The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel (10 page)

Rick hit the ground in a crumpled mess, and it was
only dumb luck that allowed him to keep a hold of his poker. He thrust it out
in front of him as protection while he fought to get his breath.

“You are pathetic, worm.”

Rick waved the poker, but was powerless on his
back. “W-what are you?”

“A man.”

Rick shuffled backwards. “You’re not a man, you’re
a monster.”

“Men are monsters.”

Rick cowered, tried to get up, but ended up
shuffling along on his backside some more. The dead man cackled with delight.

“Please,” Rick begged.

“Your begging will not save you. You are—”

The dead man stumbled forwards in surprise,
falling right onto the pointed tip of the poker that Rick still held out in
front of him. His bloated stomach slid right down the length of the iron rod
and left a slick trail on it. The poker went straight through him, poking out
of his back. Rick shoved with all his might and sent the wounded monster to the
floor.

Sarah appeared and helped Rick to his feet. Steven
stood nearby with his tie flapped over his shoulder, and all around him lay the
corpses of dead men. He was panting heavily, keyed-up and ready for more.

“We have to get out of here,” said Sarah.

 “Not until we help my brother.”

Rick could see Keith swinging his poker desperately,
as two creatures had him pinned against a strobing fruit machine. They grabbed
him by the arms and wrestled with him.

Rick slid over the ambulance’s bonnet and raced to
help. He no longer had his fire poker—it was embedded inside the black haired
dead man’s torso—so he did the only thing he could think of and converted his
speed into an attack. He aimed his foot at the nearest enemy and put so much
force into the kick that the dead man flew into its partner, and the two of them
smashed down on top of a table. Keith was quick to capitalise and rammed his
poker down into them like a pike, impaling the dead men together like meat on a
shish kebab. “Never piss off an accountant,” he shouted at them.

Rick grabbed his brother’s arm. “We need to leave.
This place isn’t safe anymore.”

Keith looked at the broken windows and the
obliterated doorway and nodded. “We need to get back to your house.”

“What? No, we need to get help.”

“You heard what Maddy said. There is no help. Your
house is big and old, with big gates and alarms.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Diane, coming up behind
them and covered in dark red blood that didn’t belong to her. The baseball bat
in her hands was snapped and caked in gore.

“Me too,” said Maddy between pants.

Rick looked around and saw that they had won a
pyrrhic victory. A dozen of their attackers lay dead or injured, but many of
the pub’s drinkers were dead also. Steven and Sarah were still on the opposite
side of the ambulance, but they seemed to be okay. They were staring over the
bonnet; expressions weary, yet exuberant.

“We made it,” said Steven, sounding like he could barely
believe it. “I’ve never been in a fight in my life before today.”

“Well, you kicked ass,” said Rick. “You were like
a Viking.”

Sarah patted Steven on the back. “I wouldn’t have
had a chance without you. You were amaz—”

Her eyes went wide. Steven turned to glance at Sarah
and his eyes went wide too. He stepped away, startled.

Rick reached out across the bonnet, not
understanding what was happening. “Sarah?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but blood passed
between her lips. Gnarled black fingernails appeared around her throat, and
then her face disappeared, replaced by the back of her head. The sound of her
neck snapping echoed off the ceiling like a gunshot.

Her dead body slumped to the floor.

The black haired dead man appeared where she had
been standing, iron poker still sticking out of his torso. The grey flesh
around the wound was scorched. “You think you can fight back, maggots? You will
all die.” He grabbed the poker in his belly and dragged it out with a slithery
plop
!
then threw it down on the ground next to Sarah’s head.

Steven took a swing, but was too slow. The dead
man ducked the blow and struck Steven hard enough to launch him up and over the
bonnet of the ambulance. Rick and the others ran to his aid, dragging him back
to his feet and hustling him towards the exit.

The black haired corpse laughed at their retreat.

Outside, it was fully dark and completely silent. Steven
was groggy and struggled to walk straight, so Keith and Rick grabbed an arm
each and marched him across the car park as fast as they could. As they did so,
Rick kept picturing Sarah’s face. There one minute; snapped around and facing the
wrong way the next.

