A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

NOTICE

IF YOU ARE JUST NOW FINDING THIS "BLOGNOVEL," YOU'RE MISSING OUT ON A REAL TREAT.

A NEW, UPDATED, VERSION OF THIS STORY APPEARS AT MY WEB SITE. TO READ THE COMPLETELY NEW "THE MUNSON CHAPTERS" UNDER ITS NEW TITLE, "AUGUST WINTER," GO TO

WWW.MICHAELRIGG.COM

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank the following people, without whom I would never have even attemtped to write another novel - after 10 years - and online - and exposed as a first draft for the world to see

My loving wife, Melanie
Your support and love for my art moves my soul. You make me want to create. It's a tough job: muse, but you do it so well. I love you!

My friends and fellow bloggers:
Patti Tobin Davis (Circle Everything), Cynthia (View From a Convertible). You are the best first readers I could ever hope for. You keep me inspired.

My friend and "technical encouragement," Kris Julius
Kris introduced me to the ease of Blogger and WordPress. He's also the author of quite a few works himself. Check out KrazyKakeBakers.com for a hint.

My contributor, fellow writer, and "contest winner," Eve Nielsen
Author of the Quest Writer and Creative Explosions 'blogs.
Thank you for suggesting Maggie. I hope I did her justice.

I also want to thank my friends, family, Kris and Amanda, and anyone not mentioned here (I've been typing for a loooong time. Please forgive the oversightage). You can't do something as crazy as publishing a first draft novel online for the world to see without having a dynamite support staff.

I can't wait to unveil the "finished version"
stay tuned for
AUGUST WINTER

45. EPILOGUE (D1)

__ "That's one hell of a story," the man said around a mouth full of sandwich.
__ The woman he arrived with glared at him. "Jim!"
__ The man - Jim - forced a large swallow. "I mean come on! Deer head? God forgiving the devil? What kind of shit is this?"
__ "Jim!"
__ "It's okay," the old man smiled and waved a dismissing hand toward the woman's husband. "Like the truth of the August Winter, it's all down to faith."

__ The couple came in to the roadside novelty store on their way through Indiana toward Colorado. It was their honeymoon and they were playing out an extended cross-country road trip in lieu of the usual cruise or flight. "The way things are these days," the wife had said with a roll of her eyes. "Besides, we can really get to know each other intimately this way."
__ "Yes, you can," the old man had nodded and winked.
__ The couple had told him they were intrigued by the sign: "PSYCHIC" spelled out in unlit glass neon tubes above an eye and the word CHURCH painted on the glass underneath. The shop looked like a run down wild west saloon, the imagery heightened by the vast acres of dead farmland surrounding it - and nothing else. The sign on the door said OPEN, so they stopped.
__ The old man who greeted them at the door smiled with dark yellowed teeth and an old GOD IS MY CO-PILOT baseball cap. He wore a scarf around his neck despite the 90-degree heat. With the assistance of a bamboo cane, the old prospector stepped aside and used a sweeping motion with a papery thin arm to invite the pair in. "I get so few visitors, as you might imagine. Please excuse the dust. It's been a dry summer."
__ "Yup," the man said, unwrapping a subway sandwhich as he crossed the threshold and taking a huge bite of it.
__ The woman playfully smacked his arm and said, "Jimmy!" as she pointed to a NO FOOD OR BEVERAGES sign behind the dusty glass. Both 'Jimmy' and the old man waved it off. The old man saying, "You kiddin'? C'mon in. Can I getcha some lemonade?"
__ "No thank you," said the wife.
__ "Nup," said Jim.
__ The couple eyeballed the strange collection of items scattered about the main room of the PSYCHIC CHURCH and smiled nervously as if they had just found themselves wandering into a psychotic wonderland of the bizarre and unpredictable.
__ An old faded pizza box under glass, barely readable as PIZZA KING, had a price tag of $150. The bench seat from an old car with a hole punched through the passenger seat was listed at $750. A shovel, rope, and satchel bag was selling as a "unique set" for $800. There were crumpled men's suit jackets, salt and pepper shakers, horribly stained - "Was that blood?" - woman's tee shirts, a battered car bumper, and what looked like a large collection of splintered wood and organ pieces in a box. The box was labeled, ARDY'S CRUCIFIX and was listed at $2,000.
__ "Quite a collection ya got here," the man snickered around a chomp of roast beef and lettuce and who-knows-what.
__ "The sign says 'church'," the woman pointed out.
__ And that's when the old man told the story about the day a serial killer stepped into this very room and met a beautiful young psychic girl and how, on that day-turned-night over fifty years ago.
__ The whole time the old man spoke, pointing to different items around the store, the wife stared wide-eyed and the man rolled his eyes as if to say, That's why you want all that money for an old pizza box. Now I get it - forget it!
__ But for a time the husband - Jim - stopped munching on his foot-long and glared, sometimes catching himself in disbelief, other times sneering and glancing at his watch.
__ During the times he was caught up in the story, his wife was completely wrapt, leaning forward with her hand on her chest or fanning her face and muttering, "Oh, my God," and "Really?"

__ They had looked around, taken pictures, chomped on his sandwich, giggled and huffed for what seemed like an hour or two as the old man recounted the story of Ardy, Doug, Maggie and the killer Munson in mysteriously smart detail for such an old story.
__ When it was over, the old man said, "Care to purchase?"
__ The man laughed. The woman asked, "Do you have a restroom?"
__ The old man pointed to a side door. "Through the bedroom there. Forgive the mess, but the can is clean."
__ As she stepped away, Jim shoved the last bite of his sub into his maw and attempted to to compact it with his teeth. His cheeks inflated and he pushed the drool in with his finger.
__ The old man smiled crookedly, a look that simultaneously called Jim a pig and said 'to each his own.' He turned toward a broken set of antlers hanging on the wall, glazed with some kind of reddish brown stain, and said, "Oh, these are from Deer Head - still intact. I forgot the price tag. Six hundred."
__ Jim thought of something funny, or perhaps he was going to make an observation about the price. Whatever the case, his voice cut as the wad of half-chewed sub was inhaled into his throat and jammed his windpipe.
__ The old man heard the scuffle and turned toward the man. He rushed to him to see if he could help.
__ Jim, rapidly turning purple and making the "I. Am. Chocking." hand gestures, stared at the old man with his eyes bugging out and tears streaming down his cheeks. The old man stood in front of him with his powdering fingertips on Jim's chest and saying, "Eh? You're choking? Are you chocking?"
__ Jim clenched his left fist and wrapped it with his right hand. He attempted weakly and with no success to give himself the Heimlich maneuver five or six times before stumbling backwards and collapsing to the floor.
__ The old man raced to his side and lowered himself slowly with his cane. He leaned over the man who reached up and pulled at the scarf, his dying watery eyes practically screaming, For God's sake, help me! and darting from side to side as if to yell, Where is my wife!?
__ The scarf pulled away from the old man's neck revealing a savage dark brown bruise that looked clearly like a thumb on the left and four fingers on the right. The neck itself looked pinched and weathered.
__ Jim's eyes fluttered with the realization. Then he died.

__ Rose Bloomfield checked her makeup in the splotchy and greasy bathroom mirror after trying to balance herself on one leg while she flushed the toilet with her foot.
__ This was kind of neat. The old man's story went on and on, but it was fascinating to listen to. Wow, the old people in these backwards hole-in-the-wall towns sure could spin a yarn. She loved Jim and was glad he bowed to her whimsies like that.
__ "Oh, wow! Stop there. Stop there!"
__ They had only crossed two states and two camera cards were already filled. Maybe, she thought, they could stop at a Walgreens or something and download what they had so far. Eighty terrabites wasn't that much, was it?
__ She wondered vaguely if Jim would continue to be that way throughout their marriage. Would he still be willing to turn the car around to check out an antique store run by a one-armed farmer, or will he spend their post-nuptuals in a recliner watching the Bears?
__ Rose shrugged and applied a fresh coat of lipstick. She smacked her lips and noticed a faded picture stuck to the far right side of the mirror. It was so faded it was almost transleucent and that's why she hadn't noticed it. It was a photograph from a deeply yellowed - almost browned - newspaper. She leaned close to see what she could make out. It looked like a photo in an obituary column. It appeared to be of a woman in her thirties in a baseball cap. Her smile was bright, but the death notice type belied the emotion depicted. The caption was faded and partially obscured by a message in long evaporated ink - maybe a love note? - the type read, "ARDELENE R. JACOBI."
__ "Aww," Rose blinked. "How sad." She didn't know who the old man was. She supposed he could be one of the characters in the story, but he had introduced himself as Gus and said he bought the old Psychic Parlor intending to make it into a gas station.
__ Why isn't Jim calling me to get back on the road? He's probably caught in another long story with old Gus. I better save him.

__ Rose came out and saw Jim sitting on a folding chair near the front door. Old Gus was taking a half glass of water from him. Jim looked like he had been crying.
__ "Honey!?" The doting newlywed, Rose jogged to her husband.
__ Jim waved her off. "I'm okay [sniff]. I'm ready to go."
__ To Gus, "Is he okay? What happened?"
__ Gus smiled and shrugged. "Bit too much o' the sandwich. Down the wrong pipe."
__ Rose patted her husband lightly on the back as he turned for the door. "Honey. What have I told you about that? You're going to choke to death one of these days."
__ Jim looked over his shoulder, past Rose, and gave old Gus a confused but familiar look.
__ In moments they were gone, Gus waving after them.

__ Old Man Testerbird, as he was called - sometimes Gus because that's what he told people, turned and cane-hobbled back inside. Once inside he allowed himself to collapse on the dusty couch where he once held the only love of his life all those years ago.
__ "There's another one for ya, Ardy," Douglas wrinkled his chin and nodded. "Another one."

