The Portal

by Russell James

  Lucky bounded in a beeline across yards and through woods until he broke out in the parking lot of All Souls Church. A wide, foot-tall circle of crimson flames illuminated the center of the near-empty lot. On the conflagration’s other side stood a stout, bald man in black. His eyes flared as red as the flames before him.

  He didn’t open his mouth, yet Lucky heard his command, louder than ever. It wrapped around his brain, coursed through his muscles, surrounded his heart.

  “Come boy,” he said. “Into the flames!”

  Reason sent a warning about the fire, about pain and blisters and the sickening smell of burned fur. But the magnetic pull called from a place beyond Lucky’s rudimentary rational thought. The man’s eyes, his alpha-male aura, his unspoken promise of satisfaction drove Lucky straight for the blaze.

  He leapt across the low wall of fire and landed in its center. The man raised a hand and spoke an incantation in a language Lucky had never heard, but the translation followed like an echo. The blood sacrifice of one feeds power to the many.

  Lucky’s chest split open like it had been unzipped. Blood gushed onto the pavement and made a glistening red pool in the firelight. He got dizzy and collapsed onto the asphalt with a splat.

  The puddle around him shifted and swirled until it contracted to form two inverted concave triangles within the circle. The new design erupted into flame and Lucky vanished in a cloud of red smoke.

  * * *

  Across the island, hundreds of dogs’ ears snapped straight up as Oates sent them all a new command and awakened their most ancient desires.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Deborah Deering’s old grandfather clock clicked over to 6:45 a.m. Only the tick of the clock and Deborah’s light snore disturbed the silence. Deborah slept under two layers of floral comforters. Her miniature poodle, Precious, curled up sound asleep at the foot of the bed.

  Suddenly, Precious’s ears perked up and rotated forward, as if some noise only she could hear had just occurred. But there was nothing, just the ticking of the tall hallway clock.

  Precious’s eyes snapped open, her head popped up, and she was wide-awake. In one motion, she sprang from the bed and ran to the front door, paws ticking all the way down the old linoleum hallway. She stood on her hind legs and scratched at the doorknob, barking in sharp little yips.

  The commotion stirred Deborah from her sleep. She swept a tangle of gray hair from her face and frowned. Precious was never up first. Deborah usually had to force the dog off the bed in order to straighten the sheets and comforters.

  “What is it, Precious?” she said, her eyes barely open. “What’s my Precious darling want?”

  Precious fired off a few more insistent barks. Deborah clicked on the lamp beside her bed. Nothing happened. She looked over at the dark, dead face of her digital clock. She sighed. The power must be out.

  She swung upright on the bed to get a view down the hall. The dog stood on her hind legs, front paws reaching for the door handle. She looked back at Deborah in expectation. At this early hour, Deborah remained unmoved.

  “You’ll need to wait, Precious. It’s too early for Mommy.”

  Precious’s eyes narrowed, and a low growl escaped her lips. She dropped to all fours and charged back to the bedroom. She crouched at Deborah’s feet and growled again.

  This got Deborah’s attention. In all these years, she had never heard Precious growl. If anything, she seemed more terrified of the world than able to terrorize it. Deborah gave her companion a quizzical look.

  “Precious?” she said.

  The dog growled again, lower and deeper than before, a guttural threat drawn from deep out of the canine collective subconscious. She bared her teeth and crouched back on her rear legs.

  Deborah’s heart pounded. Malice gleamed in Precious’s eyes. For the first time ever, Deborah feared her dog.

  Precious launched herself at Deborah’s leg. She sank her teeth into the flare at the hem of Deborah’s pajamas, just missing flesh and bone. The dog jerked her head and shredded the flannel into strips.

  With a shriek, Deborah recoiled and scrambled backward to her headboard. She tucked her legs to her chin and wrapped her shaking arms around her knees.

  “Precious, what’s come over you?”

