Is it possible for a human to be more pig than the pig itself?
Will turned this question over in his mind as he stood beneath the trophy from his first proper intimate kill and gazed down at his second one, in the form of the prone, unconscious body of Freddie Lounds. Her curiosity finally the death of her, he thought. Pigs are curious, snufflers amongst the undergrowth, senses keened and singularly focussed on their prize.
But pigs deal in facts. The only thing they pull out of the air is oxygen. Unlike Freddie, pulling her last lungfuls of oxygen from the stale barn air surrounding them, yes. But never to pull again, fiction and lies about the subjects of her articles out of that same air. Fiction and lies about me, he thought, as he pulled a knife from the block on the table opposite.
But then Ms Lounds was never one to let a little thing like the truth stand in the way of a bad story.
Pigs were friendly and intelligent. And while Freddie Lounds was, to some degree at least the latter, Will grudgingly admitted, as he ran his fingers along the back of the blade towards its razor tip, she was far from the former. More kin with the wolf who came knocking on the pig's barn door, huffing and puffing and blowing smoke up your ass…
Well-bred pigs were lean and muscular. So perhaps Ms Lounds does have that in common with them at least, he considered, as he rolled her onto her stomach and glided the tip of his knife down her spine, stilling it at the small of her back.
Pigs were never rude. Freddie was rude. And one should, wherever possible, eat the rude. Waste not, want not after all…