21. Wrong Turn to Redemption (D1)

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