Shift

By David Reynolds

When twenty-year-old Sandy Carpenter agrees to baby sit Cassie Johnson, she has no clue that Cassie has a peculiar talent. In fact, Cassie's own family is unaware what she can do. Over the following months, Sandy enjoys five-year-old Cassie's quirkiness and grows to love the enigmatic prodigy.
Reading together in Sandy's cozy Ventura living room, an unexpected warm breeze brings forth a feast of scents although no doors or windows are open. Cassie appears to be in some sort of “state” until Sandy snaps her out of it. Cassie exclaims that a handsome winged angel in a toga told her that something big is about to happen.

That Friday, Sandy and Cassie are able to have a sleepover and give the Johnsons a night out. Thunder and pouring rain awakens them to a dark house. The power is out and the radio will only emit a hiss of static. Although well into morning, there is not even the faintest gray of sunlight. There is only the occasional punctuation of lightning.

Hungry, they decide to venture out in hopes of breakfast and to assure the Johnsons that Cassie is okay. Sandy finds the car will not start. Meanwhile, strange sounds outside the garage door draw Sandy closer. Someone or something begins banging on the roll-up door with enough force to severely dent it. Sandy leaves nothing to chance and pushes the car against the door to prevent its opening. With Cassie embedded as deeply into an overstuffed chair as possible, Sandy paces, heart thudding, realizing they are not safe in her home. Why doesn't whoever is out there just come crashing through the picture window? Is he simply toying with them? She must protect Cassie at all cost.

Sandy remembers that her beloved Danny, now lost to her in this life, was Mr. Super Prepper and had prepared an emergency drum in the garage. Flashlight in hand, Sandy makes three trips and now has a backpack and gear. Prepared and resolute, Sandy takes Cassie in hand and sloshes through freezing rain for the local Sheriff's Annex a few short blocks away.
An otherworldly, shadowy attacker manages to separate Sandy and Cassie. Lost in the dark and pouring rain, all Sandy can do is pray that Cassie can run fast enough to evade capture, or worse. Frantic and choking back sobs, Sandy is nearly paralyzed with the thought that the choices she must now make could mean Cassie's life.

Meanwhile, outside their their bubble of alternate reality, the military, physicists and engineers puzzle ways to bring the survivors back, even as politicians work to cover the mess up...for good!

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Reynolds
• Release date: Apr 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458094506

David Reynolds

my Smashwords interview details some of my personal history, and the memoirs details even more. Best way to know more about me is to read the memoirs.At present 2024 I am still involved with Foxfield heritage railway museum. I am also busy upon a number of ancestry projects for friends or clients ( [e-mail] ) if you wish to contact. 2nd memoirs installment, out very soon Latest novel , Right place wrong time, 2nd part of eden to armageddon trilogy recently published. final part in trilogy already written, but needs polish and formatting. Busy compiling yet another reality & beyond anniversary magazine. Took on slot as cosmic commentator writing stories and articles for Star Trek universe. This has now evolved into full editorial position for U.K. based Star Trek / Star Wars/ Dr. Who monthly mag. Also producing articles for the hub pages. The rest of the time I was continuing with regular occupation ( international coach driver )

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Castillo walked around the vast lab table and carefully examined every wire, each connection, all the coolant tubing and optical fibers. He was thrilled to have rounded out the work of all the researchers who had gone before and failed. His notes had confirmed and reconfirmed all the computer’s algorithms. No matter how he crunched the numbers, the simulations told him he had it right.

Though the project was the financed property of Pravus, this remained, and always would remain, his baby. The big projects, like the one up in Alaska, utilized massive arrays to tweak weather patterns. Castillo’s twist focused electromagnetism in a new way to accomplish the same thing with surgical precision.

Only here. Only at the secretive facilities hidden in the hills outside Camarillo could this even be possible, as far as he knew anyway. He could well remember the first time he was flown in. The facility was so choked with trees that, from his perch in the corporate helicopter, he had no idea how far-reaching were the grounds. From above he could see the occasional rooftop and connecting sidewalks. This could be your run-of-the-mill business park. However, as the helo descended, Castillo could see the workmanship of the buildings, that the architectural design was anything but your prefab business park construction.

