Muerte Con Carne (24 page)

Authors: Shane McKenzie

“No it’s not. It’s not your fault.” She kept her face hidden as she wiped the tears away, sniffled. “Felix, I can’t talk about th…what…what is that?”

Felix turned his eyes from the side of Marta’s face and back to the road. She squinted, leaned forward in her seat. “Oh god,” she said and grabbed Felix’s forearm, dug her nails in. “It’s him…
it’s him!
”

Standing there on the dirt road with trees on either side and outlined by the moon stood a figure. Tall and wide, arms out to the sides as if preparing to catch the car in a bear hug. The headlights twinkled off something, and as the car roared toward this behemoth, Felix saw it was a mask. Blue and speckled with rhinestones. And a gold belt wrapped around the thick waist.

“Run him over,” Marta said. “Hit him, Felix. Don’t stop the car, just fucking hit him.”

And Felix was going to do it, had his foot smashed to the floor. But when they were close, when Felix could see the sparkle in the black eyes behind the mask, the figure jumped. Caught a branch and hauled himself up. Slapped himself on the chest, then spread his arms wide.

“Wait!
Felix wait!
”

The car sped forward. As they were about to pass, the giant wrestler leapt from the tree.

Marta shrieked the second before the massive body landed on the roof of the car. Shattered the windshield and sent a hailstorm of glass beads into their faces at the same time the roof caved in and Felix swerved and hit something hard and his face smashed into the steering wheel and his mouth and nose filled with blood.

The car horn honked, long and loud like a dying beast. The engine hissed.

Marta moaned, coughed, whimpered.

And then strong hands were on Felix’s neck, and he was dragged out of the shattered windshield.

***

Marta opened her eyes. The world shook under her and she was aware of the brand new pains in her body and face and head. More shaking, rumbling. Even with her eyes open, everything was just a blur of faded color.

She sat, her back propped up against something. Arms behind her back. Couldn’t stand, couldn’t move. Something pinched her. Loud noises assaulted her eardrums, and she couldn’t figure out what they were. The world kept shaking, wouldn’t stop shaking.

Pinching. A scream. A shrill, needle-like shriek that made her flinch, took some of the blurriness away. Movement in front of her, more shaking.

“F-felix?” She winced as the words razored out of her throat.

She blinked, tried to wipe at her eyes but couldn’t move her arms. They were behind her back, she remembered, and when she pulled on them, she felt the cold metal against her wrists.

No.

The more she blinked, the clearer her surroundings became. This time, when the world rattled, she saw what caused it. Her head whipped in every direction and a sinking warmth filled her stomach when she saw the broken wood in front of her. She turned her head and was face to face with a skull, bits of old flesh still clinging to the bone.

Felix’s body hit the mat in front of her. Wooden splinters and chunks stuck to the skin of his chest, back, and arms, blood oozing from the open flesh. His face was purple, swollen, bloody. She thought he was dead at first, but then his mouth opened just slightly, a quick twitch of the eye. He saw her, tried to say something to her, but was lifted off the mat before he had a chance.

Gustavo, El Gigante, lifted Felix over his head, threw him with both hands into the corner on the opposite side of the ring. Felix flew through the air, hit the three skull turnbuckles with his back, landed on his head and crumbled into a pile of broken flesh and bone. But he was breathing. Marta could hear the wheezing rattle.

“Felix!”
Marta fought her restraints but was out of energy.
“Leave him alone, you fucking bastard!”

Pinching. Screaming.

It was in that moment that Marta felt the weight in her lap. The baby, still glistening with a drying film of its mother’s fluids, gummed at her exposed nipple. The umbilical cord ran from its belly and was coiled up on Marta’s thigh, the other end attached to the placenta which jiggled like a plastic bag full of jelly on the mat beside her.

Marta grimaced, wiggled as hard as she could, but couldn’t get the baby off of her.

The tiny boy rolled his tongue around her nipple, tried to latch on but couldn’t. Wails of frustration blew from its tiny throat. Its arms and legs thrashed as it attempted to feed.

Sitting in the metal foldout chairs beside the ring were Rogelio and Carlos. Rogelio whispered something into the dead boy’s bloody, dusty ear, shooting squinted glances at Marta, then a silver smile spread across his face and he giggled to himself. A trickle of blood ran from his chin and soaked into the collar of his t-shirt.

Gustavo stood above Felix now, both hands gripping the bungee cords as he stomped his massive boot down onto Felix’s chest and stomach. The giant roared as he smashed Felix into a crooked mess of blood and limbs, then turned his face toward Marta and bared his teeth. The muscles in his chest bulged and twitched as he left Felix in the corner and trudged toward her.

