Hell's Gate

by Dean R. Koontz

  “That was a pretty heated delivery,” he said, grinning in spite of himself.

  “I can stay then?”

  “You can stay.”

  Her reaction, surprisingly, was like that of a small girl. She threw her arms around him, giggling. She was an intriguing, multilevel woman, terribly adult one moment, delightfully child-like the next. The result was sort of a delightful, playful schizophrenia.

  “But now we have only half an hour to decide what to do.”

  She wanted to stay. She had made that quite clear. There was no way he could persuade her that it would be best all around if she left.

  She wanted to stay. She most definitely did.

  Still, she shuddered.

  * * *

  As they discussed what should be done, Salsbury bent to work on the hand of the robot, disconnecting the vibrabeam weapon within the core of the plastic finger. Lynda expressed amazement that he knew the weapon was detachable and knew how to go about detaching it. He was somewhat surprised himself, but had learned to live with the often hidden tidbits of knowledge that now and again surfaced when they were needed. In ten minutes, he had the vibratube in his hand, the simple stud-end trigger ready against his thumb.

  In the end, after much planning and alternate planning, they decided not to go into the cellar where, perhaps, the robot would be able to solicit aid from the lizardy aliens. Instead, they moved the furniture in the living room to form a fortress of stuffing, wood, and springs behind which they could hide and observe the cellar door. There was no way of being certain another robot would be sent, though the lizard-things must surely have known the first failed. If they knew that, they would consider it an enormous fluke, and would think it could never happen twice.

  Indeed, had he been Harold Jacobi, it never would have happened again, for he would have been stone dead. But he was quicker than a man should be, cleverer, and now he had a vibrabeam tube himself.

  One-thirty came and went in silence. They did not speak for fear of missing some vital sound from below. Even a moment's distraction might mean the difference between success and failure-and failure would, of course, mean death. There was no ringing noise, no thrumming moan. He remembered that the portal had not required the strange vibrations to open itself ever since that night when full visual contact had been made; that night the demons looked through the wall as if only a pane of glass separated them from Salsbury.

  At twenty minutes of two, ten minutes into their silent vigil, they heard soft footfalls on the steps coming up

  Linda was positioned beside him, shielded by a couch. He was at the end of the same piece of furniture, looking through a crack between the sofa and the easy chair they had pulled next to it. She had her head above the back of the sofa, watching the door. He put a hand on her skull and pushed her down out of sight. She started to protest, then remembered the need for silence. Or perhaps she remembered what the vibrabeam had done to his bathroom door and suddenly had begun to extrapolate on what it might do to flesh. She stayed down, safely behind him, waiting.

  As he watched, the cellar door swung easily into the living room. It shielded the bulk of the robot from him, but he was in no great hurry to make contact with it. Salsbury knew he could take the machine before it could reach either of them; that realization made for a great deal of confidence.

  A moment later, the robot stepped from behind the door, very alert and cautious as if even its steel and glass brain could know fear. It started along the wall, staying where the moonlight from the windows did not touch. When he was but a few feet from the stairs that led to the second story, Salsbury thumbed the stud on the vibrabeam tube. The cold waves of sound flashed out in a golden stream, struck the machine and made it bounce and buck as if a sledge hammer had been swung into its guts. It lurched, turned, its blue eyes sparkling flatly in the darkness, seeking.

  Rising to stand beside him, Lynda grasped Salsbury's arm and sucked in her breath. The lack of any emotion on the robot's face, the deadly blankness so like a psychotic's countenance, was enough to chill anyone. It had nearly sent Salsbury climbing the walls the first time he had been confronted with it.

  The beam continued to play.

  Victor fancied he could hear things breaking inside the robot. Its entire body hummed with the impact of the killing waves.

  It stumbled toward them, raising its firing arm, pointing the brass finger. Salsbury ducked, trying to hold the vibrabeam on his opponent. But it wavered, swept across the stair railing to the mechanical's left. The wood splintered, popped, danced into the air in hundreds of shards, rained down on Lynda and him where they stood ten feet away.

