The Sandman

A mother, father and son. The perfect family in a common neighborhood. It could even be your own. Everything had proceeded with the same routine for the first seven years of the child’s life, and the parent’s marriage. The only uncommon thing about this family, was that this was the parent’s first marriage. But, something was coming to their quiet, little, humble existence, something that would shatter the very fabric by which the man of the house lived by. Joshua Hayes was about to be tumbled headlong into the battle for existence.
The regular grind was following its course, with the summer breeze stirring the boy’s hair as he sat playing in the pristine world of white sand. His mind was absorbed with the imaginary world of miniature dunes and castles and mountains in a world that he could create or destroy with a mere breath. It was sheer innocence, the holiest of times where nothing could disturb him. The bright colors of his assorted buckets and plastic toy implements contrasted with the stark, natural purity of the sand. No one noticed except for one neighborhood local.
The boy was so absorbed in his play, that he didn’t notice as his toys sank into the earth all around him. It’s surface became rippled like water, radiating outward from the sinking toys. Still lost in the land of make-believe, the youth grabbed for one of the buckets. His world was destroyed as he peered around his landscape and realized the absence of his things.
Poof! To the amazement of the child, and the stray dog who was wandering around the yard, the toys shot out of the sand in a terrible state. They crashed back to the surface, melted, disfigured and burned with cracks radiating from various points of white stress-marks.
Perplexed and stunned by the sudden destruction of his property, something began to creep into the boy’s heart. Something black and cold and all-enveloping. It was the fear of the Unknown. His eyes widened as one of his buckets was reduced to a puddle of hot pink plastic before his eyes. The desire for protection and the primal urge to run to the maternal figure in ones life kicked in.
“Mommy,” His panic began slowly, but began to mount quickly. “Mommy! MOMMY!” The boy streaked across the lawn without brushing the sand from his rump. The sliding door opened to receive him, followed by the open arms of his mother.
“Mommy, the sandbox ate my toys! I think its gonna eat me too!” He burst into tears and hid his face in her floral patterned dress.
As she held back laughter, the boy’s mother comforted him saying, “There’s nothing out there besides Old Gunk! Old Gunk never hurt you before, has he?” She was referring of course, to the stray who frequented the yards of the street.
As if to affirm her statement, Gunk padded up to the door and barked softly. The boy opened his eyes and looked out at the rugged mutt. “No, it wasn’t old Gunk who scared me, Mommy. It was the sandbox. My blue bucket looks like my lunch box when daddy left it in the oven. It’s all runny and sticky and hot too. I don’t like it Mommy. I’m scared.”
The two continued their dialogue behind the closed door, oblivious to the events that were taking place outside. Like a sheet stretched tight, the surface of the sand went flat and smooth. Old Gunk wandered over to the box and stared into its emptiness. Gunk seemed to smile at the broken pieces of plastic. he turned away and fairly galloped away. A pair of eyes followed him. They belonged to the man sitting in the sandbox. He waved to the fleeing dog, then sank back into the sand from whence he came.
Josh Hayes returned home, the green Sedan clanking along the black strip, up the hill to his house. His wife met him at the door, with a hug and a kiss, just like she had done every day for the past seven, almost eight years. They smiled as they walked back into the house. The boy stood in the doorway, pale as a ghost and trembling slightly. The man of the house roughed his son’s hair and walked past. Nothing was different to him, just as it had been for years.
Night came, and the boy was still stiff from terror. He watched the sandbox in fear through the night, daring it to move. Around dawn, he fell into a dead-sleep, wrapped up in his polyester blankets. They tightened around him of their own accord, just slightly. Something was testing its power in the presence of men. Outside, the man appeared again, glaring up at the window, Old Gunk sitting docile by his side. In the next room over from the boy’s Hayes stirred in his bed and the man outside dissolved back to fill the wooden frame.
Half an hour later, breakfast had been eaten and Hayes had wandered into the back yard to begin his Saturday yard work. He looked at the sandbox, and picked up the pieces. His raspy voice echoed into the open windows of his neighbors as he cussed at his son.
“That ungrateful...” He vented the tension of a disruption in his perfect life to the air. Four-letter words graced the ears of any who were within shouting distance. They weren’t nice words either. “He can’t take care of anything! I paid good money for this crap, and he destroys them in a week.” He picked them up and threw them away. Pieces of sand clung to the plastic, prisoners in an eternal war. The lawn mower roared to life.
