Muerte Con Carne (16 page)

Felix didn’t bother explaining the video again, knew it was useless. He didn’t respond, didn’t even look at the sheriff again.

“And I mean it this time. Don’t make me come back out here.”

“Yes, sir.” Felix stood, dusted his pants off, then got into the Taurus. He watched the sheriff drive away through the rearview. Lindsey stepped out of the office, lit a cigarette.

I’ll be back, you cocksucker.

Felix reversed out of the parking lot. Tendrils of smoke twisted out of Lindsey’s nose as Felix took a long look at him. Felix threw the car into drive, but instead of turning left to drive back out of town, he went right, pressed his foot to the floor as he headed for the border.

10

Marta had been tossed back into Gustavo’s bedroom after being dragged through the yard and up the stairs. The back of her head knocked against each step as Gustavo hauled her up, his grip on her leg nearly enough to break it. Blood had stained his mask where Marta had kicked him, turned the blue fabric purple. He growled with every breath he took.

The family still sat at the table, attending to the old woman who had calmed her yelling and looked to have fallen asleep in her chair.

As each step collided with the back of Marta’s already injured head, her vision had begun to blur, her thoughts getting muddy and slow. Francisca still wept, screamed for her husband and child. The woman’s shrill but hoarse shrieks echoed throughout the small house.

Gustavo had thrown his bedroom door open, swung Marta like a pendulum by her leg, and tossed her nearly across the room. She landed hard on her side, slapping her right cheekbone against the floor and biting her tongue again, almost on the same spot as before. Fresh blood flowed into her mouth, the pain in her tongue electric, but she had jumped up and ran for the door, pounded her fists on it and kicked at it when Gustavo slammed it shut and locked it from the outside.

But she gave up on that and lay with her back against the door, facing the dark, rank room. Her only friends were the flies and maggots feasting on the head flesh. The TV was still on with its constant eruptions of static. The white noise and the drone of the flies mixed into a maddening chaos that filled Marta’s head like broken glass.

She wanted to sleep, but her mind refused to allow it. After sitting in the same spot for what seemed like hours, she crawled across the room and cut the TV off. The room went pitch dark and silent except for the buzzing and a repetitive clicking sound, which she realized was the music of the feasting maggots. She switched it back on to get some light, but turned the volume all the way down.

Muffled voices. One of them was female, crying, long wails between muffled words. Francisca. It had to be. So Marta figured the male voice had to be Cristobal. She crossed the room and put her ear to the wall beside the mounted shelves displaying the masked Lucha Libre heads. She held her breath and listened. Cristobal’s voice was nothing but bass through the wall and Marta couldn’t decipher a word of what he was saying.

The gold belt hung just beside and above her, and she studied its surface as the static light writhed over it. Scattered here and there within the melted mess of various jewelry were teeth. The gold caps were welded to the belt, the roots of the teeth sticking out the back of them, aged and crusted with blood and dried bits of flesh.

All of the melted-down gold was laid over a strap of what looked like spotted cowhide, but as she looked closer and squinted, she saw that the spots were words. Bits of scripture maybe tattooed on whosever skin that used to be. The strap shone like leather. Marta gasped, sucked in a lungful of putrid air that filled her mouth like hot oatmeal.

A violent gag curled her body, and she backed away from the shelves toward the door. She pressed her back against it, slid down to the floor, and rested her forearms on her knees.
No more tears. No more fucking crying.

She knew nobody was coming to save her. Knew that if she was going to survive, going to get out of this place, it was up to her to do something about it.

She touched the engagement ring, spun it over her finger. With the blood acting as a lubricant, the ring slid free with ease and she lifted it to eye level, holding it gently with her ruined hand, and breathed out a small chuckle. She pressed the warm metal to her lips, kissed it, and put it back on her finger.

The door moved, pressed against her back, and Marta scurried away from it, quickly searched the floor for some kind of weapon, anything at all. She thought about grabbing the television but didn’t think she could lift it with her bad hand.

The first thing to enter the room was a round belly, poking in through the small crack in the door like a flesh globe. Alma’s face appeared, and she stepped into the room, carefully, eased the door shut until it clicked.

