Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

“Come on. There’s more where that came from. Come on. ”

The rictus of the hole turned a bright red where the chum touched. Chunks of bait floated in the small circle of water, some of it sinking, some of it clinging to the edges. The spin of Paul’s reel slowed. It stopped. There was hesitation below.

Paul ignored the stinging sensation of the chum freezing on his bare hand. He cranked the reel. There was a bit of give. He slowly took in the line. Grabbed another handful of bait and tossed it into the hole.

“That’s right,” he whispered, his hand moving faster now on the reel. “That’s right.”

It was a mad elation, an excitement filled with terror and love, his mind racing as fast as his hand. What would come of this reunion? What secrets of that strange other world would be shared? There was so much Paul wanted to tell his son, so much to catch up on, yet Paul knew that perhaps his son wouldn’t be the same, the Jack he knew already gone, this thing on his line only the husk of a long drowned boy inhabited by tiny worms and instincts both primal and fierce. But he kept reeling in the line, all these emotions incendiary in his mind, all these thoughts overridden by the need, the complete and relentless need, to see his son one more time. How dare he be taken from him without any warning. How dare he disappear from the face of the earth without a chance for Paul to experience one last smile, one last laugh, one last squeeze on the shoulder. How dare—

He could feel him rising to the surface, could feel the heavy bloated weight nearing the lips of the hole.

The reel suddenly jammed. He tried to force it, and the handle snapped off. Paul’s eyes fixed on the hole, the wind outside howling over the thin wooden walls of the shanty.

“Jack!” he cried.

He was so close, yet the water was too dark, the chum on the surface clouding it even further. He grabbed his flashlight, a sturdy black metal one, and flicked it on. He pointed its harsh beam at the hole, threw the rod to the side and lay flat on his stomach, his face hovering over the water.

“Jack!” he called, the flashlight merely bouncing off the surface. He thrust his arm in the water, the wetness biting through his flannel shirtsleeve and into his arm. The flashlight beneath the water caused a red glow through the surface chum. He tried to scoop it away, but most of it slid back through his fingers.

There was something there all right, something so close. Even though his hand felt like it was being jabbed with a thousand tiny shards of glass, the water so cold it burned, he felt something brush against his fingers, something large and solid. He yanked his hand out to free it of the flashlight. It lay precariously close to the edge, shining sharply into Paul’s eyes. But none of that mattered. He thrust his hand back into the chill of the lake, reaching blindly, his face pressed onto the ice, his arm in the water up past his elbow. When he felt a hand clamp around his forearm beneath the layer of ice, he knew it was his son. He knew it was Jack.

He pulled with all his strength. The fingers of his dead son were even colder than the water that cradled him, so cold, Paul felt as if all the bones in his arm had turned to ice. Jack’s fingers erupted from the water, slender bone poking through loose milky flesh. Paul pulled until most of Jack’s arm had emerged. He reached frantically behind him for the ice chisel. He needed to widen the hole. There was no way Jack could fit through.

“Damn it, hold on,” Paul said.

And then there was Jack’s face, rising an inch above the surface, his lips peeled back and sputtering, gurgling sounds erupting from the back of his throat, the hook that held the bait firmly set in his blackened cheek.

Paul watched, listening, trying to make out the words issuing from the purple swollen tongue and chalky white chunks of remaining teeth. He listened, watched, realized his son wasn’t talking at all, but rather continuing to bite at the chum that clung to the surface in a thick crimson film.

“Look at me.” Paul lost all the feeling in his arm as Jack continued to squeeze. “Open your eyes, boy.”

And Jack did open his eyes, the tattered lids fluttering back to reveal empty sockets. A minnow leapt free from one only to land between Jack’s gnashing teeth.

Despite the horror of it, the knowledge that Jack was no longer the same boy he’d taken fishing a year ago, was in fact a cold rotting thing, Paul said, “Listen Jack. Listen closely. I love you, okay? I love you.”

The words were like a torch set against the wall of ice that had built up around Paul’s own heart over the past year. His free hand brushed across the ice chisel behind him. He grabbed it and began stabbing at the ice around the edge. He would free him. Free Jack. Pull him up out from the cold waters of death and bring him into the world of the living. The ice chips flew.

Wasn’t it worth it? So what if Paul had cheated a little. So what if he tricked Jack to the surface with the only lure he knew would work. That was the sign of a good fisherman. It was the sign of a good father. The one thing that would bring Jack back to him.

And it had worked hadn’t it? Wasn’t it worth it to see him once again, a reunion of father and son where love had coaxed a dead rotting thing from the bottom of a deep, dark lake? A boy’s true love.

The love a boy has for his mother.

The door to Paul’s shanty burst open. Blackie bound in, his loud barks ringing sharp and painful in Paul’s ears. Jack’s hand loosened its grip. Paul tried to grab hold, but the dog jumped between them, lunging for the worm-riddled flesh of Jack’s wrist. The dog missed, kicking the black metal flashlight into the hole. Jack slipped once again beneath the surface, the flashlight caught on the protruding bones of his rib-cage. Paul watched the red glow diminish into the depths, his eyes wide with loss.

He didn’t hear the crunch of Sven Johnson’s cleated boots behind him, Sven’s admonishment of Blackie. Didn’t hear Sven gasp at the stink of the open bucket of bait.

“What the hell is that?” Sven asked.

The red glow of light was barely visible now. Paul reached into the ice hole and touched his fingertips to the water’s bloody surface.

“What’s a wedding ring doing in your bait?” Sven asked.

The retreat of the flashlight’s glow stopped, barely visible, a beacon to the bottom of Shady Lake. Paul looked at it with longing. He imagined himself going in after it, now his son the fisherman, the flashlight his lure.

There was no way he could fit through the hole. He’d have to wait.

He finally noticed Sven behind him, heard him puking on the ice.

He’d have to wait until March, April at the latest, until the ice had grown thin and rotten. Wait until there was no one around, no one to drag him kicking and screaming from the pull of the lake, the pull of his son.

Paul stood up, the bucket that contained what was left of Peggy still steaming. He picked up the ice chisel. Turned to Sven as Blackie barked at him, the choppy breath of the dog rising in small bursts through the twelve inch hole in the roof.

He could wait. He could wait.

He lifted the ice chisel in the air. Brought it down hard. Again and again. Until there was only the barking of the dog.

And soon after that, only the sound of Paul’s labored breathing and the sound of blood dripping over the hole’s edge into chilled water.

I’ve seen a lot of things here. A lot of things you don’t necessarily see anywhere else.

Name’s Nate. I run the tattoo parlor here at the Slaughterville Roadhouse. Been doing tattoos for well onto fifteen years now. Started here three years ago when Jim came into my shop in Hayesville and I gave him a tattoo of Crazy Horse across his left shoulder blade. Guess he liked how it turned out, cause he asked me to come work here.