[Critique Group 1] Cleora's submission for January 2021

[sitting.duck at springmail.com]

915 words
Infected 
by Sly Duck

‘What luck,’ he thought. He didn’t usually find one so soon. Up ahead, a young girl was coming toward him swinging a white cane back and forth in front of herself. His brain tingling with anticipation, he slipped out of sight behind a tall bush beside the path to wait. 

She stopped a few paces away. “Hello?” She spoke cautiously. “Is anyone there?”

He grabbed her, yanked her behind the bush and placed a knife at her throat. “Make a sound, and you’re dead,” he warned. He was surprised when he felt her relax.

“Infected,” she whispered in his ear.

“That won’t work on me,” he said scornfully. “But, don’t worry. That’s not what I have on my mind.” He pulled a folder out of her pant pocket and extracted a credit card with the picture of a dolphin on it. “Ah, here we are.” Pretty,” he commented, “You’re in luck, today. Tell me your PIN and you’re free to go.”

“Two four eight six,” she said quietly.

“Very smart,” he said. Then, checking to see if anyone was near, he gave her one last warning to say nothing and strolled away at a normal pace. After a while he looked behind him, he didn’t see the girl. ‘Oh well,’ he thought. ‘Not my problem.’

On his way to work, he stopped at three different convenience stores, and two banks and used the ATM at each to make a $200 cash advance on the girls card. At his bank, he deposited the $1,000 in his own account along with the $4,000 he had already charged to the cards of his four previous victims. At work, he pulled the five cards out and pitched them in the shredder. As the girls card went in, he thought he saw the picture of a dolphin on the front swish its tail fin, turn its head to look at him, and wink.

The rest of the day was uneventful. On his way home, he stopped at the corner Quick Mart and gave a check for a bag of skittles, some beer, and a jar of peanuts. As he left the store, he rubbed his eyes. His vision was a little cloudy like there was a film on them. “Darned allergies,” he muttered.

Over the next few weeks, he bought some tools, a season pass to the water park, and some other incidentals. He was having some trouble with his vision so he spent some of the money to have his eyes checked.

“I can’t make you see 20/20,” complained the optometrist. “I can’t see anything wrong in there, but I’d like you to be checked out by an ophthalmologist.”

He went to the recommended eye doctor, but that doctor didn’t see anything wrong either. When he opened his wallet to pay the receptionist, he noticed a card with a dolphin on it. he pulled it out. It looked like the girl’s credit card. He was sure he had shredded it. No matter, he would do it for sure tomorrow. After a while, he noticed that each time he spent some of the money from the stolen cards, his vision became more blurred. He tried a test. He used his pay check to buy some things. Nothing changed with his vision. He deposited the rest of his check in his bank account. He wrote checks to pay his bills. This took most of the remaining funds he had. ‘Time to get another batch of cards,’ he thought as he dropped the payments in the mailbox. As the envelopes hit the other mail at the bottom of the shoot, he noticed the room seemed to get darker. ‘Probably a cloud came over the sun,’ he thought.

He went to the park and walked along the sidewalk where he normally found his victims. He walked slowly and carefully, something was definitely wrong with his eyes. He came to the tall bush and stopped. “Hi,” said a female voice behind him. 

He whirled around. He could just make out the face of the girl he had taken the dolphin card from. She was holding out a folded up white cane. “Here,” she said. “You need this more than I do, now.” He was confused. Had this been a trick? Had she been able to see him all along? But, if she could see him, why hadn’t she turned him in? 

“Thank you,” she said.

“You thank me?” he stammered. “Thank me for what.”

“Taking the card,” she said. 

“About that,” he said, reaching into his wallet for the card. “Here, I’m so sorry, I’ve been feeling so guilty about what I did.” 

“No,” she said, “it’s yours now. You can’t give it away and It can’t be destroyed. The only way to get rid of it is for someone to steal it from you. When the time comes, you must tell the person you are infected.” She thrust the folded white cane toward him again.

He brushed it aside, I don’t want it. “Please, you have to take the card back.”

She shook her head. “It is yours now.”

He looked at the card to get her name. For the first time he noticed that it had his name on it. “How did you get it?” he asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said. “The important thing is that it’s yours now.” She smiled. “Thank you,: she said again. “Enjoy.” And, dropping the cane at his feet, she walked away.