OINK! ISSUE

~ PROUDLY PRESENTS ~




EVERYTHING BUT THE OINK
by Keith P. Graham

© by keith p. graham
+ Click Images Below To Begin Reading +





BLOOD ECHO SYMPHONIES
by John Claude Smith

© by john claude smith





TRAP
by Vincent Daemon
© by vincent daemon




The JULY, 2011 issue of the FREEZINE is a wrap. It will remain archived throughout the rest of August, as well as for the rest of time. That is, insofar as our recently built-up technological empire survives. There are those among us who seem convinced this gleaming technopolis has an extremely limited expiration date; the editors here at the FREEZINE have been informed otherwise. In the future, The Grid will be all that remains of life-sustainable nature on Earth. All those unfortunate enough (depending on how you look at it) to find themselves off The Grid during these formative years will perish. Millions will be veritably shoved off The Grid; the poor and the dispossessed. Hundreds of thousands who elect to live off the grid will suffer untimely demises, as well. The reason for this is that the Empire Which Never Ended will have effectively mortally wounded Mother Nature herself—she will simply no longer be around to sustain anyone.

The nanoswarm responsible for possessing me to establish the FREEZINE has reported that the only human survivors will be those who have managed to keep a place officially on the Grid: those accountable human beings with government IDs scanned- and logged- into the database will constitute the only known survivors of the human race.

Eventually, there will be pockets of clans who consider themselves "off-Grid", but they will effectively be living on The Grid nonetheless, by means of having made themselves, in one fashion or another, "invisible" to The Establishment's roving camera-eyes and microphones. The old paradigm of Nature (wild land with sustainable soil to grow plants and support fauna—the great, old-fashioned "outdoors", if you will) shall become an extinct novelty of the past.

Few people alive today are willing to accept this to be true, yet like it or not, 100% of all future vegetation will eventually be horticulturally cultivated and kept up exclusively by virtue of the technology human beings built up to support it. Over ninety-nine percent of the former animal kingdom will become extinct (with the exception of a few species maintained and cultivated by humans to suit our various purposes).

In other words, Technology itself is destined to become the new "bedrock" of Father Nature; (there's a messy divorce ongoing with "Mother Nature" if you haven't noticed, and no one will see hide nor hair from her for thousands of years on this planet—if ever again). The Patriarchal overthrow of the Primeval Order has been underway for generations, and will soon complete its incidental pogrom of the old flora/fauna paradigm.

The Bloodhost here has reported that this developing trend is not "cautionary" in the least; on the contrary. It is but a reminder that Nature itself undergoes a constant process of transmutation and natural selection, which continues to evolve well unto this day, of course. The fact that nature's old paradigm might eventually become exctinct via its own transmutation is not only perfectly normal, but it also goes to show that it's merely our perception of the past and present that distorts our view of the future. The gleaming iconography of technology itself has already stepped in to begin replacing the older natural tones and textures; and so it goes. Plastic will become the new wood. Everything is proceeding and evolving as it should. Work will be the new play. And the human race is here to stay.

JULY, 2011:

Three Little Tales

A thousand thanks go out to our three returning authors for submitting their stories here to be shared with the world.

We begin this issue with the highly anticipated return of Keith Graham, one of the four original "Horsemen of the Freezine". His story EVERYTHING BUT THE OINK kicks off the JULY issue with a prescient tale of genetic hybrids—chimaeras—kept imprisoned by the government to be harvested for organ transplants. Keith's tale is a warm, funny, shocking story sure to please our growing legion of devoted readers. If you haven't already read Keith's first story in the Freezine, check the side margin under the ARCHIVE OF STORIES AND BIOS—scrolling down will take you to Keith's archived sector.

Next up, we have another story from John Claude Smith, who returns with his second tale for the Freezine, BLOOD ECHO SYMPHONIES. After reading his submission, I realized that the appropriate artwork for it had already been created last year, during the production of Vincent Daemon's apocalyptic splatterpunk novella, WAITING FOR THE END. An abstract watercolor of a rock'n'roller onstage at the microphone that I painted never found its proper scene in the serialization of Vince's story. Even back then, I knew it would only be a matter of time until this image found its narrative match. That time is here, now, and the nanoeditors at the Freezine are quite pleased with the merger of this art with J.C. Smith's surreal and cosmic vision of a transcendent experience during a live concert.

The final installment of JULY's trilogy of stories went up early on July 30, intended to fill a newly prepared "Saturday Morning Flash Fiction" slot. Veteran Freezine author Vince Daemon provides a lighthearted glimpse into the darker corner of our wild empire of predatory selection with TRAP. Another abstract watercolor was commissioned, intended to capture the confused viewpoint of the hapless protagonist in the story. The nanoswarm is pleased to have another successful merger of narrative text and visual art for the Freezine's archives, and we here hope our dear readers are briefly entertained by it, as well.