44. Tricking the Trickster (D1)

__ Doug had stopped outside the side door to St. Paul's the same way R. Lee Munson had with the Archangel Michael perched invisibly on the shoulder of his soul. The only difference with Doug was that he had no archangel support. And he was wrestling with the massive waves of guilt at listening to Maggie's tortured screams and final quiet gurgle.
__ "I could have saved her," Doug whispered in prayer with his forehead on the door. The shadow cast by the security light above gave him a harsh and useless silhouette in the snow between his feet. His faceless self stared up at him not offering anything close to hope. "God, give me strength. I don't understand any of this. I don't know what's going on or what I'm doing. I couldn't save Ardy, but I could have ran back and taken Maggie out of here. I could have...."
__ He let it trail off. He knew God wouldn't answer. All of this was a test of his faith. But there was more to it than that. In Maggie's little otherworldly pep-talk, she had given him some instruction as what to do. She couldn't give him the whole psychic profile - that would defuse the whole "faith thing." All she could say was, "You'll know what to say when you get there, but remember, he's a trickster."
__ Doug had blinked, "W-Who is? Who's a trickster?"
__ "The devil, silly."
__ "But I-"
__ "All you need is your faith. Your trust in Him. It's easy, Mr. Testerbird. Just leave me to die."
__ Doug couldn't argue with her because she wouldn't have it. In fact, he didn't believe it. After all, the diminutive Yuri Gellar had an inside track with the murderous Munson. Doug still didn't know who to trust, why, or when.
__ You couldn't have a greater test of faith.
__ He took three deep breaths, armed with nothing but his faith, and opened the door.
__ Maggie had been wrong. There was no devil here. What Doug saw was a tall, hard-bodied (and naked - let's not forget naked) bronzed blue-eyed male model in the midst of some ranting soliloquy.
____ "...You send me a man distracted by false gods, instead of a redeemer of light.
__ "And they all fell before me. They all fail when you send them. Because they are only human, they fall. All of them."
__ Doug took one more deep breath. "Not all of them."


__ Lucifer was not God, hadn't heard God's whispers in his ears for thousands of years, and hadn't had the gift of precognition since The Fall. So, he jumped at the sound of the scrawny man's voice. The devil jumped and rested his hand on his chest. "Who-?"
__ "I'm Douglas. I'm here to stop you from whatever it is you're doing."
__ It was obvious by the stiff way the intruder held his neck that he was avoiding letting his gaze fall upon the ruin that was Ardelene Jacobi. Perhaps they had something? Lust? Something I can use, Lucifer mused.
__ "Sinner!" the devil accused, pointing dramatically at Douglas's chest with a muscular finger. "Your fate is sealed. You will join me in hell."

__ Doug hadn't expected that kind of response (yeah. What kind of response was expected from your first conversation with a fallen angel?) and looked around the floor for something to use as a weapon. A leaky vial of holy water perhaps, a silver bullet and a convenient revolver, mandrake root, a mirror. How do you fight the devil himself?
__ Lucifer stood and stepped around an overturned pew. Doug glanced up before stepping back, surprised to find the dark angel was endowed - actually well endowed. He didn't know why - maybe it was a movie or something - but he always expected that angels were sexless.
__ "You can run from me, earth crawler. Your soul will be mine upon your death and I will sup upon it like I did the entrails of your beloved bitch there."
__ Doug pinched his eyes closed, almost tripped backing around some wreckage from the pipe organ, and stammered, "Y-You can't. I have faith. I believe."
__ Lucifer continued stalking Doug. With a powerful arm, he uprighted a statue pedastal and tossed it aside. He took another stride toward the shivering store owner as Doug arched his way around the other side of the church. The devil sneered, "You believe in aliens. You believe in reality TV. You believe in Star Trek. You don't even know God."
__ Doug stopped. Stood firm. "You're right."
__ Lucifer stopped pursuing, but he didn't look surprised at Doug's response. Instead, he lowered his head slightly and gazed out from under a malevolent brow, his grin of perfect white teeth almost a ferrel expectation of flesh.
__ Doug said, "I'm a sinner."
__ "You confess to me?"
__ "I confess to God. Though I'm not worthy of His redemption." Where were these words coming from? Doug was silently thankful for all the years of churchgoing. The various memorized and rote-induced creeds were coming back to him though he never expected to recite them like this.
__ "A shame. But you are worthy of mine," Lucifer leered.
__ "I don't want - or need - yours," Doug said and continued backpedaling.
__ The devil pursued. Doug was walking backwards, glancing over his shoulder more rapidly, watching his step. Lucifer was closing the distance.
__ Doug was now almost to the crook of the makeshift cross that held Ardy's ruined body. That's where Lucifer would trap him. What now, Lord? What do I do now? I could have saved the girl and now the dark angel is going to strangle the life out of me and eat my soul like candy. What am I supposed to do to stop this?
__ God answered by allowing Doug's heel to catch a step up to the podium across from the pulpit. He stumbled back, his arms pinwheeling uselessly. He landed on his rear with a thump and reflexively held his arms up to protect his face.
__ Lucifer closed the gap growling. "When I am through with you, meat, you will pray with all your heart to a darkness that never answers." He lunged for Doug and lifted him by the shirt collars. He slammed him back against the cross-bar of the cross.
__ The altar wreckage-converted-to-crucifix was hard and heavy. The air was knocked out of Doug's lungs as Lucifer slammed his back against the bar. He winced and glanced right to see Ardy's upturned impaled palm. He closed his eyes against it as Lucifer lifted him and pushed the back of his head against Ardy's ruined ribcage.
__ The devil's hands closed around Doug's throat and began to crush his esophagus like an old tin can. And that's when it occurred to him.
__ Doug's eyes widened with the realization. He's one of us! He's human!
__ His mind raced marathons at the speed of light. Crazy thoughts (like anything today could be crazy by comparison to this day itself) darted from ear to ear. Doug thought this wasn't really Lucifer but an impersonator, maybe an alterling possessing a man as with the cop.
__ But in those ice blue eyes Doug saw an eternity. And in that eternity, regret and suffering. Thousands of ears of suffering. As Christ walked the earth as a human being so that God could taste of mankind's guilt and sin, suffering and cruelty; Lucifer was now walking the earth to taste of love and regret, fear and forgiveness.
__ Just before the vertebrae in his neck snapped, Doug managed a harsh whisper, "I forgive you."
__ Lucifer relaxed his grip and leaned closer as if he could see the truth of Doug's words in the soon-to-be-dead man's eyes. As with the killer before, there was Truth here, a deep and impenetrable light. God was present in this soul after all. He dropped the store owner who landed on the floor in a heap with his hands clawing at his collar, gasping for air.
__ "I DON'T WANT YOUR FORGIVENESS!" Lucifer roared. "I WANT HIS!"

__ And with that, the prince of darkness glanced up into Ardy Jacobi's dead eyes which were now very much alive. He saw the girl's throat move as she swallowed against the stiffness and waves of renewed pain. He saw her eyes blink. He saw the tears well in them. He saw her ruined limbs twitch and her face scrunch up against the agony.
__ In a language he hadn't heard in centuries, Ardy said, "You have it, Lucifer. You are forgiven."

43. The Testerbird of Faith (D1-end change)

__ "Test of faith. Test of faith. Test of faith."
__ Doug kept repeating the mantra as he left Maggie alone in the dark behind him. He kept picturing her standing their, the tall black shadows of winter-laden trees surrounding her. No light. Coldness. Silence. But he had to.
__ Doug didn't know exactly what God's plan was, why he chose him, or how he was going to carry out the mission. All he knew was that he would confront the devil.
__ And the devil would gloat over Maggie's corpse. Something that could easily be prevented if Doug just turned and went back to the little girl. Lucifer would spare her - and Doug - if he just went back, snatched up the child, and ran until there was no more darkness and no more frozen summer.
__ The voice came from behind him. It was a tone he had heard as a teenager. It was vile and cruel. It was the voice that hurt.
__ "Testerbird!"
__ Doug stopped, but didn't turn around. In his mind, he felt Maggie prod him on, "Don't stop. Go!" But he held fast. The moment, the test of his faith, was at hand.
__ "Testerbird, I'm talkin' to you!"
__ It was Munson's voice - or was it the Pizza King kid's? He couldn't be sure. He wanted to turn and see who it was, but -
__ Doug continued walking, hands in his pockets, head down, tears burning his eyes.
__ "We're going to rip her to pieces, you coward! Don't you care!?"
__ Maggie screamed. The sound of a brief scuffle found his retreating ears.
__ Doug stopped again. "No," he muttered. It was a silent command to them to stop though he felt he possessed no such power. It was a command to himself to not stop but to follow his course though he couldn't in good conscious.... But I can't leave the child like that? I can't -
__ "Here comes an arm, Dougie," the voice called. More screaming. Maggie's cries were like knives flying into his ears. The muffled cracking sound -
__ "No! No! No!" Doug broke into a run, away from the shrieks of Maggie's torture and the tormenting laugh of her otherworldly attackers.
__ "Come back, coward!" They cried, a little farther back now. Something thrown tumbled through the air to Doug's right and kicked some snow off tree limbs. It was only a couple feet long, swaddled in a wrinkled man's suit sleeve, and had five fingers.
__ "No! Damn you! No!"
__ Maggie's screams continued like a shrill siren announcing the end of the world.


__ Lucifer spat out the chunk of Ardy's heart he was chewing like gum. He cocked his head, studied her ruined body torn open by his own fury, the beautiful blacks, purples, reds, and browns of her entrails spilled out onto the floor. Her heart had no flavor. It was gone. She had been taken up and would not be his.
__ The light bearer looked over his shoulder to the hanging Pizza King boy. Legad, formerly known as Todd, had failed miserably.
__ He knew how this happened. It was his own fault.
__ For centuries, Lucifer had been waiting for this day, the Second Coming. He knew it would be at such a time when God would harken back to the Great Flood. "Your second failure," the dark lord sneered. The first, Lucifer maintained, was creating man in the first place.
__ "We had paradise." The bitterest three words the fallen angel had ever known.
__ "Now we have nothing. Well," he allowed a smile. "You have nothing. I have hell."
__ The return of the Son was supposed to be heralded by the Great Conversion. All souls pointing heavenward with the shocking realization: The Christians Were Right.
__ "Doomed to failure," Lucifer whispered turning away from the crucified psychic. He sat next to the altar, on the step leading up to the bashed-in pulpit, and rested his head in his hands. The devil wept. "If you had kept me with you. If you had forgiven me, instructed me. I would have been there to warn you of your mistake, the lapse. Your damn pride!
__ "Not mine! Yours!"
__ Now God's world had changed. The great teams of society were split even more than in His time. Even if more than the pathetic third of humanity were Christian, there are still less than one percent who claim themselves as God. Colleges teach existentialism. War in the holy land paints an even darker picture. Patriotism is the new Christianity, and that makes for strange and prideful bedfellows. "Science is the new Christ," the devil sneered.
__ Lucifer scratched his eyebrow.
__ "Media. Entertainment. Movies, television, the internet - the Almighty Internet." He looked toward the ceiling, scowled as if he was making direct eye contact with God. "These golden idols your Moses cannot cast down for you."
__ Lucifer's victory would be bittersweet. He had planned for this day, saw it coming. He saw the rise of distraction. He saw the numbers of human souls as they fell into his hands increase thousands fold. He even held the beating hearts of so-called Christians in his hands. They confirm their religion, they may even speak kindly of Christ, then they lust in church over the kneeling skirts at communion. They covet the neighbor's new car in the church parking lot. They hate the pastor for not allowing their marriage. "It is decay, as this flesh," Lucifer sniffed as he plucked a piece of Clye Morrow from his bronze forearm.
__ All of this.
__ All the world's distractions, the absence of love for God, enabled the fallen angel to rise again. Lucifer was walking God's earth because, as he figured, it wasn't God's earth at all. It now belonged to these worms, the two-legged imps. The mockery of creation itself.
__ He was made whole. The irony was that he was made whole in a house of God. His Son returns, and the devil walks among those who will crucify him a second time.
__ "What then? The promised fire?"
__ Lucifer stood and stretched. "Only too happy to oblige."
__ He shouted to the ceiling, "You sent me one who peddles lies for a living instead of your legions of angels. You sent me a murderer, a sinful lamb, instead of your archangel assassin. You send me a man distracted by false gods, instead of a redeemer of light.
__ "And they all fell before me. They all fail when you send them. Because they are only human, they fall. All of them."


