by Alex Bledsoe
Adam froze, aware that something was wrong. His face wrinkled at the odor.
He turned and saw the giant wild hog bearing down on him. He screamed and tried to bring his gun around to fire in time, but in his panic, he pulled the trigger too early, and didn’t have time to jack another shell into the chamber. The hog mowed him down, stood over him, and dug into his belly with its enormous tusks. As it tossed its head, chunks of bloody meat and innards flew through the air.
Duncan froze, looking down the barrel at this scene. He could fire, and maybe hit the animal in the sweet spot behind the shoulder blade, where it would tear through lungs and heart and drop the beast in its tracks. But he didn’t. He just watched. He couldn’t see exactly what was happening, but Adam never made another sound. The only noises were the monster’s grunting and the wet, cracking sound of snapping bones.
Then the others emerged, smaller hogs, even piglets, who tore into Adam. Many were black, some mottled, and two had white Hampshire stripes. At first Duncan wondered if some of the squeals came from Adam, but he realized that by this point, Adam was long past making any noise.
It was like a scene from a horror movie, and even from this distance, Duncan could see the dark red on the animals’ snouts as they rose to catch a breath before diving back in. The gigantic leader moved away, his tusks also stained with red. He had one of Adam’s arms in his mouth, and dragged the dead man’s shredded body after him. The corpse was missing one entire leg and part of the dangling arm; luckily mud covered his friend’s face. Again the monster presented the perfect side shot, and again Duncan didn’t take it.
And then two silent dogs burst into the clearing.
* * *
The WHOMP team clearly heard the pig squealing in unmistakable terror, but there had been no subsequent human scream. Jack led the sprint through the forest toward the sound. The team moved with surprising stealth for all their speed, with Bronwyn Chess making the least amount of noise. They reached the overgrown stone foundations of an ancient cabin, and Jack hopped up on the remains of the chimney, trying to sense the direction.
There were no more gunshots, either, just the sound of porcine panic. But all the birds and insects in the immediate woods around them fell silent, the way they always did when something was afoot that could kill anything that drew its attention.
He jumped down and motioned for them to continue on toward the bayed pig. They burst into a smaller clearing just in time to witness the chaos.
Random and Hobo had been as silent as possible, but the monster had nonetheless fled before they arrived. They fixated on the first hog they saw, a big sow with brown patches. Growling low in their throats, they circled it closer and closer, until they could dash in for quick bites.
Usually when dogs settled on one hog, the others would vanish. But the rest of the herd seemed like hairy pinballs, bouncing off each other and trees in a desperate bid to escape, and thus failing.
“Hobo! Random!” Dolph yelled. “Back! Now!”
The dogs obeyed and backed away from their quarry, whose flanks now bled from dozens of nips.
“Take ’em down,” Jack said, and immediately drew a bead on one. He fired, dropping it where it stood. Max and Dolph did the same. The noise was sudden and the sharp cracks made everyone’s ears ring.
Only Bronwyn worked silently, drawing back her bowstring and letting fly with the aid of a wrist-mounted caliper release. Each arrow struck exactly where it needed to, dropping its target where it stood. And before that arrow even reached its target, she’d drawn another, nocked it and clamped the caliper around the string in the same motion, and taken aim at the next one.
Max, as he fired, caught a tiny snippet of the song Bronwyn softly hummed. He couldn’t believe he heard it correctly:
And another one’s gone, and another one’s gone,
Another one bites the dust.…
Seven pigs lay dead by the time the others had scattered into the woods, including the one bayed by the dogs. But none of them was the monster.
“Go,” Dolph said to the dogs, and they scurried off after the escapees.
Jack looked around. “Everyone all right?”
After the acknowledgments, Bronwyn said, “So who screamed?”
“I don’t know,” Max said, “but look at all the blood.”
The ground was spattered with it, far more than the dead pigs could’ve lost.
“Where did that shot come from?” Max asked.
“From this,” Dolph said, and picked up Adam’s gun. The stock bore marks from hog teeth. “And now I think I know where the blood came from, too.”
“Who was it?” Jack said.
Bronwyn delicately held a ragged, blood-soaked piece of denim. “Whoever wore these.”
“Jesus,” Max said. “Where’s the rest of him?”
“They ate him,” Dolph said.
“No, there wasn’t time,” Jack said. “We got here too fast. The big one must’ve dragged him off.”
“Pigs don’t do that,” Max said. “Besides, there’s no sign the big one was even here.”
“Oh, yes, there is,” Jack said, and pointed to the clear track of the monster in the churned-up earth. There was also the smudged line of something heavy that had, in fact, been dragged away. “Let’s go. Fan out and be careful. He can’t be too far ahead.”
* * *
Duncan stood absolutely still and watched the hunting party head off into the woods after the monster. He felt nauseated, and cold, and as if he might both throw up and wet his pants simultaneously. At last his legs gave out, and he sat down hard on the ground, the rifle sliding from his hands.
What had he done?
He began to cry then, hard tears that made his face ache with the effort of producing them.
He didn’t know how long he’d been crying, but when he looked up, he let out a shriek that echoed through the forest.
