Excerpt from In Due Season
Middy's Journal II:
She kept her warden’s watch over me. I remembered my training…don’t do anything to antagonize the guy with the gun.
Actually, the guy with the gun also had my duty belt spread across the hood of the car. With longing I looked at my stun gun, mace, pepper spray, binoculars, and the empty pockets that once held my flashlight, gloves, Swiss army knife, alarm, spare ammo, and the handcuffs that she was swinging back and forth in front her that were probably destined to become my jewelry accessories. I might just as well been looking at a layout of my slacks, sweater, bra and panties, because with this crazy woman in possession of all my defense equipment, I felt absolutely naked.
As though we were two gals on an adventure, I brushed off my face with the back of my hand and said as casually as possible, “Well, where to next, partner?”
She jerked around and leaned over the hood of the car and waggled Snubby back and forth at me. “What the hell do you think this is, your winter vacation? I already told you I don’t want to be bothered with you. I’d hate like hell to have to put a bullet in you just because you piss me off. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me some of your major vices so I can get rid of you with a clear conscience.”
I stood shivering and stiff with the cold. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t feel as smart-mouthed anymore and I definitely wanted to retract my earlier offer of assistance.
She moved toward me smiling, “This is going to be a little bit of a change from the last time.” She dangled my handcuffs and kept the gun trained on me. I smiled and stood calmly, putting out my wrists. I waited until she was two feet in front of me and then I made my move. I lunged into her with my shoulder and gave her a chop on the wrist, knocking the gun from her hand. In the same motion I grabbed the cuffs from her other hand and yanked up my arm to bury them in a mighty blow across her face as I got her a hard one with my knee. My next move was planned to take her down so I could jab both of her eyes back into her skull with my thumbs…that would have settled it once and for all. But I’d misjudged the toll the immobility in the car had taken on my limbs and I misjudged the effect the cold and her drug had on my muscles. In short, my reaction was not what I imagined it to be, and in less than an instant she was back in control.
She twisted my arms and brought me to my knees and kept twisting them until I was pinned in excruciating pain against the front fender of the car.
She bent over me. “Okay, Cookie, now you’re going to learn what happens when you’re not a good little girl. I told you, I only need one excuse to justify killing you and at this point, any itty-bitty excuse might just be good enough. Do I make myself clear?”
I was in horrible pain. I’d lost feeling in my shoulders. I nodded. She grabbed my coat, jerked me up, slammed me over the hood of the car, yanked my arms behind me and slapped on the cuffs. I was pulled around to face her. In a flash, Stubby was pressing into my neck, “One more trick like that, and you’ll find yourself very, very dead.”
She lifted me up like a fluff of cotton and threw me into the back seat. She fumbled around in the cooler for a few seconds, came to the door, and pushed me face down onto the seat. She pulled my coat off my shoulders and yanked the neck of my sweater down to expose my arm. She almost strangled me in the process. Then I felt a burning sting. The same taste again filled my mouth and my tongue went limp; and then blackness.
Order now from your local or online book retailer.
 | ||||
Art
MIXED-MEDIA ARTIST and
