Portal Zero

by Patin, Eddie

  There was a piece of noodle on it.

  She cracked up into a fit of laughter with her squeaky, little voice.

  Tommy stared at the black screen of his computer.

  He stood, walked up to his desk, and rested one hand on the mouse, moving it around a little, clicking each button.

  “This is so boring!!” he cried.

  “Play a game with your sister!” his mom shouted from the living room.

  “We’ve already played like four different games!” he called back.

  “Then read a book or something!” she replied, yelling across the house.

  Tommy sighed, huffed, then went back to his bed. He lay down with his shoes on, on top of the covers, and put his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling were lifeless. He wished he could make them glow.

  He heard little footsteps on the carpet by the door.

  Lifting his head, he looked down the length of his body toward the hall.

  Jody stood at the door, holding one of her My Little Pony toys.

  He sat up.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Twi-li is scared,” she said. Mom bought her that Twilight Sparkle toy years ago at Wal-Mart, and back then, Jody could only call it ‘Twi-li’. Now, even though she could speak great English, at eight years old, she still refused to adjust the toddler name she gave the toy, so it lived on as Twi-li. “Can we lay with you?”

  “Sure,” Tommy said. “Come here.”

  He lay back down, and scooted over on the blanket to make room for his sister. But before she reached the bed, something happened that injected ice into Tommy’s veins and punched a knot of fear into his stomach…

  The air was suddenly filled with a huge sound—a roar—that vibrated the house and Tommy’s bones. Whatever made that sound—whatever terrible, monstrous beast—it must have been enormous, and not very far away!

  The roar shook the air for several seconds as Tommy stared in shock at the wide, terrified eyes of his little sister, and when everything quieted down, Jody screamed, long and loud and piercing.

  Tommy turned to lay on his side, opened his arms, his own eyes wide, and beckoned for Jody to run to him.

  She did, leaping up into the bed and hiding in the curve of his body.

  His little sister trembled in his arms, and Tommy was suddenly aware of his parents running through the house, making their way to his room as well.

  He felt his mother’s hand on his hip, and his dad appeared, looming over them all.

  Then, in the air outside, there was a pop.

  Pop, pop, pop!

  Then a similar, but different, boom…

  More pops. More booms. The faint sound of men shouting.

  “What is that?” Mom asked. “Is that—?”

  “Gunfire,” Dad said.

  Not far, Tommy thought, clutching his sister close to him. Not far at all…

  11 - Megan McKinney

  Zion National Park, UT

  Megan stared at the floating, golden monolith, surrounded by dozens of awestruck tourists doing the same.

  “What the everlasting fuck?!” Ramon said.

  “The tree!” a woman cried to Megan as she passed. “It killed the tree!”

  “Where did it go?” Megan asked. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  The woman put her hands to her temples and squeezed her head. Her daughter clutched at her shirt and looked up at her. “It just ... exploded! Appeared, and sucked the whole tree up!”

  “No, don’t!” another woman cried from up ahead. Megan turned, and saw the lady’s husband pulled free of her grasp and slowly approached the Centennial tree stump and the weird, trapezoidal golden block hovering above it.

  The man’s mouth hung open, and his eyes were glued to the thing. He was middle-aged, balding, and dressed in a tank-top and fishing pants. He approached slowly, reaching out with one hand in front of him, as if preparing to fend off some sort of attack, his eyes never leaving the monolith...

  Several people murmured words of caution. People whined and gasped. Megan wasn’t even listening to the words they were saying anymore. Her attention was fully on the strange block.

  She took another several steps forward, then stopped. Ramon stayed with her.

  Megan watched as the man stepped into the thing’s shadow, growing closer, and his eyes darted away from the monolith to the smooth, curving wood of the stump below it. He reached out with his hand and felt the remains of the tree. Seemingly satisfied that it was real after all, the man turned his attention back to the golden monolith.