FREE ZINE ZONE

Click For the ART
of the Freezine

Stay tuned until the next, SEPTEMBER ISSUE, of the Freezine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, available the world over, free of charge, hosted by the globally assimilating internet via blogger, and brought to you by the mysterious benefactors known as the Bloodhost, or nanohorde, sometimes referred to as the nanoswarm, which have somehow infected my nervous system, and possessed me to put this webzine together.

The FREEZINE is maximized to assist both aspiring and established authors integrate themselves into the newly burgeoning eReader revolution. This online fanzine (or "webzine" as I prefer to call it) is a labor of love. All writers of genre fiction are encouraged to submit stories to be serialized by daily installments in a future issue, or (for shorter stories) to be put up as a single posting on a Friday or Saturday. We are dedicated here to promoting the works of writers and to hyperlink directly to their websites and books for sale online. So don't be shy! Why not take a chance with us, and email your story and see what happens? Writers should be concerned about building up a personal fanbase, and the FREEZINE is primed to help do just that. *Click FREEZINE SEEKS STORIES! below for more guidelines.


More surprises are in store, so make sure to bookmark this site and tell your friends and family about it. Thanks again, and see you all in SEPTEMBER.

FREEZINE SEEKS STORIES!

:message from the editors:

TRAP

by Vincent Daemon

The memory came back slowly.

It lay there, under the bush.

The morsel (or feast, as it were) had somehow remained undetected by the others.

He spied it greedily. A warm, humid evening had long fallen, yet his vision was still tiptop.

Homing in, going into hunger-fueled overdrive...heroically, the champion zooming in for the catch.

Being a scavenger is such a thrill.

That's when he felt the net.

He had been too eager, too hasty, and couldn't see the near-invisible stitching in the twilit gloom.

It had great elasticity and he struggled hard against the sticky strands, exerting too much energy.

Exhaustion set in quickly, and he recoiled back, as if in some bungee-jump mishap.

He knew then that he'd been caught in the trap.

Panic gripped his body tight, into a statuesque stillness. No, not this...

The injection of the poison was unexpected, and after an agonizing bout of convulsive paralysis, the blackout set in.

He came to, hazily, realizing that a straightjacket of that adhesive sinew enwrapped his body tight.

Claustrophobia was setting in.

This vile menace, his captor, lurched tauntingly forward along the intricate strands of thorax-ejaculate with a steadied and perfect Olympian grace.

Four black death-eyes stared coldly down in stoic superiority.

Its pinpointed, razorsharp maw widened with sick arachnoid glee.

He wanted to flee.

Both wings and all six of his legs had been so awfully confined. Didn't matter, though; he still couldn't feel them anyway.

But would he feel his inevitable exsanguination?

All he could do was watch it through the stark terror of his ninety-six eyes.

As the slow, sadistic execution and feeding began, his final thought was quite simple:

All this for a dog turd.

BLOOD ECHO SYMPHONIES

by John Claude Smith

“What’s on your mind, Trace?”

Fiona asks as if it matters, as if she cannot slink through the gray matter mindfield and pluck out some bòn mót and toss it back at me like a hand grenade at any moment, her spiky flame-haired head propped up by matchstick arms, full brickwork sleeves, graffiti imprint on skin, clear midnight invocations—“Love is never, Sex is forever”—in faux spraypaint script, second-day bruise blue on infection red. She leans into me, hands coiled as snakes about to strike, yet they have no intention of striking. She feigns boredom as some kind of come-on. Blasé impulse: a bland narrative to our lives.

I turn to her and take in those bloodshot coals, simmering into sleepiness. I think how I can’t look much better, but my usual response—“Nothing’s on my mind, there’s nothing worthy to fill the space”—is diverted by the sounds that circle like vultures in need of something dead, and we are so close to filling that prescription.

The music pulses, throbs like my aching cock (no reason to flaunt false modesty), I am erect and I am hungry and the music—this music—is like a rash of electricity, of radiation—Hiroshima Mon Amour—that spreads over and through all of us in this dark place, in this dark world, the blackened current of the river Styx surging in all our decibel-scorched souls, here where lights are spattersplash wet as dripping Pollock rainbows but oh, so dim…and hope is a remnant of something extinct, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Or love…

It is alive—this music—as a green girl shoves past Fiona as if Fiona is not there, was never there in the first place (Fiona’s bicep thickens, her shoulders broaden), claws at me with slim fingers like twitchy insect legs—a praying mantis ritual—tearing at my skin, my mouth, and my teeth clamp down and I taste her, taste where she's been, after which my tongue slicks her palate and enamel and the writhing slug that is her tongue…and the sound and noise and cacophony assaulting me is like a rash demanding to be scratched. It cannot be silenced, this sound, this noise—this music—and the rash screams like a wound in the darkness, red and defiant.

