, he couldn’t see the sense in finding another woman.

So here he is, the last of his name, but he feels no regrets. It has been a good life, and until a few years ago, it was a profitable farm. Beans, sorghum and a few hundred acres of barley made up most of the crop income, but now the land was worn out; not worth putting a plough into anymore. He also kept forty head of Black Angus beef cattle on pastures on the rest of his land.

Movement in the distant haze draws his mind back to the here and now. He squints, trying to make the image clearer, but it doesn’t work. Something is moving along the county road; it appears to be walking upright, could be a person, but it’s hard to tell. He watches for another minute, and then the thing disappears among a line of wind-break trees on the far side of the road, as a grain truck rumbles closer from the west.

Gravel dust kicked up behind the truck, is gently moved toward his house by some sort of breeze that he can’t feel, but the dust never makes it all the way to the veranda. The thing near the road never appears again so he goes inside for something to drink. He pauses at the door with his hand on the knob looking out at the dog in the yard. Duke is his name, moves an ear toward the road listening to the truck pass, and opens his eyes to see where the man is going, but otherwise lays still. A grin creeps over Abner’s face again as he opens the door into the dark living room. It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but he doesn’t hesitate having lived in the house for so long and not being the sort of person to make changes often. His vision clears before he makes it to the brighter lit kitchen, and he opens the door of the refrigerator, an old green Kelvinator with a pull down latch handle.

The light comes on inside as the door swings open revealing the meager contents inside. A half-eaten loaf of bread on one shelf, a jar of pickles, the usual condiments and a dozen bottles of Bud standing like brown soldiers waiting for action. He grabs the closest one twisting off the cap and kicking the door closed, as he tosses the cap onto the counter. Tilting the bottle up to his lips Abner returns to the front door.

Heat hits him in the face like a blow torch; it’s almost solid. Duke is still in the same place and position in the yard; everything else is the same. He returns to the rocking chair taking another long slug of cold beer. Sweat is already staining his denim shirt.

Movement near the trees, a tired apple orchard at the back of the barn to his right, pulls his attention. He squints, trying to see what’s there, but only the leaves become clearer. He’s beginning to think maybe his mind or the heat is playing tricks on him. Just then, the big dog stirs and looks toward the barn. Duke doesn’t move for anything except food; the old dog hardly moves when someone drives in the yard, so this has to be something important.

He sets the bottle on the peeling floor boards next to the chair, and pushes himself upright. Moving carefully down the steps, his boots clumping on the stairs, he starts toward the barn. Arthritis in his hips and knees makes it painful to move quickly, but he has long since blocked the soreness from his mind. It’s about two hundred yards to the barn; the big doors are closed, but the smaller walk in door is open. His heart beats faster the closer he gets to the building. The tiny voice at the back of his mind whispers that he should have brought the gun. He tries to push the idea out of his mind. Twenty years earlier he’d nearly killed a man on the property with the gun, under much the same circumstances. He hasn’t made the same mistake since then, and isn’t about to start now.

The darkness of the door opening is like a beauty mark on the side of the white barn as he approaches. Standing next to it, he can’t see anything inside. His heart is hammering in his chest as he moves the right leg into the blackness. He stands still waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, but keeps his head swiveling. Duke barks from the yard, but he ignores the sound.

Aromas from the barn come to his nose. Fresh hay and straw, old manure from horses over the years. Exhaust fumes from the various machines stored around the outside walls. He hears the rustling of mice in the hay loft above. His presence has disturbed a few nesting martins, but otherwise there is nothing out of the ordinary.

He has to step to his right to move further into the darkness. Light floods into the gloom now that his body isn’t blocking the doorway. Never mind a gun, he thinks, I should have brought a flash light. The machinery is darker shapes against the outer walls; they look like strange beasts crouching in silence waiting for someone or something to come closer. His heart is pounding in his chest; making it painful to breath. Calm down Abner, there’s nothing to get excited about in here. He hears his words echo through the rafters. Just as he takes a second step forward, a sound comes from the tractor parked to the right; a metal on metal ping like a bolt falling on the fender. The sudden noise nearly makes his heart explode, and he staggers back to the entrance, his hand clawing for the door.

