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.