Bottle Full Of Scorpions

by John Dominick

  I stuck my head back out of the skylight and hauled myself up on the roof.

  A couple of hundred feet away I could see Noelle standing up and screaming on the top of Dale’s RV.

  I guess the ringing in my ears was pretty much gone, because I could hear every word.

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?!” she screamed. “WHAT HAPPENED?!”

  “GET BACK TO THE BUNKER!” I yelled at her.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?! WHERE’S CRAIG?! WHAT HAPPENED?!”

  I ignored her and looked around. I suppose I could have dangled off the edge of the camper roof and jumped to the ground, but the possibility that those babies might come out from under the RV scared the shit out of me.

  There was another RV about 15 feet away. No way I was making that.

  Bob had a rusted-out old truck off to the side of the RV, only about five feet away. I jumped off the roof, hit the empty truck bed, and cussed from the spike of pain in my feet.

  Around the corner of the RV, I could just make out Craig’s arm lying limp on the ground – or what I guessed was his arm, since it was basically a big lump crawling with little black shapes. None of them were headed for me, so I jumped over the side of the truck bed and ran like hell all the way back to the bunker.

  56

  Jon and Noelle were already there when I ran up. Noelle was crying hysterically, her hands beating on Jon’s chest.

  “WHAT HAPPENED TO CRAIG?! WHERE’S CRAIG?!”

  “Noelle, get in the bunker,” Jon said, his voice soft and gentle. “Just get in the bunker.”

  “NO! WHAT HAPPENED TO CRAIG?! JUST TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO CRAIG!”

  She turned around and started towards me. At least, I thought she started towards me. Then I realized she was just heading for Bob and Lisa’s RV.

  Jon grabbed her wrist with one hand and held the gun in the other.

  “Noelle – don’t. Don’t go back there.”

  “WHERE’S CRAIG!” she screamed, tears running down her face. “WHAT HAPPENED TO CRAIG!”

  Her pulled her close to him and wrapped his free arm around her body so she couldn’t get away. The other hand held the rifle around the barrel.

  “He didn’t make it, Noelle. He didn’t make it.”

  “NOOOOOOOOOO!” she screamed, and collapsed in the dust. “NOOO, NOOOO, NOOOOOOO! NOOOOOO…”

  “Ben, get the door,” Jon told me.

  I ran over with my hands out towards Noelle, wanting to hold her, to comfort her –

  “The door, Ben,” Jon snapped.

  After a few more seconds of listening to Noelle sobbing on the ground, I opened the bunker door.

  Jon helped Noelle to her feet, supporting all her weight. She looked like a beautiful rag doll, boneless and limp, her hair falling down in a curtain over her face. Jon helped her stumble into the bunker.

  I followed behind them and locked the bolt.

  Only later did I realize that never once did Jon let go of the gun.

  57

  We sat in the bunker, Noelle and Jon on one side, me on the other facing them. Jon held Noelle as she cried quietly on his shoulder. He had his right arm around her and was stroking her hair. The rifle was lying on the floor to his left.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, I thought angrily. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be at ALL.

  That’s supposed to be ME. I’M supposed to be holding her.

  I just sat there and stewed and cleaned the dried blood off my arms from where I punched through the skylight.

  Meanwhile, Jon was over there with his arm around Noelle, whispering God knows what in her ear.

  When I poured rubbing alcohol over my shredded knuckles, it stung like hell.

  But not half as bad as watching the two of them together.

  The sun started to go down, and the first bug came out. Its tail whipped through the gap in the bunker doors, shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka.

  At least it wasn’t a baby. I figured the babies were small enough they could probably fit through the crack and get inside the bunker.

  I remembered Craig – how he had clawed at his cheeks and torn open his face as the babies spilled out of his mouth – and shuddered.

  It was all the way dark, and at least ten bugs were crowded at the door whipping their tails, before Noelle finally sat up.

  “What…what happened?” she asked quietly, her voice still full of snot and tears.

  Jon looked up at me.

  It wasn’t a friendly look.

  It was more like a warning to be quiet.

  “We went to the trailer to look for the weed Ben saw when he was rummaging around the RVs last month.”

  “Uh huh,” she said, her voice flat.

  “One of the bugs…got Craig,” Jon said.

  A LOT of them got Craig, I thought, but I held my tongue. Noelle didn’t need to hear the gory details of what had happened.

  “What was the gunshot,” she asked, not sounding that interested in the answer. “I heard the gun go off.”

  “That was me,” Jon said. “I tried to save him, but…I couldn’t.”

  My head jerked up like I’d just been kicked in the ribs.

  What the fuck was this?

  “I’m sorry, Noelle…I tried. I tried so hard.”

  What, you tried so hard to split his head open with that pot, Jon? Is that what you tried so hard to do?

  “I would have given my life for his if I could have,” Jon said.

  I was furious. I couldn’t breathe. Not only was this motherfucker lying – he was making himself look like some kind of fucking hero.

  And it was working.