Dead men walked the Earth, killing the living.

The apocalypse had arrived.

As Rick dared to glance backwards one last time, he
saw the black haired corpse strolling after them casually, apparently, in no
hurry.

It was like walking through
a movie set for the grizzliest film ever made. The dead littered the roads like
rubbish, their blood the ancient city’s latest graffiti. Tens of thousands dead.
Mina made the assumption simply by extrapolating from what she saw on every street.
Now and then, amongst the dead men, women, and children, she or David would
spot a body that wasn’t human. One laid in front of her now—a charred creature
with clumps of flesh between its crooked teeth. Somebody had fought back and run
it through with a skiing pole. The price tag still hung from the rubber grip.

“Every inch of its skin is burned away,” Mina
muttered, more to herself than David. “It’s like these things walked right out
of a fire.”

David was busy making notes and using his phone to
take pictures, but he heard what she said and replied. “Well, they say Hell is
hot, if that’s still what you’re implying.”

“I think these monsters used to be men and women
once. What do you think that means?”

“Maybe they’ve been burning in Hell for all
eternity.”

Mina thought about it and found it grim to even
consider. Was there really a Hell? Did people truly go there to burn for eternity?
She’d never been a believer until now.

“The stones,” David said flatly as he pointed his camera
phone at a prominent blond, shaggy-haired politician he’d found tangled in the
wreckage of a shiny bicycle. “Wherever they’re from, the stones are the key.”

Mina agreed. The stones had opened some kind of
gate, but who had put them there? The monster she had killed outside the
pharmacy mentioned ‘The Red Lord’. Was that the Devil? Or something worse? Was
the giant creature she had glimpsed the Red Lord?

“I wish you hadn’t ruined your camera,” said
David. “We’re alone out here and have the exclusive.”

Mina groaned. “It was my camera or my life, and we
don’t have the exclusive. It’s happening to everybody, so there’s no need for
anybody to report it.”

“Nonsense. People will be too terrified to
understand what is going on. We have a chance here to gain evidence and try to
help piece things together. You already have your theory about Hell coming to
Earth—as silly as I may deem it—and we can see if it holds water.”

Mina took a moment to think about it. They were
alone in the aftermath of a catastrophe, and perhaps there were ways to help,
but, as she viewed the utter devastation of London, she felt powerless. She
prodded the dead creature with her foot and grimaced when the toe of her boot
came back sticky. The demons had attacked en masse and with complete surprise,
but they could be hurt—and killed. They were ferocious and relentless, but as
fragile as any human being. Maybe the Army and their guns could turn things
around.

Mina’s phone rang and made both of them leap.
David had spoken with their Slough office multiple times since they’d left the
pharmacy, but Mina had completely forgotten about her own phone.

She answered the phone and heard her father’s
barking voice on the other end. “Mina? Are you all right?”

“Yes, dad, I’m fine. I’m in London.”

“London? Bloody damn it, Mina, why are you always
in trouble? You could be at home safe with children, but instead, you are out
in the middle of everything.”

“I’m a journalist, dad.”

“You are not a journalist, Mina. You take your
hobby too seriously. I could have lost you today because of your irresponsible behaviour.
You need to come home right now. Get away from that city. There is fighting.”

“Yes, dad, I know. I saw it first-hand.”

“Bloody damn it. You are where it happened? How
did you stay safe?”

“I hid.”

“Good girl. Now, I am wanting you home.”

“It’s not that easy, dad. Things are bad here.”

“That is why you must leave.”

“I have a job to do.”

“No, you do not.”

Mina sighed and gripped the phone tightly in her
fist. “Yes, I do, dad. I’m standing in the middle of a thousand bodies, and
it’s my job to do something to help. I’m not interested in being at home,
raising children, and cooking dinner. I’m a journalist, so let me journalist…
lise.”

“Mina, you do as I am saying.”

“I’m twenty-five years old. I’ll do what
I
say.” She put down the phone and switched it off, hands shaking.

“You okay?” David asked her.

She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

David looked at her, the first time he hadn’t
frowned or given her an order. “You were good on the phone. Didn’t take any
nonsense. Attitude like that will take you places.”

