“What the hell?” shouted Chip, scanning the treetops for hidden assassins.
“Up here!” I yelled.
As Jarvis Riddle tugged him toward the deer stand, Chip dropped his rifle. With a dopey look on his face, he stooped to fetch his Win Mag.
“Fuck the rifle,” yelled Jarvis, “climb up this goddamn ladder.”
The old forest bum was already halfway up when the sound of pounding hooves once again disturbed the woodland peace. Meanwhile, Chip clawed at a lower ladder rung, smiling his dreamy fool’s smile.
“Climb, you idiot!” hissed Jarvis.
Chip mounted the first few rungs. He’d made it a third of the way up when Hogzilla rammed into the tree trunk on which the ladder was nailed, bashing it with his tusks and upsetting Chip’s foothold. My old friend dangled by his hands for a few ominous seconds before stepping back onto the ladder. At last, a shudder of realization seized him, and he scooted on up with every ounce of energy his old athlete’s body had left in it.
• •
“Let’s draw straws to see who gets eaten,” I said, and Jarvis laughed—a rich croupous chortle—and then spat a dark loogie out into the abyss below. Jarvis took another suck of his nicotine inhaler, then slipped the device back into the pocket of his grubby raincoat, a coat of many colors—sun-faded in spots, stained in others, tinted with bold streaks of its original royal blue.
We’d been treed for some twenty hours by Hogzilla, who at that very moment was tusk-battering one of the pine trunks supporting our deer stand and foaming like a broken washing machine, snorting and rooting and making a general display of his fierceness. At first, every jolt of the thousand-pound feral striking one of the four trees that upheld our little box made us double over in fright. By now, we’d almost gotten used to Hogzilla’s ruckus—but not to his stench, which tainted every molecule of the air we breathed.
Between the three of us, we had two half-empty flasks, three canteens boasting various quantities of water, and a sprinkling of odd pharmaceuticals that Jarvis had scored from a medical-park dumpster. Although I possessed a half-eaten bag of SunChips in my rucksack, I kept this knowledge to myself.
Neither my Oracle3 nor Chip’s Oracle6 would pick up a signal, so we turned off our phones to save our batteries. We’d gotten little sleep the night before, enduring a cold, damp stretch of darkness complicated by waste-disposal dilemmas and Jarvis’s apocalyptic muttering. Deep in the night I thought I heard a few bleeps in my head: Looks like he’s off-grid, said a mellifluous manly voice. Ah, there’s a flash. Damn, we’re losing it. The voice lapsed into a purr of static and faded away.
I remembered what Trippy had said about heading out to the boondocks to escape the Center’s wireless web, which probably depended on an intricate combo of satellites and cell-phone towers. And we were definitely in the boondocks, way out, with nobody in earshot and a fiendish hog rampaging below.
We hoped he’d lose interest and meander off to devour some hapless rodent or chase a whiff of sow. But no: he’d been up before dawn, bashing and ramming, slowly chipping away at the trunks of the four fat pines that supported the tenuous cube of space we inhabited. If he kept this up for a few days, the monster might just fell us, but we’d probably die of dehydration before then anyway.
At least day two in the stand was warmer. At least the fog had cleared, though I still couldn’t scope a decent shot at Hogzilla. Chip and I had removed our jackets and Jarvis had shed his swaddling of rags. Late that morning, from an inner compartment of his raincoat, the old man had pulled forth three pills called Valcar, a drug he said was designed to regulate bile acid metabolism but that also functioned as a stimulant. Like fools, Chip and I had gobbled the capsules. Now it was noon and my hands were trembling. Chip’s eyes looked bugged. But Jarvis Riddle was his usual self.
Grinning, Jarvis held out three pieces of pine straw. I took one, though Chip refused to play.
“Even if we do decide who gets eaten,” I said, “we’d have to eat our man raw.”
“I always wondered why a group of starving people would opt to sacrifice the whole life of a person,” said Jarvis, “rather than drawing lots and eating parts: a finger, for example.” Jarvis blushed as he eyed my maimed hand.
“That does seem more reasonable,” I said, “though the victims might get infected; die slow, agonizing deaths from gangrene or”—I held up my hand and grinned—“a bone infection.”