Money. Funny that such a word was the first to pop into his mind as the skids of the helo touched the pad. But that is what he saw everywhere he looked. This was not leased property. This was private and very well-funded. Castillo had come up on meager University funding. This... for a scientist, this was like winning the lottery.

The vast grounds had excited him as much as the expansiveness of the buildings. A young lady, what was her name again? Terry? No, Kerry! That was it! Kerry met him at the pad and escorted him to the Admin Building. Building One. There he'd been fingerprinted, photographed, tagged and released once again into Kerry care. She escorted Castillo to a golf cart to the edge of the grounds, toward the east end of the campus. There she stopped at a modest, single story building that looked more carpenter shop than anything.

He had been, frankly, disappointed. Maybe even a little depressed. Castillo chuckled to himself at the memory. As Kerry escorted him inside, he had no idea at the time that he was about to set his eyes upon one of the most secure private facilities on the entire planet, so far as he knew. An armed guard was inside at an unassuming desk, suitable for a school teacher. On his desk, a notebook computer and little else he could recall. Behind the guard a single door with a simple keypad.

When he offered Kerry a questioning look, she answered in a matter-of-fact fashion, We were already bio-scanned as soon as we pulled up. Had we not passed muster, Jim there would not be seated quite so casually behind his desk. Castillo was dubious, but followed Kerry to the door where she entered her code and opened the door for him. This is as far as I go. I'm not cleared for the rest. She gave him a sly grin and said, Follow the yellow brick road.

When she closed the door behind him, Castillo found himself alone with three bare walls, plus the one behind with the door. Then, movement. Why an elevator should be so large...he assumed to move large equipment. Only the door was by no means large enough. Later he learned the door and its wall had been added after completed construction. Down, down the room took him. Castillo was certain he stood in the slowest elevator in existence. No, idiot. He corrected himself. Not slow. Far!

Castillo felt the familiar sensation of increased weight. He'd arrived. Or slowed. Then the back wall, all of it, swung open like some massive vault door. Amazing! He stepped through and could only shake his head at the door's incredible mass. Two feet thick? At least. Maybe a little more. Men and women milled to and fro, taking little notice of him. As if such an entrance were commonplace. The enormous room was warehouse large with several doors on each wall. It looked to him like a warehouse for a space shuttle. Before he moved on, he just had to watch while the massive door clunked shut. He could not fathom what such a thing must weigh. To keep people out, or keep something in!?

When he shook the question out of his head, he turned to see several squares of the floor before him were lighted in an offset pattern; left, diagonal right, diagonal left... and lit from beneath, yellow. The floor was one of those gridded, raised ones that likely had all kinds of wiring and cable dropped beneath. He took a step and the pattern adjusted before him several steps. Castillo recalled having laughed out loud. Someone must have been inspired by that old Michael Jackson video. He remembered thinking, So this is what happens when you give a bunch of nerds unlimited funding.

And now, so much later, to realize the dream... To have the funds to dabble and create something so significant-so important. Something this huge will change the world. Castillo just hoped his baby would never become militarized. There had already been one Department of Energy clown nosing around. That’s what happens when you file the wrong papers at the wrong time. Those government types were like military recruiters. They could make a tour in Afghanistan sound like a vacation in Maui.

He had spent hours arguing with the board of directors about the error of looking for supplemental funding from military sources. Those guys had a one track mind. One agenda.

Enough with the negative thinking. Castillo wanted to feed the world. Change the deserts into farmlands. He wanted to bask in the moment. Yes, his baby was all spread out on the table now, but the components would button up just fine in a smaller container.

Time to throw the switch.

Castillo was no fool. No-sir-ee. This initial test had a load disconnect that would fry in a nano-second. Just long enough to get the reading he wanted for his final report. Jonas had proposed using a scalar energy source at one time, but Castillo strongly cautioned about the dangers. Scalar tended to be nearly one-hundred percent self-perpetuating and could be disastrous without proper safeguards.