His fingers grip the edge of the door as another sound makes him look back. A dark shape is looming closer growing taller as it comes forward. There are bright-yellow spots about where the eyes should be, and the old man can make out arms and legs, but nothing else. His feet won’t move, and he’s gasping for breath. Looking down, he sees that he’s standing next to an old engine waiting near the door for repair. Lifting his right leg to step over the motor, his mind forces his head to look back again. The yellow eyes are closer now; much too close. His bladder lets loose as claws rake down his chest and back. Blood spurts everywhere, as his mouth opens to scream, but there is no sound. A smile forms on the dark creature’s face just under the yellow eyes, a long row of silver-white teeth appear, and he’s reminded of pictures of sharks.

When do you know that reality is real? When does a dream stop? Is life just a series of dreams?

Ray is thinking these thoughts as he drives along the highway on the way to his next appointment. We could be in suspended animation somewhere and all this could be just my imagination. There was a movie about that a few years back, called... He's been having these thoughts for quite a few weeks, ever since the night he had the accident; the one he walked away from without a scratch. Everyone said he should have been killed. The first cop on the scene couldn't believe he was up walking around and the ambulance attendants treated him for shock, but nothing else.

What if I’m having a dream right now, he says to the windshield. Maybe I’m lying in a hospital bed hooked up to life support, and this is all my imagination.

The semi trailer truck that collided with his car crossed the center line and hit him head on. It pushed the front of his car so far back he had to crawl out of the rear window to escape. The truck driver was killed; his truck cab was crushed when the load of concrete bags slid forward, making it almost disappear. No one should have lived, but here was Ray, alive and kicking.

Everybody says I should have died, this could just be me in heaven. But if this is heaven, then God has a wicked sense of humor.

Ray Jacobs works for a small independent insurance company in Carter, Nebraska. He’s the only salesman the company has in the area; which keeps him on the road most of the time. The long hours, and the miles behind the wheel aren’t a problem. He enjoys meeting people, and tries to treat them as fairly as he can. Most of his clients treat him like family when he calls on them. This two way good feeling and respect makes his job pleasant, but not exciting. He wants the rush of the big city.

I would rather believe that Heaven is filled with all of the people, places and things that I didn’t get here. I should be able to live eternity in comfort and style, in the best place I can imagine.

These things and more are on his mind as he drives out to see Mr. Ames. Abner is one of his best clients, never missing a payment, and he always gives Ray a meal and a beer when he comes to call. As the car turns into the Ames driveway, he notices that the dog isn't lying in the middle of the dirt drive or anywhere else at the front of the house. The old German shepherd was always lying in the road, whenever he's been there before, and Abner mentioned once that the dog only moves for food.

Huh, I wonder if it’s feeding time at the zoo. He glances at his watch; two o’clock the digital display shows him.

He pulls the car next to the house and steps out. It’s a typical two-story farmhouse, painted white with green trim, as are all the other buildings. Standing next to the car, he notices there is no noise, not even a cricket. Shrugging it off as a result of the heat, he walks toward the steps to the veranda, but a vague sense of unease begins to creep into his mind. He can feel sweat begin to trickle down his back. Knocking on the door he waits a minute, and then knocks again yelling,

Abner, Abner are you there? Still, no response but no problem, he thinks, Abner's in the barn and just didn't hear me. He looks down at his shiny wing-tips poking out below his dress-pants and cringes at the thought of tramping around in a barn. Oh well, I can always spend a couple of hours polishing them again, he thinks.

