Three boys go in search for their missing friend and meet with terror!

The Eighth Gate To Hell By Dennis M. Cummins I am now a very old man, losing my strength both physically and mentally. This is something that happened to me when I was a young child—only twelve years old. It happened in the summer of 1931, the year a man by the name of Al Capone was convicted for tax evasion, Congress made ‘The Star-spangled Banner’ the National Anthem, and Edward G. Robinson starred in a movie called, Little Caesar. I loved that little tough guy. Funny how I can remember all those things. My mind flickers. One moment I’m in Grandma’s living room, home sick from school. I’m eight, possibly nine, lying on the couch holding onto my aching stomach. The next, I’m bobbing for apples at Lucy Ward’s Halloween party. We were ten then. And the next, Lee Harvey Oswald is taking a bullet in the gut as he’s led down the hallway in a Dallas jail. My mind flickers again and I’m reciting words long dormant: To melt and be like a running brook that sings it’s melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and bleed willingly and joyfully. It’s a Khalil Gibran synapse I’d memorized in Mister Nick’s class. I’d recited that to Joan Dumas, a girl I knew. She looks up at me, twirls her hair and smiles. Later that day, I’d kissed her on the tree swing behind her house. She was the first girl I’d ever kissed on the lips. I look at myself in the mirror and see a thirty- year- old man. In my mind a battle rages; consciousness competes against cobwebbed memories. It was also the year I’d been forced to set out on a terrible journey and came face to face with the Great Liar. Since the event, I have never told anyone of the incredulous journey. I will write this down on paper as opposed to attempting to convince anyone of its validity. I have neither the time nor the strength for that. I have made my living as a writer, but it has also been my sanity. I have always found that writing is a form of therapy. Writing something down can be the best way to allow that something to leave you. I’m sure some will read my final words and discard them simply as a bit of senile fantasy. That’s okay with me. I write this more as a form of extrication than for belief. It’s a release from a terrible memory of long ago. A release I cannot seem to otherwise attain. I have also been proven wrong that an active mind will keep you safe from the nightmares of dementia. Nowadays, I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast, whether that pretty nurse gave me a sponge bath yesterday, or if I even took a regular movement this morning. It’s as though God had given me a contract for life with a proviso written into it that near the end He would reclaim all the marbles He’d given me to play with. I have always spent my life in ‘homes’. In my younger days—during the time when this story I’m about to tell you happened, I lived in the Bethlehem Home For Boys. I never owned my own home. And nowadays, I spend my time playing cribbage with the other elderly here in the Masonic Nursing Home. Yes the recent memories are gone. But there’s one nightmare that stalks me. I can’t seem to shake it from the dusty cobwebs now spun around my brain. No matter how hard I tug at them with mental fingers, I can’t tear loose from them. The face of the man I’d met on the other side, haunts me even now. He was evil dressed up as a man. The town of Washington Mills was very different in those days. Hard to imagine now, but it wasn’t a world filled with planes and trains and automobiles. There was hardly an old flivver that’d run by. And most times when we’d see a train, it was when a freighter would stop in to unload at the local mill. It was a world where kids played physical games with each other, outside the house, off the couch. There wasn’t a single paved road in The Mills back then. And downtown Main Street consisted of a few clapboard businesses like Dalton’s Hardware and Cosgro’s General Store. Both of which are still there, handed down through the family. Now squeezed in between more modern storefronts. Power lines didn’t weave their way in an overhead grid. Nor was there a phone in every house. There were no more than a few dozen houses in what you’d call town and not clustered into today’s neighborhoods. Living was different then, slower. Folks extended a hand had you needed one. Mostly people got along. But sometimes someone would get a headful of awful thoughts. Normally the days drifted by uneventful except that time that Missus Marrok split old Chester’s head in half with an axe like a ripe melon, said her dead son had told her to do it. Back then evil didn’t show up on your doorstep everyday. It came around only once in a great while like a traveling salesman selling vacuum cleaners. Nothin sucks like an Electrolux! On the outskirts it was mostly farmland, rich soil, vast fields, and of course, a couple of graveyards. One for regular townsfolk, the other for the Quakers. At my age then, the outskirts were the nether regions: the world was definitely flat and that’s where you’d drop off the edge if one could possibly hike that far. I’d been out that far twice. Once when my Grandmother died. She stunk of death