HAWG
By
Steven L. Shrewsbury

* * *

PREFACE

Beast of the field

Iris Diaz laughed at Ricky Bravo’s easy gait as she watched him walk up behind the farmer. Though Ricky had started out in a stealthy stance, hunched over and weaving his way through the side buildings and lawn ornaments on the vast farm, he had quickly abandoned this creeping action.

Clearly, with the loud voice coming from the boom box and the even louder squealing of the pigs, Rick could’ve easily stomped up behind the old man in overalls and not have been heard. The dusty black box, situated on the edge of a circular concrete dais just to the left of the farmer, had seen better days. Like its owner, Iris mulled, the box was dirty, beaten up and about ready to fall apart. She swept her long black hair back over her shoulder, unsure of the farmer’s age. A million if he was a day? She’d heard that phrase before, but guessed him over seventy years at least. The oblivious farmer moved fluidly at times, yet seemed to halt in his motions, as if some inner pain reminded him it was there. His skin was burnt dark, giving him a deeper hue than either Iris or Ricky.

Ricky stopped and winked at Iris. He then glanced across the vast property taking in the three long barns, a corncrib, open pens crowded with pigs, and a massive round barn to their right. Ricky aped the act of sizing up the farmer, who stood a bit taller than the five foot ten Bravo. Ricky jumped a little, startled as the voice on the speaker as it spewed out a rant:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness!”

The farmer’s withered left hand held a small pig in place on the wooden trough. Tiny legs flailing, the snout parted and it squealed as if on fire. Nothing could stop destiny for this little one. The farmer’s right hand swiped, scooping down between the piglet’s hind legs. This violent action also made Rick and Iris pause…that and the sight of the farmer dropping the small pair of pig testicles into a large galvanized bucket. Near the clean pail was a tiny pen housing a dozen or so piglets. The other babies saw the balls drop, but rendered no opinion of the castration other than to root in the dust.

Iris’s silent laughter stopped and her face froze. The sight of the blood on the straight razor in the farmer’s hand and Ricky’s frozen manner caused her fear to rise like bile in her throat. Ricky was a hard ass; a calculating and dependable runner for the Latin Kings of Chicago down through central Illinois. Only God, or car trouble, could slow him down in his duty of delivering drugs to small communities in the land of Lincoln. The latter was his bane this day, but the tough kid from Cicero found himself struck dumb at the spectacle. So did his drug mule, Iris.

“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” the box’s voice boomed on, as the farmer wiped the bloody blade on a rag that hung from a fence nail.

Ricky cranked his head, right then left, as if to break himself loose from the sight. Still, he remained focused as Iris took another step. The farmer put the handle of the razor between his teeth, reached over into a pan balanced on the trough, dipped his fingers and brought out something that glistened like butter. He smeared this between the piglet’s legs and grunted in agreement to the words thundering from the boom box. The farmer set the pig free into a small pen away from the others and reached to grab another baby hog kept in the wire holding pen by the bucket. He wiped his brow with his left hand that held the small pig, and then looked up, toward the huge round barn. He then set the new piglet down and wiped his fingers on a bloody black rag. Razor back in hand, the farmer shook his right shoulder as if to limber up for the next round.

Ricky snapped free of his shock, scouted around the vast rural property they’d walked to from their overheated car now squatting by the roadside, and smiled. He reached back and grabbed the handle of the .38 caliber snub nose pistol jammed into his ass crack. Iris’ stomach turned, the vile act still fresh in her mind, comprehending that the actions were going to march on fast. Her smile returned, as she saw Ricky prepare to take out the farmer.

“Make his path straight!”

Gun in hand, Ricky turned the barrel away from the farmer and grasped the weapon like a bludgeon.

From the far side of the round barn, a figure emerged that halted Ricky’s actions in mid air. He saw the individual, a slender black man who may have been a couple centuries old, walk into their sight. The black man wiped his hands on a gray rag stringing from the hip pocket of his brown overalls and said, “Mr. Solow, I believe the calf is gonna come tomorrow…” He saw Ricky; ready to pistol-whip the farmer, and stopped.

Bile rose again in Iris’s throat as Ricky’s focus switched to the newcomer in the yard. This moment of distraction was all Mr. Solow needed. His eyes followed what the black man saw. With an abrupt swipe, Mr. Solow turned his body and slashed open Ricky’s throat. The slash was fast as lightning, but cut a savage blow like an axe. The small blade did its appointed job, again, not distinguishing between pig balls and human flesh.

Iris ran forward, but stopped short of touching Ricky. Blood ruined his Chicago Blackhawks Jersey, adding more color to the feathers of the Indian on it. Guts heaving, she held her stomach and squeezed her thighs together. She had her own treasure to worry about keeping inside. Iris didn’t intend to throw her life away after the cocky drug runner their superiors had chosen for that day.

Both old men looked at her for a moment, but they seemed more focused on the wounded trespasser, whose crimson blood now mixed with pig blood in the dry brown dirt.

Ricky stepped back, holding his neck on the left side, blood spurting between his fingers. He coughed, gagged, spitting cherry red liquid out his lips, his askew ball cap fell and rolled upright.

Mr. Solow faced the dying man, his gray eyes focused in hard on Ricky. The old man didn’t register anger or confusion. If anything, his half smile betrayed bemusement as Ricky pointed the butt of the revolver at him. Iris figured Ricky’s original plan still bubbled in his mind, but there was naught in his will left to carry out the project. Piglet still in hand, Solow stepped toward Ricky as he slipped the razor into the bib-overalls front pocket at his chest and reached out for the gun.

