Fetal Bait Apocalypse: 3 Collections in 1

There couldn’t be much time left. Luke looked at Amy. She stared back with wide, frightened eyes. Could she see the monstrosity above them? Why did he bring her here? Why didn’t he leave her back in the truck? Padre Sapo turned in a slow circle. Luke dug in the front of his backpack. There was a pocketknife, but the blade was too short. He pulled out one of Amy’s spiral-bound notebooks. It was a journal she’d kept religiously since learning she had cancer. Luke tugged and yanked the metal spiral, ripping it free.

“Dad!”

“Shhh!”

Frantic now, he straightened out the end of the spiral. Sapo began to lumber away. More light spilled through the grate. Luke wiped sweat from his eyes, then grunted as he jabbed the wire through one of the gaps still covered with Sapo’s foot. He jabbed again and again, holding the Tupperware container in his other hand, catching the thin streams of liquid that trickled between the bars.

The container quickly filled with Padre Sapo’s blood.

Luke stopped and fumbled with the container’s cover, trying to press it on tightly. The light from above disappeared. When Luke glanced up, he realized that Sapo had dropped to his knees, and was now peering through the iron bars of the grate. Luke looked away, finally able to snap the cover into place.

“Get up.” Luke touched Amy’s arm. “Time to go.”

The priest’s deformed fingers hooked around the bars. “Por favor,” he croaked. “No vayas! No vayas!”

Luke shrugged on his backpack and scooped Amy into his arms. Sweat streamed into his eyes, making it hard to see.

“Sangre,” the priest bellowed. “No lo bebes tu. Malo! Malo!”

Luke ran. The cone of his flashlight wobbled over the tunnel walls. He expected someone to appear in its feeble beam at any moment. Guards. Police. Someone who would try to stop him from saving his daughter.

Sapo’s cries echoed through the cavern. “No lo hagas. No lo hagas!”

Surely someone waited for them at the entrance. Someone waiting to take the priest’s healing liquid from them and spill it onto the ground. Someone waiting to throw them into jail, or worse.

Luke stopped. Listened. All he heard was his own breathing, his own heartbeat.

He set Amy down. Tugged off his pack and took out the container of fluid. He pried off the cover and held the container out to Amy. If they were caught, at least the elixir would be working its way through Amy’s body.

“Drink it,” he said.

Amy looked at him with disgust. “No way.”

“You have to.”

“Dad, please.”

Luke’s voice trembled. “What harm can it do, huh? You’re already at death’s door, so what’s a few sips of this gonna do?” He felt like shit saying it, but what else could he do?

He heard something. Footsteps?

“Here, look.” He lifted the container to his lips and took a sip. “See?” He thought a moment. “It tastes like broth.” He wiped the residue off his lips with the back of his hand.

More tears welled up in Amy’s sunken eyes. She took the container from her father. Stared at him. Gulped the whole thing down without taking her eyes off him. She threw the container to the ground.

“Can we go home now, please?”

Luke reached out and hugged her. “I promise.”

Luke slowed at the tunnel entrance and peered out. The landscape was still and dark. Where were the police? The Federales? But there was no one. Luke slumped against the rough rock of the entrance. “Shit,” he muttered.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Luke sighed. “The truck’s gone.”

They walked hand in hand along a gravel road. Luke wasn’t sure how far they were from town, but at least the night was warm, and the sky clear.

“I feel funny,” Amy said.

Luke watched her, wondering what to do. Surely he could make it back to town, but what about Amy?

Stop pushing her so hard.

He guided her into the brush a short distance off the road and found a small clearing. He set the backpack down. “Lie down. Put your head on this.”

Amy no longer questioned. Luke laid next to her, putting an arm over her, the blanket over them both. A cool breeze rustled the brush around them, and Luke rubbed Amy’s back until she began to snore. He closed his eyes against the starlight. Drifted in and out of sleep. When he opened his eyes again, the stars appeared muted. Fuzzy. They seemed to pulsate. His stomach felt scooped out. His throat threatened to close.

But what about Amy? What if she doesn’t make it through the night?

He felt her forehead, listened carefully to her breathing, watched her chest rise and fall, rise and fall. She seemed fine, but he couldn’t trust his own senses any more. The stars looked like they’d been smeared across the sky with a paint brush. His skin tingled.

What’s happening to me? Was it happening to Amy as well?

What is that thing’s blood doing to me?

He opened his mouth to call out to Amy, to wake her and ask her how she felt, but his tongue no longer worked. It felt like dozens of tiny ants skittered over his teeth and gums. He fell back on the hard ground, losing consciousness to the sound of crickets chirping, singing his name.

The violet haze of an early dawn…

Luke woke in long, slow stages. When he tried to speak, there was only a wet, whistling sound. The right side of his body felt sticky and numb. Snot dripped from his nose into his mouth. He felt something next to him. He struggled to turn his head.

“Amy?” he finally managed. He couldn’t focus.

There was no answer, and his heart tried to beat out of his chest in panic.

But then — movement.

“Dad?”

His ears felt stuffed with wet cotton.

“Amy? You okay?”

Something wasn’t right. Something…

Then he felt it, felt what was wrong, as Amy moved next to him, as feeling returned to his body. Their skin — it oozed clear liquid onto the ground around them. Their skin — full of welts and cysts.

Their skin—

—fused together where his arm lied over her chest.

“Jesus,” Luke croaked.

What else could he say?

His vision cleared, and he saw that she was worse off than he was, her entire body a mass of suppurating sores.

“God,” he said.

“Dad?” Amy turned her dripping eyes toward him. “It’s okay.”

“No.” Luke tried to shake his head.

“We won’t charge people. We won’t make them pay.”

“What?”

“We can heal now. Don’t you see?”

And he did see. Out of the corners of his eyes, thick with matter, he saw the hard, rocky ground around their bodies sprouting small, green shoots. His attention turned back to his daughter as a tube-like appendage unraveled from her mouth. She spoke around it.

“There are so many who need us,” she said. “So many…”

The appendage wavered for a moment, as if sensing the air. It hovered in front of Luke’s eyes, and then gently, it settled onto a cyst widening on Luke’s forehead. With soft sucking sounds, it began to drink.