The Place Beyond Read online

  First published by Lodestone Books, 2018

  Lodestone Books is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd., No. 3 East Street,

  Alresford, Hampshire SO24 9EE, UK

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  www.johnhuntpublishing.com

  For distributor details and how to order please visit the ‘Ordering’ section on our website.

  Text copyright: Ryan Lohner 2017

  ISBN: 978 1 78279 912 2

  978 1 78279 913 9 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943229

  All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publishers.

  The rights of Ryan Lohner as author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Design: Stuart Davies

  Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY, UK

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  Acknowledgements

  I started this book alone, just sitting down at my laptop one day and typing out some weird ideas I had for a story. I mostly just wanted to prove to myself I could do it. Then after a while I told my mom and dad, and my aunt, uncle, and cousins. They were all immediately supportive of it, eagerly awaiting each new chapter as it was finished and giving all the help they could. This played a big part in actually giving me the willpower to see the whole thing through.

  I also have to thank the people at John Hunt Publishing, who decided to give a chance to this silly little story that landed on their desk out of nowhere one day. John Hunt, Maria Moloney, and Krystina Kellingley were the readers who gave it the okay, and Krystina then became my writing mentor, always giving me great advice while not being afraid to let me know when something just wasn’t working. This final product is a huge improvement on the draft I turned in, and it’s thanks to her.

  Prologue

  In every second of every day, a decision is made somewhere on the planet; and taken all together, it is these decisions that make up our history. But imagine, what if just one of them was made differently? How much would it affect, not only in the seconds that followed, but months and years afterward? As time went on, the influence of this difference would spread more and more, until, perhaps, the whole earth was changed. And that is only one choice. Now consider how incredible it is that you live in the world you do, all those decisions having combined in just the right way to make it as it is.

  But who is to say it didn’t also happen differently? This morning, when you woke up, and got straight out of bed, perhaps, at the same time, you decided to doze a few more minutes. Both of these things happened, but in different dimensions, both created by the selections presented. You only remember immediately springing up, but, in that other dimension, maybe there’s another you, who only remembers drowsing away a few peaceful minutes. What if this process is repeated for every choice that has ever been made, throughout all of time? What did you have for breakfast? What clothes did you put on? Did you leave for school or work on time or a bit late? Each selection made creates a new parallel universe, all completely unaware of the others.

  Nor is this the only way a parallel universe can be created. Conceivably, there may be others with the exact same history, but at different points along the time line of that history at this exact moment. Somewhere, out in deep space, another planet earth may be revolving where, right now, the dinosaurs are dying; all the great empires are being forged and your parents are meeting for the first time; while, in a further corner of our vast multiverse, our future has already unfolded.

  Could you, if your life depended on it, say with absolute certainty that this cannot, indeed, is not happening?

  Now, just one final question – Are you in the universe you belong in? Are you sure?

  Chapter One

  Matt’s first impression of Berkland was not a promising one. The town lay nestled in the heart of southern New Jersey, close to the legendary Pine Barrens. He’d never heard of them himself before moving here, but his parents had made such a big deal about it that he figured he should do some research. It turned out that the place was a hotbed of supernatural theories, the most famous being the Jersey Devil, the supposed product of a poor family from the colonial days cursing its thirteenth child. There was also a whole assortment of other weird tales, including loud booming sounds that were supposedly heard echoing from deep within the woods, alongside sightings of bizarre animals. What was missing though, oddly enough, was any real proof.

  Creepy stories surrounding the places he lived was nothing new to Matt. His parents, Steve and Amy Orticus, were both writers for Unknowns, the kind of magazine typically called a trash rag. Frankly, even that was probably being polite. Their bread and butter was anything to do with the strange and unexplainable: alien abductions, missing links, mad scientists, and all manner of other craziness regularly featured in Steve and Amy’s stories, just begging to be sneered at by the masses. In his younger, gullible years, he had eaten the stuff up, but he’d long since grown out of that blissful, unquestioning phase. Now he didn’t believe a word of it, but as for his parents, he wasn’t quite sure. They were certainly enthusiastic enough about following up the stories, but he had noticed a definite reluctance to discuss their work in any detail with him. He didn’t let it bother him anymore. Those articles put food on the table, and that was as far as he cared about them.

  Berkland was next up on the weirdness trail; a regular tourist trap, preying on the strange souls desperate for a taste of the preternatural for themselves. A few trips into town had shown Matt that cheap and tacky souvenirs popped up everywhere, and business was always good. After all, he thought, there was no end to people who wanted to be fooled.

  He gazed out at the patch of the Barrens that bordered the town. Nothing he could see was any different from any other forest. In fact, it looked perfectly inviting to his eyes. There were times, when he was just a kid, they had lived in areas like this, places trespassing on the doorstep of the wild. Matt couldn’t help grinning as he remembered days spent tramping through dense woods, stumbling across an old hut, or a cave, maybe just the remains of someone’s camp, and letting it fire up his imagination; running home for dinner, full of stories of aliens camping out or vampires hiding from the light of day.

