The Portal

by Russell James

  Allie sighed. “I couldn’t convince you.”

  “Huh?”

  “There was no talking you out of following in your father’s footsteps to RPI. I floated several places we could both pursue our majors, and you never bit on any of them. UCLA offered an aid package, so I took it.”

  Scott couldn’t remember any conversations like that. He racked his memory. Well, maybe something similar. She had brochures from schools once…. Did he listen to her? Really listen? He had been hot on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at the time. Was it because of his father? How could he have never put that together before?

  And how had he never put any of the responsibility for their lost relationship on his own doorstep? He’d rescued her from a broken-down Mustang plenty of times, but when she needed a rescue from the siren call of Hollywood, where had he been? A little support at the start, from someone who loved her, might have made all the difference in the world.

  “I’m sorry, Allie Cat. I wish we’d stayed together then.”

  “We’re together now,” she slurred. Her breathing became heavy and regular.

  Scott stroked her shoulder, leaned back into the couch, and thought about summer nights on the porch swing at home. He started to plan tomorrow in his head, and got no further than visiting Reverend Snow. His thoughts began to grow fuzzy, and he realized that his eyes were closed. He tried to force them open, but quickly surrendered to the call of sleep. He drifted off to a pleasant place, one without dead children, portals to Hell, and black speedboats.

  Chapter Thirty

  Out on Canale Road, the massive lights on the black Ram’s brush bar banished the night from a patch in the woods. In the spotlights’ center, the splintered remnants of two stumps reached up from the earth, as if the forest floor was reaching out in a cry for mercy. Five men, stripped of jackets, some even of shirts, dug and hacked at the trees’ stubborn grasp on the piece of jagged-edged shale.

  Kyler supervised from a few feet away. He gave the butt of his holstered pistol a nervous massage with the palm of his hand. This pack of thugs was bordering on unmanageable. Since he’d broken up Ricco and Ramirez, the two of them had been itching for a chance to kill each other. He didn’t assess the others as much better. Only the fear of Oates kept them in line.

  Axes and shovels tore earth and roots from the ground in big clumps, and exposed more of the gray slab of rock. The stump on the right was nearly fully excavated. Kyler stepped up beside the men.

  “All right now,” Kyler commanded. “Get some leverage underneath that one on the right and rip that son of a bitch out.”

  All five men wedged shovels and axes under the base of the stump.

  “On three,” Kyler said. “One…two…three!”

  With a rumbly groan, the men collectively strained against the maple’s last stand. The roots held firm.

  “Again,” Kyler said. “One…two…three!”

  The group pulled one more time. One of the maple’s roots snapped with a sharp crack, followed milliseconds later by a second one.

  “This is it,” Kyler said. “Last shot. One…two…three!”

  The five pulled against the unyielding tree stump. A series of short, sharp pops filled the air. The stump rose and rotated away from the grunting men. With one thunderous crash, the main roots parted, and the stump fell on its side. The men tumbled after it.

  The five stood and stepped back from the fresh hole. The earthy smell of decomposition rose up in a cloud of steam as warm dirt touched cold air. The lightning-bolt edge of the shale slab lay exposed.

  Kyler knew this was it. Oates had been too demanding, too certain. The powerful artifact that cost the lives of many lay underneath this stone. The initial elation of the men at their success shifted to foreboding. No one moved.

  “What have we got, Mr. Kyler?” Oates’ voice boomed in the darkness.

  After all these years, a sudden appearance no longer startled Kyler. Oates stood behind him, his back to the Dodge Ram. The spotlights backlit him into a dark, ominous outline. The men around the shale took several quick steps back.

  “We’ve just cleared the tree, sir,” Kyler said.

  Oates stepped forward and knelt beside the slab. He tucked his hands under the edge, his fingers fitting into the saw-toothed edge, shattered three hundred years ago. He lifted it effortlessly and tossed it aside. He bent his head and peered into the depression under the rock’s resting place.