“If they had access to fire, they could cauterize the wounds,” said Jarvis.
“And cook the meat,” I said. “The Long Pig.”
“Raw meat won’t hurt you so long as it’s fresh,” said Jarvis. “I ate a raw squirrel one time.”
“What about parasites?” I said.
“It was winter,” said Jarvis. “So the squirrel didn’t have the wolves.”
Jarvis and I were inclined to philosophical speculation, which, we’d discovered within three hours of being treed, annoyed the hell out of Chip Watts. We liked to take upon us the mystery of things, as if we were God’s spies, while Chip, who possessed the mind of a chimpanzee, became exhausted by our aimless chatter. He’d scoot to a corner of the stand, cross his arms, and pretend to take a nap. But after popping that Valcar, he could hardly sleep. He was amped up, jogging his left leg. He’d already torn his molded hairdo into several crisp wisps.
Chip wondered aloud how it just so happened we’d ended up in the same neck of the woods. He accused Jarvis of playing double agent—taking money from both sides. He glanced bitterly at my gun, sorely lamenting the fact that his piece was rusting in the hog wallow below.
“I never took a dime from Romie,” said Jarvis, “though I’ll admit he bought me a few drinks the other day. But I would like to remind you, Chip, that ours was a verbal agreement; I never signed a statement of exclusivity, did I?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Plus, I’ve been tailing Hogzilla for months. You might even call this a quest.”
“’Twas the beast that took his pinkie finger,” said Jarvis with a solemn frown. “So Romie’s got a score to settle.”
“Thought a lawn mower blade nipped you.” Chip glared at me.
“That’s one narrative,” I said. “The other one involves my destiny as a dragon slayer of sorts.”
“Whatever,” mumbled Chip. “You pay good money, you expect good product. That’s what makes America tick. I’m a businessman. I work hard for my money. I put my money where my mouth is. And this scam artist here—”
“Our noble country is run by scam artists,” said Jarvis.
“Agreed,” I said.
“You hate America,” Chip said. “All both of you do. Y’all’re just bitter because you haven’t tasted success.”
“You really think you’re gonna keep unloading those ATVs indefinitely?” I said. “Yes, you’ve had a good spell, but there’s only so many quads the Baptist Church can buy. What’s gonna happen after you milk that cow?”
This unfortunate foray into ad hominem attack was interrupted by a long, agonized human shriek. We’d been so wrapped up in our bickering that we’d failed to notice a lull between Hogzilla’s assaults upon the pine trunks. We dashed to the window just in time to catch the giant razorback ramming his tusks into the chest of some unfortunate human.
As the victim’s head whiplashed, he gaped in a grimace of shock.
Holy shit! It was the tall FDA agent—he of the fox face and slender build. When the agent went limp, the hog wedged his rag-doll body into the crook of a pine bole, withdrew his cutters from the chest area, and gored his victim’s belly with his left tusk. Then Hogzilla fed upon the agent’s bright entrails, slurping them up like spaghetti with big squishy smacks.
We sat in silent shock, bearing witness to this surreal carnage. Blood thrummed behind my ears. I heard the happy twittering of indifferent squirrels and the drone of a distant jet.
At last, Jarvis let seep a slow whistle of surprise.
“What rough beast,” he whispered, �
�its hour come round at last?”
“Jesus!” Chip raked his hand through his hairdo. “What an in-human cannibal.”
“That poor bastard’s a spook,” said Jarvis. “Should’ve known he’d be tailing me.”
“Wait,” I said. “You know him?”
“Knew him,” corrected Jarvis. “Just barely. Came into Gators a few times with his sidekick, asking for info on the freakish fauna in our area. Told him about the rats, but didn’t let one word slip on the subject of Hogzilla—I swear, Chip. Claimed he was from Monsanto, product development.”
“You don’t think he was?”
“How the hell would I know? I called them Mutt and Jeff. Jeff ought not be too far behind, unless he’s dead already. Maybe we could get his attention before Hogzilla enjoys his second course.”
