The Tall Man fell to the ground.
He moaned weakly for several moments. A stange warmth and relaxation spread from his heart throughout every muscle of his body, as if barbed puppet strings that had bound him to something unspeakable for far to long had finally been released from his flesh. When he finally got to his feet, he seemed smaller somehow, but his face was free of pain and rage for the first time in a century and a half. It was the face, not of the Tall Man, but of Jebadiah Morningside. He gazed at his hands in amazement, which had been bleeding yellow where they had been grazed by buckshot from Reggie's shotgun. They were now bleeding red again.
"My hands." He murmured. "They're warm again. The pain, the cold... they're gone. Everything is gone." Jebadiah suddenly closed his eyes, and tears fell down his face. "My hands, I've hurt so many... killed so many with these hands."
He looked at Mike, whose wounds were now bleeding red again as well. "Boy? No, your name is... MIke... Can you forgive me for what I have done, Mike?"
Mike did not know what to say. He had suffered do much at the hands of what Jebadiah had been. Before he could think what to say, someone answered for him. "It's alright, my freind. It was not your fault."
Lucy. Only she had changed as well. No longer was she a pale as the Tall Man had been, and though bllod still flowed from the roof of her mouth, it was red as well.
"Lucy?" Jebediah looked at her. "But, you died. How can you be here?"
She grinned in her sassy way. "Only the part of me that was Or'b died, Jebadiah. But I haven't been entirely Or'b for a very long time. Not since you gave me your sort of life, your sort of soul, when you gave me your child."
"My child?" He looked at her in amazement as she put his hand on her belly.
"Our child. It could not grow while part of me was still Or'b. But now it will be born very soon."
"Our child." Jebadiah closed his eyes. "I only wish I could see it. But I'm dying. God, I'm afraid of the dark." Lucy placed her cheek on his. "Don't be afraid, Jebadiah. Your child will someday join you in heaven."
"Heaven." He opened his eyes again. The sky was blue and the ground was green. Had he gone back to Earth to die? "But, you said I wouldn't exist."
"No, my friend. You said that. I simply let you believe it. You would not have beleived the truth."
"No. Can I still go to heaven, after the things I've done.?" Or would he go to a worse place than this. "Beleive it. Look around Jebediah. What do you see?"
He gazed at the green land around him, and then beyond it. "It's my house. And my garden. Is that...heaven.?"
"Yes. It is my gift to you, to repay you for what you have suffered here."
"But what about you?" He gripped her hand. "You're Or'b. What will happen when you die?"
"I was once a part of Or'b. I'm human now. I'll see you again, where you are going. It won't be too long. Only 50 or 60 years." She smiled. When that happened she would be so much more than she ever had been before. In the meantime, there were so many things to learn. "It's time, Jebadiah."
"Time?"
"Yes. Close your eyes. Now you may finally complete the journey you started so long ago."
Jebadiah trembled. This was so much more than he expected, than he deserved. His eyes closed, and Reggie, Mike and Lucy watched as a sphere formed above his still form. A sphere, not of cold metal, but of warm glowing light, that outshone even the new sun. It floated up, drifting past the three of them, as if to apologize and say goodbye, and then it sped into the bright sky.