  The grin slid off his face as swiftly as it had arrived. But all too soon they would be off to a big city somewhere – covering the mayor’s evil plot to slip mind control drugs into the water or whatnot, and he would find himself in yet one more school, trying to make friends again with kids he had nothing in common with and longing for the next move that would take him back to the land he preferred. At least Berkland was country. That much he could be grateful for. This time, though, the rural quiet didn’t ease his mind the way it usually did. This time, he was worried about something quite different.

  Matt was adopted. Steve and Amy had been completely open about this since he was old enough to understand the concept. As for Matt, as far as he was concerned, Steve and Amy were his parents. They were the ones who had loved him and seen him through everything. It was them who sat up with him when he had his chest infections and couldn’t breathe. They were the ones who picked him up and comforted him when he fell. He had no interest at all in seeking out the two people who biologically held that title. However, for some reason, he was in the minority. Matt couldn’t even remember all of the times classmates and teachers, even people meeting with his parents who he hardly knew,
insisted he should want to know more about his biological parents: meet with them. No, being adopted was not the problem, the real issue was that his skin was just enough darker than his mom and dad for it to be instantly noticeable, and people did notice. Often, Matt thought to himself, the people who were quickest to notice were not the nicest individuals. He’d lost count of the number of remarks he’d endured about it. Initially, he’d thought it would get easier. It never had. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when he’d started expecting comments from people, but this lowered expectation of humanity had served him well more times than he would have preferred.

  To make things worse, he was starting high school, which would have been hard enough in a familiar community. Now he was at Berkland High, home of the Devils football team, the Crimson gymnastics team, and, it seemed, every sort of team designed purely to remind him how physically inferior he was. Matt had never been fat, but he’d never been any kind of Adonis either. He’d tried working out, but it never stuck. If he’d been in a fairer mood, he might have considered that there were far more students like him than the ones he was worrying about, but the truth was they weren’t likely to soothe his nerves either. They all had their own groups and he brought nothing new to the table except what his parents did, which he was always too embarrassed to bring up anyway. As bad as he felt his family situation and physical weakness were, revealing that his parents were pretty much national laughing stock had never once struck him as any kind of good idea.

  The move was happening the next day, a Sunday, meaning he was going to be thrown right into the maw on Monday. He’d never quite figured out if getting it over with immediately was better or worse than having time to sweat over stuff.

  They had done this so often, they had the logistics down pat. By late Sunday night everything was set up. His parents’ prized work computers had been installed in their new office, and his bed was laid out in his new room, where he tossed and turned with anticipation for quite a while, before finally succumbing to a fitful sleep.

  The next day started well, with homemade waffles for breakfast. The fine feeling of his favorite food in his stomach lasted just until he met his teacher, Mrs. Lynch who, wreathed in false geniality, led him through into his homeroom. Matt stood there, not really listening, as she mouthed the, by now, familiar speech about how everyone should make him feel welcome. He glanced disinterestedly around the room, his gaze coming to rest on the uncomfortable-looking desks and sadly outdated television in the corner. Next came the painful and pointless exercise of introducing himself to anyone who looked possibly receptive. This garnered the usual flurry of polite “Hellos,” and nothing further, leaving him awkwardly standing there, not sure what to do next.

  Having played her part, Mrs. Lynch headed off and, encouraged by her absence and the growing silence, people got uncomfortable enough to ignore him again and resume the discussions he’d interrupted. Conversation seemed to center around who had seen what freaky occurrence over the summer, and dissolved into a blur of absurdity that he couldn’t penetrate. This, too, was all part of the familiar routine, but even Matt had to admit that the typical goings on at Berkland lent things a whole new flavor of weird. He glanced around, trying not to look as awkward as he felt. The buzz of conversation around him was growing as everyone relaxed enough to ignore him and resume catching up after the summer break.

  “Kirsty won’t go near the woods on her own after seeing that two headed …”

  “Man! I’m tellin’ ya, the material was like nothin’ I’ve ever …”

  “… really loud, man! In the middle of the …”

  Matt tuned out. Listening to them talk was like reading his mom and dad’s stories; seriously strange, and seriously unbelievable. Then, it hit him; if everyone was talking about the strange stuff happening around town, maybe he should come clean about his parents this time? Maybe here, people would be interested and let him fit in. Before he could lose his nerve, he walked up to the nearest group. “My parents work for Unknowns,” he blurted.

