Post #341102 by Cammo on Mon, Oct 29, 2007 5:55 PM

Monsters
Part 5

It took us quite a while to work out just how to open the gate and close and lock it, while almost never leaving the truck.

Jim had one of those jacked up 4WD farm trucks, way before they were a Southern California fashion statement. His was beat up, rusty, dirty inside and the shift knob looked pretty hard to move around. But the engine was geared way down and roared to life, a very reassuring sound, when he cranked the key and pushed the pedal.

The plan was for Mark to swing the gate open from the outside, Jim would drive through, stop just inside, and Mark would swing the gate closed, lock it, and jump on the flatbed. Then he could just walk up and crawl in through the cab’s window. Simple. If Jim saw any hogs he’d drive straight at ‘em. Goodnight Mr. Hog.

It worked. We didn’t see a single hog the whole time Mark was dealing with the gate, and he crawled in through the window just fine. Then he mounted the gun up behind us. Jim made sure the shotgun wasn’t loaded, but he had plenty of shells in the glove box. We were going to drive slowly and stop somewhere on the fire road, shut off the engine and wait for a half hour or so, then drive on again and park until we saw one. Mark could snap all the pictures he wanted, but nobody went outside. The gun was a last ditch defense. Of course if a pig was just lying there beside the road, Jim would shoot it, but we didn’t want to get our hopes up, y’know?

The problem was that Jim didn’t want to turn the headlights on. It would maybe scare the hogs away. So instead we used a flashlight shining out through the front window, which is a pretty poor way of navigating a dirt road at night. He’d shine the light, go twenty feet, stop, shine it again, go twenty. We made progress, it wasn’t that bad, then Jim just shut off the engine and we just waited with the windows open a bit.

That’s when we realized it wasn’t going to work.

“Hey, how are we going to see them if it’s DARK?” my brother asked.

We looked at each other. Believe it or don’t, none of us had actually thought of this. I guess we figured there’d be some light from stars or the moon or something. But nope, it was dark as the grave out there; the overhead trees blocked out any starlight.

“We’ll sit here for ten minutes and then turn on the flashlight. Keep quiet,” Jim told us, “and get your camera ready.”

“It IS ready.”

“Good.”

We waited. It was just like fishing. It was impossible to keep quiet, though, we just couldn’t shut up.

“I was thinking,” I said real quietly, “you know that guy on Animal Kingdom? That Marlin Perkins guy? How would he capture one? He’s always going after water buffalo, rhino, big stuff like angry giraffes, you know, how would he do it?”

“Marlin Perkins is a dork.” Mark whispered.

I thought about that. “So what? I don’t want to marry the guy, so he’s a dork, he’s got a closet full of wildebeest heads, that guy knows how to get it done!”

“Cages.” Jim said, “And tranquilizer guns. They cost a lot of money, and a real vet has to load the doses for you. I can’t use it, it’s a drug. The cages are a good idea, but again, they’ll smell the human on them, and what do you use for bait? They’ll eat anything, bait’s no good. Why would they go into a cage? There’s no …. reason.”

We thought that over. Then Mark said, “That Marlin Perkins never did anything. He’d always get that other guy to do it, that big muscular guy.”

“Yeah,” it was all coming back… “that guy with the rolled up sleeves. What was his name?”

“I don’t know, I don’t think Marlin ever even said what his whole name was. Maybe it was Buck. Marlin took all the credit and Buck was always out wrestling snakes and getting chased by crocs.”

“Hee he heee,” I started snickering, “yeah, that guy earned his paycheck. He had the hardest job on TV. Buck had to run down cheetahs, swing around in the trees being chased by Tasmanian sloths…”

“And then they’d cut back to Marlin Perkins in the truck, sipping tea, …”

“He’d be saying, look at ‘What’s ’is Name, up there, getting his ass kicked by that Mongolian Desert Bear! He he heeee heeeee!”

We were choked up with laughter. Jim got fed up with us, I guess he didn’t know what we were talking about, so he finally got the flashlight, rolled the window down a bit more, and shone it out.

They were all around us.

Standing there, way back, in a circle all around us. It was dead silent.

“Oooooh man.”

“You better get a shot now, cause we’re getting out of here.” Jim told my brother.

Mark looked at the scene in front of us. They were in a loose line about 50 yards away, mixed into the bushes and loose debris. You could see their ears, their ears made them look like Hounds of Satan, but they were still sort of hidden.

“I can’t,” Mark said, “they’re too far away.”

