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

  Damn! Why Scott? Why not me? He’s smarter, he’d know what to do…!

  Jesse swung his flashlight around the empty room, his mind buzzing, not wanting to touch Scott because he was afraid something would happen to him, thinking maybe he could find a stick or board to push Scott out of the triangle … but what if that was bad, too? If magic had trapped Scott, wouldn’t magic have to free him? Jesse thought he’d read that in his comics, and that if some weird voodoo-black magic had trapped Scott in that triangle and Jesse tried to push him out with a stick, maybe Scott would go crazy and have seizures and…

  Wait.

  Jesse pointed his flashlight where Scott had seen the board on the wall. Careful to side step the triangle that had trapped Scott, he approached it. Much as he hated himself, he couldn’t make himself look at Scott as he passed.

  In his comics Dr. Strange was always saying spells and opening the third eye, making weird hand gestures for magic. Maybe the words Scott thought he’d seen on the plaque were magic words that would set him free?

  Jesse’s flashlight lit up the board. His stomach swirled and the words carved there blurred. He had to focus very hard to see them, and that made him feel sicker.

  He rubbed his eyes. This was stupid. He didn’t know what would happen when he read those words!

  Jesse forced himself to look back at his brother. Scott’s face twisted, his eyelids twitching, lips trembling. Drool leaked from the corner of his mouth.

  Tears welled in Jesse’s eyes, which made him feel like a damned baby, but he didn’t care. This was Scott. The man. His hero.

  I’ll take care of ya

  promise

  Jesse turned away from Scott and looked the words over. Some of the last ones jumped out…

  call upon thee to deliver me forth from this place

  “Deliver me forth. That’s gotta be it. That means get me outta here, right?”

  Like he knew. But what else could he do?

  Jesse swallowed and licked his lips. Feeling like this was the worst idea ever, he stuttered…

  “O… uh… O K-Keeper of the G-Gate who art the Gate, O Keeper of the Key who art the Key… uh, lesse… who… who w-walks between worlds and across centuries… Gee-zus, what is this shit? I… uh… c-call upon thee to deliver me forth from this place!”

  He looked back at Scott. A heartbeat passed.

  Nothing. Then…

  A tremor passed through Scott. His head twitched, eyes opening impossibly wide.

  And then he screamed, arching his back, arms flailing. Smoke spewed from his shoulders. Jesse’s stomach clenched as he smelled burnt flesh. Forgetting about the triangle and what it had done to Scott, he lurched forward, slipped…

  … and then an invisible hand jerked him backward (which didn’t make sense; wasn’t there a wall behind him, how could he be flying backward?) and as the screaming and jerking and burning Scott shrank to a very small dot and darkness fell over everything, Jesse’s mind screamed over and over I wanna go home, wanna go home, wanna go home…!

  #

  He steps into the room (which looks much smaller than he remembers) and sees his younger self sucked backwards into the swirling black vortex that has formed inside the dirt-filled doorframe. Scott abruptly ceases jerking and swaying inside the triangle, head down, hands hanging by his sides, strings of smoke rising off him, and then…

  He looks over his shoulder and smiles that same damn smile… except this isn’t Scott anymore.

  “Hey, Jess.” That voice – like Scott’s but not – echoes with countless others, “Nice to see you again.”

  Too late.

  He’s come back too late. Sorrow and guilt twists Jesse Kretch’s insides into knots. “Damn. Sorry, Scott.”

  He hefts and throws the silver-bladed hatchet at his brother and it strikes Scott in the back with a dull thud. Scott straightens with a yelp that sounds more pissed than hurt. Smoke pours out around the hatchet and a hot sizzling fills the air as the silver blade sags and melts against Scott’s flesh. Sparks and small, greenish flames sprout from the wound, and rivulets of liquid silver run down Scott’s back and legs.

  Jesse Kretch is pointing his gun even as the hatchet’s silver blade dissolves, but before he can pull the trigger Scott gestures and the gun explodes, taking Jesse’s hand off to the wrist and blowing bits of metal and flesh and bone everywhere. Jesse screams once, then an invisible hammer slams him back against the wall, pinning him there.

  The hatchet’s wooden handle clatters to the floor.

  Rocks dig into Jesse’s back as he writhes in pain. His stomach clenches, then he pukes down his front, bile stinging his throat and mouth. Wet warmth spreads across his groin, soaking his inner thighs.