As he approaches the outbuilding, Ray gets a whiff of something disgusting, much worse than manure. The heat is intense; sweat is already darkening his shirt at the arm pits. His pants are clinging to his legs. Grabbing his handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth, it doesn’t keep all the smell out, but it helps. Pushing the door to the barn open, he thinks that maybe Abner should clean the place up a little. The stench and the swarm of flies buzzing out of the barn nearly knock him down. By now, the skin is crawling on the back of his neck, but he peers into the gloom and dust of the barn anyway. He can barely make out a large dark mass in the middle of the barn floor, then his eyes adjust, and the lump shifts and disappears. It didn't run away, it just disappeared. Must be the heat or some kind of after effect of the accident playing tricks on my mind, he thinks. Fresh straw litters the floor with something dark and wet splashed over a large area. He steps further into the barn, and nearly falls face-first into the muck on the floor. His toe has snagged on something that still holds fast to his foot.

Regaining his balance, he looks down at what’s hanging onto his shoe. It is the remains of the dog, half-buried in the straw and trash on the floor. His shoe is wedged into its head. The contents of his stomach rise to the back of his throat as he kicks the skull away without looking again at the mess on the floor.

Part of his mind wants to run back to the car and the other part needs to know more. If the dog is dead, Abner could be lying injured or worse, further inside. Using some clean straw, he wipes the blood and guts off the toe of his shoe.

What the hell's going on here? He says out loud, but barely above a whisper. Abner, where in hell are you? There is still no sound as he stumbles on into the barn, a sense of dread growing within him by the second. A little more cautious now, he grabs a pitchfork to prod the ground in front of him as he moves; his eyes are adjusting to the dim light. He hasn't gone six steps when the fork strikes something under the trash on the floor.

Christ Abner, why don't you clean this place up? Old bugger probably had a heart attack out here. The dog must have been first and the rats did the rest. He uses the fork to rake away the straw covering whatever is on the floor. Empty eye sockets stare up at him from the shredded face of Abner Ames. It’s too much for his stomach, and he loses his breakfast where he stands.

He wipes a sleeve across his mouth as he staggers slips and stumbles trying to run out of the barn. His only thought is to make it to the house. As he steps from the barn into the yard, the house seems to be very small and very far away. Sounds of breathing and his pounding heart crash in his ears driving all other noise away, as he runs from the barn. Suddenly, he’s standing on the front porch using his shoulder to break through the door while barely turning the handle; the living room is as far as he gets before passing out.

CHAPTER TWO

Ray wakes with a moan and a twitch that shoots pain through his head and shoulder. He glances at his watch, and groans even louder, it’s three-fifteen. Struggling to rise with one arm, he manages to stand. The effort makes his head pound even harder, and then his stomach clenches. Standing in the living room, he tries to raise the throbbing arm; the pain is too intense. I must have broken it when I busted through the front door, he thinks. The room is a mess. Chairs overturned, cushions shredded, lamps lying broken on the floor; it looks like someone let a bear into the house. Smashed crockery leads him into the kitchen where he can see that whatever happened is even worse in this room. He’s standing in what he remembers as a small efficient kitchen, but it isn’t now. Everything seems to have exploded out of the cupboards onto the floor. His left hand instinctively reaches for the cell phone in his pants pocket. It isn’t there. He staggers back into the living room looking for the house phone, while clutching his wounded right arm. The buzz of the dial tone from Abner’s land line becomes louder, but he can't tell where it’s coming from.

Searching from one pile of debris to another, finally finding it buried in the torn seat of the big armchair. After a bit of struggle to untangle it from the springs, he gets a clear tone and dials 911.

The switchboard operator comes on the line, 911, what is your name and type of emergency?

My name is Ray Jacobs. I'm out at Abner Ames's place, and I need an ambulance and the police, there's been a murder. Silence on the line, he can’t even hear her breathing as she digests the information, and decides what to do. After all, it isn't every day that a murder happens in Carter.

Finally, she says, Just stay there Mr. Jacobs, and I'll send an officer out right away.

Thanks I'm not going anywhere, but please hurry!

While he’s waiting, he decides to look around the house. Knowing the police will want to check for fingerprints, he makes sure not to touch anything else. He's been in the house maybe a dozen times before, and knows that Abner is a neat housekeeper. The mess in the barn should have been a red flag when he first saw it.

