I’ve owned and operated a small pig farm my entire adult life, my father owned this farm before me, and his father before him. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s honest. Pig farming isn’t as simple as one would think either, you have to keep up with the latest in disease prevention and keep good track of the pigs bloodlines. My farm consists of a few hundred acres of fenced off woodlands, plenty of streams and ponds for the pigs to keep cool in hot months and shelters for the cold months. I don’t like the modern hog sheds where they live on concrete their whole lives. My pigs are big, happy creatures.
A few years back my neighbors started selling off their farms to a big corporate pig farming operation. They made me a nice offer also, but I wasn’t interested in selling. That was that, they had their farms, I had mine. They built a number of huge hog sheds for mass production all around the county. A few miles down the road the corporation built what I assumed was their big office building. The office was a rather large, nice looking building, two stories tall and about the size of a football field. For the first few years everything was fine, no troubles from them. Then a few odd occurrences started happening.
I first became suspicious that something was wrong when I went out to feed the hogs their corn one spring morning. I was filling one of the troughs to the usual happy reception, when I noticed a sow in that section that wasn’t one of mine. See all my swine were dark colored and woolly. This one was of the pink variety. That wasn’t all that unusual as once in awhile a neighbors pig would find a way through the fences and get in with mine and I’d just check the tags and get it back where it belongs. No, the problem was that this pig had very human like arm growing off the side of its right front shoulder. Not a grown man’s arm, but an older child sized arm. It wasn’t just hanging there either. That pig was using that arm to scoop corn out of the trough and bringing it to its mouth. It worked that arm good, that was no vestigial limb. After staring in shock for a spell I went for a rope to lead that one out of there. Thank goodness it was a sow because I sure as hell didn’t want that mixing with my stock. I’d never seen anything like that before. I took that thing out behind the shed and shot it dead. I burned the remains to ash, and didn’t tell nobody. Thing like that could damage my farm’s reputation. I went around the entire property and reinforced all my fence lines real good. No more of that business, or so I thought.
Might a been a year or better passed without further incident. Then one evening I was out taking a count when I heard some feller calling for help down by the stream. I hurried down there and I seen something I wish I hadn’t. There stood a man waist deep in the stream just a calling out for help. This guy wasn’t from around these parts though. He was naked for one thing, and had a boars head growing out of the middle of his chest. As soon as he laid eyes on me the man’s head went all limp, and the boar head seemed to wake up and start to cackling. That laughing noise will haunt me all my days. I ran as fast as I could get back to the house. That thing giving chase the whole way just making that awful croaking laugh, and throwing rocks at me. I got back to the house and bolted the door fast. With shaking hands I called the sheriff. I didn’t say what was really out there, but said there was some naked lunatic on my property and if they didn’t get here fast I was gonna shoot him myself.
Things got quiet out there for a bit. Then I heard this big thump noise from the living room. I grabbed up the 12 gauge and crept around the corner. At first I didn’t see nothing, but then another thump. It came from the fire place. This thing was up on my roof tearing bricks off the chimney and throwing them down into the fireplace. It had stopped the laughing and had begun carrying on for help again. Just yelling for help down the chimney and throwing bricks. I went over and stuck the 12 gauge up the chimney and fired off a round straight up. I heard it scrabbling around up there, then heard it jump to the ground and run off.
Once the sheriff got there a good 2 hours later I described everything that happened sans the part about the pigs head growing out of that fellers chest. Sheriff said it’s probably some of them kids been smoking wacky tobbacy again and just to call if he comes back. I thanked him for his time and he went on his way. The next day there was some blonde lady at my door asking what exactly I seen. I told her like I told that sheriff. She seemed to be doubtful of my account and asked what I really seent. So I told her the truth of it. Strangely she didn’t seem too phased by my story and wanted me to sign some papers swearing I’d never tell anybody else about what happened. She wrote me a check that could have bought this whole farm twice over too. Gave me her card to call that number if anything else happens. So now I’ve branched out from farming. Now I raise pigs, and I don’t see things.