The Gate and the Way: A Clifton Heights Story Read online

  The Gate and the Way – A Clifton Heights Story

  By Kevin Lucia

  Copyright 2010 - © Kevin Lucia

  Originally Published 2013 - Things Slip Through

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and

  incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a

  fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual

  events is purely coincidental.

  The Gate and the Way

  The woods behind Bassler House stank worse than anything Jesse Kretch had ever smelled. He looked up to bitch about it to Scott, but a tree branch smacked him in the face before he could speak.

  “Ow! Dammit! Watch it, Scott!”

  Small lines burned his cheeks. Scott looked back as he pushed through brush and more branches. “Sorry. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Guess so. Stings like a motherfucker, though.”

  “Pussy.”

  “Ass.”

  “Whatever. Just keep movin. We don’t have all day. Gotta have Mrs. Wilkins’ yard mowed by dinner.”

  Jesse scowled but said nothing as he followed Scott through the woods behind old Bassler House. They could’ve taken the easier way along Bassler Road, but that started off the end of South Main Street and looped around town. Way too long. This shortcut – through the woods behind the Commons Trailer Park – was quicker.

  But smellier, way smellier. The air reeked of bad milk and old piss. Mounds of bulging white plastic bags dotted the ground, some split open like alien egg sacs, spilling out their moldy contents: greasy food wrappers, rusted and slimy tin cans, diapers and other junk dissolved into unknown gray mush. Enough to make anyone blow chunks if they stuck around long enough.

  “Gee-zus. Stinks here. Why we doin this anyway? What’s the deal?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Aw, c’mon. Smells like shit up here. Why we gotta…”

  “Suck it up. Tell you when we get there. Now quit cryin and move.”

  Jesse fell silent. He loved Scott to death, but sometimes? He was a major pain in the ass.

  A few steps later they stopped near the forest’s edge, behind the crumbling house. Jesse glanced at its empty windows. They spilled out an inky blackness. He shivered and looked at Scott instead, instantly feeling better.

  Jesse always felt good when he looked at Scott. He tried to hide it, though. Didn’t want anyone thinking he was queer. But it was hard not to look at him. Tall and lanky and muscled, all the girls loved him. His sharp eyes saw everything. He moved in a fluid way Jesse couldn’t. Sometimes it hurt to watch Scott, because he wished he could move and act and talk like him, but somehow knew he never would, no matter how hard he tried.

  Scott grinned. “So. Guess what we’re after?”

  Jesse shrugged, still pissed but trying to hide it. “Dunno. What?”

  “Beer and soda cans. Bottles, too.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  Scott popped him one in the shoulder. “Duh. Didn’t you see that article in The Tribune the other day about the new recyclin laws?”

  Jesse winced and shrugged. “Nope. I just read the comics.”

  Scott ruffled his hair. Jesse ducked and scowled. He knew Scott didn’t mean it, but that always made him feel like such a little kid.

  “Stop! Butt-hole.”

  “Dick-breath. Anyway. There’s a new law sayin you get a nickel for every can and bottle you turn in. A nickel. For each one. Mr. Greenwood at the Great American’s gonna start takin em.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “Duh. Think of all the kids an drunks sneakin out here to booze up. Gotta be tons of bottles an cans here.”

  “Still don’t get it.”

  Scott pulled two crumpled plastic bags from his pocket. “Look. These’ll hold about a hundred cans an bottles each. If we fill em up, we can get close to ten bucks. We’ll split it, five bucks each.” Scott winked. “I was over at Brooks Pharmacy yesterday. Guess what they just got?”

  Jesse smiled hopefully. “New comics?”

  “You bet. Secret Defenders, The Hulk… an Dr. Strange.”

  “Cool.” Jesse paused. “Wait. You don’t read comics. What’re you gonna buy with your split?”

  Scott shrugged and looked away. “Dunno. Think of somethin...”

  He paused and cocked his head.

  Jesse broke out in goose pimples, though he didn’t know why. “What?”

  “Thought I heard somethin. Like a door openin.”

