The Portal

by Russell James

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Scott stood inside the locked doors of All Soul’s Church. The wooden door shook with each pounding knock.

  Scaravelli stood on the other side of the door, and waist-deep in this nightmare unfolding around town. The folks working for the Devil were playing for high stakes, and Scaravelli had anted up at the same table. Scott needed a weapon.

  He looked around the church. He needed something he could swing. Everything with any weight to it was bolted to the wall or floor. The large wooden cross still lay across the sanctuary floor.

  He raced to the altar and propped the cross against its side. He lifted his foot and brought it down hard at the junction. The horizontal cross member broke with a loud crack into a piece five-feet-long, with a jagged, splintered end. Scott picked it up and liked its heft.

  Loud banging came from the church door again. Scott ran to the back of the church and stood beside the door. He raised the wooden piece to his shoulder.

  “Scott,” he heard from the other side of the door. “It’s Milo.”

  Milo? Scott thought. What the hell is he doing out here?

  “Scott,” Milo called. “Things are really bad in town. I need your help. Please let me in.”

  Scott hesitated. The insanity that had spread through town had fueled a bit of paranoia in him. He remembered how Milo had spoken to him out at Canale Road, ordering him out of the area. That Milo had sounded like he was part of the problem, not part of the solution.

  But Canale Road Milo hadn’t sounded like himself. This Milo did, and he sounded like he needed help badly. Scott didn’t think the deputy had the acting chops to pull that lie off.

  Scott reached over and threw the lock to open. His faith came with reservations. If Milo entered with his gun drawn, Scott was going to break his wrist. Scott stepped to the side, five feet of shattered wood at the ready.

  “C’mon in, Milo.”

  The door crept open. Milo entered slowly, his weapon holstered. Scott lowered the broken cross.

  “Hey, Milo,” Scott said.

  Milo looked a bit taken aback by the makeshift club in Scott’s hand. “Scott?”

  “Hey, sorry, Milo. The town has gone nuts. I have trust issues.”

  “No,” Milo said. “I deserve that. I’m sorry for how I treated you out at the crime scene Thursday night.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “The town is falling apart. I’ve been looking all over Stone Harbor for you. I went to your house, the store, and everywhere else. I recognized your truck in the parking lot. Looks like it barely made it here.”

  “Believe it or not,” Scott said, “we got attacked by a dog.”

  “Oh, I believe it,” Milo said. “Dogs have gone wild all over town. I’d swear they’re patrolling the town, trying to keep everyone inside their homes.”

  “So that German shepherd wasn’t just after me? That’s a relief, sort of.”

  “That’s about all you can feel good about,” Milo said. “Did you see those fake FBI agents at the crime scene?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Scott said.

  “Well, Scaravelli is in deep with them,” Milo said. “I don’t know what to believe about the Krieger killing, or anything else that happened in the last few days. I do know the some guy named Oates is pulling all the strings.”

  “Milo,” Scott said, “he’s not just some guy.”

  Allie came down from the choir loft.

  “Hi, Ms. Layton,” Milo said.

  Scott thought Milo was absurdly formal, and then realized Milo was talking to the big TV star of Malibu Beach, whom he’d never met.

  “It’s ‘Allie’ back home,” she said to Milo. “Nice to meet you. I was afraid you were Scaravelli.”

  “Looks like Milo is with us,” Scott said. “Let’s see if we can fill in each other’s gaps.”

  The three stood in the back of the church and exchanged stories. Milo brought Scott and Allie up to date on Scaravelli’s state of uselessness back at the station, and the deployment of the five felons around town. He introduced them to Oates’ right-hand man, Kyler. Scott filled in Milo on Oates’ true identity. It took a little convincing to get Milo to believe that Satan walked the Earth. Milo bought in when he saw the twin-triangle design burned into the church and remembered how Scaravelli had warned him to give Oates a wide berth. Allie told Milo about the Portal the men were searching for, and how protecting it cost the reverend his life.

  “Did the reverend know where it is, this Portal?” Milo asked.

  Allie started to answer, but Scott cut her off.

  “We’re not sure,” he said. “We’re here trying to figure that part out.”

  “Wait here a sec,” Milo said.

  He headed out to his cruiser. He stopped short and looked out toward town. A pillar of black smoke rose from the horizon. He muttered a curse and shook his head. He jogged to the car and popped the trunk. He rooted around inside for a moment, then pulled out a spare police walkie-talkie. He ran to the church, switched on the power, and handed it to Allie.

  “Now there’s a fire somewhere in town. I need to check it. I’m not sure the fire volunteers will respond and I don’t blame them. If you find the Portal, call me on the radio. Just key the mike twice and I’ll key it back three times. Don’t say anything. I’m sure the chief, Oates, and Kyler are monitoring the radio. You click, and I’ll meet you back here. I know where we can hide the Portal.”

  “Where?” Scott said.

  “Down in the vault at the Fisherman’s Bank,” Milo said. “It’s got five inches of steel on all sides. I don’t think that there’s anything on the island that can blow it open. At a minimum, it’ll slow them down. Soon, people on the mainland will realize we’re without power and communication, and they’ll send help.”

