3 Gates of the Dead (The 3 Gates of the Dead Series)

by Ryan, Jonathan

  “A dream about footprints?”

  “No, not exactly. Her dream was about our son who died.” His voice cracked a bit, and he rubbed his hands over his face. I had only seen him get this emotional at the funeral of a close friend.

  “I don’t understand.” I tried hard to remember if Olan had mentioned any children other than their sons. I hoped that in my self-absorbed pity of the past few months, I hadn’t forgotten something so important.

  “I guess we never told you about Joseph. Don’t find it easy to talk about him.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said, touching his shoulder.

  “Nah, should have told you sooner, and the dream won’t make much sense if I don’t.” He stared off at a car moving along a distant road.

  “When we first started trying to have kids, we had a hard time. We tried for three years. Nothin’. Then Edna got pregnant, and we were pleased as punch.”

  “I bet.”

  “Everythin’ went fine. Remember, there were no ultrasounds then.”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Well, baby was born, crying was good, but he wouldn’t eat. They did a bunch of tests and figured out that the baby had no esophagus.” Olan stared at the footprints, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Nowadays, there’s a surgery that fixes it pretty nicely. Then, there wasn’t no surgery. My boy starved to death. I had to listen to him cry for three days.” He paused and rubbed his face again. “There’s nothin’ more horrible in the world, Aidan.”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “So, we had the funeral. Edna … I thought she would never be the same. The second pregnancy was terrible, full of fear. But James turned out all right, even if he did go to Michigan.” He gave a small smile.

  I chuckled. “Well, we are all sinners, Olan.”

  He wiped his eyes. “So, you asked how I found these. You’ll also want to know how I know who made them.”

  I nodded.

  “Edna sometimes has dreams, only thing I know what to call them. Anyway, she had a dream that she was walking in this field, and she saw a little boy walking barefoot in the snow.”

  He reached down to touch a print. “She called out to him and asked what he was doing there.” His voiced cracked again. “The boy turned, and Edna saw his face. She knew him even before he said anythin’.”

  “But how…”

  “The mother thing, Aidan. Anyway, the boy spoke.”

  “What did he say?”

  Olan frowned. “Well, that’s the strange part.”

  I tried not to laugh at that one. The strange part, as if the rest of this didn’t border on weird already.

  “He said, ‘They’ve begun, Mommy. The dark men have begun. They want to awaken the Grinning Man. He’s bad, Mommy. Get the Father.’”

  “What did Edna say to him?”

  “Nothing. She found she couldn’t speak. She was only able to think about how much she loved Joseph.”

  “How did, um, Joseph respond?”

  “I don’t cry much, Aidan, never have. But this one, well, could have me weepin’ for days.” He looked at me, tears running down his heavily lined face. “He said, ‘I love you too, Mommy. We’ll be together soon.’ Then she woke up.”

  “And she had you come out here?”

  “Yeah, she did. I can’t refuse her anything. I know I seem gullible to some folks, but even I had a hard time believin’ her, especially at five in the mornin’ after a sleepless night. I came out here anyway.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve a strong heart as you found out last night — heart of a man half my age, so the ol’ saw bones told me — but I could feel it seize up in my chest when I saw these.” He pointed toward the prints. “Exactly where Edna said they would be.”

  “Olan, I mean … I don’t know what to do with that.”

  He frowned at me. “Do you think I do?”

  “No, but…” I stopped and thought of the other incidents I’d been called out here for.

  “You’re thinking of the chicken feed bags, aren’t you?”

  My face warmed. “Um, yeah, to be honest.”

  “Thought so. I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

  I put my hands up. “It’s not that. I mean, maybe Edna just had the dream, and someone was running around in their bare feet. Maybe as a joke or for some odd reason, they liked it.”

  He cocked his head and looked at me with an almost pitying glance. “Aidan, think about what you just said, boy.”

  “I know, but the other explanation is just…”

  “Too supernatural? I thought preachers were supposed to believe in this sorta thing.”

  He was getting too close. The thing about Olan was he might’ve talked like an uneducated country person, but he never missed anything. He graduated from Purdue with honors and then went on to become one of the most successful farmers in Ohio.

  “Besides,” he went on. “How would they have done it? And where are their footprints?”

  “Covered by snow?” I said, searching my brain for a possible explanation.

  “Boy, didn’t they teach you common sense at that seminary school? If those tracks were covered up, why aren’t these?”

  He had me, and he knew it. He looked me right in the eye. “Aidan, don’t you believe such things are possible?”

  “I do, but I mean, not to be blunt, it’s hard for me to swallow that your son’s footprints are out here in the middle of the snow.”

  “Why?”

  I shifted my feet and wrapped my arms around my body. “Well, because, I just don’t think it’s possible.”

  Olan nodded, his head still facing the same row of trees. “Mmm hmm.”

  “Look, Olan, I mean, God just doesn’t allow dead people to walk around the earth. I mean, I hate to be that harsh.”

  He ignored my lame attempts at pity. “Really? The Bible say that?”

  “Well, no, not exactly,” I said, avoiding his gaze.

