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  Praise for Steven L. Shrewsbury

  “Shrewsbury may very well be the reincarnation of Robert E. Howard. His stuff hits hard and is satisfying as hell.”

  —Brian Keene, author of THE RISING, CITY OF THE DEAD and THE CONQUEROR WORMS

  “Shrewsbury is an accomplished storyteller with a gift for story and character development. Realistic…gory…the plotting is masterful and endlessly exciting.”

  —Laurel Johnson, MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

  “With HAWG Steven Shrewsbury goat-ropes the squeamish and rides them bareback through a nightmarish horror yarn.”

  —Cullen Bunn, writer of THE DAMNED

  “Steven L. Shrewsbury does what all writers should strive to do. From its first sentence HAWG ignites that creeping essence we seek from horror and Shrewsbury shows us he has no boundaries. This may be the best work I’ve read all year.”

  —John Paul Allen, author of GIFTED TRUST and MONKEY LOVE.

  Praise for HAWG

  “A visceral roller coaster that doesn’t let you off.”

  —Gary Frank, author of FOREVER YOU WILL SUFFER

  “Another top notch effort. Fans of the Shrewsmeister are going to be pleased.”

  —C.J. Henderson, author of

  THINGS THAT ARE NOT THERE

  “HAWG is a genetic Frankenstein story with a twist of swine, a gruesome tale as broad as it is tall. It’ll put you off your Easter ham for good, and give you a funny feeling in the pit of your pink belly. Not for the faint-hearted or easily insulted, HAWG will forever change your view of anything swine-related. Steve Shrewsbury goes for the uncomfortable belly laughs amidst the bikers and drugs and pigfarm mayhem, and delivers!”

  —W.D. Gagliani, author of WOLF’S TRAP

  “Like Rawhead Rex on ‘roids, HAWG rips out all the stops with an unbridled berserker fury that will leave the most jaded readers as rattled as Ned Beatty at a pig-calling contest.”

  —Cody Goodfellow, author of RADIANT DAWN

  “A wild ride from the opening scene to the last, HAWG is a lean and mean read, complete with one of the most original monsters you’ll ever encounter. Steven Shrewsbury is swiftly becoming a can’t-miss name in hardcore horror. If you like Ed Lee and Wrath James White, don’t skip this one.”

  —Nate Kenyon, author of BLOODSTONE

  “Sex, drugs, and frenetic blue collar rage, HAWG is cover to cover action and chock full o’ guts!”

  —Brian Knight, author of 1200 AM LIVE and BROKEN ANGEL

  “Take one drug-dealing biker, one nympho preacher’s daughter - mix them with a crazed pig farmer and a circus freak and you can envision a horrifying creature that only the mind of Steven Shrewsbury can create: HAWG. This is one sex-engorged, chrome-slicked ride you’ll never forget!”

  —Angeline Hawkes, Bram-Stoker-Nominated author of THE COMMANDMENTS

  Steven L. Shrewsbury

  Graveside Tales

  Hawg

  Published by Graveside Tales

  A division of Kendall & Murphy, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Graveside Tales, P.O. Box

  487 Lakeside, AZ 85929, USA

  www.gravesidetales.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictionally, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 Steven L. Shrewsbury

  Cover art by Bob Freeman

  Layout by Douglas Hutcheson and Rima Upchurch Excerpt from Everdead copyright © 2008 Rio Youers

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN: 13 978-0-9801338-2-0 ISBN: 10 0-9801338-2-3

  DEDICATION

  For Kent Gowran It’s your book, man

  And

  Michael “Mick” Huxtable

  He was a great guy, and his namesake appears herein. Mick was a terrific guy, and thought it a riot To be named after a character in a horror novel. He was nothing like the Hux in this book. But he loved the tale.

  He died taking care of his family. Rest easy, big guy.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Kent Gowran ran the idea of the creature in this book past me and I ended up writing it, with his blessing, or curse, as it were…Kent is the bomb.

  And for my mother, Esther, who grew up on a farm and is a priceless source of all things. Her Sunday dinner tales could make horror fans cringe.

