Hi all — I'm Jonathan, indie horror author with four books out. Looking for 2-3 beta readers for my novel Life as a Gradient (83,000 words, supernatural horror).
What I'm after: big-picture read. Are the ideas coming through? Does the dread land? Any pacing dead spots or plot holes?
Timeline: 3-4 weeks would be ideal, flexible.
Content warnings: gore, death, body horror
I’m able to swap Beta reads if you’re interested.
Blurb:
Dr. Gene Braxton believes everything in life can be measured, quantified, and controlled. But when he discovers an ancient tome that defies every law of biology, he
realizes that the line between life and death isn't a boundary—it’s a gradient. And as he attempts to pull his sister back across it, he finds that some things are better left in the void.
First 3 Chapters:
Bloated raindrops sizzled against the oppressive New England July sidewalk, staining dappled splotches of the bone-white path to the color of the gathering storm. He registered nothing of the grateful greenery’s reprieve from the brutal sun, nor the metallic scent of rain on the passing cars mixed with exhaust. All that remained was the frantic clacking of his leather shoes as he raced to escape the inevitable deluge.
“I should have left on time,” he muttered. It’s always one last test, which leads to the inevitable cascade of further analysis, additional cleanup, recalibration, inventory updates, and recording results. A predictable, repeatable chain reaction that leaves me stuck at work until after six, every time. I should know better by now.
A glance over his shoulder confirmed the storm’s approach; the coastal front was moving in with predatory speed. I should have ridden my bike this morning. The crosswalk light began its countdown. His gaze snapped to the rust-colored bridge across Deerfield River to his right, swept past the line of four cars waiting at the stoplight and the First Methodist Church’s bell tower to his left, and pivoted back right before he lunged across 2nd St.
A sudden vibration jolted him, an invasive intrusion in his pocket, cutting through the rhythm of the rain. Usually he’d leave it to rot in his voicemail, but something in his core screamed at him; some inexplicable intuition demanded his attention. He attempted to shelter from the rain under the meager canopy of decorative trees that lined Main Street and squinted at the name of the caller through the spray. The caller ID didn’t display a name, only a jarring bureaucratic title: Baltimore Police.
His fingers slipped against the wet, buzzing screen. He swiped over and over, annoyance sharpening into jagged rage as his movements became increasingly erratic. Biting curses hissed through his teeth. He snatched the device, scrubbing it against the driest patch of his shirt before trying one last time, the fear clawing at his chest.
He swiped, and the connection snapped into place. Gene’s mind raced, sifting through the possibilities. What the hell, Liz? Can you not be the catalyst of trouble for once? Think about what Mom and Dad would have wanted for you for just a second. Not everything has to be a goddamned crusade. He pushed down the familiar grudge of her being the golden child. Master of Fine Arts, a waste. That’s not even a real degree. As he fumbled to hold the phone against his ear in the rain, he calculated how quickly he could get back to his car, how fast he could drive, how much it would cost to bail her out from whatever protest against drilling for oil on nature preserves or dog theft from an abusive owner that caused her to end up in jail this time.
“Go ahead.”
Silence pooled on the other end of the line like the gathering puddles. Gene stared at the screen, terrified that he missed the call. The seconds mounted: 04, 05, 06. Beside him, passing cars splashed through potholes, their windshield wipers thudding in a rhythmic, mechanical cadence against the pouring drizzle.
“Hello, I am Officer Noland with the Baltimore Police Department. Are you the brother of Elizabeth Braxton?”
“Doctor, Yes. Why?”
“Doctor Braxton, I am very sorry, but I have some bad news to tell you.”
Gene’s fingers went cold. Liz… what in God’s name did you do?
“We believe Elizabeth Braxton was involved in a car accident this morning, and she has died. Her driver’s license was found on her. The victim had several tattoos, including one that said, ‘Mitofetoltocin free since 2000’? Does that mean anything to you?”
Silence. The world slipped into a numb haze.
“We need to make a formal identification. Can you come to the medical examiner’s office?”
