They said it was a cougar. I'm not so sure. I remember the…
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They said it was a cougar. I'm not so sure.
I remember the flashing lights. The distant sound of chatter over a radio. The familiar sound of water rocking against old wooden docks.
I stood there holding a backpack by my fingertips, stuck in the moment. I took in the big sunroom that had been converted into a dining area feeding into a kitchen. The lawn had been replaced with an asphalt parking lot.
The house I used to visit as a kid—the one with the old man who’d let me play on his dock—had been replaced by a little lakeside steak joint. I’d wanted to visit it just to see how things had changed. I’d even expected to grab a bite.
I didn’t expect to see a game warden questioning a sobbing, middle-aged blonde waitress who had been unlucky enough to find the body.
I didn’t expect to see the stretcher loading a black bag into the back of a white medical van. I wouldn’t call it traumatic, but something like that…
It sticks with you.
I’d left town ten years ago. It had been maybe five years before that when the whole “cougar” incident happened. Back then nobody believed me but my parents.
Nowadays it’s an accepted fact that there are mountain lions in this state. Not in this specific area, but it’s not unheard of for somebody to find remains—just a few scraps of deer or some other unlucky creature—deeper in the woods.
But they don’t come this close to civilization. Not really. The one or two that have wandered anywhere near this area usually get shot under the excuse of “protecting livestock.” I don’t really agree with it, but most of the hunters around here would jump at the chance to get a pelt like that for their wall.
It was quite the shock to the little community to find out that somebody had seemingly been mauled by one. The guy was apparently working late to prep some steaks for an event later in the week and had failed to notice something creeping up behind him when he went out back to have a smoke.
The cameras didn’t catch most of it. The guy was just standing there enjoying a cowboy-killer when something caught his attention. It shows him leaning forward to look at something, cigarette still in hand, taking a couple steps out of frame—and then he just never showed back up again. She found him just a few feet away. Neck twisted and mangled. A chunk taken out of his arm.
I really could’ve done without those details. The mental image wasn’t pretty.
The warden was a cousin of mine, and he definitely liked to talk—maybe a little too enthusiastically considering what it was about. I guess it got boring dealing with the usual reports of people trying to take a buck out of season or the odd fisherman who “forgot” his license.
His best idea so far was that a local cougar might’ve gotten wounded and was just trying to get one of the pets when the poor guy happened to come across it mid-hunt. Apparently, you starve something enough and it starts to ignore instinct.
Still, after my own run-in, I’d gotten a little fixated on cougars, and one detail stuck with me. They’d found the body so close to what seemed to be the kill site. Cougars don’t really operate like that. They drag kills into cover—somewhere they can eat without worrying about other predators.
If they can drag a deer, why not a guy?
And another thing—there are definitely easier options. There are chicken coops all over the place and even a few people who raise goats a ways out of town. I could’ve just been reading into things too much, but it still nagged at me.
Somewhere in the background I heard some kid bugging his mom about breakfast. I guess the place was pretty popular around here, as cars kept driving by. Might’ve just been rubberneckers.
I had plenty of time to think the whole thing over as I sat down on the old dock. I still remember swimming in those green waters as a kid. I popped in an earbud, leaned back against a post, and took a deep breath of faintly fish-scented air.
The original plan was for me to meet my cousin here, have a bite, and have him drop me off with my folks. But considering what was going on, he’d be too tied up to taxi me around, and my uncle was already miles away driving to a job site. We planned to be down there a week or two, then after the job was done he’d drive us back home.
It didn’t feel like a long wait, but it was still a relief seeing my dad’s faded red pickup easing down the road.
I pulled my earbud out and held out my arms.
It was still awkward hugging him, but it had become a habit after Grandpa passed. You never know when you’re going to see family again. He gave me a firm pat on the back before pulling away and letting me toss my bag into the cab of his truck.
I caught sight of somebody hanging a sign up on the diner’s door—big bold letters reading CLOSED.
The ride home was quiet. I loved him, but we didn’t have much in common. He loved football. I liked video games. We only really got talking when it came to work—building a fence, planning a garden, or doing minor repairs for the local vet.
Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to fill me in on all the local gossip. I played along to keep her happy. She was a good mother, and it was the least I could do.
Then, of course, the topic turned to the incident down by the lake.
Dad brought it up without looking at me, working his way through a forkful of pot roast.
