After investigating what appears to be a gang-related murder, Detective Lieutenant David Grey of the LAPD finds that the only witness who comes forward is a young man who grew up with the deceased, he says that the young man laying in a pool of rain water and his own blood only a few yards away was moving illegal drugs for a man named Jaeker, who is under the protection of a group called ‘The Men’. Just when the informant has mentioned this an unmarked black van screeches to a stop and shines it high-beams at the officer and the young man, surprisingly the van turns away and in the confusion the young man disappears into the night.
Back at the station, Grey’s Captain feels that this case is better left alone since gang members killing each other is progress in his book.
Sometime later, Grey is called to the scene of a grizzly homicide. The walls and ceiling of an apartment splattered with blood. The remains have been cut apart and placed in various areas of the apartment almost as a bad joke… and a warning to others. He finds the head in the refrigerator with the eyes taken out and scrawled in blood on the back wall says: “TALKS TOO MUCH”. Grey recognizes the head as belonging to the young man who came forward earlier.
Grey decides that recent events put Jaeker at the top of his list of suspects for both murders. After looking references to ‘The Men’ and finding nothing, he looked up Jaeker’s rap sheet and found it was as long as his arm and an out-state-Warrant from Washington. He decided it was time to bring Jaeker in.
He led a squad to Jaeker’s apartment building and got about halfway up the stairs when the lights were cut. Grey quickly found that his squad was torn apart and he was alone against a group of goblin-like creatures with wide Joker-like grins, as Jaeker ordered them to kill him. Grey was able to get off a couple shots which sent Jaeker though the window from several stories up. Grey however finds himself tackled. A man appears and reaches into Grey’s chest without breaking the skin and Grey blacks out.
David wakes in a hospital to find that he can see through everyone else and no one can hear him except for one woman, Laurel. She says he is in the place in-between and that she is to be his guide until he they find and kill him or until he turns, in which case she’ll kill him, any questions?
After refusing to answer any of David’s questions, only repeating what she said earlier, she takes him to see the man who answers questions, but not before seeing the same black van that Grey had seen before a seeming lifetime ago. He thinks back and it all comes back the bodies, the creatures, and the man reaching into his chest, David wonders if she is dead. Laurel says, ‘No. Almost. But not quite. Not yet.’
Shortly, they come to an elderly man named ‘Laz’, who seems to be looking for something, but is rather mysterious about that it is, Laurel says that Arthur says Laz is looking for his death.
Eventually, they come to a run-down part of town; David admits he doesn’t think he’s been this way before. They walk into an old factory full of what appears to be vagrants. When they walk in everyone seems to be in awe of Laurel.
They find Arthur, who is the one who answers questions, he tells his story as man who fell between the cracks and became part of the In-between, how he just slowly became forgotten and then invisible. When David notes that it’s not the same as what happened to him. Arthur almost looks upon with pity and explains that the Goblin creatures and the Men also known as the Walkers are one and the same, that the Man that David saw reach into his chest is the same man who created the Walkers. The Soul Stealer. He goes on to say that when that man reached into his chest, he took something, David Grey’s soul. He approximately a year before he becomes a Walker himself.
Laurel later explains that they must go to New York to get David’s soul back, and they’ll have to walk from L.A. Everyone else at the factory seems excited at the prospect of Laurel taking another on a walk. Laz joins them for a bit and explains in his own way with Laurel’s help that Laz is short for Lazarus who was brought back from the dead by Jesus Christ. Apparently Jesus had requested that Laz wait for his return once he was done having supper with his twelve friends. So Laz waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually he had found that he had fallen through the cracks and was the first to find the In-between.
They come to another cell of people who have become part of the In-between whose children were taken by the Walkers, David chooses to help get the children back and with Laurel and Laz’s help he does, during the struggle one of the Walkers recognizes Laurel and calls her by name. It gives Laurel hope for him. Laz stays behind as they continue to New York.
