Scorpion by Ken Douglas

have been two cars, of course. Darren’s father, it had to be.
    He wondered if they got Jackson, too. They must have, otherwise he’d be home counting the cash. They must have come in that garage quiet and careful. Must have snuck up behind them. One clobbered Jackson and the other got him. He tried to slow his breathing, tried to think. There had to be a way out. He wondered again where he was and how long he’d been unconscious.
    His legs weren’t straight. Before he’d rolled over they were bent at his side, now they were bent unnaturally and uncomfortably against something, a roof of some kind. He tried to straighten them, but they were wedged firmly against whatever he was encased in. He thought of a coffin and shuddered, but it couldn’t be, not with the flies. Besides, it was too big.
    He heard the sound of an engine starting. Then he felt movement. All of a sudden he knew where he was. The car hit a bump or went down a curb, then accelerated, throwing him toward the back of the trunk and scattering the flies. He smacked into something warm. Not warm like human warm, but not cold like stone either. Something in between. A dead man turning cold.
    Johnny Lee Tyler, Darren or Jackson. He wondered who, and he shivered, despite the heat. Maybe all of them were in here with him. Maybe one of them was alive, like him. Maybe Jackson. Between the two of them they could get out of anything. He moaned through the tape, a mournful sound, like a poisoned dog.
    No answer.
    He moaned again, louder.
    Still no answer. Whoever was in the trunk with him was dead. He tried to think. The man next to him was dead, and he wasn’t. That was fact. Again he tried moving his legs, but still he couldn’t. They were tied together. Whoever taped, cuffed and bound him obviously wanted him alive. That was a good sign. You didn’t go to that much trouble with a man if you wanted him dead. He wondered what they wanted with him, what they’d ask of him.
    But he didn’t wonder about what he’d do for them, because he knew the answer. Anything.
    Please, God, let me make it.
    A spasm of cold fear shot through him as he sucked hot air in through his nose. The dry air brought along other smells besides the coppery scent of blood and the revolting smell of shit — grease, oil, dust and death. He fought the rising bile. To vomit now was to die. He thought about death for a second and he wanted to scream and rage, but he was trussed up tighter than a rodeo calf.
    Please, God, please.
    The car accelerated, swerved, fishtailed and he tasted the rising dust as it swirled around in the trunk. He felt something slam into the back of his head and he wanted to cry out, because he was butting heads with a dead man.
    Please, God, please.
    Then the car was on the pavement and going fast.
    It made another hard right and he pulled his head to the side to avoid smacking into the body again, and he banged his head into something harder, something made of metal, like a jack or a tire iron.
    “ Shit,” he murmured through the tape, angry now, and ashamed. He tried to think, but the shame rode over rational thought. He was Earl Lawson. Big Earl Lawson. Sheriff, sportsman, strong as an ox, tough as they come, hale and hearty, leader of men, ex marine, and now a coward. They’d broken him in seconds. All it took was a few flies, a dead man and a trunk and he was whimpering like a woman, praying to a god he didn’t believe in.
    Please, God, please.
    He felt sick. They hadn’t put a hand on him and he was a broken man, ready to fall on his knees the minute he met his tormentors, ready to beg for his life. No, that’s not the way it was going to be. If he was going to die, he’d go like a man, head up, proud. He was Big Earl Lawson, sheriff, marine, hunter.
    No more praying, he told himself, grabbing his fear with a mental fist and squeezing it away. He bit into his tongue and curled his fingers into tight fists. The fear gone now, all he had left was anger, all