Josh Gibson, Tyler Scott, Elijah Anderson, and James Davidson pulled up in their individual vehicles into driveway of the Gibson farm, which was three-hundred acres with the golden stalks of corn lining the vastness of the property in Hazelwood. The driveway reached all the way down the property, bordered by the rows of corn on each side before ending at the two-story brick house and several acres of woods beyond it. The boys had spent many summers together in that wooded backyard, and following their defeat at the homecoming football game, had decided to spend the Friday evening together.
The childhood friends wore their blue and black letterman jackets, displaying their jersey numbers on their right arms, and their graduation number on their left. It was their final homecoming game, and their defeat was a letdown, if not entirely unsurprising. If one was to travel out of Clayton, they would find the neighboring towns would often take bets on how badly they would lose against the neighboring high schools. This was in large part since the high school was smaller than many of the other athletic programs of the larger nearby towns.
It was an evening of joking and laughing, while ignoring the fact they had lost their last big game of their senior year. Two German shepherds sat at the fire with the boys, nibbling on bones that had been given to them for the evening. It was both a relief to be done with homecoming, yet a melancholy feeling as they all realized that this was the last time they would likely hang out after a game like they were doing now.
Josh excused himself from the group, “Sorry guys, I have to take a quick leak.” The others acknowledged, and Tyler asked Josh to bring a log for the fire on his way back. He got up and pulled his phone out, turning the light on and made his way into the brush. Immediately a pair of round orbs lit up under the illumination, and he walked by and smiled at his black cat, “Evening Felix, where’s your sister at tonight?” Scratch the cat was shy and had spotted fur compared to her bold brother, who stared after Josh as he walked away.
Unbeknownst to Josh, who was unable to get a good look at the cat’s eye color in the dark, it had changed from a dull green into a vibrant blue, and as it followed after him the eyes saw that the boy was marked for failure.
The blessing was becoming desperate, straining the definitions of its constraints in an attempt to fulfill its purpose.
Josh found himself a tree and put one hand against it while unzipping his pants and taking aim, prompting his phone up on a stump by him so that he had some light. The hiss of his stream filled the crisp, autumn air, and he sighed in relief, when suddenly something blocked his light. It was probably one of his friends.
“What are you up to,” he turned to ask before his voice started to trail, “…back… there?” In front of his phone stood a white and black-spotted pig, which stared at him silently. Josh couldn’t help but think of the serial killer who had been running amok in the town, but there was no way he would be targeting him would he?
He turned and hurried to his business, and was getting ready to zip his pants when he heard a sudden shuffling of branches behind him and turned to see just in time something swinging at his head. Josh ducked, and the tree trunk exploded in splinters as what became apparent was an arm crashed into it. Josh had but a moment to process the impossibility of the figure now standing over him, shrouded in shadow, and had the strength to crack open a tree with a bare fist. Years on the farm had honed Josh’s muscles, yet even he wouldn’t have been able to take such a large chunk of the tree out even if he had been building an axe.
A shiver ran down his spine, a shiver that betrayed his own mortality, now licking and lapping at his mind like a starved swine. That thought hit him, and he turned back to see the pig now approaching him, and he tried to run while crying, “Help!” Unfortunately, in his panic, in his fear, in his horror he forgot something so simple that it would bring his world crashing down upon him. He took two steps before his unzipped pants fell to his ankles causing him to trip and collapse on the ground. “Help me!” He cried again.
The figure in the dark didn’t turn towards him, instead taking its other arm and punching the tree again. A terrifying crack occurred, followed by another and another, faster and faster, and the Hog Farmer stepped away to let his lethal work be done as the tree fell.
Josh scrambled on the autumn leaves, which crackled and snapped, but his fate was sealed and the tree fell with a terrible sound directly on his back, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him all at once.
Tyler was the first to arrive at the scene, and he took one look at his friend, the pig now approaching him, and the figure in the dark before realizing what was going on. He rushed the man who stepped back into darkness and tackled him, disappearing into shadows. “Help Josh!” he ordered his friends.
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Elijah and James arrived, both carrying flashlights, and Josh suddenly screamed in pain as the pig bit his hair and pulled, ripping it out. Elijah cursed and grabbed a sturdy stick made from one of the branches of the felled tree to swing at the pig, which squealed in fear and cowered away from his swing while James dropped his flashlight and attempted to pick up the tree.
“Hurry up!” Elijah said, as the pig peered into him from the deep abyss of its eyes.
“I’m trying, it’s too heavy!”
