The Pig Man

“I still have nightmares about my mother,” I told my friend Zack on a frigid October night in downtown Mystic. “She’s running through the Darién jungle from a man dressed head to toe in camouflage. His face is shadowy and deformed. I can’t see my mother’s face, but I can hear her scream.”

Zack’s face was as pale as mine, flushed with goosebumps. “I…don’t know what to say.”

I kept the rest of the dream to myself because it was too terrifying to put into words. I never met my mother or even saw a picture of her. In my dreams, however, I saw her braided hair, mestizo skin, and unblinking brown eyes so vividly that I felt like I had met her many times before. For years, I had the same dream and sinking feeling that the man chasing her was my father.

“You don’t have to say anything. I’m just letting you know before-”

“Is that why we’re-”

I nodded.

“Why can’t you just tell me.”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t have come,” I said firmly.

He shrugged as we passed Mystic’s iconic pizza restaurant. The streets were surprisingly sparse for a Saturday night so close to Halloween. Only a dozen groups of people, including a noisy, argumentative family, passed through the quaint shops, eateries, and bars.

“You’ve been sounding a lot like Jordan lately.”

I grimaced. “If you had the experience I just had, you’d believe in the supernatural too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said shakily. “You and Jade went through a lot last month. How is she?”

I paused and studied Zack’s expression to see if he was genuine or asking out of obligation. His glassy, darting blue eyes let me know he cared but was weary and anxious about the night ahead. I longed to tell my anxious friend more, but didn’t want to scare him off. I lured him to Mystic on the pretense of needing help with a family issue, which wasn’t completely a lie, but enough to make him come along. For a long time, Zack insisted on helping me learn more about my biological family when other people, including the woman I called “mom,” insisted I “live and let live,” especially after the ancestry test I sent away for had muddled results at best.

Zack was the only friend besides my ex-girlfriend who supported my continued search for answers. He was the only friend who listened to my dreams and didn’t attempt to psychoanalyze them. Unlike the others, he didn’t give me some cliched bullshit about my “real family being here.” If he knew what I meant by “family,” however, he’d leave me astray like the rest of my friends. I thought briefly about inviting Jade along, but despite her immense capacity to care, I didn’t want to burden her after her recent stay at a psychological trauma clinic. My problems seemed miniscule by comparison. They bothered me endlessly, however, and I didn’t want to face them alone.

“She’ll be in therapy for a while, but she’s doing better.”

“I’m so glad. Are you trying to get back together with-sorry. Never mind. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay…but I’m not telling you anymore until we get there.”

“What’s the harm? You dragged me out here, Miguel. Do you think I’m going to head back now? Um, where are we?”

“Okay, fine,” I said, stopping in front of a shoddy, brick apartment building. From my jacket pocket, I withdrew the white envelope that someone left on my doorstep two days prior. Ink markings covered the body of the envelope. The markings looked like deer tracks, but were broader and had rounded front toes. Somewhere in the distance, a seagull cawed. Zack glanced briefly into the sky and then unfurled the note inside, his eyes squinting, then widening.

“‘The Pig Man wants his Piglet Back.’ What the hell? It looks like a serial killer wrote it with all the letters cut from magazines or something. When did you get this?”

“A week ago.” I pulled my jacket over me as a cool breeze chilled my bones. “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I posted a pic of the letter on a message board. A woman who went by BlueWolf77 sent me a link to the legend of the Pig Man, and said she was a victim.”

“What the hell is that?”

I glanced over my shoulder as a woman carrying a tote bag from The Black Dog store shuffled past us. “It’s unnerving. Sometime in the seventies, a group of teenagers saw a woman being drowned by a man with a pig-like face and never resurfaced. The woman DM’d me and let me know she was the victim and got the note too. She invited me to this place to-”

“Ugh. Really, Miguel? This is why you dragged me here. I’m here to support you but…ugh. Never mind. What does some folk-tale from the seventies have to do with you and how do you know you could trust her?”

