BLIND TRIAL Brian Deer (best novels for beginners TXT) 📖

A figure stood over her. A man. A man. She cried out, “What’s happening?”

Hissss.

“What on earth? What on earth?” Her voice was so weak.

“Shhhh.”

“Who’s that?”

Then the pillow.

She was raising her hands to her eyes when it dropped. A great weight fell on her face. She tried to twist her head, but the pressure only grew. More weight… and a terrible pain. A vast crushing load pressed down upon her chest. Somebody was kneeling on the bed.

Her left arm: trapped. She thrashed with her right. “Stop stop—stop stop—stop stop.”

But her cries were muffled. “Please stop! Who is it? Please stop! Please stop! Help me! Help!”

The knees gripped tighter—and tighter—and tighter. Her free hand snatched at an arm. It felt hard, slippery. She tried to scratch free. But her fingernails lacked any strength.

The mattress sagged under a vast crushing weight, as if her chest was pressed in a vice. “Somebody help me! Help me, help!”

She struggled to kick but was pinned.

It was useless, she was helpless. What on earth could she do? The pressure on her neck was too much. She struggled to breathe… suffocating… choking. She couldn’t get air. Need air…

Then muffled, through her writhing, she heard voices. Voices.

There were two of them. Two. Come to kill her.

“Get an arm. I need an arm.” That voice. That voice.

“For chrissake, use the leg.” A different voice.

“Hold the arm. I need the arm. Indeed, I do. I most certainly need the arm. Will you obtain the arm now? Now quickly.”

Doctorjee. Doctorjee. He’d come to kill her too. And another man with him. Two men.

She tried to twist sideways, but movement was impossible. “Please help me! Help me!”

But she knew.

A pause. Sweating. Through her cries, she heard footsteps. Then nothing but gasps. Her own gasps.

The knees moved a little, and the voices returned. “Need to keep her breathing longer. Get that part wrong and we’re fucked.”

“Thank you, please. I appreciate your advice. I know what I am doing, thank you, please.”

She arched her back and heaved against the weight.

She pushed and pushed. One last push. But no. Her bowels released.

“Do it now, for chrissake.”

If she could just get air…

A hand gripped her leg, then freed it.

“It must be the arm. Please hold her. Hold her… Good… Good. That’s excellent… Now then.”

She felt a sting: a stab in her shoulder.

What was that? What was that? He’d injected her. Injected her.

She screamed, unheard, into the pillow.

“That’s it. Don’t worry, don’t worry, Doctor Mayr. I feel certain before long you’ll be grateful.”

Now the pressure was lightening. The vice was opening. But her arms stayed pinned. And still the pillow.

“There, there… There, there… Sleep well, Dr. Mayr… Sleep well, dear Trudy… That’s excellent.”

Her heart thumped. No struggle. The worst was past. Better. The mattress rose like a tide. Then the pillow returned—so soft—beneath her head. She was turning… turning sideways… to the right.

Her body was turning… That was better, it was passing… She must be having a nightmare, that’s all. She felt cooler, calmer, sleepy, relaxed. A cool cloth dabbing her face.

“There, there, Trudy, that’s good… That’s good… Aren’t you feeling much better now? Aren’t you?”

“Look, we gotta move this thing. You sure you got it nailed here?” The other voice, low, far away.

“Why not count for me, yes? One… two… three… You’re going somewhere better, believe me.”

She felt light, so light. And relieved. At last. She felt blown, like high-flying cirrus. A wonderful summer’s day, with air so thick, and the swing on the porch a delight.

“Four… Five… Six… That’s excellent.”

Mom smiling from the swing, but Trudy had her tree house, high in the arms of a live oak. Tomorrow she’d go scouting, down to Buxton Wood: loblollies, maples, and ironwoods.

“Nine… Ten… Eleven… Most commendable.”

Carol could come. They’d drive and drive… Carol’s hair blowing… And laughing.

People were clapping and murmuring, “Dr. Mayr.” People were calling her doctor. Her mother would be home, and she was feeling so light. A big book opened. Her name was in it.

Wind rustled yaupon, skittered sand in wax myrtle. Terns and gulls hopped in spent waves.

She was casting off the ferry, the engine growling, turning across the calm of the inlet.

Ghost crabs, scuttling… It was dark… It was night… The wind… And again, it was day.

She was sailing, gliding across Pamlico Sound, sparkling in brilliant sun.

And now it was fading. The light was retreating. Without sunset. Without orange. To a point.

She was floating through a tunnel: a barge beneath a bridge.

Now the light was far away.

And was gone.

SUNDAY JULY 27

Fifty-five

DAWN. But the chorus was already faltering under a sky turned mockingbird gray. Blue jays perched silent in oak holes and cedar eaves. Titmouses didn’t whistle from dogwoods. Only the common grackles—iridescent, oil-slick black—were unfazed by the prospect of rain.

On Piedmont Avenue, a dozen-strong flock squabbled on the park’s border lawns. They stabbed damp grass for worms and bugs and peered with snake-yellow eyes. Tschaak-tschaak, they clucked like demons cursing. Tschaak-tschaak… Tschaak-tschaak-tschaak.

The grackles fluttered, leapfrogging one another, as Ben Louviere stumbled past on the sidewalk. Tschaak-tschaak… What’s this? Tschaak-tschaak… And there was more: a battered gray automobile followed him. It cruised in the wake of the unwary pedestrian, as soft as a stalking cat. It rumbled down the hill from where the big buildings towered. Many grackles had died this way.

The car slowed, and slowed again, to the pace at which he walked. A window scraped down with a grind. Inside: two females, tired-eyed and nervous. The passenger—a blond girl—waved.

He pressed his palms together and touched them to his cheek in a movement from prayer to pillow. The females frowned… the window scraped shut… and the car gathered speed to Monroe Drive.

ALL KINDS of cat crept Ericson Vale. Behind yellow brick walls, red doors, and green awnings lurked Tabbies, Burmese, even a Munchkin. They were all that stirred after sunrise Sunday, save the occasional returning clubber like himself. Below the concrete walkway outside his apartment, the pool lay calm, a can floating on the water. A