“M-manuel. Stop.” Juan heard his own voice, but couldn’t remember speaking. He felt a trickle of warmth run down his leg.

Manuel’s head snapped toward Juan, flinging blood from his mouth.

Juan tensed. He pictured Manuel snarling like a rabid dog and lunging for him. But his cousin’s eyes drooped and his lips trembled.

“My stomach…it hurts so bad. The pain. I don’t have a ch-choice…I have to eat.” He turned back to the hooker’s body and jammed his face into her stomach cavity, rolled his head and slurped up the soupy mess.

Juan gagged, burped, held his quivering hand over his mouth. “Manuel…cousin. You have to stop.”

“The buffet. M-Mr. Chan’s food. I, I need it. I fucking need it!” He reached up, grabbed the girl’s head by the hair, pulled it toward him. His bloody jaws bit into her cheek right below the eye, peeled off a piece the size of a pancake. It wiggled from his mouth as he chewed. His cheeks bulged with meat.

Juan took a step forward. The floor was slippery with gory chunks. He placed a hand on Manuel’s shoulder. “I…I’ll take you. To the restaurant. Just fucking stop.”

“Yes. Yes, the restaurant. The buffet.” Chewed meat spilled from his mouth as he spoke. “You’ll take me there, right, cousin? Y-you take me.”

Warm tears crept from Juan’s lids and the sting of bile assaulted his throat and nostrils. He glimpsed at the corpse without meaning to. So much of her eaten already. Manuel’s stomach bulged and looked hard.

“Yeah, I’ll take you.” Juan felt the keys poke his thigh from inside of his pocket. He wondered if Mr. Chan was still there. If he was, Juan was ready to kill him. People don’t act this way. His cousin was not this cannibalistic monster before him. Manuel was a good man, a loyal friend. Had the guts to leave his home and travel into an unknown world where his kind was treated like rats, where they spoke a different language, where they give you the hardest jobs and pay you shit. He promised Juan he would help him get there, start a better life for his family, and he did exactly as he’d promised.

But now…something had changed his cousin. And Juan knew the Chinaman was at fault. The little man had mentioned a special recipe, how powerful it was. How he had used too much of it.

What did you do, you son of a bitch?

Juan helped Manuel to his feet, his cousin’s body slick with sweat and the woman’s blood. Manuel’s eyes were wide, sparkling with desire.

“You take me to the restaurant. Paradise…Buffet.” He bit his lip, flared his nostrils. His bloody, red cock began to harden.

Juan led Manuel to the closet, having to step over the mauled body. He tried to avoid stepping on anything, but winced when something soft squashed under his shoe.

“Put some clothes on, and we’ll go, okay?”

Manuel nodded. He quickly pulled on a pair of pants, slid into a t-shirt. The blood soaked through the fabric, but it was good enough. Juan didn’t know if he could take another eyeful of his cousin biting into the woman, peeling meat away, and he tried to hurry Manuel out the door. But as he wrapped his fist around the doorknob, his other hand in the crook of Manuel’s arm, he noticed his cousin’s eyes land on the hooker’s body. They burned with hunger and savagery.