This one test would be powered by a simple marine battery sufficient to garner a pulse reading. Lots of data would flow from that.

Castillo walked to the battery and connected the posts. The switch was around the table, to the right. He compelled his feet to move. His knees felt weak. He actually might have a chance at the Nobel. Carla would be able to have her dream home. Daniella can get her braces.

Now, standing before the switch, his hand trembled. He could hear the rhythmic thud of his heart. Wouldn’t that be ironic; to die of a heart attack at the pinnacle of his life’s work? Castillo smiled, and threw the switch.

*

Within an area of about a football field, those within this Pravus building felt, rather than heard, a whump! Scientists, executives, janitors and Administrative Assistants paused in their tracks to flex their jaws and pop their ears. Some shared confused stares and Mailroom Supervisor Helen Cooper asked if someone had slammed a door.

About two hours later, a lab tech would punch the keypad outside Castillo’s lab and open the door to a chaotic mix of papers, blood and debris pulled to a point four feet in front of Castillo’s experiment. More accurately, the debris merged on the floor before the machine’s focal point.

Strange enough, though everything had been tugged with extreme force to that center, any object within about a five-foot circumference was sliced cleanly away. The sudden voidance resulted in a violent influx of anything not bolted down, including most of Castillo. Most.

The tech, distracted by the debris and gore, never noticed the visitor in the room – the one in the corner, in the shadows. The man himself was but a shadow, an apparition, a phantom in the day - his subtle motion akin to a tree’s shadow. The tech surveyed the walls and saw only the shadow, not a curious specter pulled through a minuscule keyhole punched through a door to another place.

*

Cassie Johnson was on the monkey bars when a policeman and police lady met the Principal on the sidewalk. They talked for a while and the Principal looked very upset and pointed at the kids in the big playground. Cassie couldn’t tell which kid they were looking at. Probably just another big kid that stole something or ate some drugs.

Cassie was surprised when a few minutes later the police were walking back to their car with her neighbor from across the street, Daniella Castillo. She looked worried too and the police lady just seemed like she was sad and not mad. Daniella was cool and never got in trouble before. Cassie would find out after school. Right after her mom picked her up from Miss Sandy’s.

*

Weeks later, Sandy Carpenter sat reading in her rocker next to little Cassie when a sweet fragrance in the air tickled at her nose. She put down the book with a frown. With the windows closed, she knew the scent couldn’t be the flowers outside.

She looked around for the source when she turned to Cassie, with the notion she might confirm her senses, but her question died in her throat. Cassie stared, transfixed on the space before her. Sandy looked but could see nothing out of the ordinary. She watched Cassie for a few seconds to see if perhaps Cassie was lost in a contemplative moment over her latest novel.

Sandy didn’t yet cultivate concern. Cassie and strangeness ran together much as tea and sugar. Sandy had never observed inappropriate behavior in all the months she sat five-year-old Cassie for the Johnsons. To the contrary, Cassie was very polite and well behaved. She did detect a reserved and guarded demeanor, as if Cassie harbored a terrible secret.

However, beyond a touch of the precocious expected with any exceptional child, little Cassie remained a model citizen. Sandy associated Cassie's eccentricities as part and parcel of the exceptionally bright.

She sat forward, watching Cassie breathe in rapid shallow breaths. Cassie’s current book of choice, Great Expectations by Dickens, summoned forth no frightening memories for Sandy that should agitate Cassie into some state. Although, Sandy had to admit to herself the number of years since she read the classic in her High School’s Great Books class. She did recall the escaped convicts and the old lady in the fire. Maybe that was it.

She couldn’t believe this little prodigy could wade through the sometime tedious and archaic language, let alone enjoy the classic. Sandy could clearly see that something beyond her own awareness held Cassie transfixed, not frightened.

CJ? Sandy probed. When Cassie didn’t respond, she grew alarmed. She called out again but Cassie didn’t seem to hear. The displaced smells persisted and now Sandy noticed a faint breeze in the room reminiscent of a warm, late morning in the tropics. She held her hand up to feel the breeze but could discern no specific source. No windows were open this cool October afternoon and no fireplace with open flue graced Sandy’s home.

