Youngblood by Matt Gallagher Page B

around and found Alphabet standing behind me, heavy Slavic gaze holding steady, with Hog next to him. “What’s two minutes?”
    Then he burped loud and proud, reeking of digested goat. I’d never loved another man more.
    Dropped from its jar, the scorpion landed on its feet, and the camel spider went straight at it, jaws wide, fangs bared. Under a spotlight of red incandescence, the camel spider trying to pierce the scorpion’s exoskeleton with its pincers, the scorpion bobbing and weaving to keep clear of the spider’sbloody furnace of a mouth. The smaller creature was soon boxed into a corner, maintaining leverage due to a jagged pebble. I needed the spider to stop being so aggressive, but asking an arachnid to go guerrilla and outlast its opponent rather than murder it as soon as possible seemed pointless, so I just shook my fist and howled. Similar sounds emanated from around the ring. The camel spider sank its front pincers into the top of the scorpion’s shell and began pulling it into its jaws, a long, slow death march. I howled again, something resembling the word “yes” rising from the wilds of my chest. The camel spider began gnawing on the scorpion’s head. The arthropod held off ingestion by ramming its claws against the bulk of the spider and shoving, a sort of dark arts horizontal push-up. Then it raised its trident. My eyes snapped wide as the tail moved back and forth, to and fro. The spider stopped chewing, hypnotized. Like a black lightning bolt, the scorpion plunged its stinger down into the camel spider, straight through a bulbous eye. A horrifying rattle followed, something like a leaking balloon, and the camel spider collapsed on its belly, pincers out.
    â€œTime?” someone asked.
    â€œEighty seconds,” Doc Cork said, reading from the digital green of his wristwatch. “Team Scorpion wins.”
    I bellowed bitterly as Chambers and most of the platoon cheered and crowed.
    â€œSee, men,” Chambers said. “That’s what happens when you hesitate. A motherfucking stinger comes for your brain. Don’t be that camel spider. Be the scorpion.”
    The scorpion freed itself from the dead spider’s jaws and took a victory lap around the dirt ring, claws raised. I accepted Alphabet’s offer of a cigarette, even though I didn’t smoke. Chambers asked if I could pay him next time we made a run to Camp Independence, and I said yes. Then he used two cups to collect the scorpion and started walking to the perimeter gate. The soldiers protested, saying they wanted their prizefighter for future bouts.
    â€œKeep a scorpion as a pet?” Chambers yelled behind him. “Do I look crazy?”
    He tossed the scorpion, cup and all, over the gate and into the desert. Some of the men kept grumbling, but it’d been done. There was nothing left to do but search for a new contender, if they cared to.
    I lingered at the burn pit for an hour. Soldiers drifted into the outpost two or three at a time, calling each other youngbloods, telling one another to “be the scorpion.” Only Alphabet remained. Perhaps sensing my mood, he stayed quiet. I coughed my way through the first cigarette and then asked for another. As I watched the fire smolder into loose petals of ash, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just lost something important, something that mattered, even if it was just a pretense of that something.
    I pulled an assault glove from a cargo pocket and picked up the spider from the ring, holding it in front of me. A thick, green jelly oozed from the hole in its eye.
    â€œIt thought it was tougher than it was,” Alphabet said, walking close to study the carcass himself. “Tricked us into thinking that, too.”
    I tossed the camel spider into the burn pit.
    The desert seemed still, placid. I spat onto the ground and tried to sound ironic.
    â€œInsha’Allah,” I said.
    â€œYeah,” Alphabet