Still, Rick pointed at him with the wrong end of the gun, emphatically, as if he squeezed hard enough the bullets would emerged from the weapon via the handle. Alas, this wasn’t to be.

“Woe unto you sinners!”

Iris backed up when Solow took the handgrip of the gun in his hand and easily disarmed Rick. Jugular vein spewing his life away, Rick staggered and clutched his neck in repeated padding motions, as if he could hold his soul in. He armed up some of his Blackhawks jersey to absorb the blood, but the crude bandage did no good…save to douse the Johnny Cash T shirt under his jersey with scarlet. Iris felt loopy, her head twisting, waiting to see Rick’s spirit escape in the wound on his neck. She cursed the fact she’d smoked the hash earlier and thought it was out of her system.

Solow tossed the piglet in his hand back into the holding pen and aimed the 38 at Ricky. Suddenly, the farmer didn’t appear so feeble to them. Firm in his steps the old man’s arm never shook as he leveled the weapon.

“No,” Iris muttered, but never drew a look from the farmer, nor the black man who walked up on the scene with measured steps. She couldn’t do anything and they understood that.

“Woe unto all of the Earth!”

The shot rang higher in pitch than Iris thought normal, yet still stabbed at the inner parts of her ears. The bullet did its job, no matter what the sound. Ricky’s head snapped, blood erupting from the back of his head in a small fount. It squirted fast and red, but it was over that quick. Rick fell down and never budged again. Iris expected slow motion and a struggle, but this wasn’t television.

Then, the two men gaped at Iris. Though his face was craggy and withered, it held power like an old actor she’d seen, right down to the cleft in his chin. Solow frowned, lowered the gun and shot her in the right ankle. Pain exploded in her body as she stumbled, put weight on the wounded foot and fell to the ground. When she rolled over, Solow stood over her and checked the chambers of the gun. As he did this the black man picked up the ball cap Ricky lost earlier.

“Stop, no, please, by the Mother of God…” she wailed.

He nodded and aimed again. This time Solow shot her through the left ankle and shook his head when the blood spray kissed his left pants leg. As her agony went white hot and her yowls became screams for help, Solow handed the gun to the black man.

“Bring out the cage, Elias,” Solow said to him in a steady voice. “She’ll live long enough to be dessert for him.”

Elias never flinched as he regarded the round barn with a nod and then pointed at Ricky’s dead body. He put the ball cap on his head and asked, “What about the fella, sir?”

Solow glanced at Ricky’s prone form and said, “I’ll help you take him to Hawg. She ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“This is murder,” Iris gasped, hand on her abdomen. “Murderers!”

Solow’s face stayed stoic. “Ya’all were gonna way-lay me, so don’t gimme crap for doin’ the Lord’s work. It’s been a long day.”

Unconcerned with Iris, the two men walked over to Rick, each took up a leg and started to drag him toward the round barn.

Left alone, Iris tried to crawl away. Her mind was on the car, not a quarter mile down the rural road. Perhaps it would start and perhaps…she could drive with two gun shot feet? Her eyes squirted tears, thinking of the terror filled ride in the farmlands. She so hated the places not in the city. The open space and rural lands scared her as if they were about to swallow her up. It was too open, too green and so much dirt nearby.

“Sin is what separated God and Man. The Bible says Adam had walked with God in the cool of the evening, but then horror came into his life.”

“God, shut up,” she told the box that kept going with the sermon.

The pain ruled her body and she stopped trying to advance. Iris screamed out again, but there was no one to hear. They were miles from the nearest small town; Ricky had called Miller’s Fork. Iris never cared about a destination, only her role and the fix afterwards.

“ When they fell from grace, God came seeking them in the garden and asking ‘Where art thou?’ How many of you can guess that he knew exactly where they were?”

Iris aspired after sleep or simple oblivion, to escape the preacher’s voice, to get away from it all, though the daggers of agony she felt in her ankles refused to allow slumber to come. She damned her cell phone for being out of roaming area when they broke down. She damned Ricky for his “off the beaten path” route to Miller’s Fork. She damned their Lord’s connections and all of his men, like that seedy prick Mr. Roberts, for giving this duty to them. Lastly, she damned herself for being weak enough, addict enough, and big enough to be a drug mule. Though she kept fighting it, she really didn’t care if the condoms and packets of meth or heroin fell out of her vagina.

The pain increased so that the effects of the blunts she had smoked earlier fled from the ocean of anguish. Iris’ sense of time faltered as she nearly blacked out. She heard a deep scraping sound inside the barn…no…was it a roar or a squeal, muffled by the walls? Only the grinding gears of a garbage truck sounded like that…not the roar of any animal. Had they stuck Ricky in a compactor of some sort? There was no pattern to the screeching sound. The idea of Ricky, so handsome and lean, turned into hamburger grindings made her stomach turn again.

In her dreamy state of pain, she heard the farmer’s box, still preaching, say, “Do not lie down with the beast of the field, for it is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

Iris blinked and saw that the rag the farmer wiped his razor on was a well worn, many times washed Motorhead T-shirt. Where on earth would such a backwater man get an article like that, she wondered as the hurting marched on up her calves.

The two men returned and looked down at her. After they exchanged a glance, Elias asked, “You going to shoot her again, Mr. Solow?”

Solow shook his head and directed Elias to take up her left arm. “Hawg won’t want her dead.”

