Jeez, every time I see one of these it sends chills up and down my spine. Probably everyone in Fort Stockton gets the same feeling. Most folks would just as soon forget it ever happened and sweep it under the rug, but I think history ought to be brought up and held under a light so it doesn’t repeat itself.

It was back in ’94 or ’95. Can’t remember which without digging through some old journals, and it isn’t worth getting up in the attic. But I know it was in the autumn. Temps had come down into the 90s in Fort Stockton and plans were starting to made for Thanksgiving. Taking advantage of the cool weather, I had filled up a big galvanized pail with warm soapy water and headed to the driveway to wash the Edsel Bermuda and get a coat of Simonize paste wax on it before winter set in. Then I was going to give Gullwing, my Norwegian Wolfhound, a bath and express his anal glands. Poor thing had been rubbing his arse over the river rock dry creek bed just off the patio, making it damn near impossible to grill steaks without gagging. His butt looked like two lemons playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em with his tail when he walked down the street.

I had a Thermos full of Folgers I kept going back to, trying to keep my inside temperature regulated to match the outside temperature. The Thermos was just about empty, so I’m guessing it was right around noon. I’d finished waxing the wagon and had started on Gullwing’s south end, not a job for the faint of heart. The first squeeze resulted in a stream of ungodly smelling liquid paste the color of my dad’s old ‘72 Impala flying through the air and right onto the neighbor’s rose bushes. Watching from the picture window in his living room, the next door neighbor was in the front yard, handkerchief over his mouth and nose, asking me who was going to pay for new rose bushes, should they all die from the toxic exposure. Gullwing laid down in the shade of the Edsel, absolutely spent from the relief. I think he’d a smoked a cigarette if he’d had one.

I was about to tell the neighbor that his rose bushes could benefit from the fertilizer and he should actually be paying ME.  That’s when it happened.

We both look towards the curb at the same time and see a half dozen ’93 AM General 606s rolling down the street, each carrying eight or ten guys dressed in full combat fatigues and armed to the gills with automatic weapons. Looked like one guy even had a bazooka of some sort. Not a one of ‘em had a smile on his face. Never a good sign, to be sure.

Turns out, there had been “an incident” out at The Facility.

The top secret compound out north of Fort Stockton that everyone knows about but nobody talks about had something go terribly wrong and the AM Generals were on their way to attempt to contain the problem. Of course they had notified Mayor Goodman, him being the top law enforcement official in town. But he was nursing a flare up of the bone spurs that’d kept him out of Viet Nam and said he shouldn’t get too close to any of the “Hot Activity,” fearing he wouldn’t be able to run back to the vehicle quickly enough, what with the bone spurs, should the need arise.

It seems that Cecil Sturgis, the old janitor out at The Facility, had dumped several crates of faulty AI chips being tested directly into the dumpster out back, along with the leftovers of his lunch from the Dairy Twin. Of course that was in direct violation of Protocol D-15-07B that clearly stated: “In the event of artificial intelligence microchips proving to be defective in any way or for any reason, they are to be incinerated for a minimum of 24 hours without leaving The Facility. After allowing them to cool for a minimum of 36 hours, the ashes are to be poured into a concrete and asbestos container by personnel wearing full hazmat protective gear and driven to the disposal site off County Road 666 for burial no less than 17 feet below the surface and then covered in concrete, the depth of which shall not be less than four feet. This shall be done at night, preferably NOT under a full moon. NO RECORD SHALL BE KEPT OF THE PROCEDURE.”

So clearly, Sturgis just throwing them in the dumpster with the remains of his half eaten chicken nuggets and seasoned curly fries fell somewhat short of the accepted standards and practices.  And that is what led to near disaster.

It seems a whole herd of feral hogs got wind of the dumpster.  In the subsequent investigation that took place at the end of the crisis, they could never prove whether it was the nuggets or the seasoned curly fries that had lured them in.  But they found the trail of damage leading to the dumpster going nearly 17 miles  north, and across three different ranches and two highways, so in the official report it was listed as the seasoned curly fries.  The hogs were able to dig under the chain link fence, the rolls of barbed wire atop the fence doing nothing to slow a pack of animals down who could dig deeper than Woodward and Bernstein, given the right inducement.

Based on surveillance video turned over later, the herd then made their way through the parking lot, past the outdoor basketball court, and chewed right through the cedar privacy stockade surrounding the dumpster. This is where the experts became really baffled.  The video showed the larger hogs assuming a position of four across, the slightly smaller hogs crawling atop of the first row, the even smaller hogs crawling on top of them, and the very smallest feral hog crawling to the very top and jumping into the dumpster.  They had formed a pork pyramid.  

Once inside, the smallest pig rooted through the contents of the dumpster, having a few nuggets and seasoned curly fries before tossing big boxes of lunch leftovers, old newspapers, a stack of PLAYBOYS Sturgis had gotten rid of before his wife found them, and the faulty AI chips. Apparently the grease and seasoning from the curly fries had damn near coated the Artificial Intelligence chips, making them a treat far too difficult to turn down for the herd below. Despite the relative crunchiness of the chips, the hogs devoured them like they were Ritz crackers, as did the small hog still inside the dumpster who’d swallowed several with the fries.

