Swamp Stalker

I placed my hand on a cypress tree and waited for the nausea to pass. The moss on the bark felt cool and fuzzy. I wanted to lay my head against it, but I didn't have much time.

“Where you goin, mon cheri?” the deep voice bellowed across the swamp. “We just gon’ chat.”

I had noticed the creepy man standing outside the two-pump gas station at the edge of town. His greasy hair slid down the side of his pockmarked face like moldy spaghetti. He had been sucking on a toothpick, probably to hide the chipped and broken teeth.

I had walked by with a bag full of groceries because the family car was in the shop. I had tried to play it cool when he catcalled me, but a sharp pain had shot through my side and caused me to lurch forward. The greasy man had taken keen notice and began to follow me. I didn't want to lead him to my home, so I ditched the groceries and tried to take a detour through the swamp. I assumed he'd think I wasn't worth the effort.

“Come on, jus’ tell me your name, pretty girl,” the voice said. I could hear him splashing through the muddy water behind me. I remembered his protruding belly trying to burst through the buttons on his filthy blue shirt.

I pushed myself away from the tree and ventured further into the swamp. A roiling white mist was beginning to form now that the sun was sinking beneath the shaggy tendrils hanging from cypress trees. The frogs had also begun their nightly symphony of croaks from their lily pads. I was beginning to panic. I hadn't planned on traipsing through a swamp after dark.

My shoes sank into the muck, thick cloudy water soaking through my socks. The water felt surprisingly refreshing on my searing skin. I wanted to submerge my whole body, but the pair of hungry yellow eyes floating on top of the water in the distance kept me from doing that. I told myself I was too young and skinny to be gator bait, so I continued along the shallow edge of the swamp. I also tried to keep an eye on poisonous slithery ripples, but the sunlight was fading fast.

“You gon’ get lost, girl. How ‘bout you let me take you back to dry land before you get hurt,” the voice bellowed nearby.

I stumbled to my knees as my stomach tried to rid itself of the fried chicken I had eaten for dinner. Green algae splashed all over my arms and face. My pants were soaked through to the bone, but I didn't care. I had to keep going.

I swallowed hard and gritted my teeth, pushing myself out of the mud. A pale glimmer of moon reflected off the water to my right as I stumbled deeper into the swamp. The sun would be gone in a matter of minutes. I had to move quickly, even if I was causing too much of a stir.

My skin felt like it was melting off the bone and my eyesight was beginning to blur. I tried to wipe the algae with my one dry sleeve, but it just made everything worse. As I dragged my frail body around a submerged tree trunk, the water now slid around my waist. At least now I could wade through the water instead of sloshing around like a wounded animal.

I had spent all eighteen years of my life near the swamps of Louisiana, but had never ventured this far into one. I guess I just never had a solid reason until now. In fact, I was rarely ever allowed to be out at night. My daddy was strict and always said nothing good ever happens under the cover of night. I finally understood what he meant.

“I hope you a real good swimmer, mon cheri,” the deep voice called. A flashlight cut through the mist and skimmed the top of the water a few yards to my left. He was closer than I thought. How was he keeping pace so effortlessly?

I waded toward the mossy tendrils of a cypress tree and hid beneath them. Blinding pain blasted through the front of my skull. I couldn't stay here for long, but I waited until the flashlight swept the other way. Just before I screamed in agony, I noticed the flashlight catch on something across the swamp. It looked like an abandoned shack.

I vigorously rubbed my temples to make the pain subside, but it was no use. My arms began to tremble when I realized I was going to have to swim through the perilous water if I was to have any chance of escape. The decrepit structure could at least provide a dry place to hide, but the shortest distance was across the water. I had no way of knowing what lurked beneath the surface.

The last sliver of sunlight was dissolving on the horizon, so I impulsively made the decision to take my chances through the water. I pushed my stringy hair out my eyes and kicked off the tree trunk to breaststroke through the green tendrils that reached toward the swamp. The mist was getting thicker by the minute, but I tried to leave as little wake as possible. My head was the only thing visible as I gradually drifted toward the other side.