months before she’d died. It was a smell of flesh rotting from the inside out. Cancer ate her alive. The other time, three of us hiked out there and had found that old Quaker cemetery. It was out there-- in Spider Gates— the old Quaker Cemetery, that day when what I’m about to tell you happened. It was out there that I’d lost my best friends to an unexplainable death. Well, unexplainable to the rational mind. I was too young then to realize the story I told was too bizarre for them to believe. Father Lynch had me visiting Doc Shelby for a year after trying to straighten out my thoughts. They wanted the true story. What they never realized was the story I’d told them was the truth. About a week after school let out for the summer we’d decided to take a sleep out in the field near Evan’s farm. The fort we’d built could hardly be called a structure. We made it from debris we’d found in the woods nearby the Bethlehem Home. I remember… “Fifteen two, fifteen four, and a three card straight,” Todd howled. “That’s seven, dickwad!” Todd moved his peg the appropriate amount of holes in the board. Both Todd’s parents had been killed in a freak accident down at the Mill. A grinding machine that had gone amuck. That was the final determination by the coroner. And with no immediate relatives—or none that wanted him, that’s how he ended up at the home. He never spoke of it much. “Shit,” Vern yelled, and threw his cards down. “I’ve only got four!” I came in just as Todd pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his T-shirt pocket, tapped one out, and scratched off a wooden match. “Hey, where’d yuh get those?” Vern’s eyes lit up like the wooden match. “Give me one!” “Buzz off, fat stuff!” Todd slipped the pack back into his pocket. “Father lynch left them around… Finders keepers!” “You guys hear about Charlie?” I asked. Vern’s round face donned a puerile smile, “no, what? He yanked his crank too much last night and broke his arm?” “No,” I told them. “He’s gone missing.” Vern’s smile turned into a large gulp. “I heard them talking about the old Quaker cemetery. They think he might’ve gone out that way and got lost.” “The old Quaker cemetery,” Vern said. “What about it?” Todd offered me a Lucky Strike. I took it, tapped the end on the back of my hand. “Hey, what about me?” Vern cried out. “Here, take a drag of this.” Todd handed his Lucky to Vern. “Then turn green, puke, and shut up!” “All I did was ask…” He took a long drag on the cigarette. “You’ve never heard of Spider Gates?” Todd asked him. “White stuff oozes from the ground. There’s a tree where a young boy—from here, hung himself. They said he’d heard voices out there. Told him to hang himself. At night you can hear children’s voices, screams.” “That’s all BS,” I said. I scratched off a wooden match, lit my Lucky. It was strong, hurt my throat. “BS, huh?” Todd went on. “If you turn over rocks out there, you find writing underneath like it was scratched on by people buried there. They also say that there’s a second cemetery nearby that can only be found once.” Vern asked, “how can a cemetery appear, then disappear?” He took another drag from the Lucky, coughed and gagged. “Oh, I don’t feel very good.” “Like I thought.” Todd took the Lucky from him. “The second cemetery is known as the eighth gate to hell.” “Oh—“ Vern moaned. “I think I’m in hell right now.” “Shut up,” Todd screeched at him. “And if you’re gonna puke, go outside!” I asked, “what do you mean the eighth gate to hell?” “Yeah. I heard if you actually find the other cemetery, there’s a tree in there with a large fork in it, where the two trunks separate. If you place something made of crystal in the fork—and say the right words, you can actually talk to the devil.” “Are you sure you haven’t been drinkin some of Father Lynch’s wine, too?” I asked him. Vern’s face had taken on a greenish tone. He was rolling on the fort’s floor, holding his stomach. Quickly, he got up and ran outside. I can’t ever remember seeing Vern move that fast in all the time I’d known him. We heard a loud retching sound. Todd and I looked at each other… laughed. Vern came back in, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Are you through, fat stuff?” Todd held out the Lucky. “Want some more?” Vern cupped a hand over his mouth, ran outside again. Todd laughed, “amateur!” “Hey, lay off,” I said. “I think he’s had enough for one day. Now, what’s with this second cemetery?” “”It’s just a legend. You can only find it once. They say those who have found it have never returned.” “Then how do they know it’s there if no one has ever come back to tell about it?” Vern came back in looking more his ashen self. “People who were out there with other people. They said the one who saw it yelled they could see it and ran off down a side trail, faded away as they ran. Never came back.” “Now I know you’ve been into Lynch’s wine!” I told him, rolling my eyes. I took a last drag from my Lucky and flicked it out the door. Vern chimed in, “people don’t just fade away. Do they?” “Well with a body your size,” Todd said, “you’d have to run a couple miles down that trail before you’d fade away.” “Shut up, Todd.” Vern looked hurt. But, then again, he always looked that way. “How do you