July 2nd, Gotham City, 1987
This was the place.
Arnold Sutton stared up at the decaying apartment building stretching up against the smog-filled summer sky, the crumbling brickwork and cracked windows long past their prime if there had ever been one. It wasn't much different than any of the other countless buildings that littered the slums of Gotham, testaments to a time of prosperity that had long since passed. Ironic, really, considering the same could be said for Arnold himself.
Arnold could barely remember a time when he still had a roof over his head. He was a lifer, a man who'd spent more time on the streets than he ever had indoors. He'd been a young man when he first came to Gotham all those years ago, early 20's, full of piss and vinegar, certain he was going to take the big city by storm. Suffice to say, that's not the way things had worked out. He was in his mid-50's now, his once-black hair and beard long since faded to grey from a lifetime of scavenged meals and drinking any swill booze he could get his hands on to keep the Gotham winters at bay. His body, worn and gnarled, hidden beneath the rags of clothing he wore in layers, even in the summer heat, was used to hardship by now. Yes, Arnold Sutton was a lifer, not like those kids he'd see on the street sometimes, emaciated, strung.out things, junkies and runaways usually, you could always tell they'd never make it. First winter chill and they'd be goners, and those were the lucky ones. Sometimes... sometimes the kids just disappeared. Arnold hadn't seen it happen in person, but... you heard things on the street. Other street folks like him, people who'd seen things, or heard it from someone else who did. Sometimes, you'd overhear the cops talk about something, that was one advantage of being homeless, people got careless around you. Usually they wouldn't even notice you at all, like you were a pidgeon or a rat, something so inconsequential, it might as well be invisible. Not just cops neither, criminals did it too. Just blurted out their secrets right in the open, like he was invisible. He might as well have been.
That's why he was here, after all. The disappearances. There'd been more of them lately. Not just the street kids, the ones who never lasted, but others like himself, the survivors. Even a few civilians, the poor ones with no family to notice their disappearance, rumor had it they'd been going missing too. Apartment door just left open, like they'd walked out one day and never come back. The other night, that had been the final straw, that's why he'd come here. Arnold didn't have a lot of people he considered friends, real friends rather than companions for sheer survivals sake, but Walter had been one of them. Walter, who'd been in the army back in the day, Walter, who'd been to Vietnam and didn't come home the same person who had left. Walter, who'd been chewed up and spat out by war, and still screamed and cried in his sleep sometimes. Walter, who'd left the homeless camp under the train tunnel in The Bowery three nights ago to take a piss, and never came back....
He'd left his dogtags behind at his sleeping bag, that's how Arnold knew for certain Walter hadn't just left without saying goodbye. Whatever had been taking people these past weeks had gotten him too. And there was nowhere to turn to for help. The police certainly wouldn't care, what was one less homeless n***er on the street to them?
So, Arnold Sutton had come here. Because he'd heard the stories. A man lived here, he'd heard, a man who claimed to do magic. Magic that could find things. Find people. For a price. Now, Arnold wasn't some superstitious loony like some of the people he knew. Like Old Marge by the river tunnel, who swore you could use chicken bones to tell the future, or Injun Joe, who liked to talk about how his grandfather had been part of a secret tribe of Indians that used to live in the caverns beneath Gotham. But he also wasn't blind, he had seen his share of odd things during his years on the streets, enough of them that he wasn't going to dismiss this possibility. Not if he had any chance of finding out what happened to Walter...
....
"So, what can Randall Flagg, Freelance Magician, do for you, Mr...?"
"Eh, Arnold. Arnold Sutton." The man sitting in my guest chair answers uncertainly. You don't need to be a detective to tell that Mr. Sutton is homeless, his clothes seem to be older than I am, and mostly held together by the filth and grime caking them, his hair and beard unkempt and scraggly to the point that they almost cover his face. Still, personal grooming and hygiene aside, he looks to be in alright shape, all things considered. At least he doesn't look like he's about to drop dead like some of the poor bastards I pass on the street. He seems rather unsettled though, but I can't tell if it's because he's uncomfortable with me, or whatever brought him here.
"Alright, Mr. Sutton it is. What can I do for you?"
"Well, see... I heard you can find things. Find people."
"Among other things, yes. Though I should tell you I don't give guarantees that I'll find them."
"Yeah, wasn't expecting any, but I don't really have a lot of options here..." He reaches into the side pocket of his ancient coat, and pulls out something that looks like a necklace at first glance. It's not until he drops it on the desk in front of me that I realize it's actually a set of military dog tags.