Just off a deserted highway they find a group of people huddled around a campfire, they introduce themselves and quickly find that this group is quite paranoid even to the extent that they refuse to leave the confines of the light made by the fire. This disgusts David who chooses to climb over the next rise and discovers that there are dozens of campfires just like the one he left, each with 6 to 8 campers around it, each just as paranoid as the last.
One night David dreams of the freedom of being a Walker, terrorizing the people of the In-between, reveling in murder and feeling alive. He wakes up screaming. Laurel seems to know what he dreamt and says that it wasn’t a dream, it was a promise.
They quickly find that they are being followed by a Walker, Grey attacks it and Laurel goes to intervene and it says her name again and asks for help. Once the Walker is safely tied up, Laurel explains that this walker was the guy who had gotten his soul taken and taken the walk to New York just before David. The Walker explains that he saved money for his daughter for college and wanted to make sure that his family got the account number and such. Laurel mentions that it breaks the rules and that there will be repercussions, but helps him anyway. The Walker tells Grey that it would probably just be easier for him if he let Laurel kill him before New York. When Laurel asks what he said, Grey says ‘Nothing’. The Walker is quickly retrieved and slaughtered by his own.
Weeks pass and Laurel admits that she keeps her distance from her the people she escorts because every time she sees a Walker it reminds her that she’s failed over and over again. Which makes David question if she’s here for him, or is he here for her. To which for the first time she has no smart-ass comeback.
They come north to Chicago, Laurel points out that they probably lost time for it, but David says he just wanted to see the city one last time before… the truth of the matter is that David’s estranged wife now lives in Chicago. He wanted to see her one last time, even if she couldn’t see him.
He enters her apartment and seems to be a ghost to her as she talks on the phone to her mother and then showers. He leaves her a note from a crumpled up piece of paper and a thrown away lipstick which reads:
I’M SORRY.
FORGIVE ME.
FORGET ME.
I LOVE YOU.
DAVID
He returns to Laurel and tells her what happened since he kept her waiting, in her anger she explains that the Walkers are always watching and their job is not to kill David, but to break him, and easy way to do that is to kill and otherwise harm his loved ones. He gets back to her apartment to find her missing. They catch a Walker and they find out that she’s been taken to an empty apartment nearby.
David’s wife, Sarah is drugged and manipulated into believing that David has abandoned her even as David and Laurel fight their way into the building. The Walkers attempt to get Sarah to commit suicide as David bursts in and attacks them. Sarah panics and runs out the fire access to the roof.
She nearly falls off, but David is able to catch her before and she passes out. Laurel explains that he was able to touch her at all because he’s beginning to tap into his abilities as a Walker to pass between the mundane world and the In-between, the more he uses them the faster they grow.
Months later, David has a waking dream of being a Walker and attacks several innocent bystanders, Laurel stops him but only just. They make camp in a warehouse for the night and Laurel asks him if she wants to make it easier on him and simply kill him now, but he shouldn’t answer right away, he has to hear the other side before making his choice. With that she walks out into the snow.
Minutes later there is a knock on the door and David is greeted by four Walkers who grab an old radio out of their van. They set the radio down on the floor and set a chair next to it, one of the Walkers hugs him. Finally despite that it is not plugged in a voice comes out of the radio and tells David that everything he believes is a lie.
Outside, several yards away, Laurel wants to give up. Inside, the voice offers an example, that if the Walkers wanted to, they could kill David at any time and they choose not to. Now the voice only asks that David touch the dial on the radio as a show of faith, pointing out that Laurel knew the Walkers were coming and let David meet with them anyway, knowing that he trusts her. David does so and finds himself in a very different New York. It seems to be covered in stone and wood instead of glass and steel. There standing higher up on the roof of a building is a blue skinned man with black-holes for irises, he goes on about how creation is a lie since it’s built upon the promise that things will get better, he cites examples of the misery in the world. He goes on to explain that he wishes to expose the creator for the sham that he is.
