18. Lazarus (D1)

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


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


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