Fiona sees in my forever-open eyes that this diversion means nothing, my head and heart and cock are elsewhere, and I do not sense the tendrils reaching into my brain; the woman is static, unable to truly comprehend. Her desperation hinders any possible fusion; it wiggles eel-like out of her grasp. The connection is transitory and then sizzles and sparks into dust, as memories that might have happened (to somebody else…) or dreams that seers might dream (if they dream anymore…), an empty-fisted grasp of sand through the haze of this brusque reality.

Sex is in the air, the smell of it, the wish for something more than kisses that lead to emptiness, and yet emptiness seems the prevalent vocation—
it is not love in this reality, it is only lust: blunt physicality, the sweat and release, that is all—
living on the edge of nothingness, yet the tip of something tactile bleeds, and the blood is tasty, tempting, and this temptation is felt in the body, in muscles that tense and bones that bend in impossible ways—
the dreams take shape, nudge into this reality—
desires mesh as two sticks mating, crisp sear, these fires born within, but it is heat that does not burn, it brings fever dreams—
these dreams destroy this reality, the execution of all you know, their sustenance—
and the need for something that one does not know how to truly express. Late night dalliances into oblivion, the soul of something unspoken and never quite defined.

Want and the need for more.

The band, Nameless—that is their name, the need to fill in the blanks with something to influence perceptions deemed unnecessary—draws me into their hideous take on the world we live in—no—it’s their honest take on the world we exist in, living is no longer an option, it is a byproduct, a happenstance: I am here and I am.

It is all machinery gasp and industrial grind: thick, droning, metallic junkyard clutter.

“What’s on your mind, lover?” Fiona says, her voice grown husky, the subtle intrusion of whiskers along her jawline, the slow swell of blood and muscle between her thighs.

I harrumph and raise a brow, thinking—maybe, maybe tonight—but even at that, a sphincter squeezed orgasm would be much more aesthetically pleasurable looking down on Fiona’s ass—the sweet Stratocaster slope of hip and prodding arch of sweat-drenched back—as opposed to some male fuck-fantasy in which, really, the only good thing about the male fuck-fantasy is to suck her cock, so really not in that mindset tonight, honey…

She knows this, telepathically jacks into my dirty mind and immediately her body reshapes itself to its original cast: the bulge deflates, the whiskers take flight as a swirling row of elliptical insects, eaten by lightbeam dust that floats within a dark funnel carved by flashbulb radiance, the shoulders shiver feminine, and her breasts fill her velvet vest to button-straining perfection, made so by the addition of nipples grown thick as nuggets of something dark and chewy and bisected via vertical steel bars, her last motion to sway me but, even at that, she knows, she reads the neural cartography across and between the hemispheres.

I don’t have to say anything to reject her, signs along the synaptic barbwire roadways indicate as much without the cruel defeatist finality of an actual failed pick-up…or deteriorating relationship. She understands that my desires, what I need, what I want…or at least what I think I want, do not include her tonight. She would pout—sexily at that—but it would be a waste, so she sits and sips something bright orange and bubbling tiny jack-o’-lanterns and smiles though her eyes are black and soulless, just like this world and my intentions.

She is perfect, perfection, whatever I want, whenever I want it, and yet…I need something different tonight.

Different. I laugh inside.

Fiona punches my arm lightly. “Prick.” Still smiling. Still soulless.

She understands.

I ignore her, taken by the sounds. It feels like an excuse to hurl this body full-on into the walls; and screaming, the sweet surrender to pain, and so much screaming…

Is this music…are these sounds—this band—the key to a new religion, the mantra of the long night, neon scribble stenciled on corneas and inside of anxious ears, eardrums assimilating the rhythms that bound off concrete and slick flesh…but no percussion, is it arterial, this rhythm? Is this the sound of the enigmatic Almighty (designated "NoGod" those many years ago when shadows grew long and ate the Sun) releasing the souls of all who hear it, to roam freely beyond the dim catatonic existence that has overtaken the world? Repetition de rigueur via computer-rigid jobs, ergonomic chairs for optimum comfort, the mandatory morning two vanilla mochas/lattes/frappes, waking up in cubicles the size of Porta-Pottys and feeling like shit (so you are where you belong), blah by brain-numbing blah, et cetera, bon appétit…

It all devolves into mono-driven slop scooped into the minds of people like me and Fiona and the hundreds (thousands, millions) of other beings playing a game of perseverance without reward.