“The night after I got the note, I had the same dream but this time, I could see the man’s deformity, his pig-like snout. It was terrifying. Also, I don’t know if I could trust her but she sent me a picture of the note she received. It had the same…look, I don’t even have to look at you to know you think I’m crazy…”

“You are crazy. Let’s just go inside…”

I knocked on the outside of the metal door before realizing where the buzzer and intercom system was; as I pressed the lone button, Zack muttered, “I can’t believe you think a Pig Man is your daddy…” I snarled as the voice of a late-middle-aged woman answered: “YES?”

“It’s Miguel Boyd. I-”

Before I could say anything more, I heard a buzz and an unlatching of the door. I opened the door to a dimly lit hallway lined with torn sculpted carpeting. Despite the building being multi-leveled, the staircase wasn’t accessible from this side. There were only three rooms and a Mr. Pibb machine at the end of the hallway that looked like it hadn’t been working for years. The first two rooms were unnumbered. The last door numbered “1C” in faded black script was left cracked a few inches, the TV glow flickering through its crevice. I hesitantly opened the door. Zack, who was checking something on his phone, followed.

“It’s nice to see you,” the late-middle-aged woman said from behind a rustic wooden table. Next to her sat a balding man in an oversized, cape-back shirt. Across from her sat a woman with beautiful almond eyes and silky black hair draped in a blue duffle coat. They looked no older than their late thirties, or early forties. Even the woman known as BlueWolf77 had traces of red in her silver hair; her broad shoulders gave off the impression that she was well-preserved for her age, and maybe athletic too. “I see you brought a friend too. Won’t don’t you have a seat?”

“Okay…”

We took the two lone chairs at the far end of the table. The three of them stared blankly at us. The glow from the old, boxy television was the only source of light in the room, which felt quite crowded with the large sectional and half-kitchen intersecting it.

“My name’s Donna Michaelson. Next to me is Devin, and across from me is Mae. Like you, we all received the same note.”

They subtly waved at us as Donna lay the notes on the table. Each note had a similar style of lettering, but Donna’s had blood-smeared hoof prints across the body.

“Who sent these to us?” I asked, trembling. “And why did you invite us here?”

“They’re a cult,” Mei said softly.

“An old cult. We don’t know where they are though,” Devin gruffly followed.

“We know exactly where they are,” Donna said, slamming a palm atop the table. “We don’t need to speculate. They’re called the Miracle of the Swine. They have roots all over the world, including several chapters in the States, eastern Europe, Asia, and even South America. They have a church near the Bascule Bridge a little ways from here.”

“I can’t find anything online about them,” Zack said, looking up from his phone. “I found some bible verse about god exercising demons from humans to swine though. It’s really-”

“Not everything you can find online.” Donna’s words were cold along with the atmosphere in the room. Devin and Mei were tough to read, practically stoic as if they were numb from some untold trauma. “They’ve been around for years-”

“I’m sorry. What does this have to do with me? Why are you telling me all this? Why did I get the note?”

The others looked off to the side as the woman sighed. “In those messages, I asked you about your background for a reason. When you told me you were born somewhere in Venezuela, it took me back to when we had a chapter there. Your mother or father must have been a member. I don’t know how to put this gently, but they’re going after survivors and their offspring.”

“‘We’? Wait. How…how do you know this?” My fingers were trembling. Zack and I wore the same pale expressions. The others were stone-faced.

“I…was a member. As for Devin and Mae, their fathers were members too.”

Donna got up from the table and headed over to a hanging shelf over the television set where several photo albums resided. Standing upright, she looked nearly six feet in height, which took me by surprise, and Zack too, based on his expression. I shuddered at the thought of the type of monster that could bring this woman to her knees and attempt to drown her. She pulled a bright textile album from the middle column and laid it on the table. It read: PECCARY CHAPTER-1976.

“There were different chapters all over the world. We were the Peccary Chapter,” she said, opening the album to the page of three men and two women standing in front of a domed hut surrounded by sugarcane crops. The crops towered over the hut. My eyes locked onto the woman with mestizo skin and braided hair. Zack pointed frantically at a man with a bulbous head and glasses. They were all wearing brown, dirty robes with hoof print patterns. “That was me and those men were Mae and Devin’s dads, Richard and Vick, the best of friends. What’s wrong, boys?”