Bronwyn Chess stood over him, her bow in her hands, an arrow nocked. From his huddled perspective, she looked like some dark-haired primal deity against the treetops and blue sky beyond, a grim Artemis in a baseball cap. Even the gnats and mosquitoes swarming in the cool air stayed away from her, as if intimidated. He expected her to point the arrow at him and declaim a stray line that had stuck with him since school: “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
Instead she said, “Duncan? What are you doing here?”
He stared up at her. Despite her slender and feminine appearance, everyone knew she was Mandalay Harris’s enforcer, the woman who meted out justice in the Tufa community. To run afoul of her was to risk being dropped from the sky, as had happened to Dwayne Gitterman when he killed her brother. If she knew what Duncan had just done …
He choked out the word, “Adam.”
“Adam? Adam Procure?”
Duncan nodded. Then he pointed toward the site of the attack.
“Adam Procure was killed by the pig?”
He nodded again.
She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and hauled him to his feet. “What the hell, Duncan? What were you two doing out here?”
“W-we were hunting it,” he choked out. “It killed Kera.”
“The hog? You and Adam were hunting the hog?”
He nodded.
“Are you out of your mind? That thing is a monster. Adam didn’t have a chance.”
“I didn’t—”
“Come on,” she said, picked up his gun, and pressed it into his hands. As she strode away, he realized he had a perfect shot at her back, just as he’d had at the pig. He could put a bullet right through her heart.
He shook off the thought. What was wrong with him? Then he rushed to catch up.
They reached the site of Adam’s death. He stared at the ground, churned and ripped by the herd of pigs, and then he spotted a hiking boot that was stuck ankle-first in the fresh mud. He knew without checking that Adam’s foot was still inside it.
“Just stay here,” she said, and took out
a walkie-talkie. “Chess for Cates. I found someone else here. He and a friend were hunting the damn hog. Come back.”
After a second, Jack Cates’s voice came over the radio. “He knows who the victim was?”
“He does.”
“Great,” he almost growled. “Well, the son of a bitch is gone for now. None of us could find the trail, including the dogs. They got spooked and wouldn’t keep going. Stay there, we’re on our way.” Then he summoned the others to meet back at the site of Adam’s death.
Bronwyn said nothing else, and instead retrieved her arrows from the dead hogs while also watching the woods around them for any sign the monster might return. Duncan stood with his gun in his slack hands, mouth open, staying on his feet just because it was easier than falling down.
When the others returned, Jack said to Duncan, “So tell me, in great detail, what the hell you thought you were doing?”
Duncan gulped before he spoke. “That thing killed my girlfriend. I deserve to be the one to kill it back.”
Jack looked at Bronwyn. She shrugged.
“Do you know anything about wild hogs?” he asked Duncan.
He shook his head. He felt like a child before the grade-school principal.
“They are faster than you can imagine, and more ruthless than you’d believe. Your friend didn’t have a chance, even with a gun, once it got up close to him.”
Duncan fought to suppress the image of the pig knocking Adam to the ground, then swinging its big head as its tusks tore into his flesh. “We didn’t—”
“Think?” Jack roared. Startled birds lifted off from the trees overhead.
“Well, if it was coming back, that sure scared it off,” Dolph said dryly.
“We have to call regular law enforcement again,” Jack said. “Someone will have to stay here with the … remains.” He looked down at the boot still stuck in the mud. Flies now congregated around it and the surrounding blood.
“I will,” Dolph said. “My knees could use the rest anyway.”
Bronwyn handed him Duncan’s gun. “Keep this. He’s not up to carrying it, and you might need it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Dolph said, and touched the brim of his cap in salute.
They left the veteran outdoorsman leaning against a tree, watching the shadowy forest around him with the nervousness of a man wearing steak underwear in a piranha pool.
12
When the WHOMP team and Duncan walked out of the forest behind the Rogers house, both Mandalay Harris and Junior Damo waited for them. Sam Rogers and his two older children, Spook and his sister, Harley, stood nearby, shifting nervously on their feet. Bliss Overbay followed Brenda Rogers out of the house.
“We heard shots,” Sam said when they were close enough.
“We fired them,” Bronwyn said. “We got several of the herd, but we missed the big one.”
“How do you hit the little ones and miss the big one?” Junior asked, grinning his typical snide grin.
“Shut up, Junior,” Mandalay said. She looked at Duncan, whose face was bone-white. “So where did you find him?”
“He and Adam Procure decided to go hunt it down themselves without telling anyone,” Bronwyn said. “Personal revenge or honor or something. The big hog killed Adam.”
There was a moment of silence; then Brenda let out a wail and threw her arms around Sam. Her husband, surprised by the sudden dead weight around his neck, stumbled and nearly fell. Spook helped him regain his footing. Quigley the dog came from the porch and stood beside them, whining and looking up at Brenda.
“Are you sure?” Mandalay whispered.
“Duncan saw it,” Bronwyn said. “And we saw what was left.”
“It wasn’t much,” Max interjected, and set Brenda wailing again.
Jack glared at Max, then said, “Dolph Pettit is staying on-site until we can get the state police out there. I suppose that’ll be that Tufa trooper again?” He said this with a significant look at Bliss.
