Flyblown and Blood-Spattered

by Jarred Martin

  “And so she had me, and she was happy. But my poor father, it was too late for him. By the time I came along he had been drowned with drink and eaten-up by spite, and he was withered and dieing. He never even got to hold me. But mother held me; she kept me close. She was a good mother, even if her mind had been warped by a lifetime of cultivating death, where everything she touched withered away. She would always check on me, wake me up in the night just to make sure I was still breathing. She worried, my mother. But that worry must have brushed away some of the cobwebs in her mind, because she never roamed the grounds again calling for my lost siblings. She only wanted to forget. So she took most of the money that my father had left her, and turned the morbid reminder of her barren life into something pleasant. A garden. She said that it was high-time she started planting something that would bloom. And it did, and she loved it. But the garden wasn't for her, she said. It was for me. She would walk around it with me every day and tell me how important every leaf and branch is; how all my brothers and sisters had given their lives to fertilize the soil, how they died so it would grow. And she told me that, as long as this garden would bloom, then so would I, because the roots of every plant are entwined with her babies, and just like they give life to the garden, so the garden will give life to me. Everything that grows here is really my brothers and sisters reaching out to me. Reaching out to give me life. So, you understand why I try so hard to protect my garden, don't you?”

  “Because you're crazy?” Alene muttered.

  The old man didn't hear her. He was suddenly distracted, scratching under his sleeves with his fingernails, then shoving his hand beneath the back of his shirt collar. The scratching grew more intense, he started pulling at his collar frantically, trying to rip the shirt off or pull it over his head. He stopped pulling on the shirt and began slapping and clawing at his arms, digging his fingernails into his skin wherever he could reach it, moaning and twisting his withered body around in the wheelchair.

  Alene watched, she had no idea what to do. Oh, shit. He's stroking out or something.

  The old man's moaning turned to screams as he slid down out of his wheelchair and rolled around in the dirt. His arms were a blur, smacking himself like he was trying to put out several small fires all over his body.

  Alene bent down to try and help him.

  “Don't touch him,” Paulo yelled, rushing into the shade of the willow tree, the old-timey bug sprayer in his hands.

  “They're everywhere!” The old man screamed. “They're eating meeeee!!”

  What is he talking about, Alene wondered. What's everywhere? And then she saw the trail of fire ants marching up his chair. One of the wheels was parked directly on top of an anthill.

  She looked at the old man writhing on the ground. His skin was starting to turn red all over, breaking out in welts.

  Paulo was standing over the old man, aiming the sprayer down at him. He pushed the pump handle in and the old man disappeared in a toxic cloud of insecticide. He pumped the handle a few more times to make sure the old man was covered, and Alene was not surprised to see a smile on his face as he did so.

  Alene pulled her shirt up over her mouth, waiting for the fog to dissipate, and trying not to breathe. The old man had stopped struggling but he continued to moan feebly, covered in a yellow powder. The dust settled and the old man coughed out plumes of the stuff, lying on the ground. Paulo grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him across the lawn. Alene saw scores of dead ants falling off the old man as Paulo hauled him along the grass.

  My God, that shit killed them instantly. She wondered what it was doing to her. This was, undoubtedly, the mysterious yellow powder covering everything in the house.Alene grabbed the wheelchair, brushed off the few lingering ants from the seat, and pushed it over to Paulo and the old man. He crouched beside the old man, propping him up in a seated position on the grass.

  “Breathe, abuelito. Deep breaths. Deep breaths,” he encouraged the wheezing old man.

  Alene brought him his oxygen mask. The old man took it and sucked on it hard, his eyes bulging white circles above the mask.

  “Wow, that was fucking insane,” Alene said. “I have never seen anything like that. Those ants were all over you. It was like they planned it.”

  The old man turned his bulging white eyes on her and pulled down his mask. “That's because they did plan it,” he said, chest heaving and out of breath. “I have no doubt. They hate me. They recognize the war I've waged upon them. They know I'll stop at nothing short of insect holocaust. The enemy threat will be eliminated!,” he finished, gasping for air.

  She helped Paulo lift the fuming old man back into his chair. He was furious and his flesh was bright red, irritated from the bug bites. Alene thought he looked like a cartoon devil.

  “Let's get you inside, abuelito. Maybe find some Calamine lotion or something for your skin, okay?” Paulo said, in a soothing tone.

  The old man didn't respond, just clenched his fists around the ends of the armrests, if he had any teeth left he would be grinding them together.

  “Or maybe you could take him in,” Paulo suggested to Alene. “Would you like that, abuelito, if the pretty girl took you in and played nurse for you?” Paulo reached out and grabbed a handful of Alene's hair, twisted it in his fingers. “Isn't she beautiful? I think she'd make you feel a lot better than I could.”

  Alene pulled away from Paulo's grasp and shot him a look that would cut steel. “Yeah, he's right. I'll take you in, fix you up. I'm sure Paulo has more flies to swat or ditches to dig or whatever.”

