Free Sloughing Off the Rot by Lance Carbuncle Page A

your ear, didn’t I?”
    “You bit off my ear and swallowed it in the first place, you lunatic. You caused the infection. How’s that helping?”
    Still squatting, Santiago tugged at his beard and said, “Lookie here, let me explain something to you. I’m necessary, man. I’m what you need to survive. You ain’t got nothin’. You got no desires. Your emotional range is nonexistent. Have you really gotten upset about anything since you’ve been here? Have you been mad? Happy? Sad? Have you felt like fucking or fighting or screaming? No, you haven’t. You ain’t got it in you right now. And that’s what I’m here for. I’m your wild side, your desires, your base urges. I make you eat. I drive you to do the things that your body needs, even though your brain doesn’t even realize it. I’m your fucking id, Johnny. I don’t give a squeaky shit about consequences. I seek instant gratification. And you need that aspect to get you through. Because without the drive, you’re just going to sit here and bake in the heat, not caring, because it all seems so meaningless. Ain’t that right, Johnny?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” John said. He tried feebly to manipulate his face into a look of indignation and realized that Santiago was right. He was numb. He moved along because he was pushed in a direction. He ate because food was given to him, but didn’t have the urge to seek out anything for himself. He had no urges or desires.
    “I wanna ask you something personal,” said Santiago. “We’ve been all alone, and I bet you haven’t tugged your pud since you left that cave, have you?”
    “That’s none of your business,” replied John, again with the faux-indignation.
    “Well, you haven’t and you know it. How in the hell do you just ignore the urge to gratify yourself? Or, let’s be honest here, you don’t really feel any urges do you?”
    “I don’t want to talk about this any more,” snapped John. And he was up, walking away from Santiago, avoiding the conversation. He wanted to tell himself that maybe he was afraid of blasting out another bloody spooge puddle. And maybe that was part of it. But not really. He simply felt no sexual urges at all. And the thought of it shocked him. He ambled away from the group, trying to force himself to feel something, anything.

     
    John tossed and turned during the night, his skin prickly and uncomfortable from the swollen munkle bites that were forming into pus-filled carbuncles and furuncles all over his body. The conversation with Santiago echoed in his head. He felt nothing about his situation. The burning bush told him to walk, so he walked. Santiago led him into temptation – food, lunkworms, physical altercations – that he cared nothing about otherwise. Crazy Talk saved his life while he was sleeping, but John would have been just fine with being murdered in his sleep by the worm-addled lunkies.
    As he drifted in and out of his fitful sleep, John saw the face of Android Lovethorn. The Reverend Lovethorn’s head, laughing and ringed in a halo of red flames, floated as a hypnogogic apparition before John. “Thrive and drool on,” said the apparition. “I will thrive and drool on.” And strings of foamy slobber oozed from the corners of his mouth. The flaming black-haired head doubled in size and thrust itself in John’s direction. Lovethorn ripped off his mirrored sunglasses and empty black eye sockets stared at John. And the void in the sockets reflected John’s emptiness and blackness right back at him. And John flinched, found himself falling backwards, flailing his arms and legs at the hazy space between sleep and alertness, then jerking back awake and realizing it was just a dream.
    Then the cycle started again with the discomfort and agitation and stinging of the munkle fly bites. He felt the boils on his flesh bursting and seeping out the pus. But, he did not care. And the seepage drained him not only of fluids, but also of