Gatekeepers

by Robert Liparulo

  “Is that right?” Toria yelled.

  Oooo . . . not even close.

  “Yeah, perfect!” he said.

  Xander moved a screw to the mount behind the camera. The screwdriver came into view, then disappeared from the frame.

  David smiled at the faces Xander was making as he tried to get the screw into the wall. Xander’s tongue appeared in the corner of his mouth, and David outright laughed. He yelled, “Ha-ha-ha!”

  “What?” Toria called.

  “Pass it along,” David said. “Ha-ha-ha!”

  He heard her call out to Xander. On the monitor, Xander’s eyebrows came together. He moved his mouth, a word David could read: What? Toria repeated it. On the monitor, Xander said something else—too long for David even to guess at.

  Toria yelled, “He said knock it off or you can put the cam-era up.”

  Xander looked down, probably getting another screw. Then his brother was back to twisting his hand over the screwdriver and making funny faces.

  David snickered. A burst of static obscured Xander’s face, then scattered away. As it did, David’s heart turned to stone. He leaned forward and grabbed the side edges of the monitor.

  Over Xander’s shoulder, the camera showed the hallway running back to the far wall, which had been, until seconds ago, cloaked in shadows. Now light filled that space. Though David could not see it, he knew only one thing could have caused such brightness: way back at the end of the hall, a door had opened. The light flickered, as though something was moving through it, casting a shadow.

  The big man stepped into the hallway.

  Phemus!

  His bald head almost scraped the ceiling. Wiry hair burst from his face and hung down to his powerful chest. Even in the camera’s poor resolution, David could make out the scars that crisscrossed his flesh, the smudges of dirt, the glistening sweat. A raggedy pelt hung from his waist. The man swung his head around to squint back into the light, as though debating about pulling the door closed.

  David jumped up, sending his chair clattering to the floor behind him. “Xander!” he screamed. He spun, intending to bolt out of the room, but the corner of his eye caught some-thing on the monitor, and he turned back.

  The big man reversed a step as another man came out of the room. This one was similar to Phemus: a little smaller—still large—with a full head of long, shaggy hair. He peered into Phemus’s face as if for instructions.

  “Xan—Xander!” David yelled. He stumbled backward, pivoted around, and crashed into Toria, who was running into the room. They both went down. David’s cast cracked against the floor beside his sister’s head, sending a bolt of pain shooting into his shoulder and neck.

  “David!” Toria grunted under him, pushing him off.

  David scrambled to get his feet under him. He screamed, “Xander! Get out of there! Xander!”

  As he rose, Toria pushed herself into a sitting position. “What are you—” she said, then let loose with her own piercing scream.

  She was looking at the monitor. David snapped his head toward it. A third man had emerged from the room. Like the others, he wore only a tattered pelt. But he was shorter, and so skinny his ribs pushed through his skin. He had splotchy hair springing out from his scalp like water from a colander. He bounced up and down, looking from Phemus to the other man like a pet hungry for attention.

  Toria wrapped both of her arms around David’s leg. He yanked on it, but her grip was a bear trap.

  “Toria, let go!”

  On the monitor, Xander was still making faces, cranking on the screwdriver.

  “Turn around, Xander!” David screamed. Can’t you hear them! Why can’t you hear them?

  He wondered if the house was messing with the sounds, intentionally keeping Xander from hearing the people behind him.

  His brother plucked a screw from his lips and brought his hand past the camera’s lens. Over his shoulder, the three men turned their heads. They spotted Xander and began lumbering toward him.

  CHAPTER

  twenty -seven

  WEDNESDAY, 12:06 P.M.

  David turned, twisting his leg free from Toria’s grasp. He stumbled into the hall and darted for the secret door. It was closed. He slammed against the wall beside it. He tapped the edge of the door with his fingers, but it didn’t pop out as it usually did.

  “They’re getting closer!” Toria yelled from the MCC. She ran up behind him. “Hurry, Dae!”

  “I am!” He pounded on the door. It wouldn’t budge. “Why’d you close it?”

