The Long Game by D. W. Howard

Author:D. W. Howard [Howard, D.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ASAP IMAGINATION

Michael floated in a gray void. The air was neither cool nor warm, but disturbingly silent. The silence was deafening, so overwhelming he was choking on it in his desperation for a stimulus of any kind. He was back in the nightmare world from the other night. It struck him that he was dreaming, yet he could remember his previous nightmare.

Elsewhere in the void, Sanchez floated as well. Her mind rebelled against the utter emptiness that threatened to overwhelm her sanity. The faintest golden glimmer from her necklace was all that separated her from the void, and she grabbed onto it in desperation.

To his left, or perhaps it was right… up… down… It was hard to tell. Michael caught the briefest glimpse of gold. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

A gray light began to rise below and in front of Sanchez and Michael. It did not illuminate. Rather, it brought into focus the depths of darkness and despair that surrounded them. Sanchez latched onto it in much the same way Michael had a night earlier. He recoiled, knowing full well what awaited him at the light’s source.

Michael felt the tug behind his naval again. The pair two were drawn inexorably down, down into the depths of this shared reality. They were placed—how else could you describe it?—on either side of a pathway. The pathway meandered through a small grove of black trees with blacker leaves. A church steeple rose above the ebon foliage. Sanchez only had eyes for the path, and she began to walk in that direction as he yelled for her to stop. The sound did not carry in the void, and she continued forward.

Michael ran after her, but she was always just out of reach. Sanchez stopped as the bell in the steeple began to ring. Once, twice, three times. Its peals washed over them. The sound was overwhelming, as it was the only audible sensation to break the deafening silence. Michael finally reached Sanchez as the last note from the bell faded. A wrought-iron fence materialized in front of them. He reached for her, and she willingly placed her hand in his, the two of them reveling in the warmth of human contact.

As if on cue, monks began to shuffle out of the entrance to the church. Sanchez unclenched her other fist and the golden light of her crucifix flared before failing at the edges of the fence. The light illuminated the monks. It revealed that their cloaks were made of human hair and their cinches made of sinew. Pale faces disappeared into the shadowed depths of those voluminous robes as both Sanchez and Michael grimaced in revulsion.

The spikes of the fence were occupied by severed heads as far as the eye could see. However, neither of the detectives could get a good look at the faces—faces that maddeningly lingered on the edge of recognition. The gargoyles atop the fence came to life and sprouted wings of iron that they used to flutter about the gate.

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