Joel Arnold - Fetal Bait Apocalypse - 3 Collections in 1

Davey was naked, his body covered with the awful brown smears of excrement. He covered his eyes with filth-covered hands to block out the light.

Jenny’s voice came groggily from the bedroom. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I swallowed. “It’s okay. It’s just Davey. Go back to bed.”

Davey raised a shit-covered hand, four fingers curling in to the palm, one finger, the index finger, pointing at me. He frowned, concentrating. “Kah…” he said.

I realized he’d smeared the wall. The feces was in lines — intersecting lines — more than lines.

“Kah…” Davey tried, looking me directly in the eye.

I looked again at the wall, at the lines, at the letters he’d drawn there, thick and brown and reeking. He had spelled a word. Couldn’t even talk, yet, but he’d spelled a word.

As the word registered in my mind, I faced Davey once again. His eyes penetrated deep into mine, his finger accusatory. With much effort, he finally said his first word, the same word written on the wall.

“Kah…” he said. “Kah…”

Finally, he managed it.

“ Killer ,” he said, his eyes on my eyes, through my eyes, into my brain.

“Kah… killer ,” he said again, his shit-covered finger pointing at me, an inch from my chest. “ Killer !” he spat out.

The sound of a soft sigh briefly surrounded my head, and the shadow that had been sitting there this entire time dissipated amidst the purposeful lines of Davey’s shit.

I grabbed my son, put my arms around him, squeezed him tight and put my mouth to his ear. I whispered into it, something for him to hear, something I needed to hear.

“Davey,” I whispered. “I am here. I am not a shadow. I will always love you and protect you. Look at me. I am here.”

His hand dropped to his side. His eyes lost their focus.

I did the only thing I could do.

I gently picked him up and carried him upstairs. Scrubbed him clean and let him soak in the warm water. While he did so, I quietly scrubbed the wall clean. And then, so as not to wake Jenny, I found a screwdriver and quietly dismantled the child gate.

I placed it outside and prayed the shadow of the man I killed went with it.

Too much tequila. It was hard to move from the edge of the narrow canal that ran through San Miguel. Shallow, dirty water flowed around a dead mule ripe with flies. I wondered how long it would lie there before someone dragged it out. Wondered if the inside of my stomach wasn’t much worse off than that mule. I belched up an acidic bubble of tequila and molé. Never again.

Someone tugged at the back of my shirt. I turned.

A child. Chalky-brown skin, hazelnut eyes, thick black hair falling to her shoulders in waves. She looked up and smiled.

I forced myself to smile back. It was hard not to stare at her mouth, at the desecrated gums where shiny white teeth once sat.

She held out her hand.

“What’s the matter? You lost?” I took hold of her delicate, cool fingers. My Spanish was piss-poor, so I didn’t even bother. “Where’s your ma?”

Wordlessly, she pulled me over the city’s cobblestone streets. We passed old buildings, walked quietly through narrow, dark alleyways, passing no one, hearing the bark and howl of dogs in the distance. Rod Stewart’s Maggie May wavered through the air from a nearby bar. Every once in a while, the girl looked back at me and smiled, as if to say, Not much further. You’ll like it where we’re going.

I fell in love with San Miguel the minute I got off the bus three weeks earlier. The jacaranda trees were in bloom, the people friendly — I was amazed at the abundance of shops and art boutiques. I spent half my days sipping Café Viennese in the Bellas Artes building, watching students of the Instituto Nacional in the courtyard below. The other half I spent sitting on a bench in El Jardin, the city’s zocalo, writing. There was something about the cacophony of noisy sparrows, vendors hawking tortillas and jewelry, and young men and women flirting in bright, freshly ironed clothes that lent itself to a day of writing. Instead of a distraction, the noises and sights soothed me, reminded me I wasn’t alone in this world.

Not much further…

At night, I drank Tecate and shots of tequila that the locals bought me. They seemed to find it entertaining to get the white turista drunk. Everything was fine, more than fine, except that I only had a few days left before my vacation was over. Everything was more than fine until—

Not much further…

She smiled at me. I grew dizzy. Her shredded gums bled over pink lips. Blood dribbled down her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand as if it were nothing more than spit.

We walked through El Jardin. The sparrows screamed at us. The walkways were drenched in shadow, the gazebo a black silhouette against the backdrop of La Parroquia. An elderly man lay on the gazebo steps, moaning, trembling, his left eye open and darting, as if loose in its socket.

“Where are you taking me?”

The girl looked back at me, shook her head shyly.

What was I doing here? Why was I following this child? I looked down at her, at the back of her neck, at the shimmer of her black hair. We left the edge of the zocalo and crossed the street to La Parroquia.

La Parroquia; a beautiful nightmare church of gothic architecture, sharp parapets, ornate frescoes.

“We’re going there? But it’s closed.”

I knew she didn’t understand, but it was one of those alcohol hazy nights where it helps to speak out loud in order to prove you’re not dreaming.

We walked up pink stone steps to a set of monstrous wooden doors studded with rivets. She let go of my hand, grabbed the brass knob and leaned back. It swung silently open. A cool breeze ripe with the scent of candle wax, old paper, and wet rock caressed my face. She wiped blood from her chin, looked back at me and smiled.

Quick footsteps slapped the stone behind me. I whirled around. An older woman, face grim, radiating anger, grabbed the girl around the waist, picked her up, and spat at me.

“ Turista! ”

I brushed the spit off my neck, stood there, dumbfounded. Watched as the woman carried her daughter away.

Voices bubbled out from the church.

I’d visited during the day, marveled at the opulence, the highly detailed statues of saints, the thick gold leaf suffocating the altar. Now, as I stepped inside, it was all musty darkness. A soft talcum glow rose from the stairway descending to the catacombs, off-limits to visitors except on the Day of the Dead.

Murmurs. A barely audible chant. A dull steady beat rising from beneath the floor.

The glow in the stairway intensified. And then a voice. Beautiful. Young. Singing . It was a soft warm caress across my soul. I drifted toward the stairway, hovered over the steps, lost to the music. How could I turn away from something so beautiful?

I was halfway down the steps when someone screamed.

The beat turned into a sharp percussive attack that jostled every bone, every organ in my body. I thought my bones would shatter, crumble to dust. I fell back, crab-walked up the steps, ran to the door.

Nobody stopped me. I ran a frantic mile back to the hotel.

As I lay in bed, waiting for the room to spin, I wondered briefly about the young girl, about her ruined mouth. I thought about my own little girl, waiting back home. What would I have done if I saw her hand in hand with a stranger about to go into a dark church?

I wondered about the beautiful voice that drifted up from the catacombs.

I called home the next morning.

“Jane, it’s me. How’s Peanut?” My pet name for Shelly, our eight-year-old daughter.