Bottle Full Of Scorpions

by John Dominick

One meal. That’s all they ate, one meal.

  Jesus Christ.

  I was down to 88 days after one fucking meal. For me. 88 days if I woke up in the morning and they were all dead.

  Which, except for Noelle, I would have been just fine with.

  I feel bad saying that, because they’re human, right? I should want to help out other people. We’re all in the same boat, it’s the end of the world, we’re the only human beings alive, yadda yadda yadda.

  I figured at the rate they were eating, we were talking about 10 days of food.

  And that was if they only ate one meal a day.

  Good luck trying to keep them to one meal. And Christ, once the crying girl started up…

  She didn’t look like she was a big eater, but still.

  This was going to be trouble. Bad, bad trouble.

  16

  The bugs never went away.

  For me, that wouldn’t have been a problem. I’m used to them being around. If they weren’t going to let me out for the afternoon, well, I guess I was going to stay in.

  It wasn’t quite so easy when you had 5 other people in the bunker with you.

  “I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Kristin said after we’d been inside for a couple of hours.

  “There’s a bucket over in the corner,” I said, and pointed. “I even got a toilet seat on it.”

  Now, I have to admit, the situation was kind of exciting me. Not because I’m a perv and I like poop and pee and that sort of stuff. I’d heard of that – Dale told me once about this video on the internet called Two Girls And A Cup when he was really drunk one night – but I had never seen anything. Didn't really want to, neither. I liked my girls regular, nothing weird. Voluptuous Vixens, College Girls, and Lingerie.

  But if Kristin had to piss, that meant she had to take off her pants.

  Which meant I might get to see real live girl private parts. Or ass.

  Now, I was planning to be a total gentlemen. I was going to look away.

  But, you know…maybe I might be looking over near her…and my eyeballs might drift over to the side…and I might accidentally catch a glimpse while she was standing up and zipping her pants…

  But when I pointed to the bucket, she looked at me like I had just said we should fuck like monkeys in the middle of the room.

  “I’m not going in a bucket,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Okay.”

  I was pretty disappointed, truth to tell.

  “Well?” she asked, like she was expecting me to say something.

  “Well what?”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  I shrugged. “Hold it, I guess.”

  She got mad at that, and pointed at the door. I think she was completely ignoring the bugs sticking their tails through the crack, shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka. “I need to go outside!”

  “You can’t. There’s bugs out there.”

  That only made her madder. “Can’t you do something about them?!”

  I shrugged again. “No.”

  She looked at Jon. “Joooo-ooooon!”

  She said it like she was whining and mad at the same time. Jooo-oooon!

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked angrily.

  “I can’t go in a fucking bucket in the middle of the room!”

  “Well, then, I guess you can fucking hold it.”

  “We could stack the cans and build you a wall,” I suggested.

  This time she stared at me like I had just said the earth was flat and the moon was made of cheese. “That’s not good enough.”

  I shrugged again, but this time I didn’t say anything.

  We just sat there in silence listening to the shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka through the crack in the door.

  “I have to go!” she finally shouted, except she sounded like a frightened 5-year-old now.

  “Then piss in the goddamn bucket, Kristin,” Jon said, “and quit bitching about it.”

  “But – I can’t go in front of everybody…” she whined.

  “I can build you a wall out of cans,” I offered again.

  “A wall of cans so you can go to the can,” Jon joked.

  Nobody laughed. I thought it was kind of funny, though.

  “But…but…you can hear,” she whimpered.

  “Probably smell it, too,” Craig added.

  “Craig,” Noelle warned.

  Craig just smiled to himself, like he was going to enjoy his joke even if nobody else was.

  “I don’t want – ”

  “CHRIST, just pee in the bucket already, will you, Kristin?!” Noelle snapped.

  Which surprised me. I think it surprised everybody. Craig looked up like What the fuck was that?

  Kristin immediately burst into tears.

  Oh shit, I thought. Two crying girls.

  At least Violet had pretty much stopped. In fact, I think she was asleep now.

  Noelle immediately felt bad. You could see it on her face. “Honey, I’m…I’m sorry. I’m just…it’s everything, the…”

  She gestured towards Violet lying on the floor asleep, and then at the door.

  Everybody knew that what she really meant was what had happened outside the door.

  “Do you want me to help you? I can stand in front of you,” Noelle offered.

  Kristin sobbed and nodded. “Tell them not to look.”

  She sounded like she really was 5 years old.

  “They won’t look. Will you, guys?” Kristin asked.

  “No,” I said, maybe a little too quickly.

  “No,” Jon said.

  “Maybe just a peek,” Craig joked.

  “Craig…”

  “I won’t look, I promise, Kristin,” he said, very seriously.

  I built up a wall of cans for her, then me and the guys all faced away and watched the bugs flick their tails through the crack in the doors.

  It took her a long time. She even whispered something like, “I can’t,” but Noelle told her she could.

  It took her more than five minutes, but we finally heard the tssssssssss of pee, and the hollow sound it made when it hit the bucket.

  I had a boner the entire time.

  17

  Craig went next. He stood up and peed in the corner. He didn’t have any problems doing it at all.

