The Black Gate 3

 

Gen remembered the foamy, pinkish slop that he’d slid in that day: Goh’s brains and apparently his eye. He didn’t know how important it would be then. 

As hard as Gen concentrated here, he couldn’t seem to find the sack of flesh that popped like a blister under his heel the day prior. Goh couldn’t feel it himself, the representation on his ghostly figure missing as well unlike the rest of his pieces. 

Gen had searched for a long time, already displeased with the several trips he’d made back and forth in his search. 

“Why don’t we go back?” Goh asked cautiously, “instead of finding my head.” 

He had already asked so much of the man who made it clear that he had no obligation to him and was just doing this to rid himself of a haunting.

“That’s where I was cut up, after all.” 

 He shrugged. 

“Yeah, we can try that.” 

Gen’s voice had fallen back to his low grumble. The landlady’s jest had sunk his morale. He knew he wouldn’t find the piece that had been tracked all over the neighborhood by now on the bottoms of every other shoe. Gen wondered if it could have become attached to anyone else or if he was simply the unlucky first that passed it. 

He already was on his way back, passing the alley in which he resided once more, longing to take that route instead. He hoped it would be the last time he passed it by that night. 

Goh began to experiment more boldly with how much he could allow them to separate. Getting too far from him resulted in fading into little more than a wisp of smoke. He rushed closer to Gen in order to reappear. He liked existing, or at least, he was used to it. It also allowed him to fiddle with the tip of his favorite scarf, yellow with red flowery spots. 

Even if no one else could see Goh, he could feel himself when he got closer, and that was a small comfort in all of this. He made sure to separate that comfort from the source of it. Gen had provided some of that comfort himself, though none of it had been particularly purposeful. 

As they went through the West Gate and back to the darkness which grew with each journey, Goh wondered if it ever stopped getting darker and darker. Gen pulled his phone from his coat pocket to use its flashlight. 

The same loose dirt road puffed up around Gen as he marched back to the abandoned school. The tiny particles glowed a bright white, illuminated by the light as it dispersed within its beam.

 The strange black gate towered above the small traditional-style school building. It was a single-story crumbling building that held only a few classrooms. Gen only made it into the front room, not bothering to disturb anything else. 

The two pieces of Goh’s body were piled on top of each other, still wrapped in their black plastic bags. Gen frowned in disgust to see that his right arm was leaking dark liquid onto the white marble floor just as the first abandoned piece had. He never wanted to be this familiar with a dead body, but here he was, doing what he must, as with most of the decisions in his life. 

“What now?” Gen asked, moving to lay one piece next to the one that had already been there, approximating which went where. The plastic slid through the rot-slicked Chinese marble fairly easily, and he hoped he wouldn’t slip in this body for the second time. 

When finished, Gen sat at one of the abandoned dusty stools against the wall, lighting a cigarette and crossing his legs. “Take your time.” 

 Even Gen had forgotten at this point that his companion was dead despite his inability to contribute annoying him throughout the day. 

Goh only acted under the pressure of the hourglass of Gen’s cigarette. The man puffed away while God scoured his mind for some way to help, some way to remember. Lost for any other more pleasant ideas, Goh laid his phantom body over the portion of his real one. Citing any and all knowledge of death and memories he could, he thought perhaps putting himself in the same space and position would jolt something loose in his mind about the case. 

As Goh lowered himself onto the body parts, occupying space as a corpse once more, he felt searing pain. It was so overwhelming he couldn’t link it to one place on his body. His insides slithered out of him effortlessly once they’d been exposed. With endless desperation, he tried to open his eyes. As he experienced his dismemberment he hoped his head would flop down, his eyes would open, and he could see this villain. He only experienced the explosion of his organs rushing forward, surely steaming in the relentless Beijing winter. 

It felt like being a popped pimple, guts rather than puss freeing themselves from a membrane of skin that now seemed so fragile. Popped carelessly in an instant, he sat up. 

 It was dreadful, but memories started to come back. Goh was already dead, but his mind still screamed for the culprit to leave him be. He had already been murdered. Why must he also be violated? 

