Night of Endless Portals

Bleary eyed and staggering from sleeping in a strange bed, I wandered upstairs with Malia’s help and found a mass of people assembled for breakfast. Other than Gramps, Alaric, Malia, Tia and me, the rest of the assembled men, women and children were all monks.

I expected a vegetarian breakfast; I mean these were monks, right? But they layered strips of bacon on my plate with the option for sausages. Eggs cooked several different ways passed by along with cereals, fruits and grains.

My face must have shown my surprise because one of the older monks who sat next to my grandfather pointed to the spread and gave me a thumbs up. “The fighting begins soon. It’s hungry work.”

I opened and shut my mouth as I tilted my head at him. Gramps tapped the table and laughed at the old monk’s words. Instead of asking my question, I changed my head flop to a nod and dug into the food.

Malia and Tia ate with the same gusto as the rest. Even the kids among the monks didn’t so much as twitch at the mention of the monastery fighting people. But then again, they took Malia’s instruction without surprise or complaint. They must have been used to or prepared for this.

Alaric spoke in low tones to a pair of lovely dark haired monks who sat on either side of him. They giggled at his joke, spoken in a language I didn’t recognize. The odd part about his joke, I could almost understand. I stared at them a moment too long and Malia elbowed me.

Looking away and dropping my gaze to my lap, my face burned with shame. “Sorry. I was curious.”

Malia leaned in and whispered. “Your cousin is well aware of how attractive he looks. It… diminishes his attractiveness, if I’m being honest.”

“Grandpa, what are we gonna do today?” Tia hurled herself out of her seat, strips of bacon flapping in her hands as she jogged over to the head of the table. “I want to go back home, or maybe check on Laurel at school!”

“We can’t do that today, pumpkin.” Gramps looked over at the others on the table, many of whom dropped their eyes to the table or their thighs. “Maybe we can find something fun for you to do instead…”

Whatever activity Gramps was about to suggest faded as a red-clad monk dashed into the room. Every head that had turned down toward the table came up in unison. Several people clenched their fists as if preparing to do battle with some external force.

One of the newcomers bled from a head wound. After the initial shock of his appearance, one of the other senior monks stood up and escorted him out of the dining hall.

Gramps ruffled Tia’s hair and leaned away from her. “What happened?”

The second of the two monks knelt down and whispered into my grandfather’s ear. He nodded and sucked on his teeth at the man’s news. “Well… good thing we ate this morning. Gather a group together and prepare a defense.”

Those words set the entire table into motion, as if they’d turned into a swarm of bees as his command. Tia, Malia and I were the only people who didn’t spring off to a task. Gramps directed some of the monks onto the roof and others into the courtyard. Once those two groups had been dispensed with, he motioned for Malia. “Li-soon tells me you’re skilled. He doesn’t say that about many people he didn’t teach personally.” Malia gave a half bow to my grandfather and he waved his hands as if to stop her. “Do you know your way around a firearm?”

Malia winced and wiped her hands on her pants. “I know the basics, but I’m not practiced.”

“Harlan, you remember how to load and which end to point, right?”

I swallowed through the cold spot in my throat. “Yes sir.”

“Good, take Malia to the armory and get her something she’s comfortable with. You do the same, boy.”

As if he were about to dismiss the two of us, Gramps looked down at Tia, who jumped and said, “What about me, Grandpa?!”

He swished her hair about one more time and said, “You little bug, are going to stick next to your big brother and Malia. Do you hear me?” With that he knelt down and faced her, “It’s real important that you don’t leave them, okay?”

Tia bit her lower lip as she nodded at him. “Okay grandpa.”

“That’s a good girl. Thank you.” He looked over Tia’s head at Malia and I. We both returned the fierce look in his eyes with dumb nods. Spinning Tia around with his hands on her shoulders, he gave her a gentle push in our direction. “If you two don’t know what to do to help, talk to me, Li-soon or your cousin, got it?”

“Yes sir.” Malia and I exchanged glances as we answered in unison.

Gramps gave us directions to the monastery’s armory. Like the bacon at breakfast, I felt as though I’d stepped into some contradictory world. Monks weren’t supposed to use guns or eat meat. Not that I was bold enough to tell them that.