  The mechanical's own beam smashed into an easy chair, blew a cloud of smouldering stuffings into the air. The littlest pieces, glowing orange, came down and stung their bare arms where they touched. Lynda slapped at her robe and at Salsbury's clothes to keep them from catching fire.

  Salsbury depressed the firing stud again. The robot backed, trying to avoid the weapon. But there was nowhere it could go. It came up against the wall, shivering like a man left in his underwear on the tundra. Seconds later, it pitched forward, smashed onto its face. It tried to get up, managed to make it to its knees, then crashed forward again, bouncing on the carpet. Its fingers groped at the nylon, trying to find something to help pull it erect. The brass tip of the weapons finger was bright with reflected moonlight. Then, at last, it was still.

  “You got him!” Lynda cried. She was reacting like the little girl again, exuberant despite the still pervading terror of the scene about her.

  Salsbury stood, his knees cracking painfully, aimed the vibrabeam at the robot's head and blew its metal skull open, spilling its mechanics onto the rug.

  It was over.

  His entire body seem to expand, to swell with triumph.

  He turned to Lynda to say something and caught the movement of the second killer out of the corner of his eye.

  CHAPTER 9

  It had come up the cellar stairs with the stealth of a cat, its movements further concealed by the activities of the first robot, the excitement of that fight. It was a mirror image of the first and exactly like the robot of the previous night. The lizard-things wasted no money on a variety of molds. He only wished they would have seen fit to endow the mechanicals with something other than those two blue penny eyes that seemed to eat into everything they settled upon. Now, as they stood congratulating themselves, it moved through the cellar door, coming fast, leaped the couch, came down heavily on cushions, bouncing, and was almost on top of them.

  Victor raised his vibratube to fire, not very hopeful about getting a shot in. The mechanical swung its arm, cracked Salsbury's wrist a solid blow that rattled his teeth in his jaw like pearls on a string, set every bone between his hand and teeth vibrating like tuning forks. The tube sailed into the air, arcing backwards out of reach, turning lazily over and over to clatter in a dark corner somewhere completely beyond reach.

  Lynda screamed.

  Victor grabbed her, pushed her backward, turned in time to feel the rush of air preceding the mechanical, then the full impact of its heavy, component packed body. He was catapulted to the left, struck an oblong coffee table with his knees and went over that with a great deal of explosive grunting and even more pain. His chin cracked the end of a lamp base exactly where it had been bruised in his fall the night before, then skidded on the rug, brush burning it. It was almost as if some hostile fairy sprite were sitting overhead planning the choreography. He spat out a piece of tooth, tasted blood. His chin burned. The weight of the mechanical adversary was pressing upon him.

  He strained, heaved, pushed the robot sideways enough to squirm out from under it. He rolled quickly to see where it was and to get out of the thing's immediate range. He flopped onto his back just in time to see that it was directly overhead, coming down in a crushing body slam. Then the thing was on his chest, had knocked every ounce of air out of his lungs in one heavy gush. It threw a thick arm across his throat to
hold him still. It brought the other hand around; the one with the vibrabeam finger.

  Salsbury heaved again, only succeeding in making the mechanical increase the pressure on his throat. He gagged, wondered vaguely why he had to be vibra-beamed and strangled. One should be enough surely.

  The brass tip pointed somewhere above and between Victor's eyes. The top of his head would go easily, wetly.

  Abruptly, there was another impact as something struck the back of the robot. The thing pitched over Salsbury, carried forward by whatever had slammed into it. He rolled sideways, sat up, gasping to get air into his aching lungs, massaging his sore throat. Now, as his watering eyes cleared, he could see what had thrown the mechanical off balance in the last moments before its success. Intrepid had bolted down the stairs (or had stumbled) and had leaped into the battle without a single reservation. He had his teeth sunk into the robot's neck, his claws scrabbling on the broad back. The mechanical stood, swaying, and tried to shake the beast off. It reached behind itself and pounded a heavy fist into the furious mutt. Intrepid squealed with pain but held on, Seemed to chew his teeth in more deeply.

