31. Maggie in the Dark (D1)

__ Not satisfied that Munson's rapidly-cooling and breathless body was beyond reviving, Todd Namer straddled him and brought the barrel of the .22 down to his staring lifeless eye.
__ A shot, then another, crack-echoed through Palley's Woods. They weren't loud shots, the .22 being smaller than the .357, but the woods were quiet enough that they may as well have been cannon fire.
__ Todd tilted his head, admiring his handy work. Even if this guy somehow survived three shots to the neck and two to the skull, he wouldn't be able to see without any eyes. "Good enough," he smiled.
__ Turning his attention to the idling vehicle and its bulleted windshield, Todd thought of the Gypsy girl inside, bleeding to death -- or dead -- from the two shots he had fired through the glass. The shooting out of the eyes, he decided, would be his "calling card." Everybody needs one, he smiled, especially in this new dark age with no daylight.
__ He approached the passenger side and tugged at the handle. The door came open easily but not because it was pushed by a lifeless body within. In fact there was no body to be found at all. The two shots ripped ragged holes through the car's passenger seat and into the back seat as well, but there was no body to slow down the slugs. Climbing into the warm car interior, Todd looked under the seats, in the back. Nothing. No sign of the Gypsy.
__ Todd was now a slick and oily combination of excited and disappointed. He was disappointed because the fortune teller who insulted him last night was missing. He was excited because the anticipation of their final and deadly meeting gave him a charge.
__ "Besides," he muttered to himself, "I didn't want it to be this quick anyway."
__ Leaving the eyeless guy and the filthy hard corpse to lie together until they were covered by snow, Todd got behind the wheel of Munson's car, put it in reverse, and left the woods behind.

__ From behind the seclusion of a thick oak, Maggie watched, shivering. As the car's headlights bobbed and faded from sight, a deep blackness closed in around her.
__ Leaving her alone with the two dead men.
__ She smiled.

__ Ardy drove the Datsun slowly along the icy road while Doug whimpered curled in a ball in the passenger seat. Like Munson the night before, he could only cry uncontrollably and repeat "No, no, no," or "Why? Oh, Lord, why?"
__ She knew the anguish he had experienced, though she couldn't understand why Doug had been in hell after his death. His life had been a righteous one -- or at least as righteous as a mortal life can be. Perhaps, she thought, it had something to do with the dark specter that had possessed him.
__ "Doug, honey," she tried.
__ His response was a brief noise that could have been an acknowledgment or a jolt of surprise at her sudden address.
__ "Doug, I know what you were through. I was there myself, remember? With Munson."
__ Doug's tears refreshed and he shook with sobs, "Oh, Ardelene, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you went through that."
__ "I know, honey, I know. But I'm out of it now, and so are you. We both are."
__ She let another forty or fifty feet of road pass beneath them before pushing further. "Doug. What can you tell me about the thing that had possessed you?"
__ To Ardy's surprise, Doug spoke right up without hesitation. He said, "It was an Alterling."
__ "Alterling? What's that?"
__ "I don't know. I just know that's what it called itself inside my head." His tone dropped and he said, "It gripped my soul with its teeth."
__ "What?"
__ Doug shook himself out of a trance. "W-Where are we?"
__ Ardy squinted out the window. Streaks of snow flashed in the headlights. The woods around them were growing white between the shadows as the snow stuck. The time on the Datsun's dashboard clock read five minutes to noon, but it may as well have been midnight. "I'm sorry. I have no clue."
__ "Stop at the next cross street so we can get our bearings."
__ "Okay." Then, "Are you all right?" She risked a glance in his direction. He was sitting up, staring straight ahead, and had a look of determination in the corner of his eye. Ardy had never seen Doug look so.... Fierce.

[** HOLD: The Munson Chapters will continue next month after I've had time to do some outlining. In the meantime, stay up-to-date with my 'blog: "Baby Blue Spider" at www.babybluespider.blogspot.com. Later! **]

30. Another One Bites the Dust (D1)

__ Ardy's breath came in short chopped clouds as she strained to hear signs of activity outside the car. The driver's side door still stood open and, despite the Datsun's chugging heater, the air had grown frigid.
__ Long moments passed without a sound or source of movement. Her ears had stopped ringing after the popping gunfire. She knew the police officer was planning to gun down Doug, afraid he was going to transform into some sort of monster. Then, she recalled, he did.
__ Something happened to him. He charged the cop screaming like a mad man possessed.
__ Now he was--.
__ "Doug!"
__ Ardy struggled for a moment with the handle on her own door before throwing it open and charging out into the street. A light snow was replacing the black rain but it was not yet sticking to anything. Perhaps the deep summer earth was still too warm to accept this strange turn to the weather. The red and blue lights on top of the police cruiser still thrashed the surrounding forest chasing black shadows away. The car the officer had stopped still sat diagonally across Henderson street. And no one, not a soul, seemed to care.
__ She fumbled around the back of the car, almost slipping on the wet pavement, and stared at the most bizarre scene yet from the past eighteen hours.
__ The officer lay on his back, a dark hole under his chin, burned around the edges from his own weapon. Over him stood Doug. Doug... was worse off.
__ Though he stood his vision was blank, glazed over. Two dark holes decorated his head: one on his forehead slightly to the left, the other had ruptured his right cheekbone. Another dark hole stained his polo shirt just over his heart.
__ He was dead, had to be. But here he stood gazing blankly toward the sky, his eyes as unseeing as those of a mannequin.
__ "Oh, my God, Doug! No!" Ardy ran a couple of steps toward him but stopped. Something wasn't right here. Well, of course something wasn't right, but she felt something was actually horribly, horribly wrong. Something else was here, something far worse than anything she had seen on earth.
__ But maybe not in hell.


__ Munson stared at the figure through the frosted windshield. It appeared to be a shirtless teenager, his upper body rippling with muscles. The kid, if you could call him that, was staring down at Clye Morrow's body. He was breathing heavily as if he had just run here a great distance. The kid didn't seem to care about the car, whether or not anyone was in it staring at him. He was fixed on the body at his feet.
__ He couldn't let the opportunity wait. Munson had also seen the gun in his hand, a rough looking .357. It was past time to wonder where Maggie got her information, where Ardy was, or what he would do now that he couldn't redeem himself through Clye Morrow. Moving with the quick reflexes and killer instinct that fed his bloodlust just eighteen hours earlier, Munson opened the driver's side door and dove-rolled into the dark forest, kicking the door shut behind him.
__ The kid responded as expected. He leveled the pistol toward the sound and squeezed off a shot, then another. The reports echoed through the frosted forest.
__ That's two, Munson thought. Four to go.

__ "Who are you?" Ardy called. "What have you done with Doug?"
__ The dead-Doug marionette twitched before leveling its blank gaze on her. "Doouugg?" it hissed.
__ A chill colder than this freakish night-day vibrated through Ardy. She had heard that sound before, that hissing cold voice. That was the voice of him -- the lowercase him. The him of darkness and anti-love. The him who hated Him.
__ "Leave him alone! This is not your place!"
__ The Doug-thing twitched again. Ardy could swear one of his eyes had started to focus.
__ "Noooooooo," it hissed. Doug-thing took a staggering step back, raised its hands and smacked at its own face. Then, in Doug's own voice, "Noooo!"
__ A tiny black metal slug dropped from his forehead and tick-ticked on the pavement.
__ "Doug! Fight it! Fight it! Come back to me!"
__ "I will take your Doug with me," he hissed at Ardy, "To the place you came from. Then you will follow by your own-- No!" Another twitch. More like a seizure.
__ "I love you!" Ardy screamed, hot tears welling in her cold eyes.
__ That did the trick.

__ The rock Munson hurled arched perfectly through the darkness and clocked the kid on the temple. The boy didn't flinch. The rock just tousled his hair and dropped with a thump.
__ Super boy turned toward the rock's trajectory and fired his pistol again. Two thunderous booms shook the bark of the trees around them.
__ That leaves two, Munson counted, and rolled to his left, further from the car.
__ But this time the boy didn't fall for it. He smiled wryly and said, "Oh, no you don't. I know what you're trying to do."
__ Munson froze. Panic started to build in his chest, it stoked his muscles for the charge he knew would come.
__ "Fine," the kid said, "I'll just have to waste your girlfriend." He then turned, aimed for the passenger side of the car, and fired his last two shots. Spiderwebs of safety glass cascaded out from the dime-sized holes that drew a direct line to Maggie's position in the passenger seat.
__ "No!" Munson screamed. Anguish and loss flooded through him but he didn't care. He only knew he had to stop this kid, avenge the girl.
__ But the boy was too fast and knew what would happen. In one smooth move, he dropped the empty .357 in the mud at his feet and, while whirling on Munson's position, drew the .22 pistol tucked in the back of his pants and leveled it at Munson's throat.
__ R. Lee Munson actually heard the three shots and felt them tear through his neck.
__ Then he was gone again.

__ Ardy stood shivering so badly her teeth chattered and her vision blurred. "Doug?"
__ Doug stood about eight feet from her. He too was shaking, his eyes wide. "I-Is it gone?"
__ She shrugged, "I d-don't know. I-I'm n-not sure."
__ Tears streaked his face, "W-Where was I, Ardy? W-Where d-d-did it take me?"
__ Ardy's chin puckered. She knew where he had been. She recognized the look in Doug's eyes. It was the same look Munson had when he was brought back from the brink of hell.
__ "Ardy!?" It was a scream. A scream of absolute fear and anguish. "Why is it so dark!? Why is it so cold!?" Doug collapsed onto the pavement hugging himself. The three slugs that had ended his life lay scattered on the road. The dark shadow that had taken hold of him was gone.
__ Ardy ran to him and embraced him. He was as cold as the road and his shivers were racked by his heavy sobs and screams of anguish.
__ "It took me, Ardy," Doug snorted. "It took me away from God. I can't go back there. Please don't let me go back there!"
__ "Sssh, love. Sssh. I won't. I promise I won't let it take you again." She petted his head now wet with melted drops of sleety snow. "I-It's okay, my love. We'll be okay. I w-won't let-t it come again."
__ Doug's cries, like Munson's the night before, were filled with the darkest kind of knowing, the deepest hardest truth to learn.
__ All she could do was hold him and rock him. All she could wonder was what had taken hold of him and why. And why it had let him go. And if R. Lee were okay out there in the darkness of Palley's Woods.