Come to think of it, they probably were with Monsanto and BioFutures and the FDA. They probably had trouble understanding where, exactly, their loyalties lay and what, exactly, the grand narrative was and who, exactly, was running the show. Tugged willy-nilly, they went wherever that elusive thing called power pulled them, hopping on jets and sitting down in restaurants and sleeping in disinfected hotel sheets, going through these shenanigans again and again, until, at last, they found themselves inside the hot, burbling belly of a monstrous hog.
• •
We spent the rest of the afternoon solemnly scoping the area, taking turns with Chip’s binoculars, looking for signs of Jeff. Meanwhile, Hogzilla pursued his mysterious agenda, patrolling the area, his huge hindquarters swaying as he skirted the diameter of his wallow. His jowls were dotted with jellied blood. Every now and then, he’d trot over to Mutt’s corpse and take a nibble. Every now and then, he’d gaze up at the deer stand with his strange, bulbous eyes and emit a sphincter-tightening squeal.
At dusk, when the waning gibbous moon popped out, we could see the hog trails etched into the brambles, hieroglyphs written by Hogzilla’s body. Jarvis and I pulled out our flasks, took tiny sips to keep our stomachs from consuming their own linings.
“Got some Xanadu if anybody’s interested,” said Jarvis.
“What the hell’s Xanadu?” asked Chip.
“Designed to help people deal with obsessive-compulsive thanotophobia, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Speak English,” said Chip.
“Fear of death,” I said.
“It’s a pretty good ride if you don’t have the phobia,” said Jarvis.
“But isn’t everybody thanotophobic to some degree?” I asked.
“I reckon they would be,” said Jarvis. “But I’m talking about a debilitating disorder, where you can’t leave your bed.”
“What about occasional pangs of pure terror as a thousand-pound hog stalks the grounds below the ramshackle tree house you’ve taken refuge in?” I joked.
Jarvis chuckled. “Ought to put them to rest.”
“Quit with the jibber-jabber,” said Chip. “I’ll try one.”
We took the pills—Jarvis a whole tablet, Chip and I a half each.
Soon, the night’s black flower blossomed, dripping its Stygian nectar. As wind purled through the dead trees, we sank deeper into our jackets—each man tucked into a corner of the tree house. An owl offered an ominous hoot. We listened to the crunch of hooves in leaves, the squelch of hooves in mud, the pat, pat, pat of hooves on solid ground. We heard the creature snort. Heard the creature belch. Heard him sharpening his cutters against various trees.
“So I will come upon them like a lion,” whispered Jarvis. “Like a leopard I will lurk by the path.”
And then it hit me. Like dragons of yore, Hogzilla had to have a weak spot, a tender zone that bullets and arrowheads, knives and spears, could pierce: the soft zone between belly and groin perhaps, or maybe his pungent armpit, or the clammy nook beneath his freakish wings.
I took stock of my ammo again: one and a half magazines, which equaled six shots.
I closed my eyes, and my father’s harrowed face materialized in the black void. Always expect the worst, he said, and then you might be pleasantly surprised.
Chip Watts emitted an infantile whimper and curled into the fetal pose.
Jarvis Riddle popped another pill.
“Like a lion I will devour them,” he muttered. “A wild animal will tear them apart.”
And hellish Hogzilla stalked the ground below us, rustling through the dry winter brush, grunting and smacking his blood-crusted lips.
FIFTEEN
Sometime close to morning I heard a crackling noise. Sensing a presence near me, I sat up and lifted my rifle. Saw a black silhouette crouched over my knapsack.
“Jarvis?” I said.
“What?” Jarvis groaned from his corner.
“Chip?” I shone a flashlight on his face. “Back off, you sneaky motherfucker. And drop whatever you’ve got in your hands.”
Chip dropped the bag of SunChips he’d pilfered.
“Romie’s stockpiling food,” he complained.
“I’d hardly call a half bag of chips a stockpile,” I said. “Now get back to your corner and let’s forget about this embarrassing episode.”
I sat in my corner, munching the most exquisite chips I’d ever tasted, waiting for the sun to pop up over the tree line.
“You gonna eat the whole bag?” said Chip, a plaintive twang in his voice.
“Mind your own business,” I said.
