Gateway
David C. Cassidy
Published by David C. Cassidy at Smashwords
By David C. Cassidy
The Dark
IBPA Award Winner In Horror Fiction
Readers’ Favorite
Award Winner In Horror Fiction
Velvet Rain
Fosgate’s Game
Never Too Late
Gateway
1944
Dark Shapes, Dark Shadows Series
Gateway is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Names of real public persons, living or dead, and news headlines that include and/or reference the names of actual newspapers are used for fictive purposes only.
Copyright © 2021 by David C. Cassidy
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This work may not be copied or redistributed without the sole written consent of the author.
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Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
– Walt Whitman
~ 1
“Jared Collado,” Bobby Duncan said, “you are one sick motherfucker.”
Jared gave him a look. It’s a safe bet that if he had known he was going to be in a coma in the next half hour, he would have glued his ass to his bar-room chair and gotten shit-faced with his friends. But it wasn’t as if he could see the future or read tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Those things were reserved for clairvoyants and frauds. Besides, God had bigger plans for his scattered mind.
He set down his whiskey, then reached across the table and snatched the hardcover book from Bobby’s hand.
“Hey—” Bobby said, half-laughing.
Jared added the book to the small stack of author copies he’d brought in from the car. He hadn’t planned on a book-signing event, but if his agent had succeeded in drilling one thing into his head, it was the mantra of the literary world: Don’t disappoint the fans.
He held up the book and tapped the name on the cover. “It’s Cole now, Bobby. No more coe-YAY-doe. You want this signed or not?”
“Jared Cole,” Bobby shouted above the blaring country music. He adopted a cheesy Spanish accent. “You muss be loco! Sorry, señor, but no ways I get used to dat.”
Jared chuckled. “I don’t think I will, either.” They clinked their glasses together.
“I like it,” a voice purred in Jared’s ear. “It’s very … authory.”
Bobby Duncan elbowed Ricky Cowen. Ricky was tapping his foot to the music, and almost dropped his drink when Bobby nodded to the large and lovely breasts hovering next to their best friend. Jim Tate, a mechanic with one good eye, joined in the ogling.
Jared jumped at the sudden sound of thunder. The lights flickered. He drew back, and his eyes settled on the ample mounds before him. “Y-you think so?”
Bobby Duncan chuckled and shook his head. “Cole, or whatever the hell you call yourself now, what the Christ is wrong with you?”
“Maybe you should sign those for her,” Jim Tate said.
Ricky Cowen laughed and seconded the motion.
Julie Jacobs, a scorching redhead in a low-cut white top and black jeans, looked up with a gorgeous smile of perfect teeth. “Maybe you should, Jared Cole,” she cooed. She placed her pen in Jared’s hand.
“You wouldn’t want that if you actually read his stuff,” Bobby said. “Julie, girl, he really is a sick motherfucker.”
“How sick?” Julie said playfully. She batted her eyes.
“Page 63,” Bobby said. “I couldn’t get any further.” He looked at Jared. “Sorry, man.”
“I’ll have to read it,” Julie said. “Will you sign one for me, Jared?”
Jared signed the book and handed it to her. She thanked him with a kiss on the cheek, took the pen, then tapped her left breast with it.
Jared swallowed. “You’re joking, right?”
“I’ll sign it,” Jim Tate said brightly. He went to snatch the pen but he fumbled with it. It was on his right, which wasn’t good because his right eye was glass. It was misshapen, and his depth perception had always been off since he got it.
Julie snapped up the pen and swatted him. She handed the pen to Jared.
Bobby Duncan prodded him. “Do it, buddy. Maybe that boob’ll be worth something when you die.”
Jim and Ricky laughed.
Jared took a generous swig of his drink. He summoned the courage to raise the pen to that full round breast, but hesitated when the thunder came again.
“First time?” Bobby joked.
“Never touched one, Jared?” Ricky Cowen chimed in. “Lemme know if you need help.”
“Will you two shut it?” Julie said.
Jared glanced at his buddies in turn. “You know fellas, they got lots a this in New York City.” He’d never been there, but he was moving there in four days, the day after Labor Day. He hoped his little boast would shut them up.
“Aw, you’ll miss all this,” Bobby told him with a good belch. “The Big Apple’s got nothin’ on the Big Sky.”
“I give him a month,” Jim said.
Ricky Cowen reached over and took Jared’s hand. He looked at him deeply. “Just don’t let ’em change you, my love.”
Bobby choked on his beer, and it came out through his nose. Jim laughed.
“Seriously, my friend,” Ricky said. “It’s like that Don Henley song. Don’t think it can’t happen.”
Jim Tate led them into a chorus of New York Minute, and Jared had to laugh. On the inside, he was reeling. Montana was all he really knew; in high school, he and the guys had ventured as far east as Chicago. He was scared of New York, scared of the contract he’d signed, scared of … of change. He was a country boy, a country boy with a gift for spinning a good yarn, but he was still a country boy. And still in love with Marisa.
He went to sign that beckoning breast when the lights went out for a good minute. Thunder rocked as heavy winds rattled the walls.
