The Portal

by Brock Deskins

  Gabe, as usual, was not amused at Chase’s attempt at religious humor.

  The youths strapped on their packs and headed out. They all walked the few blocks over to the Heritage Street house after Drew told his brother they were going camping.

  “Whatever, dweebs,” was Josh’s only response.

  The house was a large, three-story Victorian that had seen better days. The grass grew nearly waist high in the yard, and most of the windows had long been broken out and boarded up, as had as the front door. The kids went around back and pulled out the bottom of a sheet of plywood nailed over the kitchen door that had been pried loose.

  “There’s a big bedroom on the second floor where we can set up,” Drew informed his friends. “We can put our stuff in the room across the hall for now.”

  They followed his instructions and placed the bags in what appeared to be another bedroom. Phil pulled out a kerosene lantern he and Felicia used when they went camping and got it going, so they did not have to use their flashlights in the dark room.

  Drew pulled out a bag of salt, several candles, and the book. He read a few passages from the book and showed it to Ted in the lantern light, pointing out several verses in Latin for which he needed help.

  The sun went down, and the black moon slowly and invisibly rose as Drew sketched out an elaborate pattern on the floor with chalk, and then traced it with a thin line of salt.

  “This will contain the energies that are summoned. Make sure you don’t break the salt line or the energy could escape,” Drew warned.

  “What happens if the energy escapes?” Gabe asked, clutching one of his vials of holy water and his bible.

  Drew shrugged. “I’m not sure. The spell may collapse and fizzle, or it may expand out of control and destroy us all. Who knows?”

  Gabe started praying fervently at Drew’s warning. “Yea Lord, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil—.”

  “He’s just kidding, Gabe. Nothing is going to happen. It’s just for fun,” Felicia assured him.

  “Ok, the moon should be well up now. Let’s do it,” Drew said as they all took a seat on the floor.

  “Shouldn’t we wait until midnight?” Phil asked.

  “I don’t think so. Although many people think midnight is when the moon is at its strongest, if we waited until midnight, technically it would be the first not the thirty-first,” Drew answered as he lit the candles, turned down the kerosene lantern, and began to chant the words of the spell.

  Ted immediately realized the difference in Drew’s chanting of the spell than that of a typical Wiccan rite. For some reason, Wiccan spellcasting always had to rhyme. Drew’s chanting lacked any semblance of rhyme, but seemed to contain a hypnotic poetry all its own.

  About halfway through the spell, the candles began flickering, causing the encircled group’s shadows to look as if they were dancing to the rhythm of the chant. Gabe held a hand up to the tightly boarded up window yet felt no breeze slipping between the dried wood slats. He gripped his bottle of holy water even tighter and continued to pray under his breath.

  The black candles’ tiny flames wavered madly, and then began to go out one by one until the room was plunged into darkness. Only the faintest orange glow was visible in the barely-burning lantern. Seemingly compelled and lost in the ritual, Drew unexpectedly pulled out a small knife and drew the sharp edge along the heel of his palm. Blood welled up from the cut and dripped onto the salt-traced rune.

  The room slowly lost some of its gloom, and Gabe thought his eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark until he realized that the light had a bluish tint to it and emanated from a small point in the center of the rune drawn on the floor—and it was getting brighter.

  A brilliant cerulean aura flooded the room and reflected off the astonished faces of the young troupe gathered in a circle. A small eddy of wind swirled around the inside of the salt-outlined image on the floor, pulling a few of the white grains into it, but staying within its prescribed boundaries. At least it would have had Gabe not panicked.

  With violently trembling fingers, Gabe unscrewed the top of his holy water to anoint himself. Unfortunately, his hands had become so shaky and sweaty that the bottle shot from his grasp like a bar of soap in the shower, struck the wood floor, and rolled toward the protective circle, trailing a cleansing rivulet of water behind it.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, like watching a tipped glass slowly roll toward the edge of a table. The fall seemed to take an eternity before the inevitable crash.

