Halloween story - Gatekeeper
This is a Halloween story inspired by the artwork of @canisalbus . Enjoy ^^
The Gatekeeper
The hounds always came first, Harbingers of Samhain.
They squeezed through the gaps between worlds, but not like in one of those popular books, where behind every secret door is a wonderful miracle.
No, from the real cracks, that cut the world into a fragile mosaic. From the Abyss, from the Beyond, they climbed and crawled like insects, absorbing, reincarnating, changing shape. They lurked in shadows and doorways, biding their time hidden amongst the rubbish heaps and neglect, feeding on the city rats.
The cats could smell them of course, but passed by with their tails in the air. In the autumn, nothing threatens the cat brethren. They have two lives in each paw, and one to spare behind each furry ear. Cats love this season of mystery. They meet autumn with a loud and victorious “Meow!”, and leap onto the witches’ knees demanding affection and snacks.
He was not a cat, not a man either, he was the Gatekeeper, opening doors and locking them.
Who is on the list this year? Who has the fate - and is it enviable? - to feast on the souls of mortals, and bathe in their dreams and despair?
Who will freeze on the first night of November?
Long-decayed autumn leaves were pressed to dust under his feet, sticking to the soles of his ornate boots, as the year’s first cautious flakes of snow lay like ashes on his cloak. He walked through the city park, his eyes covered by the brim of an old-fashioned leather hat.
He felt cold. And the frost came not from outside, but from within him.
With unruly fingers, he lit a cigarette, the lighter’s red flame reflecting in his empty eyes.
As if awakened by this voice, he shook himself like an old dog, and threw off the uneasy visions.
The boy before him appeared to be about fifteen. He hid his hands from the prickly cold in the protruding pockets of a terrible sports jacket, with the logo of a popular brand obviously mis-spelled with an extra “D” splashed shamelessly across the chest. Matched with baggy sweatpants tucked into his sneakers for warmth, at a quick glance he would easily be dismissed as anyone’s high-school deskmate.
As long as your second glance doesn’t meet his piercing gaze, burning with malachite fire.
“Look at yourself! What are you wearing, Hunter?” The Gatekeeper barely suppressed a chuckle.
“The simpler your appearance, the closer you are to your victim.” A grin spread across the boy’s freckled face as he answered, tilting his snub-nose arrogantly towards the nearby shops. “Let’s go warm up, or something. We have matters to discuss.”
The Hunter turned and walked into the nearest cafe, past a poster that invitingly showed off a large mug of latte. The Gatekeeper followed him, eyes lingering on the inscription that advertised the seasonal coffe infused with spices.
“Spiced latte.” The waiter blinked as they ordered their drinks in unison.
When the mugs arrived, they were taken up as if by drowning people grasping onto a fragment of a ship. The warmth immediately spread from the tips of their fingers to the very depths of the gaping emptiness inside.
Although not the same age, the two had the feeling of twins. They copied each other’s movements, like reflections in a mirror, and the other cafe patrons shook their heads in surprise when they noticed this strange pair.
“The spirits came early this year.” The Gatekeeper sighed thoughtfully.
“Early or not, how can you tell nowadays, it’s difficult to understand anything with all these shifts in the ecosystems.” The teenager replied coolly. “They call it “climate change”, but more imaginative ancient souls defined it with the capacious title “Ragnarok”.”
“Shi-i! Knock on wood, Hunter! Don’t speak such heresy at night.” The Gatekeeper shook his long golden mane of hair. “It’s still too early. Let them live, dream. They will eventually create a new world, and we can find a passage through.”
“Will they have time, though?” The Hunter muttered as he threw his legs over a nearby chair. A passing waiter gave the boy a look of displeasure when mud began to drip from his sneakers, but in the end the waiter didn’t comment on it, deciding not to get involved with this teenager who looked like an obvious bully.
“Let’s wait and see.” The Gatekeeper said philosophically, lifting his cup. “If nothing else you must admit, they make good coffee.” He rolled the spicy drink on his tongue with pleasure, noting cinnamon, cardamon, and nutmeg in the aftertaste.
“I survive purely on this coffee.” He continued as if confessing. “And also on carrot pies. Nothing warms you up in the autumn better than homemade cakes.
The huntsman-boy nodded silently, then conspiratorially leaned over the table.
“You’re not serious?!” The Gatekeeper’s fair eyebrows arched.
“Tomorrow, Gatekeeper. It happens tomorrow.”
In the milky-white fog, the outlines of the houses are barely visible. Ah, if only it was possible to stop time, to be captured in the picture of an inspired artist, to turn the flywheel of time back every now and then. To freeze in this moment, like a fly in a drop of resin, and not see, not hear the Call…
But the Gatekeeper could not help but answer it. Wrapped in a cloak, chin and nose hiding in a scarf the colour of a ripe pumpkin, he walked, driven by the call, faster and faster, until he was almost running. He stopped only when he arrived in front of a statue of a horse and rider. Everyone in the city had long become accustomed to the faded glory of the statue, and no longer paid any attention to either the gigantic horse or the formidable rider.
