Gatekeepers

by Sam Ferguson

  “I hope you don’t mind,” the man said. “I figured you weren’t hungry anyway, on account of you snoring like a lumberjack and all.”

  I squinted at him, and then recognized him. He was the man from the mine. He had been wearing different clothes then, but it was the same man. I was sure of it. I was about to say something about my food, but then a thought occurred to me, had he found Dozer? Had he changed his mind about pressing charges for trespassing?

  “Do you remember me?” he asked.

  I nodded. “You own the mine,” I said soberly.

  The man nodded. “And…?”

  I frowned. And what?

  “You don’t know me from anywhere else?”

  I shook my head. “Should I?”

  The man tapped the bottom of the milk container and then tossed the empty carton into the trash. He stood up and pulled a pair of photographs out of his suit pocket. “What about these two?”

  I looked and saw the images of the men I had fought with on the corner of the street. A rash of worries flooded my mind. Were they related? Did those men work for him or know him somehow? I looked up at his blue eyes, but I didn’t say anything or move a muscle.

  “Relax, I’m not a cop,” he said. “Think of me more as a guardian angel.”

  A guardian? That word seemed to stand out to me for some reason. “I’m all right,” I said.

  “Sure, you’ve been shot twice in the stomach, why wouldn’t you be all right?”

  The door to the room opened and closed. A man came in wearing a long white coat. “How is he doing?” the man said in a grim tone.

  For some reason, I had an instant, deep dislike for the man. He looked at me and offered a smile, but I felt no sincerity behind the gesture.

  “Doesn’t remember a thing,” the man in the suit said.

  “Well, this is your lawyer, and I am your doctor,” the man in the lab coat said.

  “Lawyer?” I asked. “He owns a mine outside of town,” I put in.

  “Yeah, well, news of your condition spread fast,” the man in the suit said. “I do own the mine, but I am a lawyer by profession. I happen to know the DA quite well actually, and I came to support you after I saw you on the news.”

  “We put out a bulletin asking for anyone with information about your identity to come forward,” the doctor explained. “Your lawyer has been kind enough to take care of your bills as well.”

  I nodded and said, “Thank you, but you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Actually I did,” the lawyer said. “You see, I wanted to see how much you remembered.”

  “About the fight?” I asked.

  “Cut the horse-crap Mills,” the doctor said harshly. “Enough with the theatrics. Just let me do it my way this time.” The doctor reached into his coat and pulled out a gun with a silencer.

  I tried to scream, but the lawyer was on me faster than I could even blink. One hand covered my mouth, and his other put pressure on my bullet wound. Pain ripped through me so intensely that I nearly passed out. Only problem was, the “doctor” ran smelling salts under my nose to keep me conscious.

  “No shots until I have what I need,” the lawyer told the doctor. He then turned to me. “What kind of game are you playing at?” the lawyer asked.

  My eyes shot around the room, hoping that any of the other patients in the room would wake up. None of them did.

  The doctor moved in toward my ear. “If you think I won’t shoot in here…” He put the gun next to my waist and fired three rounds into the bed. “You’re dead wrong!” The doctor then put the hot barrel against my knee for emphasis.

  “That’s enough, Briggs, now back off!” the lawyer shouted.

  Briggs, I had heard that name before, but I couldn’t remember where from.

  The lawyer leaned on me, pressing harder into my wound. “You may be out of the group, but if that’s the case, then why are your friends chasing down leads about your father?” the lawyer asked. “What are they looking for? What does it do? Is it a weapon?”

  My mind was racing. I had no idea what this man was talking about. I kept hoping this was some terrible reaction to the pain meds I had been given, but this was all too real.

  “What are they looking for?” the lawyer growled.

  The PA system in the hospital came on. At first it was just static, as if someone were tuning the radio on an old car. Then, of all things, ABBA came blaring to life. The entire hospital erupted in full volume as Waterloo came on.

  “Check the hallway, now!” the lawyer shouted. He eased the pressure on my wound enough so I could finally take a breath without the urge to scream into his hand, which was still placed firmly over my mouth. The man with the gun ran toward the door.

  The lights went out, but ABBA continued to play on the PA.

  “It’s them!” the gunman said.

  I noticed a red dot appear on the back of the lawyer’s arm. There was a strange sound, like someone hitting a pane of glass with an icepick, and then a fuzzy, red-feathered dart appeared in the back of the lawyer’s arm. He slumped over, his head slamming onto my wound. There was an explosion of light, sound, and smoke, then the door blew off its hinges and the gunman was thrown to the floor.

  “You son of a—”

  Two masked men stormed in and stomped the gunman in the face while a third disarmed him before he could even finish his sentence.

  “Got him,” one of the masked men said as he reached up toward his ear with his left hand.

  The next thing I know, I was being wheeled out through the pitch-black halls by the masked men. The taller one was racing through the corridors like there was no tomorrow while I held on for dear life. The third masked man in the back was whistling along to ABBA.

  I kept my mouth shut as I rode in the back of a van. I had no idea who these people were, but the way they handled the two back at the hospital told me everything I needed to know. They kept their masks on and made a quick getaway from the city. Within ten minutes, we were on a freeway and headed north. A woman’s voice called out from the driver’s seat.