I ramble silently, a mentally masticated monologue as personal philosophy—mindsplat masturbation—and wonder more so, what if this is the sound that makes it all worthwhile?

I need to know, so I need to get to know the band. I hone my attention to a laser pinpoint, focused exclusively on the female vocalist and her dark, charismatic, melancholic tones, a voice tough and uncompromising—real presence, this voice—a liquid leather seduction, laced with something deceptive, something tantalizing, something destructive: the perfect compliment to the music.

She does not sing, not exactly; it is not lyrics, yet lyrical. As with the now defunct band Sigur Ros, the vocals are utilized as a tool, a part of the aural vocabulary and not as most bands use a vocalist—to express clichéd sentiments or misplaced anger.

Something vital is captured within her vocalizations, vast nuances signifying the totality of our lives: the all-encompassing persistence of pain; the stilted and yet anxious dreamwish that is wonder; the molten crush of primal urges so profound they often push everything else to the rear, or completely out of the picture; the malaise that permeates it all.

That is just her voice. Her physical presence mesmerizes, yet clarity ripples, distinction eludes my internal need to catalogue. Eyes: jade slivers like jaguar shadows…and then just jungle shadows, roiling, shifting. Mouth: dew-stained roses, red rimmed and blackest heart…and within, shadows again…shifting; skin olive washed, soaked, marinated…and, again, shadows pull at the seams, unraveling…her body writhes and grows marble-still, Rodin yearnings made flesh…hair a leaky pen, white-ink Mohawk slash, a sliver of the supernova.

What I actually see is a visceral smear, something smudged, something blurred, because I cannot truly comprehend her totality: presence, being, self.

I need different eyes.

NoGod, I know the changeling whole of her is what I need tonight, that "something different" that so rattles me to the core, that place within that so desperately wants something more than existence, even though the situation precludes true fulfillment.

But I do not care. This woman, distorted distortion-driven diva, and her robed comrades—I see nothing within their hoods, no colors beyond the black and the occasional white-hot sparkle as of constellations singing—create an aural vortex that signifies a truth that I want to know tonight, as it digs unseen claws into my groin, as the sincerity of the audio mutilation feels like arousal, like hunger and the need to feed, to fuck and leave it all, every ounce of meat and sweat, semen and passion, in that hot place, vacuum-squeezed muscle and so damned necessary, the only necessity within this somnambulant existence.

Her vagina or the vortex, it does not matter.

I shuffle from my seat at the bar, Fiona left to fend for herself tonight, onto the crowded floor—zombie rave; sleepwalker’s sway—flowing toward the stage, arms loose, cobra-dancing like all the others, we are one, snakepit, snakebit sycophants, surging…

The female vocalist slinks from one edge of the stage to the other, pauses, swooshes, crumbles, resurrects and realigns her mass, each transformation something I can taste in the back of my throat, on the tip of the tongue that swabs the brain as one would ice cream, down to the primordial essence, the scaly limbic soul, the obliterated void: that which was not, annihilated by that which demanded existence before existence was defined.

I close my eyes and allow the shadows to envelop me, even as bodies press against me, midnight in the realm of lost causes scrabbling for something that imagines Hope as it once might have been, many years ago.

My thoughts clear and I whisper amidst the sonic deluge and the blackened thoroughfares of my mind, “Take me.”

And she does…

The muffled refraction of noise signals the hierarchy of hammers battering the walls of the small room, small postage-stamp cramped place, but I do not mind, because I am with her, the shimmering phantom. (Is it a room?) The night moves as a thief, a disciple of darkness so profound it laps up the hidden margins, nibbles nooks and crannies, and gorges on that which lurks behind.

I wanted another’s body to call my own, to use and abuse and leave fouled by my coarse physical discourse. An ephemeral conversation between flesh and flesh, with the mind of the other—woman; telepath—shaping our coupling to fit my needs, as it has been for many years since commencement of The Uncovering.

I wanted it to be different, so different I could not recognize it as anything I had experienced before, yet it would fulfill my wanton desires to overflowing. But this thing…this thing was so different I felt the howl rise from the saltwater seas boiling within, but only as a reflection of the creature I once was, fins to feet, gills to lungs…to confusion: is my self-fulfillment the average and expected outcome to this equation?

I sense mandibles clacking and carapace-yearnings, the clatter of gears and squeal of pistons, slimy dreams flood wiry antediluvian ducts, vascular progression…space sickness…

She makes a sound in the small room—cranial dungeon—a prescient vocalization that leaves me aghast, flushed of impetus, inspiration, and the insidious influx of ego and id.

My eyes open…to revelations.

