F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

“Palmettos do!” Carl broke into a run.

Jack felt a surge of fear and didn’t know why. They were just roaches; not as if they were going to eat him alive or anything. But his adrenaline was kicking in, pushing his heart rate up a few notches. He quickened his backpedal.

At that instant the churning mass of bugs turned as one and swept toward him in a swirling cloud. Jack whirled and dashed after Carl.

“Here they come!” he shouted.

Carl didn’t even turn his head; instead he put it down and upped his speed.

But neither stood a chance of outrunning the bugs. The palmettos were too fast. They swirled around Jack, engulfing him, clinging to his face, his arms, his hair, buzzing in his ears, scratching at his eyelids, wiggling their antennaed heads into his nostrils, digging at his lips. The clatter of their wings sounded like a million tiny hands applauding. He felt countless little nips all over his exposed skin. Were they biting him? Did they have teeth?

He swept a mass of them from his face but they poured back in on him. He couldn’t see and he was afraid to open his mouth to breathe—they might crawl down his throat. He tore them again from his face and stole a quick look ahead. The last thing he needed now was to run into a wall or tree trunk and knock himself silly.

He saw that he’d reached the corner of the house. Carl was still ahead, waving his arms wildly about, all but unrecognizable under a swarming mass of palmettos, but still maintaining a stumbling run. Jack cupped a hand over his mouth, took a quick, bug-free breath, and shouted.

“Carl! Forget the car! Go into the house!”

But Carl either didn’t hear the muffled advice or chose to ignore it. Jack had to close his eyes again against the storm of palmettos. He angled to his right—the front door was somewhere in that direction—and hoped he wouldn’t trip over one of the front porch chairs.

He slammed into a wall and heard some of the bugs crunch against the siding. He felt to his left, found the handle to the screen door, and pulled it open.

The front door—had he locked it? He hoped to hell not. This being a gated community and all, why would he bother? But he was a New Yorker, and New Yorkers never—

He fumbled around, found the knob, turned it, pushed it open, and leaped inside. As he moved he was trying to think of ways to kill the bugs that made it through the door with him, but then he realized that wouldn’t be necessary. They were peeling off of him at the threshold line, like vacuum wrap being stripped from a piece of meat. Jack stopped two feet inside the door and looked down at his arms, his clothes—not a single bug had made it in with him.

He turned and stared through the door as the screen banged shut. The palmettos were buzzing off in all directions, scattering like…like the leaves he’d first mistaken them for.

What the hell was going on here?

14

“Semelee! Semelee, answer me! Are you all right?”

Semelee opened her eyes and saw Luke’s big face and hulking form hangin before her. No…hangin above her. She shook her head, propped herself up on her elbows, and looked around.

“What happened?”

“You was us in the shell, had it over your eye, and you was smilin and laughin and then all of a sudden you yelled and fell back on the floor. What happened?”

Good question. Real good question. But it was startin to come back to her now.

She’d spotted the old man’s kid, the special one, outside his daddy’s house and followed him through palmetto eyes to one of the buildings in the old folks’ village. She’d been hopin he’d show her that he had her other eye-shell but he surprised her by breakin into the building. She tried to follow him inside but he closed the window too quick. She peeked through the windows and saw him lookin at some papers. She had no idea what they were and didn’t care. She was lookin for her eye-shell.

Pretty soon he was out again. She followed him back to the house where he met someone outside. She thought there was somethin familiar about the stranger but couldn’t place him.

It was about then that she’d started feelin the strain of controllin mindless little creatures like palmettos with just one eye-shell. She had to make somethin happen, get the special one into the house where she could have a look around for her eye-shell.

So she’d gathered as many as she could and attacked. She’d been havin a good time chasin him and seein what he was made of, and was gonna follow him into the house and give him a good scare—maybe have the bugs gather in the air and spell out somethin spooky—so he’d leave and let her search the place. But as she approached the front door she started feelin strange, a little sick even. And then when she tried to follow him inside it was like runnin into a wall. She was slammed back and things got a little fuzzy after that.

“It’s him,” she told Luke. “It’s him made me sick in the hospital room this mornin.”

“How you know that?”

“Cause I felt the same way just now tryin to follow him into his daddy’s house.”

She’d sensed he was special, but she hadn’t known just how special.

“You think he’s got your other eye-shell then?”

“I’m willin to bet on it.”

“What’re we gonna do?”

“I don’t know.” She rolled over and buried her face in her arms. “Let me think on it.”

She had no experience in this sort of thing. Sometimes she wished she didn’t have to make all the decisions. She was only twenty-three. Wasn’t being special and having a destiny enough? Did she have to lead too?

And worse was realizing that the man, the special one, might not be herefor her…the way she’d been stopped dead at his doorstep tonight made her suspect he might beagainst her.

People against her paid a price, a high one, for treatin her bad.

Suzie Lefferts found that out. In spades.

After Semelee had experimented with her control powers for a while, she decided to put them to the test. She chose prom night. No one had asked her to go, of course. Like, big surprise. And guess who Jesse Buckler asked: big-haired Suzie Lefferts.

So Semelee had sat in her bedroom—another thing she’d discovered was she didn’t have to be on the beach to fly with her birds—and got together a flock of big fat seagulls and followed Jesse’s car from Suzie’s house to the prom. When they was both out of the car, she arranged the gulls into a low circle. As each one got near them it let loose with a big load of bird shit. Suzie started screamin as the big white globs landed in her hair, on her dress. Same with Jesse. They both jumped back in the car and drove away. Toward home, most likely. Semelee was sure Suzie wasn’t goin into the prom lookin like that.

Semelee lay on her bed and near split her sides laughing. But she realized how a few of her gulls hadn’t done their thing yet, so she chased after the car, droppin big white splotches all over Jesse’s nice new wax job. He kept goin faster, trying to outrun them, but that wasn’t gonna happen. Then a particularly big glob landed on his windshield. She saw the wipers come on but they just smeared it all over the glass. That was when Jesse missed the curve and smashed into the utility pole. The two of them’d been in such a rush to get away from the bombardment that they never buckled up. Jesse wound up dead; Suzie survived but with a broke neck. Doctors said she’d never walk again.

Semelee had been shook up somethin terrible. She put her shells away, but only for a little while…she couldn’t stay away from them too long. But she used them only for flyin and swimmin. She didn’t try to control no more critters.

Leastways not while she was still in Jacksonville.