8. Free-Range Zombie Pigs #2
“Free-range pigs aren’t a thing, Wyatt.”
Or are they? Perhaps I spoke with too much confidence. I don’t know much about free-range anything, aside from the fact that free-range eggs are just slightly out of my price range.
“Are they mutant pigs?” I ask. “They’re massive. And I thought pigs came in pink. Not black.”
“X-pigs,” he says with a giggle. “Like X-Men...but pigs.”
Conversations with fever-high Wyatt are turning out to be quite fun. Too bad this is the exception to his personality. I wonder if he’ll remember any of this?
“Or zombie pigs,” I suggest. “They look like they could be hungry for brains.”
“Pigs are highly intelligent,” Wyatt says, his tone suddenly quite reasonable.
There is nothing reasonable or acceptable about this entire situation.
“You’re delusional. On several counts.” I roll down my window. “Shoo, piggies! Go sooey somewhere else!”
Testing the waters, I inch the car forward and give the horn a light tap. No sound comes out, so I press a little harder. An excessively loud sound blares, possibly rupturing one or both of my eardrums.
I gasp, jamming my foot on the brake pedal.
The pigs are undeterred, barely flinching, and Wyatt glares.
“What’s your problem?” he demands.
“What’s your horn’s problem?” I snap back. “Is it trying to compensate for something? Tiny tires? A V4 engine? Being an SUV without four-wheel drive?”
“I didn’t know it would be so loud.”
“Maybe it’s compensating for your negative attitude,” I grumble. “It didn’t scare the pigs, so any other ideas?”
“Just pull forward slowly. They’ll move.” He sounds confident, as though pig traffic is a common occurrence. Maybe it is.
I do as Wyatt suggests.
The pigs, however, do not move.
They simply stand there. Stare. Make me wonder if we actually are in some kind of horror movie.
“Will your neighbor be upset if I run them over? Or would that mean we get fresh bacon?”
“I’m more concerned about the car and the damage they might do to the undercarriage.”
Wyatt is throwing me with his slips in and out of lucidity.
He’s way chattier than normal, shifting between giggly goofiness and spouting random facts.
In any case, I have at no point in my life given thought to the undercarriage of a car.
In fact, this is basically a new vocab word for me.
Undercarriage. For reasons I cannot explain, it seems like the most ridiculous thing to be discussing right now, and I hide a sharp bark of laughter with pretend coughing.
I continue to inch the Bronco forward, but the pigs remain in a formidable and bristly wall. The closer we get, the more disturbing this whole thing becomes.
“Do we wait them out? Lead them into the woods with a trail of fresh slop?”
Wyatt snorts at this. “I’m all out of fresh slop. You?”
“None on me.” I pause. “I don’t want to continue this battle of the wills with the oversize Wilburs forever. Or damage your precious undercarriage . Can I go the other way on this road?”
Wyatt shakes his head. “It dead-ends at my neighbor’s house.”
“Of course it does.”
“I do have my practice gear in the back,” he says, as though this is some kind of answer to the pig problem.
“That’s...cool. I have a Target gift card I bought for a friend three years ago in my purse, but it won’t help us with the pigs.”
Wyatt gives me a long look. One that is trying to convey something he clearly seems to think I should have picked up on.
Finally, it clicks. “Oh. Like you’ve got the stick?”
He stares at me like I’ve sprouted another head. “Yes. I have the stick . Which is an integral part of my hockey gear.”
“And you want me to...use it to scare the pigs?”
Wyatt raises a brow. Slowly. With attitude. “It’s strange Jacob always talked about your quick wit.”
“My wit is just fine. If I’m not in top form, I’m going to blame the leftover heat exhaustion. You know, from being handcuffed in the back of a hot cop car.”
“Are you going to bring that up forever?”
“Until the day I die,” I say solemnly.
Wyatt leans toward me and, without thinking about it, I shrink back against my door. The look he gives me would be enough to wither an entire farm’s crops. Especially since he’s been so goofy and sweet. Now I’m getting whiplash from the various versions of him.
With a grunt, he twists, rummaging around behind our seats. His shoulder brushes mine, even as I try to lean away. The heat from the open windows is suddenly oppressive, though not as intense as the heat of him being this close.
But then, Wyatt pulls a hockey stick from the back of the car, practically taking off half my face.
“Hey,” I protest. “That’s cross-checking.”
His expression remains unamused.
“High-sticking?” I am trying to dredge up hockey terms I learned from having to attend Jacob’s high school games. But he played lots of sports, not just hockey, and I think I know more about football.
“Roughing the driver?”
He shakes his head and shoves the stick my way, the end of it going right out my open window. “Here.”
My hands automatically close around the taped-up end. It’s a little sticky. “You really want me to go chase the pigs with this?”
“I would, but I’m currently not a good candidate for pig management.” He gestures to his boot.
I don’t think I’ve ever been or will be a good candidate for pig management. Unless we’re talking about how many slices of bacon I can eat in one sitting.
I try to hand back the stick. Wyatt doesn’t take it. “I don’t think this falls under the purview of nurse and driver.”
