The Gates (Samuel Johnson vs. the Devil #1)(11)
“‘Mum said, Mum said,’” mimicked Stephanie. “Well, your mum isn’t here now. I’m in charge, and I say that you have to go to bed.”
“But the Abernathys. Their basement. Monsters. Gates. You don’t understand.”
Stephanie leaned in very close to Samuel’s face, and Samuel recognized that there were things even more terrifying than what he had seen at the Abernathys’ house, if only because they were very close and their anger was directed entirely at him. Stephanie’s face was going red, her nostrils were flaring, and her eyes had grown narrow, like the slits in a castle wall before someone begins firing flaming arrows out of them. She spoke very precisely, through gritted teeth.
“Go. To. Bed!”
The final word was delivered at such ear-splittingly high volume that Samuel felt certain his glasses were about to crack. Even Boswell, who was used to Stephanie by now, looked disturbed.
With no other option, Samuel stomped up the stairs to bed, closely followed by Boswell. He was about to slam his door behind him when he heard Stephanie shout, “And don’t you dare slam that door!”
Although sorely tempted to disobey, Samuel decided to err on the side of discretion. There was not a great deal that Stephanie could do to him, although he sometimes wondered what she might have done if she thought that she could get away with it, like burying him in the back garden after drowning him in the bathtub.12 Still, Stephanie was a tattletale and when Samuel had crossed her in the past he had found himself dealing with his mother the following morning. Unlike Stephanie, there were many things his mum could do to make his life uncomfortable, such as denying him television, or his allowance, or, as on one particularly grim occasion after he had dropped a plastic snake down Stephanie’s back, both of the above. How was he to know that Stephanie was afraid of snakes, he had argued, even though he had been fully aware of how much she disliked them, and that had been half the fun. He still treasured the memory of her leaping from the couch in shock, and the strange noise that had come from deep within her, a sound that was barely human, as if someone were playing a violin inside her very, very badly. In fact, he could trace the serious deterioration of his relationship with Stephanie to that particular occasion. Not only had his mother punished him, but the odious Garth had threatened to stick his head down the toilet and flush him to China if he ever pulled a stunt like that again. Samuel, having no great desire to be flushed to China, had not pulled a stunt like that again.13
Samuel changed into his pajamas, brushed his teeth, and got into bed. Boswell curled up in his basket at the foot of the bed. Usually, Samuel would read before turning off the light and going to sleep, but not tonight. He was determined to stay up until his mother returned home, and then he would confront her with what he had learned.
Samuel managed to stay awake for two and a half hours before sleep eventually took him. He thought of all that he had seen and heard in the Abernathys’ basement. He wondered if he should go to the police, but he was not an unintelligent boy and he knew that the police would take a dim view of an eleven-year-old with a dachshund who claimed that his neighbors had been transformed into demons intent upon opening the gates of Hell. So it was that Samuel did not hear his mother come in, nor did he hear Stephanie leave, after first informing Samuel’s mother that Samuel had broken curfew.
Nor did he see, after the lights were turned off and his mother was, like him, asleep in bed, the figure of a woman standing at the garden gate, staring intently at his bedroom window, her eyes burning with a cold blue fire.
VII
In Which the Scientists Wonder What the Bit Was, and Where It Might Have Gone
WHILE SAMUEL SLEPT, A group of scientists huddled over a series of screens and printouts. Behind them, an uncompleted game of Battleships lay forgotten.
“But there’s no record of anything unusual occurring,” said one. His name was Professor Hilbert, and he had become a scientist for two reasons. The first was that he had always been fascinated by science, particularly physics, which is science for people who like numbers more than—well, more than people, probably. The other reason Professor Hilbert had become a scientist was that he had always looked like a scientist. Even as a small boy he had worn glasses, been unable to comb his hair properly, and had a fondness for storing pens in his shirt pockets. He was also very interested in taking things apart to find out how they worked, although he had never discovered how to put any of them back together again in quite the same way. Instead, he was always trying to find some means to improve them, even if they had worked perfectly well to begin with. Thus it was that, when he “improved” his parents’ toaster, the toaster had incinerated the bread, and then burst into flames so hot they had melted the kitchen counter. The kitchen had always smelled funny after that, and he was required to eat his bread untoasted unless supervised. After he spent an hour with their radio, it had begun picking up signals from passing military aircraft, leading to a visit from a couple of stern men in uniforms who were under the impression that the Hilberts were Russian spies. Finally, young Hilbert was sent to a special school for very bright people where, to his heart’s content, he was allowed to take things apart and put them together again in odd combinations. He had started only one or two fires at the special school, but they were small, and easily extinguished.
Now Professor Hilbert was trying to make sense of what Ed and Victor were telling him. The collider had been shut down as a precaution, which annoyed Professor Hilbert greatly. Turning the collider on and off wasn’t like flipping a light switch. It was a complicated and expensive business. Furthermore, it generated bad publicity for everyone involved in the experiment, especially as there were still people who were convinced that the collider would be responsible for the end of the world.