The Gates

VIII In Which Samuel Learns That Someone Trying to Open the Gates of Hell Is Not of Particular Concern to His Mum

SAMUEL AWOKE SHORTLY AFTER eight to the sound of plates banging in the kitchen. He dressed quickly, then went downstairs. Boswell was waiting expectantly for scraps from the breakfast table. He glanced at Samuel, wagged his tail in greeting, then went back to gazing intently at Mrs. Johnson and the remains of the bacon on her plate.

“Mum-,” Samuel began, but he was immediately cut off.

“Stephanie says that you came in late last night,” said his mother.

“I know, and I’m sorry, but-”

“No ‘buts.’ You know I don’t like you being out late by yourself.”

“But-”

“What did I just say? No ‘buts.’ Now sit down and eat your cereal.”

Samuel wondered if he would ever be allowed to complete a sentence again. First Stephanie, and now his mother. If this continued, he’d be forced to communicate entirely through sign language, or notes scribbled on pieces of paper, like someone in solitary confinement.

“Mum,” said Samuel, in his most serious and grown-up of tones. “I have something important to tell you.”

“Uh-huh.” His mother stood and carried her plate to the sink, disappointing Boswell considerably.

“Mother, please.”

Samuel almost never called his mum “mother.” It always sounded wrong, but it had the effect, on this occasion, of attracting her attention. She turned round and folded her arms.

“Well?”

Samuel gestured at the kitchen chair opposite him, the way he saw grown-ups on television do when they invited people into their office to tell them they were about to be fired.

“Please, take a seat.”

Mrs. Johnson gave a long-suffering sigh, but did as she was asked.

“It’s about the Abernathys,” said Samuel.

“The Abernathys? The people at number 666?”

“Yes, and their friends.”

“What friends?”

“Well, I don’t know their friends’ names, but they were a man and a woman, and they were both fat.”

“And?”

“They are no more,” said Samuel, solemnly. He had read that phrase somewhere, and had always fancied using it.

“What does that mean?”

“They’ve been taken.”

“Taken where?”

“To Hell.”

“Oh, Samuel!” His mother rose and returned to the sink. “You had me worried there for a minute. I thought you were being serious. Where do you get these ideas from? I really will have to keep a closer eye on what you’re watching on television.”

“But it’s true, Mum,” said Samuel. “They were all in the Abernathys’ basement dressed in robes, and then there was a blue light and a hole in the air, and a big claw reached out and pulled Mrs. Abernathy inside, and then she appeared again except it wasn’t her but something that looked like her. Then spiderwebs took their fat friends and, finally, Mr. Abernathy was yanked in by a big tongue, and when it was all over there were four of them again, but it wasn’t them, not really.

“And,” he finished, playing his trump card, “they’re trying to open the gates of Hell. I heard Mrs. Abernathy say so, or the thing that looks like Mrs. Abernathy.”

He took a deep breath and waited for a response.

“And that’s why you were half an hour late coming back last night?” asked his mother.

“Yes.”

“You know that you’re not supposed to be out past eight, especially now that the evenings are getting dark.”

“Mum, they’re trying to open the gates of Hell. You know: Hell. Demons, and stuff. Monsters.” He paused for effect, then added: “The Devil!”

“And you didn’t eat your dinner,” said his mum.

“What?” Samuel was floored. He knew that his mother tended to ignore a lot of what he said, but he had never lied to her. Well, hardly ever. There were some things she didn’t need to know, such as where her private stash of chocolate kept disappearing to, or how the rug in the living room had been moved slightly to cover some nasty burn marks after an experiment involving match heads.

“Don’t say ‘what,’ say ‘pardon,’” his mother corrected. “I said you didn’t eat your dinner.”

“That’s because Stephanie sent me to bed early, but that’s not the point.”

“Excuse me, Samuel Johnson, but that’s precisely the point. You came in so late that you couldn’t eat your dinner. There was spinach. I know you don’t like it a lot, but it’s very healthy. And you annoyed Stephanie, and it’s hard to get good babysitters these days.”

Samuel was by now completely bewildered. His mother could be very strange. According to her, this was how the world worked:

THINGS THAT ARE BAD

1. Coming in late.

2. Not eating spinach.

3. Annoying Stephanie.

4. Trying to confuse Mr. Hume with talk of angels and pins.

5. Not wearing the hat his grandmother had knit for him, even if it was purple and made him look like he had a swollen head.

6-99.Lots of other stuff.

100. Trying to open the gates of Hell.

“Mum, haven’t you heard anything I’ve said?” asked Samuel.

“I’ve heard everything that you’ve said, Samuel, and it’s more than enough. Now eat your breakfast. I have a lot to do today. If you want to, you can help me with the shopping later. Otherwise you can just stay here, but no television and no video games. I want you to read a book, or do something useful with your time. It’s all those cartoons and monster-killing games that have given you these ideas. Honestly, dear, you live in a world of your own sometimes.”

And then she did something completely unexpected. Having spent the last five minutes complaining about him, and not believing anything that he’d told her, she came over and hugged him, and kissed his hair.

“You do make me laugh though,” she said. She looked into his eyes, and her face grew sad. “Samuel, all this stuff-these stories, the angels on the pin-it’s not to do with your dad, is it? I know you miss him, and things have been a bit difficult since he left. You know I love you, don’t you? You don’t need to go looking for attention from me. I’m here, and you’re the most important person in my world. You will remember that, won’t you?”

