The Final Gate - 1. The Final Gate

Have you ever has just awoken from a dream and for an instant you could still hear the voices as if you were still there; and you were still a part of it? For the past couple of days it seemed like I had the hardest time waking up, I could hear voices, and see shadows when I closed my eyes, but it was all jumbled together and I couldn’t make out what they were saying… just chaos. They’d grow louder and LOUDER and LOUDER!!!

I gasped deeply, sitting up, clutching my chest as my eyes struggled to focus. The noise in my ears dimmed and I found myself in my bed in my room. I clung to my old American Eagle shirt and I shut my eyes and tried to remember the dream… Nothing. I sighed and fell back onto the bed and stared up at the old horsehair plaster ceiling and then down to my old rickety nightstand to my alarm-clock.

6:06am it read.

“Damn,” I muttered, I had another four minutes before my alarm would have gone off. I threw off my comforter and looked out the window, the snow from the recent storm still covered the ground making the outside really uninviting; but I guess I didn’t have a choice having school and all.

‘Only a few more days till Christmas break,’ I thought.

I went downstairs after getting changed and found the downstairs strangely empty. Generally my mom would be having her tea, and dad would be looking over the business section of the local newspaper. I grabbed an apple from the fridge, and then my bag and my keys and headed for the garage. I walked over to my BMW 525 black sedan. My dad had bought it for me for my birthday; he called it an early graduation present. I threw my bag into the passenger seat and plopped down. I glanced up into the rear view mirror and took a glance over my face watching my blue eyes stare back at me. I ran my fingers through my dirty blonde hair and turned the keys into the ignition and took off towards good old Birchmont High.

I pulled into the parking lot beside Daniel Petrie, his brother and Uncle died in a private plane crash around Christmas a few years ago, they apparently were loaded and had left him and his dad everything, he was driving a new Red Camero.

“Hey Dan,” I called getting out of my car.

“Hey Cliff, how’s it going?” He said shutting his door and coming up beside me as we headed through the freezing lot. I’m glad I grabbed my heavy corduroy green varsity jacket, it was freezing balls out here, a guest of wind came and I turned up my collar.

“Not bad, how are you doing?” I asked

“Hanging in there, this time of year is really tough on dad,” he said looking down, taking a deep sigh.

“Sorry to hear, least you got the great car eh?” I said trying to cheer him up.

“I’d rather have them back,” he said tersely and then relaxed a bit and gave me a weak smile.

“Sorry about that,” he added “it’s just hard to think about them sometimes. How’s your family doing?” he asked.

“Well after Corey got shackled off to prison, it’s been made clear that I am supposed to be the model son. He’s up for parole in five years, by the way.” I said and then continued.

“Dad and I have been on our own, he leaves me to my own devices most of the time; he spends most of his time at work nowadays.”

“Well you still have your family, Corey Vancil or not, hang in there,” He paused as he opened the outer doors for me.

“Thanks,” I said entering the school getting blasted by the heat vents.

Daniel turned towards the main office and for the first time I felt something, like I could feel the scope of his sadness, it really seemed to be weighing him down. We both had a turbulent time of high school; he lost a lot of his family, and my brother Corey had been arrested for nearly beating a fellow student to death for being gay.

‘If he only knew’ I thought sadly.

I had been almost ready to ‘come out’ back when that had happened; I was just a freshman at the time. But after my brother beat up a gay student, I was too afraid to say anything; the only person who knew about me was Dylan. Dylan Smith was on the football team with me, but after that the similarities ended. I had blonde hair and was taller and muscular, he was thin and compact, and he was our kicker.

It had been in the middle of Football camp, Dylan was staying the night over at our place. We got home still in our under armor and pants and my mom ordered us to take showers and get ready for dinner in a few hours. My house as being as large as it is, I had my own bathroom so we clamored up the stairs and dumped all of our stuff in my room. I stripped off my shirt and I watched out of the corner of my eye as Dylan did the same.

“I’m going to go hop into the shower,” I said chucking off my pants and pads and turned away from him in only my jock revealing my ass to him. I glanced behind me and caught him looking; he turned and looked away blushing.