I closed my eyes and breathed through my nose, praying my limbs didn't bump into anything coursing through the black water. The only sound I could distinguish was the gentle ripple of water around me and the thudding of my heartbeat in my skull. “Just a few more strokes,” I kept telling myself while ignoring the white hot pain in my head. I thought of my daddy sitting on the front porch, rocking away his anxiety. I wondered how long it would take for him to come looking for me now that the moon was about to work the night shift.

The bank of the swamp was progressively getting larger. It took every fiber in my muscles to not flail and bust into a full-fledged freestyle stroke. The mist was providing adequate cover, but if the flashlight landed on me, I'd be dead in the water. “Just a few more strokes.”

As soon as I was within arm's reach of the bank, my knee banged into something firm lurking below the water surface. If I had been capable, I would have jumped three feet in the air. I thrashed as hard as I could, reaching and grasping for dry land. I waited for a piercing pain to rip through my legs or pull me underwater, but it never came.

I looked around in a frenzy, searching for a tail lashing the top of the water, but all I saw was a craggy tree branch jutting from the edge of the bank. It took a few seconds, but once it finally registered that I wasn't being attacked by a swamp creature, I ripped my fingernails into the grassy bank and pulled myself onto dry land. I felt exhausted and the pain from my skull was blinding, but I used my last ounce of strength to run toward the darkened shack.

I saw the beam of light shine on the ripple of water I had left behind as I ran up the wooden steps, flung open the door and slammed it shut behind me. If the flashlight hadn't spotted me, the door slamming on its hinges surely gave me away. I didn't care, though. I had a bigger issue to deal with.

As soon as the door closed, the last sliver of sunlight disintegrated into oblivion. I could feel the bones in my head shift and grow. My teeth felt like they were ripping through my gums. My mouth tasted like I had been sucking on a penny. I tried to spit a gob of blood on the floor, but my jaw had just unhinged.

The pain was excruciating, but it was limited to my head. I looked at my hands through watery eyes, but they looked intact, as far as I could tell. I couldn't tell what was going on with my legs because I had collapsed on the pitch-black unforgiving floor. Everything around me started convulsing.

I wanted to scream, but my vocal chords were stretching. It felt like they were being ripped out of my throat. I reached up to grab my head, but I couldn't find it beneath the wild mane of sopping wet hair that had sprouted from every orifice, pore and follicle. I wanted to black out from the pain, but my mind wouldn't let me.

I somehow realized the more I struggled, the worse the pain seemed to be. Something inside me, maybe intuition, was urging me to accept this. It wasn't telling me to relax because that wasn't going to be an option. It was urging me to accept that this will pass. There will be an end to this suffering.

I resisted the urge to stop my transformation and embraced the pain. My body writhed and wriggled like a worm for a few more minutes, but my intuition was right. The pain became less severe. I heard a few sickening pops and crunches before everything became still. It was over.

I lay down on the sturdy cypress floor and waited in the darkness. I ran my course tongue over my bloody lips and around the sodden hair covering my face. I could taste the algae and bacteria that had lived in the swamp water, but also a hint of rotten eggs. I delicately grazed the tips of my shiny new fangs, mindful not to poke a fresh hole in my tongue.

I sat up and wiggled my jaw back and forth. A succession of pops filled the stifling silence. I stretched my mouth open as wide as my jaw would allow and yawned deeply. My elongated ears perked up and I listened to the sounds of the night.

There were nine mosquitos buzzing around the room hunting for a fresh meal. They hadn't quite found me yet, but a few were honing in on my skin. A couple of startled squirrels were chattering on a tree branch just outside this room. My stumble up the swamp bank and subsequent transformation must have given them a fright. There were hundreds of frogs singing in hundreds of varying pitches for miles in every direction.

I could smell the mold growing on the ceiling and walls. A gentle breeze had picked up from the south, blowing with it the scent of a dead muskrat. My stomach rumbled. It would be an easy meal once I picked up the scent outside, but I was in the mood for bigger game.

My eyes began to hunt the darkness and I could clearly make out some dusty furniture that hadn't been used for quite some time. Whoever had lived here hadn't been back for at least a few months, their scent long gone. I suddenly had a searing memory seep into my brain.

