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  Hell's Gate

  Dean R. Koontz

  He came out of the dark night with only another man's name… a man who would soon be found floating in a distant river. He was a man without a past, without a future; he had only a bloody mission. His first act was violent murder! He was a man… or was he? Just who was Victor Salsbury? And if he was not a man, then… what was he? And who were the unseen masters, who issue orders only on whim? What were their plans for the world… plans so horrifying that they could change an unfeeling, nonhuman creature into a frightened human!

  THE GATE

  At one-thirty in the morning the vibrations sounded up from the cellar again. Salsbury slipped out of bed and pulled on jeans, then went down the stairs through the darkened house. The dog followed, staying close to his heels.

  With the cellar lights out, the circle was easily visible, but a lighter shade now. And for the first time, dim and indistinct, there were shadowy figures-wrong figures. The legs were too thin, the skull narrow, and half again as large as a human skull. It was obvious that the shadowy figures were not men.

  Abruptly the blue glow grew lighter and there was a click, a sharp snapping sound. The ringing ceased and the blue light disappeared leaving behind it the circle which now was clear as a window

  A window that did not look out onto this planet!

  Strictly a fun book for Gerda

  to remind her of plasticine porters,

  glass onions-and that nothing is real.

  Nothing forthwith is real.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Puppet came awake beneath budding apple trees, lying prone in a patch of twisted weeds and dry brown grass. He was a big man, well over six feet and considerably more than two hundred pounds, though none of the weight seemed to be fat. When he was still, his body was a chiseled hulk of rugged muscles, as if a crude but heroic-minded sculpture had hacked out his uneven version of Ulysses. When he moved just the slightest, the sharp edges melted away, and the chiseled look gave way to the sleek, oiled smoothness of a cat. The muscles no longer jutted, but rippled. He had the look of a trained fighter, a mercenary.

  He was dressed in a black suit of tough nylon that looked vaguely like leather and fitted as well as a scuba suit bought a size too small. There was a black hood that fitted over his head, holding his white-blond hair back from his forehead. He carried a pack on his back, but hardly seemed aware of the added weight. He gave the impression that, had the pack been a two ton Buick, he would still only slightly feel its weight.

  He rolled onto his back and looked up through the nearly bare branches to the dully gleaming stars that managed to cut through the soft haze of the early spring fog. His head ached, and one place behind his right ear throbbed as if a small man were inside methodically kicking his way out. There was a curious feeling of déjŕ vu, of having been to this place before, but he could not place it. And how had he gotten here? Where was ''here"? Why?

  Moving carefully so he would not excite the little man in his head, he sat up and looked around him. In front and to both sides, the skeletal branches of unadorned trees scratched at the sky and rattled bony fingers at him, as if they were threatening him. There was nothing there to tell him anything. He came to his feet, somewhat wobbly. The little man in his head protested the change of position by kicking with both feet. He felt hairline cracks beginning to spread outwards across his skull from his right temple. In a moment, his head would split like a mush mellon, and it would be all over. He turned to look behind, expecting more trees, and he saw the house.

  It was an old place, perhaps constructed in the late 1880's or early 1890's. There were many gables, a bay window, porches around all sides. Despite its age, it had been maintained in excellent condition. Even in the dim, fog-filtered moonlight, he could see the new paint, heavy storm doors, the manicured look of the shrubbery. The moment he set eyes on the house, the strange throbbing ceased in his head. The uneasy dizziness dissipated; he felt whole. This was the sight that keyed him. For a moment, he had been only a confused man, wondering about his circumstance. Now he was a full-fledged Puppet moving according to program.

  At the sight of the house, he dropped once again to the grass, as if seeking concealment, though the night and fog and the dark clothes he wore should have been insurance enough against discovery. After taking time to study the structure and the surrounding landscape, he came to his feet again, crouching like an animal on the prowl. There were no lights on in the house; its occupants were asleep. Exactly as had been planned.