  Jesse swallowed, his guts squirming for some reason. “Screw this. Let’s split.”

  Scott smirked. “C’mon! Take off your skirt an grow one, willya? Just the wind blowin a door or maybe some shutters closed. That’s all.” He looked over his shoulder and asked, “You comin?”

  “Whatever. Let’s hurry, though.” Jesse kicked a wadded up newspaper along the way. “I’m readin a buncha issues of Dr. Strange, where he an the Secret Defenders are fightin vampires. I wanna finish em before we cut fatso Wilkins’ yard.”

  They stopped at an open door leading to what Jesse figured was the basement. He tried hard to ignore that sick feeling in his belly, which had gotten worse. He scowled. “We goin or what?”

  Scott flashed Jesse a smile he could never refuse. “You bet.”

  #

  He stares at old Bassler House. Noon’s high sunlight flickers off shattered glass in moldy window frames, setting off the deep shadows that ooze from those empty windows. Anything could be lurking inside and he’d never know until too late, but he breathes deep, swallows his fear and starts forward. A terrible destiny waits inside this house. He feels this, in his very bones, and also feels that now is the time to do what must be done.

  As he walks, an old pistol – a .38, stuck under his belt buckle – rubs against his belly. He clenches and re-clenches sweaty fingers around the handle of Grandpa Carlton’s old Army hatchet, given to him when he was a boy. Little had he known then what it was for.

  His footfalls drum out dull rhythms as he nears the house. Three steps. Two. One. He mounts the porch and approaches the front door, pushes it open with the hatchet’s blade and enters the front hall. He blinks as his eyes adjust, nostrils twitching at a rotten odor.

  He coughs.

  It echoes against the silence.

  He looks around. Sunlight peeks through crooked shutters, shadows jig on the floors. To his left and right sit empty rooms. Before him, a staircase curves upwards to the second floor landing, and under the staircase, against the back wall…

  There.

  The door to the basement. He starts for it and stops when he hears a muffled thud. A door opening?

  He listens for more. Nothing. Except maybe… voices. Footsteps. Where?

  A scrape. Shuffling feet. Then, a faraway shattering.

  His heart pounds as he advances on the door leading to the basement stairs.

  #

  “Sam Higgins says this place is haunted. Says people see lights in the woods an hear screams at night, shit like that.”

  Scott paused just inside the basement and touched the rotten door-frame. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Sam don’t lie. He’s okay.”

  Scott shrugged. “I guess, but I’m tellin ya… it ain’t haunted. Wise up, chief.”

  Jesse swung his empty plastic bag at Scott. “You wise up, fart-knocker…”

  Scott dodged, slipped, and bumped against a table next to the door, knocking over a glass jar. It hit the floor and shattered.

  They froze.

  Standing still for several hushed minutes, hea
ring nothing.

  Scott relaxed and gave Jesse a weak grin. “Geez. Got me spooked with all those stories. And,” he pointed at Jesse, “if you hadn’t swung at me I wouldn’ta bumped that table.”

  Most of his fear had melted, but enough unease remained to make him feel snappy. “Well, maybe if you wasn’t so damn clumsy an all.”

  “Nice. You kiss Mom with that mouth?”

  “Whatever. Stick it, ass-breath.”

  Scott held up his hands. “Okay, enough. I give up. We good?”

  Jesse stuck his hands into his pockets. He couldn’t stay mad at Scott, not for long. “Yeah. Suppose.”

  Scott jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  “All right then. Let’s move.”

  #

  As he descends the basement steps he notices he’s made no progress, like he’s been descending an escalator the wrong way. The door at the bottom isn’t any nearer. He stops, glances over his shoulder and sees that the rectangle of light on the first floor also isn’t any farther away. That, and…

  Faint whispers hiss around him.

  Beneath that, he hears things crawling behind the walls, leathery bodies sloshing and squirming.

  He stops.

  Glances back at the door above. Its bright rectangle beckons, and as he looks at the light, the whispers fade, and he feels peace.