29. Waiting Him Out (D1)

__ Munson was wondering if he should get out of the car and re-bury Clye Morrow.
__ He sat behind the wheel, Maggie next to him in the passenger seat playing "church steeple" with her fingers. The engine was running and the heat was on. He didn't know why, but Munson noted the sudden and fierce drop in temperature over the past hour.
__ "What're you gonna do?" Maggie asked, moving her fingers from the "steeple" to the "open the doors to see all the people" position.
__ "I don't know." In truth Munson didn't know what to do, let alone say. He came to Clye's grave to dig him up so that Ardy Jacobi could resurrect his sorry but and they could dialog about murder and death and hell and resurrection.... and redemption.
__ But along came the little girl, Maggie. She told him, matter of factly, that Clye was as dead as any rock on the swelling river bank, that Ardy wasn't going to bring him back to life, and that Munson was going to have to protect her from a "crazy boy" on his way out here to harm her.
__ "You have a gun, right?"
__ "Not anymore."
__ "How come?"
__ Munson frowned at his reflection in the window. "I gave it to some friends."
__ "Ardelenie and Dougie?"
__ Munson squirmed in his seat and half turned to face the girl. He rested his massive calloused hand on her dainty fidgeting digits and said, "Tell me, Maggie, please...." He waited for her to look up at him. Her eyes were enormous and green like emeralds. Her skin was smooth but dirty and tracked by long dry tear tracks. She was so innocent. "Please tell me how you know these things, and where you came from."
__ Maggie pulled her hands out from under Munson's and turned in her seat to face him. She suddenly looked so adult. "It's ending."
__ Munson seemed to know what she meant, but he was terrified at the prospect. He was more terrified that the observation came from a child. He swallowed hard, "What is?"
__ The girl looked out the window, leaned forward and craned her neck to look out down the slope beyond the headlight beams. Then she began to fidget again, mumbling to herself in a sing-song voice.
__ "Maggie," Munson said, trying to sound like a cross adult, "What's ending?"
__ The girl sighed, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. Then she said, "You needn't worry about that. You have to fight the boy."
__ "What boy?"
__ Munson was getting exasperated, but his ultimate lesson -- the price he paid by spending moments in hell -- curred him, and he held his temper at bay.
__ Still, the girl was testing his resolve, taunting him -- though not purposely he felt. She was a strange little thing without a beginning or an end. Maggie was just there. She appeared before him in a flash just like the lake of fire and the darkness, the screaming, and the oblivion without love. Only Munson felt she was something more, a key. Perhaps her few words were links in a chain that would suspend him high over hell's gate and possibly even swing him into the arms of salvation.
__ God, it's been a long night, Munson sighed.
__ "Maggie, dear, please. Tell me what I have'ta do."
__ She stared into his dark eyes, considering -- or determining her next act of postponement.
__ "Magge," Munson insisted, "What boy?"
__ "That one," Maggie said and pointed to the figure standing over Clye's body in front of the car.

28. A Shadow of Frost (D1)

__ Somewhere between Todd's bloodbath and Munson's interview with Maggie the odd little psychic girl, Doug and Ardy were still miles away and trying to find access to Palley's Woods.
__ "What's this now?" Doug squinted through the rain dotted windshield at the blinking blue and red dots in the distance. "I hope that's not on Henderson."
__ "What?" Ardy looked up from where she had been studying her hands in her lap. She had been daydreaming about Doug's kiss, his tenderness, his boyish fear with the solid iron bar of bravery packed inside, his cute geekiness. She wished all this was over so they could just talk and hold hands and go on a date to the movies, or maybe go to church together on Sunday.
__ But then, she mused, in some weird way it's as if all this horrific nightmarish stuff was concocted to bring them together so they would fall in love.
__ Doug braked and coasted to the soft shoulder of the two-lane. "Crap. It is Henderson."
__ Several blocks ahead lay Henderson Avenue. It was a long lane through a short suburb on the far north side of town and probably the best chance for reaching Palley's Woods the long way. Another bridge had washed out preventing them from making it to Munson via the short cut on the north side.
__ Ardy wasn't as familiar with this side of Covert. "What does that mean?"
__ Doug sighed, "It means we're trapped on this side of the river. It means we can't get to Munson on the other side." He sighed again and turned up the heat in the car. "It means we're trapped in Covert."
__ Leaning forward, studying the waves of blue and red light ahead of them, Ardy said, "Go forward. Maybe it's not a bridge. Maybe it's just an accident we can go around." She patted his arm to encourage him but also because she couldn't stand not touching him, feeling that he was close to her. Despite the warmth in her heart, Ardy shivered.
__ "You okay? I turned up the heat." Doug put the car in gear and steered back onto the rainslicked blacktop.
__ Ardy didn't answer. Instead she looked at the heater dial and locked on the little white notch turned to the broadest band of red. "What's wrong with the world?" She grabbed the window crank and rolled down the window. The rain that misted in was frosty, the air a sudden bite that smelled like snow.
__ She quickly rolled it back up. "Oh, my God."
__ "I know," Doug said, craning his head and studying the midnight sky. "It'll be noon in an hour or so and it's as black as if the sky was covered with a blanket."
__ "And why is it getting so cold?"
__ "I don't know, love. I don't know."
__ She smiled, suddenly and inexplicably unconscious of the darkness, the cold, and the fact she had died and come back the night before. She only heard one word, spoken by him.
__ Then she remembered the last time she felt such warmth in her heart. It was when she was on the Other Side and feeling the flow of love from all the people around her, the distant light growing warmer. She no longer feared or wondered about death. But she did fear dying without getting to know Douglas Testerbird.
__ The Datsun coasted to a stop as the tempest of blue and red machinegunned around them. A silhouette of a hulking drill instructor came toward them from the harsh light. The smokey hat identified the man as a state policeman well before Doug rolled down his window to speak to him.
__ "What's going on, officer?"
__ The cop's breath came out in a puff of steam. His teeth chattered. It was August. He wasn't expecting to need his winter uniform coat. "Y-You're kidding, right?"
__ Doug shrugged it off as the cop leaned down to glimpse Ardy in the passenger seat.
__ Doug said, "I know. Weird night -- I mean day."
__ The officer's expression twisted slightly. "May I ask where you folks were headed this morning?"
__ Doug didn't glance at Ardy. That would belie a mystery that might lead to interrogation. Instead he looked forward at the single-squad road block. "Out of town. We were on our way through to Indianapolis when the storm hit last night."
__ "Where you folks from?" The cop tilted his face to peer into the back seat. "No luggage?"
__ "We're from Morton. Just a day trip." Doug said, trying to put his own face in front of the officer's. "Is the bridge to 41 out... sir?"
__ The officer stepped back and straightened up. "Can you explain where you got those bruises, sir? And the lady?"
__ Doug glanced at Ardy. She wasn't bruised. She wasn't marked at all. She was beautiful. A little haggard maybe, weary and tired, but beautiful. As for himself, he wanted to say he had been bashed by a crystal ball, almost blown away by a shotgun, and generally beat up by circumstances since adding the extra dash of cologne before leaving home last night.
__ Ardy sensed something wasn't going right. There was a problem with this picture.
__ The cop said, "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the car."
__ That's when Ardy turned her gaze forward and her eyes lit upon the silvery glint of a snowflake on the windshield. Then everything went black-red-blue-white-black-red-blue-black-blue-black... black.

__ Todd Namer knew the roads would be impassible because of the rain. He also knew -- somehow -- that he couldn't wait in the parlor for Ardelene to return. She wasn't coming home. He knew... he somehow knew she was out there somewhere in the dark day. She was with that guy and they were trapped.
__ He didn't know how he knew, he just knew.
__ It was a knowledge that came with power, with the power that grew inside him and coursed through his arteries like burning kerosene.
__ He had finished cleaning up the parlor and decided it was time to leave. He would follow his new wolf-like senses through the dark until he found her.
__ Todd dressed in his jeans and sneakers, but left his shirt off. He enjoyed the feel of his rock hard abs, the taut fierceness of his muscular chest and arms. He wasn't like this yesterday. Yesterday he had a bit of a pouch and was pale and somewhat scrawny-limbed. Cold frosty air was swirling in through the broken front door, but Todd only felt comfortable.
__ "Must be the vitamins," he laughed. He tucked the .22 into the back of his jeans and carried the .357 at his right side. He left through the front door, kicking it completely off its hinges with a flying scream.
__ Landing on his feet outside, Todd surveyed Route 9. The rain was mixing a bit with tiny snowflakes, sleet. The sky was still midnight black. A pinpoint of warmth in the direction of far off Palley's Woods called to him.
__ Todd took a deep breath of the day-night and sprinted into the frost-starched cornfield toward Palley's Woods.
__ And destiny.

__ Ardy wasn't inside herself anymore. She had expected to wake inside Doug's mind, perhaps experience the fear and anger being imposed by the state policeman as he ordered Doug out of the car.
__ Instead, Ardy was inside the officer's head. And this is what was whirring by in a mad dash of insanity: What the hell is wrong with these people? Don't they see what's going on? There are creatures out here and they're probably part of it. I should shoot them now. Nobody on the radio. No way out of town. That guy in the car over there, torn to pieces. What did that to him? Creatures. There was a creature in the frost, all black and formed like a man -- Oh, Christ -- don't think about it. It'll come get you. What if this guy is one of them. I should shoot him. I should shoot him because he probably hurt that woman. He got bruised by her fists as she fought off his attacks in the darkness. Poor girl. Oh, God, what if he transforms into that black frost thing and attacks her while I'm here. I should just shoot him. I should kill him now. I have to defend her. Myself.
__ The cop, whose name was Frederick Duffy ("Sly" to his drinking buddies because of his weak resemblance to a certain Rambo film star), had Doug walk around behind the Datsun and open the trunk. He was reaching for his sidearm.
__ Oh, God, Ardy, wake up! Get up! Get out of this psycho's brain and yell! Scream! Wake up!
__ "Just nice and easy, pal," Duffy told Doug. He was waiting for just the right moment, for a window of opportunity when Doug would have to take his eyes away for at least four seconds, enough time for Duffy to draw his revolver and squeeze off three quick shots in his back.
__ Doug must have sensed something was completely wrong with the cop because, while he obeyed every order just as slowly as it was given, he never once took his eyes away from the officer.
__ Ardy swam in the mental sea of paranoia looking for a way to get out. The only image that played itself over and over in Frederick Duffy's mind was the willowy black creature that skulked along the roadside, retreating from the twisted wreckage of the car in front of his patrol prowler. Whatever it was, it was real -- or so Duffy's mind believed it was real -- and it was inhuman. And evil.
__ Duffy didn't have the luxury of having seen this day unfold through a series of murders, resurrections, visions, and signs. All he knew was that he was a cop who went on duty one night, it started raining, the sun never came up, and now it's getting very cold and creatures are causing cars to wreck.
__ And the radio in the police car didn't work.
__ That was a random thought that seemed to be the anchor to this long string of links in Officer Duffy's mind. The cop felt alone. He was Charlton Heston in The Omega Man. The world was crumbling and no one would answer his calls for help.
__ Naturally, he reasoned, anyone he sees now cannot be human.
__ Doug only knew something was wrong, very wrong, and that his actions -- or inactions -- would have a very severe bearing on whether he could keep Ardy and himself alive in the next few moments. His eyes were locked on the cop's eyes. The cop's eyes were drilling into Doug's eyes.
__ Neither man noticed the tall, slim creature, like a marionette coated in shining black oil, rise up behind Doug. The rain was swallowed up by its body and snowflakes that touched its smooth skin melted into the oily surface with an infinitesimal tisking sound.
__ Ardy, whose attentions and senses were those of Officer Duffy now, didn't see the thing either.
__ And she didn't see it when the thing stepped into Doug, forming his shape and sliding into him like a shadow chased into hiding by the sun.
__ She only saw Doug's expression suddenly change.
__ She heard him hurl of stream of obscenities at the cop.
__ Then she saw him charge.
__ Back in her own body, Ardy jolted awake by gunfire.
__ And screamed.

