24. Three Hunters (D1)

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


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

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

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

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

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