Sloughing Off the Rot Read Online Free Page B

and felt the sting of the leather that he flung about. Following Santiago’s example, some of the dancers stripped off their shirts and beat and slashed at their own backs with belts and branches and straps made from the hides of goats. The rhythm of the music urged the flagellants on, driving their self-abuse to greater extremes. Occasionally a spent and bloody dancer dropped by the side of the road, his body still twitching despite the lack of energy to continue on, left to watch helplessly as the surging, spinning, dancing crowd of men moved away down the road.
    The men danced through the night, following the red brick road. Above them, where the trail of clouds flowed during the day, a river of fire mirrored the snaking road. The star Wormwood winked a hypnotic green strobe down on the crowd. And the road welcomed the throng of sweaty, dirty, beaten and bloodied men. It drank their sweat and blood and gave back its own energy to urge the crowd on. It worked in concert with the river of fire, reflecting energy to the trail and receiving the rebounding aura. El Camino De la Muerte drove the clamoring mass through small villages and over hills picking up more bodies along the way, sweeping the men along treacherous mountain roads, sometimes tossing weakened and useless husks of men off the side of the road and down the steep drops. All the while, John spun and leapt and moved forward, and Santiago followed, dropping worms in the eyes of newcomers and providing John with lunkworms when his energy waned.
    After three days and two nights of manic dancing, the crowd dwindled to nothing. A trail of broken and spent bodies, some dead but most not, littered the brick path for miles and miles behind John and Santiago. And the two men found themselves alone on the road again and lacking the energy to go any farther. After three days in the desert fun, John’s face began to turn red. After three days in the desert sun he was looking at a riverbed. He threw himself to the ground and lay on his back in an area where the red brick road crossed the dry riverbed, staring up at the flickering light of Wormwood millions of miles away. From his peripheral vision, he saw Santiago walking around their stopping point and pissing a circle around them.
    “What the hell are you doing?” John asked.
    Santiago shook off the final drops of urine that he could muster and answered, “Setting up a perimeter. And I’m dry. I need you to finish up wetting the circle around our camp here.”
    “For what? I’m too tired to stand.”
    “To save our lives. To make it through the night. To keep us safe, man.” Santiago walked in a circle around John’s unmoving body. “You need to get up and finish the circle that I started to keep us safe. And I ain’t gonna let you sleep until you do.” He poked at John’s ribs with his big toe and jumped back when John swatted at him.
    “What is our piss going to keep us safe from? This is ridiculous. I want to sleep.”
    Santiago nudged at John again with his foot. “Get up and I’ll tell you. Otherwise I’m gonna pester you and not let you sleep.”
    With a great effort, John rose to his feet. “I’ll try if it will shut you up. But, I don’t think I have enough piss to complete a circle around us.” Much to his surprise, John loosed a high-pressure flow of urine that more than finished Santiago’s protective ring around the men. He shook off several times, giving it an extra effort so as not to dribble on himself. “So what is our piss going to protect us from?” John returned to his resting position on the ground and resumed his gaze at Wormwood’s green flicker.
    “Lunkheads, baby. Lunkheads,” said Santiago. He settled in on the ground next to John and stared at the green star, too. “If you wanna make it through the night, don’t step outside of that piss-circle. Don’t put a hand or foot or any other body part outside of the perimeter or you’re likely to lose it.”
    “What are