“What was all that about at the diner?”
“Oh—uh. Some guy got attacked, I guess.”
Mom looked up from her phone.
“What?”
Not panicked. Almost excited.
I ran them through what I knew. When I mentioned my cousin, Mom pushed back from the table, chair legs scraping as she brought her phone up to her ear. She’d always been into true crime. This probably felt like one of her stories.
Around another mouthful of roast, Dad asked, “You ready for this weekend?”
I paused, fork halfway to my mouth.
“We’re still doing that?”
He bunched up a napkin and wiped his mouth.
“What, just ’cause there’s a cougar you think we’re gonna skip the pig hunt?”
I wanted to say something back—maybe suggest we put it off—but that wasn’t really an option. I was leaving in two weeks, and one attack didn’t necessarily mean the woods were suddenly any more dangerous than they always were.
See, hogs were getting bad around there. Honestly, an angry hog is probably worse than a cougar. They don’t need a reason like hunger to want you dead—they just have to be in the right mood.
You didn’t need a license to clear them out. They were considered pests. Most folks didn’t even eat them—too many parasites—but some still did.
Dad was one of them. He made a really good roast, and as long as you cooked them thoroughly there really wasn’t much risk.
He went out when work died down, a chance to nab a few of the local sows and fill up the freezer he kept in the carport. After a few years away from home, he’d finally managed to convince me to join him for a hunt.
I wasn’t much of an outdoorsman anymore. I’d had enough of that as a kid. But we hadn’t really done anything together, and it didn’t get much more “father-son bonding time” than hunting.
The rest of the week went by pretty peacefully. Mom had me help her make and jar some homemade pickles. Dad brought me out to a small repair job on a neighbor’s deck for some pocket change.
I even got to see a few of my cousins. It was a bit awkward, but it still felt good to see what used to be a gap-toothed brat married and making an honest living.
Poor Aunt Sarah’s pit bull had apparently wandered off. We made sure to bring her some pickles. She’d had that dog since it was a pup. It had disappeared once or twice before, but never for more than a day. This time it had been gone for nearly a week. I still remember the pictures Mom used to send from family get-togethers—Aunt Sarah always holding that big brown pup’s paw up to wave at the camera.
On a normal hunt, you’d get up really early. Not with hogs. Feral hogs aren’t like your normal barnyard pig—they’re nocturnal.
The best way to hunt them is to bait a place for a few weeks and then set up a tree stand to take them out. Dad had picked a spot deep in the woods, not too far from some wallows.
We went out Friday to toss another bucket of scraps. It gave me a chance to get a good look at the setup. I didn’t really like heights, and it was a solid fifteen feet of climbing a ladder up to what essentially amounted to a camo chair strapped to a tree.
Still, it felt good knowing we were going to be doing something together—especially since that something involved a good excuse not to talk.
I guess he saw how nervous I was staring up at the tree, because he gave the stand a firm shake.
“Still solid.”
On the trek back home, something caught my eye. Off in the distance I saw a bit of a black blur. I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty confident it was a hog’s head poking out from behind some brush.
It didn’t seem to be paying me any special attention. It definitely saw us, but it just wasn’t reacting. Hogs are usually nocturnal, but sightings during the day aren’t exactly unheard of.
Still, it felt weird.
Normally a wild hog will either run or, if you’re unlucky, get aggressive. This one just flicked its ears when Dad stepped on something in the brush that let out a decent crack.
It shifted its head in my direction, and for a moment I think it really looked at me. I paused mid-step as I stared back at the thing. For a good second or two, the only real sound was my dad’s footsteps crunching through the leaf litter.
Just as I opened my mouth to mention it to Dad—who had already gotten a good few feet ahead of me—the pig finally moved, slowly turning away from us and back into the brush.
I took it as a sign that they’d just been getting used to people. Not a great sign, but not unheard of either.
We made some half-hearted attempts at small talk. Dad pointed out a few signs to keep an eye out for—wallows where the pigs rooted up dirt, low marks on trees where they rubbed against them.
I tried to explain a little about a sports game I thought he might like, but I doubt he was really listening.
I was thankful when my old backyard finally came into view. The spot under the big tree still had a few large rocks marking where our old dog had been buried.
I spent the rest of that night doing a little research. I’d never had much reason to look into pigs, but I figured I might as well.
Turns out they’re smart. Like, scary smart. They can learn patterns, figure out how to open latches, and some studies say they might even remember faces.