Jim looked at him like he had crapped his pants. “What d’ya mean? You got a telephoto lens on that thing or what?”

“Yeah, but I have to use a flash, and they’re too far for it. They have to be, you know, within like twenty feet or so.”

“Screw this.” Jim said. He started the truck, and

ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. The hogs went crazy when the truck started, squealing and screaming, and dashing around. Some came closer, then held their ground. Jim went ahead and turned on the headlights, but they seemed to just CLOSE THEIR EYES! Then everything came alive, all around us, the pigs hitting bushes, and Jim backed up slowly. He kept his head, but Mark and I just about died of fright. There was more commotion than danger, we saw, though, and the hogs were getting left behind.

Then the rear tire hit something and we stopped. Jim whipped it into first gear, went forward a bit, and angled back to the right. We stopped again. He shifted, and we didn’t go anywhere. He tried rocking it back and forth, shifting for momentum, but we were stuck.

“We’re stuck.” Jim said. He shut off the headlights. “Gotta get some traction.” He looked at us, then at the door, and unlocked it.

“You’re going outside?”

“Yeah, unless you got better ideas.”

“How about we wait until morning, then yell for help?” I said.

Mark and Jim ignored me.

“All I gotta do is put something under the tire. Or see what’s wrong.”

“You could crawl out the back window.”

“Nah,” he opened the door, “I’ll be right back.”

And Jim opened the door. He took the flashlight, swayed it around a bit, then headed back. We looked around, making sure no hogs came near. They were pretty far back.

Then we saw one looking at us. It was big, really big, about four, maybe five feet high and a good eight feet long. It looked like a small horse, but all husky muscle. It was staring at us. The other hogs were still moving around, but this one was quiet.

“Look,” I said, “the big one.” But Mark had seen it too. He rolled down the window on the driver’s side, quietly, watching the hog.

“Jim.” He said, real quiet. “Jiiiim. Get in here.” But Jim didn’t say anything. We didn’t know where he was. We watched the big one, and he watched us. Then that pig moved a bit closer.

“JIM!” my brother yelled, “Get the FUCK BACK IN HERE NOW!”

Jim came running, he jumped in and slammed the door and the big one came running right at us. That hog must have broke the Bonneville Flats Pig Landspeed Record, cause he was right there in front of us in like 1.342 seconds and

WHAM! he hit the front fender and WHAM! he hit it again but Jim turned the headlights on and backed it to the left, cranking the wheel, and we actually moved this time and we backed up with the pig jumping up, his hooves right on our hood, all muddy and scrambling, lights on now we drove forward, Jim taking us through the bushes in a tight circle, hitting the fire road again, and popping it into second to bomb back up there

but that pig kept up with us, squealing, not taking his eyes off us for a second, and we reached the gate, and

we stopped. The hog was right beside us, screeching and screaming, but we couldn’t get out to open the gate. That slowed Jim down for a second, then he yelled,

“Get the shells!” and he didn’t wait for us, but he dived into the glove box and grabbed the little fresh pack of tubes, and

THUD the whole truck rocked back and forth, I thought it was a flat tire, but there was a clawing sound right behind our heads and that Big One had jumped into the back! He was in the flatbed, right behind us, his huge hairy smelly feet reaching in through the window, hitting the gun behind us, HOLY SHIT, it fell on us, man that thing was heavy, and Jim tried to grab it and my brother and I tried to climb onto the floor, but Jim realized what was happening and shoved the window closed, then tried to load the shotgun. I grabbed the flashlight, and shone it in the pig’s face, but it didn’t work,

“The camera!” somebody yelled, and Mark grabbed the camera and FLASHFLASHFLASH that thing cranked 35 mm. film faster than a paparazzi at a celebrity nudist colony. The pig squealed, illuminated in strobes back there, I couldn’t tell what was going on, then Jim jumped out of the truck and a second later BLAM BLAM. Then cursing, and the sound of the gate swinging open.

He jumped back in the truck, slammed it into the gate to open it, backed up right to the house, jumped out again and locked the gate. Then he looked around carefully, and walked back to us, breathing hard. We were still frozen to the seat. He looked at us is disgust.

“I’ll take my fifty bucks now,” he said.

*So here’s the question; how would YOU kill the hogs?

Hurry it up, post some answers quick, I’m not giving out any clues. I’ll tell you the answer, and the winner (if there is one) gets something cool.

The answer will be - what they actually did, not just a good way to kill ‘em, but what actually happened.

Good luck!*