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brother will play with me? Does he like cartoons?”
    Mike checked over his shoulder when he heard a loud buzz, but it was only a fly whispering in his ear. The hall was still clear of the old man and the mucusy midget creatures.
    When he turned his head back toward the room, the boy was closer, right in front of him. His hands were painted brown and red from the meat bucket, and the maggots dove in and out of his flesh, crawled over his face and out of his mouth. He reached for Mike, his eyes sad and glazed over.
    “Tell your brother I want to play, okay? Tell him I’ll share my food.”
    Mike jumped back into the hall, slammed the door as the boy lunged for him. The maggots that littered the floor seemed to have multiplied, now ankle high, tickling Mike’s skin as held the door shut. The boy banged against the door from inside of the room, sounded like he was scraping his fingernails across its surface.
    “Will you tell him?” he shouted from the other side. “You’ll tell him, won’t you?”
    Mike grimaced as the door rattled against his weight; the tickling on his ankles became sharp pain, and no matter how hard he kicked, he couldn’t shake them off. The boy sounded like he was crying as he pulled on the door, making it slam shut over and over. Mike dropped his gun as he struggled, watched it sail away on top of the larval lake.
    “Shit.” He gripped the knob with both hands, leaned back. But the struggling had stopped. He could hear the boy laughing from the other side.
    “Be vewy vewy quiet,” the boy said. The boy’s voice was distant, as if he had moved back to his seat in front of the television. Mike let go of the door, stood there staring at it for a moment, then looked down the hall for this gun.
    It was nowhere to be seen. Mike chewed his panic away; he felt naked without his pistol, helpless. It wasn’t doing him any good any way, but he wanted it back. He squinted as he glared down the hall; it went on and on forever, the pulsating stream fading into a blur of vibrating white and pink.
    More pinches on his feet and legs, tiny pinpricks of pain. The maggots had climbed his body again, covered his legs like a living fungus. He scraped handfuls of them away, growled as they scooted over his skin. Though he brushed off all he could, he could still feel them gnawing at his feet, the spaces between his toes.
    The door across the hall from Cartoon Boy was just slightly ajar, and Mike saw the whites of two eyes staring out at him.
    “Uh he… uh he… uh he he.” The tiny laughter had to belong to a toddler, maybe a two year old.
    But the sound of the gurgly voice sent Mike further down the hall.
    “He he he… uh he he.”
    Mike glanced over his shoulder. A black toddler stood there, nude, fingering his protruding belly button. His skin crawled with wiggles, stark dots against his skin, and just like Cartoon Boy, they tunneled through his body.
    The little boy sucked on his finger, giggled again.
    Mike could tell he was a boy because of the puny twisted knot of flesh between his legs. Then the baby got down on all fours and crawled toward him. His limbs disappeared into the wriggling river and he looked like a tiny torso floating on the surface.
    “Oh hell naw.” Mike turned, sprinted, splashing maggots into the air. He passed multiple doors, wondered if his brother could be inside any of them. “James? Where the fuck are you, man?”
    Doors cracked open and slammed shut again as he passed. Mike caught quick glimpses of children, their faces stretched into mischievous grins.
    He stopped, turned, checked for the swim-ming infant as he took blind steps backward.
    And the baby was there, clinging to his leg, almost weightless. It cooed at him, gurgled and drooled a thick yellow paste. It smiled its swollen toothless gums at him.
    Mike screamed, a hoarse shriek that tore his throat. He kicked his leg, but the baby climbed him like a cat. He reached down to grab it, palmed its head like a cantaloupe.