The Gates (2009) (10 page)

He was standing in the middle of a road, and around him metal objects were whizzing by at what seemed like great speeds. One of them, he noticed, was sleek, and red, and pretty.

I don’t know what that is, said Nurd to himself, but I
want
one.

He heard a sound behind him. It was very loud, like the bellowing of some great beast.

Nurd turned just in time to be hit full in the face by a decidedly large version of one of the metal objects.

Samuel was staring out of his bedroom window. He had not yet changed out of his pajamas, and was reflecting on what had taken place during the night. The area beneath his bed had been a little slimy when he checked it once dawn came, but other than that there was no sign of the demon that had, until recently, been occupying the space.

He was wondering if the demon might return, despite its protestations to the contrary, when a figure with greenish skin, a large head, and pointed ears, wearing a red cloak and big boots, appeared briefly on the street below in a flash of blue light. The figure looked about, its attention caught by a passing car, and then was promptly hit by a truck. There was another flash of blue light, and the figure was gone. The truck driver stopped, climbed out of his cab, tried to find a body, and then quickly drove off.

Samuel considered telling his mum, but decided that it was probably better just to add it to the list of Things Nobody Was Likely to Believe.

At least, not until it was too late.

Back in the Wasteland, Wormwood was staring suspiciously at the throne, the crown, and the scepter. Once again, all three tempted him, but after what had happened the last time, he didn’t want to be caught waving them around if, and when, Nurd returned. Say what you liked about Nurd (and Wormwood had said most things, under his breath), but he wasn’t entirely stupid. It had not escaped his attention that he had rematerialized after his earlier disappearance to find a mangy demon waving his scepter and wearing his crown. Once Nurd had recovered from the shock of what had occurred, Wormwood had earned an extra bump for each offense, and one more between the eyes for good luck. Wormwood now decided to bide his time, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment when, not very long after he had vanished, Nurd reappeared, this time looking like an insect that had just been hit by the largest swatter ever created.

“So how did that go, Master?” asked Wormwood.

“Not terribly well, actually,” replied Nurd.

He was about to faint when his fingers and toes began to tingle again. “Oh no,” said Nurd, who was hurting in so many places that he was wondering if he’d somehow acquired new body parts simply so they could ache. “I’ve only just—”

Then he was gone again.

• • • 

Samuel’s bedroom was suddenly lit by a blue flash, which was followed by a loud pop and a smell like eggs burning. Dank mist filled the room. Samuel dived to the floor, closely followed by Boswell, and peered over the edge of his bed.

Slowly the mist began to clear, revealing a green-skinned figure in a red cloak. The figure had one leg raised, and his head covered with his hands, as if he were expecting to receive a nasty blow at any moment. When the blow didn’t come, he peered out cautiously from between his fingers, then breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, that makes a pleasant change,” he said, and started to relax. Unfortunately, at that moment Boswell decided to make his presence known, and gave a bark, causing the new arrival to leap onto a chair and cover his head again.

“What are you doing?” asked Samuel from behind the bed.

“I’m cowering,” said the figure.

“Why?”

“Because every time I shift into this world, I get hurt. Frankly, it’s starting to become wearing.”

Samuel stood. Boswell, sensing that the figure on the chair wasn’t half as threatening as it had at first seemed, experimented with a growl, and was pleased to see the green-skinned personage tremble.

“Didn’t you just get run over by a truck?” asked Samuel.

“Is that what it was?” said Nurd. “I didn’t get time to exchange pleasantries with it before it knocked me into another dimension. The cheek!”

“What
are
you?”

“I’m a demon,” said Nurd. “Nurd, the Scourge of Five Deities.”

“Really?” said Samuel skeptically. The demon’s clothes looked tatty, and Samuel didn’t think that demons climbed on chairs to get away from small dogs. “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m a saucepan,” hissed Nurd testily. “Of course I’m a demon.” He coughed. “I’m actually a very
important
demon.”

He looked at Samuel, who arched an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, I give up,” said Nurd. “No, I’m not important. I live in a wasteland with an irritating entity called Wormwood. Nobody likes me, and I have no power. Is that better?”

