They say there's a wild boar out in the woods that wants to be a human so badly that it has the face of a man. They say it even chose a human name and if you call it out the boar will head towards you. You've got to be careful that it doesn't see you though or it'll get struck with jealousy and run you down for being everything it isn't.
As far as campfire stories go, the Boarman was a good one for creeping out children and was great for teens to start chanting The Name til someone ran crying to the grownups and the rest of the evening became too supervised for more youthful cruelty.
Even I used to tell the story to the younger kids at family gatherings once a year. There always seemed to be a few new cousins who'd never heard of it before and it became a rite of passage to go out into the woods and chant The Name while the adults were too boozed out to notice us.
It changed this year when my cousin Jay came back from college crueller than we remembered. He said brought back a boarskin and said he was going to make this year truly unforgettable by wearing it and jumping out at the whichever of the young cousins dared to call out The Name.
We called him an ass and made him keep the skin in his truck. A few drinks down the line he must have snuck out with it and sure enough he leapt out at one of the kids who'd been ballsy enough to go out and say The Name. Howled up a storm when Jay ambushed him.
The kid's dad came staggering out of the gathering, rifle in hand and shot Jay stone cold down. He was so boozed out he didn't even know what he'd done til we dragged him back to the main group, crying and screaming that Jay was dead.
By the time any of the adults were sober enough to help, Jay's body was gone and a boarskin remained where he fell. It wasn't the one he'd been wearing either, this one was a different colour completely and far fresher. We knew what it was but none of us dared to say, claimed Jay ran away instead.
There's no gathering planned this year but sometimes I drive by that house, just to see if he's come back.
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