Amnesiac Alex Carter has horrific nightmares about a mysterious stranger, a man of unimaginable cruelty. As the nightmares intensify and Alex's life begins to fall apart, he and his wife Rachel suddenly find themselves on the run - pursued by the mysterious blue-eyed stranger - unaware they are running headlong into the dark abyss that is Alex’s hidden past. A past that, once revealed, stands to shatter their once-peaceful lives forever.
Amnesiac Alex Carter has horrific nightmares about a mysterious stranger, a man of unimaginable cruelty. As the nightmares intensify and Alex's life begins to fall apart, he and his wife Rachel suddenly find themselves on the run - pursued by the mysterious blue-eyed stranger - unaware they are running headlong into the dark abyss that is Alex’s hidden past. A past that, once revealed, stands to shatter their once-peaceful lives forever.
Alex Carter screamed and bolted upright in bed; his cry cut off by the sudden shift from sleep to waking, reality slowly taking over the fading details of the dream he had just escaped. His muscles tensed as the dream slowly receded from his consciousness, just enough of it remaining to keep him on edge. He stretched his arms up and out, forcing his muscles to relax. A knot persisted in his back and he twisted, a small moan of pain escaping him.
A form in the bed next to him moved and his stomach tightened suddenly as a flood of anxiety washed over him. His stomach was hot with fear as the shadowy form rose slightly next to him, reaching out into the night, black against black. The heat in his stomach rose, his muscles tense, as a chill in his spine grew. He choked back the urge to scream and run as the shadow beside him reached deeper into the darkness, flailing as if grasping for something. For someone.
There was a small click and a pool of amber light sprang into existence around his bed. The darkness retreated, chasing out the dream world. Next to him was his wife, Rachel, replacing the shadow beast from moments before. Her eyelids fluttered, desperately trying to batter sleep from her eyes. She yawned and stretched, propping up on an elbow.Brushing an errant strand of red hair from her face, she pushed herself up the headboard, giving up halfway and taking up an awkward half-sitting position.
“What was that?” she asked, stifling another yawn.
“It’s okay. Just a bad dream. That’s all.”He avoided looking straight at her.The question was a courtesy, she knew what was going on. This had happened to her before, being awakened like this. Outside the window, trees danced to the howl of sharp autumn winds, awash in the glowing streetlights, casting darting shadows across the room. His stomach tightened at each shadowy movement.
Rachel rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Was it another one of those dreams?” Her voice was soft, like she was trying to convince a frightened child there were no monsters under the bed. An edge of frustration accompanied it because she wasn’t dealing with a child, but a grown man who refused to accept there were no monsters.
He started to say something to her and stopped before any words came. He wanted to talk to her about the fear. About the dark cold that filled him when the dreams came. But all he had were random images that slowly faded from his mind the further he got from sleep. The icy darkness in his belly was slipping away, the terror of moments ago slipping away with it. The memories of the dream, without the iron grip of terror that accompanied them, were just a series of random images with no substance. It was like talking about a good meal; the idea was there, but it lacked the intensity of the experience.
She slid across the bed and slipped her arms around him.Cold sweat covered his body, and he quivered at her touch, his muscles tensing beneath her arms. More shadows danced in the corner. His heart beat faster.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here.” Her voice was like a lullaby, any trace of bitterness gone as she snuggled in beside him. Her body was warm against his, melting his anxiety. He sighed, releasing the last of the tension that gripped him in one great rush and melted into her arms. The furious ball of fear in his stomach cooled, warming the chill in his spine as the dream dissipated.
“Yes,” he answered, his mouth suddenly dry. He sucked on his tongue to relieve the dryness.“It was one of those dreams.”
“Do you remember any more of it?” she asked, running her index finger through his dark hair while she stifled another yawn.
“Just images. Brief flashes of pictures. Like a movie skipping the reel.”
“What kinds of images?” Her hand slid from the side of her head to rest at the nape of his neck, rubbing gently. He leaned into it; his neck still knotted.
