The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel (5 page)

Something crashed into Samantha, cracking against
her skull and knocking her vision sideways. She hit the ground, and something
crushed her. Her eyes remained open, but she saw nothing but darkness.

The Beast bellowed.

A stranger’s hand covered her face as she lay
there in the grass for several minutes, wondering why she wasn’t dead. The
stranger who had fallen on top of her did not move an inch. Was he okay?

Samantha slid the stranger’s arm away from her
face and tugged at their clothing until she found a belt. When she finally tugged
the guy off of her, she managed to sit up. She gagged when she saw the caved in
face of a teenager lying beside her. The Beast must have struck him. His dead
body falling on Samantha had saved her life.

The playing fields were quiet. Bodies littered the
ground like confetti. The Beast had marched away into the city, where chaos was
now visible. The epicentre seemed to be outside the Holy Trinity church, which
had caught fire.

Samantha dragged herself to her feet, sobbing. The
shock and utter bewilderment finally took a hold of her. The dead stranger’s
blood soaked her, and she tasted it on her lips. What the hell had happened?
Why was New York always subjected to such horror? She’d been a child in Utah
during 9/11, but she often imagined the terror in the city on that terrible
day. Now she knew.

She almost fell back down to the blood soaked
grass as her knees clashed together like cymbals. The smell of cordite
assaulted the air, and from somewhere she heard the faint moans of the injured,
but it was impossible to identify anybody alive in such a mess. So she took a
walk in the park she loved, no longer pleasant and green, but grizzly and red.

It didn’t take long to find Samuel. She’d left him
at the edge of the playing field, and that was where he remained. It was
unclear what had killed him, but his sagging chest spoke of badly broken ribs.
A slight bruise on his temple might also have been the culprit.

“It was good meeting you, Samuel.”

More moaning, but this time louder, and from many
voices. Samantha glanced up and peered toward the carousel where the nightmare
had started. The great glowing archway still hovered above the black stone with
its shimmering, translucent centre. Whatever it was, and wherever it led to, it
was still open.

Someone approached Samantha.

The hunched over man was hurt, his flesh singed
and smoking. Flaps of blackened skin hung from his naked body and littered the
floor behind him like gory breadcrumbs. His moans were desperate and pained—a
walking embodiment of nerve-searing agony. Samantha hurried towards him, tears
filling her eyes. “Oh God, I’ll find you some help. Just…just sit down.”

The burned man didn’t accept her help. Instead, he
snarled like an animal.

“It’s okay. I want to help you. I-”

The injured man grabbed Samantha’s throat with a
crushing grip. “You should concentrate on helping yourself, whore.”

Samantha tried to wrench the hand away from her
throat, but her attacker was inhumanly strong. Every time she gained a grip,
her fingers slid on loose chunks of burned flesh that sloughed away in her
hands.

“Please,” she begged.

“Your begging is a song the whole world will be
singing. We bring unending torture and eternal slavery. Your cities will
crumble, your children will weep blood and shit themselves in misery.”

Samantha choked, the vice around her throat
tightening. Her terrified eyes fell upon a legion of horrors.

An army of smouldering, blackened monsters marched
across Central Park. A dozen at first, but then more and more. Soon there were
hundreds. Burned monsters from some faraway, fiery pit.

Demons.

Samantha felt herself grow weaker. Her eyes bulged
in their sockets as she kept on struggling, but it was no use.

Death beckoned, and she could not refuse its call.

“Why?” Samantha managed to ask in her final
moments.

But she didn’t live long enough to get an answer.

“What the hell is happening
over there, Captain?” Guy Granger’s second-in-command, Lieutenant James Tosco, stared
at him with piercing blue eyes.

Guy didn’t have a clue what was happening. The
view through his binoculars was difficult to make sense of. It was hard to see
past Brooklyn from where the
USCG
Hatchet
floated in the Lower
Bay, but Manhattan was at the centre of something bad. The city was in panic.
Fires had broken out everywhere, and the sound of chaos made it all the way
across the Upper Bay. The Hatchet, a 263 foot U.S. Coast Guard cutter, had been
approaching New York Harbour for routine maintenance when it had been halted by
a state of emergency being declared. It appeared the terrorists had struck
again.