  The dog gazed up at her with a look that Deborah swore was victorious. Precious trotted back to the front door, a ragged scrap of pajamas in her mouth like a hunter’s kill. She sat on her haunches and put one paw up on the door. She looked over her shoulder at Deborah. A low snarl filtered through the soft cloth clamped between her teeth.

  Deborah inched to the edge of the bed, then lowered her bare feet to the cold floor. She shivered, though whether from the chill to her toes or from the look on her dog’s face, she couldn’t be sure. She shuffled to the front hallway. Her eyes stayed glued to her dog’s, Precious following every step she took. Deborah picked up the leash on the hall table.

  “Okay, Precious,” she said in the soft, artificial tone orderlies used when talking to the insane. “Does Precious want to go for a little walk? Mommy will take you.” She hoped at this hour none of the neighbors would see her out barefoot in her shredded pajamas.

  She sidled past her dog to the front door. Precious’s eyes tracked her with the intensity of a hunting jackal. The rag dropped from the dog’s mouth. Deborah managed an unconvincing smile. Her back creaked as she bent over to attach the leash to Precious’s jeweled collar.

  The dog struck like a coiled spring. She exploded up from the floor, and sank her teeth into Deborah’s left hand. Bones crunched and blood oozed out between the dog’s lips.

  Deborah screamed and dropped the leash. Her whole arm felt like it had caught fire. She yanked her hand away, but Precious just clamped down tighter. Deborah flapped her left arm, as if the dog was an errant piece of lint that she could shake off. But Precious only bit down harder and growled with fury as she sailed back and forth through the air. Blood ran down the dog’s cheeks, bright crimson streaks on her shiny white coat. With each sweep of Deborah’s arm, droplets of red sprayed the foyer’s eggshell walls.

  In her panic, all she could process was to get the crazed dog out of her house. She pulled open the front door with her free hand.

  As soon as the door opened, Precious released her grip. She dropped to the floor and darted out the small gap between the door and the frame.

  Searing pain pulsed through Deborah’s left hand. She looked at it in uncomprehending horror. The area between her thumb and forefinger looked like ground meat. A steady stream of blood ran down her wrist and dripped into a growing puddle on the tan throw rug. Deborah tucked her mangled hand under her right armpit and squeezed. Tears of pain and heartbreak ran down her cheeks. She looked through the gap in the doorway and into her yard.

  Precious trotted down the front walk. In the low dawn light the small dog cast an outsized, long shadow. She looked back at Deborah. Blood painted the dog’s jaws red like some twisted interpretation of canine clown makeup. She bared her teeth one more time in Deborah’s direction. Deborah swore she was gloating.

  Five other dogs sat at the edge of her property, a perfect row of spectators, watching Precious come their way. One was a Lab, one a German shepherd, but the rest defied a single classification. The Lab was the Gleasons’ over on Clipper Street. Its collar had about two feet of broken chain attached to it, and the shepherd carried his own red badge of rebellion with blood smeared on its cheek. All five sat motionless until Precious joined them, then in unison, they all turned right, and the pack loped up the street.

  Deborah slammed the door shut and locked it. She ran to the kitchen and picked up the phone with her good hand. She looked out the back window and saw three other dogs trot through her yard, arrayed in a perfect V, headed for downtown.

  “Good Lord, they’re everywhere,” she whispered to herself in disbelief.


  She pressed the talk button.

  No dial tone rose in response.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  At the island’s other end, Allie slept. She dreamed she was on the patio, playing the clarinet on a warm afternoon, a melodious counterpoint to the sharp crash of the sea on the shore beyond.

  A breeze ruffled the edges of her sheet music, then lifted the three pages off the table, and sent them flying in orbit around her head. The clarinet fell silent and she dropped it from her lips. She reached for the sheets but they flitted just out of reach.

  The pages spun around her. The edges grew indistinct and the contours morphed. Feathers came into focus, and each sheet became a beautiful white dove. The three doves circled her head, and then paused and hovered in place all around her. She sighed at their angelic beauty.