  Not-Scott turns inside the triangle.

  Cocks its head and smiles wider. “Silver this time. Nice try.”

  Pain throbs across Jesse’s body. “I-I don’t understand. Wha … what th’ hell are ya?”

  The smile vanishes. Not-Scott’s face relaxes into a plastic expression. “I am All in One and One in all. Past, present, and future converge in me.”

  “So ya knew. Been waitin for me to come bac, an it didn’t matter when I did. You woulda always been here… right?”

  “I am Outside Time. I have always been here and will always be here, and you will always be here, at this moment, also.”

  An icy fist squeezes Jesse’s heart.

  All this time.

  Studying whatever scrap of myth he could find, absorbing what little he understood. All the preparation, the waiting, when he thought he’d been sacrificing so much: love, success, happiness, his life, his reputation, everyone in town thinking he was just a crazy drunk…

  None of that mattered, and it didn’t change a thing.

  Not-Scott flicks its hand and invisible tethers drag Jesse from the wall toward the triangle, bringing him to a stiff-legged halt inches from it. Though he doesn’t want to look into the blazing green orbs Scott’s eyes have become, he can’t look away and in them he sees terrible, inconceivable things.

  “This body is insufficient to house He Who Lies Outside Time. You invoked the Gate. Your flesh should house Him. But this requires your willing submission.”

  Iron-tight bands squeeze his chest and icy fingers of fear clutch his heart, exhaustion and madness pounding his temples. “If… I say… no?”

  That smile returns, stretching so wide Jesse fears it might split Scott’s head in half. “You will die. And He will fall dormant inside your brother’s flesh, just beneath the surface. Your younger self will soon see changes in him. Changes you’ve already seen. Yes?”

  Jesse closes his eyes.

  Bloody images spinning in his head.

  Of the dead cats and rodents they’d started finding behind their house, of how Scott had shunned family and friends, becoming sullen and withdrawn, disappearing for hours into the woods with no explanations for where he’d been or what he’d been doing, of Scott’s troubles with girls, how he nearly got sent away because of what he’d done to that one girl and finally, of police finding him dead in his Utica apartment at age twenty-one, after swallowing an old shotgun’s muzzle. And then… all the things they’d found there.

  Obscene videos, pictures, and magazines; journals filled with insane ramblings.

  And the souvenirs.

  From all the little girls and boys Scott had apparently killed.

  Jesse opens his eyes, forcing himself to meet Not-Scott’s burning gaze, swallowing down the nausea inspired by the things he sees there. “If… if I go with you… will it be different? Will… things turn out different?”

  Not-Scott’s face relaxes. “Yes. Every decision creates ripples. Every ripple changes things. You’ve made ripples. Things will be different.”

  “F-fuck it, then. W-where we goin?”

  It smiles again, looking more like Scott than ever. “Far away. To glorious worlds where the Ancients sleep and dream forever.”

  This means nothing to h
im. Only one thing does, in the end.

  I’ll take care of ya

  promise

  “All right.” He breathes deep. “I’ll go.”

  And everything becomes a burning, hissing white, then…

  #

  … he woke up.

  “Scott!”

  Jesse sat up.

  In his bedroom.

  At home. He looked around, confused.

  I wanna go home, wanna go home, wanna go home

  Everything seemed normal. Dr. Strange and Spider-man posters hanging on the walls, piles of comics sitting on his desk, rumpled clothes lying on the floor. Jesse swung his feet down and sat on the edge of the bed. He closed his eyes, bent over and held his head in his hands. His brain felt jumbled, like he’d been sleeping for hours and now couldn’t wake up. Bizarre images mixed in his head with half framed thoughts and ideas that sounded crazy… out of his comics, even.

  c-call upon thee to deliver me forth from this place

  Jesse blinked, trying to concentrate.

  Bassler House, and a weird-ass room

  But it slipped away.

  Jesse rubbed his forehead, feeling muddled. He and Scott had gone to Bassler House. Hadn’t they? Some bright idea about snagging bottles and cans for that new five-cent deposit thing.

  Jesse looked around his room again.

  He frowned. They’d gone out around noon. Mom and Dad had gone shopping in Utica and wouldn’t be home until dinner. But his room looked darker than noon…

  He glanced at his bedside clock.

  4:00.