  Noelle’s face crumpled as she tried to hold back tears. She took Jon’s face in her hands, real softly, and kissed him on the cheek. Then she pulled back and looked deep into his eyes.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I wanted to scream I was so angry. I wanted to go over there and take that gun and put a bullet in his head.

  He was taking her away from me – RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES.

  He started to lean his head in towards her.

  HE WAS GOING TO FUCKING KISS HER!

  “When did Craig give you the gun, Jon?” I asked loudly. It felt like acid was dripping off my tongue.

  Jon looked over at me. I could tell from his eyes that he’d forgotten I was there, if only for a few seconds.

  Noelle looked at me, too, like she was shocked. As though I’d suddenly appeared like a ghost.

  Jon scowled at me. “You were there, Ben. You saw him give it to me.”

  “That’s funny, cause I don’t remember seeing him hand it over to you. When did he give you the gun?”

  Now it was dawning on Noelle’s face: something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right between me and Jon, and something wasn’t right with the story.

  “What’s he talking about, Jon?” she asked, her voice suddenly scared.

  Jon stared at me like Shut the fuck up NOW.

  Fuck YOU, Jon.

  “Cause the last thing I remember about Craig is he wasn’t going to give that gun up for nothing. So when was it that he gave it to you?”

  “He wasn’t going to give it to you,” Jon said, his voice low and threatening. “I was his friend.”

  “Really? Is that why you smashed his head in with that flower pot?” I asked.

  Jon reached out his left hand for the gun.

  I lunged across the bunker. I didn’t have far to go –

  But Jon’s right fist stopped me before I got there.

  58

  A burst of white electricity lit up the inside of my eyes. Then I was down on the floor, warm cement scraping against my cheek. The room was dark again, but I could still see little flashes of light sparking inside my eyeballs.

  Noelle screamed.

  Behind her, the bugs’ tails were whipping back and forth at the door.

  Shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka

  I staggered to my feet just as Jon sla
mmed the stock of the rifle into my face.

  I went down again, rolling and clattering into the wall of canned food.

  There wasn’t much left anymore (3 cans of soup left, 11 cans of vegetables), so they didn’t make much of a clatter. As I got up on all fours again, my right hand landed on a can. My fingers closed around it.

  On the floor, little drops of blood were dripping from my nose.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Noelle screamed.

  I didn’t know if she was talking to me or to Jon.

  Since Jon answered, I guess it was him. “I didn’t tell you everything, Noelle. It didn’t go down exactly the way I said.”

  He paused for a second. Then he whispered, “Ben killed Craig.”

  “You fucking liar,” I said, but it came out garbled. My mouth wasn’t working so good.

  “What are you talking about?!” Noelle cried. I didn’t look at her – I was still staring at my blood dripping on the concrete – but I could hear the panic in her voice.

  Behind her, I could hear the bugs at the door:

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

  “He was in love with you, Noelle,” Jon said. “Ben, I mean. You knew that – shit, we all knew that from the second we showed up here. And when Craig tried to protect you, I think it drove Ben here over the edge. So he led us out to the weed, and he opened a refrigerator in Craig’s face…a refrigerator where he knew a bug was hiding. And it jumped out and killed Craig.”

  I looked up from where I was kneeling on the concrete. Jon was there, aiming the rifle at me – but he was holding it wrong. He didn’t have it braced against his shoulder. He was holding it like actors hold machineguns in bad war movies, with the stock up under his armpit.

  Noelle was behind him, crumpled against the wall, her hands up in front of her mouth in horror.

  “Are you going to tell her the part up on the RV roof? The part where you asked me what the best way to kill Craig was?” I said, my words all slurred like I was drunk.

  “YOU SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH,” Jon yelled, his face full of hate.

  Noelle looked at Jon like maybe she was as scared of him now as she was of me.

  “Are you going to tell her how you blamed Craig for killing Kristin?” I asked. “How you wanted to kill him cause he kicked Kristin off the RV?”

  He raised the gun and pointed it right in my face – but he was still holding it wrong, with the stock up under his armpit. There was no way he could sight down the barrel like that – not that it mattered when he was only two feet away. He could have closed both eyes and still hit me.

  But…if he was holding the gun wrong…

  …did he really know how to use it?

  Did he know that you had to cock the lever to eject the old shell and load the new one?

  He’d seen me do it. Craig had done it in the RV when he wasted the perfectly good bullet.

  But had he done it after he picked up the rifle from the ground?

  My mind raced, trying to remember.

  I hadn’t seen him or heard him do it when he got back to the bunker.

  Did he do it in between the time I saw him at the RV and the bunker?

  Then I heard the metal click of the hammer as he cocked it back.

  Suddenly I felt like I was going to shit myself.

  “You say one more word…” Jon whispered, “…one more fucking word…and I will put a fucking bullet through your head.”

  I might have been about to piss my pants at first, but by the time he finished talking, I had gotten control of myself.

  Anybody who’s ever watched a cop movie has seen it: the bad guy cocks the hammer on a pistol he's pointing at the good guy. It’s what they always do to intimidate the hero.

  The question was, was Jon a big city asshole? Did he actually know about guns, or was the only shit he knew from Dirty Harry movies?