This time there were no exploding planes or
toppling buildings. The damage seemed smaller in scale, yet wider spread. The
distance between individual fires stretched several blocks, and dozens of
helicopters spiralled the skyline from Hell’s Kitchen to Midtown East.

Tosco cleared his throat. “Captain?”

Guy lowered his binoculars. “I don’t know what’s
happening, Lieutenant, but it’s bad.”

“Then we need to offer assistance.”

“No. Command told us to hold firm, so we hold and
await orders.”

 Tosco grunted. “The men are unsettled, Captain. Many
have family working in the city. In the time it takes to wait for orders,
people will die.”

Guy said nothing, just examined his second-in-command
carefully. Eventually, he said, in a voice that brooked no argument, “There are
ten officers aboard this ship, Lieutenant, and sixty enlisted seamen. If you
are suggesting we will have some kind of disruption on our hands, it would lead
me to seriously doubt your credentials as my senior officer.”

Tosco bristled, pointy ears twitching beneath the
brim of his officer’s cap. “Everything is under control, Captain. I just felt
it my duty to inform you of the men’s feelings.”

“Noted, Lieutenant, but you’re not running a
union. You carry out my orders, not theirs. Go and perform a weapons check and
put the crew on high alert. If we do get instructions to head into harbour, I
want us to be ready.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Tosco snapped off a sloppy
salute and stormed away.

Guy exhaled. His second-in-command was becoming a
problem of late. Too ambitious and bull-headed to accept orders without
complaint, James Tosco had reached a stage where he obviously felt he should be
commanding his own ship. A strapping lad of thirty, smart and athletic, he
certainly had the aptitude for command, but this was Guy’s ship, and he did not
tolerate insubordination, or a negative attitude from anyone. You let things
slide once and you gave the go ahead to be undermined at every turn.

He would need to deal with Lieutenant Tosco.

Chief Petty Officer, and Guy’s oldest friend, Frank
Jacobs, gave him a sheepish grin that suggested he wanted to be of use. The
man’s chubby brown cheeks had sagged in old age and his once fuzzy black hair
was now brittle and white. He looked older than usual, and worried.

“This isn’t going to be a good day, is it, Captain?”

Guy placed his binoculars down on the desk and
said, “I’m thinking not. We heard anything back from Command yet?”

“Nothing other than instructions to hold ready.
They don’t seem to understand what’s going on either. Apparently, it has
something to do with that strange black stone they found in Central Park this
morning. It exploded or something.”

“They say there are matching stones all over the
country.”

“All over the world,” Frank corrected. “My aunt in
Trinidad said there’s one right in the middle of town, next to the laundrette.”

“How is your aunt?”

“Eighty-eight and still growing her own
strawberries. They’re the most delicious things you ever tasted, Captain.”

Guy grinned, then spoke more seriously, “What do
you think is happening, Frank? Has New York been attacked again?”

“After 9/11, I don’t see how any attack could
succeed. Every inch of New York is covered by half-a-dozen security cameras.
You only have to utter the word
bomb
and Homeland will turn up on your
doorstep ready to waterboard you. Whatever this stone they found in the park
is, I don’t think it’s the work of terrorists. I’m not sure if I feel better or
worse about that.”

Guy raised an eyebrow. “You’re not one of those
who believes it’s aliens?”

“I don’t know what I believe, just have a bad feeling,
that’s all. I’m an old man, Captain, and my waters tell me this will be a long day.”

“Well, whatever happened is still going on. Is
Tosco right, Frank? Should we be helping?”

“We do as we’re commanded.”

“Always?”

“Always.”

Guy chuckled. “I’ve known you twenty years, Frank,
and I don’t think I’ve ever once seen you break a rule.”

“I leave that to men like you. If you want to help,
then help. Long as I follow your orders, I’m doing my job. It’s for you to
worry about what Command will think.”