Maybe the old guy went nuts, he says as his eyes move around the room. It’s been a while since his wife died; that could have driven him over the edge. The old man missed her a lot. He remembered one night when Abner said that his wife was the only woman he had ever wanted; trying to replace her would be impossible. They had been together since they met in high school and married as soon as they finished. Abner would always chuckle at this part of the story. Her father damn near blew my head off when he found out we were gettin’ married, he’d say.

As Ray looks around, he notices that only the soft furniture has been damaged. Shredded would be a better description for what was left of the couch and matching chair. The hard chairs and tables are just where he remembers they’ve always been. All the other things in the room have been moved or smashed. It’s as though someone was looking for something. But that doesn’t make sense; there couldn’t be anything of value here, except to Abner?

One of the things he notices is an old photo album lying next to the armchair where he found the phone. He flips open the cover with the toe of his shoe; feeling a momentary guilt for snooping through other peoples’ personal things. Inside the cover is an old brown newspaper clipping that shows a headline about two boys who disappeared in the trees down by the river. Because of the pain in his arm, he has to think hard to picture the trees in relation to the house.

His mind shows the property, as if he’s looking down on it from an airplane. The house sits roughly at the lower corner of one section. Abner’s farm is a thousand acres divided by the county roads; most of it is sown with various grains and other crops. The only trees are scattered around the house, and a small grove of maples and oaks about two miles to the east near the river. The grove is nearly a mile long, and extends a quarter mile on either side of the river. It isn't on Abner's land, but he used to go hunting in there in the fall. The grove is a kind of community property. State land as far as anyone knows; otherwise there are no more trees for about a hundred miles in any direction.

The clipping tells about a couple of Iowa boys who went hunting in the trees next to the river, and were never seen or heard from again. Abner never believed the story. He said that if they got lost in there, they deserved to die, because you only had to walk in either direction for about ten minutes, and you were out. Whenever he told the story, he would always end by shaking his head and say, No, they probably run away to California or ‘sumpin' and didn't think it necessary to call their folks. It was the haunted look on his face when he told the story that said he knew otherwise.

Through the years, there were several other disappearances associated with the woods along the river. Family pets, horses, cows, and a couple of school kids from town had been lost in them all day. The animals most folks didn't miss very long, but there was a real ruckus raised about the kids. After they were found, the parents and a few other towns’ folk called for the trees to be cut down, but no one did.

Ray quickly remembers that day, and sags onto a nearby chair as his mind drifts back in time. He was one of those boys, along with his pal Benny Jackson.

The boys are the same age, as a matter of fact; their mothers were in the clinic at the same time. Born one day apart Ray is the oldest. They only lived two doors away from each other on the same street. Both went to the same school, chased the same girls, and liked the same foods and TV shows. Their bikes were identical and both hated school. They could have been mistaken for twins, except Ray had dark hair and Benny’s was blonde. By the time they were six, the differences in size became very noticeable. Ray is a head taller and much thinner. Benny weighs almost fifty pounds more than Ray, but neither cares, they only know they will be life-long friends.

On the fateful Saturday, the boys got up early. A few days before, they had made plans to pack a lunch and go explore the woods down by the river. Since neither boy has sisters or brothers to bother them, they only have to sneak past their respective parents. It won’t be particularly difficult since both families generally sleep late on the weekends. The two ten year olds are considered dependable and independent by their parents. They plan to return before supper time.

As dawn comes that day, the boys meet on the corner next to Benny's house. They both ride their bikes with a knap sack slung on their backs; they’re fairly bursting with thoughts of the adventure that lies ahead. Their journey out of town takes them up Silver Birch Lane towards Main Street. At Maple Ridge Road they turn right, and head north out of town. There’s a jog in the road called ‘the Correction Line’ where they stop for a drink, a rest, and a pee before continuing up Smithfield Road. Nothing else larger than a fence post can be seen around them for miles in all directions, except those trees.

Once they pass the town limits, they notice a few dead animals on the side of the road. It isn't unusual; they’ve seen death before except that all the animals seem to have been killed the same way. The boys turn quiet, each absorbed in the day, and trying to picture what killed the animals.

