Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

But I wish I had.

I wish I had.

He pressed a button on the switchblade’s black pearl casing. A mean looking knife sprang out with a click.

“Redeem me,” he whispered.

He could have easily stood from the chair and plunged the thing into me. Could’ve taken his damn time for as frozen with fear as I was.

But he didn’t.

And I swear to God this next part is true. I swear to God on the life of my wife. On the grave of my mother.

“Redeem me,” he said again, his voice pained as if something unseen had its hand around his neck.

He turned the knife’s point to the top of his chest. Stuck his arm straight out, then brought it in quick with enough force to plunge through his sternum.

My legs went numb, my whole body. Why I didn’t fall off my stool, why I didn’t shit myself, I’ll never know.

He opened his eyes. That’s something I won’t ever forget, something I see every time I try to sleep.

I realized at that instant that even his eyes were tattooed. What I thought had been blood vessels were tiny robed figures bowing toward his pupils. I wanted to look closer at his eyes, try to see inside his pupils, because I knew, I knew deep down in my soul that the tattoos continued on inside his eyeballs.

But my own eyes were drawn away. Drawn to the knife that sliced an uneven line down to his own belly. He set the knife down, breathing heavily. With long sharp fingernails (and my God, I swear, even those were etched with figures) he pulled back the skin on either side of the long jagged cut. I saw his ribs. Saw the intricate black etchings that covered them.

“Scrimshaw,” I whispered, was all I could think of to whisper like some idiot child.

Each row of ribs depicted scenes from Hell. The bottom rows held creatures both human and non thrashing about and copulating in a sea of fire, and each row above that another scene, scenes of torture, mutilation, death, the figures gradually rising upward, reaching toward the sky, toward Heaven, their faces scratched with agony.

No. That’s not right.

They weren’t reaching toward Heaven.

They were reaching toward his heart.

It beat fiercely. The only organ, the only thing of this man’s body left unadorned by the mark of a needle.

He pulled out one rib, then two, the crack of each making me jump. I watched his heart beat, watched it force blood through his arteries, watched the blood flow in and out, becoming purified in an endless cycle.

Purified.

Blood spilled from him, soaking his jeans, pooling around his hips and dripping off the blue vinyl chair. His hand shook as he picked up one of the tattoo needles from the tray next to him. Sweat poured down his face.

“What?” I asked. My teeth chattered so much, I could barely speak. “What do you want me to do?”

“Finish it.” His eyes bulged. “You know what to do. Finish it.”

I wondered again what those hooded figures scratched into the sclera of his eyes bowed to, what was it exactly that was tattooed within the soft folds of his brain.

I took the needle from his hand, its buzz drowned out by the sound of my own heart beating in my ears.

I looked at his heart. I slowly reached in. Took hold of it. Felt it warm and pure in the palm of my hand. Never before had I experienced such an intimacy. It pumped hypnotically, forcefully.

I brought the needle to it. Started to draw.

Not a picture. But a word. The same word. Over and over. In large letters. Small letters. Block letters. Cursive letters. Over and over as his heart continued to beat in my hand, the main arteries still attached, strung between my thick fingers.

One word.

Love .

That was the word I wrote.

Love .

Over and over.

Over and over.

Love .

The only word pure enough for the sanctity of a heart.

He gasped as I placed it back in his chest. I took the pieces of rib from his hand and stuck them back loosely in place. I folded the flaps of skin back over the bone and noticed how even the insides of his skin were covered with tattoos.

He smiled at me.

Grabbed hold of my hand.

“Danke,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

I left him there to die. To live. I don’t know which.

But I do know that when he finally left my chair it was as a redeemed man.

A pure righteous man.

I still got a good eye, but my hand ain’t so steady anymore.

“Bourbon on the rocks with a twist of lime.”

Dinah’s usual. She let the edges of the ice smooth before taking her first sip.

Control, she thought. That’s the key.

She sat with one elbow on the worn wood of the bar, a Camel in one hand, the glass cool and wet in the other. The band hadn’t arrived yet, their instruments standing mute and waiting on the Slaughterville Roadhouse’s small platform stage. Dinah blew smoke rings that blurred and dissipated into the already thick haze over the bar. She closed her eyes, nodding along with the music.

That’s the great thing about music, she thought. Takes you away on a momentary vacation, turns your mind back in on itself, and for a little while you’ve elapsed back in time and you’re in high school again, drinking beer, smoking pot, not worried about much other than whether or not Dan Griffin, the boy you finally got to go out with you on a date brought condoms along. And if he didn’t, well you’d probably fuck him anyway, cause what the hell, you only live once.

All that brought back by a song, by a smoking guitar riff.

And when the song ended and Dinah opened her eyes, the past disappeared, her age caught up with her like a mean dog, and she waited for the next drink, the next song.

Smack!

The sound of a pool cue hitting the wall. Dinah flinched. Cigarette ash spilled across her knuckles.

“Wanna fight?”

“Bring it on, man. Bring it on.”

She swiveled on her stool to check out the commotion. Troy Hanson circled the pool table, holding the white cue ball in his fist, his arm cocked back ready to throw. Troy was a regular. Always getting in trouble one way or the other as long as his brothers were with him.

But the other man circling the table, the one with the broken pool cue, was someone — had she seen him before? A man with slick black hair and sideburns, a black leather jacket, his worn-brown wallet attached to faded blue jeans by a long chrome chain. Like someone out of a B-grade biker movie.

“Whenever you’re ready,” the stranger said, his voice quiet and hoarse, like faraway radio static.

Troy’s two surly brothers rose from their chairs, ready to step in if necessary.

They continued to circle the pool table. The other patrons backing off, hooting and chanting ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ over The Door’s L.A. Woman screaming from the jukebox.

Troy’s younger brother Dirk yelled, “Kick his ass!”

His older brother, Elvis Jr. shouted, “Don’t be a pussy. Throw it!” He grabbed Troy’s beer and guzzled it while Troy’s eyes were fixed on the stranger’s broken cue.

Then there was the unmistakable kerchunk of Ben Hooper’s twelve gauge, the sound cutting through all the hollering, the music, like an arrow shot through wet toilet paper. Everyone turned to look. Ben pointed the gun at Troy.

“Drop the goddamn ball right now.” Ben had tended bar at the Slaughterville forever. He was often seen carrying two full beer kegs at a time, one on each shoulder.

He turned the gun on the stranger. “Put down your cue.”

He did as he was told.

“Next time I pull out my gun, you can bet I’m gonna start firing until I hit somebody.” Ben set the shotgun behind the bar, his eyes still fixed on the two men. “Now shake hands.”