__ "Not all of them," Doug said from the doorway.

42. Lucifer (D1.5)

__ Doug finally stopped crying and rested his hands on Maggie's shoulders. What she had said, what she told him he had to do - to save Ardy - to save everyone - was too much to comprehend. But, then again, this whole day was too much to comprehend.
__ "I'll try," he nodded.
__ "You have to do more than try, Mr. Testerbird," Maggie said doubtfully. "If you don't do it, so many people will suffer at the end."
__ Doug took a couple stumbling steps backward and turned, his head tilted back toward the black sky. More tears threatened to come, but he was dry. All he could do was sniff and shudder.
__ "It's so much to ask."
__ He looked at the little girl. "That's what I was just thinking."
__ She smiled and rolled her eyes as if to say, "Duh."
__ He nodded and rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Right."
__ "You can do this," she prompted.
__ Doug clapped his palms against his sides. "Oh. I can do this? I can hand over a sweet little girl to the devil himself?"
__ She nodded. He could tell she would be able to tell him how all of it will play out, but a higher power, a super secret something between God and the child prohibited that.
__ Because it's all on my faith, Doug figured.
__ Maggie, reading those thoughts, nodded again. Her smile carried the glint of a happy tear in one corner of her eye.
__ "This is crazy."
__ "We have to go now," Maggie said with the seriousness of a guard shouting, "Dead man walkin'!"
__ And that's exactly how Doug felt when he swallowed that lump and held his hand out to take Maggie's. He smiled sourly but surely, "Okay. Let's go."


__ The devil stood over R. Lee Munson's body, fuming.
__ He wished he had the power to urinate - or at least spit - on the corpse, but he was in the form of a corpse himself. All he could do was clack his dry teeth and gurgle angrily.
__ Munson's last two words before the devil took him damaged him, stabbed him. "Forgive you."
__ "How could he? He was mine." Lucifer, as The Fallen Angel was once known, looked to the alterlings standing about obediently but uselessly. "I promised him an eternal pardon!"
__ The alterlings didn't have to answer. Whenever he was angry at himself for becoming angry with God, Lucifer always spoke all the parts of the dialog.
__ "Oh, sure, he's got Jehovah pulling his soul strings now - the Greater Pardon. The pardon I never got!" Whirling around, Lucifer extended the bony fingers of Clye Morrow's animated corpse and put them through the shadowy neck of an alterling. The creature cried out in a wet gulping yelp before exploding into a cloud of soot.
__ The other alterlings didn't shrink away. Instead, they came closer - slowly - to their master's will.
__ "He only said that so He would take him back! He was mine!" Another alterling collapsed at Lucifer's vengeful touch. Then another. A fourth. "Damn him!"
__ Then the brittle, battered, decaying and ripe-smelling body of Clye Morrow locked its limbs and jolted to attention. The rictus grin cracked and snapped, peeling back to reveal a fresh new glistening pink tongue.
__ The brittle fingernails snicked off and fluttered to the floor. Rotted skin and clothes peeled off the body like a reptilian shed revealing the smooth lines and tanned muscles of a perfect being beneath.
__ In Lucifer's frustration, he sucked himself into the earth's surface from the darkest reaches of The Pit. He needed his own strength, the eons of power and bloodlust, and centuries - the eternity - of pent up anger and regret, vengeance and fury.
__ Enough was enough. Let Him send his son back. He didn't fall to my temptations. Let's see how he falls to my revenge.
__ And if I can't take His son, I will take His sons and all of the earth.
__ Lucifer's rage subsided when the last of the alterlings had fallen and the last strip of dead skin had fallen from the corpse. Now he stood in the ruined church, in his personal glory, a specimen of perfect wingless angel. Lucifer's skin was bronzed and rippled with the muscles of a soldier. The tight curls around the crown of his head reflected copper in the flickering candlelight. His jaw was stern and square, his eyes blue but piercing with coldness.
__ He twitched his angular nose toward the side door where Michael - his former comrade - had sent the mortal forgiver. Here two more alterlings rose up and faced him.
__ In a calm voice, the lyrical sing-song voice of an angel, edged only slightly from the Fall, Lucifer instructed, "There is another coming. The resurrector. I must armor myself for the coming storm. You must keep him from my sight until the Son proclaims himself with the first of the seven signs."
__ The alterlings bowed their shadowy bodies and turned to leave.
__ "But leave him untouched," Lucifer commanded. "I want back the power God took from me. I want to drink it from his soul when all else lies in ruin."
__ The two shadows departed and left the devil to prepare his long awaited attack.
__ The drift of snow through the opened door of the church carried with it the fine sent of ash. Lucifer closed his eyes and drank it in. It was the smell of the first moments of war.

41. The Big Game (D1)

__ Ardy had heard the stories.
__ A tunnel of bright light. A voice. Love. Family. The desire to stay though you must go back.
__ This, she thought, is what happens when you are welcomed in and cannot go back.
__ She was dead with no chance to turn around. This was the end.
__ And the beginning.
__ Since Ardy arrived - if 'arrived' is actually an operative word for 'dying,' the kind voice in the light soothed her, eased her fears, loved her, and forgave her.
__ Ardy was aware of her own being, but not of legs or arms or even eyes or ears. She just... was. Afloat in glory, Ardelene Rachel Jacobi was now reborn with the name given to every soul in heaven. She was simply The Returning Child.
__ There were no features that she could make out, but she seemed to be aware of houses upon houses upon mansions upon estates, all glowing white and gold, silver and pearl. She saw no flowers, but she was aware of the freshest bouquet she had ever smelled, an energizing spirit-swelling airy experience. She didn't blink because she didn't have eyes anymore, and her focus seemed to be everywhere at once. In a flash, she absorbed everything. The Truth.
__ And all around her were others. They felt like family and friends but had no distinctive individuality that she could pinpoint as "Uncle Ned," "Kind Old Lady Henderson," or even "Mom" or "Dad." But it was like they were all here, all welcoming her to The One Love.
__ The feeling was an indescribable rush of warm love and forgiveness. She felt large arms enfold her and soft lips kiss her forehead, though there were no arms or lips or foreheads to be found among the light. There was no pain. There was no memory of pain.
__ There had been a sharp sting after Legad sent her home, but it wasn't the feeling of her soul ripping from the earthly body it had been used to for over three decades. The sting was deep and internal.
__ And with the sting came a soul-deep probing question deeper than any accusatory inquisition. The voice whispered, "What have you done with my son. What has my son done for you."
__ Spoken as a statement rather than a question, The Returning Child felt herself suspended over the Great Pit, precariously dangling by a thread of her soul as the answer was pulled from her heart. There was no need to pull out a No. 2 pencil. There were no lines to fill out. There wasn't even time to study or consider the depth and meaning in the words. The Returning Child just pictured what she understood from years of Bible study and church attendance. It was just something she felt: that the being behind the gentle voice gave up his one and only son so that she could be here now. Her eternity had been bought and paid for. She could not express the thanks for His sacrifice. And she cried for the last time in her existence, eternal or otherwise.
__ The question. The answer. Took less than a millionth of a second to register.
__ And the whole time: the sting.
__ "It's your sin burning away," the voice had said. "You are unburdened. You are forgiven."
__ And after the sting it was true. The Returning Child was incapable of even understanding what a sinful thought was. Modesty, anger, greed, lust, any and all desire... were gone. All that was left was love and worship. The 'air' was filled with the most beautiful melodic song and The Returning Child instantly felt herself drawn into the currents of the melody. If she could cry, she would be wracked with tears of absolute joy. The only 'want' was the 'want' to remain in the Glory, to become one with love.
__ This was nothing like the experience in the kitchen before Doug touched her and brought her back to life. This was truly it, no turning back.
__ Heaven.
__ Until something like distant thunder, The Returning Child could feel, rumbled through her spirit.
__ "You cannot stay," He said.
__ The Returning Child couldn't understand. A few seconds into eternity, after passing that proverbial tunnel and bridge to Eden, and she had forgotten all that she once was because so much of what she was came with the sin that had evaporated away. All that was left of her was devotion and love, a forgiven child. A Returning Child. A child being given unconditional and perfect love.
__ And all she could do was obey.
__ It was the least she could do. And the most.
__ Somewhere a small part of her stung again. It was the pinch of loss. She could not bare to leave this place, to leave His Glory.
__ But in time, she did.
__ For he promised she would return again. Very soon.


__ R. Lee Munson found himself standing at the side door to St. Peter's church, his palm resting on the door, his fingers splayed like an awkward star. He was once again alone.
__ After all this time, after burning and branding and having love taken from him in hell, Munson was back on earth where the archangel Michael had led him.
__ The silent spirit of the angel had been inside his body and spoke gently inside his ear. "Do not fear, Robert Lee. You are a soldier with me this day. We will enter into His kingdom and you shall be forgiven.
__ "You have but to ask."
__ Then Michael was gone.
__ Munson cried softly, sniffed, watched his frosty breath float up to the security light above the side door. "I can't. I can't do this alone. I am no soldier."
__ But no answer came. Michael had already filled Munson's mind with what must be done. It was God's final test for him to see if his heart would comply. And then the archangel left.
__ His final words, "You are loved. In that, like me, you will find the strength you need to sacrifice as He had for you."


