“There’s no such thing as a recession. My dad says it’s made up.” Barry interrupted, his arms flailing so everyone in the cafeteria could see. “The school’s just trying to save money by using squirrel meat. Or maybe even human meat. Shoot, people are eating the cicadas for snacks…Eww, dude.” He lifted up his tray and dropped it, a splatter of ground meat shot across the table, appearing more like spilled brains with beans. The mozzarella added to the neural-webbing look .

Franky looked at his own tray. How did they expect all the kids to eat this crap, and what exactly was it even supposed to be? He picked up the celery and took a nibble. At least it was “organic.” He stirred the meat mush on the hamburger bun with the celery and lifted up the stringy cheese, causing the meat to clump together in a ball of gooey tendrils. He was barely listening to what Matt and Barry were talking about.

“RIP.” said Matt, making the sign of the Christian cross over the sloppy joe sandwich. “If we die eating this, are they going to make our bodies into cafeteria food?”

There were several full table rows of other fifth and sixth graders eating the disgusting sandwiches, wiping their mouths and hands, or not wiping at all, so there were plenty of them to spare. Franky rubbed his hands even though they were perfectly clean. Seeing all those kids with messy faces and sauce-covered hands, the brown smears and white cheese, made him not want to eat anything ever again.

“What about Mr. Gagliard? Heard he got let go and took a job as a clown balloon artist. The hipster art kids are all crying in the corner.” Matt gestured to the round table at the end of the long rectangular tables. Their eyeshadow and dark clothes couldn’t mask the brown meat smears on their faces. He took a bite out of the single carrot on his tray. “Teachers are being let go left and right. Maybe the school is just having its own mini-recession, much like your pants.”

“Whatever, bro.” spat Barry across from Frankie. He practically had to duck out of the way of Barry’s spit as he tried to flex, “This is all muscle.” his chest jiggled with every subtle movement.

No one seemed to notice. Franky averted his eyes all the same. Maybe if he looked away the other kids wouldn’t think Barry and Matt were his friends. The school was going downhill for sure, he thought. He looked around and realized there wasn’t even enough staff to monitor the cafeteria. He didn’t see any teachers or staff anywhere. And then he remembered Wyatt, one of the school’s oldest staff members. “Did the cook seem off today?”

“Can Wyatt really be considered a cook if he just slops spoonfuls of goop from the food barrels into unwashed cafeteria trays?” said Barry, making a farting sound.

Franky cringed. The thought of how unsanitary the kitchens were…the germs, the viruses, the bacteria…in a middle school that could barely afford its teachers. He noticed a boy making a face to his right, a few students down from him. The boy grabbed his stomach and Franky felt vindicated. If everyone chose not to eat the garbage then the school would have no choice but to get better food. It served them right for scarfing the stuff down without even thinking about it. Did none of them consider how unhealthy this stuff was?

Matt was still crunching on his carrot when his gaze drifted to another table. “Dude.” He nodded, gesturing to several girls who were rubbing their heads and making squinty faces. “Must be that time of the month.”

“Shut up, dude.” Franky never saw the point in mocking someone else’s pain, especially a pain that was so common among girls, a pain he would never understand. Granted Matt and Barry were never the brightest. Barry would often brag that he “at least wasn’t failing.” I guess everyone had their own goals…

He heard the echo of a cough and the thud of a head hitting a table. He knew the sound because Barry had done it several times to prove that he had a thick skull. There was a commotion somewhere in the cafeteria, the sound of bags moving and feet shuffling but he couldn’t see what was happening and then suddenly everything became quiet.

Matt and Barry looked at each other, their mouths slightly open. The three of them half-stood, realizing the entire room of students have gone still. The row of boys and girls next to Franky had their heads bent or turn slightly askew like a confused dog. Further down he noticed a boy leaning forward, head down, with drool dripping onto the food tray, the saliva mixing with the “meat milkshake” as Barry called it. Franky shivered and tried to shake off the revulsion.

“What the hell…? They’re all frozen in place like cavemen in a museum exhibit.” Barry stood and stepped back, poking the girl next to Matt. She didn’t move.

“Or it’s one of those flash mobs. Hard to believe that the whole cafeteria would be pranking just the three of us.” Matt looked around and he was right. They were the only three standing up and moving while everyone else was staring blankly, completely lifeless with dazed expressions.

Franky shivered again feeling suddenly exposed like he was giving a speech in front of the class and everyone was looking at him but nobody really was this time. It was just him and Barry and Matt. This had to be a prank…It had to be. But it wasn’t any of their birthdays…. And none of them were really popular. He felt a chill and couldn’t shake it, imagining what it would be like to be completely comatose with the rest of them, infected by some paralyzing agent. He couldn’t help but be reminded of the shambling, mindless corpses in horror movies. The word “infection” came to mind. It made him woozy to think about.

“Maybe they’re sick.” He noticed his voice had gone up an octave. The three started backing away.

“Damn sheeple.” said Barry. For some reason he grabbed his tray. “They think this is funny. They’re laughing at us on the inside. You hear me! You don’t scare us!” He shouted.

