The Gate 2 Part 3

Something squealed and I looked up. Two beady white eyes were watching me from the shadows. I threw a Lego brick at them and they vanished for a second, only to reappear a few feet away. I picked up another brick and placed it on whatever it was I was building. Somehow I knew it was finished. I pushed back and stood so I could see it better. It was a rectangle, like a doorframe for a dwarf. It stood on a chunky base of stepped bricks and had a s.h.i.+ny piece like a lamp on top. I was about to see if I could walk through it when more beady eyes lit up beyond the doorway.

I stepped away and looked around for something I could use to frighten them off. The yellow plastic of one of my old Nerf guns caught my eye. I pushed past some boxes and grabbed it. It was the one with the revolving chamber and a full load of foam darts. I c.o.c.ked it, spun round, and fired at the first pair of white eyes. There was a squeak and they disappeared. More and more eyes were appearing all over the attic. Some of them scurried out into the light and I kept turning to make sure they didn't sneak up on me.

Rats.

Dozens of them, all filthy and frothing at the mouth. They were squealing at me, staring me down with milky eyes just like Watson's. Just like Mum's. Just like Dad's.

There were heavy footsteps on the stairs and more moaning and groaning. I fired off another Nerf dart and one of the rats scarpered. The others kept closing in, hissing and baring their yellow teeth. Something roared below on the landing and then light spilled up through the trapdoor opening as the canvas wardrobe was pulled down. Fingers grabbed the edge of the opening, but they slipped away. There was a thud as the thing must've hit the ground, but straight away more fingers took hold of the edge. I'd taken my eyes off the rats, and when I looked back they'd got even closer. I shot one right on the nose, but I could see it was no good. More and more were crawling over the attic junk and coming at me from all sides. I fired again and then threw the gun at a pack of them.

A head appeared through the trapdoor opening and the most evil face I'd ever seen snarled at me. Long ropes of drool dangled from its chin as it thrashed about crazily and started to drag itself into the attic. More hands appeared behind it, and below I could hear so much moaning that I knew the house must be full of zombies.

I kicked a rat that had got too close and turned, looking for somewhere to run. They were everywhere, spitting and hissing, squeaking and scratching. The first zombie was finding its feet, while the next was halfway into the attic. I screamed, whirling around desperately and knowing one of the rats was gonna bite me any second. There was no more being grown up, no more being brave. I wanted Mummy. I wanted Daddy, and there was no one. Maybe there was no one anywhere. I tottered and nearly fell, and when I steadied myself I saw a strange violet glow. It was coming from the Lego doorway. I stared at it, openmouthed, even as cold fingers touched the back of my neck. The rats swarmed toward me in waves, and the fingers started to dig into my skin. I screamed again and broke away, tripping on a big rat and falling headlong through the doorway. I hit my head hard and it all went black.

There was a buzzing in my ears, like someone had stuck me in a wasps' nest. Everything itched and p.r.i.c.kled and ached and burned. I was cold, then hot, then cold again. Mum was standing in the doorway, holding out a bag of shopping for me to take.

"Chain gang time," Dad said, leaning over my shoulder to kiss Mum on the lips. The second they touched, it all went fuzzy. My head spun like I was in a was.h.i.+ng machine and I ended up face down in bed. Bad dream, I thought and tried to pull the covers up, only there weren't any covers.

I let out a whimper and tried to move. There was something gritty in my mouth. I spat and raised my head to see what it was.

Dirt.

I was lying face down in dirt. There were trees all around me; tall scraggly trees with no leaves. Heavy clouds hung in the sky and big birds flitted in and out of the treetops. I started at the sound of crunching footsteps getting closer and closer.

"Steady now, old chap," a man's voice said. It was so gruff it sounded like he needed a good cough to clear his throat.

I twisted my head to look up at him. At first he was just a blurry blob of white, but as I blinked, a pointy helmet came into focus. He bent down, resting his weight on a rifle. I rolled onto my back and sat up. I smelled something whiskeyish on his breath, and there were crumbs of food on his dangly moustache. His eyes were sparkly blue with magic, and his cheeks were red and blotchy.

