The Gateway Through Which They Came (2 page)

“I heard this… this humming,” he continues, breaking the silence and motioning his hand in circles around his ear to demonstrate. “It wouldn’t let up. You know? And I followed it. I don’t know how, or why, I just did.”

That hum he’s talking about would be one of my Gateway “superpowers.” I can’t hear it, but the way I explain it to myself is this: it’s basically a dog whistle. Undetected by the human ear. Or the living ear, that is. It’s something they hear the minute they die, from what they’ve told me. A way for them to find the closest Gateway to send them… wherever it is they go.

I tuck my hands in the pockets of my track shorts.

“Yeah, I know the hum you’re talking about,” I tell him.

He crosses his arms to his chest again. “I’m… dead. Right?”

I really don’t want to be the guy to drop this bomb, but there isn’t another Gateway around to do the dirty work. Not that I know of anyway. Gateways don’t exactly wear a symbol on their chest blatantly outing what they are. They just… are.

“Yeah, man. I’m sorry.” It’s really all I can say.

He nods as he runs a hand through his spiked hair. The concern in his pinched brow pulls away, his eyes softening when they look back at me. He’s accepting it, and the minute he’s ready, it’ll be time.

“So why am I here? Why did the humming stop when I found you?”

I rub the back of my neck, uncomfortable. This never gets easy. “Uh, I’m sort of the guy that sends you, you know, where you need to go.”

“You mean like heaven?”

I place my hand back in my pocket, the awkwardness beginning to ease. “You can call it that. I don’t really know for sure.”

“Seems weird, doesn’t it? Not knowing?”

“Yeah, actually, but it won’t hurt. All you have to do is walk through me. You don’t have to worry about anything after that. Trust me.”

He stares at me, expecting more. But I can’t give him what he wants. What they all want. Confirmation. Reassurance. All I can tell them is what I feel; that the thing inside of me is like nothing else. The warmth. The safety. The peace. I feel it each and every time one of them passes through. The unfortunate ones who are ripped from their lives without a chance to say goodbye.

But this kid doesn’t need that. He’s already made up his mind. I can tell by the way his slouched shoulders relax, and his arms drop slowly to his sides.

“Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” I say back.

With a quick scan around the parking lot, I confirm what I already know. It’s empty. Has been for the last three hours, but it never hurts to be sure.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I say, “walk straight at me. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not you, at least,” I reply.

He doesn’t look too happy about that. How this kid ended up here is beyond me. And I don’t mean here as in
here.
I get that. I mean how a nice guy like him got himself mixed up and put in such a horrible situation. A drug deal gone wrong. A drug deal he wasn’t supposed to be a part of to begin with. His story is simple: wrong place, wrong time. Those are always the worst kind of stories.

In a gesture to say:
I’m ready
, I extend my arms outward.

He nods once, and takes a deep breath. Without any last words, without any
Tell my mom I love her,
he steps forward, closing the distance without a second thought. I shut my eyes and wait for the inevitable. The rush of liquid ice that coats my veins as the Gateway takes him in. It’s the kind of cold that burns, like throwing your entire body into a pile of snow and never letting up when that freezing cold becomes unbearable.

This is how it goes. How I live my life. Going day to day, sending Bleeders to what other side awaits them when their time is up. Heaven. Salvation. Shit, I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s where they’re meant to be. And where I’ll someday go. I guess then… then I’ll really know.

’ll admit that I’m not always keen to picking up Bleeders off the side of the road. And after the night I’ve had, it’s definitely not on my list of things to do for fun. But no matter how hard I try to ignore the fact that she’s there, nothing can hide the Bleeder waiting for me the second I turn the corner onto my street.

Everything about her gives the impression of a typical girl at or nearing eighteen years of age. At first glance, her silky, strawberry red hair shines with life, and her freckled skin is soft and smooth under the blinding streetlights. Under normal circumstances, I’d more than likely ask this girl out, even if most good-looking girls like her wouldn’t give me the time of day. She’s that beautiful. That is, until you take notice of her white blouse sloppily covered by her rusted red leather jacket, and the dark stain of blood oozing from the gunshot wound glaring violently from her chest.

She watches as I pass, the slight, eerie movement of her head telling me so, and my skin prickles with the icy energy reflecting from her eyes into the rearview mirror. I stare back to be sure she understands what I can’t say. I don’t always have time for them.

The image of the girl shrinks the farther I go, fading into the shadows of the desolate suburban street. Her unnatural position makes me shudder: body still facing the direction from which I came, head cranked without effort in a one-eighty. I don’t care how many times I’ve seen what they can do; the way they move always gives me the creeps.

“Sorry, lady. I’ve got places to be,” I say under my breath, as I focus my attention back on the main road. The time on my phone is a quarter to seven, which means I’m later than late for dinner. I can already hear my mother say, “It’s a school night. Where have you been?” I’m convinced she never checks her text messages. If she did, she wouldn’t freak out every time I stay late for track practice.

