Their youthful play and attraction, however, couldn’t hide the fact that Charlotte’s parents had changed. Mrs. Ginsberg was more engrossed in her work than ever, never showing much interest in spending time with her daughter. The mister was more prone to wild mood swings, and the honest smiles he had offered in those early days became more forced, as if there was something hiding behind his eyes that he was trying to keep at bay. He spent hour after hour in his office upstairs, sometimes not even coming down for dinner. The Ginsbergs would even whisper in corners and do their best to avoid the newly attached pair of children, which unnerved Charlotte, as she said that her family had never kept secrets before.
Being young, the two new friends did their best to ignore the changes and mush onward with their lives. After school they would sit together on Charlotte’s front porch and do their homework. They did everything together. To the untrained eye, they might appear to be a couple in love – which, in a way, they were. And like lovers do, they were prone to making horrible decisions.
“What’re you doing?” asked Timmy. He stood in Charlotte’s backyard, twirling a Frisbee on his finger. Charlotte had a bundle of papers in one hand and a shovel in the other.
“I’m gonna bury these,” she replied.
“What are they?”
“The poems we wrote the other day. I want us to read them when we’re older. You know, to see if we feel the same way about each other and stuff.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“Oprah, I think.”
“Okay.”
Charlotte stuffed the papers into an empty paper towel roll and taped the ends closed. She then took the shovel and pierced the surface of their rapidly-improving yard – it was virtually all green now, nary a patch of brown to be seen. She pulled up a thatch of dirt and tossed it aside. When she leaned forward to do it again, she paused. Her eyes and nose creased.
“What’s wrong?” asked Timmy.
Charlotte pointed into the small, newly-formed ditch. Timmy lowered to his hands and knees and peered at it. The ground beneath the grass was gray with streaks of copper. An odd fluid bubbled in the hole. It was black and thick, like motor oil. Or tar.
“What is it?” Charlotte asked.
Timmy dipped his finger into the substance. It was warm, slick, and almost rubbery, and it dribbled from his digits like a booger when he raised his hand. “I dunno,” he said. “It’s kinda gross.”
Screaming from behind them. Timmy glanced over his shoulder and saw Mr. Ginsberg running at a full-on sprint.
“Stop it!” he yelled. “Stop it right now!”
The expression on the man’s face was one Timmy hadn’t experienced in a long time, since his days in Boulder. Mr. Ginsberg’s cheeks were flushed, his forehead narrow, his eyes bright with rage. He grabbed Timmy by the shirt collar and lifted him off his feet as if he weighed nothing.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY LAWN?”
He threw Timmy to the ground. His elbow struck hard, causing a spike of pain to jet up his arm. Charlotte watched with mouth agape. Her jaw kept moving up and down, up and down, but it wasn’t until her father turned to her that she uttered a word.
“Daddy?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Who did this?” he asked, pointing at the hole.
“Huh?”
“Who did this? Him or you?”
“I did.”
Mr. Ginsberg cocked his arm and backhanded his daughter across the face. Charlotte collapsed, her eyes bulging with shock. Almost immediately, the cheek the hand had met began to swell. Tears formed in her eyes. Timmy heard her hitched breathing, but could do nothing. He was horrified.
The man picked Charlotte up by the underarms and dragged her across the grass. She didn’t struggle as he did so, but she started to bawl; intense, frightened sobs that tore at Timmy’s heart. He didn’t understand what was happening. Mr. Ginsberg had always seemed like the nicest man. His sudden transformation made no sense.
Mr. Ginsberg hurled his daughter into the rear door of his house. When he turned to face Timmy again, he was smiling. The color had drained from his cheeks. He looked so much like his own father it was scary.
“Go home now, Timmy,” he said. “I have everything under control here. Although I am going to have to call your parents and tell them what the two of you did.”