  Small black clouds bloomed from nowhere all across the sky. The clouds spread like cancer until their edges touched and drove out the daylight. Jagged arcs of blue lightning flashed across the sky. Allie shivered. A blast of wind sent trash and dead leaves across her yard in a swirling dance.

  The soft dark eyes of the dove in front of her flickered bright red, like a torch bursting to life. She caught her breath and recoiled.

  Each bird swelled, wings spreading wider, color changing. A flow of black that spread like an oil slick from the point of their beaks until it consumed the tips of their feathers. Their eyes widened and swept upward. The corners of the beaks twisted up in an unholy smile and the birds became three enormous ravens.

  The one hovering in front of Allie opened its beak and cawed so loudly that her ears rang. Its fetid breath stank of something dead and rotting. She choked and fought back the urge to vomit.

  The birds attacked. The ravens’ chilling screeches and the pounding of jet-black feathers filled the air. They dove at her from all angles, fiery eyes ablaze. Allie ducked and shielded her head with her arms. Beaks and talons gashed her forearms. She scattered the birds with a panicked flail of her arms. They flew off and aligned for another attack.

  Allie screamed and ran for the side of the house. The three ravens banked and followed in hot pursuit. One bird dove in and grabbed a chunk of her hair in its talons, then yanked it hard. Pain cut through Allie’s head like a knife. A bloody clump of hair came out by the roots. She ran for her car.

  A second raven dived in on her shoulder, sinking both feet into her flesh. She reached back, grabbed the bird by the neck, and threw it against the car’s hood. It let out a surprised squawk, and then lay still, upside-down on the hood, wings spread and head bent at a right angle.

  Allie sealed herself inside the car. The remaining duo circled like sharks. Allie struggled with blood-slickened hands to grasp the keys in her pocket. One bird dived and crashed feet-first into the driver’s side window. The ice pick tips of its talons punched through. Cracks spread from the impact area like ripples in a pond. The bird looked into the car, and into her, with its blazing crimson eyes.

  Allie finally gripped the keys and jammed one into the ignition. The bird on the hood stirred. It flapped its wings and righted itself. Its head hung at an obscene angle, rocking back and forth on its splintered neck. The eyes still glowed as it walked up the hood, its talons making a spine-tingling scratch as they gouged the paint. At the hood’s edge, it reached over with its upside-down beak and tore the windshield wiper in two.

  The other bird’s wings beat outside the window beside her head. Its talons gripped the punctured glass tighter. The window creaked and flexed outward.

  Allie spun the key. The car fired up and the tires squealed as she punched it in reverse down the driveway. The bird in front of her rolled backward off the hood and landed with a thud on the concrete.

  At the road, Allie threw the car into drive and floored it. She reared back her left arm and rammed her elbow against the driver’s side window. The window popped free, the raven’s talons still embedded in it. Both hit the ground in an explosion of shattered glass and thrashing black feathers. Allie pushed the car past sixty and headed into town for the only safe place she could think of, Scottie’s house.

  “There’s no running, dear Allison,” said a rough Brooklyn voice from the back seat.

  Allie shot a panicked glance to the rearview mirror. A man’s round pale face with a dark goatee filled it. His black clothing blended into the back-seat shadows, and his bald head almost appeared to be floating.

  She screamed and whirled to face the back seat. It was empty. She turned back to the road. Two ravens flew just ahead of the car, pacing it, one off each fender, like an escort from the Underworld.

  The head reappeared in her rearview mirror. “It’s all gonna come back, Allison. Some things ain’t never forgotten.”

  Allie pushed the accelerator harder, hoping against reason to put some distance between the front seat and the back.

  “We got a deal,” he said. “Remember?”

  In the mirror, the man’s eyes burned red as the ravens’. Her back turned cold, like the seat back had iced over.

  The view flash-changed. Stone Harbor vanished, replaced by the winding roads over Topanga Canyon, north of LA. It was night, and the unlit road twisted and turned as it hugged the canyon wall. On the other side, the road’s wispy shoulder waxed and waned at the edge of a steep drop off. She knew this road well. Too well.