  Working the lever on my rifle ejected the spent round, loaded a new bullet...

  ...and automatically cocked the hammer.

  If you weren't going to immediately shoot after that, you were supposed to put your thumb on the hammer, very slightly pull the trigger, and then ease the hammer into the safety position.

  It’s possible Jon worked the lever when he was running away from Craig.

  And it's possible he put it into safety, and just now pulled the hammer back into firing position.

  But my guess was he'd never worked the lever in the first place.

  If he hadn’t worked the lever, then the hammer hadn’t cocked automatically…and there wasn’t a live round in the chamber.

  If there wasn’t a live round in the chamber, Jon could cock the hammer and pull the trigger all day, and nothing was gonna happen.

  I was pretty sure Jon was just a big city asshole who’d never handled a gun before.

  But I wasn’t quite ready to bet my life on it just yet.

  I stared him in the eye. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that same question,” he said. “I think that tomorrow morning you’re going to go for a walk out in the desert. I don’t care which way you go, but you’re not staying here.”

  So he was either going to shoot me now…or he was going to let the bugs finish me off for him.

  Kill me now fast, or kill me slow later.

  Slow…and painful.

  Over at the door, the bugs’ tails were whipping back and forth. They must have been able to sense something was coming.

  SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA

  As I looked down the barrel of the rifle, I knew this much: if I was going to die, I’d rather get my brains blown out than get eaten alive.

  I leapt to my feet and screamed, the can gripped tight in my hand.

  59

  CLICK.

  The pin dry-fired on a dead shell.

  Jon hadn’t pulled the lever.

  I saw the surprise on his face when there wasn’t a gunshot.

  You stupid shit, I thought, a lot more confident than I’d been 10 seconds ago.

  He had both hands on the gun, so there was no way to block my arm.

  WHAM.

  The can clocked him right in the side of the head. The round edge dug in good and hard, and I felt hot blood squirt against my skin.

  Jon went down in a heap.

  Noelle screamed.

  I reached down and yanked the rifle out of Jon’s limp hands. He rolled around on the floor, moaning and crying, clutching the side of his head. Moonlight shone through the slit in the door and turned the blood on his fingers black.

  I worked the lever and shucked it back into place. The empty brass casing tinkled on the cement.

  “You got to make sure it’s loaded, asshole,” I snarled.

  Behind Noelle, the bugs were going crazy.

  SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA

  I turned around and walked over to Noelle, my hand held out to her.

  “Noelle…everything he said was a lie.”

  She looked up at me, then shook her head as she cried. No no no no no

  “Jon killed Craig, not me. I was in the trailer. Jon hit him in the head, not me.”

  I conveniently left out the part where I had opened the fridge door, hoping there was a bug inside.

  She kept shaking her head no no no no no as she whimpered and sobbed.

  “I never wanted to hurt anybody, Noelle,” I lied. “I just wanted us to all be okay…especially you…I just wanted to make sure you were okay, no matter what…”

  She stopped shaking her head long enough to look behind me. Her eyes got wide.

  Fuck –

  I should have never turned my back on him.

  I whipped around just as Jon came at me.

  He rammed right into the muzzle of the gun.

  That’s when I pulled the trigger.

  60

  To this day, I ask myself whether I did i
t on purpose or whether it was an accident.

  It was all a blur when it happened.

  Did I shoot him because I wanted him dead?

  Or did I shoot him because I was scared and I pulled the trigger on instinct?

  Or did it happen by accident?

  I’d like to say I did it in cold blood.

  That would make me seem bigger and badder. More of a man.

  But like I said at the beginning, if you’re gonna get to know me, you should know the truth.

  The truth is I don’t know. Not for sure.

  I wish I was a cold-blooded killer, cause that would mean I was in control.

  But like I said before, that shit ain’t the truth.

  I think I was scared out of my mind. That, and my finger pulled as I stumbled backwards.

  For a while after it happened, I thought it mattered. The truth, I mean.

  But whether I meant to kill him or not didn’t mean shit.

  It all turned out the same way in the end.

  61

  The back wall of the bunker sprayed with blood.

  Jon jolted a little bit. His mouth made a little ‘O’ shape, and he looked like he was going to cry.

  Then his legs gave out and he fell on his ass, clutching his stomach.

  Blood poured out through his fingers like syrup.

  I stared down at the gun, afraid of what I’d just done.

  Behind me, Noelle was screaming.

  Behind her, the bugs were in a frenzy.

  SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA

  I was surprised I could hear them. No ringing in my ears. But then I realized the muzzle of the gun had been right up against Jon’s belly. It was like using a pillow for a silencer, like bad guys do on TV shows. His body muffled most of the gunshot.

  Jon looked up at me. His eyes rolled up in his sockets, and he collapsed backwards as he passed out. His head made a sound like a ripe cantaloupe thudding on cement.

  I stood there for a few more seconds, watching the smoke curl up out of the gun barrel. Then I turned around to Noelle.

  She was on her butt, staring up at me like I was the devil.

  I glanced down at the rifle in my hands and realized how I must look.

  I tossed the gun off to the side. It clattered on the cement.