They had been the only group foolish enough to build a campfire in the canyon park that chilly autumn evening, and Brian kept looking to the sky in fear that the mist of rain would transform into snow, making for a treacherous descent down the winding road they had taken to get there. A nearby creek, bloated by the falling rain, gurgled in the deep dark, and high canyon walls loomed invisible above them. The clouds above them were black and impenetrable, and the night pressed in around them undiluted by even the cool, distant glow of the parking lot streetlights. The wet cold crept through coats and skin and leeched the heat from their bones.
A shudder convulsed through Maggie, and her eyes flitted toward the little silver hatchback that sat alone in the parking lot. “Would you hurry up with the fire,” she said. “We’ve been out here five minutes and I feel like I’m going to freeze to death.”
There was a sudden flicker of light as Jared coaxed a little flame from the dry tinder and newspaper into the damp wood, albeit with the help of a little gasoline. Under other circumstances, Maggie would have chided him for the irresponsible use of propellant, but at the moment she was simply grateful for the warmth. The four of them crowded around the jumping flames and put their hands over it as if in worship.
“In Boy Scouts we called that ‘cup o’ gas,’” Jared said with a laugh.
“In my Scout troop we called that ‘cheating,’” Brian said, as he tore open a bag of marshmallows. “One match, Jared, that’s the standard, but I guess I wouldn’t expect a mere Life Scout to know that.”
“My standard is not freezing my a—”
“Did you guys ever roast Starbursts in Scouts?” Maggie interrupted, with her long-honed instinct for heading off Jared’s vulgarity. “We roasted Starbursts every summer at Girls Camp. I don’t know what it is about them, but I swear they are seriously the best.”
“No way, I brought a bag of Starbursts with me for exactly that!” Connie said, laughing.
The conversation went on in that direction for an hour, the rain and cold forgotten in the warm blanket of youthful reminiscence and the freshly earned nostalgia of young adulthood.
When the topic of church youth activities had worn itself out, Brian, Jared, and Maggie defaulted to swapping mission stories in the friendly but obviously one-upping manner typically characteristic of such conversations, while Connie feigned interest. There was a discussion of who had gotten engaged at the end of last semester, a list long enough to provide a third hour of fodder for jealousy, gossip, and the collective, awkward, deep-seated knowledge that neither couple would see such an engagement in their future.
“It’s 11:55,” Maggie said, looking at her phone. “Should we head down? I’ve got work in the morning.”
“I brought my laptop,” Brian said. “You guys want to watch a movie? I’ve got Princess Bride or Napoleon Dynamite in my DVD case in the car.”
“That’s the opposite of heading down,” said Maggie.
“You don’t have work until like . . . nine,” Jared said. “Let’s watch a movie. We can go over to the gazebo, even, and I’ve got a couple dry blankets in the car.”
“It’s getting pretty late,” Connie said.
“What,” Brian responded, “are you worried the Spirit’s going to go to bed at midnight and we’ll start sinning?”
Connie rolled her eyes. “No, Brian,” she said with exasperation, “I’m worried that Maggie has work in the morning.”
Maggie sighed. “It’s fine. Whatever. Brian, go grab the laptop and . . . Napoleon Dynamite. I haven’t seen that since it was in theaters.”
Brian smirked triumphantly. As he turned to walk to the car, Connie resolved that this would be their last weekend as a couple. “Grab the blankets,” Jared called after him, standing up and drawing one last bit of heat from the embers into his hands. He turned to Maggie and kissed her. The rain had stopped but invisible clouds still blanketed the sky, drowning out the moon.
Connie could see Brian rummaging through the car under the warm yellow lights of the parking lot, a pocket of light in the vast surrounding darkness. Jared took Maggie’s hand, and they started off through the darkness toward the gazebo. Connie sat alone by the fire and stared into the coals, entranced by their orange glow. She picked up a marshmallow, the last in the bag, and brought it to her lips. Just as she was about to take a bite, she heard the loud, wet, smacking sound of lips being licked right next to her ear. “What is the taste of sweetness?” a voice whispered.
“Ugh, Brian what is—” she began, but when she turned she saw that he was still a hundred feet away, walking back from the car with a bundle of blankets under one arm and a laptop case in the other. She stood up. “Did you guys hear that?” she called into the darkness.
“Hear what?” Maggie responded from the gazebo.
“What is the taste of sweetness?” the voice whispered again. The sound seemed to have a physical presence, a little gust of wind that blew in her ear, spinning through her skull like a cold whirlwind and bursting through her body. Her limbs suddenly flailed, and she dropped the marshmallow into the sodden grass, then found herself pouncing upon it with the greed of a starving beast. She yipped with delight to hold the little ball of congealed sugar in her hands and lurched toward the fire, each awkward, toddling step threatening to send her hurtling into the wet ground.
“Connie, what are you doing?” Brian yelled at her as he crossed from the parking lot toward the gazebo. She turned to look at him, her eyes flashing emerald as they reflected the distant lights. Brian stopped and stared. Her face contorted into something between a grimace and a grin, and she held the marshmallow with a strange gentleness, as though it were a small, fragile creature. She took one more step toward the dying fire, her green eyes locked onto Brian’s, then turned and plunged her hands into the glowing coals. “Connie, stop!” Brian shouted, dropping the blankets and sprinting toward her.