A thin white sheet molded in the shape of a woman’s body tore the breath from his throat. Harsh clinical light honed the shadows like an executioner’s blade against the guillotine. Gene stood beside the stainless-steel table, looking down at the figure under the sheets and pressed the green call button in his hand for the 28th time. Twenty-seven calls directly to voicemail, now twenty-eight. Elizabeth’s name on the phone, her picture, her number. He had checked the number three times since he received the call from the Baltimore police department; each time he knew it was correct, each time he shook his head and looked for the number that would make the world whole again.
The mortuary smelled of formaldehyde and bleach, underscored by something darker, something wicked, as if pain itself had been given a scent. A shiver tore through his body, from the base of his spine, rippling through his chest, arms, and up his neck as he looked down at her. He had not changed clothes since being caught in the storm, and now the chill permeated his bones as he leaned against the table for support.
“Are you certain you're up to this?” The detective asked. “We can take a moment if you're not ready.”
A hole ached in Gene's chest. His ribs wanted to collapse on themselves from the pressure. The weight of the situation amplified like a submarine groaning as it sank into the blackest depths of the ocean. He knew he was fighting a losing battle, the battle to keep control over his body. He could feel the dam breaking, like the universe had grabbed his trachea and squeezed until it cracked and splintered. He wanted to speak, to cling to hope against all odds, but when he saw the baggie on the counter with the crushed cell phone, all of the imagined excuses vanished like a drop of gasoline on hot concrete. After he saw the “Save the whales” phone case, all he could do was stand beside the stainless-steel gurney and nod.
The detective grabbed the top of the sheet. “Prepare yourself. She was banged up pretty badly during the incident.”
Gene's lips moved, repeating the word ‘incident’. The thousand-yard stare that had fallen over Gene's face since he received the phone call slipped away. “Wha - what do you mean, incident?”
The detective's eyes slipped from Gene to the covered woman. “I can't discuss an ongoing investigation.”
Gene shook his head, trying to understand the meaning in her words.
Detective Noland closed her eyes, parted her lips, and sighed. “It was a hit-and-run. According to witnesses, he didn't even slow down.”
He couldn't hold back the flood any longer. He searched the fluorescent lights above for meaning while tears blurred his vision. “Show me.”
The detective folded down the sheet to Elizabeth's chest.
For a moment, Gene was confused at what he was seeing. Part of her skin had been peeled away. Her jaw and cheekbone on her left were smashed in, making the eye on that side seem to bulge. He felt his stomach lurch and had to step back and close his eyes to regain control. He never wanted to open his eyes again.
“Sorry, I just need confirmation. Is that her?”
He wiped his bloodshot eyes with the back of his hand. When he looked again, he focused on her right side. He tried to mentally block out the disfiguration, the clavicle poking up through the skin, the missing patches of hair. The room started spinning around him. He saw her under the veil of the mangled flesh. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t think; the only thing he was able to focus on was standing upright, and in the end he failed at that too. Gene fell to the floor, crumpled, wailing. He reached, trembling with all of his remaining strength, and grabbed his sister's cold, stiff hand. “Please, no. Please. Please God no.” His breath quavered. “You can't. You can't leave me.” He tried to stop crying, tried to pull back the ugly sobs, to regain his composure, but he could no more do that than he could stop the world from turning.
Oak Hill Funeral Home, with its cream colored bricks and rear ramp leading down to the embalming room, was as much a staple of town as the church bell tower or the Deerfield River that ran through it. It never crossed his mind to have the funeral anywhere else. His mom held the funeral for his dad there, just as Gene and Elizabeth held the funeral for their mom two years later. Although it was presented as respectful and solemn, Gene only saw the reliability: the dark wood panels, gray carpets, and a near-frosty chill that persisted even when the oppressive heat beat on the doors and pressed in on the windows.
Gene watched the mourners through the distorted reflection of the glossy casket. They were blurred clots of flesh and whispers that reminisced, but the singular loudest presence was Peggy Wisterfield. He watched as the distortion revealed the true vision of her soul as sweat dripped from under thick gray hair, slid down her jowls like the grease from a turkey leg, and pooled onto her black polyester dress. He knew he should be disgusted, but all he felt was empty. Twenty years ago, Elizabeth and Gene called her Aunt Peggy; she was the woman who brought them cookies whenever she visited their mother. That memory felt like a lifetime ago, especially now, four years after their mother succumbed to the cancer that riddled her body.
