Hawg

by Steven L. Shrewsbury

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

  ***

  Hux lowered himself into the bathtub and swore at the hot water. The soapy water misted with red blood from his backside and he reached for the toilet paper roll again. Oddly enough, the intrusion of the beast into his body hadn’t torn him open. Though it had felt like he was skewered with a forge poker, there didn’t seem to be that much damage when he felt around himself. He shuddered at the memory of the violation, how the twisted organ of the creature skewed into his backside, twisting around and driving deep. Hux never understood what even happened until the monster flung him off Micki. Sure, he was embarrassed that he had the cock of a vicious, possibly alien, creature in his ass. Shame coated him heavily that he’d emptied his bowels all over his jeans and boots. To chuck the jeans and soak his boots was one thing, but he couldn’t get rid of the memory so easily.

  Again, Hux buckled down his will and got under the water. At first, he feared the thing had perforated his bowels beyond the reach of his searching finger. The assault was fast and uneven, but still he bled unevenly. Not a rush of crimson, Hux felt secure that it was only a surface wound, though the one to his mind cut deeper. Certainly a man’s man, the humiliation of being defiled was one thing. The fact that he came when the beast entered him really disturbed Hux. That was one idea he didn’t want to focus on.

  Over and over, he washed his body and attempted to rationalize it all. It was a monster, he thought, no other word for it. It reeked of pigshit, but they weren’t far from the Solow property. That was one reason many chose that spot to go park and fornicate, few would go near the Solow area if the wind changed. Hux knew the level spots, ones where long grasses made good bedding. He hated bringing a woman to his house or even letting them know where he lived. They came back like cockroaches, he pondered, and he didn’t need any sort of pest like that.

  Hux burned inside, not just from his ass, but also in his guts. His stomach wouldn’t rest and his heart flared with anger. Whatever that thing was, it had to die. As he shampooed his long hair and started to rinse it, he could see many ways for the beast to die. Some were silly, but he had to think of its death. That made him feel stronger.

  His cell phone went off, a downloaded ring tone of the band Judas Priest. He gave the phone a doubtful look and reached for it, wincing as he did so. He saw the number and flipped it open.

  “Yeah, this is Hux.”

  “Have you heard from Ricky?” The voice was cold and distant.

  Hux understood the call and said, “I ain’t heard from Rick at all. He wasn’t at the drop off house when he was supposed to be and no one has heard dick from him.”

  “He doesn’t answer his phone,” the voice said coldly. “I’d be loathe to lose him or a good mule like Iris.”

  “Iris? Huh, woulda like to see her, but no, ain’t seen ‘em.” Hux recalled that Iris possessed an enormous piece of womanhood, one even a proud man like himself wouldn’t try to best. However, she was an oral and anal specialist, the latter idea suddenly caused Hux to pause. He winced again and said, “What’s up?”

  “That is precisely what I would like to know.” The voice held no humor. “The hour is late and they were due back in Chicago by now.”

  Tightening his ass, Hux experienced needles of pain in his rectum. He calmed his ass down and said, “I can rattle a few trees and see if anything falls out.”

  “Oh yes, rattle away,” the voice replied. “I would hate to think I have lost someone dear to me.”

  The line went dead and Hux closed the phone.

  “Fucking scumbag,” he muttered and returned to washing his disgrace from himself.

  ***

  Mr. Solow was a light sleeper. He awoke nearly every hour on the hour, but that was his way. He often went to the fridge, took a sip of iced tea and returned to bed. Once at 3AM he made a baloney sandwich and ate it with a 7UP.

  This night he caught himself looking across the yard to his barns and the field beyond. Nothing stirred and it was deathly quiet. The moonlight brought only a peaceful scene, one that made his heart rest easy.

  Solow wandered into his front room, flipped on the light and stared into his curio cabinets. Mementos of the Second World War, and countless arrowheads he’d found in the fields and on hikes were displayed on a velvet cloth. In another cabinet were several bones found at construction sites by his brother, Billy. He missed Billy. Cancer had killed Billy a decade ago. He liked it when Billy visited from down south. Solow sighed, letting go of the lament. He’d never see his brother this side of the grave again.