It made me wonder what the last one I saw had been thinking. Made me wonder if it remembered Dad, and that’s why it didn’t really focus on him—just eyed me.
That felt a little off.
I didn’t love the idea of something I was possibly about to take potshots at remembering my face.
I went to bed that night with my phone plugged in and charging, and I dreamed of old, musty shacks and hog wallows.
The next morning Mom fed us a classic southern breakfast—eggs, bacon, and coffee. Dad still liked his black, but I never took him seriously when he poked fun at me for adding milk to mine.
We spent the day mostly relaxing. Dad watched sports reruns while Mom idly chatted about some woman who’d murdered her husband over something petty.
It went by quick.
I still remember the chirp of Dad’s watch announcing it was finally time to make the trek back into the woods.
It was a solid thirty-minute walk, and we had maybe an hour or so before sundown. When I asked my dad how we were going to haul the meat back, he mentioned leaving a couple of game carts hidden nearby.
It made sense the way he described it, figuring we’d both take a sow each and drag them back on the carts after he field-gutted them.
Once we got about halfway to the feed site, the conversation died down. Dad explained that while the hogs probably wouldn’t hear us this far out, it wasn’t worth risking it.
It was getting dark by the time the bait pile was visible.
Dad didn’t like what he saw.
Coyotes.
Not a lot of them, but enough to make it clear the little bastards had been eating the food left out to draw in the hogs. It turned from a hog hunt to a coyote clearing real fast.
Dad had a temper—not against me or Mom—but he’d definitely thrown something once or twice when angry. Right now, “throwing something” meant chambering a round and drawing a bead on the first coyote he could.
His finger hovered over the trigger. I could visibly see the shake in the gun as he held some quiet debate about shooting or not.
Finally, he lowered the barrel and let out an angry call.
“GIT! GIT! YOU DAMN MUTTS!”
He charged forward, causing the pack to scatter.
I’d say I was worried for him, but coyotes generally aren’t that aggressive toward people, and honestly, seeing any around here is rare. A few towns over they’re a real pest, but for whatever reason they never got this close to our neck of the woods.
Still, every once in a blue moon one would show up.
Our bad luck—it happened to be where we were hunting.
Dad took a few steps and kicked at some half-eaten scraps covered in white-blue mold.
“Little bastards. Hopefully the smell will still draw the hogs.”
He climbed up to his stand, grumbling something about the piss scaring them off. His voice faded slightly amid the light metal \*tunk\* of him working his way up.
I took another glance at the treeline where the coyotes had scattered. I figured that would probably be the worst thing we’d run into all night—just some wild dogs looking for an easy meal.
I’d prove myself wrong.
Dark moved in faster than I thought it would. It felt like I’d just gotten up into the stand when the last bit of visible light faded out and the crickets started chirping so loud I could barely hear the rustle of leaves in the wind.
Dad had given me a high-powered flashlight and said, “When you hear them, wait for me to turn on mine and then start firing.” I figured the light would blind a few.
It felt weird just sitting there. I could barely make out the area around me when the moon peeked out from behind some clouds and threw pale light across a few spots.
I don’t know how long it was exactly, but at some point I got bored and pulled out my phone. I figured if I kept the screen dim and popped in an earbud on low, Dad wouldn’t notice.
I was wrong.
A minute into the first song in my playlist, something small hit my dangling leg from roughly Dad’s direction. I figured he’d seen the phone’s glow, so I turned the screen off.
A minute later, another pebble hit me—harder this time.
I don’t know how he knew. Maybe his hearing was better than I’d given him credit for. I stopped the music and quietly tucked my earbud away.
And the night just went on.
A solid few hours with my legs dangling above what looked like black nothingness.
I never did well with not having something solid beneath me. It always felt like there’d be something there. It’s the same reason I never liked swimming in deep water—that sensation that I don’t really know what’s below me made my skin crawl.
Then we heard it.
The first snort.
The sound of shuffling and huffing as something moved beneath us toward the remains of the bait pile.
I barely heard the leaves rustle. They moved quieter than I could’ve imagined. But everything’s got to breathe, and these things were really taking it in.
The light nearly blinded me as much as it did the hog. I clicked my flashlight on and let my eyes adjust as I tried to get a bead on the first moving blur of black.
It was just two of them.
