Bottle Full Of Scorpions

by John Dominick

  Craig shrugged and looked at me like he was fake-apologizing. “Sorry dude, didn’t have room to carry any more.”

  “Asshole!” Noelle shouted.

  Now he looked pissed.

  “They’ll bring some stuff up after they’re finished,” he snarled. “Jesus, get off my fucking ass.”

  “It’s all right,” I muttered. “I’ll wait.”

  Noelle thrust her can towards me. “Here, I’ll share with you.”

  “That’s okay,” I lied.

  “I insist,” she said, and shot a look at Craig. “If my asshole boyfriend can’t bring enough for everybody, then we should all share.”

  He stopped chewing. You could tell he was furious, and something more: suspicious. His eyes darted back and forth between us, as though he was wondering what might have happened while he was away.

  His reaction decided it for me.

  “Thank you,” I said, and took the peaches out of her hand. “I’ll only eat half.”

  “They’re bringing stuff for him after they’re finished,” Craig said again.

  “Yeah, but they’re not here now, are they?” Noelle snapped.

  “You can half of mine when it gets here,” I suggested.

  “Okay. Deal,” she said, then she and Craig went back to looking like they hated each other.

  I couldn’t have been happier.

  30

  Jon and Kristin came out of the bunker about 15 minutes later, each of them carrying a couple of opened cans.

  I watched them real careful, trying to see exactly what people looked like right after sex. They were sweaty, but that wasn’t anything unusual. We were all sweaty. They looked a little more flushed than usual, maybe, but that was no big deal, either. 15 minutes in the bunker in the middle of the day during the summer, you’d probably look pretty pink, too.

  Kristin’s hair was maybe a little crazier, but considering that her hair looked like a rat’s nest before she went down there, that wasn’t much of a clue, either.

  The biggest thing was they both looked a lot more relaxed. Not as uptight.

  I was kind of disappointed. I thought it was supposed to be awesome, the way Dale talked when he was drunk. He always talked about how ‘bitches scream their goddamn heads off’ when he fucked them, but I hadn’t heard any screaming down in the bunker. Maybe Jon just wasn’t as good as Dale was.

  Or maybe Kristin had been trying to keep quiet so we wouldn’t hear.

  Either way, no screaming.

  “You dog, you,” Craig said as Jon climbed back up the ladder.

  Jon just grinned like the cat that ate the canary.

  Kristin was all embarrassed when she came up the ladder and sat down next to Noelle.

  Then they looked at each other and burst out giggling.

  I felt sick to my stomach, like I was the only one who wasn’t in on the joke. And it was a joke I really, really wanted to know. REALLY.

  Kristin handed me a can of beans. “Here you go, we brought this for you.”

  I took it, then held it out to Noelle. “You eat half first.”

  “I’m okay, you can have it.”

  I kept holding it out. “Deal’s a deal.”

  She smiled and took it. “Deal’s a deal,” she agreed.

  Craig stopped smiling and just glared at us.

  After that, I felt better about not being in on the joke.

  31

  We stayed up there the rest of the day, trading out spots under the shelter. The girls used some of the sunblock I had from down in the bunker. Craig and Jon talked about how to get more gas for the Land Rover. All of them laughed once in awhile, usually some private joke I didn’t understand, stuff that had happened months and months ago in Los Angeles. Noelle tried to include me by explaining some of it, but it didn’t help much. I still felt like I was on the outside of a glass window, looking in at them eating at a restaurant or standing around at a party.

  I brushed it off. Noelle was nice to me, that was the main thing.

  But mostly there was a lot of silence, with everybody sitting around and staring out into the distance.

  Everybody avoided looking at the place where Violet died.

  I looked at it once or twice. Her bones were scattered all over the place now. The bugs had pretty much left, though one or two were still around, gnawing away.

  I tried to keep my eyes off them, though, so I looked back towards the highway.

  “Hey, what’s on the other side of that billboard?” I asked.

