The Gates (2009) (20 page)

But there was one other thing that he recalled about the Great Malevolence: the contours of his body had rippled with blue energy. It was his power made visible, and now it was here. On Earth. Where Nurd was, and, most certainly, was not supposed to be.

“Hello?” he said, knocking on the glass again. “I think there’s been some mistake.”

“Not now, sir,” said Sergeant Rowan. “We’re a bit busy.”

“You don’t understand,” said Nurd. “I’d really like to go home. You can forget about the car. Actually, you can have it. I don’t want it.”

“I’m not sure that it’s yours to give away, sir. Now you’ll have to be quiet. We’re a little concerned about our colleagues at the station.”

Nurd sat back in his seat. “This isn’t a costume,” he said softly, having at last figured out what the word meant.

The two policemen ignored him.

Nurd said it again, louder this time. “This isn’t a costume!”

“Beg your pardon, sir?” said the sergeant.

“Look, I’m not wearing a disguise. This is me.”

“Very droll, sir,” said the sergeant.

“If it was a costume,” said Nurd patiently, “could I do this?”

Nurd’s head split evenly in half down the center, exposing his skull. His eyes popped from their sockets, extended themselves on lengths of pink flesh, and examined Sergeant Rowan very intently. Then Nurd’s skull separated, revealing his brain. It was held in place by twelve curved purple muscles, which immediately stood upright and wiggled. Finally Nurd stuck out his tongue, which was three feet long at its fullest extension. The top of the tongue had a hole in it, through which Nurd played a short fanfare before restoring his head to its regular form.

Constable Peel drove off the road. He braked suddenly, and both he and Sergeant Rowan jumped from the car and backed away from it.

“Sarge,” stammered Constable Peel. “He’s a m—, he’s a mo—, he’s a mons—”

“Yes, he is, Constable,” said Sergeant Rowan, trying to sound calmer than he felt.

“Demon, actually,” said Nurd, shouting to make himself heard. “Don’t mean to be fussy about it, but there’s a big difference.”

“What are you—?”

“Doing here?” Nurd finished for him. “Well, I was going to try to conquer your world and rule it for eternity, but I don’t think that’ll happen now.”

“Why not?” asked Sergeant Rowan, carefully drawing a little closer to the car once more.

“Funny you should ask, but someone else has his eye on this place, and I don’t think he’ll fancy any competition. I’d really prefer not to be around when he gets here, so if you could see your way clear to letting me out, I’ll be about my business.”

Sergeant Rowan stared at Nurd. Nurd smiled back politely.

“What exactly is happening?” asked Sergeant Rowan.

“Well, it’s just a guess,” said Nurd, “but I think it’s the end of the world as you know it …”

M
ARIA
, T
OM
, S
AMUEL, AND
Samuel’s mother watched from the darkened house as all manner of infernal creature slid, jumped, flew, or crawled from the direction of 666 Crowley Road, where a blue light hung over the adjoining rooftops. They had already been forced to fend off two further attacks, the first from a pair of foot-long slug demons with mosquitolike proboscises for sucking blood, which had oozed through the letter box, the slime trail behind them eating away at the carpet as they approached their intended victims. The judicious use of a container of table salt had caused them to dry up into withered husks before disappearing entirely in a puff of smoke.

The second attack was still ongoing, as the house was being buzzed by a pair of giant flies with jaws in their bellies. They
struck the windows occasionally, the hooked teeth in their abdomens leaving marks upon the glass, and their pink saliva staining it like watery blood. Mrs. Johnson monitored their attempts to gain entry, a can of bug spray in each hand. All things considered, Samuel thought she was coping very well with being confronted by demons, but he also felt angry at something she had said earlier. She had wished his dad was with them and, for a moment, when he first saw the flying skulls, Samuel had wished that too, but now he no longer felt the same way. He had suggested using salt on the slugs, and he had found the bug spray hidden away in the back of a closet. With Tom’s help, he had secured all the doors and windows, and set up a system of watches so that, between the three children and Samuel’s mother, they were able to keep an eye on all the approaches to the house. For the first time since his dad had left, Samuel was starting to feel that, if necessary, he could look after both his mother and himself.