  “I didn’t!”

  This house!

  He looked around, didn’t see anything he could use to pry open the door or break it down. Then he remembered and ran into the MCC. Propped against the wall, just inside the door, was the toy rifle both he and Xander had used as a club. He snatched it up.

  Frantic as he was to get to Xander, he just had to glance at the monitor. His brother was still squinting past the lens, messing with screws and the screwdriver. Behind him, the two larger men were trudging shoulder to shoulder toward him. The smaller, animal-like man was hopping up and down behind them, his eyes wild. In a flash, he tried to squeeze between one of the other men and the wall, but the space was too tight. They had crossed half the distance to Xander.

  David sprinted into the hallway. Toria was beating her fists against the secret door.

  “Move!” David said. He swung the gun’s stock into the wall, blasting a divot of wallpaper and plaster from it. “Xander!”

  He didn’t have time to tear down the whole wall, but he definitely had the energy and determination. He stepped back and rammed the barrel of the rifle into the wall near the latch. The muzzle made a half-inch-deep hole. He had hit a wooden stud.

  He pulled back, rammed again. This time the barrel plunged through up to the trigger. David began rotating the stock with both hands as though turning a handle on a butter churn.

  The hole in the wall opened up around the barrel. Plaster fell away. When the opening was the diameter of a dinner plate, he pushed the rifle all the way through. It clattered to the floor on the other side.

  If this doesn’t work, Xander’s dead.

  David reached his hand through and found the latch. It wouldn’t budge. Maybe his pounding had jammed it.

  He pulled his arm out and stuck his face to the hole. “Xander!”

  “What?”

  “Run! Look behind you!”

  “What are you—” Then he screamed, a sound that pierced David’s heart like a spear.

  Metal rattled and crashed. David realized the ladder had fallen.

  “Xander!”

  David felt the latch again. He forced himself to slow down, to feel it and picture it. He realized that the lever was pushed too far forward. He pulled it backward, then tugged it down. The wall sprang open. He hooked his fingers around it and pulled.

  “Toria,” he said, “make sure this door doesn’t shut again.”

  His brother’s screams continued. David ran through the second doorway and pounded up the stairs. He hit the land-ing and spun into the hallway.

  Xander was ten feet in, blood smeared across his fore-head. Phemus clutched his ankle and was dragging him down the hall. The other two men lurched in to grab at him. But Xander had hold of the aluminum stepladder and was wielding it the way a lion tamer uses a chair to hold back the man-eaters. He was flat on his back, hefting the ladder up, shoving the top of it at his attackers.

  David ran forward. He grabbed the ladder and pulled. “Xander, let go! I’ve got better leverage than you!”

  “David!” Xander released his grip.

  David pulled the ladder back, yelled—because he had to say something, had to release the knot of thoughts pressuring his brain—“Let go of my brother!” and jammed the ladder’s top brace into Phemus’s face.

  Blood sprayed out of the man’s nose. He stumbled back, an expression of complete shock on his face.

  “Ha!” David screamed, as though he’d s
cored the winning point in a video game.

  The smaller, spastic intruder—David’s frenzied mind instantly tagged this guy “Baboon Man”—stretched to grab the leg Phemus had lost.

  Xander kicked the hand. It pulled away, then reached out again. Another kick. The hand retreated, reached again.

  David reared back with the ladder and heaved it forward with every bit of energy he had in him. It struck Baboon Man in the side of the skull with a loud crack! The man’s head snapped sideways, and he reeled away.

  The other two—Phemus, bloody from David’s first strike, and the one who was almost as large—lunged for Xander.

  Xander bent his knees, placed the treads of his sneakers on the carpet, and pushed himself backward, toward the landing.

  David jabbed the ladder at the men. It struck Phemus’s chest. David may as well have rammed it into a brick wall: the man didn’t budge. The shock of hitting him reverberated along the ladder and through David’s bones. His broken arm throbbed.

  Xander pushed past him on the floor.

  “Go!” David yelled. “Go!”