This dank room reminded me of the basement in Daddy’s house, the one he had been locking me inside of on a nightly basis. Most homes in this part of Louisiana don't have basements because they're susceptible to flooding, but Daddy insisted on having one. Now I remember why.

A primal rage began to fester inside me. I wanted to rip apart the furniture with my claws, but I looked down to see my body was still in its human form. It was just my head that had transformed. I had conflicting thoughts and memories competing in my head. Some were from before the transformations during the day, some from the nights after I transformed. I thought I had dreamt being locked in the dingy basement all those nights, but that was my brain trying to protect my fragile psyche during the day.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by a foul scent. Brackish unwashed human skin was floating on the breeze blowing through the broken window. I stood up and walked toward the back of the room, moonlight now streaming onto the floor. I raised my nose and sniffed the air. The scent was getting closer.

I licked my salivating lips and listened for approaching footsteps. The fool wasn't even trying to be coy. I could hear him thrashing through the weeds like he was Godzilla stomping on a village. I could hear his heartbeat thudding faster, his breathing becoming ragged and raspy.

“I saw you, girl, crawl in that there shack,” he called. “There's nowhere left to run. Why don't you come say hello.”

I could see the flashlight shining through the mist. He was still a good twenty yards away. If I jumped through the broken window now, I could circle through the trees and flank him from behind before he even knew what hit him. But what would be the fun in that?

The shack was a poor excuse for a proper home, but it did have a tiny kitchenette, a cramped sitting area and a bedroom. There was no running electricity and the window in the bedroom was facing west, so no moonlight could trickle inside it yet. I lazily sauntered into the dungeon of a room and crouched down low by the side of the stripped mattress. I could hear the critters that had made a home inside the mattress crawling around, but they were no threat to me.

I waited in the shadows for my unsuspecting victim to barge inside the shack, imagining the terror that was about to distort his grimy face. I licked my lips again in anticipation. He was close. I could smell him through the rotting wood. I heard him creak up the wooden stairs. I tensed my body and waited for the doorknob to turn. “Come inside and meet your fate,” I thought to myself.

As the door knob jiggled and the hinges screamed, I could see a concentrated circle of light crawl across the floor. The man’s heartbeat was about to blast a shotgun-sized hole in his chest. His tangy sweat dripped on the floorboards. I could also smell the fresh laceration on his meaty pinky finger.

“I know you're in here,” he called as the flashlight sprayed over the couch and the corners of the adjacent room. I crouched even lower and buried my hairy face in my knees. I pretended my shivering was from fear. I wiped a stream of drool on my damp pants and listened to the man’s footsteps creep closer.

The door to the bedroom made an exaggerated moan. I could feel the flashlight burning on my back. My entire body tensed. I desperately wanted to see the look on his face.

“There you are,” he whispered with smug satisfaction. His scent made me want to vomit now that it had invaded the whole room. I could smell his putrefying breath.

“Thought you could run, didn't ya?”

He paused in the doorway, clearly relishing the fear he assumed he was instilling in me. How many times had he done something like this? How many young women had sat frightened in a corner while he stood over them?

He took his sweet time edging closer to me. Each boot thumped dramatically as he tapped the flashlight on his palm. I waited in agony until he was towering over me, until I couldn't hold it in any longer.

My rage meter hit its crescendo and I leaped off the floor. I spun around and locked eyes with this sweaty pervert who had been following me through the swamp. I watched him shrink away in disbelief. I wanted to eviscerate him.

“Rougarou,” he choked as he stumbled backwards. “No, no, no,” he stammered as he tried to make sense of this unforeseen circumstance.

He suddenly dropped the flashlight and tried to run toward the front door in a fit of horror. I leapt through the darkness and tackled him to the floor with my newfound strength. I dug my fangs into his thick neck before he could let out a cowardly scream. Even if he would have been able to make a sound, nobody would have been able to hear him way out in the swamp. The flashlight was still spinning across the floor, catching the spray of blood like a strobe light. I got to go big game hunting after all.