  Thanks to the usual suspects: Mark Boatman, Peter Welmerink, Chris Fulbright, Angie Hawkes, John & Becca Hay, Maurice Broaddus, Wrath James White, Nate Kenyon, Tracy Jones, Mike Oliveri, Mark Hickerson, and Steven Saville.

  Special thanks to Bob Freeman for his leg work and to Doug Gentry for his keen eye. Sorry if I disturbed either of you.

  To the guys and girls at work who listened as I wrote this one up: Matt, Shawn, Bubba, Jeremiah, and Kristen, thanks.

  Special thank you to Tod Clark for everything. I owe you a beer or twelve.

  Thanks always to Brian Keene, Norm Partridge, Joe R. Lansdale, Christopher Golden, John Skipp, and James Moore. Your words, guidance and examples are so much help.

  Thanks always to my family, Stacey, John and Aaron.

  Shrews Rural Central Illinois

  CONTENTS Prologue: Beast of the Field 1. Feral

  2. Aftermath

  3. Deepening

  4. Visitations

  5. Going Home

  6. Discoveries

  7. Executions

  8. Hawg Wild

  9. Night and Morning

  10. Endings

  11. Rampage

  12. Aftermath-2

  13. Setting Traps

  14. Quarry and Pursuit

  15. Family

  16. Primed

  17. Reckoning

  18. Afterwards …

  Epilogue

  “Man is an animal

  which, alone among the animals, refuses to be satisfied by the fulfillment of animal desires.”

  —Alexander Graham Bell

  HAWG

  PROLOGUE Beast of the Field

  Iris Diaz laughed at Ricky Bravo’s easy gait as she watched him walk up behind the farmer. Though Ricky had started out in a stealthy stance, hunched over and weaving his way through the side buildings and lawn ornaments on the vast farm, he had quickly abandoned this creeping action.

  Clearly, with the loud voice coming from the boom box and the even louder squealing of the pigs, Rick could’ve easily stomped up behind the old man in overalls and not have been heard. The dusty black box, situated on the edge of a circular concrete dais just to the left of the farmer, had seen better days. Like its owner, Iris mulled, the box was dirty, beaten up and about ready to fall apart. She swept her long black hair back over her shoulder, unsure of the farmer’s age. A million if he was a day? She’d heard that phrase before, but guessed him over seventy years at least. The oblivious farmer moved fluidly at times, yet seemed to halt in his motions, as if some inner pain reminded him it was there. His skin was burnt dark, giving him a deeper hue than either Iris or Ricky.

  Ricky stopped and winked at Iris. He then glanced across the vast property taking in the three long barns, a corncrib, open pens crowded with pigs, and a massive round barn to their right. Ricky aped the act of sizing up the farmer, who stood a bit taller than the five foot ten Bravo. Ricky jumped a little, startled as the voice on the speaker as it spewed out a rant:

  “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness!”

  The farmer’s withered left hand held a small pig in place on the wooden trough. Tiny legs flailing, the snout parted and it squealed as if on fire. Nothing could stop destiny
for this little one. The farmer’s right hand swiped, scooping down between the piglet’s hind legs. This violent action also made Rick and Iris pause…that and the sight of the farmer dropping the small pair of pig testicles into a large galvanized bucket. Near the clean pail was a tiny pen housing a dozen or so piglets. The other babies saw the balls drop, but rendered no opinion of the castration other than to root in the dust.

  Iris’s silent laughter stopped and her face froze. The sight of the blood on the straight razor in the farmer’s hand and Ricky’s frozen manner caused her fear to rise like bile in her throat. Ricky was a hard ass; a calculating and dependable runner for the Latin Kings of Chicago down through central Illinois. Only God, or car trouble, could slow him down in his duty of delivering drugs to small communities in the land of Lincoln. The latter was his bane this day, but the tough kid from Cicero found himself struck dumb at the spectacle. So did his drug mule, Iris.

  “ Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” the box’s voice boomed on, as the farmer wiped the bloody blade on a rag that hung from a fence nail.

