The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel

by Iain Rob Wright

  Vamps street senses acted up. There was something wrong about the bus driver. He was too calm, the way he stood in the street smoking like nothing had happened. There was a pile of torn-up bodies not ten feet away.

  “Hold back, yo.” Vamps put an arm up and slowed his boys down. He moved to the side of the street, sliding in and out of the alcoves to keep his approach hidden.

  Somebody else was getting off the bus. It was another man in a suit, this one younger than the other and stocky as a wrestler. He had long blonde hair like a young Hulk Hogan. In his hand he held a length of chain, and as he yanked on it the first in a line of handcuffed men and woman spilled out of the bus. When the last prisoner stepped off, there was a line of a dozen of them.

  “Is it a prison bus?” Ravy asked.

  Vamps shook his head. “No, way. Travelling prisoners wear matching uniforms to stop ‘em running and blendin’ in. I remembered when they moved me from Belmarsh to Brixton after some fuckers were trying to off me. They had me in this shitty grey tracksuit. Those people are wearing their own clothes.”

  “Then who are they?” Gingerbread asked.

  “Who are the dudes in suits?” Mass asked.

  “I dunno,” Vamps admitted. “Let’s crash over there and watch what happens.”

  They moved over to a delivery van and stooped behind its large rear compartment. Vamps stuck out his head to see what was happening up ahead.

  The two suited gentlemen brought the line of prisoners into the middle of the road and then had them kneel down. At the same time, a sleek black Mercedes pulled out of a side street. It parked up and a chauffeur stepped out and opened up the rear door. Vamps covered his mouth when he saw who exited.

  “No freakin’ way!”

  Gingerbread frowned. “Who is it? You know that dude?”

  Vamps turned to his boys and nodded. “Yeah, man. That’s the fucking Prime Minister.”

  Mass whistled. “That skinny fucker is the PM? We should go over. If we help him, we’ll have it made, yo.”

  “Innit,” said Ravy.

  Vamps turned back to watch and was absolutely certain that the man was John Windsor the Prime Minister. He was wearing an open collar shirt and straight black trousers. His jet-black moustache was a dead giveaway.

  He walked up in front of the line of prisoners and began talking to their warden. The men and woman all pleaded and begged when they saw their Prime Minister, but he acted as though they weren’t there. One woman sought to rise to her feet, but the chauffeur hurried over and kicked her kneecap. She screamed.

  “What the fuck, yo,” said Mass.

  Vamps clutched his Browning, making sure it was still there. “This shit smells wrong man. We need to go help.”

  “Yeah,” said Gingerbread. “We should go pop that stuck up motherfuckers. He cut my nan’s benefits last year.”

  Vamps was just about to break cover and go sort shit out, but he leapt back down when he saw demons spilling into Piccadilly Circus.

  Mass looked like he was about to freak. “What the fuck, man? There’re hundreds of ‘em. We need to bolt.”

  Vamps agreed, but he couldn’t help but watch. The Prime Minister and his companions seemed unafraid, even as the line of prisoners screamed and begged. The demons surrounded them and Vamps could no longer see what was going on.”

  “I’m fucking off,” said Mass.

  Vamps nodded. “I’ll meet you at the Lyceum where we saw those rickshaws we can use. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Gingerbread frowned at him. “What are you talking about? We need to get out of here.”

  Vamps waved his hand. “Get the hell out of here, boys. I’ll be there. I promise.”

  They didn’t seem to like it, but the boys got going, leaving Vamps hiding behind the van. Once the others were around the corner and out of sight, Vamps turned and climbed up onto the vehicle’s roof.

  Once again he could see what was going on, and once again he did not like it. The demons were not attacking the PM, and in fact the PM seemed to be addressing them. One of the demons – a burned man at least a foot taller than the others and sporting singed dreadlocks stood directly in front of him and was nodding his head as if receiving orders.