Though Iris planned to resist, her arms acted like they were replaced by rubber stems and her actions of protest amounted to nothing. Solow and Elias drug her away to the huge barn with ease, each man handling her as if she were a child. The piglets in the holding pen stared at her as she went. Soon, they returned to sniffing and rooting in the dirt.

“Sin had separated them from him, and they were afraid, because their minds were corrupted by filth. When you have filth in your mind, and filth in your soul, that is all you can produce. Garbage in, garbage out.”

Solow held her under the armpits as Elias unlocked a sturdy wooden door. He then unlatched a metal screen door and then unlocked a third door, this one made of bars. Closing the doors behind them, they started down a flight of wooden steps. She labored to say something about the drugs inside of her that they were practically ready to pass through her labia lips and stop at the huge pad she wore, but the words got lost on the way to her mouth. The sight of the inner barn, sunken into the earth a full story, took up her breath.

A few lights glowed, showing her a circular pen that reeked of pig feces and fresh cut hay. Several bales of hay strung around the edges of the circle. A series of bales appeared by their boxy construction and placement, built into a children’s fort. Between these long lines of bales lay bedding and a filthy pillow.

Iris didn’t see Ricky at first, for she was far too distracted by the oppressive stench. She then spotted him strung up about the same time as she saw Elias pull a grimy blanket off a shiny steel fixture. Ricky hung from heavy chains on the ceiling, not far from the rectangular steel case Elias wiped off after he folded the blanket. Ricky’s hands gripped a pair of rusty hooks, as if he really had life enough to hold on. It was all wrong, she saw him die. No tears came for Ricky, as she didn’t love him, nor like him much. But her eyes grew bleary for her fate loomed.

The question as to why she was alive boiled in her brain, and the answer glistened before her. The rectangular object reminded her of a tiny dog run made of stainless steel bars. Nevertheless, some sloppy substance clung to the short gates of the steel fixture, mostly at the front and rear.

Iris struggled with the farmer stronger than before, but he was too sturdy to break. Her ears heard the scrape of metal as Elias opened the nearest gate of the metal rectangle. While Solow pushed her down and into the opening Elias made, she heard the slobbering sounds of an animal. Her mind panicked as she thought of some brute they kept in here…her fears were quickly confirmed as they slid her into the chamber and cuffed her in place on all fours. Eyes bugging, she saw the animal. She saw the thing the farmer had called Hawg moments before…at Ricky’s calves.

The pain in her wrists and ankles from the steel restraints never blocked out the horror she witnessed. Certain the packets of drugs in her vaginal canal had torn and she was really in a drug hallucination, she started to giggle. Be it the dope escaping or her mind refusing to deal with reality, she laughed loud as Hawg turned to face her, chewing on a portion of Ricky’s calf muscle.

The fluorescent lights cast a halo around Hawg as he crouched. At first glance, Hawg may have been taken for a huge man in a bad Halloween boar’s costume. When he planted his feet…God, she thought…hooves…and stood up, he was easily seven feet tall. His frame reminded her of a professional wrestler, huge, thick, defined in places, but not ripped like a body builder. Naked, fleshy in color, Hawg seemed not embarrassed by his curled penis nor his excrement tainted thighs. Aside from the curly penis and a series of abdominal muscles that multiplied into an impossible array of pectoral formations, Hawg almost would pass for an ugly man…save for the face.

Bald and sleek, she expected to see folded over ears on Hawg. Either he had none, had been clipped, or they lay close to his head. His jaw slung low, Iris beheld teeth in there glistening red, and couldn’t make sense of where his curled tusks originated…or why they seemed by their glint to be made of steel. These objects seemed to retract in a bit, then curl out more as he worked his maw.

Though his back legs sported hooves, or feet split to appear that way, his long arms sported fingers…hands not to be mistaken for claws. Sharp and dangerous, Hawg flexed these digits and they cracked, popping like farts in the bizarre acoustics of the round barn.

Hawg snorted as he reached down and tore loose Rick’s leg at the shin. He snapped the joint like rotten wood and pulled the muscle from bone as easily as meat at a rib restaurant. His nose was big and wide, but not as swinish as she’d assumed. His eyes, though, glowed red in a pinkish background, hooded by a heavy brow like a primitive man she’s seen depicted at the Chicago Field Museum. Hawg munched the muscle from Rick’s leg, sniffed the raw end he bit into, and then sucked at the shards of bone protruding from the piece. Marrow ran down his chin and dribbled between his pectorals.

Still, she laughed. It was insane and her screeching increased as hands clasped firm on her pants, fumbling with the snaps and zippers. She never fought them as the two men pulled her pants off her rump and yanked them to her knees.

When her panties fell, Elias said, “She’s raggin’ it, Mr. Solow. See the big pad?”

A matter of fact voice responded, “You know Hawg don’t care none ‘bout that. I think he likes it better that way.”

She heard sloppy steps trod on the floor as the men backed away from the securement chamber. Elias said, “I don’t see her bleedin’, sir, but her snatch looks too big.”

Solow coughed and then added, “It don’t have to be pretty, Elias. She’ll bleed like Niagara Falls when ol’ boy gets done with her.”

On cue, Hawg dropped the gristly piece of Ricky and danced on two legs, nearer to them. Hawg dropped to his all fours and made a few strides. In a moment, he was behind her, gripping the sides of the chamber that held Iris fast.

Hawg made a whining sound. It was mournful in a way.

Elias’ voice said gently, “I’m on the way, Hawg.”