I couldn’t tell you if they were male or female, or one of each, but it wasn’t the pack Dad had expected—just a pair.
I flinched and pulled the trigger when the first crack of a gunshot made me jolt.
One dropped.
The other squealed—almost screamed—and took off into the night.
I gritted my teeth and let out a low hiss as my mistake hit me.
I’d hit it somewhere in the torso, that I was sure of, but there was no guarantee I’d hit anything vital. The fact I could hear it crashing through the woods made me doubt it.
The guilt crept in fast and hard as I realized I’d probably just sentenced it to a slow bleed-out.
I heard Dad clambering down, the clunk of him climbing the ladder almost obnoxiously loud in the silence.
“C’mon! We gotta go finish her off!”
He sounded excited—moving quicker than I’d seen him in a long time as he passed by his own hog.
I’d barely gotten my feet on the ground when his silhouette started to disappear into the darkness.
“Hurry up!” he called back, his footsteps heavy in the dark, the only real clue to where he’d gone.
I turned my flashlight toward the ground and noticed a splash of red trailing off into the night.
I moved, but the sounds got farther away.
I wasn’t used to navigating through brush like this. More than once my foot caught on something and made me stumble.
Soon I wasn’t listening for the crash of leaves anymore—just following the spatters of red.
I slowed to a walk, taking deep breaths of cool night air as I tried to get my bearings.
I adjusted the strap of my rifle, which had been slipping down my shoulder the entire jog, and tried to make sense of my surroundings.
I was moving toward a thick patch of brambles and trees, and I still couldn’t hear anything other than the obnoxious chirp of crickets.
I wasn’t worried so much about getting lost as I was about Dad wandering out here alone.
A loud crack somewhere off to my right jolted me hard enough that the flashlight slipped out of my sweat-soaked hand.
I held my breath as it hit the forest floor, waiting for the light to cut out and leave me blind.
I only exhaled after realizing it was still shining.
I dropped to a knee and scooped it up.
It took a second, but I spotted the blood trail again. It looked like it led toward the sound, and I hoped it was Dad finishing off the wounded animal.
I broke back into a light jog, struggling to keep the beam on the blood spatters until they led me to a thick wall of trees.
The red pointed toward a break in the treeline where tall saplings filled the gap.
Another sound brought me to a sudden stop, momentum carrying me one step farther.
Crunch.
It came from right ahead—and slightly up.
I let my flashlight trail from the blood on the ground to a particularly tall sapling, just above head height.
The hog’s head poking out from behind it was standing taller still.
Something was held above its mouth, pinched between two fingers.
A paw.
I saw its pupil shrink in the light—quick and reflexive.
I held my beam there for what felt like forever as it slowly slid out of view.
My mouth went dry. My chest tightened.
I took a step back.
A gentle rustle made me snap the light downward.
A snout stuck out from behind the tree, a foot or two off the ground, twitching as it sniffed the air with soft snorts.
I stepped back again and watched it move less fluidly—head bobbing slightly, like a normal pig walking out of the treeline.
It moved just far enough for me to see its eyes.
A shout came from my left—Dad calling my name.
It made me look away for just a second.
When I turned back, the head was gone.
The only sign it had been there was a slight shake of the tree and the distant sound of rustling moving away.
I moved faster then, awkwardly jogging while keeping my head and light fixed on that spot until I’d put some distance between us.
Then I broke into a sprint.
I never looked back. I don’t know if it followed me, but the thought that it might have was enough.
When I saw a break in the dark ahead—Dad shining a beam of white light down on a collapsed hog—I finally found enough sense to yell.
“GO! Go, go, go!”
I half-stumbled into the light. Dad’s face went from a toothy grin to confusion.
I didn’t explain. I just grabbed a fistful of his coat and shoved him along.
To his credit, he listened.
On the way back, he managed to slow me down enough to get me talking, but all it did was convince him I’d found a cougar’s kill up in a tree.
By the time we got home, Mom was already asleep, and Dad decided we’d go back for the kills in the morning.
I didn’t get any sleep.
We went back at sunrise.
We tracked our way to where I’d been. There were two blood trails. One led to my hog.
The other led to the tree.
There was still half a coyote behind it.
Dad took that as more proof of a cougar.
Another person got mauled yesterday—the Vietnamese guy who ran the local chicken house.
Mauled inside his own coop. None of the chickens were touched.
Something got to him inside the coop.
