#theprisxner

What Eddie Dean, of all people, was doing in a church was anyone’s guess. Father Callahan would have said he didn’t seem like the type to enter into churches and sit  and pray, but what did he know? So far, he hasn’t even paid much mind to the man not in this church. 

It isn’t Calahan’s church. He hasn’t gotten to that part of his story yet. Right now, all he is is a Disgraced Priest, dressed in a farmer’s shirt and jeans, sitting in an otherwise empty church. He’s bent over, hands clasped together, eyes down cast. 

“Kis.”

“Duck.” It’s all he says, and all he needs to say. The tone of his voice is one Eddie might recognize, the kind of unyielding command that you don’t even have time to question, you can only follow through on. And Eddie will most likely recognize the crack of the gun, recognize the feel of a bullet whizzing by him but knowing it won’t hit him. 

Where are you now, Eddie Dean? 

Eddie Dean is in a world that may also feel familiar, in the sense that it has moved on there is nothing left to see. A world double dead, such as the corpse with the bullet through it’s undead brain lying now, splattered on the ground, left to be retaken by the land that Des has come to bless. There was one. And there would be more. 

Des, a man with eyes Eddie will recognize, but a tone much softer, much sweeter, and with a build much bigger, offers his hand to Eddie. 

You see, the thing about Randall Flagg is he doesn’t have to be Randall Flagg. If he wants, he can be Marten Broadcloak, Walter o’Dim, Richard Freemantle, or just the ol’ nameless Walkin’ Dude. A man entity of many faces, of many names, of this place and that. Versed in speech high and low, Earthly and Otherworldly. A thing that carries himself with charisma and confidence, the kind who carefully words things, offers a closed lip smile -(because if he were to show his teeth it would all be over, wouldn’t it? So funny, the Gunslinger’s friends had thought, even when he was a child, that his grin made him look insane. How would Roland feel about the parallel between them? Flagg finds it hilarious, but the Gunslinger really wasn’t a man for jokes) - and lead you astray in such a perfected manner you didn’t even realize you were drowning until your lungs will with their last inhale of water and your eyes turn up only for a moment to see him grinning. 

Whatever Flagg was it was a powerful thing. And he had long since learned to use it. 

He stood now, on the corner of whatever street and whatever street, leaning against the wall of some unnamed building. A rough area of New York, but none really seemed all that interested in roughing the man dressed in all denim with pockets stuffed full of pamphlets up. Three crows stand beside him, idly pecking at breadcrumbs on the ground, but mostly looking out across the people passing him by on the sidewalk.