“I’m in a desert, I think,” he started, grasping at the fleeing pictures in his head. “I can see a bunch of small, weird buildings just beyond a rusted chain-link fence. Like the bunkers you see in war movies. I want to climb the fence, to get to those buildings. Like there’s something there I have to see. That I’m desperate to see. But every time I start to climb the fence, a storm comes up on the horizon, closing in fast. A storm that scares the living hell out of me. Even though it’s still miles away, I have to get away from it as fast as I can.And then...”
His voice dropped off, the chill in his spine returning like a jolt of electricity. His breath caught in his throat and he had to pause, unable to speak. Rachel hugged him close.
“Then he’s there. It’s night all around us, but the darkness around him is different.It’s not exactly the lack of light, but more of a living entity. It clings to him, as if the darkness is a part of him. Like he’s its master, somehow. And his eyes.” Alex paused again, the familiar knot of fear returning to grasp his belly. “His eyes are so cold. Icy. Not just because of the color of them. The way he stares at me, it’s like there’s nothing human behind those eyes. Like staring into the eyes of a predator....”
Rachel felt him shiver. “Well, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” She took his hand gently and placed it on her belly. A slight swell had started to develop, the first sign of the baby growing inside. “Neither of us are.”
Alex thought he felt the baby kick to echo its mother’s sentiments, but he knew that was his imagination. It was far too early for that. Still, imagined or not, he took comfort at the thought and focused on the warmth it brought him to drive back the cold pall of fear.Patting his wife’s stomach, he silently thanked his son or daughter for their unspoken support.
Rachel squeezed his hand and smiled a warm, contented smile. She is beautiful, Alex thought. When he first saw her all those years ago from across the quad, he had thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her fiery red hair. Emerald eyes.Skin like fragile porcelain. From the moment he saw her, he knew she was the only one for him. If it wasn’t going to be her, it wasn’t going to be anyone. When she said yes to his proposal, it became the happiest day of his life. The second was when she had told him they were expecting a baby. The chill in his soul completely evaporated under the radiance of her smile.
“Are you going to be all right?” she asked, resting her forehead against his and caressing his stubbled cheek.
“As long as I have you, all is right with the world, my darling,” he replied, quickly kissing her before she could remark how cliché he sounded. “You know how I get about these dreams.”
She sighed lightly. “Yeah. They scare the beejeezus out of you.”
He grinned at the word ‘beejeezus’. As long as he’d known her, she’d had an aversion to swearing. She had always considered it ‘base’ and ‘crass’, so she spiced up her language with nonsense words instead. He found it adorable and hoped it would never change.
“Yes, they do,” he answered, returning to stare out the window. The trees continued their dance and shadows jumped and lunged around the room. For each dark twist and turn, his mind conjured up an infinite number of monsters. “They do scare the beejeezus out of me.”
Rachel chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip as she riveted her eyes to some invisible spot on the far wall. Alex knew that look well. It was the same look she gave him the night he proposed in the moments between the question and her answer. The look she gave him when he wanted to quit his job in Boston and move to Pine Haven in New Hampshire. The look she gave him when he and his friend Rick decided to open their own architectural firm. The same look of tentative introspection she had when he insisted they could afford to buy their house, just before she announced she was pregnant. Every time her bottom lip disappeared and her eyes became vacant, Alex knew they were in for a serious talk.
“What is it?” Alex asked, brushing an errant strand of red hair from her face.
Rachel forced her bottom lip from its hiding place.“You said once that these dreams, these nightmares, might be a part of your past. That somewhere in your mind there are memories of your life before...”She paused, searching for a different word. None would come, so she continued. “Before the accident. Do you still think that? That these dreams are your subconscious trying to tell you about your past?”
Alex shrugged as the chill returned to his spine.The possibility had been in the back of his mind. The possibility that his dreams were more than some heartburn induced terror. That they were a window into his past. A way of coping with some past terror he couldn’t recall. And there was a lot he couldn’t recall.