“That looks like my Uncle Cliff,” Zack said faintly. “He was my dad’s brother and we didn’t talk much about him.”

“That… looks like the woman I dream about,” I followed hesitantly.

Donna, tracing her fingers over the man and woman replied, “It very well could be. He went by a different name back then, Larry. Many people changed their names when they left the cult. And this, Miguel, is Daniela. She could very well be your mother. We lost touch because we left the next year to set up a chapter in the States. I’d like to think they escaped.”

I turned to Zack whose eyelids were twitching. “Is that your uncle who’s in the asylum and doesn’t speak?”

He nodded.

“They could be your mom and uncle, but we don’t know for sure. We set up a chapter in upstate New York after we left. By then, Richard, Vick, and I escaped to our families.”

“Why did you escape?” As Zack asked this, we were all stone-faced, staring as Donna struggled to find her words. Her eyes were miles away, her face draining paler and paler.

“That year, we moved up far enough in the ranks to discover the actual rituals. They made us wear masks of pig faces, only…the material was real…carved from the animal’s skull. They said we were all god’s swine and needed to cast our demons out of ourselves and onto a herd of pigs, the lower order members.”

“What did that mean?” I asked hesitantly.

“Human sacrifice…” Tears welled in Donna’s eyes, but for only a brief moment as she composed herself. “We all escaped to our respective families. I lived with mine in Mystic for a while until they found me. They tried to drown me under the bridge. I escaped but I know they’ve been looking for me since and this letter confirms it. I’ve managed a bed and breakfast down the street for years. I’ve tried to get on with my life but-”

“Now, they’re…looking for us because they… got to our dads a few years ago,” Mae muttered.

“What do you expect us to do?”

“We have to stop them,” Devin said, his lower lip trembling. “They are not only going after the survivors but their offspring and possibly even nieces and nephews.”

“What do you expect us to do?” Zack repeated in a slightly more mortified way. “They sound incredibly dangerous and if they are right in downtown Mystic, why don’t we just report them?!”

Donna laughed, turning over her letter. For the first time, I noticed some indescribably small font that I had missed the first time. “Don’t you think we’ve tried that? They’ve evaded the authorities for years. There’s only one way. The note says the ‘Pig Man wants his Piglet back.’ On the back… mine says, ‘Return them to the Sty or Die.”’

“Who is the Pig Man?” we asked in unison, not knowing if we’d dread that answer. I wanted desperately to ask about my dream, but knew it wasn’t the time or place. I wanted to ask if he could be my father but wondered if he would be too old.

“Their leader. Beyond that, I don’t even know,” she said hushedly. She turned to the last page of the album, which held a lone photograph of a mass crowd wearing pig-faced masks. Some of them held torches, others nooses. “He never spoke and we never saw him. But in every service, the chaplain mentioned him as ‘the Father of Sty.’”

“This is crazy…” Zack said, standing up from his chair. “Look, Donna, I believe you but what you’re asking from us is way too dangerous. I’m sorry…”

Just as I nodded and stood up as well, Devin put an arm around my shoulder. Mei stood by the door, not blocking it, but folding her arms.

“We understand.” Mei’s voice was soft-spoken, her even softer eyes gesturing for us to sit down and stay. “We don’t blame you at all if you leave, but we don’t want any more victims. Our dads died a senseless death. Zack, your uncle didn’t deserve to go to an asylum and Miguel, your mom shouldn’t have had to endure what she did.”

“I appreciate that.” We nodded and sat back down in our chairs. Donna hugged both of us and whispered “Thank you” before sitting back down herself. “What were they like?” I asked, almost teary-eyed myself. “If… they were who we think they are.”

“Daniella didn’t speak much English but she was a beautiful soul and a wonderful artist,” Donna unrolled her sleeve, revealing a hemp bracelet with beads of many colors. “She made these all the time in the compound. When we joined, we thought it was like the Peace Corps. We thought we were truly helping people like her. And Zack, Larry was clumsy as hell. He couldn’t do any of the manual labor but he was a sweet man and a hell of an accountant.”