What he couldn’t do, it seemed, was stop Mrs. Abernathy. They were trapped inside the house, and they had heard nothing further from Dr. Planck.

Soon, Samuel feared, all would be lost.

Back at the parish church of St. Timidus, the thumping sounds continued from what should have been the final resting place of Bishop Bernard the Bad but clearly wasn’t, since the last thing Bishop Bernard the Bad appeared to be doing was resting. Clouds of dust rose from the stone bearing his name, and the dates of his birth and death. One end of the stone lifted from the floor. It hung in the air, and the vicar and verger could
almost feel the dead man below straining to move it higher, but then the stone fell down again and all was quiet.

“He’s very strong,” said the verger as he and Reverend Ussher peered through the small window in the door. He was quite surprised. After all, Bishop Bernard couldn’t have been much more than a collection of old bones, and old bones tended to break easily. They shouldn’t have been able to move huge slabs of stone. It just wasn’t right.

“Limestone,” said the vicar.

“Beg your pardon?”

“The rock beneath the church is limestone,” said the vicar. “Limestone preserves bodies. Not just that: it mummifies them. Bishop Bernard has been down there for a long, long time. I suspect that, if you were to touch him, his bones would feel as hard as rock.”

“I don’t want to touch him,” said Mr. Berkeley. “I really don’t.”

The burial slab began to move again, but this time it rose and didn’t fall. A skeletal hand emerged from the crack and tried to get a grip on the edge of the stone.

“You may not want to touch him,” said the vicar, “but I suspect that he would very much like to get his hands on you.”

Reverend Ussher opened the door of the little room and threw himself on the stone, hoping that his weight would push it back down. His right hand reached out and found the verger’s bicycle pump, and with it he began hitting Bishop Bernard on the fingers. It took four or five strikes, but eventually the bishop was forced to release his grip. The stone slammed back down, and there was silence once more.

“Quick!” said the vicar to the verger. “Give me some help here.”

Reluctantly, Mr. Berkeley joined him. In one corner of the room was an old stone statue of St. Timidus. It had fallen from its plinth beside the front door of the church the previous winter, and its right hand had dropped off. There hadn’t been enough money to repair it, or the plinth, so it had joined the old bicycle and the chairs in the storage room. With some difficulty, the vicar and the verger together managed to move the statue onto Bishop Bernard’s marker stone.

“There,” said the vicar. “That should keep him occupied for a while.”

The verger leaned against the wall as he tried to get his breath back.

“But why is all this happening now?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said the vicar. “I don’t even know what all ‘this’ is.”

“Do you really think it’s like the monk said: the end of the world?”

“I think the end of the world is some way off yet, Mr. Berkeley,” said the vicar. He tried to sound confident, but he didn’t feel it. This was all very disturbing: gargoyles running about on the church lawn; Bishop Bernard the Bad attempting to escape from his tomb. If it wasn’t quite the end of the world, it might well be the
beginning
of the end.

Bishop Bernard began pounding on the floor once again.

“Oh, I do wish he’d stop that,” said the verger. “He’s giving me a headache.”

He knelt on the floor, then put his mouth near the stone.
“Now, Bishop Bernard, Your Excellency, be a nice bishop and go to sleep,” he said. “There’s been a bit of a misunderstanding, but we’ll get everything sorted out and you can go back to being dead. That sounds lovely, doesn’t it? You don’t want to be up here in the land of the living. It’s all changed since your time. There’s pop music, and computers, and, you know, you won’t be able to go around sticking hot pokers up people, because that’s not allowed anymore, not even for bishops. No, you’re much better off where you are, believe you me.”

The verger looked at the vicar, then nodded and smiled.

“See,” said the verger. “All he needed was for someone to have a quiet word with him.”

There came a muffled roar of rage, and then the thud of stone upon stone as Bishop Bernard flung himself, hard, upward. The statue of St. Timidus shifted slightly.

“Oh, wonderful, Mr. Berkeley,” said the vicar. “That was most helpful!”

