The Portal (m/m)

[drawscore]

The Portal

The odd humming seemed to get louder as Doug and Charlie approached a corner of the woods they normally avoided. Charlie turned to Doug, and said that Scott and Allen had warned him that strange noises came from this place, and that it gave them the creeps. "Better not go near that place." Allen had told him.

Charlie thought it was superstitious bullshit. Besides, he was 14, and bold, adventurous, and even a little cocky. He regarded Allen's caution as some kind of mind game, in preparation for some prank or stunt. He had recruited Doug to go with him and explore this strange place, and Doug, always looking for new adventures and things to do, decided to go along. Allen, and his younger brother, Scott, told them they were crazy, and so did Ronnie, Mark, David, and several other friends.

"What is it about this place that's got them all spooked?" Charlie asked. Doug replied that he had no idea, and had been here just a couple of weeks longer than Charlie, so had no clue.

"Well, there's no way to find out, except to go in there." Charlie said. "C'mon, let's go."

The further in they went, the cooler it seemed to get. Fifty feet down the trail, and it seemed to be ten degrees colder than when they first started. Doug shivered, and wished he had worn a sweat shirt, rather than just a T-shirt with his jeans.

The boys spotted a cave-like opening in some heavy underbrush. "Hey, check this out." Doug said, and approached.

"I don't know about this, Doug." Charlie said. "Maybe Allen and Scott were right, 'cause I'm as nervous as I was when we had that sleepover, when you and Ronnie and Mark slept over with us, and my aunt and uncle were out until way late, and there weren't any adults around."

"Yeah!" Doug replied. "I feel like one of those TV kids that just been captured by outlaws."

“Me, too.” Charlie laughed, and the two boys stepped into the hole in the underbrush, and were met with a blast of frigid air that left them dizzy and disoriented. When their heads cleared, they were standing several feet inside the mouth of a cave, in a small alcove. Doug looked at Charlie, and said "What the hell??" Charlie stood there, not in the blue jeans and T-shirt he'd worn at the start of this little adventure, but in a pair of brownish gray pants, cut like jeans, and a blue long sleeved shirt. Charlie looked back at Doug, and Doug's jeans and T-shirt were also gone, replaced by a blue uniform.

"You look like the kid from 'The Rifleman,' Charlie." Doug said.

"Yeah!" Charlie replied, "And you look like 'Corporal Rusty' from 'Rin Tin Tin.'"

"I'd sure like to know what's going on, and how this happened." Doug said.

"Maybe we can find out in town." Charlie replied, and pointed toward several buildings that looked like a western town right out of the westerns they saw on TV. Doug said they should step back into the alcove and see if it would take them back to where they started. Charlie laughed, and asked "Where's your sense of adventure?"

The town wasn't that far, just a couple hundred yards, so the two boys walked together until reaching the outskirts. "Let's split up, and we'll meet back here in an hour." Charlie said. Doug agreed, and the two went in opposite directions down the main street.

Several minutes after separating, Doug found himself taking a rest by sitting on a crate on the side of the general store. "Hey, Doug! Come here! I need help!" he heard a voice shout, and looked up at a window. It didn't sound like anyone he knew, but the voice seemed to know him, so he got up, and ran up the stairs two and three at a time.

But the face wasn't friendly. When Doug entered the room, he was grabbed, thrown to the floor, and his hands forced behind him, where they were tied together tightly. Doug thought that this kid must have been eating his Wheaties, because he was much stronger than he looked. Any other time, it would take three kids to hold him if he fought, but this time, one boy held and tied him with ease, and on top of that, had done a very good job. And he hadn't even used rope. He'd tied Doug with a long white strip torn from a bedsheet. Another look, and Doug suddenly realized why this boy was so familiar. He appeared to be Scott's and Allen's biggest rival, Mike Hayworth.

Doug's ankles were tied together with another strip, then a third was tied over his mouth. His captor laughed, and said "Struggle all you want, Doug. You ain't gettin' out of those knots." Somehow, it was eerily familiar, almost like something he had once seen on TV.

Charlie's fate wasn't much better. He thought he saw Ronnie and David, and followed them to a house just on the edge of town. Bursting through the door, he said "What are you guys doing here?"

Charlie was immediately grabbed and held fast. "Who are you, and what do you want?" one of them demanded.

Charlie blurted out that he thought they were people he knew. "Well, we're not! But we can't chance having you running around, and blabbing to your friends."

"There's only me and Doug." Charlie protested.

A second boy, called Bill, who looked like one of the kids in Mike Hayworth's scout troop, was told "Take him out back to the stable, and keep him out of the way for a while."

"You got it," Bill replied, and pulled Charlie to his feet. "Let's go, you!" he said.

Bill took Charlie to the stable and tied his hands together behind his back. After tying his feet, Bill tied Charlie's hands to a wagon wheel spoke, then pulled a bandana from his pocket, rolled it up, and tied it over Charlie's mouth. "Sorry I have to make this gag so tight." Bill laughed. Charlie just let out with a soft "mmmppfff!"

"Now, you stay quiet, and I'll be back for you later." Bill said, and left his captive, tied to the wheel, and helpless. Charlie tested the ropes, but he'd been tied pretty good, and if he was going to get free, he was going to need some help. Like Doug, Charlie felt this was somehow familiar, but with so many other things racing through his mind, he just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Doug was having his own problems. He had been tied up against the foot of a bed in a hotel room, and with his captor just a few feet away, he didn't dare make any attempt to escape. But just for show, he tried to work his ankles free. This only brought a laugh from his captor. "You might as well just sit quiet, Doug. You ain't goin' nowhere." he said, and Doug had to admit he was right.