27. Prediction: Todd (D1)

__ Todd Namer stood naked and bloody in the psychic parlor and surveyed the landscape.
__ "Looks pretty good, Todder." Todder is what his former mother used to call him. No more. No more since he was now his own man, his own God. He didn't need his mother or father, didn't need his friends -- who were dead anyway. He only needed his wide open future.
__ He had daydreamed about it as he went about cleaning up the bodies of Keith and Billy. There had been a lot of stagnant, stale metallic-smelling blood all over the place. But he cleaned it all with bleach and other chemicals he found in the kitchen and bathroom. He had taken off all his clothes and put them in the Gypsy Girl's clothes washer. They'd be out of the dryer soon.
__ Todd relished the nudity. His skin, sticky with blood and sweat, was like a dragon's scales. Nothing could hurt him now. He felt wary, alive, his pulse pounded with the thought the Gypsy Girl would come home and find him here, savage and ready to pounce. She would be his first female victim, and the thoughts of what he would and could do with her were far more dark than anything imaginable.
__ He would kill her quickly, out of respect.
__ But only if she cooperated.
__ Todd daydreamed about traveling the world, a modern day vampire with a gun. He would live by night -- anywhere he could go -- and take everything he wanted. He would kill his victims in different ways so the police could never track him down. He'd kill indiscriminately in every state in the nation and every country in the world. He'd kill for revenge, for lust, for fun. And no one would stop him.
__ No one could stop him.


__ The storm eased up its tremor but the rain continued unabated. Though lighter, it was still heavy enough to be annoying.
__ It wasn't annoying to Clye Morrow, Munson mused. Clye lay on his back, his face pale as the belly of a frog and just as slimy. Grit and grime channeled down his cheeks and into his ears from the corner of his open eyes. His hair was pasted back and matted with mud. His clothes were dark with mud and indistinguishable by type or color.
__ "Didn't you hear me, Mr. Munson?" Maggie asked.
__ He couldn't look at her. After all, he had been to Hell. He couldn't be sure something didn't follow him out to taunt him and drag him back; some nightmarish specter, a fugitive from a Japanese horror film, a little girl with long matted hair and dark eye sockets.
__ "Hey!" Maggie came away from the car door where she was leaning and smacked him on the knee. "Listen!"
__ Munson, who had been sitting with his back against a tree staring at Clye's form in the muck, looked at the girl. "What?"
__ "Do you like music?"
__ "Wha?"
__ "I said, Mr. Lazypoop, do you like music?"
__ Munson shrugged, looked at her suspiciously. "What do you want from me?"
__ "I want to know," Maggie took a deep breath and screamed, "DO YOU LIKE MUSIC!?"
__ Munson pulled himself off the tree and dove for the girl. Landing on his knees, he wrapped one arm around her waist and clapped his other palm on her mouth. "Sssssh!"
__ He held her for a while, looking around, straining to hear if her hollering was picked up by anyone in the woods. "Please," he said, looking from tiny blue eye to tiny blue eye, "Please don't do that again." He asked if it was okay to remove his hand from her mouth by nodding reticently and making 'sad eyes' with his glare. When Maggie nodded into his palm he released her.
__ "Then don't do that again!" She admonished with a wagging finger.
__ "I'll tell you what," Munson said, "I'll answer five questions without hesitation or games, if y'all'd be kind enough to answer just one o' mine."
"Okey-dokey Mr. Donkey."__ Maggie smiled broadly. Even in the din he could tell her teeth were brown and crooked. She plopped down in the mud across from him and rested her elbows on her knees like a little girl waiting to hear a bedtime story.
__ Munson rolled his eyes heavenward before asking, "How did you know about me? About Doug and Ardy? How did you know their names and that they were coming? And you mentioned a boy.... Who is he?"
__ Maggie waited for him to finish then rolled her eyes in impersonation of the man before her. "You said one question so I'm going to just pick one of those."
__ "Okay, how about--?"
__ "No. Just one of yours for five of mine. We had a deal," she scowled.
__ Munson sighed, looked around the dark woods. "Go ahead."
__ "I know about you because I had a dream about you. I dreamt that a mean killer man crawled out of a dark fiery hole that went all the way to hell. I dreamt his two friends -- Doug and Ardy -- that's a funny name." She giggled after saying Ardy's name.
__ "Go on."
__ "I dreamed that her and her boyfriend came to save you, that Ardy," giggle, "will save you from yourself."
__ Munson had a vision of suicide and knew -- knowing what hell is like first hand -- that wasn't going to happen. "I don't get it."
__ "You grownups, so funny."
__ Maggie stood up and wiped the mud off her seat with filthy hands, then she turned and walked toward Clye's corpse.
__ "What are you doing!?" Munson struggled to his feet to stop her, "Maggie, don't go by him."
__ "He's a dead zombie now," Maggie frowned.
__ Munson put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. He crouched down to look her in the eyes. "Don't look at him. And no.... No, he ain't dead. Not really. Ardy's gonna make him wake up so I can... so I can talk to 'im."
__ The killer lead the girl back to the car. "Here. Let's sit in here until they git here. No sense gettin' any more wet n' muddy than we already are."
__ Maggie climbed into the car when Munson opened the door for her. As he climbed in after, Maggie said, "You ain't gonna talk to him, Mr. Munson."
__ Munson glared at her with a sudden glint of deep fear in his dark eyes. "Why not?"
__ "Because he's dead too long."
__ "Wha--?"
__ "Yeah. That's gonna make you really mad."
__ "No. No, it can't be." He buried his head in his hands and cried loudly and suddenly. Clye's resurrection was his only chance at redemption. If Ardy can't bring him back -- "No! No, I can't go back!"
__ Maggie put her little hand on his arm. "Don't worry, Mr. Munson. There's always the boy you kill."
__ Munson sniffed back tears and shot his head toward her. "What?"
__ "The mean boy. You're gonna kill him to save me."
__ Outside the day was still black as midnight, and the rain began to cool.
__ The outdoor temperature gauge in Munson's car began its slow descent.
__ And all R. Lee Munson could say, was "No, no, no."
__ Over and over again.
__ And cry.

26. Ain't No Darker Road (D1)

__ Todd scratched his cheek with a bloody finger. "Damn."
__ Lightning crashed again outside, but he had long since stopped flinching. Now he stood over his two dead friends, Keith -- whom he shot, partly for telling the doctor at the hospital that his gouged shoulder was caused by a gunshot; and Billy Laird -- who died slowly because a .22 doesn't have much stopping power.
__ The first shot to Billy's chest acted like a punch and just sent the taller boy staggering back a little, his eyes wild with disbelief. He hadn't expected the shot and that was Todd's only saving grace. The second shot, to the throat, was enough to cause a lot of blood to squirt out, but it didn't stop Billy from raising the .357 (now that, thought Todd, has stopping power). The final three shots were from only five-four-three feet away and hit the bigger boy in the mouth, cheek, and eye.
__ Just to be sure, Todd had emptied the weaker weapon into Billy's face until it looked all messy.
__ Feeling the bile hitch in his throat, Todd turned away, stepped over Keith, and went to the doorway to watch the storm. He was somehow more powerful after taking a life, a giant though the shortest kid at school. Things would change now. With each distant flash of lightning he felt a surge of freedom.
__ After all, he was a murderer now, and couldn't very well go back home -- or to school.
__ He was free. Free and powerful.
__ He was free to do whatever he wanted, take whatever he wanted. Todd Namer was going to need a new identity. He would wear the tough new name like a condom and use it to conceal his true identity or his purpose; his purpose of fulfilling the destiny he had just made for himself.
__ Todd didn't need his parents anymore, his big sister, Billy Laird's little sister, school, or a stupid job. He had two guns now. He could easily take whatever he needed from people he ran into. And he could stay up as long as he wanted. And he could buy whatever he wanted with his stolen money. And he could have sex with any girl he could overpower.
__ These thoughts made his chest heave. He howled into the night like a lonely wolf ready to begin the prowl.
__ But he couldn't start stupid. Todd turned and quickly examined the room. There are some things he would have to do quickly to get rid of any evidence linking him. He would have to cut off Billy's head and bury it somewhere because .22 bullets stay stuck and don't punch through.
__ "Maybe," he thought allowed, "My sweet gypsy girl will come back while I work."
__ I'll show her I mean business.
__ I'll show her nobody laughs at me.
__ I'll show her good.


__ "Ardy, Ardy, what's wrong?"
__ Doug had pulled the Datsun over and was now shaking Ardy's shoulders with both hands so hard that her teeth were clicking together. "Ardy!"
__ She snapped awake and reared back in the seat with a loud gasp.
__ Doug let go of her and leaned back against the door with a shout.
__ Ardy breathed heavily, staring straight ahead, "Sorry, Doug."
__ Doug put a hand to his chest and caught his breath. "That's all right. What happened? Where were you? Was it the little girl in your vision, Munson? Something else?"
__ "I'd say this fell into the 'something else' category."
__ Doug straightened in his seat, put his hands on the steering wheel, and rested his head on his right wrist. "I'm not sure I want to know."
__ Ardy studied him silently for just a moment before putting her hand on his shoulder blade. She rubbed his back warmly before saying, "It's the pizza boy. His name is Todd."
__ Doug peeked at her over the crook of his elbow.
__ "He just killed two of his friends at the Parlor."
__ Doug was now sitting fully at attention in the driver's seat. "Your Parlor? The Parlor?"
__ "I'm afraid so. He's cleaning up the mess he made after gunning down his two buddies. He's...."
__ "What, love?"
__ Ardy slowly shook her head. "He's... deranged, sick. I don't know. He's psychot--"
__ They blinked at each other.
__ "Did you just call me 'love?'"
__ "No," Doug shrugged.
__ "Yes you did," Ardy said through a rare smile, "You just called me love."
__ Doug swallowed hard, faced straight ahead. "Maybe we should find Munson." He put his hand on the key to start the car but Ardy put her hand on his. She leaned toward him.
__ "I'm psychic, you know."
__ He stared at her hand on his, then looked into her eyes. "Don't."
__ "Don't what?" Ardy leaned in closer. "It's okay."
__ Doug leaned toward her, they glanced at each other's lips, then eyes met. "Just don't."
__ Ardy's whisper was a breath across his lips, "Don't what?"
__ The kiss was short, chaste, but there was so much love and passion in that one brush of lips to fill a lifetime of love. Maybe it was part of the 'weirdness' of last night. Maybe it was some 'new weirdness.' Whatever it was, they both felt it. They both felt each other's love.
__ "What were you going to say?"
__ Doug blinked. "Don't.
__ "Don't keep peeking into my mind like that."
__ Ardy squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. "Doug, I didn't need to use psychic powers to know how I feel about you, or how you feel about me."
__ Doug's smile was weak. There was too much going on the past twelve hours to add a new emotion to the mix. And he knew things weren't over. Not by a long shot.
__ "Let's go," Ardy suggested.
__ He was way ahead of her.


