Fetal Bait Apocalypse: 3 Collections in 1

waited in the pickup truck with the windows rolled down to let in the gentle breeze, while Luke went up to an apartment perched above a laundromat.

“Fifteen sousands.” The senorita who beckoned him in was large and sat on a wide wicker chair. She leaned forward, her jostling forearms crossing over the silver head of a cane. She smiled at Luke. A web of saliva formed between her toothless gums when she opened her mouth. She reminded Luke of a turtle. A young boy stood next to her, his skin as brown as his eyes. He tilted his head, parted his lips slightly as if in amusement as he watched Luke.

“Fifteen thousand?” Luke tried to calculate that into U.S. dollars.

Senorita seemed to read his mind and laughed. “Fifteen sousands American dollars.”

“You’re kidding.”

She chuckled, her gums forming a cat’s cradle of spit. “No kidding.” She dabbed at the back of her neck with a white handkerchief. She nodded at her boy and mumbled something that Luke didn’t understand.

The boy reached for Luke’s elbow. “We go now.”

“Wait.”

The woman shook her head and waved at him as if shooing away a fly. “Go,” she said.

Outside, the boy nodded toward Amy. “What’s wrong with her?”

Luke stared at the boy. His tongue felt thick and dry. The sunlight felt sharp on his eyeballs. “Why don’t you ask her?”

The boy turned to Amy. “What’s wrong with you?”

Amy took the scarf off her head. “I picked the wrong beautician.”

“Bootishun?”

Amy shook her head. “I’ve got cancer.”

“Oh.” The boy nodded. “Sorry to hear.” He reached out and ran his dark brown fingers through the fuzz of Amy’s hair. “You got very pretty eyes.”

Amy squinted at him. She smiled. “Thanks.”

The boy turned to Luke. He seemed to study him. He grabbed Luke’s wrist. “Come,” he said. “Gimme the keys to your truck.”

“What?”

“Come on. I show you another way.”

“Another way?”

“Another way to see him.”

Luke stared uncomprehendingly.

“Padre Sapo,” the boy said. “The toad.”

“I can’t take this anymore. I want to go home.”

Luke looked down from the grate, looked at his daughter slouching on the cold rock ledge, so pale and thin. How fast her thirteen years had gone by. Luke remembered the moment, the exact moment Jenna had told him she was pregnant; the smell of the lemon ammonia tile cleaner he’d just used, the sound of snowmobiles outside their window, the rerun of Cheers playing on their twenty-four inch Sony — it was one when Coach was still on. These memories were so deeply imprinted on his mind, because good God, how hard they had tried to get pregnant. It took them five years. Five years! And two rounds of in-vitro. And haven’t those thirteen years flown by so damn fast?

Amy’s cheeks darkened with anger. “Why do you keep falling for this crap? You think some guy with freak skin is going to cure me?”

Luke sighed. “We’ve come this far. We’re not going to back out now.” What else could he say? That he was selfish? That he couldn’t imagine life without her?

“Don’t you get it, Dad? I’m tired of this. Of all of this.”

She began to cry. Luke lowered himself next to her. It was so rare that she cried anymore. He put his arm around her, wiped at her tears with his thumb. She leaned into him, her shoulders heaving. Dampness spread across Luke’s shirt. What else could he say? He stroked the back of her neck. He whispered, “I have to try.”

Soft music spilled through the grate. Cello and violin. Amy sat back against the tunnel wall and wiped her tears away. Luke stood again, trying to see through the iron bars. Over the music, Luke heard muffled voices through the rock. How many were up there? How many could afford such a donation? Yet the buzz of people entering the amphitheater quickly grew.

Amy coughed into her fist and grimaced. “That one hurt.”

More feedback over the PA system. More footsteps on the stone stage above. A sonorous voice rose from the speakers, rapid-fire Spanish Luke couldn’t follow. He glanced from the grate in the ceiling to Amy sitting so fragile on the rock ledge. He had to stop doing this to her. Jenna was right. Amy couldn’t take this any more. No matter what the outcome of this trip, he knew he had to take her back home. Back to her mother. Her friends. He prayed it wasn’t too late.

But this one last time…

He had to try.

A shadow fell over the grate. A large, lumbering shape stood over Luke’s upturned face. The announcer stopped talking. The applause that followed shook the tunnel.

The boy had been right. Luke was incredulous when the boy told him the priest performed his healings over a storm grate, but there he was. “Sometimes he pours like rain,” the boy said.

Amy strained to see past her father. “What’s going on?”

Luke held his finger to his lips. His eyes remained on the man above him. The padre shifted, letting in a small stream of light, and shed a blue velvet robe. Gasps and shrieks burst from the audience. He wore nothing but a blue swimsuit pulled tightly around his massive hips. Bumps, welts and cysts cratered his skin.

Padre Sapo. The healer priest.

His voice reverberated through the amphitheater, through the stone, through the tunnel walls like aftershocks.

“Por favor,” he said, his voice hoarse, as if his vocal chords were covered with sores as well.

Numerous feet shuffled and thudded onto the stone platform. Luke could barely make out the shapes of those who approached. He shifted to get a better view, his neck sore from the strain.

A woman with a deformed hand stood in front of the priest, leaned forward and sucked at one of the cysts. She sagged and backed away. Others approached. A man with arthritic knuckles the size of golf-balls licked at Sapo’s skin. He moaned as a man in a black suit gently pulled him away. A woman held out a baby swaddled in a tattered blanket. She swiped her finger across the priest’s oozing skin and put it to the baby’s lips.

“Gracias,” she cried. “Gracias.”

More people came. They sucked and licked at the lizard-like body.

“Dad? What’s happening?”

Luke snapped out of his trance. He reached into his backpack and grabbed an empty Tupperware container and handkerchief. He pushed the handkerchief through the iron bars and pressed it tentatively to the bottoms of Sapo’s feet. Could he feel this? Luke squeezed the handkerchief over the container, releasing little more than a drop. He repeated the process, pressing the handkerchief between the unyielding bars, lightly dabbing it against the bottoms of the scabrous feet, squeezing out scarce drops. Was it enough? Soon the soles of the priest’s feet were merely dry riverbeds of calluses.

Above, more people ambled forward and sipped at the liquid that oozed from Sapo’s skin, from his chest, legs and face.

How much time did they have? Luke wished the gaps in the grate were wider. It was impossible to maneuver the handkerchief through them any higher. Besides, what if he was seen? What would happen if someone saw a piece of white cloth poking up through the stage?

A man in a wheelchair sucked on the priest’s fingers. A boy on a splintered crutch lapped at his elbow. An old woman knelt to the floor and sucked on his shin. All of them offered their thanks in muffled Spanish.

The hollow thud of footsteps diminished. A man bent over, a tongue slipping from his deformed face, and suckled a cyst on the priest’s belly.