Gate Nine

The dead were supposed to burn before sunrise.

Everyone knew that. Children learned it before they learned their letters: the Wall kept the living safe; the fire kept the dead that way. Elias had repeated it to his nephew with a spoonful of porridge balanced in front of the boy's mouth, and to a woman who had tried to follow her husband's gurney into a furnace. He had never found a kinder way to say it.

Tonight, they were going to be late.

“Open the fucking door.”

Deren struck the horn with the heel of his hand. Beyond the windshield, rain ran down the black steel of Gate Nine. A security lamp turned the water red. There was a booth to the left of the gate, illuminated and apparently empty, with a half-eaten sandwich on its counter.

The dashboard clock read 4:51. Sunrise was at 5:14.