But left the chickens.
#entertainment
source
I remember the flashing lights. The distant sound of chatter over a radio. The familiar sound of water rocking against old wooden docks.
I stood there holding a backpack by my fingertips, stuck in the moment. I took in the big sunroom that had been converted into a dining area feeding into a kitchen. The lawn had been replaced with an asphalt parking lot.
The house I used to visit as a kid—the one with the old man who’d let me play on his dock—had been replaced by a little lakeside steak joint. I’d wanted to visit it just to see how things had changed. I’d even expected to grab a bite.
I didn’t expect to see a game warden questioning a sobbing, middle-aged blonde waitress who had been unlucky enough to find the body.
I didn’t expect to see the stretcher loading a black bag into the back of a white medical van. I wouldn’t call it traumatic, but something like that…
It sticks with you.
I’d left town ten years ago. It had been maybe five years before that when the whole “cougar” incident happened. Back then nobody believed me but my parents.
Nowadays it’s an accepted fact that there are mountain lions in this state. Not in this specific area, but it’s not unheard of for somebody to find remains—just a few scraps of deer or some other unlucky creature—deeper in the woods.
But they don’t come this close to civilization. Not really. The one or two that have wandered anywhere near this area usually get shot under the excuse of “protecting livestock.” I don’t really agree with it, but most of the hunters around here would jump at the chance to get a pelt like that for their wall.
It was quite the shock to the little community to find out that somebody had seemingly been mauled by one. The guy was apparently working late to prep some steaks for an event later in the week and had failed to notice something creeping up behind him when he went out back to have a smoke.
The cameras didn’t catch most of it. The guy was just standing there enjoying a cowboy-killer when something caught his attention. It shows him leaning forward to look at something, cigarette still in hand, taking a couple steps out of frame—and then he just never showed back up again. She found him just a few feet away. Neck twisted and mangled. A chunk taken out of his arm.
I really could’ve done without those details. The mental image wasn’t pretty.
The warden was a cousin of mine, and he definitely liked to talk—maybe a little too enthusiastically considering what it was about. I guess it got boring dealing with the usual reports of people trying to take a buck out of season or the odd fisherman who “forgot” his license.
His best idea so far was that a local cougar might’ve gotten wounded and was just trying to get one of the pets when the poor guy happened to come across it mid-hunt. Apparently, you starve something enough and it starts to ignore instinct.
Still, after my own run-in, I’d gotten a little fixated on cougars, and one detail stuck with me. They’d found the body so close to what seemed to be the kill site. Cougars don’t really operate like that. They drag kills into cover—somewhere they can eat without worrying about other predators.
If they can drag a deer, why not a guy?
And another thing—there are definitely easier options. There are chicken coops all over the place and even a few people who raise goats a ways out of town. I could’ve just been reading into things too much, but it still nagged at me.
Somewhere in the background I heard some kid bugging his mom about breakfast. I guess the place was pretty popular around here, as cars kept driving by. Might’ve just been rubberneckers.
I had plenty of time to think the whole thing over as I sat down on the old dock. I still remember swimming in those green waters as a kid. I popped in an earbud, leaned back against a post, and took a deep breath of faintly fish-scented air.
The original plan was for me to meet my cousin here, have a bite, and have him drop me off with my folks. But considering what was going on, he’d be too tied up to taxi me around, and my uncle was already miles away driving to a job site. We planned to be down there a week or two, then after the job was done he’d drive us back home.
It didn’t feel like a long wait, but it was still a relief seeing my dad’s faded red pickup easing down the road.
I pulled my earbud out and held out my arms.
It was still awkward hugging him, but it had become a habit after Grandpa passed. You never know when you’re going to see family again. He gave me a firm pat on the back before pulling away and letting me toss my bag into the cab of his truck.
I caught sight of somebody hanging a sign up on the diner’s door—big bold letters reading CLOSED.
The ride home was quiet. I loved him, but we didn’t have much in common. He loved football. I liked video games. We only really got talking when it came to work—building a fence, planning a garden, or doing minor repairs for the local vet.
Mom, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to fill me in on all the local gossip. I played along to keep her happy. She was a good mother, and it was the least I could do.
Then, of course, the topic turned to the incident down by the lake.
Dad brought it up without looking at me, working his way through a forkful of pot roast.
“What was all that about at the diner?”