Inside, his wife and child went about their business, one stumbling about his room, trying to get dressed, the other preparing to start the laundry for the week.
The boy tripped and tumbled into his closet. He didn’t notice as his coats pressed him harder than they should have. He lay on the floor for a few minutes, struggling with his shirt. Rustling of sheets drew him back from the depths of the closet. On his bed, the sheets were rising and boiling. They twisted and rose to a standing position. Its shape became more defined, until it looked like a man. The boy cowered back again into the closet. Empty clothes hangers dropped around him and wrapped themselves around his wrists. They bound him to the floor. The sun left him as the creature from the bed stalked towards him. His screams were drowned out by the drone of the lawnmower.
Downstairs, in the semi-darkness of the basement, the lady of the house was working. The laundry wasn’t getting itself done. Yet. She walked around, drifting from room to room, folding clothes, moving them and depositing them in their rightful places. Her back was turned to the washer for an instant. A creak and a bang made her spin around. There was nothing in the room, besides the heaps of cloths and herself. And the machines, filled with their cargo. Since nothing had been disturbed, and she could identify no problem, she returned to her duties. The monotonous process of folding warm shirts went on, and on and on. Then the dryer opened itself. She saw it, saw something moving inside the blue plastic drum. The door to the basement slammed shut as she attempted to escape. Time passed, and she heard nothing. She opened the door, and found herself staring into the blank, dripping, wrinkled surface of living clothes.
The lawnmower seemed to have taken on a life of its own. It stalled three times, each time as it passed the sandbox. Josh Hayes kicked the rusting metal body as he pulled the starter cord.
“Terrible, isn’t it?”
Josh looked around. His neighbors were all on vacation or still sleeping. Having made that conclusion, he returned to his abuse of the mower.
“Can’t understand why you would use that thing any way.”
Confused and now very bewildered, Hayes straightened up. Nobody was hiding behind the chain-link fences that enclosed his yard, and that voice wasn’t his wife. His eyes fell on the sand box.
“It’s not like I don’t understand why you humans want to keep your grass short, because I do. It’s just the fact that you people expect a machine, the union of Earths and Synths to never have any trouble.”
A man was sitting in the sand box. His weathered face was tanned from long hours in the sun. A dusty black cowboy hat sat next to him. The dirty clothes he wore looked home-spun and home-made. The leather boots were low heeled and high sided, like army boots. He smiled.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
His answer was a stick through the face.
It was an unpleasant experience for Hayes, watching the man in front of him pull the stick from his face, and toss it aside. It was like the man was a phantom that nothing could harm. A thin trickle of sand flowed from a hole in the flesh. It sealed itself quickly. The man caught the sand as it fell, and deposited it into his sleeve.
Hayes stood their, unmoving. His eyes were wide with some dreadful emotion, fear or anger. “Who are you?”
The man before him made an attempt to answer, but high above them, the window of the boy’s bedroom shattered. Glass rained down. A scream followed the fragments and stopped just as suddenly as it had started. Hayes turned to run, forgetting for a moment the intruder on his property. His son was in danger, and his paternal instincts took over. But something was stopping him. He turned, and found the stranger holding him back. His eyes were intense, telling Hayes that this stranger knew something.
“This is only the beginning, Mr. Hayes.” The cold eyes held him in their gaze. “It’s too late for your son, and most likely your wife. There is nothing you can do for them, accept help me to fight them. This is only the beginning of a war, and you’re caught in the middle of it.”
They approached the house, and knelt by the basement door to see of Mrs. Hayes still remained. Instead of a soft, feminine voice, they heard three rasping noises.
“Synths.”
Unnoticed by the eavesdroppers, the stranger’s boots had burst a seam. A steady stream of sand began to flow down the stairs. The voices below stopped, and the sound of people running up the stairs startled Hayes and the stranger to their feet. The door burst open and three figures tumbled through. Hayes saw the nature of the creatures, men made of clothes and pipes and plastics. The knives in the kitchen, which he hurled with substantial force just sank into the soft flesh and dropped to the floor. The creatures were immune to any kind of weapon Hayes could conceive.