Iris felt a human hand brush her thigh as Hawg’s curled penis slapped her on either side of her buttocks. Elias grabbed the creature’s penis and guided him to her labia lips. The hand drew away and a corkscrew inserted inside her, extended deep and started ramming like mad.

She heard Solow laugh as Hawg went wild. “Happy birthday, son,” Solow said. Suddenly, the two men started to sing happy birthday, barely able to restrain their laughter as the beast grabbed her and forced himself inside her, over and over. His shouts of joy and snarls of anger were one in the same. Hawg gripped the bars on the side of the chamber at first. The nails on Hawg’s hands sank into the muscles of her upper back, and slowly slit her open down to her buttocks. Still, he rode her hard, screaming, squealing more like a rusty gear creaking than a pig in the fits of orgasm. Spit flew from his mouth and rained over her back and hair.

Then, it all went wrong.

Hawg started to tremble. Iris’s air was nearly gone, unable to draw in a fresh breath from the assault, she gasped with vigor as Hawg ceased in his thrusts. His big body shaking like old leaves in the wind, Hawg started to grunt in short intervals. Iris assumed he would come and kill her.

“What is it, boy?” Elias asked just before Hawg drew out and held up his arms. A stream of semen flew over her back and into her hair like a jet of water, but she also felt the packets of drugs once stuffed deep start to vomit out of her vagina. They spilled, but not in their containers. Hawg’s curled member broke all of them, she guessed, as the ooze of mucky dope and powders leaked from her snatch. A condom fell from her and hit the ground. She’d felt that before, but not with a half human pig beast shooting come over her body like a kid with a super soaker.

The beast was away from her and running around the perimeter of the round barn. His screams rang frantic and the two men’s voices held concern. Round and around he went until Hawg impacted on the inner steel door. With a loud howl, he pulled it free.

“Christ, the locks!” Solow shouted.

From her position, Iris’ bleary eyes saw Hawg tear loose the screen door like it was tinfoil. He then stabbed at the wooden door near the handle, lowering his head and using his steel tusks. The tusks sank in the wood abruptly and Hawg yanked back, splintering the door around the lock. His squeal shrilled in glee as the door was open and the fading light of day spilled in.

Once outside, Hawg paused, raised his arms, and beat down on the earth before running away on his all fours.

“My God, Mr. Solow,” Elias said, stepping into Iris’ view and watching Hawg go. “What happened? Hawg done went feral!”

Solow’s voice sounded calm to Iris, even in her groggy state. “See here, Elias. This rotten bitch had dope stored in her pussy.”

The old black man stepped behind her and said, “Damn, sure enough. One of them there mules we heard tell of. What a damned world this is getting to be.”

Iris heard the rustle of denim and then felt the sensation of a flat cold steel object on her neck. Solow’s voice was very close as he said to her, “At least we know no one will ever miss them.”

CHAPTER ONE

Feral

Andrew White was visiting the crypt of his great grand parents when he heard the distant scream across the countryside. The sound echoed in the fading daylight, but drew his attention due to its strangeness. Andrew stood from his task in the crypt, stretching his six foot five frame. He held open the metal doors to the family crypt and listened again, certain the scream came from the Solow farm not three miles from his house and two miles from the graveyard. He’d hunted and field dressed everything legal and Andrew had never heard such a cry.

“Roasting a pig alive at this hour?” Andrew laughed to himself and stepped inside the small stone building. He eyeballed at the two long granite sarcophagi and frowned when another scream resonated in the evening. “All my forty years, never heard anything like that,” he said to no one as he grabbed the edge of the stone coffin on his left. He turned a small key on a clasp underneath, returned the key to his pocket and took a breath. “Hello, Gramma,” Andrew grunted as he slid the cover away, the stone felt cold to his hands. His skin, so rough from years of hard labor, gleaned relief on the cool surface. He reached inside the box and pulled out a Colt 45 revolver. “What folks won’t pay for a genuine relic of the West. Minh, I gotta like your money, though.” He then reached back into the box and pulled out a small hand grenade. Andrew thumbed the ridges of the deadly pineapple and smirked. These items went into the pockets of his leather jacket. Andrew closed the lid on this coffin and opened the other coffin in a similar fashion. Again, in the distance, he heard a bizarre wail. These sounds never concerned him as he produced a box of shells and a quarter stick of dynamite.

Once outside the crypt, he locked the iron door, glanced at the crypt next to his family’s and adjusted his biker jacket. Hand stroking down his beard once, Andrew walked to his Harley and swung his right leg over it. Hands on the grips, he listened again for the sound. Andrew heard nothing. His Harley roared to life and the straight pipes bellowed.

He had business to do. A late night pig slaughter or a critter getting after Solow’s hogs wasn’t his concern. Andrew hated to sell one of his collected guns to Minh in IT at work, but it was better than that perfumed prick Dinsdale from Customer Service. Tim Dinsdale worked at the same factory as Andrew and was a wanna be gun nut. Minh, though, was an earnest collector of historical items. He wanted the gun, had the cash and the ability to keep his trap shut. Andrew owned the guns he had hidden from a recent BATF raid and needed cash, nothing too religious about it. As he guided his Harley on the paved road outside the cemetery, he glanced at his father’s grave and nodded. The tiny American flag Andrew’s son Jordan often replaced there still flew proud.

Over the straight pipes, Andrew couldn’t hear the screams.

