The Portal

by Russell James

  Within a year, each white line she inhaled from her glass tabletop took something with it. She lost the looks that helped make her famous as she began to snort breakfast and lunch. Bizarre behavior and tabloid headlines made a joke of her goody-two-shoes role on Malibu Beach. Lines like ‘Mr. Jones, I know what you are thinking and I’m not that kind of girl’ evoked nothing but laughter when spoken by the out-of-control addict from the cover of the National Instigator. The writers put her character into a coma, and she was fired.

  Powdered expenses grew, income dwindled, and the descending financial spiral accelerated. She hit rock bottom in an arrest for drunken shoplifting at Neiman Marcus. That night, her former agent found her before she put the razor she’d used on her scalp to work on her wrists. He checked her into rehab. That had been twelve steps and six months ago.

  She left her bedroom and entered the kitchen. The flick of a switch started up a pot of coffee, lest she shed all vices and become a saint. She flipped on the radio to a classical music station. For now, that was more than enough. To the shock of her leased home’s owner, she hadn’t restarted cable service and was happy to keep the television dark. She hadn’t even acquired a phone. No land line, no cell, no internet. She’d grow strong in the peace, quiet, and solitude.

  Of course, the island grapevine had spread word of her return. Her parents had retired to Arizona, but she saw plenty of other familiar faces when she went into town to fill the refrigerator. Each person gave her a forced reacquainting conversation when they met. They were not rude people, they were just unsure of the etiquette used when speaking to a washed-up Hollywood actress. She forgave them. They hadn’t spent any time in LA practicing.

  Most of her high school class had never returned after college, though a few non-college bounders like Howie Whitman and Janice Rice (now Van Cleve) had filled some of the adult spaces in town. She had not sought them out. She was feeling all right, not great. She was still sorting some things out, and answering repetitive questions from old friends was not how she wanted to do it. She hadn’t even looked up Scottie Tackett, who was the only one she wanted to see. She’d call him when she was ready.

  This morning’s plan was to brave the fog and creep into town on the weekly supply run. Residual checks for overseas distribution of Malibu Beach provided a small income, and she felt liberated to live within it. Today she would part with some of it for edible basics such as bread and milk, and a therapeutic necessity, sheet music.

  In high school, she had played the clarinet, even been in the band. She enjoyed it, but it fell by the wayside at UCLA. While some considered acting an art, she had stopped viewing it as such. Playing music certainly was, and she wanted to draw strength from one of her roots she still loved.

  Allie dressed down in jeans, white running shoes, and a faded sweatshirt this morning. It was hard to imagine how primped and coiffed she always had to be in the Unreal Times, as she called her Hollywood stint. Casual felt better. Casual felt like Allie. She was even enjoying the old Toyota she had driven here from California, a happy simplifying step down from the Jag she snorted away. She called the little blue four-door Stewie and it had not only crossed the continent, but it conquered the hill down into Stone Harbor each week without a miss.

  At some point today, Allie planned to head out to Blue Jay Market, with a side trip to Mercer’s Music. She’d go midday, when she figured she could get in and out without seeing anyone important.

  Chapter Four

  Carl Krieger’s cramped dive wasn’t much of an apartment. At some point years ago, the rambling old house on Sand Street had been capriciously subdivided into an asymmetrical warren of minimal living spaces. Walls and floors drooped and wandered over sagging beams and joists. Even light seemed to abhor entering the place. One small dirty window gave some meager illumination. Two bare forty-watt bulbs offered some glum assistance.

  Apartment 2B consisted of one room, a tiny kitchen, and a closet converted into a shower stall and toilet. Combinations of used clothes and leftover food littered the place in piles Carl thought qualified as housekeeping. Dingy, decades-old wallpaper covered each wall, edges peeling as if even it wanted to escape the place. A few sticks of previously abandoned furniture, indifferently placed, just added to the clutter. The stained sink and its insect inhabitants testified to Carl’s ‘wipe and reuse’ theory of utensil sanitation. Unbelievably, the foul-smelling dump still exceeded Carl Krieger’s low standards.