  There was silence for a bit – just long enough for Matt to allow himself some hope; could crossing this long-feared line be the thing that would finally get him some real friends? Then a girl, a long-faced, red-head wearing glasses with a hot-pink frame, giggled, and that got the rest of them going. Matt blanked his face, showing no reaction to his lukewarm reception. But to have something new shot down like this cut deep, and he felt emotions flooding him in a way that hadn’t happened in years. There was a solid lump wedged in his throat and a pressure in his gut that, at any moment, could equally erupt into rage or have him dissolving into tears. He cursed himself for being stupid enough to think that offering up his parents would make one bit of difference to these people accepting a geeky, uninteresting stranger into their closed society.

  Just like that, he was back in his usual shell, not offering friendship and not asking for it. He sat through English, Algebra, and History, keeping his head down, praying the teacher didn’t call on him. For some reason his new teachers rarely seemed to understand that coming into a whole new lesson plan meant he probably didn’t know everything they’d already taught, which of course just made his humiliation worse. For a wonder, this time it didn’t happen. After a few classes, Matt started to consider the possibility that he might be staying here longer than usual, given the wealth of material his parents could find. It occurred to him that maybe he should put a bit more effort into meeting people. But as he looked around for someone else to talk to, he realized his experience that morning had drained any energy he might have had for further attempts at reaching out.

  By the time lunch came, Matt wouldn’t have been able to speak to anyone to ask for help if he had been having a heart attack, let alone have the courage to join a table already full of people. The cafeteria was pretty busy but, after a few minutes searching, he managed to find an empty table and sit down. Half way through his pizza, he glanced up to see three guys swaggering towards him. His heart sank; his day was about to get worse. They stayed back just far enough for plausible deniability in case a teacher came along. Matt groaned inwardly.

  “New kid, huh?” The one in the middle said. “We got the word on what your folks do.”

  He gave Matt a beefy grin, sparing a glance at his companions, wearing the same wide-ass grins, before turning his attention back to Matt. “You really shouldn’t spread that around. That stupid magazine’s the kind of thing even people here laugh at. Makes you pretty low on the food chain, wouldn’t you say?”

  Matt sighed. The specifics changed, but the themes stayed the same. New kid in town equaled new opportunity for the bullies to have some fun. Maybe it was his failure earlier and the feelings it had generated; this time Matt decided not to just sit and take it. He held up his hand.

  “Yeah, I get it. You’re here to intimidate me, and you do a pretty good job, so can you just consider your work done right now?”

  The three of them stared at him for a bit. He had obviously thrown them. This was not the way things were supposed to go. Matt listened to them muttering amongst themselves and fought the urge to laugh. This was probably going to end up making things worse, but he was long past caring. He wanted them to just get the beating, or whatever else, over with, so he could move on. Sure enough, they turned around cracking their knuckles. Next they’d be dragging them along the floor, he thought dryly.

  “So what exactly makes you think you can talk to me like that? The middle one was still doing all the talking; the other two probably still had some evolving to do to be able to master language skills.

  Head honcho stared Matt in the eyes as he put his hand on the table. Matt crossed his arms. “I just wanted to see the look on your face. And it was worth it.” He was lying – it wasn’t really. The guy didn’t seem to have much in the way of facial expressions. But no need to let him know that.

  “Are these people bothering you?”

  A boy had stopped by the table and was staring hard at the three jerks
. He had brown hair and eyes, and was largely remarkable for just how unremarkable he looked. Matt turned back to his unwelcome company and was surprised to see their faces had gone pale.

  “No, not at all,” the one on the left said.

  Apparently fear was a contributing factor to evolution, as his language skills had sharpened up in an instant. “We were just leaving, right, Johnny?”

  “Yeah, uh, sure,” Chief moron agreed, trying for nonchalance. He aimed one last glower at Matt before they left. Matt would have bet his week’s allowance that he practiced in front of the mirror to perfect that look to be as threatening as possible, but the ongoing lack of color in his face meant the effect was ruined just a bit. Matt allowed himself to bask in the unfamiliar feeling of seeing his tormentors laid low for just a moment.

  He was snapped out of it when the newcomer asked, “Can I sit down?” Matt just nodded, and the boy set his tray down and sat. He stuck his hand out and said, “Dave Polsik.”

  Matt shook and said, “Matt Orticus.” He hoped Dave would take some charge in steering the conversation from there, because he was now in completely uncharted territory. He’d grown so used to just keeping his head down until his family moved again that the idea of someone actually sticking up for him felt completely foreign. Matt chewed at his bottom lip. This was important; he might just have a shot at a friendship here and he didn’t want to screw it up. Step one, he decided immediately, would be not bringing up his parents, assuming Dave hadn’t picked up on the scuttlebutt already. By now he was noticing the expectant look on the other boy’s face and realized he was actually the one supposed to continue the conversation. The first thing that came to mind was, “So, who are those guys?”

  Dave chuckled. “Johnny, Chris, and Steve. I’ve never really bothered to learn their last names. Johnny’s on the football team, which means the school doesn’t really want to keep an eye on him. As long as he keeps winning, you know. The other two, well, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve heard either of them talk until just now.”