Bottle Full Of Scorpions

by John Dominick

  8

  I remember the night the meteors came, I was sitting up on top of the RV. Back then I used to sit up on top of the RV for fun, instead of doing it so I didn’t get killed.

  The TV was making a big deal out of it: the biggest meteor shower in 50 years or something like that. It was all over the local news, and even on the national news Pop used to watch at 7.

  So I stayed out late and crawled up the ladder and laid up there watching the sky. We’re way out in the desert, so you can see every little star. I lived a lot of years in Los Angeles, and it’s tough to even see a handful of stars out there. The whole sky is kind of stuck in this purplish haze all night, and you can’t see stars for shit.

  So when you’re used to the whole universe glowing away up there in the night sky, well, a meteor shower better be quite a show.

  It was.

  And how.

  It started around 10 PM with just a few falling stars, maybe one every minute. Then as time went on there was more and more. Lots more.

  After 30 minutes, I started banging on the roof telling Grams and Pop to get out there.

  You ever seen those videos from years and years ago when we invaded Iraq? All those big bursts of anti-aircraft guns blasting in the dark?

  Try that times a hundred.

  I’m not kidding. The whole sky was lit up with them.

  I was sort of afraid somebody had started World War 3.

  Especially when a few landed near us.

  Now, when I say ‘near us,’ it was probably a couple miles off – but that was plenty close enough.

  All of a sudden this giant ball of fire went flying down through the sky. Lit up everything like it was daylight. When it hit, there was a huge sound like the loudest thunder you ever heard, and then everything went quiet.

  “Holy Christ,” was what Pop said.

  Normally Grams would tell Pop not to take the name of the Lord in vain, but she didn’t say nothing, she just whispered something under her breath.

  People were out in front of their RVs watching. There was a bunch of cussing from some people. Dale Biggs started hooping and hollering. That was like Dale. He was drunk most evenings. Most mornings and afternoons, too.

  By the time the third giant ball of fire hit, he wasn’t hooping and hollering no more.

  You gotta understand something: I live out in the ass end of nowhere. There’s Edwards Air Force Base southeast of here, but that’s about it.

  Three of those bastards hit within five miles of us.

  Los Angeles is about 90 miles south.

  It looked like thousands of the things were hitting L.A.

  Grams went in and turned on the television, even though the light show was still going outside.

  “Ben, Norman, you come in here,” she said. She didn’t sound so good.

  On our crappy little 19-inch TV, it was plain as day: Los Angeles was getting destroyed. They had video of hundreds of fires all over the city, and skyscrapers with holes punched in them, and houses that looked blown up, and cars that were blasted into scrap metal. And holes everywhere – in the streets, in peoples’ yards, in downtown. Holes big enough to drive a pickup truck into and have it fall in.

  And it wasn’t just Los Angeles. It was everywhere.

  New York. Chicago. Atlanta. Miami. San Francisco. New Orleans. Boston. Dallas. Houston. Dozens and dozens and dozens more.

  All over the world, too. Paris. London. Barcelona. Moscow. Toronto. Tokyo. Beijing. Hong Kong. A bunch of Chinese and Indian cities I don’t know. A bunch more places I can’t remember.

  It really was World War 3.

  The next day, the TV stations went off the air.

  Five days after that, everyone in the trailer park was dead or gone.

  Except me.

  A week after the meteors fell, I sat on top of that RV again, looking up at the sky and crying my fool eyes out.

  Everyone I knew was dead.

  Probably most everybody in the world was dead.

  I was 19 years old and I was gonna die a virgin. In fact, I was gonna die without ever kissing a girl.

  Hell, I never thought I would see another human being ever again. Not a live one, anyway.

  Then the car came.

  9

  It was in the afternoon. I was sitting up on top of the RV, sun beating down on my crappy little shelter. I was scoping out bugs and pretending I was shooting them when I heard it.

  A car engine from the highway.

  I hadn’t heard a car engine in almost two months.

  You gotta understand, the highway used to go day and night, just constant cars whish whish whish and every once in awhile there were honking horns or the big rattle of a semi. Grams joked that it was our version of the ocean, cause if you got used to it, it was this murmur in the background. Like living at a beach house. I guess the car horns were the seagulls or something.

  Anyway, it was the first car I’d heard in weeks and weeks. Except it didn’t sound too good.

  It was herking and jerking, going a little, dying out…coming back to life, then stalling out a few seconds later.

  I jumped up to my feet and looked. I didn’t need to do that to actually see, I just did it cause I was so surprised.

  Sure enough, there it was, a half mile away – a little dot of a car, going forward a little, then slowing down, then speeding up again.

  Gas. They were running out of gas.

  I watched and waited, wondering how far it would make it. Wondering who was inside. Somebody who could get me out of here? A gorgeous woman who needed me to save her? A bunch of soldiers from the base? The hero who was gonna find the scientist who was gonna fix this whole fucking mess?

  My heart was pounding a mile a minute.

  The car got within a tenth of a mile from the park when it finally stalled out and didn’t start no more.

