The Boomerang Twins—Eli and Amos—weren’t twins, and they sure as hell weren’t brothers. But they were close enough in age to pass as Irish twins, had blood tied them together. What did bind them was something far stickier: the most profitable black market milk-and-meat racket Pangaea had ever seen.
Every weekend, the two loaded up their off-road rigs and headed deep into the desert wastelands, where the heat shimmered and the mutant tarantulas roamed. Blame Dr. Stone—or thank him—depending on your feelings about four-wheeler-sized arachnids that produced milk, silk, felt, and meat so tender it made lobster seem like peasant fare. The tarantula exoskeletons? Boiled down into a broth that mimicked crustacean stock with uncanny perfection.
The milk itself was extracted from tame females with careful pressure applied to their milk pores. Each beast could yield 8 to 10 gallons of thick, protein-rich fluid. Once processed, it was boxed into shelf-stable cartons and sold in corner shops under the label Wildebeest Milk. Five credits or less.
Nobody dared interfere. Most folks were too arachnophobic to even ask questions. And those who weren’t scared of spiders still knew better than to cross a zombie with a truck license. Zombies, for the record, were federally managed—kept stable on a regimen of dessicated animal brain powder and regular injections. Mostly docile. Mostly.
So the Boomerang Twins carried on—hawking tarantula milk as dairy, selling man-eater meat as gourmet delicacy—and rolling through checkpoints with nothing but silk, smiles, and the faint, dusty hum of a trucker's undead patience.
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Amos noshed on what, in another time and gentler place, might’ve been called mock lobster macrosushi. Thick, glistening slabs of scallop-soft spider meat perched atop buttery pucks of cooked and molded desert wheat peas—grain engineered to grow in sandstorms and drought. Each eager bite sent hot, savory juices squirting between his teeth with the tender satisfaction of something truly decadent. He didn’t talk while he ate. He just stared at the dunes like they might answer back, chewing slow, eyes dreamy, as if every bite brought him closer to a truth no one else would understand.
Eli was more into meat with some bite to it—spicy arachnid jerky, tough and tangled with heat, sold under the name Piper’s Piping Hot Stray Lamb Jerky. The label was a lie, but the kick was real. He liked something with some pull and chew to it. Something that fought back a little before surrendering. While Amos quietly chased flavor like a daydream, Eli sat hunched and chewing hard, jaw working like a pump handle, eyes scanning the horizon between bites. He didn’t savor—he processed. That jerky was fuel, fire, and habit, all packed into one leathery strip.
Both twins were addicted to tarantula venom diluted in grain alcohol. If they were in a real rush, they’d cut off the fangs and venom sacs and leave the rest—the meat, the silk and all that lobster flavor—to rot in the sand. That’s how bad they needed a fix.
They enjoyed the inebriating effects of the venom. Undiluted, it was lethal. Just a drop per ounce of liquor was the sweet spot. Then the world would broaden and brighten. Your worries would lift. Time would slow. You could simply exist in the moment, bathing in the warmth of reassurance and unconditional love.
And then, eventually, you’d crave that feeling more than food, more than money. More than reason.
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