  He didn't stop to wonder who had planned it this way, or what else there was to this operation. Presently, there was no part of his mind able to experience curiosity or doubt. He only knew that this much was good.

  Still hunched like an ape, he loped from the shelter of the apple trees and up the long, sloping lawn toward the back of the house which was open to him from this side. Once, he almost fell on the dewy grass but regained his balance as swiftly as a tightrope walker would recover from a slide on a banana peel. Through all of this, he moved with uncanny silence, without even the quick rush of his breath to disturb the peaceful night,

  Seconds after leaving the trees, he slid against the railing of the back porch and knelt in the shadows, breathing heavily. When there was no outcry, he moved along the railing, found the steps, moved quietly up them and across the porch to the door.

  The storm door was a solid aluminum piece that fitted its molding snugly. The glass had not yet been replaced with screens, which made entering the place much more difficult. Though not anywhere near impossible. Nothing was impossible for him. He had been programmed to meet any contingency. Kneeling, he removed his rucksack from his back, took out what he needed, replaced it He took the small, brass-like coin he had gotten from the pack, held it flat against the glass of the storm door. There was a faint buzzing sound like a swarm of angry bees hovering out above the orchard. He moved the coin upwards, along the edge of the glass, leaving emptiness behind as the glass powdered and drifted silently down onto his feet. When he had created a hole large enough to reach through, he unlocked the door from inside, swung it open.

  The heavy wooden door beyond had only one window, a small oval three quarters of the way up. He used the coin to dissolve this, reached through, searching for the lock. His fingers just barely touched it, but he managed to throw it open. With his hand on the outer knob, he swung the portal inward, gaining access to the darkened kitchen.

  The interior of the house had been ripped apart at one time, for though the shell was Victorian, the guts were supermodern. The kitchen was large, ringed with dark wood cupboards and shelves. In the center of the red stone floor was a heavy slab of wood that served as a table and cookery work area. In it were built a sink, disposal, and an oven with all its fixtures gleaming in the thin light that came through the two airy windows.

  The Puppet took all this in without really examining anything. His perceptions were sharp, quick, like those of a wild animal. He moved from the kitchen into a tastefully decorated dining area; from there into a living room where the furniture alone would have bought half a dozen Asian families out of poverty. When he found the steps and started up them, his breathing quickened, though he did not know or care why.

  At the top of the carpeted stairs, he clung to the shadows along the left wall, staying away from the windows on the other side-an act of instinct more than planning. He breathed through his mouth to cut down on the noise his lungs made. Ten feet from the head of the stairs, he stopped, scanned ahead. When he found the door he wanted, he moved farther along the corridor. When he reached the proper door, he leaned against it, putting his ear to the wood. For a moment, there was no sound. Then he detected the heavy exhalations of a sleeper. Stealthily, he reached out, took the
cool brass doorknob in his hand, turned it,

  He opened the door, walked into the room and crossed swiftly to the bed where the man laid with his back to the wall, facing the open room just as any man who must be careful learns to sleep. The Puppet judged the position of the body, then brought his hand up, palm flattened for the blow. Before he could swing, however, there was an exclamation from the sleeping man. He started to sit up, turned and dived for a cubbyhole in the headboard.

  The Puppet corrected his aim, swung his stiffened hand, felt the blow connect solidly with the stranger's neck. The man grunted, crashed into the headboard he had been trying to reach, bounced back onto the mattress and was still.

  Without wasting any time in self-congratulations, the Puppet found the switch on the reading lamp built into the back of the bed. The fixture dropped a puddle of light onto the center of the rumpled bedclothes. He hefted the unconscious man around until his face was in the middle of the puddle. A broad forehead framed with sparse, black hair. Eyes set deep and close together. A heavy, broken nose, broken more than once; thick lips, a brutish chin, a scar along the left jawline. It was the right man, though the Puppet did not even know his name.

