Robert Duperre - The Gate 2 - 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair

Abigail Browning shivered. She was sure she’d done a good thing. It wasn’t right what they were doing to that poor little creature. The Mullin boys got what was coming to them , she thought. The beginnings of a grin spread across her chapped lips.

Evening came, and so did the howls. They pierced her eardrums with their shrill timbre, louder than ever. The dying sun cast glowing streaks across the ceiling of the shack as its rays slipped through the gaps in the shutters. She lit the candles on the table beside her, hugged her nightclothes tight, and slipped beneath her covers. Her hands were clenched and held close to her mouth. She sucked on her knuckles. That damn wailing sounded so close now, as if it was right outside her door. She shivered with terror, imagining the Howlers, whatever the beasts might be, barging in and devouring her whole. With that thought, she kissed away any chance of sleep she may have had.

Something hard smacked against the door, as if her fear had been given life. She shot up in bed and pulled the blanket to her chin. Maybe it’s nothing , she thought, but then it came again, louder this time. The lone cupboard in the room shook with the impact, and one of her two drinking glasses fell over. It rolled across the shelf, dropped over the edge, and shattered.

All sounds—the howling outside, the banging at her door, the breaking glass—swirled inside her head. Her heart raced out of control and she screamed. It felt like she could have a heart attack any moment.

“Miss Browning!” a panicked voice yelled. “Miss Browning, they’re after us! Help!”

Abigail cocked her head. She couldn’t decide if the voice was real or in her head, but when it called her name again, followed by yet another loud bang, she jumped out of bed and sprinted to the door. There was someone out there. Someone in trouble, pursued by the Howlers. She had to help.

She gripped the bar across the door with both hands, yanked it from its moorings with a shrug, and tossed it aside. What followed was a prompt smack in the face as the door barged inward, sending her to her ass. She bit her tongue when she landed, and blood pooled in her mouth.

Her forehead ached, and something wet trickled into her eye. Her vision grew wobbly as she sat there on the dirty floor. She lifted her chin slowly, watching the door swing open and four sets of feet clad in filthy work boots tramp into the shack. Her eyes went from the boots, to the pants, to the tattered shirts, to four grim, scowling faces.

“Well well,” said Ennis Mullin, his sons looming behind him. “This little lass the one who did ya?”

The three boys nodded; David with his jaw in a sling, Billy with his face wrapped in bandages stained red, Barry with his weasel-like nose scrunched up. All three glowered at her, hatred in their eyes. Ennis, however, simply looked amused.

“She’s pretty.”

With the front door left open, the howling ratcheted up a notch, drowning out the ringing in her head. Abigail tried to plant her feet and kick herself backward, but her heel found no purchase. Her vision wobbled and she felt close to passing out. She leaned over and dry-heaved, drool trickling from her bottom lip.

“What should we do with her, pops?” she heard one of the brothers ask.

Ennis, cocksure and sickening, replied, “Anything you like.”

Hands on her. Beneath her armpits, under her knees, lifting her. The bed then beneath her, and a hard something striking her face. She collapsed, the back of her skull striking the headboard. She flailed her arms and legs as hard as she could, but the hands holding her were too strong. Then her nightclothes were tugged. She heard the fabric tear, felt the coldness of the open air on her bare flesh. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to focus on something, anything, to distract her from the here and now.

But all she could think of was the last man who’d seen her naked, Mitchell, and then of how she’d come home and found him on top of her son, holding a cord around his neck while Nathan’s little face turned blue and his eyes bugged out, of how she’d grabbed an axe and buried it in the back of Mitchell’s head.

She’d done so much—survived the War, then the Flood, then the Sickness—she’d brought life into the world, only to watch it get snuffed out by the man who’d promised to love and protect her.

Someone scratched her inner thigh. She came back to the real world, and that’s when she noticed there was something missing. It took her a moment to realize it, but the howling had stopped.

Again something hard whacked her in the face, and blood cascaded down her nose. One of the brothers—she couldn’t tell which, her vision was too hazy—grabbed her legs and tried to force them apart. She squeezed as tight as she could, but the pain seeping into her mind made her weak. Her knees buckled and shook, and whoever wedged his hand between them grunted. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out but a hoarse, wet gurgle.

Footsteps now, fast and plentiful. It sounded like a million ants crawling around her, their spiked feet clicking against the floor. Wood breaking, glass shattering, people shouting. She felt a withering sensation, as if she’d been transferred to another plane of existence entirely.

It took a great amount of effort, but Abigail raised her head and opened her eyes. What she saw defied description. There were bodies in motion everywhere—some dark, some light. There were men screaming and beasts growling, and every so often a geyser of red would erupt and strike the walls. Bones snapped, teeth gnashed, and still the screams of torment persisted. She felt as if she indeed had been taken away from the mortal coil, and now resided in Hell.

Something crept beside her on the bed, something large and glowing. A pair of cold, coarse hands touched her forehead. She glanced over at a muddled white oval with a torrent of red running down its bottom half. That was the last thing she saw before the blackness took her.

Abigail Browning lay with her knees drawn up to her chest. She was cold, so cold. She could’ve kicked herself for not starting a fire in the small stove that sat in the corner of her shack. It wasn’t much, but at least it would’ve provided some warmth.

She reached down for her blankets, but they weren’t there. She tried to move her head and was struck by a surge of pain that ran from the side of her face on down her neck. Her hand reached up and touched the sore spot. Her eye and cheek were swollen, and her nose felt like silly putty. With a groan, she opened her eyes.

There was no bed beneath her, only sand. And she was surrounded by sound—voices, quite a few of them, guttural and primitive, squealing. She gulped down the bile in her throat and raised her head.

All around her, creatures with gray skin sat cross-legged, their disfigured, horrendous faces aimed at the sky. They cried at the moon, their throats vibrating as the noises emerged. I’m dreaming , she thought.

Abigail gradually sat up, waited for her dizziness to subside, and then looked around once more. No dream. She glanced to her right and saw a female creature with gray, flapping breasts sitting beside her, eyes to the night sky. It acted like she wasn’t there, and as its sunken jaw moved she saw droplets of blood drip from its chin and cascade down its belly, only to be licked up by the two smaller creatures it held in its lap. Abigail’s eyes widened—really only the left one, since the other was virtually swollen shut—and one of the smaller beasts looked at her. There it was. The monster, her monster, the one she’d seen eating the dead calf, the one she’d saved from the Mullin brothers earlier that day.