Since Jonas was not familiar with Fickle Creek, he figured that instead of roaming around the little town and rummaging through abandoned convenience stores or supermarkets for random scraps and overlooked caches of grub, he should return to the eighteen-wheeler with the dead guy in the cab and old prophetic rock and roll tune blasting over and over out the radio; there was a pallet of canned veggies and ‘sausage and lard’ that he’d previously failed to harvest. But then he remembered how far the drive was, almost a third of the way back to the auto-wrecking yard he called home, and decided it was too time-consuming and that he might keep on trucking and leave Iris Vandertrout to her own devices.
No: he reasoned that taking his chances in the neighborhoods closer to the mannequin factory was more practical. But then, that line of reasoning would be challenged pretty quickly.
The first supermarket he came to had obviously been vandalized: the windows were broken out and the door was busted in. But by who?
The place was empty except for the mess. The aisles were littered with broken glass and empty cans and snack boxes. And the aisles that had once been the refrigerated section were devoid of anything except the plastic wrappers the poultry and fish had been packaged in, and the signs that advertised prices. And even though the section reeked, it reminded him of how much he enjoyed poultry and the taste of fish.
Jonas brought Mister P along and let him loose to rummage through the joint on his own. He didn’t feel that the pig would find some grub and then return and then lead him to what he’d discovered, like a search and rescue dog. But he did think that perhaps the pig would find some food hidden somewhere in a blown-out supermarket that he didn’t see and the pig’s behavior would alert him to some treasure he’d have otherwise missed. It was sort of like sniffing out truffles in a way.
But it didn’t exactly work that way. Jonas was kicking through some debris in the aisle of a large grocery, discount department store combination sometimes called hypermarkets and Mr. P was rooting around a few aisles away when he began to squeal horrible, bloodcurdling squeals.
Jonas immediately dropped the package of men’s underwear he’d been considering. The age-old question of “boxers or briefs” was not an alternative. All he’d seen were tightie whities and they were not his personal favorite. Maybe there had been a big sale before the Visitors arrived. Surely they weren’t snagging them.
Jonas rounded the corner and to his shock found Mr. P being eaten alive by two of the pork pie hat, dark welders’ goggles, and oil skin duster-wearing critters that’d stolen cans of his gasoline from him. Blood streamed down P’s body from his neck where the pork pie hat twins had either scratched or bitten him. One of them was trying to eat his snout.
Without hesitation, Jonas leaped onto the oddball creature trying to eat P's face, and heaved him around. The thing’s welders goggles slipped off and his eyeballs bulged out like the testicles of a week-old calf with kaleidoscopic irises. And his teeth popped out like a moray eel’s and he made some kind of borborygmus growling like from the belly of a whale, so Jonas shot him, right between his eyebrows which sort of resembled Frida Kahlo’s the Mexican artist or maybe more Leonld Brezhnev the former dictator of Russia.
Immediately, the second pork pie hat and welding duster-wearing ogre turned and with equal immediacy, Jonas recognized that she was an ogress. Her lips were as scarlet as a baboon’s butt and her eyes were equally as weird as the one Jonas figured to be the male, although he did not want to misgender either of them. Perhaps male was female and female was male where they came. Who knew and who cared? Jonas put a round in her ear. She flipped heels over head like one of those toy monkeys on a stick toys and landed on the same ear she was shot.
P continued to squeal like a hurt dog wanting the comfort of its human.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Jonas said and knelt down and patted Mr. P.“I’ve got you.”
It required several seconds before Mr. P calmed down enough to stop squealing and then a couple of minutes more before Jonas could fit P into the dog leash and lead him to the underwear aisle so he could rip a pair of drawers out of its packaging and wipe the blood off the pig’s shoulder and face. After that, Jonas led P to the aisle with the creams, ointments, and other medicines and found some salve to dress the gashes that the pork pie hat creatures had caused. At first, Mr. P thought the cream was food and tried to eat it.
They needed food.
Jonas turned up a few bottles of vitamins and minerals that hadn’t been absconded with or destroyed, among which were several jars of fish oil and some melatonin. Jonas knew the melatonin had no genuine nutritious value. Mr. P might eat it, but then he’d probably fall asleep, and Jonas would be forced to carry him back to the mannequin factory or abandon him. He found it not only ironic but somewhat disturbing that there were so many jars of fish oil, in capsules, of course. Was it another one of the Visitors’ mind games? Did they assume that Jonas would gobble down the caps of fish oil by the handfuls and fail to read the detailed warning on the back of the jars?
“Prolonged use or even casual use of fish oil may cause hives, itching, or skin rash; increased menstrual flow or vaginal bleeding; nosebleeds, paralysis; prolonged bleeding from cuts, puffiness or swelling of the eyelids or around the eyes, face, lips, or tongue; red or black, tarry stools, red or dark brown urine; sweating, tightness in the chest, unusual tiredness or weakness.”Jonas twisted the caps off each bottle of fish oil and dumped the capsules on the ground for P, who willingly gobbled them all down.
Iris Vandertrout freaked out when Jonas and P returned to the mannequin factory.
“WTF, Jonas!?” she said.
“It’s Mr. P,” Jonas said.
“You named him?!” she said.
“Of course, I named him,” Jonas said.
“So you didn’t bring him here for us to eat?!” she said.
“I rescued him on the road,” Jonas said, "before I got here.”
“Well I don’t like pigs,” she said, “unless they’re cooked in a roast with apples and rice and bay leaves.”
“I’m not going to eat him!” Jonas said.
“Oh yeah!” she said. “Well, it’s either him or me."
So Jonas shot her in the head.
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