  They all looked at me, confused.

  “What billboard?” Kristin asked.

  I pointed at the billboard way down the road, the one I always sat and wondered about for hours.

  Jon laughed. “Shit, how are we supposed to know that?”

  “Well, you drove by it.”

  “Yeah, and at the time, we were running out of gas and worried about making a run for the RV park. Nobody was exactly paying attention to the fucking billboards,” Craig sneered.

  “Why do you want to know?” Noelle asked.

  I shrugged. “Just curious.”

  I wasn’t about to tell them how much I daydreamed about it, how many hours I had spent wondering what was on the other side.

  If Craig was going to be an asshole…well, I wasn’t going to let myself get beat up any more than I had to.

  Maybe I’d tell Noelle sometime, though.

  She’d understand.

  32

  When the sun got close to setting we climbed down off the RV and headed for the bunker. Then we had dinner.

  Including the stuff we ate on top of the RV, we were down to 3 cans of spaghetti with meatballs, 35 cans of soup, 52 cans of vegetables, 25 of fruit, 12 of tuna fish, and 122 liters of water.

  Jesus.

  “We have to go slower on the food, guys,” I said after we ate.

  “Oh Christ, not this again,” Craig muttered.

  I rattled off the numbers – 3, 35, 52, 25, 12, 122. “Look, if we keep on eating like this, we’ve got maybe 4 more days worth of food. Maybe.”

  “Look, we’re going to get to the store – ” Craig said.

  “How?!” I shouted. I was pretty near the breaking point. I hated him. Jon and Kristin were getting on my nerves, and they were all eating everything I had. “How are you going to get to the store?!”

  Craig glared at me. “We’ll get gas. Tomorrow.”

  “Where? Where are you gonna get gas? Out of cars that aren’t here? Out of RVs that are already bone dry?”

  “Look – ” Craig started.

  “No, you look! Until you get a plan where it could actually work, quit eating food like we got all the stuff in the world, cause we don’t! We’re gonna run out of food in 4 days, and then we’re gonna run out of water in a few days after that!”

  “This is bullshit,” Craig yelled.

  “Dude, he’s got a point,” Jon said quietly.

  “No he doesn’t!” Craig roared. “He says we’ve got, like, 122 liters of water – that’s 60 of these coke containers, right? Well, there’s sure as shit more than 60 bottles in here.” He went over in the far corner and picked up one of the bottles I hadn’t touched since they got here.

  Oh fuck.

  I froze.

  Craig held it up. The light through the doors was dying a little, but the setting sun made the liquid inside look even more yellowish than it already was.

  “This must be some fucked up shit out of some rusty pipes or something, but we’ll fucking drink it if we have to. I mean – ”

  He uncapped the soda bottle and took a whiff, then dropped it in surprise. It bounced on the cement floor and splattered everywhere, then fell over and started chug-chug-chugging all over the ground.

  “No!” I yelled, and dropped down on my knees and picked the bottle back up. Not only were my jeans soaked in it, now the bottle was less than half full.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck is that shit?!” Craig said. “It smells like fucking pis
s!”

  The girls made a face and backed away. Jon winced at the smell.

  I didn’t say anything. I just stood the bottle up in the corner.

  “Ben…what was in there?” Jon asked, his voice real slow.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Was that fucking PISS?” Craig asked, both angry and shocked.

  Kristin started gagging.

  I have to admit, the smell was pretty bad, even for a bunch of people who hadn’t showered in a month. The concrete was still hot from the bunker baking in the sun all day, and the rancid pee smell was just radiating off the floor in warm, wet waves.

  “It was for survival,” I said in a quiet little voice.

  “Oh my god,” Jon said, and backed up closer to the door.

  “It’s like fishermen who get trapped out in a boat!” I said, trying to explain. “They can’t drink the ocean water cause there’s too much salt, so they have to drink their own pee!”

  “You were drinking it?” Noelle asked, horrified.