  “How is the noob?”

  “The quitter is fine,” one of the masked men said.

  Quitter? Noob?

  The third masked man reached over to the radio and started playing ABBA again. Seriously, not my idea of raiding music, but I was not about to tell them to turn it off.

  “You doing all right brother?” one of them asked me.

  I nodded and found the courage to speak. “Who are you guys?”

  The masked man puffed air through his teeth and elbowed the one that had called me a quitter. “That elf did a number on this one, huh?”

  “Shut up back there,” the man in the front said. Everyone quieted down. Which unfortunately meant that the masked man in the front was now free to sing at the top of his lungs. I was starting to wonder if there was a spare tranquilizer dart to put me out of my misery.

  No such luck. We drove for at least seven hours, and then pulled off the freeway. I saw a couple signs, but couldn’t see what they said. At last, we reached a place called Fort Ord. To say I was confused was a gross understatement. I had just been rescued from two goons in a hospital by a real life A-Team and now was headed into the residential area of a military base. I kept waiting for Mr. T to rip his mask off and kiss his gold chains.

  We pulled into the driveway of a long, rectangular house at the end of a cul-de-sac. The masked men ushered me inside under the cover of night. We had only been inside maybe ten minutes when another vehicle pulled into the drive. A few moments after that, the door opened and a group of large men came in, carrying the two goons from the hospital.

  “Man, we are gonna catch hell for this,” someone said.

  “Couldn’t leave him to the likes of Briggs and Jones,” said the ABBA lover. “Besides, we need him.”

  “Section Four is gonna be up our –”

  I tuned them out and watched as the two goons were stuffed into a closet. It was only then that I
realized that the goons were bound with zip ties and gags. I was not. The only thing holding me in the chair I had been given was my own bewilderment. I moved to stand and then realized that there was something else that would make an escape impossible. A stabbing pain ripped through my stomach. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  The female driver minced over to me and knelt in front of me. “Don’t tell me you forgot me? Krasavits.”

  Russian. She spoke Russian. I spoke Russian as well, but I was fairly certain I didn’t know this woman. The Russians I met all lived in Russia. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t normally hang out with paramilitary folk.

  One of the masked men returned from stuffing the goons in the closet and struck a match to light a cigarette. The flare of the flame grabbed my attention. My eyes saw the orange and red burst, but my mind saw something else. A white explosion in an alleyway. I winced away as the pounding headache returned.

  “He doesn’t remember anything,” the tall masked man said. “He can’t help us now.”

  The ABBA fan walked toward me and removed his mask. His face was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Your name is Joshua Mills,” he stated dryly.

  “I know my name,” I replied. “But who are you?”

  “Your father, he stole an engine from a company in California, a place called Twin Turbo, do you know anything about that?”

  This was about my father? Good grief that man had a knack for getting into trouble. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Show him the film,” the man said. “Come on, Mack, reboot this newbie so we can move forward.”

  A shorter man, maybe only five and a half feet tall, came over with an iPad in his hands. “Here, let’s see if this will jog your memory.”

  I watched the screen, and as I saw myself and my father enter an alley, everything came flooding back to me. The drums in my head sounded louder and louder, and my heart filled with dread as I realized what was happening.

  “NO!” I shouted as I stood up and knocked the iPad away from Mack. “Hank! You can’t do this to me! My family will be in danger!”

  Hank held up his hands and patted the air. “Whoa, hold on, Mills, you don’t think I’d risk that do you?” One by one the masks all came off. Marcus, Dan, Flint, and Katya were all there, along with several people I didn’t know.

  “What exactly do you think we’ve been doing the last several weeks while you’ve been vacationing in So-Cal, Newbie?” Flint asked.

  “Some vacation,” I said as the pain in my stomach pulled me back down to my seat.

  Hank happily slapped my back. “The point is, we found it. We know what your father stole, and we know where it is. We have a plan that will get the drakkul off your back.”

  “And the harbinger wolves?” I asked. “What about Susan and Tommy?”

  “We have a plan for that too,” Hank said with a smile. “Everything is in place. I have a team protecting Susan and Tommy.”

  “More than that, they are in a pretty safe place,” Mack cut in. “I might have messed with the Mexican Star Cruise tickets give-away this year.”

  “You put my wife on a cruise?” I asked, bewildered.

  “A ship is a pretty safe place,” Hank explained. Physically they are unreachable by the normal portals that harbinger wolves use.”

  “But the dream world?” I pressed.

  Hank shook his head. “Even the dream world is connected to where your physical body is. With them always changing places, it will be nearly impossible to get a lock on them.”

  “But there is a chance,” I said.

  “Indyrith and his daughters are aboard the cruise liner, along with three teams. They’re safe,” Hank promised. “Now, we have to get our tasks done before they make landfall in two weeks when they will be more vulnerable.”

  “Assuming we have two weeks to begin with,” Dan jumped in. “Or do I need to remind you that we not only assaulted Briggs and Jones, but we kidnapped them?”

