Scorpion Shards

by Neal Shusterman

  Cowboy put his wallet next to Dillon’s and racked up the balls. “You break,” he said.

  Dillon took a deep breath and made sure Deanna was watching. Then he took his cue ball, and stared intently at the wedge of colored balls before him. Dillon stared until he stopped seeing balls, and instead saw angles, vectors, and forces of impact. He examined the lines of motion and rebounds—each one bearing a complex mathematical equation that his mind solved instantaneously. And then, once he saw every pattern of possibility on that pool table, Dillon struck the cue ball . . . sending two solid-colored balls into two different pockets.

  His second shot sunk two more balls, his third shot sent his remaining three balls home, and his fourth shot sent the eight ball rebounding off three sides before disappearing into a corner pocket.

  Four shots. Like sorting mail.

  Cowboy just stared at the table, which was still full of his own seven striped balls. “Beginner’s luck,” said Dillon. He took his and Cowboy’s wallets from the edge of the table, leaving Cowboy completely humiliated, not to mention broke. From behind the bar, the bartender laughed.

  Cowboy was furious. He threw his cue down and grabbed Dillon. “Just who do you think you—”

  But he never finished. The moment he grabbed Dillon, his pupils dilated, his jaw dropped, and his face paled. In an instant Cowboy’s thoughts had become so scrambled, he couldn’t even speak. Dillon slipped free from his grip.

  “Good game,” said Dillon.

  “Duh . . . ,” said Cowboy.

  Dillon and Deanna left him there, his senses just beginning to come back. They breezed out the door, dragging a flurry of cocktail napkins in their wake.

  “I DON’T SEE THINGS the way other people see things,” Dillon told Deanna that night as they dined like kings in their hotel room above Lake Tahoe. “You want to know how I started the rock slide, and how I won that pool game. I don’t know how—all I can tell you is how I see the world—and it’s different than other people do.”

  Deanna just looked at him quizzically, so Dillon tried to explain. “Other people, they just see ‘things’—but I see patterns—cause and effect. I can see whole chains of events that other people can’t see. It’s like the way a good chess player can plan ten moves in advance? Well, when I play chess, I can see the entire game the moment the first move is made, not just all my moves—but every possible move—all at the same time. It’s the same thing with pool; all I had to do was look at the positioning of the balls, and I knew exactly how to hit them to make the balls go into the pockets.”

  Deanna nodded. “Sort of the way a computer can solve a really hard math equation in half a second.”

  “Yeah, sort of like that. It was harder for me to make myself lose than it was to win.”

  Deanna was amazed. “You must be a genius.”

  Dillon shrugged modestly. “Naah, it’s just something I can do. Some people can sing or dance; I can see patterns. A while back, before things got bad, I did this trick with a Rubik’s Cube. My friends would get it all completely mixed up, then hand it to me. They would give me five seconds to look at it and then blindfold me. I would remember where the colors had been and solve the cube blindfolded.” Dillon began to smile as he thought about it. “There was this one time they took the cube apart and put it back together so it was impossible to solve, but I managed to solve it anyway!”

  Deanna looked down and nervously began to scratch at her healing wrist, as something occurred to her. “So then . . . if you can see how things are going to happen—then you meant to hurt those people in the avalanche. You meant to hurt me.”

  Dillon cringed and stood up. “Boulders aren’t billiard balls. A mountain’s not a chessboard,” he said. “And it’s not like I can predict the future—I just see patterns of the way things ought to happen—but things don’t always happen the way they’re supposed to . . .”

  Dillon began to pace. “There was a tree further down the mountain,” he said. “The way I saw it, the tree was going to get smashed, and in the end four homes would get hit—the four that were empty. No one would get hurt, and the wrecking-hunger would be fed, right? So I threw the stone that I knew would start the whole avalanche. The pebbles started moving, the rocks started slipping, the boulders began to go, but when that tree got hit—it didn’t fall! It deflected the boulder toward that fifth house.”

