Posted by Mike on 1/2/2007, 6:19 pm Link: http://bohobait.blogspot.com/
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They said no one who passed the 5th gate came out alive but, kids. Kids told stories heard or made-up on curbs in mid 60’s suburbs somewhere after dinner and before dark. Horace sat there after dinner while his parents and sisters talked end of summer and new school year soon things and it was hot. Dog days. Nobody had air conditioning and the window fans didn’t do much.
He saw Brian at the back door, making faces and asked to be excused.
“Be home by dark,” his mother said as he ran out the door.
He and Brian tore around the streets for a while, then went to Leon’s house and rang the doorbell. His father opened the door and looked at them.
“Hello Mr. Granger,” Brian said.
“LEON!” Mr. Granger yelled and walked away.
Leon came tearing out from behind the house on his bike and the three of them rode around, talking, yelling, laughing. They rode down the big hill to the creek and skipped stones and drank water from the spring. They rode back up the hill and went to their fort in the woods but they were tired of their fort; it was fun building it but…
“Let’s wreck it,” Brian said.
“No, let’s leave it up for awhile,” Horace said.
“Leon?” Brian asked.
“We should only wreck them in the fall,” Leon said.
“But I wanna wreck something,” Brian said.
“Who doesn’t?” Horace said.
“Maybe we should wreck Leon!” Brian said and then there was much running and laughter and piling on Leon and wrestling around.
When they came out of the woods it was nearly twilight and there were a few older neighborhood girls out there. They all crowded together on the sidewalk for a bit and then, Carla, who was in high school, said they should tell scary stories. Nobody had anything but, Carla, who was a high school cheerleader, had one.
The seven gates of hell were just over the hill and across the creek.
Horace, Brian and Leon rode over there that weekend after telling their parents they were sleeping out. They pitched camp in a field and waited for night. Carla said, the first gate was easy to see but that the rest, well, it was said you could only see them at night.
“There was an insane asylum there a hundred years ago that caught fire and the ones that didn’t die in the fire escaped. They ran crazy in the woods and were murdered by the police but, some got away. The ones that got away scrawled their names on trees, 6 of them. And then they disappeared. It’s said that the people that tried to find them fell to great misfortune, walking that blackened earth.”
“I saw Carla naked once,” Leon said as they walked up the hill and then went on to explain it, how he was collecting for his paper route and she came to the door and exposed herself.
“No way,” Brian said.
“Oh, yeah. She’s a goddess.”
“There’s the first gate,” Horace said and shone his flashlight on it. Hill Asylum on a piece of board that was leaning against a tree.
“Shut off that damn light, you shitass,” Leon said.
“Yeah, no light. We gotta do this right,” Brian said.
Okay, it was a full moon night anyway. They crept up the hill as silent as could be past twisted bushes and underbrush. They found names scratched deeply in fallen trees and counted.
“This is seven,” Leon whispered, “Let’s go.”
There was a farmhouse off in the distance with yellow light pouring out of a top floor window. They walked down into a gully, found remnants of a building. Leon started digging for bones with Brian. Horace ran off.
And now, 40 years later, Horace goes to see Brian in the asylum once a year. Brian calls him Leon and asks what happened to Horace.
“They put an apartment complex up there,” Horace says.
“But, Race? Where’s Race?”
“Swallowed by that black earth.”
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