  While he was over there, though, he found my magazines.

  I hadn’t exactly hidden them after I jacked off that morning. They weren’t what you would call out in the open – I guess it was force of habit or something, afraid that Grams would somehow miraculously walk in, back from the dead, and find them and tell me how Jesus didn’t love boys who played with themselves and now I was going to Hell. So I usually hid them over in the corner. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten about them.

  But Craig found them after he zipped up.

  “Whoa-ho, what is this?” he asked, holding up Voluptuous Vixens.

  As soon as I saw what he was talking about, I immediately glanced over at Noelle. She just looked confused.

  My face must have been blushing as red as a stop sign. “Nothing,” I said, and got up and tried to grab for it.

  He snatched it away from me, and opened it up and looked inside. “Dude, you were holding out on us!”

  “Give it here,” I said, embarrassed and furious.

  “What is it?” Jon called out.

  “Titty magazine,” Craig laughed.

  I looked at Noelle. She lowered her eyes.

  “Give it here,” I said, more forceful.

  “Voluptuous Vixens,” Craig read off the cover. “Aha, our boy Ben here likes them stacked.”

  “Give it here!” I almost shouted.

  “Cut it out, Craig, and give it to him,” Noelle said. “You’re embarrassing him.”

  She still wasn’t looking at me. Kristin was, though. She was smirking, like they’d all just caught me with my pants down and my dick in my hand.

  “No need to be embarrassed! I like looking at tits and ass, too!” Cr
aig laughed.

  “Lemme see,” Jon called.

  Now I really was shouting. “Give it here!”

  Craig reached around me and tossed the Playboy to Jon. A page that was just barely hanging on ripped out and fluttered to the ground.

  I reached down and snatched it up. Jon started flipping through the pages.

  “And we’ve got more!” Craig announced as he picked up the other two magazines. “College Girls and Lingerie Special Editions…I have to say I like your taste, Ben, although I myself would have gone for something a little more hardcore. Maybe some Hustler or Penthouse.”

  “GIVE IT HERE!” I yelled. I hated myself for it, but I could hear the tears in my voice. Knowing that Noelle knew what I had in here – what I did when I was by myself – suddenly made me feel dirty and ashamed.

  “Give him the fucking magazine, Craig!” Noelle snapped.

  Craig paused long enough for me to rip the Playboys out of his hands, and I rushed over to Jon and ripped the last one out of his hands, too. Then I went and arranged them in the corner, out of sight, behind a bunch of vegetable cans.

  “Jeez, man, don’t get so hostile,” Craig said to me.

  “It’s okay, dude,” Jon said. “No reason to be embarrassed.”

  I couldn’t say anything, I was so mortified.

  “At least we know you’re not a faggot,” Craig smirked.

  “Craig,” Noelle scolded him.

  “I’m lookin’ at them later,” Craig announced. “Just to let you know.”

  Then he went back to watching the bugs at the door, slapping their tails through the crack.

  Shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka.

  18

  They ate again when night started getting closer.

  The whole time I sat there watching them shovel the food down their throats, I was clicking off days like a countdown.

  88 days…87 days…86 days…

  They were just fucking stupid, too. When Craig ate a can of corn, he didn’t drink the water inside. He knocked it over and it spilled on the concrete floor.

  Three months ago I would have thought, Gross – yellow cloudy water that tastes like corn? I’m not drinking that shit.

  When you’ve only got 88 days of food left, max, your ideas about what’s drinkable and what’s eatable undergo some pretty serious changes.

  And all the time Craig’s spilling valuable water all over the floor, he’s chugging out of a cola bottle just so he can sweat and piss it all out again.

  Anyway, I’m sitting there watching my food and water go down like the counter on one of those video games, when the zombies keep attacking your guy on the screen and he keeps losing life and getting closer and closer to dying.

  Except I was that guy.

  And the people around me, the absolutely normal people not six feet away, were the zombies.

  Draining my life away.

  Except for Noelle. I watched her eat. She was real polite. Didn’t eat much, either. You can have as much as you want, Noelle, I thought.

  After it was all over, I did another count.

  7 cans of spaghetti with meatballs. 41 cans of soup. 58 cans of vegetables. 38 cans of fruit. 19 cans of tunafish. 156 liters of water.

  The only good thing was they didn’t eat as much as before. I guess they stuffed themselves so much at lunch, they weren’t as hungry at dinner.

  163 cans of food.

  81 days left.

  Shit, why was I even fooling myself? That was 81 days at 2 cans a day.

  This…Jesus, we were going through 15 cans a meal.

  11 meals left.

  3 days. Maybe 4.

  I was going to have to say something in the morning.

  Yeah. In the morning.

  Right now, they were just starving…they were just hungry people who needed something to eat.

  Not zombies killing me slowly, bit by bit.

  People.

  That’s what I tried to tell myself as I watched my life slip away, can by can.

  19

  We didn’t say much after dinner. Well, I didn’t say much. I just loaded my gun – pulled out the spring-loaded rod and fed bullets back into the tube until I had 15 in there again.

  While I was doing that, Jon started talking about the guy who had died outside.