  As the man slowly raised his hand to the alien thing, the golden sheen of it reflecting on his bald head, Megan approached closer with Ramon. A few other people walked toward it as well.

  “Don’t!” his wife gasped, reaching out, but recoiling back into the crowd.

  Closer, Megan, was reminded of skyscrapers with golden glass in the light of the afternoon sun.

  It was just like glass. Golden glass.

  “What is it?” someone asked, their voice standing out from the random mutterings of the crowd.

  “It’s an alien spaceship!” a male voice said from behind Megan.

  The man’s tentative hand connected with the gold surface. His eyes grew impossibly wide for a moment, his lips pressed tightly together, and then he visibly relaxed.

  He ran his hand along the thing like he was feeling a fancy car.

  “It’s...” he said. “It’s real. It’s cold!”

  Another man approached and touched it.

  Ramon walked past Megan, extending his hand...

  “Ramon, wait!” Megan called.

  He touched it with his palm, running his hand along the flat surface, then turning back to smile at her.

  “So weird!” Ramon said. “It’s just like ... cold metal. But it doesn’t feel like it’s floating. There’s no give! It’s as solid as a building!”

  Almost immediately, several other people pushed their way in to touch the strange, floating block.

  Megan did not.

  She could feel something in the air. It might be some sort of ... charge from the thing above the tree, or it could just be the feeling—maybe the pheromones—of a big crowd of people all in fear.

  “What the hell’s going on here?!” a loud male voice asked.

  The crowd startled at once, and Megan turned. There were three cops—three park rangers—walking up to the group. A man and two women approached, all in pale greenish-grey shirts and dark green pants. The tourists parted before them. All three of them were wearing wide-brimmed straw-colored hats, and only the man in front had a duty belt like a normal policeman, sporting a variety of pouches and a holstered gun.

  Megan listened as the nearest tourists began telling the rangers similar and absurd stories. The common thread was that there was some sort of explosion, the Centennial tree disappeared, and that large, trapezoidal golden block appeared in its place. One guy said that the huge cottonwood tree was literally sucked into another dimension!

  The rangers listened and asked some questions that Megan didn’t really pay attention to—she was mostly watching the tourists take turns feeling the monolith and the impossibly-carved tree stump below it—but she did see the park officials exchanging several nervous glances with each other.

  Megan jumped when she suddenly felt Ramon’s hands steady her shoulders.

  “What’s it feel like?” she asked.

  “Exactly what you’d expect,” he said.

  “Come on,” a man’s voice said near the monolith. “Right here ... yep ... hang on...”

  The park rangers approached in a hurry, and Megan looked away from Ramon just in time to see one of the curious tourists climbing the strange, alien block with the help of a few others. The guy, who looked like he was in his young twenties, strong and healthy with a shock of brown hair and an ecstatic grin, already had his fingers wrapped around the top edge, and was pulling himself up. />
  The male ranger spoke up. “Get down from there!” he shouted. “What are you people even thinking?! You don’t know what the hell that thing is! Or where came from! Are you nuts??”

  “That guy’s crazy!” Ramon said to Megan.

  Several people backed away.

  Some moved in closer.

  As the guy pulled himself up onto the top of the monolith, planting his feet on its golden surface about eight feet or so off of the ground, he grinned like a jackass as he struggled to keep his balance and stand. It must have been really weird to stand on something that your brain told you was floating, and by all means should move, but was instead as solid as a stone...

  Like sea legs, Megan thought. Maybe it felt like stepping on solid ground after spending days on a boat. She’d been there before. Even though it doesn’t make sense, it feels as if the ground is swaying under you, because your brain gets so used to the rocking of the boat on the water. But it’s all in your head.

  “Get down!” the ranger called. “Come on, boy!”

  “Hey!” the guy yelled. “There’s like ... a window thing in the top!”

  People suddenly started chattering all around Megan, voicing concern and worry.

  “Maybe it is an alien spaceship!”

  “Don’t open it or we’ll all die!”