With that, he disappeared inside. Timmy could still hear Charlotte crying, but there were no more screams. She sounded like a little girl, lost in the woods, screaming for her mother. He shuddered, and his own tears began leaking over the bridge of his nose. Everything around him, so bright, made him feel isolated and alone. He looked at his parents’ house and wished there were somewhere else he could go. Perhaps this was why Samantha had run way. Perhaps she felt the same way as he. Perhaps she really was in a better place now.
Timmy rose from the ground, sniffled, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He stared down the road and contemplated leaving, but in the end he simply shambled across the street and ran upstairs to his room, for no matter how much he thought of Samantha and her better life, he knew it was nothing but a fantasy. He had nowhere else to go.
* * *
That night he stared at Charlotte’s house from his bedroom window. His parents had cheerily told him how naughty he’d been and confined him to his room. He heard them chatting downstairs, an unintelligible cacophony of trombones. Feet marching up the stairs followed and Mary the babysitter entered his room.
“It’s you and me tonight, Timmy,” she said while rolling her eyes. “You can’t leave, though. Your parents said you’re grounded.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Where’re they going?”
She shrugged.
“Please leave me alone,” he said.
She slammed the door.
It was five minutes later that he noticed the happening. His parents hadn’t gone far; in fact, they traced a line from their driveway to the one across the street and speed-walked to the front door. Other neighbors started arriving, as well. The Hicksons, the Jacksons, the O’Dwyers, the Laurientas. It looked as if the whole neighborhood was streaming up to Charlotte’s house, like a crowd heading for a popular amusement park ride. The light from the street lamps turned them into phantoms. Timmy got nervous. He pulled the shade down so only a sliver of an opening remained and kept watching.
The mob grew. Finally, he watched his father rap on the front door. It opened. Mr. Ginsberg stepped outside. Mrs. Ginsberg followed. Charlotte came out after that. Even from a distance Timmy could see that her cocoa face was swollen and red. Her cheeks sparkled in the faint porch light.
Mr. Ginsberg talked with his father for a few moments on the porch, looking like stage players to the audience of neighbors. When they were done speaking, Timmy’s father took a flashlight from his mother’s bag and, grabbing Charlotte by the front of her dress, started to drag her down the driveway. She fought against him (Timmy could hear her yelling), but it was no use. The crowd parted, eyes not leaving this man and child, and then, when they’d reached the road, the rest followed, led by Mr. and Mrs. Ginsberg. For a split second, Mr. Ginsberg glanced up and caught Timmy’s gaze. Their eyes locked, and then his friend’s father turned and faced the road again.
Timmy’s throat hitched. Those eyes. Though they pleaded, they seemed…empty.
With the parade-like procession marching down the street, Timmy made a decision. He ran to his bedroom door, locked it, then put on his sneakers (without tying them), threw open the window, and waddled across the roof. Old shingles slid underfoot, but he kept his balance. Upon reaching the ledge he glanced down. A weightless feeling appeared in his abdomen as he took in the drop. He almost turned away, until one more screech from Charlotte, off in the distance now, forced him to swallow hard, brace his hands by his side, and jump.
He landed on his feet and twisted his ankle. It didn’t matter.
Across the front lawn and into the street he r
an, with a limp because of his sore foot. He could see the last stragglers of the throng of neighbors as they passed beneath the streetlamps. His feet treaded lightly over the blacktop like a cartoon ninja. His breathing slowed to the point where he could hardly tell he was breathing at all. Still he kept moving forward, waiting for the next time the pack was illuminated.
He followed them all the way down Sullivan Street, until they reached the junction of Main and Ryleff. From there the crowd broke off the main drag. They crossed through a hole in the fence that bordered the road – Timmy’s dad had always said that it signified Private Property – and tramped into the woods. Though he paused at the hole and stared at the NO TRESSPASSING sign as if it were a warning from the gods, he continued to follow.
No light pierced the canopy in the woods, but he didn’t need it anymore to trail the pack. They made enough noise, all leaf-crushing and twig-snapping and heavy-breathing. The land graded downward, and before long he found it hard to walk without reaching out blindly for something to hold on to just to keep from tumbling down the slope. His feet threatened to betray him. At one point he slipped on something wet and went skittering to his rear. He had to throw a hand over his mouth to keep quiet.