Fifteen years. That was all he could remember. He could only remember the fifteen years that had passed since a few early morning runners found him on a beach, soaked to the bone, suffering from hypothermia and exhaustion, and inexplicably at the point of starvation.For three days he had drifted in and out of consciousness, finally lucid enough on the fourth day that to be questioned by the police.
Over the next few days he was visited by police officers and social workers, all with questions. What was his name? Where had he come from? How had he ended up on the beach like that? Had there been an accident? Did someone attack him? Was there anyone they could contact? The questions were like a tsunami, drowning him in confusion and frustration. He wanted to answer. To help.To know. But he couldn’t. There simply wasn’t anything there.
The police concluded he had been the victim of a boating accident. Happens all the time, they said. Boats capsize. Boats sink.People have washed up on shore after storms before. It happens.He should consider himself lucky to be alive. Except that they found him in mid-October. There hadn’t been a powerful storm since June. And the day prior to him washing up on the beach, the weather had been unseasonably calm. Yup, quite the mystery, he was told. No doubt they’d get to the bottom of it when his memory returned, as the doctors assured him it would in a few days. Weeks went by and his body healed, but his memory remained a void. The police had found no evidence of an accident, no other victims, no debris or other bodies had washed ashore along the coastline and no one had come forward with knowledge of a boy approximately fifteen years old who had disappeared. His fingerprints and DNA were not on record anywhere and any missing persons reports that matched his description turned out to be dead ends. It was as if he hadn’t existed before that day. As if he had materialized on that beach.
He shrugged, shaking off his brief reverie.“I suppose it’s possible that these are long buried memories. Images of the past bubbling up to the surface. I just don’t know.”
Rachel shivered, pulling her knees up close to her chest and hugging herself tight. “If these are your memories, if these dreams are snippets of your past, then who is the guy at the end of the dream? And what does he want from us?” Her voice caught a bit as she finished speaking.
He had no idea how to answer that. He had lived for fifteen years with no knowledge of who he was or where he came from. Even his name, Alex Carter, had come from one of the foster homes he had been relegated to.One of the nicer ones, where at least someone thought he should have a name. He was a mystery even to himself. The only link he had to his past was vague images, darkness, and shadows.
And the cold, blue eyes of a stranger.
And the fear. The fear was genuine. It was the one thing that stayed with him after the dreams faded, holding him in a paralyzing grip well after he escaped into awareness. He knew it was irrational to fear something he couldn’t remember, but that didn’t make the fear any less of a palpable and crippling thing. No matter how hard he tried to shake it, it was always there in the back of his mind.
If these dreams were the breadcrumbs that marked a path to his forgotten life, was it a past he wanted to remember? What if the reality was far worse than anything his dreaming mind could conjure up? Was knowing the truth worth the price? What if Rachel was right and the blue-eyed stranger wasn’t just a construct of his subconscious? What if he was real? Again, icy fingers gripped his spine....
Rachel threw back the blankets, revealing legs Alex had always considered to be flawless. She had always been a bit of a fitness fanatic, working out five days a week and watching what she ate. It was a philosophy Alex had never ascribed to, and it drove her crazy that he ate every meal like it was his last, didn’t exercise more than taking out the trash or mowing the lawn and yet remained thin and infuriatingly healthy. That bit of animosity had blossomed of late as, happy as she was about expecting a baby, she had in the last month become rather self-conscious of her condition. She referred to herself as ‘bloated as a whale’ or ‘inflated as the national deficit’, even though she was just approaching the end of her first trimester.Through all the self-deprecating jokes and anxious sighs, Alex thought she was as beautiful as she had ever been.There was something about her since the baby. A glow, as cliché as that sounded.
“Where are you going?” he asked as she slipped on her robe, her shapely form disappearing amidst an avalanche of terry cloth.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, shooting him a playful smirk, “but Shamu has to potty.” She dramatically and playfully pulled the folds of her robe closed.