  He poured himself a small glass of homemade wine and sipped it as he walked into his living room. He raised the glass at the old picture from the war, of his shipmates and himself. Mr. Solow’s body shivered as he said, “To the USS Eldridge.”

  Solow lit a smoke and again thought of his other brothers and his family, though not so much on the latter. Aside from Billy, he was glad they were dead. Not a man to be burdened by sentiment, he stubbed out the smoke and went back to bed.

  But he didn’t sleep much.

  ***

  Hawg felt spent for the most part. He zigzagged across a piece of well cultivated land. This grass wasn’t like the lawns of the farmers. This small plot possessed grass already mowed and tended to perfection. Hawg heard tales of men who carried lawn clipping away in bags, unlike Elias who just ran the mower over the grass. Who had time for such tidy behavior? Hawg couldn’t understand being so obsessed with the grass.

  He leaned himself on an above ground swimming pool and took several breaths. The tarp that covered the pool felt coarse to his claws, but he never ripped it. Whatever tainted his system from the breeder gilt was ebbing away, but still his senses felt edgy. The substance in his body made his nose run and he wiped it on the back of his claw many times.

  Red eyes scanning the territory away from the ranch style house, he saw the streetlights of the small town nearby. Hawg had no desire to go there and walked through the side yard by the home’s garage. Still, he studied the land toward town and noticed something on his right tusk. He reached up with the nails of his right claw and pulled the red loop off himself. It was a dog collar made of a synthetic red material. On the metal tag was a name, but Hawg couldn’t read. He dropped this and took another step.

  Not attending where he trod, Hawg took a step on a paved drive and doubled over on the hood of a long car. Hawg slammed down on the hood and his body convulsed. Suddenly nauseous, Hawg vomited on the hood of the shiny beige Buick. After he steadied himself, he vented his bowels and proceeded away from the property and the town.

  He ran for a few miles and saw a highway. Beyond this two lane road was a bigger road, an Interstate perhaps. Hawg loped until he spied a graveyard. He leapt over the trimmed bushes at the out of the way spot and stayed on his all fours, searching for a way through the maze of stones and crypts. He stopped and stood, seeing two crypts away from the rest. Something about them drew Hawg in. He approached them and took several breaths. He was so tired. Hands on the metal gate of one, he gazed up at the neighboring crypt and the word etched on it. Those letters were familiar.

  Hawg pulled back and snapped the lock and the extra chain that held the gate in place. Inside the crypt were two stone coffins, close enough together to remind him of his nestling spot in the round barn. Hawg stepped in and lay down between the coffins. The fit was not too tight, but perfect for his body.

  He slept and never dreamed.

  ***

  Andrew hated the day shift, eight to four, but it allowed him to spend more time with his family. The operators at the plant ran bitchy and usually, so did the bosses. When he worked the other shifts at the print factory, his time with the boys and his wife suffered. Sure, on second and third shifts he had more time to ride his Harley and go shooting with his buddies, but he’d also lost his focus on life. He contemplated this as he sent Jordan off to the bus.

  The other d
ay Andrew saw Jordan visiting the grave of his dead dog. As Andrew walked the property, looking into the barren fields, he knew Jordan would take a bit before he accepted the animal was truly gone. Andrew liked to think he wasn’t as much of a hard ass as his mother and father when it came to animals dying. They’d drilled into him fast how an animal had no soul and to stop crying. That hurt, but in time, it rolled off, like most things. He buried Buddy out behind the garage so that the grave wasn’t in plain sight. The boy would always know the dog was there, but the constant reminder every time they left the house wasn’t necessary.

  Morning routines died hard and Andrew arose earlier than he should. He often blamed the habit on Marine training, but like his late father, he was an early riser. Out to get the papers, he regularly burned some garbage and walked the perimeter of his land.

  When Andrew walked behind his car and popped the trunk with his key chain, he glanced at the dog’s grave, visible from that angle. His head snapped that direction in full as he saw the displaced dirt. He pocketed the key-chain and walked to the edge of the old pony pasture. Sure enough, the grave was disturbed.