  But he can’t turn back now, so he digs into his pocket and withdraws a folded piece of paper and a small flashlight. He sticks his hatchet pommel-first under his belt, clicks the flashlight on and reads the strange words silently, realizing that after this, there’s no return.

  Without looking behind him he reads the words printed on the sheet. Harsh consonants rasp against his teeth, twisting his tongue in unnatural ways. His voice, low and guttural, gurgles and croaks and echoes as he comes to the end of the strange invocation. He looks up, shines his flashlight on the door…

  Nothing.

  And then…

  Rock shifts against rock, and what sounds like a great wind – though not a breath touches him – moans down the stairs. The rock-on-rock sound swells, then fades. The whispers fall silent.

  He holds up his flashlight and stares.

  The walls and ceiling of the stairwell have been replaced by a cold darkness. He looks down. The steps remain, as does the basement door, but now they float in a nothingness that makes his stomach roll. He doesn’t bother looking behind him, figuring the door to the first floor has disappeared also. He imagines the stairs ascending forever into an endless black sky. He shivers and keeps looking ahead. Doesn’t need to push his stomach over the edge. This isn’t the best time to yack up his breakfast of bourbon and scrambled eggs.

  Voices again drift from below, fading in and out like a radio station not in tune.

  “… this is great… we’re gonna be friggin rich…”

  Cold desperation puckers his skin. There’s not much time left. He has to move. He stuffs the flashlight and paper back into his pocket and snatches the hatchet from his belt. He then descends, trying very hard to ignore the swirling nothingness all around.

  #

  There really wasn’t that much to see in the basement past some old scattered tools, rusted metal bits and gutted appliances – like old toasters and transistor radios – cluttering a workbench against one wall. Also on the workbench, a few overturned mason jars spilled screws, nuts and bolts into rusting piles. Several pieces of broken and rotting furniture littered the floor, giving the basement its only smell: a light, musty, damp-wood scent that paled in comparison to the woods out back.

  But it turned out to be the mother lode. After only twenty minutes their bags bulged with their finds, Scott and Jesse finding most of the cans and bottles in dusty corners or stacked on shelves. At first, Jesse hadn’t collected many because they were old and didn’t have “refund” stamped anywhere on them, then Scott told him the new law afforded a “grace period” on any aluminum can, so he stuffed his bag full of crusty but not too disgusting cans of Genesee, Coke, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz. Two cans floating in a bucket of black, mucky water, however, he left for Scott.

  Many years ago, someone had split the basement into the main workroom and several smaller rooms connected by a short hall. At the end of the hall, a door led upstairs.

  “Man,” Jesse said as he followed Scott, “this is great! We’re gonna be friggin rich!”

  Scott pushed open another door. “Dunno about that. Not if the rest of the house looks like this.”

  Jesse peeked around Scott into the dark room, saw litter everywhere, but except for a shattered Sunkist bottle in the corner, the room was mostly empty.

  Scott cracked his neck. “C’mon. There’s one last room. We’ll check it out, then head upstairs.”

  Jesse didn’t like the idea of going upstairs, at all. A chill played around his neck. Not fear, really, just…

  “I dunno, Scott. Maybe we should go home. We got enough, dontchya think?”

  Scott’s face hardened. Jesse knew what that meant. Everybody did. Scott Kretch wasn’t a quitter. He always got what he wanted.

  Always.

  Scott smiled. “It’ll be fine, Jess. I’ll take care of ya. Promise.”

  Scott always promised that.

  And mostly, Jesse believed him.

  Still, that cold feeling had seeped into his chest, making it a little hard to breathe. His head hurt for some reason and maybe he was just tired, but his ears were ringing, too.

  But this was Scott.

  Jesse couldn’t say no.

  “Okay. Let’s move it, though. Mrs. Wilkins’ yard, remember?”

  “Yep.”

  Scott led the way out of the room and down the hall. Jesse followed him but his stomach churned. Even with Scott’s promise, Jesse couldn’t shake a cold, sick feeling inside.

  Stupid. Stupid dumbass baby. Lose the skirt and grow one.