  “Don’t touch it! It might be a weapon!”

  She felt her muscles tense—her arms and legs becoming taught. Her body was like a spring, ready to explode into action...

  The man crouched down on top of the golden trapezoid monolith-thing, bending low to get a look at something that seemed to be in the top-center. Staring at whatever he saw there, the man on top leaned in closer, his eyes widening, his face expanding in wonder. He smiled, his eyes lighting up and his teeth reflecting a golden glow, his mouth opening wider and wider...

  And then the man screeched. He screamed like an animal with its skin torn off, standing straight up like a shot and leaning back, almost going over the edge. Howling with a primal cry, the man tipped his head back, looking to the sky, and reached up to cover his eyes, all of the visible muscles of his body strained and standing out like thick cords of steel, his shriek vibrating Megan’s eardrums and pouring ice into her guts...

  Megan’s knees almost gave out under her at the shock of it all, and she opened her mouth to scream, but only gasped. She felt Ramon’s fingers dig into her shoulders, and he cried out behind her with an “Ahhhh!”

  Blood.

  The man tore into his own eyes with his fingers, and as his scream panicked the crowd around him, Megan saw flecks of blood and gore fly through the air around the man’s face, as his cheekbones and hands turn dark red.

  Then, he fell from the monolith, disappearing into the crowd below.

  Tourists screamed and bolted off into different directions. Some crouched down to the ground. Some covered their eyes. One of the lady rangers ran away with everyone. The other stayed, and the ranger with the gun crouched slightly in surprise, put a hand onto his gun, and sticking his other hand out as if to keep the man away from him.

  Megan stayed, firmly grounded but ready to spring.

  Ramon’s grip on her shoulders faltered.

  Just then, the man erupted from the chaos of panicking tourists below the monolith, his wailing scream renewed, his arms flexed and spread out like a barbarian ready to charge into battle, his hands and face covered with his own blood. His teeth were red, his eyes—or what was left of them—were shredded and swollen nubs of crimson meat...

  “Stop!!” the ranger yelled.

  The insane man screeched and jumped onto the nearest tourist like a rabid beast, pummeling his victim into the ground...

  12 - Officer Harvey Swanson

  Las Vegas, NV

  “Hey!!” Harvey yelled. “Hey!!”

  He pounded on the clear plastic cell wall several times with his fists, the booms echoing through the pitch black halls.

  “Somebody!! Hey!!”

  What the fuck was going on up there? If there was a power outage in the station, wouldn’t they at least send someone down here to make sure he was okay? Surely there were little LED lamps—they could bring him something! Anything to keep him from being in total darkness!

  Harvey stopped, his ears ringing from complete and utter silence after pounding on the wall.

  All he could hear was his breathing...

  Of course not, he thought. They had bigger fish to fry. If he was on the outside looking in, he sure wouldn’t be worried about some wife beater or junkie piece of shit sitting in a cell being stuck in the dark. A perp could sit and wait in light or in darkness.

  Now, that perp was him.

  Feeling his way along the concrete block wall, Harvey padded back to the bed. He sat down on the thin mattress carefully, trying to keep his balance from getting confused by the total lack of light.

  There was a sudden explosion, far away...

  The metal frame of the bed vibrated.

  “What the hell was that?!” he said to himself.

  Harvey sat, and waited, as the darkness smothered him, unrelenting, the room silent except for the occasional thuds coming from the main floor above.

  He felt a heavy crash of some kind, and heard the faintest sound of a man crying out. The bed vibrated again.

  “What’s going on up there??” he muttered.

  After a while, there was another explosion, much closer this time. Harvey heard the boom clearly, and the concrete walls shook all around him.

  Pop pop pop. He heard the muffled sound of rifle fire through the ceiling. A man screamed.

  “Oh my god,” he said, jumping to his feet and stumbling back to the plastic wall. He pounded on it three times. “Hey!!” he yelled as loud as he could. “Heeeeey!!” His voice was so loud that it vibrated his ear drums.