know all this stuff?” I asked. “When I lived…” he paused, choked up a bit. His face tightened as if he were fighting back tears. Then continued, “when I lived with my folks, some friends—the McKenzie’s, would come over. They talked about it all the time, especially around Halloween.” “Charlie was our friend,” Vern said. “What if he was out there and had found that second cemetery and he’s trapped in there?” Todd and I looked at Vern. Then, at each other. Then back to Vern. “Shit,” Todd said, “what if he’s right?” I looked back at Todd, “what if he is? What the hell can we do about it?” “What if it was you trapped out there?” Vern said. “Wouldn’t you want us to come and get you?” It didn’t take much coaxing for Todd and Vern to convince me to go look for Charlie. Vern and I were elected to go and work it out with Father Lynch while Todd gathered other items needed besides the usual sleep out gear. It would take a lot more convincing before Father Lynch would allow us to go out there. In hindsight, I suppose we shouldn’t have told him of our true objective: to search for our missing friend, Charlie. But, hey, we were twelve. We sat in large wooden chairs facing Father Lynch’s mahogany desk. He sat on the other side, fidgeting. We didn’t have his undivided attention; he seemed to be looking for something. “Father, we’d like to sleep out tonight,” I’d said. “Out in Evan’s field. We’d like to help look for Charlie.” “Out of the question,” he grumbled. He spoke with a deep voice. Even though he was a man of God, he was also very stern and frightening. “No! Absolutely not! Why, they’d have my holy ass— (he looked up) forgive me Father, if I lost three more of you kids.” Directly behind him stood a small table and on top of it a bottle of red wine. Usually, his wine glass stood beside the bottle. Always, the two of them stood together on that table like guardian angels. Different, but both serving the same holy purpose. Vern and I glanced at each other. The wine glass was made of crystal and we both knew instantly that Todd had already been there. Father Lynch went on with his disagreement of our plight. We knew we were getting nowhere and gave up. We went anyway… It had taken most of the day for us to hike out to Evan’s farm. We’d gathered our things the night before and set out early in the morning before anyone had gotten up. We’d set up camp in the northern-most corner of the field, close to the tree line. From there an old cart road lead out through the woods. We were camped less than a hundred yards from the old Quaker Cemetery… Spider Gates. We’d sent Vern to gather and place a ring of small stones for our campfire. Todd and I went into the woods and gathered dry kindling. That was the first time we’d heard it. “Did you hear that?” I asked him. We both stood as still as the trees surrounding us, ears pointed toward where the sound came from. “Just the breeze,” Todd said. Both of us were so still, so quiet, we could hear the ringing in our ears. Gooseflesh ran across the back of my neck as if I’d been stroked with a cold finger. “There is no breeze.” We heard it again. Yes it was louder this time, closer, and definitely a young boy. This time it was more of a scream than a cry. Either way, we could tell it sounded like a child in agony, crying, screaming. Charlie? “It’s getting dark,” Todd said, moving slowly, carefully. His head tilted in the direction of the scream. “Let’s get back to the field.” “What if that was, Charlie?” “We can’t go in there in the dark, Wayne.” An armful of dead twigs, Todd tugged on my shirt. We left the woods. Back in the field the air seemed less heavy. The gooseflesh remained on the back of my neck. It stayed there until our fire was going. Star light, star bright, no matter how many shooting stars there are tonight, I’m not takin my eyes off that damn tree line. I stared into the darkness of the trees ridging the field, swearing at times I’d seen movement. Something would move in the corner of my eye. But if I didn’t look at it directly my eyes would focus on an old stump or a piece of deadfall. Eyes in the dark, they play tricks on you, don’t they. The screams, though faint now, continued. Someone was in terrible pain. I stared into the dark until my eyelids became heavy as anchors on a great ship being dropped overboard. I fought to bring them up. They were too heavy. One last time the anchors dropped and stayed on the bottom. There’s nothing like the smell of sun-baked sleeping bag in the morning: pungent, musty. We were soaked with sweat when we woke and crawled from our cocoons. When Todd crawled out he brought out a brown paper bag. He pulled the crystal wine glass from within, then slid it back in. They’d be coming soon. Lynch and whoever he could gather to search for us. He had a pretty good idea where to find us. So we couldn’t hang around for long. “I’m hungry,” Vern whined. “Oh, shut up, Vern,” Todd said. We woke to a perfect summer sky, a light blue welkin dotted with soft cotton balls. Silence. The boy’s screams had stopped some time during the night. The air sticky, not even a touch of a breeze. No birds chirping. In fact, not one sign of any common animal. The sun already stung at the back of my neck. I would be