3 Gates of the Dead (The 3 Gates of the Dead Series)

3 Gates of the Dead

Jonathan Ryan

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3 Gates of the Dead

Copyright © 2013 Jonathan Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except where permitted by law.

eISBN: 978-1-62467-100-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-62467-099-2

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For my Grandma Kramer, who let me work for baseball cards, and more importantly, let me read scary stories at night when I stayed over.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dear Reader,

Stories may be born in the mind of a writer, but books are born into the world through a team of extraordinary people. Here are the people who delivered this book to you with much sweat, dedication and love. Anything right about this book is their doing. Anything wrong is mine. I couldn’t have done this without them.

Italia Gandolfo, a super agent, super friend and a super editor. I would not have a writing career without her. My amazing publishing team at PDP: Thomas Ellsworth, for taking a chance; Elizabeth Isaacs for helping tell the world about my book. Hope Collier Fields for her last minute line edit work. You probably bought this book because you liked the cover. So do I. I thank Shavaughn Murphy and Michael James Canales for chilling me to the bone with your cover work. That’s a good thing in the horror world. Alan Atchison, for being a sounding board, reading and providing insight. And, thanks to the home team for putting up with my need to write, have quiet and tell stories.

Written on the Third Sunday of Lent, March, 3, 2013

More to come...

Chapter One

I don’t know if I believe in God anymore.

I stared at the screen, my thoughts of the past few months boiled down to a single black and white sentence as I typed an email to my best friend, Brian. The thought rocked me back into in my dark brown leather couch, the only nice piece of furniture I owned. Richard Dawkins’ book,
The God Delusion
, trembled in my hands. I couldn’t bring myself to read anymore and set the book down. I reached for a piece of gooey thin crust pizza.

Bishop, my gray and white Boxer, came over and laid his head in my lap. He looked at me with sad, watery eyes. I rubbed his ears. “I know, boy, I know. After all, believing in God is part of my job description, isn’t it?”

My job. I rubbed my head as I glanced down at Dawkins’ book. Most of the people at my conservative evangelical church would have a problem with me even reading Dawkins in the first place. I couldn’t imagine what they would think of their assistant pastor beginning to believe much of what Dawkins wrote. Many would be mad. Many would be so discouraged they might give up their own faith.

I frowned as I looked at his author picture on the cover. On one hand, Dawkins was a bit of an asshole. While my own faith seemed to be circling the drain, I had no wish to ruin other people’s beliefs. Dawkins, on the other hand, seemed like a crazed trucker plowing through a crowded shopping mall. He ran over other’s beliefs with a sort of manic glee that made me wonder if he just liked pissing people off.

Bishop gave a soft woof as he sniffed the pizza.

“Sorry, buddy, your mommy wouldn’t approve.”

He looked up at me with wide eyes.

I sighed. “I know, buddy, not like she’s around to say anything, eh?”

Bishop put his head on my knees. He missed Amanda, and so did I. Her leaving had been a punch to the gut for both of us. I figured that she’d at least visit Bishop, but she’d never even asked to stop by to see him. She punished the dog who loved her.

I sat back on the couch she had bought. Amanda had said my old threadbare love seat looked like something from a frat boy’s dorm. I looked around the room and realized it was the only thing in my condo that had any style. The pizza box from the previous night occupied the other end of the table, nearly falling over from all the books shoving it toward the stained carpet.

Bishop woofed at me and went into the kitchen. I got up to get him some water and caught my reflection in the patio doors. For a twenty-eight year old, who the women supposedly swooned over, I looked like hell. My wavy brown hair was disheveled and shadows lurked beneath my dark eyes. Plus, all the pizza and beer I consumed had added about seven pounds to my former soccer player physique. Sucking in my stomach, I resolved to spend more time at the gym.

I almost bumped into a stack of books heaped on my coffee table, my reading list of the past few months. Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens on one pile, John Dominic Crossan and Sam Harris on another. Each book had been well read, underlined, and pored over as I began to question God’s existence after Amanda left. Her leaving hadn’t been the worst thing in my life, but it was the final straw.

I sighed and looked at the stack of Stanley Kubrick movies on the floor.
Kubrick and Dawkins
, I thought,
quite a combination for the almost faithless
.

My mind began to swirl, and I grabbed for a bottle of beer. As I opened it, I had to laugh at the irony. The man in my congregation who made beer would never have guessed it might bring some comfort as I struggled with my faith.

“One good thing about being a Presbyterian, Bishop, and not a Baptist … we get to drink beer!”