"Good show, old man," he said. "Good show."

"I ... but ... I ... omigos.h.!.+ Wesley J. Harding! But this can't be ... This isn't real."

Wesley J. Harding's brows knitted together and his eyes lost their s.h.i.+ne for a moment.

"You could say that, I suppose. Yes, you could say that." He twiddled his moustache and the sparkle returned to his eyes. "Come on, laddie. Can't dally. Tiger-men on the tail, what, and you don't want them to catch you in the open, mark my word."

He took hold of my elbow and led me off through the trees toward the red disk of the setting sun. I had a zillion questions, but he started to run and it took all my breath just to keep up.

"Tell me, laddie," he called over his shoulder. "Have you ever tried a bed of nails? Look like you could use a good sleep, what."

"Sleep?" I said. "I can't sleep."

He stopped and took me by the shoulders, nodding and frowning.

"I know, laddie. Forgive an old codger. Course you can't sleep after what you've been through."

I pulled back from him, all tensed up and ready for a fight.

"No, it's not that. I'm hungry, is what. Really, really hungry. Starving."

"Ah," Wesley J. said, slapping the barrel of his rifle. "And I think I know just what you need."

I was already licking my lips, somehow knowing what he was gonna say. It felt like someone had lit a fire cracker in my tummy and filled my veins with pepper. My mouth was all squelchy and full of spit that dribbled down my chin. There was a hole in my stomach the size of the Grand Canyon and nothing was gonna make it go away.

"Come on, laddie." Wesley J. turned around, sniffing the air and raising his rifle to his eye. "Let's go hunt ourselves some tiger-men."

- D.P. Prior is an author and editor working in the South of England. He has a background in the performing arts as an actor, director, and playwright. He is a founder member of the legendary rock band Sergeant Suns.h.i.+ne and has written and recorded countless songs. He has extensive experience as a mental health professional and has studied theatre, film, cla.s.sics, history and theology at bachelors and masters levels.

He runs his own editing service with his wife, Paula: www.homunculuseditingservices.blogspot.com He is also the author of the Shader series, which includes Cadman's Gambit and Best Laid Plans. He has also written The Chronicles of the Nameless Dwarf-including The Ant-Man of Malfen and The Axe of the Dwarf Lords. Also in his library is Thanatos Rising from The Memoirs of Harry Chesterton.

For all things Shader please visit: www.deaconshader.blogspot.com.

For The Nameless Dwarf, please visit: www.namelessdwarf.blogspot.com.

Facebook page: www.facebook.com/derek.prior1.

NIGHT NIGHT.

by Daniel Pyle.

Early Sat.u.r.day morning, before the sun rose, before the birds woke and started their new-day chirping, Henry Clement pulled a steak knife from his pocket, watched the dim light from the bedside lamp reflect off the blade, and then leaned over his sleeping brother and stabbed him six times in the throat.

It was a messy, amateurish job, but he had expected that. He'd never killed anyone before.

The first thrust barely penetrated the flesh on the side of Jerry's neck. Jerry started to scream, to thrash. Henry put more muscle into it, and the second two stabs went deeper, turned the screams into soft gurgles. Those three wounds probably would have been enough, but Henry punched the knife in three more times anyway. Just to be sure.

Blood spurted from Jerry's neck, pooled on the pillow and mattress around his head. He slapped a hand against the punctures and looked at Henry with wide, disbelieving eyes, like he must have been dreaming this. His hand slipped through the blood and fell to his side. He lay there for what seemed like a very long time, flopping, unable to breathe, a man-fish. And then he let out a final, wet cough, spraying more blood across his already-drenched chest, and stopped breathing. Deflated. Dead.

Splattered blood dripped down Henry's face and across his nostrils and lips. A particularly heavy spurt had hit him across his chest and left a crimson mark from his shoulder to his hip. Like a sash.

Henry dropped the knife on the mattress.

"I'm sorry," he said and kissed Jerry on the forehead. His lips left a b.l.o.o.d.y print between his brother's eyebrows. Tears streamed down Henry's face, sluicing through the blood and dripping onto Jerry's neck and shoulders.