He flipped on the stove and watched the blue flames dance under the grates. His visitor was no where in sight. he grabbed a pair of tongs and flung the grate at the advancing creatures. Once dodged and the smoking metal clanged against the wall and fell to the rug. Fire started spreading across the floor, turning it from the white linoleum to a blackened mess.
Out of the smoke, the stranger appeared again. he grappled with the closest, and clawed the pieces away like a wolf raging for food. The others turned from Hayes to meet the new threat. One let out a high-pitched whine.
More creatures poured into the hall from all openings. The newcomers brought a vacuum with them. The extension tool struck the stranger, and the machine powered up. Hayes watched as the stranger disappeared into the Hoover, and covered his eyes as smoke began pouring out of the plastic seams. particles of sand flew out everywhere, collecting and reforming. The vacuum exploded and the stranger leapt from the ruins.
“You idiot! Get out!” The man threw an astonished Hayes out the door with surprising strength. His body had been reduced by more then half, but it didn’t stop him. The Stranger and Hayes crashed to the grass outside. The stranger crawled over to the sandbox and laid down.
At the door, the creatures halted. They appeared to be confused by what to do next. They sat with fire behind them, and the wide world before them. From the inferno, two separate tendrils reached out and pulled the creatures back into itself.
The stranger was nearly gone, only his folded hands and his head visible above the surface of the sand. Hayes’ shadow made him look up into the man’s face. His face was red, his eyes misty.
“What is going on, mister?” Hayes’ voice cracked as he spoke. “What happened to my son? My wife? What is going on?” He fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “Mister, why would God do something like this to me? I haven’t done anything to Him?”
Then, suddenly towering over the two figures, the smoke from the house spread out to cover the whole sky. The stranger’s face remained passive. Blackness hid the sun like a curtain. The neighborhood, the house, the yard, everything disappearing in the smoke.
But it was a strange smoke. It was heavy, but not oppressive. Black, but not sooty, with a smell like fresh earth. Hayes turned his head and looked around him. Figures drifted in and out of focus in the misty blackness. They were men, but unlike any men he had ever seen before. Some looked like they were carved from stone, others with leaves that covered their bodies with bark for skin. “The Celtic Green Man,” Hayes thought. Still more came to look at him, all appearing normal at first glance, then melting back in to something different. He recognized some of the faces from his history books in school, just random people in photographs of major events. Men of every race melted into stone, sand, water, fire, and liquid fire. Trees in all their forms, translucent men who could only have been made of ice. Amazing and terrifying to behold, all of them.
Then new forms began to joined them; Animals that walked on two legs. Wolves, tigers, lizards, even Old Gunk was among them, standing on his hind legs as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Gunk stepped out of the smoke and joined Hayes and the stranger.
“Welcome back to this realm, Sandman.”
Hayes jumped when Gunk spoke. He had never heard a dog speak, never even heard a man speak with such meaning and power in their words. He shook his head, trying to make the dream go away.
The stranger smiled. “Its good to be back, Hybridge. Glad you could make it.”
“I wouldn’t have missed the Final Conflict for a share in the Creator’s glory. This is my place, fighting against the corruptor by your side... And by the side of Man.” Gunk’s eyes took on a look of concern. “Sandman, is he well? Does something plague him?”
“There is nothing wrong with him, Hybridge. he refuses to believe that we exist, that the others he saw in the smoke are real.” The Sandman smiled then rose from the sandbox. “Shall we tell him what he wants to know, Brother?”
Hayes jerked to his feet. The world around him seemed to be going haywire. Everything went dark and he could see nothing, not even the two creatures who stood beside him. Then a light shone out and he saw a perfect sphere, suspended in space. Stars came out around him, more planets emerged from nothingness.
“In the Beginning, God made the Heavens and the earth. And on the earth he placed Man to rule over the animals, and in the Heavens he placed angels to do his bidding. And some of these angels he placed in the earth, inside the planets to protect them from the corruptor’s foul touch. We became the Earths, beings who are and have been since the beginning of time as the Creator made us. Then, when Man began to turn away from God, the Corruptor took the advantage on the planet Earth. He used man’s desire to create, and plagued everything man created that was apart from what was made by the Creator in the beginning.”
The mist shifted and Hayes saw he was inside a cave, deep underground. Cracks in the uneven floor glowed with the lava that flowed through them.
