Indiana Jones and the Empire of the Sun

Chapter 5

In the dim light of our torch, I can count five pitch-black scorpions surrounding us. Three more crawls out from eye holes and other various parts of the human remains. They seem to be drawn to the light, and some of them have raised their stingers as a sign of aggression.

They emit a high-pitched clicking, which I can hear over our panicked breaths. Alice is hyperventilating, completely frozen in place, her eyes wide in horror.

Marcus is seemingly not breathing at all. He seems utterly unable to move and is also hyperventilating rapidly.

"It's okay–they're not small," I say in the most comforting voice I can summon. "Just don't make any sudden movements. They might jump." As I say this, I feel that it may not be helping our situation.

"What–do–we do?" Alice says, taking breaths in between, her voice almost inaudible.

"Just...slowly move down the passageway."

"Wha–are you insane?! There's probably more down there!" she replies, unnerved at my instruction.

"If we go back, Russo's men will definitely kill us. The scorpions only might kill us." It makes sense in my head, but as I say it, I realize I'm not helping.

We slowly move down the passage, but more of the scorpions raise their stingers and start to emit more high-pitched clicks.

"Not so fast," I say. We slow down significantly, so eventually, we're moving at a glacial pace. This seems to be going well until some of the scorpions leap onto us.

Marcus has one slowly climbing up his pant leg, and Alice has one on her torso. I have one on my chest (luckily my leather jacket protects me from its stinger) and another on my wrist slowly crawling up my arm.

"Indy–what now?" asks Marcus. He's been relatively quiet, and I can see why. He's sweating a great amount and he seems even more frozen stiff in place than before. His eyes are trained on the venomous creature crawling up his leg.

"Neither of you move. Alice, try not to let that one get up to your neck. Marcus, you don't need to worry too much about the one on your leg. It's massive, can't kill you."

Nevertheless, the scorpion continues to crawl up his leg. I boldly use the handle of my torch to brush the two off of my body. I then try to do the same to the one on Alice, which is now on her chest, but it attaches itself to the torch. I hastily shake it in the other direction until the scorpion has been flung loose into the darkness.

Marcus has now backed against the wall and I sweep the large one off of his leg. However, one of the scorpions not much smaller than the last has crawled dangerously close to Marcus's exposed hand. Its stinger is raised high. When Marcus sees the creature, he panics and tries to move his hand away.

But before he can, in a lightning-fast motion, the scorpion pierces its stinger into the backside of his hand before falling back to the floor. Without hesitating, I grab Marcus's hand and put the stung area, which has already begun to swell red, into my mouth, sucking the venom out. I spit it out and continue the process rapidly, as I can hear sounds from behind us and yelling. Based on the footsteps, I'm guessing Russo's backup has arrived. It sounds as though tens of soldiers are making their way down, no doubt heavily armed.

Meanwhile, it seems like the venom has already started to take effect on Marcus. While the scorpion was huge and I sucked most of the venom out, he looks slightly dazed, his head beginning to spin as he starts to lose balance.

I hold him steady, not wanting to cause any more stings of the scorpions that surround us.

"Indy–we have to go!" Alice whispers frantically.