Guilt seeps through me as I distance myself farther and farther from the girl in need. As bad as I feel, I’m not exactly in a helping mood. My clothes still reek from sweat after the strenuous practice I had on the track, and the need to shower is priority uno. I’m still recovering from the last Bleeder I crossed over less than an hour ago. It takes a while to recharge after the fact. Once they walk through me, it’s like a snowstorm erupts in my bones, causing me to black out for a few minutes. Sometimes a whole hour. It depends on their energy, I guess. And that guy was definitely packing some Bleeder heat. Either way, it’s draining and I’m not up for another go just yet.

Forgetting about the red-haired Bleeder I left behind, I fumble for the button to skip to the next song. My cousin John helped me install a modern system into this beat-up old bug before he left for college. For the briefest of moments, I take my eyes off the road, searching for track seven on the player. I hardly get a second to enjoy the song before I look up, just in time to slam on my brakes. Gunshot girl lurks in the middle of the street, shoulders hunched. The gaping wound in her chest heaves with each false intake of breath, and her blazing red hair falls into her face. Through the strands of red, her eyes beam in my direction. The intensity of her glare makes my gasping breaths catch in my throat as I struggle to maintain control of my car. It’s a miracle I get it to a complete stop without fishtailing it into a lamppost.

My harsh grip along the steering wheel burns my palms, while the smell of burnt rubber pollutes my lungs. For a second, all I can hear is the sound of my heart throbbing against my chest. Sure, I could go right through her, but tell that to my instincts, and the ingrained “don’t run people over” lessons from driver’s ed. While I’m in here recuperating from a full blown panic, she stands centimeters from the car bumper, unaffected.

Our eyes lock, and even though I try, nothing can break the connection she has with me. The headlights bounce off the studs lining her jacket, making her injury more obvious than before. My stomach churns at the sight of it.

It’s not often that I find myself chased down by a Bleeder. Sometimes they show up right away, other times they seem to linger, popping up days later. Other times they go away for good, and I have to assume they found another Gateway to see them through. This girl, well, this girl is determined, and I have to ask myself what has her so set on me. That can’t be a good sign.

“You have to help me,” she says. Her voice rattles in her throat. The sound is unsettling.

“Are you insane?” I yell. “You could have killed me!”

“I’m sorry,” she says weakly from the passenger seat. The very seat that was empty a second ago.

“What the—!” I reach for my heart and practically jump against the door. I’m not sure how many scares my heart can take within a ten minute interval.

Her presence drops the temperature in the car to freezing, and my limbs shake uncontrollably as I try to steady myself. Keeping calm is the best thing to do under these circumstances. Whether she’s lingered in her current state long enough to turn Dark Side or just another Bleeder looking for a way home, I have to stay alert. Dark Ones are like the Mad Hatters of the world—Bleeders filled with bitterness and resentment that only get worse with time. You know the saying, “Going toward the light?” Yeah, they ignore that part. The soul can only take being apart from the body for so long before losing all sense of humanity. When they’ve reached the point of Dark Side, they’re unpredictable. And trust me when I say: you don’t want to cross them.

The lack of light in the car keeps her wound hidden, but the undeniable scent of blood makes my throat clench. It’s a scent that likes to stick around for a while, like the way a banana absorbs its stink into something when it’s near it too long.

“You’re Aiden, aren’t you?” she asks while I collect myself.

I’m taken aback. “How do you—?”

“Know your name?” She leans into me through the darkness of the cab, hesitating near the center console. “Who doesn’t?”

As her words meet my ears, her voice is no longer that of a girl seeking help. The taunting sound of it makes her proximity to me even more troubling, the way her tone hints at her intentions. Whatever they are, they can’t be in my best interest.

Without another word, she places her pale hand on the bare skin of my knee. The contact is instantly unwelcome. It feels foreign and cold. Wrong, even.

Before I can remove myself from her reach, an intense energy from her hand absorbs into my skin, raising the hair of my legs on end. Her touch alone summons a rush of adrenaline through my veins, like the kind you get at the peak of a roller coaster before the initial drop. It’s a high of sorts. Something altogether thrilling and terrifying.

With this comes strange flashes of shadows and memories that can’t possibly be mine. Could they be hers? I don’t care to find out, but what I want, or don’t want, doesn’t seem to matter. My body is overtaken by the power she possesses, and I find myself closing my eyes. A voice in my head demands that I snap out of her trance, but I’m unable to fight the energy pulsing through me. It’s like a morphine injection, consuming every thought. Every worry.

“There’s something I need to show you,” I hear her say.

Her voice is distant as I tumble through the emptiness of my mind. I consider how any of this could be happening, but even that thought escapes me. All sense of caution I had before this moment is long gone. With her touch, she’s taken away my will; and it’s this that makes me surrender, allowing her in.