“I hope it’s her and I hope she’s okay,” I mumbled. I must have been loud enough for Zack to hear as he nodded, saying the same about his uncle. Daniella looked unmistakably like the woman in my dreams. My mind was racing. What hell did she go through to escape? How was she able to give me up safely? Most importantly, where was she now?

Devin turned the page to a picture of Richard and Vick sitting under a massive nut tree. He and Mei looked mournfully at the photograph of their smiling, young fathers adorned in those foolish robes.

“My father was a man of few words but a damn good man,” Devin said leaning into the table. “He was a damn good lawyer too. He and Vick went into law together, representing survivors just like them.”

Mei sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “They were the best attorneys and won plenty of cases. They fell upon tough times and…sorry.”

She took a moment to compose herself, wiping tears away.

“Look.” Devin leaned in even more, slanting his eyebrows. “They fell upon tough times and the cops found them dead in their office about a year ago. They ruled it a suicide but they wouldn’t do that to their families. There’s no way! There was no note or anything…”

Donna hugged both of them and whispered hoarsely, “They didn’t kill themselves. They were set up. I’m sure of it. Not another person will be hurt under my watch.”

Zack and I exchanged worried glances as Donna adjusted something underneath her jacket. Donna rose from her chair and headed to the door. “We will attend a gathering tonight. There’s another old building outside of the Bascule Bridge. Zack, it won’t be as dangerous as you think, not if we follow the proper protocol.”

With those words, we followed Donna into the cold, sparsely populated streets of downtown Mystic. We walked in silence, lost in thought. I could tell Zack was thinking about his poor uncle. For Mei and Devin, their trembling lips let me know that they were just as uneasy about this plan as we were. They seemed to trust whatever the plan was. Donna, on the other hand, kept her fists clenched in her jacket pocket as we trudged on toward the even older brick building.

When we arrived at the brick building, Donna approached a dimly lit hole-in-the-wall shop. A wooden sign hung over it with the words Divine Crafts etched in black font. White doves were perched on the “D” and “C” respectively. Next to Divine Crafts were closed shops with suspiciously similar names: Ezekiel’s Bakery and Wise Men Books. We didn’t know if the shop was open until we saw a bald man in a flannel shirt and wire-framed glasses sitting, nodding off at an old stamped metal cash register.

“Good evening,” the man said, eyes widening as we all stepped into the quaint shop. There were shelves lined with biblical figurines, clay molds of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as well as some glass mugs of the Garden of Eden. The rest of the molds I didn’t recognize, even though I spent the better part of my childhood in Sunday School. “What brings you here so late? Looking for anything in-”

Donna lay her note on the counter next to the register and motioned for us to do the same. Shakily, we piled the notes on top of one another. “The piglets have returned to their sty.”

“Shit…” Zack said aloud. Luckily, I was the only one who heard.

“He’s been waiting for you.” The shopkeeper’s demeanor turned from glee to complete graveness as he dimmed the lights in the shop to a low glow, flipping the “open” sign on the door. The man led us to a door adjacent to the bathroom labeled “storage.” He opened the door to a switchback staircase that wound into complete darkness. We couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead of us. We hesitantly stepped inside the small space, trying to gauge Donna for any type of lead. She was glancing down at her shoes, fingers clasped, as if she were ready to pray.

Zack and I looked at the others who were doing the same and uneasily followed suit. With our heads cast down, I became increasingly aware of my breathing as the man placed a white cotton robe over my head. I dared not look up as he slipped something over my face. I was too panicked to scream as a mask tightened over my head, engulfing me in complete darkness. It felt tough to the touch, almost leathery, with tiny hair follicles brushing against my constricted skin. Two slanted holes perforated enough room for me to barely see from. Two smaller ones below enabled me to smell the foulness of the mask, an unsettling mix of sweat, and the slight scent of manure. It took all my willpower not to vomit into the mask.

“As it is written in the book Matthew.” The man’s voice reminded me of the old, bellowing priest I nodded off to for many Sundays as a child. It was somehow both calming and downright haunting. “When Jesus ‘arrived at the other side in the region of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men coming from the tombs met him.’ We are all those demon-possessed men. Tonight, we wear the flesh as a symbol of the swine Jesus cast their demons into. Amen.”