“Oh—uh. Some guy got attacked, I guess.”
Mom looked up from her phone.
“What?”
Not panicked. Almost excited.
I ran them through what I knew. When I mentioned my cousin, Mom pushed back from the table, chair legs scraping as she brought her phone up to her ear. She’d always been into true crime. This probably felt like one of her stories.
Around another mouthful of roast, Dad asked, “You ready for this weekend?”
I paused, fork halfway to my mouth.
“We’re still doing that?”
He bunched up a napkin and wiped his mouth.
“What, just ’cause there’s a cougar you think we’re gonna skip the pig hunt?”
I wanted to say something back—maybe suggest we put it off—but that wasn’t really an option. I was leaving in two weeks, and one attack didn’t necessarily mean the woods were suddenly any more dangerous than they always were.
See, hogs were getting bad around there. Honestly, an angry hog is probably worse than a cougar. They don’t need a reason like hunger to want you dead—they just have to be in the right mood.
You didn’t need a license to clear them out. They were considered pests. Most folks didn’t even eat them—too many parasites—but some still did.
Dad was one of them. He made a really good roast, and as long as you cooked them thoroughly there really wasn’t much risk.
He went out when work died down, a chance to nab a few of the local sows and fill up the freezer he kept in the carport. After a few years away from home, he’d finally managed to convince me to join him for a hunt.
I wasn’t much of an outdoorsman anymore. I’d had enough of that as a kid. But we hadn’t really done anything together, and it didn’t get much more “father-son bonding time” than hunting.
The rest of the week went by pretty peacefully. Mom had me help her make and jar some homemade pickles. Dad brought me out to a small repair job on a neighbor’s deck for some pocket change.
I even got to see a few of my cousins. It was a bit awkward, but it still felt good to see what used to be a gap-toothed brat married and making an honest living.
Poor Aunt Sarah’s pit bull had apparently wandered off. We made sure to bring her some pickles. She’d had that dog since it was a pup. It had disappeared once or twice before, but never for more than a day. This time it had been gone for nearly a week. I still remember the pictures Mom used to send from family get-togethers—Aunt Sarah always holding that big brown pup’s paw up to wave at the camera.
On a normal hunt, you’d get up really early. Not with hogs. Feral hogs aren’t like your normal barnyard pig—they’re nocturnal.
The best way to hunt them is to bait a place for a few weeks and then set up a tree stand to take them out. Dad had picked a spot deep in the woods, not too far from some wallows.
We went out Friday to toss another bucket of scraps. It gave me a chance to get a good look at the setup. I didn’t really like heights, and it was a solid fifteen feet of climbing a ladder up to what essentially amounted to a camo chair strapped to a tree.
Still, it felt good knowing we were going to be doing something together—especially since that something involved a good excuse not to talk.
I guess he saw how nervous I was staring up at the tree, because he gave the stand a firm shake.
“Still solid.”
On the trek back home, something caught my eye. Off in the distance I saw a bit of a black blur. I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty confident it was a hog’s head poking out from behind some brush.
It didn’t seem to be paying me any special attention. It definitely saw us, but it just wasn’t reacting. Hogs are usually nocturnal, but sightings during the day aren’t exactly unheard of.
Still, it felt weird.
Normally a wild hog will either run or, if you’re unlucky, get aggressive. This one just flicked its ears when Dad stepped on something in the brush that let out a decent crack.
It shifted its head in my direction, and for a moment I think it really looked at me. I paused mid-step as I stared back at the thing. For a good second or two, the only real sound was my dad’s footsteps crunching through the leaf litter.
Just as I opened my mouth to mention it to Dad—who had already gotten a good few feet ahead of me—the pig finally moved, slowly turning away from us and back into the brush.
I took it as a sign that they’d just been getting used to people. Not a great sign, but not unheard of either.
We made some half-hearted attempts at small talk. Dad pointed out a few signs to keep an eye out for—wallows where the pigs rooted up dirt, low marks on trees where they rubbed against them.
I tried to explain a little about a sports game I thought he might like, but I doubt he was really listening.
I was thankful when my old backyard finally came into view. The spot under the big tree still had a few large rocks marking where our old dog had been buried.
I spent the rest of that night doing a little research. I’d never had much reason to look into pigs, but I figured I might as well.
Turns out they’re smart. Like, scary smart. They can learn patterns, figure out how to open latches, and some studies say they might even remember faces.