  The spotlight beams left the hole in shadow. Oates lowered his hands into the darkness beyond the rim. Kyler saw rare emotions in Oates, his eyes aflame in expectation, his mouth curled in a wide, hideous grin. He’d never seen Oates so alive with anticipation.

  Then the look on Oates’ face changed. The smile transformed to confusion, and then to anger. Oates’ hands scrambled from side to side in the hole. He scooped up a handful of something and lifted it into the spotlight beams. The remnants of a burlap sack, ravaged by insects, time, and weather.

  Oates’ normally pale face turned a deep shade of red. His eyes went ablaze, like windows into Hell. He cast his face up to the night sky and raised a fist clenching the sack’s tattered shreds.

  “You know they can’t hide this from me!” he shouted at the stars. The rags in Oates’ hand smoldered, and then burst into flames. He hurled them down into the empty hole. The rags struck the earth and a fountain of yellow fire erupted six feet high. The flickering glow gave Oates’ face an orange cast. His facial muscles writhed like a den of snakes. His cheekbones rose, his chin extended. A bony ridge swelled from his nose to across his bald head as he turned more monster than man.

  All but Kyler ducked and cowered.

  Oates clenched his fists and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and seemed to gather control of himself. The flames at his feet died. His ruddy face returned to normal. The anger left his voice and it returned to its usual emotionless monotone.

  “Mr. Kyler,” Oates said, “this town’s got my artifact. Compel them to return it.” He looked with derision at the five cowering thugs. “The weak here need rest. Five hours, then follow the plan.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kyler said. He turned to the men in the woods. “You heard the man. Let’s go.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the truck.

  The five dropped everything, grabbed their shirts and coats, and scrambled for the truck. They climbed into the back with sighs of relief. Kyler turned to Oates.

  “The usual operational constraints, sir?” he asked.

  Oates nodded. “The usual.”

  Kyler knew that meant there were none. Oates walked off into the darkness without rustling a leaf.

  * * *

  On the way back into town, Kyler plotted how to feed and house these scumbags until they’d outlived their usefulness. His five-hour clock had already started ticking. Oates never revised his timetables.

  A place caught his eye as he neared Main Street. He hit the brakes hard and the Dodge’s nose dove for the pavement. He threw the truck in reverse and backed up to the front of a rambling blue-and-white Gothic, well-lit by small floodlights. Several interior lights were on. The wooden sign near the porch had Blue Fin Bed-and-Breakfast carved into it in black letters. Underneath was a smaller, matching sign that said Closed for the Season.

  “Here’s betting I can convince the owner to open for us,” he muttered.

  He pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. He got out and banged twice on the truck’s bed cap. The five tumbled out the back. Several groaned.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  Kyler led the men up onto the porch. He opened the screen door and hammered his fist against the wooden front door. Two seconds later, he impatiently repeated the staccato call.

  “Hold on, I’m coming,” a creaky voice said from the other side of the door.

  Kyler pulled the automatic from its holster and fli
pped off the safety. A deadbolt clicked. He took one step back. The knob turned and a splinter of light appeared between the door and the jamb.

  Kyler reared back and delivered a powerful kick to the door’s center. A thud and a surprised cry sounded from the other side. Kyler burst through the doorway.

  On the floor lay a slight man in his fifties, wearing a brown cardigan sweater, blue jeans, and slippers. His short silver hair was parted in the middle, though mussed around the edges. Large gold wire-rimmed glasses sat askew on his face. Bright red blood flowed from his nose and mouth. He looked around, dazed.

  Kyler bent down and grabbed the man by the sweater. He pulled him to a half-sitting position. Their faces were inches apart. He put the muzzle of the automatic to the side of the man’s head. The little man’s eyes widened.

  “Who’s here with you?” he said to the man.

  “N-n-no one,” the man managed to spit out. “I live here alone.”

  “Wonderful,” Kyler said. He squeezed the trigger and sent a bullet through the innkeeper’s head. Skull and brains exploded against the wall in a design worthy of Rorschach. The man went limp. Kyler dropped him to the floor.