“You can use my PC,” I said walking into the shower and turned the water on, but instead of going in, I crept back to the door and waited a few moments. I peeked out the door and had seen that Dylan had gone to my desk and had sat in my chair and powered on the monitor.

I was hoping that he’d open up the web browser and look at porn, but he just opened up Facebook much to my disappointment. I was about to go shower when I heard him open up his pants. I couldn’t see from this angle but I knew he had taken himself out and there emblazoned across the screen was a picture of us in our bathing suits from the past summer.

‘He’s beating off to us,’ I thought and I felt my feet move on their own accord and I pushed the door open and glided silently across the room. Dylan was stroking himself and hadn’t heard me but jumped when my hand fell onto his shoulder.

“WHAT THE, OH SHIT, CLIFF! … Wait! I can explain! … I…” Dylan stammered suddenly looking down and seeing my own erection pointing at him, he blushed and looked away.

“D, it’s okay,” I said and I grabbed his shoulders and he looked right at me.

It was in that moment I felt drawn into him. His eyes stared deeply into mine and suddenly we rocketed into each other and kissed fiercely. He grabbed at my back and I pushed his pants and jock down and I pulled him into the bathroom.

Dylan and I had agreed to keep our relationship a secret and so far it had been working perfectly, but our senior Winter Ball was coming up and Jessica Feeley asked me to the dance and Dylan had been really upset about the whole thing.

We had been together all through high school, I won’t lie and say it was all sunshine and roses; but we were happy. I loved him more than anything.

“You’re being really stupid about this,”

“It’s just a dance,”

“But it should be with me,”

“But it can’t,”

“But YOU can’t,”

We had fought and finally he stopped coming over and wasn’t answering my calls and it had been nearly a week since we had spoken. By this point I really just wanted to apologize for everything, I didn’t really even care about the stupid dance.

I walked through the halls with a purpose, I decided to see if I could catch him before he got to his first class; I took a shortcut through the locker rooms to the back end of the school and cut down the sophomore corridor to the English hallway. I saw him enter the bathroom and decided to follow him.

I entered the bathroom; the walls were a gross shade of green and white: our school colors. I saw him at the furthest urinal. He was wearing a baggy plain green shirt and his regular cargo pants. His longer shaggy brown hair was styled back and he hadn’t noticed me enter. I stood back and waited for him to finish up. He flushed and turned and saw me.

“Cliff,” he said surprised to see me.

“D, I really wanted to talk, I’m sorry about the dance… if it means that much to you I decided that…” I didn’t get to finish as Dylan walked up to me and wrapped his arms around my side and looked up at me, his hazel eyes sparkling. I leaned down and kissed him.

God how I had missed him, I loved him, he meant everything to me, my heart was soaring.

We didn’t hear the bathroom door open…

“WHAT THE HELL…”

I looked up and saw Tony McNeil one of our fellow teammates staring at us. I panicked and did the first thing that came to mind. I swung my fist as hard as I could.

The sound of my fist hitting Dylan echoed with a smack over the porcelain and tiled walls of the bathroom and I watched Dylan fall down to the floor. Something inside me died as I watched him holding his face. I kicked him once in the stomach and looked back up at Tony mustering up a disgusted expression.

“That fag kissed me, let’s go” I said.

Tony simply stepped aside and I left the bathroom.

I don’t know why I did it; I sat numbly in class replaying it over and over in my mind… why did I do it? Why? Why? Why?

I couldn’t focus on anything all day. I tried everything but the thought of me hitting Dylan replayed over and over. I felt sick to my stomach and at lunch I decided to go out to my car. Out in the student lot I looked around, Dylan had the only white car, it was an old piece of crap his father had driven before he died. It was really easy to spot in the student lot. I looked around and couldn’t find it anywhere.

I didn’t really make a conscious decision to leave school, but I found myself driving out of the lot and down the drive of the school; I had to see him, I needed to see him.

I drove straight to his house, it was a built in modular trailer, two bedroom job that his mother bought after they sold the house when his dad died; and sure enough his car was alone in the driveway. I got out and ran up to the door and knocked.

“D, man I need to talk!” I shouted at the door.

“D, please!”