Bishop ignored me and dove into his food bowl.

I sighed. “I’ve got to stop talking to the dog.”

I went back to my computer and stared at my words on the screen. An email just wouldn’t do it. I had to say the words aloud. I had to speak my doubts so I could sort through them with a real live person.

I picked up the phone and dialed the only person I could talk to at ten o’clock at night, my college buddy Brian. The phone rang, and I heard a click as he answered.

“Hello?”

“So, does the SEC suck by accident or as a general rule?”

“Never doubt the superiority of SEC football, you Big Ten Ass.” Brian paused. “So, you must have a reason for calling this late. What’s up?”

I hesitated, regretting the decision to call Brian. My doubts had gnawed at me for months, and I didn’t want to shock him. Brian never doubted anything in his life, especially not the idea that God existed. He had been like that since we first met in college, a small Christian liberal arts institution in Texas.

“Aidan, are you there?”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah, bud, sorry. I’m just struggling over here and needed a friendly voice.”

“Speak to me, boy.”

“Well, the whole doubt thing, I think it’s progressed further. I’m not sure if I believe in God anymore.”

“Okay, as in you don’t know if Christianity is true?”

“No, way more basic than that. I doubt God’s very existence.”

Brian paused. “Wait a minute. I’m going down to the man cave.”

I started to pace as I waited for him to get back on the phone.

“Now, lay it out. I’m downstairs with the door shut, so speak freely.”

“In other words, cuss freely, because Ashley is upstairs, eh?” I said.

“You got it.”

I shouldn’t have called him. He didn’t need this, the late night ramblings of a pathetic, heartbroken sad-sack who no longer believed in God. I took a bite of pizza and washed it down with a big gulp of beer.

“Aidan? Hello?”

“Sorry, Brian, just sort of regret calling you.”

“Shut up, man. Just spill it.”

I looked at the stack of books and the flattened copy of Dawkins. “Okay, you asked for it. I guess it starts with the science questions.”

Brian chuckled. “Of course it does, science boy.”

“Hey, at least I’m not an Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.”

“What kind of scientific questions?”

I ran my hands through my hair. “Part of it comes from the tensions I’ve always struggled with, the tension between science and faith. One seems to contradict the other in a number of different areas. For example, I have always thought that irreducible complexity destroyed the idea of evolution. But now that I’ve been reading Dawkins, I’m starting to wonder if that’s true.”

“Isn’t Richard a bit of a dick?”

I nearly choked on my beer. “Yeah, granted, he is a dick. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong though, especially on irreducible complexity.”

“Simplify. Me no speak science.”

I sighed. “Take the eyeball, for instance. It’s a part of us that can’t function without everything in place. So the question would be then, which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

“Thus proving there is a designer,” Brian reasoned.

“I’d always thought so until I read Dawkins’ explanation. He doesn’t deny the complexity but explains it came about through slow, gradual changes until it reached perfection. Therefore, there is no need for a designer. Just give it enough time, and the change will happen naturally.”

He sighed. “That makes sense, but there are gaps in our knowledge, right? Maybe that is where God moves.”

“See, that’s what I would have said, but even a lot of Christians find that unsatisfying. Dawkins points out that just because we don’t know certain things, it doesn’t mean that God is the answer to fill in the gaps. It’s flawed logic.”

“I guess the main problem is that God isn’t exactly open to scientific investigation,” Brian said.

“Yeah, and that’s been bugging me. Why isn’t He? Why isn’t there a sensory test for Him? I want to taste, touch, see and hear Him. I want to draw His blood, pinch Him, and pound on His chest to see if He’s real. I want Him to show Himself to me!”

“Bud, you don’t have to yell.”

Sheepishly, I lowered my voice. “I’m sorry, man; this has all been building up.”

“Evidently. You aren’t the only one who feels this way, you know. I’ve felt it a few times. But I also know that His ways are not our ways.”

I hated that response. Such a cop out. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. Instead, I took another swig of beer. “See, that is what I’ve always said. But I’m not satisfied with that answer anymore.”

“Aidan, have you ever been satisfied with those answers? Ever since we met, you have had the whole science/faith tension. But you’ve always dealt with it before. Why are things different now?”

I scratched my day-off beard. “I guess I’ve always resolved those tensions by accepting the evangelical Christian filtering of what scientists say, rather than checking it out for myself. Stupid, I know. Lately, it’s all started to crash down on me. I can’t overlook my doubts any longer. I’m tired of it.”

