Through the Gate and Beyond
Author’s Note: This story is written based entirely on images shown in a now-gone Google+ image collection. This was 2017’s and 2018’s October “Nightmare Fuel” series of writing prompts from Bliss Morgan. The story chapters were written on or soon after the day each image was posted, so I had no way to predict exactly where the story would end up — the images were my plot.
It began on day two’s prompt, when I literally just thought, “What if this image was a continuation of yesterday’s image, instead of a standalone short story?” I hadn’t intended to write a 31-chapter story, but each day’s image just… I found a way to piece them together into a continuous thread that worked.
I’ve gone back and revised the story; cleaning up continuity errors and removing some images (and scenes) that just didn’t flow well or fit in. So this counts as the second draft of the story that now is stretching into it’s 3rd year (2019) as I keep finding new ways to make it work.
Chapter 1: The Fair
“Hey Dad? Did you see that the carnival was in town? We saw them setting up the rides today on our way home from school,” I was excited. There’s never anything to do around here.
“What? But the fair’s in April?” Dad said, looking up from his phone.
“I know! It’s great, isn’t it? Can I go? Please? Please please please!?” I shouldn’t have been this excited about cheap carnival rides, rigged games, and bad food. But Brad would be there. And it would be something besides movies or coffee or bowling. I was sick of our dating options.
“What? Sure. But only if mom is okay with it,” Dad said, staring at his phone again.
I went to the kitchen, where mom was finishing up dinner. “Mom? Dad said I can go to the fair tonight. Can I borrow some cash?” Okay, so he’d said I could go if she was okay with it. But if she wasn’t, she’d say so, right?
“Fair?” she said, setting a tray of bacon in the microwave. Breakfast for dinner. I’d asked for Italian. But if I got to go out, I wouldn’t complain.
“C’mon, mom. I told you, they were setting up at the fairgrounds. Saw it on my way home from school.” She never listens to me.
“Oh, okay. I remember.” She totally didn’t remember. I could tell. “Do you need a ride?”
“No, Brad’s dad offered to take us.”
“Fine. Curfew’s still ten, though. Don’t be late!”
“Ten? Mom! I’m fifteen!”
She glared at me, so I shut up and started putting ice in glasses. Dinner was almost ready, and I needed to hurry this along.
Brad and Mr. Monroe showed up halfway through dinner. I crammed my last bite of bacon in my mouth and ran for the door. We went down to the fairgrounds. The rides were fun. The lines were short. I guess no one knew they were here? I was kind of glad, since that meant we could go home early. I don’t know if it was the noise from all the rides, or all the greasy-food smells, but it was giving me a headache. I didn’t eat any of the food. Mom says they don’t wash their hands, and we shouldn’t eat at fairs.
I tried to steer Brad away from the Gravitron. That ride makes me sick. But he dared me. So we got in, and it started spinning. I hated the Gravitron. I turned my head, so if I puked, it would be on Brad. That’d show him. Brad, his dad, and I had the ride to ourselves. But for once, I didn’t get sick. A bit weird in the head, maybe. But I didn’t throw up, thankfully.
We got off the Gravitron. The sun was setting. It would have been beautiful, but a fog was rolling in. The sunset, the carnival lights, and the fog all combined to make everything this weird yellowish color that just felt weird. Wrong somehow. The sounds were all wrong, too. Everything was too quiet somehow. It was like the carnival was way off in the distance. Or maybe like when a phone goes off in someone’s coat pocket and it’s all muffled.
But there was something else. Something didn’t feel right. I couldn’t figure it out, but something inside just felt wrong, somehow. Brad put his arm around my shoulder. He was tense. I could tell he felt it too, whatever it was.
Mr. Monroe looked at his watch, then stopped walking to tap it. “What time is it?” he said, his voice sounding worried. He pulled out his phone. “Only 8:30? Where is everyone?”
Brad and I both looked around. Maybe it was just the fog, but we couldn’t see anyone. No one at all. The Ferris wheel was empty and not moving. We couldn’t really see the other rides or the games. The rides’ music was still playing though. Even if it did sound funny.
“Can we go home?” I asked. “I think I’ve seen about all the carnival I want.” That feeling that something was wrong was getting stronger.
The three of us started walking again, through the thickening fog. We headed towards the Ferris wheel, because the parking lot was past it. As we walked, we still couldn’t see anyone. And some of the rides were missing, too? I turned around and stopped cold. “Guys! Where’s the Gravitron?”
“What?” Brad turned. He opened his mouth to say something. Probably something stupid about me, if I had to guess. But he just stood there, his mouth hanging open.
