Now, sitting at the table in the tidy, sun-filled kitchen of Kelly's apartment (and, as he was still reminding himself, his apartment) Emmit sipped a steaming mug of coffee and scratched the itching flesh around his ankle monitor. House arrest really wasn't such a bad punishment, Emmit thought, given what he had done. He could still hear Judge Newland's stern voice booming down at him.
"While I don't condone your decision," he had said, his rat's nest eyebrows lowering, "I can't say that I don't understand it. Desperate times make desperate people. It hasn't escaped me that you have an exemplary record, and from what I've heard from the witnesses’ testimony, you were a... reluctant bank robber. Considering that sentiment, and given the suffering that resulted from your actions, I hereby sentence you to one year of house arrest and two years’ probation. While serving your sentence you are ordered to wear an ankle monitor at all times."
He had slammed the gavel down and then added, "Sort your life out, son. I wish you the best."
Emmit was allowed to apply for jobs, and he had even been granted the privilege of traveling to and from work if he got one— but strictly nowhere else. It was, after all, his punishment. Emmit took it gladly. Truthfully, after the atrocities he'd seen in Hell and the butchery he had been forced to commit himself, there was nowhere else he wanted to go anyway.
He had just finished filling out an online application for the Precision Cut steel mill on the outskirts of town when he heard Kelly's keys jostling against the apartment door. She came in carrying a plastic shopping bag, which she held up proudly for Emmit to inspect.
"Vegetarian sausage and some black bean burgers for you," she said, beaming. In the months since leaving the hospital, Emmit had become a vegetarian. Kelly had understood the decision once he’d finally opened up to her about Pup and the "Providers".
This morning had been their new typical. Deacon had had another emotional meltdown because he didn't want to leave his father again, not even to go to school. Emmit had finally convinced him to go by promising bloody video game battles and a scary movie before bed, ignoring the disapproving stare his wife was shooting at him. It killed him that he couldn't be the one to drive his boy to the front walk of the elementary school and walk him to class hand-in-hand, but for now, that was one of the prices he had to pay. He was grateful just to be alive and sharing his new life with the family he’d almost lost.
"So," Kelly said, pouring herself a cup of black coffee and sliding into the chair next to him, "I've been listening to some podcasts about N.D.E's, and I think that's what you had. Although no one I've heard so far has told me a story like yours."
Emmit snorted.
"You don't say."
She narrowed her eyes at him over her mug.
"I'm just trying to understand what happened to you, it's... it's scary, Emmit. You really think you went to Hell?"
He shrugged, digging at his ankle again and feeling unease eating away at his morning appetite. He had found it therapeutic to tell someone his story, but now that it was told, he was finding it increasingly difficult to relive it again and again. Sometime soon, he planned to ask Kelly to never mention it again. The recurring night terrors would ensure he never forgot it, but he could control their daytime conversations, to a certain extent, anyway.
"I died doing a bad thing, Kel. Maybe it's not the Hell of the Bible, but it definitely was not a place I ever want to visit again. Roy… I think he was like, an anomaly. I think you're supposed to be lost there, scared and freezing and suffering, until those things come to claim you. Claim your soul. But Roy was different, he was smart enough to make a life there. A glitch in the design, I guess. It seems that God isn't so perfect after all."
"Roy," she said, shivering at the mention of his name. It was a short and simple moniker, much like the man’s brutal mindset had been. When Emmit had told her the story, describing the hulking murderer with his black handprint for a face, she had thought Roy was the scariest of them all. Even scarier than the dead things or Poke. "These people, you actually think they were real? Even the ones you—"
Emmit waved his hand, slicing her words off mid-sentence.
"I don't want to think about what I had to do. It bothers me how badly I wanted to... hurt them. But yes; Roy, Poke, Muddy... The Rev, Pup. I think they were all lost souls like me, who just got lucky enough to find a safe place. If you could call it that."
Kelly looked thoughtful for a moment, then gestured to Emmit's phone lying on the table.
"Let's find out then. Maybe if you search for their names or obituaries, and add in some keywords, you might be able to find out if they really were real."
Emmit was stupefied. Why hadn't he thought of that? He had expected Kelly to at least doubt the validity of his claim, he was still struggling to believe it. But now he might have a way to back it up. He wasn’t completely sure he wanted concrete proof. Sometimes, late at night when the dreams woke him and he found himself bawling and clutching Kelly like a life preserver, he could still lie to himself that it had all been a hallucination brought on by his trauma.
He opened his phone's web browser and typed "Roy Hitman Death", then pressed GO.
It took some
