I knew that I had to turn tail and run, and I had to do it now. The vision had warned me about this place, about this exact moment. But then again, hadn’t my visions been wrong before? I had sure as shit been wrong about Murphy’s birthday party, which I had totally ruined. Maybe this vision was wrong too. After all, Kent and Rob were both being pretty nice to me, weren’t they?

I wasn’t going to leave. I was going to make friends. I was going to ride that damn go-kart.

“It’s pretty wild,” I said. “I never seen so many ants in one place.”

Rob Louis stood there with his arms crossed, smirking at me. No one said a word.

“Yeah, so,” I said, my voice cracking a little. “What do you guys need me to do?”

They moved together as one, as if they had been planning this for ages, as if it were all practiced and perfectly choreographed. Rob Louis tackled me, pinning down my arms and legs with his body. I fought and struggled, but what was the point? He was bigger than me and stronger than me and meaner than me.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Kent Knoll stood over me, a tiny smile on his face.

“Why are we doing this?” he said. “It’s simple. Because we can.”

He bent down and in one swift motion scooped up a huge handful of anthill. Then he pulled down the neck of my Batman shirt and dumped the anthill on my chest.

The ants swarmed me, biting, tickling, crawling all over my skin. They bit my chest, they bit my stomach, they bit inside my belly button. They crawled down my pants and into my underwear, gnawing on me. All the while Rob Louis pinned me down, his knees on my thighs, his hands on my wrists. I couldn’t fight him off, I couldn’t move. All I could do was scream.

So what did Kent Knoll do? He scooped up another handful of anthill and dumped it in my mouth.

I know Kent had to have gotten bitten—Rob Louis too, probably half a dozen times each. But I don’t think they cared. I don’t think a few ant bites were too high a price to pay to see me suffer.

Rob Louis let me go, and I rolled over and vomited dust and mud and ants. I yanked my Batman shirt off and swatted the ants off my naked chest, which was fat and pink with big swollen mounds all over it. I yanked my black shorts off and even my underwear. I swatted ants off my ass, off every part of me.

Kent Knoll and Rob Louis just stood there and laughed. They thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen in their lives.