__ When Munson finally opened the side door to the church, armed only with a single word given to him by God's soldier, his strength immediately purged and he dropped to his knees and wept.
__ The inside of the church had been demolished. Splinters of pew wood were scattered amongst broken candle sticks, statuettes of the Virgin Mary, offering and communion plates, and shards of broken stain glass.
__ Around the debris, carefully arranged to offer the best lighting, were fields of candles. The candles became tighter clusters as they were placed closer to the altar. And the altar itself was tipped over and was used to prop up a giant crucifix. Nailed to the cross was not Jesus but Ardy Jacobi. Her left arm and leg had been badly crushed, her left foot twisted grotesquely sideways so the high C flute from the demolished pipe organ could be used to nail her feet to the makeshift sedile. Still hanging from her side was what appeared to be a curtain rod. Blood was congealing down the shaft and puddled darkly on the floor below her. She was pale, her face a frozen mask of pain now released from suffering. The bloodied hair that hung down one side of her face moved slightly from the breeze by the open door. A couple candles blew out. The breeze eased the smell from the feces smeared on the walls, over the broken pews and floor, and on Ardy's face and clothes.
__ Near the entrance to the church, hanging from the balcony, was a teenage boy. Munson recognized the clothes, and what was left of the face. It was the Pizza King delivery boy, his head misshapen and spiked with what looked like antlers that had been shoved into his ears and the back of his head. A curtain cord was snug around his purple neck and tied to the railing above the entrance. He too was dead, but Munson shuddered to think of exactly when that spirit would have departed.
__ He gasped when he saw the nine shadows standing at attention behind the railing. The Alterlings had no facial features, but Munson felt watched, studied.
__ "I expected Michael."
__ Munson reared back, felt his heart hitch in his throat, at the sound of the soft voice.
__ The man was suddenly in front of him, the one who had been so familiar at the beginning of the day, at earlier moments in his life. The stranger. The pervert. The abuser. Clye Morrow.
__ "You are not Michael."
__ Munson stood, brushed at his pants, and glanced around for some explanation for how the dead man was now animated in front of him. Morrow wasn't resurrected as he was, as Ardy had once been. Clye Morrow moved stiffly, his gray eyes locked always forward, never shifting. His mottled gray skin giving off the stench of chilled earth. He couldn't even be called a zombie. There were no words for what this thing was, but two: Munson's nightmare.
__ "I had thought to bring you back, Clye, to beg you forgiveness for me killin' you," Munson mumbled.
__ The Clye-thing didn't blink. It merely stared at him without showing emotion. Maybe it cocked its head slightly as if to say, "I'm listening." But it didn't.
__ "Regardless what you done to me, I was going to ask you to forgive me."
__ "Were you?" The mouth cracked.
__ Munson nodded slowly, suspicious now that he wasn't talking to Clye Morrow at all, animated corpse or not, this was just the shell. Something else - someone else - was in there.
__ "Don't," it said. "Because I won't give you what you seek. Your time in the Pit is not yet done." Munson could swear it smiled. "Hell is eternal, Robbie."
__ The name made Munson's skin crawl and chill numbly. It was the name he was called - was called just before -
__ "Quiet worm," it smiled, "Don't squirm."
__ "No!" The years of memories, the pain, the touching, flooded back and Munson surged forward with fury and a wellspring of anger. "No!"
__ Clye Morrow's corpse stepped aside, with some agility for a stiffened dead man, and allowed Munson to stumble past him. Two alterlings were quickly on him, one on each arm, grabbing him and spinning him to face the rotting abuser. They held him like the lackeys of a bully, arms pinned and ready for the blows to come.
__ The Morrow-corpse stepped up to Munson, rested a cold palm over his heart, and rolled out a crackling dry and rot-smelling tongue from between blackened gums and crooked teeth. It leaned forward and touched the tongue to Munson's ear as the captive redeemed tried to twist and turn away.
__ It whispered, "I am the light bearer, Robert Lee." Then it stepped back and bowed.
__ "Like the song," Munson felt himself sneering. Where the tongue had touched his skin it felt scaly, crawly. He said, "Won't I guess your name?"
__ The corpse smiled. "Call me deceiver, composer of lies, the first traitor. Whatever. Your... cultural reference ...only proves to me that the time is ripe, that the window of the second coming will be our open door to return."
__ So, the devil returns with the Son, seizing the opportunity to take what isn't rightfully his.
__ Munson cleared his throat, tried to stand taller, struggling between the alterlings unearthly grip. "Michael sent me to stop you."
__ Without pause or reflection, the light bearer said, "Why would he send a condemned murderer?"
__ The church around them groaned against the unseasonable chill outside. A candle flickered. Ardy's body remained limp and suspended. The alterlings remained at silent dark vigil for their master.
__ "I remember the taste of your soul, your tears," the devil chuckled. "It was sweet, like candy. How did it feel, by the way, to be so far from His love? How did it feel to be abandoned, lost? How did it feel to know others were raised above you, held in His arms? How did it feel to know you lived a lost and mistaken life, to be constantly reminded that you had taken the wrong path? How did it feel to know his Son was the door you neglected to open....
__ "And thus cost you your eternal soul?"
__ Munson's chin quivered. The devil was right. It hurt. It hurt bad. "It felt like hell," he muttered.
__ "Welcome back," the devil in Clye Morrow's corpse said, and stepped up and embraced R. Lee Munson with a cold crusty hug.
__ "No. Please."
__ The light bearer concluded the embrace by taking Munson's face in his hands and kissing him on the squirming and resisting mouth. "Sssh," he smiled. "Quiet worm. Don't squirm."
__ Feeling the snap coming, Munson's eyes grew wide and welled with tears. As Michael suggested, he said only one thing. "Forgive you."
__ And with that the devil snapped Munson's neck with a twist and let his lifeless body collapse to the floor in a heap.

40. Doug Finally Sees the Light (D1)

__ Michael stopped where the road split. The broader snow-covered lane to the left would head back into town. The thin band of gray-lit snow breaking the trees to the right would lead to St. Peter's church. "This is the way?"
__ Maggie Morrow, now appearing much more mature than her eight year-old frame, stepped forward and pretended to sniff the air, examine the bark on nearby trees, study the snow at her feet for evidence of earlier trails. She said, "Snow already covered most of everything. Can you feel her no more?"
__ The archangel slowly shook his head. A tear glistened in the corner of his eye.
__ "It'll be okay, Mr. M. I promise."
__ A groan sounded from Doug still slung over Michael's shoulder like a large sack of flower. Michael knelt and gently lowered him into the snow.
__ Shaking himself awake, Doug said, "What happened?" Then he registered Maggie and Michael and it all came back to him. He shuddered and scooted away from them. "Stay away from me, Munson, or whoever the hell you are."
__ "Not hell," Maggie said.
__ Michael, in Munson's form since the killer's death hours ago, held up placating hands. "If you remember, Douglas, it was you who fell on the stone. I didn't actually hit you."
__ "Yeah," Maggie offered. "You were acting crazy. You were gonna hit us."
__ Doug's breathing fell less heavy and he stood on shaky legs, dusting himself off. He examined the road to his right, behind his two companions, and over his shoulder.
__ Thumbing the direction over his shoulder, Doug said, "That road dead-ends at St. Peter's church."
__ Michael nodded.
__ "She's there? Is that where he took Ardy?" Doug started to turn, head down the snow covered lane, when Michael's hand stopped him. The grip made Doug wince, "What are you doin', Munson. We gotta help--"
__ "She's dead."
__ Both men turned and looked down at the little psychic girl who announced the fact as though she were commenting on the cold.
__ Doug knelt before her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Listen to me, sweetheart, she's not dead. We have to hurry so we can save her."
__ Maggie scrunched up her face and looked up at Michael who raised an eyebrow as if to say, want me to tell him?
__ Michael offered. "Doug. You have to listen to her."
__ "To her? What about to you? What are you doing to save Ardy?" Doug stood and positioned himself in front of the man to challenge him. His voice raised in a harsh whisper, he said, "Ever since you came into the picture, you've tried to kill us, rape her. You brought all this down. You are the one who came onto the scene with your guns and knives and rope. It was you who kept us prisoner in her store. You're the murderer. You are the one keeping me from going to her even now!"
__ Maggie patted at Doug's arm and kept repeating, "No, no, no, no," but he wasn't listening.
__ And his voice got louder. "I tried to tell her not to come after you. I tried to protect her. I tried--" His voice broke and he sniffed back tears.
__ "Doug, don't cry," Maggie pleaded, her own chin quivering.
__ Michael's grip on Doug's arm loosened and he raised his other hand to Doug's cheek. "Douglas, listen to me. I'm a soldier. I'm not equipped to handle this and I don't have time right now."
__ "He's right," Maggie said.
__ "On the way here Maggie explained the whole thing to me. There is a plan, Douglas, and it's not yours. It's His." Michael pointed skyward.
__ "What are you talking--?"
__ "It's too complicated. And it's not complicated at all." Glancing to Maggie, Michael said, "From the mouths of babes, Douglas. The mouths of babes." Michael pushed past Doug and started down the narrow road.
__ "What are you doing?"
__ Michael turned and looked at the store owner and the little girl. His smile was weak. "What I was made to do."
__ "I'm coming with you," Doug said, anger fresh. Maggie grabbed him around the leg and held firm.
__ "No, Douglas. That's not how it's written. Please do this for Ardy. Listen to the girl. She will explain everything."
__ "No. I'm coming." Doug pushed Maggie back and started after Michael.
__ "Doug!"
__ He stopped.
__ Michael continued, "You were right."
__ Doug cocked his head and gave it a slight shake as if to say, About what, exactly?
__ Michael's blue eyes closed. When they re-opened, they were Munson's brown eyes. Weariness cascaded over his body and his expression was one of sorrow and deep, deep regret. The change was subtle, but it was enough to scare Doug back a few steps. Maggie hugged him as Munson spoke.
__ "You were right, Doug. This was all my fault." Munson spoke through tears that formed narrow streams down his cheeks. "I'm paying for it now. For all of it. For my whole life. I've been used to play a part here today - as you have. As Maggie has. As," he sniffed, "Ardy has.
__ "You were right, Doug. I was an evil man, unforgiven because I didn't seek the forgiveness as you have.
__ "Look around you. You know something larger than any of us is coming. The darkness. The cold. The abilities you and Ardy, and Maggie, all have. That's not happenstance, Doug. That's not coincidence or some miraculous turn of cosmic energy."
__ Doug shook his head. "This can't be God's will. He can't be allowing all this pain and suffering. This - This chaos is not heavenly. It's --"
__ "Hell. You're right." Munson blinked, smiled, "Why do you think he sent Michael here?"
__ Doug stared. Blinked. He forced all the rationale from his mind. He pushed away the Star Trek and X-Files and movies and TV he loved so much, perhaps too much. He thought about the only thing that could make sense in all of this; that what Munson was saying was true. Doug went to church regularly, he prayed hard. He wasn't involved in missions or church groups, but he was regular. He understood.
__ Or thought he did until today. "I don't remember this in Revelation."
__ "That's because it hasn't happened yet," Munson offered. He came back to Doug, rested a hand on his shoulder. "You saw me die. You know where I was, what I have to go back to."
__ Doug nodded slowly. His chin quivered in pity for the man.
__ "I'm telling you what I saw with my own soul. Hell is readying for war."
__ Doug's eyes grew wide. He glanced down at Maggie who was nodding in full understanding, as if this little girl could possibly conceive --
__ Munson stepped back. "You were right. I was a cold-blooded killer. I had lost my way as the seed spread on poisoned ground. But I had known it once. When I was little." He looked at Maggie and smiled the smile of a proud brother. "God is sending me in there with his archangel to face not only my demons, but the demons of the world."
__ Doug shook his head. "I-I still don't understand. How do we compute in all this?"
__ "He's coming back, Doug. This is it. The big game. We're all getting off the bench now to play our part. He will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead."
__ "And his kingdom will have no end," Doug finished the prayer, his expression shifting from ignorance to shocked disbelief.
__ "Maggie was blessed with the answers you need, Doug." And with that, with a blink from brown eyes to blue, Michael turned and walked purposefully toward the church in the snowy dark.
__ Feeling useless, Doug called out the only thing he could think of, "Save her."
__ Michael barely turned his head in acknowledgment.
__ Maggie pulled on Doug's sleeve. "She's already been saved, Mr. Testerbird."
__ Doug took a deep shaky breath and crouched in front of the girl. He nodded, "Okay. Now tell me what I have to do."
__ Maggie smiled. Then her smile faded. "You have to have very strong faith, Mr. Testerbird. More than me or Mr. M, or even Ardelene. Yours will be the hardest part of all."
__ He nodded again. "I can do it."
__ Maggie looked at his forehead as though she could look into his mind and read his thoughts, which she could. She said, "I'm not Yoda, and you're not Luke, and Darth Vader is not in there.
__ "It's easy to say you can do it because it's easy to say it in the movies."
__ Doug forced a laugh. "But I can. I'm going to do it for her, for you. I have to."
__ "Really?"
__ "Really."
__ "Then you're ready to betray me - a little girl - to the devil?"