Guy looked back through his binoculars and was
certain that the devastation had doubled in just the last five minutes. More
fires had taken hold, and Army helicopters zipped across an ever expanding area
like hungry buzzards. Brooklyn remained quiet, but Roosevelt Island was aflame
and the chaos had begun snatching at the fringes of Long Island.

“Take us a quarter-mile into the Upper Bay, Frank.
I want to see if our help will even make a difference before I think about
lending it.”

“Aye, Captain.”

Guy left the pilothouse and headed down to the
armoury. He expected to find Lieutenant Tosco there, but instead, he found two
ensigns and a dozen enlisted sailors. They stood to attention when they saw him
approach.

Guy waved a hand. “At ease. How goes it?”

Ensign Lucy Smith answered, “Lieutenant Tosco
asked us to ready weapons and ammunition, sir.”

Guy nodded, pleased that Tosco had carried out his
orders as requested. “Good.”

“How long until we enter the harbour, Captain?”

“Who said we’re going into harbour, Ensign Smith?”

“Oh, I… My mistake, Captain. I just assumed.”

Guy gritted his teeth. Tosco
had been
getting
ahead of himself. “No decision has been made whether to head into harbour,
Ensign, so do not pre-empt my orders.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Do we know what’s happening out there, Captain?”
asked one of the ship’s mechanics, Seaman Biggins.

Ensign Smith shouted at him. “Biggins! Do not
address the captain unless you are spoken to.”

Guy waved a hand. “It’s okay, Ensign. Truthfully, Seaman
Biggins, I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s not anything good. As soon as Command
gives an update, I will share it with the crew.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“You’re welcome. Now, where is Lieutenant Tosco?”

Ensign Smith pointed towards the wide shutter at
the end of the storage area. “Out on launch deck prepping the Jayhawk.”

Guy gave a slight nod and marched away. “As you
were, sailors.”

He went over to the shutter and raised it. The
wind came rushing in, along with the sound of distant chaos from Manhattan. Tosco
was indeed outside on the launch deck, sitting inside the Jayhawk rescue
helicopter and running system checks. The main rotor spun and the rear prop
propeller whirred in fits and spurts.

“Everything nominal, Lieutenant?”

“I’m still running checks, but aye, sir.”

“Why did you tell Ensign Smith that we’re heading into
the harbour?”

“I said we need to
prepare
to go into
harbour.”

“You can see her confusion.”

Tosco stopped flipping switches for a moment and
stared at Guy. “It’s only a matter of time before Command gives orders to head
in. People are in trouble, and we’re floating out here doing nothing when we
should be helping.”

“What we do is entirely my decision, Lieutenant.
You give orders without my say so and you’ll find yourself working a tugboat in
the Arctic.”

“Don’t threaten me, sir.”

“It’s no threat.”

Tosco hopped out of the helicopter and faced Guy
down. “Times have changed. The Coast Guard doesn’t pull drowning fishermen out
of the sea anymore. We fight drug lords and human traffickers. We are men of
action.”

“If you want to fight so badly, Lieutenant, I
suggest you transfer to the Navy. They would be glad to have you.”

Tosco rolled his eyes. “I’m not interested in
fighting foreign wars. I am a Coast Guard because I want to protect the shores
of my country. Right now, I am failing to do that. The citizens of New York need
us.”

“The men on this ship need you, Lieutenant. They need
you to do your job and carry out my orders. Undermine me and you jeopardise the
safety of the crew.”

“Then don’t give me a reason to undermine you,
Captain”

Tosco went to walk away, but Guy stopped him by
grabbing his arm. “Do you know what it takes to send a man to the brig, Lieutenant?
My say so, that’s all. It’s been some time since I’ve had to lock a man up, but
go and ask Chief Petty Officer Jacobs if I’m willing to do it. I once locked
him up for six weeks without letting him out.”

Tosco looked surprised as Guy hoped he would be.