A simple steel grate barred our way into the armory. A heavy set old monk squinted at us as we walked up. He sat behind the steel grate with his hands hidden at the lower half of the door. If he decided to, he could have shot all three of us before we’d said a word. “What do you want?”

“Um, my grandfather sent us to get weapons.”

“No shi…” He peered down at Tia. “I mean no, kidding. What do you want?”

“Give her an automatic, something with a…” I looked at Malia’s hands. They looked about the same size as mine, “…medium grip. Two, if you would. And 306 for me.” Two pistols and a rifle sounded about right.

The monk sniffed. “Anything else?”

Malia stepped forward. “Give me a balisong, a hunting knife, and a… do you have a Taijijian?” Weirdly, I knew what she meant with that last word, it directly translated into “Tia-Chi sword. I’d seen a lot of martial arts flicks in my life, so maybe I picked it up there. Malia turned to me, “Do you want anything?”

The thought of someone getting close enough for me to stab made my stomach queasy. I shook my head. Then the shotgun we’d taken from the fake cops on the way here flashed through my head. “Actually, yeah. Could you get us a shotgun, full stock, slugs and shot?”

At that, the monk laughed and raised the shotgun he held in his hands. “No problem , buddy.” He checked the lock on the cage as he wandered off into the armory proper.

Malia leaned close enough to me for her shoulder to brush mine. “This is a hella weird monastery, right?”

“Welcome to the new age, huh?”

Tia hopped between us, oddly sanguine about the weapons talk.

When the guns and knives arrived, wrapped in an army green bag, Tia took cover behind Malia. After the episode with the police, I didn’t expect she would be happy to see those weapons. But she acclimated quickly as the armory monk teased her about her golden straw-like hair and how he would love to feed it to his pet donkey. That made Tia giggle until she had to hold her side and distracted her while Malia and I divvied up the guns. I handed one of the two FN 5&7s to Malia and slung the other around my hips. In addition the firearms and knives, the monks gave us holsters and slings.

When I set the gun and belt around my waist, my body shivered as if I were coming down with a fever. Right after that, I slung the rifle over my back and felt as though I’d strapped a fifty pound weight to my shoulder.

We bade the armory monk farewell and walked back up the stairs with me trailing. No matter how I adjusted the rifle and the gun at my hip, I couldn’t get them to hang comfortably.

“You okay, Harlan?” Malia put her hand on my shoulder and held onto Tia’s hand.

“It’s fine. I’m just not used to the guns.”

Malia snorted. “Me neither. I’m not really used to any of this, from start to finish.” She didn’t look it. The shotgun hung from her shoulder like it had worn a groove for itself there. The pistol on her belt hugged her hip like she’d glued it on. “Not to make it worse, but where do we go, boss?”

I knew the wrong answer to that question without thinking about it. We were not going into the courtyard. So far, no shots echoed outside of the monastery walls, so if there was any fighting going on, it was hand-to-hand. The roof was risky for its own reasons. Last night’s dragon had presaged such dangers with its passing. Zombie movie protagonists only had to worry about one level, but we had to worry about things looming over us and flying overhead. Lucky them.

“Let’s see if we can find Gramps or Li-soon.” I didn’t really want to find Alaric unless I had no choice.

Of course he was the one standing in the middle of the dining room as the 306 slid down my shoulder for the umpteenth time. “Hey Harlan!” He waved us over after one of the monks finished discussing whatever mission critical news he had to share. “Here, let me help you with that.” Alaric grabbed the rig at my side and pulled it up until the canvas dug into my neck. After he made some adjustments to the strap, the gun still hung just as precariously on my shoulder as before. But he nodded as if proud of his work. “You guys looking for a job?”

“Sure.” I motioned to Tia out of her view. “Something safe.”

“Word is, we got looters outside and we might not have to fight anyone. Want to take the roof and look out for us?”

I almost refused. But among many things, I didn’t want to be an uncooperative survivor. Besides, up on the roof we could still keep Tia’s head down and make sure we spotted the flying demons or evil dragons before they closed the distance with us. “Sounds fine with me, thanks Alaric.” I beat a hasty retreat away from him, pulling up on my rifle again as it tried to slip off of my shoulder. Another monk intercepted Alaric before he could stop me or follow, so we managed to escape.