  After a few more useless attempts to dissuade that noble canine, the robot stood, wavering under the weight of the mongrel and the fury of his attack, pointed his laser at Salsbury and fired, realizing his duty was not to himself, but to the masters who had sent him to kill.

  Salsbury rolled, came in under the destructive swath of golden light. Behind, the sofa whuffed with the beam boring its interior. The corded covering caught fire. The flames illuminated the room, sent dancing shafts of light off the mechanical's pale skin, off Intrepid's bristled fur.

  The robot fired again.

  This time Victor did not move fast enough, slowed by the pain that still arced through him, by his certainty that a second shot could not come so fast, that the mechanical would have to orient itself. The beam seared his shoulder, sent fragments of flesh exploding outward. A shot any more direct would have burst him like a ripe fruit fallen from a tree. Blood dribbled down his arm, hot and sticky.

  The room swayed.

  He thought he heard Lynda shouting.

  He fell, came to his knees, agonizingly aware that he would have to move fast if he were to avoid the next burst. When he looked up, he was staring directly into the gleaming brass tip.

  Then there was the sound of the vibratube, and Salsbury waited for the worst. But it was not the mechanical that had fired. It was the target now, the gold illumination blossoming on its chest. It turned, seeking the source of the beam. When it found Lynda standing in the corner where the other tube had fallen, it raised its arm to shoot her.

  And it was all over.

  The robot's chest, under the concentrated beam from Lynda's tube, bulged outward, burst and spewed glass and wire and plastic shrapnel. It stood, eyes dimming through lighter and lighter shades of blue. When they were utterly dark, it toppled onto its face, dead as a machine could get, Intrepid still on its back with his teeth sunk into the artificial flesh.

  Salsbury started for the cellar steps, stepping around the dead machine, then remembered that it was Lynda who had the weapon, not him. His arm ached dully, and his head was spinning. He turned back to find her just as she came to him. “Give me the tube,” he said, reaching for it.

  “Why?”

  “Got to go down see if there are more of them.”

  “I'll go along.”

  “You'll stay here,” he said, taking the tube from her.

  “Damnit, who killed the last one?”

  He looked to the mechanical that Intrepid still toyed with. He shook his head. “All right. Be careful.”

  They switched on the light and looked down the steps. There were no more mechanicals on them. They went down, Lynda behind and holding onto him. In the basement, they found nothing. The portal in the wall was gone again. After checking the basement three times, they went back upstairs and turned off the light, closed the door. The shooting was over. At least until tomorrow night.

  “Come on and let me look at your arm,” she said, dragging him into the kitchen. He followed like a dumb animal.

  He sat in a straight-back chair while she washed the burn. It was approximately two inches long, an inch wide, and an inch deep. That was a goodly sized chunk of flesh for anyone to lose, even for a man who seemed to heal miraculously fast. “I told you about healing so quickly,” he said. “It won't need medicines.”

  “I'm putting a dressing on it all the same.”

  “It's already stopped bleeding. It'll be heavily scabbed by tomorrow night and healed in a few days.”

  She ignored him, got alcohol, gauze and tape. By the time she had finished bandaging it, the pain was gone. They cleaned up the mess, made something to eat. They were both ravenous. Just as they were finishing, Intrepid came padding in for some bits of lunchmeat.

  Later, in bed, she said, “Are you sure it's safe?”

  “Positive. The portal only opens at that one time. Besides, there's Intrepid.”

  He whined from his position by the door.

  “But what do we do next, Vic? Call the police?”

  “No. They'd get curious about Jacobi.” He said it before he thought. Then he could have bitten off his tongue.

  “You think they killed him?” she asked.

  He tried to answer, could not.

  “What is it?”

