The Portal Read online

  The Portal

  By

  Brock E. Deskins

  Published by Brock E. Deskins

  ISBN: 978-1-4661-1953-6

  Cover Illustration Copyright © 2011

  Cover art by Jeannebella

  Copyright ©2011 Brock E. Deskins

  Copyright, Legal Notice and Disclaimer:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold

  or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

  please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

  not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  To my wonderful children: Jenice, Josh, and Elissa.

  I hope you know how much I love you all.

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  EPILOGUE

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  The two rangers crept stealthily through the forest foliage, both little more than shadows passing through the thick undergrowth with no more noise than a whispering wind.

  The rangers were twins, a young man and woman, both of them blond, lithe, and dangerous. Sunbeams filtered through the trees in the early morning, and dew kissed every leaf of every plant around them, dampening their clothes and leather armor as they cut through the verdant forest with surgical precision.

  A brighter glow ahead hinted at a clearing in the trees, and a low gurgling gave testimony to a cool spring brook. The two rangers pressed their bodies close to the ground, their clothing absorbing even more of the cold morning dew through their hardened leather armor. The pair scuttled under a young pine tree, scanned the clearing ahead, and forced themselves to control their emotions and not gasp in wonderment at the beauty they beheld so as not to give themselves away.

  A majestic unicorn drank at the edge of a clear spring, its ivory horn gleaming in the sun. Its coat was pure white and as unblemished as a virgin snowfall. An elderly woman—strong, composing, and majestic in her own right—stood next to the beautiful creature, one hand stroking its pristine flank, humming a soft, wordless tune. Her dark brown hair, well streaked with grey, cascaded down her back. Her simple, homespun robes did nothing to diminish her aura of majesty. The twins had never before beheld such a spectacular site, and they held their collective breaths so as not to startle the Lord and Lady of the forest glen.

  The picturesque scene was instantly thrown into chaos and horror as a black-fletched arrow sprouted between the woman’s shoulder blades.

  The magnificent unicorn paused just long enough to cast a look of utter sorrow at the dying woman before it jumped the stream in one amazing leap and bolted through the forest. As the graceful woman fell slowly to the earth, she cast a baleful and accusing gaze toward the dark figure emerging from the shadows at the far side of the glade, bow in hand, and cursed the assassin with her dying breath.

  “What the hell, man?” the druid demanded.

  “Sneak attack! That’s four times base damage plus I rolled a natural twenty for a crit shot! Too bad the unicorn got away though, those horns are worth a fortune,” Chase exclaimed, excited with his one-shot kill.

  Drew, the dark-haired, gothic-looking dungeon master, glared across the table at the young man playing the thief.

  “Dude, that was your contact for the quest you have been on for the past three weeks. She was the only one that knew where the staff of Oberin was. Now you can’t finish your quest, you won’t get your reward from King Thadius, and Ted can’t get his artifact,” Drew shouted accusingly.

  “Yeah, and without the staff of Oberin we can’t kill the lich king. Way to go, idiot,” Theodore, a thin, young black lad with owlish glasses lamented.

  The ranger twins, who were twins in real life as well, decided to put in their own two cents.

  “What were you thinking? Why would you kill some old woman petting a unicorn anyway? You know unicorns are good aligned creatures, and we’re a good aligned adventuring party,” Philip and Felicia both said, berating Chase for his usual foolish actions.

  “I’m a thief and an assassin. That’s what I do. Besides, we’re only a good aligned party because chunky butt over there won’t play in an evil group,” the thief defended, jabbing a finger at the heavyset Gabriel sitting across from him.

  “Someone has to try and keep you heathens from the fiery pits of hell. Fantasy is the first step to reality. If you pretend to be evil, it is only a short step to becoming evil and committing evil acts in real life. You should thank me for saving your souls,” the portly, curly-haired boy said piously.

  Chase dismissed Gabriel’s sermon with a snort and turned back to the dungeon master. “You’re the DM. Just make up someone else for us to meet that has the information we need. It’s not that big of a deal.”

  “It’s not that big of a deal?” Drew asked incredulously. “I spent over a month planning and writing this adventure and then you go and derail the entire thing with another idiotic action that made absolutely no sense. That’s the problem with the world today. No one cares about the work of someone else. They just trample it on a whim, destroying another’s creative processes because they don’t understand them.”

  “Does this always have to be about you? No one understands me, this world sucks, human society is degenerating at an alarming rate and nobody cares, blah, blah, blah,” Chase ranted, mimicking the moody teen.

  That is why Drew got the nickname Dour Drew. He was pessimistic about everything and everyone around him, dressed in black clothes, and listened to mournful gothic music. However, he was a good DM and an all right friend, so everyone just wrote it off as one of the many peculiar quirks of their Dungeons and Dragons group.