Mina smiled. “Perhaps. More likely, my dad will
make my life a living hell.”

“Hell is already here, so what have you got to
lose?”

“Good point.”

Movement ahead. A man stepped out of an alleyway
and headed towards them.

“Oh no,” said Mina.

David glanced at her. “What is it?”

Mina watched the racist thug heading towards them
and felt her bladder loosen. “This guy is bad news.”

“Do you know him?”

“More than I would like?”

“Give me that phone, luv,” the man demanded once
he was close.

“You forgot to say please,” said David, folding
his arms.

There was blood down the racist’s white t-shirt,
and when he looked at David, there was murder in his eyes. “What did you
fucking say to me, mate?”

David shifted a little, but there was too much
pride in him to back down. “Manners cost nothing, my friend. You want to borrow
my colleague’s phone, then I suggest you ask nicely.”

“David, it’s fine. He can have my phone.”

The racist grinned spitefully. “There you go mate,
your little slag doesn’t mind giving it up.”

David strode forward, wagging his finger. “Now look
here you-”

The thug punched him around the side of the head
so hard Mina thought his skull might have cracked. Unconscious, he flopped face
first to the pavement with not even his arms to break his fall.

Mina yelped in shock.

The bald menace sneered at her. “You’re that Paki
from earlier, ain’t ya?”

“I’m not a… I am English.”

“The fuck you are.”

“I was born in Wigan.”

“More like a fucking call centre in Mumbai.”

“Mumbai is in India, so how could I be a Paki?”

“You fucking cheeking me, slag?”

Mina swallowed, tried to find whatever it was she
needed to stand up to this beast. “People are dead. You shouldn’t be attacking
people. We all need to help one another.”

“Which is why I want your phone. Give it.”

Mina reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
She was about to hand it over when she caught sight of David, face down on the
floor. Rather than scaring her, it made her angry. She placed the phone back in
her pocket and shook her head. “It’s my phone and I’m not giving it to you. You
try to touch me and I’ll scream. The monsters might come.”

“Oh, you’re going to give it to me, sweetheart,
and you can scream all you like.” He lunged forward and grabbed her, threw all
of his weight on top of her so that she fell backwards and struck the pavement.
The wind escaped her lungs and the man grabbed her arms. He bent over her and started
to lick and bite her neck like a panting dog.

“Stop it! David, help!”

David remained unconscious just three feet away.

“Never had a Paki before.” Her attacker nibbled at
her earlobe. His fumbling hands went to the buttons on her jeans and popped the
first one. “Gunna fuck the shite out of you, Paki.”

Terror got the best of Mina and she screamed.

The beast cut her off by smashing his fist into
her mouth. “Shut it!”

He was just about to punch her again when a small red
hole appeared in his windpipe, followed almost instantly by a piercing
snap!
He looked down at her with an expression of utter confusion. The little red
dot on his windpipe leaked blood and air, making a gargling sound. He slumped
sideways and collapsed to the pavement.

Mina clambered to her feet as quickly as she
could, moaning in a mixture of fear and relief. She turned around and saw a
group of men in jeans and sportswear—not much more than kids. One of them, a black
lad in a luminous green beanie hat, held a smoking pistol in his hand turned sideways.
“Racist motherfucker,” he muttered as he lowered the gun to his side.

Mina took a breath and said, “Y-you… you shot him.
How…? Where did you get a gun?”

The lad gave her an odd look that made her feel
stupid. “Ask me no questions, I tell me no lies. You all right, darlin’?”

“I… Yes. Thank you. You’re not going to hurt me,
are you?”

The lad glanced back at his friends, who seemed to
bristle at her comment. Then he looked again at Mina but didn’t seem happy. “I just
saved your arse, luv, and you accuse me of bein’ a mugger and shit. I ain’t gunna
hurt you. We ain’t even like that.”

“Oh,” said Mina. “It’s just that you all look so…
scary.
”

The lad looked down at his baggy jeans and black
hoodie, then surprised her by chuckling. “Just how we do on the streets, innit?
You dress how you want, and we dress how we wants. Just clothes, innit?”