All of us except Donna whispered “amen” in equally terrified tones. Donna, however, said it loudly, the way she probably had for years. Our collective group was now adorned in pig masks and white robes. We looked like we were heading to a Halloween party or extras from a horror movie. The realness of the ceremony hadn’t struck me yet as we followed the shopkeeper down into the darkness. From the eye holes, I could see even less in front of me and accidentally bumped into Zack, who was shaking from the waist down. I could hear him hyperventilating through his mask. This was no place for my friend with an anxiety disorder. Equal amounts of regret and fear washed over me as we stepped into a long and narrow room lined with people in their robes and masks who sat stiffly in their wooden chairs.

“The piglets have returned to their sty!” the shopkeeper bellowed in a tone that sounded creepily joyful. The robed parishioners stared straight ahead, completely unfazed by his announcement. He gestured for us to take the seats in the last aisle as he made his way to the front of the parishioners. As we sat, Zack and I briefly looked at each other, as if we were wondering the same thought about him being the Pig Man. Then, we looked up frightfully at the shopkeeper as he stood between two lone torches fixed on metal braziers. There was a hand-carved totem pole behind him with a large, round figure punctured atop the pole. The figure was too eclipsed by shadows for us to see. “This return and our sacrifice tonight will please our Father in heaven as well as our Father of Sty that awaits us tonight.”

“WE CAST OUR DEMONS UNTO THEM!” The words of the parishioners, and Donna, echoed through the hollow room. I didn’t look at Zack but could hear the sound of his seat rocking back and forth. I put an arm around his shoulder to calm him and he apologized under his breath.

“As chaplain of our faithful sty, I declare unto thee that our sacrifice is good.”

“AND WORTHY OF OUR FATHER’S LOVE,” they chanted.

The chaplain stepped aside to reveal a wooden totem pole carved into the long body of a pig in varying shades of pink and tan. Atop the pole sat what looked like the head of a brown boar. Only, underneath the head was a human neck with blood dripping from its endings. The four of us cocked our heads, trying not to vomit. Donna subtly adjusted something under her robe.

“Now, we invite our brothers and sisters of this holy gathering, the Miracle of the Swine, to receive our lord’s miracle.”

The parishioners lined up behind one another to take an offering from the head. We lined up behind them, trying to mimic their stiffened posture. One by one, they touched the nose of the boar, sliding their fingers down to its bloody neck. Once a parishioner rolled his or her finger in the blood, the chaplain kissed their forehead, and they returned to their chair, their bodies showing almost no emotion. When Donna reached the front of the line, she stepped toward the pole and placed her left hand on the head, running her finger down to the bloody neck. With her right hand, she pulled a black object with steel framing from underneath her robe.

“Your days of sacrifice are over,” Donna said coldly, pointing the threaded barrel from a Glock at the chaplain’s head. A collective scream rang out among the parishioners as they ran toward the staircase, knocking over chairs and falling over each other. We were too fright-stricken to move as she fingered the trigger. “You and the Pig Man have destroyed too many lives.”

The chaplain let out a low, hoarse laugh as Donna unlatched the safety. “Our Father of Sty will be pleased. You foolish woman. Did you forget the most important verse? When Jesus cast the demons into the swine, he told them to ‘Go!” So they came out and went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and died in the water.”’

Suddenly, the torch flames dissipated. This was followed by the sound of Donna’s Glock hitting the floor and firing as it slid across. We screamed collectively as the spark of gunfire briefly ignited the room. Then, there was pitch blackness. In the blackness, we heard the monstrous sounds of grunting and squealing. The others gasped as the snorts became more audible. One by one, they collapsed to the floor. I knew I was next as I felt a warm, moist snout press against my neck. The snout oinked and oozed cold, sticky liquid down my shirt. It had the awful texture of mucus and saliva, which caused my chest to shudder. Something about the liquid made me feel dizzy and nauseous. Within seconds, my consciousness slipped away, and I collapsed too.

