The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel (9 page)

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

--Winston Churchill

All Guy could think about
was Alice and Kyle. Since the mobile phone amnesty, the men aboard the Hatchet
had been coming to him with horror stories from all over the country. His
Airman, whose job it was to pilot the Jayhawk, had wept as he’d spoken of his
hometown of Carmel, Indiana, which was besieged. His auntie and two cousins were
already dead. There were similar reports from enlisted men hailing from Boston,
Tallahassee, Newport, and Marietta. Everywhere with a black stone was under
attack.

Which meant the whole of America was under attack.

It was Guy’s turn to make a call now, but he sat
in his cramped quarters with his cell phone in his lap and hands shaking as he
found himself unable to dial.

Just make the call
, he told himself.
You
have a job to do, and this is the only chance you will get to speak to your
family. Make the goddamn call, Guy. Find out if Kyle and Alice are okay.

He unlocked the phone and brought up his contacts.
His hands shook, but he kept his forefinger straight enough to press his ex-wife’s
name and start the call. He placed the phone to his ear and waited.

“Guy, is that you?”

“Nancy, are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. What’s going on? Brunswick is
under attack. That’s only the next town over.”

“But Durham is okay?”

“Yes, I think so. The local police have gone to
help in Brunswick, but things are okay here. They say those stones opened up some
kind of gate and monsters are pouring through.”

“I think that’s correct,” he admitted, “I’ve seen
the monsters. They’re real.”

“Oh God.”

“Nancy, where are Kyle and Alice? Are they with
you?”

“No.”

“Jesus, where are they?”

“They’re in London. You know that.”

Guy’s eyes went wide as he realised. “Damn it.
Their school trip was this week?”

“And all of next. I can’t believe you forgot. I
suppose I should be used to it by now.”

“Nancy, I’m not calling for an argument. I want to
know my family is safe, so just tell me. Are the kids okay?”

“Guy, I haven’t been able to reach them all day.
The news said London is under attack.” She sobbed.

Guy almost dropped the phone. His hands shook. “Nancy,
when did you speak to them last?”

“Yesterday. It was night time there, but around
midday here. They were having fun; said they were going to visit Big Ben in the
morning.”

That put Kyle and Alice in the heart of the city.

Guy closed his eyes and tried not to scream.
“Okay, Nancy, don’t panic. Give me the details of where they’re staying and
I’ll contact the U.S. embassy; see what I can do from here.”

“Thank you, Guy. Clark has tried to get in contact
with the school, but hasn’t gotten anywhere.”

The mention of his wife’s lover dispelled some of
Guy’s desperation and replaced it with anger. “Is Clark there with you now?”

“Yes, did you want to speak to him?”

“No! I mean, I don’t have anything to say to him.
Just stay together and don’t leave home. Things are bad, Nancy, but at least
it’s not everywhere. If Durham is okay, then stay put. I’ll try to find Kyle
and Alice. Contact you as soon as I hear anything.”

“Thanks, Guy. You stay safe.”

“I always do.”

He ended the call and once again stared at the
cell phone in his lap. Nancy was okay, and that was good, but nothing told him
his children were safe.

There was a knock at the door.

When Guy opened it, he found Frank standing there.

“My aunt is gone,” he said. “I tried to get a hold
of her, but a nurse at the local hospital answered the phone.”

Guy sighed. “I’m sorry, Frank.”

“Thank you. Have you got a hold of your kids? Nancy?”

“Nancy is okay, but Kyle and Alice are in London.”

“Their class trip?”

Guy huffed. “Now I really feel like an asshole. I
forgot all about it, Frank. They’re stuck on the other side of the Atlantic,
and Nancy can’t get hold of them. I… I don’t know if they’re okay.”

“Of course they are. I’ve never known a thirteen year
old boy as grown up as your Kyle. He’ll be looking after Alice even as we
speak. They’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am. So what’s our next move, Captain?”

“We head for Norfolk, as commanded. We can refuel
and get new orders.”

“Sounds like the smart move. You will have a
problem on your hands though.”

Guy tilted his head. “What problem?”

“Begins with a T.”

“Tosco? What’s my second-in-command up to now?”

“Some of the men want to leave, go to their
families. Tosco told them they could.”

“He said what? I’ll throttle him.”

Frank put his hand against Guy’s chest. “Just stay
calm. You can control the situation best by making the most sense. Tosco’s just
another demagogue who thinks you run a ship by pandering to your men.”

“Demagogue? Have you been studying the dictionary
again?”

“Not a lot to do on board a ship but read. I’ll
get the Hatchet moving again. Sooner we leave New York in our wake the better,
if you ask me.”

Guy nodded agreement.