__ Munson sat on the muddy ground with his back against the left rear wheel of his car, his head in his hands, tears mingling with the rain down his cheeks. The radio in his car was still blaring and the little girl, for all he knew, was still sitting in the car swaying side to side.
__ "Please come out," he begged for the forty or fiftieth time. And again he promised, "I won't hurt you."
__ Then, unlike the countless other times, the door opened and the radio cut off.
__ Munson jumped to his feet and moved back as though the creature inside the car was some kind of otherworldy enemy, a vampire or hobgoblin. "What are you?"
__ The girl was silhouetted by the day-night, the glare of his car's lights behind her. In the dim he could still see she was wearing a pink top and dark jean pants. Her hair was straight over her shoulders and somewhat matted and tattered. Dirt smudged her face, her sad expression.
__ Munson crouched down to her level and held out a hand. "Please, little one, I won't hurt you."
__ She took a step forward, tentatively. Now it was she who was wary.
__ "What's your name?"
__ "Maggie," she said. "My name is Maggie -- and I'm not a little one."
__ Despite the declaration, Munson could tell she truly was a little one. Her education had lacked something somewhere, he could tell. The school-hoppers could find each other regardless of circumstances. It seems they had found each other.
__ "I won't hurt you," Munson whispered.
__ "I know," Maggie smiled. "But the boy will be here."
__ "Boy?"
__ Maggie nodded slowly.
__ "Before Ardy and Doug find us."

25. Little Maggie May (D1)

__ Doug slowed as the rain beat harder against the yellow Datsun. "I have to stop."
__ Ardy leaned forward and squinted out the window. "Not a bad idea. If you keep going, you're libel to run off the bridge from the other side."
__ He pulled over and slid the car into park but left the motor running.
__ "It'll slow down soon," Ardy said hopefully. The sky answered with a roar of thunder and a blistering flash of lightning.
__ In the bang, both Doug and Ardy got a clear photo-flash of the canopies of Palley's Woods around them. They were closer to Munson and neither had to be psychic to feel it.
__ "I don't like it," Doug said as if just remembering they were tracking a sadistic killer.
__ "He's not like that anymore," Ardy said, reading him. "I promise."
__ "How can you promise that?"
__ Ardy looked out the window and traced the rivulets of rainwater with her eyes. "It's hard to explain."
__ Doug studied his hands on the steering wheel for a moment, then relaxed and rested them in his lap after killing the Datsun's engine. Only the sound of rain like loud static filled the car's interior. He said, "I don't know what to think."
__ Ardy reached over and touched his hand lightly. Then she took her hand in his and squeezed. "You have to trust me."
__ "I do, Ardy. I do." Their eyes met. It was one of those movie moments where the couple leans in and kisses. Maybe they both knew that, but neither felt it. They may have wanted to but something much larger than them was at work here.
__ Lightning flashed again and on the road ahead Ardy glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. It was a girl, a little girl in jeans and a sodden pink top. Her face was sallow, pale, and her eyes were deep and dark.
__ She stood staring in at them. She was right in front of the car.
__ Ardy screamed. Doug jumped and yelled.
__ "What!? What!" He looked ahead but saw nothing but the rain.
__ "There!" Ardy screamed pointing into the same raining dark where Doug was looking.
__ But the girl was gone.
__ Ardy took several deep hitching breaths, her hand on her chest. Her eyes darted from side to side, straining to re-form what she could swear was there a moment ago.
__ Another flash of lightning illuminated nothing but the rain-dotted blacktop and the woods beyond.
__ "Ardy?" Doug leaned forward to peer into her eyes but she was avoiding his gaze, still seeking the phantom child in the night.
__ "Sh-She's gone."
__ "Who?"
__ "She was there -- The little girl."
__ Doug studied the night. There was nothing but the dark and the angry storm.


__ R. Lee Munson finished his dark and gritty work. The shovel lay aside in a muddy slop of grunge that was once a living, breathing human being. Clye Morrow lay rumpled and as dead as he was when Munson killed him the previous night.
__ "Well, Clye, here we are." Lightning flashed and illuminated Clye's open flat milky eyes. The dead lawyer taunted him from whatever hell had swallowed him. Munson felt only sorrow and pity. He knew, after all, first-hand what Clye was feeling now. The man's soul was trapped in a hell of his own making, void of love, void of sanity.
__ "I'm sorry, Clye. I purely am."
__ The next flash of lightning illuminated a tattered ragamuffin in a sodden pink shirt and soaked bluejeans. The girl's blond hair was dirty and plastered to her pale face. Her dark eyes were wide and focused on Clye's body over Munson's shoulder.
__ If he would have turned slightly to the left he would have seen her approach.
__ The child lost in the storm.


__ After Ardy finally calmed down, Doug listened as she described the little girl. She finished with a glare, "You believe me, don't you?"
__ "Ardy, after last night I find it impossible to not believe anything." Doug scanned the night. The lightning didn't cooperate, didn't show the road, the forest around them, or the lost little girl in a pink shirt. "I don't see her, but I believe you saw her."
__ Ardy took a deep breath. "Go."
__ "What?"
__ "Go. Just go."
__ "But--"
__ She pointed up the road, "We're close, Doug. Please, just go."
__ "But what about--?"
__ "She's with R. Lee. I didn't actually see her. I felt her."
__ "Gotcha." Doug started the Datsun, pulled it into gear, and sped off leaving a muddy toss of gravel in his wake.


__ Munson stood and lifted the shovel off Clye's corpse. "Well, all we gotta do now is wait for the miracle touch to come bring you back. Then you and I got to talk."
__ The lights from Munson's car, which had been dimly lighting the forest around him with a rain-sparked haze of light, now danced slightly. The sound of a car door clunked in the storm.
__ "What the--?"
__ The car started, its headlamps dimming as the battery power shifted from the lights to the starter. The engine turned and revved.
__ "Who is it!? Ardy? Bird tester?" He hefted the shovel like a weapon, but only intended to use it in self-defense. "Who's there!" he called.
__ By answer, the car stereo cranked on and blasted "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts.
__ Munson slowly approached the driver's side, deciding not to call out again. Neither Doug nor Ardy would find him here and start up his car. Come to think about it.... Nobody would.
__ As he approached the door, he saw a small sallow face peering out at him in the green glow of the dash lights.
__ It was a little girl, probably no more than ten or eleven. She was mouthing the words to the song and slowly swaying side to side as she stared at him with eyes so dark he couldn't be certain if they were looking at him or through him.
__ "W-Who are you?"
__ She started to giggle and rock from side to side. Then she hit the door lock switch.
__ Munson dropped the shovel and slapped his palms against the glass. "Open the door!"
__ The girl sang louder, her voice nearly lost in the vibrating churn of music inside. Her eyes were closed tight as she screamed the words, "My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you wanted to...."
__ Munson pounded on the windows and cried out, "PLEASE!"
__ But the girl sang on, the day stormed on in the darkness, and Munson's screams echoed up and up into the trees and the unforgiving forest of death.

CONTEST WINNER NEXT CHAPTER

I want to thank everyone who participated in the "Create a Character" contest. As promised, the winning entry will debut in Chapter 25. STAY TUNED!

24. Three Hunters (D1)

__ "We can't stay here and wish the bridge back," Doug, dripping wet, muttered as Ardy stared helplessly out the windshield and the breeching darkness. She nodded, but he didn't see it before backing the Datsun up and turning around.
__ Before Doug shifted into drive, he turned to Ardy, "Can you see him? Where is he now?"
__ Ardy took a deep breath, nodded slowly, and closed her eyes.


__ Because Clye Morrow's grave was a murder victim's bed, Munson hadn't marked the spot with anything telling. He didn't expect to have to find the grave to dig him up again either.
__ Now Munson stood, shovel in hand, rain sheeting down in broken showers around the thick canopies overhead. Backlit by the yellow lights of his car, Munson cursed and threw the shovel down before collapsing beneath a tree where he sat and cried.

__ Ardy opened her eyes and was surprised to find Doug speeding through the night. They were just passing her Psychic Parlor on their way around town to the other side of the river.
__ "Oh, my God," Ardy whispered and turned to watch the Parlor vanish in the darkness.
__ Doug hadn't been paying attention. His eyes were on the road. Last he knew, Ardy was off in psychic land trying to see what the killer was up to. "Where is he?"
__ "Go back!"
__ "What!?"
__ "The parlor! There's a car there and the door is open."
__ "What?"
__ Ardy turned to him. "Turn around!"
__ Doug slammed on the brakes and the car slid and shimmied across the pavement until it nestled with the gravel edge of Route 9 five feet from a cornfield. The corn stalks tossed and waved their silky heads like psychotic fans in the light storm.
__ He faced her, "What car? Munson's?"
__ "I- I don't think so. Somebody's in my house, Douglas," Ardy's eyes were wide with terror, the terror of losing everything she knows.
__ Doug took a deep breath before putting a hand on her shoulder to calm her. "Ardy, Ardy, relax." He put his palm on her cool cheek. "Think about last night. Think about why it's still pitch dark at nine in the morning. Think about your power, mine, Munson."
__ Ardy flinched, "Oh, God."
__ "You see? Whoever could be there, they're not there to do anything... um, natural."
__ She flinched again, spasmed. Doug's eyes grew wide. "Ardy? Ardy, what's wrong?"
__ Ardelene Jacobi's flinches became more rapid until she fell into a seizure. The whites of her eyes showed, her tongue lolled through her lips.
__ "Ardy!"

__ Munson wiped the rain and the tears from his face before sniffling and laughing to himself. "This night is a nightmare!" Then his eyes settled on something that rang familiar, a scar of skin where his shovel nicked off a chunk of bark the evening before. It was hard to believe it wasn't the same night.
__ He was sitting on the X.
__ Munson stood and hefted the shovel. "There you are."
__ He started digging, roughly with heavy gouges at first, then more gently when he thought he was getting close to flesh and cloth, cold and wormy, and waterlogged in the heavy downpour.
__ "I'm going to save you, Clye." Munson stopped to rest, survey his work. "And you're going to forgive me so Ardy can save me. It has to be."
__ He continued digging, and with each scoop of muddy earth he cried fresh tears. "It has to be. It has to be. It has to be."

