An alarmingly ugly guy with thick lips said, “We’ll give the girl a ride.” Addressing Rachel, he said, “Hey chica, you want a little strange? Climb in. We’ll give you a ride you won’t never forget!”
“Back off, fuck wad,” Rachel said. “Or my fiancé will kick your ass.”
The ugly guy’s eyelids were at half-mast. He showed me a dull, vacant stare. “That right, pops?”
“Move along,” I said.
“You believe this shit?” he said to someone in the back seat. “Bitch turning down our sweet ride. Pops prob’ly got a Oldsmobile nearby. Maybe we drive around, see we can find it. Maybe we torch that motherfucker for you, eh pops?”
I returned his stare. “Like the lady said: I want a ride, I’ll kick your ass and take your car.”
The scumbags in the car erupted like Springer’s audience when Jerry trots out the trailer trash. There were numerous threats hurled in our direction, and someone in the back seat on the far side—a kid with a colorful bandana—lifted himself out the window and aimed a gun at me sideways.
It was dusk, but not too dark for me to get a good look at the piece.
“Be careful with that thing,” I said.
“Ha! You ain’t so brave now, are you, pops?”
“Braver,” I said. “That piece of shit gun is all wrong. No way it fires without blowing up in your face.”
“You want, I’ll shoot it now.”
“I’d pay to see that,” I said, “but I got a question.”
“What’s that, asshole?”
“You think your friends will take your body to the hospital, or just dump you here on the road?”
The kid looked at his gun.
“Fuck you!” he said, and climbed back in the car.
The driver said, “Another time, pops.”
“What’s wrong with right now?” I said.
“Another time.”
He hoisted his arm out the window and gave us the finger. They laughed and roared away.
“You think they’ll come back?” Rachel said.
“I hope so,” I said.
Chapter 3
THE YOUNG MAN was lying on his back on a sand dune thick with saw grass. Few people knew him. Those who did called him D’Augie.
D’Augie had followed Creed and Rachel from a careful distance. When D’Augie saw them speaking, he knew they were about to turn and head back to the bed and breakfast, which is why he got a running start and dove into the sand dune, face first. After waiting a moment, he rolled onto his back and heard a car full of punks pull up to the couple, heard what sounded like smack talk, but he was too far away to discern the words. When the car drove noisily away, D’Augie kept still, slowed his breathing, and relaxed his body until it virtually melted into the sand dune. He touched the knife in his pocket with his right hand.
He’d be using it soon.
Lying on the sand dune, D’Augie was, for all intents and purposes, invisible. The breeze coming off the ocean blew sand crystals into his face, but D’Augie didn’t twitch. He was one with nature, and nothing had the power to affect him.
D’Augie began a mental chant: Lay here, wait till they pass, then jump up and kill Creed. Lay, wait, jump, kill. Lay, wait, jump -
Some type of insect—an ant, probably—found an unguarded whisper of skin above one of his socks and began crawling up his leg.
Unfortunate, D’Augie thought, but hardly a threat to my willpower.
D’Augie knew Creed and Rachel were approaching the part of the road he’d occupied moments earlier. It wouldn’t be long, a minute maybe.
D’Augie’s pants were baggy, and he was wearing boxers—a combination of clothing that provided the insect a bare-skinned freeway all the way to his waist, should it care to journey that far. D’Augie wasn’t dwelling on it, but he seemed to feel every step the insect made as it crawled past his knee and up his thigh.
Within seconds, a dozen more insects formed a line and began a steady march up his leg. D’Augie ignored them until there were more than thirty of the bastards crawling all over his testicles. He was finding it increasingly harder to remain one with nature. He wanted to scream, wanted to jump to his feet, throw off his clothes, and get the fuck off the sand dune.
But he couldn’t. Creed and Rachel had been making steady progress, and were practically on top of him. He could hear their footsteps on the asphalt. To be precise, he heard only Rachel’s feet, since Creed moved over the pavement as soundlessly as D’Augie himself had moved earlier.
D’Augie strained to hold his position. If he could remain perfectly still for another thirty seconds he could escape detection. Creed and Rachel would pass him, then D’Augie could spring up and catch Creed by surprise, slice his throat, and decide what to do with Rachel after ridding himself of these goddamned insects.
