Randy White - Deceived

I replied, “Go to hell!” then turned and tried to run, wanted to follow the bright corridor of headlights through the cemetery into the trees. Alice Candor was fit for her age, but it would be easy enough to lose her-I wasn’t invulnerable, despite what the drug was telling me, but I was fast. After that, I could double back to the safety of my SUV-use my cell phone, once I’d found it, or flag down a car.

Trouble was, I couldn’t run. I took two or three wobbly strides but had to stop.

“Tired already, dear?” Dr. Candor was only a few yards behind, mocking me, her shadow huge on the ground as projected by the headlights of my SUV.

No, I wasn’t tired. I felt fearless and euphoric, but my legs had lost contact with my brain. The sensation was like being drunk and trying to escape through a vat of syrup. I tried running again… stumbled, then had to grab at something to steady myself-a grave marker, I realized. When I felt the coldness of the stone, the memory of Birdy falling on a grave flickered through my mind. She had said something about not being superstitious, which I had ignored because I was more concerned about the pumpkin-sized mound of sand next to her.

Where was it?

My eyes began to search. There had been several of those mounds in the cemetery, and I didn’t want to make the mistake of stepping in one.

Behind me, Candor was experiencing a mood swing. “You’re as pathetic as that idiotic police bitch. Any idea how disgusting it was for me… me … to add a goddamn smiley face to a text? Like some airheaded mall twat. I graduated cum laude from Johns Hopkins!” The woman laughed, astounded by her own behavior but smart enough to appreciate the irony.

When she said that, I stood and faced her but had to shield my eyes because of the headlights. “Where’s Birdy?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The sheriff’s deputy,” I said. “Did you give her the same thing? What’s in that needle?”

Some warmth came into the woman’s voice. “You like it, don’t you?”

I had to cough to clear my throat. “I’ve never felt this way before. Where’s Birdy?”

“Miss your little friend, huh? I can take you to her. Would you like that? All you have to do is roll up your sleeve.”

“Is she hurt?”

“Of course not! She had some… Christ!… some episode about an Indian graveyard-a type of transference hysteria-so I had to sedate her. Perfectly legal, and it was for her own good.” The woman came a step closer. “You’ll feel much better in a second. I promise .”

In silhouette, the syringe Candor held stood erect at face level, in contrast to the curvature of her hair, which was pinned back and businesslike, suitable for a physician who was making rounds. I touched a hand to the gravestone to confirm my location, then took two slow steps back while replying, “Those headlights are blinding me. I’ll do it, but I want to know what you’re giving me first.”

Alice Candor followed, my tone triggering another mood swing. “Shut up, goddamn it, or I’ll stick you in the throat again!”

Because I had expected to spend the evening at Dinkin’s Bay, I was wearing jeans and a favorite blouse-a cross-dyed long-sleeve with Navaho patterns, copper and desert primrose. I braced my thigh against another gravestone and unbuttoned my left cuff. “You’ll have to come to me,” I said. “I feel like I might pass out.”

It wasn’t true.

I WAS EVEN MOREunsteady now, but the weird euphoria I’d felt had been transformed-transformed into fear because I knew the doctor was lying and I had to do something. Birdy Tupplemeyer wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t have allowed someone to use her phone to trick me and she certainly wouldn’t have given Candor the keys to her new BMW.

Alice Candor, who had graduated cum laude , believed me, however. She waited until my sleeve was rolled high to come a few steps closer, the hypodermic in her right hand while she used her left to reach for my wrist. I remained passive until her fingers made contact, then everything changed. I jumped away from the arc of the hypodermic and, at the same instant, grabbed the doctor by the left arm and pulled her off balance. There was a slingshot effect that allowed me to swing the woman in a circle while my fingers anchored themselves in her wrist. Candor gave a whoop of surprise; she screamed, but I held tight and continued to spin, using my weight as a fulcrum-a children’s game of crack the whip. My dizziness wasn’t a handicap in such a game and I wasn’t playing.

Two full circles was all it took before the woman’s legs went out and she was launched face-first toward the ground. As Candor fell, I tried to yank her toward a mound of sand I had seen earlier. It wasn’t a direct hit, and maybe not close enough, even though the mound was huge-pumpkin-sized.

Now dizziness was a handicap. If I had been able, I would have run to my SUV. I couldn’t, but I also couldn’t risk the possibility that Candor had held on to the hypodermic. So I dropped my knees onto her back, which knocked the wind out of her-what wind was left anyway. Candor rasped out profanities and battled to get to her feet while I battled to get control of her arms.

Did she still have that damn hypodermic? The woman had landed in shadows behind the gravestone and I couldn’t see.

Yes- she had it. But the doctor was shrewd enough to wait until she had wormed to her side before swinging it like a dagger. The first blow hit me in the abdomen. The sensation of a needle piercing muscle was more frightening than the pain and I knocked her hand away before she had time to press the plunger. She swung again, but I caught her wrist this time and held tight.

I wasn’t going to give her another chance. The only weapon I had was a few feet away, so I used my free hand to grab Dr. Alice Candor by the hair and dragged her to the sand mound. Still holding her wrist, I forced the woman’s face deep into the sand and she instantly dropped the hypodermic. Even so, I wasn’t foolish enough to reach for the needle and I held her there for only a few seconds… then I crawled away in a rush.

A fire ant nest was not a place to linger.

I was staggering toward the lights of my SUV when the screaming started. I glanced over my shoulder and didn’t want to look again. As I had told Birdy Tupplemeyer, fire ants attack in mass, their bites like burning coals. Dr. Candor was covered with them, her face a crawling mask of black. She was running in crazy circles while she clawed at her eyes and shrieked for help.

The woman tried to abduct you, even kill you, I reminded myself. Maybe she killed Birdy.

I couldn’t convince myself to leave her, though. It wasn’t in me. I couldn’t abandon a person who was terrified and in pain-even someone like Alice Candor. People died from fire ant bites.

When I felt a series of stings on my left ankle, it was a reminder. I slapped the ants off my shoe, then went staggering toward the doctor, calling, “I’ll help-stop running!” But I was thinking, You’re a fool, Hannah Smith… a fool.

No doubt about it, because, moments later, a van roared into the clearing-a commercial van with only one headlight and pulling machinery.

The driver was Harris Spooner, his ZZ Top beard angelic silver when he leered at me through an open window. Walkin’ Levi Thurloe was beside him, riding shotgun while staring straight ahead.

The machinery they were towing was the tire shredder.

Harris Spooner was in a rage but speaking to someone in authority so tried to sound respectful as he said into a phone, “I know… I know, but shit happens. If she hadn’t swung at me, she’d still be alive. And now Dr. Candor is having a reaction ’cause of them damn ant bites. Eyes all swollen-gezzus, a mess. So it’s not like she can give the woman a shot and bring her back to life.”