Oh, boy. He was really in for it now. Sooner or later somebody would come by and then they'd see what Big Red had done. Uncle Bud or Uncle Tuck would come. Boy, would they be mad.

Unless...

Was there some way he could hide the bodies?

Big Red was mulling over this problem when, outside, the hogs began to squeal. The man lifted his large head, looking toward the sound.

His afternoon chore, he never forgot his afternoon chore.

Then he looked down again, at Ma and Pa.

You're not fit for the hogs. That's what Ma always said to Pa when she was really mad at him. But she didn't mean it. It was just a joke. She had explained that to Big Red many times.

Which meant, Pa really was fit for the hogs. Big Red stood slowly, the metal joint of his artificial left leg squeaking loudly. He bent down and picked up one of Pa's big bare feet, and used it to drag his father across the rough floorboards toward the door of the shack.

Right before he had put the shotgun to Ma's heart, she had scuttled backward across the floor until her back was up against the wall. She had held both arms up in the air, pleading with him. After Big Red shot her, she had stayed propped up against the wall, with one of her arms still up in the air, held up by the iron frame of Big Red's bed. Now Big Red took hold of this arm and started dragging her across the floor along with his pa.

Ma's hand was cold, but still it felt good holding it. Ma always let Big Red hold her hand when they were walking in the woods on their way to gather blueberries or when they went into town to run an errand.

Big Red had a little problem at the door. When he tried to drag both his parents outside at once, the doorway got kind of clogged. His father's whiskery face bashed into the side of the door and the teeth in his open mouth stuck into the wood.

The hogs were making a huge ruckus now, because Red had opened the shack door. They were smart, those animals. Pa used to say that the hogs were smarter than Big Red.

Red could see the three hogs, pushing their funny pink noses between the gray slats of the pigpen fence. Well, at least there was one good thing about what had happened. Now the hogs would have a special treat.

He carried Pa out of the shack first, then Ma. Then he started dragging both of his parents toward the pigpen by their hair.

   Chapter 4

Delilah, the huge black-and-white sow, was waiting for him when he got there. She was chewing on something. He couldn't see what, ‘cause whatever it was, it was all mixed with straw. Delilah stopped chewing when he reached over the fence. He started scratching the short, bristly hairs on her broad back. She stood very still, grunting softly. She watched him with her tiny, shrewd eyes.

Whenever you scratched Delilah, she always stopped eating, no matter how hungry she was. She just loved the feeling so much—loved it more than food. Tuck went on scratching, smiling down at Delilah. "Sweet hog," he said. "Yesss, you are..."

With his head down, he didn't notice Mae, the big pink hog, as she trotted away from the water trough. A female human hand dangled by one finger from the hog's wide mouth.

   Friday the 13th: Jason's Curse, chapter 6