Charlie had been left alone, tied to the wheel in the stable. He looked around, and seemed to see another boy tied to the opposite wheel, but turned away when he thought he heard a noise. When he turned back, nothing was there but the other wheel, and he just chalked it up to an overactive imagination. What wasn't imagination, was the door of the stable opening up, and a tall boy slipped in. Charlie saw him, and gave a soft "mmmppfff!"

"He looks just like Joey from 'Fury.'" thought Charlie, as the tall figure bent over him, and untied his hands. Charlie pulled down his gag, and said that he was here with a friend, and that two kids had overpowered him, and tied him up.

"I saw you get caught." Joey said. "And I haven't trusted that bunch since they came into town."

Charlie thanked him for getting him loose, and suggested that they wait for Bill to come back, and capture him, but Joey told him that could come later. "Right now, we need to get out of here, and find your friend."

"He was wearing a blue uniform." Charlie said.

Joey replied that he had just the thing. "There's a whole bunch of kids in blue uniforms down at the general store. We'll get them to help."

The two boys slipped out of the stable, and down to the general store. The kids there all looked like several other kids Charlie knew from watching TV. Joey told them that a boy who looked like them - wearing a blue uniform - might have been captured or kidnapped. "I think I saw him taken in to the hotel." one boy volunteered. Another boy said that said that he and his friends would check it out.

Joey then rounded up several of them, but these faces were unfamiliar to Charlie. Joey introduced them, but the names went by him in a blur, as he was still trying to figure out what was going on, and where he was. Charlie joined them as they headed back to the stable.

Meanwhile, the kids in the blue uniforms heard Doug's soft "mmmppfff's," and located the room where he was being held. A shoulder to the door knocked it open, and there was Doug, still tied and gagged at the foot of the bed.

It took only moments to overpower Doug's captor, get him tied up, and get Doug untied. Naturally, Doug was very profuse in his thanks to his rescuers, and joined them as they marched their captive out of the room, and down to the hall. Doug thought he heard one of his rescuers say "Next time, I get to be captured," but shrugged it off as part of an overactive imagination.

No sooner had they gotten their new prisoner safely locked in the town jail, then Joey and his friends brought two more captives in. "The new kid has identified these guys as the ones that tied him up in the stable." he said, as they were pushed into an open cell.

Doug and Charlie thought the whole episode was kind of weird. "Maybe we ought to go back." Charlie said. "According to my watch, we've been here a good three hours, and my aunt's probably got lunch waiting."

Doug agreed, and the two boys mounted a pair of horses, and rode back to the cave in the side of the hill. They stepped inside, and almost immediately were hit with another frigid blast of air. A moment later, they found themselves on the ground. Even more amazing, the clothes they were wearing for their little adventure, were gone, and the boys were back in their jeans and T-shirts.

"Did that really happen, or were we imagining things?" Doug asked.

"I don't know." Charlie replied, "But maybe we'd better keep this to ourselves."

The secret didn't last very long. Charlie and Doug heard Scott and Allen calling for them, and headed back up the trail, and out of the hollow. When they met, Doug and Charlie promptly spilled their guts about what had happened.

Allen and Scott reacted with hysterical laughter. "You guys are so full of shit, your eyes are brown." laughed Allen. Charlie protested that his eyes were blue, but Allen shot back "Then you must be a quart low."

Their laughter was interrupted by a shout from up the trail. "Hey, what are you guys up to?" It was Ronnie, with his little brother, Mark.

"Maybe we ought to send Mark through your silly ass portal." Scott laughed.

Charlie said he didn't think that would be a good idea. "Why not?" Allen asked.

Charlie replied that whatever we said at the time we went in, materialized on the other side. "I made a comment about there not being any adults around, and there weren't. Doug said something about being as nervous as a kid on TV that just got captured, and we ended up looking like "Mark McCain" and "Corporal Rusty," and we both got captured."

"But why would it be a bad idea to send Mark through?" Scott repeated.

Charlie laughed. "Don't you remember what he and Kevin said at the sleepover the other night?"

"Oh, yeah!" Scott replied. "They said he wanted to tie us up, along with all our friends, just like he and Kevin had me and Doug tied."

"That's right!" Charlie said. "And what were you and Doug wearing?"

A look of amazement covered Scott's face. "Pajamas!" he said. "Mark and Kevin had us tied up in our pajamas."

"And you can bet they'd do to you again." Charlie added. “And the rest of us, too.”

"Not if we take them through tied and gagged." said Ronnie, much to the delight and laughter of the others.

“We'll take you guys through the next time!” Doug said. “Me and Scott got shit to do tomorrow and Sunday, but how 'bout we get everybody together, and do it Monday? That's a teacher conference day, and there's no school.”

“OK with me.” Allen said. “But if you guys are bullshittin', your asses are gonna be in a sling for a month! And, you gotta baby-sit them cub scouts on their back yard campout next week!”

“Yeah!” Ronnie echoed. “And you gotta let all of 'em tie you up. Twice each.”

“And if it is true, you guys get tied up twice each by the cubs!” Doug shot back.

Ronnie and the others agreed, and in the back of his mind, Doug thought that it would be fun to see the ten year old cub scouts tie and gag their 11-14 year old friends.

END