“Why the robe? The bathroom is just down the hall, and you poor deprived husband likes a few cheap thrills now and then. Watching you sashay around in that little silk number you’ve got on is at the top of the list.” He smiled wryly from one corner of his mouth.
“Maybe I’m just a little self-conscious right now, you know? I have a whole human being growing inside me, it can affect a girl’s body image. And as far as cheap thrills go....” She opened the robe again, letting it fall slightly and expose her porcelain white shoulder as she ran her hand down her midsection and across her buttock, bringing it to rest gently on her thigh.“This is most certainly not cheap.”
His wry smile slipped into a full smirk. “I’ll say. So far, lusting after that has cost me my freedom and youthful innocence.Who knows what comes next?”
“Any future possibility of a sex life with cracks like that,” Rachel retorted, snapping her rope closed and tying the sash loosely around her waist in a dramatic display. “And to think, this loving and devoted wife was about to go downstairs and get you a glass of orange juice to soothe your ills.”
Alex smiled. For some reason, whenever he had a dream like the one tonight, he always craved orange juice after. On the worst nights Rachel would bring him juice and sit with him, singing softly and stroking his thick black hair. It was like a magic spell that would put him right back to sleep.
But not tonight. Tonight felt different. Like the danger was closer. More real.
He stripped the blankets off and pulled himself to his feet. “I appreciate the gesture,” he said, slipping an arm around her waist and kissing her gently on the forehead, “but I don’t think I’ll be getting back to sleep anytime soon. I think I’ll head downstairs and get some juice myself. Maybe see if there’s anything interesting on Disney+ or HBO Max.”
“So another night of Robot Chicken, then?” she said, a sly smile spreading across her face.
Her smile was infectious and he couldn’t keep his own grin at bay. “You know me so well.”
“You want some company?” she asked, concern edging out sarcasm in her tone.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to keep you up. Just because I can’t sleep doesn’t mean you should go without. Besides, you despise Robot Chicken.”
“That is true, it is mindless drivel. Which is why I’m sure it appeals to you so much.”She tilted her head up and kissed his cheek. “And you are very sweet. I love you.”
“That’s me, sweet and dumb. Besides, we both know how you get when you don’t get enough sleep.”
“And how would that be?”
“I believe the common term is ‘bitchy’.”
“I do not get bitchy,” she replied, dramatically planting her hands on her hips in a stance of mock indignation.
He grinned at her as she stood defiantly before him, all five feet three inches of her. “Sure you don’t.”
“Screw you, Carter.”
“If only, Mrs. Carter.” He bowed a deeply sarcastic bow and quickly backed out of the room.
“Don’t be gone too long,” Rachel called after him, “the Queen Bitch gets lonely up here by herself.”
He watched her glide across the hall to the bathroom and close the door, snuffing out the light. Alex was alone in the hallway with only the green glow of the night light for illumination. He fumbled his way down the hall, his mind flashing back to every horror movie he had ever seen, his recently subsided fear slowly creeping back into his stomach.Alone in a dark and foreboding place with just enough light to see the gore as the monster leaped from the shadows and eviscerated him. The newly returned chill in his spine slogged its way up his back and across his shoulders, leaving goosebumps on his arms.
He had never been much of a horror movie fan. It would be accurate to say that he despised them, usually choosing a good science fiction or superhero movie instead. Or a Marx Brothers movie, those were always fun to watch. But Rachel was an avid fan of horror movies, particularly of the gore filled splatter fests of the ‘70s and ‘80s. He didn’t get the fascination, to him they were all the same. Horny, half-dressed teenagers filled each movie, always making the same stupid mistakes and ending up hacked, chopped or slashed to death by the end credits. Except for that one girl who always got away somehow, rescued by the authorities at the last minute. The girl who no one believed. At least until it was time for a sequel. He was not a fan, but he had capitulated for Rachel’s sake, sitting through countless of these Mad Lib inspired stories. Name a location. Pick a fetish for your killer. Choose a weapon. Cut, print, kill. The same movie, over and over again. But she loved them and he loved her, so he watched.