  Xander flipped over and clambered on his hands and knees toward the landing. He yelled, “I’m clear, Dae! Get out of there.”

  David lunged with the ladder.

  This time he caught Baboon Man in the chest. The man oophed! and stumbled back again.

  Phemus grabbed the ladder and ripped it out of David’s hands. He flung it into the wall, smashing one of the wall lamps. David witnessed the briefest flash of satisfaction on the man’s scruffy face.

  David spun and darted for Xander, who was pulling himself up against the door frame. The brothers collided. Their legs tangled, and they fell onto the landing.

  The men in the hallway lurched forward, their arms out-stretched. It occurred to David that Xander would already have a zombie movie in mind to describe this later—if there was a later. David flung himself down the stairs, bringing Xander with him. They tumbled over the first steps, grunting, groaning. Then David found himself going down backwards, his butt bouncing painfully against each step. He raised his cast for balance, and Xander’s forehead flew into it. They both yelped in pain. They reached the bottom, and Xander flipped over David, crashing into the wall.

  Above them, the men pushed through the doorway, their eyes huge and insane.

  David scrambled up, and he saw Phemus take the lead, lumbering slowly down each step. His girth spanned the width of the stairwell. Baboon Man leaped and pulled him-self up behind Phemus as though he were scaling a wall. His fingers were bent talons, digging into the big man’s flesh at the shoulders and on top of his head, trying to propel him-self over.

  Xander grabbed David’s collar and yanked him through the doorway. Both brothers grabbed for the door at the same time. Swinging the door around, they tripped over each other. Only their iron grips on the door’s edge kept them from spilling to the floor.

  Through the opening, David saw that Baboon Man—scrawny, scraggly, jittery—had gotten himself completely onto Phemus’s shoulder. For a moment he was perched there, squatting like a gargoyle, his wicked grin trembling over his knees. Then he leaped off, a screeching beast of prey. Arms outstretched, mouth impossibly wide, he flew at David.

  The door slammed shut. The impact behind it knocked it open again, flinging David into the wall behind him. Air burst out of his lungs. He inhaled, got nothing, inhaled. He slid down the wall.

  Xander was pushing on the door, but Baboon Man had col-lapsed onto the floor, halfway through. He wasn’t moving. Just out cold.

  David gasped for breath that wouldn’t come.

  Xander grabbed him. “It’s okay, Dae. Just got the wind knocked out of you. It’ll come back.” He hoisted him up. “Toria!” he called. “Help Dae. Get him out of here.”

  David felt Toria’s small hands hook themselves into his armpits from behind. It was just enough support to keep him on his feet, and he started backpedaling through the secret door. He watched Xander try to push the unconscious Baboon Man out of the way of the door.

  The guy groaned, lifted his head, tried to push himself up.

  Xander kicked him in the head.

  Baboon Man’s hand shot out and seized Xander’s ankle.

  “Wait,” David wheezed at Toria. “Let go. I’m okay.” He pulled free, stooped, and picked up the toy rifle.

  Something crashed into the other side of the wall—David imagined Phemus picking up speed on the stairs and nailing the wall with arms the size of battering rams. Plaster dust filled the small space between the walls as the entire wall at the base of the stairs broke free from the ceiling and fell.

  CHAPTER

  twenty -eight

  WENDNESDAY, 12:14 P.M.

  The wall tipped over, striking David’s head. He crumpled onto his hands and knees. The wall slammed into the hall-way wall, angling from the floor like the side of a pup tent.

  Xander had ducked, avoiding the wall by inches. Baboon Man squirmed on the ground toward Xander, whose ankle he continued to clasp with that bony, taloned hand. David hammered the rifle butt into the man’s skull.

  The guy twisted his face toward David. He growled like a dog and snapped his mouth open and closed. David gave the guy’s forehead a quick, hard jab. His head dropped to the floor.

  The wall suffered another devastating blow from the stair-case side. Chunks of plaster fell—one giving David another firm knock on the head.

  “Xander,” he said, “we have to get out of here. The whole wall’s coming down.”

