Horror Fiction
The Northfield Pigman of Vermont (Story #62 in myđź’ŻStory Challenge)
Is he a ghost story? An urban legend? Or is he real?
It happened in the spring of 1971. First, it was just animals disappearing from the farms around Devil’s Washbowl — which is what they call the road around here only it’s too green and pretty a countryside for that old sinner to be sticking his snoot into.
Then a boy vanished, clean out of sight.
Of course, the boy was a teenager and teenage boys are as like to run off as poorly trained dogs. But that didn’t explain the missing animals or the creeping sounds folk heard in the bushes outside of town. That, and the squealing. High and twisty, like someone jamming a live suckling pig into the mouth of a meat grinder.
Jed Perkins and my self figured we needed to get to the bottom of things.
You remember Jed, don’t you? A tall fellow, lanky like corn that has seen too much rain. Old Jed set up on his back stoop with his two hunting dogs — named Panzer-breath and Mauser -and his shotgun.
“It’s the devil’s work,” Jed decided. “But a blast or two of double-ought buck ought to consecrate old Nicky B. Scratch for wonderful certain.”