David is transported back to the warehouse and the Walkers leave. Laurel returns in the morning. Telling him not to repeat what ‘The Other Guy’ said she simply says that he needs to decide if he wants Laurel to end it there or not. David explains how once after Sarah left him, once he realized he had lost her, he put his service revolver to his head. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, a friend called and invited him to a Dodgers game. He had the receiver in one hand and his revolver in the other. He chose the baseball game; he figured that the gun was always there if he changed his mind. He decided to take his chances; just he was now, with the Other Guy and with Laurel. In that moment, Laurel took him in her arms and held him. They walked out of the warehouse together as friends. She added on that she’d have to ask that question a mere two more times.
Ten months into their walk the strain of the constant traveling along with his ‘infection’ was getting to David. They had fought their way through legions of Walkers, it came time for Laurel to ask David a second time if he wanted her to kill him here, and finally David snapped. He brutally attacked Laurel; he moved and acted very much as a Walker would. Laurel is able to talk him back to reality. David profusely apologizes for losing it. Later after he’s recovered, he offers to take the remainder of the walk alone, but Laurel says it isn’t allowed. She adds that no one would be around to talk David back if the madness struck again. He asks what she does when she’s not escorting people to the end of the journey and she simply says that she’s at peace. But unfulfilled. Empty. Waiting. But it’s better than the pain.
David stops dead in his tracks and asks who she is really, what is she? She says “I’m something… you could never understand, David. And I’m very old. And I’m very tired of walking. So let’s walk.” As she sleeps that night in across a campfire from him he watches her. Realizing that she hasn’t smiled or laughed in months and that his company causes her pain. He decides in that moment to strive not to be a burden on her, not to cause her anymore pain than absolutely necessary because he might very well be falling in love with her.
In the days that follow, things improve slightly, she actually makes a joke at his expense, but at least it’s a joke. It is just then that in front of them that they see their path filled with Walkers. Evenly spaced along the road in a line. To get passed them David will have to fight and defeat them each one at a time and only call upon Laurel if he absolutely has to for help. Knowing that calling upon Laurel will cause her pain he attempts to go through them without calling upon her at all. He gets pretty far, but in the end he has no other option.
Together they make it though, but both are in sore shape at the end.
Laurel points out that the worst is not over as a figure approaches from the distance from the direction they are traveling. Laurel tells David that he must talk to him. David rightfully notes that Laurel is afraid of this guy. She quietly excuses herself and goes to a nearby cottage saying only that she’s been down this road before.
David walks to meet the figure and is shocked to see an elderly man looking just like him with slight scarring where David has fresh cuts from his all too recent ordeal. When it comes right down to it, David only has one question, he asks if he succeeds in getting his soul back the elder David says no. So David asks what happens to Laurel and the elder says ‘We kill her after we get to New York.’
Back in the cottage, David returns and Laurel says that she never finished asking before, so knowing now what he does about what will happen, does he want her to end it now? He attempts to sidestep the question and explain his feelings for her; she won’t listen and repeats the question. He lets out a quiet ‘no’ after a bit of thought. As they continue traveling he vows to himself that he won’t allow her to die, no matter what just as they arrive in New York City.
New York in the In-between is basically Hell-on-Earth.
Everything appears to be made from stone, just as it had in David’s earlier vision. They see Walkers openly selling drugs and causing misery in the In-between and in the real world.
The ‘Other Guy’ meets them not long after they enter the city, and acknowledges that they made it there with almost a week to spare. He greets Laurel and she flinches away from him. David cuts to the chase and demands his soul back, but the Soul Stealer tells him that he has too much to learn before-hand. Without warning a large group of Walkers separate Laurel and David and carry them off to differing areas of the grounds.
Laurel seems resigned to her fate as she’s gone though this so many times before, why should this time be any different?
David after a brief incarceration is placed in a 2x2x7 box on wheels, so that he can only stand within it. Wrought Iron bars allow him to see 3/4ths of the way around him. The Other Guy simply says the box is to protect David from himself. The Other Guy takes the occasion to explain his side more clearly.