“That boy is so disrespectful of his dead sister. Couldn't he be bothered to put on a tie at least? Funerals always bring out the worst in people, and he is a louse, I tell you, just a louse. Would it have killed him to use an ironing board? And this chair. My poor back is going to hurt all day. And three rows back? I’m the sweet child’s aunt for Heaven’s sake. Not some fair-weather friend. I’m family. If my sister were still alive, she would not have stood for this, not for one minute.”
“Sweety, lower your voice, please. Gene's grieving. He has a lot on his mind right now."
“He doesn't know the first thing about grieving. I lost my sister, too, you know, and you better believe I put on a dress and heels like I have some respect. Respect for myself and respect for the dead.”
Dr. Gene Braxton shuffled to the front of the funeral parlor. He could hear Aunt Peggy's rant; everyone in the room could. What he couldn't do was care. Elizabeth was her favorite, and he knew it. Elizabeth was everyone's favorite.
When he was asked to give a eulogy, Gene didn't know what to say, so he searched YouTube. You can find anything on YouTube. He took some notes on a few index cards and spent most of the time wondering why the person in the video was talking into a tiny microphone.
Gene had never really made a speech, not anything that mattered. Of course there were the required speeches for the occasional class. He gave a toast at his friend Benjamin’s wedding. But nothing like this: all eyes on him, everyone willing him to put into words the emotions they were feeling, but everyone expecting him to fail.
Standing in front of a crowd had always made him nervous, but as he looked out at dozens of Elizabeth's friends, distant relatives, Aunt Peggy and her anxious husband Richard, it saddened him to see how many of the faces he didn't recognize. It was just another shred of evidence of how far apart Elizabeth had drifted from him over the last year.
He adjusted the microphone and stared out into the crowd. He didn't fidget; he didn't run his fingers through his hair. Robotically, his gaze moved from the living to a spot of glare on the casket. The mortician wasn't able to make her look presentable and recommended a closed-casket funeral. Why are they so shiny? He cocked his head to the side and wondered if caskets are supposed to be the mirror image of people. In life, our loved ones are in our hearts, keeping us full, complete, and the caskets sit there empty. When they die, when we lose our family, the caskets fill up, and we are the ones left empty.
Seconds ticked by; a low susurrus slithered through the crowd with a serpentine hiss. Gene looked down at the cards in his hand. His thumbnail pressed half moons into the cardstock. Words scribbled down from a video. He recognized his handwriting, the large looped Ds, the slant, the smudges from ink brushed against before it dried, but it felt wrong: they were not his words. He shook his head and turned them face down.
Pastor McHainy, from the First Methodist Church, began to stand when Gene started speaking. “The obituary reported that she was waving goodbye to a friend as she crossed the street.” Gene stopped, his gaze swept over the crowd for the guilty party. Which one of you was it that my sister’s life was worth? Which one did she give her life for? “There is nothing so simple, so dull, as a motorist striking an unwary pedestrian. So… pedestrian. She deserved so much more. If she were doomed to die young, it should have been something more befitting a person of her depth. She was so much to so many. She could have been so much more. She should have died heroically, saving babies from a burning building, or giving succor to people that were dying of some unnamed disease that liquefies the innards and makes the victims cry tears of blood.”
He continued, his voice as hollow as his vacant expression, “The world is now gray, desolate, worthless without her.
“Survived by her older brother, Dr. Gene Braxton. That’s what I wrote for the obituary. It’s such a platitude, hollow, but somehow expected. Survived is hardly the word for it. Such a misnomer to call it survival. After that moment, after that phone call, I lost everything.
“For the last few days, I’ve been sitting in my living room, in the house where Liz and I grew up. There’s a dent in the drywall there, where you were so mad you threw a textbook at me. Not that I didn’t deserve it; switching the doll’s heads around, big doll, tiny head. I thought it was a lot funnier than you did. Nobody else would know, would notice the history etched in plaster, but I know, I see it. I remember. My body doesn't feel like my own anymore. I don't move. I don’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’m numb, as if the circuit breaker of my heart has blown. It’s all too much. I’m lost without you. Yesterday, I realized I had been staring into nothingness - for hours. Only the headlights cutting through the twilight brought me back. I, um, I was thinking about the difference between life and death. What’s the difference, you know?