None of it was useful, only tremendously upsetting for Goh, who kept it all his own secret as he experienced his disposal. The idea had worked, but not as he’d hoped. He sat up from the garbage bags and stood again, distancing himself from the mess. 

“No good?” Gen asked.

“No. You stink,” he joked, an instant defense mechanism to avoid mentioning what had happened. He didn’t want to get into the gory details when he couldn’t even remember the face that had done this to him. 

“Hey!” Gen threw his cigarette into the floor and it burst into glowing embers that shined in the darkness, “Your body stinks! Don’t you know I’ve been digging through garbage all day for this mess?” 

He stood as if he were poised to fight, but Goh laughed. His bait had been bitten. It was another simple distraction and Gen seemed to go along with his insults, never quite seeming so angry as he played at. 

“Let’s go. We can try again later.” 

“Oh, what the fuck?” a voice exclaimed from the opposite end of the room, having come in from the hallway. 

“I come out to get a stool and there’s a whole dumpster in here now? Who are you?” it continued.

Gen searched with his light to find a skeleton gesturing in the doorway, both of its arms extended to the pile of bags. This skeleton was taller than most people with a jaw that rattled when he spoke. The hard-earned ability to joke and jest between Gen and Goh had been starkly interrupted with this ghoulish addition. 

Gen gave a grumble of defeat upon supposing he’d have to accept over and over that weird things were going to happen to him from now on. The skeleton continued to flail in gesturing of his upset in the light of Gen’s phone. 

“Hold on, hold on,” Gen shushed him. Goh continued to look with eyes wide as if he were facing his death for a third time. As a naturally nervous person, he didn’t know just how lucky he was to be paired with the often worryingly cool-headed Gen. 

“Maybe you could help us out,” Gen explained, “I stepped in this guy and now I’ve been seeing all kinds of weird shit. Ghosts. Little demon hands. Skeletons.” The skeleton seemed to cheer up, relating to Gen’s frank way of speaking. 

“We want to send him off to the afterlife or something. He thought we could do it by finding his body, so that’s what this is.” 

“Oh, yuck! You brought a body?” the skeleton cackled, “You know, if I knew how to go, I wouldn’t be here myself! My theory was that I’d move on if I found my kids, but no way to get to ‘em.” 

He shrugged his humeral heads. Gen found the jangle of the movement of his bones amusing in some sick way.  

“A damned shame,” Gen frowned, his way of offering condolence, refusing to remember his own family. He had other things to take care of at hand. He continued to shine the light on the skeleton. Goh also gave a frown of sympathy, realizing he was no horror movie monster but an unfortunate soul just like himself. It made him no less jumpy. 

“I mean, I’ve been able to lead others there, if they’re lost, but me, I can’t manage.” 

The skeleton then looked to Goh, “Wanna try?” His jaw jutted forward and he tilted his skull back as if inviting him. Goh glanced at Gen, then back to the skeleton. He then looked down at his own bagged body, knowing that there would never be so much as an investigation if not by himself and Gen. Gen returned his glance, watching the boy as he struggled to make a decision. 

“Listen, you here all the time? The kid’s got a lot to think about.” Gen didn’t know why he should defend him, having been nothing but a burden. Perhaps he had started to like the ghost after spending the day bickering and teasing one another. He’d certainly shown to have grown some sympathy for him. 

He continued, “and I’ve gotta take a shower. This body isn’t the most disgusting thing I’ve come across today.” It was getting late, too. Gen could never escape the pressing matter of time even though he was free of work the next day. 

“I’ll do it.” Goh’s interjection was unexpected to either of the members of his audience as he stepped forward towards the towering skeleton. The ghost jumped and jittered as soon as the skeleton gestured at him by sweeping a welcoming hand open in invitation. It didn’t speak anymore, neither did anyone. Each step Goh took forward was tight and assured, the only way he could make himself move. 

As Goh stepped closer and closer to the skeleton, he felt himself as a more and more solid entity. He never felt real or unreal, but he was reminded of the weight and burden of living. He recognized what it felt like to be formless, and recognized it leaving as he inched forward. The skeleton silently walked through the school’s dark halls, leaving Gen behind to smoke puff after puff of his cigarettes. 