When I awoke, I could feel the scratchy bristles of a rope constrict my arms and legs. I was still wearing the awful mask. Through the eye slots, I could see the wooden planks from a dock and the frigid water flowing below. As I turned to my left, I saw the others tied and masked, and two large black, cloven hooves tapping as they stomped down the planks. We must have been by the docks near the bridge. I couldn’t move, however, as the oinking and grunting sounds echoed into the night. The Pig Man’s hooves stomped and clicked by my head.

“Are you my… father?” I hesitantly asked the creature, absolutely bewildered by the words that preceded my thoughts. There was a long silence followed by a heinous chuckle from the chaplain.

“Foolish child,” the chaplain spat from behind us. “While the Father of Sty is a father to all of us, or was in your case, your mother was a common whore, so no one knows who your actual father is. Unfortunately, she escaped our faithful sty with that lunatic, Larry. Oh well. Larry is locked up as all deranged sinners should be and she probably died the way that all traitorous whores do”

“Fuck you!” I shouted into the mask, which was followed by a swift hoof to the ribs, almost toppling me into the water.

“Not yet, Father. We haven’t said the words of our offering yet. Ahem. Blessed are we to free thine demons tonight.” As the chaplain spoke, a lone torch illuminated the docks. From his left hand, I could make out the outline of an ax. “In the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and sixty-three, our Father of Sty made the ultimate sacrifice to embody the demons and pigs that Jesus sacrificed. We are eternally grateful and for him, we make our sacrifice to save the souls of men.”

The chaplain waved the ax over our heads. In the air, he carved the symbol of the cross. He proceeded to carve the symbol five times as the Pig Man stomped his hooves in unison. The chaplain swung the blade especially close to Donna’s head, purposely slicing a few hairs that stuck out.

I felt the warm snout press against my neck again and snort twice. Then, the Pig Man, hooves clicking, loomed over the others and did the same. Behind us, the chaplain thumped his torch in tandem with the grunting. He stomped over to Donna, clicked his hooves, and grunted three times. The creature pressed a cloven hoof into Donna’s back. In one fell swoop, Donna arched her body upward and somersaulted backward, knocking herself and the Pig Man into the water.

Devin followed suit and rolled backward toward the chaplain, knocking him and his torch into the water. The torch extinguished and the chaplain’s hands dangled helplessly above the waves. There was no sign of Donna or the Pig Man but we could hear the submerged squeals, which permeated the waters around the dock. As the ax dangled on the edge of the dock, he sliced the rope from his arms and legs. Devin sprang up and tore the mask from our heads. Then, he came around to each of us and freed us the same way.

We gasped loudly as we helped each other to our feet. We looked around frantically for Donna, the Pig Man, or the chaplain, but by now, only the sound of crashing waves and the frigid October wind remained. From the dock, we could see the dimly lit Bascule Bridge, which not a single car traversed. Downtown Mystic’s quaint businesses were dark as well. Not a single soul strolled the sidewalks. I was surprised to find my phone still in my pocket. It was midnight.

“Donna!” Devin and Mei shouted. After a few bouts of coughing and hacking, Zack and I echoed their cries. “Donna!”

Devin sighed and looked somberly at the waves. Then, clutching the ax, he angrily threw it in the direction the chaplain sank and screamed, “Never again!” at the top of his lungs. We huddled around Devin as the ax sank into the water.

“We should call the police,” Mei said shakily.

“Please do!” Zack cried. “This is way too insane guys.”

Before we could say anything else, Donna burst out of the water holding the thrashing hooves of the Pig Man. Donna gritted her teeth as the hoof kicked her face.

“Run!” she hollered. “If the police find you here, you are an accessory to what I’m about to do and what Devin already did. Fucking run!”

The Pig Man squealed from beneath the waves, a squeal that echoed into the depths of the waters and the night. We ran up the dock and onto the street as fast as we could. As Zack tripped by a bench, Mei and Devin sped out of sight. I swore and helped Zack to his feet as the squealing grew increasingly louder. In the distance, we heard the sounds of sirens, which caused Zack and I to pick up speed, breaking into full sprint mode. The sound of the sirens and the Pig Man’s squeals echoed with equal measure as we sprinted over the bridge.