But Creed and Rachel didn’t walk past him. They stopped just short of his position.
Shit!
Could they have noticed him?
D’Augie didn’t think so. Though he was a scant fifteen feet from the road, it was practically dark and the saw grass where he lay was nearly three feet high. The sea oat clusters all around him were bending in the breeze, providing additional camouflage.
So no, they couldn’t have seen him.
But something made them stop.
D’Augie felt another wave of insects crawl up his leg. How many more, he wondered. Fifty? A hundred?
Too many to count.
He heard Creed and Rachel kiss.
Then—Oh my God!—suddenly his nuts were on fire!
Christ, it hurt.
It felt—
Christ, Almighty!
It felt like someone had built a fire in his lap and sent a bunch of bees to put it out.
The pain was horrific. D’Augie’s body started to twitch and tremble. His face contorted involuntarily. His eyes became slits, and his upper lip peeled away, exposing his entire top row of teeth. D’Augie bit his lower lip so hard he drew blood. Then he opened and closed his mouth, faster and faster, raising and lowering his teeth, sinking them into his mangled lip again and again—until he realized this activity was only making things worse.
Lying there with his upper teeth exposed, clenched against his lower lip, D’Augie imagined he looked like a lounge lizard doing the “white man overbite” dance. Except that he wasn’t dancing. He’d love to be dancing, hopping around, squishing the bugs—but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t move because he knew he couldn’t beat Creed from the front. He wanted to move. Had to move! But he couldn’t. D’Augie squeezed his eyelids together, and tears poured out, slid down the sides of his face, pooled in his ears.
The pain was intolerable.
Other-worldly.
D’Augie was being eaten alive.
What the fuck kind of bugs were these? It was as if they’d burrowed a centimeter into his flesh and laid a dozen acid eggs. Then the eggs exploded into flame at the same time. This was worse than bee stings, a million times worse, because it wasn’t a “one and done” burn. No, these little fuckers tore into his skin like shark on chum. They bit and kept on biting or stinging or whatever the hell they were doing to him and he was trembling and shaking and chattering his teeth and—
And his nuts were swelling at an alarming rate, which seemed only to serve the purpose of creating a larger area to accommodate the reinforcement bugs. The more they bit, the more his nuts swelled, and this ever-expanding battlefield encouraged a hundred more insects to join the assault.
Get out of here! he silently screamed to Creed. For the love of God, keep walking down the road!
The woman said, “Kevin, let’s do it right here.”
What?
No! D’Augie thought. Please God, don’t let them do it right here! Twenty feet. Do it twenty feet down the road. Give me twenty feet and I’ll kill them before they get their pants off.
Creed said, “Best offer I’ve had all day. But there’s gravel on the road, and possibly broken glass. You might get cut.”
D’Augie didn’t know why she was calling Creed Kevin, and he didn’t care. All he could think about was how his nuts were twice their normal size and how the motherfuckers wouldn’t stop stinging him. His testicles hurt so bad he almost didn’t feel the insects stinging the rest of his privates.
Almost didn’t.
Holy Shit!
D’Augie’s insides began churning. He needed to vomit. Started to vomit, but swallowed back the bile. The contents of his stomach lurched, preparing for a second attempt. D’Augie realized he was having an allergic reaction to the venom from the bites or stings. Itchy welts were forming on his face and forehead. His upper chest throbbed. His throat started closing up. His eyelids fluttered. Barely conscious, slipping fast, he heard Rachel say:
“We could fuck on one of these sand dunes!”
…And heard Creed answer:
“Not in a million years.”
…And Rachel:
“Why not?”
…And Creed:
“Fire ants.”
…And then D’Augie passed out.
Chapter 4
“YOU HEAR THAT?” I said.
“What, the ocean?” Rachel said.
“More like something in the dune. You got a flashlight in your purse?”
“No. Wait, I’ve got a mini light on my car keys, will that work?”
I waited while she unsnapped the light, then took it from her.
“Stay here,” I said.
I moved through the near-darkness, found the man lying on the sand dune. I kicked his ribs. No response. I leaned over him, flashed her mini light on his face.
“What’s there?” Rachel said.
“A kid. Young man, early twenties.”
“Is he dead?”
“Dead or dying. His body’s crawling with fire ants.”