They marched up to the pilothouse where they found
Tosco and a gathering of enlisted men. Guy was happy to see that none of his
other officers had sided with Tosco and were all elsewhere, performing their
duties. Tosco held his chin high and squared his shoulders as if he were about
to put forward a great speech of noble cause.

Guy didn’t give him a chance to utter a single
word. “I understand that some of you want to leave,” he said, wiping the smug
expression from Tosco’s face as he took the upper hand and addressed the issue
before it had a chance to be raised. Tosco would not get the opportunity to
play hero and put forward the concerns of his men. “But I would remind you of
why you are here: You are enlisted men of the United States Coast Guard. You
are not trained killers, like the Navy. You are not merchantmen or fishermen. You
sail the Seven Seas not as pirates. Every man and woman aboard this ship signed
up to be a hero, and today we saved over thirty civilians from a terrible fate.
For that, they will thank us for the rest of their lives. You probably think
that earns you the right to disembark this ship and go searching for your families.
Perhaps it does. Yet, I ask you to think carefully, because the moment you step
off this ship, you cease being heroes at a time when the world needs heroes
more than ever. As long as people are in need of help, it is our duty to stay
aboard this ship and do what we signed up to do. Something terrible happened today,
and our country is relying on us to minimise the damage. If we fail to protect our
homeland, then what do our families even have left to live for? America is a country
forged by brave men and women. The moment we stop fighting for our freedom is the
moment we lose it. I, too, have a family, but I will remain aboard the Hatchet and
do my duty. I ask you to do the same. We are heading to Norfolk, and there we will
rearm and refuel. What will happen beyond that, I do not know, but I suggest
that those of you that pray do so now. Pray for us all.”

Before anybody replied, Guy turned to Frank and
gave his orders. “Sail us out of here, Chief Petty, and don’t stop until I say
so.”

Rick still had the injured
woman in his arms, but now Sarah had passed out on the floor besides him. Keith
was frantic trying to call Marcy while everyone else in the pub paced up and
down. The news report said they were at war—not just Britain, but the entire
world. Where had the creatures come from? What did they want? Was it all some
kind of media conspiracy? Other than what he’d seen on the news, Rick had witnessed
none of it for himself. He’d walked to the pub only two hours before, and it
had been a normal evening. It wasn’t until this injured woman had collapsed in
front of the bar he saw anything wrong first hand.

“The paramedics are here,” somebody said, and Rick
looked up to see a man and woman entering. Both wore green NHS jumpsuits, and were
quick to rush over to help. There was no mistaking the haunted look in their
eyes.

“What happened to her?” The female paramedic asked
as she started examining the unconscious woman.

“I have no idea,” said Rick. “She just ran into the
pub and fell down.”

“Something bad is going on,” said Keith. “It’s all
over the news. My wife isn’t answering her phone. Something’s happened.”

“We know,” said the male paramedic, whose bald
head was slick with sweat.

“What do you know?” asked Rick. “Anything we
don’t?”

“This woman is dead.” The female paramedic said.
She went to stand up. “We can’t help her.”

“What? You haven’t even tried,” said Rick.

“She has no heartbeat. I’m sorry. Usually, we
might try to do something, but we had another seven emergencies called in on
our way here. We’re the only ambulance in the area, and we have to spend our
time where it can do most good. This woman has been dead too long.”

Rick looked down at the woman whose head he’d been
holding for fifteen minutes and saw the truth of it. The amount of blood that’d
leaked from her chest had formed a massive puddle on the wooden floor beneath
her, and her arms were the colour of chalk. She was cold.

“Can you help Sarah?” he asked. “She passed out
from the shock.”

The female paramedic took something from her kit
bag and waved it beneath Sarah’s nose. She winced and began to stir. “She’ll be
fine. Just give her a few minutes to wake up.”

“We have to go,” the male paramedic urged.

“What do we do with her?” asked Keith, pointing to
the dead woman.

“I’ll inform the coroner,” said the female paramedic.
“Just place a sheet over her and wait for someone to come.”

Rick eased the dead woman’s head down onto the
floorboards and stood up. He retrieved his pint from the table and downed half
of it.

The paramedics disappeared out the door, which
left the people inside the pub to stand around anxiously. Nobody knew what to
do. Rick wondered if he should go home or stay where he was.

Screaming from outside.

Rick stared at his brother. “What now?”

“I don’t know. Just close the door.”

Rick nodded, went over to do so, but couldn’t help
glancing outside at the car park. The ambulance was parked right outside, its
lights chasing away the shadows of approaching night. The paramedics were
nowhere to be seen.

The screaming had stopped.