__ "Where is the bitch?"
__ Billy Laird came back from the kitchen and tossed the crumpled pizza box on the floor. In his right hand was a gleaming chrome .357 magnum from his dad's gun case. "This was in the trash. No gypsy girl, gimp, or other dude."
__ "Told ya I was here," Todd Namer pointed to the box with the barrel of his own weapon, a .22 also from Billy's dad's gun case. "Proof."
__ "So what? Where's she?"
__ Todd and Keith broke out of the E.R. in Covert Community Hospital when the doctor there said the police would have to be involved. Todd's wound, though a shallow gouge in his shoulder, was caused by a gunshot ("That idiot Keith told the truth!") and that meant a procedural visit by the local authorities.
__ Todd wanted to settle this himself. No one would miss the crazy gypsy girl and her two sick friends. Besides, Billy was smart. He'd have an idea on how to pin their deaths on each other.
__ Careful not to leave traces, Todd wore leather gloves to conceal his fingerprints. Billy didn't believe the crazy story about a shootout so he didn't bother with fingerprints.
__ Rain washed in through the swinging open door as Keith entered. Unlike the others, he wasn't armed. "Anyone here?"
__ "Like you care!"
__ "Look, man, I'm sorry! I'm not about to go back to juvy because of you."
__ Billy pointed his gun at Keith. "Both of you shut up!"
__ Keith and Todd looked up at the taller kid.
__ "They're not here."
__ No one said anything for a few seconds, so Todd spoke up. "So what do we do?"
__ Keith said, "We get the heck out of here."
__ "No! I have unfinished business with that whore," Todd spat and raised his gun to the other's face.
__ Keith raised his hands to ward off the shot as Billy barked, "Knock it off!"
__ That's when Todd shot his former friend.

__ Ardy woke from a milky daze. Red and blue swirls swept through the air above her until her focus improved and she saw the patriotic twinkles reflected in droplets on the windshield. Her seat in the yellow Datsun was reclined and she was gazing weakly through the raindazzled glass. The red and blue... lights...
__ Police!
__ Ardy reached out for Doug but the driver's seat was empty. Elbowing herself up to look out the window Ardy saw that they were parked under the awning of a dimly lit gas station on the north side of Covert. Doug was walking toward the car with two bottles of Pepsi from the pop machine outside the service station. On the road to the left was the squad car. A lone officer in a smokey hat was directing a car through a dead intersection.
__ Doug smiled when he saw she was awake.
__ Ardy didn't smile in return.
__ She had taken turns in each of the three teenagers' heads as they discovered the Parlor abandoned, knew their murderous intent. Well, one of them at least -- Todd, the one she had wounded. Billy was angry, unpredictable, filled with rage, and had an anxious trigger-happy side.
__ Keith....
__ The youngest one....
__ Keith died just after she left him and returned to her own mind.
__ Ardy was growing weary.
__ Weary of experiencing death.

23. Doug Has to Think (D1)

__ Douglas' car was an old yellow Datsun, "Like the one Chris McCandless had," he said as the vehicle rumbled away from the Psychic Parlor and forged into the dark raining blackness of the bizarre morning.
__ Ardy looked over at him and smiled, studied the lines of his face, the handsome profile so determined but also boyish and innocent despite the previous night's horrors. "I'm sorry, Doug. I know this is where I usually nod and say, 'oh, yeah,' but I don't know what you're talking about." She giggled.
__ Doug was embarrassed. "I'm I always like that?"
__ She said, "I always liked that you talked to me and gave me the time of day, but I don't know half the stuff you talk about."
__ "You mean like 'Star Wars' and 'X-Files' and stuff like that?" His smirk was understanding. "I figured."
__ "Hard to find girls who'll listen to ya and know what you're talkin' about, huh?"
__ He shrugged, "Yeah, you can say that. I'm kind of a geek at heart I guess." He took his foot off the gas. The car was cruising to a four-way stop. "Which way?"
__ Ardy glanced out the window. "Oh, straight for quite awhile."
__ Once they were through the intersection, Doug was silent. Ardy scooted over toward him and rested her head on his shoulder. "It's okay. I am too."
__ "No you're not," he smiled. "How could you be?"
__ "Hey, just because I don't know Luke was Leia's father doesn't mean--"
__ "Vader."
__ "What?"
__ "Darth Vader. Actually, Anakin Skywalker was Luke and Leia's father. In Episode Five, The Empire Strikes--
__ "What?"
__ Ardy was giggling uncontrollably, clutching her stomach to stave off the cramps of hard laughter.
__ "C'mon, what?"
__ "Y-You are--." She wheezed and laughed out loud.
__ Her laugh was light and infectious. Doug stole glances at her. Something about her look, beaten, bruised, cut, scraped, haggered, weary-eyed, but laughing as hard as she was, made his heart leap. He couldn't help laughing himself.
__ "I'm sorry," he said at last. "I'll stop."
__ "Promise me," Ardy said, finally catching her breath.
__ Doug glanced at her. "Yeah?"
__ "Promise me one day you'll show me all five of those Star Wars movies."
__ Doug roared with laughter. Now it was he who was clutching his gut.
__ "Now what?"
__ "There --" gasp "There are six movies, not five."
__ As the yellow Datsun vibrated a swath through the black rain, Ardy and Doug laughed and slapped each other's knees.
__ For one brief moment they forgot about the night, and the mission they were on.


__ R. Lee Munson's car rocked like a heavy boat on rough seas. Branches and twigs tinked and clicked and scraped against the side as he coasted through the deep dark Palley's Woods.
__ "Got t' be here somewheres."
__ He stopped at the site of an overturned wheelbarrow, left rusted and forgotten for decades. He remembered it. And now the memories of Clye's murder. The sign on the door, "Clyde R. Morrow, Attorney." The choking, the struggling, the dragging of the heavy sack of concrete that was a lifeless human body.
__ Munson left the car running but put it in park and set the brake. "I come back for ya, Clye. We gotta get things straight between us before I die again. And I imagine you too."
__ He got out of the car and went to the trunk to get the shovel and spade. The rain was pelting hard and there were wide puddles of mud and stagnant rivers of dark water in twin lines where his tires gouged through the forest. It was going to be tough getting out of here, but maybe, he thought, Clye will help push me out. His laugh was dry and humorless.
__ Stopping, his hand on the open trunk, R. Lee turned and looked into the deep blackness of the woods -- like Hell. Lonely, cruel--,
__ "Don't." He winced against the memory and cried through a prayer, "Oh, please God let her be comin'. Let Ardy be comin' to save me."


__ Palley's Woods stretched like a pulled-apart horseshoe around the northern side of Covert, Indiana, a snaking dark forest that was the outskirts to everything else. Baseball fields, farmland, a truck stop, abandoned old homes from the last turn of the century, were all dots around the periphery of the inverted green scar. There were creek tributaries that wound through it, a few old wells covered in old planks of plywood, thick bramble factories, poison ivy-oak-sumac stretches, felled trees, car parts, trash bags, and more than a few bodies.
__ Munson's victim wasn't the only one to call Palley's Woods home. There were a handful of mob-hit dumps from the late 1920's, now just skeletal fragments lost to all but legend. One little girl and a little boy, one lost in a well and another torn apart by a leopard that got loose from a traveling circus. Another was a hiking accident and two were drownings in what the locals called Puma Pond (it had been a long standing argument to change the name "Cause o' that boy that puma et.")
__ The pond, and the spiderweb of creeks meandering through and around it, all fed Lyle River. The Lyle twisted down from Covert and got lost in lakes somewhere south in Brown County below all the covered bridges and in the clefts of the hills down there.
__ While the trip from Ardy's Psychic Parlor to the side of Palley's Woods where Clye was buried in a shallow grave wasn't a far one, it was now an immense distance.
__ Doug stopped the car put it in park. He clicked on the brights. "Is it gone?"
__ Ardy leaned forward and squinted through the brief window of clarity offered by the Datsun's wipers. "I can't tell, but I wouldn't do it, Doug."
__ "Only one way to be sure," he said and got out of the car. A blast of hot summer rain sprayed in and brushed Ardy's cheek.
__ "Be careful!" she called just as he slammed the door. He gave her a thumbs up through the window to show he heard.
__ Doug stepped carefully up to the first couple of planks of the wooden bridge over Lyle River. A few steps beyond, the Datsun's headlight beams were swallowed by blackness. A roar like rapids hissed and threatened from that dark. It sounded only inches below the bridge's -- what was left of the bridge's planks.
__ Doug turned back to the car and got in. He was soaked through his polo and his hair was plastered to his forehead.
__ "It's gone, isn't it?"
__ "Yup. No other way around is there?"
__ Ardy groaned. "Not unless we turn around, go through town, and try to catch Route 6 on the far north side."
__ Doug craned his neck to look into the black sky. According to his watch it was after 8 a.m. "In this weather, it would take us almost an hour to get around to the other side."
__ "Do we have a choice?"
__ "I have to think."

22. One Flew Out of the Cookoo's Nest (D1)

__ "R. Lee, you can't," Ardy pleaded. She pushed against his chest and put on her best pitiful expression. "You can't leave here. It's too dangerous."
__ "I am leaving here," he said and zipped the satchel closed. "Where's the gun?"
__ Ardy shivered and pulled back. "What? You can't be serious after--"
__ "Not for me, little girl. For you."
__ She avoided glancing toward the bedroom and hoped they could get through this without disturbing Doug. Doug hadn't gone through what they did. He wouldn't understand their argument, or Munson's passion.
__ "R. Lee, please."
__ Munson grabbed her by the upper arm and turned her toward the door. "Let's go."
__ She tried to pull away but his grasp was too tight, pinching. "Ow! You're hurting me."
__ He stopped and spun her to face him. He clamped his hands on her arms to hold her straight and leaned into her eyes. "You can't stop me. No way. And you know this is somethin' I gotta do."
__ Ardy shook her head. Tears, from where she couldn't fathom, trickled from her eyes.
__ "And I need ya, Ardy. I need ya to bring 'im back."
__ Mustering all the strength she could find, Ardy ducked and spun away from him. She ran around the fortune telling table and stood with it between them.
__ Munson glared, sized up the table. Ardy knew the old R. Lee Munson would have simply toppled it, the lamp, and the cracked crystal ball to the floor. But the new Munson didn't.
__ He simply took a deep breath, turned, and sprinted out the front door.
__ "NO! R. LEE, WAIT!" Ardy caught part of the table as she tried to run after him and fell to the floor.
__ "You'll come after me!" He called from the storm. "You'll have to." His voice trailed away as he rounded the side of the building and sloshed to his car.
__ "R. LEE!"
__ Ardy got back on her feet and stumbled toward the door. Doug burst from the bedroom and caught her in his arms just before she got to the rainswept threshold. She collapsed, weeping, into his arms, crying, "Come back. Come back."
__ The gutteral rumble of Munson's car echoed around the building until it pointed West on Route 9. Doug and Ardy saw his ghostly profile as he sped off into the storm. Lightning flashed and made it appear like his car winked away into nothingness.
__ "He's gone? Where did he go?"
__ Ardy's eyes met Doug's. She sniffed. "He went to where he buried Clye. He thinks I can bring him back to life and he can somehow ask forgiveness for killing him."
__ "That's insane." Doug said it without realizing the entire night has been insane.
__ Ardy blinked more tears away. "And this isn't?" She pulled away from him and motioned at the room, recalling everything that had transpired here from Munson's original threats and attacks to the gun battle between the trio and the Pizza King twins.
__ Not to mention the two spontaneous resurrections.
__ "Why did you try to stop him, Ardy? You know he can't do anything but get arrested. Maybe that's the penance he deserves."
__ "No. No, it isn't. I'm supposed to save him, Doug. Me."
__ Doug looked out the open doorway. Lightning flashed again. Sheets of rain speckled the rivers of runoff water from the rural route. He could only shake his head slowly, unable to see what she was thinking as easily as she could read his mind.
__ Ardy put her hand to his chin and turned him to face her. "I know you can't understand why. I know you can't imagine what I seen tonight -- or what he's experienced."
__ "'Cause I didn't die and come back, y'mean."
__ "It's more than that, Doug." She sighed. "How can I explain?"
__ "I know," he shrugged. "You've seen stuff."
__ "I was with him in Hell. Jesus -- or God -- somebody spoke to me and told me to save him."
__ Doug studied her eyes. He finally smiled weakly. "You don't have to worry about me. I've seen things here I can't explain and never could. I trust you."
__ Ardy turned and moved toward the bedroom.
__ "I don't want you to go after him alone."
__ She stopped and turned. "Even if I could bring Clye back from the dead, I would want you by my side."
__ Doug's brow creased. "How do you mean 'if I could'?"
__ Ardy went back to him and put her hands in his. "Don't you know?"
__ He shook his head, confused and bewildered.
__ "Doug," she whispered. "I'm not the one who brought R. Lee back to life. And I sure as heck couldn't resurrect myself."
__ His shocked expression misted over like the speckled sheen of rain on the picture window.
__ "I'm not the healer, Douglas Testerbird. You are."