39. Plans of the Fallen One (D1)

__ Deerhead wasn't Deerhead anymore, but he was still grotesque, still something other than Todd, the delivery boy for Pizza King. Ardy watched the creature work, her head mushy and filled with non-thoughts as the pain wallowed up inside her and raged in burning rivers up and down her skin. Her head was pounding like a large dull hammer was pounding her body into a splintered piece of wood.
__ Like a large nail into arcacia wood.
__ St. Peter's church was located on the outskirts of Palley's Woods, but far from the center of the town of Covert. Only the most devout Catholics from the countryside gathered here, and usually only around Easter or Christmas. Other times, it served as a hall for easy stringless marriages or BINGO games. You would think that the eve of Doomsday would bring throngs of people to the house of God to beg forgiveness, especially with the evidence of an August winter and mid day midnight all around them.
__ But as Legad told her as he lay her broken body on the fat beam of wood, "All fornicators. They're saying good-bye to life by living it." He cinched the cord tighter around her arm and whispered in a cold dead breath reeking of stale blood, "Only the idolaters would be caught dead here tonight. Now who's the fool?"
__ Ardy didn't understand the question and could barely understand where she was or why a reanimated delivery boy with antlers jutting through his skull was dismantling the inside of the church.
__ All she could say was, "Water." And it came out weak, pained, and wincing.
__ "Of course, child," Legad smiled crookedly. "None too soon, none too soon."
__ Moments later he returned from the sacristy holding a golden communion chalice. He poured the water clumsily over her mouth and she lapped at it drunkenly. As he poured, Legad giggled like a teenager involved in an elaborate prank, and muttered, "He who drinks my water shall have eternal life."
__ Ardy coughed up the water that went down the wrong pipe and cried out in pain.
__ Legad noticed something below her vision and ducked out of sight. Whatever he was doing was causing new waves of pain to rocket up her legs. When she saw her own tennis shoe fly up against the wall she understood he was simply removing her shoes.
__ "P-Please, dont'," she managed.
__ "Ssssh." The monster reappeared in her face, the one straight eye glaring at her. "Save your strength for your death. You'll need it." Again, the dry laugh.


__ Ardy continued to fall in and out of consciousness for the next hour, or so it seemed. All the while, Legad - as he had introduced himself at one point - busied himself trashing pews with a fire ax and lighting candles. One moment he was in a rage and decapitating the wooden Christ figure from the large cross over the alter. The next he was quietly humming Amazing Grace as he lit candles at twelve points around the church's interior.
__ Her breathing was labored and came in rattles and rasps.
__ "Do you know why--" he suddenly snapped, appearing at her right ear and startling her. She jostled and felt new waves of pain, not just from her legs but her wrists and arms now too. "-- I'm keeping you so close to death but refusing to let go of the rope?"
__ Ardy could barely comprehend the miasma of memories swimming through her soupy brain. The only returning image that meant anything to her was that of Doug. His memory was keeping her grounded, keeping her hopes alive. She knew he would come for her soon. As for other dreams: resurrections, heavenly guardians, gravelly drags through hell, gunshots, snow, Deerhead.... She let them swim behind her eyes weakly without trying to decipher them. The only thought keeping her from giving up the ghost was Doug. If not for him, it would be that easy. Somehow, she knew that if she just let her heart break - that would be the last part of her to die.
__ "Not going to answer? C'mon, Ardelene, you have to keep your strength up."
__ "He'll come," she whispered.
__ "He who? Douglas?"
__ She would have nodded but was using what little strength she had to hold still. It was hard enough to breathe as it was. Then it dawned on her to keep her thoughts bottled up. If this thing knew Doug was coming for her....
__ Legad sat on the post of the communion rail and sighed. "You can't keep your thoughts from me anymore."
__ Ardy turned her head slightly to look at him. When the reanimated face showed no emotion, she turned back and closed her eyes.
__ "That's right. It wasn't your power at all. It was mine - well, his."
__ When Ardy refused to acknowledge him, Legad kicked out at something by her feet. A wooden scrape sounded and bolts of pain in her legs, feet, arms, hands, and chest made her come alive with a scream.
__ "Pay attention," Legad cried over her lingering scream. When she fell silent again, he smiled, "Better."
__ Ardy's dry and cracked voice winced, "W-who is he?"
__ "Ah. Glad you asked." Legad stood and started to pace. "The age of darkness, the reign of the Fallen One, is upon us."
__ "Lucifer," Ardy whispered.
__ "Clever girl. Or just a churchgoer."
__ "Follower."
__ "Follower of the Son, huh?"
__ "Father, Son...."
__ "Blah, blah, blah. Listen."
__ Ardy forced herself to meet the gaze of the horned head, the bent eye.
__ "All that stuff on TV, movies. It's great."
__ When he wouldn't elaborate, Ardy took a shuddering breath and offered, "What's great about it?"
__ "It's all sin. All of it. The Way," Legad said with arms raised heavenward, "Is lost."
__ "Lost," Ardy smiled weakly, "Like the TV show?" Her laugh brought spasms of agony and her scream was weak and pitiable.
__ "Pride goeth before the fall, Ardelene. Not funny."
__ "Before - gasp - the fall - gasp. That's your boss - gasp - you're talkin' about."
__ "My boss, as you call him, has ruled his domain for thousands of years. Yours," Legad started pacing again, "Well, yours was nailed up to a tree - much like you are now - by people like you."
__ Ardy now recognized the source of the new pains. She forced herself to turn her head to the left. Her left arm, outstretched on the cross that once held the decapitated Jesus, was bound with curtain cord. A thick knife of metal, she guessed from a broken candle holder, had been hammered through the carpal tunnel of her wrist. There was no feeling but pain from her elbow-up. She didn't even bother to look across at her right. The pains matched. And, though she couldn't look down at her feet and badly broken leg, she could imagine what Legad had done there.
__ And then the full of it cascaded down over Ardy. She was going to die today, for good and forever. Doug wasn't going to save her after all. This was the last day of Earth. This was the end.
__ But something didn't seem right in what was left of her mind. "No," she whimpered.
__ "Yes," Legad laughed. "Oh, yes."
__ "No," she weakly explained, "This is. Not right."
__ "Hm? How? -- Oh, don't answer. Save your strength for the end. I'll fill in the blanks for you."
__ Legad was suddenly joined by a host of dark phantom creatures, the Alterlings. Nine of them gathered around Ardy's cross and set about the task of lifting her upright. As they hoisted, repositioned, and clumsily jostled her one degree higher at a time, pain gave way to numbness. If not for the cord pulled tight around her broken and bruised legs, her chest, and her arms, Ardy was sure the weight of her body would pull her down off the cross. She hung limply, limbs burning.
__ All the while she rose higher and higher, Legad entoned, "Earlier I asked you a question that you didn't answer, sweetheart. I asked you why it was you thought I was keeping you alive, or killing you slowly. You didn't answer."
__ Ardy's only answer this time was a grunt and truncated scream of agony.
__ "The reason is bait."
__ She released a final groan as the cross was propped against the wall behind the altar. The Alterlings drifted down, six on each side of the church. Legad sat in one of the unbroken pews and steepled his fingers. "We gave up two of our angelic powers to a couple of humans far from the site of the Son's return.
__ "One was given the sight of the future, the other the sight of the heart - the ability to literally walk in someone else's shoes."
__ Legad scratched at a raw spot on his forehead where one of the antlers had poked through. He crossed his legs before continuing. "We knew that would open the door, distract the guardsman - so to speak - and allow us to walk the earth which was rightfully ours to toy with in the beginning.
__ "So we brought the darkness.
__ "If you weren't here, you'd probably be home watching or listening to the news, hearing about the strange goings on in the Middle East, the strange turn the war is taking, and about the very special prisoner of war being transported out of Jerusalem.
__ "A thief in the night," Legad muttered to himself more than to Ardy.
__ "Ardelene, my dear, you served us well. But your time is over." Legad stood, took a sharpened curtain rod - fashioned someone like a spear - and approached the altar. "Even now the other gifted one approaches, and brings his soldier. It's been a long time since my master and the archangel have spoken. Should be quite the reunion."


__ Gravity had been playing its part. The true tool to bring death in crucifixion was not the nail or the hot sun, the deprivation of food or water. With the body weakened and the arms held outstretched, pulling open the ribcage, breathing becomes toxic. The expanded lungs have no muscle power to push out bad air and the victim begins to suffocate with his own air.
__ Ardy was already too weak and her breathing broken. Legad wasn't trying to keep her awake. He was trying to kill her quicker by making her scream and talk. She was dizzy and couldn't keep her lolling head up to gaze upon the creature that had done this to her.
__ Her body was already dying. Pain was trading hands with a cold numbness and periodic aching waves as nerves slowly died off.
__ She hadn't really heard any of Legad's speech. She was busy trying to form her thoughts into prayers and mental cries of repentance.
__ Then she saw Legad approach her with the makeshift spear.
__ He said, "It's too bad you won't be here to see it."
__ She used the last of her energy to force a smile and whisper, "Forgive--"
__ Then Legad thrust the pointed rod into her side. Ardy felt the skin and organs puncture, but there was no agony left to be felt. Instead she felt her spirit tumble out of her body and soar up toward the warmest, most loving light imaginable.