  The more Dillon thought about it, the angrier he got. “I don’t want to hurt people, but people get hurt, okay? That’s just the way it is, and I can’t do anything about it!”

  Suddenly he took his fist and punched it as hard as he could against the window. It vibrated with a loud thud.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he mumbled.

  DEANNA WATCHED HIM CLOSELY as he sat there stewing in his own conflicted emotions. Deanna could hear that frightened voice in her head that sounded so much like her mother, telling her to run away from his crazy boy. But if he were crazy, he was no crazier than Deanna.

  She sat next to him and gently touched his hand. It was hot from his anger. Hers was cold, as it always was.

  “With all that money you won playing pool,” suggested Deanna, “we could fly east.”

  “Fly where?” asked Dillon. “When you get on a plane, you need a destination, you can’t just buy a ticket ‘east.’ ”

  Deanna sighed. It was true: the eastbound gravity that gripped them could deposit them anywhere between Reno and New York.

  “Anyway,” said Dillon with a smirk, “you’re afraid of flying . . . because if you’re in a plane, the plane’ll do everything it can to crash.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No,” said Dillon very seriously. “I believe you. All the things you’re afraid of—all those awful things you imagine happening to you—your fear is so strong that it makes them come true. It’s like your fear is a virus or something running through your veins . . . only it’s mutated. Now it’s this thing wrapped around your neck, strangling you.”

  Deanna shivered. “Gee, thanks, Dillon,” she said. “You know just what to say to make me feel better.”

  “But you should feel better,” insisted Dillon, “because, I can see the pattern—and as long as you’re with me, none of those bad things can happen to you. I’ll push you out of the way of a speeding car, even before it comes around the bend. I’ll get you off a train before it derails. I won’t let you get on a plane that will crash. I’ll be like a good luck charm you wear around your neck! I promise.”

  Deanna knew there was truth in what Dillon said.

  “We’re meant to do great things, Deanna—don’t you feel it?” he said, gripping her hand tightly. “And every day, we’re closer to knowing what those things are!”

  “All of us, you mean?” asked Deanna. “Us and the others?” Deanna watched to see how Dillon would react to her bringing up The Others.

  Dillon shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But you and me especially.”

  Deanna felt her eyelids getting heavy, and so she leaned back, letting Dillon put his arm around her. He did nothing more—just held her with a wonderful innocence as if they were two small children. He asked no more from her than her presence, and it made her feel safe.

  In the silence she listened as Dillon’s breathing slowed, and he fell asleep. She took comfort in the sound of his breathing, and soon matched the pace of her own breath to his. She imagined their hearts beating in time with each other as well, and wished that they could somehow be part of each other . . .

  Then she realized that in some strange and immeasurable way, they already were.

  5. GHOST OF THE RAINBOW

  * * *

  AT A CAMPSITE IN THE WOODS WHERE THE MISSISSIPPI AND Ohio Rivers meet, Tory Smythe tended to her aching face. She gently cleaned her cheeks, chin, and forehead with astringent alcohol, and three types of soaps—a ritual performed four times a day. It stung as if she had just wiped her face with battery acid, and although all t
hese cleansers promised results, none of them helped. She put on some perfume, which didn’t do much either, then dabbed her scaling face with Clearasil, hoping beyond hope that someday it would work.

  “I want to head toward Nebraska,” she shouted to Winston, who was standing by the edge of the water. “Last year I read about this astronomer . . . in Omaha, I think. Anyway, he predicted a star was about to go supernova—and since that star seems to have something to do with us, maybe he knows something we don’t.”

  She turned to see that Winston wasn’t even listening. He was just looking out over the river.

  “What are you doing, praying again?”

  “I’m not praying,” said Winston. “I’m taking a whiz.”

  But Tory knew he was just using that as an excuse. Even this far away, she could tell that he was looking at that weird blue cloth again.