“When the Corruptor wakened his servants, he raised them up and called them Synths, for they were made from things of earth that were destroyed. Time was lost to Men for a year and a day when these creatures were awakened. During this time, the Synths came and tried to conquer the earth’s for dominance of the planet of Men. The Corruptor knew the ways of Earths’ having been one of our number before the before he fell from the Heavenly realm. The war waged on for months under the surface of the earth. Synths penetrated deep into our home...”
A low rumbling shook the cavern, causing rocks to fall and split on the ground. A great hole appeared in the ceiling and men made of plastics and other things man-made fell through. They began to multiply, splitting in half and growing anew. Hayes watched in horror as the small number that had come in soon swelled to fill the cavern.
“...They tried to establish a foothold in the bosom of Earth, but their onslaught was futile as they were fighting inside of an earth...”
The walls of the cavern took on the form of two mighty hands and Hayes watched them clap together against the Synths. The cracks in the floor vomited their contents on the hapless creatures, fusing them all, destroying them all.
“...Though sadly, our war on the surface had to be won alongside that of Men.”
The mist showed a city, and a large plane flying over. As it flew closer, Hayes recognized it as the Anolla Gray, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. A face smiled at him from the belly of the plane. An Earth was part of the plane! Then the bomb dropped through the doors.
“As the United States brought World War II to an end, our battle with the Synths also was won for a time. In the city of Hiroshima, the Synths had a major base of operations. Japan was a seat of the Corruptor during that period of Man’s history, and that city was his throne. The destructive nature of the bomb dropped was developed by Earth’s and Men, working together to eliminate two threats at the same time.”
The great cloud rose over the city, heat flashing over everything. The destruction was massive, the picture starting to fade as the radiation flowed over the city. It was replaced by an urban setting, in the present time.
“Now, Synths have gained new holds over mankind that had never been through of. False hearts, pacemakers, any way the Corruptor could image to get inside the human body, he has and is still find new ways. Synths have lain more or less dormant for the years since that war, but now they are returning. Their retribution will be harsh, their methods similar to terrorists. They attack on the home front, inside home, inside men. They want to dominate the planet earth and take Man for themselves.”
A woman walked through the picture, something slithering along the wall behind her. It was a garden hose. She had just disappeared when the hose snapped tight and a terrified scream echoed in Hayes’ ears. The hose was followed by other Synths, who quickly silenced her. Whatever happened, it was not seen by Hayes.
A man appeared, sitting in a large, overstuffed chair. His chest grew to fill Hayes’ vision, then disappeared in a burst of red. The vision went on, traveling through veins back to the heart. Hayes saw a pacemaker attached to the man’s heart. Tendrils of plastic spread out from the device, growing slowly thicker, pushing the natural cells out of their way. The vision followed one that seemed to be traveling upwards. It connected to the spinal column, traveling through the neck into the base of the skull. The brain was entirely encased in a network of plastic fibers, all slowly replacing brain tissues.
“As you can see, the Corruptor has many means of infecting Man. You have been chosen to help us in our fight against the Synths.” The voice paused for a moment. “Mr. Hayes, do you accept this mantle of responsibility? Will you join the ranks of Earths and strike back against the creatures who killed your family?”
The cloud disappeared and Hayes was left standing in the center of a bridge. On one side, Gunk, or Hybridge, and the Sandman stood. A shadowlike figure stood behind them, illuminated by some unseen source. The other side was filled with true shadows, dark and imposing. Each held power, each had its own risks. But something came on to the bridge from the shadows. It whispered something in his ear. “Take advantage of this opportunity, you feeble Man,” it said, “You can always join us in the end.” Hayes turned his head, and walked to the side of light.
Instantaneously, the obscure figure swept him up in its power. It swirled around him, and through him. He felt his body changing, growing, shrinking, swelling, shriveling all at once. The Sandman took his hand, Hybridge the other. They turned him back towards the ravine over which the bridge was suspended. The ground gave way beneath them and they plunged over into oblivion.
The three figures stood beside the sandbox in Hayes’ yard. The house was a blazing inferno, no hope of recovering anything. the smoke was black and gray, sooty and foul smelling. It curled up in the blue sky like millions of wounded snakes. A fire truck rolled up, men pouring from its doors. Hybridge fell back on all fours, and resumed his role as Old Gunk, the neighborhood stray.
The fire chief walked to the back of the house, a large, tall man, thick and sturdy. His silvery hair gave him an air of seniority to those who looked at him. Apparently, he knew that he cut an intimidating figure.