  Jesse pushed his unease away and followed Scott.

  #

  He stands at the door and it fills his vision, making it easier to ignore the emptiness behind him. Even so, he’s broken out into a cold sweat. He hears them on the other side of the door, walking toward that last room, and fear tightens his throat.

  Can he do this?

  And do what, exactly? He doesn’t know for sure what he’s supposed to do, doesn’t even know if today is the right day. He’s read and studied lots over the years, but he’s understood very little. When he woke up this morning, his gut just said: today.

  He flicks off his flashlight and stuffs it into his pocket. Strange, unreadable symbols all along the doorframe (which hadn’t been there before he read the incantations) are glowing now, so he doesn’t need the flashlight anymore. He takes the gun out from under his belt, pops out the cartridge cylinder to check the special silver slugs he made by melting down old earrings and necklaces he’d bought or bartered for at Old Man Handy’s Pawn & Thrift.

  After a few seconds of inspection that doesn’t make him feel any better, he slaps the cartridge cylinder back and pulls the hatchet from his belt. He paid two month’s wages to make a silver blade for it, because he’s read that silver hurts evil things, and though he’s not exactly sure what waits for him on the other side of that door...

  He knows it’s evil.

  So he holds both weapons and waits because he doesn’t need to open the door. When the time comes, it’ll open for him. That much of his reading he’s understood.

  Seconds pass.

  Feet thump hard against a concrete floor somewhere nearby, then, “… what the hell…”

  The knob twists.

  The door sighs and drifts open.

  And he steps through.

  #

  The last room looked different, like it had been dug out. It had no door, just a rectangular opening braced by a wooden frame. Inside, an uneven concrete floor rolled in bumps and ridges, like someone had mixed the cement in a wheelbarrow and poured it by hand. The walls were packed dirt with no windows, and its dirt
ceiling hung lower than the other rooms, held up by thick wooden beams supported by intermittent floor joists. Also…

  “Shit. Lookit that.”

  Scott swung his flashlight far left, illuminating three rows of strange shapes and symbols carved into the bumpy floor: squares, triangles, hexagons and squiggly lines.

  Jesse turned his flashlight clockwise and stopped when he saw the same carvings to his right. “What the hell?”

  Scott’s flat tone spooked him. “Dunno. Maybe…”

  “Maybe what? Don’t dick around. This is some weird shit.”

  Scott looked at him, wide-eyed. “Maybe all the stories about this place are true.”

  Jesse felt his gut twitch. “Fuck that noise. Let’s ditch.”

  “Hold on.” Scott aimed his flashlight at the back wall. “Is… that a door? It don’t go nowhere. Filled with dirt. What the hell?”

  Jesse saw it; set into the back wall: a wooden, rectangular doorframe. Looked like some crazy bastard had pounded it straight into the dirt.

  But who cared? Far as Jesse was concerned, his weird-shit meter was on overload. “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  “Just a sec. Looks like there’s a board on the wall next to it. Somethin carved on that, too. Lemme check. Then we can go.”

  “C’mon…”

  “Shit.” He flashed Jesse that damned smile again as he moved toward the back of the room. “Lose the skirt an–”

  He jerked once and stiffened.

  His flashlight slipped and fell to the floor.

  “S-Scott?” Jesse’s suddenly tight throat strangled his words. “C-Cut the s-shit!”

  Scott gurgled, and a sour stink wafted from him. He’d pissed himself.

  Jesse stumbled on rubbery legs, reaching for his brother. “Scott! What the hell…”

  Scott twitched. “Nnnngnh!”

  No!

  Jesse’s hand stopped inches from Scott’s elbow. “What? What’re you…”

  “Dngnh!”

  Down.

  Jesse swung his flashlight down and sucked in a hissing breath between his teeth. Scott had stepped onto a triangle carved into the uneven floor. At the triangle’s points, circles contained other strange symbols.

  Panic gripped Jesse. He felt like puking and blacking out, all at once. What should he do? No one knew they’d come here. It’d take too long to run for help and he sure as shit wasn’t leaving Scott by himself.