It made me wonder what the last one I saw had been thinking. Made me wonder if it remembered Dad, and that’s why it didn’t really focus on him—just eyed me.
That felt a little off.
I didn’t love the idea of something I was possibly about to take potshots at remembering my face.
I went to bed that night with my phone plugged in and charging, and I dreamed of old, musty shacks and hog wallows.
The next morning Mom fed us a classic southern breakfast—eggs, bacon, and coffee. Dad still liked his black, but I never took him seriously when he poked fun at me for adding milk to mine.
We spent the day mostly relaxing. Dad watched sports reruns while Mom idly chatted about some woman who’d murdered her husband over something petty.
It went by quick.
I still remember the chirp of Dad’s watch announcing it was finally time to make the trek back into the woods.
It was a solid thirty-minute walk, and we had maybe an hour or so before sundown. When I asked my dad how we were going to haul the meat back, he mentioned leaving a couple of game carts hidden nearby.
It made sense the way he described it, figuring we’d both take a sow each and drag them back on the carts after he field-gutted them.
Once we got about halfway to the feed site, the conversation died down. Dad explained that while the hogs probably wouldn’t hear us this far out, it wasn’t worth risking it.
It was getting dark by the time the bait pile was visible.
Dad didn’t like what he saw.
Coyotes.
Not a lot of them, but enough to make it clear the little bastards had been eating the food left out to draw in the hogs. It turned from a hog hunt to a coyote clearing real fast.
Dad had a temper—not against me or Mom—but he’d definitely thrown something once or twice when angry. Right now, “throwing something” meant chambering a round and drawing a bead on the first coyote he could.
His finger hovered over the trigger. I could visibly see the shake in the gun as he held some quiet debate about shooting or not.
Finally, he lowered the barrel and let out an angry call.
“GIT! GIT! YOU DAMN MUTTS!”
He charged forward, causing the pack to scatter.
I’d say I was worried for him, but coyotes generally aren’t that aggressive toward people, and honestly, seeing any around here is rare. A few towns over they’re a real pest, but for whatever reason they never got this close to our neck of the woods.
Still, every once in a blue moon one would show up.
Our bad luck—it happened to be where we were hunting.
Dad took a few steps and kicked at some half-eaten scraps covered in white-blue mold.
“Little bastards. Hopefully the smell will still draw the hogs.”
He climbed up to his stand, grumbling something about the piss scaring them off. His voice faded slightly amid the light metal \*tunk\* of him working his way up.
I took another glance at the treeline where the coyotes had scattered. I figured that would probably be the worst thing we’d run into all night—just some wild dogs looking for an easy meal.
I’d prove myself wrong.
Dark moved in faster than I thought it would. It felt like I’d just gotten up into the stand when the last bit of visible light faded out and the crickets started chirping so loud I could barely hear the rustle of leaves in the wind.
Dad had given me a high-powered flashlight and said, “When you hear them, wait for me to turn on mine and then start firing.” I figured the light would blind a few.
It felt weird just sitting there. I could barely make out the area around me when the moon peeked out from behind some clouds and threw pale light across a few spots.
I don’t know how long it was exactly, but at some point I got bored and pulled out my phone. I figured if I kept the screen dim and popped in an earbud on low, Dad wouldn’t notice.
I was wrong.
A minute into the first song in my playlist, something small hit my dangling leg from roughly Dad’s direction. I figured he’d seen the phone’s glow, so I turned the screen off.
A minute later, another pebble hit me—harder this time.
I don’t know how he knew. Maybe his hearing was better than I’d given him credit for. I stopped the music and quietly tucked my earbud away.
And the night just went on.
A solid few hours with my legs dangling above what looked like black nothingness.
I never did well with not having something solid beneath me. It always felt like there’d be something there. It’s the same reason I never liked swimming in deep water—that sensation that I don’t really know what’s below me made my skin crawl.
Then we heard it.
The first snort.
The sound of shuffling and huffing as something moved beneath us toward the remains of the bait pile.
I barely heard the leaves rustle. They moved quieter than I could’ve imagined. But everything’s got to breathe, and these things were really taking it in.
The light nearly blinded me as much as it did the hog. I clicked my flashlight on and let my eyes adjust as I tried to get a bead on the first moving blur of black.
It was just two of them.
I couldn’t tell you if they were male or female, or one of each, but it wasn’t the pack Dad had expected—just a pair.
