Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

“We’ll think of something,” I say. An empty promise, I know.

Dad’s never been one to hold back tears, whether from a movie or a beautiful song or news of a dying child. Tonight is no different. He dabs at his eyes with the handkerchief he keeps in his pocket. I lean over the back of the couch and hug him. “Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, Mike.”

“We’ll think of something,” I say again. He’s worn Old Spice for as long as I can remember, and the familiar smell fills my nostrils as I kiss the top of his head.

“I’ll kill the bastard,” he says.

“We’ll think of something,” I whisper.

I decide to check on Kelly. It’s been fifteen minutes, and she still hasn’t come in. I find her out front, sitting on the bed of her pick-up truck, legs swinging over the edge like a little girl. For a moment, I think she’s shivering from the cold, but the thought, the wish, quickly leaves, and I realize it’s just the shaking. Bruce lies on his side next to Kelly, a thick green blanket covering him. For just a moment, I wonder if she’s killed him, but then I hear a loud, muffled snore.

“Remember that pearl?” Kelly asks without looking up.

The question catches me off guard. “The pearl?”

She watches Bruce, listens to his drunken snoring. “I lied about losing it,” she says. “I never dropped it. It never fell down a sewer drain.”

It’s strange how snow can look like stars drifting down from the heavens, stars you’ve been told your whole life are massive balls of gas and fire. Then they land on your skin, merely pinpricks of cold.

“But Mom said — “

“I know what she said.”

“You came home crying. You were all scraped up.”

Her eyes shine. She rubs her hand over Bruce’s thigh, an act of affection I can’t reconcile. “You remember Carl Johanson?”

At first I don’t, but then I do. He used to carry packs of Juicy Fruit on him, and when he’d come over, he’d always toss me a pack. “Sure.”

“We were making out in the woods behind Jenson’s orchard. You know? But — I didn’t — I didn’t want him to…”

She stops swinging her legs and becomes still.

“Want him to what?” I ask. Then I get it. “Oh.” Then I get it some more. “Oh. Jesus.”

She leans forward and puts her face in her hands. Her body heaves with sobs. It still hurts to hear someone cry. I put my arm around her. “I’m so sorry. Kelly. Jesus.”

“I swallowed it,” she says, her voice cracking.

“Swallowed it?”

“The pearl.” She looks up. Her eyes are wet polished agates. “I’d never had something so beautiful, and after he left -- I needed something beautiful inside of me.”

The entire sky falls in growing white flakes. It melts as soon as it touches us and turns our hair to cold wet straw.

“It went down easily,” she says. “I was down on the ground, you know? Rotten apples all around, and sticks poking my arms and knees. I’d never felt so dirty.”

She puts her head on my shoulder. “It went down so easily,” she says again. “I wanted it to stay inside of me, so every few days I swallowed it again.” She looks down at her husband. “He’s never seen it.”

Maybe it’s the darkness, the cold, the hypnotic swirl of snow. Maybe all we need is some light. Some warmth. “Come inside,” I say. “It’s too cold out here.”

“You go ahead. I won’t be long.”

The way she says it…

Bruce is dead to the world, his tender white throat bare to the elements. I watch Kelly, look in her eyes. Try to see past them into the workings of her mind.

She chuckles. “I’m too damn tired to take an axe to the son of a bitch,” she says.

I lean over and hug her tightly. “Okay,” I say.

As I go inside, the snow grows heavy and wet, hesitating toward rain. Dad dozes on the couch with the basketball game droning on. I see a strip of light beneath the bathroom door, and hear the slosh of water; Mom’s only vice — her nightly bath.

I don’t look forward to the drive home. With this weather and the way the roads are, it will take at least an hour. I consider spending the night, but with Corinne and Amanda sick, I should get home and be there for them in the morning. Pretty lousy of me to have left them. I envision Amanda crawling into bed with Corinne, their feverish bodies dampening the sheets, communicating their misery to each other through fits of coughing. But damn it, it’s so rare that I see Kelly anymore.

Of course, I wish Bruce had never laid a hand on Kelly. I wish he’d never insulted her or berated her or ignored all of her birthdays. I wish he’d never met my sister. I wish he’d never been born. But I also wish that Mom and Dad hadn’t seen him hit her. I wish they could remain ignorant of Kelly’s situation and go to sleep believing their children live happy lives. They shouldn’t have to spend their golden years worrying about us. I kiss Dad lightly on the forehead, careful not to wake him, then don my coat and gloves. I decide not to disturb Mom, either. I jot a note saying I’ll call them in the morning. Maybe we can figure out what to do then. I head out into the cold, damp night, looking for Kelly to say goodbye.

As I walk out to the driveway, I notice two things simultaneously.

One, Kelly’s pick-up truck is gone, and two, there’s an envelope tucked beneath one of the windshield wipers of my SUV. When I pull it from beneath the wiper and feel the hard lump between my fingers, my heart lodges in my throat. I take off a glove and pull out a smooth, round bead, something I’ve held only once before.

The largest Mississippi pearl ever found.

Kelly’s pearl.

I see her jagged handwriting on the back of a gas receipt that flutters from the envelope like a dead leaf to the ground. I pick it up.

For you, it says. I don’t need it anymore. Love you, little bro.

Kelly.

I try to swallow my heart back into place. Tire tracks veer off the driveway and cross the lawn to the back of the house. I don’t think to go inside and wake up Mom and Dad. I don’t think to call 911. I only think to run.

My leather shoes soak through as they splash through the slush of tire tracks. The snow has turned to rain, and the rain feels like cold bullets on the back of my neck. The tracks continue across the back lawn to the lake.

I hear ice pop and groan. Catch a whiff of exhaust. Two bright red eyes in the distance grow slowly smaller. Tail lights. Their glow briefly illuminates the half-sunk shanty less than a hundred yards out. Even at that distance, the crunch of tires on dirty ice is audible over the crackle of icy rain.

I try to scream Kelly’s name, but there’s nothing in me, no air. I struggle to fill my lungs, to suck oxygen from the rain-drenched atmosphere. My throat burns.

If the ice can hold a pick-up truck, it can hold me.

I step out onto the ice. Slip and fall. But I find my voice.

“Kelly!”

I rise, soaked and freezing, and force myself to run again.

“Kelly!”

Brake lights glow fiercely as the truck stops. A figure sits up slowly in the truck bed. In the hellish reflection of red light, I recognize Bruce’s sodden shape.

My foot breaks through the ice and the freezing black water feels like sharp fingernails digging into my shin.

I’ve never felt so desperate, so helpless. This can’t be happening. This isn’t real, is it? I have to save her.

I pull my leg from the hole and limp forward.

Bruce falls off the pick-up bed and lays immobile, face up on the ice. I see the back of Kelly’s head silhouetted against the glow of the dashboard. She sits in the driver’s seat completely still. Even her shaking has stopped.

I stumble, slide, lurch and run. The truck is thirty yards away. “Get out,” I yell. The pearl is hard and cold against my thigh, pressing through the wet pocket of my jeans.