  “So, all we need to do is get the engine for the drakkul, and then hunt down the harbinger wolf that hates me before Section Four finds and massacres us all, is that it?” I asked.

  Hank beamed from ear to ear. “That’s it.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The morning came fast. The smell of instant coffee filled the three bedroom house along with bacon and eggs. Everyone gathered in the back bedroom around a table with a paper plate full of food and a mug full of piping hot coffee. As a Mormon, I never drank coffee, but even if I hadn’t been Mormon, I doubt I would have taken up the habit. Could never stand the smell. So, I made do with a cup of tap water.

  “After Indyrith filled me in on what had happened with you, Mills, I selected the spot for you to hide out based upon proximity to where you used to live as a child. It gave us an easy way to keep tabs on you while we looked into your father’s past.”

  “Indyrith told me to dig into his employers and find what I could,” Mack said. “There were only two that could have anything to do with engines, and Twin Turbo was the best fit.”

  “Once we found what we were looking for, we came to get you.”

  “If you were keeping an eye on me, then where were you when those cops tried to kill me?”

  “Those weren’t cops,” Dan put in. “They were werewolves, sent by the harbinger wolf that wants you dead.”

  “Okay, but, where were you?” I pressed.

  Hank frowned. “We were there,” he said flatly. “We were fighting a second group of werewolves that were led by a harbinger wolf. They had opened a portal two miles north of your position. I guess they thought they could divert us with the larger force and send others after you.”

  “So it was luck then?” I asked.

  Hank shook his head. “Amber was watching you. She was able to hit the driver of the truck, that’s why he recklessly slammed into the pillar under the pier. She also shot the other one that you punched in the face.”

  “Sorry to deflate your sails,” Flint cut in. “But if Amber hadn’t been there, your punch wouldn’t have done jack-crap to that werewolf. Even in human form they are strong as hell.”

  I looked around. I had heard of Amber at my first introductory meeting, but I had not yet met her. “Where is she?” I asked. “I would like to thank her.”

  “She is a bit tied up at the moment,” Hank said. “Anyhow, let’s move on. So, we have located the engine your father stole. The problem is, he sold it to a rival company who has been trying to implement it into their rocket designs.”

  “Rockets?” I asked.

  Hank nodded. “Your father thought it was a rocket engine that would allow for multiple takeoffs and re-entry. He sold it to a billionaire by the name of Brent Rathison.”

  “The guy who has the commercials saying they want to take people to Mars?” I asked.

  “That’s the one,” Mack said. “Problem is, they don’t know what they really have. It is an engine, but it was never designed to be put onto a rocket. It’s a trans-dimensional unification engine.”

  Everyone looked at me as if I was supposed to know what that meant. I just shook my head and waved my hand over the top. “Yeah, that one sailed right over me,” I said. “I have no idea what that means.”

  Katya stepped to the table and set her plate and coffee mug down. “You remember when I told you about aliens and Fort Floyd?” she asked in her thick accent.

  I nodded.

  “Well, there is more. Truth is, there are many worlds out there to be conquered, but we aren’t just fighting to protect our world. The Earth exists in seven parallel dimensions. Each one is stacked atop the other, like a transparent overlay for projectors they used to use in schools. We live in the fourth dimension, right in the middle. The dimensions below us are increasingly evil and dark. The fifth dimension is home to the drakkul, the sixth is the plane of harbinger wolves, and the seventh is the home of terrible monsters. It is also where the borelians fled to when the humans chased them out of this world.”r />
  Hank sighed and set his empty mug down with a clank. “You see, when the world was formed, Michael, the Arch Angel, fought against the Dragon, as it says in the bible, but, what it doesn’t say is that he was not alone. Yes there were angels, but the dragon had his demons. As they fought over control of the Earth, the world shattered into several dimensions. Michael and his angels reside upon the highest dimension. The second dimension is home to what the three Vikings call Asgard. Thor, and warriors like him, do in fact reside there and from time to time do visit and help our world. The third dimension is that of the elves.”

  “Wait, I thought you said the elves were native to this world?” I cut in.

  Katya nodded. “It was easier to explain it that way. But the truth is that the elves were the first race to master the portals. They came and dwelled here from the earliest of times. They aided the humans in fighting the borelians and expelling the beasts. As this dimension is in the middle of the light and dark planes, it has always been the front lines of the battle for control of all the dimensions. In fact, the battle in Antarctica was fought against a more primitive trans-dimensional unification engine. The seven portals that were opened were each calling the champions of the seven dimensions. The great war fought there was one of unparalleled loss. Other than Indyrith and his followers, the other elves that were trapped in this dimension fled to the Taiga.”

  “Why don’t the angels come down and wipe out the bad guys then?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around everything.

  “All Indyrith could tell us was that the angels are so powerful, that their weapons would be extremely harmful to us. If someone were to succeed in unifying the dimensions, the battle between angels and demons would rage again, but no matter which side won, ultimately it would mean the destruction of all races in the middle.”

  “So why are we giving the engine back to the drakkul? And how did Twin Turbo get their hands on it in the first place?”

  Flint finished his eggs and set his paper plate down on the table before washing down the last bite with his coffee. “That’s where you come in, Dream walker.”