And now it was coming back to haunt him. As he fumbled through the muted green light of the hallway, he thought of the myriad of horror movie killers he had been subjected to over the years, and he envisioned himself being pulled down and disemboweled by each one lurking in the deep darkness. He knew it was irrational, but that didn’t make it any less real in his mind.
He found the light switch at the end of the hall, which was a dimmer. Sliding his finger halfway up the dimmer panel, he aimed to improve his visibility without risking being momentarily blinded by a sudden flood of light. The room filled with a warm glow, like an early sunrise.
He stopped on the mezzanine at the end of the hallway and took a moment to survey the space below. Satisfied there were no shadowy strangers with cold, dead eyes waiting below, he descended the spiral staircase to the living room. He crossed the room to the kitchen beyond, the dim light above the room extending into the open concept kitchen. Unlike the shadows coming into his bedroom from the street outside, the light in the kitchen was stationary and familiar. He was wary of each pool of shadow, eyes alight for any unusual or irregular movement. He shook his head at the stupidity of it. It was a dream. This is his kitchen. There was nothing here that was waiting to leap out at him from the darkness.
Shaking his head to shed the irrational fear, he reached for the light switch he knew was on the wall next to him. Unlike the light in the living room, the kitchen light was not on a dimmer. When he flipped the switch, a burning white light assailed his eyes. He squinted and blinked rapidly against the ocular assault until his eyes adjusted enough to allow him to move to the refrigerator without fear of attack by an ethereal shadow creature or an errant piece of furniture.
At the back of the refrigerator was what he had come for, a half empty gallon of orange juice. He didn’t bother with a glass, instead lifting the gallon jug to his lips and intensely gulping. The juice splashed down his throat, acidic and sweet, and he gulped harder at it.It wasn’t a matter of thirst; it was a deeper need. The juice was a drug, and he desperately needed a fix.
He drained the jug, staring at the empty container in his hand. The cold juice was still settling in his stomach, and he took a moment to savor the feeling.Deep inside, he felt a slight satiation of the intense gnawing need he didn’t know he had until he drank the juice.His stomach gurgled at him, crying for more. In a moment it intensified into a pain, screaming at him to be satisfied. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.After dreams like this orange juice had always soothed him, but usually a glass was enough to do the trick. He had just drunk a little over a half gallon of juice, and the craving still existed.
Dropping the empty container on the floor, he looked through the refrigerator for something that would satisfy the craving in him. He passed by soda, milk, beer; none of those would take away the need within him. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was searching for, but he knew what wouldn’t do it.
On the second shelf, behind a six-pack of Samuel Adams, he found it. He snatched up the full bottle of grapefruit juice and tore at the lid, the unrest in his gut intensifying. Freeing the lid from the bottle, he shoved it against his lips so hard it clicked against his teeth. He gulped greedily at the cold juice, swallowing hard repeatedly as the bitter fluid flowed along his tongue and down his throat. Each gulp elicited a grimace, but he finished the bottle, dropping it on the floor next to the empty orange juice container. Nothing remained in the previously full bottle but a few pale yellow drops.
The deeply intense craving in him subsided and the aftertaste of the juice exploded bitterly in his mouth. He went back to the refrigerator to find something to vanquish the awful taste. He grasped the gallon of milk first but stopped, thinking of the amount of acidic fluid he had just put in his stomach. Next to that was a bottle of Cherry Pepsi and he grabbed that instead and drank straight from the bottle, this time without the consuming sense of need he had felt just a moment ago.
Swishing the soda around in his mouth to kill the grapefruit taste, he replaced the cap on the soda bottle and returned it to its place beside the milk. Both the awful taste in his mouth and the craving in his belly were subsiding and as sense returned to him he wondered what could have possessed him to drink the grapefruit juice. He hated grapefruit. Hated it with a burning passion. Always had.The only reason it was even in the house was on the orders of Rachel’s obstetrician, who recommended it because of the high concentration of folic acid. That, and because it was a diuretic which would help to further flush toxins from her body and away from the baby. The juice had always repulsed him. So why had he just gulped down an entire bottle of it?