He took a tentative step outside the pub and
looked around. The front of the ambulance faced him at an angle, its large rear
doors hanging open. He couldn’t see inside from where he stood, but the
paramedics must be in the back.

Who had screamed?

“Hello? Is everything all right out here?”

The sound of movement from the ambulance drew him
forward another few steps. It took a handful more until he had moved around sufficiently
to face the rear of the vehicle.

Something horrible glared back at him.

It was a man, but also a monster. His eyes were
cloudy and white, lips cracked and bleeding. He looked dead.

“Are you okay?” asked Rick, not knowing what else
to say.

“I am your end,” the dead man hissed. “I will use
your hollowed skull as a latrine.”

Rick noticed the bald paramedic lying on a gurney
in the back of the ambulance. His neck had been twisted around and broken. This
monster had murdered him and would do the same to Rick. He turned to run, but
the dead man leapt out and grabbed him, cold hands seizing his throat. Rick
fought back the only way he could—with his legs. He lifted his right foot and
stamped down on where he hoped a kneecap would be, and the dead man howled and
collapsed sideways. The icy fingers slipped from around Rick’s neck and allowed
him chance to stagger away.

The dead man bellowed. He reached out his hands to
try and grab Rick again, but every time he tried, he crumpled to the ground as
his broken leg folded.

“Is it safe?” came a voice.

Rick glanced upwards to see that the female
paramedic was lying prone on the roof of the ambulance. A bad scratch parted
her left eyebrow, but she seemed otherwise okay. “What are you doing up there?”
he said. “Come down and help-”

The dead man tackled Rick around the waist, dragging
him to the ground. Before he could react, his enemy had straddled him and was
back to squeezing his throat. “Submit to slavery, worm, and you may get to live
out your days as a foot licker.”

Rick struggled, tried to bring his legs up to kick
the monster off of him, but he couldn’t get any leverage. Every second, the
pressure in his head increased and made it impossible to focus on anything else
other than trying to get a breath.

“Your men will be sodomites, your women whores.”

“Well, doesn’t that just sum up the 21
^st
Century?” Keith appeared over the dead man’s shoulder, holding what looked like
an old iron fire poker. He brought the metal rod down two-handed, like a
barbarian wielding a broadsword, and shattered his target’s skull, caving it in
at the top so that it resembled a grizzly heart shape.

Rick swatted the hands away from his throat and
gasped uncontrollably, even as his brother and the paramedic dragged him to his
feet.

“There are more coming,” cried the paramedic.

Clutching his throat and still struggling for air,
Rick glanced across the car park and saw that more of the dead men were indeed coming.
They lumbered down the road like zombies, but were cursing and shouting
threats. One of them brandished a tree branch like a spear.

“Get inside,” Keith urged. “Now!”

The three of them hurried back inside the pub,
closing and locking the thick wooden door behind them. The helpful businessman
understood that danger was on its way because he quickly dragged a table over
to act as a barricade.

Rick staggered over and finished what was left of
his pint, then slumped over the table while Keith took charge. He told them
what was coming and that they all needed to find weapons. It was good that he
was being proactive, because nobody else was. Rick least of all. He could do
nothing but close his eyes and wish it wasn’t all happening.

“R-Rick?”

Rick opened his eyes and glanced to the side. Sarah
had woken up on the floor and was propping herself up on her elbows. She looked
bewildered. “What’s happening?”

He knelt beside her. “We’re in a spot of bother.”

“The monsters are here, aren’t they?”

Rick nodded.

“Are we going to die?”

He looked at her face and couldn’t bear to tell
her the truth; so he lied. “We’ll be fine. My brother already took care of one
of them.”

Sarah smiled at him, but she looked more likely to
cry than laugh.

***

“Why aren’t they trying to
get inside?” asked the female paramedic, whose name turned out to be Maddy. She
peeked out of one window through a gap in the curtains.

“Because they don’t want to end up like their
friend,” said Keith, patting the iron poker that he had not put down since
bashing the dead man’s brains in. His bravado might have been masking the fact he
still couldn’t get through to Marcy.

“It’s because they’re smart,” Rick muttered as he
worked on his fresh pint. “They’re figuring out the best way to get at us.”

Maddy folded her arms. “Then we have to be ready.”

The businessman, Steven, clutched an iron poker, identical
to the one Keith had. He waved it in the air as he spoke. “Whatever is out
there picked on the wrong people.”

“This isn’t time for bravado,” said Rick, staring
into his pint. “The thing that attacked me wasn’t human. It was like a zombie, only
it spoke. It hated me, hated all of us.”

Sarah plonked herself down on a chair next to him.
“We need to get help.”