  “Not exactly is right. Didn’t they at least teach you that at seminary school?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, but maybe I was asleep when we talked about ghosts.”

  “Remember Saul talking to Samuel?”

  “That was probably a demon or something.”

  “Bible say that?”

  I opened my mouth then shut it. Come to think of it, the passage didn’t say that at all. In fact, the Bible told interesting stories of the dead walking the earth. Samuel upbraids Saul for using a witch to call him and then for disturbing his rest.

  “No, you’re right. It doesn’t say that, but it also doesn’t say that God sends ghosts to carry messages for him either.”

  “Point taken.”

  We both stared at the footprints. I hated to admit it, but I didn’t really have an explanation for them. The crazy redneck explanation didn’t work. I knew all of Olan’s neighbors. It took a stretch of the imagination to picture any of them doing anything like this, much less let their kid walk around barefoot in the cold night. But I also knew there was no way it could’ve been Olan and Edna’s dead son.

  Olan patted me on the shoulder. “Let’s walk back to the house.”

  We trudged back over the field.

  “So, what do you think?” he asked, holding down the barbed wire for me to step over.

  “About?” I turned around to hold it for him.

  “Joseph’s message. What’s it mean?”

  I didn’t want to think about it. “I have no idea, Olan.”

  “Don’t you think we should find out?”

  “How in the world would we do that?”

  “Dunno. Keep a sharp eye?”

  I wanted to humor him, but despite what I said in the field, I didn’t see how their dead son could appear to Edna in a dream and then leave his footprints in a field. There was no doubt about someone’s footprints being there, I just thought there had to be other explanations. My doubts needed it. “Then keep a weathered eye, Commander.”

  Olan smi
led. He had served as a naval officer during the Korean War. “Good boy. I thought you’d fight me on this one.”

  “Not at all.”

  We walked inside the house and took off our boots. I headed for the front door. “All right folks, gotta get back to the church.”

  Edna hugged me and handed me a Ziploc bag full of pancakes.

  “Here, Aidan, take these.”

  I smiled. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Then she handed me another bag containing a large, white bone. “This is for Bishop. Bring him out to the farm as soon as possible to get some exercise.”

  “I will.”

  Olan walked me out to the car. “Aidan, one more thing.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I want you to remember something.” The farmer accent was gone.

  “Okay.” I stared at him.

  “Not everything that is real can be seen.”

  Chapter Five

  I couldn’t get those footprints out of my mind as I drove back to the city. What were they? How did they get there? Olan’s comment about preachers believing the supernatural haunted me. Was it true? Did God and belief in the supernatural go together? If I didn’t believe in God, did that make the supernatural impossible? It all seemed so vague and confusing, like the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex is forced to watch image after image in a rapid-fire, violent assault.

  I listened to the radio’s low drone talking about Buckeye football. I wondered how each elder would react to what I told Mike about my faith that morning. I couldn’t imagine any scenario that didn’t result in my moving in with my only brother and his family in Indianapolis. They would be happy to have me, of course, but I didn’t want to become the mooching little brother.

  I sat in the parking lot of the church and stared at the glowing white cross. I hated elder’s meetings. Every moment would be painful and every word filled with tension. Every situation seemed like a pile of dry wood covered in fresh gasoline, requiring only a single spark to burn the whole thing down. And most of them dragged on for hours.

  The idea behind having multiple elders in a church was to keep each person’s power in check. It made sense in a logical, American sort of way. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that a lot of our founding fathers were Presbyterians. But there was a flaw in this great, democratic plan. Instead of having to deal with one jackass in charge, you had to deal with a herd of jackasses, or in the case of Knox Presbyterian Church, ten. They brayed, kicked, and bit each other, all in the name of Jesus. Though Jesus did ride into Jerusalem on an ass, so that gave me some hope.

  I sighed and went into the building. In my office, I noticed a sheet of paper on my desk. Our secretary still had not learned to use email, a constant source of frustration to me. I lost paper all the time, so I asked her on multiple occasions to send my messages by email, a request she hadn’t granted in three years. Apparently, my “way with women,” as Brian described it, didn’t apply to our church secretary who still believed the place ought to be run like a 1920s Southern institution.

  No need to look at this paper now, I thought.

  I headed over to Mike’s office and raised my hand to knock on his door when I heard him talking. From his low one-sided tone, I could tell he was on the phone. Even with the door closed, his voice drifted into the open hall.

  “Baby, I can’t be there tonight. I have a meeting.”

  Baby? Does he call Sheila baby? I wondered. I’d never heard him call her that before.

  “I know. I want to be with you too. I can’t wait to hold you again. Maybe I can come over after the meeting. I can just tell Sheila everything ran late.”

  I stood there in the hallway with my mouth hanging open.

  “Oh, baby, you know what I like. Yeah, the red one, wear it tonight.”

  No, it can’t be!

  “Yeah, you will get what you like. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

  What the hell?

  I felt the last vestiges of my faith leave me as if a vampire ninja had latched onto my neck. The room spun, and my legs went weak. The pancakes I ate at the farm were in danger of making an encore appearance.