At that point another pig, this one black, emerged from where they had come, apparently following them. Behind it were a pair of larger swine, nearly identical, brown, with their fur turning near black as night as it approached their back. They snorted and snuffed as they oinked along and approached Josh, who now having recovered his breath a bit, was struggling to help James pull the trunk off him.
Elijah swung again as the pigs surrounded them, each trying to look for a gap to get at Josh’s exposed head, which had a pronounced bald spot where his hair had been pulled out that now beaded with blood from where the roots had been torn asunder. They squealed and snorted, but Elijah would pay them no quarter as he defended Josh. Josh’s phone fell over from the stump, better illuminating the scene before Elijah as in the distance orange campfire light danced.
There was the sound of rushing air, and an object flew over Elijah’s head before hitting a tree and crumbling to the ground. The light showed Tyler, face now bloodied, who began to shake violently on the ground as if in seizure. Elijah stared dumbstruck, before turning to see from whence Tyler had been propelled. From the brush emerged the assailant, and James picked his flashlight up and turned it upon him so they could finally see the man. “Oh my god…” He breathed as his heart skipped in terror, before starting up again in overdrive sending adrenaline racing through his veins.
The man wore tan boots, covered in dried mud that was caked on the bottom of his working jeans that hung over and covered the laces. He wore a Carhartt, which had a trail of fresh blood leaking down from its collar and glistened sweetly in the light, flies despite being out of season dancing silently around it for succulent sustenance. Each hand was clad in cowhide, but only one had barbed wire tangled around it and his forearm, wound so tightly that it seemed to draw his own blood. This was not what sent the boys into survival mode as they bore witness to the horror before him.
It was the bleeding, pulsating neck, blood squirting an inch into the air with each labored breath. It was the lack of a head, instead a gaping hole where one should be. It was not cleanly cut, indeed it looked like something had bitten into it, one bite at a time, as if slowly consuming the head.
James was the first to recover from his stupor, and roared as he reached down and managed to move the trunk. Josh quickly pulled himself out from under, as Elijah threw the tree branch that he had been using to ward off the hogs at the monster before them. It cracked in half across his chest, but the man took only a step back to steady himself.
A terrible series of bony crunches erupted behind the three, who turned back to see the pigs digging into Tyler, and Elijah broke. His brain shut off all thought that wasn’t geared to escape. He had to run. He needed to run. He was running. As fast as he could. He had left his flashlight, but that was unimportant. All that mattered was running.
Run.
Run.
Run!
Until he ran right into the tree branch that he failed to see in the dark. He cried out and fell to the ground, holding onto his face as he picked himself up and struggled to reorient himself. The campfire, he needed to make his way back to the campfire, but he saw stars as he struggled to find where he was. To make matters worse, the fire log had never been brought to the fire pit, and its embers were finally fading away enough that he couldn’t locate them.
He felt his way around, trying to find his way, until he heard sobbing. Elijah realized that the sobbing couldn’t possibly have come from the headless monster he had witnessed earlier and began feeling his way towards it as it grew closer and closer.
Finally, he felt he was close enough that he could risk trying to hail it. “Psst, Tyler? James? Josh? Is that you.”
They crying became quieter, and then finally a young man’s voice, quivering and broken responded through the dark. “N-no. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want for this to happen!”
“Who is that?”
“Pl-please. You have to run away.”
Elijah felt somewhat strengthened by the fact that as uneasy as he was, this individual seemed much more shaken than he was. Whoever it was, perhaps they could work together to get out of this. “It’s okay, we’re going to get out of this together.”
“N-no. I won’t do it. I won’t kill you!”
Elijah hesitated, “What?”
“Pl-please! I’m growing colder again. Make it stop. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop. Makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop!” The voice waivered and cracked in panic, and suddenly Elijah heard something get up and take off into the woods, crashing and creating a rowdy ruckus in its wake. Soon there was the sound of braying chasing after it, and Elijah realized the dogs must have gotten hold of the scent of the stranger and chased after him. A second later there was the sound of whines instantly cut off, followed by yowling of cats that also became silent.
He struggled forward, and then felt his hand touch upon something familiar, a metal hilt of some sort. It was the flashlight! He felt relief as he stood up and brought it close to his face, before a fearful thought stole its way into his mind. What if the monster was still nearby? No, he needed to find his friends. He had run away, abandoned them even. He needed to find them, he needed to help them.
He turned on the electric torch, and looked upon the monstrous work in the woods before him. His screams could not drown out the now decapitated bodies of his three friends, who surrounded him.