glad when we were in the shade of the trail cutting through the woods. Ten minutes later, we were walking into that trail, headed for Spider Gates. Immediately, the air felt cooler in the woods on the trail. Cleaner, fresher, somewhat heavier. We walked in the deep ruts where years of old cart wheels ground the life out the vegetation. Between the ruts, and to either side, fresh green grass grew tall. We walked and talked like twelve year old kids did back then. Pushing, shoving, calling each other affectionate names. I know now we were working out the nervousness we’d felt as we headed deeper into the woods. That was the most fun we’d had in a long time. And—as it turned out, it was the last. Along the way we stopped at a small brook. Todd placed the brown bag on a rock near the bank. For a while we threw stones into the running water. I’d felt a terrible pang in the pit of my stomach and I knew it wasn’t from a lack of food. I knew it ate at me because of what we were about to do. Neither of us said much to each other while we tossed our stones. Without a word, Todd grabbed up the bag, and we knew it was time; we left the brook and continued on. We followed the ruts in the cart trail as it carved its way through the woods, twisting and turning, until we came to a point where it straightened and rose up over a knoll. We could see there was a clearing on the other side of the knoll. We stopped momentarily, looked at each, then continued. As we ascended to the top of the knoll, we saw it. There, in front of us, just on the other side, lay Spider Gates. From all the stories we’d heard, I thought it would be bigger. Nevertheless, a chill ran the length of my young spine. And the tiny blond hairs on my arms stood erect. It was a plot of land about one hundred feet by one hundred feet surrounded by a three-foot high stone wall. The center of the stone wall facing us, where the old cart road dead-ended, gave way to a set of black wrought iron gates. The gates had wrought iron spider webs welded onto them that fanned out and down from the top outer corners. But no spiders. There was one tree inside the cemetery. It stood in the left corner closest to us. It had no new Spring growth. The bark had long fallen off. About five feet up it had split and shot up in two large trunks. Even from our distance, I could see that the headstones were very old. Some practically ancient. “Are we sure we want to do this?” I’d asked. Todd looked over at me, “Remember, Charlie…” “He’s probably already…” “Don’t say it,” Vern cut me off. Todd was the first to flip a stone. Digging his fingers under one side of the rock as he struggled to move it. Finally, it came loose and rolled over with a heavy thud. “What are you doing?” I’d asked “Etchings,” he said. “Remember?” But what was revealed by overturning the stone proved to be no more than wet loam and a few scrambling bugs. I found another, pulled on it with all my weight. Slowly it lifted , came free and rolled over. More wet loam and more bugs running for cover. “Guys????” Vern called to us. His face had gone sick again, almost the same color as when he’d dragged on Todd’s Lucky. He pointed toward a stone he’d overturned. “Does this say what I think it says?” We ran to him, looked at the stone. Something was etched into the underside of the stone. The scratches were fresh, clean, yet hard to make out. After a short analyzation. “You’re too late!” Todd read. “That’s what I thought it said,” Vern gulped. The words scratched on the stone were unbelievable, yet unmistakable. “We shouldn’t go any further,” I said. “We should wait for help, Father Lynch.” Todd moved back to where he’d flipped his stone, picked up the brown bag he’d placed on the ground. “I’m going. What if we’re not too late? What if that’s a trick?” “I second that,” Vern said, walking past me in the direction of the cemetery. “Charlie’s our friend. And I’m not givin’ up until I know it’s too late!” I followed the two of them up and over the stone wall. Inside the boundaries of the old cemetery, the air felt yet even thicker, heavier. Toward the lower right hand corner of the graveyard, a white mist hung low to the ground. It moved as if it was a living entity. Todd pulled Lynch’s crystal wine glass from the brown bag and went to the old tree. Arm stretched, he tried to reach the fork in the trunk. He couldn’t. “Give me a boost!” He said. Vern and I went to him. Weaving my hands together, I turned them over so he could step up on them. Todd wedged the crystal glass between the two trunks. Vern’s brow wrinkled. Then he said, “what are the words we’re supposed to say?” “No need for words,” a man’s deep voice came from behind us. Startled, we turned to see him. He was tall, gaunt. He wore a black flat-brimmed hat and a long black overcoat. To us, he looked like the guy on the Quaker Oat tin. Only, not as healthy looking. And, we had no idea where he’d come from. “What are you doing here?” He asked, moving a bit closer. We backed up. We were against the old tree. “Nothing, sir!” Vern said, nervously. Then gulped. “We’re just looking…” “Shut up!” Todd jabbed him in the ribs. “Nothing, huh?” The gaunt man turned away from us. “A young boy, much like yourselves, hung himself