Cassie's odd non-response, the scents and the breeze from nowhere made Sandy's heart race, although little Cassie appeared serene. Sandy didn’t want to over-react, but she was on the edge of panic.

She determined that the source of the breeze was from the general direction where Cassie fixed her gaze. Where she stared was nothing extraordinary that Sandy could see. Light entered from the picture window and from the window on the front door. There was a large mirror over a modest console table on the wall. To either side of the mirror were two Impressionist pieces by a local artist, framed and matted at Aaron Brothers. A small fern flourished on the table. Aside from this, nothing else was in the room that Sandy could detect but fragrant, warm air, stirred from a place beyond her ken.

She inhaled the scents and could smell the distinct aromas of baked cookies, something floral, a fresh desert breeze, pine trees, smoky incense, and her dad’s favorite cologne. Then she readjusted her perception when she realized she not so much detected a mix of those scents, but rather they arrived within her olfactory system in separate and distinct streams of delight. It was as if they each entered her home via their own private doorway or window.

Her memory ran through a variety of diagnoses from insanity to phantom odors brought on by brain tumor. If not for little Cassie’s odd behavior, Sandy might conclude her sensory overload was strictly psychological.

Now panicked, Sandy jumped to her feet to with the intention of doing whatever came to mind first to snap Cassie out of wherever she had gone.

"CJ... Cassie!" she shouted.

Sandy stood and she noticed the space before Cassie shimmered. The effect was oh so subtle, as if an oval of cellophane stretched before Cassie. Sandy walked to the shimmer, saw that the shape seemed to adjust itself depending upon her position, and appeared to reach back into the wall.

She noticed Cassie’s faint smile and subtle nod. Cassie gripped Great Expectations close to her chest. Sandy pulled Cassie out of her chair and hurried with her to the far wall, as far from the anomaly as she could manage before she set her down. She knelt before Cassie, took her shoulders in her hands to make eye contact, but Cassie stared right through her. The gentle breeze whispered at Sandy's neck and tickled the small hairs at the nape. Spooked, she spun on her knees yet still saw nothing. No hand reached through the ripple. No dragons or shadows passed through.

She hurried to the window and tipped her head as far as the glass would allow, but all was as should be. She didn’t know what she might see. She expected nothing, but expected to see something that would explain the odd shimmer that so riveted Cassie in state.

She looked beyond her immediate surroundings and out across the street but saw no ogling neighbors pointing at her house with their mouths agape. She saw no dragon breathing a hot flame against her wall to create a heat distortion in the air in front of Cassie. Nor did she see a witch doctor or a leprechaun doing a jig.

In the maybe two seconds Sandy took to make this determination, the one thing to catch her eye was the odd displacement of shadow in the tree line across the street and up. Two shadows more distinct than the rest, shaped like men.

She didn’t give this too much deliberation as shadows can play tricks on the eye, in particular where odd shaped trees and shrubs come into play. Sandy considered the alignment of the sun that should have obliterated shadows where she saw them. Next, I’ll be seeing faerie shapes in the clouds.

However, this would not explain the delicate ripple in the air before Cassie. Something inconsistent in makeup of the shadows made her heart skip a beat. The vital, yet inexplicable, suggestion of Cassie in danger gripped Sandy.

When she turned again to look at Cassie, her little CJ grinned back at her. Sandy hurried to her with arms outstretched.

CJ, what…?

Cassie threw her arms around Sandy’s neck. Wow! He’s handsome. I think you should marry him!

Sandy pulled her away and looked at her.

CJ, what are you talking about? What just happened?

Cassie gave her a puzzled look.

That man! Didn’t you see? He said he came to tell me something important I’m supposed to do.

Sandy tried to wrap her mind around Cassie’s pronouncement when Cassie added, Something really huge is happening.

CHAPTER TWO

Sandy’s hand shook a little when she pulled the carafe from the coffee maker. Cassie sat at the small dining table in the kitchen. Maybe you shouldn’t drink any more. Maybe you had enough, she suggested.