  Then the strangest thing of all happened. The warden in charge of the prisoners handed over the chains to one of the demons who, instead of attacking, began leading them away. The demons filed away, back into the side streets, taking the sobbing men and women with them. The PM remained behind with his companions and seemed to be smiling. Vamps had been a dealer most his life, and he had just seen a deal go down for sure.

  But what the hell was the trade?

  And what the fuck was the PM doing out here trading the lives of innocent men and women. The anger associated with the questions made Vamps look down at his gun and think strongly about using it. But it would be suicide. The demons had only just left and the PM knew shit that made him dangerous. It was time to bounce.

  Vamps moved over to the edge of the van and was about to climb down when he heard a shout. It wasn’t his boys behind him. It was the chauffeur. He’d been spotted.

  With no time to waste, Vamps threw himself from the top of the van. As soon as he hit the pavement he felt the pain. His ankle folded sideways and electricity ran up to his knee.

  He picked himself up of the floor and began hobbling away. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw the PM diving back inside his Mercedes. But his two companions were giving chase. With two good legs, they were faster than he was. The fact that he had a gun was not going to help, because he quickly realised that his pursuers had guns too, bigger ones.

  The only question now was who would get to him first—his boys, or the bad guys behind him. No way did he want to end up in chains like those people.

  Vamps had no clue what was happening, but he knew one thing for sure: shit just got worse.

  COLLATERAL DAMAGE

  “I’m not interested in playing the victim. I like stories about survivors.”

  --Laurie Holden

  Takao

  Tokyo, Japan

  Tokyo’s strange, glowing gate was one of the few worldwide that had emerged indoors. It sat right in front of JoyCity Plaza’s twenty-foot Gundam statue, and when it had first risen from the immovable black stone, it had knocked the giant mobile suit sideways to where it now rested drunkenly against the mall’s south escalators.

  Takao was inside Kiyoshis Playland, wearing out the Tekken 7 cabinet. He had his initials entered in 9 of the top 15 slots and he wasn’t going to rest until he had them all. Best of all, he was doing it with the character of King, the sluggish wrestler. Nobody had game like Takao did using King. Let the drones play as Kazuya or Paul—simple characters for simple minds, with slow thumbs. Last year his mission had been Street Fighter and Zangief; next year who knew?

  The toy store was empty, everyone wanting to be outside in the plaza where they could see the weird glowing gate. Takao figured it was aliens. They would probably all be zapped to oblivion by death rays within the next few hours, which was why he was so determined to leave behind his legacy and own the Tekken scoreboard. Let no one say that Takao Tenta left things unfinished.

  When the first screams began, they reached only the fringes of his mind. He was too engrossed in his ever-growing ultra-combo, to let in external stimuli, but he was eventually disturbed by the sense of movement behind him. The skin on his neck prickled.

  He made King perform a German suplex for the win, and then span around. What he saw surprised him. As he had suspected, some kind of creature had come through the gate and emerged into the shopping mall, but it wasn’t a little green man. It was something more akin to the fiends that Dante faced in Devil May Cry. It was a smouldering abomination. And it was killing people.

  Outside the Body Shop chain store, an old man in a winter Kimono beat at the creature with his wooden cane. The creature spun on him and slashed his wrinkled throat open with a claw like it was swatting a mosqui
to. The old man flopped to the floor, gargling on his own blood.

  It angered Takao. He had little time for the older generation—especially those who still hung on to the past and wore Kimonos outside of ceremonial occasions—but he strongly believed that everyone had a duty to take care of the elderly. This old man had faced the nightmarish creature, while everybody else had run. It was wrong. It was ignoble.

  Takao felt his fists clench and realised his palms were sweating. His palms often got wet when he was on a joystick marathon, but this was something different. This was adrenaline. The kind of feeling you only got in a real-life fight. It was exciting.

  More of the creatures spilled through the gate, leaping over the old man’s body. The crowd continued to flee, shaming themselves as they turned their backs on their murderers and fell face down on the floor as they were attacked. They needed to fight. Where was the indomitable spirit that Japan prided itself on? It had obviously only resided in the old man.