  Gabe lunged for the rolling bottle shouting out a long and drawn out nooooo! He did not know what would happen if the circle or the rune inside it were broken, but he did know that he definitely did not like what was happening now, and a broken circle was not likely to improve matters.

  The bottle rolled over the circle, sloshing its contents, washing away the salt and marring the chalk. The eddy instantly became an angry azure vortex as air forced its way out of the small opening in the circle in an explosive gust.

  “Everyone get back!” Drew commanded, shouting to be heard over the raging wind.

  “Drew, how do you stop this thing?” Ted cried shrilly.

  “I don’t know! I don’t know how I even started it! I think that may be in the part written in Latin!” he shouted back, shoving the book into the other boy’s hands.

  Ted tried to read the passage, but the wind was flipping the pages about making it difficult to keep his place.

  “Get out of here; it’s tearing itself apart! Go, I’m going to try to fix the circle!” Drew insisted as he dropped to his hands and knees, crawling toward the rent in the circle with his chalk clutched firmly in his shaking hand.

  Gabe reached the door first and tried to push it open, but it felt as if someone were pushing on it from the other side. The entire room was now in a vacuum, caused by the reverse pressure from the vortex trying to suck everything into itself.

  “Move it, lard butt!” Chase ordered and pushed hard against the door.

  The door slowly opened as Chase blocked it with his foot to keep it from slamming shut. “Everybody go, now! Drew, come on!” he called back as he braced the door open with his shoulder.

  When his friend failed to answer, he chanced a quick look over his shoulder just in time to see Drew as he reached out with his chalk to try to repair the drawing. A blue filament of light snaked out, wrapped itself around his wrist, and pulled him inside the swirling vortex.

  “Drew!” Chase called out as Phil and Ted grabbed him and pulled him through the door.

  The door slammed hard against its frame as Chase tried to pull it back open.

  “Chase, stop it, what are you doing? Where’s Drew?” Felicia demanded.

  Chase’s face was pale and his hands were shaking. “It ate him! That portal or whatever it is sucked him through!”

  “Oh my God, what do we do?” Gabe cried, in a barely controlled panic.

  “Ted, you have the book. What does it say?” Phil asked the boy who was scanning he pages as they spoke.

  Ted read the passages in the book as quickly as he could, trying to make sense of what was happening. “It looks like this spell was supposed to conjure some kind of portal or gate to another world, a world where the ancient druids were able to tap into a stronger source of magic than what was available in our world. The rune allowed the druids to conjure the gate while the circle kept the gate stable. Drew must have been pulled inside it when the circle was broken.”

  “So what do we do? Call the cops?” Phil asked.

  Chase glared at Phil. “Are you kidding? First of all, the stupid cops wouldn’t believe us. Secondly, if they did, they would just cordon off the house, put it under guard, and call the government. The government wouldn’t give two craps about some gothic kid, who is known to hate the establishment, and would never try to rescue him. They would keep it under wraps and study it until they could figure out how to either squeeze oil from it or make a
big ass bomb.”

  “We can’t just leave him there!” Felicia cried in angst.

  “What do you want to do, go after him ourselves?” Phil asked sharply.

  “No!” shouted Gabe.

  “Yes!” Chase shouted at the same time. “Damn it, Gabe, we were all in on this, and we’re going to stay together and help Drew. He would come after you if you got sucked into another world; even if there were big alien creatures that sneak up behind you and jam their mouths through the back of your head and eat your brains out!”

  “You think there are brain-sucking aliens?” Gabe stammered, his face paling even more from terror.

  “Stop it, Chase,” Felicia warned. “There are no aliens, Gabe. Most likely, it’s going to be just like here. He’s probably waiting for us right on the other side. We just have to go get him.”

  “Actually, it will probably be more like our world hundreds, maybe a thousand years ago,” Ted piped in.

  “Why do you say that?” Phil asked.