“Why didn’t one of you idiots call in this fire?” His face was red. “We could have been here, and had the fire out by now if you had just thought to call. What possessed you?”
Before Hayes could answer, the Sandman leaned over to him. “This is one of the infected humans, Hayes. he isn’t worried about the building or the lives of his men, just the entities that are smoldering under the ashes.”
“Then why doesn’t the dog growl at him? If he can see that this is a Synth, or whatever, why don’t you do something?”
“This is not the time for open warfare on the surface. It rapidly approaches, but this is not the time for such action. Wait. Do not answer him, or he will know that you are one of us. Watch. He’ll slip up and reveal his true nature.”
The berated chief seemed to be smoking from his ears. “You guys are such morons! You stand there, yakking to each other, when you’re wife and child are dead because of your inaction!”
Hayes allowed himself a slight smile, Gunk rolled over on the ground. Then, the Sandman and Hayes started laughing. The chief simply turned and left, still fuming.
“Freudian slip, huh?” Hybridge rose back to his hind feet, laughing. “Your human natures and psychological mishaps still plague that poor fool. he couldn’t have known about them if he hadn‘t had some contact with someone inside the house!” He gasped for breath. “That was one of the best things I’ve heard in this age! A Synth slipped up! Hah!”
The three Earths turned and walked away from the collapsing structure. For the next few weeks, Hayes was going to find himself confronting the most challenging and mind-blowing trial of his entire life.
The smoke surrounded them again, smelling of pine and earth. It receded, leaving Hayes in the middle of a massive forest. Alone. he studied the trees that surrounded him. Some had knots in them that looked like eyes. They seemed to be watching him.
“Go to them, Hayes.” The voice was there, inside his head. It was the same voice that had spoken to him on the bridge, calling him towards the light. he turned, half expecting to find someone standing behind him.
The trees were staring at him, shifting around him. A massive oak seemed to collapse in on itself, forming a man. He was different than the others Hayes had seen during the vision in the mist, more like the trees than like a man. His skin was gray and rough, like bark, and his body was assymetrical with its entirety tilted towards the sun. Leaves grew on his head, lichen formed a beard, framing his face with green.
“Human,” The voice sounded ancient, its nuances echoing up from a void. “Human, my time on this world is almost ended. You must take your place among the Earths, and become as I am now.” he folded his thick arms across his chest, his deep eyes locking on to Hayes. “There is something in you, Human, something that speaks of betrayal.” Gesturing with a crooked finger, the Earth warned, “If such betrayal is lived out, Human, you doom yourself for all of eternity. There will be no hope for you if the path of the Corruptor takes you. Do you still want to take your place here, Human?” Hayes nodded, wondering what the impossible old creature meant. “Then, Human, take my gift, and use it to protect your race.”
The tree-man placed his hands on Hayes, one on his chest, the other on his face. Heat flowed through the rough flesh, shooting through his veins like fire. Hayes felt his consciousness swell, growing and expanding forever. In his mind he could feel the earth, hear its voice. The animals of the forest greeted him, their chattering which he had always heard as senseless babble now intelligent and flowing. The rocks buried deep rumbled at him, the mountains called out to him. then, the tree-man’s voice cut into Hayes’s mind.
“There is darkness within your soul, Hayes, I can feel it.” The awareness of the world around him was gone and he was standing in the forest again. In the place of the tree-man, a withered and shrunken creature now stood before him. “You’re darkness has slain me, Human! You do not intend to stay the course of light, but to turn against it and follow the Foul One!” The pitiful creature collapsed, gasping out one last accusation. “Treacherous worm!” The creature dissolved into dust, which the breeze promptly picked up and carried away. The smoke came again.
The Sandman and Hybridge were staring at him when the smoke lifted. They glanced in the direction the dust had been blown, then looked with curiosity at the man standing before them. Hybridge started to say something but the Sandman stopped him. “There’s a reason it happened, and we didn’t hear what Gulfruhind said.” Hybridge looked again at Hayes, then back at his friend. “It you trust this human after what I just saw, then its your choice.” He dropped to all fours and howled to the sky. “But I will have no part in him!” Back as Old Gunk, Hybridge spun and fled into the distance.