  They all had their own peculiarities. Gabriel was a devout Christian and always played the cleric, but his character was always a devotee of God instead of some made up mythological deity. He was also the conscience of the group, often forcing (or at least coercing) them to follow the path of kindness and righteousness in their game.

  Chase was an unrepentant kleptomaniac who stole anything not nailed down and usually brought a pry bar for anything that was. He had already been banned from Staples, Best Buy, and two of the three Wal-Marts in the city for shoplifting. Gabriel had made reforming Chase his personal quest. It was the main reason he played with the group. Plus, being an outcast at school made him long for any kind of friends.

  Theodore, or Ted as he preferred to be called, was a thin, black youth whose major passions outside of playing the wizard in Dungeons and Dragons was math, chess, science, languages, stamps, computers, and just about everything that could possibly make a person a true nerd, or a possible candidate for the king of nerds.

  The true oddballs, however, when looking at the group as a whole, were the twins, Philip and Felicia. This was not because they had any peculiar quirks, but quite the opposite.

  They were perfectly normal, blond-haired, attractive, got good grades without being nerds, were school champions in fencing and archery, black belts in jujitsu, and enjoyed the outdoors. The closest they came to being nerds was that Philip was an eagle scout, and Felicia was in the 4H club and FFA. The only thing that made them l
ess than popular was the fact they also liked to play D&D with the “dorks” and cared less what the other high school kids thought of them or their choice of friends.

  “Forget about it. I’ll come up with something for next weekend,” Drew relented, knowing that Chase would never concede any argument. Chase would stand before a cop stark naked and argue until he convinced the police that he was not the streaker they were looking for.

  “It’s getting late anyway, and Phil and I have some stuff to work on before school tomorrow,” Felicia added.

  The group began scooping up dice and stuffing their costumes into backpacks and duffle bags. They usually played in full costumes of leather and chain mail armor they either bought online or made themselves and wielded swords, knives, and the recurve bows of Phil and Felicia. A loud knocking at Drew’s bedroom door interrupted their packing.

  “Hey, time for you nerds to wrap it up! Mom and dad are going to be home soon, and you have school tomorrow,” the voice of Drew’s older brother, Josh, sounded through the locked door.

  Josh was a senior at the high school they all went to, except for Gabe who attended a private Christian school. All but Ted were sophomores, who happened to be a junior because he had skipped two grades already. Technically, he could graduate with the credits he already had if he truly wanted to.

  In opposition, Chase should have been a junior, but he was held back due to his numerous delinquencies, truancies, and lack of scholastic pursuits. The friends bid each other farewell and left Drew in his room as they all went home.

  “Seriously, dude,” Josh told his little brother once everyone left. “You are never going to make it if you keep hanging around dorks and playing that stupid Dungeons and Dragons all the time. That’s probably half the reason you’re so weird now. Try doing some sports or something.”

  “Oh, like lacrosse, so I can run around and beat people with sticks like we used to in the good old days when humans were still trying to master fire? The world has degenerated into a bunch of savage Neanderthals trying to kill each other with sticks and corporate greed,” Drew shot back, not wanting to hear the usual argument his brother brought up. “No thanks, I’ll stand with the last true bastion of humanity.”

  “You must be adopted,” Josh muttered as he turned from his brother’s doorway and walked back into the living room to watch hockey. “Better yet, maybe I am.”

  As usual, Drew went to bed before his parents got home. They were gone a lot, either working or traveling on the weekends now that their two children were old enough to take care of themselves for a couple days at a time.

  Drew woke up the next day and dressed for school. He donned his usual dark attire to suit his mood. He thanked the pagan powers that be that his school had not gone to the standardized school uniform many of the other fascist, life-controlling authorities of society had decided to adopt.

  He ate a quick breakfast of Cheerios, grabbed his bag, and walked to the bus stop. He could have had his mom or dad make Josh let him ride with him in his car, but he did not find it worth the trouble. Drew was not in the mood to listen to Josh complain about being conscripted as his little brother’s chauffer and did not want to force his company on him anyway.

  The long, yellow school bus with its signature broad, black stripe running down its length pulled up to the stop at the corner of his street about ten minutes later. Drew climbed the three tall steps and headed toward the rear of the bus as the pneumatic doors whooshed closed behind him. He spied Chase sitting three rows from the back and made his way to the seat his friend held for him.

  The younger kids occupied the front seats and would be dropped off at the grade school before him and the rest of the high schoolers. The older (and therefore bigger) seniors and juniors took the back seats in a societal hierarchy he would likely never be at the top of but was forced to take part in. It was from those distant seats that the usual accusations and harassment came.

  “Hey, vampire boy, does your mom know you’re wearing her makeup? You going to go and suck some blood?” one of the upper classmen called out.

  Drew ignored the taunting as he always did, bottling it up inside of him as just another drop of poison, deadening his slowly numbing heart. Chase, however, was not so accepting of the abuse.

