Falling asleep on the couch had been stupid. He always woke up in the morning with his face in a plate of crumbs and a tongue full of fuzz, but this was a bit worse than usual, and he felt hungover. He inhaled deeply and smelled the sharp odor of vomit. He looked around and saw a coffee table littered with empty bottles of whiskey, cheap liquor and the remnants of spoiled food. Ah, whiskey. The thought of whiskey was enough to make him want a drink, but he remembered why.
The previous evening, he had gone to the bar with a few other guys. Usually, he had one or two drinks. Maybe he had had too many drinks at the club earlier that night. Perhaps several beers at dinner, but not enough for everyone to get drunk. He wasn't that drunk either, not that night.
But the previous evening he had stopped off at the liquor store and bought a little bit of whiskey for himself. Maybe he just wanted a little bit, or maybe it was for the flavor. Lately, he had been drinking Scotch, scotch was spectacular, and he preferred it over any wine he drank, or the cheaper vodka. He also liked the cheap whiskey better than the more expensive liquor he bought on occasion.
When he got home, he had tossed the package in his kitchen drawer, not remembering what he bought. A sick feeling spread in his stomach and the pounding in his head was starting to grow. Maybe that was the blood rushing to his head.
He was desperate to get off the couch to get comfortable, and in the kitchen to get another drink before the night was over, so he slowly stood up. He rubbed his face with fingers of his right hand, like he was taking in the last bit of air from a badly maintained space helmet, and let out a sigh. Then he slowly turned his body to the left. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw something white left in the right corner of his coffee table.
He glared at what he had been staring at the night before, or at least the last thing he remembered seeing, a horrible sight on the coffee table. He felt an overwhelming horror when he saw what was left of a pig's head. It was gross. It looked like someone had kicked it and it had rolled halfway across the room.
He was horrified. He was disgusted, and perhaps maybe slightly scared; he felt like someone had spit on his morning coffee.
Except for the bare head towards the base of the skull, it looked like the pig ate everything else. His liver was gone from what was left, and his heart, the heart, was missing. There was a weak spot in the side of his ribcage where it was missing, but he didn't see any blood. There wasn't any blood at all on the floor. He only saw the half-chewed remains of a heart on the floor where he dumped it, and the skimpy remains of a liver on the edge of the coffee table.
He had his suspicions as to who had done this. There had been a few guys that he had noticed slouching about on the other side of the bar, well within earshot, as it were.
These guys weren't the typical college males, they had a more sinister edge. And what they were doing was certainly not typical. Some of them even looked as though they were making suggestive comments to each other while he had been there.
He was sick, and it wasn't because he drank too much, though he had, and it wasn't because someone had chased him, though that had happened.
It was the pig that had gotten him. He wasn't someone who ate pork, but he knew that there were sacrifices that had had to have been made in order to bring him a pig's head. Some poor animal had to have lost its head.
And then someone had stolen it, and then someone had brought it to him.
He thanked the heavens that he didn’t have a close tie with anyone. He didn’t know anyone in his town. He wanted to get the hell out of the place, and he did.
He had felt the need to go on a trip after he had graduated college, and so he had taken his savings and slipped out the door.
He had made it up the hill to his car, and in the distance he saw the animal carcasses stacked up. He stood there for a minute, contemplating what he should do.
He had liked the dog, and he had liked the cat. He had no pets of his own, and he didn't know anyone who would miss his animals if he had to leave them behind.
He would have buried it, except that he didn’t want his animals or him to be in the ground with one of those animals. He checked his watch, and it was getting late. The sun was about to go down, and as a car passed, the driver honked and waved at him from the car.
It was a woman.
She was young, cute, and smiling at him. He felt embarrassed, so he turned around to avoid her stare. He felt like he was watching a scene in a horror movie. He felt some emotion wrenching at his gut and had to will away the pain he felt for his dead animal friends.
He hurried to his car and threw himself into the driver's seat. The woman was right at his window as he stuck the key into the ignition.
"Oh, hi there. I hope I didn't startle you," he heard her say. He quickly started the car and pulled off down the road. He moved the seat as far back as it would go, and closed all the glass windows so she would not be able to hear him. He didn’t want her hearing him sob.
"I'm sorry. I'm leaving town, and I need to go," he said in a halting manner.
"You got a girlfriend or something?" she asked. He could hear the uncertainty in her voice. It sounded like she felt inferior to be talking with him. He didn't understand what he was missing, but he could hear it in her voice.
"Thing in my past," he said.
"Well, have a good trip," she said.