“Thank you,” said Mina, truly meaning it this
time. Her attacker lay dead at her feet, but she didn’t care one bit. There
were lots of people dead today, and the racist bully was among the most
deserving.

“What’s your name?” Mina asked her rescuer.

“Vamps.”

“Vamps?”

The lad gave her a wide grin, revealing his gold
plated fangs. “Yeah, Vamps. These are my homies: Mass, Ravy, and Gingerbread.”

The other three men nodded silently. The one she
assumed was gingerbread—due to the gingerbread man on his t-shirt—was a huge
white guy with curly ginger hair.

Mina shook all of their hands. “It’s a pleasure to
meet you all.”

“You need to be careful out here,” Vamps warned
her. “There’s some heavy shit going down.”

“I know. I’m a journalist. David and I are trying
to get out of the city. You should come with us.”

Vamps looked down at David, who was finally beginning
to stir, and then back at her. “Nah, I’m sound, darlin’. These are my streets, d’you
get me? Me and the boys are staying put, and any of them fucked-up, Freddy
Krueger bitches wansta come take us on, they welcome. This is our manor and
ain’t nothing gonna bowl up and make a mess of it. You take care, darlin’. Next
time, just hand over your phone, innit? And ‘ere, take this.” He pulled a thin
black stick out of his belt and tossed it Mina’s way.

She caught the object and saw that it was a metal
police baton. The weight of it in her hands felt deadly, and she immediately felt
safer. She couldn’t help it, she hugged Vamps as he was about to leave. “You’re
a hero,” she told him.

Vamps eased her away, looking awkward. “Easy now.
I ain’t no hero. Don’t you go writin’ ‘bout me in your paper. I ain’t news
friendly.”

Mina nodded. “I promise. Take care.”

“You too.”

Then the group of young men disappeared, merging
into the side streets as if they were a part of the city itself. The spirit of
London had just saved her.

David managed to sit up and rub at his head. He
saw the racist thug lying dead on the pavement, and then he looked up at Mina.
“What the hell happened?”

Mina helped her colleague up and told him, “You
wouldn’t believe me. There are angels in this city as well as demons.”

***

“Did you hear something?” David
asked Mina about an hour later. Since setting off again, they hadn’t
encountered another soul. Mina had secretly been hoping to run into Vamps and
his gang again, but they were long gone. David listened to her story about the
young man’s heroics, and was upset that she hadn’t kept the lad around for an
interview. He’d been grumpy ever since waking up, and it was hardly surprising,
considering the angry red lump on the side of his head where the thug had
punched him. He’d also grazed his forehead on the pavement when he fell. Mina,
herself, had a fat lip.

“I said did you hear that?”

Mina clutched the police baton Vamps had given her
and raised it by her side. “I don’t know what it was, but maybe it’s a bad idea,
us being out in the open like this.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

The noise came again, and this time Mina spotted
movement. It came from the top floor of a double decker bus. Someone was
staring out of the window.

“Oh god,” said Mina. “There’s a kid up there.”

David looked up at where she was pointing and
gasped. “My word.”

“I’ll go get him.” Mina hurried, but then slowed down.
The last thing the poor kid needed was someone sprinting towards him with a weapon.
She reached the bus and climbed the steps carefully. The seats on the lower
deck were all empty and the driver’s compartment door hung wide open.

“Hello? You don’t have to be afraid. My name is
Mina.”

The sound of scurrying feet came from above her head,
but no voice in reply. She worried what she had seen only looked like a child,
but might have been something else—another racist bully, or a demon. She hated
having to have the police baton at the ready, but she lifted it now and was
more than prepared to use it as she headed up the stairwell behind the driver’s
compartment. When she reached the top deck of the bus, she saw more empty
seats. Litter and abandoned possessions littered the floor, including a fat
wallet with cash poking out of it.

A thatch of brown hair rose above the back of a seat,
and a young boy peered at her.

“Hey there, little guy. Are you hurt?”

No reply. The staring eyes scrutinised her.

“My name is Mina. What’s your name?”

“Don’t come any closer.”

“It’s okay.” She took another step, despite the
boy’s warning, and this prompted him to leap out at her and wave a claw hammer in
her face. “I said step back.”