Hybridge’s words rang around in the Sandman’s head. The undertones he had used betrayed distrust and wariness. ‘Hayes, what have you done?’ Then, all around him, the earth screamed in venomous rage. He felt it quivering, felt his brothers and sisters crying for help as something was slowly suffocating them. Out of Hayes’ feet were roots, from his hands were growing twigs and leaves. Plastic leaves and plastic roots.
Inside Hayes’ mind, the Corruptor was praising him as his roots sunk deep into the bodies of the earth. “Yess, my wonderful, powerful creature, you shall rule beside me when the time comes and the overthrow of the Earth is complete.” Hayes, encouraged by his Master, surrendered himself fully to him. He felt something growing inside his chest, then it stopped and he returned to the reality.
All across the planet, the earth shook with the death throes of so many. Volcanoes collapsed, spilling their molten contents into valleys with no warning. Mountains crumbled and whole forests fell down dead, trees completely shriveled and dead. Packs of animals fell down, rotten before they touched the ground. Millions of humans died as the Earths were slowly being corralled and destroyed.
Hayes blew on the wind to find Hybridge. The plague had just touched him. He took his dying friend in his arms and carried him to the desert, the only place Hayes hadn’t reached with his tendrils of evil. “My friend, please don’t go...” Tears sparkled like glass in both of their eyes, but did not fall. Hybridge turned his eyes towards the sky and opened his arms to the sun.
“I see them coming, Sandman, I can smell them.” His voice was growing weak. “Their coming to take me home.” He took his companion’s hand. “I’ll come for you when your fight is over.” His fingers clasped tight, then relaxed and Hybridge laid down in the dust and died.
In the middle of the desert, the Sandman just sat, looking out over the dunes. His hat was off, his hair blowing freely in the wind. His shirt was undone, revealing a very human-looking chest. His eyes were narrow. Feet were covered by sand making a irreversible bond between him and his surroundings. Something was coming. Someone was searching for him. he turned his face towards Heaven.
“Father, why did this have to happen this way? How were we supposed to know that he would betray us like that? God, why did the Corruptor gain this man’s soul before he took his body? has he gained that much in strength that he can move in without having a foothold inside?”
My son, the words came, more like a feeling rather then actually verbal. You have doubt in my plans. You grew close to this Man, and then you watched him fall away. But he didn’t fall away because I made him do so, but because I allowed him to choose.
“But how can you stand there, being the entire universe, and not be able to stop him? Look at the damage he’s done! And I’ve had to sit here and watch him wipe us out!”
I know losing Hybridge was difficult for you, Sandman. It was hard for me too. Because I knew it was going to happen. But I shall not intervene in these matters yet. This battle is still to be won, and you must start trusting me again. Have you learned nothing since you last were in my company?
“I learned to trust you, even after watching everything I ever worked for destroyed on Mars. I watched the cities, the civilizations of Earths and Man rise, and then fall out from under me. Things of this world can grow on even an Earth like me, God.”
I know, my son. That is how I created you to be. You are less than Man, yet more then Angels. You have a mixing of these two races in you that allows you to communicate with both of them. You’re spirit is much more highly defined than that of a Man, but your body is more material than that of an angel. I gave you, Sandman, an imagination like a Man to create and rule Mars as you wished. And you followed me through all of it. You trusted me even when the Synths were making your realm tremble, killing your people and murdering your wife.
Tears started flowing down the Sandman’s face, leaving shallow channels in his flesh.
“God, I don’t feel like trusting you any more, but I know its the only way to win this war. I’ll finish my work here, as you direct, even through I don’t understand why you do things the way you do. God, let me see your purpose, in your time. I return my trust to you, where it belongs.” His eyes flicked back out across the desert, turning red with the setting sun. “Just one more question before I get back to work, God.”
Yes, my son, Sandman, you will see her again when the time comes. And you will spend the rest of eternity with her when that time comes.
Instantly, he was miles away. He still sat in the same position, just on a different dune. This time, his eyes were following movement across the arid landscape. They were Synths, an entire army of them. Spread out in a line that stretched from one horizon to the other. And yet, they were still no threat to him. But there was one among them who held his attention more then any other; Hayes was leading them. Even from his distant vantage point, the Sandman could hear the Man’s voice pounding out across the sands.
“He’s the one we want, Synths!” “First one to find him gets a nation to rule!”
