Fernanda threw her arms around me, and I held onto her. Father Moreno lay on his back staring at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling quickly with erratic breathing. He wasn’t going anywhere. I dialed 911, said as little as possible, and then gave my phone to Fernanda to call her parents. It was over.
We walked out of the church to a downpour. A thick fog steamed the streets, blurring the street lights and headlights. Fernanda and I clung to each other in the cold. We didn’t want to go back inside. We heard the police and ambulance before we saw them through the fog. The ambulance took Father Moreno away. He was still alive, but unresponsive. Only time would tell if he would awaken to confess the truth.
Mr. and Mrs. Garcia arrived at the church. Both jumped out of their car in tears as they embraced their daughter. “Mija! What happened?”
Fernanda pulled away from her parents but placed a hand on her mother’s cheek.
“Mamá, I want to see Yolanda.”
Mrs. Garcia’s eyes wobbled with pooling tears. She kissed Fernanda’s hands and nodded without saying a word. The three of them gathered close again. Her eyes looked up at me as I stood there shivering, holding my arms. “Thank you,” she mouthed.
I nodded and moved to the side waiting for the cops to question me, ask me what I did to the priest. I also wanted to alert them to the body in the freezer. Someone out there wanted to know where she was, whoever she was. She also proved Father Moreno was not a good man. It might have been us in another freezer. The cops insisted on escorting me home to make sure I was okay. I doubted that was the reason. My family’s hugs felt plastic.
I went straight to bed to message my friends for a meeting the next day. It would be all over the news by then. I needed a plan for the worst-case scenario of my ass getting blamed. Father Moreno had to wake up.
Two days later I was informed that Father Moreno had a brain aneurysm, but he would survive. They had determined I was telling the truth and no further action would be taken. It was also at this time that his secret was revealed. Martha had been missing for over a year. Everyone assumed she abandoned her children for a lover because of a note left in her car in the parking lot of the Target she frequented. All her belongings were found in the priest’s home neatly folded or hanging next to his own clothes. Even her shoes sat next to his. An album with photos ranging from their childhood up to the point she went missing lay next to his bed. She’d died from a head trauma, but there had been no sexual assault. Her body would be given a proper burial so her family could mourn their loss and her children would know she didn’t leave them.
Father Moreno remained in the hospital for weeks as they tried to determine how to treat him. He wasn’t well enough for prison or to stand trial for the murder of Martha Sanchez. As he became increasingly incoherent and disoriented, speaking in Latin and delivering sermons to himself, he was transferred to a psychiatric ward for the remainder of his life.
Fernanda stood at the farthest edge of Military Highway before it meets the freeway and undeveloped land. The moon was a bitten-off fingernail with only the faintest light illuminating the darkness. She breathed heavily, waiting. A single car approached, shining two lights on her, the engine still running. Her head hung toward her chin, her arms straight against her legs.
The car door opened. “You all right there, miss? Are you hurt? Can we escort you home?” A woman stepped out of the car. She held a cloth with chloroform in her hand behind her back.
Fernanda didn’t move or make a sound until the woman stood close enough for her to grab the woman’s head with both hands. Caiman eyes bulged with fury, her mouth opening wide to release the bulbous tongue ready to eat the woman’s sin.
The woman’s hand clenched as she tried to fight the strength within Fernanda.
“Tell me your sin,” Fernanda hissed.
“No!” screamed the woman as she tried to bring the cloth to Fernanda’s nose. Another car door opened, and a man with a Dallas Cowboys hat ran toward them. He stopped when Fernanda began sucking a black vapor from his girlfriend’s mouth.
The woman convulsed violently, her body burning from the inside out, beginning at the scalp line, then spreading to the rest of her body until it blackened to a charred thing. The smell of burnt flesh rose into the atmosphere, clinging to the still air. Flakes of flesh blew into the cool autumn breeze. The man doubled over to vomit. Fernanda dropped the corpse and began to calmly walk to the man. He looked up from the ground, chunks of food and strings of bile falling from his lips.
“Confess,” Fernanda whispered.
He pulled a Taser from behind his back. “I don’t know what you are, but I’m going to give it to you now, you ugly bitch!” He switched it on, lunging towards Fernanda.
She grabbed his hand, breaking it at the wrist. His scream drowned out the sound of the cracking of bones. As he looked at his broken wrist in terror, Fernanda shoved the Taser and his hand into his mouth. He fell to the ground as the Taser sent jolts of electric currents through his body. His forehead singed beneath the cap, smoke rising as the black continued down his body until it, too, was a burnt carcass.
Fernanda walked back the way she came. It would be a long distance, but she had Tlazoltéotl to keep her company.
“Should we call the police?” Fernanda whispered, a hint of cloud escaping her lips as she spoke.
I don’t