“What…what’re you doing?” Marta said. Alma didn’t appear to be holding any kind of weapon, and Marta’s confidence lifted.

This is my chance. I’ll use her to get out of here.

She didn’t know how she would do it, but figured if she could somehow hold Alma hostage, threaten to hurt her and her baby, she could walk out with Alma in tow. It was all she had and she would make do with it.

“Can you hear him?” Alma said. She didn’t seem at all interested in Marta, and even when she spoke, she didn’t look at her. Her attention was squarely on the spot where the bass of Cristobal’s voice vibrated the wall. “In there with his new whore. That fucking bitch.”

Francisca’s grief-filled whimpers never stopped, and she spoke words between the sobs. Even though Marta couldn’t make the words out, the tone was clear. Francisca continued to beg, probably pleading for her family.

Alma bared her teeth, her lips flapping over them as she muttered under her breath and stomped toward the wall. She rubbed her belly with both hands like an oversized crystal ball as she leaned against the side of a bookcase.

“What is he…doing to her?” Marta said.

Alma’s brow lowered, the muscles in her jaw rippling as a tear snaked its way down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away, her eyes never landing on Marta as she drilled a hole into the wall with her stare.

“He wants to fuck her. He wants her to have his babies.” She balled one hand into a fist and punched the bulge in her belly, bit her bottom lip as she did the same with the other hand. “She’s a whore…a fucking whore. I’ll kill her.”

Marta’s instincts told her to stop this woman from harming the unborn child, but then she remembered where she was, who this woman was, and stood back.

Let her kill the fucking thing.

Alma’s fists morphed into claws and she scraped her nails across the stretched flesh of her stomach. Red lines opened and beaded up with blood.

Alma finally turned and faced Marta. “He loves me. Me! Not her.” Her lips uncurled and she screamed through the wall of her teeth.
“Not her!”

The tears flowed heavily from Alma’s eyes now, soaked her cheeks. She looked wild in the rapid light crackling from the TV, her eyes wide, face shaking as she wept. When her hands shot out, Marta leapt away from her, expecting her to launch some kind of attack. Alma grabbed one of the masked heads from the shelf with both hands and began slamming it against the wall. White dust drifted down from the circular dent she made, and she screamed as she swung, spittle flying from her mouth.

The voices had stopped, and from somewhere outside, a door slammed. Then heavy, rapid footsteps.

The door flew open and Cristobal stepped into the room, shirtless and panting. Sweat slid over the skeletal ink on his torso. His gold tooth glinted in the dancing light, and he stepped toward Marta with a look of violence in his eye, then Alma screeched again, threw the head at him.

“Alma? 
¿
Qu..qué‚ carajos estás haciendo? 
¿
Cuál es tu jodido problema?” He dodged the head, then rushed her, grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her against the wall.

“Do you love her?” Alma said. “Your whore? 
¿
Tú la amas, Cristobal?” She lay on her side, her full belly and one breast exposed and hanging over.

Cristobal slapped her hard across the face, the sound echoing through the room. Alma’s head jerked toward the floor, and she let it hang there, her hair drooping in a black sheet and concealing her face.

“What did I tell you, Alma? Huh?”

Marta stared at the bedroom door that stood open. She nearly made a run for it, but she didn’t know where she would go once she was out of the room. Just thinking about Gustavo chasing her again, his snarling face behind his blue mask, kept her rooted to the spot.

Cristobal swung his eyes at Marta, his tattooed flesh reddening and the veins standing out. “Come here, Marta.”

She stayed where she stood, and he jumped at her, grabbed her by the back of the neck. The pressure made Marta squint, her mouth open as he squeezed.

“You see that bitch down there? I’ll tell you what, bonita. I want you to stomp on her stomach. Stomp it until the motherfucker inside it slides out.” He shoved Marta toward Alma.

Alma tried to sit up and Cristobal hit her with a closed fist, sent her crashing back to the floor. A small laugh rattled from her throat. “You can’t kill our baby, pendejo. He’s too strong. I can feel how strong he is.”

