Gateways(2003)

F. Paul Wilson

In Gateways , Jack heads south to Florida when he learns his estranged father is in a coma after a car accident. In the hospital Jack meets weird old Anya, one of his father's neighbors, who seems to know an awful lot about his family.

In an isolated area of the Everglades, a young woman named Semelee who has strange talents and lives with a group of misshapen men, feels Jack's presence. She senses that he's "special," like her.

Back at his Dad's senior community, Gateways South, there's a ban on watering. Florida is going through an unusual drought, and everything is brown and wilting. Everything except Anya's lawn, which is a deep green.

Who is Anya? Who is Semelee, and what is her connection to the recent strange deaths of Gateways residents? And what are the "lights" Jack keeps hearing about? Lights that emanate twice a year from a sinkhole deep in the Everglades . . . lights from another place, another reality.

If he is to protect his father from becoming the next fatality at Gateways, there are questions Jack must answer, and dangerous secrets he must uncover.