Before long the land evened out. Timmy heard voices in the near distance. He crawled to a thatch of bushes and peered through the branches. There were people standing around – his parents and neighbors. They’d lit torches. The somber yellow glow illuminated the entrance to a cave. Jagged, tooth-like rock formations hung down from the cave’s mouth.
After a short time, the people wandered inside. Darkness seemed to swallow the light from their torches when they crossed the threshold. Timmy inched out of the foliage and tiptoed forward, arms held out in front of him. With the departure of light, space and distance became but a notion. He began counting to keep his breathing steady. By the time he reached a hundred, his hand landed on something hard and pointy. He drew his fingers across the surface until it bent inward. The impression of voices reached his ears.
He swallowed hard and stepped into the cave.
It was a long and winding tunnel that he followed. Water dripped in the distance. Bugs scurried over the rocks, the sound of their tiny clackers reverberating off the walls. Timmy proceeded with fear welling in his gut. He had a constant sensation that some monster, like the ones on the late-night creature features his dad used to watch, would creep up from behind and snatch him up.
But nothing came to get him, and all he could hear were the insects, his sneakers splashing in puddles, his heart pounding in his ears, and the stifled snickering of the folks up ahead.
A faint glimmering arose, growing brighter with each progressive step. He moved slower, taking time to notice that the walls of the cave were painted with primitive diagrams. Five minutes later and the light became almost all-encompassing. The voices were louder now, intelligible and gruesomely cheery. He exited the tunnel, stooped behind a large boulder, and peered around it.
He’d come to what he could only think of as a room inside the mountain. The ceiling was fifteen feet high, the walls wide as a church’s. The people inside gathered around a vertical gash in the rock on the far wall – a cave within a cave. Timmy couldn’t see Charlotte. He started to move, but stopped when his father spoke.
“We have gathered here today,” Mr. Higgins said, his tone merry, his smile as wide as it could be, “to offer our dowry to Fhalma, the protector of us all.”
“Fhalma is all,” the congregation said.
“Fhalma has given us all we have, and she is good,” he said.
“Fhalma is good.”
“She protects us and lets us live well, and for that we offer her thanks.”
“Fhalma is love.”
“And when the time comes, she shall lift us on her back and carry us to a new providence.”
“Fhalma is salvation.”
Timmy didn’t understand what was happening. He swallowed his fear and stepped out of his shelter. He tiptoed in the direction of the crowd. None turned around, not even when his toe struck a rock and sent it skittering across the floor.
“Bring forth the contribution,” his father said.
Once again the crowd parted. Timmy watched as Mrs. Ginsberg dragged her daughter, kicking and screaming, to the place where his father stood. The girl bit her mother’s hand and struck her in the thigh with her knee, but Mrs. Ginsberg wouldn’t let go. Timmy scanned the mass for her father, and eventually found him standing apart from the pack, hands by his side, head down. He was crying.
Timmy’s father took Charlotte by the shoulder with one fist and belted her across the brow with the other. Timmy jumped back in shock. Charlotte crumpled to the ground and lay there, bawling, face hidden in her hands. Anger caused Timmy to bite his lip and draw blood. His own fingers curled and he lifted his knuckles beneath his chin. If only he’d been bigger, stronger, then…
His father stepped away from the broken and crying girl. He faced the opening in the cave wall and said, “Fhalma, our love, our protector, this is our gift to you.”
The ground beneath him vibrated. A loud, gyrating groan shook the very air he breathed. Timmy yelped and crouched down on all fours. The rest of them, those hateful, cheery bastards that’d been his neighbors, stood transfixed. Timmy wanted to stand up and scream at them, ask them how could you let this happen?