I haven’t had even one sip yet. What’s a five-year-old know about coffee anyway? Sandy reached for the sugar then thought better of it. Cassie’s advice was sound enough, but Sandy wasn’t about to go for a more calming adult beverage while babysitting. Coffee would have to suffice as a comfort drink.

The sort of banter Sandy and Cassie engaged in frequently was grounding. The playful dialog provided an anchoring retreat. Humor was their common refuge in time of trouble. From the time they first met, Sandy and Cassie sensed the troubledness in one another, if there is such a word. Sandy didn’t know whether Cassie heard talk of the loss of Danny. She probably had. Sandy could tell a secret hid behind those wise eyes and she was concerned of the implications of Cassie's guardedness. So to lighten the mood, the two would parry with humor as their weapon of choice, not so much against each other, as together, against the ever-present oppressive enemy. They never named their common enemy. To name the enemy was to conjure it. To conjure it would be to face fears they were reluctant to battle.

So the girls, vastly different in age, dodged their fears with the weapon of wit.

Mom says coffee makes her nervous as a little Chihuahua. Daddy says if you drink too much coffee it’ll turn your knees black.

Sandy turned her legs out from under the table and tugged her skirt just above her knees. Look at my knees. Do they look black to you?

He also says coffee will stunt your growth.

"That’s smoking."

Cassie crossed her small arms and squinted at Sandy with suspicion. Are you sure?

Positive, affirmed Sandy.

Good thing my Grandpa smokes then because he’s six-foot-four.

You are absolutely right. He would’ve been huge.

Titanic! Like, he would have to have a special door just to get in the house.

Or even a special house.

Yeah, and his bed would be hu-normous!

Is there such a word?

Why not? Maybe there should be.

Sandy smiled, Why not.

Sandy always wanted a little girl of her own. Now, with Danny gone, she at the far end of her twenties, her optimism that a child was in her future waned. True, women in their thirties bore children on a regular basis these days, though such births fell under the classification of High Risk. First, Sandy would have to meet the right man. She refused to consider a clinical solution. This idea struck her as too impersonal. Sandy joked to her sister she considered the idea vile. Her sister didn’t get the joke.

Sandy wasn’t optimistic she would ever again meet the right man. She already met Mr. Right, dated him and married him. Then Sandy's bright future went from sunshine and roses to black hell with Danny's premature death.

Sandy lived in a free-fall of denial as a widow of less than two years. She would not permit herself to consider considering anything else. The pain and anger flowed without restraint in her veins approximating a sensation of barbed wire and ground glass.

Well-meaning friends often challenged Sandy. How long would she give herself over to grief? What amount of time should pass before it was time to move on. This much insufferable phrase she hated beyond any other sentiment. ‘Don't you think it is time to move on, Sandy?’ ‘Sandy, I think it's time you move on.’

The phrase reminded Sandy of all those schlock-y television dramas where there is a tragic accident and the cop urges the crowd to move along. There's nothing to see. ‘Just move on.’

Sandy couldn’t. This remained forever her tragedy. Danny’s memory is her love, her lover, her reason for life as certain as if his death occurred mere days ago. The very idea of moving on away from Danny's memory never failed to raise a lump in her throat. The barbs and glass in her veins threatened to clog her heart.

Sandy knew men in her circle of acquaintances gravitated toward her. Her perspective of herself as a Plain Jane made her question their reasons. She saw herself as the girl next door, minus a couple points. Others insisted she was pretty, but lately, when she looked in the mirror, a specter stared back.

Then Sandy's sister introduced her to the Johnson family and the balm that was Cassie began to work her magic. Cassie – The magic for the tragic. The radiant force for Sandy was a combination of Cassie’s smiles, insights and humor. Cassie Johnson gradually began to fill a need for love in Sandy that otherwise could not be easily satisfied. Adults around Sandy tiptoed. Her grief was eggshells to the grown-ups in her life. Little CJ, on the other hand, steamrolled right over Sandy’s grief and pressed joy from every moment they were together.

Sandy knew she was messed up, perchance even a wimp. Of a certainty, she was a coward. Either way, naïve and innocent little Cassie lodged in. She was in and working her magic and Sandy would stop at nothing to guard this love and protect this peculiar little girl.

