The Portal

by Russell James

  “Madre de Dios,” he whispered. He didn’t want to die here on this stinking island in the middle of nowhere. He looked up at the bullet-ridden pickup and at Ricco’s still, splayed legs. Blood dripped out of the truck’s doorsill.

  At least that prick went first, he thought.

  * * *

  Across the rest of the island, similar scenes played out. Without Kyler’s enforcement, bloodlust shattered the thugs’ thin veneer of discipline. Chaos stepped through.

  At the marina, Santiago decided a grenade launcher was a terrible thing to waste. He pumped a few rounds into some pleasure boats, enjoying the thrill of watching gas tanks explode. The toxic fumes from the burning fiberglass drifted over the dock and into the town on the sea breeze.

  At the Harbor Road checkpoint, Washington and Culpepper had liberated some hard liquor, and used the street as a shooting gallery. They had made bets on hitting this window or that mailbox, and missed far more than they nailed. The street looked like a war zone.

  Isolated and alone, stripped of technology, terrified families huddled together, unclear as to what was happening, and unknowing as to why. People cowered in the back of their homes and prayed that the shooting outside wasn’t the precursor to a personal visit. The snarls of patrolling dogs met their glances out back windows.

  The chief of police, drunk in the town’s only jail cell, looked down and wondered why he hadn’t had the good fortune to choke to death on the vomit he’d just sprayed on the floor.

  The lock to seal the town’s fate clicked closed at the smoking shell of the Greenes’ former dream house. Oates pounded an inverted steel cross into the ground. Three hundred years earlier, he had done the same thing when the Rogers barn stood here, the precise location of the weakest spot between the world he could rule below and this one he coveted. Very soon, the planet would begin to re-form in his own glorious image.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Clouds of dust billowed out of the dark opening to the crypt in All Souls Church. Grit filled Allie’s eyes as she batted at the brown mist, trying to clear a view into the gloom that had swallowed Scott. She coughed as the dust coated the inside of her throat.

  “Scottie!” she yelled. “Answer me!”

  A cough rose from inside the crypt. A hand appeared on the lowest visible rung of the ladder.

  “I’m here, Allie,” Scott said. “Let me get my feet out of this.”

  Earth scraped and shifted below her, then a second hand reached up and grabbed a higher rung. Two forearms appeared and Scott’s face came out of the shadows, covered in dirt and sweat. He’d never looked better.

  “Oh, you scared me,” she said.

  “That time,” Scott said, “I scared me.”

  Allie slid back across the floor and Scott pulled himself out of the tomb. He swept the heaviest dust off his clothes and wiped his face partially clean with his shirt. He winced and Allie saw splintered wood sticking out of his back.

  “Scottie, don’t move,” she said. She stepped behind him. Three jagged slivers, each a few inches long, stuck through his shirt. Damp blood stained his shirt around each one.

  “Is it as bad back there as it feels?”

  “How bad does it feel?”

  “Like railroad spikes.”

  “More like big splinters. I’m going to pull them out.”

  “Okay, give me some—”

  Allie yanked the biggest one out.

  “Ow!” Scott winced. “Damn, give me some warning.”

  “Warning.” She pulled out the next two, rapid-fire. Scott flinched with each. None had penetrated very deep. She pressed against the wounds to stop the bleeding.

  “Thanks, sort of,” Scott said. “The beams collapsed and it was like being trapped in the bottom of an hourglass.” He looked down at the Portal, wrapped in white, ready for shipment. “Let’s call Milo and put that thing behind steel walls.”

  Allie pulled her hand from his wounds. Blood blotted her palms. It looked like the blood had clotted. She gave Scott’s shoulders a light caress, and then picked up the police walkie-talkie. She keyed the mike twice.

  There was no response. She waited another few seconds. Still only silence. She keyed the mike twice again.

  “Scottie,” she said, “what if—”

  Three quick clicks blipped from the walkie-talkie. Milo was on his way.

