Chapter 38: The Final Nightmare
Prudence dropped to all fours in the middle of
“You have to,” Wendell said. He climbed down off her back, now a pigtailed toddler in canary yellow pajamas. “We can’t stop now. We’re so close.”
“Go…without…me.”
“I can’t. I’m too little.” As if to emphasize the point, Wendell shrank another half-inch.
“I’m too big,” Prudence said. A fit of coughing, wheezing, and grunting seized her throat. “Please…go.”
“No. There has to be another way.”
“Like what? Reverend Crane…was right. We’re…doomed.”
Wendell sank down next to Prudence, unconsciously sucking on his thumb as he thought. They couldn’t fail now, not when they only needed to get another couple miles. It’s not fair, he thought. We’re so close! Tears came to his eyes as he put a hand on Prudence’s gut and listened to her strain for every breath. The hundreds of excess pounds were killing her. The only question remaining was whether she would die before Samantha finished them off.
Prudence deserved better than this. She worked as hard as anyone in Eternity to make sure all the children had clothes to wear and sheets to sleep on. She had braved the sea with he and Samantha to get supplies for the children back home. What had she done to deserve such a cruel fate?
If he couldn’t save her, at least he could comfort her in their final moments together. He snuggled up against her chest, tucking his head underneath her chin. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For…what?”
“For all the terrible things I said to you. You’re not a stupid fat girl. Without you, we’d probably all still be under Reverend Crane’s thumb,” he said.
Prudence rubbed the top of Wendell’s head with her snout. Poor little Wendell, she thought. He tries so hard even though he’s so small. She didn’t know what they would have done after the hurricane without his knowledge about architecture and engineering. They probably would have ended up living in the caves like primitives. They certainly couldn’t have built the boat to take them here without his help. And for all that she and everyone else paid him back with bullying and insults. “I’m…sorry too,” she said. “You’re…not…a girl. You’re…the…strongest boy…I know.”
“You mean that?” She nodded. “Mr. Pryde mistook you for my sister once. If I had a sister, I’d hope she was like you.”
“If you…didn’t…love…Sam…antha…could you…and I—” Prudence couldn’t find the strength to finish the sentence. As she tried to get air into her lungs, she felt an intense desire to find a cool patch of mud. It’s happening, she thought. Not much longer and she would lose that final shred of humanity.
“Prudence? Prudence? Don’t go. Please.” He shook her sagging belly with his tiny hands, but she didn’t move. She only lay there, struggling to breathe. I can’t let this happen, he thought. There had to be some way out of here.
He spotted a truck parked nearby, a newer one than Mr. Pryde’s, but he was certain it operated on the same principles. Halfway to the vehicle, Wendell tripped and couldn’t get back up again. A long white gown covered his body, an infant’s body now. He tried to say something to Prudence, but only gibberish came out. He wailed the cry of a baby missing its mother, the sadness of the call opening Prudence’s eyes. He clapped and giggled at this.
“What?” she managed to get out. He pointed first at the truck and then at her. “Can’t…drive.” He pantomimed steering and then tapped his chest and pretended to hit imaginary pedals. She understood now. If she steered and he used the pedals, they might be able to drive. It was worth a shot.
She rolled onto all fours and then hobbled over to pick up baby Wendell with her mouth. He climbed onto her neck so she could let him into the truck. Using much of her remaining strength, she flopped into the bed of the truck, reaching in through the back window to grab the steering wheel. Wendell gave a set of keys to her, which she put in the ignition as she’d seen Mr. Pryde do and then turned the key.
After the engine started, she shifted into reverse. Wendell pushed down on the accelerator with both hands, the truck lurching backwards in response. He slammed on the brakes for Prudence to shift into drive. They were on their way.
When Prudence’s hands finally turned to hooves halfway there she had to use her hocks to steer. When Wendell became too weak to push down on the pedals with his arms, he flung his entire body against them. Since neither of them could speak, they worked out a system where Prudence grunted once for Wendell to accelerate and twice for him to brake.
As a sharp curve approached, Prudence squealed twice. Wendell threw himself onto the brake in time to keep them from smashing through the guardrail. Prudence wheezed with relief and then got them going in the right direction again.
She snorted for joy when Mr. Pryde’s house came in sight. They’d made it! She swung the truck into the driveway and signaled Wendell to hit the brake. With one hoof she shifted the truck into park and then plopped over the side of the truck onto the ground. For a moment she lay in the dirt, immersed in the feeling of being home. I’m not a pig, she told herself. Not yet. She rolled onto her feet and came to stand beneath the door as Wendell crawled out the window.