  He turned to the men on the porch. Each had varying looks of pleasant surprise and anticipation on their faces. Kyler had legitimized mayhem. They were now five kids in a candy store. Kyler felt magnanimous. This was probably the last night any of the five would spend breathing.

  “Make yourselves at home, gentlemen,” Kyler said.

  The men fanned out through the B&B amidst an echoing series of whoops.

  The dull eyes of the dead man on the floor looked larger than life through his glasses. The lenses made him look surprised.

  You’re just the first, Kyler thought.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  In the pre-dawn hours, Kyler stalked down the second-floor hallway of the Blue Fin Bed-and-Breakfast. R&R was over. They were on Mr. Oates’ timetable again.

  “Let’s go!” He kicked on doors and banged his fist against walls as he moved down the hall. “This is your goddamn wakeup call. Downstairs in fifteen minutes. Let’s move.”

  He knew there was as much chance of these shit bags being ready to roll in fifteen minutes as there was of him becoming pope. Thirty minutes would even be a stretch.

  He went downstairs and entered the kitchen. It looked like a pack of wild boar had been through it. Half-eaten everything lay strewn all over the table and countertops. A dozen drained bottles of very expensive wine lay on their sides in the corner. Kyler laughed remembering how one of the men had gone over and kicked the shit out of the innkeeper’s corpse, punishment for a beer-free refrigerator. Only the wine cellar’s discovery kept the innkeeper from heading into the afterlife as a pile of goo.

  Kyler started a pot of coffee. He needed it anytime the day started at oh-dark-thirty in the morning. While the coffee perked, Kyler went into what had originally been the house’s living room. It was now some type of community lounge. Two floral print couches flanked a long, low wicker table. The owner had attempted to give the place a nautical ambiance with pictures of tall ships on the wall alongside a clock mounted in a ship’s wheel.

  One of the miscreants upstairs had propped the innkeeper’s lifeless body up on one of the couches. A bent cigarette hung wedged between his blue lips. His glasses were on upside down and the arm on one side hung out into empty space over the gaping exit wound in his skull. His pallid, waxy face still had that look of shock on it.

  Kyler sat beside the stiff. He picked up a binder off the table. The homemade cover read: FUN THINGS TO DO IN STONE HARBOR. Inside was a collection of ads and brochures for local businesses. He flipped a few pages and found a map of the town. It showed only four roads leading out of town to the rest of the sparsely populated island. That was good. Even better, he saw that the harbor was the only place to land a boat. He could seal this place up tight, even with the losers at his disposal.

  He tore out the map and went back to the kitchen. He went to the cupboard and pulled out a mug that said WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPA on it. He studied the map as he filled the mug with coffee.

  He checked his watch. The upstairs crew was due another kick in the ass about now. He grabbed his coffee and went over to the base of the stairs. The assault rifles stood propped in a corner by the door.

  “Move it up there! You want to keep Oates waiting?”

  Heavy footfalls sounded upstairs. One by one, the men staggered down to the ground floor. They looked like shit, bleary eyed and ragged, wrapped in hopelessly wrinkled fake FBI jackets. Each grabbed a weapon as he headed out the front door.

  Kyler slammed home the rest of his coffee. He entered the living room and propped the empty cup in the dead innkeeper’s lap so that the WORLD’S BEST GRANDPA accolade faced forward. He gave the corpse two little pats on its cold cheek and headed out the door.

  The men climbed into the back of the truck. Kyler entered the cab alone. He double-checked that the police scanner under the dash was on. He didn’t want any double-crossing from Scaravelli or Officer Dopey he met last night. The other band could track the state police if necessary, but in under an hour, no one would be calling them for help.

  False dawn edged the eastern hills in a rosy glow. The town itself seemed asleep as Kyler drove the big Dodge down its deserted streets. He turned down Clipper Street and pulled over under the lights of a small used-car lot a block off the Main Street tourist trap. Six cars and a truck flanked a cheap white clapboard box of an office. A sign on it read Wheeler’s Wheels and advertised on-the-lot financing with easy terms.