From inside the crack, something stirred. A thick, pulsating thing that looked like the tongue of a starfish emerged. It was huge, at least the size of a small car. Charlotte looked up, her eyes wide. Her mouth dropped open as if to scream, but nothing came out. The pulsating thing grew longer and taller. Bright light erupted from the crack, washing out all color. The end of the tongue opened up, revealing a giant, bubbling maw lined with pinkish flesh. It descended upon Charlotte and snapped closed. He could see her fight back, her pounding fists stretching the thing’s hide from within. The appendage rose in the air. The light faded. It withdrew into the darkness. There was no sound at all, not even dripping water.
Timmy screamed.
The crowd turned to him. Their expressions were odd, confused, as if they’d just awoken from a dream. Mr. Ginsberg wept. Only his father kept up the front of forced happiness. He walked up to his son with hands on his hips, smiling.
“What are you doing here, Timothy?” he asked.
Timmy couldn’t answer. A lump forced its way up his throat.
“I said, what are you doing here?”
“What…” he began. His voice was small. “Where did she go?”
His father stepped up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you worry about that, son,” he said with merriment. “All you have to worry about is being a good little boy. Let’s forget you ever saw this.”
His breathing hitched. “This is where Sammy went, isn’t it?”
His father frowned. “Let’s not have any of that, Timmy. Let’s go. We have to get home if you’re going to be rested for school tomorrow.”
The hand on his shoulder gripped tighter. Timmy shook it off. Panic raced through him. He punched his father in the gut. Spit flew from the man’s lips and he doubled over, obviously surprised. Timmy then bolted down the aisle of people. Hands reached out to stop him, ripping at his shirt. He heard his father say, “Don’t stop him, he’ll get what’s coming,” and the grasping ceased.
He reached the gash in the wall and pounded it with his balled fists. “What’d you do to my friend!” he screamed. “Sammy! Charlotte! Come back! Let them go!”
The rumbling from earlier reemerged. Timmy stepped back. From within the gash, that same light shone. It penetrated his eyes. His flesh felt like it was falling off his body. He squeezed his eyelids shut and covered them with his arms, but it was no use. Everything around him was brightness – horrible, all-encompassing brightness.
Images flashed in his head. He saw a vast and primitive land, covered with harsh, cracked earth. Monsters tread upon this land, gargantuan beasts large as cities t
hat defied explanation. One beast rose above all others. It looked like a colossal armadillo with the head of a serpent. Bone structures protruded from its back, on which strange beings, like parasites, lived and thrived and fed it through their offspring. The other creatures of the land attacked this being, tried to rip it apart with their arms and legs and teeth and a thousand tentacles, but it proved too large, too strong, to be overcome. In the end, the great beast ruled all.
Time shifted. Eras changed. Before long the creature was alone. It could no longer sustain itself. It wandered across the dead and decaying land, slowly perishing as those who sustained it died off, one-by-one, taken down by their own sense of entitlement. It reached a great valley of rock and lay down on its haunches. In the span of a second centuries passed, and the land overtook it. The creature fell into a deep sleep, almost death-like, until a new sort of monster, a two-legged beast with a wish for prosperity, awoke it once more, and the chain began again.
The images faded. Timmy looked up. He didn’t realize that he had fallen. Above him hovered the giant worm, the tentacle, the tongue of Fhalma. He rose first to his elbows, then to his knees, then to his feet, and he stood, defiantly, as the mouth lowered over him. He could see the looks on the faces of his parents, the Ginsbergs, the rest of them. They showed no shock, no fear, no second-guessing.
How he hated them.
The mouth enclosed him in darkness. He felt its muscles ripple beneath the membrane of flesh, guiding him up its gullet. Sammy, Charlotte, I’m coming, he thought.
His lungs seized with no air to feed them. His head hurt. He screamed as liquid gushed over him, searing flesh and muscle from bone, and soon, everything that had once been Timmy Higgins was gone.
* * *
“What’s up, kiddo?”
Ryan Talbot looked up. His father stood over him, huge cardboard box propped in his arms. His face was sunburned and peeling.
“Nothing,” said Ryan.
The Gate: 13 Dark & Odd Tales Page 3