Fetal Bait Apocalypse: 3 Collections in 1

stopped on the landing where the intruder died, my own shadow now cast, a big, dumb, still thing. I waited. Listened. Had I really seen it? I stepped aside to let the foyer light through, and still — nothing.

“What do you want?” I whispered to the wall. Nothing answered.

Instead, I heard movement on the tile floor below. I whirled.

“Jenny?”

She regarded me curiously.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I said.

Fatigue had tattooed purple-black half-moons beneath her eyes, had stolen her easy smile. “You’ve seen it, too?” she asked.

My brain refused to acknowledge I’d even heard her question. I couldn’t answer, because if I did, if I acknowledged that yes, I had seen it, it would be so much harder to return to any sense of normalcy. Easier to convince myself I’d been imagining things if no one else validated that shadows existed where they shouldn’t.

“John?” she said, waiting.

I shook my head and climbed the stairs.

A week later. Two in the morning. I woke. Heard something on the stairs.

There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room to breathe. I listened. Listened closely. The steps creaked. I sat up. Saw through the bedroom door that the child gate was open. I reached under the bed and felt for the bat, a wooden Louisville Slugger, and grabbed it around the middle. I slid out of bed. Jenny remained asleep, sleeping pills now a regular part of her night-time routine.

Another creak. I heard whispers. I couldn’t make out the words. I stepped quietly to the bedroom doorway. As I did so, a familiar odor hit me.

Davey. Where was Davey?

The odor was strong. I peered over the top of the stairs and tightened my grip on the Slugger. My eyes seemed to play tricks on me, because I saw two figures. Davey was one of them, his hair gelled with what I realized was his own shit. The other form—

But no. My eyes adjusted. There was no other form.

I turned on the hall light.

“Davey!” I hurried down the steps.

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.

Rhythm of the Dead

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 mole. 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 Cafe 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.