The Gates (2009) (25 page)

“Was that the sound of your little friends trying to escape?” sneered Mrs. Abernathy, and Samuel knew he had been right: Mrs. Abernathy had not been aware of Nurd’s presence.

Samuel shrugged.

“Well, they won’t get very far. Naroth will find them, and kill them. It will be a swift death, pleasant compared to what I have planned for you.”

Her ghostly hand touched the remaining spider demon, causing the hairs on its body to stand on end.

“Chelom,” she said. “Eat him. Slowly.”

Nurd was approaching the end of Poe Street when a large, dark shape appeared on the road before him, its body tensed to jump. Naroth’s face was not capable of showing feeling, but if
it had been it would have displayed utter astonishment. Instead of the expected children, and the adult woman, there was a single figure behind the wheel of the car, its body draped with a blanket in which two eyeholes had been cut. Naroth’s senses detected something familiar about the figure, but it couldn’t decide what it was.

Nurd stopped the car and stared at Naroth.

“Horrid thing,” said Nurd.

As though it had heard the words, Naroth jumped on the hood, causing Nurd to shriek in fright. Nurd put his foot down on the accelerator and the car jerked forward, but Naroth was holding on tight with its sticky toes. It spat concentrated venom onto the windshield, which immediately began to smoke and melt.

“Oh no you don’t,” said Nurd. “I’m not having you ruining this nice car.”

He braked hard, and Naroth was thrown off with such force that it left one of its legs caught in the side mirror. It landed on its back and began to twist in an effort to right itself. It heard the sound of the engine growling, and redoubled its efforts, finding its feet just as its head was struck by the front of the Aston Martin and its body was dragged beneath its wheels. It had just enough time to think, “Ouch, that—,” before it stopped thinking altogether, and everything went black.

Nurd looked in the rearview mirror at the mangled remains of Naroth, and the satisfying green smear that the toad demon had left along the lower half of Poe Street.

“Serves you right for messing with my motor,” said Nurd. “You should have more respect …”

• • • 

Chelom began to climb over the garden wall, the weight of its body causing the hedge to collapse. It landed heavily and lumbered toward Samuel. As it did so, an arrow whistled by Samuel’s ear and buried itself in the spider demon’s body, causing yellow liquid to spurt from the wound. The spider demon reared up, then resumed its progress as a second arrow flew toward it. This time it struck one of the black eyes on the demon’s head and the demon arched its body in agony, one leg raised as if in an effort to dislodge the arrow from its flesh.

Maria appeared beside Samuel, Samuel’s toy bow raised, and another arrow already nocked, its tip sharpened with a blade.

“Now, Tom!” she shouted.

Tom emerged from the kitchen carrying a container of liquid from which a plastic pipe connected to a nozzle in his hand. He squeezed the nozzle and a jet of fluid landed on the grass at Chelom’s feet. The spider demon reacted as though the ground were hot when the sensitive taste buds at the tips of its legs came into contact with the liquid. Tom kept pumping, and more of the fluid squirted onto the demon’s body and into its eyes and mouth. It tried to retreat, but Tom pursued it relentlessly, until at last the demon began to twist and writhe before falling on its back. Its legs curled in upon its body, and it stopped moving.

Samuel wrinkled his nose.

“What is that stuff?”

“Ammonia and water,” said Tom. “Maria thought of it.”

But Maria was not listening, and neither, suddenly, was
Samuel. Their attention was now concentrated on the image of Mrs. Abernathy, who was gazing upon them in fury.

“Come and get me,” said Samuel. He wanted to distract Mrs. Abernathy from the portal. He had to buy Nurd some time.

But Mrs. Abernathy simply disappeared.

M
RS
. A
BERNATHY STOOD OUTSIDE
what remained of the house. It was almost time. She had wanted to kill Samuel, but that would have to wait. She would find him, though, and when she did he would wish that the spider had consumed him. Again and again he had defied her, and Mrs. Abernathy was not one to tolerate defiance.