Spurs prickled the sides of the beast, and a hot breath streamed from its nostrils. Hooves struck against the ancient paving stones, as the Gatekeeper opened the Door wide with a bow.
And then the darkness came, covering the city like a thick blanket. The residents looked around in confusion, going out into the street. Where is the sun?
Why is there such a dense fog, what is this heavy gloomy longing unfolding in the heart?
But it’s only natural, after all. Winter is almost here. There are only a few fleeting days of autumn left, and the pumpkin-spiced latte is no longer as warming as it used to be. Now, you need to drink at least two pot-bellied mugs to lift your spirits. Work becomes grinding and tedious, the days get shorter, and everything feels grey, dull.
November is near, and the wind howls between the roofs of houses.
The Gatekeeper sighed, watching the horseman galloping into the sky, its exorbitant cloak spreading out to cover the entire sky over the city with an impenetrable cloud.
It seemed that the same thing was repeated every year, but the Gatekeeper was still melancholic about ushering in the long nights and slush of autumn days. It was his job, his calling, and yet…
The next to wake were the undines in the city fountains. Captivating but mindless creatures, they emerged from the bowels of the sewers and filled the streets, shops, and trendy clubs.
The Gatekeeper did not particularly like them.
They always appeared in the crowds, unnoticed, and drained the life energy out of anyone who met them.
Undines set the tone for fashion, moving the city’s inhabitants increasingly farther away from natural beauty. They introduced insidious ideas like botox and self-tanning, encouraging false eye-lashes and permanent make-up.
Their greed was a bottomless abyss, but the undines knew how to seduce and charm their unsuspecting prey with sweet words and tempting body curves. People followed them willingly, and changed themselves to obey the undines’ will and spontaneous desires.
Such an undine sat perched at the edge of a nearby fountain. She looked thoughtfully into the empty reservoir. Unlike her sisters, this girl’s pouty lips evoked only mild revulsion, and the Gatekeeper approached her with curiosity.
“Bo-o-o-ring!” the girl complained, turning her doll-like face to him. Up close, the girl turned out to be rather attractive, even for the high standards of the Gatekeeper. In his seemingly eternal life, he had seen enough of empty beauties - outwardly fascinating, but rotten inside, like your village well. This undine was young, and had not yet lost the last remnants of her humanity. She had the appearance of an ideal beauty, with a bit of girlish subtlety and captivating naivety showing through.
Undines are made, not born. These creatures chose a new sister from among the young girls lured in by their trends, and let them inhale the smell of miraculous spices which sharpened the senses and clouded consciousness. The side effect was memory loss, but even without this, the girls would have followed their new older sisters into fire, into water, and even into sewer pipes - which they did, ensnared by the pleasure of the drug’s first addictive breath.
“I just want everything to already happen!” The undine coquettishly tucked a stray curl behind her ear.
“What are you talking about?” Puzzled by her words, the Gatekeeper caught himself involuntarily admiring her gesture.
“O-o-oh, haven’t you heard?” The girl’s blue eyes widened in surprise. “People have figured out how to create clothes in 3-D space, the new design schools are already planning to teach only remotely, with everything happening in virtual space.”
A dreamy veil covered the undine’s gaze. “Soo, very soon, the whole business will move there.”
Hearing these revelations, the Gatekeeper recoiled from the undine as if from leprosy.
The girl, however, did not get upset. She didn’t even seem to notice his absence at all, admiring the glare of the sun reflected from the marble surface of the fountain. It had been empty for some time - the city’s fountains were turned off in early autumn. Yet the undines stubbornly climbed up from there, and the Gatekeeper was forced to meekly open the door for another “beauty” with a sigh of disgust.
The prospect of a world where people spend even more of their time, or maybe all of it, with their minds in a virtual space… This thought not only repulsed the Gatekeeper, it even caused a faint feeling of almost otherworldly horror. If these people had all of their energy devoured by soulless machines, what will be left for beings like the Gatekeeper, living reflections of the true essence of the world?
A whining sound drifted down from somewhere above, distracting the Gatekeeper from those deplorable thoughts. Shifting his attention to the attic of a twelve-story building, the Gatekeeper recognized the newest guest who had come to their world.
Ignoring the elevator, the Gatekeeper effortlessly climbed the stairs, and had already reached the eighth floor. His loose clothing made him seem deceptively slender, but anyone would envy the muscular figure underneath. The Gatekeeper was wiry and strong, almost as much as the Hunter.
After all, he not only opens the doors between the worlds, but also guards them, locking out the shameless nightmares who often try to climb stealthily into reality.
This fragile reality was not compatible with outright magic. The true essence of things was hidden in the shell of the material, and for the most part no one could see the wings, hooves, tentacles and horns, and the bizarre limbs of otherworldly creatures went largely unnoticed. Sometimes, however, even they would feel a chill run down their spine if a ghoul or other blood-sucking creature was nearby.
Such a creature appeared to have been trying to rush through a partially-open door, and, judging by the increasingly plaintive sobs, became stuck.
The Gatekeeper finally reached the door leading to the attic. The old, rusted lock opened easily at the touch of his black-lacquered fingernail, and the door opened with a creak.
