Just as I finished sealing the leaky little tin, a cockroach skittered through the light of my flashlight and took shelter in the shadow of my foot, trusting and stupid. My stomach growled.

“You’ve got to eat it,” Liza had said, implacable. The centipede dangled from her hand, legs curling and uncurling as it vainly tried to escape.

“No, he doesn’t,” Brigid had replied, lying on her back in the dirt. Liza had been the neighbor’s child. When we had been little children together, she had been like another sister to me. As we’d gotten older, she and Brigid had become closer, and she’d distanced herself from me.

I hadn’t seen her body after Kystrom, but her parents’ house had been half-caved in, hollowed out by fire.

“It’s the rules of dare,” Liza had told Brigid.

“It’s a stupid dare,” Brigid had said, and the beady way she looked at me meant and you were stupid for taking it.

“It’s the rules.” Liza had possessed an air of finality. She’d held out the centipede towards me, and a wicked little grin had taken up residence on a face that was starting to transition from girl to woman.

Something about that little grin had woken the imp inside me. “No problem,” I’d told her, and taken the centipede from her hand. It had squirmed between my fingers.

“Better eat it quick, before Mom notices,” Brigid had said, taunting, because in those days I was never alone. I was surrounded by friends and by family, and someone I loved was never more than a room away.

The centipede had squirmed on my tongue until my teeth had come down on it, splitting the exoskeleton, and a burst of oddly salty liquid had splashed over my tongue. I’m pretty sure it was still squirming when I swallowed it.

“That’s disgusting!” Brigid had shouted, laughing and repulsed. Liza had looked at me with an odd half a smile. That was the expression I remembered best of her, condescending and admiring both, respect from a girl long dead.

I grabbed the roach.

Or at least, I tried to grab the roach. They’re quick little fuckers, and there’s really nothing to grab on their carapaces, and the roach sitting comfortably next to my foot was gone in a flash.

The motion disturbed the other roaches nearby, though, and I turned to the roiling mass of fleeing insects that had been gathered near the water source. I reached in, intending to just grab one from the writhing pile, but they avoided my hand like the sea parting. Annoyed now, I snatched at the nearest one, and came away for my efforts with a single detached leg.

That was disgusting. I dropped the leg, but its owner was already fled, not in the least hindered by losing one of its limbs. The initial rush of fleeing cockroaches had slowed as they all found new hiding spots, so I identified their direction—an overturned piece of debris that might once have been part of a table.