  WINSTON PELL STOOD BY the water’s edge so Tory couldn’t see, fiddling with the torn piece of turquoise-blue satin that he had pulled from a trash can three days before. He felt troubled, unsure of his next move, and for some reason fiddling with that torn piece of cloth made him feel better, as if it were a tiny security blanket. He had one of those when he was little. It was just a quilt, but when he wrapped it around himself, he felt safe and secure. Now, as he stood by the edge of the water, he did say a little prayer; he wished for things to be like they once were, before his ma got paralyzed . . . before his dad died . . . . He wished for the days when an old blanket was the only protection he needed. Please, God, make it like it was, he prayed, as he often did. Make everything go back . . . .

  Maybe his old life hadn’t been the best in the world, but it was better than it had become in these past few years and much better than what he had to face these past few days. On that first night, suddenly roaring with crickets, he knew his legs were moving him away from home, but it was like sleepwalking. Only after dawn broke did he begin to comprehend that he was running away with this hideous, crater-faced girl.

  At first they traveled west: on foot and in the beds of pickup trucks, “borrowing” clothes from clotheslines along the way, and food from unharvested fields. Once they hit the Mississippi River, they followed it north. Winston could feel himself being drawn upriver, the way salmon were drawn against a powerful current.

  Winston knew they were moving toward Others like themselves—it was something he had sensed from the beginning—but where would they find them and how long would it take?

  And where to go now?

  As he stood at the edge of western Kentucky’s woods, he looked out across the swirling waters where the Ohio and the Mississippi met—a delta that divided three different states. Where to go from here? Kentucky, Illinois, or Missouri. Decisions were getting harder and harder for Winston these days. The very thought of having to make one made him want to put his thumb deep in his mouth and suck on it to make all his problems go away. He’d been getting that thumb-sucking urge a lot lately—like he used to the first time he was little. But he reminded himself that he was fifteen and forced the urge away. Instead he focused his attention on that piece of turquoise cloth in his other hand, studying the soothing richness of its color. There was something important about that color—he was certain of it.

  In a few minutes he returned to their campsite and slipped into his sleeping bag, which was just an old comforter he had found in a Memphis Dumpster.

  “Did you hear what I said about Omaha?” Tory asked. “About that astronomer? He’s supposed to be a kook, but then maybe only a kook will talk to us.”

  Winston rolled over, away from her. “Sure,” he said. “Whatever.”

  Tory sighed. “It would help,” she said, “if you did some of the thinking around here.”

  Winston slid deeper into his sleeping bag. “Thinkin’ just makes me angry. I got no use for it anymore.”

  “You know,” said Tory, “you’re not an easy person to run away with.”

  Winston rolled over to face her. “Just because we ran away at the same time, in the same direction, doesn’t mean I ran away with you.” But even as he said it, Winston knew he was wrong. They were stuck with each other—and even if they were to go their separate ways, he knew they’d end up bumping right back into each other—pulled together like two magnets.

  Winston began to think of his family. The faces of his mother and brother were getting harder to remember.

  “My mama’s probably turnin’ the country upside down lookin’ for me.”

  “I thought you called her and told her you were all right.”

  “I did,” said Winston. “But she had more questions than I could answer, so I hung right up.”

  Tory sighed and slipped deeper into her makeshift sleeping bag. “You’re lucky you got a mama who cares enough to ask questions. My mama’s gone.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “No, just gone,” said Tory. “Up and left last year. I got stuck with my aunt.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Just as well. My mama and I never got along anyway. She used to say ‘Tory, your bulb is so dim, you’ll never amount to anything.’ Truth is, I get straight A’s in school. But that didn’t matter. I coulda been a national scholar, she still would have figured me dumber than a doorpost. Anyway, when I started getting this skin problem, my mother just gave up. She said it was my fault all her boyfriends ran away—and I hoped she was right; I would have been ugly just to spite her. When she got drunk, she would tell me things like how because of my face, I’d spend my whole life alone and unhappy.”