  The old man's room was on the first floor -he couldn't navigate the stairs- and that is where she took him. She sat on his bed, not much more comfortable than her own, and looked around. There were high bookshelves along the walls filled with water-spotted and mildewed volumes. Most were so damaged she couldn't make out the names, and their yellowed pages were bloated and warped. The whole room smelled wet, moldy, like it had recently been drained.

  “Soo...,” she said, “maybe we should do something about those stings. Do you have some kind of salve I could get you or something?”

  He waved her off, “I'm fine. My body will heal. Every soldier must carry the scars of battle.”

  “You're so brave,” she said, getting up off the bed and walking over to him. “My brave soldier.” She traced light circles on the top of his bald head with her fingertip. “I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better.” She moved her hand lower, to his chest, and leaned over so he could feel her breath in his ear, “Got any ideas?”

  “I might have a few,” he said, reaching over to cup her ass.

  “Naughty boy,” she said, feigning a coquettish indignation. “If we're going to keep doing that, I think you should consider making an honest woman out of me. After all, what would the neighbors think? Living in sin with a woman you're not married to.”

  “Are you religious?”

  She shrugged. “When it suits me.”

  “Are you familiar with the old testament?”

  “No, but tell me, I love a good bible story,” she said getting on her knees in front of him and unbuttoning his pants.

  “Well, there are a few that, if they do not directly parallel my predicament, they certainly illustrate the threat my enemy poses me.”

  “Mmhm.” Alene had his pants down over his emaciated little stick-legs now.

  The old man began to relax. “Take Herod the Great for instance, the tyrant king of Judea. He had priests burned alive for trying to remove his sigil from the holy temple, he killed his wives and children, he ordered the beheading of John the Baptist, and when the Magi told him a child would be born 'King of the Jews,' he had every youth in Bethlehem and the surrounding towns slaughtered, according to scripture.”

  “He sounds like an asshole.” She was working on the Velcro catch around his diaper now.

  “Yes, well, the book of Acts mentions him being smote by the Angel of the Lord and eaten of worms.”

/>   Alene considered that for a moment,“That’s pretty badass. Old testament, wrath of God shit. Cool.” She opened the diaper and stared at his old flaccid cock. “Eaten of worms,” she said to herself.

  “New Testament, actually. I, Claudius goes into more detail, describing the king being driven insane by his malady... and maggots breeding in his privy member. A slow, agonizing death from illness is probably a little more realistic, as opposed to being immediately devoured by worms as the Good Book suggests, though it lacks a certain biblical theatricality. In all honesty, the king probably died from diabetic complications and Fournier Gangrene, with maggots consuming the rotten flesh.”

  Alene slipped the wet ring of her mouth around the old man's cock and felt it start to grow.

  The old man let out a pleased sigh and hesitated for a long moment, attempting to maintain focus. “The point is... the point is, that the enemy is... waiting. Waiting to devour us... whether we are.. uh... Whether we are kings or... something else. They can have me when I'm dead... and not a moment before.”

  Alene's mouth moved up and down the old man's, more or less, fully-erect member. He had gone silent, head tilted towards the heavens, one hand on the back of her head. She wished he would start talking again, if only to distract her from the soggy smacking sounds coming out of her face. She drooled out over his wrinkled scrotum, trying not to swallow.

  The old man moaned again, louder this time. He twisted a handful of her hair into his fist and yanked upward, hard enough to make her eyes water. He twined more of her hair into his fist and began to buck in his seat, shoving himself deeper into her mouth.

  Alene gagged, surprised by the old man's strength. He snatched her head forward again and she felt hair ripping away from her scalp.

  The old man's moans became high-pitched. He cried out in intervals like a car alarm. Alene felt him turn to rubber in her mouth. And then she realized the high-pitched sounds he was making weren’t moans; they were screams.

  She looked up at the old man shrieking in pure terror. He held one shaking fist up to his face. In it Alene could see long strands of her own hair and, mashed into the loose threads, the remains of one of Paulo's cottonwood beetles, yellow innards oozing over the black-and-white shell.

  She got up and took a step toward him. The old man immediately spun the wheels of his chair back, receding until he hit one of the bookcases along the wall.

  “That's far enough, don't come any closer now.” The old man was in a panic, his mad eyes darted all around the room. “Paulo,” he cried. “Paulo!”

  The door swung open to reveal Paulo standing very calmly in the frame.

  That was fast, though Alene. Too fast. There's no way he could have gotten here so quickly, I didn't even hear him. He was standing there the whole time. He was standing there watching me.

  “Abuelito, what is the matter?”

  The old man cringed in his corner. He held out his hand. “It's this wretched girl. She's infected. She's diseased. She's crawling with...,” The old man waved his hand around, Cottonwood beetle plastered to his palm.

  “I'm not infected with anything,” Alene protested. She pointed to Paulo. “He did this to me. Paulo did this. He fucking set me up.”

  They both ignored her. “What would you like me to do with her, abuelito?”

  The old man produced a handkerchief and wiped his hand with it. “She should be disinfected, I would think. Who knows what else she's crawling with.”

  “Right.” Paulo turned to her, grinning.