I flinched and pulled the trigger when the first crack of a gunshot made me jolt.
One dropped.
The other squealed—almost screamed—and took off into the night.
I gritted my teeth and let out a low hiss as my mistake hit me.
I’d hit it somewhere in the torso, that I was sure of, but there was no guarantee I’d hit anything vital. The fact I could hear it crashing through the woods made me doubt it.
The guilt crept in fast and hard as I realized I’d probably just sentenced it to a slow bleed-out.
I heard Dad clambering down, the clunk of him climbing the ladder almost obnoxiously loud in the silence.
“C’mon! We gotta go finish her off!”
He sounded excited—moving quicker than I’d seen him in a long time as he passed by his own hog.
I’d barely gotten my feet on the ground when his silhouette started to disappear into the darkness.
“Hurry up!” he called back, his footsteps heavy in the dark, the only real clue to where he’d gone.
I turned my flashlight toward the ground and noticed a splash of red trailing off into the night.
I moved, but the sounds got farther away.
I wasn’t used to navigating through brush like this. More than once my foot caught on something and made me stumble.
Soon I wasn’t listening for the crash of leaves anymore—just following the spatters of red.
I slowed to a walk, taking deep breaths of cool night air as I tried to get my bearings.
I adjusted the strap of my rifle, which had been slipping down my shoulder the entire jog, and tried to make sense of my surroundings.
I was moving toward a thick patch of brambles and trees, and I still couldn’t hear anything other than the obnoxious chirp of crickets.
I wasn’t worried so much about getting lost as I was about Dad wandering out here alone.
A loud crack somewhere off to my right jolted me hard enough that the flashlight slipped out of my sweat-soaked hand.
I held my breath as it hit the forest floor, waiting for the light to cut out and leave me blind.
I only exhaled after realizing it was still shining.
I dropped to a knee and scooped it up.
It took a second, but I spotted the blood trail again. It looked like it led toward the sound, and I hoped it was Dad finishing off the wounded animal.
I broke back into a light jog, struggling to keep the beam on the blood spatters until they led me to a thick wall of trees.
The red pointed toward a break in the treeline where tall saplings filled the gap.
Another sound brought me to a sudden stop, momentum carrying me one step farther.
Crunch.
It came from right ahead—and slightly up.
I let my flashlight trail from the blood on the ground to a particularly tall sapling, just above head height.
The hog’s head poking out from behind it was standing taller still.
Something was held above its mouth, pinched between two fingers.
A paw.
I saw its pupil shrink in the light—quick and reflexive.
I held my beam there for what felt like forever as it slowly slid out of view.
My mouth went dry. My chest tightened.
I took a step back.
A gentle rustle made me snap the light downward.
A snout stuck out from behind the tree, a foot or two off the ground, twitching as it sniffed the air with soft snorts.
I stepped back again and watched it move less fluidly—head bobbing slightly, like a normal pig walking out of the treeline.
It moved just far enough for me to see its eyes.
A shout came from my left—Dad calling my name.
It made me look away for just a second.
When I turned back, the head was gone.
The only sign it had been there was a slight shake of the tree and the distant sound of rustling moving away.
I moved faster then, awkwardly jogging while keeping my head and light fixed on that spot until I’d put some distance between us.
Then I broke into a sprint.
I never looked back. I don’t know if it followed me, but the thought that it might have was enough.
When I saw a break in the dark ahead—Dad shining a beam of white light down on a collapsed hog—I finally found enough sense to yell.
“GO! Go, go, go!”
I half-stumbled into the light. Dad’s face went from a toothy grin to confusion.
I didn’t explain. I just grabbed a fistful of his coat and shoved him along.
To his credit, he listened.
On the way back, he managed to slow me down enough to get me talking, but all it did was convince him I’d found a cougar’s kill up in a tree.
By the time we got home, Mom was already asleep, and Dad decided we’d go back for the kills in the morning.
I didn’t get any sleep.
We went back at sunrise.
We tracked our way to where I’d been. There were two blood trails. One led to my hog.
The other led to the tree.
There was still half a coyote behind it.
Dad took that as more proof of a cougar.
Another person got mauled yesterday—the Vietnamese guy who ran the local chicken house.
Mauled inside his own coop. None of the chickens were touched.
Something got to him inside the coop.
But left the chickens.
#entertainment
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