*****

Tim Dinsdale could hear them, though. In his hyper euphoric state, he ignored the weird cries at first. Sweat beaded on his brow, nearly making the mousse in his hair congeal. It was easy to block out the world with one’s cock in a woman’s mouth. Seat reclined in his BMW, the second in command of the Customer Service Department at Ambrose Brother’s Printing enjoyed the abilities of the skinny girl from the bookbindery section of the factory. Sure, Andrea was fifteen years younger than him, had no discernable morals and rotten front teeth from crystal meth abuse, but she sure knew how to give head…much better than Tim’s eclectic wife. Andrea would even swallow for him, unlike his overweight spouse. Fat bitch ate everything but cum, he thought with a smile. He fondled Andrea’s firm tits as she bobbed on his cock, breathing through her nose, humming every so often. Andrea’s breasts were so solid that he doubted they were real. Had she sucked enough dick to earn a new pair of titties from some sugar daddy? It didn’t matter, all in all. This evening, she was his and that was all that was important. They shared a love for weed and sex, so that was enough to have in common. Though a typical girl of her generation…pallid, low rise pants, tattoo on the pit of her back, and dull witted, she had a few talents.

When the howls outside the car on the gravel road started, Tim barely noticed. They became louder, closer, and he still blew it off, thinking it a crow or a coyote. He was safe and the heat in his balls grew. The cries ceased and he concentrated on his fantasy, of this scab of a crack-whore dressed in lingerie, her normally flat hair poofed up like 1980’s porn stars on parade, offering him her ass at last, begging for it that way.

There was no cry or howl when the passenger side window shattered. Glass rained on them and the only sound was a grunt so deep it sounded like an elephant fart underwater. Tim’s eyes opened in time to see long claws grab Andrea by the back of her head and the seat of her pants and yank. The deed was crude, executed with great force, enough to make her clamp down and bite through Tim’s penis before the claws pulled her away. Her spine snapped as the intruder ripped her through the opening and out into the grassy ditch.

Tim heard her scream, gag, and cough a few times, but then the great cries of a thing he couldn’t identify rang out. He had bigger troubles than her health, though. Tim gawked down and saw his penis entirely gone, savagely removed by the sudden action. Warm blood spurted with his heartbeats and his scrotum ran scarlet. His blood covered his new tan pants and the leather steering wheel, but soon, the gushes grew slower and his head fogged. Andrea made no sounds and only the rumble of the beast that busted her in half thudded in his ears. His screams and grunts were regular until punctuated by a torrid scream. Then, it was quiet.

Tim stared over as the thing stood up. One huge claw on the windshield, the monstrosity’s tongue slathered its lips and the metallic horns near its mouth. Hastily, the creature twisted and dropped to its all fours, scampering away into the fields.

Tim’s mind couldn’t focus as the darkness weaved in about him. He didn’t know what he’d tell his wife, anyway.

*****

“Jordan, come in here,” came the voice from the big white house.

“On the way, Ma,” Jordan called out, but he knelt by a mound of dirt behind the garage. In the back part of a disused pony pen, Jordan White said a prayer for his dead dog.

“I know you don’t have a soul, Buddy,” Jordan said to the ground, eyes on the cross made of two branches. “But I miss you anyway.”

Though tears were close, Jordan suddenly grimaced. The stench in the air made him almost gag. “Mr. Solow spreading poop already this year?” the nine-year-old boy wondered aloud. He looked in the general direction of the Solow place, heard his mother call again and decided to get up.

He walked around the garage and beheld his mother in the doorway. Busted at the dog’s grave again, Jordan hung his head.

“It’s all right,” she said, sweeping her long auburn hair back. “Just don’t let your daddy catch you back there too much.”

Jordan nodded. “I miss him, Mom,” he confessed and walked to her. “I don’t want another dog. You know Mr. Ellington bought a pit bull when Cassidy’s puppy got run over. I don’t want anything like that.”

She gave him a hug, tussled his brown hair, frowned and said, “Cassidy’s dog Genesis is a menace. Don’t you ever get close to them things. They are killers and would make a cheeseburger of your little brother.”

He said, “I know it’s not like when we went hunting and skinned the rabbits. I know Buddy has no soul, like gramma said.” Eyes suddenly alight, Jordan said, “The snapping turtle thing when we went hunting was cool!”

She rolled her eyes to heaven. “Your father and his biker pals shouldn’t have nailed that turtle to the tree and gutted it in front of you.”

Jordan seemed excited by the memory. “I thought it was like in cartoons, but the turtle was stuck to his shell.”

Her face grew dark. “You step in something?”

He conferred his tennis shoes with a grimace and shrugged. “I think it’s from Solow’s place. Bad for sure.”

She gazed off up the road North toward the Ellington place and then said, “I can hear the straight pipes of your father’s bike. I can tell by how his cylinder misses. He’ll be home soon. Genesis up the way is barking her fool head off.”

“All right.” He thought about his grampa, and how much he missed him as well. He had a soul and Jordan thought of visiting his grave after school. He liked going to the graveyard. It was near the closed up mine where grampa used to tell him stories and serve him sandwiches. Grampa was a funny guy and used to tell him so many yarns of the war and how to fight. “Mom, don’t tell dad about me back there, ok?”

“Do your reading homework and we have a deal.”

Jordan smiled. “Deal.”

*****

The Ellingtons went out for pizza that evening and had left their enormous pit bull Genesis to roam the fenced in back yard. When Hawg passed by, he sniffed the meaty scraps left for Genesis. Like most dogs of her ilk, she went to the fences and barked at Hawg. A piece of muscled anger, the dog growled and slobbered, ready to fight fast to the death.