  And then, his heart caught in his throat when he heard a strange sound come from just on the other side of the plastic wall in front of him. It was the tiniest sound, but it was crystal clear—right in front of him, just on the other side of this polymer cell wall.

  It was a hiss, and the slithering caress of reptilian shell moving against shell...

  Harvey could imagine a monstrous snake, or an alligator or something, moving in the pitch darkness on the other side of the wall, scraping its scales together as it coiled its serpentine body against itself. He could see, in his imagination, a large reptilian eye right in front of him, gazing at him through the blackness and seeing him just fine, even though he couldn’t see it, a long, slick snout full of fangs the size of his fingers, grinning a serpent’s smile in the dark.

  He gasped, and stumbled backwards in the pitch black cell, grabbing the cold, stainless steel sink with one hand as he went down, bashing his right shoulder against the metal corner of the bed.

  Harvey ended up on the cold, coated concrete floor.

  “Fuck!” he cried as his shoulder panged.

  Being careful not to bang his head on the bed or do something else stupid, Harvey climbed back to his feet, and slowly approached where he thought the plastic wall was.

  He listened to his breathing.

  Harvey held his breath...

  And heard nothing.

  Raising his hands up on the polymer wall again, Harvey resumed his banging and shouting.

  He heard more gunfire erupt upstairs, the loud, echoing bangs of the department’s AR-15’s reduced to muffled pops by the thick ceiling above his head.

  “Hey!! Let me out!!”

  The muffled sounds of fighting continued as Harvey stood helpless in the darkness, his big, meaty hands pressed up against the plastic wall.

  Whatever was happening up there—a terrorist attack or whatever—Harvey couldn’t help if he was down here, stuck in a cage like a damned hood rat! He’d be happy to be out of this cell, helping in the fight, assisting LVMPD, if only he could get out of this cell!!

  His banging and yelling wasn’t accomplishing anything. No one would ever hear him
if—

  The door down the hall near the elevator suddenly smashed open, slamming against the wall. Harvey heard the sound of multiple boots hustling through, and at long last, the darkness was broken by the chaotic and flighty beams of weapon lights!

  “Hey!!” Harvey yelled. “What’s happening?! Let me out! I can help!”

  Several officers with a mishmash of uniforms and body armor ran past his cell, their boots and clattering gear thunderous in what was almost silence just a moment ago.

  Harvey banged on the wall, catching their attention. “Hey!! Let me out! I can help!”

  He was suddenly blinded with gun lights aiming at his face through the clear plastic wall.

  “It’s Swanson!” a voice said.

  “Leave him!” another shouted. “Let’s go!”

  “Belay that!” another voice shouted. “Let him out. Give him a sidearm. Anyone have an extra light?”

  Harvey heard the sudden jangling of keys, and the men were all standing in the hall outside of his cell. The officer up ahead was keeping his weapon trained forward.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Harvey asked.

  “I don’t have an extra light,” one man said.

  “Me either—not one that works.”

  “I don’t,” the man with the keys said.

  The cell door suddenly clunked, and the cop with the keys slid it open.

  “Oh thank God,” Harvey said. “What’s happening? Terrorists?”

  “Let’s move!” the point man said, and the officers all started shuffling forward again.

  Harvey followed.

  “Some sort of crazy attack on the city!” an unknown voice said to him. Harvey still couldn’t make out the officers’ faces—not in the crazy, moving beams of their weapon lights.

  “Here!” the cop with the keys said, at the back of the group, and pressed a pistol into Harvey’s hands. He couldn’t see shit, but a quick feel told him that it was a full-sized Glock. Maybe a 17? Or a 22 if it was a .40?

  “I can’t see,” Harvey said.

  “It’s a nine. You’re good to go. Welcome to the party, Swanson!”

  They continued down the hallway, passing other plastic cells, all presumably empty on account of the silence within, as well as other side rooms that were as dark as the devil’s asshole.