He capitalised on the advantage by continuing.
“That’s right, Lieutenant. Frank Jacobs is my oldest friend, and about the
straightest shooter you could ever hope to meet, but even he got on the wrong
side of me once. Let’s see how you fare if I deem you guilty of
insubordination. Or even if you just piss me off.”

Tosco licked his lips and kept quiet.

“I will take your silence as a good sign. I
appreciate your initiative on checking the response vehicles. Carry on. I’ll
let you know if you’re needed.”

Guy marched away, just as the ship lifted anchor
and began to turn starboard.

“Captain!” Tosco shouted after him.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“We’re moving. Are we heading into harbour?”

“It’s very likely, yes.”

“Then why give me such a hard time if you agreed
with me all along?”

“Because it’s not my job to agree with you, Lieutenant.
It’s your job to agree with me.”

***

“We’re just coming up to a
half-mile out,” Frank informed Guy when he reached the pilothouse. “What do you
want to do, Captain?”

Guy picked up his binoculars and took another
glance at the city. From nearer shore, he could make out the snarled traffic
and panicking mobs of people. There was full-scale panic in Manhattan, but it
was still unclear why. People leapt from the docks into the water, or clambered
into boats. Small pleasure craft joined giant transporters as a mass exodus
headed for the sea. Those unlucky enough to miss a chance at boarding a vessel
now flailed about in the river, heads bobbing under for several seconds at a
time before reappearing. People were drowning.

Guy decided. “We’re heading into harbour, but keep
our approach slow. There’s a lot of traffic coming our way.”

“Tosco will think he got his own way,” Frank
commented.

“Aye, but he might reconsider his attitude going
forward. I told him about the time I locked you in the brig for six weeks.”

Frank looked at him and frowned. “You mean when I
had a staph infection and you had to quarantine me? And it was less than two
weeks.”

“Yes, but Lieutenant Tosco doesn’t know that. He
thinks I left the most honest man on board to rot. It should remind him who’s
in charge.”

Frank chuckled. “With no time to spare too. Any
more lip from him and I was going to throw him overboard myself.”

“I can deal with Lieutenant Tosco.”

“I know you can, but I’d hate to see you get your
hands dirty. The crew likes the Lieutenant and they won’t be pleased if you take
a firm hand against him.”

“They don’t have to like it, Frank; only
understand what happens when you question the captain of this ship. Now, take
us into harbour, Chief Petty.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.”

***

They almost collided with a
millionaire’s catamaran on the way into harbour, but they eventually managed to
navigate their way to the docks of the Hudson River. From there they had no
need of binoculars to see the devastation. The senior officers, and a portion
of the crew, were all standing inside the pilothouse, staring out the window at
a scene none of them could understand.

In New York, shell-shocked victims staggered down
the streets in various states of ruin, blood covering most of them and many mortally
wounded. One old man carried his own severed arm around with him in a
bewildered daze, while a sobbing younger woman held a bundle of gore-streaked
rags that might have been a baby.

Tosco was shaking his head. “What in God’s name
has happened?”

Guy wished he had the answer, but it continued to elude
him. All that was clear was that some disaster had befallen Manhattan—possibly,
dare he even think it, something worse than 9/11. “Has Command come back to us
yet?” he asked Frank.

“No, you want me to hail them?”

“Yes.”

Frank got on the radio. “USCG Hatchet to District
Command. Over.”

“
District Command receiving you loud. Over
.”

“Requesting permission to carry out rescue mission
in New York Harbour. Injured civilians identified. Over.”

“
Negative. Please change course to U.S. Naval
Base Norfolk. Over.
”

Guy took the intercom. “Captain Guy Granger
speaking here. Can you explain why I am to redirect the Hatchet to Naval Base
Norfolk? Over.”

“
United States Navy has taken command of
District Coast Guard. We are to relinquish authority to Norfolk immediately.
Over
.”

Guy had a bad feeling. The Navy only took control
of the Coast Guard during times of war or national emergency. “Command, there
are civilians here who need us. Requesting permission to stage a rescue attempt
before relinquishing authority to U.S. Navy. Over.”