I see me, whirling amidst the throng, faster now, the night within me pouring out—waves; tsunamis—spasmodic reconstruction, metamorphosis, transmutation…evolution…

“I said open your eyes, Trace.”

(How long have I been here? How does she know my name? Seconds pass in the exhaust of infinity…)

(My eyes are open!)

“Fear not that which your heart truly desires, Trace…and open your eyes.”

Oil-slick pronouncements that eclipse quasars; the whole of the cosmos in retrograde, Drakkar crashing against the turbulent chaos that is the heavens; my soul, or the voracious thing that roosted there, yanked into the cold waste, being laid to waste…laid to waste…

(My eyes are open!)

“I don’t want this,” I yell, uncertain, afraid. It is only another sound (dissonance defined) added to the noise washing over me, through me: blood echo symphonies, the dispersion of me: presence, being, self.

I remember a girl, once, eons ago—hair like snow, eyes like oceans—and loving her, loving her, and nothing else mattered.

(“I love you. I will love you forever.”)

(“Forever is a long time. Love me for now, we’ll worry about forever some other day.”)

(“Forever…”)

I remember lifetimes, hundreds and more. Lifetimes linked, daisy-chain histories, finding you and bringing you that which was always meant for you and you alone —
— and the madness that followed, scouring that which had driven me, the core of me gone vapid, deflated, blown full of self-love and narcissism, shaped by the world’s weary whim…

(The Uncovering…shhh…)

“Fear not that which your heart has desired…forever…”

Catapult into awareness, capillary rampage, Milky Way ruminations, and something more, something prodded into view again: my soul, the soul of ages, singing as it has not sung in this lifetime, this miserable existence, joining the Nameless noise—noise with purpose.

I open my eyes for the first time in this life and see her clearly now, with every iota of my being: my soul, the soul of ages, her soul, the soul of ages, our souls, forever entwined…out there, in the cold waste where the corruptions and conspiracies of this dead planet cannot touch us.

I find joy in this knowledge.

Eternity stretches before me, within us. The cold waste beyond comprehension. Your warmth soothes my fear; your belief is my tether in the omniscient ether: it knows all that has ever or will ever be; it knows me, intimately.

But.

This intimacy comes at a price.

Reading my dreams, the dreams (memories, madness) that have followed me through each reawakening, serves no purpose to me, it only feeds your seduction.

I feed your seduction.

We are one: Ouroboros instinct; black widow aspirations…

I am aware of a truth that disallows the truth: your lies. You cling to me, many metallic pincers and igneous needles and decrepit desires prying my mind for every iota of information, dreams (memories, madness)…nightmares…

I drop to my knees in silent supplication to you:

God…

NoGod.

But you are everywhere and everything (alien; insect; machine; lover…), and I am merely sustenance…

No matter.

Devour me, please…this final memory my epitaph, a cherished recollection of what it once meant to be human, and to love.

EVERYTHING BUT THE OINK

by Keith P. Graham
art by S. M. Fletcher

The pig was angry and not talking to anyone. One-Eyed Phil had called him Porky again and the pig wasn’t in any mood to put up with it. He sat away from the fire, and leaned against a tree. The half dozen hobos sitting around the fire all looked at the man-pig.

“C’mon man,” Big Jim said, trying to console the porker, “Phil didn’t mean anything by it. He was just joking around.”

“Hell,” said Willie, “You don’t think I like being called ‘Little’ Willie all the time? Do ya?”

“I don caw yo wiwwle Wiwwie.” The pig finally said, the words distorted by his porcine tongue and pallet.

“But you can, if you want to,” Willie argued, “We all have monikers. Nobody calls me William Fischer. There’s a Fat Willie and a Big Willie and I’m Little Willie. I don’t take offense. Ernesto DiMaiale is too much of a mouthful. Phil was just trying to give you a nickname.”

“But my name is Ernesto DiMaiale,” he said. The pig had his hands crossed over his chest. The short fingers had thick, hoof like nails and the thumbs were way up his wrists. He was looking out into the darkness at the edge of the forest.

“You are one of us, now,” Big Jim said, “We share and share alike. It doesn’t matter whether you’re black, white, or pig.”

“I am nah a pig!” squealed Ernesto DiMaiale.

“Sorry,” said Jim, “Sus Sapiens is what I meant. It don’t matter anyway. You are a genetically engineered man-pig hybrid and you’re as much a human as anyone here. That’s what I say.” There were cries of agreement from the men. The pig looked at the men and his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sowwy,” Ernesto said, changing his tone, “I have a thin skin. You guys are the best fwiends that I’ve ever had.”