Both hands on the top of the chain link fence, Hawg stabbed her in the neck with his tusks and drew back, flinging the huge dog over the fence and into the empty field. Genesis rolled, howling in agony, but Hawg was quick to get down on his all fours, and charged. Tusks delving deep into the dog’s side, Hawg grabbed its bloody neck in one hand and her right hindquarter in the other. He stood erect and broke Genesis’ back over his head. He tore her open with his tusks and feasted on the slippery guts, rooting in her warm insides. Hawg needed something to cleanse his mouth. The skinny girl on the country road had a peculiar chest, for her breasts had burst at the grazing of his tusks. They never bled, but spewed a salty fluid. Hawg rooted deep, bursting the heart and lungs of the pit bull, determined to get the taste of bad tits out of his mouth.

*****

Andrew passed two people he knew while riding on his Harley. One was his brother, Sheriff Doug White. The cop even flashed his cherries at him as he drove on north. His brother’s shifts changed every so often, so Andrew assumed Doug was at work or heading home. Doug didn’t seem in any hurry.

“Good day, Sheriff,” Andrew said. “Still not smoking?” Though his brother couldn’t hear him, Andrew needled his sibling, as all brothers do. He was glad he never started smoking like Doug, so he’d never had to wrestle with quitting, like Doug.

The other man he passed was another biker and Ambrose Brother’s Printing employee Randy Huxtable. Hux was a bulky fucker, riding a full dresser with straight pipes, who never saw a snatch he didn’t like. An example of this taste sat astride behind him on the big bike. They exchanged a wave in passing. Andrew wagered Hux was out for some back road loving in the rising moonlight, probably off to get high as well with the gal. Randy, a husky dude with an attitude a mile wide, was a guy who Andrew got along with, but he hated his lame biker gang attitude and obvious drug connections. His mouth tightened when he thought of the promotions Hux received at work. Not a man of great skills, but Andrew was certain Hux’s drug supplies greased his ascension from the bindery floor to hoist driver and then, assistant head of the loading docks. He cursed him in his mind, knowing it was un-Christian to do so, but he did it anyway. The rage in his mind for Jack Sullivan, plant manager and all around asshole came to the surface, but he let it slide off. Sullivan was unfair and arrogant, in love with his big beige Buick, and forgot where he came from. Since he was now Mayor of Miller’s Fork as well, Sullivan’s ego was out of control. Andrew decided to forget him instead of going to kick the ass of the man who could fire him.

Andrew passed the Ellington residence and expected to see Genesis in the pen flipping out on him. The yard light didn’t show the whereabouts of the big pit bull and Andrew blew this off. He and Ellington went back years, but Andrew still wanted to shoot that fool dog. He hated living so close to such a beast with little kids around.

What he wished he could do was banish the scent of the pig-shit from the Solow place. Well, it was inconsistent, like the scent was closer at times and then fleeting. Though the Solow place was distant, he could see a few of the barns and the trailers out of the edges of his field where Elias lived, and the old blind lady Luella Goodkind. He pondered going to see Solow the next day, and perhaps dropping off some Braille books Jordan had bought for Luella last weekend.

*****

Hawg heard the loud things on the road pass each other. He hated the roar of these beasts of steel. The vibration in his huge chest made him uneasy. The awful feeling inside he was experiencing after covering the brood sow in the stall made him feel worse. Gilt, bah, she was a long way from puberty, that one.

The machines that roared sounded alike, as if they were kindred. The one carrying two people had a ripple to the sound, something odd about it. Hawg couldn’t understand that, but it made him look after that vehicle longer.

Hawg couldn’t stop running and trying to satisfy his burning hunger. He was so thirsty and wanted fresh gilt, in the worst way. Anger bubbled in his mind at the one Elias and father had strapped in for him at the round barn. That was no gilt, nor a sow proper, but she did something bad to him. Ever since he entered her, Hawg’s heart raced and his mind was afire.

When the wind shifted, Hawg stopped, pivoted and raised his snout. Red eyes on the paved road, the other gurgling steel beast turned down a farmer’s path between the fields. Though at a great distance, Hawg smelled something better than fresh gilt on that machine.

He smelled gilt with blood on it.

*****

“Mr. Solow?” Elias said as he opened the screen door of the main house. His fingers drummed on the door as he waited.

“Come on in, Elias,” the old man answered. Solow’s voice sounded tired and from a long way away.

“God is asking America, ‘Where art thou?’ A land founded by people fleeing religious persecution has found itself saturated in hate, clothed in racist language, painted by paganism, and obsessed with personal idolatry.”

Elias wiped his feet and removed his straw hat, but never walked in farther than the end of the back porch. He stared across the linoleum floor of the vast kitchen and into the dimly lit living room. Solow put his arm down from handling the remote to the stereo. Elias said, “All my work is done for the evening.”

“Good, but you don’t need to tell me that. You lose the ball cap?”

“It just wasn’t me, sir.”

Solow sat across the room from the kitchen in a recliner, legs out. Clad in clean clothes and smoking a cigar, the old man’s face gained illumination by the shifting glow of a television screen. On the wall behind him hung matted pictures Elias knew to be Solow’s mother and father.

Elias said, “I know that sir, but, well, what about Hawg?”

Calmly, Solow took a drag off the cigar, tapped it on a glass ashtray and said, “It was bound to happen, Elias. There’s nothing we could do in the end.”

“But…”

“No use cryin’ over it. He’ll come home in time. If not, well, that’s his destiny to be free.”