  Scott opened the door an inch and scanned the quiet, empty lot. The passenger door on his battered truck still hung open.

  “What’s our dog count?” Allie said.

  “Looks like zero.”

  “Do you think it died?”

  “Do you think we’re having that lucky of a day?”

  Minutes later, Milo’s cruiser pulled up in front of the church. He bounded out and up the steps.

  “You have it?” Milo asked.

  “Ready for you to seal in the vault,” Scott said.

  He ushered Milo up to the Portal. Milo took a wide-eyed look at the ragged, gaping hole in the church floor, then bent down and started to unwrap the altar cloth. Scott reached down and grabbed his hand.

  “You don’t want to touch it,” he said as folded the altar cloth back over the Portal. “The thing feels completely unnerving. I can’t describe it, but trust me, it’s very unpleasant.”

  Milo stood up.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. He turned to Allie. “Allie, you said that originally five girls turned to witchcraft and they were the ones who could activate the Portal back in 1720, right?”

  “That’s the story we have,” Allie said.

  “Well, I think I’ve seen their twenty-first-century replacements. Oates and Kyler escorted five women who had the ‘witch look’ mastered into the O’Reilly house a little while ago. I didn’t recognize any of them.”

  “They’re here for Oates’ Portal party,” Scott said. “If Satan couldn’t open the Portal himself back then, he can’t do it now. He’ll need the strength of their souls to power the doorway open. There’s a weak spot between the two realities on the island near the Rogerses’ old farmhouse, which is a stone’s throw from the O’Reillys’. I’ll bet they’ll hold the ceremony in the exact same location.”

  “All the more reason to lock this away now,” Allie said, nudging the Portal with her foot. “It looks like Oates may have everything in place that he needs.”

  “I checked the bank on the way here,” Milo said. “The vault is secure ready.”

  “Let’s do it then,” Scott said. “We’ll follow you in my truck. Allie, get the door. Milo, you and I lift.”

  Allie went to the front door of the church and opened it a few inches. “It’s clear.”

  Scott and Milo bent down and each took a side of the swaddled Portal. They lifted, and side by side, they shuffled to the rear of the church. Allie opened the door wide and the two of them stepped out into the daylight. They walked down the few steps to the cruiser until they stood behind it, Milo on the driver’s side. They rested the Portal on the ground against the rear bumper. Milo popped open the trunk.

  Allie stopped halfway down the steps. “Scottie! The scroll! We’d better bring it.” She reentered the church.

  The edge of the woods exploded with motion. The German shepherd burst from the tree line at an unnatural speed, face twisted in a vicious snarl, broken silver chain whipping behind it. Two other, only slightly smaller dogs followed behind it, teeth bared, eyes blazing red.

  Scott and Milo threw the Portal in the trunk and slammed the lid. Scott turned back toward the church.

  Deep barking and snarling suddenly surrounded them. Packs of dogs charged from both other sides of the lot. Scott swiveled his head and saw they were about to be swarmed. He identified a Weimaraner, a boxer, and then it was all tails, snouts, and teeth.

  The door to the church reopened. Allie stepped out
holding the scroll.

  Scott’s heart stopped. “Allie! No!”

  Two mutts split from the pack and rocketed for the front steps. Allie froze and her face went white. In a split second, the dogs hit the front steps. One leapt straight for Allie’s neck.

  She raised her arms in the nick of time. The dog hit Allie like an avalanche and sank its jaws into her forearm. Teeth ground against bone. Allie screamed.

  Allie jumped back through the doorway. She slammed the heavy church door shut on the dog’s muzzle with a sickening crunch. The dog yelped and let go. The door closed, and just in time. The second dog hit it head-on and dropped to the steps with a whimper.

  Scott’s instinct was to run to his wounded Allie. But the rest of the pack was closing fast. Milo jumped into his cruiser’s front seat. Scott was closer to his truck. He dove inside and slammed the door behind him.