I tried the door handle and it opened for me. The smell of cigarettes invaded my nose, and I briefly remembered why we always would meet at my place, besides the fact my house was a lot larger. I walked through the kitchen wrinkling my nose at the pile of dirty dishes and down the hall to Dylan’s room.

The door was wide open and I could see that he wasn’t inside. His room was adorned with swords. He also had a collection of guns he inherited from his dad, I don’t think he was supposed to legally have it, but it was his dad’s and it was important to him, he kept everything in a locked gun cabinet in his room.

I checked his mom’s room and the bathroom, and yet there was still no sign of him. I walked down to the basement and there was no sign of him around. I headed back up the basement stairs and I slipped on a sheet of plastic, I picked it up and it was the packaging for vinyl cord.

I dropped the plastic and headed upstairs. I then noticed a scrap of paper separated from the rest of the crap piled on the dining room table.

“I’m sorry,”

It hit me hard, a blind panic. I dropped the paper and ran bodily into Dylan room and this time walked fully inside and turned and looked inside the closet.

Dylan was hanging from the top clothes rack; his face purple, his arms loosely at his side. Black vinyl chord was wrapped tightly around his neck. I rushed over to him and tried lifting him but I couldn’t.

“NO!” I screamed “OH GOD NO!”

I then saw the wooden beam holding him up was bending from the weight. I jumped up and pulled it as hard as I could.

It instantly snapped in my hands and the clothing rack, Dylan and I went crashing to the floor. He landed on top of me and set him down and quickly loosened the chord. I checked for a pulse and felt none and then I felt his face.

His skin was cold

I placed my head above his chest and heard nothing but silence.

I felt empty, I did this… this was my fault.

I looked down at Dylan and his face seemed so serene. I walked over to his gun case and opened the door. It was unlocked and inside one of his pistols was out.

‘Maybe he had thought about using this himself,’ I wondered.

You’d think that I would be having a long internal monologue about how Dylan meant the world to me, and how much I cared for him and the pain I was feeling. But in all honesty I wasn’t thinking about anything, there was no emotion or thought as I picked up the gun and placed it in my hand.

I put the gun to the bottom of my chin and pointed it upwards. I closed my eyes…

…

I gasped sitting up clutching my chest and my eyes struggled to focus as the noise in my ears dimmed and I found myself in my bed in my room. I clung to my old American Eagle shirt as I shut my eyes and tried to remember the dream. I sighed and fell back onto the bed and stared up at the old horsehair plaster ceiling and then down to my alarm-clock.

6:06am it read.

“Damn,” I muttered, I had another four minutes before my alarm would have gone off. I threw off my comforter and looked out the window, the snow from the recent storm still covered the ground making the outside really uninviting; but I guess I didn’t have a choice having school and all.

‘Only a few more days till Christmas break,’ I thought.

I went downstairs after getting changed and found the downstairs strangely empty, generally my mom would be having her tea and dad would be looking over the business section. I grabbed an apple and my bag and my keys and headed for the garage.

I paused before getting to the door and I looked around with a strange sense of Déjà vu. I had done this before, something was wrong. I walked to the wall and picked up the cordless phone.

There was no dial tone.

I opened my bag and grabbed my cell and flipped it open…

It was dead

I walked over to the T.V. and pressed power…

Nothing happened.

“What the heck is wrong,” I thought.

“You’re going to be late for school,” I heard a voice say and I spun around and saw Dylan standing behind me.

“D, man… when did you get here, I wanted to…” But Dylan held up a hand to interrupt me.

“I’m not Dylan,” he answered simply; “you have crossed the final gate.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re dead,” he smiled stepping forward and came up right next to me. He reached up and covered my eyes.

“See?” he said taking his hand away and I looked and saw I was back in Dylan’s room, the ceiling and back wall was covered in blood and on the floor was a bloodied corpse.

It was me.

“What do you want with me?” I asked Dylan. His face took on an eerie smile and his grin sent a chill down my spine.

“Your soul, for eternity…”

He grabbed me around my waist and then one hand against my back. He looked up and kissed me. I felt myself being pulled away I looked down to see my body lying head to head against Dylan. I felt myself falling but warmth filled my heart as everything faded to black.

We were together.