  The apartment’s low price made up for all the shortcomings. Scraping barnacles at Captain Nate’s Boatyard did not pay much. Carl might have expected more of himself by age forty-seven, but no one else had, and so he followed the conventional wisdom. He made enough to keep him in beer and internet porn, so prepping boat hulls and odd job day labor got him over the low bar he set for his life.

  Carl was up and stirring by 9 a.m., an abnormal accomplishment. He didn’t have to be at the boatyard until ten, and with personal hygiene optional, another forty minutes of sleep wouldn’t have cramped his style. He threw on a wife-beater shirt that was only historically white and a pair of stained boxers. The shirt trumpeted all his worst features, as it covered neither his thick mat of back hair, nor his protruding belly. Several days of pure silver growth speckled his pudgy face. He popped himself open a Budweiser breakfast.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  “What the hell?” Carl said. If it was the goddamn landlady again, he’d have to kick some ass. His rent was paid. He didn’t want to hear any more of the old shrew’s bitching about the building’s roach problem. Like it was his fault that they infested the place.

  He plodded over to the front door. One bare foot squished something gooey into the carpet. He paused at the door.

  Something felt wrong. Icy. Dead. The door seemed to radiate cold, the way frosty mist rolled off a block of dry ice. He touched the door with his fingertips. Room temperature. Something inside him still felt a chill. He shrugged.

  “Who the hell is it?” he asked through the door.

  “Flower delivery for Mr. Krieger,” a raspy voice with a Brooklyn accent said.

  Before Carl could absorb the response’s stupidity, the solid wood door burst open. The door handle didn’t move. The deadbolt didn’t spin. The doorframe didn’t explode into pieces. The door just flew open, fast and hard. It nailed Carl in the face.

  His Liquid Breakfast of Champions flew from his hand. Carl staggered backward. He dropped ass-first onto his ratty couch. Blood streamed from his nose. He pinched it to stop the bleeding, which only started him coughing as the blood ran down his throat instead.

  “Son of a bitch!” He looked up at the doorway. “Who the f─––”

  His first sight of the stout stranger in black cut his sentence short. A chill shivered up Carl’s spine. Dark power surged from the man like sparks from a live wire. For the first time in forever, Carl felt afraid. His pulse pounded with the bone-deep terror previously reserved for his father’s belt-assisted beatings.

  “Mr. Krieger,” Joey said. “I’m Joey Oates. There is the matter of this small debt you owe me. I’m here to collect.”

  “W-who are you?” Carl squeaked. “What debt?”

  Oates grabbed a straight-back chair, spun it around backward, and sat facing Carl. The darkness in Oates’ eyes stretched on into eternity.

  “Last summer, we made a deal,” Oates said. His eyes narrowed. “The deal over the Dickey girl.”

  Enough blood drained from Carl’s face that his nose stopped bleeding. No one knew about the Dickey girl.

  “W-what Dickey girl?” he said.

  Oates pointed an index finger at Carl. Fresh blood burst from his nostrils.

  “Oh, shit!” Carl grabbed a shirt from the couch and crushed it over his nose and mouth.

  “We save time and pain when you don’t act stupider than you already are,” Oates said. “And mind the foul language whe
n we talk business. It offends me.

  “We had a deal with the Dickey girl,” he continued. “I’ll jog your memory. She was a day-tripper with her church group. You kidnapped her, and took her down to the boatyard in your van.”

  Oates made a circle with his hand. A hologram popped into existence. Krieger and a teenage girl were in the unfinished cargo area of an old van. The girl lay naked and bound on the stained, threadbare carpet. Carl stood over her, a hunting knife in one hand, a dildo in the other.

  “You finally indulged one of your fantasies,” Oates said. “She didn’t survive it, but hey, you’re an amateur at these things. When you took her, you signed our deal. Now I get to take possession.”

  “Possession?” Carl said, muffled by the damp, bloody shirt.

  “Of the soul, Mr. Krieger,” Oates said.

  Only one creature in the world harvested the souls of the damned, could make all this supernatural shit happen. Carl sagged at how real the surreal implication felt.

  “You knew right from wrong.” Oates pointed upward. “He had his shot at you.” Oates pointed to his chest. “And now I have mine. I can call you to repay your debt anytime. In my magnanimity, so far, I’ve let you live. In addition, you’ve been under my protection. That adds some juice to what you owe.”

