25. Little Maggie May (D1)

__ Doug slowed as the rain beat harder against the yellow Datsun. "I have to stop."
__ Ardy leaned forward and squinted out the window. "Not a bad idea. If you keep going, you're libel to run off the bridge from the other side."
__ He pulled over and slid the car into park but left the motor running.
__ "It'll slow down soon," Ardy said hopefully. The sky answered with a roar of thunder and a blistering flash of lightning.
__ In the bang, both Doug and Ardy got a clear photo-flash of the canopies of Palley's Woods around them. They were closer to Munson and neither had to be psychic to feel it.
__ "I don't like it," Doug said as if just remembering they were tracking a sadistic killer.
__ "He's not like that anymore," Ardy said, reading him. "I promise."
__ "How can you promise that?"
__ Ardy looked out the window and traced the rivulets of rainwater with her eyes. "It's hard to explain."
__ Doug studied his hands on the steering wheel for a moment, then relaxed and rested them in his lap after killing the Datsun's engine. Only the sound of rain like loud static filled the car's interior. He said, "I don't know what to think."
__ Ardy reached over and touched his hand lightly. Then she took her hand in his and squeezed. "You have to trust me."
__ "I do, Ardy. I do." Their eyes met. It was one of those movie moments where the couple leans in and kisses. Maybe they both knew that, but neither felt it. They may have wanted to but something much larger than them was at work here.
__ Lightning flashed again and on the road ahead Ardy glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. It was a girl, a little girl in jeans and a sodden pink top. Her face was sallow, pale, and her eyes were deep and dark.
__ She stood staring in at them. She was right in front of the car.
__ Ardy screamed. Doug jumped and yelled.
__ "What!? What!" He looked ahead but saw nothing but the rain.
__ "There!" Ardy screamed pointing into the same raining dark where Doug was looking.
__ But the girl was gone.
__ Ardy took several deep hitching breaths, her hand on her chest. Her eyes darted from side to side, straining to re-form what she could swear was there a moment ago.
__ Another flash of lightning illuminated nothing but the rain-dotted blacktop and the woods beyond.
__ "Ardy?" Doug leaned forward to peer into her eyes but she was avoiding his gaze, still seeking the phantom child in the night.
__ "Sh-She's gone."
__ "Who?"
__ "She was there -- The little girl."
__ Doug studied the night. There was nothing but the dark and the angry storm.


__ R. Lee Munson finished his dark and gritty work. The shovel lay aside in a muddy slop of grunge that was once a living, breathing human being. Clye Morrow lay rumpled and as dead as he was when Munson killed him the previous night.
__ "Well, Clye, here we are." Lightning flashed and illuminated Clye's open flat milky eyes. The dead lawyer taunted him from whatever hell had swallowed him. Munson felt only sorrow and pity. He knew, after all, first-hand what Clye was feeling now. The man's soul was trapped in a hell of his own making, void of love, void of sanity.
__ "I'm sorry, Clye. I purely am."
__ The next flash of lightning illuminated a tattered ragamuffin in a sodden pink shirt and soaked bluejeans. The girl's blond hair was dirty and plastered to her pale face. Her dark eyes were wide and focused on Clye's body over Munson's shoulder.
__ If he would have turned slightly to the left he would have seen her approach.
__ The child lost in the storm.


__ After Ardy finally calmed down, Doug listened as she described the little girl. She finished with a glare, "You believe me, don't you?"
__ "Ardy, after last night I find it impossible to not believe anything." Doug scanned the night. The lightning didn't cooperate, didn't show the road, the forest around them, or the lost little girl in a pink shirt. "I don't see her, but I believe you saw her."
__ Ardy took a deep breath. "Go."
__ "What?"
__ "Go. Just go."
__ "But--"
__ She pointed up the road, "We're close, Doug. Please, just go."
__ "But what about--?"
__ "She's with R. Lee. I didn't actually see her. I felt her."
__ "Gotcha." Doug started the Datsun, pulled it into gear, and sped off leaving a muddy toss of gravel in his wake.


__ Munson stood and lifted the shovel off Clye's corpse. "Well, all we gotta do now is wait for the miracle touch to come bring you back. Then you and I got to talk."
__ The lights from Munson's car, which had been dimly lighting the forest around him with a rain-sparked haze of light, now danced slightly. The sound of a car door clunked in the storm.
__ "What the--?"
__ The car started, its headlamps dimming as the battery power shifted from the lights to the starter. The engine turned and revved.
__ "Who is it!? Ardy? Bird tester?" He hefted the shovel like a weapon, but only intended to use it in self-defense. "Who's there!" he called.
__ By answer, the car stereo cranked on and blasted "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts.
__ Munson slowly approached the driver's side, deciding not to call out again. Neither Doug nor Ardy would find him here and start up his car. Come to think about it.... Nobody would.
__ As he approached the door, he saw a small sallow face peering out at him in the green glow of the dash lights.
__ It was a little girl, probably no more than ten or eleven. She was mouthing the words to the song and slowly swaying side to side as she stared at him with eyes so dark he couldn't be certain if they were looking at him or through him.
__ "W-Who are you?"
__ She started to giggle and rock from side to side. Then she hit the door lock switch.
__ Munson dropped the shovel and slapped his palms against the glass. "Open the door!"
__ The girl sang louder, her voice nearly lost in the vibrating churn of music inside. Her eyes were closed tight as she screamed the words, "My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you wanted to...."
__ Munson pounded on the windows and cried out, "PLEASE!"
__ But the girl sang on, the day stormed on in the darkness, and Munson's screams echoed up and up into the trees and the unforgiving forest of death.