“Then I guess we can wait them out while I die from scarlet fever.” He closes his eyes and slumps back against the seat.
“You don’t have scarlet fever,” I scoff, but I study him.
The coherence of the last few minutes appears to have exhausted him. He’s slumping again, chin to chest. Cheeks red. Sweat trickling down the side of his face. Even with his body relaxed, his expression is pained.
Wyatt probably has a high pain tolerance, given his sport of choice, which means he could be in worse shape than he’s letting on.
I glance out at the pigs.
Do pigs bite?
Not willing to take the chance, I twist around, locate a helmet in the back with Wyatt’s gear, and pull it over my head. The visor part over my eyes is a little smudged, but it’s good enough.
“I don’t think the helmet is necessary,” Wyatt says.
His comment only makes me want to wear it more. It’s a little big and has a smell that isn’t altogether pleasant, but I’m committed now.
“Safety first,” I tell Wyatt, adjusting the helmet but not cinching the strap.
Before he has a chance to respond or I have a chance to chicken out, I put the Bronco in Park and open the door. I almost hit Wyatt in the jaw with the end of the stick and bump my head on the way out, making me glad I’ve got the helmet, but I eventually manage to extract myself.
And now, I’m standing on the road, facing down the pigs.
An erratic giggle escapes me. This whole day has been a study in the ridiculous. From start to now. And we’ve barely passed lunchtime. Wait—have we passed lunchtime? I honestly don’t know what time it is, but I’m suddenly starving and can only think about bacon.
“Are you just going to stand there?” Wyatt calls. “You shouldn’t be scared. You’ve got a helmet.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“I would never.”
Gripping the hockey stick like a baseball bat, I advance toward the front of the vehicle. The pigs are unperturbed. If I couldn’t see them breathing and occasionally flicking their tails to dissuade flies, I might wonder if they were dead where they stood.
“Okay, piggies,” I say, lifting the stick to my shoulder like I’m ready to swing. “I’d really rather not have to use this stick. Mostly because I don’t know how to use this. But also because I love animals. I also eat animals—”
There’s a snort behind me, and I turn, realizing that Wyatt is leaning out of his window, watching with an amused expression. Though his eyes are half lidded, like it’s too much work to keep them open.
“Stop threatening and start swinging,” he advises. “And if you don’t want to be stampeded, maybe don’t talk about your love of bacon.”
“Who knew you had any sense of humor buried under your grumpy exterior?”
He mutters something that sounds like “You don’t know a lot of things about me” and then ducks back inside the car. Immediately, I feel more alone.
Just me and the pigs.
Sweat trickles down my back, and the stick feels heavy in my hands. I give it a test swing, nowhere near hitting the pigs but in their general direction.
Finally, some movement. The pigs go from silent, slothful statues to tense and jumpy in an instant. They still don’t get off the road, but now they’re stamping their feet and bumping into each other. Snorting ensues.
Progress!
Emboldened, I take a step forward, swinging the stick in a wide arc the other way, narrowly missing Wyatt’s headlight. Oops.
“Go on, now! Shoo!”
I take a bigger step closer this time and lift the stick above my head to avoid hitting the car or the pigs, who are now nearer than I really want them to be, considering their size.
Each of these pigs probably weighs at least what Wyatt does.
Maybe even double his weight. In my best nonprofessional pig-judging estimation.
And suddenly, my proximity to the oversize beasts doesn’t seem like such a good idea. If they stampede, I’ll be trampled.
One of the smaller pigs toward the back squeals and tears off into the woods beside the road.
“There we go! The little squealer has the right idea,” I say, lifting the stick for another swing. “Now, if all of you would kindly just—”
Three things happen at once. So quickly my brain seems to slide through molasses to process each one.
First, Wyatt shouts, “Josie! Move! ”
Second, the pigs stampede. Not toward the woods like the first one. Toward me .
And third, I fling the hockey stick and leap onto the hood of the Bronco.
It’s all over in seconds that somehow feel like they’ve taken years off my life. The sounds of squealing and a running herd of pigs fade. Leaving me curled in the fetal position on the hot hood of the car, listening to the sound of my panting breaths.
“You okay there, pig wrangler?”
The concern Wyatt had while shouting his warning has shifted into barely contained amusement.
I lift my head and glare through the windshield. Wyatt’s smiling again. He really needs to stop doing that. Especially when it’s at my expense.
“I’m just fine and dandy,” I mutter, peeling myself off the hood. Which is considerably more difficult and painful than jumping on. I am oddly exhausted. My muscles aren’t used to fast-twitch responses or having to hurl my body weight up on a vehicle.
I’m also pretty certain some of my skin is burned onto the hot metal of the hood permanently.
“‘Fine and dandy’? Where did you learn to talk?” he asks. “A 1950s time capsule?”
I’d like to tell Wyatt exactly where he can put a 1950s time capsule, but apparently his hockey stick is too expensive to leave in the woods where I flung it. So instead, I spend the next five minutes looking for it in the surprisingly dense undergrowth.
Which is how, when we arrive at the hospital, we are both admitted; Wyatt for his fever, and me for a particularly alarming case of poison oak that made my whole body swell up.