Hand scratching the back of his graying hair, Elias protested, “But sir…”

Solow’s voice grew stronger as he cut him off, saying, “You took care of the sinners and their awful car?”

“Yes sir. It was out of transmission fluid. Easy enough to fix and get rid of.”

Solow bestowed a nod and his voice returned to a gentle state. “There’s nothing to worry about, Elias.”

“I wish I could share that feeling, sir.” Elias then backed up and came near to knocking a picture off the wall behind him. As he righted the photo, he blinked at the pictures he’d seen countless times before of Mr. Solow and his shipmates in World War Two taken in Philadelphia.

With a wave of his left hand, Solow said, “Help yourself to a bottle on the porch, Elias. You do good work.”

Unsure if the bottle of homemade wine would produce a balm for his nerves, Elias took it and exited the house. He walked in the night, not afraid of Hawg, for he’d known him since he was a baby. Elias feared discovery and imprisonment. He was too old for that kind of life. Several acres passed before he reached his trailer on the edges of this side of Solow’s property.

Before he entered the trailer, he paused and looked over at Luella Goodkind’s trailer, situated on a lot an acre from his home. He sat the bottle on the step and walked over to her place.

Elias stood on her wooden deck, heard the television inside and called out, “Luella? You need anything for the night?”

The sound of the television stopped and the inner door opened. Through the screen door, Elias saw the gigantic woman sitting on a loveseat. It took a loveseat to hold the enormous girth of Luella Goodkind. Truly a candidate for the fat lady in the circus, the woman giggled and waved at him, eyes closed. The violets on her dress seemed to be a field that never ended. A large German shepherd eyed Elias, but never growled.

“I’m fine, sweetheart.”

“Good night, dear,” Elias told her.

“Oh, sweety?” she called out as Elias turned. “Make sure you tell Mr. Solow thanks for the satellite hook up again. I so adore hearing all the religious channels and shows from the seventies.”

“I will.”

“God bless,” Luella said sweetly and closed the door.

Elias stepped off the deck, but the moonlight made a revelation that stopped him cold. On her bottom step was a splatter of excrement, recently deposited. Elias scouted around the edge of Luella’s white trailer and saw a smear on the edge of the white metal skirting. For something to have made that mark, Elias thought, the man or beast would’ve had to be at least seven feet tall.

*****

Hux cast down a black Harley Davidson beach towel on the dead grasses right before he threw one in Micki Wingler. Sure, she’d been ragging it, but that never stopped Hux before, especially once he’d got cranked up. She was a cute girl, a preacher’s daughter, around twenty, a trifle old for the biker in his mid thirties, but he went with it. He hated them much older and able to enter the taverns to spy on him. He never liked them too thick in the middle, either, but Micki was willing and soon to be a regular buyer of Hux’s supply. She didn’t perform oral worth a damn, and had little tits, but he migrated on to the main course fast. He wanted to get a nut quick as he had a few deals to make later on. The drug mule from Cicero hadn’t arrived yet and Hux wondered what was up with that. Still, his glee went untamed as he concentrated on her slippery snatch.

“Oh God,” she kept saying, over and over, chewing on his long hair as it matted her face.

Not caring for her dialogue, but hot in the moment, Hux went to work, grabbing her buttocks and driving his point home, repeatedly. He grinned, wondering what else would Reverend Wingler’s daughter say?

The rising stench of fecal matter made his face contort, but never did he slow in his motions. Hux by no means even stopped when Hawg leapt from the field and slammed into his body, mounting his back, embracing the two of them tight. Claws in the ground, Hawg’s twisted manhood drove forward and pierced Hux’s backside. The biker screamed loud as he was defiled. Hawg penetrated him awkwardly, but several times. The monster’s penis corkscrewed into the biker and Hux howled, then screeched at the sudden agony in his frame. Hawg pumped on him numerous times and then withdrew. A single powerful wipe from a claw knocked Hux away, sending him cart wheeling into the ditch. He rolled, pants around his ankles, trying to get up. When he did rise up, the spectacle of Hawg raping Micki was one he didn’t want to behold. Blood flew everywhere, easily visible in the moonlight. Hux didn’t think it was all-natural from Micki, either.

The beast spasmed on Micki, thrusting deep and she screamed in pain, or at least Hux hoped it hurt. Micki was a slut and in a way, he almost thought she enjoyed it until the beast roared in orgasm and drove his tusks into her collarbones. Hawg stood up and these tiny bones appeared to snap. Micki plopped back to the wet towel and Hawg took a step back. Hawg then dropped his head and proceeded to root in her bloody hole with his snout.

Head spinning from the blow from Hawg, ass on fire from the assault from the monster, Hux felt his lucidity wane. For the first time in years, he thanked God for something.

Unconsciousness.

*****

Andrew put his bike in the garage and slid the long wooden door shut. The paint on the door chaffed and Andrew lamented that a duty this summer would be to repaint the shed. He surveyed the property towards north to where the grass terminated at the pine tree windbreak. “Gonna have to get the mowers all ready soon,” he said. “Damn time Jordan learned the manly art of lawn mowing.”

A distant cry echoed in the night, more than one. These sounds made Andrew pause. Brows lowered, Andrew faced the sounds, still unsure what he heard.

His wife stood at the door, smiling. “Hey.”

“Hey, Lynne,” he returned her word, still staring off. “Sorry I was late. Had to get some stuff for a collector.”

“You boys and your games,” she sighed, hand on her hip. “What is it?”

“Weird sounds tonight. Dunno if the coyotes got a pig cornered or what. Ya hear that?”