Henry wiped his eyes and stared past the body, through the bedroom window. Still dark, of course. Nowhere close to daylight. Mandy would be by to see them sometime today. She might arrive as early as ten o'clock, after she'd fed her children breakfast and sent them off with her husband on some kind of adventure, or she might wait until after lunch, until the whole lot of them returned home from the zoo or the park or a matinee. Whether she continued to come because she wanted to or because she felt it was her sisterly duty, Henry didn't know, but she never missed a weekend.

Still, whether it was before lunch or after, it didn't really matter. Henry had never worn a watch, and there was no clock in the bedroom, but he guessed it couldn't have been any later than four in the morning. That left him plenty of time to do what needed doing.

He grabbed Jerry's arm and pulled-jerked-rolled him off the bed. They fell to the floor together. Jerry's face smacked the hardwood with a juicy thud, and Henry fell on top of him, panting. He wasn't exactly a weakling, but he hadn't realized how hard it would be to move Jerry's corpse.

Dead weight.

He ain't heavy. He's your brother.

He considered dragging Jerry into the bathroom, pulling him into the shower and was.h.i.+ng off the blood. Except what would be the point? The blood was gruesome, sure, but was.h.i.+ng away the gore would reveal the stab wounds, and he doubted those would be any less horrific.

No. No shower. Let the doctors or the undertaker or whoever was in charge of such things worry about the cleanup.

He got up, lifting Jerry to a standing position, and backed across the room, looking over Jerry's shoulder at the bloodied bed sheets. So much blood. He'd expected a lot, had visualized it repeatedly, but he guessed he hadn't been prepared for the reality. He stopped once, halfway across the bedroom, steadied Jerry, and vomited on the floor between Jerry's feet.

"Sorry, man," he said. As if Jerry could hear. As if the puking had been Henry's worst offense of the day.

He spat out the last bit of bile and dragged Jerry the rest of the way across the room, looking everywhere but at the bed.

In the hall, their parents stared down at them from wall-hung photos-old portraits with the couple looking young and bright eyed and ready to face the world, newer pictures in which they appeared tired, wrinkled around the eyes, disappointed. Henry thought they would have understood why he did what he'd done, if not approved.

He dragged Jerry past the bathroom, leaving red footprints on the rug and all kinds of b.l.o.o.d.y smears on the walls, stumbling, grunting, sweating.

Getting down the stairs was going to be the hard part. Henry pictured himself stumbling on the first step, cras.h.i.+ng end over end to the landing below, paralyzed, Jerry's corpse on top of him, pressing down on his lungs, suffocating him.

He took a deep breath, bit his bottom lip, and dragged Jerry down the first step. For a second, he thought it was going to happen exactly as he'd imagined. His foot slid to the edge of the step, and gravity tugged at him. He grabbed the railing, let Jerry's body slump against him, and managed to keep his balance. Barely. He stood there for at least a minute, fingers wrapped around the handrail, panting, afraid that even the smallest movement would send the two of them over the tipping point and into a bone-crus.h.i.+ng tumble. Jerry's head flopped to the side, and suddenly Henry was looking into a dead, glazed eye.

Henry s.h.i.+vered and closed his own eyes. His arm trembled, and he knew he couldn't hold on to the railing forever. Adrenaline and determination had gotten him this far, but he could feel exhaustion creeping in. A physical and mental drain. Keeping his eyes closed, he backed down one more step. His heart thumped irregularly, and for a second he thought he must be feeling both their hearts, his and Jerry's. Except that was ridiculous. He was psyching himself out. He needed to stop thinking and start moving.

He backed down another step, and Jerry's head flopped again. This time, his lips pressed against Henry's neck. Like a kiss. Once upon a time, a much younger Jerry had kissed Henry goodnight every evening before bed. Henry remembered the feel of Jerry's mouth on his cheek, remembered him saying Night night, Bubby. See you in the morning. Those were the words he'd fallen asleep to for many years. After their parents had gone to bed. After the lights were off. Night night, Bubby. See you in the morning.

