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

One of the attackers—still wearing his bloody scarf—swung his board. It missed, and that only seemed to make him angrier. “Fucking liar,” he grunted.

“I’m not lying!” bellowed Guido. Alyssa’s head buried further into his chest. He felt her body quiver as she sobbed. Regret filled him. That light, that hope, he’d seen earlier was gone. Anger shook him to the bone.

The one who’d spoken first piped up again, this time in a softer, calmer tone.

“Listen, man. No need to make shit up. We know we don’t got long to go. Just let us have some fun before then, ’kay? C’mon, you’re a man. You understand. Right?”

Guido couldn’t believe the words. He struggled with Alyssa’s weight, his breathing coarse and painful. “You won’t get her,” he whispered. He didn’t think they could hear him beneath his mask. He didn’t care.

With a sudden fury, Guido charged. The surprised kid didn’t move fast enough. The bat struck his head, which snapped sideways, streaming blood like a morbid sprinkler. His body twisted and then lay still as it hit the ground

Alyssa’s weight slowed Guido’s movements as the others attacked with a vengeance. One hit him in the shoulder. He hunched, protecting his precious girl with his own body. Another struck his thigh. He fell over, the pain horrendous. He rolled as to not crush the Alyssa, and then huddled over her. Someone ripped his mask off. Gasping, he inhaled handfuls of wet ash and began to choke. Another blow, this one on his back. He felt the nail punch through his clothes and pierce his flesh. It drove in so deep that when it retreated it felt like it dragged his insides with it.

The world turned hazy. Everything shook.

Keep her safe, his reeling mind insisted. Protect the girl, save the only one that matters.

Blows landed all over his body. Rusty nails drove into him. He grew weaker and weaker by the second. Alyssa clung to him as he fell to the side. He felt his blood leak out through the numerous new holes in his body, soaking his clothes and dribbling down his chin. And still, the girl clutched him.

A savage hovered above, tugging on Alyssa’s hand like a fairy-tale beast. The girl screamed and kicked, not letting go. He tried harder, and that made her kick all the more. Finally he reared back and lifted the board above his head. The nail glinted in the faint light. Guido pulled Alyssa below him and closed his eyes.

A shot cracked the air. Another. Then shouting. They surrounded him, a chorus of chaotic voices. Guido held the girl, wishing he had a womb into which he could stuff her for protection. He was about to die, and even worse, so was she. In the only thing he’d cared about in a long, long time, he’d failed.

But there were no more blows. The shouts ceased, as well as the gunshots. Guido lay still, afraid to move. Alyssa squirmed in his arms. He could hear her breathing inside her mask. It sounded like a freight train.

Hands grabbed his mangled body. They rolled him over. He felt weak, and with blurred vision he watched a man lift Alyssa up. He held her out as if inspecting a sensitive work of art. Beside him was another human form, this one was smaller and holding a rifle. It kicked the motionless body at its feet. Several others walked by, just ghosts in his fogged eyesight. Their voices chattered on.

A shadow blocked out his vision. A man’s face. He wore a bandana over his nose and mouth, blood soaked like the others. The eyes though…blue, kind, and concerned.

“My name’s Jason,” the man said. “We’re friendly. Who were those kids?”

“Gone wild,” Guido said, his voice rough and weak. “And hungry…hungry for things they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t…”

Jason glanced over at Alyssa and then nodded to show he understood.

“She’s all right now?” he asked, unable to look for himself.

“She is,” Jason said. “She’s with my daughter, Melissa.”

Guido tried to nod, but didn’t have the energy.

“Did you hear the announcement?” he heard a young girl ask, most likely Melissa.

Alyssa responded, still quivering but on the edge of excitement. “We did.”

“They’ve come!” said the girl between coughs. “We’ll be safe and warm!”

Guido felt a bit of gratitude as Jason lifted his head so he could see her better.

“We’ll take care of her for you,” he whispered. “What’s her name?”

“Alyssa,” Guido coughed. “My granddaughter.”

Contented, he leaned his head back, smiled, and let the darkness take him.

The One That Matters originally appeared in the best-selling anthology, A Land of Ash , edited by David Dalglish .

J.L. Bryan:“Plastic” was written specifically for this anthology. Rob told me the theme was isolation, and this idea popped into my head—someone who’s all alone but surrounded by every kind of consumer goods imaginable. The character creates/hallucinates a world where he is not alone, with bizarre and funny consequences. I think the strongest inspiration for this story actually came from one of Rob’s stories in the first Gate anthology: “Sullivan Street.” I wanted to explore something similar, a character with a life that was wealthy in a material sense but spiritually and emotionally empty. On top of that, it was great fun to figure out how an entire human life could be represented by different retailers at the mall. When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about living in a big shopping mall, probably after I read a book about kids who ran away from home to live in a museum. So, mix all those elements together, and you get the odd story of “Plastic.”

D.P. Prior:Back in the summer of 2011 my son Theo got heavily into zombies. It started with Marvel Zombies and swiftly progressed to Resident Evil . It struck me at the time that I’d always studiously avoided the zombie genre and so felt it was about time I gave it a look. I started with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and was surprised at how good it was. This led to Dawn of the Dead (including the excellent 2004 remake), Day of the Dead, Survival of the Dead, Land of the Dead, and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters . By this stage it was a case of ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’, and so I watched as much of the genre as I could lay my hands on, some of it good, much of it exceedingly bad: Quarantine, Quarantine 2, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, The Dead…

By the end of the summer, Theo was thoroughly sick of zombies and heavily into Nerf guns. It was about that time I wrote an article for the blog Two Ends of the Pen called ‘Zombies on my Mind’, which was my attempt at rationalizing the genre. That pretty much brought my zombie phase to a conclusion until Rob asked if I’d like to contribute to The Gate 2. Having read the first two books of Rob’s The Rift series, which is steeped in zombies, I couldn’t resist having a bash at the genre myself.

The Indian Rope Trick was a challenge to write in many ways. First off, I only had a couple of weeks to write it from start to finish due to the publishing deadline for The Gate 2. Next, and perhaps hardest, was attempting to write from a nine year old’s point of view. There were also issues regarding the balance of comedy and horror, gratuity, and language that needed to be addressed.

The writing itself was thoroughly enjoyable, which is not always the case. It was a great opportunity to experiment with style, and I got to play around with speech rhythms, particularly when Wesley gets agitated.