“I suppose,” said Samuel. “Who sent you here?”

“Nobody sent me. I just got … dragged here. Very uncomfortably, I might add.”

Nurd glanced at Boswell. “What’s that?”

“It’s my dog. His name is Boswell. And I’m Samuel.”

Boswell wagged his tail at the sound of his name, then, remembering that he was supposed to be ferocious, showed some teeth and growled again.

“He doesn’t seem very happy to see me,” said Nurd. “Then again, nobody ever is.”

“Well, you did pop up a little unexpectedly.”

Nurd sighed. “Sorry about that. Not my fault. Would you mind if I stopped cowering now? I’m beginning to get a cramp.”

Samuel had a good instinct for people. He could tell a good person from a bad one, often before the person in question had even spoken. Although his experience of demons was rather more limited, something told him that, if Nurd wasn’t exactly good— and, being a demon, it was hardly part of the job description
(“Wanted: demon. Must be good …”)—he was not entirely bad either. He was just himself, like most ordinary people.

“All right,” said Samuel, then added, because he’d once heard someone say it in a police movie, “but no sudden movements.”

“Does shooting off into another dimension count?” asked Nurd.

“No.”

“Fine, then.” Nurd sat on the chair, and looked around the room. “Nice place.”

“Thank you.”

“You decorate it yourself?”

“My dad did most of it.”

“Oh.”

They were silent for a time.

“If you don’t mind me saying so, you don’t look very happy,” said Samuel.

“I think I’m in shock,” said Nurd. “You try being wrenched from one dimension to another, then being hit by a truck, sent back home again for long enough to start hurting, and then have the whole thing begin all over. It’s not conducive to a healthy outlook on life, let me tell you.”

Nurd put his very large chin in his hands and frowned.

“Anyway,” he said, “it’s not like you look overjoyed either.”

“I’m not,” said Samuel. “My dad’s left us, my mum cries in the evenings, and I think the woman down the road is trying to kill me. Are you sure she didn’t send you?”

“Quite sure,” said Nurd, and for the first time in many years, he felt sorry for someone other than himself. “That’s not very nice of her.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Well, like I said, I live in a wasteland. There’s nothing to see, nothing to do, and Wormwood and I have run out of things to talk about. In fact, this interdimensional travel has brightened up my days no end, or it would have if I didn’t keep being injured by hard metal objects. This is such an
interesting
place.”

He moved to the window and gazed out. “Look,” he said, and there were eons of longing and sadness in his voice. “You have fluffy white clouds, and sunshine. What I wouldn’t give to be able to see sunshine every day.”

Samuel picked up a bag of jelly beans from his nightstand.

“Would you like a sweet?”

“A what?”

“A sweetie. They’re jelly beans.”

Tentatively, Nurd reached into the bag and came out with a red bean.

“Oh, those ones are lovely,” said Samuel, popping an orange one into his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. Nurd followed his example, and seemed pleasantly surprised by the result.

“Ooooh, that’s good,” he said. “That’s very good. Fluffy clouds. Jelly beans. Big metal things that move fast. What a world you live in!”

Samuel sat down on his bed. Leaving the window, Nurd returned to his chair.

“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” asked Samuel.

Nurd looked shocked. “Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a demon.”

“Just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean that I’m bad,” said Nurd. A piece of jelly bean had stuck to his teeth, and he
worked at it with a long fingernail. “I didn’t ask to be a demon. It just happened that way. I opened my eyes one day, and there I was. Nurd. Ugly bloke. No friends. Even other demons don’t care much for my company.”

“Why? You seem all right to me.”

“I suppose that’s it, really. I’ve never been very demonic. I don’t want to torture, or wreak havoc. I don’t want to be frightening, or terrible. I just want to potter along, minding my own business. But they told me I had to do something destructive or I’d be in trouble, so I tried to find a role that wouldn’t attract too much attention, or cause a lot of bother to people, but all those jobs were taken. You know, there’s a demon who looks after the little bit of toothpaste that you can’t squeeze out of the end of the tube, even though you know it’s there and there’s no other toothpaste in the house. There’s even a demon of shyness, or there’s supposed to be. Nobody’s ever seen him, so it’s hard to know for sure. I quite fancied a job like that.