21. Wrong Turn to Redemption (D1)

__ Ardy stirred and stretched. The bed was comfortable and so were Doug's arms. She opened her eyes and watched him sleeping there, clothed like her, both on top of the covers. They had both passed out from exhaustion, crying in each other's arms until their bodies just couldn't support another tear.
__ She craned her head around him and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was just after 7:30 in the morning. She turned to the window, a black rectangle in the East wall until a bolt of lightning showed the silvery rain outside.
__ "Something's wrong."
__ Doug grumbled in his sleep at the sound of her voice, but instead of waking he rolled onto his side and fell deeper into blissful unconsciousness.
__ Letting him sleep, Ardy slowly rolled off the bed and went to the window. The rain was lighter than it had been a couple hours ago, but the lightning and thunder were just as fierce. And the sky was as black as --.
__ A deedark pit p too deep for love to find.
__ No! Stop it.
__ Ardy punched her hip with her fist and scrunched up her face, forcing the images from her mind. Then she thought of Munson and gasped. He had been left alone in the living room.
__ She went to the bedroom door and opened it, expecting a host of horrific images, but everything was as it had been. Munson was curled up on the couch where she had left him.
__ But his eyes weren't closed. He wasn't sleeping anymore. He was staring at her, his chin quivering slightly.
__ Ardy approached slowly, her hands clasped chastely in front of her waist. "A-Are you okay, R. Lee?"
__ Munson's visage was completely different from the false-front killer's mask he wore the previous night. He was a frightened child, aware of his own heartbeat and how close he was to going back to ... that place.
__ "I--" he rasped. He cleared his throat and started again, "I'm scared, Ardy. I don't know what happened to me."
__ "Yes you do. I was with you. We both know what that was."
__ Munson studied the floor, his hands. As Ardy approached she noted that his face had completely healed and was completely scar free. He said, "But I don't -- I didn't believe--."
__ "That's why," she said crisply. Ardy sat next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. She was no longer afraid he would try to rape or kill her. In his present state he couldn't harm a dust mite.
__ "Why didn't--?" He shuddered and began to cry again. "W-Why didn't she --?"
__ Ardy patted his back and shushed him. She spared him the trauma of finding words and took a deep breath, easing herself into his wounded spirit, his troubled mind.
__ She filled in, "Why didn't your momma ever tell you about Heaven n' Hell?"
__ Munson nodded through a sob. "I mean I knew enough."
__ "You knew enough to know good from bad, that murder is wrong."
__ Another nod, deeper and filled with bottomless sorrow.
__ Ardy straightened a little, took a deep breath. "God knows you're here, R. Lee."
__ The killer shook his head, "No he don't. He don't. I-I felt it."
__ Ardy licked her lips, tried to think of how to tell him what she felt she should. She wanted to say that she had been to the other place, the better place, or at least outside its door. She wanted to tell him that she was charged with saving him.
__ And now she knew that meant his soul. Not his life.
__ "R. Lee," she began, "God wants you to be saved. He wants all of us to be saved."
__ More tears, a head hung low moved side to side. "No he don't. Not me. I don't deserve it."
__ "The news is, none of us does. That's the trick."
__ Munson sniffed, met her eyes. "Trick?"
__ "Well, I ain't no preacher. I don't know how to put it." She paused hoping he would somehow get it, but he just continued waiting and watching. "Everyone is a sinner, R. Lee, and it don't matter if you stole a bicycle when you were seven or murdered someone when you were seventy. It's all a sin."
__ "But I can't believe anyone but another mur--. But a guy like me would deserve th-that thing," he waved his hands at the floor weakly, "That thing we saw."
__ Ardy didn't know how to answer that. Someone once said that everyone goes to Hell when they die, but they only stay so long as it takes to burn away their sins. Then, like Jesus, they ascend to be with God.
__ That seemed like as good an answer as any, but it wouldn't help this situation. R. Lee was a lifetime of dread sin. And, while he never killed all the others he claimed, he had hurt people along the way. All the way to Clye, the man he murdered in cold blood.
__ "R. Lee, there is a way. There is a way."
__ Munson stood up on shaky legs and began to pace the room. He lifted the lamp off the floor and replaced it on the table. He fidgeted with scraps of duct tape from where he had been held in the big chair. The whole time he mumbled to himself, paced back and forth.
__ Then he stopped, looked at the big picture window, then to his watch. "Oh, God."
__ "What?"
__ He pointed to the window. "Why is it still so dark?"
__ Lightning flashed outside. It made them both jump.
__ Ardy said, "I don't know."
__ "My time in Hell has just begun, Ardy," he sniffed and chewed his lower lip. "Just begun."
__ "No. That's not true. There's redemption."
__ Munson looked at her but didn't seem to consider what she was suggesting. Another thought entered his mind.
__ He moved quickly to her and fell to his knees. He put his palms on her knees and looked up into her startled face. "I know what I got to do."
__ Ardy blinked. Shook her head. "What?"
__ Munson stood nodding his head vigorously like a general who just plotted out a flawless plan of attack. "I know. I know."
__ Ardy stood and went to him. He turned to face her. "What, R. Lee?"
__ He took a deep breath and rested his hands on her shoulders. "I got to bring 'im back, Ardy. And you're gonna help me."
__ "Wha--?"
__ "Clye. You can do it. You can bring him back and he can forgive me." Munson's eyes flashed with the excited fury of a man who just figured out how to escape Hell, which is just what he was hoping. He gently moved Ardy aside and went to his satchel and began to re-pack his murderous belongings in it.
__ "R. Lee, no," Ardy whispered, but mostly to herself.
__ It's not that Munson's idea was so bizarre considering everything else that happened this night. There was just one fact he didn't know.
__ Ardy hadn't brought him back from the dead.
__ And she sure as anything couldn't bring back a man dead and buried in Palley's Woods all night long.
__ Ardy shivered as she watched Munson pick up pace and wake into a new excitement.
__ The storm outside seemed to weaken, but only slightly, as if it was sitting in expectation for what would happen next.

20. Begins The Long Storm (D1)

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__ Doug stood in front of the Psychic Parlor, Ardy's home and business, under the ramshackle awning that served no protection from the torrent of rain coming down. He studied the face of his watch until a lightning strike illuminated the dial. 5:44 a.m.
__ "It should be light by now."
__ A crash of thunder rode a silver bolt out of the black sky. The flash lit up the rain which glowed in waving sheets like the Aurora Borealis.
__ Soaked through his skin, rapidly blinking the warm summer rain out of his eyes, Doug let it wash over him. Through him.
__ Back inside, Ardy huddled with Munson on the couch, the two of them still weeping uncontrollably over their shared experience in what he could only assume was a sleepwalker's journey back from Hell.
__ The memory of Munson's re-forming face, the inverting pocks of pellet-impact, the cratered eye socket, kept re-playing in Doug's mind. As awareness flooded back into the re-animating corpse, Doug had glimpsed something terrifying in the killer's face -- just before Munson realized he was back.
__ It was like looking into the lifeless face of Medusa's freshest victim. A face that had absorbed all the worst fears of all of humanity in one collected -- what was it? Thirty minutes or so?
__ The sound of a rare vehicle in the dark storm raised his attention and Doug moved around the corner of the building. The semi tractor-trailer roared past cutting sprays of rainwash into the air, then vanished into the dark, its series of yellow trim lights and red-eyed tail lights slowly diminishing as it headed out of town.
__ "We have to get out of here," Doug observed aloud. Another crash of thunder-lightning seemed to agree with him, or ward off such thoughts, he couldn't be sure which.
__ Continuing to argue with himself, or the night, Doug explained, "It's too dangerous to stay here. That kid from the pizza place. He'll call the cops. Or his friend will. We're all guilty of something."
__ Doug looked down and watched the machinegunning drops of rain splash the muddy puddle that oozed into his shoes. He hadn't even noticed.
__ "Or maybe we're all dead, have been dead all night, and this is some sort of hell right here."
__ This time the lightning didn't answer, but a sudden gust of hot wind pushed Doug back. He stumbled a half-step until his back hit the building. Slucking his feet out of the puddle, he moved back to the porch front.
__ He looked through the front window and saw nothing he could recognize around the glow of the table lamp resting on its side on the floor. The rivulets of rain blurred the scene inside, but he didn't really need to see. They were still on the couch.
__ But he had to wonder. How long would this last? If they had, indeed, come back from Hell together, what would keep Munson from deciding that's his fate anyway; he might as well have a fun killing spree while he's back.
__ Heck, Doug thought, I've seen enough horror movies to know demons might want to hitch a ride in his soul, come back incarnate to God's green earth just to lay waste to creation.
__ Or is that ridiculous?
__ No more ridiculous than seeing two people come back from the dead right before my eyes.
__ Doug went back inside and replaced the makeshift doorstop. Then he pulled off his muddy shoes and socks. The rain was more quiet in here but still played out a drum solo on the roof. Ardy and Munson still huddled on the couch in each other's arms, both still dry-crying and breath-hitching between sniffs and groans.
__ He crossed to the bedroom and closed the door. Then he padded barefoot to the closet and looked through Ardy's clothes. On an upper shelf he found an oversized COVERT ACADEMY t-shirt. Everything else, even sweat pants and shorts, were too small for him. Stripping down, Doug took his pants into the bathroom and wrung them out in the sink. Then he hung them on the back of the door to continue drying. He leaned into the shower and started a steamy stream that rivaled the torrent outside only by its temperature.


__ The shower felt good, the massaging spray on the hard lump on his head made it smart, but it felt good on his aching shoulders. He used the same lemon-sweet shampoo Ardy had used earlier and scrubbed himself raw with the bar soap.
__ When he emerged from the shower he checked his watch on the sink. 6:21. Outside the bathroom window, though glazed, he could see it was still pitch dark.