“You think he’s in shock?” she said, looking at him over my shoulder.
“Shock?”
“Anaphylactic shock. Like maybe he’s having an allergic reaction?”
“Could be,” I said. I grabbed his collar and dragged him to the side of the road.
Rachel fumbled in her purse a couple of seconds and pulled something out.
“What’s that?” I said.
“An EpiPen. It’s for allergic reactions.”
She handed me the pen and I gave her the mini light. She said, “There’s a syringe inside. Take the cap off, hold the pen in your fist, and jab it in his thigh till you hear a click. Then hold it there for ten seconds.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“A thousand times.”
“Really?”
“No. But I read the directions.”
I yanked his pants down to his knees.
“Ten seconds?” I said. “Any magic to that number?”
“That’s how long it takes to enter the bloodstream and get absorbed by the muscles.”
“You got your cell phone handy?”
She did, and used it to call 911. I injected as she calmly gave the dispatcher our location and explained the patient’s condition.
“We gave him a dose of epinephrine,” she said, “and we’re about to start CPR.”
That sounded like a good idea to me, so I slapped the fire ants off the kid’s clothes as best I could, then his face. Then I tore his shirt open and killed a bunch more of them, and started CPR.
“Pull his shorts off,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Rachel said.
“Strip him down. He’s literally crawling with fire ants. We’ve got to get them off his body.”
Rachel put the pen light in her teeth and tugged his boxers off.
“Jesus Christ!” she said.
“What?”
She aimed the beam at his crotch, and I looked at the kid’s nuts. They were swollen to the size of avocados and covered with red, circular welts.
And scores of fire ants.
“Slap the ants off his dick,” I said.
She raised her hand tentatively, poised to strike, then started to retch.
“How about we trade places,” she gasped.
“His mouth’s kind of mangled,” I warned.
“Still,” Rachel said.
We traded places. She gave him CPR, and I slapped the kid’s crotch and thighs like they owed me money. When Rachel paused a moment, I pushed him on his side and slapped the ants on his back and ass for good measure. Then I eased him onto his back and she started in again with the CPR.
“That was so creepy,” Rachel said, while pumping the kid’s chest.
“Creepy?”
“His nuts.”
“Uh huh.”
“You ever see anything that creepy?” she said.
“The Grady Twins.”
“The Grady twin boys?”
“Girls.”
“Hmpf,” Rachel said.
We worked on him till the ambulance arrived. While the two-man crew checked him out, I shook out his pants and shorts, and a large buck knife fell out and skittered across the pavement. I retrieved the knife and put it in my pocket. Then I put his clothes in a ball and tossed them on the front seat. While one of the EMS guys covered the kid in a blanket, the other took down some contact information from Rachel. They placed him in the ambulance, thanked us, and rushed him to the hospital.
Rachel and I stood still a minute before resuming our walk.
“You get stung?” I said.
“I don’t think so.”
“You’d know if you had.”
“I guess. How about you?” she said.
“I’d feel better if we patted each other down.”
She laughed. “You’re just looking for an excuse to touch my boobs.”
“How easily you see through me.”
We brushed each other’s clothing in the dark until satisfied we weren’t transporting any ants to the B&B, then started walking.
“You were fantastic back there,” I said.
“When?”
“The whole time.”
“Tell me.”
“You knew what to do, and you never hesitated. You were completely lucid and rational.”
Dusk had become night, and though I couldn’t see it, I’m sure she smiled.
“I have my moments,” Rachel said.
We were quiet a while. I finally asked, “How’d you happen to have the syringe?”
“I carry it in my purse all the time.”
I knew this to be untrue. Until just recently, Rachel and her husband, Sam, had lived in a huge house in Louisville, Kentucky. Unbeknownst to Rachel, I’d lived in their attic off and on for the past two years, during which time I’d routinely gone through her purse and their medicine cabinets, documenting every detail of their lives, checking their medications. I knew Rachel’s medical history, or thought I did.
“How long have you been carrying this particular syringe?” I said.
“I got it in Savannah, at the drugstore.”
“Don’t you need a prescription?”
“Not when you’ve got a smile like mine!”
I knew about the smile. What I didn’t know was if she’d been planning to kill me with the syringe.
“Why’d you get it?” I said. “Seriously.”