  Ricky cranked his head, right then left, as if to break himself loose from the sight. Still, he remained focused as Iris took another step. The farmer put the handle of the razor between his teeth, reached over into a pan balanced on the trough, dipped his fingers and brought out something that glistened like butter. He smeared this between the piglet’s legs and grunted in agreement to the words thundering from the boom box. The farmer set the pig free into a small pen away from the others and reached to grab another baby hog kept in the wire holding pen by the bucket. He wiped his brow with his left hand that held the small pig, and then looked up, toward the huge round barn. He then set the new piglet down and wiped his fingers on a bloody black rag. Razor back in hand, the farmer shook his right shoulder as if to limber up for the next round.

  Ricky snapped free of his shock, scouted around the vast rural property they’d walked to from their overheated car now squatting by the roadside, and smiled. He reached back and grabbed the handle of the .38 caliber snub nose pistol jammed into his ass crack. Iris’ stomach turned, the vile act still fresh in her mind, comprehending that the actions were going to march on fast. Her smile returned, as she saw Ricky prepare to take out the farmer.

  “Make his path straight!”

  Gun in hand, Ricky turned the barrel away from the farmer and grasped the weapon like a bludgeon.

  From the far side of the round barn, a figure emerged that halted Ricky’s actions in mid air. He saw the individual, a slender black man who may have been a couple centuries old, walk into their sight. The black man wiped his hands on a gray rag stringing from the hip pocket of his brown overalls and said, “Mr. Solow, I believe the calf is gonna come tomorrow…” He saw Ricky; ready to pistol-whip the farmer, and stopped.

  Bile rose again in Iris’s throat as Ricky’s focus switched to the newcomer in the yard. This moment of distraction was all Mr. Solow needed. His eyes followed what the black man saw. With an abrupt swipe, Mr. Solow turned his body and slashed open Ricky’s throat. The slash was fast as lightning, but cut a savage blow like an axe. The small blade did its appointed job, again, not distinguishing between pig balls and human flesh.

  Iris ran forward, but stopped short of touching Ricky. Blood ruined his Chicago Blackhawks Jersey, adding more color to the feathers of the Indian on it. Guts heaving, she held her stomach and squeezed her thighs together. She had her own treasure to worry about keeping inside. Iris didn’t intend to throw her life away after the cocky drug runner their superiors had chosen for that day.

  Both old men looked at her for a moment, but they seemed more focused on the wounded trespasser, whose crimson blood now mixed with pig blood in the dry brown dirt.

  Ricky stepped back, holding his neck on the left side, blood spurting between his fingers. He coughed, gagged, spitting cherry red liquid out his lips, his askew ball cap fell and rolled upright.

  Mr. Solow faced the dying man, his gray eyes focused in hard on Ricky. The old man didn’t register anger or confusion. If anything, his half smile betrayed bemusement as Ricky pointed the butt of the revolver at him. Iris figured Ricky’s original plan still bubbled in his mind, but there was naught in his will left to carry out the project. Piglet still in hand, Solow stepped toward Ricky as he slipped the razor into the bib-overalls front pocket at his chest and reached out for the gun.

  Still, Rick pointed at him with the wrong end of the gun, emphatically, as if he squeezed hard enough the bullets would emerged from the weapon via the handle. Alas, this wasn’t to be.

  “Woe unto you sinners!”

  Iris backed up when Solow took the handgrip of the gun in his hand and easily disarmed Rick. Jugular vein spewing his life away, Rick staggered and clutched his neck in repeated padding motions, as if he could hold his soul in. He armed up some of his Blackhawks jersey to absorb the blood, but the crude bandage did no good…save to douse the Johnny Cash T shirt under his jersey with scarlet. Iris felt loopy, her head twisting, waiting to see Rick’s spirit escape in the wound on his neck. She cursed the fact she’d smoked the hash earlier and thought it was out of her system.

  Solow tossed the piglet in his hand back into the holding pen and aimed the 38 at Ricky. Suddenly, the farmer didn’t appear so feeble to them. Firm in his steps the old man’s arm never shook as he leveled the weapon.

  “No,” Iris muttered, but never drew a look from the farmer, nor the black man who walked up on the scene with measured steps. She couldn’t do anything and they understood that.

  “Woe unto all of the Earth!”

