Gatekeeper's Secret
Copyright© 2026 by Fick Suck
Chapter 4
April 22, 1951
After weeks of anticipation, I finally asked Deanna Cullins out on a date. Her parents were not happy, but they agreed to let us go out during daylight hours. I took her on the Middle Western Trail that leads partway up the mountain, still in the hardwoods zone. I gave her Shelly to ride and saddled Zephyr for myself. With a picnic in the saddlebag, we had a grand morning riding the trail. I chanced upon one of the white markers that dad had explained my grandfather had erected as a boundary. We were walking the horses side-by-side as we passed the marker and Deanna froze in place. She had a half-smile on her face like she was enjoying the sunshine. It took a few minutes, but I got her turned around and recrossing the marker. She perked right up as if nothing had happened. Dad explained some things when I asked him after she left.
Grady remembered those markers. He had passed five or six of the markers when he rode the middle trail. His grandpa nor his grandma had not mentioned anything special about them other than dating them back to the original Wolcott who set the stones.
May 6, 1951
I went back out with Deanna Cullins on the trail for a second rendezvous. We went with another couple this time, Tad and Karen. We passed the marker again and all three of them froze while their horses appeared unaffected. I said a few things to Deanna while she sat in the saddle, and then I spoke briefly to Tad and Karen. I led them back to the near side of the marker. We found ourselves a quiet patch in the shade and Deanna and I spent some time acquainting each other with our bodies. We didn’t do the deed, but we could have!
“Wow,” Grady said. “Grandpa, you were a horn dog.” He had an erection after reading that entry.
October 21, 1954
The alarm went off before daylight, waking my dad who woke me. Mom slept. I helped him saddle his horse and watched him trot up to the upper trail. Dad returned with a terrible wound on his right side. I honestly don’t know how he made it back because it was still bleeding. We got him to the hospital.
When he woke up the next morning, he ordered me to go to the gate. He told me to strip the body, touch the right and left stones and roll the body through the gate. The body was purplish-black with knobs above the eyes and on the cheeks while the hands had six digits. Dad had blown a hole through its midsection. There was a bunch of odd things in its pockets and unusual coins in a pouch around its neck. I took care of the body and rode home with the loot in both saddlebags.
An idea popped into Grady’s thoughts. In the office, he spun the dial and opened the safe. He pulled out all the accounting books and set them aside. After he pulled out the stock certificates and the various birth certificates, social security cards and other documents, he discovered one last thin documents box big enough for important papers. He pried off the lid. Inside was a sheet of yellow pad paper and a key securely nestled in a foam cutout. The writing on the paper was in his grandfather’s handwriting.
“Grady, behind the tractor, behind the used oil barrel. You’ll need a lantern. -Grandpa Jedidiah.”
After propping the box on the desk, Grady refilled the safe and closed the door. The thought that a keyhole existed somewhere on the ranch that he had never found was disconcerting. He was torn between returning to the journal or rushing out to the further equipment shed.
April 4, 1954
I took Henrietta out on the middle trail. We did not even make it to the marker when she coaxed me off my horse and seduced me in the larch grove. SHE told me that we were going to get married. I danced with her like a crazy fool with my pecker bouncing every which way, I was so happy. I took her past the marker and indeed, she froze. As my father instructed me, I said a few things to Henrietta about what to ignore and how to react to all things that might happen because of the gateway. She chose me and I feel whole, like I’m ready for the decades ahead.
Grady wandered over to the picture of his grandparents on their wedding day. They were both all smiles, leaning into each other. The house felt lonely suddenly. Grady turned back to the rest of the room, remembering his grandparents sitting in their favorite spots after dinner. The memory brought a smile to his face.
August 13, 1962
The woman at the gate was dressed in layers of a silken material and on her head was a helm that was well used. In her arms was a bound book. When I approached, she smiled at me and bowed from the waist. She had delicate features and yet they were not quite human. She was an ideal of beauty that a man would recognize but she was alien. She held up her finger and touched the jewel on my chest.
“You can understand me, now, yes?”
When I told her I could, she handed me the book and a pouch of coins that later proved to be rare earths. She begged me to destroy the book because it was the “bringer of death” so powerful that no one could destroy it on her world though many had tried. I said I would do as she asked, and she returned through the gate as if using it was an ordinary thing to her.
I dared not to open the book. I added it to the burn barrel behind the stable, watching the pages turn quickly to ash. Sometimes, it’s a terrible thing to have a vivid imagination.
Grady turned the page as he sipped a coke.
January 15, 1963
The alarm went off. With six inches of snow still on the ground I rode up there, or rather plowed through the cold and wet. I was met by a human man dressed in dated clothing. He was speaking Spanish, but I could not really understand his words or the way he spoke. I had him touch the stone and immediately we both understood the other. He wanted to know the date. When I told him, he was surprised. He said he had kept careful count and only three years had passed to the three hundred of which I spoke. He reached into his pocket and handed me a gold coin with a cross on one side and Latin words on the other. I shook his hand, and he returned through the gate.
“Is there some sort of damn instruction manual that goes with this gateway thingamabob?” Grady asked, looking up from the page. “Grandpa never gave me any instruction on what I’m supposed to do.” There was no ghost of grandpa to answer his plea.
Grady put down the journal when he got through most of the 1980’s. His grandfather had encountered sentient beings coming through the gate in dribs and drabs, sometimes twelve times a year or even as many as four times a month. Only twice had he been forced to track the being who walked far from the gate and both times had been violent meetings. Grady was thankful his grandfather had taught him how to hunt and how to shoot with a handgun as well. Apparently, there had been more to it than shooting tin cans off the fence post.
Looking out the kitchen window as he stretched his back, Grady decided there was enough daylight left to check out the keyhole behind the oil barrel. He skipped the old lantern and grabbed the LED light that they used for camping and power outages.
In the shed, he could see where the barrel had been shoved to the side before although the shadow of lacking dust was faint. He pushed the barrel aside and bent down to find the keyhole. The key slid in all the way to the head, the blade disappearing inside the wall. He turned the key, feeling the tumbler roll with the key. The entire wall with the shelves on it popped slightly forward. Grady had to use the tips of his finger to pull the door open.
He popped open the LED lantern and descended the revealed concrete steps into the darkness. At the bottom, Grady was forced to turn left. He held up the lantern and the first thing he saw was shelves. He took a couple of tentative steps into the room. The shelves were full of items. On his left he saw swords, knives, and objects for which he had no names, but they looked lethal. Further down, he peered at stacks of folded fabrics, the likes of which he had never seen. Some glittered in the light as if their threads were glass.
He faced the other side with the lantern held high. Necklaces hung on pegs. Rings were resting on velvet dowels, their metals and jewels winking back at him. Some of the rings were plain and dull, but one stood out black and non-reflective. His eyes shied away from it. Below were more objects, most of which he could not easily identify with a simple look. A small cube, no bigger than his thumbnail that he thought might be a die chimed when he lightly touched it with the pad of his finger. He hastily withdrew his finger.
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