  Dust stung his eyes, filled his already aching lungs. He coughed.

  Xander yanked his ankle out of the baboon’s claw. He helped David stand, gave him a push, and said, “Go!”

  Together they staggered through the secret door into the second-floor hallway.

  “Toria, shut the door,” David said, panting. “It’s not going to stop them, but still . . .” He rubbed his head where the wall and the plaster had hit it. Between his arm, his head, and his bruised backside, he felt like he had just climbed out of a clothes dryer.

  Toria swung the door shut, and the latch clicked.

  A crash came from the other side, and this outer wall, decorated to look like any other in the hallway, buckled toward them. It cracked from floor to ceiling, and the secret door popped open.

  Toria screamed. David grabbed her shoulder, Xander grabbed David’s, and they backpedaled past the MCC.

  “What are they doing?” David said.

  Xander said, “When the wall collapsed, it made the door opening too small for Phemus to fit through. Now he has to come through the walls.”

  “What do we do?” Toria said.

  Before they could answer, an explosion erupted at the end of the short hallway. The entire wall fell forward, creaking and cracking. Sparks flashed as electrical wiring broke. The lights went out. Sunlight from the foyer and the open MCC door revealed the wall crashing to the floor, followed by the second wall; it landed on top of the first one. A massive dust cloud billowed up, as though a giant hand had slapped a pile of baby powder. It roiled in the hallway, coming at them like a sandstorm.

  Xander said, “Run!”

  He grabbed Toria’s hand, and they ran around the corner into the second floor’s main hallway.

  David’s legs froze. He watched as a figure stirred in the dust cloud. It became more distinct, solidifying into arms, legs, a head. To the left of this silhouette, the other big man stepped out of the haze. He was grinning and taking long, crunching strides toward him.

  David’s legs broke from the invisible cement that had bound them, and he ran. He called out, “The closet!”

  Xander and Toria skidded to a stop at the head of the grand staircase.

  “School’s in session,” Xander said. “We can’t—”

  “Yes, we can!” David said. “Two of those guys are too big to fit in the locker. The other might be out cold. Who cares if people wonder where we came from?”

  The two men trudged arou
nd the corner.

  Toria screamed, pulled her hand out of Xander’s, and bolted down the stairs.

  “Wait!” David said. “Toria!”

  Xander grabbed for her, but her legs were moving like a race car’s pistons; she was almost to the bottom before he took a single step. The brothers threw panicked glances at each other and tore after her.

  Toria reached the front door and yanked on it. It didn’t open.

  David pushed ahead, thumbed the dead bolt, and opened the door. He grabbed his sister’s wrist and flung her through the opening. She leaped off the porch. Xander turned in the doorway, and both boys looked up to the top of the stairs.

  The hulking men glowered down at them. Their chests rose and fell. Their eyes, dark under heavy brows, blinked, blinked, as though they were unaccustomed to the bright sunlight.

  Xander stepped forward into the foyer.

  David touched his arm. “Xander?” he whispered.

  His brother straightened his spine, squared his shoulders. “You!” he said, pointing at Phemus.

  David remembered what Xander had said about the poster he’d seen: Odysseus challenging the Cyclops.

  Xander said, “Where’s our mother? Bring her back! Just . . .” His voice cracked. His breathing was fast and shallow. His next words were menacingly quiet. “Bring her back.”

  David was afraid his brother was going to rush the guy. The last time they’d met, when the man had kidnapped Mom, all three of the King men—Dad, Xander, and David—had almost died. And Xander had been armed with a metal bat. No way the outcome of a confrontation now could be any better. In fact, David was sure it would end up much worse.

  He stepped closer and shifted the toy rifle to his left hand. He clasped the fingers of his right hand into Xander’s waistband. “Xander, let’s go,” he said. “Come on. This isn’t a fair fight. It’s not meant to be. We’re supposed to lose.”

  “We’re not going to leave,” Xander told the man. His words sounded hard as rocks. “We’re staying until our mother’s back.” He started to turn, then said, “The next time I see you, I’ll be ready.”