Chapter 1
The Instagram post was when all hell broke loose.
Posted eight hours earlier by @Kassio_Kolks, it showed a plate of grilled meat with a side of sautéed vegetables, from one of the secret dinners.
Below it was a series of hashtags: #SecretDinner #TopSecret #HumanFlesh #Humans #BestDinner #SoDelicious #GetInMyBelly.
It couldn’t have been more brazen. To our dismay, the post already had over two hundred likes and thirteen comments—from horrified people asking if it was really human meat and from curious people wanting to know how it tasted.
Shaking, Umberto explained that he’d received the link via an email from an unknown party and demanded an immediate solution from Piglet.
Sitting in front of his MacBook, sweating profusely, Piglet typed frantically and backdoored access points, trying to take down the post. The photo kept getting likes and comments, and our greatest fear was that it would spread.
The internet is a hellscape: You delete one piece of information and it instantly resurfaces in a hundred other places; images are forwarded and shared at the speed of light, impossible to control.
Miguel paced back and forth, wiping his glasses on his shirt.
“I knew this was gonna happen, I told you we should’ve put a stop to this!” he repeated. “We can’t keep having dinners. It’s over!”
He was right, things had gotten out of hand.
This was the end of the road, and there was nothing we could do about it.
I went to the bathroom and popped two Klonopin.
I slipped Miguel a third. Bringing up the pork tenderloin from Umberto’s would only make things worse.
Miguel would lose his shit, maybe even go to the cops.
We could fight later, when the vibe was less tense.
“Piglet, you’ll be able to fix this, won’t you?” urged Umberto.
“Let me concentrate. I’m doing my best.”
I could tell from Piglet’s face that it wasn’t a simple fix.
The next few hours were awful, fueled by Red Bull, coffee, and Coca-Cola.
Everybody was on edge, paranoid the police would come knocking at any moment and shatter our glass house.
Hugo kept fiddling with his phone, scouring search engines to check the picture hadn’t gone viral.
“There’s still hope,” he said, mostly to himself.
Umberto mopped his forehead with a dirty handkerchief and disappeared occasionally down the hall to take a phone call.
I caught bits and pieces of his conversation and got the impression that the person on the other end was giving him a hard time.
Umberto would say, “Sorry, I’m taking care of it, sorry,” and come back to the living room looking even more dejected, plopping down on the sofa and staring hopefully at Piglet.
I thought it was weird, but this wasn’t the time to demand explanations.
“This is all your fault, Dante,” said Umberto, breaking a heavy silence. “You were in charge! How could you let someone take a picture like that?”
“I don’t know how it happened. There’s definitely been a security breach.”
“You’re incompetent! Do you know how much shit is coming down on me because of you?!”
“Fuck you,” I replied.
I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
Sitting at the counter, I confirmed my suspicions: @Kassio_Kolks was Kássio Gheler.
Kássio had continued to attend our dinners just to get back at us for what I’d done to him and his boyfriend that first night.
Pissed off, I went back to the living room.
For a moment I wished for a little crystal of Molly so I could trip balls and forget about everything. But I didn’t have any on me.
“I’ve tried everything, it’s no use,” said Piglet. He yawned, putting his laptop aside. He’d been hard at work for over four hours, and he stank to high heaven. “I need to take a break.”
“We don’t have time!” yelled Umberto. He was losing his grip. Not even his flowery mannerisms and speech could hide the fact that he was scared shitless. “This is serious. If we don’t fix this, we’re screwed. Not just me, everybody. We’re all fucked!”
In that moment, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the terror in his voice. If he was as respected and powerful as he claimed, what exactly was he afraid of? Public backlash? Being investigated by the cops? Umberto was revealing a cowardly side. That was new to us.
Umberto’s phone rang again and he jumped up, hurrying to the hallway. I followed him to listen in on the conversation.
“Yes, of course … With a ch? Great! Leave it to me. I’m telling you, I’ve got it covered! Vladimir won’t hear any more about this. Thank him for me, will you?”
He hung up and caught me eavesdropping.
“I’m trying to fix your mess,” he said, regaining that superior air that had always irked me. Then he went back to the living room. “I got the guy’s password.”
Piglet was smoking a joint at the window.
“What?”
“The password for this Kassio Kolks fellow. It’s trapiche66,” he said. “Log in to his profile, delete that photo, and please do your best to confirm this hasn’t been shared anywhere else.”
“Okay.”
Piglet went back to his computer.
“How did you get the password?”
“My guys found the address of whoever posted the photo,” Umberto said. “They just gave him a good scare. It wasn’t that hard.”
Miguel and Hugo stood beside Piglet as he accessed dark windows filled with seemingly random characters and typed several sequences of numbers and letters to make sure the photo hadn’t been replicated on other sites.
Umberto disappeared down the hallway again.
I went after him and grabbed him by the arm.
“Who’s Vladimir?” I asked.
His face went pale. “What are you talking about?”
“I heard you on the phone. Who’s Vladimir?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“If you don’t tell me right now, I’m going to go back in there and tell everybody you served us human flesh that day at your house without us knowing.”
He was unmoved. He broke into a wide grin. “You really want to pick a fight over that?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“You know, people say seagull tastes like pork, but I think they’re wrong. It’s so much more exotic and surprising. I thought you’d spot the difference right away.”
“Tell me who Vladimir is.”
“A new partner.”
“New partner?”
In that moment, I didn’t yet grasp the full extent of the power Vladimir wielded over all of us. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight.
“We’ll just call him a silent partner,” said Umberto.
“He was the one who found Kássio and got his password, wasn’t he? I heard you on the phone.”
“You ask too many questions, boy.”
“And what are they going to do with him? What if he goes to the police?”
“Don’t worry about that, Vladimir will handle it,” he replied. “Want my advice? Do your job right so shit like this doesn’t happen again. We’ll take care of the rest.”
Umberto went back to my friends, thanked Piglet for his help, and said good night, brushing it all off as just a little scare. I had to pop two more pills to fall asleep, and I was still jonesing for some Molly or a bump of coke.
Kássio never came to another dinner. Months later, I tried to find out what had happened to him.
The email I sent bounced, and he was no longer on social media.
I asked Piglet to help me find out where he lived or how to contact him, but all my friend could confirm was that he’d changed his address and phone number.
Kássio had fallen off the map.