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King of Pigs – Extract

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KING OF PIGS

J H Archer

Extracts from a diary found in the ruins of Hive Blackbracken. Thought to be from one of the civilians caught up in the Pus-Bourne uprising. Please advise on the document’s suitability for the archives.

Day 4932

Garrett jumped into the mincer today. I saw it on my way to first break. Him, dangling a foot off the blood-slicked walkway, suspended over the hog-blades like one of those dancing girls from the lower hive. Almost playful. Just waiting for the opportunity to really make it count. Not that I realised at the time. I called out to him.

‘Garrett, what in Throne’s name are you doing?’ But he didn’t respond. ‘Overseer Banden is just down the hall. Get back to it, you mek-head!’ I could tell he heard me, as he turned to look, eyes wide and wild. And what I saw was… nothing. Just a man blinded by adrenaline, by fear, by pure thrill. That’s when I realised what he was doing.

He dropped, feet first, straight as a glucose stick, arms crossed like one of the martyrs-in-the-glass you see in chapels. Straight into the blades.

The thing is, the gears are only meant for the softer flesh of the lab-hogs, so it took time for the mincer to get through the gristle and bone of his legs and lower torso. More time than I think he was expecting. The look on his face, Throne… They never stopped production, even to clean out the machine. Can’t risk productivity, what with a war on and all.

When I came back home, Adar was cooking up some sausages. I went straight to bed. I’d prefer to go hungry.

Day 4940

Sleep evades me. The thumping of shellfire gets closer every day. It keeps me up at night, the distant flashing, the soft crumple-snap, like the fall of hail on rockcrete. I can feel my nerves beginning to fray, and the stress response makes my leg augmetics sputter and twitch. A few gulps of amasec and they start to behave again, but the interrupted sleep is starting to take its toll on my body. My restlessness disturbs Adar, and he relegates me to a bedroll in the kitchen. How long until the war reaches us?

In the social areas of my hab-sector, the whispers are that the northern hives are close to falling. Toni next door says he heard two young defence corps officers talking about it at the caffeine house where he works. Said they didn’t expect the hives to last the month. That after they fell, we’d be next. I try to stay positive. Maybe they’re just rumours? Young officers trying to scare the locals.

I’m not so sure.

I keep an eye out, but there’s nothing on the hive-cast, or the infolinks, just the usual Commissariat updates assuring us that all is well and the incessant ecclesiarchal plainsong to guide us from home to work.

Day 4943

Every day I row over the sewer river. Three miles, give or take, and right into the dock next to the abattoir. The closer I get, the stronger the smell of blood and silage, and the more I avert my eyes from the things which bob up and down in the water, nudging my boat with a procession of soft thuds. I have done this every day since I can remember. Three miles there, three miles back.

Some mornings, especially in the winter, a fog rests upon the sewage water and the only thing I can see around me is the river. I close my eyes and stop rowing for just a moment or two.

In that momentary silence, I allow myself to think, but as always, there is only her.

Always. Perpetually.

The pitter-patter of feet around the hab-kitchen. The happy squealing. Sal, jumping into Adar’s arms. Her soft snoring keeping us up late, together, huddled for warmth in the cold winters.

It seems so long ago.

The only squealing I hear now drifts across the river, underscored by the constant whirring of the mincer, cut short in a vile staccato.

Day 4945

The abattoir is like a wound on the landscape. The floors are still wooden, if you’d believe it. I thought the hive authority had gutted the wooden buildings years ago in order to cut down on hive fires. Bad for productivity, I suppose. But still, the wood in this place remains, stained a dark reddish hue from the lifeblood of the slaughtered hogs.

Overseer Banden caught me at the gate today, as I was late. He put me on report, half rations. I was late by seconds.

I’m so tired. I almost passed out in the anti-bac shower, staying in for so long that my eyes began to burn.

Day 4948

Across the way from the abattoir is a small, decrepit chapel. Forgotten, mostly, as the smell of the pigs tends to drive people away. Most from my hab-sector go to the cathedral near the Ministorum building across the way, but I like this one. It’s quiet. After my shift, I go in and light a candle and pray for the safety of the hive, but all I hear is silence. Have we been forgotten?

I shouldn’t have written that. Throne forgive me, I should not have written that.

Day 4949

I have purged myself of my blasphemy. Five seconds, back of my hand, on the oven top. The pain keeps my mind keen and my thoughts away from my hunger and exhaustion. Adar hears my stifled cry and comes rushing in, but I wave him away. He tries to clean the wound, but I don’t let him touch it. I think he knows I did it deliberately. I don’t know whether I see sympathy in his eyes or disgust. The front room smells like flesh. I must keep my faith pure. I know what happens when I don’t.

The Emperor protects.

Day 4950

Overseer Banden was waiting for me at the abattoir gates again, arms crossed, face like a ganger who just lost at cards.

‘Late! Again, late!’

I wasn’t. I was two minutes early. Admittedly, cutting it fine, but with just enough time to get to my workstation. I don’t argue with him. What’s there to say? I’m not going to be put on half rations again, so I mutter, ‘Sorry, boss. Won’t do it again.’

‘Damn right you won’t, bloody scabhound.’

He looks at the burns on the back of my hand, grins and grasps it with his own. The pain makes my eyes water.

Day 4956

When I do manage to sleep, those brief snatches between endless restlessness, all I dream of is killing pigs.

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WARHAMMER HORROR

A BLACK LIBRARY IMPRINT

First published in Great Britain in 2022.
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ISBN: 978-1-80407-183-0

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