After another big gulp of coffee, Sandy put the cup aside and clasped her hands before her on the table. CJ, let’s go back to the beginning. What exactly did you see? Tell me everything and don’t leave out one little detail.

Cassie looked down at the table, uneasy. Sandy reached over, raised her chin, and looked her in the eyes. She saw the haunted eyes of someone very much older than age five, or even ten. The dark circles under her eyes suggested to Sandy that sleep was ephemeral and reserved for someone less aware.

Again, Sandy found herself wondering about home. What was the true story? Did they ridicule her? Tease her? Was Cassie being abused? No way. Ridiculous. Not the Johnsons--any one of them. Then Sandy wondered how often kids were abused right under the noses of those closest to the family.

She had to protect this little girl. Sandy’s imperative was to get at what could so trouble one as sweet as this. She had to know what happened in her living room a few minutes ago. She was already beginning to second-guess her own experience.

The cat’s out of the bag. You know I love you no matter what. No matter how different from other kids you are, no matter what may have happened to you, no matter what you may be going through, no matter even if someone might be hurting you, I will always love you, Cassie Johnson. Understand?

Cassie nodded and made her silly, adorable grin. Sandy absolutely loved the way one side of her face scrunched a little more than the other did when she smiled. One eye would close just a little more than the other.

So ‘fess-up, Sandy prompted.

Cassie scratched her chin so very adult-like. Well… first I was reading. Then I smelled something really good like roses and cooking and camping.

Camping?

Yeah. You know. Happy smells – like fires and food and trees and stuff.

Sandy mulled over their similar olfactory experience. There the similarities end. Sandy wanted to know what Cassie saw that she didn’t. Okay, go on.

I could feel a little bit of warm wind with the nice smells. Then this guy comes in.

Okay, now, here is where you lose me. How did he come in? Did he walk in the front door? Through the wall…?

"I was looking at my book, reading. He just sort of was standing there all of a sudden like. Not through the door or all glittery like Star Trek. I think he was an angel because he had these big wings. Cassie looked off and considered. Or maybe he was a big fairy!"

CJ, focus. What did you really see? Tell me the truth, now.

Her eyes opened wide. Miss Sandy, I promise! He was a big guy, lots of muscles ‘cause he had no sleeves on his shirt-robe thingy. And his wings were huge and he had a nice tan. Oh, and a sword.

"A sword? Sandy exclaimed. Okay, I think we can rule fairies out."

Yeah, what was I thinking? Fairies don’t have tans, she deadpanned.

Right. So what happened next?

Cassie leaned forward and spoke in earnest, reverent tones. He got on one knee right in front of me with a nice smile. He told me, ‘Do not be afraid. Our Lord has chosen you and given you a gift for His purpose. Now is the time of your own great expectation.’ That was pretty much it.

That’s it? Great. Poor little CJ is having a meltdown and delusions. Sandy went through her mental Rolodex and tried to recall any mental health professionals she knew.

Well, he showed me scary pictures in my head and said something like, ‘Our Lord will reveal who to gather. He will show you the way you should go.’

Sandy sat back, speechless. She shook her head in confusion. This couldn’t be real. Yet what were the options? An elaborate hoax? A deception of some kind? Who would do that how and why?

People don’t simply imagine things outside their world of experience or ability to know. A five-year-old won’t hallucinate with vocabulary beyond her years, even if she does know how to read and comprehend the words. A child may say, ‘God said for me to tell you to fix me a banana split.’ Or maybe, ‘God said you must buy me a new bike and tickets to the Wiggles On Ice show.’

Instead, what Cassie told Sandy was what an adult say -- maybe something a self-absorbed or nut case adult might say, but an adult nut. Then it occurred to Sandy that this is precisely why God would pick a child. For who would believe such imaginings could come from a child.

Therefore, what she spoke was as truthful as any recitation given a child by an adult, like teaching them to recite their address and phone number.

However, this whole notion that God stepped in and sent an angelic messenger, Sandy found surreal. Her husband attended church and she went