The bugs were 20 deep at the door, their tails whipping back and forth.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
“Noelle,” I said, soft as I could.
She shook her head no no no no no and started to scoot away from me, moving backwards on her hands and ass.
“Noelle, I didn’t mean to do that,” I said, not knowing whether I was telling the truth or not.
She shook her head no no no no no and kept edging away from me, closer and closer to the bunker doors.
“Noelle, I swear to you – I didn’t mean to kill him.”
She just kept backing up, her head shaking no no no no no
“Noelle, I love you – I didn’t mean for any of this to happen – I love you, I would never hurt you – ”
As she moved away from me, she wasn’t looking where she was going. Otherwise she would have seen the bugs’ tails whipping back and forth behind her head.
“NOELLE!” I screamed.
She backed up right against the crack in the doors.
A second later, the first tail pierced her throat.
It shot through her neck, sending a little spray of blood in the air.
Her eyes got big. She opened her mouth to scream –
By then, the second tail burst through her neck, sharp as an ice pick.
Blood ran down her throat like a faucet.
“NOELLE!” I screamed.
A third tail, then a fourth sliced through her neck. One must have hit her jugular, because blood sprayed out like a fountain.
“NOELLE!”
I ran to her. I tried to pry her off, but the tails curved around like fishhooks, pinning her against the door.
Her eyes were wide as the blood ran down her chest, staining her dirty white shirt a wet, glistening black.
I grabbed her hands and yanked, HARD. There was a thick, wet ripping sound as the tails tore through her throat.
She gurgled a little as I pulled her free from the door.
“NOELLE!” I screamed, and clutched her to my chest.
By the time she bled out, I was soaked in her blood.
62
I knelt there for I don’t know how long, her body cradled in my arms.
I cried and I cried and I cried.
And all the while the bugs whipped their tails through the door, as though nothing had happened, as though nothing had changed.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
But everything had changed.
63
It must have been an hour before I stopped crying and finally came to my senses.
I laid her down as gently as I could. I cradled her head in my hands and eased it softly onto the concrete.
She lay there, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
I backed up against the opposite wall and pulled my knees up to my chin.
Over at the door, the bugs whipped their tails back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
64
I sat there for a couple of hours, just staring at her face in the moonlight.
Her shirt and throat finally stopped glistening. The blood dried in the heat and became a solid black instead of shiny and wet.
I thought back to the first time I saw her…
…and all the times I had seen her laugh…
…and smile…
…the time we had talked up on the RV with no one around…
…her body when she was naked…
…the way her breasts had moved, swaying back and forth…
I was going to die out here. I knew that. I had no illusions about that now.
3 cans of soup left. 11 cans of vegetables. 42 liters of water.
But I didn’t have to die a virgin.
I moved over to her and peeled off her shirt, revealing her bra underneath. I didn’t know how to undo it, so I just used a knife to cut it off.
I took a bottle full of water and washed her skin, using my own shirt to wipe away the blood.
Then I unzipped her shorts and slowly slid them off her legs.
I cried the whole time I did it.
And in the background, the bugs kept whipping their tails.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
65
It’s daybreak.
The sun has come…but the bugs haven’t gone away.
If anything, there’s more of them now, whipping their tails in the gap between the doors.
Her body is on the mattress. I didn’t want her uncomfortable on the cement, so I dragged the mattress over and rolled her up onto it.
I couldn’t leave her naked, so I cut off Jon’s clothes and covered her in those.
Which was fine, because I needed Jon naked anyway for what I had in mind.
3 cans of soup, 11 cans of vegetables.
7 days of food. Maybe.
But I can stretch it a lot farther if I have something else to eat.
I stopped using the propane stove over a month ago. Just in case I ever needed it for something important.
I’m glad I did.
It’s good for cooking meat.
66
It’s hard work butchering a carcass. It’s even harder when all you’ve got is kitchen knives, no matter how sharp they are.
Even harder when you’ve never done it before.
And I had to do it fast, before the meat spoiled.
Most of it I roast so long that it’s practically jerky. That way it will last longer.
I bet it’s the smell that's bringing the bugs out. It’s nightfall again, and there are five times as many as usual, flicking their tails through the gap.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
I just keep roasting the strips of meat. I pretend it’s a boy scout cookout, and try to ignore the ragged, bloody corpse at the back of the bunker.
I set up the wall of cans again, trying to keep everything separate.
It’s not working too good. I keep seeing him out of the corner of my eye.
The entire bunker is filled with the smoke and the grease of cooking meat.
I eat a little bit as I go, and try not to think about what it is I’m chewing.
3 cans of soup. 10 cans of vegetables. 38 liters of water.
Lots and lots of meat.
67
Once or twice a day I look over at her body, and I can’t help myself. I remember her the way she was.
Laughing. Talking. Beautiful.
I don’t want to do it, but I can’t stop.