38. Quiet Worm, Don't Squirm (D1)

__ Maggie absorbed the warmth from Mr. M's hand as she walked with him down the center of the deserted stretch of road between the two hemispheres of Palley's Woods. She thought about asking him why it seemed there was no one around except the three of them: Mr. M., Maggie, and Doug who hung limply over Mr. M's shoulder.
__ "You're so strong," she offered, then wished she hadn't said anything. She was rather enjoying the hush of the August Winter silence.
__ "I have to be, child," Mr. M said.
__ Maggie sighed and gave his large hand a squeeze. It was amazing how warm it was considering how cold it was in death just about an hour ago. But she didn't want to think about that either.
__ Instead, she concentrated on who she was and wondered where she would be tomorrow. And, in thinking about that, she couldn't help but remember and wonder how she got to be where she was now. What she was yesterday. A worm.


__ "Stay quiet, little worm. Stay quiet," man said.
__ That's what Maggie Morrow called her father. She didn't call him "daddy" or "papa," or even "Clye," his given name. Because he wasn't her father. He couldn't be. Fathers don't touch their daughters the way he did. They weren't supposed to hurt them.
__ "Stay quiet, little worm. Don't squirm," was a little rhyme he used to tell her before the touching began. He used to repeat that mantra over and over as he went about his duties and she, the dutiful daughter, would try to detach herself from him, from life. She tried to imagine she really was a worm because things like this don't happen to worms. They don't cry or scream. They don't even talk. Worms just crawl and eat dirt and get eaten by birds.
__ She used to imagine --
__ "Stay quiet, little worm. Don't squirm."
__ -- that a giant robin would swoop down through her bedroom window and swallow her up so she'd be away from it. So she wouldn't have to wonder about daddies and why they would say, "Stay quiet, little worm. Don't squirm."
__ After it was over she wouldn't cry or whine. He would smack her with his palm and tell her that was just the beginning if she ever told anyone about his duties. He would open a manilla folder and show her black and white pictures of horribly dead people, eyes staring like unblinking dolls, weeping holes in their cheeks and foreheads. Sometimes they'd be in pieces with dark black liquid in puddles around them and tendrils of slop splattered all around. "Little worms," he'd say, "who talked."
__ Then he would leave her with the nanny, Miss Rita, as he went off to his law firm to make money to buy more toys, dolls, crayons, and books for her. To make money to buy her silence.
__ She never told Miss Rita about it because every time she thought about telling her, Miss Rita would pull at her long stringy hair and say, "Doesn't your dad ever buy peanut butter?" or "Don't you hate that Friends isn't on TV anymore" or "Hey. Wanna color?" and those distractions were so welcome and needed that she pushed the other thing away. She could forget about man until he came home from work and sent Miss Rita away. Some days that would be that. They'd have a quiet dinner, or man would ask about what she colored that day. Sometimes --
__ "Stay quiet, little worm. Don't squirm."
__ The last time she saw him, well before he became like the pictures, he sat on her bed staring off into space.
__ She didn't ask him what was wrong. Worms don't talk, remember. But he answered her anyway. He said, "You had a brother."
__ Maggie Morrow kept the covers pulled tight to her chin, kept staring straight ahead, but her eyes and ears grew wide. She felt the blood heating her ears as man talked.
__ "Robert Lee, he was called." Man paused, imagining some pictures she was glad she didn't see. He smiled. His ugly pink tongue touched his lower lip. "Huh. Don't know why I started thinking of that little shit."
__ Then he looked at her and said, "You can go out on your own before you become a teenager. I don't need that kinda crap, I'll tell ya."
__ She didn't ask what kind of crap. She let him imagine she asked it.
__ "He was the property of my last wife. She didn't like the games we played, so she took him away." His black eyes fell on her for a moment, over his shoulder, "Good thing for me your momma died, huh?"
__ That was the first time Maggie ever felt like crying, not like a worm at all. She never knew her momma, but imagined she was not like man at all.
__ "Well, little worm," he said, rising to his feet, "No lesson today, huh? I think you know the rules by now."
__ More silence. More vacant stares. Then the last words man ever said to her, "Okay, I'm gonna go pick up Miss Rita. You get some sleep 'til she gets here." Then he was gone.

__ That night she prayed herself to sleep. She prayed for her brother she never knew she had to come back and save her. She prayed her momma up in heaven would send him.
__ And she did.
__ Maggie changed when the news came. She had already started having the strange dreams. The dreams had dirt and shovels, rope, guns, and a glowing eye behind a pane of glass. She dreamed of boys delivering pizza and of store clerks coming to court lovely young psychics.
__ The news came in the form of neighbors and strangers who never rescued her when she needed it. But now they were here to comfort her, to tell her that her father had gone to heaven. That a bad thing had happened. That a bad man had taken him away. Others talked about something called 'video surveillance' at his office. And others, when they thought she wasn't around, said things like 'disgruntled client' and 'brains splattered all over the floor.'
__ But she knew the truth. She could see it on the day the darkness came. That morning she felt the rain coming down on her face as she ran away from her house and the crying neighbors.
__ "Let her go!" they called. "Let her run it off!"
__ "Poor child!" others called. Miss Rita was not among them. Her mother wouldn't let her come. Maggie knew that but didn't know how she knew. She just did.
__ But she giggled as she ran. Her brother had returned and made man go away. And God told her in her waking, running, giggling dream that she would find her brother in the dark and the snow. Winter in August!? Yes. Apparently, yes.


__ Maggie Morrow squeezed Mr. M's hand again, this time to get his attention.
__ He smiled down at her. "Yes, Maggie?"
__ "Did you know my brother, Mr. M?"
__ "Robert Lee?" Mr. M looked ahead and smiled. "No. But I understand he played his part well."
__ "I knew he would," Maggie giggled. "I just knew it."
__ "I'm glad, child. There's a lot you have to know before the end. A lot."
__ She abruptly stopped and pulled back on his arm.
__ Mr. M released her hand and turned to face her, lowering himself to one knee so they could be eye to eye. He lowered Doug to the snowy pavement and gently rested his head.
__ "Mr M," Maggie started.
__ The man who looked like Robert Lee Munson -- except for the crisp blue eyes -- took Maggie's hands in his own. He smiled. "You wish to talk to him?"
__ The little girl couldn't say anything. Her chin quivered and icy tears welled up in her eyes. She nodded.
__ Mr. M's blue eyes closed. His brown eyes opened. He instantly looked softer, warmer, forgiven.
__ "Oh, Maggie," R. Lee cried. He pulled his little step-sister to his chest and hugged her hard. Their shuddering tears mingled as she rubbed her hands up and down his broad back and his large hands hugged the back of her head and neck like a warm hood. "I'm so sorry," he sniffed. "I didn't know. I didn't know any of it."
__ They separated to soak up each other's faces, faces they never knew. Faces that would have had different lives if not for the circumstances that caused them so much separate but identical physical and emotional pain. They were instantly a brother and sister who had always known and loved each other.
__ Munson said, "I knew what he did to me, but I didn't know he--"
__ Maggie pressed a finger to his lips. Tears cascaded down her cold red cheeks as she shuddered. She couldn't tell him. She could only stutter, "Nobody needs to know anymore."
__ They hugged and cried some more, catching up on lost years of love in a single embrace.
__ When they parted a second time, Munson stood. He said, "I have to go now."
__ Maggie sniffed and nodded. "Will I see you again?"
__ Munson slowly shook his head. "I still have much to repay. I was lost before I was found."
__ The girl nodded again and fresh tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.
__ Before returning to the darkness, R. Lee knelt again and hugged his little step-sister good-bye. "Before this day is over," he said, "You'll be with your momma who loves you more than you could know."
__ Maggie hugged him tighter and cried harder.

__ When she finally pulled away from him, his eyes were once again hard but loving, the cool blue of a determined soul, God's soldier.
__ "Mr. M?" she sniffed. "Thank you."
__ He lifted Doug onto his shoulder again and took Maggie by the hand. "Let's go, shall we?"
__ They walked off into the night without another thought of worms or death, the child, the store clerk, and the archangel.

37. Rock of Ages Cleft for Munson (D1)

__Munson stood by the roadside staring up into the sky, watching as the snowflakes whirled down out of the darkness, his breath billowing up in soft gray clouds of warmth. "It's beautiful," he muttered.
__ Maggie looked up at him appreciatively.
__ Doug, who was losing patience with each moment away from Ardy, said, "How can you say that?"
__ Doug made a motion to check the time on his watch, then realizing he wasn't wearing one smacked at his wrist. "It's probably three in the afternoon."
__ "So?"
__ Doug snorted and raised his palms to the sky. "Look, Munson. It's insane. This whole day has been insane."
__ Munson tilted his head back, closed his eyes and caught a snowflake on his tongue. Maggie laughed and mimicked him, giggling as the tiny frosty swirls kissed her red cheeks.
__ Doug growled, "It's August!"
__ Munson laughed. Took a deep breath. "August winter."
__ "August winter," Maggie repeated. She met Doug's eyes with a mischievous smile, then noticed the look in his eyes and let her expression fall. She hugged Munson's legs and edged behind him.
__ Munson noticed her fear and gently put a hand on her head. Looking to Doug, he said, "Why are you afraid, Douglas? You saw me rise like Lazarus just as I had before. You did that. Are you afraid you won't be able to do the same for Ardelene?"
__ In the silence drifting between them, Doug slowly closed the distance. His hands were clenched into cold fists as he blinked the snowflakes off his eyelashes and pushed his breath out in long huffs. Maggie whimpered and now hid completely behind Munson.
__ "What happened to you this time?"
__ Munson tilted his head, blinked his new blue eyes. "Explain."
__ "Yer speech. The slow and calm way you're talkin'. How you've... changed. It ain't you."
__ Munson blinked slowly, sniffed a long breath of the cold air.
__ Doug said, "Yer eyes. The fact that you don't seem concerned about Ardy."
__ "Why would I be? I mean," he shrugged, "Like I said, you can revive her if she's dead."
__ Doug's shoulders hitched, then heaved as a shudder of fear, pain, confusion, anger, and sadness tore through him. He fell to his knees, hands on his face, weeping and groaning. "I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't. I don't," he cried. Then after a long wail, "I want my momma."
__ Munson watched as the young store owner was swallowed by his own despair. He watched speechless as Maggie went to Doug and wrapped her arms around him to comfort him. He watched as Doug cried harder collapsing into the young girl's arms, screaming for his mother.
__ "August winter," he whispered. "August winter."