This morning the roof shone bright white in the fresh rays of sun. Outside of the tiny island of our monastery, Austin looked considerably worse off. Large sections of the city burned in the distance. Off in the direction of Tia’s elementary school a black mass of writhing horror dominated the horizon. Why our mysterious divine or draconic saviors from yesterday failed to intervene eluded me. The mountain of tentacles scared me far more than the titan.

At least it was far enough away that I didn’t have to worry about it right then.

Over the trees and to the west, a pair of new hills had risen over the city. These lacked the writhing tentacles of the black mound to the south. In fact, one of them shone with green light that sparkled in the sun. Tiny shimmers floated up from that green hill and caught my attention for a moment. At first, I thought that might have been the direction of my dream from the night before. But the moment I thought about it, I knew the cavern I’d dreamed of was to the northeast.

Still shivering from the pistol on my belt and aching from the rifle, I set them both down carefully and checked to see if they were loaded and how. The FN 5&7 had an antipersonnel round chambered and a magazine stocked with them. These weren’t quite hollow point bullets, but when they entered flesh they behaved close to the same. The round in the 306 were military issue. Everything about my load out gave me the willies. People went to war with worse armament than Malia and I held between us.

Partly disassembled and lying on the green canvas bag the armory monk gave us, the guns didn’t make me sweat in the least. The moment I shouldered the 306 I started to shake badly enough I couldn’t sight down the barrel.

“You okay?” Malia checked her pistol with about as much agility as I’d checked my own. But she looked lost with the shotgun.

Slinging the rifle back over my shoulder, I motioned for her to hand me the shotgun. “I’m just nervous. No biggie.” I showed her how to load the shotgun and how to eject the cartridge if she wanted to unload it. The action was simple, but I couldn’t identify the shotgun from any maker’s marks on the body. This gun was probably six kinds of illegal.

As soon as I handed the gun back to Malia and stopped focusing on them, the buzz from a crowd below us reached my hearing. It was as if turning my attention to the weapons had stuffed cotton in my ears. “What’s going on down there?”

Malia stood on her tip-toes and shrugged. “Beats me, sounds like a lot of people, right?”

From the center of the roof, we could barely see the streets a few blocks away. The courtyard lay completely out of sight. “Should we go check it out?” I glanced down at Tia, who clung to Malia like an older sister when I asked.

Malia followed my gaze and shrugged. “Up to you, big brother. Think it’s safe?”

Hell no, it wasn’t safe. “You two stay here for right now, I want to see what’s happening down below.”

Malia gave me a flat nod, but Tia stomped her foot. “We’re supposed to stay together! Grandpa said!”

“And I’m not going anywhere, I’ll stay in sight, I promise.”

Tia folded her arms and puffed her cheeks out, but she nodded with a frown on her face. “Fine, but don’t let anything bad happen!”

I held two fingers over my heart and said, “Of course not. You wait here with Malia.”

Tia froze in her disapproving stance, but didn’t break from Malia to follow me.

Approaching the lip of the roof, I swallowed nervously and wiped my hands off on my jacket. Despite the cold my palms were sweating. The crowd made enough noise that following them was easy. Once I could see them, the sweat on my palms got severe. There had to be a hundred or so people down there and most of them congregated at the fence.

A half dozen monks brandished rifles, shotguns and various other weapons at the crowd while Li-soon addressed them. A handful of people pressed into the wrought iron bars of the gate appeared to speak for the rest of their cohorts. No one tried to climb the fences, though I couldn’t help wonder if that was because people had already died trying.

As dark as my thoughts had turned, Li-soon had calmed the crowd. No one shoved anyone else and while a few shouts hurled over the fence demanded help or food, no one threatened the monks. Shotguns and a prepared position had a way of doing that. Li-soon was so soft spoken that I couldn’t make out his words from where I crouched on the roof.

I shuffled over to the side. From this position, the roof sloped down and stopped at a small faux tower. With a little effort, I could shimmy over there and make out their words. It hadn’t occurred to me that I broke my promise to Tia, not until she shouted at me.

“You promised.”