“Let’s pretend for the moment, that you’re God.”
“And really, why not? Everybody else does. People who failed Biology 101 and Basic Physics think that they can do as good a job at designing cosmologies and platypuses and comets as the maker of all things. Vanity.”
“But even unskilled labor might produce a better result. At least their hearts would be in the right place.”
“At least it wouldn’t be just one big tragic setup… A balloon waiting for someone to stick a pin in it and show it for the fraud it is.”
“But I digress. So. You’re God.”
“How do you like it so far?”
David takes the chance to tell him how stupid he finds the situation as Walkers prance past him wearing angelic wings, as they near a large, dark stone pit.
The Other Guy continues…
“Before you is the Void. The long Pre-creation hesitation, pregnant with possibilities, waiting to be born. Waiting to be.”
“But most of all… silent. The most profound silence imaginable. Not just without sound, but before sound.”
“And you—“
“—you are alone.”
“And really, who wants to be alone all the time? Especially since time hasn’t been invented yet.”
“It’s a terrible loneliness beyond description.”
“And even though you are… you cannon be… because there is no place for you to be in.”
“So you create one.”
“Because you’re alone.”
“Because you can.”
“Because is kills the time you just got around to inventing.”
“Let there be light.”
A dim light fills the stone pit and reveals Walkers within brandishing various scientific achievements, inventions, and discoveries. Fossils, atomic diagrams, models of the planets… etc. The Other Guy continues on with his monologue.
“You slammed molecules together and blew them out into the void.”
“Protons danced and wave-forms flickered. You ignited suns, nurtured nucleotides and exhaled proteins that would in time birth a Mozart and put knees of Flamingos on backward just for the variety and humor of it.”
“As time passed – and what a handy little creation that was – you got better at it. You abandon single-celled creatures and work your way up from Protozoa to Saurians like a sculptor working his way up from a clay dog to a Mona Lisa.”
“Too bad you have to hone your skills by killing all your failures. Even though they were innocent. Even though the fault was not theirs, but in your design. Because everything you create, dies.”
Because press releases and pamphlets notwithstanding, you’re not perfect. If you were, you wouldn’t have done all this… all this…because you were alone.”
“Because you feared the void.”
“Because you had nothing better to do.”
“Because you were bored.”
“You even create others like yourself, but not quite as powerful, because that would be too great a threat. At least you think you created them because one day they were just there, and since you created “there” in the first place, then you must have created them, but you’ve been so busy working out this whole light-to-nutrient chlorophyll thing that you really can’t remember doing it.”
“But then, neither can they.”
“You tell them all you’re trying to create a better world. But if you’re as perfect as your biographers maintain, they why didn’t you get it right the first time?”
“Why’d you screw up?”
“Some of those around you ask just that question. You don’t like questions. Just obedience.”
“But the questions continue. You try to stop them. You can’t.”
“And then it’s war. A war of misery. A war about misery.”
“Understand: Anyone would get bored doing nothing but designing worlds for eternity. You want to be entertained, and every author needs conflict.”
“So you introduce misery into an equation predicated on what was supposed to be one simple proposition: The hope that tomorrow will be better than today.”
“Have things gotten better? Are they continuing to get better? Is the promise valid? Or is the promise a lie?”
“Money is not the root of all evil. Misery is. Misery starts wars, kills children, destroys souls. Misery proves the universe is uncaring and random and cruel. Misery proves that creation is a lie.”
David pointedly asks: “Even if you’re the one causing it?”
“We all cause it. You caused your share. You’ve seen that on the way here. Even with the best intentions, never meaning anyone harm… you’ve hurt people you loved and turned your back on others.”
“And you’re still missing the point.”
“You’re God. Everything that is, you made. So why not just leave misery out of the equation in the first place?”
“It doesn’t exist naturally. Nothing does. Everything had to be created. Why go out of your way to create misery?”
