Foreward: Well, that took a fair while. This bit was originally intended to be much longer, but I it was taking too much time, so I split it in two. Any similarity to DC Comics characters living or dead is purely coincidental. (it was unintentional, I swear!)
Chapter 3
The two of them sat against their metal door, its circular window beaming blue light into the darkness before them. A moment of silence was taken to accommodate the terrifying rush that had taken place seconds before. Daniel hoped this would not become a pattern, as his heart was threatening total collapse. He recognized the bluff, but it still scared h-
What was his name, again?
He looked at the man aside him, no longer able to remember who either of them were, or why they were there. Then he saw the other man’s facial expression, and realized that they were thinking the same thing. Each secretly believing the other was a dream, they exchanged questions like “who am I,” “who are you,” “where is this?” Stupid questions, the kind neither could answer. Gradually they realized that there was nothing for them to decipher here; there were only brick walls, and sand, and loneliness. The only place to go lie beyond the threshold of the room’s lone blue light, past the dark door at the end of the hall. They certainly couldn’t backtrack; their backs were to the ocean.
They approached the door together, eyes adjusting to the darkness. It was identical to the one behind them, save that it had no window, explaining the darkness on this end of the corridor. One of them tried to turn the wheel, and could not. He glanced apologetically at his companion, stepping aside so the man could do it for him. After some minor frustration, the door was opened. It gave a shrill, unhappy squeal that bounced down through the unknown expanse beyond. They stepped through the doorway, into the next room. The ceiling and far edges of it were hidden by a sea of blackness; still, as far as they could tell, it was quite a large place. The one thing in the room giving off any light was quite strange to behold, and gradually the two of them were drawn towards it. This lone brightness was a house – an entire two-story A-frame house, painted pink like a birthday cake, sitting right in the middle of the darkness, fending it off feebly by the yellow window light. It looked like a fairy tale. But just as Daniel and his companion had begun to approach the house, they stopped, because they knew they were themselves again. They looked at each other, and really saw who they were for the first time.
Daniel saw a man who bled political correctness and respectability; straight-arrow posture, neat and short blonde hair, clean shave. His arms sat perfectly at his sides, wreathed in a pleasant blue dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He looked very well nourished, and slightly overweight. There was a wedding ring on his right hand.
Likewise, examining Daniel, he saw someone who surely lived alone, or tried very hard to appear so. Grungy, greasy, dark hair of indeterminate color, and a grungy, greasy face; a painting of pores and stubble. There was a large, olive green M65 field jacket draped over him, partially hiding the grey t-shirt beneath it. The shirt, in turn, was draped over a pair of faded jeans which may, at one point, have been blue. His outfit ended at a pair of sandy steel toe boots. The one thing which did not seem to belong were his eyes; large, glassy orbs with pretty blue wheels at the center. A child’s eyes.
“Who are you?” Daniel suddenly asked.
“My name is Benjamin,” came the reply, in a surely tone which fit the speaker’s upstanding visage perfectly. Daniel grunted timidly in acknowledgment, an odd sound.
“And you?”
“Oh, Daniel.”
“Thank the lord, he’s sent me a companion,” there was a hint of Miami in his voice.
“Yeah,” Daniel agreed, without really agreeing. He hoped of a sudden that he hadn’t sounded condescending. Likely he had. He must have-
He was staring off into space, and stopped himself. A silence had been growing, he thought best to end it.
“Um, do you know where we are?”
As the question dissolved into reverb, Benjamin smiled in such a way that Daniel forget his prior worry completely; that is to say, the smile was irritatingly smug.
“Ah, you don’t know!” he said with the same unpleasantly withholding smile. “We’re on a path to the lord’s holy kingdom. I know it looks bad, but it’s all just to test our faith.”
Daniel merely looked at him, unsure of what to say, and hoping there was no need.
“I’m here to assist the other people, to help them reach God,” the smile had relented somewhat.
Then, for a moment, no one spoke; Daniel realized this was his cue.
“Okay,” he said in as upbeat a way as he could manage, trying to hide his distaste.
“Well, uh-” he began, gesturing the house with a glance, “Shall we go and see what’s ahead?”
“Absolutely.” Benjamin replied in his unsavory tone.
Daniel let his companion go ahead, then shoved his hands into his pockets and followed. Compared to Daniel’s own slumping gait, he noticed that Benjamin seemed to walk with his buttocks clenched at all times. It looked unnatural.
As they approached the house, something odd became apparent; there was a sheen to it, a smooth, synthetic quality. Daniel probed the front door with his fingertips, once they had reached it. It was made of plastic, the color of scrambled eggs. He touched the adjacent pink wall; it, too, was made of plastic. Benjamin patiently watched Daniel as he did this; there was something terminally ungraceful about him, like he was not quite comfortable in his own skin.
Before Daniel was finished, however, the front door opened. A monster strode out. Not the beastly sort, but something much worse; the kind in the form of a man. A tall man, at that. His outfit was fastidious on a level unheard of by mortal beings. He wore a dark blue, single breasted pinstriped suit, the notched lapel of his coat decorated by a Crucifix pin. The hands which protruded from the ends of his flawless, smooth sleeves were white and hairless, but looked strong. Black Oxford shoes concluded the intimidating display. They shined impressively, implying a recent polish. His face (although it felt the wrong word) was practically bankrupt of human features; there was no hair whatsoever, no sensory organs, and no mouth that could be seen. Even pores seemed absent from his flesh. The only thing keeping the head from being a blank white ball was the buried bridge of what probably was supposed to be a nose. It amounted to a simple rise in the skin, and that was all.
The Monster did not move, choosing instead to block access to the door. Then, at length, he calmly reached into his coat, and pulled something out. Daniel was petrified; he knew that facelessness. He’d seen it before. Upon noticing six and a half inches of carbon steel in the stranger’s hand, however, he started to back away. Though he was visibly less distressed, Benjamin did likewise. Daniel tried stupidly to say something, anything he could manage, but comprehensibility eluded him and he sputtered idiotically; his eyes were locked on the gun. A Colt Detective Special; famously, the favorite of a thousand private eyes for its concealable snubnose design. The frame sported an obsidian finish that gleamed under the yellow window light.
He cocked the hammer.