  If you thought I was going to say ‘yes’ to her, you’re fucking crazy.

  “N-no,” I stuttered. “NO. I didn’t – no, but if somebody didn’t come in 4 months, I figured I might have to…start…if there wasn’t any other water.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Craig swore. “It’s the end of the world, we got monsters killing everybody, and we still stumble into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

  “It was for survival!” I yelled. “Fisherman do it! I didn’t even drink it!”

  Kristin was still gagging over in the corner of the room.

  “You fucking…perverted…faggot,” Craig said, slow and vicious.

  “I’m NOT a pervert! I’m NOT a faggot!” I yelled, tears of rage coming to my eyes. I looked over at Noelle, hoping I’d see some sort of understanding from her.

  Nope.

  Only disgust and horror.

  “You got anything else you want to tell us?” Craig asked. “You hiding any dogs or cats around here you like to fuck?”

  “I’M NOT A PERVERT!”

  Jon held up one hand. His other hand was pressed to his forehead, and his eyes were closed. “Look…yeah, it’s fucking disgusting, but…he has a point.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Craig said, and turned to look at him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Fishermen do survive by drinking their own piss when they get trapped out at sea. I’ve read it before.”

  “Yeah, I’ve read faggots like golden showers, too. What, did he get to you, Jon? Did this cocksucker turn you into a homo piss drinker, too? Are you gonna start pissing in each other’s mouths now?”

  “I SAID – ” I started, but Jon interrupted me.

  “Craig, shut the fuck up,” Jon snapped. “Look, he’s out here in survival mode. Everybody he knew got killed. He thought he was going to have to last for months on his own, so he went a little batshit and did some disgusting stuff. It’s…understandable.”

  “If drinking your own piss is understandable, bud, I really, really don’t ever want you being understanding with me, you know what I’m saying?” Craig sneered.

  I saw what he was doing. Craig had started off like he wanted to kill me, but now it was a joke to him. That’s what his voice sounded like. It was all a joke. A disgusting one, but a joke all the same.

  I was a joke.

  A disgusting one…

  …but a joke all the same.

  That’s how he was making me look in Noelle’s eyes.

  I glanced over at her, but she kept staring at her feet and wouldn’t look up.

  “Motherfucker likes to sit in here and drink his own piss and whack off to titty magazines…do you eat your own shit, too, you sick fuck?”

  I gripped the rifle so tight in my hands that my fingers were going numb.

  I wanted to kill him so bad.

  Craig saw it in my eyes.

  “Are we really going to let a little piss-guzzling faggot carry around the only gun in this place?” he asked.

  “I’M NOT A FAGGOT!” I screamed.

  He held up his hands and played like he was the calm, reasonable one. “Okay…okay, so you’re not a faggot.” He paused. “You’re just a piss guzzler.”

  I started towards him. I was going to smash the stock of the gun into his jaw and break his fucking teeth –

  Jon was in between us before I could get two steps. “Ben – BEN – calm down, he’s just fucking with you.”

  “That’s the problem, we don’t know what else Ben’s been fucking around here,” Craig snickered.

  “CRAIG, SHUT THE FUCK UP,” Jon shouted. “JESUS. Ben, just…calm the fuck down, okay?”

  I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him so bad.

  For making me look like a freak in front of Noelle.

  For making me look disgusting.

  For making her not want to look at me at all.

  But I backed off.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  But I wasn’t.

  I stood there thinking how much I wanted to see his brains dripping off the cement walls.

  Behind me, the sound of the bugs’ tails began to fill the room.

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

  33

  As bad as the whole argument over the piss was, it got worse. Much worse.

  We went to bed. I was lying on the mattress – which had soaked up a good bit of the pee from the soda bottle and was still a little damp. The others were sleeping on the floor as far away from the stained cement as possible.

  “Goodnight, piss breath,” Craig called out as he rolled over.

  I wanted to get the gun and shoot him, but I just daydreamed about blowing his head off instead.