“Through there,” the skeleton gestured through a hallway that led through the back door frame which hung nothing on its hinges anymore. Goh felt sick. 

“Can ghosts puke?” he asked, and the skeleton laughed. 

 Goh hesitated. 

“I hear it’s great,” the skeleton shrugged. Its bones clacked back and forth. It had no idea; it could have been the most painful thing in the world for all it knew. 

Goh looked on. Beyond the doorway was what looked like a normal, if not peaceful, forest. It was silent: no chirping birds, no prowling beasts. It would have been difficult to make them out if there had been any. The trees were black against the indigo sky and the distant lights of the dense city.

The traditional style gate from the front of the building was the same as the one here behind. This one housed a door that led deeper into the forest. Two pillars reached so high into and among the canopy that they disappeared in the darkness, and a golden lion’s head bit down on a ring in the middle of the lacquered wooden door. 

Goh reached out, the skeleton waiting for him in the building as he stepped outside and started the short trek to the gate. 

Had it been so simple as finding his way there the whole time? As Goh walked he wondered alone if this was really what he wanted; how he wanted things to end. Thoughts of what was beyond the door petrified him but somehow he managed to reach quivering fingers out to curl around the cool steel gold that the obedient lion bore. 

With one knock, and then another, his fate was answered by silence so whole and final that he couldn’t help being relieved. Its booms echoed loudly through the trees, which didn’t so much as sway. 

For posterity, and the fear that the skeleton was watching him, he kept trying. He pushed. He pulled. He rapped with his knuckles, and the door wouldn’t budge. Did he even want to leave to some unknown womb of rebirth as a lonesome, uncertain, half-assembled spirit?

No. 

As Goh turned around, the skeleton offered neither condolence nor dismissal, and the silence was likely the most comforting option for Goh, who wasn’t quite trusting of the spooky but cheerful entity. 

“No luck, huh?” Gen unexpectedly spoke up upon their return to the front room. His legs were crossed as he sat on a stool in waiting, smoking cigarettes, not unlike the birdish landlady. 

“We’re still looking for the other pieces. Can we leave this with you?” Gen stood to nudge the plastic black bags in the middle of the floor with his foot as he turned his attention to the accompanying skeleton. 

The skeleton had no facial expression to signal to them, instead using his body to gesture perhaps more than an average person would. He crossed his arms as he considered the offer. “You’d better come back and get this body out of here some time soon.” For a final time, he swatted his hand at the cadaver in his home, “Or I’ll curse you.”

 The more any of them considered it, the more it seemed like an awful invasion. Gen tried not to think about that.

The skeleton cackled away, leaving Gen to wonder just how serious that threat was. Goh remained terrified of the possibility despite having little to lose after his life. 

Both of them thought the same thing by the time they resigned: that maybe they were cursed to be together until things were solved. 

As they began to walk back home side by side, they passed the only singular thing that branched off of the loose dirt road but trees. It was a small factory, modern-looking and clean as if someone maintained it, though neither of them had heard of it before. A large, covered truck rumbled past them, shooting up so much dust that it was impossible to see for a few moments. It gathered in Gen’s mouth, making him spit and sputter while Goh was so spooked he reached out to grab Gen’s arm.  

Once the truck’s rumble quieted and the dust settled, Gen realized that the hand that clutched onto him didn’t simply fall through. It took the both of them by surprise that Goh was not sinking in a breeze of cold air, but a light touch.

“Hey!” Gen looked down, then back up at Goh. Goh did the same, but his face lit into a big grin. 

“I can feel!” 

“Maybe we got your arm back, huh?”

Goh was too busy nudging and prodding Gen’s bicep with one hand and then the other. The one they’d recovered felt resistance while the other still fell through. Giddy laughter accompanied each press of his hand until Goh tired of being the target of testing. 

“Cut it out, Kid!” 

Nonetheless, he thought that maybe all of his work had been for something after all.

It wasn’t until Gen was half asleep that he heard echoes of sobbing in the bathroom. 

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