Character Corner: Dean Lambert
An inside look at a supporting protagonist from Pandora Reborn
An ancient, disembodied witch trapped inside a medieval chest served as the central antagonist for Pandora Reborn from the earliest stages of story development. I wanted to create a villain who truly challenged my teen protagonists and created life-or-death stakes for all of Deer Falls. Readers quickly learn that my novel chronicles the second time this malevolent witch escaped her prison and attacked the small Colorado town.
Dean Lambert, a survivor from the witch’s first rampage, features in a key Pandora Reborn subplot. Dean is a tragic figure within the story — a hero whose whole life was shattered by the traumatic events he endured as a teen. He is also the subject of my latest character corner.
As always, be warned that significant *spoilers* for Pandora Reborn and some minor *spoilers* for my upcoming serial Snow Dragon lie ahead.
Who is Dean Lambert?
Dean was born and raised in Deer Falls. He was the oldest of son of Robert and Edna Lambert. He had one sibling — a brother named Adam who was two years younger than Dean. Robert worked at Pinto Lumber as a supervisor on their lumber mill. Edna was a homemaker. Dean and Adam were mischievous boys who spent tons of time outdoors. Their favorite activities included swimming in or rafting down Bobcat Creek, climbing trees, and exploring trails during Sunday drives to Nickel Canyon with their parents.
Sports turned into a passion for Dean when he became a teenager. He tried out for the football team and the baseball team at Deer Falls High School — earning spots on the varsity roster for both sports. Dean became a star at running back late in his junior season. He committed to attend Colorado State College in Greeley, Colorado (later known as University of Northern Colorado after 1970) as a senior and play football for the Bears.
Dean also began dating Valerie Greer during his junior year. The young couple quickly fell in love. Their relationship faced a potential obstacle though when Valerie got accepted into Denver University on an academic scholarship. Denver dropped its football program in 1961, during Dean’s senior year at Deer Falls, meaning he’d have to give up football or she’d have to give up her scholarship for them to attend college together. Dean was willing to sacrifice football, but Valerie didn’t want him to give up on a dream for her sake.
Encountering the witch
Dean’s life changed in a profound way during his senior year at Deer Falls High. A classmate discovered a buried chest with his father while prospecting outside of Deer Falls. They opened the chest and unleashed an ancient, disembodied witch upon the town. She disintegrated the bodies of both father and son and then used the material to fashion a new physical form for herself.
The ancient witch masqueraded as a fellow student at the high school. Soon, mysterious deaths piled up around town. Adam, Dean’s younger brother, grew curious and snooped around. He learned about the chest and narrowly escaped a brush with death after finding it. Dean and Valerie were skeptical but became believers after the witch slaughtered Robert and Edna while searching for Adam. Stricken with grief over the death of their parents, Adam and Dean vowed to destroy the witch.
They tracked down a monk belonging to an ancient monastic order who was responsible for bringing the chest to Deer Falls. From him, they obtained an incantation first used to trap the witch inside the chest many centuries earlier. She moved her chest to the high school with designs of making it her new lair from where she would rule all of humanity. The witch slaughtered dozens of students and town residents in the gym during a basketball game. Dean drew her back inside the chest, but his victory came at a great cost. The witch burned Adam to ashes and Valerie died after being impaled by debris from a broken table. Dean buried the chest behind his family’s home and tried to move on with his life.
A life interrupted
Defeating the witch exacted a heavy psychological toll on Dean. His emotional scars from losing his family and his girlfriend to that monster worsened over time. Dean did his best to live a normal life. He earned a college degree, began a career, and tried to date other women following Valerie’s tragic death.
Severe PTSD hampered Dean’s efforts to heal. He tried everything from therapy to medication to deal with his survivor’s guilt. In the end, Dean was a broken man. His first and only marriage ended in divorce within four years. Dean had two children with his ex-wife Johanna, but she moved away from Colorado and cut off contact with him permanently. He never succeeded in his efforts to find and build a relationship with his children later in life.
Eventually, Dean returned home to Deer Falls after continually worrying about the security of the buried chest. He purchased his family’s old home and vowed to stay there and guard the chest until he died. Dean’s home suffered considerable damage in an earthquake that struck Deer Falls in 2013. It was further damaged in a rampage by a subterranean reptilian monster, forcing Dean to tear the old house down. He lacked enough money to build another home. Instead, he bought a small camping trailer and parked it in the vacant lot where his family home once stood and where the chest holding the witch remained buried. He did odd jobs or panhandled to secure enough funds to pay property taxes each year.
The witch returns
Dean’s worst nightmare came true 55 years after he first defeated the ancient witch. A stupid, irresponsible local teen dug up the chest Dean guarded after knocking him out and released its lone occupant. The witch returned, slew the teen and his parents, and created a new physical body for herself. Now free a second time, she quickly set her plan for vengeance in motion.
When mysterious deaths began occurring mirroring the ones from 1961, Dean recognized telltale signs of the witch’s return. He grew obsessed with finding and destroying her before more lives were lost or destroyed. Dean’s advanced age — he was 73 years old at the time — complicated his efforts to oppose the witch. Still, he believed he was the only one capable of defeating her and her strong dark magic. His persistence led to renewed conflicts with Deputy Palmer, and it also set him on a collision course toward a dark fate.
Appearance and personality
In his youth, Dean possessing an athletic build fitting for a star running back on the football team. He had light brown hair, blue eyes, a square jaw and sported a flat-top haircut. 55 years later, Dean’s hair had thinned, turned gray and was disheveled more often than not. He usually had a week’s worth of gray stubble on his face and wore a tattered green coat everywhere.
Before undergoing his life-changing traumatic battle against the witch, Dean was cheerful, warm, optimistic, and had a good sense of humor. Following that event, he became moody, depressed, and reserved. Dean eventually fell into full-blown paranoia as he aged and became ever fearful the witch would escape the buried chest again. Dean became prone to becoming lost in his thoughts and being single-minded in his doing things his way.