I figured I’d better devour the whole bag, stave off the possibility of an assault or murder while fortifying my stomach for the day to come. The SunChips brought on a rabid thirst, a deep-marrow craving that could not be quenched by a few slugs from my canteen, which had less than a quarter of liquid left in it. Even though Chip and Jarvis each had his own water supply (and who knows what else Jarvis had stashed in his magical raincoat), nothing would hold them back once dehydration turned them into liquid-obsessed zombies.
But I was the one who possessed the firearm, the phallic power, the floating signifier par excellence. If I needed to, I could have Jarvis Riddle on his back, rifle snout pressed into the curdy flab of his belly, his pharmaceutical raincoat at my disposal. I could have Chip Watts writhing like a walrus, begging for mercy.
I sat holding my gun as the sun came up. The stark morning light cast the harrowed faces of my companions into high relief. We all had hangovers from the Xanadu—throbbing headaches, mouths full of foul paste, a general feeling that all glands and organs were underjuiced, not working at full capacity, pumping from the deeper reserves.
Jarvis popped another pill upon wakening. Smiling sheepishly, he removed a crumpled Mountain Dew bottle from his raincoat and pissed into it. He screwed the top back on and placed the warm sample back into its special pocket.
“What the fuck?” said Chip.
“Better safe than sorry,” said Jarvis. “In Nam we made use of our own liquids to avoid dehydration, and I suggest you get over any squeamishness you might have about such survival techniques.”
“Thought the salt in urine made you even more dehydrated,” I said.
“Saved my life once,” said Jarvis. “I was in the jungle when God spoke to me, said, Drink thine own nectar, Jarvis, and thou shalt live. So I pissed into a tin cup, drank the golden liquid, and here I sit before you.”
“I’d die first.” Chip spat over the window ledge and gave the landscape below a sweep with his binoculars.
“What’s the behemoth up to?” asked Jarvis.
“Can’t see him,” said Chip. “But I hear him over yonder, rustling in the brush.”
Within five minutes Hogzilla came trotting from the forest with a sapling in his mouth. Back and forth the great beast sauntered, toting branches and small shrubs, which he deposited in a heap beyond his wallow.
“What the hell’s he doing?” said Chip.
“Dear God,” said Jarvis. “I do believe he’s making a clearing. What on earth for?”
“Maybe he needs another wallow,” I offered.
“Why would he ne
ed another wallow when he’s got a perfectly good one right down there?”
“Maybe that one’s too shitty—literally.”
“Boars fancy a nasty wallow,” said Jarvis. “Like to smear themselves with their own offal.”
“Why don’t you try shooting him again, Romie?” said Chip.
“Waiting for the right shot,” I said.
“How many shells you got left?” Chip’s voice rose an octave as he eyed my gun.
“Enough to do the job.”
“Which means?”
“Hey, anybody need a little pick-me-up?” Jarvis pulled a dirty, folded envelope from his coat.
“Of what variety?” I inquired.
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” he said. “It cures the old malaise: the alcoholic hangover, the quiet despair of January drizzle, the sick mental residue left after hours of Internet shopping.”
Chip was already holding out his hand. And, what the hell, I too found myself gobbling another mysterious pill. This one was lilac, the color of summer dusks, with a Zorroesque Z cryptically etched onto its surface. Right after I swallowed it, sunlight gushed into the tree house to warm our jaded bones. We all perked up. Forgot about the mangled corpse in the wallow below. Forgot about the dystopian hog up to no good in the gloom of the forest. Forgot about the acidic seethings of our stomachs, our dwindling water supply, even the buzzards that now circled overhead.
Jarvis and I pulled out our flasks, offered Chip an occasional warming swig (I had Beam, Jarvis Old Crow). As we finished the last of our booze, we discussed various subjects close to our hearts: ATV racing, taxidermic dioramas, the glories of the Rapture.
“When Jesus returns,” said Jarvis, “he’ll arrive in a crystalline spaceship so vast it’ll drench seven cities with healing light. One by one, the chosen will be beamed up and whisked off to paradise—a green planet with shining skyscrapers and endless gardens.”
Upon finishing his vision, Jarvis Riddle fell into a nap, an infantile smile upon his face.
“Romie,” Chip whispered, turning from the window. “Motherfucker’s still as a statue. Check it out.”
The New and Improved Romie Futch Page 25
