"A terrorizing trek through the dream worlds to find her mother and true love."
Reviewed by Kay Quintin
Posted March 26, 2013
Fantasy
Dr. Vivian Maylor, a doctor in the ER at the hospital,
oversees the care of her mother Isobel, who is mentally
unstable. Vivian's life has been filled with vivid dreams
of dragons at her side. From the dreams she awakes with
blisters on her heels from the endless miles traveled in her
dreams. Her life changes when the ER is presented with a 16
year old teen who has appeared to be burned from the inside
out and his flesh literally falling off and telling stories
of a dragon.
Isobel's warnings to Vivian to guard against the
Dreamworld, soon becomes a reality. Learning that Zee
Arbogast, a bookstore owner, paints compelling watercolors
based on his dreams, the ties that bind them are soon
apparent with messages left in his care by her grandfather,
deliverable to Isobel. Thus begins their trek richocheting
between Wakeworld, Between and Dreamworld. Zee has forever
had dreams of Vivian and always loved her. Walking through
doors conjured up in her mind, each world mystifies and
terrifies Vivian and her escort, Poe, the penguin that
magically appeared at the first door she approaches. Flame
shooting dragons, females as bloody sacrifices for the
dragon and searching for a key are obstacles Vivian must
conquer in destroying the Sorcerer to find her lost mother,
as Vivian is the last Dreamshifter.
This tale of dreams and nightmares is filled with fantasy
and very graphic mutilations and terror while traveling
between the three worlds of dream. In these worlds, nothing
is as it seems, which keeps the mind constantly churning to
keep up with what is reality and what is dream. Kerry
Schaefer is very creative with an exceptionally vivid
imagination that stirs the terror in your soul. The story
is sometimes a little difficult to follow but will
definitely keep you on the edge of your seat. If BETWEEN
doesn't grab you with fear-- nothing will!
Learn more about Between
SUMMARY
Vivian Maylor can’t sleep. Maybe it’s because she just broke
up with her boyfriend and moved to a new town, or it could
be the stress of her new job at the hospital. But perhaps
it’s because her dreams have started to bleed through into
her waking hours.
All of her life Vivian has rejected her mother’s insane
ramblings about Dreamworlds for concrete science and fact,
until an emergency room patient ranting about dragons
spontaneously combusts before her eyes—forcing Viv to
consider the idea that her visions of mythical beasts might
be real.
And when a chance encounter leads her to a man she knows
only from her dreams, Vivian finds herself falling into a
world that seems strange and familiar all at once—a world
where the line between dream and reality is hard to
determine, and hard to control…
ExcerptChapter One
Quiet.
The curse word of the emergency room, and Vivian had been
careful not to say it aloud. Still, it wandered through her
head and lodged there.
Too quiet. The waiting room was empty, as were all seven
treatment bays at Krebston Memorial Hospital. Staff puttered
in silence, cleaning and restocking with the watchful air of
coast dwellers preparing for hurricane season.
Knowing the inevitable storm could manifest in any number
of forms, Vivian took the opportunity to slip into the staff
lounge and dial a number on her cell. Eight rings before a
drowsy voice answered.
"How is she?"
"She, who? Who is this?"
"Sorry—this is Vivian Maylor."
Silence.
"Checking in on Isobel."
"Your mother is sleeping."
Vivian suspected the speaker had also been sleeping. At
River Valley Family Home we care for your loved ones every
hour of every day, the brochure claimed. Comforting to
families, but much more likely that the night worker was
settled into a reclining chair with a blanket and a pillow,
just resting her eyes.
"Are you sure?"
"Dr. Maylor." Thinly veiled annoyance now. "It's
one–oh–five A.M. She was in bed and asleep by
eleven."
"Humor me. Check on her. Please."
A heavy sigh. The sound of breathing and feet tapping on
tile.
Vivian fidgeted, sank into a chair, and drummed her
fingers on the table. Sticky. She withdrew her hand and
wiped it on a napkin from the ragged pile next to the box of
stale Walmart doughnuts.
"I'm standing in the bedroom doorway. Your mother is in
bed. Snoring. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
The words offered no relief for the unease itching
beneath the surface of Vivian's skin. So many years of
watching out for Isobel, so many near disasters. It was hard
to delegate all that to a casual stranger. "She took all of
her meds?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure? She sometimes cheeks them. Or stockpiles
them in her drawer for—"
"Dr. Maylor—we are taking good care of her. Isobel
is fine."
"She's breathing, right? Is—"
Click.