  “Goddamn coyotes,” Andrew muttered and headed to the garage. He pulled the sliding door open of the shed. The then grabbed a spade and a shovel.

  Once at Buddy’s grave, he saw whatever dug him up went deep enough to finish the job. He swallowed hard at the grim sight of the dog’s paws and head, discarded on the dirt. Though in possession of a strong stomach, Andrew wavered for a moment, but found his balls fast.

  “Damn you, Buddy,” Andrew said and screwed down his guts. “Couldn’t train ya to do squat. Now, you’re a pain in the ass beyond the grave.” He let out a sigh and said to the dead parts, “Well, better get ya back in place before Jordan gets home.”

  Never bothering to get gloves, Andrew picked up the bits of the dog left over, three paws and the head, plus a few grisly bits he assumed were intestines. Again, he struggled with his gag reflex.

  “Skinned lots of animals in my life, Buddy, but you take the cake,” Andrew mumbled as he swept what pieces he could find into the deep hole. “Ya smell like a pig.” As he jabbed the spade into the hole, forcing the pieces in farther, he pondered how true that was. It did smell like pigshit at the grave.

  Andrew glowered in the direction of Solow’s hog farm. The wind hadn’t shifted and Andrew felt perplexed. Eyes fixed on the lower sections of the disturbed grave, Andrew perceived deep ruts. “No coyote digs with paws like that,” he said to the ground. “I haven’t seen a wolf in these parts for a coon’s age.”

  He filled the grave again and stomped on the dirt. The disturbed soil was level with the ground, so he stepped into the field and scooped up some dirt. He deposited this on the grave, then returned to get three more scoops. With the spade and using his boot, Andrew returned the mound to normal.

  When he walked away from the scene, he crushed the wooden cross Jordan had fashioned from two sticks. ***

  Jack Sullivan was the Mayor of Miller’s Fork, Illinois. The position was not a difficult one, overseeing the various boards and police functions. Jack also managed Ambrose Brothers Printing as the Mayor slot paid little. A sturdy man from simple beginnings, he’d come a long way from his days as a brawler, and fixing errant machines in a metal shop. As he put on his pale pink shirt and cream-colored pants, he didn’t regret those he’d brushed aside to get where he was, nor the neck’s he’d stepped on. His grim satisfaction over them carried him onward and he frequently couldn’t suppress a smile. He combed his dark hair, and then brushed some dye into his mustache before declaring himself perfect for the day.

  When Jack stepped from his home and saw the hood of his prized Buick Park Avenue covered in vomit and blood, his smile faded. When he looked down and saw he’d trod in feces, his manner grew darker.

  “Oh those resentful little pricks,” he shouted, cutting loose on a diatribe of curses.

  His wife Betty opened the porch door and said, “Jack? What is it?”

  Holding up his soiled leather right shoe, he grimaced and then said, “I have to change my shoes.”

  “I see,” she said, her brown eyes fluttering

  “Those little fuckers, they think they’re so smart,” Jack snarled.

  “Who?”

  “Oh, the pukes we fire in the back end of the plant who can’t keep a job, them and the shit for brains morons we have to hold down to run the place. They think they are so tough and smart. Look what they did to my car. If they think the overtime is bad now, they don’t know anything yet.”

  Jack struggled to get out of his shoes and then stumbled, stepping in more excrement with his socks.

  Betty tried to repress a laugh but failed.

  Jack’s cell phone rang and he nearly hurled his briefcase in anger before reaching to his belt to answer it.

  “Yes, this is not a good time.”

  “Not even for a good pal like me?”

  Jack’s manner cooled, but his bile still was high. “What is it you want, Hux?”

  “Some friends of ours are sorta miffed. You know anything about some business last night that never got done?”

  “No,” Jack said flatly. “I have my own troubles right now.”

  “Well, I’ll do my best to see that this doesn’t become one of your troubles.”

  Jack closed the phone and figured this was the start of a really shitty day.

