The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel

Read The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel for Free Online Page B

Book: Read The Gates: An Apocalyptic Novel for Free Online
Authors: Iain Rob Wright
could see right through
it, but her view was distorted, like trying to read a letter underwater. Images
flickered and danced inside the transparent layer, but she could make out
nothing in detail.
    “There’s something inside,” somebody in the crowd cried
out.
    “It’s like looking through a lens,” someone else added.
    The bright archway continued to grow, rising twenty
feet above the crowd. The translucent centre shimmered like the surface of a
pond.
    Samantha couldn’t take her eyes away. “So
beautiful.”
    “I see it!” Samuel shouted beside her. “Everything
is about to change.”
    By now, the entire crowd was entranced: a thousand
mouths hanging wide open, and twice as many eyes staring in amazement. The
glowing archway continued to grow, towering over the nearby carousel. The
translucent centre began to thicken and take form.
    Samantha reached out for Samuel’s hand and
squeezed it. The miracle in front of her was starting to make sense. “I think… I
think it’s a gate.”
    A blinding explosion of light.
    The crowd cried out in shock.
    All hell broke loose.
    The screaming started at the front of the crowd,
nearest the cordoned off area with the stone. It was cries of fear at first,
but evolved into cries of agony. Samantha stood too far back to see what was
happening, but the crowd turned in on itself, people elbowing to get away.
    “We need to get out of here.” Samuel grabbed her
arm.
    Samantha shook her head in a daze. “What’s
happening? I can’t see what’s happening.”
    “Something came through,” Samuel told her. “I was
wrong. Whatever this is, it isn’t good. It’s not God.”
    The screaming continued; it never stopped for a
single second.
    Samantha glanced back. People flew into the air and
crashed against the ground, arms breaking and mangled legs snapping. Something
steamrolled the crowd—a charging rhino? Surely something explainable. Then a
horrendous thing showed itself and put all hopeful notions of an escaped rhino
aside.
    A man, twenty feet tall and rippling with taut
muscles, swiped at the fleeing crowd, breaking backs and caving in skulls with giant
fists. He was naked save for a loose robe falling from his shoulder and around
his waist. His bare back was pierced by spines of charred bones, and his face
was a dark shadow of rage—yet flawlessly beautiful even in its ferocity.
    Samantha watched in terror as the monstrous giant
snatched up a police officer from his horse and tore him in two, like a
Christmas cracker, his wet innards showering the crowd.
    “We need to leave,” repeated Samuel, grabbing her
so hard on the bicep that she cried out in pain. She understood though. They
needed to get away.
    They took off towards the playing fields where the
park opened up and bordered Central Park West. Maybe there they could get free
of the mad panic and bloodshed. People were lying on the ground everywhere,
trampled half to death by the fleeing crowd that was no longer united, but
selfish and afraid. A young woman with two broken arms lay on her back sobbing,
but no one stopped to help her. The crowd moved too fast for anybody to risk
being a Good Samaritan.
    As the two Sams entered the emerald grass of the
playing fields, Samuel slipped and almost pulled Samantha down with him. He
fell in a mess, but made it up again quickly. He tried to continue, but gritted
his teeth and hissed.
    “Samuel, are you okay?”
    “My ankle’s gone. I’m too old to be dashing around
in blind panic.”
    Samantha reached out to help him, but it was just
as a squad of teenage boys in football jerseys came ploughing along and barged
right into them. Samantha hit the ground hard, cursing at the boys from on her back.
“You fucking bastards!”
    They’d ploughed into Samuel too. He lay on his back,
moaning. Samantha dragged herself across the grass to him to check he was okay.
The crowd continued its stampede, clattering feet dodging Samantha and Samuel only
at the very last second. Soon

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