Roxie stuck her head through the door before Vivian could
succumb to the temptation to call back. "Hey,
Doc—burned teenager in five—walked in, no
parental units in sight. Weird one—definite screws
loose. All vitals copacetic except he's running a
temp—one–oh–two."
Vivian sighed and pocketed her cell. Roxie cocked her
head on one side, sharp nose twitching like an inquisitive
rodent. "You look wasted. Big party on your night off?"
"Funny. My life is a little tamer than yours."
"So, what then?"
"Not sleeping." Understatement of the year. Over the last
few weeks her dreams, always vivid, had taken on a new
intensity that carried her into waking with a pervading
sense that she had traveled endless miles through a twisting
maze where dragons lurked, an armed warrior at her side.
Today she'd wakened aching with exhaustion and found a
blister on her heel that had no rational explanation. If
this trend continued she'd be joining her mother at River
Valley Family Home.
"Vivian?"
"Sorry." She sagged in exaggerated weariness and held up
her hands. "Too tired to move. Help me up."
"Buck up, Doc, we've got miles to go."
"Don't I know it."
The little nurse gripped her wrists and heaved her to her
feet. "Go see crazy boy in five and then you can sneak a nap."
Vivian followed Roxie out of the lounge, the door falling
shut behind her with a small thud. Max, all three hundred
tattooed pounds of him, sat at the desk paging through an
edition of what looked like Oprah magazine. Shelly, the
tech, intent on texting, didn't bother to look up.
Everything was clean, quiet. Again, Vivian winced as that
word passed through her brain, and involuntarily she reached
up and touched the pendant she wore beneath her clothing, a
dream catcher with a rough stone carving of a penguin woven
into its center.
Her sneakers made sucking noises on the linoleum, all the
way down the hall to bay five—squeak, squeak. She
definitely needed to rethink her footwear. Outside the drawn
curtain she paused, a cold finger of apprehension running
the length of her spine. Dizziness rocked her as reality
collided with dream. She stood still, listening to the rapid
thudding of her own heart, until she was able to pull
herself together, knock, and enter.
Arden Douglas, sixteen, location of parents unknown,
resident of the small town of Krebston. Also a nameless
player in one of Vivian's dreams. This much she remembered,
along with a general sense of cold dread. But the details
floated around the edge of her brain, elusive as mist when
she tried to capture them.
He lay unmoving on the exam table, shirtless and
barefoot, his faded jeans torn and grass stained at both
knees. Chest, right arm, and face were reddened, as if from
a long day at the beach, and beginning to blister. A blood
pressure cuff on his left arm automatically tightened and
released, one hundred over sixty. A little low, nothing to
worry about. Pulse at one hundred. O2 sats good at
ninety–eight percent.
But something was off; there was a subtle wrongness in
the air that set her skin to crawling.
"What happened?" She gloved and masked, then squeaked
over to examine the damage. First–degree burn; a
couple of areas maybe second. It was going to hurt like hell
but should heal up okay. No scars for the kid to worry about.
He spoke through a jaw clenched around pain. "I already
told the nurse. She thinks I'm fucking crazy."
"So tell me again."
Tell me you got too close to a fire—a campfire, a
grease fire, a blowtorch. Got dunked in a cauldron of
boiling water. Something explainable. Not—
"Dragon."
She shivered, but kept her tone light. "A dragon? In
Krebston? Now there's one I haven't heard. Open your mouth.
Say ah."
His brown eyes were opaque, almost black, the pupils
dilated with pain and fear.
"Ahhhh. Like I said. Nobody believes me."
Airway clear, no signs of inflammation or swelling.
"Okay. So you saw a dragon—"
"I'm telling you, it was a dragon. Breathing fire." He
sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the gurney. "You
know, fuck this shit. I'm leaving. You all think I'm
crazy—"
Vivian put a gloved hand on his shoulder, gently pressed
him back. "Look, I'm sorry. It's not a tale you hear every
day. Lie down, and tell me. Please."
He hesitated, his breathing a little too rapid and
shallow. A burn could do that, but she'd seen that look on
other faces; it was the look of a survivor waking up to the
reality that he was still alive, that someone else had not
been so lucky. Her guess was that Arden hadn't been alone,
but there was time yet to ask that question.
"You hurt anywhere else?"
"Shoulder. Thing spiked me." He indicated a smear of
blood in the flesh just below his right clavicle.
"Lie back, let me look."
With a sigh, he complied. She wiped the blood away with a
piece of gauze, revealing a puncture wound the diameter of a
large nail. "When was your last tetanus shot?"
