by Mark Wheaton
“Did you talk to Mrs. Drucker?”
“I did. She said all the right things. Just like you’d think she would.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Did I say that?”
Becca went silent. There was only one thing she’d wanted to bring with her to show Ken in the hospital, the New York Post cover story on the discovery of Bones, a banner headline reading: Drowned Hound Found! She thought it would make Ken laugh, but the social workers who had driven her there said that it would be confiscated, so she should leave it in the car.
“What matters to me is what you think of living with your principal for the next few years?”
“I guess it’s okay,” Becca said. “I’ve been there a few days now. It’s all right.”
“Where is she?”
“Down in Chelsea.”
“She rich?”
Becca shrugged.
“What do you want me to tell her?”
“That you’re okay with me living there. I think she’s afraid of you.”
Ken snorted. “Maybe it’s better that way. She won’t fuck with you as much.”
Despite every doctor, orderly, social worker, and cop telling her she wasn’t allowed to do so, she reached over and hugged her brother tight.
“Excuse me, miss?!” one of the officers growled.
Becca hugged Ken for a second longer as if she hadn’t heard, but then broke away. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
• • •
“Can we swing by the bridge?” Becca asked as the social worker’s car pulled out of the hospital parking lot.
“You really want to do that?”
“I think it would help with the healing process, don’t you?”
The social worker scowled, but took a right instead of a left out of the parking lot.
The actual bridge wasn’t accessible by road, so they had to park and walk over to it. Becca moved to climb onto the tracks, but the social worker shook her head.
“It’s dangerous up there.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been.”
“You can’t go up there!”
But Becca was already hurrying along the tracks at a deliberate pace. The sun was high in the air as she walked, reaching the bridge just as the social worker stumbled up onto the tracks behind her. Becca broke into a jog until she reached the center of the bridge. Once there, she stared down into the water.
“Wait!” cried the social worker, already panting. “Don’t jump!”
Becca tried in vain to see the dark spot under the waves, but she couldn’t see an inch below the surface. The sun was angled in such a way that the black of the river worked as a mirror, reflecting the bridge, the shore, the sun above, and Becca’s tiny silhouette.
The social worker reached the little girl and grabbed her shoulder so awkwardly that she almost pushed her over the side.
“Jesus,” the woman muttered. “What’re we doing here?”
Becca eyed the water one last time before turning away.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “We can go.”
With that, she turned around and began walking back down the tracks. The social worker stared after her, hopelessly confused, but could do little but follow her back to the shore.
Becca reached the car and waited, the woman unlocking the doors with a remote key. Without a word, Becca climbed into the backseat. As they drove away, Becca stared out the window at the passing trees.
“Why’s it called the Hell Gate?”
“I actually know that,” the social worker replied proudly. “It’s Dutch. Hellegat. Only, it has two meanings. Helle in Dutch means ‘bright’ and gat is ‘hole’ or ‘tunnel.’ But, of course, helle is also ‘hell,’ so it’s either a passage to hell or a passage to bright light, like heaven. When the first explorers discovered it, they didn’t know what was down that river. Eventually, Hellegat became Hell Gate.”
“That’s really messed-up,” said Becca. “Why don’t they change it?”
The social worker shrugged. “Do you know how many maps they’d have to change? How many street signs? Sometimes, people just let it go.”
Becca nodded idly, wondering how people could just “let go” of a place in the river named after an entrance to hell, but then thought, Yeah, New York.
She let her mind wander to her planned outing that afternoon with Principal Drucker. They were going to a ballet studio that Becca had selected almost randomly from the list of activities the eager-to-please woman had offered up in an attempt to “make inroads.”
Becca didn’t particularly like ballet, but it was geographically the farthest from both the Carver Academy and the Drucker apartment. If Becca signed up, there’d be all kinds of leeway with the time spent getting down to it and getting back home.
Time for herself.
More than anything else, this was what Becca wanted right now. She sank back into the seat as the car crossed the RFK Bridge back to Harlem. She felt the river on either side of her in a way she never had before. This time, she refused to look. A shiver traveled up her spine and made her scalp tingle. Her level of fear rose and rose until it was all she could do to keep from screaming.
She closed her eyes tight and waited until for the sound of the car bumping along the bridge to even out to the smooth of the road on the other side of the water. The sound seemed to go on forever, getting louder with every beat. She pressed her hands over her ears, tears now forming in her eyes as she felt herself beginning to hyperventilate.
Only a few more feet, a tiny voice in the back of her head whispered. Only a few more feet…
But soon even that voice was blotted out by the piercing wail rushing through Becca’s body like a banshee. She screamed and screamed, the social worker almost slamming into a truck in the adjacent lane.
“What is it?! What happened?” she cried, pulling the car over to the shoulder of the bridge, right under a sign that read: No Stopping On Bridge.
The social worker threw on the hazard lights and ran around to the backseat of the car. She opened the door and tried to pull Becca’s hands from her ears.
“What’s the matter, Becca? Talk to me.”
But even as she tried to sound calm, the sight of the little girl in complete hysterics terrified her.
The cars behind them began to slow, a couple of drivers hitting their horns. The ones who could see what was going on silenced theirs, waiting for the disturbing spectacle to ebb. Drivers in the opposite lane braked to better rubber-neck and, inevitably, shake their heads. Even those with their windows up and radios on couldn’t help but hear the terror in the little girl’s screams.
They eventually drove on, but Becca’s voice hung heavy in their eardrums and, for some, would continue to do for days to come. A couple would even check the news or try to look it up online.
But the little girl who couldn’t stop screaming was never to be found.
About the Author
Called a “quite gifted storyteller” by Fangoria magazine and “an exciting new voice in the speculative, dark fantasy genre” by author Michael (Enter, Night) Rowe, Mark Wheaton is the author of the internationally bestselling Bones stories as well as several other novels and novellas including Flood Plains, Ascension, Adversary, Last Tuesday, Night of the Scorpions, Stuttering Hunter, and short story collection Disembodied Spider Meat. Print editions of these stories are available as Four Nails in the Coffin, Unnatural Selection and Bones: The Complete Apocalypse Trilogy. He is also a horror screenwriter (Friday the 13th, The Messengers, Infected), graphic novelist (Dark Horse’s The Cleaners), and children’s playwright (Evita Sassy and the Black Mask’s Last Gasp).
Cover art by Carlton Stevens aka cmonies (http://dontdrinkanddraw.tumblr.com)
Cover layout by Rob Hinckley (http://www.eyecatchingcovers.com)
Editing by Indie Author Services (http://www.indieauthorservices.com)
Formatting by Dellaster Design (http://www.dellasterdesign.com)
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Mark Wheaton, Hellhound