He sped down the road and felt pleased that he was almost back to his old apartment. The woman turned around and went back to town. He didn't know that it would be the last time he would ever see her.
He was gone. He didn't tell anyone where he was going. His family didn't find out until he was well down the road. He wasn't a partier, he wasn't a drinker. His family thought he was a computer geek.
He was, and he will continue to be, a computer geek.
He had to have been a nerd. He had been a computer nerd all his life. He loved the fact that he could turn away from his computer screen and read a book. He had it all. He would get to see wildlife, sit under the sun, and even drink some whiskey and enjoy himself. It sounded like a dream come true, and it would be, for as long as the hallucinations would allow.
He would miss the animals that he had just put down. He had roasted some marshmallows on the coals, and had some coffee. It was his last cup of coffee for quite some time. He would have no alcohol in his body for the next ninety days.
He didn't talk much to the campers. He thought that he might be keeping them from talking about him, but he was wrong. Everyone knew about him. He was famous on the camping site. His disappearance was talked about, and everything that had happened. He had been an animal lover, and everyone sympathized with him.
This week had been the first week of his vacation. He was on his way to finish his trip. He had been on his way to the west coast, but he turned around and ended up on the east Coast.
He hadn't been lost at all. He had gotten his bearings and was on route to his vacation destination. He had gone to a nearby town, to a grocery store, but he arrived just in time to miss the last several hours of the store being open. He found an open pub and decided to have a drink.
He hadn't known it then, but he went in the same pub as the night before. It was dark and raining outside, but inside it was warm and light. The crew there that night was a little different. He remembered them for a few reasons. They were different. There was a woman there that was different. He felt some type of connection to her.
He sat at the bar in the pub and had a drink. The bartender was talking to him, and he was feeling some type of intimidation coming off them. He didn't know why he felt that way, but he didn't like it.
When the bartender asked him if he needed another drink, he declined and paid the bartender and sat silently at the bar. He made up his mind that he wasn't going to talk to anyone. He would enjoy his drink, and then leave to get back on the road again.
He had been assaulted, and he had been chased out of town by a man with a pitchfork, and he didn't want to come to anyone else's aid again. He wanted to make it to his destination.
He had noticed the face of a young woman in the doorway of the pub. She was staring at him. He ignored her the best he could, and focused on his drink, but the bartender had told him a funny joke in an attempt to get him to talk to him.
It was a very strange joke. That was for sure. He didn't really feel like talking, but he didn't want anyone to think he was rude, so he laughed. He thought it would be a good joke, until it was finished. There was a part of the joke he didn't remember hearing.
He stopped talking to the woman he was flirting with, and felt like slapping his face. He felt like slapping his own face. He felt like doing something terrible and violent, but he didn't let himself do it.
He was drunk and angry. He didn't want to be drunk with angry, not in a bar, not in a pub. He found himself thinking of his mother.
His mother hadn't been the best mother, putting her own needs before her son's. They hadn't had a good relationship. He rarely saw her. He held her responsible for the condition that his life was in, life in a small town.
He blamed her for everything that was wrong with his life.
The bartender handed him his drink. He didn't want it, but the bartender insisted nonetheless. He forced himself to drink the drink. He didn't like the taste, he didn't like the smell, and he didn't like the taste of the alcohol that was in the drink.
He slipped the glass down his throat. It burned like acid on the way down. He forced himself to drink it.
As he lifted the glass away, a hand on his shoulder made him pause. It wasn’t like the usual touch. He always felt as though the touch of the bartender was cold and hard and wooden.
This was different. It was warm, and soft, and almost flowing. This touch was gentle and intimate. The smell was different too, and he didn’t think he had ever smelled anything like it, and he didn’t want to. His heart was beating so fast that it was making it hard for him to hear anything the woman was saying.
He had the impression that this woman was begging him to talk to her. He knew she was saying that to him, but he couldn’t hear her. He wanted her to sit with him, with him at the bar.
He tried and failed to reach out for her. She reached out for him, and mouthed the words, "I am sorry about your animals."
He tried and failed to talk to her. He tried and failed to get the bartender's attention. The bartender had a pretty lady leaning on his shoulder and talking to him.
She didn't look like a pretty lady to him. She was plain. She was too skinny. She didn't wear the clothes very well.
He couldn't hear her talking anymore. She had touched her finger to her lips to tell him that they would talk again when they were alone. He felt that she wanted him to follow her. She wanted him to follow her, and not just through the door, but into the woods.
He had no idea what she wanted. He wanted his drink back. He wanted to leave the bar and leave that place. He had always wanted to get away from the town, and he wanted to get away from this town.