"I don't remember. Man—we knew better than to go
down to the Finger. Stupid—"‘
"We, who?"
He didn't answer. He had begun to shiver. Sweat slicked
his face, his breath rasped in his throat. The oximeter
alarm went off—his oxygen level had dropped to
eighty–five.
When Vivian put her hand to his forehead, his skin burned
through the glove. She frowned. Felt a damned bit hotter
than one–oh–two.
She turned on the oxygen with one hand, pushed the call
button with the other. Roxie popped in. "Get an IV started,
stat. And check his temp again, would you? He's burning up."
"Got it." Roxie skittered off to follow orders, but
before she hit the door Arden gasped, one long indrawing of
breath. His eyes rolled back in his head; his back arched
like a bow and he began to convulse in great wrenching
spasms that threatened to throw him off the table. Vivian
flung her body over him, anchoring him. Heat flowed into
her, uncomfortable even through several layers of clothing.
Roxie yanked the cord from the wall and the emergency
alarm went off.
Max appeared in the doorway, took one look, and headed
for the crash cart.
As suddenly as it began, the seizure stopped. Arden lay
twisted, knees drawn up a little and to the side, head
corkscrewed at an odd angle, eyes wide open and staring. His
mouth gaped, a string of bloody drool festooned over his lip
and down his chin.
The oximeter alarm continued to bleat. He wasn't
breathing—no rise and fall of the chest, no air on her
cheek when Vivian put her face close to his. She checked the
carotid—no pulse.
Shelly stood in the doorway, mouth fallen slightly open,
eyes wide.
"Code," Vivian said through clenched teeth. Shelly ran.
Vivian began chest compressions, aware through her
peripheral vision of Max pulling out equipment and Roxie
prepping an IV. A disembodied voice floated out of the
loudspeaker: "Code blue, ER. Code blue, to the emergency room."
Max slapped pads on the boy's bare chest and hooked up
the EKG. Vivian stopped compressions and they all stared at
the monitor, waiting for some kind of a rhythm.
Flatline.
"Damn it," Vivian ground out. She'd been hoping for
something that could be shocked, a convertible rhythm.
Asystole was ominous. She resumed compressions, the heat
radiating through her hands and body. Sweat trickled down
between her shoulder blades, itching.
"Get some fluids in him."
"I can't find a decent vein," Roxie said. "Going for an
IO line."
The respiratory tech arrived and stepped up beside
Vivian, breathing hard. She knew him slightly, a stocky
Hispanic guy named Tony. Quiet, competent.
"I'll tube him."
Vivian nodded consent, keeping up the chest compressions
while Tony inserted an airway. Shaking the sweat out of her
eyes, she saw Roxie cut off the blue jeans and toss them
aside, then deftly insert an IO line into the right tibia.
"Got it," she said, hooking up a bag.
"Tube in," Tony said. Vivian paused compressions while he
checked placement. Her hands smarted and stung; she turned
her palms up to see that the latex had melted away over her
palms, which were an angry red. This can't be happening,
it's not possible . . .
"Epinephrine, one milligram," Max said, injecting it into
the IO line.
A lab tech trotted in with a tray of supplies.
"You'll have to draw from the line," Vivian said.
She stepped away to grab a new pair of gloves while Tony
hooked up the ambu bag and began squeezing air into the
lungs. He frowned. "Too much resistance; something's not right."
"Are you sure the tube is in the right place?"
"Positive."
"Keep going."
Alarms continued to blare. Max checked the leads. Still
flatline.
Vivian positioned her hands to resume compressions and
hesitated. During the time taken to pull on new gloves, the
skin on the kid's chest had turned brown. As she stared, it
cracked in a dozen places and began to ooze a pinkish fluid.
Roxie wrinkled her nose. "What is that smell?"
Hamburger. The skin on his cheeks looked like his
chest—for all the world like well barbecued chicken,
crispy skin and all.
Vivian began compressions again, but the skin and flesh
slid away beneath her hands, revealing the ivory curve of ribs.
Max stepped back, making the sign of the cross. "We've
lost him, Viv. You need to stop."
Brown eyes stared sightless up at the ceiling out of a
face stiff and masklike. The flesh had sloughed off his ribs
and his right arm. Bare feet splayed to the sides.
All eyes in the room were fixed on her, with the
exception of the one pair that would never see anything ever
again.
Vivian stopped. She drew an arm across her forehead to
wipe away the sweat. "Fuck. Time of death
one–forty–five A.M."