‘The poor fool,’ Dunes rose and fell as he gathered his strength. ‘If this Man thinks that he can rule alongside the Corruptor, he is sadly mistaken.’ Under the surface, the sand trembled with bitterness and hatred as the Synths marched across his body. The last plastic, pathetic figure in line halted, letting his revolting feet sink into the dunes. It wheezed some kind of sigh, then started off again. Something held it back, something sucked it under the sand. Its companions never noticed his absence.
They did notice, however, the dust devils that were beginning to form on the horizon. Some cowered, whining in their own language for Hayes to stop and reconsider what they saw as a suicide mission. he dismissed their beeps and whistles, marching resolutely ahead. Just as a precaution though, he sprouted leaves and let them cover his eyes, keeping the blowing sand from them.
Then, HE was among them, striking them, hurting them, and then melting away from their counterattacks. One second he was on the fringe, the next he was ripping apart a Synth on the extreme other side of the army. The Sandman wrapped his impossibly strong arms around their plastic bodies. From the desert sands came extreme heat, supplied by hours under the baking sun. From the farthest reaches of the wasteland it came, leaving the earth chilled as it went where it was called. The Synths fell in twisted heaps, molten puddles of plastic and wires, until only Hayes was left.
he tried to run, but the Sandman’s face rose up from the dunes before him. It towered over him, green eyes piercing through the mortal flesh. Hayes tried to turn and run in another direction, but a massive ridge of sand shot up, throwing him back to the desert floor. Again he tried to escape, racing the other way. Another wall of dry earth sent him crashing down.
“Hayes!” The Sandman spoke with thunder, born of sadness and rage. “You betrayed your own kind! Joined with those who killed your wife and son! What kind of man are you to have done such a thing?”
Hayes shook himself, throwing up clouds of dust. “I am,” he said, “More of a man than you will ever be, Sandman. I am the epitome of both worlds, the key to raising or destroying the world as we know it! I’ve got Earth and Synth flowing through my body.” he pointed an accusing finger at the face looming over him. “You promised me a life of hardship, fool, one of toil against overwhelming odds with little comfort or repute. The High Lord gave me all the things I could ever want! He gave me the world if I only asked! How can your Master compare?”
The head and ridges disappeared. The Sandman shot out of the ground, the same man Hayes had first met in his son’s sandbox. His hand felt like a rock against Hayes’s face, breaking the skin and letting blood drip down his chin to the ground. “The rewards my Master and your Creator, Hayes,” The Sandman softened his tone, “These rewards aren’t for this life! They come afterwards. They are eternal, instead of the momentous thrills the Corruptor gives you.”
“What are you going to do with me now, Dustmaster?” Hayes challenged, trying to cover his own fear. “My master will see to it that you burn forever for killing me and for the Synths you’ve already slain. Kill me if you dare.”
Tears ran down Sandman’s face for the second time that day. They splashed in the sand, forming craters, the moisture eagerly sucked in by the arid ground. He raised his head and looked at Hayes. he raised his hand, fingers spread towards the man’s chest. “Good bye, Joshua Hayes. You made your choice to turn away from your creator and have the deaths of millions on your head. You betrayed the memory of your wife, of your dear child by becoming their killer. I send you to join your master, so you can see him grovel and kneel in submission before the One you betrayed.”
Grains of sand shot from the outstretched hand into Hayes body. More and more, millions of particles flashing through the air, cutting into the flesh, searching for something. Hayes screamed and writhed in agony.
It popped through the skin with a tearing noise. Both men looked at the object, one in horror, grasping his chest trying to stop the bleeding, the other with anger and hatred. It came to the Sandman, resting in his palm. It was a pacemaker, the tendrils still attached, trailing back through the wound into Hayes’s body. A massive sandstorm erupted around them, winds moving fast enough to render flesh from bone. Hayes didn’t stand a chance.
When the last grains had settled, all that was left of the man was a pile of molten plastic, all seemed to have been connected to a single mass, about the size of a man’s brain. The Sandman was high up on a dune, his arms stretching for the sky. Hybridge was there beside him, his hairy arm wrapped around his friend’s shoulders. “Is it time, Hybridge,” The cowboy hat was tilted back slightly, “Is it time for me to come home?” Another hand touched his back, making him jump. a woman was standing behind him, someone he hadn’t seen in eons, not since the Synths had invaded Mars. “Its your time, Sandman, your war is over.”