The pavement ends even with the trees, and they walk their bikes through the ditch and lean them against the wire fence. They look across the open field at the grove about half a mile away, wishing they could ride closer. Dry grass crunches under their feet as they talk about the buried treasure they’re going to find next to the river. They laugh and joke about playing cowboys and Indians, even though they haven't brought their cap guns.

Drawing closer to the woods, they notice more dead animals and birds. Some are old; just the bones lying on the ground, others seem very new, maybe hours old. None of them are large, mostly birds and gophers, but the fresh ones are all shredded. It doesn't bother the boys as much as raise their curiosity.

Maybe it was a mountain lion! Benny says in an awed voice.

Naw, it had to be an eagle or something with sharp claws, look at how they’re all ripped apart. Besides, I think a mountain lion would eat the whole thing. The boys just know they have to find out what is doing the killing.

Maybe it's some escaped convict that's killing the animals! Benny says. They just finished reading Tom Sawyer.

And maybe he doesn't want to give himself away by lighting a fire, so he eats them raw. Ray adds excitedly.

Ugh, gross! Benny howls, How could anyone eat animals raw?

It’s about this time that the silence around them becomes deafening. All they hear is the crunching of their boots as they walk through the grass. Stopping, they listen but hear absolutely nothing close by. There are distant sounds from town, and a low rumble from the Highway, four miles further north, a hawk screams as it circles high in the air. No other bird sounds, no crickets, and nothing from the trees. It only adds to the sense of adventure as they look at each other, smile and move on toward the woods.

As the boys push through the thick brush on the fringe of the grove, they are enveloped in a thick gloom. It isn’t a fog and it isn’t darkness, they can see what’s around them, but not very far ahead. The brush thins rapidly until they are standing in a small clearing, surrounded by tall old maple trees and oaks. Gnarled branches of the trees scrape against each other in the breeze, making an eerie tapping sound like an old man's cane on a wooden floor.

The boys stand together looking up while slowly turning around. They stare at each other with their mouths hanging open.

Shou...Should we leave now, stammers Benny.

Nah, it’ll be fine! We’re here now so lets' look around for a while first. Ray says with a confidence he isn’t feeling. They move further into the woods trying not to show their fear, but staying really close together for comfort. The only stop they make is to dig flashlights out of their packs.

The boys walk in the gloom for about ten minutes, by Benny's watch. As they climb over a fallen log, they hear a rustling noise behind them. Both boys jump and turn to see what made the sound. Nothing, there is just the semi darkness of the woods they left behind. With a sigh of relief, they continue on. One or the other is always looking over a shoulder, just in case, as they walk. The trees seem to be conspiring and whispering, Death, Death, Death, then leaning together to block out the light. Because the stand of trees is so old and thick, there is virtually no breeze where the boys are walking.

Benny looks down at his watch. Hey, Ray! What time did I say it was when we came in here? Ray looks at him, puzzled.

You said it was 10:15, why? Benny's eyes grow as big as a Frisbee and he says,

My watch still says 10:15.

Did you wind it this morning?

"No it's one of those new self-winding

Reviews for Reality Shift

[sheiladeeth_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slow and scary, Rick Carter-Squire’s Reality Shift reads like a cross between horror homegrown around the haunted campfire and a teen movie where watchers shriek “Don’t go there,” and “Try the hardware store.” Past abuses have molded its protagonists more than modern science, and the details don’t always ring consistently or logical. But the plot is cleverly intriguing and definitely scary. Character-study backstories offer depth of feeling and emotion, encouraging readers to relate; and the spoken-word mixed-tense feel of the writing offers a certain immediacy too, at least to readers familiar with the culture and style. The story’s filled with horrors, twists and turns, and that last-stand-in-a-last-ditch-townscape feel of small-world, big-monster horror fiction. But, “It’s quiet, too quiet,” thinks Faith as a final battle looms, the past replaying itself and a truly surprising truth slowly revealing its face. The ending’s great, and I just wished the story had moved faster to unfold its mystery.Disclosure: I received a free ecopy of this novel during a blog tour and I promised my honest review.