The Gates

XIV In Which We Learn That It Is Sometimes Wise to Be Afraid of the Dark

SAMUEL’S DAD CALLED THE house that night to speak to his son. Samuel tried to tell his dad about the Abernathys’ basement, but his dad only said, “Really?” and “How interesting,” and asked Samuel how he was enjoying his half-term break, and if his mum was okay.

Samuel made one final effort.

“Dad,” he said, “this is serious. I’m not making it up.”

“You think these people, the Abernathys, are carrying out experiments in their basement?” said Mr. Johnson.

“Not experiments,” said Samuel. “I think they were messing about with something that they shouldn’t have been messing about with, and it all went wrong. Now they’ve opened a kind of doorway.”

“Into Hell?”

“Yes, except it’s not working right yet. The door is open, but the gates aren’t.”

“Don’t you usually have to open the gates before the door?” said Mr. Johnson.

“Yes,” said Samuel, “but-”

He stopped.

“You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” he said. “You don’t believe me.”

“Have you been playing those computer games again, those ones where you have to kill demons? Samuel, put your mum on the phone.” Samuel did, and heard one side of a conversation that seemed to revolve around whether or not he, Samuel, knew the difference between reality and fantasy, and if this was some kind of reaction to the difficulties in their marriage, and if Samuel should see a psychiatrist. The conversation moved on to other matters, and Samuel drifted away.

His mum had a troubled expression on her face when she hung up the phone, as though she realized that she was supposed to remember something important, but couldn’t quite recall what it was.

“Samuel, go to bed early tonight,” said Mrs. Johnson. “Read something that doesn’t involve demons, or ghosts, or monsters, hmmm? For me. And, darling, be careful what you say to people.”

Then she started crying.

“Your dad’s buying a house with that woman, Samuel,” said his mum, through her tears. “He wants a divorce. And he wants to come down and collect that stupid bloody car of his!”

Samuel held his mum, and didn’t speak. After a while, she told him that it was time for bed. He went up to his room and spent a long time staring out of the window, but he didn’t cry. Suddenly, monsters and demons didn’t seem so important anymore. His dad wasn’t coming home again. Meanwhile, he was just a small boy, and nobody-not his mum, not his dad- listened to small boys, not ever. Shortly after nine, he changed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed.

Eventually, he fell asleep.

It was Boswell who first sensed the coming of the Darkness. He woke at the end of Samuel’s bed, where he had now decided to sleep permanently after the nasty slimy thing had briefly taken up residence on the floor beneath. Boswell’s nose twitched, and his hair stood on end.

Although he was a very intelligent animal, Boswell, like most dogs, divided the world into things that were Good to eat and things that were Bad to eat, with a small space in the middle for things that might potentially be either, or just Good or Bad generally, but about which he wasn’t entirely certain as of yet.

Thus Boswell’s first impression, upon waking up, was that something was Bad, but he wasn’t sure exactly what, which confused him greatly. He couldn’t hear or smell anything out of the ordinary. Neither could he see anything out of the ordinary, although his eyesight wasn’t very good at the best of times, so that a whole army of Very Bad Things could have been standing a few feet away and, unless they smelled Bad, or sounded Bad, he would have had no idea that they were there.

He jumped from the bed and sniffed around, then trotted to the window and put his front paws on the sill so that he could peer out. All seemed to be perfectly normal. The road was empty. Nothing was moving.

The streetlight at the nearest corner flickered and went out, creating a pool of darkness that stretched halfway to the next light. Boswell put his head to one side, and whined softly. Then the next streetlight went out and, seconds later, the first light came back on again. Even with his weak eyesight, Boswell caught something slipping from one pool of darkness to the next. The third streetlight, the one directly in front of their house, buzzed and then extinguished itself, and this time it stayed out. Boswell stared at the pool of blackness, and a figure in the shadows seemed to stare back at him.

Boswell growled.

Then the pool of blackness began to change. It extended itself, like oil running down a hill, rivulets of it flowing from the base of the streetlight toward the garden gate of number 501. It slid beneath the gate and oozed along the path until it reached the front door and Boswell could no longer mark its progress.

Boswell dropped down from the window, padded to the half-closed bedroom door and pushed his body through the gap. He stood at the top of the stairs and watched as the Darkness slipped under the door, seemed to pause for a second to find its bearings, and then flowed to the first step and began to climb, the edge of the Darkness forming fingers that pulled the rest of its mass along. Boswell heard a soft pop as the far end of the Darkness slipped beneath the front door, so that now he was staring at a puddle perhaps three feet long making its way inexorably toward him.