  Damn. We’re supposed to cut Mrs. Wilkins’ yard. She’s gonna be pissed. What the hell have we been doin the past four hours?

  They must’ve come home. He must’ve taken a nap. But why couldn’t he remember…?

  Scott jerked and seized and burned and screamed

  A cold sensation pulsed through him. Jesse bounced off his bed and jogged down the hall toward Scott’s room. The door was partly open. He barged in with, “Hey, Scott! Get your lazy ass up! We gotta cut…”

  Jesse slid to a stop and stared.

  His knees buckled and they folded, sinking him to the floor. He opened his mouth and whimpered because there was Scott, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Blood slicked the bed, oozing in thick streams down the sheets, pooling on the floor from a long, jagged gash in Scott’s left arm, running from wrist to elbow.

  Red meat glistened.

  The wound puckered, like a smile…

  that same damned smile

  … while underneath just a hint of bone gleamed white. In Scott’s other hand, blood-smeared scissors dangled from slack fingers.

  A soft fuzziness closed over him. Jesse kneeled there, breathing in the tangy, metallic scent of Scott’s blood, listening to flies buzz until his parents came home.

  #

  A month later Jesse stood in the last room at the end of that basement hallway. His parents had loosened up a little and had been letting him out alone more. He still had to return home by dark, of course, but Jesse was okay with that. The idea of being alone in the dark frightened him more than it used to.

  Because something bad happened here.

  Something that made Scott kill himself. Maybe even something evil, like in his comics. But so far, he’d found nothing. No carvings. No strange doors leading nowhere. No weird words on boards.

  Nothing.

  But his nightmares told a different story, nearly every single night.

  Self-disgust filled him. Scott had wigged out and killed himself. Who knows why? Whatever had happened, Jesse knew this: Scott was dead. Looking for things that just weren’t there wouldn’t bring him back.

  He turned to leave, but kicked something that rolled. He knelt and panned his flashlight’s beam along the ground, found it, grabbed it and held it up under the flashlight’s glare.

  An old wooden handle.

  Maybe to a hatchet or something.

  Funny thing was, though the handle felt worn and smooth, indicating much use, it felt solid. Not rotten or damp, which meant it couldn’t have been laying around for long.

  Someone had dropped it recently.

  Jesse looked at what remained of its blade. It looked melted. The flashlight’s beam glinted off the metal. Odd. Didn’t look like cast-iron, but more like…

  Silver.

  In his comics, silver sometimes hurt evil things.

  He frowned and examined the melted blade closer, noticing scorches and cracks, pieces flaking away, almost as if… the silver had been burnt away.

  Because maybe it hadn’t worked.

  silver hadn’t worked

  For some reason that thought buzzed in his head. He turned the handle over, feeling its smooth grain…

  His fingertips brushed rough, carved lines near its head. Numbers or maybe letters. He frowned and brought it closer to the flashlight.

  His stomach grew very cold.

  C. K.

  Carlton Kretch.

  Grandpa Carlton’s hatchet.

  Impossible. He’d seen that hatchet once, when he and Dad and Grandpa and Scott had gone camping last year. Grandpa had let out that maybe someday he’d give the hatchet to Jesse for his birthday…

  Holy.

  Shit.

  Jesse stood and clutched the ruined and impossible handle. Everyone else could pretend Scott went crazy and killed himself, but he knew. Somehow, he knew.

  That hadn’t happened.

  Jesse walked from that room, heading for the town library. The hatchet was proof, of what he didn’t know, but something had happened to them here. Words had been carved into the wall. And though his memories of that day now blurred together, he knew he could remember them, if he tried hard enough.

  He just needed time.

  To save Scott.

  Clifton Heights Stories:

  The Sliding

  A Brother’s Keeper

  Way Station

  The Gate and the Way

  As The Crow Flies

  Scavenging

  Almost Home

  Clifton Heights Collections:

  Things Slip Through

  Clifton Heights Books:

  Drowning (coming soon)

  The Jabberwock (coming soon)

  About the Author

  Kevin Lucia is a Submissions Reader for Cemetery Dance Magazine and his podcast "Horror 101" is featured monthly on Tales to Terrify. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies.

  He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children.

  He is the author of Hiram Grange& The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles. His first collection of Clifton Heights Tales, Things Slip Through was published November 2013. He’s currently working on his first novel.