  A roiling sea of fur and fangs engulfed the vehicles. Bodies pounded the sides of the cars. Toenails scratched against steel. Snouts flashed by the window, delivering deafening barks and spitting saliva from bared teeth.

  On the church doorstep, the two dogs from the failed assault on Allie had roused themselves to rejoin the attack. Dogs bounded back and forth in the space between the truck and the church door.

  Milo started his cruiser. He honked the horn for Scott’s attention. He mouthed something unintelligible over the canine din. He shook his head in frustration, pointed to the parking lot exit, then to the trunk of his car, then in the general direction of the bank downtown.

  Scott nodded and waved him forward. Milo peeled out. The dogs still moved lightning-quick, and darted out of the way in time to avoid being crushed under the cruiser’s wheels.

  Scott looked back over the seething pack to the church. Allie’s face appeared in a window, scared, but not panicked. Her hand gripped the bleeding wound in her arm. She watched the cruiser scream out of the parking lot, then turned to Scott.

  The pack wasn’t giving up. With the police car gone, it now filled the space between the church and Scott’s truck. The dogs had stopped attempting an outright assault, but they still swirled in the space like a school of circling piranha, filling the air with barking and growling, as if waiting for a chance at the first person out in the open.

  Scott’s and Allie’s eyes met. He knew they shared the same thoughts. Neither was going to get to the other, not now. Time was running out to secure the Portal.

  Allie made a circular motion with one finger, and pointed to the parking lot exit. She shouted the silent word, “Go!”

  Behind the church’s heavy door and thick wall, Allie was safe for now. But still, he couldn’t leave her. He couldn’t shake the sensation that if he separated from her now, he wouldn’t see her again.

  Her face turned angry. She pointed again, with twice the emphasis, and mouthed “Now!”

  He knew she was right. He started the truck. “I’ll be back!” he shouted. Since she couldn’t hear him, he wondered if he’d said it more to reassure himself.

  He punched it and headed for the exit.

  Dogs scattered before him, a parting of the Canine Sea. He stopped at the church exit and looked back. The dogs had reformed around the church exits. Whether to keep Allie in or to keep others out he couldn’t tell.

  He pulled out and headed for the bank.

  Chapter Fifty

  As he drove to the bank, the fate of the town and more rested squarely on Milo’s shoulders. He felt every ounce of the weight. A thousand bad things could happen between the church and the bank vault. Oates’ thugs could attack him. He could get a flat tire. The bank vault might not open. Fire from the Greene house could set downtown aflame. Kyler might already be inside the bank. The list seemed endless.

  The enormity of the situation threatened to overwhelm him. The Portal. Where did it come from? How did it work? Why was it in Stone Harbor of all places?

  There was no denying the otherworldliness of the artifact. Scott had warned Milo how odd it felt to touch it. Milo didn’t doubt him. Even locked away in the trunk, its pulsing, unmistakable evil inspired fear and dread. The Portal wasn’t some static doorway between the two dimensions, but felt more like a throbbing, living conduit. He couldn’t wait to seal it behind a mass of steel and brick.

  Milo approached Main Street. He slowed the cruiser to a crawl. The bank was only blocks away. He scanned right and left, looking for Oates or any of his crew, and ready at the first sign of trouble to slam the accelerator through the floorboards. But the streets were empty. He figured Oates and Kyler were still at the O’Reilly place with the wicked witch convention. He only needed them there a few more minutes.

  “How ya doin’?” a guttural voice called from the cruiser’s back seat.

  Milo’s heart stopped. Oates’ round face filled the rearview mirror.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” Oates said. “I’m––”

  “Satan,” Milo finished for him.

  Oates waved his hand dismissively. “You could say. Everyone calls me Joey Oates.”

  Milo stared at Oates’ cold black eyes in the mirror. They both mesmerized and terrified him at the same time.

  Kyler’s black Dodge Ram roared off Main Street and skidded to a stop across the cruiser’s nose. Kyler got out and walked down the cruiser’s driver’s side. He gave Milo a menacing smile.