  Carl looked around at his disgusting apartment. “You been taking care of me?”

  “Do you think first-timers ever get away with murder, Mr. Krieger?” Oates asked. “Who do you think kept Miss Dickey’s body under the rocks in the harbor? Who convinced the deckhand on the ferry (another debtor of mine) to swear that he saw her on board that day? Who keeps your kiddie porn –”

  The cheap smartphone on the table beside Carl buzzed. It flashed through two dozen sick examples of child pornography, and then went dark.

  “– out from the cops’ watchful eye?” Oates finished. “You’re deeply in my debt.”

  No one knew those details of his crime, or of his twisted personal obsessions. There had been a lot of coincidences that allowed him to get away with murder. But he didn’t need that proof to know who Oates was. He could feel it, that paralyzing terror deep in his bones.

  “W-what do you want from me?” Carl asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  “A small favor, really,” Oates said. “Just an interest payment. I need a repeat performance. I’ll select the girl, the time, and the place. The rest is up to you.”

  Carl’s jaw dropped. Oates could order him to rob a bank or something. Instead, he asked for the second round Carl had longed for since a month after the Dickey girl. Oates was even going to do the legwork for him.

  The idea of consequences dawned in Carl’s dim mind. This island got real small after tourist season. The suspect list would get short fast. Pedophiles didn’t last long in prison.

  “Supposing I don’t want to do it?” Carl asked with a show of false bravado.

  Oates scowled. Carl’s asshole tightened.

  “That would be a shame,” Oates said. His index finger pointed at Carl again. “I may have to ask for more than an interest payment.”

  Like turning on a faucet, blood gushed from Carl’s nose. The force of it sprayed through the wadded shirt and his interlaced fingers. He went lightheaded. The sticky liquid drenched Carl’s shorts.

  “Of course,” Oates continued in the same measured tone, “I can always call in the debt if you can’t make the payments.”

  Carl’s heart stopped like it had been clamped in an icy vice. His eyes bulged. His lungs screamed for air. The edges of the room went dark.

  “I’ll do it!” he gasped.

  Oates dropped his index finger. Carl’s heart restarted. His nose dried in an instant.

  “A wise move, Mr. Krieger,” Oates said, rising from his chair. “Meet me at the dock at noon. Bring whatever your fantasy may require.” He looked Carl over with bemused disgust. “Make yourself presentable first. Bad bait doesn’t catch fish.”

  Carl stared at Oates wide-eyed. He nodded like a bobblehead. Drying blood coated his mouth and chin.

  “And here’s a commemorative gift I give all my truly devoted.” Oates raised one hand over Carl’s left shoulder.

  Carl’s shoulder went white-hot in an instant. Burning pain like he’d never felt before seared through his skin and deep into his bones. He shrieked and grabbed his shoulder.

  “A pleasure doing business, Mr. Krieger.”

  The fire in his shoulder died. Oates turned away and passed through the doorway. The door shut itself behind him.

  Carl slapped at his shirt, assuming it had to be on fire. It wasn’t. He pulled the shirt away and inspected it. Not even singed. He tore it away and exposed a red circular scar, a brand with two inverted triangles inside. He touched it. At least it didn’t hurt.

  He sighed, and then went a bit jittery at the receding adrenaline surge. The idea of another rape and kill excited him, a thrill heavily tempered by the ominous presence of Joey Oates in the fantasy. He wondered why Oates would go to all this effort for Carl to enjoy himself. What would Oates get out of it?

  But reasoning about the long term had never been Carl’s strong suit.

  He’s looked out for me so far, Carl thought. With Oates in my corner, maybe this is the start of something big for me.

  Chapter Five

  A tiny bell tinkled as the front door to Stone Harbor Hardware swung open for the first time that morning. Modern technology offered generations of improvements on the tarnished brass bell Scott Tackett’s grandfather had hung on the door. But it wouldn’t be right. The bell was supposed to alert the owner to a customer, but over generations had become the equivalent of the Walmart greeter, though with more heart. The bell said welcome, it said take a step back in time to before big box hardware took the soul out of fixing the gate to your picket fence.