“No! Get away from me… Don’t fucking touch me!”

Gustavo bent at the knees, squatted in front of her. He tilted his head as he prodded the baby with his thick index finger, whimpering and chuckling deep. He tickled the child under the chin, but it only made it cry harder.

“Mijo,” he said. He pressed his forehead against Marta’s and peered deep into her eyes. “Miiiiijo.”

Marta could only cry as Gustavo ran his fingers through her hair. He pressed his mouth to hers and kissed her, smothering her lips in warm saliva. His hand reached behind her, gripped hard on her wrist and pulled, turning her to her side.

The baby wailed as it nearly fell from her lap. Marta’s shoulder blades rubbed against each other as Gustavo pulled on her wrist, felt like her arms would pop out of socket.

“Oro.” The giant curled his lips back in a grimace as he tugged on her ring.

Marta made a fist, refused to let him have it. Felix’s ring. Felix lay on his back with his legs folded over him. He didn’t move, wasn’t making the raspy breathing sounds anymore.

“Oro!”
Gustavo gripped her fist like a baseball, squeezed until the bones grinded against each other, until Marta was sure her hand was crushed into a nub of meat. He yanked her ring finger back, dislocated it with a pop, and slid the ring off.

Marta sobbed as the pain in her hand sent electric tremors up her arm. “Give it b-back! Give it back to me!”

Gustavo held the ring up to the moonlight, licked his lips as he admired its gold. He wore his belt around his waist, and he held the ring up to it and smiled wide before sliding it down to the knuckle of his pinkie finger. A string of drool oozed and stretched down from his lip as he ogled his new prize.

And then he moved back toward Felix. Lifted him. Chained him to the top turn buckle, hung him upside down. Rogelio slapped the side of the ring, and when Gustavo approached him, the boy handed him a long, serrated knife. Then the bucket.

“No! P-please…please don’t!”

The bucket sat under Felix’s head. And then Felix’s eyes opened. Just slightly. Just enough to lock eyes with Marta from across the ring. His adam’s apple quivered as if he were trying to say something. His lips parted.

The baby found her nipple again, chewed it with its gums, screamed from her lap.

“Felix!”

The knife slid across his throat. His mouth opened and closed as the blood poured over his face, arms flopping and slapped the mat.

Marta tilted her head back and screamed. Screamed to block out the sound of blood hitting metal.

Epilogue

Gordon walked into his home and placed his hat on the table. He set the laptop down in front of him as he plopped down in the wooden chair. His back groaned and he stretched it out until the pain decreased some. The sore on his upper lip had scabbed over, and he picked at it, wiped the blood away.

Just tell him you sold it to a wetback or something.

That’s what he’d told Lindsey to do. The man said he thought there was some kind of special footage on that computer.
A woman screaming
, he had said.
That boy was all worked up. Someone’s got his woman and I think he’s got video of the whole fuckin’ thing, Sheriff.

Gordon thought about putting in the DVD Lindsey had made for him of that young couple fucking, but he figured that was for later. Right now, he wanted to see what all this shit was about. If it was snuff the way Lindsey made it seem, it was time for a big payday. A payday he damn well deserved, too.

He fired up the laptop, scraped a cuticle across his lip sore. There was a folder on the desktop labeled Spycam and he double clicked it, opened it up. He clicked on the first video. Ten minutes long. There was some movement, but it was mostly dark. Then a family of Mexicans came onto the screen, the man and woman with confused and exhausted looks on their faces. An unconscious boy on the man’s back.

Gordon closed the video, chose another one at random.
Where’s the good shit?

The video started with a female screaming. Gordon’s eyes widened as he watched the scene play out on the monitor.

“Holy shit.”

His hand covered his mouth as he watched and when he couldn’t take it anymore, he lowered the monitor, clicked the laptop closed. He never had the stomach for that shit.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Scrolled through his contact list until he found the one he was looking for.

It rang once. “Yello.”

“Hey, Burl. It’s me.” Gordon cleared his throat. “I watched it.”

“And? We good?”

Gordon wiped a coating of sweat from his forehead. “Looks like it. You know I can’t stand to watch that shit. But I saw enough of it. It’s real, all right.”

There was a long pause and Gordon thought he had been hung up on until the soft titters hissed into his ear.

“Well shit, Burl, say somethin’, will ya?”

“Don’t come to the store, Gordon. I’ll meet ya at yer place. You ready to make some serious money, Sheriff?”

Gordon shifted uncomfortably in the wooden chair. “What kind of sick bastards get off on this kind of shit, Burl?”

Burl chuckled. “You’d be surprised.”