  I used the scope on it, trying to see who was in there.

  It was a Land Rover, a real nice car – at least it had been. It was all scraped and banged up on the doors, like they’d had to grate through some nasty shit on the way here. The whole thing was dirty and caked with dust. It looked like the driver had been trying to use the wipers to clean the windows, but the wipers had lost the battle.

  I could see shapes inside, but no faces. There were at least four of them, maybe more –

  And then suddenly the doors swung open and everything got blurry.

  I popped up from behind the scope and looked out.

  Five…six of them. Running straight for me.

  Three guys, three girls.

  Girls.

  Holy shit.

  I looked in the scope again, trying to follow them. I couldn’t see much, but they all looked about my age, maybe a little older.

  Then I heard screaming.

  The last one out had been a guy. He was a good twenty feet behind the others.

  There was a bug on his leg.

  Jesus, I’d forgotten about the bugs.

  I looked all around the RV park.

  There weren’t many, but at least half a dozen were headed straight for the car. And that was just what I could see.

  Fuck, all those people were going to run straight into a swarm of the little bastards – or they were going to run up in an RV and fall right into a nest of them.

  I pulled the gun up to my shoulder and sighted. Tried to hurry, but not too much. Breathed out, squeezed –

  BLAM. One of the little fuckers exploded in a puddle of motor oil.

  126 bullets.

  But it spooked the people running from the Landrover. One of the girls stopped dead in her tracks, like she wasn’t sure if she should keep on running or go back the way she came.

  Shit, if they stopped running, they were gonna be bug food for sure.

  “OVER THERE!” I screamed at them, and pointed at the bunker, which was about a hundred feet from the RV park. “OVER THERE, KEEP RUNNING, DON’T STOP!”

  There was a bug headed right for them. I pull
ed the lever and ejected the shell. Scoped the bug, got a bead on it, breathed out, squeezed –

  BLAM. It kicked up two inches in the air when it splattered.

  125 bullets.

  The people from the car finally got that I was trying to help them, not kill them, so they started running towards me again. Not towards the bunker.

  “GO THAT WAY!” I screamed at them, motioning them towards the bunker. “THAT WAY!”

  I guess they couldn’t see nothing, since the bunker was mostly sunk underground, and here was this crazy guy with a gun on top of an RV and telling them no, don’t head for the trailer homes, go out in the desert.

  But the girls did what I told them. They headed the right direction.

  One guy hesitated, then ran after them.

  But one guy kept coming right at me. Big blond dude.

  The last guy, the one bringing up the rear…he wasn’t gonna make it.

  Two other bugs had got to him, and I could see they were on both his legs. From what they did to me in the RV, I could imagine what was happening now: ripping through his jeans, tearing into him.

  He was screaming like somebody was stabbing him. Which I guess they were.

  But he kept going, still stumbling along, not falling down. Yet.

  I wanted to help him, but if I tried to hit the bugs latched onto him, I was probably gonna hit him. I ain’t that good a shot.

  It’s gonna sound horrible, but there was one good thing about him getting eaten: all the other bugs seemed to be heading towards him instead of for the rest of the group. I don’t know if that’s what all the scary animals do – lions, tigers, sharks – but maybe it’s instinct. Go for the wounded one. Head for the one that’s already going down.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  The girls were a couple hundred feet from the bunker. There were two bugs between them and home, far as I could see.

  I cocked the lever and lined up the first shot. Breathe out, squeeze, BAM.

  A little puff of dirt and sand kicked up.

  Missed it. Fuck.

  I yanked the lever and chambered the next round. The spent casing went clinking across the RV’s plastic roof.

  Breathe out, squeeze, BAM.

  In the little circle of the scope, black goop sprayed everywhere.

  I looked up. One of the bugs was twitching on the ground. The other was still headed for the girls.

  Cocked the lever. Sighted again. Fired.

  The bug was still running.

  I couldn’t let the pressure get to me. I cocked the lever, sighted. Breathe out, squeeze, BAM.

  The second bug sprayed its black guts across the sand.

  121 bullets.

  I scrambled down the side of the RV. The big blond guy was running over to me. I’m not gay or anything, but he was real good looking, like movie star handsome. Tan skin, big muscles, tall guy. Sweaty and dirty and looked like hell, but he still could have been in a movie on TV.

  “Over here!” I yelled as I ran for the bunker.

  “Why are you going there?!” he screamed as he headed for the RV.

  Right then a bug crawled out from under the RV.

  Mr. Movie Star got the message and took off after me.

  10

  I got to the bunker just as the first girl did.

  Jesus H. Christ.

  She was probably the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in real life.

  She was about my height, and thin, with long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was tan, too. She was wearing cut-off jeans that rode way up on her legs, and a white t-shirt that was more brown than white, and her face was smudged and smeared and she was crying.

  And she was still the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in real life. Maybe one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen even in the movies, too, or on TV, or magazines. Even my Playboys. She was better looking than just about every one of them.

  It took me a second cause I was stunned, then she screamed as she ran up to me, and I snapped back into real life.