  “You can get into the vault?” Allie said.

  “Sure thing,” Milo said. “Local police privileges give me a key to the door. And since my father was the manager for years, the current manager trusted me with the combination to the safe in the event of an emergency. This sure qualifies as one.”

  Scott looked at Milo, and realized for the first time that Milo really was a police officer. Since they had shared their stories in the church, any anxiety Milo had displayed had vanished. He spoke with authority and self-assurance. His shirt seemed to fit properly for once, not hanging on him in its usual oversized way. Scott thought about Milo sneaking around under the noses of six heavily armed men, risking his life to help keep the townspeople safe. Satan’s arrival had let loose some horrible events, but it had also allowed the real Milo to emerge.

  “We’ll call you as soon as we know anything,” Scott said. “Go check on that fire.”

  Milo nodded and went out to his cruiser. He pulled away and Scott closed and locked the church front door. With Milo gone, he was certain the German shepherd would be back for them, like the crocodile waiting for Captain Hook.

  “Why didn’t you let me tell him about the scroll?” Allie asked.

  “Oates and his men have no limits on getting information,” Scott said. “If Milo gets caught, best he knows as little as possible in case that scroll can help us find the Portal.”

  Allie’s face fell a bit at the mention of Milo being tortured. “I guess you’re right.” She turned and approached the choir loft stairs. “I’ll be right back with the scroll. We have a deposit to make at the Fisherman’s Bank.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Allie returned to the first floor with the leather scroll. Scott sat on the floor, his back against the two locked doors. Allie sat next to him. She wrapped her right arm inside his, as she did a hundred times when they used to sit on the porch of his house a few lifetimes ago.

  “Scottie,” she said, “with Milo’s help, we have a good chance, right?”

  He grabbed her hand in his.
<
br />   “You bet, Allie Cat,” he said. He kissed her cheek. His lips felt warm, reassuring. “We’ll find the Portal first, and lock it up tight.”

  Allie released Scott’s hand and spread the scroll out in front of the two of them. The warm smell of aged leather wafted up. The faded writing was much easier to read in the brighter light of the church than it had been in the bell tower. It read:

  Fathers tell ye sons of difficult times

  When Satan’s footsteps pounded our streets,

  When earnest men’s courage was put to the trial

  The future demands ye copy these feats.

  “It’s a poem,” Allie said.

  “And no offense to the Snows, not too good a poem.”

  “Why a poem?”

  “It would be easier to remember,” Scott said. “The Ring Around the Rosie nursery rhyme was written in the Middle Ages to warn people about the symptoms of the Black Plague. People remember rhymes. The Snows must have known that.”

  The next section read:

  Commit to memory these facts that you read

  Which we cull from righteous men’s true testament,

  And the angelic vision of Brother Snow

  Which arrived on the morrow, ’twas Heaven sent.

  Five lasses turned witches, virgin and flowing

  Did gather at Rogers’ humble home manger,

  To open the doorway twixt Earth and below

  Led by a visiting unholy stranger.

  “‘Flowing’ virgins wouldn’t mean what I think, would it?” Scott said, his face betraying his discomfort. “What difference could that make?”

  “There are a whole host of higher hormone levels active,” Allie said. “The women may be better able to connect with the Portal. What is it with men and periods anyway?” Allie shook her head and kept reading:

  Satan did guide the young girls in their studies

  Of chanting and summoning spirits condemned,

  He sent the Portal that could open the gate

  And allow the return of ones who’d descend.

  Wooden and gold, the span one fifth of a rod

  With carvings that speak of vile creatures and sin,

  It can’t be destroyed, it can’t be reduced

  Till its awful purpose completed has been.

  “That must describe the Portal,” Allie said. “What is a ‘span one fifth of a rod’?”

  “It’s an archaic unit of measurement,” Scott said. “I don’t remember how long that it, but it must be small enough to carry.”

  “Indestructible,” Allie said. “Just the kind of description I wasn’t hoping for.”

  She continued:

  Be warned of the powers that Satan commands

  Base Lucifer travels through ether at will,

  Only water confounds him, binds him to land

  So watch sharp, his return wilt be by ship still.

  Brave men wrested the Portal from Satan’s grasp

  Sparing the island from the foul witches’ worst,

  It lies now secreted and safely hidden

  Guarded with great care from the very first.

  “That’s it?” Scott said. “What kind of explanation is that for where they hid the thing? It has always been guarded, but where? Is there more on that?”

  Allie scanned ahead.

  “Nope,” she said, and kept reading:

  The future wilt come and two worlds wilt align

  Again in these places of which we now speak,

  Be enlightened, return to combat the evil

  With new strength that is born from flesh once so weak.

  “Instructions for each son to go off to divinity school?” Allie said.

  “Sounds like it.”

  Trust not the beasts or ones who’ve made compacts

  Through deeds completed with the angel cast down,

  The wicked one doth bend weak constitutions

  And force a betrayal of God, men, and town.

  The Portal’s opening can only be blocked

  Sealed closed by the blood of descendants of Snow,

  Shirk not the commission your birthright demands

  When tokens appear, response dare not be slow.