  “Chase, don’t, it’s not worth it,” Drew said, trying to keep his friend from getting himself in trouble on his behalf.

  As always, it was too late to stop Chase from acting the fool. Nothing in the universe could move faster than Chase’s mouth when he was bent on causing havoc.

  “I got something you can suck right here, buddy!” he shouted at the older teen while he stood on his seat grabbing his crotch.

  “You little punk, I’ll kick your smart ass!” the senior threatened.

  “Actually, my brain is in my head, not in my ass but, compared to you, I guess my ass would seem like a genius,” Chase shot back, infuriating the already hostile upperclassman.

  The older boy started to get out of his seat to make good on his threat, but the suddenly decelerating bus saved Chase from an early morning beating. Chase lost the precarious perch he was standing on and tumbled head over heels into the seat in front of him, or rather behind him since he was facing the rear of the bus.

  Chase was sent sprawling onto the sticky floor of the bus, his head below the seat and his legs sticking up between the two girls occupying the padded bench. As humiliating as his tumble was, it did have one benefit of giving him a rather good view of the legs coming out of the skirts of the two girls occupying the seat.

  “Nice day, eh ladies?” Chase commented as he stared up the legs of the two girls with a wide grin. “Hello Kitty to you too,” he said lecherously, having caught a glimpse of the cartoon picture emblazoned on one of the girl’s underpants.

  “Ew, get away from us you pervert!” they cried and commenced to hitting and kicking him as he tried to crawl out from under the bus seat.

  “Everyone, get back in your seat,” the bus driver demanded, having stopped the bus because of the disturbance.

  Chase managed to crawl out from beneath the bench seat, enduring a flurry of blows from the two girls wielding book bags and the laughter of nearly everyone on the bus. He resumed his seat next to his friend. His tumble and resulting hilarity seemed to have defused the situation enough that Drew figured that would be the end of the confrontation; assuming Chase did not do anything to provoke anyone else for the rest of the short trip.

  “Sorry about wrecking the game last night. I was just trying to play in character and got carried away,” Chase apologized, as he usually did once he had time to think and realized his mistake.

  “It’s no big deal. There were things I wanted to do different anyway. I was starting to get bored with the whole campaign.”

  “So you already thought up something new for us for the long weekend?” Chase asked, referring to the four days off they were getting at the end of the week for some holiday and subsequent teacher’s work day none of them really cared anything about, except for the fact it meant no school for a few days.

  “I’m not sure what I’ll do. I was thinking about doing something totally different. I’m going to go to the bookstore after school today and look for something I read about online this weekend.”

  “You mean that weird Wiccan bookstore with the skulls and magic crap in it?”

  “It’s not crap. People have been praying to and using the power of the earth for thousands of years before Christians came along and vilified it,” Dour Drew said defensively.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s kind of a cool store, and the chick that works there is pretty hot!”

  Drew shot him a sidelong glance. “She’s like, twenty years old, you perv. Besides, you’re not her type.”

  “Oh, and you are, I suppose?”

  “More than you; at least we belong in the same circle.”

  “Just because you went Wiccan and got all Goth doesn’t mean you’re in the same le
ague. Besides, you’d tear your face up on her piercings anyway,” Chase shot back. “So what are you looking for there anyway?”

  “I’m not a Wiccan, I just believe in the spiritual interconnectedness of people, plants, animals, earth, and the cosmos,” Drew explained wearily. “It’s just a book that contains some interesting things that may be cool to try. You know that abandoned house at the end of Heritage Street?” Drew asked.

  “The big haunted one? Yeah, what about it?”

  “It’s not haunted, but I thought it would be cool to have our meeting there this weekend.”

  Chase looked at his friend doubtfully. “Seriously? I don’t know… I heard some strange things about that place, and you know getting Gabe to go in there is going to be nearly impossible.”

  “Maybe we can tell him we want him to perform an exorcism or something and purify it of the devil’s taint,” Drew suggested and laughed.

  “ROFL, you said the devil’s taint,” Chase laughed, sounding out the internet chat speak as roffle.

  “Is your mind always in the gutter?”

  “Usually. If it finds itself anywhere else, it feels like a stranger at someone else’s birthday party.”

  The bus arrived at the high school, having already dropped the younger kids off. Chase and Drew debarked, walked to the front steps of the school, and ran into Ted and the twins, who were waiting for them as usual.

  “What’s up, guys?” Felicia asked in greeting.

  “Not much. I got a nice up-skirt peek of two girls on the bus, and Drew wants to hold our next game at the haunted murderer’s house on Heritage Street this weekend. You know, the usual,” Chase supplied with a straight face.

  “There was no murder there. It’s just an old abandoned house,” Drew insisted.

  Ted added in his usual analytical voice. “Yeah, there is no scientific proof of the existence of any kind of spiritual entities. In fact, nearly every event of so-called paranormal activities has been disproved by legitimate scientific enquiry.”