“One for all and all for one!” shouted Little Willie and held up a bottle of cheap port. They all joined in and the bottle passed around. Even Ernesto took a hit. The men shared the port until it was gone and then someone found a quart of Colt 45 and everyone pulled a slug from that. As the fire died down, the men and the man-pig hybrid grew silent. Big Ed and One-Eyed Phil started snoring in a rhythmic counterpoint. A few of the men walked back to the tree line to relieve themselves, but soon only Little Willie and Ernesto were left awake.

Little Willie sidled up to Ernesto. “So you think tonight’s the night?”

“I think so.” The pig took a piece of paper from the pocket of his L.L. Bean Relaxed Fit Jeans size 48 with the 24-inch inseam. Willie found that he could understand the pig’s speech much better after a few drinks. “This is a diagram of the complex.”

“How did you get a diagram of the place?”

“You forget that I was born there,” the man-pig said.

“Oh, yeah. But you escaped more than almost a year ago.”

“I don’t forget things like this.”

“Wait here,” Willie said and he went over to a small shelter made of oak skids and plastic sheeting. Willie turned and looked around and then reached up under the plastic and pulled out a small pistol. He checked the magazine and put it in his pocket. He returned and said to Ernesto, “I’ve got it.”

“You know,” said Ernesto, “you don’t have to come with me. The odds are that neither one of us will make it out alive.”

“I know the odds,” replied Willie, “but I can’t let you go in there alone.”

“Ok, let’s do it.”

Soon the fire was nothing but a few red embers quickly disappearing into ashes. The moon was low in the western sky and would set soon. Willie and Ernesto got up slowly and left the circle of sleeping hobos without a sound. Little Willie deserved his moniker but he still towered over Ernesto. The two of them followed the path back towards the town. When they came to the interstate, they crossed under it at the Elmer Road entrance ramp. They followed Elmer Road through the industrial park and then followed the old railroad tracks to the rear of the Orgo-Life complex.

Orgo-Life grew hearts, kidneys, livers, corneas, and other organs used in most of the country’s transplants. They grew genetically modified pigs, seeding them with portions of the human genome so that they would produce human parts in a disposable animal.

They passed under a chain link fence, pulling it up and bending the rusted wire back. There was a space where animals that raided the dumpsters for snacks dug out sandy soil. Willie and Ernesto had no trouble getting under and through the fence.
The doors to the loading dock were open, but there were no trucks parked there. It was a hot night and the doors were open for ventilation. Ernesto climbed up the steps next to the docks. He flattened himself against the wall and peered around the open doors into the processing plant. He beckoned to Willie who jumped onto the dock and crept up to the doors from the other side.

A wind of humid air flowed out the doors, flavored with the almost overpowering scent of pig shit.

Ernesto made an OK sign with his fingers, which was difficult for him, but Willie understood. They both crept into the processing plant, keeping to the shadows. Suddenly Ernesto pulled up hard against the wall and held his hand out in a motion that meant stay back. He looked at Willie and pointed up to a catwalk that ran about twenty feet above them. A naked man-pig was walking slowly along the walkway. He was carrying a large double-barreled shotgun.

“Watch out,” hissed Ernesto.

“But he’s like you.”

“Like hell he is! He’s a trustee. He trades the lives of his brothers for a few months of extra life.”

They waited while the trustee walked along the catwalk to the far side of the plant.

“Where is she?” asked Willie.

“If she is still alive, she will be in the female pens. It’s down to the left here and past the tanks.”

“They live in pens?”

“They call them pens, but it’s like a dormitory. If they called it anything but a pen, they might have to call those that live there humans.”

Dodging from shadow to shadow, hiding in doorways and behind equipment the two comrades worked their way to the female pens.

“This friend of yours, Sandra you called her, how do you know she’s still alive?” Willie asked as they crouched behind a forklift.

“They keep the females until they are 14 years old so they can harvest the breasts for cosmetic surgery. They have ten to twelve teats and they vary from size B up to double D. There’s big money in teats.”

They paused just outside the doors to the female pens. The door was unguarded, but they could hear voices. The two hid behind a large flat of Purina Hog Chow containers. Ernesto crept to the doors and cracked them open. He looked into the pens and then suddenly ran back to hide with Little Willie. “Shhh,” hissed Ernesto with a finger to his lips.

The doors opened and two humans wearing security guard uniforms walked out of the pens. They were laughing. “That Delilah is too much,” He was saying, “She can’t get enough of me.”

“Yeah and did you see Mimi?” the other said. “She was wearing that sexy outfit that Ronnie brought her. Too bad she’s going to the harvester next week.”

“It could be that she knows and she’s playing for more time. Whitlock likes her, so she might pull it off.”

The men laughed and joked as they walked along out of sight.