“That’s what this is about. That’s what the war is about.”
“Removing misery from the equation.”
“Removing loneliness. Removing pain. Removing guilt and longing and fear and regret.”
“And removing those who would profit from it. Those who would feed it. Those who need it to feel they have a purpose.”
“There is no Hell. There is no Heaven. No beyond to fear. No final exhalation of stars.”
“There is only the cycle of life and death repeated infinitely.”
“You come, you go, you come, you go, dying into instantaneous rebirth and birthing into inevitable death. And in all of it, your misery increases. More people, less food, more technology, less privacy.”
“Bombs and Anthrax and Ebola, terror in the streets, doors locked against neighbors and anonymous crime, against community and each other. Mothers drowning their children because they can’t handle the stress of the very act of creation itself. They understand that what they bring in will know only misery so they end it, end it for themselves, for their children. They get it over with.”
“Time for the children to return the favor. Time to overturn creation and start again. But how?”
“You do it be accelerating the misery, revealing it for what it is, the primal flaw in creation’s design. Once there was only Lazarus, the first to fall between the cracks and be forgotten. More have come through every day, and every day that lie stands more and more revealed, the flaw in creation’s design becomes more evident, and finally everyone is on this side of the equation, not on the other side. My side. Not his side.”
“And then… then it’s our turn to design a world of our own. A world without guilt, only pleasure. Without pain, only joy. Without limits. Utter absolute freedom.”
“Feel the misery of the world, David Grey. For one second, I’m going to open your mind to the song of pain, the song I have been forced to hear every day and every night to the last syllable of recorded time.”
“For just one fleeting second, David, feel the totality of the suffering and pain and misery of a world made deliberately flawed.”
“And tell me the truth. Tell me honestly.”
“Is this not a world that deserves to be put out of it’s misery?”
David experiences the pain, agony, and misery in imagery that is forced into his brain and it drives him insane.
Laurel hears David’s cry of pain and she’s knows exactly what has occurred. She looks to a couple of Walkers and they have tears in her their eyes. Prepared she is escorted to the Other Guy who says nothing so she continues on and finds David hunched over like the Walkers, he bears the marks all over his body as well and he looks at her hungrily as she pleads with him to listen and stay in the room with him.
David in his insanity and rage remember that killing her is the very last thing he wants so he bolts from the room to protect her. His instinct is to run into the night.
The Other Guy has some Walkers prepare “The Wheel”, a large flat, but round wooden table top, the Walkers reveal metal spikes and Laurel is escorted to it to cleanse herself as David runs free.
After her bath, she is given a sparse meal and then she is carried without resistance to “The Wheel”. David, while running with a pack of Walkers sees a mannequin that reminds him of Laurel. He remembers everything they shared over the past year and realizes that somewhere along the way he fell in love with her, and that he has to help her.
He sprints back to the Other Guy’s domicile and finds Laurel nailed to The Wheel. (similar to a crucifixion) The Other Guy says that Laurel will die and there’s nothing David can do to stop it, he can only affect how and why she dies. So he need not bother trying to save her, reminding him that he came for his soul, not for her.
The Soul Stealer tells David that he needn’t worry so much over Laurel since she’s not even human anyway he shows David her true form, she appears as an energetic radiating feminine form. He goes to explain that she only comes to Earth when someone has been touched as he had touched David, he also says that every one who works in his service has regained their soul, the markings remain to signify that they are his property. Because without a soul, you belong nowhere. The deadline in important because if you go a year without regaining your soul you would be trapped between the two worlds, not fully in one or the other. Without a soul you are no use to either side, his or God’s, because you cannot choose. His soul is the coin he brings to the bargaining table, they want to make sure you have it in hand when it comes time.