  Turning from the unconscious stranger, he slipped the pack off his back and set it down on an easy chair on the other side of the room. His fingers moved nimbly as he unstrapped its flap and peered inside, removed a pistol and a clip of ammunition. He took out a pair of gray gloves, slipped them on, then loaded the weapon. It was a very authentic weapon, one that fitted the decade of the 1970's; one that could even be traced to its original place of purchase, though the records of its owner were lost. When he was done, he would wipe all surfaces clean of prints, even though his own prints were not on file anywhere in the world and never would be. If the surfaces were smeared, the police would assume a known criminal had been responsible, a man hiding his traces carefully. Another false trail, of course, just like the gun. He flicked off the safety and turned. He was only halfway around when the slam of the other man's pistol boomed through the room and the hot sting of the bullet bit into his thigh.

  The slug did not hit bone, though it tore a chunk of flesh out of his leg big enough to fill the palm of his hand. He was spun back against the easy chair, fell over the arm and struck the floor hard with the side of his head. He felt the pain of the wound pounding up through his entire body. It shook his frame as if he had been grasped in two gigantic hands which were intent upon rending him into little bits and pieces. With one hand, he reached down and felt the wound. His hand came away slick with heavy, rich blood. For a moment, he felt as if he would pass out. There were dancing, whirling lights in his head. As each one burst, a pitch spot replaced it. In a moment, there would be total darkness-and then, surely, death.

  He heard feet on the floor, moving quickly toward the chair. He already had the picture. At the moment, the chair hid him from the stranger, but it would be a useless barrier in seconds. The man would come around it, level his gun at the Puppet's head, and calmly fill his skull with lead. That might actually be nice, part of the Puppet's mind decided. Nice sharp bullets in the brain would snuff out all the agony of the leg wound. Two slugs lodged in the frontal lobe, fragments radiating in all directions, would put an end to the pounding ache, bring him soft relaxing darkness.

  With an effort, he roused himself, expelled the longing for rest. He had not been sent here to fail. Too much depended upon his fulfilling the obligations set upon him. He was lying flat on his back, the wind knocked out of him, a fist-sized chunk torn from his leg. His situation was not pretty. The only thing he had going for him was his gloved right hand which still clutched the loaded pistol. He tried bringing it around, realizing for the first time how heavy it was. Perhaps, with a heavy-duty winch, he could lift it. Or if he had seven or eight strong arms to lend a hand. But he only had two hands, his own. He brought his left hand over, clamped the pistol in both palms. Yes, that made it easier. Now it was only about as bad as ripping an oak tree loose of its root system and turning it around for replanting.

  He had the gun almost in position when the stranger appeared over the arm of the chair. It wasn't exactly where he wanted it, but he pulled the trigger anyway. It took a little over two thousand years to accomplish that, and he watched the stars dying inside his head while he waited. Then there was a flash of light, a booming, and a long scream that ended in a gurgle.

  Abruptly, the gun's weight doubled, tripled, and he could no longer hold it. It fell out of his hands and landed on the carpet next to his head. He gritted his teeth and waited for the stranger to take his turn in the shooting match. While he was waiting, he passed out.

  He was in a dark forest, running toward a patch of gray light. Behind, a pack of wild dogs, slavering and keening, were gaining on him. One of the dogs had already attached itself to his leg and was slowly devouring him. Then, a dozen yards from the gray light, he tripped and fell. The moaning pack drew closer, howling with sudden excitement.

  The Puppet woke and batted at the dog, but only slapped his hand on a bloody, pulsing wound in his own leg. For a time, he could not think where he was. Then the programming took over, and he did not even care where he was, did not care about anything but the next step of the plan. He had not been killed. The room was quiet He could remember an ugly scream just as he passed out, one which was not his own. He did not scream. Was the stranger dead, as intended?

