John Connolly - The Gates

There was a cell phone number with the message. Using his home phone, Samuel dialed the number. The phone was answered on the second ring.

“Hello?” said a man’s voice. He sounded out of breath.

“Is that Dr. Planck?” asked Samuel.

“Indeed it is. Is that Samuel?”

“Yes. I got your e-mail.”

“Samuel, I’m rather busy right now.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. It appears that I’m being chased by a flying skull.”

Before Samuel could say anything more, they were cut off.

Mrs. Johnson looked worried.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

Samuel tried redialing the number, but there was no tone. He handed the phone to Tom.

“It’s gone dead.”

“What did he say?”

“That he was being chased by a flying skull.”

“Oh,” said Tom. “That’s not good.”

But before he could say anything else, they heard the sound of glass breaking from somewhere downstairs.

“What was that?” said Mrs. Johnson.

“It sounded like one of your windows breaking,” said Tom. He grabbed Samuel’s cricket bat from beside the bedroom door. They listened, but could hear no further noise. Slowly they advanced down the hallway, toward the stairs, Tom in the lead.

“Careful,” said Mrs. Johnson. “Oh, Samuel, I wish your dad was here.”

They were halfway to the stairs when a white object flew round the corner and then stopped in midair, its wings flapping just hard enough to keep it from falling to the floor. Its jaws never stopped snapping, opening wide enough for a moment to take a man’s fist before the twin rows of sharp teeth closed on each other again. Two unblinking black eyes were set like dark jewels in its bony sockets.

“What. Is. That?” said Mrs. Johnson.

“It looks like a skull. With wings,” said Samuel.

“What’s it doing in our house?” said Mrs. Johnson.

It was Maria who spoke. “I think it’s looking for us.”

As if in response, the wings of the chattering skull began to beat faster. It changed its position slightly, then shot forward so fast that it was almost a blur. Samuel, Maria, and Mrs. Johnson dived to the floor, but Tom remained standing. Instinctively he drew back his bat and struck the flying skull when it was about two feet from his face. There was a loud crack! and the skull fell to the floor, its jaws still moving but with most of its teeth now knocked out. One wing had broken off, while the other was beating feebly against the carpet. Tom stood over it and hit it once again with the bat. The skull broke into fragments, the jaws ceased snapping, and its eyes went from black to a milky gray.

“Tom!” shouted Maria. “Look out!”

A second skull appeared at the end of the hallway, followed by a third. The three children and Mrs. Johnson backed away until they came to the wall. Tom took a few steps forward, tapped his bat on the carpet, and then took up a stance that would have been frowned upon on a cricket field, the bat raised to shoulder level, ready to strike.

“Tom,” said Mrs. Johnson, pulling Samuel and Maria into the nearest bedroom. “Please be careful!”

“I know what I’m doing,” said Tom. “Right, then,” he shouted at the skulls. “Come and have a go, if you think you’re hard enough.”

The two skulls flew toward him at the same moment, one traveling slightly faster and lower than the other. Tom crouched and caught the lead skull with a perfect swing, the bat striking so hard that the skull immediately shattered into three pieces, but Tom wasn’t quick enough to destroy the second skull as well. He was forced to drop to the floor as it zoomed over his head and hit the wall, leaving a mark on the paintwork and dislodging a chunk of plaster. It seemed a little dazed by the collision, but recovered quickly and was preparing to attack again when Samuel flung a blue towel over it, blinding it.

“Now, Tom!” shouted Samuel.

Tom brought the bat down as hard as he could on the top of the skull. It dropped to the floor, still covered by the towel, and he struck at it until he had virtually flattened it. Samuel, Maria, and Mrs. Johnson joined him, and all four of them stared at the remains of the skulls that now littered the hallway.

“Well,” said Samuel. “I think it’s begun.”

NURD FELT HIS FINGERTIPS begin to tingle again, but this time he was ready. He was wearing an assortment of rusty armor, some of the few possessions he had been permitted to retain in exile, to protect himself from any unseen eventualities. As he was about to be torn out of one world and hurled into another, this meant just about every possible eventuality was unseen. Only his head remained uncovered because the helmet no longer fit correctly.

“Maybe your head has swollen,” Wormwood had suggested somewhat unhelpfully as he tried for the third and last time to force the helmet over Nurd’s ears.

Nurd had responded by hitting Wormwood hard on the head with his scepter.

“Now your head is swollen,” Nurd had replied. “Leave the helmet. It must have taken a dent.”

The tingling spread to the rest of his body. It was time. Nurd wondered if he would get to see Samuel again. He hoped so. Samuel was the only creature who had ever been kind to Nurd, and the memory of the boy’s company made the demon smile. He was determined to become friends with Samuel, if he could avoid being crushed by household appliances, or hit by trucks.

“Good-bye, Wormwood,” said Nurd. “I’d like to say that I’ll miss you, but I won’t.”

With that he blinked out of existence, leaving Wormwood alone once again.

“Good riddance,” said Wormwood. “I never liked you anyway.”

He looked around at the great Wasteland, which stretched emptily in every direction.

He felt very lonely.

At CERN, the collider was generating impacts at a startling rate, creating a constant stream of explosions. As the collisions released their energy, the collider filled with more blue light.

In the main control room, Professor Hilbert and his team were frantically trying to turn the collider off, to no avail.

“We’re not in control of it,” he told Professor Stefan, who was pacing anxiously in the manner of someone who sees his job about to go up in smoke. Given the amount of energy being given off by the collider, it wasn’t the only thing in danger of doing so.

“If we aren’t, then who is?” asked Professor Stefan.

Professor Hilbert reached for the volume button on the nearest computer, and turned it up to full. The control room filled with the sound of whispering: many voices speaking in an assortment of ancient tongues. Despite their panic, all activity ceased as the scientists listened, their faces betraying confusion, yet also curiosity. After all, this was fascinating! Dangerous, and very possibly fatal to all of mankind, but undoubtedly fascinating.

Then a single voice rose above the babble, a deep voice filled with eons of loneliness and jealousy and rage. It spoke just two words.

It said: “It begins.”

“I think,” said Professor Hilbert, his face pale,“that he is.”

Nurd popped into existence again in the world of men just at the point where his body felt as though it were about to be crushed to the size of a pea. He immediately began running, wary of standing still for too long after what had happened to him on his previous visits. He got three steps before the ground disappeared beneath him, and he fell down an open manhole and into a sewer.

There was a wail, then a splash, followed by a long, smelly silence.

Finally, Nurd’s voice spoke from the darkness. It said, somewhat unhappily, “I appear to be covered in poo.”