---
layout:          post
title:           "MAG140.1 - The Iron Gate (Rusty Fears Winner)"
date:            2019-06-13 12:00:00 -0400
episode_type:    [special]
tags:            [Non-Canon, Rusty Fears, Contest Winner]
categories:			"tma"
podcasts: ["tma"]
title_prefix:	"MAG"
prev_categories: ["tma"]
prev_prefixes: ["MAG"]
next_categories: ["tma"]
next_prefixes: ["MAG"]
prev_episode:   ['140']
next_episode:   ['141']
prev_episode_num:		['140']
next_episode_num:		['141']
prev_episode_title:		["The Movement of the Heavens"]
next_episode_title:		["Doomed Voyage"]
episode_title:   'The Iron Gate'
episode_number:  '140.1'
summary:         "This week's episode is the winner from our latest Rusty Fears competition. <br/><br/>\"The Iron Gate\" is written by <b>Cailyn Toomey</b>, read by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J Newall. <br/><br/>Thank you everyone who submitted stories and spread the word! <br/><br/>Note: this is a stand-alone piece of fiction and not part of the Magnus canon."
content_flags:   [Bullying]
acast_url:       https://play.acast.com/s/themagnusarchives/mag140.1-theirongate
formats: 
official:        false
unofficial:      ""
unofficial_name: Anonymous
wiki_url:        
---

#### ALEX

Hi everyone, Alex here, with a quick introduction to today's episode. Firstly, I just wanted to thank all of you for your patience during this midseason hiatus. We tried to keep them as short as possible, so thanks for bearing with us. We'll be returning to our normal release schedule from next week.

In the meantime, we recently ran another Rusty Fears competition inviting people to submit their own statements for the *Magnus* treatment, and today we are happy to present you with the winning entry. As with last time, please remember that today's episode is a standalone work, and shouldn't be considered part of the *Magnus Archives* canon.

So, congratulations to the winner, and we hope you enjoy today's episode.

##### [INTRO MUSIC]

#### ANNOUNCER

Rusty Quill Presents: *The Magnus Archives.*

The Iron Gate, by Cailyn Toomey.

##### [INTRO MUSIC FADES OUT]

#### ARCHIVIST

The older I get, the more I realize how much I've forgotten.

Do you remember being a kid on a long car ride, how the road would stretch on and on and your grandparents' house was only 20 minutes away but it *felt* more like two hours? Some kids would watch a movie or play a game on some half-broken old tablet, but I get carsick. So sometimes all I could do was look out of the window and imagine. It was easiest to play the game at night.

Do you know the game I'm talking about? I don't know if it has an actual name, but I just used to call it -- the car chaser game. When I first started playing it on car trips, I felt like the smartest kid alive. I would imagine the chaser a little differently every time, but no matter what it was, it followed alongside the car as the trees and houses sped by. It would jump effortlessly from power line to power line across street lights. The chaser would follow along beside the car, and the game was to see if it could keep up the whole trip.

My friend Joey got carsick too, and on the bus we weren't allowed to use devices anyway, so I guess it all started because we were bored. I told him about the car chaser. When I finished, though, he just looked smug. Said he already knew that game and that I wasn't doing it right. When *he* looked out the window, he always saw a white dog.

We started to argue, and some of the other kids sitting next to us leaned in to listen. When they heard what we were fighting about, some people said that they pretended it was a cheetah, and some said they just saw a really fast man. When we realized we had all played the same game, though, everyone leaned back into their own seats to look out the window.

Joey and I talked about what path we thought the chaser would take as it ran. We pressed closer to the window and imagined the chaser jumping across the cars we passed, long legs stretching out behind it. When we passed a gated driveway, though, we got in another fight. I said the chaser would jump from one side of the iron gate to the other; Joey said the gate was its base, though, and since the car chaser had made it to the base before us, *it* had won the game this time.

I told him I thought that was a dumb rule, but Joey stopped playing after that. We talked about video games the rest of the trip.

I thought that was the end of it. We all got off the bus, me and Joey and a few other kids, and we started walking home. But when we passed the big iron gate Joey stopped, picked a leaf off a nearby tree, and placed it on the ground in front of the gate. He said the leaf was really money for the car chaser from the game, to say thank you for playing with us.

The rest of us thought it was funny, and, being kids, we would pretty much take any excuse to pull the leaves off a tree. So we each picked a leaf and left it in front of the gate too.

And we just -- started *doing* that. It kind of just became a habit. We all rode the bus together, and so whenever the group of us passed by the iron gate, we would always end up leaving something in front of it. It didn't always have to be leaves, just anything interesting we found. Sometimes we would leave plastic bottle caps. Sometimes Joey would even leave a small piece of candy, if he had one.

And then there was the time we made Nico leave some of the money his mum had given him. I still feel bad about that.

