What is "pire"

Usage examples of "pire".

Sans doute elle etait sur un point assez inquietante, mais il avait craint pire.

And I didn't need to know about the aerial garlic spraying Jose Franco was working on with some of the horticulture people at UCAC to try to slow down the little vegetable vam pires that have played such havoc with the local citrus crop over the past few years, ever since they got here in a cargo of imperfectly exorcised lemons from Greece.