  Oates disappeared from the back seat and reappeared in the front. Milo startled and slid closer to the door. Kyler opened the rear door and slid into the seat behind Milo.

  “Good to see you again, buddy,” Kyler said. “I was afraid I’d miss seeing you.”

  “You got something of mine,” Oates said.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Milo said, lying without conviction. “I’m just out trying to keep everyone in their homes like Kyler asked.”

  “Please,” Oates said. “Lying to me? Like I wouldn’t know? I invented it.”

  Milo glanced back and forth between Kyler in the rearview mirror and Oates beside him. Oates’ face displayed no emotion. Kyler looked increasingly excited, like a lion in a cage before feeding time. A metallic click sounded from the back seat. Milo had been a law enforcement officer long enough to recognize a pistol’s safety switching off.

  “You been working with little Scottie and dear Allison,” Oates said. “I know the whole plan. You really think you had a chance? Look around. I control the whole town. No one moves unless I let them.”

  Oates snapped his fingers and the trunk of Milo’s cruiser opened up. “How’d you ever think you’d succeed?”

  Milo passed the point of being afraid. He accepted the liberating fact that he wasn’t leaving the car alive. No point hitting the exit door listening to this condescending abuse. He turned his head and looked Oates in the eye. Terror welled up within him under Oates’ penetrating stare. Milo beat it back down.

  “Not making it to the vault isn’t failure,” Milo said, his tone as sharp as a razor. “My sworn duty was to try. I protect people from evil.”

  “You suck at it,” Kyler said. He reached forward and yanked Milo back in his seat by the neck.

  Kyler’s 9mm barked twice. Two bullets ripped through the front seat of the cruiser and hit Milo along his spine. The impact tore him out of Kyler’s grip. His head struck the steering wheel hard, and his body went still. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

  Then Oates vanished and reappeared in the front seat of the truck. Kyler stepped out of the cruiser. He lined up an insurance shot at the back of Milo’s head. The passenger window of the truck rolled down. Kyler looked up at Oates.

  “Get the Portal,” Oates commanded. “Then we go straight back to the ladies. Our schedule is getting tight.”

  Kyler knew not to waste a second when Oates gave an order. He holstered his pistol and went to the cruiser’s open trunk. He assumed the Portal was the big round t
hing wrapped in a sheet.

  He flipped it up on its side, slid the linen wrapping down, and exposed the glossy cherry surface with the intricate gold inlays. He grabbed it.

  His fingers didn’t touch the Portal so much as they entered it, passing just below the surface as they dipped into something soft and immensely discomforting. The Portal swirled around his fingertips like a living thing.

  “What the hell?” Kyler thought that after a near lifetime with Oates, he’d run out of fear. He was wrong. The sensation of touching the Portal scared the shit out of him. He dropped it back into the trunk.

  He pulled the linen back over the artifact, then grabbed its sides. The insulation helped, but the thing still seemed to radiate an unnerving kind of…void. He lifted it. It was heavy, but he could handle it. He walked it over to the truck and pushed it into the back bed, and slammed the tailgate.

  That was the last piece of Oates’ Stone Harbor puzzle. Oates’ power would soon be unlimited and his dominion over the Earth would be complete.

  The suspense was killing Kyler. He couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Scott turned the corner and slammed on the brakes.

  Milo’s cruiser was stopped up ahead in the middle of the street, cut off by Kyler’s black pickup. Kyler stood next to the driver’s door, leaning in the window. It was probably the only reason he hadn’t seen Scott arrive.

  Scott backed up and out of sight between two other trucks. In the narrow view between them, he watched Kyler get into the police car’s back seat. It looked like there was a third person in the car, and that would have to be Oates.

  The Portal is still in the trunk, he thought. If they don’t find it—

  On its own, the cruiser’s trunk popped open. The linen-wrapped Portal stood out like a full moon against the black trunk interior.

  “Son of a bitch,” Scott said.