F. Paul Wilson - Gateways

Carl wasn’t sure of a whole lotta things in life, but he was damn sure that was a real bad idea. He was glad he was back here, away from the lights. He would’ve liked to be even farther, like in his trailer watchin TV. He was missin all his Friday night shows. But he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to get outta here.

He’d been us in his hand, workin at the knot behind his back, but this was one good knot. When you lived out here in the wilds, specially on the water, you learned how to tie a good knot. But that didn’t keep him from tryin to loosen it up.

“Keep a-goin!” he heard Semelee call up from the hole, her voice faint and all echoey like.

Luke shouted, “We’re almost outta rope!”

“Take me down to the end! As much as you got!”

Good, Carl thought. They’s all concentrated on her.

If he could just get this knot loose, he could sneak down to the water and steal a canoe and slip away real quiet like. He could be long gone before anyone noticed. Then he’d—

He jumped at the sound of a scream, a long tortured sound like someone havin their skin tore off—not just a piece, but the whole thing.

Everbody around the hole started shoutin and callin and movin this way and that. Four-five guys was haulin on that rope as fast as they could. Finally they got to the end. Carl caught a peek between the shufflin bodies and saw Semelee still in the chair. But she was all slumped over like a piece of fish bait and not movin a muscle.

She looked dead.

Saturday

1

Semelee heard herself scream and woke up all sweaty and thrashin.

Where am I?

“Semelee! Semelee, are you okay?”

Luke’s voice…and then his face appeared, hoveringover her.

She sat up, recognized her corner of theBull-ship , then flopped back.

“Here,” Luke told her. “Drink this.”

He tipped a bottle over her mouth and she gulped. Water. Lord, that tasted good.

She looked around again. “How’d I get here? I don’t remember going to bed. I—”

“You was down in the lights,” he said.

The lights! Of course.

She remembered now. She’d been down in the hole, baskin in them strange weird lights like a sun worshipper. But she hadn’t felt strange. She’d felt welcome, more welcome than she’d ever felt in her own home. She remembered wantin to tear off her clothes so the rays could go straight to her skin. But she didn’t get the chance…

Because that was when the voices began.

Whispers at first, so soft she could barely make them out. Not sounds, really. More like voices in her head, like she was a mental case or somethin. She wasn’t even sure they was talkin to her. Maybe they was jawin at each other and their words was passin through her head, but she had a feelin they was talkin to her. Shewanted them to be talkin to her.

“What happened to you down there?” Luke said. “You screamed like I ain’t never heard nobody scream, and when we pulled you up you was out cold. I thought you was a goner.”

Out cold…she jammed her hands against her temples. Damn, she wished she could remember what had happened, and remember more of what them voices had said. She did know she kept hearin about ‘the One.’ All sorts of yammerin about the One, repeatin it over and over again. The One what?

Suddenly she realized they was talkin about a person. The One was preparing the way, everything depended on the One because the One was special.

Wait, she thought, stiffening as a thrill ran through her.I’m special. I got a power like no one else. And then there’s my name…

She levered up to a sittin position and crossed her legs, Indian style. “Yes!”

“What is it?”

“Luke, do you know what my name means?”

“Y’mean Semelee? It means…it means ‘Semelee.’ Just like Luke means ‘Luke.’”

“All names mean somethin. I ain’t got no idea what Luke means, but my momma told me that Semelee means ‘one and only.’ She said she named me that because I was her first and I was a real hard birth, and she wasn’t goin through that again. She said I was her first and last kid, her one and only.”

Luke frowned. “Okay. So?”

“I heard voices down in that hole and they was talkin about ‘the One.’ That has to be me. They was talking aboutme .” She closed her eyes. Excitement flashed like lectric shocks through her body. “And they kept on sayin somethin else too.”

What was it? It was right there, just out of reach…started with anR …but what was the rest?

And then she had it! The name popped into her head like she’d known it all along.

A strange name. She’d never heard nothin like it before. But then she’d never heard nothin like those voices before neither. Was that strange word their name for her, their name for the One? Had to be.

But who were the voices and what did they mean about “preparing the way”? What was the “everything” that depended on her, the One?

She had to find out. Maybe she’d learn tonight. But she had to do a couple of things before then. One of them was gettin her other eye-shell back. But first…

“I’m changin my name, Luke.”

He laughed. “That’s crazy! You can’t just change your name anytime you feel like it.”

“No. I got to. That’s why I was called back here. I thought the lagoon was talking to me when it said it wanted sacrifices, but it wasn’t. It was the lights—or at least the things that live in the lights.”

“Lay back down, Semelee. You’re talkin outta your head.”

“No.” She pushed him away. “Don’t you see? It was all to bring me here, to this place, at this time—to teach me my True Name. And now that I know it, I’m gonna use it.” She rose to her feet and looked out at the lights still flickering up from the hole into the early morning darkness. “Big changes comin, Luke, and I’m gonna be part of them, I’m gonna be right at their heart. And if you and the rest of the clan stick by me, we’ll have our day. Oh, yes, Luke, we’ll have our day.”

“Semelee—”

“Told you: I ain’t Semelee no more. From this moment on you call me—”

The name died on her lips. She realized that she mustn’t tell no one her True Name. It was only for her and those closest to her. Luke was close, but not close enough. The man called Jack, the special one…she could tell him maybe, but not right away. He’d have to prove himself worthy first.

“Call you what?” Luke said.

“Semelee.”

Luke stared at her. “Wasn’t you just tellin me—?”

“Changed my mind. I’m goin to change my name inside, but outside you can keep callin me Semelee.” She rubbed her stomach. “We got anything to eat round here?”

Luke straightened. “I’ll go check by the fire.”

As soon as he was gone, Semelee stepped out onto the deck and looked up at the stars wheelin above her.

“Rasalom,” she whispered, lovin the way it rolled off her tongue. That was her new name. “Rasalom.”

2

The man who was something more than a man opened his eyes in the darkness.

His name…someone had spoken his name. Not one of the many he used in the varied identities he assumed for various purposes. No, this had been his True Name.

He’d been reveling in the continued corporal mutilation of a teenage girl named Suzanne and the spiritual ruination of the family that tortured her.

Poor Suzanne had been chained to the other side of the wall of this Connecticut home for eleven days now. She had been raped and defiled and tortured and mutilated beyond the point of her endurance. Her mind had snapped. She had no more to give. She was dying. Her brain had shut down all but the most basic functions. She barely felt the corkscrew being wound into the flesh of her thigh.