The crime scene: a church picnic in a woodland park. The killer: a spiral-tailed bacteria with the goofy name Borrelia burgdorferi. The victim is you.

Maybe you don't recall pulling off that nasty deer tick off your back -- technically Ixodes. Maybe you forgot the rash -- a reddish patch of skin smaller than your hand. After all, it was years ago.

But now you are saddled with complications -- arthritis, brain infection, paralysis of the nerves to your face, profound fatigue and back pain -- even sudden death from malfunction of the cardiac fibers that keep your heart beating regularly. Congratulations, you are infected with the spirochete that causes Lyme Disease, first cousin to Syphilis, a creepy, silent assassin from the gentle forests of Connecticut. First discovered in in 1981, this germ is just one of a crowd of deadly tick-born diseases with even stranger names, such a Borreliosis, Babesiosis, Rickettsia and Erlichiosis.

The wiggling corkscrew parasite is easily killed with simple antibiotics, but without the right drug, you could easy be crippled for life by a shadowy chronic illness that will stalk you into the grave. Why not get tested -- it only costs $149. Then you can sleep in peace . . . until the next tick comes crawling.