__ After pulling on the COVERT ACADEMY t-shirt, Doug slipped back into his damp pants and buckled the sodden leather belt. He rolled up cuffs on the bottom and sat on a chair near the closet door. With his head in his hands he tried to weep but couldn't.
__ Funny, he thought, how long Ardy and Munson were crying when he couldn't manage a single tear despite the lighter version of hell they'd all been through tonight -- well, last night.


__ Stretching and rubbing his eyes, Doug went to the door and opened it. Munson was laying on the couch, apparently asleep, his leg twitching like a dog's during a nightmare about fanged rabbits. He was sucking his thumb.
__ Ardy was gone, but the aroma of fresh coffee was filling the room.
__ Doug turned toward the kitchen in time to see Ardy's tear-streaked face appear with two steaming coffee mugs.
__ "I'm sorry," she said handing him a mug.
__ Doug sipped gratefully. He touched a hand to her shoulder. "It's all right. I understand."
__ Her chin quivered, threatening a new batch of tears, but she sucked it in, composed herself as best she could. "No. No, Doug. You can't understand. I pray to God you never have to come close to understanding."
__ He cleared his throat softly and, asking the only question he could, he said, "W-What happened, Ardy? What happened to him?"
__ She touched a finger to her lips to shush him and directed him back into the bedroom with a nod of her head. He obliged but turned to face her only when he sat on the edge of the bed. He was too exhausted to stand any longer. Ardy stepped up to him, looked down at him.
__ "We were in Hell." Her gaze lifted and trailed off. Doug watched her eyes as they remembered the visions. She cringed, chewed her lower lip. Her bloodshot eyes watered anew. "Oh, God, Douglas, it was Hell. It was really --" Her chest hitched and she sobbed, "-- Was horrible. Horrible."
__ Doug reached up and wrapped his arms around her waist. She hugged his head as he leaned forward and rested his cheek against her chest.
__ "Oh, God.... Horrible."
__ "Don't, Ardy."
__ "I can't erase that time from my head, Doug. I can't."
__ "You have to try to at least dampen it with new memories then, good memories."
__ She released him, sat beside him on the edge of the bed. Looking into his eyes, she said, "How do you feel in church?"
__ He frowned not getting the question.
__ She said, "You've felt fulfilled at times, haven't you? I mean, like there's someone there, listening?"
__ He nodded. "Sure."
__ Her gaze trailing off again, she said, "This was a million times worse than the opposite of that."
__ Doug put his arms around her again and squeezed her as she convulsed with fresh tears. She wailed into his chest and he wondered if the crying would ever stop.
__ Eventually, he was able to get her to lay down in bed. He snuggled up beside her but just to keep her company, give her someone to hold on this earth.
__ As her sobs faded, trading in for soft snores, Doug's mind became more alert.
__ Something occurred to him with a flash like the lightning outside.
__ If Ardy was with Munson, psychically projected into his mind, his thoughts, his soul's flight....
__ How could she have resurrected him?
__ She hadn't even touched him.
__ Who or what brought R. Lee Munson back from Hell.
__ And why?
__ The storm dramatically answered Doug's thoughts with a cannonade of thunder and white hot flashes.

19. Back Without a Hand Basket (D1)

__ Rain bashed at the roof of the Psychic Parlor on Route 9, heavy drops ripping down on lightning strikes like sparks from Thor's hammer. It was only an hour or so from sunrise, but the night refused to let go of the darkness.
__ Doug stood in front of Munson's chair and stared agape at the man's reconstructed face. It sported the scars of a dozen or so puncture marks and his right eye was slightly more caved in and lower than his left, but beyond that there was no sign that a quarter of the man's brains were sprayed out by a shotgun blast.
__ For nearly ten minutes, Doug watched mystified as Munson's visage reformed around his ruined skull; the whole time the killer cried and screamed not to be released -- From what? Doug wondered -- begged and pleaded and wept.
__ Ardy regained composure at some point during Munson's resurrection and rose from the floor in the kitchen. Doug hadn't gone to her because he figured A) the seizures were probably part of the "attempt to resurrect a guy" process and B) how many times do you see someone come back to life before your eyes?
__ Now she was standing beside Doug, her arm twined around his and they stood looking down at the weeping murderer.
__ "It's a miracle," Doug muttered. "You did it."
__ Ardy then burst into tears herself and fell to her knees in front of Munson. She wrapped her arms around him as his tears increased as well.
__ Doug stepped back, not quite getting the picture and deciding it was best to let it calm down on its own.
__ That is until Ardy started tearing at Munson's bonds.
__ "No! Ardy don't!" Doug stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, but she turned and swatted him away.
__ Munson raised his bloodshot eyes to Doug's and screamed with the anguish of a man who had just been told his wife -- no, his pregnant wife -- no, his pregnant wife who was told she could never have kids before today -- was mangled in a horrific car accident.
__ But that wasn't right either. Munson's -- and for that matter Ardy's -- tears were the deepest wretches of anguish and sorrow he had ever seen. They were almost surreal in their magnitude.
__ Then he realized -- gazing into Munson's wide and soulful dark eyes -- what was causing the terrible reaction. Doug's breath hitched in his throat and he backed away helpess to understand what Ardy and the killer had shared.
__ As Ardy tore off the last of the duct tape, Munson struggled to stand but collapsed on the floor. Ardy fell down beside him and tried to wrestle him back on his feet, both continually crying and screaming.
__ When he was back on his feet, Munson's and Ardy's arms wrapped around each other and they hugged and wept.
__ Doug glanced around, searching out the Glock, and found it on the floor near the bedroom door in the silvery flash of lightning through the window. He went to the weapon and picked it up. He considered holding it levelled at Munson in case the killer was going to try something -- in case this impossible act were the most outrageous yet Oscar-worthy performance in the history of fakery. But, instead, he went with his heart and tucked the pistol into the back of his pants.


__ Lightning flashed again and thunder followed immediately like the roar of napalm over the farm fields across the road. A large white bread truck coasted by, its driver keeping several miles under the posted limit so he could see through the torrent on his windshield.
__ Doug stood at the broad picture window and gazed out into the darkness. The horizon was yet to show despite the morning hour and the storm was as bad as it was over an hour ago.
__ He turned and looked at the silhouettes huddled together on the couch. R. Lee Munson's and Ardy's tears had all but dried up, but the two continued to cry. Periodically, they would groan. Once in a while, one of them would wail. But they had yet to address him or comment, or to say anything beyond the odd "Oh no," or "Oh, God, please, no."
__ So Doug continued to wait them out.
__ He turned back to the window and closed his eyes as lightning struck again. The flash made a sudden red blip appear on his retinas through his eyelids. In a whisper, he prayed.
__ He prayed that he would not see what they had seen.
__ He prayed he would never see Hell.
__ And he prayed that the two tortured souls on the couch would never see it again.
__ Even R. Lee Munson.

18. Lazarus (D1)

__ Doug Testerbird continued to hold Ardy Jacobi in his arms as they rocked side to side on the couch. She continued to sob into his sodden shirt and her sweaty grip around his waist refused to loosen. Doug was staring toward the open door and the ruin of wood and splinters where the handle used to be, and to the roiling burnt blue-gray clouds of a night storm rolling in.
__ He tried not to glance toward the corpse in the chair to his right. Munson, the killer. Munson, the potential rapist. Munson, the confessed murderer, was dead in a very gory depiction of John F. Kennedy's final moments.
__ Doug petted Ardy's hair, smelled her lemony shampoo and the mingling musk of sweat, blood, and tears. When the evening began he was intending to make a visit for small talk, visit her at her place of business (albeit also her home), and make the first efforts to get to know her. He had kept some cash in his pocket to pay for a psychic reading, just to show good faith in the visit. But all he really wanted to do was get to know the woman who was a regular to his general store on the other side of town.
__ That was all.
__ His temples buzzed at everything that had happened since. He walked in on a killer who tried to murder him. He heard proof -- painful proof -- of Ardelene Jacobi's true life gift of psychic power. He shared pizza with the woman for whom he had a crush -- with the man who had tried to kill them. And he was in a gun battle with a couple of teenagers from town.
__ Doug sighed. This was unreal. This was--
__ Wait a minute. He stopped petting Ardy's hair and forced himself to look past Munson's corpse to the kitchen. Something happened there too. Something ... unreal.
__ Ardy came back from the dead.
__ Doug felt an involuntary shudder pass through him. No, it was more like a shiver, but it wasn't enough to stir the woman in his arms who had fallen into a tense slumber. Cradling her head and shoulders, Doug eased her into a fetal position as he slid off the couch and stood slowly. He took two steps toward the kitchen and stopped when the floorboards creaked. After glancing over his shoulder to make sure Ardy was still sleeping, he moved to the kitchen doorway and stood staring at the floor.
__ He remembered the spreading pool of blood, the knife that had embedded in her chest. Ardy was dead. She had died and spontaneously returned to the living.
__ What was that she said? She had to save him? Munson? She had to save Munson.
__ Glancing back at the dead killer, Doug muttered, "Well, that didn't turn out so well."
__ Doug went to the rack of drying silverware and pulled out the steak knife that could have been the one that impaled Ardy. Holding his thumb and forefinger out, he measured the length of the blade with his hand. Then, thumb and forefinger held in a stiff 'L', he pulled his hand back to his armpit to try to judge how deep the blade would have plunged into his own chest. There's no doubt. And the blade was as sharp and straight as ever. There was no way it could have bent off a rib. It had gone into her heart. Ardy had died right here.
__ If she could bring herself back from the dead, Doug wondered if she could do the same for R. Lee Munson.
__ He cringed and shook his head to himself. No. She was far too shaken, far too vulnerable, ruined, to even consider trying.


__ Ardy was floating in Doug's mind, not asleep, but wide awake mirroring his every thought, vision, dream, and mental picture. She saw how he thought about her, what his intentions were for coming, how he suffered, struggled and fought through the night. It charmed her that he was consciously trying to be a knight in white armor. He was just being himself: Doug Testerbird -- General store proprietor, paranoid, afraid of guns, a bit of a show-off, timid, but also tender and very very sweet.
__ By the time his thought process had taken him to the kitchen and the knife, Ardy was already seeing where he was going and she had to admit --
__ Save him.
__ -- There had to be somthing to it.