“Easy, bud,” Bobby said when the lights came on. The music started up, and the packed bar picked up where it left off.
Jared sat stiffly. He took a drink to calm himself. “I’m okay. I’m good.”
Julie Jacobs kissed him. She drew back slowly, sucking his lower lip. “I’m gonna miss you, Jared Cole.”
Jared signed her breast under the hoots and hollers of his friends. When it was over, they all watched in horny silence as she made her way to the bar.
Lightning lit up the tall, arched windows. Jared stiffened again.
“Jesus, I’m late,” he said, glancing at his slightly fogged Timex. He started to speak, but stopped when he couldn’t remember what he wanted to say. It was on the tip of his tongue. The storm—and its dizzying change in barometric pressure—had grown in the last hour. That small throb in his brain had grown with it.
He looked blankly at his friends.
“You were heading out,” Ricky reminded him helpfully, not for the first time. He tapped his unsigned book.
Jared nodded. “Right. Thanks, man.” He signed the remaining copies and handed them out. With a hint of sadness, he regarded his friends warmly. “Guys, it’s been a slice.”
Ricky Cowen raised his glass. “To the best damn writer I never read.”
Jim Tate and Bobby Duncan joined the toast.
Jared’s eyes glistened. “You guys really suck, you know that?”
He almost sat back and ordered another round.
But God’s plans were God’s plans.
~ 2
Jared stood under the narrow awning that covered the entrance to Shelby’s Pub. The rain pelted t
he concrete like stones, and he rushed past a storm-battered couple who were heading in. He barely made it to his rusting Toyota hatchback before thunder rocked above him. Lightning streaked across the sky in a flurry of jagged bolts.
Soaked in the car, he lit a cigarette and took a long, calming drag. He started the engine and cranked the wipers to full. Thunder pounded again, and his hand trembled.
The black shape of the town’s water tower loomed in the distance. A burst of lightning revealed WELCOME TO TORCH FALLS.
He took another drag. His head was swimming from all the beer, and throbbing from what he knew would be a bruiser of a migraine. He thought of Ricky Cowen, of his sobering prediction. How things could change in a New York minute.
Didn’t he know.
Grampa had been sixty-six; sixty-seven wasn’t in the cards. He had taken his two grandsons out for ice cream, in spite of those dark olive clouds brewing on that hot August night. None of them cared—it was only five minutes to The Olde Pop Shoppe on Main. It turned out to be one of those nasty life lessons, one of life’s little ironies, for it wasn’t the lightning that took the old man. It was the felled power line.
Oh, how things could change.
New York was change. He didn’t want to move there, not really. His agent had wined him and dined him, finally twisting his writing arm just enough to convince him—and the three-book deal had sealed it. He was the “new voice of horror,” as his publisher was promoting him, and when his vampire novel, Luscious, hit number three on the best-seller list, he had started to believe the hype. Still, he knew how dangerous hype could be. It was hard enough finding the courage to put yourself out there, and once you got there, it was even harder to stay there. Could he really come up with three more books in two years?
And what about Marisa?
He could still hear her soft voice when he’d told her he was leaving. I understand. When she had said those two words, lips trembling, eyes lying, he knew he had broken her heart.
A crack of thunder startled him. The dashboard clock read seven-thirty.
Thirty—
He was supposed to be somewhere. And worse, he was running late, he was sure.
Damn these fucking storms.
He took his ratty spiral notepad from his pocket. It held all the little reminders he’d made to himself over the years, hints and cues and facts that most people didn’t need to get through their day. A scribbled history of the memory challenged.
You drive a red Toyota hatchback. Has that duct-taped left taillight. (In case that idiot, Johnny Harris, parks his next to yours at the Thrifty Mart again, just to mess with you.)
Check stove and doors before bed.
You like plain Cheerios.
You do NOT like multi-grain Cheerios.
The President is Bill Clinton. The President is—
It’s 1972 … It’s 1973 …
It’s 2007.
He flipped through the book to his latest TODAY list. Blank. He’d forgotten to write it down. Of course.
He butted his cigarette in the ashtray. Tapped his finger anxiously on the wheel. There was something about that number.
Thirty—
“Shit. Shit.”
He remembered.
~ 3
Jared cursed himself.
It was August 30—Mom and Dad’s anniversary. How the hell could he remember twenty different plot points in a novel when he couldn’t remember something as important as this? He had set this up over a month ago, the day after he’d signed the contract. It was to be an anniversary-slash-going-away party, a gift to them, a gift to himself, nicely wrapped in a fine restaurant—the finest restaurant in Dad’s opinion, at least. Jessie’s Bar and Grill out on Route 2.
He drove as quickly as he could, but the storm refused to let up. The wipers barely kept pace with the rain. He took what he figured was the shortest route, bypassing the Saturday-night party crowd along Main. In a few minutes he was on Old Mill Sideroad, fighting the battering rain and the throbbing in his temples. Already he was thirty minutes late, coming up on the east-west railway tracks that cut through the north end of town.
