flinch. His only reaction was a cruffulous cough, and then he stared straight ahead, his brain turned off.
“Hey, motherfucker, Trix are for kids!” Santiago shouted, blasting a fine mist of spittle in Gary’s face, trying to get a response. But the man did not answer. The man did not wipe the spit from his face. The man took no umbrage at Santiago’s abuse. He did not blink. The man stood and stared at Santiago. “Look at him,” said Santiago. “He’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, baby.”
Santiago paced at the edge of the circle, stopping to taunt the creatures. Scooping up a handful of sand, he threw it in the face of a drooling lunkhead. The recipient of the sand stood slack-jawed and unaware of the mistreatment, not even blinking to clear the grains of sand from his eyes. “Look at these. These are lunkies. And what do they want? They want my Lucky Charms, don’t they? They want my worms. But I don’t have any more.”
“Well, why are they here then?” said John. “Just show them that you don’t have any more worms.” John stood toward the center of the circle, repulsed at the shuffling swarm of bloodied and bruised meat surrounding him.
“They don’t just want my worms,” tittered Santiago. “They want you. They want to tear you down. They want me. They want to fuck us and kill us and eat us. And not necessarily in that order, baby.”
“So, what? They’re like, zombies or something?”
“They ain’t zombies, dig?” said Santiago, stopping to pick up an apple-sized red rock from the ground. Winding up like a major league pitcher, he flung the rock with all his might at a tall, gangling lunkhead who stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other. The rock smashed the lunkhead’s nose and provoked a flow of blood. The victim of Santiago’s attack shook his head and then resumed his back and forth shifting. “They’re not dead. You won’t turn into one if they bite you. Their affliction ain’t contagious, or infectious, dig? It’s more pathetic and outrageous. They’re just missing a part of their brains, brother. For some reason, lunkworms affect some people differently. I don’t know if they change the chemical balance in the lunkies’ brains or if the worms just eat an essential part of the brain, or what. I just know that when some people ingest a worm, it turns out that the worm is actually ingesting them. It’s like the basic needs are all that drive the lunkies. And all thought and reason go out the window. These bad boys just want to eat, shit, fuck and kill. Dig? Let me show you.”
As the crowd swayed back and forth outside of the invisible barrier, Santiago ran around near the border of the circle, picking up speed and tittering his nervous laugh all the while. With a sufficient head of steam built up, Santiago launched himself into the air, throwing his feet in front of himself. His feet broke the protective border of the circle and smacked into an elderly lunkhead’s bare chest. Upon making contact, Santiago allowed his legs to bend slightly and then pushed off with all of his might, springing himself back into the protective perimeter and, in the process, knocking the brain-dead old man to the ground amongst the groaning crowd of lunkheads.
And a violent and lustful blood orgy erupted. The lunkheads converged on the fallen man and tore at him. And there was much screaming and gnashing of the teeth. The savages ignored the man’s screams and devoured his flesh, quickly tearing him down to bones and a puddle of gore. Some, as if in a drunken barroom free-for-all, turned their frenzy on each other, reeling about, randomly striking, scratching and biting at any bodies close to them. John’s eyes reflected the horror as he watched one lunkhead smash a rock down on the head of another lunkie who was bent over and chewing on an unconscious victim. The rock caved in the back of the man’s head and he dropped face-first into the dust. Other lunkheads fell on him and