  And inside of Takao.

  He spun around and saw that the only person inside the toy store was the owner. The fat man was cowering behind a ten foot statue of Sonic the Hedgehog.

  “Debu!” he shouted at the man. Fatso. “We need to fight.”

  “What?” the man said, as if Takao was crazy. “We need to hide. Those are monsters out there.”

  “Yes, monsters. Will we let monsters kill us all? No, we are Japanese. We will send them back to their pits. Come on.”

  “No.”

  “Debu! Then, I need a weapon. I will save your worthless life. I will be your hero.”

  The man was wide-eyed and barely listening, but he did give an answer. “At the back of the store. Take whatever you want.”

  Takao nodded. “I thank you.”

  He raced to the back of the store, the adrenaline in his bloodstream making him feel like Mario on a Power Star trip. He was so alive. What met him at the back of the store left him with a wide grin on his face.

  The dai-katana was as tall as he was, but he knew the tempered steel would be light as a feather—fragile as a tree branch. He knew how to use it. A youth in Japan was born with a deep respect for the sacred tool of the Samurai, and he had practised often as a child with a blunted blade given to him by his father, a lowly dock worker.

  He took the sword down with both hands and pulled it from its sheath. It caught the light and glinted with supernatural perfection. It was a thing of exquisite beauty, forged to bring instant and clean death.

  The screams outside continued.

  Takao left the back of the store, and by the time he reached the front, the demons had multiplied and one was already inside with him. It was stalking the fat proprietor, forcing him back against an old Sega Rally booth.

  The debu looked at Takao and pleaded. “Help me, boy.”

  Takao lifted the sword so that it rested horizontally away from his side. He narrowed his eyes. “I am no boy. I am Takao Tenta.”

  He ran across the store, dodging between display racks—and purposely kicking over the Hello Kitty stand that had replaced the Pokemon one that had stood for years—and within seconds he was only feet away from the demon.

  It turned and looked at him; hissed with a mangled tongue and blackened lips. The creature was from some fiery hell, but he was going straight back there. He brought the sword down in a diagonal arc. The sudden blur of steel seem to miss the creature completely, and it continued coming, but then it stopped and seemed confused.

  Takao stood still, unafraid.

  A slight slithering sound, and then the left half of the demon came away from the right. Both slabs of grotesque flesh slapped on the ground.

  The debu got down on his knees and laced his hands together like a Christian prayer. He was crying as he thanked Takao profusely.

  Takao batted away the man’s hands. “You shame yourself, debu. Join the fight or die without honour.”

  He left the debu on his knees and hurried outside into the shopping mall. The only people remaining were now left with no choice but to fight. The demons had them in their clutches. They kicked and punched, but none were warriors and none were armed. A young woman, with her black hair dyed a Western blonde was swinging an armful of shopping bags at two demons trying to take her down. Her fight was hopeless, but her spirit was bright. Takao ran to her aid.

  With the sword trailing behind him like a silver tail, Takao dove over a sushi cart and then swung around a signpost. The demons had just disarmed the young woman of her bags when he appeared behind them. Again, the scared weapon seemed to dance and shimmer in the air as he drew a dozen invisible shapes. He stepped back a second later and examined his work.

  The demons sprayed blood like a pair of geysers as their bodies came apart at the seams. Blood spattered the young woman’s face, but it was still easy to see how beautiful she was. A princess if ever there was one.

  Takao grabbed her and pulled him into his arms. “Stick with me and you will be safe.”

  She nodded, almost swooned.

  He kept her behind him as he did what no one else was willing to: he headed into battle.

  Two dozen demons lay directly in his path, some busy with victims, some free and heading right for him. He cut them all apart with ease, the sword becoming more and more a part of his arm. In his mind, he tore down the enemy with the same skills he used in the arcades. His reactions, his skill of seeing an enemy’s moves before he did… It was no different.

