Sprawled where he had tripped in the Yarkie trees, Tony Carlucci was anguishedly telling himself it was just an evil trip—the flitting shapes on his body were unreal, like the d.t.’s. The nails driving into his ears, the teeth tearing his flesh, they were the hallucinations of bad shit.

The stinging up his rectum—how could that be real!

The man flung himself about, legs flailing. He bucked and twisted and squirmed. Without the use of his hands, he was helpless. But he groaned to himself that he was tough stuff—whatever this shit was, he would beat it!

Then Tony Carlucci could swear some feathery things were touching his lips, almost like tiny kisses. For a moment it was pleasant, but then there were sharp pins stabbing his mouth, and he could feel bugs crawling between his lips. The man gagged and clamped his teeth against them, until the pain of flesh being eaten from his bones made him cry out. In that instant, his open mouth was crammed with hissing insects. In another instant, his throat was invaded with a vibrating mass of huge, evil-smelling bugs he could not make out. The man gulped reflexively, swallowed against his will, and spewed out, all at once, it seemed. He felt hot blood spilling from his throat, pouring through his lips which were being chewed away to the bone of his jaws. He cried, soundlessly now, “Oh, God, please help me!”

In the depths of his addled brain, the man was only too aware that this was no bad dream. Searing irons had burned out his eyes. Spikes were splitting his skull. His brain itself was being chewed from within by razor teeth. This was a “trip” from which he would never return.

Tony Carlucci knew he was dying, and it was not his past that flashed before him but the future he would never have. He wanted to plead that the drugs had only been kid stuff, his quitting school only macho wild oats, he had always intended to be straight, join his father’s grocery, marry, have kids.

Have kids? His cock and his balls had been chewed away on this crazy island!

Nerves in the man’s head were jangling like fireworks. He felt lightning forking out of the blackness of his eyes. Bugs were burrowing through his brain. Their bites were like flints striking fire in his skull. The edges of his brain were browning and curling up, frying in pain. And buzz saws below were cutting his body apart, separating his limbs, slicing away chunks of his organs.

Tony Carlucci’s final sob of helplessness was that of a small child falling into a bottomless black abyss. “Mama—Mama, mia!”

The teeming cockroaches ate steadily, voraciously, stripping the body like piranha, and worse—chewing the bones to powder.

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