from that tree.” He paused momentarily. Then said, “I know why you’re here.” He spun around quickly. When he did, we saw no eyes. No. No eyes. Where his eyes should’ve been there were large openings. Inside those openings were orange flickering flames. Tiny bonfires danced in the holes beneath the brim of his black hat and just under long white eyebrows. He screamed, “you’re looking for, CHARLIE!” Orange flame shot from his mouth. We ran. Frightened and confused, we bolted toward the back of the cemetery. I glanced over my shoulder to see if he was in chase. He was not. He was gone. Vanished. “Guys! He’s gone!” We stopped and scanned every inch of the cemetery. “Who the hell was that?” Vern asked, bent over, hands on his knees and gasping for breath. “Never mind, who,” Todd said, “what was that?” Slowly and cautiously we walked back to the old tree. In the dirt, where the old man had stood, I’d swear later, I’d seen cloven hoof-prints instead of boot-prints. Another voice called out to us. Younger, more familiar. The voice came from the back corner of the cemetery where another trail lead off and down into the woods. Charlie? Yes. It was Charlie. We could see him. And when we got to the back of the cemetery, we saw that he stood just the other side of a large gate. Behind him—and only through the view of the gate, much older gravestones stood. Some upright, some cantered. “Charlie?” Vern called out as we trotted down the trail toward him. “Charlie, come on!” “Help me,” Charlie cried. His voice was weak, trembling. “Help me out of here…” At the gate where Charlie stood, if you peered around the pillars you saw only the remainder of the trail leading off into the woods. When looking through the gate, behind Charlie, the air took on a reddish hue. We witnessed the scene as though looking through a window or door, which seemed to beckon us to enter. Further in lay the second cemetery. We had, in fact, not only found Charlie and the second cemetery, but what the McKenzie’s had called the Eighth Gate to Hell. Vern called to him, “Charlie!” “Vern, DON’T!” Todd screeched. Vern reached past the gate. Charlie snatched his arm and yanked him beyond, tossed him to the ground and pinned him with his knees. Charlie’s head turned to us. In one instant, it wore the face of the old man in the cemetery. The next it was a hideous liver-colored thing with orange flickering eyes and long pointed teeth. It dove on Vern and tore out a large chunk of his stomach, turning to us, bloodied and dripping. Our feet seemed glued to the ground we stood on and our legs on vacation somewhere in Switzerland. The liver-colored thing stood up and came at us. We made it about half way back through the old cemetery before it pounced on Todd and began tearing him into shreds. Todd’s screams not only echoed throughout the cemetery, but still echo in my mind. A quick glance over my shoulder showed the liver-colored thing carrying Todd in its mouth-- like a lion bringing home its prey, back toward the gate. I dove over the stone wall and landed at Lynch’s feet. Todd and Vern were never seen or heard from again. And the story I told only got me long wasted hours with Doc Shelby. Yes, I remember… But I don’t want to anymore. It has always baffled me that—even as a priest, Lynch refused to believe that Satan could possibly have done this to the three of them. That Satan could possibly live right next door to the Bethlehem Home. I guess that’s his greatest strategy, no one actually believes he’s real, that he exists. But I saw him on that day. And I’ve seen him in my nightmares. On occasion I’ve seen Charlie. Sometimes while shopping. Sometimes driving to work. Always just standing somewhere staring at me and calling me to go with him. Sometimes he says nasty things, like tonight. If I don’t pay him any mind, he goes away. But I don’t have much mind left. Or the energy it takes to disregard him. If only the strength of my mind wasn’t on the wane. I know I’m becoming weaker. Even as I write this, he’s standing in the corner of my dark room silently waiting for me to be done. Sometimes wearing the face of the old man in the cemetery, sometimes the liver-colored thing with orange flickering eyes and long pointed teeth. Sometimes Charlie’s innocent face. He doesn’t really care what I write here. He knows people will simply shake their heads and laugh at what I’ve put down on this paper, an old man’s senile ranting. Charlie spoke to me a while ago. He came from the corner, stood next to my bed, ran a talon down my writing arm. He wore the liver-colored face with orange flickering eyes and long pointed teeth, but spoke quietly in a twelve-year-old boy’s voice. Charlie told me how hungry he’d been. And tonight he’s going to kill me, tear me open, and eat the things inside me. Then walked back to the corner of the room where he waits patiently. Staring. Licking his long pointed teeth occasionally, keeping shiny tendrils of drool from spilling out. Grinning as if he were a small child let loose in a penny candy store. Panting. Sniffing at the air, savoring the smell of my old flesh. I fight to stay awake and keep up the strength in my mind. But as I lose the battle for both, he draws closer… and yet closer.