He passed a young man in a black poncho who was walking on the side of the road—Miles Bailey, of course—and he laid on the horn. Miles was out for his usual stroll in the rain, and as usual, was far too close to the road. It didn’t help that he didn’t wear a stitch of reflective clothing, and to expect him to carry a flashlight was like asking him to find the square root of a hundred. Miles was a brakeman for the Northwoods Railway, made a ton of money, but had the brains God gave a rail.
Jared put his foot over the brake pedal when he saw light flooding the field to his left. The rain diffused the headlights of a speeding train that must have had a good fifty cars. Its horn blared as it approached the level crossing, where the warning lights flickered like demon’s eyes.
He took his foot off the gas, then second-guessed himself. “Screw it.” He floored it and beat the train by breaths. The rush felt good, the same thrill he felt after nailing a great line of dialogue. He pumped a fist with a shout.
He turned right at the second road and carried on toward his parent’s neighborhood. The street lamps were out, which meant they were probably sitting at home in the dark, Dad thumping the kitchen table with his big index finger, cursing his youngest son for being late—again—but especially for being late tonight.
It’ll be okay—Judd’ll be there, Jared thought. Big Brother watching out for you like he always does.
He could hear Judd now, handling the old man with his playful touch. Come on, Dad. You know how it is—you’ve said it a thousand times. ‘Judd’s the brawn, Jared’s the brain.’ Jared didn’t forget. His mind’s just busy, is all. Hell, he’ll be late for his own damn funeral. He’ll have to think about where they’re ditchin’ his body first.
That made him smile. He was the brains, all right, so brainy, in fact, he had a hard time remembering where he’d put his car keys half the time.
Lightning zig-zagged above the houses. Thunder cracked. He made his way around a parked car, and the wheels lost grip on the slick pavement. He regained control as he worked the brakes. His headlamps failed to cut through the rain, barely illuminating the intersection ahead.
Two silhouettes hurried at the stop, the man holding an umbrella over the woman. They were halfway across when a dark Jeep Cherokee ran the stop from the other side.
Jared hit the brakes, screaming. “No!”
The Jeep struck the couple dead on. The woman spun back and shot right out of her short heels. She slammed against the pavement, her neck snapping when her head hit the curb. The man was run down as he bore the brunt of the oversized metal bumper. The Jeep rolled over him and skidded to a stop.
Jared threw the shifter into park. He got out, sheltering his eyes from the rain.
The driver of the Cherokee stepped from the cab and took two steps toward the wounded. The driving rain hid his face. He moved closer and knelt beside the man. He held his hand a moment, but when he saw Jared running for him, he bolted for his vehicle and sped off. Jared reached the intersection, but all he saw was a fading pair of blurry taillights.
Thunder rocked him, and he took a step back. The lights from his headlamps gave a bare glimpse of the woman’s lifeless body. When he rushed to her side, lightning flashed above.
His heart skipped. It very nearly stopped. He stood up and cupped a hand across his lips.
It was not his mother, he told himself. It was not his mother.
He staggered back, away from her twisted body. The storm raged. He nearly fled, his mind spiraling. But then he turned to face his father and summoned the will to go to him. He knelt close. The man was barely alive.
Jared screamed. “Somebody help! Help! Help me!”
“Jared,” his father said. “Jared, my boy. Come closer.”
“Dad. Ohhh, Dad. I’m here.”
“Your … your mother—”
“She’s all right. She�
��s gonna be all right. She’s—”
Victor Collado coughed up blood. His eyelids flittered as he beckoned with a trembling hand.
Jared moved closer and turned an ear to his father’s lips. Victor whispered in Spanish, his native tongue, yet the words were lost to the storm.
“Dad … what did you say? Dad?” Jared peered into those dying eyes.
Then the lightning struck.
~ 4
The colt had no head.
Jared turned from the animal, his gut rocking. He steeled himself against the rising swill in his stomach, bracing his side on the rotting wood fence that seemed to stretch for miles across the sprawling ranch. He looked up at that endless spring sky, and it settled him. It was hard to believe it had been seven years since he’d been seduced by its beauty. Seven years of writing, touring, promoting. And for what? A new Land Rover?
He supposed he should be grateful. He had fame; money; a penthouse apartment. A movie deal for Luscious. But maybe had was the operative word here. Sales of his last two books were abysmal. Reviewers had panned them. One of them had gone so far as to say that Luscious was his only “readable” work, that this “new voice of horror” was nothing of the sort, only that Jared Cole’s first novel proved that old adage: Everyone’s got at least one good book in them.
So, here he was, back in Montana, trying to prove the critics wrong.
Maybe it’s deeper than that, he thought. Simpler than that. Like proving it to yourself.
He took a deep breath, then another. Finally, he willed himself to turn to the remains. The torso had been gnawed to shreds. The legs fared little better. They had been severed neatly, carefully placed on each side of the torso, the stiff pairs crossed in a T and bound in baling twine. The front pair lay to the left, the hind legs the right, just as they always were: two hideous cruciforms. The thick smell of death finally made him double over and vomit.
Gateway Page 1