Nico had been given a couple of coins by his mum, and he had been talking all day about how, if he brought the money back to her at the end of the day, she would take him to get some ice cream. It was supposed to teach him about responsibility or something. Nico and I were sitting next to each other on the bus ride home that day, and we were both looking out of the window. Nico told me that this time, he saw a long white dog running next to the bus. And when it was running, it picked up all its legs off the ground like a horse, its body scrunching together and stretching back out as it followed.

We got off the bus, and when our group came across the big iron gate we all stopped, dutifully picking leaves off the nearby plants. Only this time, Joey didn't put his leaf down. Instead, he looked at Nico and told us that -- Nico had to leave some of the money his mum had given him.

Nico didn't want to. He said he was going to leave a leaf like he always did, because that was the rule. But Joey said that that wasn't good enough. He said that the chaser *knew* Nico had something better, and if it knew you had something important, you had to share. And because Nico played the game on the way home, he had to give up the money. Or else.

The rest of us didn't know what to do, but Joey seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so -- one by one, we left our gifts and waited to see what Nico would do. Nico's cheeks were red, his chubby fists clenched at his side. Joey looked serious. He seemed reluctant to say more, but he said if Nico didn't leave the money, the chaser would start chasing him. And it wouldn't stop. Not until it caught him.

I still wish I had said something. But that was a long time ago. Nowadays Joey lives across the country, and I commute to and from work on the bus. To be honest, I hadn't thought about the game in a long time. But then, last Friday, I missed my stop.

I think I just spaced out. My company's in crunch right now, so everyone's working long hours to meet the latest upcoming impossible deadline. So, running on two hours of sleep, I must have missed when they announced my stop. By the time I had realized what happened, we were ten blocks away. I knew this route looped around, though, and I didn't want to walk that far at night, so I decided to just... ride it out. I stared out of the window into the darkness. My tired eyes appreciated the lack of scenery.

I don't know when exactly I noticed it. I was just about to drift off, I think, when I realized there was something moving, in the dark, alongside the bus. I assumed it was some reckless cyclist there, long legs pumping the pedals as they matched the bus's unhurried rumbling, in the fog. I watched the pale legs going up and down in a fluid motion. Somewhere in the back of my mind I think I even noticed the cyclist must have been -- really hunched over their handlebars, their torso almost parallel to the ground.

My eyes closed.

There was a gentle tapping on the bus window, and the vibrations knocked against the side of my head. Irritated, I opened an eye, glaring at the other passengers to see who was tapping along to their music. There were only five other people this far along the route, and everyone was facing forward, either looking at their phones or sleeping themselves.

I opened my other eye, and looked at the window. Outside, it was so dark that I could hardly see anything past the lighted interior of the bus. The window rattled again. Then I looked lower, down by the pavement. Running alongside the bus was a dog.

It was a greyhound, I think. At first I thought it must be a lost dog, and I looked at the back of the driver's seat, considering how to tell her to stop. I was worried if she stopped suddenly, she might run over it. But then I realized the dog was keeping up with the bus. I looked down again, and the pale dog stretched out its neck, rapping its nose against the bus window. Its eyes sparkled orange in the light. Its long, long snout opened, and tooth to tooth gleamed in the dark. Too many. More than any dog has.

The bus driver announced the final stop, and as I watched, the thing started to go faster, its long, gangly legs stretching out behind it, its head -- staying in place the whole time. Its eyes didn't blink. Its mouth hung open, jaws gaping in a dumb, toothy, dog-like expression.

Then I saw what it had seen, coming up further along the road: an iron gate.

I yanked the cord, but the bus didn't stop. Of course not. There wasn't a bus stop to get off at. I sat, frozen, as both the bus and the dog raced toward the gate. The bus slowed as it approached an intersection. The dog did not.

The bus stopped shortly after, the doors opening with a hiss. The bus driver looked back, told me I had to get out. I didn't move. I asked her, didn't this route loop around? Apparently not on Fridays.

I got off the bus. I -- wanted to walk the other way, I really did. But. As I turned to walk away, I could feel the gate on the road behind me, lit a muddy yellow by a streetlight. I walked towards it.

I didn't remember any of it that night, especially not what Joey had told Nico. I tried, I really did, but all I remembered was kids putting leaves by the gate. So I picked a leaf, and I stepped up to the gate. I bent to set my offering down, my fingers brushing against the cold metal. I looked up at the gate as I stood. In the darkness behind it, just out of reach of the streetlight, a pair of eyes gleamed back, round and shiny as coins. They were at eye level. For a moment, the only thing that moved was the hot, wet air across my face.

I ran. I ran down the block, didn't stop running till I ran out of breath. I must have gone for an hour before I finally called a cab to come pick me up.

I don't think it followed me. I *swear,* if I had remembered, I would have left something better.

I haven't taken the bus the past few weeks. I have to work again on Monday. It's going to be another long night.

##### [OUTRO MUSIC]

#### ANNOUNCER

This episode is distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For more information, visit rustyquill.com, tweet us @TheRustyQuill, visit us on Facebook, or email us at mail@rustyquill.com. Thanks for listening.