  No, not here, she thought. I’m not going back here.

  “You know what’s around this curve, don’t you, dear Allison?” the man said.

  I know too goddamn well, she thought. The Dark Thing.

  She hit the brakes, but the car kept going. She twisted the wheel, but the car tracked along the road on its own, Satan as autopilot, taking her to her personal hell.

  “It’s right past here, ain’t it?” the voice said. A hand reached out from the back seat and pointed ahead past her shoulder. Red skin stretched out along long bony fingers. A black claw ticked against the windshield. The same reek from the ravens’ breath engulfed her.

  “Here it comes. Our little secret.” The s sounded like a cobra’s hiss.

  Allie shrieked.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Scott’s sleep was no calmer. In his dream, a guillotine stood on a platform beside the Stone Harbor dock. Torches burned on both sides of the platform and cast an amber flicker dancing along the suspended blade’s razor-sharp edge. A tan wicker basket sat under the stocks at the base, ready to receive the guillotine’s gift. Tall ships tied off at the town dock behind the platform. Scott stood front-row in the crowd facing the execution site. Though he wore a T-shirt and jeans, they all wore Colonial period dress. The thick scent of burned wood filled the air. This was the 1720 Stone Harbor from Scott’s history books.

  Scott’s father appeared before him. Not the Gary Tackett who Scott had laid to rest, not the withered, weak old shell of a man disease had left his father. This was his father in his prime, mid-thirties and strong as an ox, face afire with enthusiasm. He wore rough, homespun clothes.

  “Dad?” The surreal situation screamed that it was a dream, but the warmth and comfort of seeing his father, of feeling his father there beside him, was too good to chase away with the admission of reality.

  His father put a hand on his shoulder, real, heavy, substantial. “How’s it been going, Scott?”

  “Rough at first, but getting better.”

  “A little sacrifice pays back big. All I ask is a little sacrifice.”

  His father grinned. Not his usual smile, but an upward twist of the lips that telegraphed an unnatural, blood-chilling menace. He disappeared and reappeared beside the guillotine. He now wore an ankle-length, hooded black robe. The hood covered his head and his face had an ethereal glow from within the cowl’s recess. His appearance on the platform brought a muffled roar of approval from the crowd.

  Scott realized that no one around him had a face. Each was just a blank
stretch of flesh with a bump for a nose and shallow pits for eyes. Their muted, distorted cheers came from within them, deep in mouthless throats.

  “When asked, we must give,” his father said. The cowl seemed to amplify his voice, and add a rich, powerful reverb. “Always give to receive.”

  Aaron Siegel appeared in the guillotine. The gray-haired old man in thick glasses ran Scott’s former engineering firm. He’d picked Scott out of the class of a hundred graduates, given him some high-profile first assignments, really taken him under his wing.

  “First, the career. There is no calling greater than home, none greater than the store. Who was this man to pull you away from Stone Harbor?”

  Aaron peered out from the guillotine’s stocks at Scott and mouthed, “Why?”

  Scott’s whole body went cold. What was this? Who was this person in his father’s body? His father wouldn’t do this. He was no murderer.

  “But he is,” Oates’ voice rumbled out of nowhere and everywhere at once.

  Scott’s father pulled a rope. The blade dropped with a scraping whoosh. Aaron’s head popped off like a champagne bottle stopper and dropped into the basket. Blood exploded across the platform. The crowd uttered a distorted cheer.

  In a flash, the blade was back at the guillotine’s top. Blood dripped from the sharp, canted edge. Aaron’s body was gone, another in its place in the stocks. Petite, with short curly red hair and a cute, slightly upswept nose. Scott gasped. Anita!

  “Next, this marriage, this woman who returned here with you, not out of love, but out of obligation, and that obligation discharged, ran as fast as she could for the mainland. Faithless! You don’t need her.”

  “Scott!” Anita screamed. “Stop him! Stop this!”