  “I gotta go. No, I really do. I can’t talk much longer. Aidan will be here soon. He always gets here early, so stop tempting me.”

  No more. I didn’t want to hear any more. I went outside and kicked at the nearest snow pile, sending white chunks into the air. Each thump of my foot filtered my rage into the helpless snow as it flew all over the sidewalk. I let the words fly as I filled the air with expletives. The foul language filter in my head had obviously shut down.

  The session of elders would have to be told. They’d slow-cook him with their fire, feeling vindicated and even more secure in their self-righteousness. Damn them, and damn the whole thing. I no longer wanted any part of it.

  As I looked at the ice-chunked snow, it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t need to say anything. I could just tell Mike I had resolved my faith issue. He didn’t need to know that I had lost my faith completely. I didn’t have to tell anyone a thing. No one deserved the truth, not Mike or the elders.

  Mike’s fall just illustrated what I had seen in just about every elder in our church. I had seen into the dark sewers of their hearts, with all of their hypocrisy, cheating, lust, and now infidelity. Not to mention the people I dealt with from the congregation. It seemed as if their darkness had overwhelmed and become a part of me. Why did I have to be any different from them?

  I had spent all of my college years, plus four years in seminary, working to get into my position. Unlikely I would be able to find any other useful job, except maybe teaching. Even then I would have to go back to school for my certification, which would take a few years. That would mean more time working at a local bookstore while I went to school at night.

  Yep. Money and security. Good reasons to keep my mouth shut. If they wanted to play the hypocrites, then so would I.

  My phone began to vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw the yellow envelope blink. Someone had sent a text message, but there was no number or name. I pressed the button to view.

  They are going to wake him. Cut my … cut my … at the gates … cut my ….

  None of it made any sense to me. I couldn’t help but wonder if this might not be some joke or a weird marketing campaign. Or maybe some idiot just had the wrong number.

  A car door slammed and diverted my attention. Then another, and another. I looked up to see that the elders had arrived for the meeting. It was time to go back inside.

  I looked at the text for a moment and then deleted it.

  Chapter Six

  “…And further, I think the position of the pulpit distracts from worship. It should be situated in the middle of the platform.”

  This was the sort of stupid shit that drove me nuts. We talked about this kind of useless crap for four hours as it slowly went downhill from a false piety session, to pastor-beating hour, and then finally to pompous free for all. It always reminded me of the British Prime Minister’s questions to Parliament on C-SPAN. The difference in this case was that most of the Members of Parliament had a sense of humor.

  “I don’t really think God cares where the pulpit should be, so I think we should leave it.”

  The discussion about the pulpit had been going on for months. I’d always been amazed at how every little thing in the church was thought to be a significant step forward in God’s kingdom, from how the pulpit should be positioned to the snacks kids were getting in Sunday School. Not that I cared anymore, but at least they could make things interesting.

  I looked down the long conference table at Mike as everyone droned on through the agenda. I didn’t see any sign he had been sticking his shepherd’s staff where it didn’t belong.

  What did I expect? Signs of guilt? Remorse and fear expressed through a trembling lip? Maybe sweat on his bare head? Mike had obviously been screwing someone for at least a few months. My guess was guilt had long since gone out the w
indow.

  His face wore the same fixed expression he always had during these meetings, a mixture of amusement combined with irritation. The twitch in his eye had become more frequent, but not so much that anyone used to it would notice.

  When the pulpit discussion finally wound down, Mike spoke up. “Well, if there is no other business tonight, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.”

  A throat cleared at the end of the table, making a sound similar to a Viking blowing his war horn. Elder John Calvin Eisner had a theological library that would put his namesake to shame. He also had the background of being a frustrated pastor, having been fired after only six months in his first church. The maker of war and a math teaching retiree, he spent his retirement torturing pastors. He had gray slicked back hair and always wore a tie to session meetings. Some people loved his act and called him “the picture of wisdom.” John never listened to the good idea of not listening to your own press.

  He looked up the table toward Mike with a smug smile — part Rush Limbaugh, part Barbara Streisand — without warmth or real humor behind it. He always wore this smile when he was about to destroy someone verbally. When he did, it made him look like a hungry hyena.

  “Mike, I have a serious concern I need to bring before the fathers and brothers this evening.”

  Mike looked down the table, swallowed hard, and nodded. He braced his body as he prepared for the whips.

  “I want to question the content of Sunday’s sermon. I am concerned whether you were actually preaching the Word of God or not.”

  I couldn’t count how many times John had made that accusation over the past few months. The other elders around the table shifted. Some would agree with John, some would side with Mike, and others wouldn’t have the guts to stand up for anything.

  Mike waved his hand. “Okay, John, go ahead.”

  I had to admire Mike in these situations. He never lost his temper. I wondered how he did it. Maybe the same way he lied to the whole world about being a faithful husband. I guess if you hid something that big, you learned to control yourself pretty well.

  John kept smiling. “Well, it has to do with your handling of the word ‘wise man’ in the story of the wise men who visited Jesus.”