The portal had grown to such an extent that all that was left of the house were two walls and a chimney breast. The doors and windows were entirely gone, replaced by a huge spinning vortex with a dark hole at its center. There were no longer creatures coming through it. All such activity had ceased for a time, and those demons and monsters not otherwise occupied in sowing chaos throughout the town were waiting expectantly for the arrival of their master, the Great Malevolence himself. Winged, purple forms dangled upside down from lampposts, like great bats, their heads simply elongated beaks filled with jagged teeth. Around them flew insects as big as seagulls, their
iridescent green bodies ending in long, barbed stingers. A phalanx of vaguely human figures had assembled by the corner of Derleth Crescent, dressed in ornate gold armor that was itself alive as the dragons and snake heads with which it was decorated slithered and snapped at the night air, the armor both a means of defense and a weapon. The armor had no face guard, and beneath each jeweled helmet there was blackness broken only by the flickering of red, hostile eyes. Above their heads, a banner flew: flames in the shape of a flag, burning in honor of he who was to come.

Mrs. Abernathy raised her arms in the air, and closed her eyes in ecstasy as a great cheer arose from the demons before her.

Nurd watched all that was happening from a side street nearby, the Aston Martin purring softly underneath him. He shivered as the woman lifted her arms, blue energy crackling around her.

There were ranks of demons in Hell, but the very worst of them had hidden themselves away with the Great Malevolence, and were rarely seen by the rest. They were monstrous beings, their appearance so awful that they shrouded themselves in darkness, unable to tolerate even the reaction of other, lesser demons to their blighted state.

Yet there was one great demon that felt no such shame, that did not seek to hide itself. It had become the Great Malevolence’s most trusted lieutenant, the demon that knew his every secret and to whom he revealed all of his thoughts, a demon that had studied the humans with hateful fascination, altering itself as it did so, its mind becoming both male and female, although
it had always preferred the female side, sensing that the female was smarter and shrewder than the male.

Even dressed in the skin of Mrs. Abernathy, Nurd recognized the entity before him. After all, it had been responsible for his banishment.

It was Ba’al.

He sank back against the wall.

“I’ll never get past her,” he said bitterly. “I’m done for. We’re all done for.”

Mrs. Abernathy began to speak.

“Our time has come,” she said. “Our long exile in the void is at an end. Tonight we have begun to claim this world as our own, and soon we will reduce it to a charred ruin. See! Our master approaches. Gaze upon his might! Feel his majesty! Behold him, the destroyer of worlds!”

She stepped aside, and the center of the vortex grew larger, the dark hole at its heart simultaneously expanding and becoming lighter. The gates were almost entirely gone, and the melting metal steamed and boiled. Slowly, shapes became visible through the murk. They were blurred at first, and shrouded in mist, but gradually they became clearer.

It was an army, the largest army ever assembled in any world, and in any universe. All the peoples of the Earth were as nothing before it. Its ranks outnumbered every grain of sand on the planet, every leaf on every tree, every molecule of water in every ocean. Demons of every shape and size, things formed and without form, had assembled behind the remains of the gates. Above the great army towered a black mountain so tall its top could never be seen, its base so wide that a man might
walk for a lifetime and never circumnavigate it. At the heart of the mountain was a massive cave, unseen fires glowing within.

And then a dark form appeared at the entrance to the cave; from its head sprouted a crown of bone. It wore black armor carved with the name of every man and woman who had ever been born on Earth, and who ever would be born, in order that it would never forget its hatred for them. In its right hand it held a flaming spear, and on its left arm it bore a shield made from the skulls and bones of the damned, for in every evil man and woman there was something of the Great Malevolence, and when they died he claimed their remains for himself. He towered above his army, so that they were like insects before him. He opened his mouth, and roared, and they shook before him, for his glory was terrible to behold.

Another cheer arose from the assembled masses. Mrs. Abernathy basked in the sound. So consumed was she by the imminent success of their invasion, and the impending arrival of her master, that she failed to notice that the cheers had started to fade, to be replaced by mutterings of confusion, and a voice that appeared to be saying, very politely, “Excuse me …”

Mrs. Abernathy opened her eyes. Standing before her was Samuel Johnson.

“I have a question,” said Samuel.

Mrs. Abernathy was so taken aback that she couldn’t reply. Her brow furrowed. Her mouth opened and tried to form words, but none would come. The gates of Hell were about to be opened at last, the Earth destroyed, and all of its inhabitants torn to pieces, and here was a small boy who seemed to have, well, a question.