From inside the darkness in the attic, mournful violet eyes were locked onto him. Eight of them, four on each side of a long horse-like face. The creature squealed with joy when it saw the Gatekeeper on the threshold, and in the next second his legs were encircled by an exorbitantly happy beast. The beast’s tongue, split at the end like a trident, flicked out as it carefully observed the man’s stony face.
That was the name of the creature that climbed out of the dark attic into the light of a dim corridor lamp. Mostly it looked like a large Russian greyhound, but one that had been pieced together with parts of different species by a crazed enthusiast of mad science.
The creature had a horse’s narrow head with quivering nostrils, and huge llama eyes, but instead of hooves it had eight hairy tarantula-like legs. The tail of the creature was obviously a crocodile’s, and its wings looked very much like a dragon’s. The Gatekeeper patted the creature behind its long, tasselled ear, and pulled out a collar from some pocket deep in his coat.
Soon, the chime above the twelve-story building’s elevator beeped affably, and a tall man exited the wide-open door with a huge black raven on his shoulder. No one seemed to notice him, except for the teenage boy leaning against the trunk of a tree.
“Hello, Igun! And hello again, Gatekeeper. Let’s go find him some food,”
The Gatekeeper smiled at the Hunter. This colleague could easily find him anywhere, at any moment, he was even better at following a trail than the ghostly hounds of Samhain.
They walked around the old town for a while, wandering through the winding streets, until they found the right pub. They entered a hall dimly lit by decorative gas lamps, and the three of them - two bipeds, and one whose eight legs had become two claws clinging to the Gatekeeper’s shoulder - all immediately felt that they had found the right place.
The bartender gave them a friendly salute with a mug of beer, which he had just begun filling for the early guests. There were less than ten people in the pub. Naturally, the appearance of the two young men with a raven caused a brief stir of noticeable excitement. When the other patrons had taken a few photos, the most daring even stroking Igun’s shiny black feathers, the new arrivals were finally able to slip away, and settle down at the bar counter a little further away from the noisy company.
“Butterbeer, please.” The Gatekeeper turned to the bartender. “...There is such a thing on the menu, is there not? Or has the internet deceived us?”
“No, it hasn’t.” The bearded bartender smiled. With a small earring gleaming dully in his ear, he almost looked like a beginner biker, who had not yet built up the belly of a stereotypical representative of the knights of the roads - he was quite skinny.
“And a whiskey for the bird, please.”
The bartender raised a bushy eyebrow, but the Gatekeeper simply nodded in confirmation of his order. Smirking, the “biker” served what was asked of him.
Igun flew down from the Gatekeeper’s shoulder, and in one jump was at the whiskey glass. Sticking its beak into the amber liquid, the raven first played with the ice cubes, rolling them over so that they gently tapped against the walls of the glass. The bird then lifted its head, its throat making a typical gurgling sound. Having swallowed the whiskey, the raven croaked loudly, which once again amused the patrons in the pub.
“To your health.” The two men said in chorus, nodding towards the bartender, and drained half of the foaming sweet-smelling cider from their mugs.
They drank until morning.
Igun needed to feed. The alcohol, and the stories that the bar’s patrons shared with each other in the nighttime hours - Igun ate only such food.
In his presence, people’s anxieties waned to mere trifles. When they finally relaxed, they believed it to be a mere effect of the alcohol. It was easy to become drunkards over time, looking for answers and solace at the bottom of the glass. But they could only truly let go on chilly October nights like this one, when Igun sat on the bar and quietly ate their sorrows and their worries.
This spirit was an important part of the change of the seasons, helping people let go of what no longer brought them joy. Just as trees shed their yellowed leaves and fall into a healing sleep until the resurrection of spring, people too need to part with the illusions of summer when the autumn winds begin to blow.
Not everyone succeeds in letting go, and next it is the Delirium Fox’s turn to go hunting. The Gatekeeper opens the door for her with great reluctance. The Fox seeks out those on the edge of losing themselves to madness, or self-harm. Every year, there is a list of those the Fox will visit, but the spirit is cunning and greedy, and it seems to the Hunter that one day Delirium will touch those not on the list. The Hunter watches the crafty beast tirelessly. The Gatekeeper repeats to him every year that the red-haired flirt-tail cannot change the fate of people at will, it can only tempt them. But the Hunter never relaxes his vigilance as he pursues this creature of materialized madness, sitting tirelessly in ambush waiting for the beast to make the slightest mistake, anything that will give him a reason to shoot. The Hunter rather enjoys that.
Though the Gatekeeper does not like his own work too much, he loves Igun, thus every autumn he responds to the Call. Every October, he warms up with the Hunter in a cafe, and drinks all night long in their favourite pubs.
He is waiting for the circle to close, for something to finally happen, to break the endless flow of tradition.
But so far, nothing is happening. The wheel of Samsara is rolling, and the serpent is biting its own tail.
The universe does not get tired of its dream, and the Gatekeeper does not tire of drinking fragrant lattes, sprinkled with autumn spices.