Bishop Bernard attacked the stone again, and the statue moved a little more. The verger tried to hold on to it, but it was no use. He gave up and retreated to the window.

“We should make a break for it,” said the vicar. “Those gargoyles seemed rather clumsy and slow. We can easily outrun them, and my car is parked around the back.”

But the verger didn’t appear to be listening. Instead, he was looking out of a small side window.

“I say, Mr. Berkeley,” said the vicar. “Did you hear what I said? I think we should run for it.”

“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Vicar,” said the verger.

“And why is that?” asked the vicar, now quite annoyed that his plan had been shot down without even a discussion.

The verger turned to him, his face white.

“Because I think the dead are coming back to life,” he said. “And not the nice ones …”

The Church of St. Timidus had been in its present location for centuries. Much of its grounds were taken up with old gravestones because, for many generations, most of the people of the town had been buried beside the church when they died.

Unfortunately, not
everybody
had been buried under the church lawn. Church grounds were known as “consecrated,” which meant that they had been set aside for holy use. But people who committed serious crimes, and were executed for them, were not allowed to be buried on consecrated ground. For that reason, a second graveyard existed not far from the old church, though beyond its walls. No gravestones were placed there, and no markers, but everybody knew of it. The townspeople called it the Dead Field, and nobody built houses on it, or walked their dogs there, or had picnics on its grass during the summer. Even birds didn’t nest in its bushes and trees. It was, everybody felt, a Bad Place.

Now, as the vicar and verger watched, shambling shapes began to emerge from the Dead Field, their progress lit by the lights of the church grounds. Some still wore the tattered remains of old clothing, although there was precious little of it left. Thankfully, their modesty was preserved by the fact that most of them were just bones. The verger saw one skeleton with part of a rope round its neck, and knew that here was
someone who had been hanged. The end of the rope dangled at its chest, so that it looked a bit like a necktie. Another skeleton appeared to have lost both its arms. It tripped on a stone and couldn’t get back up, so instead began to wriggle its way along the ground, like a bony worm with legs. Occasionally, flashes of blue light were visible in otherwise empty eye sockets.

“I wonder what that blue light is?” said the vicar.

“Maybe they’ve stuck candles in there,” said the verger sarcastically. “After all, it is Halloween.”

“Well, we can’t go outside now,” said the vicar, ignoring him.

“No, we can’t,” said the verger.

And from beneath their feet came what sounded like laughter.

C
ONSTABLE
P
EEL AND
S
ERGEANT
Rowan were debating their options. They could a) let Nurd go, which didn’t seem like a very good idea given that he was, quite clearly, not a human being and also, if he was to be believed, a demon; b) take Nurd back to the police station and wait for someone with a little more authority to decide what should be done with him; or c) and this was Constable Peel’s suggestion, run away, because Constable Peel didn’t want to see Nurd do that thing with his head again. It had made him feel quite ill.

“He’s a demon, Sarge, and he doesn’t half smell bad,” said Constable Peel. “I’m not sure I want to be driving around with a stinky demon in the back of the car.”

“Hello,” said Nurd through the open car window. “I can hear you. Less of the stinky, please. I fell down a hole.”

“You
have
been driving around with a stinky demon in the back of the car,” Sergeant Rowan replied, trying to ignore Nurd. “Nothing happened.”

“’Nothing happened’?” said Constable Peel. “His head split open, Sarge. His tongue played a
tune.
I don’t know how you usually spend your evenings, but in my book that counts as ‘something’ happening.”

“Careful now, son, you’re getting worked up over …” He almost said “nothing,” then realized this might not be entirely helpful given Constable Peel’s current mood.

“ … over, um …”

Constable Peel folded his arms and waited, then said, “Over what, exactly, Sarge?”

“…over …”

“… over, let me see, a demon in the back of the car?” finished Constable Peel. “That about covers it, I think. Oh, and he says the world is coming to an end. That qualifies as ‘something’ too.”

“Well, there you have it, then,” said Sergeant Rowan. “We can’t just sit around doing nothing while the world is coming to an end.”