Shit! I jerked back from the ledge and at the same time, both the pistol in my belt and the rifle over my shoulder chose that opportunity to slip off. I missed the rifle by less than a finger’s length. In the movies, guns went off in all manner of ridiculous situations. An uzi didn’t fire without someone pulling the trigger, no matter how many steps it hit on its way down the stairs. But most people didn’t know that.

I did. And still I braced myself, knowing that both the pistol and the rifle had rounds chambered and ready to fire. Two sets of safeties should have stopped either weapon from discharging. Over a hundred years of human engineering and nothing should have let those guns fire.

And yet.

When they hit the ground, both guns went off, smoke billowing out of their barrels as they hit. One round struck Li-soon right in the back of his head. The other plowed through the crowd immediately before him, taking out three people in a line as the other showered the onlookers with Li-soon’s brains.

If anyone saw me up where I sat, it didn’t matter in seconds as guns blazed from the front of the monastery into the crowd around the fences and barrels smoked in response from the crowd. In less than two seconds, I’d shifted the group from relative peace verging on friendliness to a full-on gun fight.

Scrambling away from the ledge, barely avoiding errant shots in my direction, I stumbled and panted my way back to Malia and Tia. I’d just accidentally killed somewhere around four people, but the cosmic debt on my account would be higher than that before lunch, I could feel it in my bones.

“What happened!”

“Nothing! They started firing!” It was half true. “Back into the building. Get Tia to safety!”

Malia moved with the grace she’d demonstrated teaching martial arts earlier that day.

Tia cried and held her belly, which sent me into a near panic. “Are you hurt, show me!”

Her lip quivered as I jerked her hands away from her stomach. Nothing was bleeding, but Tia whined at me. “It hurts, Harlan. It’s coming.”

I had no idea what she meant, but if she wasn’t bleeding then we needed to get into the monastery and out of the way of the real fighters. I hefted her up into my arms, now free of the burden of the rifle, so I could move a good deal faster. We all but slid down the stairs and found ourselves before a small cadre of monks. They’d heard us coming down the stairs and waited for the path to clear.

The armory monk winked at me as he hefted a long barreled sniper rifle who’s make escaped me in the moment. As soon as the stairs cleared the rest of the monks poured up as if sucked up by a vacuum.

“Oh good, I was worried.” Gramps intercepted us on our way to the dining hall. “Some idiot fired into the monastery and killed Li-soon. We’re about to repel a bunch of invaders.”

My throat turned dry as I tried to explain to my grandfather that I was the idiot. But my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

Tia moaned and shivered in my arms, and Gramps turned his attention to her. “You okay, pumpkin?” He pulled my jacket away from Tia and checked her shirt. Just as I’d confirmed earlier, she wasn’t visibly injured.

“My tummy hurts!”

Gramps nodded and looked me in the eyes. “You keep her safe, now?”

I nodded back to him, the shame of the deaths I’d already caused flaring over my skin. “Yes sir.”

Gramps squeezed my shoulder and raced up the stairwell. Before he left our sight, he turned back. “The kids and noncombatants are in the mess with Alaric, stick with him.”

I waved to my grandfather as I turned back toward the mess. My stomach felt just as upset as Tia’s looked.

Alaric and about a dozen other people stood in the dining hall. None of the plates or silverware were present now. Instead empty magazines and boxes of ammunition covered the wooden surface. My hands shook as Alaric pointed. “Can you three help prep reloads for the fighters?”

The words he spoke echoed funny in the room. Malia answered for us. “No problem. If someone will show me how.”

Alaric’s lips moved while I stared at the apparition of Li-soon in my vision. He held his hands on his hips and spat at the floor near my feet. Malia nudged me and I blinked at Alaric.

“You freaking out, Harlan?” My cousin sneered at me. “What happened to your weapons, man?”

“N…nothing. What do you need from me?”

“Show Malia how to load magazines, if Tia can help, get her to do it too.”

“R…right.” I fell into place in front of a table full of ammunition, exactly like the kind I’d just killed a quartet of people with. My stomach failed me and I handed Tia off right before I threw up next the floor. That was twice in as many days. Alaric swore at me and sent one of the older kids off for a mop.