A Scorpion Town in California
Cameron Pierce

The jacket rode into town on its man. "Stay right here," the jacket said, "this is a scorpion town and men aren't welcome by scorpions."

Sliding off the man's sweaty body, the jacket told its man one last time to stay out of trouble and then slink-slithered into town.

It saw no scorpions. The jacket figured that scorpions either hated the ticklish twittering their souls made when exposed to the outer world or they were just dreaming.

It tried the saloon. There must always be a scorpion in a saloon, it thought.

All the booths and barstools stood around shuffling their feet, waiting for arachnid masters. A man on the other side of the counter slouched over a wooden crate. The jacket wondered if this man had frightened away the scorpions. He had never heard of men frightening scorpions but an old wickerwham once told him that anything was possible in California scorpion towns.

When the man opened his eyes, his skeleton leaped over the bar, blindfolded himself with the jacket, and dashed through the saloon’s double doors. The jacket whipped in the wind like a bullfighter’s bandana hurtling through outer space.

The next day, it rained shoe polish, lobster claws, and scribbled notes that all said, “Everyone has abandoned themselves.”

On the far end of a scorpion town in California, a man waits for his skeleton.

Cameron Pierce's fiction and poetry has appeared in Bare Bone, Bust Down the Door & Eat All the Chickens, The Horror Library Vol. II, Sein und Werden, and many other publications. He currently resides on the central coast of California.