Connie shrieked in pain. Her body spasmed and rebelled against the sudden agony, but her arms seemed to have a will of their own, and she drove her hands, still clutching the marshmallow between them, deeper into the embers. Just as Brian reached her, she pulled her cupped hands from the firepit, palms and fingers blistered and smoking, filled with glowing cinders and the blackened marshmallow. Brian watched with horror as Connie shoveled the cinders into her gaping mouth, then began to howl. “Where is the taste of sweetness?!” she wailed as Brian took her by the shoulders and wrenched her away from the fire. Agony and rage and a fevered madness mingled in her eyes, and tears ran down her cheeks. She tore at Brian’s face with her long nails and charred fingertips as he struggled to control her. Maggie and Jared, hearing the chaos, ran toward them.
Connie shoved Brian away from her, and he stumbled backward toward the firepit. He fell, striking the back of his skull against a cinder block with a wet crack, and lay still. Maggie screamed. Jared froze and stared at the limp form of his best friend, then turned to look at the creature that had killed him. Not five minutes ago, she had been a beautiful young woman. Now—her eyes running with tears and ablaze with inhuman fury, her mouth bleeding and blistered, her hands charred—she had transformed into a monster.
“Connie?” Maggie asked from several steps behind Jared, her own eyes streaming with tears.
Connie’s voice, when it came, was a pained croak stilted by her thick, blistered tongue. “Where is the taste of sweetness?” she rasped. “He gives us pigs.” She took a step toward Jared, who took a step backward in turn. “He gives us pigs and we drown,” she shrieked and leaped at Jared with her black hands, then fell face forward into the damp, dark grass. She did not move. Maggie was sobbing and Jared took slow, deep breaths to keep from hyperventilating.
“Is she . . . dead?” Maggie asked. Jared leaned down and shook Connie gently, lovingly, a lump in his throat and tears welling up in his eyes. He stepped past Connie’s prostrate body and over to Brian, whose neck was bent at an impossible angle and whose open eyes were fixed on the parking lot.
“I don’t know. Maybe? We need to call 911.” But before he pulled out his phone, he took Maggie in his arms and drew her close. “It’s going to be okay.” He pressed his cheek against hers and kissed her comfortingly. “It’s going to be okay,” he repeated, holding her head in his hands. Then he stepped away and reached into the pocket of his jeans to fish out his Blackberry.
“What is the feel of warm flessssssshhhhhhhhhhh?” whispered a voice in his ear.
He whipped round to look at Maggie, who gazed back at him in confusion. Icy tendrils began to seep into his toes, ran up his legs and flowed through his veins and seized his heart in a cold grip, and he looked at Maggie with a fevered, hungry look. He snapped his teeth and then snapped them again, gouging into his lower lip. Blood trickled down his chin, though he did not seem to notice.
“Jared, are you okay?” Maggie asked, stepping away from him. He did not respond, but his breathing became heavy and he leaned forward awkwardly. He pounced, and Maggie screamed and turned to run. Jared caught her by the hair and yanked her backward, and she fell to the ground and flailed at him as he snapped his teeth. He knelt beside her and bent his face down toward hers, teeth still snapping continually, blood pouring from his ragged lips as he pursed his mouth as though to kiss her cheek.
Maggie grabbed hold of a fallen roasting skewer and whipped it with all her might against Jared’s face. The skin above his eye split open, and he howled with animal pain and clutched at the wound. When he stood, blood poured thick and warm from the gash on his forehead, covering half his face in a crimson sheen. His eyes were filled with pain and pleading and hatred, and his teeth clacked together again and again. “Jared, please don’t,” Maggie begged. “Please stay away from me.” But Jared leaped again, animalistic and flailing. Maggie closed her eyes and swung the skewer with all her might, and the thin metal rod struck his windpipe. She could feel the cartilage collapse, and when she opened her eyes again, Jared was clutching his throat and staring at her with disbelief.
Gurgling, he fell to his knees, then sideways into the grass. The rain started again, not a mist this time, but cold, heavy drops that washed the scarlet from his cheeks, the blood running from the wound in his eye down his temple and into the lawn. Maggie stepped toward him and knelt by his side. Her tears landed on his face, warm where the raindrops were cold.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said and took his hand in hers.
He looked up at her. The madness remained in his eyes, even as they were dulled by the lack of oxygen. He held one hand to his ruined trachea and reached out clumsily to her with his other. Despite herself, she took it. “He gives us pigs,” came a gurgling murmur, “and we drown.” Tears poured down from her blue eyes. “I only wanted to feel.” Jared did not move, and Maggie fell over him and sobbed and sobbed, and the cold rainwater ran into her shirt and down her spine.
“Pigs” was originally published in the short story collection, A Thin Black Veil.
Henrik Sorensen is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer with an interest in science fiction and horror and the ways in which they overlap with Mormon cosmology, theology, and culture. His new collection of Mormon horror stories, A Thin Black Veil, is available on Amazon.
Art by Shari Lyon
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