  The shot rang higher in pitch than Iris thought normal, yet still stabbed at the inner parts of her ears. The bullet did its job, no matter what the sound. Ricky’s head snapped, blood erupting from the back of his head in a small fount. It squirted fast and red, but it was over that quick. Rick fell down and never budged again. Iris expected slow motion and a struggle, but this wasn’t television.

  Then, the two men gaped at Iris. Though his face was craggy and withered, it held power like an old actor she’d seen, right down to the cleft in his chin. Solow frowned, lowered the gun and shot her in the right ankle. Pain exploded in her body as she stumbled, put weight on the wounded foot and fell to the ground. When she rolled over, Solow stood over her and checked the chambers of the gun. As he did this the black man picked up the ball cap Ricky lost earlier.

  “Stop, no, please, by the Mother of God…” she wailed.

  He nodded and aimed again. This time Solow shot her through the left ankle and shook his head when the blood spray kissed his left pants leg. As her agony went white hot and her yowls became screams for help, Solow handed the gun to the black man.

  “Bring out the cage, Elias,” Solow said to him in a steady voice. “She’ll live long enough to be dessert for him.”

  Elias never flinched as he regarded the round barn with a nod and then pointed at Ricky’s dead body. He put the ball cap on his head and asked, “What about the fella, sir?”

  Solow glanced at Ricky’s prone form and said, “I’ll help you take him to Hawg. She ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  “This is murder,” Iris gasped, hand on her abdomen. “Murderers!”

  Solow’s face stayed stoic. “Ya’all were gonna way-lay me, so don’t gimme crap for doin’ the Lord’s work. It’s been a long day.”

  Unconcerned with Iris, the two men walked over to Rick, each took up a leg and started to drag him toward the round barn.

  Left alone, Iris tried to crawl away. Her mind was on the car, not a quarter mile down the rural road. Perhaps it would start and perhaps…she could drive with two gun shot feet? Her eyes squirted tears, thinking of the terror filled ride in the farmlands. She so hated the places not in the city. The open space and rural lands scared her as if they were about to swallow her up. It was too open, too green and so much dirt nearby.

  “Sin is what separated God and Man. The Bible says Adam had walked with God in the cool of th
e evening, but then horror came into his life.”

  “God, shut up,” she told the box that kept going with the sermon.

  The pain ruled her body and she stopped trying to advance. Iris screamed out again, but there was no one to hear. They were miles from the nearest small town; Ricky had called Miller’s Fork. Iris never cared about a destination, only her role and the fix afterwards.

  “When they fell from grace, God came seeking them in the garden and asking ‘Where art thou?’ How many of you can guess that he knew exactly where they were?”

  Iris aspired after sleep or simple oblivion, to escape the preacher’s voice, to get away from it all, though the daggers of agony she felt in her ankles refused to allow slumber to come. She damned her cell phone for being out of roaming area when they broke down. She damned Ricky for his “off the beaten path” route to Miller’s Fork. She damned their Lord’s connections and all of his men, like that seedy prick Mr. Roberts, for giving this duty to them. Lastly, she damned herself for being weak enough, addict enough, and big enough to be a drug mule. Though she kept fighting it, she really didn’t care if the condoms and packets of meth or heroin fell out of her vagina.

  The pain increased so that the effects of the blunts she had smoked earlier fled from the ocean of anguish. Iris’ sense of time faltered as she nearly blacked out. She heard a deep scraping sound inside the barn…no…was it a roar or a squeal, muffled by the walls? Only the grinding gears of a garbage truck sounded like that…not the roar of any animal. Had they stuck Ricky in a compactor of some sort? There was no pattern to the screeching sound. The idea of Ricky, so handsome and lean, turned into hamburger grindings made her stomach turn again.

  In her dreamy state of pain, she heard the farmer’s box, still preaching, say, “Do not lie down with the beast of the field, for it is an abomination in the eyes of God.”

  Iris blinked and saw that the rag the farmer wiped his razor on was a well worn, many times washed Motorhead Tshirt. Where on earth would such a backwater man get an article like that, she wondered as the hurting marched on up her calves.