  “That’s not good,” Allie said. “If only the descendants of the Snow family can stop this thing, we’re out of luck.”

  “Maybe that’s not literal,” Scott offered. “Perhaps it meant that the knowledge descended from the Snow family.”

  “Or maybe it’s exactly what the angel told Brother Snow in his vision,” Allie countered. She wrung her hands. “And now the last Snow is gone.”

  “But Reverend Snow chose to tell you about the Portal,” Scott said. “He had to know you could close it.”

  “He said he needed help,” Allie said. “Not a replacement.” She continued:

  Commit to your mem’ry this tale of the day

  When forefathers halted the end of our times,

  For by no mean effort you must do the same

  Or pass to your sons this instruction in rhyme.

  “That confirms everything we thought about the reverend’s family involvement,” Scott said, “and tells us what the Portal looks like.”

  “And almost where it is,” Allie said.

  “Almost,” Scott said.

  The two sat and stared at the stanza that was supposed to direct them to the Portal, hoping that some hidden word had escaped their understanding when they read it the first time.

  Allie looked up at the altar, desecrated and damaged. Her eyes passed down the aisle, back to the parchment in front of her. She looked back up the aisle at the marble slab on the floor with the inscription she had memorized as a child:

  ZEBEDEE SNOW

  FIRST RECTOR OF ALL SOULS CHURCH

  APRIL 14, 1680 – OCTOBER 22, 1770

  “With God, all things are possible.”

  The word first jumped up off the floor at her.

  “Scottie,” she said as the realization hit her. “Maybe the scroll doesn’t mean that the Portal was guarded ‘with great care’ from the beginning. It means it is protected ‘with great care from the first’, or the first Reverend Snow.”

  She stood up and walked over to the marble slab. She pointed down.

  “I’ll bet you it is buried right here in Zebedee Snow’s grave. The reverend patted the floor when he told me how the Snows had kept the town safe. He wasn’t talking about the church, as I assumed. He was talking about what was under the church.”

  Scott stood and walked over to the marker. He knelt and ran his fingers along the edges. The right side’s center had a small recess cut into the edge. He blew some dirt out of it.

  “Assuming you’re right,” he said, “and I think you are, we are going to need to get this stone up.”

  Allie looked out the window.

  “And we have at least one rabid dog that will keep us from getting any tools to make that happen,” she said.

  Scott thought a minute, and then his face lit up.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “Wait here.”

  He ran back to the rear of the church and up the steps to the choir loft. Allie heard a door slam and seconds later, slam again. Scott returned lugging the tower bell’s heavy clapper.

  He tapped the clapper’s round end against the marble. The result sounded hollow. He flipped it, held the ball end in his hand, and wedged the tongue into the recess between the old oak floor and the marble slab. It was a perfect fit.

  “Yeah, that can’t be a coincidence,” Allie said.

  “It explains why the clapper was left on the floor beside the scroll’s hiding place,” Scott said. He knelt beside it, gave the clapper a wiggle to fully seat it, then wrapped both hands around the bulbous end. “Tell me I’m
the first man you’ve ever desecrated a grave with.”

  “Sure. If that makes you feel better.”

  A brief smile flickered across Scott’s face, then his jaw set in determination. “Here we go.”

  He pressed down on the clapper. Stone ground against wood. The marker rose.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Scott leaned all his weight against the clapper. The marker lifted off the floor a few inches. A whoosh of air escaped from the seam, heavy with the smell of mold and damp earth. Scott coughed and turned away.

  Allie reached down and wedged her fingers into the fissure. The sharp edge cut into the back of her knuckles. Her biceps burned. She sucked in a deep breath. “Got it, Scottie.”

  Scott slid the clapper back across the floor. He grabbed the edge beside her. The strain on Allie’s shoulders eased.

  “Okay,” Scott said. “Lift.”

  They both pulled and the marble marker rose away from them. They heaved until it stood on end, then they gave it a little push and it toppled sideways against the pews. There wasn’t just a grave beneath the marker. There was a room.

  Scott looked down into the pitch-black hole in the ground. The musty smell intensified, a combination of old earth and rotting wood.

  “Allie,” he said, “grab some candles from the altar.”

  Allie went up and removed two white tapers from their gold candleholders. She lit both with the matches nearby, and walked back to Scott, shielding the flames with her hand. She passed one to Scott, and the two knelt together along the opening’s edge.

  Scott dipped his candle down below the floor. It illuminated a wooden ladder mounted against a packed-earth wall. It was the same design and vintage of the bell tower ladder. The ladder’s base disappeared into the darkness.

  “Let’s see what we’ve found,” Scott said. He swung his feet down into the hole, and descended the ladder. When he stepped off the bottom rung, his head was about four feet below the church floor. He moved away toward the altar. Allie slid over to the ladder, and followed him down.

  The light of the two candles was just enough to illuminate the room. It was about twenty feet long and six feet wide, with a floor and walls of hard-packed dark earth. Intermittent thick timbers braced the walls and ran up to attach to the runners of the church subfloor. Several timbers had rotted through at the base and salt rings attested that the subterranean space had harbored standing water several times. The far end of the tomb sat directly under the altar.