  “Well, according to the book, the portal led to a world where magic was in greater abundance and usage. That would likely suppress the need for technology, possibly replacing it altogether. Think about it; would we go through all the trouble of drilling and ruining our environment for oil if we could just cast a spell to heat our homes or power our lights?”

  Felicia conjectured. “You have a point, but if the portal took Drew to that world, wouldn’t he be able to just walk back through it?”

  “I think the portal is one way, maybe for safety reasons, or maybe it has to do with some fundamental laws of magic or physics. The book says that in order to open a portal to come back, a person must create the same rune on the other side as the one used on this side,” Ted explained, translating the words and reciting them to his friends. “He also sealed the rune with his blood, so the blood of the one who opened it must be used to reopen it from the other side.”

  “Then how was he able to able to open this gate without knowing the rune on the other side?” Chase wanted to know.

  “I think it has to do with the way the gate draws power. This gate gets its power from the world with magic, but since our world has very little magic, a gate coming from the other side needs an anchor of some sort on our side,” Ted reasoned.

  Chase stepped forward and decided to take charge. “All right, Gabe and I will go get Josh. He’ll need to be told what happened. Phil, Ted, and Felicia, you go and get everything we might need for an extended camping trip. I hope we’ll just have to jump through and get Drew to open the gate home, but let’s be prepared in case it’s not that easy.”

  “Be prepared, that’s my motto,” Phil chimed in.

  “That’s your Eagle Scout motto, you goob,” Felicia shot back.

  “Same thing.”

  Chase was already heading out with Gabe in tow. “Ok, let’s go.”

  The twins ran home and packed their usual camping gear as well as their compound bows and a few dozen arrows. Chase and Gabe ran back to Drew’s house and pounded on the door.

  Josh answered the door in irritation. “What do you guys want? I just rented a hockey highlights DVD and you’re interrupting. Where’s Drew?”

  “Josh, you have to come. Drew’s in trouble,” Chase shouted frantically.

  “What do you mean, what happened?” Josh demanded, his irritation turning to concern.

  “Yo, Josh, what’s going on?” a huge, thick-necked upper classman named Chuck asked as he walked up behind Josh.

  “These guys say something happened to Drew. So what’s going on?”

  “Drew cast this spell, and a portal opened up and swallowed him,” Gabe cried out.

  “Are you serious? You interrupted my game for some of your dungeons and dragons crap?”

  “It’s true! We were up at the old house on Heritage Street, Drew made this drawing on the floor, and actually cast a real spell, and now he’s gone,” Gabe said adamantly.

  “Just come and see, we’re not lying,” Chase said doggedly.

  “Bull, you always lie,” Chuck responded accusingly.

  “Yeah, but the fat one never does.” Josh said, irritated at the interruption. “I had better go have a look. Mom and Dad would totally freak if something happened. All right, let’s go.”

  “Aw man, we were just about to order pizza! All right, I’ll come too. That way, if they’re lying, I can crush their skinny necks,” Chuck threatened, clenching his meaty fists in front of him.

  “I think you’ve crushed too many beer cans against your head and given yourself brain damage,” Chase retorted.

  “We only need one of you to show us where we’re going, you little twerp, so you better watch your mouth.”

  “Yeah, and you only need one ass, but for some reason God put a second one on top of your neck.”

  Since everyone tried to keep up with the sprinting Chase, who was being hounded by the furious Chuck, they all made it back to the abandoned house in record time.

  “You little turd, I’m gonna smash you!” Chuck shouted at Chase’s back.

  Josh put a restraining hand on his friend’s big shoulder as they ran around to the back of the abandoned house. “Chuck, let it go, he’s not worth it. Besides, we need to find out what’s going on. If this is all a bunch of crap, you can ball him up later.”

  Chuck breathed out heavily and let the rage drain from him as they went into the dark house. “Jeez, it’s dark in here.”

  “There are some flashlights upstairs in the room across from where that—thing is,” Gabe said from the rear of the group.