  We all laid there in the hot night air, sweating and listening to the bugs at the bunker doors. Shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka-shikka.

  I must have dozed off, but something woke me up. I don’t know how late it was or how long I had been asleep, but there was an unusual sound. I opened my eyes.

  There was the tiniest bit of moonlight coming through the crack in the door. My eyes were so adjusted to the dark that I could see quite a bit even in the dim light.

  “No, Craig, he’ll hear,” I heard a girl whisper, just barely louder than breathing.

  Noelle.

  “No he won’t,” Craig whispered back.

  I shifted my head a little.

  Beside me was the wall of cans I’d built for Kristin when she went to the bathroom. We’d taken so many different cans out of it that there were gaps in the wall now.

  After the piss bottle incident, Craig and Noelle had moved the bathroom bucket towards the front of the room and were sleeping behind the wall of cans.

  I couldn’t see their heads, but in the moonlight I could see part of Noelle’s body as she lay on her back.

  Craig’s hand was on her breast, rubbing it through her shirt, slowly moving his fingers around and around.

  I started to get hard.

  Noelle’s breath got a little heavier, a little faster. There were the wet, smacking sounds of kissing.

  Then I heard a zipper.

  “Craig, no,” Noelle whispered, but it didn’t sound like she really meant it.

  In a smaller gap, I could see Craig’s hand disappear down the front of her jean shorts and start to move in slow circles.

  There was a little sigh from Noelle – not like she was tired or annoyed, but like she was really enjoying something and couldn’t keep from making a noise.

  My cock was as hard as the cement floor under my mattress.

  God I hated Craig at that moment.

  I wanted to be him so bad.

  His hand moved up and down in her shorts, and her breathing got heavier.

  I could see Craig shift his body, and his free hand unzipped his own jeans.

  I saw her small hand reach out and pull the flaps of his fly apart, and reach in and tug at his underwear. I
n a few seconds his cock was out of his pants, and she held it in her hand, lightly running her fingers up and down it.

  I felt a stab of jealousy – and worthlessness, too, if I’m going to tell the truth. His dick looked pretty big, especially in her tiny hand. Bigger than mine, I thought with a sick twinge in my stomach.

  He made a sound like a grunt, and she rubbed her fingers up and down his shaft a little faster.

  He raised himself up on his elbow and tugged at her shirt. She bent a little, like she was doing a sit-up, and let him peel it off her.

  Oh Jesus yes.

  She was wearing a black bra, ratty and frayed, but it was hotter than anything I’d seen in the Playboy Lingerie magazine.

  Because it was on her.

  Craig’s hand must have knocked into a can or something as he peeled off the shirt, because there was a metal grating sound across the concrete.

  They both froze.

  I shut my eyes quickly – but not all the way. I could still see a little through my eyelashes.

  After about ten seconds, they started moving again.

  He tugged the shirt all the way off, then put an arm under her back. She leaned up again, and his fingers fumbled in the dark. There was a little noise, the tiniest click, and the side strap on her bra went from tight to loose.

  My cock was pressing against the inside of my jeans so hard it hurt.

  She shrugged off the strap from her bra, and he pulled it off and tossed it aside.

  Sweet Jesus God.

  She had the most perfect breasts ever. They weren’t big, but they were gorgeous. They were still round and full even though she was on her back, but flattened out a little. Some of the girls in the magazines, their tits stood up like football helmets when they were on their backs. You could tell that tits were fake when they did that. Or if they weren’t fake, the boobs kind of slid every which way in the pictures.

  Hers were firm and stood out from her chest a couple of inches. Her skin was white, with tan lines where her bra had been. Her nipples stood up like pencil erasers, and the skin around them was dark in the moonlight.

  Craig’s head moved down to her chest, and his stubble scraped across her skin as his tongue poked out and started licking her nipple.

  “Oh God,” I heard her sigh under her breath.

  Then he put his whole mouth over her nipple and began to suck.