__Ardy regained consciousness in waves of pain rolling up from her knees to her gut. Her head was spinning, her broken arm twisting and swaying like a knotted rope toward the sky. Trees moved by her, upside down, and she realized her arm wasn't reaching up toward anything. It was dangling useless, swinging behind the marching jean legs of the hideous Pizza Kid. She tried to speak, tried to ask what he was doing with her, but there was no answer. She could only go along for the ride, carried over the shoulder of the carrion-wearing monster. She closed her eyes.

__ "We need to go, Douglas," Munson said calmly.
__ Doug sat on the slushy road, his face burried in Maggie's chest as the little girl petted his head. He nodded into her and forced himself to his hands and knees.
__ "It'll be okay in the end," Maggie said, and rejoined Munson taking his hand.
__ Doug stood and brushed himself off. "Okay," he said with sardonic surrender. "Whatever."
__ Munson and the girl turned and started to walk up the stretch of road that split the darkness of Palley's Woods.
__"Whatever!" Doug called after them. "I'll forget all this," he waved at the dark trees canopied with white snow. "I'll forget the fact that I can bring people back from the dead. I'll forget Ardy can enter people's thoughts. I'll forget that little girl there can see the future. I'll forget that it's dark in the middle of the day and it's snowing in August." A deep breath, then, "I'll even forget that you're a murderer."
__ Munson stopped and turned. Maggie did likewise, standing next to her friend. "All this has changed, as you said, Douglas," Munson intoned, "Yet you don't realize that I have changed too."
__ "Oh no, Munson. I get it. You're different too." Doug was being sarcastic, waving his arms crazily and crying again. Though this time his tears were the tears of a madman surrendering to a cascade of thoughts and feelings he could never understand.
__ Maggie looked up to Munson who nodded to her. "It's time?" she asked.
__ Munson smiled down at her. He nodded.
__ "What's this?" Doug called, "Secrets?"
__ Maggie skipped carefully through the slush to the roadside and started digging in the shallow ditch snow for something there.
__ Munson said, "You're not going to help us, Doug. I have to make you fall unconscious by striking you with a stone."
__ Doug straightened. "What?"
__ Maggie lifted something that looked like a turtle shell, black slick and curved. Doug recognized it as a rock. He shouted, "You can't be serious."
__ Maggie called, "You're not going to calm down. You're just going to get worse. Mr. M. has to carry you to the church so we get there in time."
__ Doug glanced from side to side. He had fallen back as Munson and Maggie lead the way. Now he was standing at least fifty feet away. It would take a professional ball player with a steady windup to tag his melon with one throw at that distance. He laughed. "No. You're not serious."
__ Munson took the rock from Maggie and, in one smooth move, tossed it in a tall underhand arc toward Doug.
__ Doug, tracing the arch with a wide grin, stepped easily aside as the rock crunched on the asphalt under the slush cover a few feet from him. He barked a laugh. "Ha! Now it's my turn."
__ Maggie took a safe position behind Munson as Doug retrieved the stone. Munson stood tall, took a deep breath, and clasped his hands behind his back.
__ Doug turned his left shoulder to Munson and eyeballed him like a pitcher waiting for the perfect call. He nodded at the invisible catcher, kicked up his left knee, and lost his balance as a black ice sheet under his right foot gave way. Doug landed with a thud on his back. The rock came down on his forehead with a cluck.
__ Maggie giggled, but stopped when Munson met her gaze seriously. "Sorry."
__ "He's having a hard time, Maggie," Munson suggested as he approached Doug's unconscious form.
__ "He is," the girl agreed, "But he'll be okay for Ardy. I know he will."
__ Munson nodded. He knelt beside Doug, lifted him over his shoulders, and fireman-carried him down the road in the direction they had been walking.
__ "You don't usually use a rock, do you, Mr. M."
__ Munson shook his head, readjusted Doug's bulk.
__ "The sword with the fire coming out of it would have been cooler."

__ Ardy's eyes opened and slowly focussed on the roof of the grumbling car. The gentle sway of the back seat she lay crumpled on told her they were in motion. To her right she saw the plane of the passenger seat. A fluffy hole the size of a dime had been punched through it. Cold wind from a broken windshield puffed through it and around the seat. She groaned and whimpered as the little lightning bolts echoed through her body again.
__ The sound alerted the driver who turned and looked at his backseat passenger with crooked eyes. It was the Pizza Kid, but his head was oddly shaped and ruined by the deer antlers that had been pushed into his temples and ears at odd angles. The points protruded from his forehead like the horns of the devil. His right eye was staring at the bridge of his nose, dried blood rimmed the socket. His left eye blinked at her in an unintentional perverse wink.
__ He had the expression of a reanimated corpse, which is what Ardy suspected he was. She didn't know how, when, or why. And none of it surprised her.
__ She couldn't scream. She couldn't laugh Doug's laugh of insanity. She couldn't ask where he was taking her. All she could do was close her eyes and pray.

36. Faith and Patience (D1)

__ R. Lee Munson leaned against a tree, his right arm steadying himself as his shaky knees threatened to bring him back down to the ground. With his back to the girl and Doug, he looked headless, his face hidden from their view below a bowed head while his eyes reformed in their ruined sockets.
__ "What makes this so hard," he said in a strangely soft voice, "Is that everything is frozen." Then he chuckled.
__ Doug could only stare shaking, partly from the cold, partly from terror. He glanced from Munson's back to the little girl - what was her name, Maggie? - smiling up at the reanimated murderer.
__ Maggie looked to Doug and said, "See, I told you it was you. You did it, Doug. You did."
__ "I-I did?"
__ Maggie nodded as Munson slowly turned around. Doug was thankful for the darkness. He could see the dark hollow shapes that once held his eyes, now slowly forming dim whites and amoebic irises.
__ "M-Munson?" Doug tried.
__ Munson nodded. He cleared his throat tentatively like a flu victim testing his voice after an all-night fever. "I'm cold."
__ "I can imagine."
__ Munson slowly shook his head. "No you can't, Doug. ... You can't."
__ Doug watched as Maggie approached the articulate zombie and reached her hand out to him. "Hi again," she said.
__ Not sure he was believing what he could see through the dim, Doug thought Munson smiled down at her. "Thank you, little lamb. I'm sorry I left you."
__ "You did what you were s'posed to, Mr. M."
__ He nodded again and shivered under his blood-crusted jacket. To Doug he said, "Ever have your intestines frozen sixty degrees below normal body temp, Testerbird?"
__ Still stunned, but suddenly remembering Ardy, Doug said, "I don't know how you— How I—. We have to go after her."
__ Munson looked down to Maggie. The little girl clarified, "The Crazy Boy took her, I guess, after he shot you in the eyes."
__ Doug stammered, "He sh-shot you in the—"
__ "Doug's right," Munson smiled to the girl. "We have to save Ardelene. She's important to this whole thing."
__ "What do you mean," Maggie smiled back, "Important?"
__ "Later, child." Then to Doug, in that same soft voice, "Where, Doug? Where was this?"

__ No pain.
__ Nothing but bloodlust and ferocity. Ferocity personified.
__ That's what Ardy was feeling inside Deer Head. The creature was called "Legad" at least in its own mind. His head was swirling with promises she recognized as false but apparently Legad thought of them as the largest pot of gold at the end of the most beautiful rainbow ever. Inside his head she saw her own torture. She saw his plans bobbing in a pool of blood. He planned to rape her. He planned to eviscerate her with his fingers. He planned to break the bones that had not yet been broken.
__ And from what Ardy could determine, the only thing keeping him from starting his chores was that he didn't know what he could do to her without making her pass out. Any one of the incredible horrors he gleefully played with in his mind would undoubtedly shock her into unconsciousness. It seemed important that she survive the pain to bring him his pleasure.
__ The psychic connection started to weaken as Ardy mentally cringed away from the terror film she starred in within the creature's mind. Then she found herself kicked out forcefully as another being pried itself into its mind. This third brain was ancient and dark, more vicious than anything Deer Head was dreaming. This was a persona who existed since time began. The only thing Ardy could get from him before going back to her own body was that he wanted to make someone suffer, someone he could never make suffer but would try nonetheless.
__ He wanted to make God cry.

__ Doug followed as Munson and Maggie lead the way through the woods. Maggie kept step behind her Frankenstein friend who didn't seem to need to see in the dark to navigate his way around the trees of Palley's Woods.
__ "Munson?" Doug called as they hiked. They had all been silent for the past fifteen minutes or so.
__ "Yes, Doug?"
__ "What about your friend back there?" Doug remembered it was Munson's running off, the whole adventure outside the safety of the Psychic Parlor that got Ardy taken. It was all because he thought Ardy could resurrect his murder victim. It was all because he wanted to repay Clyde Morrow, to bring him back to life so that he wouldn't go back to hell again when he died.
__ "What about Mr. Morrow?" Munson said without slowing or looking back. He had obviously thrown in the name to acknowledge to Doug that he was fully aware of his original reason for coming out to the woods.
__ "If I'm the one with the resurrection powers, as Maggie says, don't you want me to revive him?"
__ "It's too late, Doug. Hell already has him."
__ Doug jogged up a couple steps to close the distance on Munson's back. "But you were in hell. You came back."
__ "That wasn't my plan, Doug. That was God's."
__ "What about all that redemption you were babbling about? I thought you had to confront him."
__ Munson continued his pace, Maggie jogging alongside like she were running to the playground with her friends.
__ Doug jogged up again, this time within reach. "You can't just leave him there, R. Lee. It's because of you Ardy came out here—"
__ Munson suddenly stopped and whirled on Doug. He took the skinny store owner by the collar and lifted him back off his heels and slammed him against the rough bark of a tree. The air knocked out of Doug's lungs with a cough. "Look, Doug, that wasn't the reason I came out here. I came out here so that you and Ardy would come looking for me, so that Legad would come looking for her, so that Maggie would find me and lure you to me to bring me out of hell for the last time, so that he would not be prepared for the return."
__ Munson took a deep breath and loosened his grip on Doug's collar. He smoothed the other man's shirt and placed a palm against his cheek. "If you can't just have faith, Douglas, you'll never understand anything."
__ As Munson and Maggie resumed their brisk walk, Douglas sniffed back a tear and forced his chin to stop quiverring. "Who?" he called after them.
__ Munson stopped and turned. His eyes were blue and warm. Doug could swear that wasn't their color earlier when they'd first met.
__ Doug repeated, "Who? When who returns."
__ Munson smiled and took a deep breath. "The first teacher, Doug."
__ "Teach—?"
__ "The Christ."

