The Devil's Dream: Waking Up by David Beers

ago. Two days ago . Had all this really taken place in that amount of time? Had he been stolen from a bed and nailed to a cross in less than forty-eight hours? What had he been thinking? How had he ever let them talk him into something like this? And then to be swept away without reconnecting with his brother, all of it to follow some ideal, some duty he felt towards his country, to this world.
    Where was his country now?
    Where were the people he was trying to protect?
    They weren't here in this room. They weren't beating down the doors of this light-tower and they hadn't helped any of the other people that Brand had dragged in here. He hadn't called Greg again because Art said no. He shook his head, his chin against his chest, his eyes closed. Because Art made the rules. What rules were there in this place, though?
    If he moved his legs a bit, surging upwards as Brand said he would, the cross swung. When Henry figured that out, he really put effort into it, pressing down on the nails and pushing his body upward, trying to swing the goddamn cross as hard as he could. Trying to rip it down from the ceiling. Eventually, his feet dripping blood to the floor fifty feet below him, the pain grew too much and he stopped, realizing that the cross wouldn't fall to the ground, that he was stuck. He would rather risk the fifty-foot fall than remain here. It wasn't going to work though; he wasn't going to be able to fall, breaking bones or killing himself, but no longer having to hang like this.
    What would his mother do if she walked in here and saw him like this? What would Greg do? His mother would probably sob, and what about Greg? Would his anger still carry him? Would he say I told you so? Or had he forgiven Henry for his stupidity? Henry held no delusions about his decision now—stupidity was a gracious term for this. He sacrificed his family for this. To hang here next to living corpses, to hang here alone, dying second by second.
    He apologized to Greg, but had left anyway. He wished he could apologize again, wished he could leave another message and tell his brother how right he had been, and that Henry was sorry and that Greg had to take care of their mother now. Henry wouldn't be able to do it ever again. He knew he wouldn’t make it out of here, that his body would begin to smell as it decomposed on these two wooden posts long before he ever walked again. Maybe someone would bury him eventually, if they showed up in time to stop Matthew Brand, or maybe he would hang here after the world had gone black, his bones eventually being all the evidence left of him up here on this cross. He wasn't going back to his family, though. He wasn't seeing Greg again and he wasn't going to help his mom pay her AT&T bill online.
    His thoughts silenced when Brand walked back in. Henry didn't know the time, only that the sun didn’t shine in from above. The coolness of night had replaced the hot, stifled air of the day. Brand hit a button and the entire building lit up, showing a grotesque portrait of naked, distorted bodies. Brand didn't look over at Henry, and for a second, Henry felt relieved. Then Brand started removing his clothes and that relief fled. Brand took everything off, standing naked next to the lighthouse door; his cock erect, sticking out like someone had attached the largest Snicker's Bar in the history of man to Brand's midsection. He went to the pole and started climbing the rings, his muscles moving him quickly, efficiently—the whole time his cock stood at attention. And then Brand found the thing he searched for, a woman hanging three levels up. She might have been pretty at one time, maybe, but not anymore.
    Brand pushed, a loud grunt erupting from his mouth as all of his muscles struggled at once, slowly moving the woman from the poles trapping her. At last, Brand won out and the body slid forward, beginning its long fall to the floor. The woman didn't cry out; she gave no acknowledgment at all of what was