Keith pointed his poker at Maddy. “
She
was
supposed to be our help.”

Maddy sighed. “On our way here, emergency calls
came in from all over. Only reason Tom and I made it here was because you
people were the first to call. I wouldn’t hold up much hope of getting any more
help. I’ve got a feeling that emergency services are inundated right now. Poor
Tom…”

“Then we stay here,” said Keith. “We batten down
the hatches and arm ourselves. The Army will get a handle on this eventually. That
thing that attacked Rick was easy enough to kill. Wherever these things came
from, they underestimated us.”

“I need another drink, Diane” said Rick,
suppressing a dire need to belch. The barmaid fetched him one.

“I don’t think getting drunk is the answer,” said Keith.

Rick held up his fresh pint. “You go ahead and be
the hero. I’m going to get pissed.”

Steven waved his poker again. “We need to stick
together and stay focused. You’d be dead if your brother hadn’t helped you.”

“I would be too,” said Maddy. “Thank you.”

Keith lifted his chin and squared his shoulders.
“Just doing what anyone else would have. I’m sure my brother would do the
same.”

Rick sighed. “So what do we do?”

“We get ready,” said Keith. “Those things try to get
inside, we do everything we can to stop them.”

Maddy nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Everyone agreed, and within minutes, they all had
weapons. Rick, Steven, and Keith clutched iron pokers from the pub’s three
fireplaces, while Diane and Maddy wielded knives from the kitchen. Everyone
else went with whatever they could find, ranging from jagged beer bottles to a
baseball bat found hidden beneath the bar. It was just in time, too. The attack
began not ten minutes later.

***

The fight came not to the
front door, but to one of the windows. The thick double-glazing did not
shatter, but crumpled inwards a piece at a time. Everyone formed up, weapons at
the ready.

A window smashed at the opposite end of the pub.

“Damn it,” Keith shouted. “Split into two groups, one
at each window. Move, move, move.”

Rick headed towards the other window, taking Sarah
and Steven with him. To his dismay, they both looked at him like he was the one
in charge.

The window shook in its frame, the curtains
flapping as the air moved. “You both ready?” Rick asked.

Sarah nodded. Steven pulled off his blazer and
threw it on the floor, rolled up his shirt sleeves, then gave a thumbs up.

“If they’re anything like the one that attacked
me, these things like going for the neck. As soon as they lunge, let them have
it.”

Large shards of glass fell loose and shattered on
the ground. Rick tightened his grip on his poker, knuckles creaking. Sarah held
her beer bottle near her waist, ready to stab.

Then the siege halted.

Both windows stopped cracking as the enemy outside
stopped attacking. Rick looked at his brother at the other side of the pub, who
replied with a confused frown.

There was noise. Rumbling.

Rick cocked his head. “Is that…? Is that the ambulance?”

“It sounds like somebody is driving it,” said Steven.

Sarah shifted on the spot. “Those things can drive?”

“It looks that way,” said Steven. “Why, though? If
they want to get at us in here, why drive away?”

Rick had a thought. “Unless…”

Sarah looked at him. “Unless what?”

Rick heard the noise of the accelerating engine
just in time to shout a warning. “They’re going to ram us.”

An earthquake shook the building and the barricade
in front of the pub’s door disintegrated as the nose of a speeding ambulance crashed
through it. The heavy wooden door flew off its hinges and crashed against the
bar.

“They’re dividing us,” Rick shouted. “They’ve
split us in two.”

The ambulance’s rear doors sprung open and dead
men spilled out. From the driver’s seat, a corpse with long black hair slid out.
It looked at the poker in Rick’s hand and laughed. “I’ll gut you with that
thing before you ever get chance to swing it.”

Rick defied his enemy and swung at a dead woman
with mottled grey breasts. His head was fuzzy with alcohol, but he was glad to
have the edge taken off now. Sober, he might have retched at the sight of her
caved in skull.

Steven joined the fight and took out two dead men
in quick succession. Sarah was less aggressive, and backed away until a dead
woman was right on top of her. Desperation made her strike out, but she managed
to slice her attacker’s throat open.

From the other side of the pub, obscured by the
crashed ambulance, the other guests fought for their lives. Rick worried about
his brother and gritted his teeth as he connected a blow with a brunette’s
rotting skull. He fought his way to the ambulance, but dead men continued to
spill out into the pub and blocked his way.

The fight had just got started.

Steven held his own. With Sarah huddled behind him
and striking out at anything that got too near, they made a good team. Rick
took out another attacker, gained several more feet towards the ambulance, but the
black haired dead man stood in his path.

“A valiant effort, worm.” He struck Rick in the
chest with the force of a kicking horse and sent him flying into the air.