__ Ardy was starting to feel more clear, though somewhat loopy. Her head swam in big round circles and she no longer felt her arm and leg. In fact, her whole body was floating, waving like flotsam on a polluted creek ridge. Every time she looked at Dear Head she laughed at him.
__ "Vlagh ju rhunkus gungy," the Head said.
__ "Oh, shut up," Ardy said, and laughed again. "I can't even understand you."
__ Suddenly the creature stood and placed its bloody human hands to its animal head just under the devil horn antlers and pushed ceilingward. Ardy watched, wide-eyed, as the Deer Head peeled back off a bloody human face. As she watched, the head dropped behind the boy she now recognized as the Pizza King kid, the delivery boy from the shootout. Ardy realized the look she was giving him was one of saucer-eyed horror, but all she could do was bust out laughing.
__ "Now you shut up!" Pizza Boy said, peeling bits of gutted dear head and brains from his cheeks and nose. "If I hadn't hit this stupid thing and totalled the car, we'd be at the church by now!" Then his anger surged and he brought a crimson fist down on Ardy's bandaged broken arm.
__ Her laughter suddenly electrocuted by a white hot flash of agony, Ardy heaved and thrashed on the bed. That caused a chain reaction through her body, waking up her leg even through the tranquilizer and heavy drugs Legad administered that he had found in Munson's car. She quickly collapsed to a shudder and merciful unconsciousness.
__ Shuddering himself, more with anger and ferocious despair, Legad screamed until his lungs burned. Then he reared back and punched Ardy's body as hard as he could.
__ At least that's what he had planned to do. Someone grabbed his arm as he extended it backward and twisted it behind him until it snapped at the elbow. This time all Legad could do was whimper as his Master forced him to his knees.
__ "It seems I made a mistake choosing this vessel," the Master hissed with a shushing paper-tear voice that chilled even Ardy's unconscious spine. With that, the Master reached down and snapped an antler off the roadkill deer's head.
__ And pushed it into Legad's ear.

35. Talking to Deer Head (D1)

__ Ardy Jacobi dreamed she was being dragged to the edge of a glowing orange lake of fire. Freezing air burned her face, but her arms and legs were warm. In fact, her right leg and right arm, the ones held out to ward off the heat of the lake, were beginning to bleed smoke.
__ "No."
__ Thrashing from side to side, Ardy saw what was taking her to the lava pit. On the one side was R. Lee Munson brandishing the slippery grin of a mass murderer, just as she remembered the first time she saw him. The other shape belonged to Pizza Kid. His pimply expression was wild and lustful. And he was naked.
__ As she approached the lake, fire snapped and crackled from her shin and thigh. In just a couple of seconds her entire right leg was engulfed in searing flames.
__ "Don't! No, please! Don't!"


__ Though the pain in the dream was intense, and the circumstance increasingly urgent, Ardy felt herself wake slowly, groggily, and realized the pain was genuine and crackled without the snapping sound. But her right leg and arm weren't burning. They were broken and contorted. And, from what she could see in the hissing yellow glow of a Coleman gas lantern, they had been crudely splinted with curtain rods, a dirty two-by-four, and tied with torn sheets.
__ Delirious with agony, Ardy lolled her head and forced her eyes to focus on her surroundings. She didn't remember getting hit by the car. She only remembered being in Doug's Datsun, pulling over for some unknown reason, and running out into the snow. Now she was here.
__ "Where--?" She croaked. Her voice was weak and cracked, but she had to hear it to make sure she wasn't still dreaming. A pulsing cramp ached in the part of her thigh that didn't burn, but she dare not move it to get comfortable, if that were possible.
__ The place looked like some kind of windowless cabin. Dark red-brown plank wood made up the walls and ceiling. Cobwebs laced the air like the remaining filaments of nightmares. The only door was heavy oak but stood slightly ajar. Snow drifted in with tiny swirls on the hardwood floor. The bed Ardy currently occupied was musty smelling and the blankets under her body were itchy and oily at the same time, and its springs were large and uncomfortable through the thin mattress pad.
__ Despite the freak winter chill outside and the breeze coming through the slightly-open door, Ardy felt as though she were burning up. Her head pounded in time with the throbbing explosions of pain in her leg and arm. The pain and discomfort screamed and refused to let her make sense of what was going on around her or even recall the events of the day that lead her to this place. Her only calming thoughts were fleeting memories of the Kind Ones, the angels or whatever they were who touched her gently on the other side when she had died for a short time.
__ When was that? I died? Impossible.
__ That odd memory or delusion seemed to be the only strand of mental webs she could reach, so she concentrated as best she could on that. What on earth made me believe I was dead? Am I dead now, suffering and burning in hell--?
__ Then she remembered the other death, the one that wasn't hers. The one she "rode along" on. Who was that?
__ Then, as quickly as she was starting to remember, her visions faded away.
__ The oaken door creaked as it slowly opened.
__ Ardy's eyes alternately grew wide, then squinted, as she tried to focus on what was surely a living nightmare.
__ Into the cabin-room walked a creature with the body of a man, naked and muscular from the waist-up, with the head of a deer. The antlers on his head numbered six points and, to Ardy, resembled the horns of the devil.
__ Reflexively trying to scoot away from the creature as it reached out for her, Ardy felt a surge of pain peel through her insides from her ruined thigh, into her groin, and up into her chest.
__ Then she was mercifully unconscious.


__ Whatever it was that grabbed Doug Testerbird's pant leg had released it and withdrawn. Sure the trickster Alterling was baiting him somehow, he kicked angrily in the direction of the retreating gripper only to meet nothing but air.
__ "You're on your own, now, Douglas," came the paper-tear voice from somewhere far off to the right. "Try not to hurt her before you take her to Legad."
__ All Doug could do -- considering living through death, witnessing murder and despair, feeling the day and temperature give way to a freezing and frost-filled night in August -- was stare and scream. His yells echoed in the woods but his raspy-voiced friend was true to his word and did not take the bait.
__ "Please! Please! I need you." Knowing full well that he was beseeching an agent of God's own enemy, but feeling this evil shadow was the only thing that could help him find and rescue Ardy, Doug dropped to his knees and cried. He leaned back, bellowing to the treetops skirted with snow, "Please! I have to find her. Help me! Somebody, help me!"
__ "It'll b-be okay, D-D-Doug. N-N-Now that you're he-he-here."
__ The voice belonged to a young girl, her clicking teeth tapping out I'm freezing in Morse Code. She was behind the small arm that had gripped Doug and was now huddled next to a snow-covered, and apparently dead man and wrapped in the filthy jacket of another corpse rapidly becroming part of the snowscape nearby.
__ Doug stumbled back and fell against a tree before sliding down onto his rump. "W-Who are you?"
__ When the girl didn't answer right away, he persisted with, "Are you okay? Where are your parents?"
__ The girl coughed and said, "My name is M-Maggie. I don't have any parents."
__ Doug started to ask, "Then who--?" but Maggie cut him off.
__ "This is Mr. Munson. I think you know him."
__ If he wasn't already on the ground, the last comment would have knocked him there.
__ The girl seemed to warm with Doug's presence as he continued to grow colder. She stood and brushed herself off before turning to Munson's corpse to brush the snow out of his hair, off his shoulders, out of his ruined eye sockets--
__ "Don't," Doug commanded. He reached out to pull her away from the body. Who was this kid? How does she know R. Lee? Why isn't she scared out of her wits?
__ Must be demented, Doug reasoned as the girl retreated from his reach. She's lost it. Who wouldn't in all this? This crazy night?
__ "Please don't touch him. He's... He's not... umm."
__ "He's dead. I know that." Maggie stared down at Doug, then glanced to Munson's body as if to say, Well, aren't you going to do anything?
__ Doug eased off the ground but didn't rise higher than a squat. He waved a finger loosely in Munson's direction. "How-- H-How do you know--?"
__ "R. Lee Munson."
__ Doug nodded, stare vacant.
__ "He found me. He saved me from the crazy boy."
__ "C-Crazy boy? Who--?"
__ "The one who took your girlfriend. Ardelene."
__ Doug stood, almost hit his head on a low dark branch lost in the shadows of cris-crossing trees. "Ardelene?"
__ "Ardy to her friends," Maggie filled in, perplexed that she had to fill in so many blanks that Doug should already know.
__ "I-I know. She--"
__ "The crazy boy's got 'er. He drove off in Mr. Munson's car before you got here. Long before." She emphasized the time she spent waiting by brusquely rubbing warmth into her arms.
__ Doug stepped closer to her, crouched down to eye-level. "Tell me how you know these things."
__ Maggie shrugged. "After you wake up Mr. Munson."
__ Doug glanced at the body. "I can't do that. I don't--"
__ "Yes you can. You can do it just like you did it before, like you did it for Ardy."
__ "But I didn't--" Doug started to protest, swinging his arm back and brushing his fingertips inadvertently over Munson's cold hard shoulder. In that imperceivable instant, tiny jolts of lightning fired through Doug's fingernails and surged into the corpse. "--have anything to do with those things. It's Ardy. She's the--"
__ And that's when Munson drew his first breath in over an hour.

__ Ardy lay shaking, staring up at the dead black eyes of the deer-headed creature who sat next to her bed. Fear and pain, not the cold, had her head quivering and thrumming from side to side.
__ When she woke she found her good arm and leg were bound to the bed where she lay and a broken syringe lay on her stomach which heaved with each laborious breath.
__ The creature checked her pulse, pressed the back of a bloodied hand to her cheek to feel her temperature. It let out a short grunt of satisfaction but it showed no other emotion. Ardy was so out of it from the trauma of the accident she still wasn't believing her eyes. Having been to hell twice already, she was sure this was yet another layer of it.
__ "Who?" she croaked.
__ The creature twitched at her voice, leaned its deer snout closer as if to hear better. A drop of pussy blood dripped from a torn nostril and tapped her t-shirt just above her left breast. It made her wince and pinch her eyes shut. She tried to wish it away, tried to cry out from her soul for the warm loving spirits she knew before.
__ But when she opened her eyes, it was still there, silent and horrifying.
__ "P-Please. Who?" Ardy muttered through a sudden flow of hot tears. "Where am I?"
__ No reaction from Deer Head.
__ Going only by what she knew of the past insane 24 hours, Ardy did the only thing she could. She plead for her soul. She wept through the words, "I'm sorry. Please don't hurt me anymore. I-I'm so sorry."
__ The creature bellowed something from its throat that sounded like, "Muhr Maharmu!?"
__ Ardy flinched and cried out. Pain echoed through her bones as the Deer Head reared back, then forward again.
__ "Muhr Maharmu!? Mvoaw vahkum nahr mu!"
__ "No!"
__ Then Ardy's eye glimpsed a twinkle from another dangling snot in the creature's nose as the ambient light of the cabin were suddenly concentrated in that point for the purpose of catching her eye....
__ And drawing her in.
__ Within seconds, Ardy understood everything.