  Will was his name. He was a good guy, Jon said. I would have liked him, he said.

  I thought, No offense, Will, but if you ate as much as these other fuckers, I’m glad you didn’t make it.

  Him (Will) and Violet had been dating for two years. Violet was going to be an actress, Will was going to be a screenwriter. Will worked for a video editing company in Los Angeles. Violet did work as an extra.

  “An extra what?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You said she worked as an extra. An extra what?”

  They laughed, and told me it was when you were an actor in the background of a movie. You apparently didn’t get to say nothing, but sometimes if they liked the way you looked, they would give you a line, and you could get your union card.

  In fact, they were all actors, pretty much. Craig, Jon, Noelle, and Violet. Craig was from Nevada, Jon from Kansas, Noelle from Florida, Violet from Massachusetts. They had all gone to Hollywood to make it big.

  Guess that was all over.

  For everybody, not just them. I wasn’t trying to be mean.

  It was all over for everybody.

  Kristin worked as a receptionist for a dentist. She had lived in a small town in Oregon and just wanted to go to L.A. because she hated her life.

  I could relate to that.

  They had all met through friends of friends, or because they lived in the same building. I thought of it like they lived in a bigger version of the trailer park where I lived, and just happened to meet each other.

  I wondered why the fuck I had to get stuck in a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere with fat old people.

  Then I realized that Noelle had come here and shown up on my doorstep…so I was okay with being in a trailer park out in the middle of nowhere.

  As it was getting darker, more bugs showed up. A lot more. As the light was dying, I counted at least 20 different tails whipping through the crack in the door.

  Violet woke up.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he,” she cried quietly. “Will. He’s dead. He’s dead.”

  “Shhhhhh,” Noelle whispered, and smoothed Violet’s hair. “Shhhhh.”

  The light died out as the sun set, and we all sat there in the dark listening to Violet crying, and the shikka-shikka-shikka of the bugs at the door.

  20

  I used to dream a lot before It happened.

  Even after it happened, I dreamed a lot. Bad ones, where bugs were ripping open the door and tearing me and Grams and Pop to shreds. I used to wake up screaming the first couple of weeks.

  Eventually it stopped.

  When you’re living a nightmare, no matter how bad your dreams get, they just can’t compete.

  But the others – Noelle, Kristin, Violet, and Jon – weren’t that far gone yet, I guess.

  A couple of times at night I heard them jerk awake.

  A muffled cry, a little shout, whimpering in the darkness.

  It startled me because I had been alone so long.

  But I always had the sound of my nightmares to put me back to sleep.

  Shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka

  21

  I woke up before the others did.

  It was a good thing. I had kind of been holding in a crap because I didn’t want to go in front of Noelle. Any of the girls, really.

  Okay, okay, I didn’t want to go in front of anybody.

  Especially Craig.

  So when I woke up, it was still dark. I could see the beginning of a red glow through the crack in the doors.

  The bugs were gone, which was a good sign.

  I wasn’t sure if I could take two straight days holed up with these pe
ople.

  I went over real careful-like to the bucket, unbuckled my pants, and sat down on the RV toilet seat. Over across from me, Noelle and Kristin were sleeping against the wall. I could barely see them, but I could hear them breathing, and I could see a little of their outlines in the dark.

  My dick was hard as a rock the whole time.

  I wanted to jack off real bad, but I knew that would be super creepy. Plus, I was scared as hell they would wake up and catch me. I wasn’t sure if I was more scared of them acting like I was a creepy pervert, or more scared that they would laugh at me.

  I just put my boner under my shirt so they wouldn’t see it if they woke up.

  I crapped fairly quick, but because I had to piss, my boner kept staying up. Between the piss in my bladder and the gorgeous girl only a few feet away, my dick wasn’t coming down. I tried thinking about baseball, but that was stupid because baseball didn’t exist anymore, and I never liked it when it did.

  I tried thinking of people who weren’t sexy, but I kept coming back to Mrs. Simmons and her big ones, and that didn’t help none.

  I tried thinking of somebody beating the crap out of me, raking my back with a pitchfork, the devils of Hell torturing me. That kind of brought my dick down a little bit, but not enough that I could lean over and aim it at the inside of the bucket.

  Eventually I wiped and went back over and laid down. I could have took an empty coke bottle with me and tried to piss into that, but it would have been difficult, and I didn’t want any leaking back onto me.

  Jesus, I could just imagine that, with Craig waking up and finding me with piss all over my clothes. I’d never hear the end of it.

  Bed wetter, bed wetter.

  So I just laid there and waited in the dark.

  Craig woke up first. I could hear him yawning. I probably could have seen him, because it was starting to get light, but I didn’t want to look up.

  Then I could hear him sniff the air.

  “Jesus Christ, who took a shit?” he asked loudly.

  That was it. It woke up Jon and Noelle, who blinked heavily and looked around in a daze as they raised their heads.

  “Oh man,” Craig said, fanning the air and putting his shirt over his mouth and nose. “Did you take a shit, Jon?”

  Jon shook his head ‘no’ sleepily.

  “I know it wasn’t you, Noelle, because your shit doesn’t smell that bad.”