Experts figured he was the first one to be affected, based on the fact that he had no trouble getting back out of the dumpster after tossing its contents over the top and down to the heard below. Grabbing an old broom that had been tossed out, the hog in the dumpster pole-vaulted over the top like Sergey Bubka when he set the record of 6.15 meters on February 21st of 1993 in Donetsk, Ukraine. On the blacktop below, two of the medium sized hogs stood on their hind legs, locked front hooves, and caught him before he could hit the ground. Clearly, something was happening as a result of what they’d eaten, and it wasn’t because of the seasoned curly fries, though they are damn good with a cold Dr. Pepper.

As they started walking across the parking lot, hog after hog began standing up and walking upright on their back legs, just like the two that had locked hooves to catch the dumpster diver. By the time they got to Cecil Sturgis’ AMC Gremlin, one of the hogs popped the hood, hot-wired the underpowered engine, and four of them crawled in, the big one behind the wheel. The other eight found a low mileage 1991 Ford Country Squire and hopped in. The one riding shotgun seemed to be indicating his surprise at Ford’s decision to drop the wagon after the ’91 model year, but the video tape did not include sound, so that part was pure speculation.

What couldn’t be disputed, though, was the Country Squire pulling out and leading the Gremlin out of the top secret compound and heading straight to Fort Stockton.

The absolute havoc they wreaked once they hit the city limits could take up a whole different story. It was estimated that in 2018 alone feral hogs did 118 million dollars worth of agriculture damage in the Lone Star State. Truth be told, they probably did that much damage just on the rampage they went on in Fort Stockton, what with them being a whole lot smarter than the average feral hog at that point.

Once in town, the group in the Country Squire split off and drove down the alley behind city hall. One of them picked the lock on the back of the door, three others went into the room where they stored the voting machines and started reprogramming them. Two of them took off towards the Lucky Lady, broke in the side door and carried out all the BUD Lite and threw it all in the dumpster out back. It’s like they knew.

Four of them went from neighborhood to neighborhood rounding up all the grilles and smokers, piling them in a giant mountain of metal across from the train depot and setting fire to the whole bunch.  The smartest one, clearly the one driving the Country Squire, had sketched out a sort of manifesto that the one riding shotgun had written down in a spiral notebook he’d found in the map pocket.  The two of them walked over to KFSX, broke into the station, and left it on the control panel to be read the following morning during peak drive time.

The plan had been for all of them to meet up behind the Piggly Wiggly at sunup to figure out the best way to divide and conquer.  That flawed plan is probably the only thing that saved Fort Stockton, maybe Texas.  

The six AM General M998 HMMWVs surrounded the Piggly Wiggly as the 11th feral hog was wandering down the alley, drinking a cold BUD Lite and reading one of Sturgis’ old PLAYBOYs. The scene that unfolded was something worse than a Freddy Krueger movie. The alley behind the Piggly Wiggly looked like a scene from the apocalypse. The 12th and final feral fiend wasn’t located for two more days. Authorities got a call from Lucinda to send an AM General or two over to her place, but pull up as quietly as possible in the alley out back and come to the side door.

Once on her side stoop, troops peered through the French door and saw Lucinda was in her skimpiest Frederick’s of Hollywood bustier, the red one with thin straps, and black leather pants. She was in the kitchen making a pitcher of mimosas. When she saw the troops she pointed upstairs and put her finger to her lips, signaling them to be quiet. Single file, weapons drawn, taking the stairs two at a time, the Containment Crew from The Facility made their way upstairs. Breaking the bedroom door in, they struggled with what they saw. The small hog, the first to have eaten the seasoned curly fries and AI chips, was in Lucinda’s four poster, watching The View while wearing a royal blue silk smoking jacket with a velvet collar, smoking a Swisher Sweet. The kind with the filter tip.

Expecting something completely different to walk through the door, the relaxed, yet strangely aroused hog reached with his hoof for the chrome snub-nosed .357 Colt Python on the nightstand. Commander Cromwell fired one right between his eyes, saying, “That’ll do, pig!” Lucinda, peering over Cromwell’s shoulder, was the last sight the sinister swine ever saw.

Took a while for the town to get over all that. Of course, it was front page news in the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch. The Containment Crew from The Facility made sure those editions never saw the light of day. Lucinda, always a sucker for a uniform, made sure Commander Cromwell was the last to leave the scene upstairs, it taking him several hours to “fill out the report”.

Pork chops and bacon were on sale all autumn that year at the Piggly Wiggly. The Facility soon won a contract to study seasoned curly fries as a weaponized food product. The neighbor’s rose bushes never looked better. So good, in fact, that he sold the house at full asking and moved into a retirement center. Gullwing had a new spring in his step.

Folks in town still wonder whether or not Lucinda would have gone whole hog in order to save the town, had the AM General M998 HMMwvs not gotten there in time. But, deep down, everyone knew she could be very bad to do the most good for Fort Stockton.