Franky looked at Barry holding the tray. “What are you doing?” and turned to the students and pointed at their trays. “Look. They’ve all eaten it. The food’s probably contaminated.”

Matt put up his finger, about to speak, and suddenly all the students stood up and the girl closest to him grabbed him. He yelped, mostly from the expressionless face of the girl whose eyes were rolled into the back of her head. Backing into Barry, Matt shook her off and the two of them retreated away from the advancing students who were now reaching out, mouths open, grabbing for the three of them.

The tables to Franky’s left started emptying, the kids were surrounding him, grabbing, pulling. He could see their tongues undulating and he wanted to scream. The human mouth contained over six billion bacteria and they were all around him, a group of ten human mouths all open, breathing on him. One of the boy’s saliva nearly got on his sleeve when Franky pulled his arm, pushed the boy into the group, which caused a domino effect of falling bodies. He didn’t care to see what happened next as he bolted toward the kitchen doors. It was usually more disgusting back there but with all the open mouths and numb faces approaching he didn’t care.

“Go!” shouted Barry, pulling at Matt’s arm. This was the first time Franky saw him doing anything heroic but he didn’t have time to appreciate his friend’s new virtue. The mindless students were slow but with so many of them the mass of bodies were pushing forward into each other. Franky got to the door first and opened it allowing the other two inside and quickly ran in and closed it behind him.

“What the hell!? This isn’t funny anymore!” Barry was shouting at them through the door as they listened to the slapping hands. Banging and fleshy thuds followed.

“They don’t seem to know how doorknobs work.” Franky noticed the handle wasn’t being turned from the other side at all. He was at a loss. He stared and could only consider that there was indeed something wrong with the food.

Matt said, “I’m outta here.” and quickly jumped over the food line, nearly kicking the glass sneeze guard. What was the point of a sneeze guard, he asked himself, if the food was contaminated?

Barry followed behind Matt, although slower and with less grace. But after Franky joined them on the other side they were backing up, their surprised faces suggesting they did something wrong. A man in an apron was walking in with a confused look on his face.

“Oh, thank god.” said Barry. “What have you been serving us…?”

Wyatt was confused when he responded, “Uh…it’s just uh, like ground meat and stuff. The new stuff just came in this morning.”

“That meat garbage with the cheese is turning students into a drooling horde.” Matt threw his hands up and then pointed toward the door with the banging that couldn’t be ignored.

“Cheese…?” said Wyatt.

He suddenly realized that when he was poking the cheese, he may have been playing with the contagion itself…Franky’s stomach growled but was also filled with nausea which was an odd feeling. The cook walked over to the open food tray, filled with meat slob and stirred it.

“That’s….weird.” said Wyatt. “Didn’t notice these stringy pieces.”

“That has to be it.” Said Franky excitedly over the discovery. “Worms…like gut worms but…”

Matt’s face turned to nervous realization. “But affecting people’s brains…”

“We need to call the BBC!” shouted Barry.

“The what?” said Wyatt.

“He means the CDC, Center for Disease Control.” Franky rolled his eyes. “They’re infected with something. Something that acts fast like an insect…that can control the brain, like a parasite wasp and flatworm. The flatworms infect snails, take control of them, and cause them to expose themselves to birds so they reproduce in the bird’s stomach…Maybe that’s what’s happening.”

Barry laughed but Wyatt didn’t.

“Uh, so…yeah.” Wyatt looked down. “In order to cut costs, the school ordered FDA-approved meat substitute from up north. I’m not proud of serving you guys this slop but I had no choice.”

The three boys looked at each other and then back at the food container. The white spots, the stringy fibers, seemed to disappear into the meat on its own, or whatever the substance actually was. “Meat substitute means meat replacement, right? What replaced the meat?” asked Matt.

“I’ve heard rumors…,” said Wyatt. “and looked into the container. Apparently, insects are a very popular artificial replacement…”

The boys made exclamations of gagging and retching noises. “Cicadas…” groaned Matt. “Buried for 17 years…Rising from the dirt. Who knows what kind of parasites they picked up down there?”

“Poor kids.” Wyatt was peeking through the crack in the door. “They’ll need medical treatment for whatever is causing them to behave this way. You guys shouldn’t have to see this.”

Barry held his large stomach, moaned, and started fingering the mash potatoes, “Glad that’s over. We should get some fast food…”

Franky and Matt both shouted in unison. “No!”

There was nauseousness still deep in Franky’s stomach but it was slowly subsiding, seeing an adult take over the situation and knowing that someway, somehow everything was going to be okay and that maybe one day those kids would be back to normal. But right now, he wanted to get as far away from the droolers as possible…

“Wait…” said Franky, remembering Barry in the lunch line only twenty minutes ago. “Didn’t you take a bite out of the…?”

Barry, his finger still deep in the potatoes, remained perfectly still. “Oh no…” said Franky, backing away from him slowly, braced to run.

Matt gave a glance of recognition towards Franky and finally said, “And I didn’t think he had any brains…”