Justin Bertrand

In the wake of the cataclysmic events that reshaped our world in 2020, a sense of relief washed over us all. By late 2023, I think we were ready to just live life again. I know I was. It was a time to make new friends and put the past to rest. Rayne and I hadn’t known each other long, but we were building a solid friendship, nothing more. It was our common interests that sent us on vacation together to my remote cabin. What we didn’t, couldn’t know, was that we were on a collision course with the end of the world as we knew it.

Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called the Territories to save his mother and her “Twinner” from an agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, Wisconsin. He has no recollection of his adventures in the Territories....

Rachel was standing in front of her closet trying to decide what to wear. Gavin had slid out from under the bed and quietly walked up behind Rachel. He grabbed her around the throat with his arm and had her in a choke hold. He pressed the knife against her cheek and told her that if she screamed, he would slash her throat. She was terrified and listened to what he had said. He walked her over to her windows and closed them.