  Not as easy as the terms Kyler would negotiate.

  Kyler left the engine running, got out and banged twice on the cargo bed cap. “Everybody out!”

  The hungover men exited the truck with the finesse of beached walruses. The clatter of poorly handled weapons against steel and concrete set Kyler’s teeth on edge. The men surrounded him and he flattened his stolen town map against the side of the truck, high enough that they all could see it.

  “Oates says we lock this town down,” he said. “Here’s the plan. Ricco, you take Constitution Avenue.” He pointed out a spot on the map to Ricco, who nodded.

  “Ramirez, West Street. Washington, Canale Road. Culpepper, Harbor Road.” He identified a spot on the map for each of them. “Get to the edge of town, and keep everyone off the streets until I tell you otherwise.”

  He reached into the cab and pulled a big green duffel bag out of the passenger footwell. He unzipped it and dropped it on the ground. It brimmed with long, curved, thirty-round ammunition magazines, all loaded with sharp-pointed, glimmering bullets.

  “Santiago,” he said to the last man. “You take the dock at the end of Main Street.” He handed him an M16. It had a grenade launcher strapped underneath it. He passed him a sack of grenades.

  “It loads like a shotgun,” Kyler said. “If any boat so much as starts an engine, blow it out of the water.”

  A big smile filled Santiago’s fat face under his curly mat of greasy hair. A hint of insanity flared in his eyes.

  “But if you so much as scratch the black speedboat at the dock,” Kyler added, “you might as well eat one grenade yourself.” Kyler pointed to the lot’s office hut. “Find some keys, get a car, and take up your positions. No one in this town gets on the street. Shoot any car that moves.”

  “Even the cops?” Ricco asked.

  “Except the cops,” Kyler said. “They’re with us on this one. Everyone else dies. Do not leave your positions until Oates or I tell you to. Understood?”

  There was a muttering of assent and the men headed for the sales hut. Kyler heard breaking glass and a victory whoop as he refolded the map. The men in the sales hut argued over the keys and who’d get the ‘pussy Beetle’ at the lot’s far end. Culpepper drew the short straw. The men hustled out of the building. Five vehicles roar
ed to life, and then scattered like dogs released for a hunt.

  Kyler gave the situation forty-eight hours at best before it degenerated into a bloodbath. In the Middle East, he’d seen the results of giving weapons to undisciplined maniacs, and these five were maniac material. But by then it wouldn’t matter. He and Oates and the whatever-this-artifact-was would be on their way back to civilization aboard the Killin’ Time, and this town would no longer be important.

  He had a few things to do before he went looking for the artifact with Oates. Step one was to get a little information from Officer Dopey.

  He left the lot, turned right, and a few blocks down, stopped in front of the police station. The light was on, a police cruiser parked in the lot.

  He wondered if Officer Dopey was going to want to do this the hard way.

  * * *

  The pre-dawn hours were always Milo’s worst. Nothing was open in town, even the drunks were passed out at home, and his body always made one last push for sleep before the sun declared it another day. The usual antidote was a patrol around the island, sometimes on foot. But tonight the chief’s orders, dumb as they were, were to stay in the office and answer the phone that never rang.

  Kyler’s black Dodge pulled up outside the front door. Milo jolted wide awake.

  Kyler and the heavies on Canale Road weren’t cops (no matter what the fake jackets said) and whatever it was that they were looking for would probably do the world a lot more good by staying hidden. Kyler was only the tip of the iceberg, since it appeared that someone named Oates was running the show. The guy pulling Kyler’s strings was probably the one pulling the chief’s as well. Maybe a mob boss or drug kingpin, but what any of them hoped to find in the woods outside Stone Harbor was a mystery.

  Kyler pulled open the front door. A holstered pistol hung on his hip. He wore tight black leather gloves and a determined, angry look. Milo shivered. He stood up behind his desk.