“Yes. Call him,” Mandalay said to Bliss.
Jack couldn’t believe just one state trooper could handle the investigation into two deaths. There would be all sorts of law enforcement involved now, and once word got out, the media would descend. After all, a genuine, real-life monster story was irresistible. And all those people meant even more chances for someone to get hurt.
To Jack, Mandalay said, “And so what happens now?”
“The alpha hog is too big for any pen trap I have access to. We’ll have to go back out and keep hunting it.”
“Will it come around here?” Sam asked, still holding his wife. His children had one hand each on his shoulders.
“I don’t think so. They tend to stay away from places once they’ve been spooked, and I’m pretty sure we’ve spooked it, if nothing else.”
“Who’s going to tell Adam’s family?” Bronwyn asked.
“I will,” Bliss said.
Bronwyn helped Duncan to the porch, where he sat numbly in a canvas chair. Not two days earlier, he’d been on the front porch of this very house, feeling almost exactly as he did right now. He stared down at his hands, which shook like they were palsied. Suddenly long, delicate feminine fingers encircled his wrist, and he looked up with a start, expecting despite everything to see Kera beside him. But it was only Bliss, checking his pulse.
“You’re in shock again,” she said. “Can someone give him a jacket, or a blanket?”
Max draped his orange vest across Duncan’s shoulders. “Sorry, guy,” he said uncomfortably, and patted Duncan’s shoulder.
After the older man walked away, Duncan asked hoarsely, “Who was that?”
“Apparently one of the four best hog hunters in Tennessee,” Bliss said. “Part of a special team the game warden put together.”
Duncan blinked a few times before saying, “Everyone should be good at something, I guess.”
Bliss knelt and looked into his eyes. “Duncan, are you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No. I’m not hurt.”
“If you change your mind, just holler. Not every injury bleeds, you know.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Bliss left Duncan on the porch huddled beneath the orange vest. Quigley left the Rogerses and stopped in front of him. This time, instead of coming to comfort him, the dog just stared.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Duncan muttered, and waved a hand at the dog. Quigley turned and walked away around the house.
Bliss went over to Jack, who was looking at his phone. “Are you all right?” she asked softly.
“What?” he said sharply as he looked up.
She gave him a little smile. “Well, that answers that.”
“I’m sorry, I was just checking with some sources.” He put away his phone. “I’ve never seen anything like this, Bliss. It’s like something out of Moby-Dick, except it’s a hog instead of a whale.”
“And you’re Ahab?”
“No, I think Ahab is sitting on the porch over there with the shakes,” he said dryly. “If they hadn’t been there, we might’ve—”
“You’d have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those darn kids?”
“Very funny. But yeah.” He looked at Sam and Brenda, still holding each other while their children stood near. “And at least I get to walk away when that monster is dead. Those poor people will have nightmares for years.”
“Come on and have some coffee,” Bliss said, and took his arm. “You can’t do anything else about it now.”
He started to protest, then realized she was right. He followed her into the Rogerses’ kitchen and took the cup she offered. As he sipped, he looked around at the signs of the life that filled the place. Photographs on the refrigerator showed a young woman with Tufa-black hair grinning and making faces at various ages. “Is that Kera?” he asked softly.
“No, that’s her older sister, Harley. That one’s Kera.”
The indicated photograph showed her standing in a field of alfalfa, slightly t
urned away and looking back over her shoulder at the camera. She held a sunflower that covered the lower part of her face, leaving only her eyes showing. It was a professional-quality shot, and radiated that mix of innocence and sensuality that was almost irresistible.
Jack looked out the window. The Rogerses still stood in the yard, the children now huddling close. “Must be incredibly hard for them. I can’t imagine.”
“You have kids?”
“One. A son. He lives with his mother in Bowling Green. I get him every summer and Christmas. He just went back home two weeks ago, in fact, to get ready for school. You?”
“No. At least,” she added with another little smile, “none that I know about.”
“That’s terrible,” he said, unable to hide his own grin. “You make terrible jokes at the worst possible times, don’t you?”
“I know. But sometimes all you can do is joke.”
“Do you know Adam’s family very well?”
“We all know each other well around here.”
“Please pass on my regrets to them, too.”
Bliss looked out through the kitchen window at Duncan, seated on the picnic table. “You know…,” she began, but then trailed off.
“Know what?”
She looked around the little kitchen and into the dining room to make sure they were alone. “Jack, I’ve known these kids all their lives. I can’t imagine them doing this. It’s just way out of character for them.”
“How so?”
“They’re not outdoorsy types. Duncan works at a convenience store, and Adam installs cable TV. Why would they be out hunting?”
“He said it was a personal vendetta.”
“Maybe. It just sounds wrong to me, like we don’t have the whole story. I’ll have to talk to Duncan when he’s in better shape.”
“So will the police. Well, that is, if you people allow them in. Two deaths in three days—”
She put her hand on his shoulder and stepped close. “Listen, Jack, I know you think more police have to be involved, but that just won’t happen here. Alvin Darwin will take care of it, just like he did for Kera. And we’re not hiding anything; you know that, right?”
