Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

“Hold him,” Silver barked.

Firm hands squeezed his head, kept it still.

“Open.”

No way. No way was he going to open.

“Open!”

Bruce dug his thumbs into the hinges of Rick’s jaw, forcing his mouth open. The barrel plunged painfully inside. The taste of it came back in full force, and the blood of another tooth lost to the force of the old hard metal.

He waited for the blast, waited for his life to blink out in an instant of heat and light. Through his sweat and tears he saw that Silver held something where the flashlight had been. A book. It lay open within the stretch of his long bony fingers.

“March 31 st, 1990,” Silver read in the faint glimmer of moonlight. “I let Rick Lamont fuck me.”

Rick froze.

“I let him stick his penis in my mouth. I sucked it until he came. And then—”

Silver’s throat hitched. Rick watched as tears filled the man’s eyes.

“—and then I let him fuck me again.”

Cassie kept a diary?

Silver read the last line again, this time the tears audible in his voice.

“I let him fuck me again.” The book snapped shut. “How could you?” Silver asked. “How could you soil my sister like that?”

All Rick could say around the barrel of the gun was “Nnnggg.” He tried to shake his head. His gag reflex kicked in.

“Nnngg. Nnnnnggg!”

It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t like that at all. She fucked me. She fucked me .

The wind scraped across his face cold as cadaver fingers. His jaw ached from being open so wide and so long. The saliva, the blood, made it hard to breathe.

Each time his throat muscles constricted out of reflex, it pushed the barrel of the gun into the roof of his mouth.

Bruce bit his ear, then raised his head up and sniffed the air. “He fuckin farted! Ha ha haw!”

A sound came from Silver’s throat, a gurgling sound like a boat motor starting in a bay of seaweed. The motor revved into a roar, and Silver pulled the gun all the way out of his mouth, screamed, Silver’s tonsils, tears, and eyes all glistening with the moon, a scream that ripped through the night like a chainsaw through bone, and Silver pumped the shotgun.

And Rick remembered.

Cassie telling him after she swallowed for the second time…

“You can’t tell no one this. You can’t tell no one. You gotta promise me. Especially don’t tell my brothers. You understand me? Especially not my brothers.”

He never did tell them. She told them. Through her diary. Didn’t she know that’s what brothers do? Didn’t she know all brothers look through their sister’s goddamn diaries?

Silver’s scream echoed through the woods. The crickets stopped. The wind surrounded the trio like a lasso.

“Give it to him.” Bruce’s voice was like an ice pick in Rick’s ear, his hot breath like nails piercing his neck.

Rick closed his eyes. Felt Bruce behind him in perfect line with the direction the bullet would take.

Yes, give it to me. Give it to me you dumb ignorant fucks.

He tries getting the words out, the words erupting as grunts around the gun’s barrel.

“Nnngghh! Nnngghh!”

Give it to me now!

Silver gives it to him. The gun explodes in his mouth. The bullet shreds its way through muscle, bone, skin. And out the back.

Out the back.

Don’t tell no one. Especially my brothers.

Out the back.

The only one who ever swallowed.

Out the back and into nothing. Into blackness. Into air.

Bruce ducked.

And in the split second between the release of the bullet and the onslaught of nothingness, Rick heard one more set of words surrounding the laughter still flowing from Bruce’s mouth.

“That’s one down, Silver. Only twelve more to go.”

Twelve more to go.

All because she swallowed.

All because she swallowed.

She swallowed.

And then

nothing.

He was used to the ribbing he got from Chuck and John about his bow. He was used to being called Papoose and Dances with Drunks and Little Big Gland. Hell, he got to the point where he didn’t feel quite right if they didn’t tease him a little. They had the high-powered rifles, the telescopic sites, the camouflage vests, the duck blind with the beer cooler. But Brent was taught to respect what he was hunting, make it fair, so he always used a bow. His father taught him that, and using a rifle with a telescope didn’t seem as much of a sport as bow hunting.

“That’s why they had their land taken away,” Chuck said, jabbing him in the ribs as they drove to Belly-up Lake. “We had the guns.” Chuck was the largest of the three, his jacket tightly hugging his ample gut.

They had never been to this lake before, but Chuck heard about it from an old guy he sold life insurance to. The old man said it had more ducks than mosquitoes. Enough ducks to stuff a thousand feather beds.

John blew on his duck call, making Brent jump in his seat. “It’s magic,” John said. “I carved this puppy myself, and it’s pure magic. Last time I went out with it, a mallard dove out of the sky and started humping it. I could’ve reached out and broke its neck if I wanted to.”

“You didn’t?” Brent asked.

“Naw,” John said. “Rather see the feathers fly.” The call was on a leather strap around his own long, skinny neck, and he tucked it back in his shirt. His hunting hat was too big on his head, and the earflaps looked like mutant sideburns. Whenever he’d turn his head, the hat refused to follow.

Chuck leaned over the steering wheel, squinting. There was a slight wheeze in his voice. “Where is this place?”

“Look for the sign that says ‘No Trespassing’,” John joked. “Look for the sign that says ‘Explosives Used Here.’ You sure this guy wasn’t pulling your crank?”

“Sounded legit to me.”

“Remember, you were his insurance salesman. Some people think you’re only one baby step above lawyers when it comes to morals. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s waiting there in some tree, nose of his rifle aimed right at your meaty red ass.”

“Fuck you.” Chuck slammed on the brakes, cringing with the effort. “Whoa — here it is.”

They turned down a narrow dirt road, dark with the shade of tall deciduous trees, their leaves the color of rust and orange juice and coffee stains. It was a crisp fifty-two degrees.

“How’s Blackie doing back there?” Chuck asked.

Blackie was Chuck’s black lab. Eight years old and still loved to retrieve game.

John looked over his shoulder into the back of the truck. Blackie sat, tongue hanging out, tail flailing like mad, looking in the rear window of the cab at the three men.

“Your dog’s retarded,” John said.

“Don’t talk about him like that.”

“Okay, he’s mentally challenged. No, seriously, he’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen on four legs.”

“You’re the dumbest thing I’ve seen on two legs. Never had a dog as good as Blackie, so you just watch your mouth.”

“Hey,” Brent said, pointing through the front window. “Look at that.”

Chuck leaned forward. “Aw, sheesh. Wow.”

John, in the back, pressed his head against the glass, trying to look into the sky. “What?”

“A whole shit-load of birds,” Chuck said.

The sky was filled with ducks, flying high over the truck in the opposite direction the trio was headed.

“Stop the truck,” John said, still straining to see.

“We’re not there yet.”

“Come on, let’s get out and start plucking a few out of the sky.”

“There’ll be plenty more where they came from.”