Mr. Monroe turned and stared. Then he did a full 360, staring all around.
“The Ferris Wheel is the only ride I can see. Do you see any others?”
“No,” we both answered.
Brad dropped his arm from my shoulder, but then grabbed my hand. His palm was sweating and he was squeezing too tight. But I didn’t mind. I was squeezing his hand too tightly, too.
We started walking, faster now, towards the parking lot. But there was no parking lot. Just a field with waist-high grass. No cars. No people. No sign of the fairground roads, nothing. We stood there for a moment, wondering what the hell was going on.
The lighting suddenly went from the sickly, orange, color to a pale, barely noticeable white. I turned around. The Ferris wheel was gone now, too. It had been the only man-made thing we’d seen since we walked down the steps from the Gravitron. The only light was from the moon. It shone pale through the fog.
Mr. Monroe unlocked his phone, but then shook his head. I got my phone out. No signal. Brad did the same. He had no signal either.
“Downtown is that way,” Mr. Monroe pointed. “Should be able to find someone who can explain what’s going on,” he said, with a confidence even I could tell was fake. It sent a chill down my spine. But we set off anyway. I tried not to notice how chilly it was, or how the fog was making me all clammy.
In the distance, we heard a coyote or wolf howl. It would’ve set my hair on edge or given me goosebumps, except my hair was already on edge and I already had goosebumps. We walked quietly through the field, hopefully towards town. We should’ve been surrounded by buildings and people and cars. We should’ve been surrounded by the low hum of cars. But all we could see was grass and all we could hear was that coyote.
Chapter 2: Our First Night
We had been walking for maybe an hour. That had all three of us on edge. The moon was bright overhead and we could see the field stretching on around us. The fog had thinned out, showing that there was no town anywhere around here. We still had no cell phone signal. I’d given up on the phones.
But something was troubling me. I kept seeing something moving around in the moonlight, but I couldn’t remember what I’d seen. It wasn’t the coyotes, I don’t think. We hadn’t heard them in a while, now. But why did I keep forgetting — whatever it was?
“There it is again!” I said. “Did you see it that time?”
“No, I haven’t seen anything. Just this stupid field,” Brad answered.
I tried to describe it, but it was already gone from my mind. Like it had never been there at all. I’d seen it, though. I’m sure of it. Why couldn’t I remember what it looked like? This was the third time I’d seen the thing — or was it the fourth? — since we left the carnival. The moonlight was bright; we all could see well enough. But the Ferris wheel was gone. The Gravitron was gone, too. And now I was hallucinating something that was walking around out there.
A few minutes later, I saw it again. It was just standing there, staring at us. Before it could vanish, I grabbed a pen from my jacket pocket and quickly scribbled what it looked like on my palm. I didn’t let myself look away, for fear it would vanish again.
Something about the thing’s stance changed as I frantically sketched, trying to capture the gist of what I was watching. It seemed mad or scared or something, maybe? I couldn’t draw well enough in the dark on my hand to capture the thing perfectly. Not without looking, especially.
I stopped drawing. For a second, I thought I heard a voice say something like, “Please forget that you saw me.” I wrote that on my hand, too, without looking down. It’s a good thing, too. As soon as I glanced away from the creature, it vanished again, from my vision and from my memory.
Whatever it was, I didn’t trust it. It was stalking us. It was hiding from us, and something about its vanishing act went way beyond unsettling. I didn’t show them the drawing. But I could remember nothing about the thing except that I saw it. I mean, I could see what I drew, but I couldn’t remember the thing itself. It was confusing.
But I remember feeling certain that it wasn’t friendly. That I couldn’t forget. I shuddered as I rushed to catch up with Brad and Mr. Monroe. God, I hope we get to town soon. Somehow.
We kept walking for at least another two hours, maybe three. I was exhausted. “Please, can we stop? My feet are killing me!”
Mr. Monroe looked like he was going to tell us to keep walking, again. But then he saw my face in the moonlight. Brad’s face was just as tired as mine, I think. So he nodded. I collapsed on the dew-soaked ground. I was sick of the fields. If I never saw another scenic countryside in my life, I’d be happy.
I started to take off my shoes, but Mr. Monroe stopped me. “If your feet are swollen, you might not be able to get the shoes back on. Best not take them off,” he said with concern. He’d dropped the false confidence he’d used when telling us that town was ‘just over the hill.’
I tried not to let my voice rise in a whiny tone, “Where are we, Mr. Monroe?” I almost succeed in not whining. Almost.