“Eventually, some of the other demons just got irritated with me trying to muscle in on their action, and I was banished. It all seemed pretty hopeless, and then suddenly I started popping up here. I just feel like I could make something of myself in this world. There are so many opportunities.”

“This world is hard too,” said Samuel, and there was something in the boy’s voice that made Nurd want to reach out to him. The demon picked up the bag of jelly beans, and offered one to Samuel. He picked a green one.

“You can have another too,” he said to Nurd.

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Nurd tried a black one. It tasted a bit funny, but it was still better than anything else he had ever eaten, except for that first jelly bean.

“Go on,” said Nurd. “You were saying?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Samuel.

“No, it does. I want to know. Really.”

So Samuel told him. He spoke of his mother and his father, and of how his dad had left and maybe it was Samuel’s fault, and maybe it wasn’t. He spoke of how the world doesn’t listen to children, even when it should. He spoke of Boswell, and of how he would be lost without the little dog for company.

And Nurd, who had never had a mother and father, and who had never loved or been loved, marveled at the ways in which a feeling so wonderful could also leave one open to so much pain. In a strange way, he envied Samuel even that. He wanted to care about someone so much that it could hurt.

Thus the boy and the demon sat as the day grew brighter, talking of places seen and unseen, of hopes and fears. The only shadow cast upon their conversation was Samuel’s description of the events in the Abernathys’ basement, which made Nurd uneasy, even as he struggled to understand what they might mean. It sounded to him as though there might be other demons in this world, demons with a plan. Well, Nurd had plans of his own, assuming he could find a way to stay in the world of men permanently and not simply spend the rest of his existence whizzing painfully between dimensions.

At last, Nurd’s fingers began to tingle again.

“I have to go,” he said, with regret. He smiled, a movement so unfamiliar that at first his muscles struggled with it. “It really
has been very nice talking to you. When I work out how to rule this world, I’ll make sure that you’re well looked after.”

Just as Nurd was about to vanish, Samuel thrust the bag of jelly beans into his hand, so that when Nurd arrived back in the Wasteland he might have something with which to cheer himself and Wormwood up.

Nurd reappeared on his throne. He opened his eyes to find Wormwood staring anxiously at him.

“What’s wrong with your face?” asked Wormwood.

Nurd tested his mouth with his fingers.

“Wormwood,” he said, “I appear to be smiling. Here, have a jelly bean …”

R
EVEREND
U
SSHER, THE VICAR,
and Mr. Berkeley, the verger, were standing outside the Church of St. Timidus, greeting the congregation as its members filed out on that bright Sunday morning.

The church was named after St. Timidus of Biddlecombe, a very holy man who died in 1380
A.D.
at the age of thirty-eight. St. Timidus became famous when, in 1378
A.D.,
he decided to go and live in a cave outside Biddlecombe so that he would not be tempted to do bad things. It wasn’t a very large cave, and when people came to bring him food Timidus would sometimes be able to see them coming, or hear what they were saying. He decided to dig himself another cave next to the one in which he was living, so that there would be absolutely no chance of seeing or hearing someone and being tempted to sin. (It’s not entirely clear what sins Timidus was afraid of committing,
since he never said, but it probably had something to do with ladies. It often does in such cases.)

Unfortunately, while he was digging the second cave Timidus caused the first cave to fall in on him, and he was buried alive under a large pile of rocks. It was decided that Timidus should be made a saint because of his commitment to avoiding bad things, and also because Biddlecombe didn’t have any saints at the time, and there’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned saint to bring believers to a place and encourage them to spend money. So it was that plain old Timidus became St. Timidus of Biddlecombe.

Now you or I might wonder if Timidus might not have been better off leaving his cave and doing nice things for other people, such as helping old ladies cross the road or feeding the poor, instead of hiding himself away and not talking to anyone. After all, not doing bad things is not the same as doing good things, but that is why you and I will never become saints. On the other hand, you and I are unlikely to be buried under a big pile of stones as a result of bad engineering practices, so these things even themselves out in the end.