  The group felt their way along the wall and up the creaking stairs. As their eyes adjusted to the increased darkness, they were able to make out vague shapes and find the room where they had stashed their gear. Chase and Gabe felt around in the bags, brought out two flashlights, and flicked them on. The bright LED-generated light lit up the room in a broad beam showing the pealing, mildewed wallpaper.

  “So where is Drew?” Josh demanded.

  “Across the hall in the other room; follow me,” Chase instructed.

  Chase, Josh, and Chuck cautiously crossed the hall where cobalt light could be seen radiating from under the closed door. Gabe peered around the open doorway across the hall.

  “It’s in here. I’ll try to open the door. There was a lot of pressure against it last time.”

  Chase handed his flashlight to Josh and gripped the doorknob with his both hands while bracing his left leg against the doorframe. He twisted the knob and pulled in a hard but controlled manner against the door. Whatever force had previously pulled against the door was gone now. The door opened almost easily, with only a slight feeling of vacuum against it.

  Chase stepped aside and made room for Josh. “Take a look, that’s what ate Drew. It must be full because it was a lot angrier before. Hey, maybe eating Drew made it sick! Think it will puke him back up?”

  Indeed, the maelstrom that had existed in the center of the room had calmed considerably. Only a slowly swirling azure haze floated in the center of the room. Josh looked through the doorway at the portal and closed the door with a look of amazed disbelief on his face.

  “What did you dweebs do?” he asked partially in shock.

  “Pretty f’d up huh?” Chase declared, crossing his arms in an I told you so fashion.

  Josh shot him a look of incredulity. “No, a random act of terrorism is f’d up. Our economy is f’d up. Our public schools are f’d up! That thing in there is about ten levels beyond f’d up!” he shouted, waving an arm at the door.

  “Hey, guys!” Felicia called out of the darkness, eliciting some screams of surprise.

  “Holy crap, you guys, you almost gave me a heart attack sneaking up on us like that,” Chase accused, holding his hand over his rapidly beating heart.

  “I gotta go look in my bag for a new pair of pants. I’ll be right back,” Gabe informed them and closed the door.

  “Are you going to go with us to rescue Drew?” Phil asked J
osh and Chuck.

  “You guys are going to go into that thing?” Josh asked amazed at the thought of such an idea.

  “Of course, we can’t just leave him there,” Chase insisted.

  “We have to go to the police! This is not one of your stupid dungeons and dragons games, this is real!”

  Chase reiterated why they could not go to the police, and Josh was forced to admit that he was probably right. “Besides, if your parents come home and find out you lost Drew, they’re gonna be pretty pissed.”

  “It’s not my fault!” Josh insisted.

  “You’re the big brother, and you were the one left in charge,” Chase reminded him.

  “I can’t believe we have to do this.” Josh ran his hands through his hair. “I have to go back to the house and leave a note just in case something goes wrong.”

  “Sure that sounds good,” Chase said. “Dear mom and dad, Drew got sucked into a magic portal he conjured using an ancient druidic spell, and we went after him. Hope to see you soon, Josh. That’ll sound great.”

  “I can’t just take off to another world without telling someone. What if we don’t come back for several days—or even weeks? Hell, what if we don’t come back at all?”

  “Just say that Drew came here with us to play D&D and disappeared, and we all went looking for him,” Gabe said from the doorway, wearing a new pair of pants.

  “When you go back home, grab some spare clothes and stuff in case we are gone for a while. We have extra weapons and some armor, so we’re good there,” Felicia told Josh.

  “Weapons and armor, are you serious?” Josh asked.

  “Yeah, we stopped by Douglas’s house and borrowed some swords. His are authentic, not cheap stainless steel replicas like ours,” Felicia explained.

  Chase’s eyes went wide at the mention of Douglas’s name. “You went to Douglas’s? Are you crazy?”

  “He’s not that bad. We just have to invite him the next time we do a live action role play, that’s all.”

  “He’s not that bad? He’s forty-two years old, lives at home, works in the comic book store, and practically lives for the renaissance fair. All he lacks is a van with a big sign on the side advertising free candy!”