I move over there and push apart her legs, then take the rags off her body so I can see it all. Her breasts, her stomach, her thighs.
In the heat of the bunker, she still feels warm.
Like she’s alive.
I keep her throat covered, though.
And I keep her eyes covered, too, so she can’t look at me while I do it.
After I’m done, I cover her up again.
And I cry.
Behind me, the entire time, the bugs whip their tails back and forth.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
In between times, I think back about Grams, and what she would think of me now.
What she would think of me as I climb off Noelle’s body.
What she would think of me as I roast strips of meat from a corpse.
And all the while, the bugs whip their tails at the door.
SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA-SHIKKA
Grams’ stories about going to Hell don’t scare me anymore.
I’m already there.
Afterword
John Dominick here. Hope you enjoyed BOTTLE FULL OF SCORPIONS...or at least survived it.
It’s the first novel I’ve ever finished. (Note my very deliberate use of the word ‘finished,’ not ‘written.’) Hopefully I’ll
have another one ready by summer 2012. Probably not a sequel, though. Never say never, but I think poor Ben has reached The Very End.
If you want me to email you when the next book is coming out, my email is
[email protected]
Just write “Let me know when the next book is coming out” or something similar in the Subject line, and I shall comply.
Finally, I want to extend my thanks to someone without whom (look Ma, correct grammar!) I couldn’t have published this book. He’s another author, a guy I met when we were both trying to make it in Hollywood. (Oh, therein lies a tale…) He’s the one who told me about the ebook revolution currently changing the game for independent authors, and he’s the one who appealed to my greed and my vanity (you know, my better qualities) until I finally relented and published SCORPIONS.
Well, first he edited it and formatted it for me, too. So you can thank him for this book not being any worse than it already is. (If you feel like he should have thrown it in the trash to begin with, email [email protected].)
I asked him how I could ever repay him.
He told me, “Never, EVER tell anybody I helped you, you sick bastard.”
But I’m just not that kind of a friend.
See, he’s a children’s horror/comedy author, and a kickass one at that.
Ever seen EVIL DEAD 2?
Remember how Bruce Campbell’s hand becomes possessed, and it starts going all Three Stooges on his ass, breaking plates over his head and slapping him around?
That’s totally what this guy’s books are like.
Y’know…EVIL DEAD 2. For kids.
Problem is, he wasn’t sure he wanted his PG-13 (“for pervasive scary scenes”) stories to be linked to the twisted likes of BOTTLE FULL OF SCORPIONS.
But I’m like, “Dude – if SCORPIONS blows up, my readers should totally go read your stuff! This is like buying a lottery ticket and then throwing it away before the drawing! Plus, you’re a kid’s horror writer – it’s not like you’re writing Goodnight Moon, for God’s sake.”
In the end, I prevailed upon his vanity and greed. (His worst qualities, incidentally.)
His name is Darren Pillsbury, and he writes a series called PETER AND THE MONSTERS. It’s a bunch of awesome tales about a ten-year-old kid who moves into his Grandfather’s creepy old mansion and bad, baaaaad things start to happen. Like finding a bunch of burned-up guys out in the garden patch. And this little girl in his class coming back from the dead with a crush on him. And his terrible little sister getting switched out with a…
You know what? Just go read it. As of this moment, PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) is free on Amazon.com. But I’ve included the first bit of the first story, “Peter And The Dead Men,” for your reading pleasure.
So far, Pillsbury’s published 15 different stories, all the way up through “Peter And The Mummy.” The first 13 stories are compiled in PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One), PETER AND THE WEREWOLVES (Volume 2), and PETER AND THE FRANKENSTEIN (Volume Three).
See, he’s got that ‘theme’ thing going on.
Give VAMPIRES a chance. It’s a funny, fizzy bit of spookiness to wash the bitter bile of SCORPIONS out of your mouth.
Ever wish you had a kick-ass childhood filled with supernatural scares and coolness? Then these books are for you.
And, like I said, Volume One is currently free, unless you happen to be reading this far, far in the fuuuuuuuuuuuutuuuuuuuuuuuuuure! (Use a ‘Sci-Fi Announcer’s Voice’ for that last bit.)
Again, Pillsbury – I couldn’t have done it without you.
Whether future generations will thank you for helping me, burn you in effigy, or just plain ignore both of us…well, time will tell.
And to anybody still reading this:
Remember to go stock up on spaghetti with meatballs, soup, cans of fruit and vegetables, and many, many liters of water.
And bullets. Lots and lots of bullets.
Just to be sure.
John Dominick, March 8, 2012
PETER AND THE DEAD MEN
1
Five days after leaving California, Peter Normal was about to see his new home for the first time.
He hated it already.