As we entered the downtown area, we were practically wheezing as we passed the iconic pizza restaurant. By now, the squealing had stopped and the sirens faded in the distance. Halfway up the steep road, we stopped in front of the only building with a light on it. It was a quaint two-story house painted brightly blue with a slanted roof on top. The sign for the building read “The Blue Jay Inn.” We exchanged puzzled, exhausted glances and then stepped inside.

“Let’s lay low tonight. I’m not in the state of mind to go home yet,” I whispered as we stepped into the carpeted lobby with beige puff sofas. He nodded and mouthed the words “I don’t either…” His entire body was still trembling. Mine was too.

A smiling, elderly woman greeted us from behind a stainless steel desk. She was typing something into a boxy computer. “You’re out late tonight, fellas. Do you need a room?”

“We do,” I said hoarsely. “Desperately.”

The woman checked us into a single room with two beds on the second floor. After she gave us the key card, I ushered Zack, who could barely move a muscle, up the stairs and into the room, slamming and bolting the door. Zack slumped down on a neatly made twin bed, rocking his body back and forth, his eyes fixed on the floor. I sat down next to him and slung an arm around his shoulder for a few minutes. Throughout our many years as friends, I learned how to calm my buddy down from an anxiety attack. I never learned how to ease my attacks though.

“We have to tell someone. We have to tell someone,” Zack repeated, rocking increasingly more intensely.

“The cops are already there. Donna is too. She’ll tell them everything.”

“What if she didn’t live? What about Mei and Devin? What about-”

I shushed him gently. The words that followed were to reassure both him and me. “Donna’s a strong woman. She’ll be okay and so will Mei and Devin. Let’s go to sleep and figure out what to do in the morning.”

On the top of the bed, Zack fell into an anxious sleep, his body shaking tremendously as he dozed off. Even when he snored, he shook. I pulled a cotton blanket from the closet and placed it over him. Over the hour, Zack’s body relaxed and so did mine. When I was sure he wouldn’t wake again, I pulled out my phone to find three missed calls from Jade. Before those calls, I realized that I had pocket-dialed her around 11:30 for about five minutes.

When I pressed Jade’s number, she picked up immediately and shouted, “Miguel! What the hell happened?!”

“Jade, I don’t even-”

“I heard screaming, shouting and I think even oinking. I-I called the police. Are you okay?”

“I am now…”

Deep into the night, I told Jade every excruciating detail about what happened to us. She cried, and swore several times, and so did I as I spoke about my mother and Zack’s uncle. As we spoke, Jade waited for anyone from the Mystic police department to call her back, which they surprisingly never did. I waited for a call as well. My adopted mom would have flipped if she heard from an officer. About a couple hours into the conversation, as Zack started snoring and shaking again, Jade realized that she hadn’t provided the officer with Zack’s name or mine. She only indicated that her “boyfriend and friend” were in trouble, which made me blush.

By the break of dawn, Jade had fallen asleep by her phone. I whispered “Goodnight, love” and hung up as she drifted off. It was already six o’clock by the time I heard people rummaging in the dining room downstairs. I didn’t mind that I spent the night divulging every terrifying detail. We had both experienced trauma now and somehow, we would get through it together. I feared for Donna though as well as Devin and Mei who were hopefully far away from Mystic by now. I feared for the parishioners too. What would become of their lives? What would become of our lives?

With these questions rattling through my mind, I crept downstairs as my poor, anxious friend dozed the morning away. As I made my way into the dining room, I noticed a couple about the age of Jade and me looking up from a laminate table at a broad-shouldered woman in black pants and a white collared shirt. Silver hair with traces of red draped over her shoulders. I stood in the doorway, jaw agape, as she handed them a tray with a stack of thickly sliced ham. The portions were more like slabs of steak than ham. The couple salivated as she placed the tray in front of them.

“You came just in time, folks. This ham was freshly made, courtesy of our chef, who prepared and glazed it last night.”

“Oh wow!” the man exclaimed. “I’ve never seen slices this thick before! It’s like he slaughtered it himself!”

The three of them laughed wistfully as a surge of vomit crept up my throat.

Credit: Tristan Mason

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