Hunger

right, man, there’ve been seagulls all over the other fields. Especially in the morning.”
    Perdido Beach had quite a population of seagulls. In the old days they had lived off bits of bait left by fishermen and food scraps dropped near trash cans. There were no more food scraps in the FAYZ. Not anymore. So the enterprising gulls had gone into the fields to compete with crows and pigeons. One of the reasons so much of the food they’d found was spoiled.
    “They must not like cabbage,” Albert commented. He sighed. “I don’t honestly know anyone who does.”
    E.Z. squatted down before the cabbage, rubbed his handsin preparation, worked them down beneath the leaves, down to cradle the cabbage. Then he fell back on his rear end. “Ow!” he yelled.
    “Not so easy, is it?” Edilio teased.
    “Ah! Ah!” E.Z. jumped to his feet. He was holding his right hand with his left and staring hard at his hand. “No, no, no.”
    Sam had been only half listening. His mind was elsewhere, scanning for the missing birds, but the terror in E.Z.’s voice snapped his head around. “What’s the matter?”
    “Something bit me!” E.Z. cried. “Oh, oh, it hurts. It hurts. It—” E.Z. let loose a scream of agony. The scream started low and went higher, higher into hysteria.
    Sam saw what looked like a black question mark on E.Z.’s pant leg.
    “Snake!” Sam said to Edilio. E.Z.’s arm went into a spasm. It shook violently. It was as if some invisible giant had hold of it and were yanking his arm as hard and as fast as it could.
    E.Z. screamed and screamed and began a lunatic dance. “They’re in my feet!” he cried. “They’re in my feet!”
    Sam stood paralyzed for a few seconds, just a few seconds—but later in memory it would seem so long. Too long.
    He leaped forward, rushing toward E.Z. He was brought down hard by a flying tackle from Edilio.
    “What are you doing?” Sam demanded, and struggled to free himself.
    “Man, look. Look!” Edilio whispered.
    Sam’s face was mere feet from the first row of cabbages.The soil was alive. Worms. Worms as big as garter snakes were seething up from beneath the dirt. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. All heading toward E.Z., who screamed again and again in agony mixed with confusion.
    Sam rose to his feet but went no closer to the edge of the cabbage field. The worms did not move beyond the first row of turned soil. There might as well have been a wall, the worms all on one side.
    E.Z. came staggering wildly toward Sam, walking as if he were being electrocuted, jerking, flailing like some crazy puppet with half its strings cut.
    Three, four feet away, a long arm-stretch away, Sam saw the worm erupt from the skin of E.Z.’s throat.
    And then another from his jaw, just in front of his ear. E.Z., no longer screaming, sagged to the ground, just sat there limp, cross-legged.
    “Help me,” E.Z. whispered. “Sam…” E.Z.’s eyes were on Sam. Pleading. Fading. Then just staring, blank.
    The only sounds now came from the worms. Their hundreds of mouths seemed to make a single sound, one big mouth chewing wetly.
    A worm spilled from E.Z.’s mouth.
    Sam raised his hands, palms out.
    “Sam, no!” Albert yelled. Then, in a quieter voice, “He’s already dead. He’s already dead.”
    “Albert’s right, man. Don’t do it, don’t burn them, they’re staying in the field, don’t give them a reason to come after us,”Edilio hissed. His strong hands still dug into Sam’s shoulders, like he was holding Sam back, though Sam wasn’t trying to escape any longer.
    “And don’t touch him,” Edilio sobbed. “ Perdóneme , God forgive me, don’t touch him.”
    The black worms swarmed over and through E.Z.’s body. Like ants swarming a dead beetle.
    It felt like a very long time before the worms slithered away and tunneled back into the earth.
    What they left behind was no longer recognizable as a human being.
    “There’s a rope here,” Albert said, stepping down at last from the Jeep. He tried to tie a lasso, but his hands were shaking too badly. He handed the rope to Edilio, who formed a loop and after six misses finally snagged what was left of E.Z.’s right foot. Together they dragged the remains from the field.
    A single tardy worm crawled from the mess and headed back toward the cabbages. Sam snatched up a rock the size of a softball and smashed it down on the worm’s back. The worm stopped moving.
    “I’ll come back with a shovel,” Edilio said. “We can’t