  ***

  Jordan waited for the school bus and peered back at the disused pony lot on their place. From where he stood, Jordan couldn’t see Buddy’s grave in the mock pet cemetery. He put his head down as the bus grumbled in the distance. He liked it better when his dad took him to school, but his mother wanted him to use the system like the other kids. Jordan hated most of the other kids, but he liked the girl up the road, Cassidy. When he walked onto the bus, he looked for her like every other day. Not spotting her, he sat down and asked the driver, “Where’s Cassidy?”

  “Her daddy said she was too upset to come to school,” the hefty lady at the wheel told him. “Something about her dog dying. That’s hard on a kid.”

  Jordan blinked and pondered that. Genesis was dead? That was odd, for the dog was a monster. Jordan’s mom Lynne had forbade him to go near Cassidy’s home when the Ellington’s bought her. If that dog was so mean, Jordan wondered how it died. Probably hit by a grain truck on the way to the elevator up the way, he figured.

  While the bus traveled, he saw flashing lights a mile or so away, down a farmer’s road.

  ***

  Lynne White looked to the south as the bus left and she spotted the flashing lights as well. In a hurry to get the two-year-old boy Kenny in gear for day care, Lynne called to Andrew at the kitchen table. “Andy? The police are down south here.”

  Though he glanced at the newspaper and sipped his coffee, Andy held Kenny on his left knee. He nodded to her words and said, “Wonder why? Accident on the road?”

  “It appears to be down in the waterway or by a side road past the Solow place.”

  Disinterested, Andrew sipped his coffee and said, “Huh. Will have to ask Doug later if he heard anything.”

  “I have to take Kenny to the daycare then have a school board meeting after classes. If you work over this evening, my mother will have to get the boys.”

  “I know,” Andrew said and rubbernecked up at her. “Ya look great for a lady in her thirties.”

  Her conservative suit and over the knee skirt shined immaculately in the morning light, as did her wry smile. “Down boy. I have a million things to do today. Do you think you’ll have to work over?”

  He held Kenny with both hands as Lynne put the boy’s shoes on him. “I don’t know. I work for assholes, hon.”

  “Andrew, mouth!” she admonished him.

  Andrew looked down at the boy before saying, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll try to behave. But, ya know how it is. It changes from day to day.”

  “I can’t believe they would work you over out of pure meanness.”
<
br />   Kenny slipped off his lap and Andrew said, “Ya would be surprised.”

  Lynne bent down, kissed his cheek fast and said, “Love you.”

  “Love you, hon,” Andrew replied as the two headed off out the back door.

  He checked his watch and started to put his lunch together. Out the south porch door, he saw the flashing lights.

  ***

  Hands on his knees, Douglas White gazed through the broken passenger side window of Tim Dinsdale’s car. Eyes scanning the interior again, he thought the expression on Tim’s plump face a mixture of confusion and humor. He chewed a toothpick in the corner of his mouth and shook his head.

  “Alex, this guy Tim always had a smirk on his face,” Doug said quietly to one of the other county sheriff’s deputies. The younger officer’s face flushed and he rubbed his eyes.

  “Say what, Sheriff?” Alex said to the husky man staring into the car.

  Doug spit out the toothpick, gave a nod and glanced at the bloody mass between Tim’s legs. “Yeah, Dinsdale was a mover and shaker at the printing plant. A real backstabbing jackass I hear tell, always had a smile on his face.” Doug stood up, towering over the other cop and sighed, eyes on the girl in the ditch. “I’d say their smiling days are over.”

  A blonde officer named Matt Crouch knelt by the body of the woman, a long cotton swab to her lips. “I think I found Dinsdale’s weenie.”

  Alex turned fast, grabbed the hood of the car and vomited near the tire. Doug allowed him his privacy, but did face his direction. Alex didn’t share Matt’s strong stomach or dubious lothario reputation. Doug needed the former this day, for certain.

  It was then the morning light showed an impression on the passenger side window. If not for the sun, he may have missed it. Doug squinted at the print and said, “We need to get a copy of this.”

  “What is it, fingerprint? Hand print?” asked Matt, taking a step closer from his position.

  Doug’s eyes traced the huge impression on the windshield and said, “Not sure what it is, but by the looks of her, well, hell, I don’t know.”