He sighed, looked around in the moonlight with one hand rubbing his neck, and quietly said, “I have no idea. The fairgrounds are surrounded by subdivisions on three sides and that industrial park on the fourth.” He paused, thinking. “There’s no way we could have walked this far without finding a road or a house. Something.” He sighed again. “I don’t know.” His voice shook. I’d never heard his voice shake before.
I clutched Brad’s hand. It was cold and clammy, like mine. I didn’t care. I let my head rest on his shoulders, for just a second and closed my eyes.
Brad shook me gently. I opened my eyes, expecting to see mom. I knew it was time for breakfast. But no, after the first heartbeat of near-panicked confusion, I remembered. I was shivering, wet with dew. Before I could say anything, Brad put a finger to his lips and pointed off to his right.
I turned my head, still trying to clear the sleep from my brain. A sharp pain pulsed up from my feet as I shifted my legs. That woke me up and brought back the Carnival and the hike. I slumped as I looked off to where Brad was pointing. The sun was about to come up. False dawn’s light was making the world a cold, gray, and uninviting place. A light fog was drifting in.
For a split second, I thought I saw… I don’t know what it was. But I also could see some deer grazing out in the grass. The deer were all staring at us. Between them and us, I could just read the words on a yellow street sign. “Watch Children,” the sign declared. What the hell? What was that doing here, literally in the middle of nowhere? The deer were still staring.
I glanced away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something tall and dark standing next to each deer I could see. Tall, dark, and menacing. The things were staring at us, too. In a flash, I remembered. I could barely make out the sketch on my palm from last night, but it was still there.
I looked back up at the deer. They were still there, unmoving and seemingly alone. Looking around, I saw no other signs of humanity. There were no fences. There was no road, no houses. Nothing human, except that stupid sign.
My stomach growled. I needed to pee. My butt was wet from the dew. We were lost. I suddenly had to fight back tears as the weight of our hopelessness crashed in on me.
The deer were still staring at us. I got up, slowly, to my feet. Brad gave me a questioning glance as I let out a low groan. I could tell I had blisters from the night’s walking. I slowly walked away from the deer. Once Brad and his dad were almost out of sight, I peed. That helped, a little. But as I started back, I again saw the black things from the corner of my eye, watching me.
I rushed back to Brad’s side and clutched his hand. The deer hadn’t moved. Why hadn’t they been frightened off by my noise? Slowly, I let go of Brad and walked towards them. I didn’t stop until I got to the sign. It was on an old wooden fence post. There was no sign of fencing wire, though, or any other fence posts. Just that one. Vines were growing up the side. The sign hadn’t faded with age, yet, even though the nails holding it in place looked old and rusty. Unlike so many country road signs, it had no bullet holes.
The deer hadn’t moved. Well, no, that was wrong. Their heads had turned, tracking me. I turned around and started back towards Brad. Mr. Monroe was watching the sky as I stepped back into the trampled grass of our “campsite.”
“Damn this fog!” he mumbled quietly under his breath.
“What’s wrong?” Brad asked.
“This fog. I can’t see where the sun is. If I could see that, I’d know where east lies. Then we could start walking again. But without the sun, we’re likely to just wander in circles.” He sounded worried. I noticed he had deep circles under his eyes. I wondered if he’d slept at all.
But he was right, the fog was too thick to pinpoint the sun. “So we wait, then?” Brad asked. He didn’t sound particularly happy with that idea.
The deer didn’t seem thrilled, either, as they stood there staring at us.
Chapter 3: The Pond
The sun eventually burned through enough of the fog that we could tell east from west. The deer had grown bored with us and wandered off while we waited. I was glad to see them go. The things I’d drawn on my hand had vanished with the deer, I think, or maybe before. I was thankful for that.
We headed east. I’m not sure why, but I guess any direction is as good as another when you’re lost. The sun’s warmth was welcome, at first. It dried the dew and drove out the morning chill. But it was beginning to get hot. I took off my jacket as we walked and tied its arms around my shoulders. It was dorky, but necessary. My feet hurt like hell. All of us were cranky, sore, hungry, thirsty, tired, and scared. From time to time, one of us would try to strike up a conversation. But none of us really had the energy to talk.
Along the way, I picked some grass and chewed on it. It tasted horrible, but it made my mouth water. That made me feel a little less thirsty. About an hour or two into our “morning walkabout” as Mr. Monroe tried to call it, we topped a low hill. Below us, we saw a pond reflecting sunlight. The water was muddy and grass and algae floated in it. I’m sure it had the plague or something. But just the sight of it made my mouth water.