  A demon leapt at Takao. He ducked and lifted his sword over his head. The demon came back down to earth in two pieces.

  The fallen Gundam suit was just up ahead, still lying against the escalators; it made a perfect runway. Takao leapt up onto its giant feet and sprinted up its legs. When he reached the torso, he dove sideways and came down right in front of the gate. Before he landed, he drove his sword directly down into the skull of a demon. It lodged so deeply, he could barely get it back, and was forced to stand on the corpse while he yanked at the hilt.

  All around him, demons closed in, but he lopped off their arms and heads before any could get close enough to even breath on him. Before long he was a king, surrounded by the bodies of his fallen enemies. His princess cowered behind the Gundam statue, but she knew she was safe. Her hero would protect her.

  A child’s stuffed toy lay beneath his boot, covered in blood and lacking its owner. It was Cloud Strife, a fluffy Buster sword sewn to the back of his purple suit. Covered in blood, Takao felt the Final Fantasy hero was a kindred spirit. They had both faced hell and survived.

  Angry and ready for more, Takao stood before the gate and waited for new foes to come forth. The translucent centre of the gate shimmered and plopped, like an icy ball launched forth from Ryu’s fingertips. Hadoken.

  Something else was emerging from the gate.

  Takeo wiped the blood from his hands onto his shirt. He gripped the sword tightly in front of him, determined never to be parted with it. He was Ronin, a lone Samurai concerned only with protecting the innocent.

  What came through the gate was no lowly demon like the ones that lay dismembered at his feet. What came through the gate was a giant, taller even than the fallen Gundam statue. It looked down at Takeo with utter hatred and murder in its unholy eyes.

  But Takeo did not run. “Fighting you will bring out my true strength,” he whispered. Then he narrowed his eyes and ran towards his enemy.

  Monty

  Mumbai

  Being late for work was a paradox in Mumbai—it was at once entirely understandable, yet completely unforgivable. With so many Western firms looking for cheap, unskilled labour, and so many Indians looking for employment, you could be replaced in an afternoon. Yet, trying to get anywhere on the capital’s streets was a nightmare. If it were not the battling traffic—carts, bikes, cars, and rickshaws—it was the cows. One cow could claim an entire road as its own if it wanted. A hundred vehicles would have no choice but to wait while a unconcerned bovine strolled across the main thoroughfare. That was w
hat was happening right now.

  Monty didn’t own a car, but even on his bicycle it was slow going. He dodged into gaps wherever possible, but there were a dozen more cyclists doing the same. The drivers of cars hated the cyclists and did whatever they could to nudge out and block them. Mumbai was a city under stress. It wanted so much to be important, but was not yet ready to join the New Yorks and Londons of the world. It needed to learn to cope with being busy.

  It didn’t help that one of the strange gates had risen on the edge of town. The Indian government had declared it a holy sight after the Sikh population had claimed it would soon spawn the warriors of their past to help fix the ills of the present. It was currently an encampment of tents, pilgrim buses, and food carts—a festival in earnest.

  Monty was Hindu, so the last thing he believed was that a bunch of old, dead Sikhs were about to visit, but he did think that the gate was from the other world. What Gods would come through it, he did not know. Maybe Shiva, to destroy the world. Looking at the teeming streets and garbage-stuffed gutters, Monty wasn’t so sure that would be a bad idea.

  He hated his job selling mobile phone insurance to rich westerners. They were always so rude to him. He was just doing a job, so why did they call him paki and other racist words—just because of his accent? The fact that Pakistan was another country entirely seemed not to bother these people. Of course, some of them were very friendly and would discuss the cricket with him, or tell him what it was like in their town, but most people were angry that he had called them. It was a hard job to do, but even so, he needed the money. That was why it would not do to be late. Without his job at the call centre, he would join the masses of unemployed, and that was no life to live. Many of his friends had joined gangs, and now murdered and robbed people for whatever meagre possessions they had. As much as he hated his job, he would hate having to do that even more.