Tuskers. Chapter 10

Remember, rough draft, be kind.

Chapter 10

 “What’s happening?” Jenny said.  “I don’t understand!  What’s happening!”

The smoke from the Silverstein house was expanding into a mushroom cloud.

“Let’s get inside,” I said.  I got up and walked down the roof, for some reason no longer scared of falling off.  I was numb.  I jumped over the rail and then turned and helped my wife.

I was still favoring my right leg, but the pain didn’t seem as bad.  Mostly, I was just scared.  All my plans…going into town, getting a gun, blasting the javelinas away, law or no law.

But trained police officers had apparently just been taken down in seconds.

That wave I’d seen.  That wasn’t the original five pigs. Or even the dozen or so more I’d seen later.  That had appeared to be hundreds of them, hundreds of pigs on the rampage.  I’d need a machine gun, a flamethrower, a tank!

We had reached the kitchen when we heard to car pull up in front.

“Peter…” Jenny breathed in, and a cry of alarm came when she breathed out.  She ran for the door.

“Don’t open it!” I shouted.  There was steak knife lying on the counter.  I grabbed it and followed her.

She opened the door, for a moment I thought everything would be all right.  Peter was getting out of his SUV.  He had a small trailer on the back with a motorcycle, and I remembered something about his kids being active in motocross.

I saw something darting for my wife’s legs and without thinking, I dove.  I drove the knife into the side of the javelina, its tusks just inches from Jenny’s thighs.

“What the fuck?” I heard Peter say.  He was halfway up the walkway, looking at us in shock. 

Fortunately, there was only one ‘guard’ at the doorway.  (And even in the heat of the moment, I knew that it was planted there, on orders from Razorback, as crazy as that sounded.)

Peter was a good-looking guy.  Tall, dark and swarthy, just the kind of guy that Jenny would always say was handsome when she saw them on TV.  I wasn’t that dark, and not much swarthy, so I always wondered about that.  I was average height, gray thinning hair and beard.  Even when I was younger, my hair was a light brown.

Yet, I knew at that moment that there was nothing to be jealous about. 

“Run!” I shouted, but he just stood there with his mouth open.

“Peter!” Jenny screamed.  “Get inside!”

He started moving, but it was too late.  There must have been twenty of them, swarming from either end of the SUV.  But the one that got him was a smaller one that came from under the car.  It shot forward, and its tusks cut into the tendons at the back of Peter’s ankles, and he fell as if his legs had been cut off.

He tried to rise, but the other pigs reached him, and one of them went for his throat, and Peter tried to scream, but nothing came out.  Blood spurted from both sides of his neck, and his head seemed to almost flop forward.  Then it detached and rolled down the walkway.

Jenny was screaming, and I had to pull her back so that I could slam the door.  The pigs were so busy feeding, it was as if they didn’t even know we were there.

***

“I thought they could hurt us,” Jenny said.  “I never thought they could kill us.”

We were sitting at the kitchen table with drinks in our hands.  I’d poured us both a stiff one, pure vodka to the top of the glass, and Jenny was choking it down.  Her shaking hand was becoming steadier as her words became slurred.

I remembered stories of medieval kings or knights being gored to death by wild boars, and it had always seemed an ignominious way to die.  Now I realized there was nothing funny about it.

But I’d never heard of pigs swarming like this.  It was almost as if they were being directed, with tactical planning. 

Which was nuts.

“We’ll just stay inside until it blows over,” I said.  “We can’t be the only ones.”

She nodded.  I knew I get no more arguments from her about staying inside. 

It got dark, and it was eerily silent.  We turned on the TV for a few moments, but the blaring cheerfulness was so incongruous to our situation, that we quickly switched it off.

“We’ve got water, and a full pantry.  We’ll just stick it out,” I said, suspecting I was starting to repeat myself.  I always did get verbose when drunk.

Maybe not a good idea to get incapacitated, I thought.  I put down the glass with a full inch of vodka still on the bottom, proud of my restraint.

“Let’s go upstairs,” I said.  She nodded and we stood up from the table and took each other’s hand, and walked up to our room together.  She spent extra time in the bathroom, and I could hear her crying, but decided she probably wanted to be alone to let it out.  That she’d put up a brave front when she was with me.

After she came out, I went in.  After I did my business, I happened to look in the mirror.  I was shocked by who stared out at me.  A thousand yard stare, is what I saw.  Shell shock.  My cheeks were gaunt, even though I hadn’t skipped a meal, there were dark shadows under my eyes. 

I slid open the drawer and pulled out my pill bottle.  I sometimes took half an alprazolam to sleep.  I thought about taking a couple, then closed the drawer again.

I went back to the bedroom.  The lights were out.  Jenny wasn’t moving, but I knew she wasn’t asleep.

The pigs are most active at night, came the thought.

As if in answer, I heard a crash from downstairs