“Scum!” Ernesto squealed when they were gone.

“Take it easy,” Little Willie soothed the man-pig, “Let’s get Sandra out of here as quick as we can.”

The lights were out in the pens. There were rooms on either side of a long hallway with rows of bunk beds in each room. A murmur of voices rose as they passed each room. Faces with pig snouts appeared dimly through locked gates, and then disappeared as their owners fled back to the beds.

“It’s Ernesto, he’s back!” a voice cried softly as they passed one room.

“Where’s Sandra?” Ernesto whispered through a grate, but there was no response from the darkened room.

“Sandra?” Ernesto called into each room as they passed. There was movement and glimpses of naked bodies as the occupants went to their bunks and hid under the covers. “Sandra? Please, where is Sandra?”

A figure stood at the entrance to one of the rooms. She was wearing a lacy negligee, thong panties, and five brassieres in different colors and sizes.

“Sandra can’t see you,” The pig-woman said to them.

“Please, where is she? I just want to talk to her.”

“There’s nothing you can do. She’s scheduled for the harvester on Monday. They’ve got her in lockdown.”

“No, I have to talk to her!” Ernesto turned and started to run back the way they had come. Mimi, it could be no one else, smiled at Little Willie seductively and licked her painted lips. Like a bird hypnotized by a snake, Willie couldn’t take his eyes off all of those breasts. The spell was broken when he heard Ernesto call back: “Hurry Willie!” Willie turned and followed his porcine friend.

Ernesto knew where he was going. He ran without regard to guards or pigs on catwalks. Willie followed behind him but was soon lost in the maze of hallways, staging rooms and storage areas. No one saw them as they worked their way to the lockdown area.

Ernesto pulled at the padlock on a door. Willie could hear cries and oinks behind the door. Willie looked around for something to use as a lever to pry the door open, but he could see nothing.

“Sandra!” Ernesto called through the door. His call was answered with, “Ernie? Is that you?” from the other side of the door.

“Hold on Sandra, I’m coming!” He pulled at the lock.

Willie saw a fork lift down the hallway and ran for it. He pressed the starter and the propane engine caught. Willie spun the wheel around and aimed for the door.

“Get out of the way,” he called and gunned the engine.

The forks struck the steel door sending sparks flying and the door bowed in. The padlock held, though. Willie back up and rammed the door again. The doors buckled and the hasp pulled out from the metal door. As Willie pulled the forklift away from the door, Ernesto ran into the room calling “Sandra!”

Willie heard shouts of men and pig-men coming from the other direction.

“Ernesto!” he yelled, “It’s time to get the hell out of Dodge!” Willie pulled out his gun, ready to shoot his way out.

Ernesto ran out of the lockdown pulling a young thing after him. Man-pig hybrids ran from the room squealing. Some were more like pigs than men, running on all fours, but others were indistinguishable from humans except for a piggy nose and a curly tail. All of them knew their fate, and they were running for their lives.

Ernesto jumped on the back of the forklift and he pulled Sandra after him. “That way!” he pointed and Willie took off down the corridor. The trio chugged down the twisting paths of the complex directed by Ernesto. Sandra had her arms around Ernesto and she was sobbing. Willie noticed that she was indeed very beautiful, for a pig.

They turned corners with the forklift so fast that it tipped onto two wheels. Ernesto directed them, referring to his little map from time to time. The turned one way and then another and Willie was thoroughly lost.

They turned a corner and their way was blocked. Willie slammed on the brakes and the forklift skidded to a halt.

Three huge man-boar hybrids stood in the way. They each looked to weigh a quarter of a ton and even with their hulking postures were over six feet tall. They had tusks that grew curling out of their mouths and they had angry red pig eyes. They held baseball bats in their hands and walked slowly towards the three.

Willie drew out his pistol. It was a 32-caliber police special. He had liberated it from a neighboring farm. He wondered if it would even slow these monsters down.

“Here,” Willie said giving the gun to Ernesto, “I’m going to try and break through. You keep them busy with the gun.”

As Willie put his foot to the floor on the accelerator, Ernesto tried to shoot the gun, but his thick fingers couldn’t fit through the trigger guard. Sandra took the gun away from Ernesto. She jumped to a standing position on the forklift’s counter weight and braced herself against the roll bar.

Willie ducked down as the 32 barked out over his head. There were squeals of pain as the bullets found their mark. The giant porkers leapt back and the forklift barreled past them. Willie looked up at the heroic pig girl. She was fearlessly holding out the gun in front of her, ready to fight her way to freedom. Her twelve perfect nipples pointed the way.