She swallowed, hard. Twenty minutes ago the boy had been
moving, speaking, fully conscious. Now his body looked like
something out of a horror show. Behind the fragile barrier
in her brain, Dreamworld surged. As always, she fought it
with logic.
"What the hell happened? Ideas?"
"Spontaneous combustion."
"Be serious, Rox—"
"I am serious. What if he goes up in flames or something?
Tony, you should turn the oxygen off."
Tony snorted but complied.
"There has to be a scientific explanation."
"Up to the M.E. now. Weirdest damned thing I've ever
seen." Max drew a sheet up over the wreck of flesh and bone
that had been a sixteen–year–old boy.
"We've got this, Viv," Roxie said. "Go do your report or
whatever."
"It was a good code," Max said.
Vivian nodded, not trusting her voice. She shed her gown
and gloves and exited the scene of carnage. Once in motion,
her body wanted to keep moving. Down the hall, out the door,
into the clear sweet Krebston air.
But she was still on duty, and Deputy Flynne stood
propped against the nurse's desk. He was not smiling.
"Not a social call, I gather." She lifted her hair from
the back of her neck to feel the cool air, took a deep
breath. Waited.
"Something ugly went down at Finger Beach. Heard you had
a burned kid up here."
She just looked at him.
"Small town. News travels quick."
"He's dead, Brett."
He ran one hand over his buzz–cut hair. "Shit. What
happened?"
"He —burned. From the inside out. Came in walking
and talking and then, just—" She choked on the words.
Come on, Vivian. It's not the first patient you've lost.
"Your turn."
"Someone reported seeing a fire down there. Kids
drinking, we figured. Me and Brody swung by, just to check
it out. Found a body, charred down to the bones."
"God." Vivian closed her eyes.
A shimmer in the air, nothing you'd notice while
distracted by a campfire and a pretty girl. A creature,
squeezing, unfolding through an invisible doorway . . .
Her hand reached for the pendant. "Camp fire got out of
control? Accelerant, maybe?"
Flynne shook his head. "Don't think so. Well away from
the fire. Also found a pelvis and a pair of legs. Female, we
think. The rest was—missing."
Vivian pressed the back of her hand against her mouth,
her heart beating against her ribs with such force that
surely he could see it, could hear it . . .
"No ID on the ah, body. Nothing survived whatever burned
the other one. It'll be a while before we know anything."
Arden, laughter on a face bright with life and adventure,
his arm around a plump brunette . . .
"Dr. Maylor!"
"Sorry. I was just—processing."
"If you've got an ID, anything, on this kid, it might help."
"Arden Douglas."
Brett's face creased. "Knew him. Good kid. Any idea what
killed him?"
"Honestly, no. Autopsy magic all happens in Spokane."
"Right. At the speed of a handicapped turtle. Wish we
could block that damned beach off for good and all."
In the small town of Krebston, population around five
thousand, give or take a birth or a death, the Finger was a
legend. Strange things happened on that beach, so rumor
said. A giant red stone dominated the spot, thrusting up out
of the sand like a warning finger. Teenage boys called it
other, more vulgar names, and if they were bold or stupid or
very drunk they covered it with graffiti. Or claimed they
did. The stone was always smooth and unmarred by light of day.
Sensible people avoided the place or ventured to the
beach only at high noon in large, noisy groups, equipped
with plenty of beer. Tourists cruised by, craning their
necks to look. Sometimes they parked and ventured out of
their cars to snap photos, but they never stayed long. Some
said the pictures they took never came out.
Local legend had it that years ago a group of boys, led
by a rebel who proclaimed to fear nothing and nobody, built
a fire pit and lingered long past sunset. They straggled
home just before dawn, blistered and footsore, scratched by
thorns and snowberry bushes. Not one of them would say what
happened. They slept for days, waking at night from
nightmares that made them cry out in their sleep. The
ringleader stayed missing for a week. When he reappeared he
was changed: thin, silent, staring for hours at a corner or
a ceiling where there was nothing other eyes could see.
Those who told the story said he'd been sent to an asylum in
the end.
"Dr. Maylor?"
Catching the look in the deputy's eyes, she pulled
herself together. "So what now?"
"We investigate." He offered her a mock salute and walked
away. She watched him go, down the wide, brightly lit
hallway, and overlaid like a double exposure saw a corridor
running as far as the eye could see. On either side, doors,
green doors with brass handles. All of them locked. And
unseen but always prowling, always searching, the dragons.
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