Not finding any answers in the refrigerator, he placed the two empty juice containers into the recycling bin and headed back toward the living room, snapping off the kitchen light as he left.Enveloped once again in artificial twilight, he made his way to the street side bay window and peered out into the street.Deep purple and black shadows shrouded the night, broken only by the glow of the streetlamps fashioned to resemble turn of the century gas lamps. It was a scene from a postcard with colonial style houses lining both sides of the street, some as old as two hundred and fifty years, the rest designed to mimic that look. The ‘old world charm’ kept the tourists coming in droves and the local businesses thriving, providing a healthy economy for the small lakeside town of Pine Haven.That was what had drawn him and Rachel to New Hampshire. It was a slow, more sedate pace of life, and he loved it. Even at the height of tourist season, when the town’s population tripled, there was still plenty of peace and solitude to be found.
The streets were devoid of tourists now.Aside from the fact that it was three o’clock in the morning, it was early autumn, a few weeks after Labor Day.All the summer residents were gone, their camps and cottages closed up for another year, and the leaf-peepers wouldn’t start coming in for at least another week. The streets were silent and still in the in the hazy glow of the streetlights and Alex felt as if he were the only person in the world.
He shivered again as a sudden chill came over him.A wind picked up outside, sounding like the mournful wail of a lost and lonely animal, mirroring his feelings.He thought of Rachel, sleeping peacefully upstairs, and how much he loved her. Not just loved her, but needed her. How much he needed to be with her right now.
With that thought firmly at the forefront of his mind, he ascended the spiral staircase, coming once more to the green light of the dimly lit hall. The previous feelings of dread were still with him as he peered into the gloom, but he thought of Rachel and the thought of her pushed back the fear of monstrous shadows and icy-eyed strangers. He clicked the living room light off behind him and plunged once more into the dark, claustrophobic tunnel. With his mind occupied by happy thoughts of his wife, the darkness wasn’t nearly as frightening as it had been before and he strode down the hall, thinking of a few hours of peaceful sleep beside her.
Alex washed up on a beach when he was fifteen years old without any memories of his life. Forging a life for himself, he attended college and married Rachel, the woman of his dreams. When his violent nightmares escalate, Rachel convinces him to meet with his psychologist, Dr. Carlton, before their baby is born. Between the dreams Alex shares in tandem with Adam, a ruthless killer with inhuman capabilities, and information revealed by Dr. Carlton, Alex learns that his nightmares are evidence of his past life–and both he and Rachel are in imminent danger. Why is Adam after them, and why are their dreams intertwined? Now on the run, Alex must determine who can be trusted before his wife and unborn child are taken from him.
Scott Alward’s science fiction thriller is fast-paced, belying its length. With multiple climactic scenes, the narrative is gripping, and when you think it must have certainly reached its conclusion, shocking twists propel the plot forward. The God Makers is well-researched, giving convincing arguments in the fields of biotechnology and genetic engineering. The characters are all well-developed, especially given that many are duplicitous, seeming convincingly trustworthy at times but revealing malicious intent or personal involvement in the very scheme that threatens Alex’s life. Even Alex himself is not immune to embodying a darker nature. Determining who is truly on Alex’s side is challenging when people he has known for years could be embroiled in The Eden Project.
Fans of both science fiction and high-stakes thrillers will love The God Makers. Scott Alward has merged the two genres expertly, achieving a balance that provides just enough scientific explanation without overwhelming the plot. The first three-quarters were especially well written, but my attention waned in the final quarter; the pacing slowed and the final chapters felt longer than necessary. Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking, suspenseful stories in which the protagonist learns they have extraordinary skills and must discover their purpose before it is too late.