I had to be honest, it felt good just to lay out eight years of questions; all the stuff I had thought about but never said. It felt like someone pulled a thorn out of my flesh.

“I wish I could help you on the science stuff,” he said. “But you know way more than I do in that area, Mr. Biology Major. It sounds like there is more to your doubts than just the science questions.”

That was Brian, always looking for some other answer. For a lawyer, he sure avoided the facts when it came to his faith. I had seen that often enough, intelligent people turning a blind eye to what kept smacking them in the face.

I decided not to take the bait and be a smart ass instead. “Fine, it’s not just about the science. How about the history? I guess you could say I have doubts about the Bible being real history, especially the Gospels!”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, my reading has taken me into questions I didn’t think too much about in seminary. For example, when, how, and who wrote the Gospels?” Beads of sweat collected on my forehead as I continued to pace around the room.

“You mean you don’t think it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?”

I took another swig of beer, and the room started to spin. I sat down. “Not that I can tell. It seems to me that the Gospels were written by different faith communities. They wanted to justify certain aspects of their theology. You know, the Gospels were most likely written at least seventy years after Jesus died.”

“Where is the proof of that?” Brian asked, his voice starting to fill with tension. I had gone way past guarding Brian’s faith.

“Well, like how some people are named in one Gospel and not named in others. Not to mention we have four different accounts of which women were at the tomb to witness the Resurrection!”

Brian’s voice lowered. “I see what you mean.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m sure there are certain historical events in the Gospels, but I just don’t know anymore which ones to trust, if any.”

“You would know those better than me, Aidan. I’m not much of a historian when it comes to the Bible.”

Bishop laid his head on my lap. I paused and rubbed his ears. For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes. I fought to steady my voice. “But beyond all that, there is one reason that’s most damning of all, the one reason Jesus himself talked about.”

“What’s that?”

“‘All men will know you are my disciples by the love you have for one another.’” I paused. “Christians are supposed to love one another as evidence that God is real. Don’t see a lot of that going around.” Tears ran down my cheek.

Brian paused and took a deep breath. “No, that’s true. And you see evidence of that more because of your job. You are under a lot of stress with work, and you know, other things.”

I gripped the phone. “What other things, Brian?”

“Don’t you think your personal life has a lot to do with what you’re going through? Maybe, just maybe, your doubts are more emotional than rational? I mean, I hate to bring this up, but you’ve had a rough year. Your parents dying in the fire and Amanda leaving are big things, bud.”

I jumped up and sent the half-eaten pizza flying across the room. “Why the hell do you have to bring all that up? Can’t a person have honest doubts about their faith without someone thinking they’re having an emotional crisis? A lot of people don’t believe in God! A lot of respectable people! Famous people don’t! Smart people like Richard Dawkins or John Lennon!”

“But you’re a minister,” Brian fired back. “You have to believe. That’s what people rely on you for, helping them with their own doubt. People in the church won’t put up with it.”

I kicked over a stack of DVDs. “So they get mad at me, and I lose my job. Big deal. It won’t get me stoned or burned at the stake like it might have five-hundred years ago. It’s been done, like when gay people come out. It used to be such a scandal,
Time
cover material. Now, it’s a yawn fest. Very few people care anymore whether you are gay or an atheist. That is, unless you are running for president.”

I paused and grinded my teeth. “The problem with you, Brian, is that you live this fairy-tale life, married to a sweet Georgia peach, have two Christmas-card kids and a huge house in the suburbs. I don’t think you’ve fucking failed at anything in your life!”

A long bout of silence made me think Brian had hung up. My anger had clearly mixed with the beer and delivered a crushing blow. I figured he’d be too upset to reply, but I didn’t care. It was about time he got a dose of the sad reality of my life.

“Listen, Aidan,” he said in a soft tone. “I know things are horrible. I mean, you just lost your parents a year ago, and Amanda left a few months later. But I’m trying to help, so don’t take your frustrations out on me, bro. Plus, how many beers have you had tonight?”

I looked at the empty beer bottles on the floor and on the table. “Ten, I think. I’m sorry, man.”

“Aidan, I know it sucks.”

“It doesn’t just suck, Brian, I-F-S!”

Brian laughed. “Yeah, man, I know.”

I was glad our little college phrase brought some humor to the tense situation. We’d developed the acronym for “it fucking sucks” to avoid all the frowns from pretty, virtuous, southern-Christian girls for whom saying “fuck” ranked right up there with taking God’s name in vain. That never made any sense to me, and I had many arguments as to why “fuck” is better. Most people in my evangelical school didn’t buy it.