Boswell began to bark, but nobody came. Mrs. Johnson’s bedroom door remained firmly closed, and Boswell could hear her snoring softly. The Darkness was now halfway up the stairs and, at the sound of Boswell’s barks, it began to increase its rate of progress. With no other option, Boswell beat a retreat to Samuel’s bedroom door, pushing his way in and then nudging the door closed with his nose. He backed away, still growling. He could see a thin line of illumination between the door and the carpet, and deep in his clever dog mind he sensed that this was not a Good thing.

Slowly the light disappeared, diminishing from left to right until nothing of it remained. For a couple of seconds, all was still. There was only the sound of Samuel’s breathing, and the distant buzz of Mrs. Johnson’s snores, to disturb the silence.

Boswell jumped onto the bed and barked in Samuel’s ear.

“Mwff,” said Samuel. “Argle.”

Boswell tried licking him, while at the same time keeping an eye on the door. Samuel just pushed him away, not even waking up properly to do so.

“‘S early,” he mumbled. “No school.”

Just then, with a speed that caused Boswell to jump backward in fright, the Darkness poured under the door, moving swiftly toward where Samuel lay. It found the leg of the bed and climbed it like a snake, winding its way round the wood before sliding across the blankets. Boswell could smell it now. It reeked of old clothes, and stagnant water, and dead things. It did not shine like oil, even though it moved with the same relentless viscosity. It was absence made solid, nothingness given form and purpose.

And as it moved to smother Samuel, Boswell knew what he had to do.

Standing near the edge of the bed, he gripped one end of the Darkness with his teeth, and pulled. He felt it stretch like rubber in his mouth. His tongue grew cold, and his teeth began to hurt, but he did not release his grip. Instead he dug his paws into the blanket and began working his way back to the end of the bed. The Darkness extended toward Samuel, by now almost within reach of his neck. Boswell’s paws tore at the blanket as he tried to maintain his position, his teeth tugging with all his might, even as he felt his back legs begin to slide and he fell off the edge of the bed, his bite still hard upon the Darkness.

The impact of Boswell hitting the floor, combined with the sensation of the blanket slipping away from him, finally woke Samuel up.

“What’s happening?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

From the floor came the sound of a struggle, and he heard Boswell whimper.

“Boswell?”

Samuel sat up and looked over the edge of the bed. He saw what appeared to be a blanket of blackness, and beneath it the shape of a small, struggling dog. The Darkness, or whatever, was controlling it, had recognized at last the threat posed by the little dachshund, and was doing its level best to extinguish it.

“Boswell!” shouted Samuel.

He reached down and began to pull at the shadow, but even as he did so it froze his fingers and, as he watched in horror, it began to flow up his arms.

“Ugh!” said Samuel.

Meanwhile, Boswell, now freed from the suffocating force, was catching his breath. Seeing his master in trouble, he recommenced his attack, digging his aching teeth in once again. Simultaneously Samuel began to move backward, until, at last, the Darkness was stretched between them.

“Don’t let go, Boswell,” said Samuel. He pulled the Darkness, and Boswell, in the direction of the small bathroom that lay to the right of his bed. It contained only a toilet and a small basin, but it was enough for what Samuel had in mind.

“Stay, Boswell!” he said as he reached the toilet and Boswell was almost at the door. Holding on to the Darkness with one hand, so that it remained at full stretch, Samuel lifted the toilet seat and, taking a deep breath, told Boswell to open his mouth.

The Darkness sprang from Boswell’s mouth, the force sending its bulk flying in Samuel’s direction. As quickly as he could, Samuel released his own grip. The Darkness struck the cistern, then fell into the bowl. Immediately tendrils of it extended upward as it tried to pull itself out, but Samuel was too quick for it. He hit the flush and watched with satisfaction as the Darkness swirled around the bowl for a time and then was swept into the sewers.

Breathing heavily, Samuel leaned back against the sink.

“I’m never using that toilet again,” he said to Boswell, but Boswell was no longer at the door. Instead, he had returned to the window, where Samuel now joined him. Together they watched as the streetlight across from the house came on once more, and the next one extinguished itself, and so on until at last the corner was plunged into darkness for a moment, and something fled away into Stoker Lane.

Before it disappeared, Samuel and Boswell caught a glimpse of it.

It looked like a woman.

In fact, it looked very much like Mrs. Abernathy.