GIBBONS, WALTER. 775923. O POSITIVE. PROTESTANT.
"There's been people going missing lately. The kind of people no one ever notices are gone." He continues as I pick up the tags, studying the engraved text. They're old, decades at least, and stained with dirt, but still readable. "A few nights ago, a friend of mine went missing too. He left those tags behind. He'd never do that willingly. Something happened to him, and I need to know what!"
"And naturally, the police is less than useless for cases like this, since the only time they'll give a shit about missing persons is if a cute, white girl disappears."
Sutton laughs humorlessly "Ain't that the truth. Look, obviously I ain't got a lot of money to pay you with, but I really don't have anywhere else to turn. I was hoping we could work something out-"
"You can pay me a token sum, there's no point trying to get blood from a stone. Just don't spread it around, I don't want clients walking in here expecting a freebie. And remember, I can't guarantee I'll find your friend, much less what kind of shape he'll be in if I do, alright?"
"It's been three days already, pal. I know what his chances are" He shrugs helplessly "But I gotta try at least. Just... do whatever you can, alright?"
I nod and hold up the tags in front of me "It's a good thing you brought these along. I'm going to perform a scrying spell, which will let me know where your friend is at this exact moment, and while I really only need a name for it to work, a personal item makes it far easier to focus. It won't give me his exact location, but we'll at least know if he's still alive."
He shrugs "You're the wizard, man. Just... do your thing. I ain't going nowhere."
I don't even bother correcting him at this point. Instead, I wrap the chain the tags are attached to around my right hand, tightening it into a fist as I begin to focus, and the world around me fades away...
And I find myself staring through a window into Hell.
....
A dark-skinned man lies strapped to a surgical table, stripped to a pair of filthy boxers. His arms are strapped to the metal surface with leather restraints, and there's an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the device secured to his face with several strips of duct tape tied around the man's head. The man on the table convulses and screams, muffled by the mask, while a clear, plastic tube feeds a strange, cloudy fog into him from somewhere just out of my sight. His head has been shaved, none too gently judging by the bloody cuts visible on his scalp, and several electrodes have been attached to his skin.
I can see cages in the background, small cages more fit for dogs than humans, but there's no mistaking the figures trapped within as anything else. Arms stretch through the bars, reaching and grasping in vain for some sort of escape from their torment. Others shake the bars of their prison, equally pointlessly, the metal cages not budging an inch. In some cages, the occupants have given up, figures curled up in fetal positions, waiting for the inevitable.
All that pales in comparison to the Thing that stands over the screaming, struggling man on the table, a gleaming syringe in one gloved hand as cruel, inhuman eyes stares down at it's helpless victim. An apron covers it's upper body, stained rust-red from drying blood and other fluids I don't even want to guess at. Beneath the protective cloth, I can just about make out what looks like surgical scrubs, almost absurdly clean and neat considering the horror surrounding the wearer.
The face, though. The face is the worst part.
It might have been something human once, but if so, that was long ago. The face is covered in cracked, burned skin, what little hair still remains hanging around it's scalp in wisps, the scalp long-since scorched clean. A black beard stretches across the lower half of it's face, hiding the ruined jawline. The lips are simply gone, exposing it's teeth in a rictus grimace. The thing grins hideously as it presses the syringe into the neck of it's victim, the man's struggling growing weaker as the poisons begin to take effect.
"Subject terminated..." A cold voice says, like a sound from out of a grave "New bioweapon formula shows promise. Proceeding to next phase of study..."
......
"-hey! Hey, you alright?!"
I gasp for breath, my lungs screaming for air like I've been underwater and only just now reached the surface. My vision is a blur of light and shapes, that slowly comes back into focus, and I find myself staring into the concerned face of Arnold Sutton. I blink, trying to place myself, my mind still half-trapped in that horrible place, and I realize I'm still sitting in my chair back in my apartment, except Sutton is now standing next to me, one hand on my shoulder, and a dull ache of pain in my hands leads me to discover that I've been gripping the edge of my desk like I'm clinging to the side of a cliff and trying to avoid falling into the abyss. Walter Gibbons dog tags lie on the floor between my legs, forgotten.
"What-" I shake my head, trying to clear the last of the fog "What happened?"
"You tell me, man! You just sort of zoned out, and then you started screaming like the Devil himself was after you! What the hell did you see?!"
"...Death." I say, rubbing my eyes as the vision keeps replaying in my mind "I saw Death."