“Shut the fuck up!”
Cristobal gripped Marta by the back of the neck again and threw her forward. “Do it. You kill that fucking baby, and I’ll let you go. How’s that, Marta? Huh?”

Marta didn’t believe him. But she thought about it. She hated herself for it, but she thought about stomping that fucking baby flat.

He said he’d let me go. What if he does? You were going to use her to escape anyway, and here’s your chance.

“Go ahead, bonita.”

Alma pushed herself to her knees, and when Cristobal let go of Marta to hit his sister again, Alma dodged it, reached up and raked her nails across his face.

Cristobal hissed, cupped his cheek, and when he went for her again, Alma had already made it to her feet, grabbed another head from the shelf and cracked him in the cheekbone with it.

Cristobal dropped to a knee and growled.

Alma’s face glistened with tears and snot and she lifted the head up with both hands, spit bubbles forming and popping at the corners of her mouth. “I want you to love me, Cristobal. Me!
Why can’t you love me!
”

She threw the head at him and ran from the room, sobbing.

“…fucking bitch… Alma! You get back here!”

He ran after her, his face streaked with blood. Marta nearly ran after him, wanting anything but to be locked in this room anymore. A door down the hall slammed, and then Cristobal slammed the bedroom door, locked it.

“No! Let me out of here!” Marta banged her good fist against the door, kicked at it, threw her shoulder into it. She pressed her forehead against the wood, and though she tried not to cry, tried to be strong, the tears won and flowed freely.

***

Felix drove his car up and down the border, looking for anything that would jump out at him as some kind of clue. Anything. But it all looked the same. Just fucking dry desert. He couldn’t remember how to get to the spot she’d taken him to yesterday, the spot where he proposed to her and everything went to shit.

It’s my fault. What the fuck was I thinking?

“Marta, where are you, baby? Oh god, please…” He slammed his palms into the steering wheel as he continued speeding over the dry, cracked earth. Something up ahead…on the ground. It glinted in the sunlight, and Felix smashed down on the brakes, jumped out of the car and sprinted toward it.

Water bottles. Crushed and lying in the dirt. Felix picked one up with a shaking hand, turned it to see the label. Felix had bought them, figured water was water so getting the cheaper store brand wouldn’t matter. The store’s logo stared up at him, and he rose to his feet, squeezing the empty plastic with one hand as he used the other to shade his eyes. His head swiveled in all directions.

“Marta!”

There!

The abandoned house. It was the same one he had seen yesterday, the one Marta had recorded.
She’s in there…she has to be!

He ran back to the car, popped the trunk. The tire iron was hot in his grip, and the man from the taco trailer popped into his head. That gold fucking tooth shining in his mouth.

If you’ve hurt her…I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll kill you and anybody else who gets in my way.

The snarling face in the Lucha Libre mask burned into his mind, and a shudder of fear rode his flesh, but he stomped toward the house anyway. Nothing could stop him now. Nothing could keep him from taking Marta away from this place.

When he reached the house, he stood outside of it for a moment. Listening. Wood creaked and dust slapped against the rotting planks as dry gusts of wind blew. But he heard no voices.

“Marta! I’m coming for you!” He held the tire iron over his head and charged into the broken door. The wood disintegrated as he burst through it. A hoarse battle cry exploded from his throat, and he ran in swinging.

The only thing that greeted him was the sweet, hot scent of rot. It engulfed him like a swimming pool, and he winced, used the collar of his shirt to cover his mouth.

The house was gutted, looked like a barn, and at first glance, he could see that nobody was there. Nobody alive anyway. On the other side of the house, lying in a patch of dry grass was at least three bodies. From the look of it, they’d been there for a while, a few months at the very least.

“Oh jesus christ…” The headache that Felix had been ignoring all day reminded him of its presence, and he fell to his backside while he focused on keeping his gorge down.

Three adults. Two men and one woman. Felix could tell their sex by their clothing. Their flesh was shriveled, dried up. The man closest to Felix was torn open at the stomach, the intestines dragged out sloppily over the floor, dark purple and dehydrated.