Lynne cocked her head and she said, “What is that?”

“Not sure,” Andrew confessed. He walked to the porch and kissed her on the cheek. He pulled out the Colt 45, never pointed it at her and said, “Reach for the sky.”

“Maybe later,” she teased.

He hoped so.

CHAPTER TWO

Aftermath

Hawg followed the waterway that snaked through the barren field. Dead grasses and reeds that the hay balers missed still littered the long waterway. Many of the fibrous shoots snapped under his hooves and hands. Hawg paused when he sensed a movement in the grasses. The field mouse he disturbed never had a chance to flee more than a yard when Hawg snatched it up, slammed it to his maw and chewed down. Gristle in moments, the mouse was forgotten with a swallow. Hawg carried on.

When he stopped, he took a few breaths, red eyes glaring at the farmhouse a few acres distant. The property line cut out a large rectangle of pale greenery in the spring field. His instincts flared, but Hawg saw no barn, nor corncrib where more tiny morsels would hide. No machinery or implements infected the grounds, so Hawg recognized this was not a farmer proper.

He ran at a steady pace, seeking cover under the long line of pine trees to the north of the property. The cool wind touched Hawg as he lowered himself by the grasses the plows missed and this landowner’s lawn mower couldn’t touch. He hid in the dense growth. It served him well for cover as well as it performed its intended duty—that of a wind break. He passed water and looked on. Hawg nearly jumped as he heard a thump near the trees. Something struck a metal object and then he heard liquid. Was someone urinating out here? Snout flexing, he smelled a chemical, not piss. In another moment fire shot up between the trees. Hawg flattened out as the tall man came into view, lean, towering, bearded and dirty blonde haired. Hawg ground his steel tusks into the dirt.

Death is on him, Hawg could smell it. He’s a killer. He’d kill me if he saw me, not run like a scared runt. Hawg sensed danger, but never feared the man until he saw the long knife on the tall man’s belt. Hawg reckoned he could use it. The man burned something in a rusty barrel, smelling putrid like feces and then inspected his surroundings. In his hand he sloshed fluid in a plastic container. Hawg’s red eyes were on him as the man’s nose wrinkled.

“Dad?” a voice called out from the two-story farmhouse.

He gave the field a distasteful expression and backed away from the burning barrel. “Yeah, Jordan, I’m right here.”

The youthful voice called out again, this time with some humor to it. “Dad, aren’t you afraid of the bogey man?”

Still not turning his back on the tree line, the man replied, “Son, yer daddy is the bogey man.” The man walked to the house and Hawg could hear him say, “Back when I was a kid, when my Pa farmed this place, I used to be scared going out at night. It’s true.”

Hawg heard the boy laugh and say, “Carrying that dirty diaper, I couldn’t be scared of no monster.”

The man said lightly, “Yeah, that’d show him, huh? Even the bogey man wouldn’t want your brother’s shit pants in his face.” They shared a laugh and the man paused by the door. His face still in the direction of the burning barrel, Hawg could still pick up the conversation. “Back when I was your age it was the Bicentennial in America. They brought out all the Revolutionary War stuff for us to learn, but they had this ad for Legend of Sleepy Hollow stamps and movies. Well, every time I heard a horse in the distance out here I about crapped my pants.”

“Huh. You were scared of the headless horseman?”

“Sure. It’s natural to be afraid when you are a kid.”

“Are you still scared of him?”

“Naw. When you get older, you’ll see that there are worse things than monsters to deal with. After ya get yer heart broke a few times, you’ll be happy to get a chance to beat the snot out of some headless guy on a horse. C’mon. Let’s get in.”

Hawg ripped himself from the damp field and loped down the northern tree line. He paused and started south as the lines ended. He considered the land, wondered if the crumbling stone silo would fall any time soon, then proceeded south. Hawg loped on, traveled half the length of the property before his senses tweaked. A few random trees and high grasses made up the border to this properties’ western side. A small garage obscured the large grassy area. Hawg noted a fence post in the far corners of the land and figured it was a pen of some kind, ages ago. No one needed to tell Hawg what the empty lot was used for now. Since the season hadn’t greened up all the grasses yet, large spots thrust forth a heavy area of grass. There was a pattern. Hawg stood in a graveyard. By the size of the spots, it was a graveyard for animals.

The scent that drew him in wouldn’t have been apparent to any human. The odor that teased him came from under a fresh spot, where loose dirt still covered a recent interment. A small wooden cross stood in the dirt. Hawg slapped this aside and rooted in the looser covering. His keen senses were correct and he started to rut and dig.

Whoever dug the grave understood his craft, Hawg thought, for the animal was down several feet. Any wild dog would never go through the trouble Hawg experienced. After four feet of dirt, it became a personal challenge and Hawg had to have the rotten animal. He struck a layer of lime, fairly fine in its encrustment of the dog’s corpse. Still, it soured his ravenous appetite for a bit. Hawg pulled the dog free of the grave and pondered it for a few moments. The lime, dirt and dampness of the earth had turned a gray animal into a grimy black one. Frustrated at the lime, Hawg ripped the animal’s head free of the carcass and used his steel tusks to slice open the skin on its back. Almost with delicate motions, Hawg skinned the animal as creatures housed inside it fell free. The fur delivered him little trouble and he peeled it back. Ripping a leg loose, he chewed off a bit of the dog’s thigh. The meat was rough, and putrid, but the worms and grubs didn’t bother Hawg.

When he ate Jordan White’s pet, wiggling beasties and all, it felt like home.