  Stone Harbor Hardware was nearly frozen in time. Millions of footfalls had worn wavy its polished hardwood floors. Long fluorescent lights tried in vain to dispel the shadows in the narrow aisles between the tall shelves. The scents of varnish and stamped steel filled the air, overlaid with just a hint of mustiness for credibility. Sure, the shelves now held wireless alarm systems and programmable thermostats, but one aisle over from those, a dozen different nails still sold by the ounce, ready to hand-fill into brown paper bags.

  Scott Tackett looked up from behind the counter, though he knew that 9 a.m. meant octogenarian Len Andrews was the customer. He’d been the go-to handyman in town in his younger days, dropping in every morning for whatever he’d need for that day’s projects. Now people tossed him small jobs he could still handle, replace a hinge here, mount a new mailbox there.

  Len shuffled up to the counter. Scott had never seen him in anything but denim overalls. The world’s oldest hammer, with a scarred black oak handle, hung from a side loop. Today’s cap advertised Charleston Tools, though scoliosis angled it down and away from any audience but children. The stale aura of spent tobacco enshrouded the old man.

  “Len! What’s on today’s worksheet?” Scott asked with a big grin. Almost six feet tall and broad-shouldered, Scott had learned early on that a disarming smile minimized his sometimes-intimidating size.

  “Well, gotta mend a porch step at the Blue Fin Bed-and-Breakfast.” Len’s voice had an accent from southern Maine and the rasp born of a million smoked Camels. “Best to bring some eight-penny.”

  Scott led Len down the adjacent aisle. He counted twelve nails into a bag and went through the ceremony of weighing it and marking it with the microscopic price.

  “Did I ever tell you your grandfather sold me the first nails I ever bought?” Len said.

  Only a few hundred times, Scott thought. “You don’t say.”

  “Darn fine that you took the reins here.”

  Scott never let on to anyone that he took the reins by default. A Rensselaer engineerin
g degree had been his ticket off the island, and he’d become a junior partner at a firm. He and his wife, Anita, visited Stone Harbor for holidays (summer ones mostly), but Scott had no desire for a permanent return. His mother had died of a particularly aggressive cancer years earlier, and when his father, Gary, had a heart attack, Scott took a leave of absence. He and Anita moved into the family’s big old Gothic house on Scudder Lane. Scott planned to cover for his father as he regained his health.

  His father got worse instead of better. Scott’s turn as daytime assistant became full-time employee, with his exhausted father watching from behind the counter. After his father’s death, he’d just kept coming to the store, his own slightly more positive version of Jimmy Stewart at the Bailey Building and Loan in It’s a Wonderful Life. He resigned his mainland job.

  Len paid for his purchase with linty pocket change. “This here’s damn near the last real business left on Main Street. Bunch of tourist nonsense everywhere else.”

  Indeed all the façades of a working, seafaring New England village still lined the streets, but behind the masks, the butcher shop sold candles, the apothecary sold clothes, the weekly Stone Harbor Crier had gone belly-up and had become an antique store, prominently featuring the old printing press. The inconvenience of a ferry ride to the mainland had been Scott’s store’s saving grace. A few thousand island residents were just enough demand to keep one hardware store in the black.

  “Len,” Scott said, “if I wasn’t here to keep you supplied, the whole town would slowly fall into ruin.”

  “You betcha,” Len said. He gave a little smile with his crooked, yellowed teeth and patted Scott’s arm with a quavering hand. “You give my regards to the missus.”

  Scott tensed, but Len didn’t notice. He shuffled out and the little bell rang him goodbye. Scott ran his fingers through his longer dark hair. Sadness shaded his blue eyes.

  Scott hadn’t spoken to Anita in several years. Anita, who had always lived in some metropolis, began to fall into the ‘claustrophobic’ camp during her stay on the island. She’d put her life on hold when she agreed to the temporary move to Stone Harbor and she missed it. She compensated for her sense of social isolation by taking first weekends, then weeks, on the mainland. Just as his father really needed help, Scott found himself doing most of it alone. He was not surprised when one Thursday the ferry delivered a set of divorce papers in place of his returning wife. They had never discussed it, but both knew it was coming. He signed and mailed them to her lawyer without even calling her. The final decree arrived two weeks after he buried his father. Too many losses, too close together to process at once. Len might have forgotten about it, but Scott certainly hadn’t.