  “Like her?”

  “Like her.”

  “Sounds like she got on the inside what you got on the outside,” said Winston. “I’d rather be you than her.”

  “I’d rather be neither of us,” said Tory. “I’d rather be a prom queen from the right family instead of a . . . a gargoyle.”

  “You ain’t no gargoyle,” said Winston. “Gargoyles got big red eyes and ugly teeth, and skin like snakes.”

  “I am so a gargoyle. I smell like one—my skin peels like one. One of these days my face’ll probably start turning green too.” Winston looked at her battle-scarred face, and she looked away, not wanting him to look at it anymore.

  “You Baptists got a prayer for ugly people?” she asked.

  “We got a prayer for everything,” said Winston. But try as he might, he couldn’t think of a prayer for the ugly.

  TWO HUNDRED MILES WAY, Indianapolis was pelted by heavy rain—but the rain that was falling inside Michael “Lips” Lipranski’s soul seemed even worse than the rain outside. The storm raging inside him was full of acid rain, and it burned, filling him with the familiar feeling he could never make go away. He couldn’t talk about that, could he? There are some things you don’t talk about, he thought, as he lay uncomfortably in the van, which was parked in a back alley. There are some things that are just too secret, too personal, so you just never talk about them. Ever.

  The trip from Montauk had been torture. The drenched roads all seemed the same—back roads mostly, because they knew they’d be harder to find if they traveled the back roads. Right now, Michael couldn’t bear the thought of another road.

  Beside him, Lourdes babbled on about a dream she had the night before, about a gray rainbow—whatever that meant. She was cramped and uncomfortable—none of the van’s seats were wide enough for her. When she finally realized that Michael wasn’t listening, she turned to him and asked, “How do you feel?”

  “You know how I feel,” said Michael, adjusting his uncomfortably tight pants. “I feel like I always feel.”

  “You know, you’re not the only guy to feel horny all the time,” Lourdes said.

  Michael shifted uneasily. “Yes I am,” he answered. “I’m the only one who feels it this bad. The only one in the world.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Yeah, sure. And maybe you’re not really fat—you just wear the wrong clothes.”

  Michael regarded the ceiling of the van above h
im, listening to the clattering of the rain.

  “I got a brother,” said Lourdes, “who always had girls on the brain, too.”

  Michael let out a bitter laugh. If girls on the brain were his problem, then there were thousands of them in there, all with jackhammers.

  “Whenever he got the girl crazies,” continued Lourdes, “he’d go off into the bathroom. When he came out a few minutes later, he didn’t feel that way no more. He thought we didn’t know what he was up to, but we did. We just didn’t say.”

  Michael cleared his throat. He just kept looking up at the spots in the roof-lining.

  “I do that, too,” said Michael. “I do it a lot.” Hearing the words come out of his mouth made tears come to his eyes—but Lourdes didn’t laugh at him. She just listened.

  “My brother—I’ll bet he thought he was the only person in the world to do that. I’ll bet he hated himself for it.”

  Michael felt his whole body react to his tears. His throat closed up, his feet felt even colder, his fingers felt weak. Above him, the clattering sound of the rain grew stronger.

  “Sometimes . . . ,” said Michael. “Sometimes I think . . . what if all my dead relatives are watching me? What if their ghosts can see the things I do?”

  “Dead people don’t care,” said Lourdes. “Because if they really do hang around after they die, I’ll bet they’ve seen so many secret things, nothing bothers them anymore.”

  “You think so?”

  “At the very worst, they think it’s funny.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny!”

  “That’s because you’re not dead.”

  Above, the rain began to ease up. Some things you can’t talk about, thought Michael. He never thought it would be so easy to talk about those things with Lourdes.

  “We should go soon,” said Lourdes, who, for obvious reasons, preferred to travel by night rather than by day. “Maybe when the rain stops we’ll see the rainbow.