  I ran down the steps and opened up the bunker’s metal doors and yelled, “Get in there!”

  She didn’t waste no time, she came down the steps as I passed her on the way back up.

  Next was the blond movie star. “There’s one after me!” he screamed.

  “Get down there!” I said as I swung around.

  There was the bug from the RV, twenty feet away, heading right for us.

  Didn’t even have to scope it, just cocked the lever and pointed.

  BAM. Black guts everywhere.

  120 bullets.

  Next another girl runs up. She’s a blonde and awful pretty, but not as pretty as the brown-haired girl. Right after her is a guy with black hair, he’s wearing a wifebeater and jeans.

  “Get in the bunker!” I yell at both of them, and they dash down the steps.

  There’s one girl bringing up the rear. She has real short red hair. She’s screaming and crying and slowing down even though she’s only thirty feet away.

  She turns around and sees what I’ve been seeing all along, and she bends over and screams herself hoarse.

  The last guy is staggering over the desert, five or six bugs on him now. His legs look like shredded raw meat. His tan shorts ain’t tan no more, they’re blood red.

  But he’s still coming. I don’t know how, but he still is.

  One of the little fuckers has crawled up his body to his side, and just as the short-haired girl turns around, the bug sinks its teeth through his shirt and then pulls back with this ripping sound. The guy screams even louder and finally goes down.

  As soon as he hits the sand, the ones on his legs scramble up his body. Another three that were behind him on the ground race over and sink their teeth in his neck.

  Blood spurts out like somebody shook a bottle of cola and let her rip.

  He’s reaching out with one hand towards the girl and screaming, and fuck me if she isn’t running back towards him.

  I know she wants to help him, but she’s about to commit suicide, is what she’s doing.

  I want to help, but my eyes are still glued to the guy on the ground as two more bugs show up. He tries to swat them away with his hand, but one of the bugs rips his fingers off like a dog yanking at a chew toy.

  He’s a goner. And she’s gonna be a goner, too, in about five seconds, she just don’t know it yet.

  Out of nowhere, the blond guy suddenly races up from behind me and goes and grabs her and pulls her off her feet. She’s kicking and screaming at him, but he drags her back towards the bunker.

  “COME ON!” he yells at me.

  I try to follow him as he goes back in the bunker with the girl, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the guy on the ground.

  The bugs are swarming over him like maggots. Two of them rip his entire arm off. The meat on the bicep is already gone, totally stripped away. The two bugs start a tug of war with the arm, like dogs snarling over a bone.

  The guy on the ground, his face is covered in crawly legs and insect shells, but one eye is still staring out at me. And then the spiked end of a tail whips in there, and the eye splits open with a splatter of goop and blood.

  He’d still be screaming if one of the bugs hadn’t ripped off his jaw and taken his tongue with it. The little fucker is gnawing on it a few feet away from the pack. I can see the fillings in the guy’s teeth, the whole ‘U’ of his lower jaw sitting there smeared in red and pieces of ragged meat.

  I think it was seeing the fillings that pushed me over the edge.

  I bolted down the steps and slammed the bunker doors behind me.

  11

  Inside the bunker, the red-headed girl was screaming her fool head off.

  The other two girls were holding her and stroking her hair, shushing her, trying to calm her down.

  The two guys just stood there, looking at each other and then looking at the girls, then looking back at each other.

  “Was that her boyfriend?” I asked the blond gu
y in a low voice.

  “Her fiancé,” he whispered back.

  “Shit.”

  The other guy, the one with black hair, reaches out his hand. “Thanks, man. You really saved our asses out there.”

  I shook his hand. “No problem.”

  “I’m Jon.”

  “Ben,” I said.

  “This is Craig,” he said, and motioned to the blond guy.

  The blond guy holds out his hand. I reach over to shake it, and the blond guy basically crushes my hand in his.

  There was a guy in the park like that. Enrique, this big fat Mexican dude who lifted weights out on this old crappy weightlifting bench outside his RV. He was a fat dude, but he wanted you to know he was stronger than you, and he would squeeze your hand as hard as he could when he shook it.

  Who the fuck shakes hands in a trailer park? Everybody already knows everybody else. But every time you came near his RV, Enrique would come up on you and be all like, “Hey, cabron!” and then reach out and grab your hand and squeeze the shit out of it.

  That’s what the blond guy was like.

  Asshole.

  I squeezed back as hard as I could – which is always what I did when Enrique would try to shake my hand – but it still stung like a bitch when I pulled it back.

  I didn’t let him see me, but I rubbed it against my pants when he wasn’t looking.

  “That’s Noelle down there,” Jon went on.

  He was pointing to the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

  She looked up at me from where she was cradling the crying girl’s head, and smiled at me apologetically, like she would have gotten up if she wasn’t right in the middle of helping her friend.

  I could barely breathe when she looked at me. I just stared.

  While I was looking at her, I saw the blond guy out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me, I could tell.

  Jon, the black-haired guy in the wifebeater, must’ve seen it too, because he added, “She’s Craig’s girlfriend. That’s my girlfriend beside her, Kristin.”