Now Jerry's lips felt lifeless, rubbery, like the lips on a Halloween mask after a long, cold night of trick-or-treating.

Henry wanted to s.h.i.+ft his brother, to get the lips off his neck, but he didn't dare try it. He'd just have to deal with it until he made it to flat ground. He eased Jerry down another step, groaned, paused, and then repeated the process.

By the time he reached the first floor, Henry's chest was damp with sweat and he was shaking uncontrollably. He thought he'd be able to drag Jerry through the living room and kitchen and out onto the back porch, but after that, he expected his body to give up on him. And that was fine. The back porch was as far as he needed to get.

Off the stairs and no longer in any danger of falling any farther than the distance from his head to the floor, Henry managed to ease Jerry's lips off his neck. He dragged his brother away from the staircase, through the narrow entryway at the front of the house, and past the living-room sofa. He paused for a second at an end table and grabbed an old photo alb.u.m from the drawer. He stuffed this in the waistband of his pants and moved on.

In the kitchen, he glanced toward the block of knives, now one short. He'd tucked the blade into his pocket the night before when they were doing dishes, snuck it when Jerry turned away to put a stack of dry plates in the cupboard. For a second, Henry thought Jerry had seen what he was doing-maybe caught his reflection in the toaster oven's little gla.s.s door-but if he had seen, Jerry hadn't said anything, and saying nothing had never exactly been his style.

Henry pulled his brother's body around the small kitchen table, through the back door, and onto the porch.

"What would you do?" Jerry said. They sat on the couch on the back porch, reading. Jerry sat on the right-always on the right-with his foot up on the coffee table between a stack of old magazines and a tower of empty soda cans. He held his Kindle between two fingers and stared intently at the screen.

"That's not a complete sentence."

Now Jerry looked up. "Come on. Seriously. What would you do?"

"What would I do if what?" Henry put down his own Kindle and frowned.

"If..." He bit his lip. "You know...if I died."

Henry rolled his eyes. "Let's not start that again."

"Why not?" Jerry said. "It's a valid question."

"It's a stupid question. You're not gonna die. Okay? Not anytime soon anyway."

"You heard what the doct-"

"Phhhhhh." Henry rolled his eyes. "The doctor? What's he know? He couldn't find his d.i.c.k with both hands and a microscope."

Jerry smiled but didn't laugh. "It's not a stupid question. I just want to know what you'd do."

"I'd cry my eyes out, okay," Henry said. "Is that what you wanna hear?"

"It's a start."

Henry punched him on the shoulder. "You know what I'd really do?"

"What?"

"I'd come out here and read alone," said Henry, "and enjoy the f.u.c.king peace and quiet."

On the back porch, under the glow of the single, low-wattage bulb, Henry lowered Jerry's body to the wicker sofa and dropped down beside him, wheezing. The veins in his neck and head throbbed. He felt hot, dizzy.

He pulled the photo alb.u.m out of his waistband and laid it across his leg, but before he opened it, he took a second to catch his breath and let his heart slow.

Exercise much? Jerry said.

Henry's eyes flew open, and he turned to his brother. Jerry stared back at him with his dead, milky eyes.

I didn't just hear that, Henry thought. Of course not. That was just my imagination. Or my guilt. Or both.

He watched Jerry for what felt like several minutes, knowing he wouldn't move, wouldn't speak, but half expecting him to anyway. In the dark yard beyond the porch, crickets chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a vehicle that must have been an eighteen-wheeler or a large truck sped by.

Henry cupped his hand around the side of Jerry's face and gave it a gentle shake.

"Jer?"

Jerry said nothing.

"Brother?"

Still nothing.

Henry shook his head. He'd caught his breath, but his heart hadn't stopped pounding. Maybe it never would.

He opened to the first page of the photo alb.u.m, to a picture that showed young Henry and Jerry in a small, backyard pool. Mandy stood just outside the pool, maybe running around the perimeter, maybe getting ready to jump in and splash her little brothers. All three of them had huge smiles plastered across their faces, but Jerry's was widest of all.

I always loved playing in that pool, Jerry said.