“What’s that?” Brad asked. He was pointing to the far side of the pond. I hadn’t noticed until he pointed it out, but there was an old man kneeling at the water’s edge. I opened my mouth to call out to him, but then got nervous and changed my mind.
We kept walking, not sure if the man was friend or foe. As we got closer, the man never moved. That seemed odd. He was dressed all in white, and he was hanging out over the water, frozen. His stillness seemed so unnatural that it gave me goosebumps. The whole scene was just too weird. In fact, everything about this just felt wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
“No bugs,” Mr. Monroe said softly as we walked down the hill towards the pond.
“Huh?” I asked.
“No bugs. Ponds always have bugs. Crickets, grasshoppers, flies. Ponds aren’t still and quiet like this.” He shook his head. We kept walking, but more slowly now.
As we drew closer, the feeling that this man just didn’t look right grew. For one, no one could hold that bent posture so still for so long. He was crouching, his back bent forward his hands stretched out over the water. And for another, his color was all wrong. He was too white, all pale with no darker tones. It was like his whole body was wrapped in an old t-shirt or something. It all felt unnatural.
Cautiously, we circled the pond. Mr. Monroe signaled us to stay back behind him. The white man still hadn’t moved. I gasped as our angle finally brought his head into view. The man’s head was in full view, but there were no facial features — no eyes, no nose, no hair, and no ears. He looked like an unfinished clay statue from art class, or maybe a store mannequin.
“He’s got no face!” I blurted out. Brad jumped. My voice had been too loud for the absolute silence of this place. We eased closer. The man’s proportions were also all wrong. His arms were too long and his legs too short. His hands barely touched the water. It was like he was balancing on a frozen pond.
The silence struck me as my words faded. There were still no bugs. Come to think of it, we’d seen no living creatures here except the deer. And those shadowy things, like the drawing barely visible on my palm.
Finally, our slow steps carried us close enough to touch. Which we didn’t. The man wasn’t alive. He had died, posed over the pond like this. Somehow, he hadn’t fallen over or collapsed into the water. The creature’s back and limbs bent in weird ways, too flexible to be human. He had three fingers on each hand plus a thumb that was long, like a finger. There was no sign of clothing, no shoes on his four-toed feet, nor jewelry or anything like that.
He had been dead long enough to bleach his skin, but there was no stench. The body wasn’t bloated like roadkill. The fur was hanging in tatters, but only where the sun couldn’t directly shine on him. No flies buzzed around. His corpse should have been grossing me out, but it was more like the time I saw a mummy in a museum than anything gross.
Reluctantly, I crouched down to see the thing’s face. Its flesh had drawn in. The eyes were gone, but I could see the eye sockets. There was no mouth, no ears, and no nose. I glanced down the underside of the torso. It was clear this had, in fact, been a man. I then noticed that, from underneath, the fur hadn’t completely faded to white; on his stomach, the fur was still dark brown or maybe black.
“He must have been seven, seven and a half feet tall,” Brad said quietly and maybe with just a bit of awe.
“The fur! See, it was black, once,” I said, pointing under his torso. They peered down to see. I showed them the sketch on my hand. The ink was nearly faded from sweat, but it was still legible. “This must be one of those things I saw last night! And, I think, again this morning with the deer!”
“What is it?” Brad asked.
“I have no idea,” I said, worried again.
“I have no idea,” I said, worried again.
That’s when we heard something big splash in the pond. We turned with a fright as ripples flowed out from where a rock or a fish or something had disturbed the water. From the splash and the size of the ripples, it had been big. I didn’t scream, but only just barely.
As we watched, something dark soared through the air and splashed into the pond. It was closer than the previous splash. It hit with a loud ka-splash and waves shot up into the air. Instinctively, I backed away from the pond’s edge.
A voice from all around us said, quite clearly and loudly, “RUN.” So we did. We ran east. We ran with a panic that I can’t explain. We ran until I got cramps and my aching feet almost made me collapse in pain. We ran, because we could hear something running through the grass behind us.
But whenever we glanced back, we couldn’t see anything following. We ran until I collapsed. Even then, I tried to get up and keep running. I expected something to come at us. I expected a four-fingered hand with black fur and long arms to grab me. I honestly expected to die.
We waited for those things to catch us. But they never did. Finally we stopped wheezing for breath. I stood up and, wincing at the pain in my feet and legs, glanced back. The white man was no longer at the pond. His body was gone.
The day was still completely quiet and we were still completely alone. Except we weren’t.
This ends part one. But the story continues in Part Two.