Men with shotguns guarded the entrance to the loading docks. There were dead pig-men scattered over the floor. Sandra started shooting as soon as she saw them and the men jumped for cover. Willie yelled an Indian war whoop as he pressed the forklift forward at top speed. The men opened fire, but the escapees were a moving target in an age when boys had never been allowed to play with toy guns. The inexperienced men tried to shoot, but they shied away from the noise of their own blasts. Most of their shots went high.

The forklift practically flew through the loading dock doors into the truck bay. Willie slammed on the brakes and the vehicle turned a full 180 as it stopped. Sandra fell forward from her perch and landed hard on the pavement. Ernesto jumped off the back of the forklift and dragged her up. The three fled the complex. Ernesto had to help Sandra. She was having trouble walking.

They ran across the grounds, crouching low. When they reached the other side of the fence, Sandra fell down and said, “You go on without me Ernesto. I can’t make it.”

“Sure you can, darling,” Ernesto said, but both men saw it at the same time. Sandra’s top left breast, the perfect B cup, was covered with blood. There was a jagged hole torn by the shotgun blast just below her collarbone. It was bleeding profusely.

“I’m a goner,” she said, “I can’t walk any more, I’m so tired. Go on without me. Leave me here.”

“Sandra, No,” Ernesto said, “I’ll never leave you.” He looked at Willie. “We’ll have to carry her.”

Sandra choked and then coughed up some blood. “Ernesto,” she said looking deeply into his eyes. “I always knew that someday you’d come for me. Thank you.”

“I had to come, Sandra. I love you. I couldn’t leave you there to die.”

“And now I’m free.” She coughed more blood and her body arched in pain.

“Sandra!”

“I’m free,” she whispered, “I’m finally free.” Her head turned to the side. Her eyes stayed open, the perfect shade of blue, staring at nothing at all. Her bodied shuddered and then was utterly motionless.

“Oh, Sandra!” the man-pig cried in great heaving sobs over her body.

There were alarms sounding all over the Orgo-Life complex. Pale naked figures raced by them in the dark as Sus Sapiens renegades fled from their doom. Ernesto didn’t move. He just cried over the body of the valiant Sandra. Willie heard sirens and he saw a fleet of police cars speed through the gates at the far end of the complex. Searchlights snapped on, sweeping the grounds with their beams.

Willie tugged at Ernesto. “Come on, man. We’ve got to get going. The heat is on. They’ll find us soon.”

“I can’t leave her—not like this.”

“Ok, we’ll carry her.” Willie took the gun that was still in Sandra’s hand and picked up Sandra’s body under the arms. Ernesto grabbed her feet. Willie wondered what they would do with the body once they got back to the hobo jungle. They would have to dispose of it quick or the cops would know that they’d been to the complex. The police and the goons from the Orgo-Life were not above breaking a few heads.

It was early dawn when they arrived back at the camp. Willie went to his flop and hid the gun. He slept most of the morning. When the police and the corporate goons tossed the hobo camp later that day, they didn’t find the gun and Ernesto was hiding in the low brush of the forest with some new friends. He didn’t return until after dark when it was suppertime. He brought a pig man and two pig women with him out of the forest. The hobos contributed some old clothes to dress the naked escapees and Willie, Ernesto and the rest of the group sat down with their new friends to enjoy freedom and a hot meal.

Ernesto was still so broken up that he could hardly speak. “She was so young, so innocent,” Ernesto cried. The pig-man could not stop the tears flowing down over his snout. Someone passed him the bottle of wine and he took a slug.

Willie put an arm around Ernesto’s shoulders and gave him a warm hug. “Hey man, don’t think about it. Sandra tried and that’s what counts. It’s better to die fighting for freedom than to live as a slave.”

Ernesto squealed a little as he sobbed and passed the wine to Willie. He sat up straight and looked up at the stars. “We’ll always have that moment of freedom together. That’s how I’ll remember her.”

“There will be other days, other quests, and even other women,” Willie said. He winked at the pig woman next to Ernesto. He sipped from the bottle of 99¢ wine, and then picked a string of meat from between his teeth. “They won’t be the same as she was, and you’ll never forget her, but I promise you that the hurt will fade as time goes by.”

“She was a sweet thing,” Ernesto seemed to get a grip on himself. Willie speared another hunk of meat from the stew and chewed it.

Big Jim brought a plate of the stew over to Ernesto. “Eat up brother. Waste not, want not.”

Ernesto took the plate and fork from Willy. He jabbed a small piece of meat, brought it up to his nose, and sniffed. He shrugged his shoulders and put the meat in his mouth. He chewed is slowly at first and then closed his mouth and swallowed.

“Yes, she was a fine sweet thing.” Ernesto said.

“And tender, too.” Little Willie answered, forking another piece of pork.