Samuel nodded. His eyes felt hot. They always did when his mum talked about his dad. He’d been gone for two months and three days now. Samuel wished that he’d come back, but at the same time he was angry with him. He wasn’t sure what had happened between his mum and dad, but his dad was now living up north, and Samuel had only seen him twice since the break-up. From a whispered but angry phone conversation that he’d overheard between his mum and dad, someone called Elaine was involved. Samuel’s mum had called Elaine a very bad name during the conversation, and then had hung up the phone and started crying. Samuel was sometimes angry at his mum too, because he wondered if she might have done something to drive his dad away. And, on occasion, when he was feeling particularly sad, Samuel would wonder if he himself had done anything to make his dad leave, if he’d been bad, or mean to him, or had let his dad down in some way. For the most part, though, he sensed that his dad was the one who was most to blame, and he hated the fact that his dad made his mum cry.

“Now eat your bacon,” said Samuel’s mum. “I’ve left it under the grill for you.”

She kissed him on the head again, then went upstairs.

Samuel ate his bacon. Sometimes he just didn’t understand adults. He wondered if he ever would, or if there would come a time, after he became a grown-up himself, when it all made sense to him.

He finished his food, fed the scraps to Boswell, then washed his plate and sat down at the table again. He patted Boswell thoughtfully. There was still the not-so-small matter of the opening of the gates of Hell to be dealt with, and his mum had been no help at all with that.

“Now what are we supposed to do?” asked Samuel.

If Boswell could have shrugged, he would have.

The doorbell rang at number 666. It was Mrs. Abernathy who answered. Standing before her was the postman, holding a large parcel. He wasn’t the usual postman, who was on holiday in Spain, and he had never seen Mrs. Abernathy before, but he thought she was very good looking.

“Parcel for Mr. Abernathy,” he said.

“That would be my”-Mrs. Abernathy, unused to talking to someone who wasn’t another demon, had to think for a moment-“husband,” she finished. “He’s not here at the moment.”

“No problem. You can sign for it.”

He handed Mrs. Abernathy a pen, and a form on a clipboard. Mrs. Abernathy looked confused.

“Just sign, er, there,” said the postman, pointing to a line at the bottom of the form.

“I don’t seem to have my glasses,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Would you mind stepping inside for a moment while I look for them?”

“It’s just a signature,” said the postman. “On a line. That line.” Once again, he pointed helpfully at the line in question.

“I don’t like signing anything that I haven’t read,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

It takes all sorts, thought the postman. “Right you are, then, ma’am. I’ll wait here while you look for your glasses.”

“Oh, please, come inside. I insist. It’s so cold out, and it may take me a moment or two to find them.” She moved farther into the house, still holding the clipboard. The clipboard was very important to the postman. It contained details of all of the parcels and registered letters that he had delivered that day, and he wasn’t supposed to let it out of his sight. Reluctantly he followed Mrs. Abernathy into the house. He noticed that the blinds and curtains were drawn in the rooms adjoining the hall, and there was a funny smell, like rotten eggs and recently struck matches.

“Bit dark in here,” he said.

“Really?” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I happen to like it this way.”

And the postman noticed, for the first time, that there seemed to be a blue glow to Mrs. Abernathy’s eyes.

The door closed behind him.

But Mrs. Abernathy was in front of him, so who could have closed it?

He was turning to find out when a tentacle curled itself round his neck and lifted him off the floor. The postman tried to say something, but the tentacle was very tight. He had a brief glimpse of a huge mouth, and some big teeth, and then everything went dark forever.

Humans were puny, thought Mrs. Abernathy. She had been sent to find out their strengths and weaknesses, but already she could tell that the latter far outweighed the former.

On the other hand, they didn’t taste bad at all.

Mrs. Abernathy licked her lips and went into the dining room, where the curtains were drawn. Three figures sat upon chairs, doing nothing in particular apart from smelling funny. Mr. Abernathy and the Renfields were starting to turn an ugly shade of purple, like meat that was going bad, and their fingernails had begun to drop off. That was the trouble with destroying the life force of another being, and taking on its shape. It was like opening a banana, throwing away the fruit, and then sewing up the skin in the hope that it would continue to look like a banana. It would, but only for a while, and then it would start turning black.

“I’m concerned about the boy,” said Mrs. Abernathy.

Her husband looked at her. His eyes were milky.

“Why?” he asked, his voice little more than a croak as his vocal cords began to decay. “He’s just a child.”

“He will talk.”

“Nobody will believe him.”

“Somebody might.”

“And if they do? We are more powerful than they can ever be.”

Mrs. Abernathy snorted in disgust. “Have you looked in a mirror lately?” she said. “The only powerful thing about you is your smell.”

She shook her head and walked away. That was the problem with lower demons: they had no cunning, and no imagination.

Mrs. Abernathy was of the highest order of demons, only a level below the Great Malevolence himself. She had knowledge of humans, for the Great Malevolence had spoken of them to her, and with him she had watched them from afar, as if through a dark window. What he saw fed his hatred and jealousy. He rejoiced when men and women did bad things, and howled with rage when they did good. He wanted to reduce their world to rubble and scarred earth, and destroy every living thing in it that walked, crawled, swam, or flew. It was Mrs. Abernathy who would pave the way for him. The Great Malevolence, and the humans’ machine with its beams and particles, would do the rest.

But there remained the problem of the boy. Children were dangerous, Mrs. Abernathy knew, more so than adults. They believed in things like right and wrong, good and evil. They were persistent. They interfered.

First she would find out what Samuel Johnson knew. If he had been a naughty little boy, one who had been sticking his nose in where he had no business sticking it, he would have to be dealt with.