I understand. Anyone who is alive now is a survivor. They’ve done what it takes to make it this far, and they can’t help but keep going. Brian slides down the rail and lies beside Lisa, twitching and losing control of his muscles. The scorpions mostly ignore the couple, seemingly bored as they leap off the boat to fly while others land on deck and walk around.

A scorpion bends over and plucks Brian’s glasses off his face. It tries to put them on upside down. When they fall, the scorpion picks them back up and tries again. As if it wasn’t already weird-looking enough with a man’s body, dragonfly wings, and a scorpion tail. Now, it looks around with one cracked lens on its wire-rimmed glasses.

I feel oddly naked without my sword. I keep reaching for the soft fur of my stuffed bear and remember that it’s not there any more. I sit between Mom and Clara, three unarmed women surrounded by monsters.

Just a couple of months ago, tourists sat this boat with cameras and phones, taking photos, yelling at their kids, kissing in front of the city skyline. They probably roamed around in their newly bought sweatshirts, totally unprepared for the cold summer winds of San Francisco.

Now, there are hardly any children and none of them are running around. There are only a couple of older folks mixed in with the others, and only a quarter of the crowd is women. Everyone looks like they’ve gone too long without a shower or a good meal, and all our attention is focused on the scorpions.

They leave us alone for now. Most of them are not as beefy and broad-shouldered as I imagined monsters would be. Some of them are outright scrawny. They’re not made to muscle their prey. They’re designed to use their stingers as their main weapon of choice.

They all have tails that look like they’ve been on steroids. Fat and muscular, unnaturally bulging, and grotesque. If I look closely, I can see a clear drop of venom at the tip of each stinger, as if keeping the pipes in working order.

One of the scorpions wears a pair of pants. But the pants are on backwards and hanging with the zipper open to allow for the tail. There’s something about it that bothers me but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

As the scorpion pulls up its pants with its all-too-human-looking hand, something glints. My stomach clenches in sick dread as I realize what it is.

It’s a wedding band.

What is a wedding band doing on a monster’s hand?

It must be just some shiny thing that it got from one of its victims. Like an animal playing with a toy. Or maybe it discovered that rings were good for hitting, like brass knuckles.

Yeah, that must be it.