  The thing to do was get up and find out. The only trouble was that his left leg had grown roots into the floorboards. He grabbed an arm of the easy chair, braced his other hand on the floor, simultaneously pulled and pushed himself toward a standing position. But the leg held tight to the carpet. For a brief instant, he considered the expediency of taking the disintegrator coin out of his pock and slicing the limb off. It would save a lot of trouble. As if in response, the leg gave a little and started to rise. He got his good foot under himself and, shakily, pushed erect, holding onto the chair until the knuckles of that hand were a bloodless white.

  It took only a moment to discover he had completed the next stage of the plan, perhaps a bit more messily than anticipated. The stranger lay in the center of the floor, one half of his face set at all the wrong angles from the other half. There was a bullet hole under his jaw.

  The Puppet let go of the chair. The room tilted, threatened to turn upside-down. He got hold of it and throttled it into passivity, then staggered to the corpse. It was surely a corpse, considering the wound, but he had to make certain. He placed a hand against its chest, could feel no heartbeat. The back of his hands against the nostrils could not detect even the slightest trace of respiration. He turned away and wobbled back to the easy chair, laid the pistol half under it, where it could easily be seen, closed the rucksack and strapped that on his back. Haltingly, he wiped all the shiny surfaces in that half of the room, setting the false trail. Then, hands still gloved, he closed the door to the bedroom and tottered down the hall to the steps. He sat down heavily on the first riser and looked at his leg wound.

  The sight of it did nothing for his confidence. The hole was dark with clotted blood. The ragged flesh around the edges had a curled and blackened look that made him think of charred paper. He probed the hole with his fingers, found the blunt end of the bullet. When he touched it, pain shot up his leg, making him double over and bite his lips. He let go of the wound, took a medkit out of his rucksack, laid that out on the steps. He opened it, withdrew the small mechanical surgeon-hound, pressed the sucking mouth of it against the wound, and activated it.

  The tiny robot whirred, launched forward into the bloody flesh, found the bullet, began working at it with microminiature blades, then sucked on it, grasped it, and slid backwards out of the wound, the job finished.

  There was a rush of blood.

  Pain fountained up, drowning him.

  This time when he woke, he felt much better. The bleeding had stopped, and the healing had already begun. He knew, somehow, that the wound was not as dangerous
to him as it would have been to the stranger he had killed. In three days, his leg would be knit. There would be no trace of the wound, no limp. For the moment there was still pain, though it was bearable and growing smaller all the time.

  The Puppet packed up the medkit and slipped it into his pack. Cautiously, he grabbed the railing and pulled himself up. Hopping on his good leg, he went downstairs. By the time he reached the back porch, he was able to drag the wounded leg, using it for minimum support while his good leg did most of the work. He lurched down the slope, into the orchard, came out of the far end of the trees to a high bank that looked down on a small, winding creek. Walking along the bank, he found the place where rainwater had cut a path into the steep shelf. He worked his way halfway down the thirty-foot drop, then started across the face of the embankment, grasping at roots and stones until he came to the mouth of the cave. Using his arms to gain leverage, he lifted his right leg in, dragged the left over the lip. For a time, he laid in the mouth of the cave, pulling huge lungfuls of air deep into his chest, spitting it out in shuddering exhalations.

  When he felt he could move again, he crawled further into the cave until he came to the luggage that was supposed to be waiting for him. He did not know how this had been arranged or for what purpose, but he accepted it without question. There were three trunks of equal size, equal coloring, all plain and unadorned. He leaned against one of these and stared out of the cave at the small patch of foggy sky that was visible. Now, soon, he would fall asleep. He could not have remained awake had he wanted to. For two weeks, he would rest in a comatose state. His metabolism would drop to such a point that almost no air, water, or caloric intake would be necessary. He would waken five pounds lighter, thirsty, but ready for the next stage of the operation.

  At the moment, though, he could not remember what that stage was. Or who he was. All he could remember was a corpse lying on a bedroom floor, its face all confused, a little tunnel drilled through its jaw.