Prudence trotted up to the front of the house with Wendell clinging to her neck. The door was already open, as if someone were expecting them. Prudence stood in the doorway, sniffing around for an intruder, but she couldn’t smell anything.
Samantha waited for them at the top of the stairs. Prudence squealed in terror at the sight of the bloody meat cleaver in Samantha’s hand ready to slice Prudence into cold cuts. Instead, Samantha tucked the cleaver into her belt and applauded. “Well, I guess this answers the question of whether a pig and a baby can drive a car,” she said. “Congratulations, you got a lot farther than I ever thought possible. Unfortunately, it’s not far enough.”
Samantha glided down the steps to stand before Prudence. She reached out to take the now newborn Wendell in her arms. “You make such a darling baby. I’ve got a crib all ready for you and a bottle of milk on the stove. I’m going to keep you like this for years and years. Then maybe after I get bored I’ll let you grow up a little.” She tickled Wendell’s belly, causing him to cry.
She reached down with one hand to scratch Prudence under the chin. “And you make such a darling sow. I’m sure you’ll fetch a lot of blue ribbons at the state fair over the next few years. There’s a spot out back where you can lay in the mud and root around in the trash when you feel like it. We’ll find you a nice mate so you can make plenty of piglets.”
I can’t stay like this, Prudence thought. I can’t live like this forever. She wanted to cry, but couldn’t, so she settled for wheezing mournfully.
I’m not going to stay like this forever, Wendell thought. He wouldn’t let Samantha do this to him. There had to be some way to stop her. What could he do? He was a baby; all he could do was cry, throw up, poop, and pee—
He turned to Prudence, looking her in the eye. He communicated the plan to her without even gestures this time, relying on the kind of telepathy developed by siblings or lovers. Prudence grunted to indicate she understood.
Then Wendell peed on Samantha, a steady stream of urine that soaked her blouse. Startled by the sudden drenching, she loosened her grip on Wendell enough that when Prudence crashed into her, Wendell fell onto Prudence’s back. Prudence charged up the stairs as Samantha cried out in rage, “You’ll never get back! Never!”
Prudence found the bedroom door and slammed against it with all her considerable weight. The door gave way in an explosion of splinters. She galloped through the doorway, squealing at the sight of herself lying on the bed in human form. Wendell cooed and clapped his little hands together with joy. Prudence nudged him up onto the bed, where he crawled over to sit on his own chest. Then Prudence hopped onto the bed, lying across the much-smaller stomach of her human form. Now what? she wondered.
“Do you think it’s that easy?” Samantha asked from the doorway, the cleaver poised over her head. “You think you could waltz in here, click your heels together three times, and magically teleport back home? You fools. I would have spared your lives, such as they were, but now I’m going to enjoy hacking you up into suet.”
As Samantha readied to bring the cleaver down onto Prudence’s skull, Wendell finally understood the missing ingredient. It wasn’t enough to simply touch his real body; he had to touch its mind as well. Wake up now, he thought as hard as he could. It’s time to wake up. This has all been a terrible dream, but now it’s over.
Wendell’s eyes shot open. He found himself tied to the bed as before Joseph Pryde had given him a terrible green potion. He could move his head enough to see Prudence flopping around the bed, no doubt still battling Samantha in her dreams. “Prudence, wake up! It’s only a dream. You’re safe with me here in the real world. No one is going to hurt you. Wake up.”
Prudence’s body stopped moving. For a horrible moment Wendell thought she must have died. Then she cleared her throat and asked, “Are we alive?”
“I think so,” he said.
“Are you sure this isn’t a dream too?”
“I don’t know, but even if it is, we’d better untie ourselves and get out of here.” Freeing themselves didn’t prove difficult. A trick he’d learned from Samantha was how to angle his wrist so that a knot appeared to be tight, but in reality had enough slack for him to slip his wrist through once he relaxed. He freed his right hand and then untied the rest of the knots.
After he freed Prudence, she crushed him in a bear hug. She kissed him not on the forehead or cheek, but on the lips as he’d always hoped Samantha would do. Prudence’s lips were dry, but at the moment they tasted as sweet as honey. “You saved my life,” she said. “Another minute and I would have died a pig.”
“You were never a pig,” he said.
“You were never a girl,” she said and kissed him again.
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