Peter sat in the front seat of his mom’s beat-up Honda, his forehead pressed to the window, and watched the small town of Duskerville go by. It was so different from what he was used to. A two-lane road that stretched through miles and miles of forest, broken occasionally by a farm or clump of houses. The actual town itself had seven blocks of shops, five stoplights, two grocery stores, and one movie theater. Peter knew this because he had counted them all.
Most of the storefronts looked old, like something out of black and white television shows. Leave It To Beaver or Andy Griffith. Not many people were out. A few men in short-sleeve shirts, a woman in a flowered dress. And a tall, strange man in a black suit and hat, with an ancient face and grizzled beard. Who was also carrying a pitchfork.
Curiously, nobody on the street seemed freaked out by that.
This was nothing like California. There, it was buildings and condos and malls stacked up against each other as far as the eye could see. Lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of excitement.
No guys with pitchforks.
“But what about my friends?” Peter had complained when his mother first told him they were moving.
“You’ll make new friends, honey,” Mom said.
“What is there to do there?”
“Well, it’s really close to the ocean.”
So far, the only water Peter had seen was the rainstorm they’d driven through two days ago.
As upset as he was to leave his friends behind, Peter never griped again about moving. He didn’t want to make this any harder for Mom than it already was. She tried to hide it from him and his little sister Beth, but she was having a really tough time.
But Peter knew; he’d known for a while. She had lost her job as a legal assistant when her boss retired five months ago, and she hadn’t had any luck getting a new one that paid enough. They lived in a two-room apartment in not-that-great a neighborhood. Beth slept in the bedroom with his mom, and Peter slept on a fold-out couch in the den. Daycare for his sister was expensive during the school year. During the summer, Peter had to watch his two-and-a-half year-old sister (which was a lot like fighting World War III over and over again every day) while Mom went out on interviews. But school was starting soon, and she still didn’t have a job. Sometimes, late at night, he could hear his mother crying softly in the bathroom where she didn’t think anybody could hear her.
Before he could get too sad, Mom’s voice yanked him out of daydream world and back to the here and now. “Beth, you have to take off your bathing suit now, we’re going to meet your grandfather.”
“No!” his sister yelled from her toddler seat in the back of the car. All around her was piled the junk they’d brought from California – suitcases, Mom’s computer, boxes of toys.
“Beth, you cannot wear a bathing suit everywhere!”
“NO!”
His sister was…difficult. That was the nice way of putting it. Her latest thing was wearing a yellow Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit – everywhere. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. To bed, in the bath, to the store, to the movies, to the park. Everywhere.
It wasn’t so bad in the summertime. You expected little kids to wear bathing suits in the summertime. But this had been going on for six months. The bathing suit was worn and frayed in places, and it was more gray now than yellow. Mom washed it every couple of days, and Beth would sit by the washing machine and read stories to it as it swirled around. Usually she would wear it straight out of the washer, wet and dripping, rather than bear to part with it for the 15 minutes it would take to tumble around in the dryer.
At the moment she was wearing it over a pair of shorts and a white t-shirt. When it got a little chilly – which it was in the car, with the air conditioner going – she would wear it ov
er her other clothes. Not under. Nope, the entire world had to see her love for Strawberry Shortcake.
Mom struggled to keep her voice calm. “Beth, we have to make a good impression on Grandfather since we’re going to be living with him now. And I would rather he not see you wearing that bathing suit over your regular clothes.”
“He wike Stawbewy Shorcake!” Beth protested. “I wike it!”
“I don’t,” Peter said.
“You don’ count!” she shouted as she pointed and bared her lower teeth at him.
Peter sighed and turned back to the window. When dealing with Beth, unless it was really important, it was easier just to ignore her. Mom hadn’t learned that yet.
2
They had left Duskerville behind and were on a winding road deep into the forest when Peter saw it: Grandfather’s house.
It was monstrously huge and way high in the air. It had to be, because the roof was the only thing Peter could see over the trees…and they were tall trees. He could see some sort of balcony with a railing on the very top, and there were two small towers that looked more like they belonged on a castle.
“We’re here!” Mom called out. “Get out of that bathing suit!”
“NO!” Beth howled.
“Why not?” Mom argued.
“Stawbewy Shorcake is COOL!”
The car slowed down and turned into a little side street. On the right side of the road was an ordinary house. Actually, that was being a bit generous. It was pretty rundown, with flaking paint, a bunch of weeds on the lawn, at least one cracked window, and a rusty car in the driveway. But all in all, it was a relatively normal one-story home.
On the other side of the street, far away up a gravel drive, was Grandfather’s house.
Now Peter knew why the roof was visible over the trees: the house was four stories tall, if you counted the attic. There were dozens of windows, most of them mismatched in size, and none of them lined up straight with one another. Crazy built-on rooms popped out from the side of the house in the worst possible places.
It was like some giant monster had a baby, and the monster kid just stacked his giant toy blocks at random to build what was supposed to be a house, because no sane human would have ever built it.
Bottle Full Of Scorpions Page 15
