How the devil do you get this thing to tab over, anyone know? Anyway. I've been reading through the next the Dark Tower tales, Wolves of the Calla, and it inspired me to write this. I hope Stephen King would approve.
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He awoke to stillness. No wind blew. No creature stirred. He felt damp, damp from sweat. The air about him was hot but the ground beneath him was cool. And he was dead.

“Why am I dead?”

No one answered his unspoken question.

He knew he was dead, but he didn’t feel dead. He opened his eyes.

He was in a building because there was a mixture of light and dark. Above his head it was dark, but light shone through an open doorway warming his legs. His chest was swathed in shadow, and was cooler. The ceiling was slanted, wooden rafters ran to his right and left holding it all up. He could feel the cool pull of concrete beneath his open palms, could recognize its smooth polished texture.

He sat up. The creaking of his blue jeans and old flannel shirt were the first sounds he heard besides his own breathing. To his right and left he could see old stalls filled with hay. The place was some sort of old stables.

A smile began to tug at his lips. This was certainly not hell, at least not yet. He’d never been a church going man. It looked like The Old Man in the Sky wasn’t going to have his way with him after all. His face darkened then. Maybe this was the Old Man’s idea of a joke. If it was he hadn’t heard the punch line yet.

Boots. He was wearing boots, old and scuffed. He’d never owned a pair of boots like these. They looked like something John Wayne might have worn in one of those old westerns. For that matter he had never owned a shirt or a pair of pants like these either, yet they all fit him well enough. They seemed right somehow.

“Why am I dead?”

The question came back, still unanswered. He couldn’t remember, just knew it to be true. He was as dead as he was alive. Standing, he gave his body a once over. Not a scratch nor a bruise, but he knew there should have been.

Near the back of the room was a machine mounted on a raised concrete pad. The rest of the place had a worn, forlorn look to it, but this thing looked brand new. Sticking out from one side was a pipe which hung over an open drain. Water colored the floor a darker shade of grey where it hadn't quite dried up yet. It seemed to have been used recently. On the top of the machine was a small red button labeled “On”.

When he pressed the button he heard a click and then a cycling sound, thud-THUD, thud-THUD, thud-THUD. Water came out cold and refreshing, and he drank his fill. His long sleep had made him thirsty.

“What is this place?” he wondered. "Why am I here?"

He walked back over to the entrance of the stables. Only time would tell.