  “I-” Well, he decided, it was best to get it over with. She would listen, leave. She would not want to stay with a killer. He told her swiftly, though not without emotion, conveying to her his own horror at having murdered a real, flesh and blood man.

  She did not go. She said nothing, merely accepted and understood. He felt warm hands on his chest. Then her comforting arms were around him. He tried to fight, to tell her that she would taint herself; that it would be no good; that she could never adjust to him as a killer. But she was softness, warmth. He let his sensations carry him like a roller coaster. They clutched each other to keep from falling out, riding higher and higher, growing ever more dizzy, breathless as the speed of their rollicking, rocketing love carried them faster and faster

  He gave no thought to lizards or robots.

  It was not the time. Besides, they would not encounter the demons again until tomorrow night, twenty-four hours from now, at the witching hour of one-thirty.

  Now they were safe; or so he thought.

  He was making a big mistake.

  CHAPTER 10

  They woke a little before nine the next morning. They might not have risen that early, except that Intrepid, who had quite obviously been awake for some time, decided to crawl onto their covers and perform his imitation of a child's rubber ball for their entertainment. When the pandemonium died down, there was no sense in pretending they could go back to sleep. They took turns calling Intrepid names and laughing at his happy responses, then took turns in the shower. He offered to let her go first, wary about the length of time a woman would take, was happily surprised when she came into the bedroom fifteen minutes later, finished.

  When he got downstairs, breakfast was ready.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked.

  She looked up from her eggs and toast, grinning. She ate like a she-wolf, the firm muscles of her tawny jaw tightening as she chewed. “Is this a proposal.”

  “Sounds like that to me.”

  “Extremely romantic. In my excitement, I am liable to spew a mouthful of eggs all over the table.”

  “Sorry I'm not the Gary Grant type.”

  They exchanged banter of that sort throughout the morning, Doris-Day-movie-talk on the surface, but easy and fun as such conversation can be between two people who have no need to impress each other. In the backs of both their minds, however, was the terror and doubt about the cellar and the things that came out of it in the early hours of the morning. It was only their ability to fill in the waiting with banter that kept them from madness.

  Victor did some heavy moving, taking the things out of a back guest room and storing them in the at
tic, then moving his art supplies upstairs, thankful that the heaviest pieces had come dismantled. It was odd to be engaged in domestic chores when his life might hang in the balance, when his future was totally unpredictable; but, there was nothing else to do. He had just finished putting together the heavy drafting table when Dr. West returned to check on his patient.

  He was astounded at the degree of healing on Salsbury's chest. He was perturbed when Salsbury evaded his questions about the nature of the infliction of the wound. When he discovered the bandaged arm where the vibrabeam had struck the night before, Lynda explained that he had fallen and cut it. Victor, playfully, he hoped, refused to let West look at it, joking about the medical debts he had already incurred beyond his ability to pay. The doctor left unsatisfied and suspicious, but ignorant, which was all they cared about.

  They ate a light dinner, agreed to go into town for supper and to pick up some of Lynda's clothes, a toothbrush, toiletries. It was impossible to persuade her to leave now, while the mystery had not yet been solved. Meanwhile, he brought sketching materials down to the front porch stoop and made ready to draw a realistic view of an elderly Dutch Elm at the corner of the drive. Lynda and Intrepid left to walk in the orchard. With his tools in his hands, he felt more at rest than ever before.

  He did not know what would happen within the next half hour.

  As he started drawing, he realized that, though he was not Victor Salsbury the artist, he was an artist in his own right. In moments, he had outlined a drawing, blocked it, gave it shape. Instead of filling in detail, he flipped to another sheet and did an impressionistic view of the same elm. It took longer, but it proved that he was not merely a renderer, but creative as well. Whoever had educated him for the role of Victor Salsbury had done a rather thorough job.

  Shortly after two, as Victor was fleshing out the first sketch into a full landscape, Intrepid came through the front door to the closed porch door, barked to be let out. Victor called for Lynda, decided she must still be in the orchard. “You want out?” he asked the dog, reluctant to stop sketching.