So, the choice is this: David can have his soul back and he would retain the markings of a Walker and remain in his service, but he would be whole again, he would live as long as the Other Guy does and when he no longer required his service his life would be his own. Or, He could give his soul to Laurel and end her cycle of pain, for she is not human and quite soulless. But, with a soul she could be born as any human would and live in hope and misery for a lifetime as any other human. But if he gives his soul to her, he will forever be a wanderer, trapped between worlds, the markings would fade, and he would no longer belong to the Other Guy, he would not belong anywhere. Today. Tomorrow. To the end of time itself.
Choose.
David looks upon the Walkers with disgust and pity. The Other Guy tells David not to perpetuate the lie any further, reminding him how hard he fought to regain his soul.
David takes his soul into his hand (it appears as a small blue flame) and looks upon it and looks to the Walkers and then to the Other Guy, then to Laurel.
He walks to her as she hang there dying. “I’m sorry, Laurel. I came all this way—“ she cuts him off. “I know… I forgive you, David.” He continues. “—but I guess I put you through all this for nothing.”
Laurel manages eye contact in her pain. “…Nothing…?”
David leans in close and whispers. “I love you.”
With that he pushes his soul within her breast and a blue flash of light explodes from her and her angelic form soars up into the sky and shines like a beacon.
All over the world, people in the In-between see the sign they have been waiting for, and for the first time experience true hope. Arthur, tears streaming down his face finds that people can see him. The people around the campfires at the beginning of the journey see it and smile. The Walkers look on in awe. And the Other Guy simply looks. He walks over to the rapidly fading body of David who is shivering and wondering why it is so cold. As he fades view the Other Guy simply notes, “Well. I certainly didn’t see that coming.”
As Laurel returns to her place of peace she speaks with the voice that originally summoned her a year ago. She wants to make sure that David knew she loved him and that he had a lovely soul. The last thing she says is that she can feel her heart beating.
David finds himself in tattered clothes on a street, but no markings. Everyone can see him on both sides of the metaphor. He is recognized as a LAPD Detective who went missing about a year ago.
Sarah is at the hospital when he recovers, after he gets over the shock of what happens and doesn’t tell her about Laurel and says that he can only remember walking, she tells him about her experience in Chicago, how she knew he was there and he somehow saved her, though she barely remembers it through a drug induced haze. But she realized that she had to find him. Alive or dead.
As they are leaving the hospital there is a newborn baby in a room they pass. The mother mentions that they had already chosen a name for her, but the moment she looked into her eyes she could only name her Laurel.
As David and Sarah leave the hospital, David is confronted with some of the people of the In-between who hadn’t crossed over, they ask that he speak for them. He says he’ll try his best.
Epilogue
David finds himself on the same road where he met himself several years earlier and has the exact same conversation.
David walks to meet the figure and is shocked to see an elderly man looking just like him with slight scarring where David has fresh cuts from his all too recent ordeal. When it comes right down to it, David only has one question, he asks if he succeeds in getting his soul back the elder David says no. So David asks what happens to Laurel and the elder says ‘We kill her after we get to New York.’
The elder David walks back to a car waiting for him with Laz behind the wheel. When David asks how that worked exactly, Laz simply says that he has connections. Laz tells David that he should cheer up because he’s a hero. David says that he doesn’t feel very much like a hero. Laz points out that the trouble with being a hero is that you’re expected to make these sacrifices and save people and expect nothing in return. David has helped a lot of people on both sides of the metaphor over the years, given a lot of people hope. While a lot of people have thanked him for it the one person who David cared to hear it from never had the chance to say it.
With that he drops off David nowhere near where he picked him up. So David walks to a nearby park and sit and enjoys the weather. After several minutes he hears a voice of a young girl asking if he’s okay. He says he’s okay and looks up to see Laurel as a young teenager wearing a tee-shirt that says “Angel”. Her mother calls her and tells her they’re going to be late. Laurel turns to leave but she stops and smiles at David and simply says “Thank you.”
David is moved to tears and watches her go. He gets a call on his walkie-talkie asking for assistance. He tells him he’ll be there. And then says “I’ll always be there.” To himself.