Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

“Why do the good things always disappear?” Dinah asked.

Billy took his time answering. “It’s best that way,” he finally said. “Then it can never sour. It stays in your memory and gets sweeter as the years go by.”

“Are you gonna disappear on me?”

Billy said nothing, his face still turned toward the screen.

“Take me with you,” Dinah said. “Take me wherever it is you need to go.”

“I don’t think I can.” Already the moonlight was playing tricks on the back of his pale neck, making it appear to fade in and out. Dinah closed her eyes. Felt the leather jacket crumble in her arms. She stood alone. No bike. No Billy.

She looked up at the tattered movie screen. The moon played tricks on that, too, because it looked like he was there, a flickering silhouette expanding and bleeding off the edges into the tree branches, making them shudder with the heat of the Harley’s engine. Riding off into the sky, clouds forming in the wake of exhaust.

Dinah turned away. Shivered in the cold. Looked at the concrete square that once held a concession stand. Bent over and picked up the jagged remnants of a broken beer bottle. She sat down in a heap, threw off her shawl and rolled up a sleeve.

The best things never last. The best things disappear and become an imprint in the memory. But she would try to find him. She would try.

She looked up at the screen. It was a jewel, a diamond with its spectrum of colors sparkling through the cool night air, filling her eyes, filling her with a longing for another life. A life full of color and excitement, full of rebels, bikers, black leather clad Jesuses who just might set her on the back of their bike and take her away.

Take her away.

From this.

From all of this.

She pressed the glass onto her wrist. Closed her eyes. Was this the way to become nothing more than a celluloid dream projected onto the night-time sky?

She gasped. She couldn’t do it.

When she stood, dizziness swept over her. What she wouldn’t give for a good stiff bourbon. No ice. Make it a double.

She looked around the overgrown lot. There was no one there.

No one at all.

She started to walk.

A week later he showed up again. She watched him from her stool. Watched him sway in front of the stage to the rhythm of the house band’s set of 60’s music. Hendrix. The Doors. The Stones. She stood and walked over to him. He was crying. She reached up and wiped a tear away. Put her arms around him. They danced like that. Slowly. Gently. Questions were for later. After the band was finished. After last call was announced. After the bartender rapped his knuckles on the bar.

“Closing time.”

“Why did you leave me there?” Dinah asked Billy.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“But you did hurt me. You hurt me by leaving.”

“It would’ve been worse if I stayed.”

Once again, they stood in the lot of the old drive-in. The air was humid and mosquitoes and gnats swarmed in the cone of Billy’s headlight.

“I’m too old for you, aren’t I?”

Billy shook his head and grinned. “Naw, I like older women.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly?”

“You make me shiver inside when I look at you. You make me want to take you in my arms and never let go.”

“Then do it. Take me. Take me wherever it is you have to go.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can.”

“You don’t understand.”

“All I need to understand is that you make me feel special and young and appreciated and wanted. All I need to understand is that you’re what I used to dream about when I was a teenager. You were my dream, a biker just like in those movies. I wanted to ride off across the country. Never worry about this life again.”

Billy looked up at the broken down drive-in movie screen. Dinah looked, too. There was movement on it, tricks of the moon tossing shadows across it.

Billy said, “Out here color fades when night comes. But up there on the screen, color stays sharp and clear.” He motioned for Dinah.

She gave Billy her hand. Let him lead her to the cement footing where the concession stand once stood, the smell of popcorn and hotdogs and teenage lust lingering in her memory. Billy stood with her in front of the blackened fire ring. He took a cigarette from beneath his black leather jacket. Lit it and tossed the match in among the ashes. He took a deep drag. Held it in and brought his lips to hers. Exhaled into her mouth. She sucked it in hungrily, filling her lungs with it, letting it sit there as long as she could before it seeped out through her nostrils.

Billy tossed the burning cigarette into the ashes. Stepped into the fire ring. The ashes swirled around him. They traveled up his body in a small tornado.

Then he was gone.

Dinah peered into the fire ring. Could see nothing but the still burning cigarette. She heard the motorcycle rev from far away — a growl of lust and need.

Ironic, she thought, that the thing she had been longing for, the love she thought she could never have, was centered within a crude circle of ash and blackened beer cans, cigarette butts and fire charred wood.

She stepped inside. A sharp pain shot through her leg. She shut her eyes.

Ash swirled around her, traveling up her hips, her breasts, her head. It shot up her nose, filled her mouth and ears. She felt herself sinking. The cement base had turned into something wet and pulpy. She gagged, trying to spit out the ash. A multitude of hands grabbed at her from below. The ash filled her, the spent cigarettes of a thousand outcasts, loners, the neglected and abused. Her whole body stung and she felt herself melt into unconsciousness.

But all the while, there was that part of her that remained filled with hope and longing. The memory-feel of Billy’s kiss remained on her lips, the smell of him trapped in her clogged nostrils.

When she came to, she found herself looking out over the overgrown lot of the drive-in. No.

Wait.

That wasn’t right.

Something was different. There were different trees. Sycamores instead of pine and birch. And beyond, she recognized the tufts of cotton plants instead of withered stalks of corn.

She heard the roar of a motorcycle. Her heart filled with joy when she saw him. Riding circles down below. Looking up at her and smiling.

But there was another sound. She thought it was a generator at first. A low hum barely heard over the motorcycle’s engine. It was coming from each side of her, from above and below. She tried to turn her head, but it felt as if it was encased in quicksand. She forced it to turn. Slowly. Painfully. And when she saw them, all the joy leapt from her heart as if forced out by the blast of a shotgun. There were hundreds of them. All of them women. All moaning. All mourning. A collective hum of loss, their faces painted in agony pressed against the remnants of a tattered movie screen, looking out.

Billy revved his engine. Stood up, straddling his bike. Another smile. Another wink and wave.

The groans grew louder.

Billy turned. Rode away into the night, his taillight disappearing.

It was at least an hour before the three teenagers came. She felt all the trapped faces watching apprehensively. The teenagers sat around a fire. Dropped broken up palettes onto it. Smoked cigarettes. Drank beer. Again, Dinah slowly, painfully turned to look at the others. One by one, their mouths opened in screams.

Even before opening her own mouth, Dinah knew that the teenagers below would not hear her.

John Baxter was a skinny man with hunched shoulders and a large protruding Adam’s apple. A dark purple birthmark stretched across his throat from the tip of his chin to the top of his chest. Random patches of black hair bristled from his forearms like weeds.