__ Doug cringed and shook his head to himself. No. She was far too shaken, far too vulnerable, ruined, to even consider trying.
__ "No, I'm not," Ardy called from the couch. She was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "I'd like to try what you're thinking, Doug."
__ "How did you--? Oh."
__ Ardy chewed her lower lip. "I'm sorry. I didn't go into your head on purpose. I just sort of drifted out of myself and found myself in you."
__ "If this were any other night," Doug said as he returned to the couch, "I'd say that sounded freaky."
__ She stood and met him. "Oh, and this isn't freaky?"
__ A flash of lightning painted blue masks on the sides of their faces as they stood before each other. The thunder that followed rumbled through the rafters of the building and rain burst down in sudden steady sheets.
__ Doug ran to the door and closed it. Ardy pulled over a folding chair from the corner which he used to prop the door closed. "No way to lock it," He observed.
__ "I think we'll be okay," Ardy half-smirked. She kissed his cheek.
__ "What's that for?"
__ "'Cause if it weren't for you, I'd be suicidal crazy right now."
__ Ignoring the reference, Doug turned to face the center of the room, Munson's half-face corpse staring into the shadows cast by the desk lamp on the floor by his feet.
__ Ardy squeezed his arm. "Shall I try?"
__ He nodded slowly, then scowled, "How do you even know what to do?"
__ She shrugged and admitted, "I'm not even sure."
__ They approached Munson's death throne and stood on opposite sides of it. Ardy cringed slightly when she placed her hand on Munson's shoulder. "Ew."
__ "What?"
__ "He's already gettin' cold."
__ "Ew," Doug agreed.
__ Ardy closed her eyes and immediately had to admit it: "You're right. I don't know how to do this."
__ "How did you do it, um, to, um...."
__ "Myself?"
__ He nodded.
__ "I don't know. I didn't even know I was dead until, you know, after."
__ He nodded again but only feigned understanding.
__ Ardy said, "Maybe if I try to duplicate the vibration?" She looked toward the kitchen.
__ "The vibration?"
__ "A phony psychic expression. It's like saying I'm trying to get in tune with the spirits beyond."
__ Doug made a face, "But that wasn't real -- I mean when you said things like that."
__ Ardy left him and went to the kitchen doorway. She looked down to the floor as he had done. "I know. But for some stupid reason it seems to fit here."
__ Doug nodded though her back was to him. He looked down at the side of Munson's face that was still intact, the open, glazed, unblinking eye and the speckles of drying crimson around his cheek.
__ Doug reached up to close the eye like he had seen them do in the movies, out of respect or honor or just to keep it from getting dusty before the undertaker got to it.
__ And it winked at him.
__ Then it rolled in its socket and focused on him.
__ A gurgle came from Munson's throat. "Don't let me go...."
__ "Ardy! It's working!"
__ Doug looked up.
__ Ardy was lying on the kitchen floor, in a fetal position, apparently in the throws of a violent seizure.
__ Turning back to the reanimating murderer, Doug found himself looking face to whole-face as Munson's visage reconstituted itself: brain, blood, muscle, bone all re-forming as shotgun pellets emerged and rained to the floor with a tick-tick-tickticktick.
__ "God."
__ Munson's eyes focused on Doug and tears welled up and flowed from them. The killer sobbed, "Don't let me go."
__ "Please," Munson rasped, "Don't let me go."

17. Curse of the Old Gypsy Woman (D1)

__ Ardy paced the floor of the bedroom uncomfortably arguing with herself about telling Doug about the pending visit from the kid from Pizza King. She had left him in the front room, to keep the first watch on Munson, but hadn't mentioned what she read in the teen's mind.
__ Doug paced too. I walked back and forth in front of Munson's throne and scowled at the killer. He was holding the pistol in his right hand, waving it when his whispers became excited. He said, "I know she's lying. I know she saw something in that soft skull of yours." The pistol waved. "I should just blow your head off while she's sleeping -- say it was an accident."
__ Munson appeared to ignore him. He simply followed the bouncing barrel of the Glock. "Hey, hotshot, could you put that down?"
__ Doug snapped, "What? This?" He brought the gun up and pressed the gun to Munson's left nostril.
__ Looking cross-eyed down the barrel, the killer hissed, "Please. Please, Doug. Your finger is on the trigger."
__ "Shut up!"
__ Ardy opened the bedroom door and squinted in at the two. "What's going on?"
__ "We were just having a little--"
__ "Chat," Munson finished.
__ She came out and approached Doug purposefully with her hand out to take the gun. "Here. You better give that to me."
__ He tucked it under his arm and half turned away like a child concealing a toy. "No, no. That's okay. I got this."
__ Ardy stood her ground, hand out, and glared at Doug like a scolding mother.
__ After a moment, he relented and handed her the weapon grip first.
__ "Thank you." She turned and headed to the bedroom.
__ "Where are you going?"
__ "To bed. I'll sleep better knowing this is in here with me." And with that, she closed the door behind her, leaving Doug defenseless with the duct-shackled killer.
__ Munson hissed a laugh. "I am gonna kill ya, you know?"
__ Doug smirked but stepped away. He backed to the couch and plopped down on it, never once taking his eyes off Munson and staring at him the way a coyote glares at a hunter. He yawned.
__ Munson smiled and began softly crooning Lullaby.
__ "Ha ha," Doug mumbled, "Very funny."

__ An hour must have passed, or maybe it was six or seven. Ardy couldn't be sure because her exhaustion hit her like a sledgehammer. She woke with a start as if responding to a sudden loud noise, but she was sure the sound was in a dream and not in the world. Glancing at her nightstand she saw both the pistol and her alarm clock. She had been asleep for forty-six minutes.
__ Rolling to a sitting position, she swung her feet to the floor and stood slowly. She strained to hear beyond the door to the next room as she lifted the pistol off the nightstand.
__ At the door, she opened it slightly. There was no creak to betray her spying. The room beyond was dimly lit by a small lamp on the floor by Munson's throne. She could see the killer's feet still securely taped to the legs of the chair, and beyond that she could see the dim shape of Douglas Testerbird stretched out in a fetal position on the couch.
__ As her eyes traveled up Munson's chair she felt a sudden chill.
__ He was staring at her. Unblinking.
__ His grin was slow, greasy, and reptilian. "Can't sleep, sweetie?"
__ Ardy opened the door all the way and approached the couch as Doug stirred and sat up.
__ "What's wrong?"
__ "Can't sleep."
__ Doug stood and stretched. "It's been a weird night. No wonder."
__ "No wonder," Ardy echoed.
__ Doug looked her up and down. She looked exhausted, defeated. Her eyes were baggy and her skin was dull. Her hair was matted and flat against the side of her head and her eyes were dark in the dim room. Ardy's downturned lips were sad, gray. He hated to see them this way, to see them any way but smiling.
__ That's when she stepped up to him and kissed him. It was a short kiss, dry, but their lips were warm against each other.
__ "You read my mind," he said dully.
__ "Go to sleep, Doug." She nodded toward the bedroom. "I got this." Her smile rolled up when she mimicked his earlier declaration.
__ Drained himself, Doug nodded and stepped past her and Munson to the bedroom and closed the door.
__ Ardy set the gun on the end table and curled up on her side, staring at Munson as he continued staring at her.
__ "This ain't too comfortable, ya know," he grumbled.
__ "You shouldn't have killed anyone," she yawned. Then, making it clear that she couldn't be moved by him, Ardy squirmed and rolled over on the couch, turning her back to him.

__ Munson woke with a jolt, as if the chair he was in suddenly came to life like "Old Sparky" and zapped a couple thousand volts through his nerve endings. His neck was stiff from hanging his head and a shock of pain raced down his spine.
__ Doug sprang bolt upright on the bed. "Ardy!"
__ Ardy rolled off the couch, her rump hitting the floor with a loud thud before she scrambled to her feet and snatched the Glock off the end table.
__ Doug threw open the bedroom door, and rubbed at his wide eyes. "What is it?"
__ Munson spat, "Ssh!"
__ Ardy craned her head to listen, the pistol aiming where her ears strained; toward the front door.
__ Then the sound of a car door slamming. Muffled voices.
__ "It's them," Ardy whispered.
__ Doug whispered back, "Them who?"
__ Munson couldn't read minds, but he had a feeling. "Pizza boy."
__ Doug made a face like he'd taken a big bit of a sour taffy apple. "What? What would he want?"
__ Ardy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her body relaxed a bit, her head tilted. Her lips moved in time with a muffled voices beyond the door.
__ Are you crazy?
__ I tell you she's here. She's here alone. And she's hot.
__ The old gypsy woman?
__ She's not a gypsy. She's a babe.
__ That's not what my gram says.
__ I can prove it.
__ Okay, so prove it. What're you gonna do -- just knock?
__ Don't have to.
__ The silence that followed was ocean deep. "Only two of them...." Ardy's eyes snapped open and focused on Doug. "Get back," she said in a normal tone.
__ The explosion of wood splinters and brass shards from the door latch rained into the room. The muzzle flash from the shotgun blew the door open in one night-splitting blam!
__ The Pizza kid stepped into the room -- ca-chuck! -- charging another shell into the chamber.
__ "C'mon out, gypsy girl," the boy called.
__ What happened next only took a few seconds but stretched into a slow motion eternity.
__ "No!" From Doug.
__ The kid started to whirl toward the sound of Doug's voice in the bedroom doorway, his finger tightening on the trigger.
__ Ardy screamed and raised the pistol. She squeezed off two quick shots as the shotgun exploded into the room again.
__ The kid cried out, a wounded yelp, and stumbled back. There was a grapple of arms around his shoulders and neck and two bodies tumbled backward onto the porch. The shotgun fell to the floor, the sound of it cracking to the floor was lost in a the shrill ringing in Ardy's ears.
__ Ardy raised the pistol again. A furious terrified flood of emotion exploded from her chest, down her arms, and squeezed the trigger for her. Two more times the pistol jumped in her hands, orange flashes popping and small brass shells tinkling deafly on the hardwood.
__ Doug was yelling something as Ardy continued forward.
__ Outside a car door slammed shut. Cries of pain continued from inside the car.
__ I got him! Ardy cheered herself within but simultaneously felt shame and regret. Oh, my God. He was just a kid!
__ Tires chewed gravel, then skidded on the blacktop as the car sped away.
__ The front door remained open.
__ As the roar of the engine faded toward downtown Covert, thunder mumbled in the distance.
__ Doug's arms folded around Ardy. She dropped the gun and turned to him, burried her face in his chest and cried. "Oh, God.... I shot him. I shot that boy."
__ Doug patted the back of her head, squeezed her. Said, "You defended us, Ardy. You didn't kill the kid. He'll be okay."
__ She shook her head against his shirt. She couldn't shake the images. "Nooooooo...." It was a long sob.
__ "Hey. Hey now," Doug took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. Their eyes flickered with a distant flash of lightning showing through the open door, a momentary current between them. "Listen to me: You. Did. Not. Kill. Him."
__ Ardy sniffed but could offer no argument. She heard his cries, saw a glimpse of the friend pulling him toward the car.
__ "His buddy is probably dumping him in the Covert E.R. right now."
__ Ardy sniffed again and fresh tears came.
__ "It'll be all right. Ssh, ssh, ssh."
__ Ardy let herself sink into Doug's embrace. She didn't realize how much she needed him now, to hold her up physically as well as mentally. Ardy hugged him tighter and called over his shoulder, "R. Lee," sniff, "You okay?"
__ Doug slowly released her and turned.
__ They both turned together.
__ Munson sat, his head thrown back. Blood drying on his face -- or what was left of it -- and down his chest.
__ This time Doug made no effort to stop Ardy's screams.