Eventually, Mrs. Abernathy responded in the only way that she could.

“What is it?” she said.

“I just don’t see the point,” said Samuel.

“The point?”

“Yes, the point,” said Samuel. “I mean, if you’ve all been stuck in horrible old Hell for ages, and now you’re about to come here instead, why would you reduce it to a ruin and turn it into somewhere that’s just as bad as the place you’ve left? It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

Beside him, a pink demon with four legs scratched itself in puzzlement. Its form had the consistency of marshmallow, so its fingers got rather lost in the process and jabbed themselves into the demon’s brain, but at least it was thinking, or giving the impression of doing so.

“And what would you have us do?” asked Mrs. Abernathy. “Leave it as it is?”

“Well, yes,” said Samuel. “I mean, it’s got trees, and birds, and elephants. Everybody likes elephants. You can’t not like an elephant. Or a giraffe. And, personally, I’m very fond of penguins.”

The pink demon gave a little shrug of agreement, or as much of a shrug as something without a neck can give, which isn’t very much at all.

“If you destroy it,” continued Samuel, “then you’ll just be back where you started, with a big lump of rock that doesn’t have a whole lot in it except demons. It’s not exactly going to be beautiful, is it?”

Mrs. Abernathy took a step toward him.

“And why do you imagine that we would want beauty?” she said. “Beauty mocks us, for we have none. Goodness appalls us, because we have no goodness. We are all that this world is not, and we are all that you are not.” She raised a hand to the stars above her.

“And this world is just the first. We have a universe to conquer. We have suns to extinguish, and planets to crush. In time, each of those lights in the sky will fade to nothing. We will extinguish them like candle flames between our fingers, until there is only blackness.”

The little pink demon, still thinking about penguins, gave a disappointed sigh. Mrs. Abernathy flicked a finger, and he exploded in a puff of pink and red.

“He goes to the back of the line,” said Mrs. Abernathy as Samuel wiped a piece of demon from his sleeve. “And as for you, I am strangely glad to see you. It means I can kill you now, and enjoy our triumph with the knowledge that you are not alive to spoil it.”

Mrs. Abernathy grinned. Her body began to bulge. Her skin stretched under the pressure, opening tears in her face and on her arms, but no blood came. Instead, something moved in the spaces revealed.

“Now, Samuel Johnson,” she said, “look upon me. Look upon Ba’al, and weep.”

Nurd’s finger was poised over the ignition key. He saw Mrs. Abernathy step away from the portal, but not far enough.

“Come on, Samuel,” he whispered. The little boy was brave, so very brave. Nurd hoped that Samuel wouldn’t die, but the
odds in his favor weren’t good. The odds in Nurd’s favor weren’t much better, but he was determined to try. He would be brave, if not for his own sake, then for Samuel’s.

Mrs. Abernathy took another step toward Samuel. Samuel retreated in turn. Then Mrs. Abernathy started to shudder and swell.

“Oh no,” said Nurd. “Here we go …”

Mrs. Abernathy’s skin fell away in clumps, withering and turning to dry flakes as it hit the ground. A gray-black form was exposed, wrapped up in tentacles that now began to stretch and move as they were freed from the constraints of skin. Only her face and hair remained in place, like a rubber mask, but it was stretched so tightly over what was beneath that it bore no resemblance to the woman who had once worn it. One of the tentacles reached up, separated itself into claws, and wrenched the skin mask away.

And still Ba’al grew: six feet, then eight, then ten, on and on, larger and larger. Two legs appeared, bent backward at the knees, from which sharp spurs of bone erupted. Four arms emerged from the torso, but only two ended in clawed fingers. The second pair ended in blades of bone, yellowed and scarred. A great mass of tentacles sprouted from the demon’s back, all of them twisting and writhing like snakes.

Finally, Ba’al reached its full height, towering thirty feet above Samuel. There was a cracking sound, and what had looked like a bump in its chest was revealed as its head, which now untucked itself. It appeared to have no mouth, merely two dark eyes buried deep in its skull, but then the front of the
skull split into four parts, like a segmented orange, and Samuel realized that it was
all
mouth, the four parts lined with row upon row of teeth, a gaping red hole at its center from which a multiplicity of dark tongues emerged.