Chapter Thirty-Three

Vengeance of the Hogg

L ance waited weeks for the bitch to be alone. She looked like her grandmother, and he owed her for everything the old woman had done to his family. He thought of her as the bitch because she looked too big for her britches, and she had everything he wanted.

After his father went crazy and shot his mother and brothers, Lance ran into the desert to escape. Before he left, he’d carried his mom to her bed. He’d mostly felt sorry for her because she was about as worthless as they came. He’d liked Carrie, though, and was pissed at his da for killing her.

He hadn’t understood the insanity of that night until he’d had a chance to think about it. Rabies was the obvious culprit, and his mind came up with the excuse that it was the old woman’s fault. She’d caused trouble since they moved in. He wished he could have killed her himself.

He’d watched from a high ridge, far enough away but close enough to see when the police arrived. He’d seen the barn explode, which really pissed him off. They had another large meth order to fulfill and had already been paid. The money burned up in the house. Their buyer would kill him, so he decided to lay low.

It wasn’t easy. He’d lost weight, been eaten by mosquitoes, and his only water supply came from the water mill the cows used. He had cuts and scrapes covering him, along with constant head and body aches. Two teeth had fallen out, and another was loose. His goal was to kill the old man, who had been a cop, and take over the property. His da’s place was destroyed, and there was nothing left for him.

He’d decided to rattle them first. It was most likely stupid, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t have a gun, though he’d managed to steal a good-sized hunting knife. His da had always called him worthless, but who was worthless now? He’d been the only one left standing.

As part of his plan to terrorize, he’d stole paint from a storage shed a few miles away. He stayed in a deserted homestead that had been abandoned years before. It was little more than a shack and didn’t have much inside, but it did have the metal traps, which enabled him to catch rabbits. He’d stolen blankets from another place and got lucky one night when he found a Dutch oven at a homestead a mile away. The only person out here who called the cops had been the old lady, so he felt relatively safe that he wouldn’t be caught stealing what he needed.

Each month, when he couldn’t stand his smell any longer, he’d sneak over to the water mill at night and bathe. At first, he liked being on his own. The cold had gotten bad, and he almost froze to death several times. He wanted to kill the cop, just so he could use his place to get warm. He worried about his cop friends though. He got sick several times and that most likely started because he lit wood fires inside the shack with little ventilation. He’d survived two winters and now all he could think of was the bitch and what he would do to her.

She would change everything. After he beat her up some, she would do what he said. The old man would die, but he would keep the bitch alive until she no longer pleased him.

That could take a while because he was horny just thinking about her. Sometimes his thoughts didn’t make sense, but he’d been that way his whole life. His da said he was the dumbest of the bunch.

He put his hand between his legs and made himself feel better.

The bitch would be doing it soon.