  “Stay the fuck away from me. If you come near me I'll tear your fucking eyes out, I swear to God.” She reached behind her on the bookshelf and grabbed one of the old man's dusty classics and flung it at Paulo. It went wide, sailed past him harmlessly and hit the opposite wall. He came at her low and she tried to run around him but he caught her easily. He wrapped his arms around her and began to drag her, struggling, out the door.

  “So sorry to do this to you, dear,” the old man called to her, “but it really is a necessary precaution. Please try to understand.”

  She left him with a resounding “Fuck You.”

  Paulo dragged her through the entirety of the house. She fought back, swiping behind her head at Paulo's face and digging her nails into his arms, but it was to no avail. He pulled her, cursing and clawing, up the stairs one step at a time until they reached the bathroom. He pushed her through the door, closed it behind him and stood in front of it, blocking her exit.

  “Strip,” he said.

  “Go fuck yourself, pervert. Haven't you had enough of a show today? You gotta watch the old man get his rocks off 'cause no woman would touch your disgusting ass, huh? Is that what it is?”

  “That first time was me asking nice,” said Paulo. “I won't do it again. If you don't get out of those clothes right now, I'm gonna fuckin' rip 'em off, then I'm gonna start breaking your fingers just to teach you I don't like to repeat myself.”

  “Why are you doing this? What could you possible have to gain by sabotaging me? Is it the old man? Are you jealous of his attention?”

  Paulo laughed at her. “Jealous of the old man's attention? I fucking hate that old man. You should have realized that by now.”

  “Then why?”

  Paulo shrugged. “There's no T.V. here, and I don't like board games. Sometimes you just have to make your own fun, you know? Now take your clothes off, unless you're just curious to hear what finger bones snapping sound like.”

  Alene pulled her shirt over her head.

  Paulo nodded and turned to open the medicine cabinet. He dug around inside and when he closed it again, Alene was standing nude in front of the tub holding her shirt over her breasts with one hand while the other was covering her crotch.

  “There's no need to be shy around me, girl. Toss the shirt and get in the bathtub.”

  Alene let the shirt fall to the floor and stepped back into the tub. She crouched down on the cold porcelain with her knees against her chest.

  “Yeah, that's a good girl. Now hold still, we're gonna get you all nice and clean.”

  He stood over her, holding a plastic bottle of rubbing alcohol and a rough wire brush. Paulo spun the cap off with his thumb and let it fall to the floor. He tipped the bottle, and Alene felt a trickle of liquid splash over her. The bitter smell cut her breath short and it felt cold beyond temperature. She shot up to her feet.

  “Wait, okay. I don't want to-”

  Paulo slammed his fist into her abdomen and she doubled over. He forced her down as she tried to draw breath back into her lungs. Now she was on all fours on the bottom of the tub. Paulo dumped the rest of the bottle over her.

  “That's right, girl. It's laundry day, and we're gettin' all the stains out.”

  Alene whimpered, shivering in the tub. She was starting to feel sick from the fumes and her eyes burned. She held her breath and waited for it to be over.

  But it had just begun.

  She screamed as she felt the wire brush scrape across her spine. She arched her back, as if she were trying to force herself deeper into the dry tub. Paulo put a hand on her and pushed her shoulders down so she lay flat along the bottom of the tub. The brush tore her apart as he raked it across her back, ass and legs.

  Her abraded flesh stung unmercifully. Paulo reached out and yanked her head up by her alcohol-soaked hair.

  “Turn over, baby. C'mon, do it. You're makin' me want to not be so gentle anymore.”

  Alene turned over on her back, looking up at Paulo. The fight had left her.

  He ran the brush over her again until every inch of her flesh was screaming and on fire. The whole while she could only repeat in her head, please let it be over. Please let this be over, as the brush tore patches of skin from her body.

  And just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore, just when she thought the pain would physically wrench her soul from her body, it stopped.

  Paulo leaned over the edge of the tub.“That wasn't so bad, was it?”

&
nbsp; Alene said nothing. She just lay in the puddles of stinging alcohol turned pink with her blood.

  “Yeah, nobody likes bath time, I guess. But I like not hearing you run your smart mouth for a change. I like the silence. Silence won't last long though, 'cause I got some news you ain’t gonna like. I'm sorry to say it, but I missed a spot.”

  Alene’s eyes flew open wide as she felt Paulo shove the brush between her legs. And that's when the real screaming started.

  When it was over, really over this time, Paulo stood and dropped the brush onto her shaking, abused body, and dried his hands off with a towel. He threw the towel down over her and left, whistling as he stepped down the hall.

  Alene pulled her knees to her and lay in a fetal position, feeling used up, humiliated and in more pain than she ever though possible. She hugged herself; a bundle of raw nerves and ragged skin. She cried, thinking not of revenge, or retribution, but only of escape. She decided she had to leave as soon as possible.

  The next days brought with them an intermittent consciousness. She was vaguely aware of being in her room. She didn't know how long she had been in there, the only way she had to mark the time was by watching the shadow of the window frame stretch across the floor until the evening shade obscured it completely, but she couldn't say for sure how many times it had done that. Time was lax, and it seemed to either stand still or tear away in disorienting bursts. She slept a great deal, or what felt to her like a great deal, but the days could have been minutes.