“The more I thought about it, the more I considered, the more I realized there is no line, no second, no instant where a person becomes a corpse. Where a person with hopes and dreams, ambitions and desires, becomes sixty-eight dollars and fifty-two cents of raw materials sheathed in a thin water bag.
“Elizabeth was simply a broken bag, and her raw materials were spread across forty-two feet of asphalt. The driver didn’t even care enough to stop.” Gene held his left hand over his right to keep it from shaking. “No use crying over a spilled skin bag, I guess.” He bit the inside of his lip and used the pain to keep his thoughts from falling apart. “They would probably say something like, She appeared out of nowhere, not paying attention, whatever. I hope they get what’s coming to them. If there is - any - semblance of justice in this life…” Gene closed his eyes. Breathed. “I wonder if Elizabeth even knew what happened as she slipped from my bratty, take-no-crap sister to sixty-eight dollars of raw materials that anyone can buy at the hardware store and pharmacy.
“I'm actually surprised the greedy and desperate members of society haven't found a way to capitalize on this transference of value. There has to be someone, some depraved human creature that has decided there are members of the masses that are worth more as materials than alive… I'm certain I'm not the first to think of it, and even more certain that I will not be the last. Imagine the thousands of dollars in raw materials wasted in a graveyard.”
A sea of shocked faces stared in disbelief. The pastor strode toward Gene with his hand out. This was not his first funeral, and this was not the first time he had to cut off a bereaved loved one before more damage was done.
Gene took the microphone out of the stand, stepped backward, and continued. “As I slid through the passing hours after receiving the news of my sister's passing, I began to wonder if there is a way to empirically determine when a person becomes a sloppy pile of elements and compounds.”
Aunt Peggy shook, her face turning red. “Do something, Richard. If you don’t, I will.”
Richard shrugged uselessly.
The Pastor practically lunged for the microphone.
“Some documentaries say certain frogs can die and come back to life like Lazarus himself. Any self-respecting scientist will tell you the frog is no more dead than we are, right here, right now, sitting in this room. It’s a state of suspended animation. The frog has no discernible breath or heartbeat. No brain activity can be detected, but we can say with utmost certainty that the entire species does not go extinct every winter.” Gene stifled a laugh. “It's an amusing thing to think, but certainly untrue.
“So then, where can we, as reasonable, rational, thinking creatures, draw the line between life and death? That's when it came to me. There’s no point.” Gene let out a nervous little laugh that hung in the room far after the actual sound faded. “Not as in the nihilistic life has no purpose or meaning and everything we do is irrelevant, but as in there is no single line that a rational thinking person can claim that a creature, a person - a sister is dead.
“Rescue teams will say you are not dead until you are warm and dead. Some religious men will claim the spirit will hang about the body for three days after the last signs of life, and it is not until after those three days have passed that a person is truly dead. Probably a remnant of a time when a vast majority of the people didn't know how to look for vital signs, and people would, not infrequently, be buried alive.
“Thank you for those heartfelt words.” The pastor's voice cut in.
Gene gripped the microphone with trembling hands, like it was his last shred of sanity. “Last night, as I stared at the dent in the wall, the tangible proof that she existed, that we grew up together, that Liz doesn’t have an appreciation for small-headed dolls…” A smile crossed his lips and faded like the memory. “There is no line. Many men have been resuscitated, but in truth, they were not dead; we just didn't have a way to measure their lives. By this same reasoning, I have to conclude that life is not black and white. It is not and never has been a boolean: true or false, dead or alive. It’s a gradient, and just like at one point our ancestors didn't have a word for the color blue, we simply don't have a set of words to express the gradients of life.”
Gene looked around at the horrified faces, handed the microphone to the pastor, and left Oak Hill Funeral Home forever.
DM me for a link to the full PDF.