Billy: A Tale Of Unrelenting Terror (4 page)

When the family arrived back at
Bayou Noir
, they couldn’t shake the feeling that Billy had something to do with the missing oil worker. The boy often went absent for days at a time while hunting for prey deep in the swamp. He rarely looked hungry anymore, so it was apparent that his hunts were successful. When Billy was seen in the possession of a mysterious flashlight one day, the family decided that something had to be done.

"You see dat torch he’s got?" Poppie asked Dorcelia. "It’s got dat Exxon logo on da’ side."

"Dat don’t mean nothin’," Dorcelia answered. "He might have found dat t’ing floatin’ around."

"He might have, but didn’t, and you know it, woman." Poppie continued. "You see dat chain ‘round his neck. It got gator teeth, bear claws, and you know as well as I some other kind of bones we know didn’t come from no animal. He killed dat man out dere, and he gonna get around to us one day, if we let him."

"What you want me to say,
Vieux
?
Mal pris
, we stuck in a bad way," Dorcelia answered. "He’s your
boug
, not just some wild beast."

"My foot, he’s not! He’s not just some misbehavin’ child,
Boo
, he
possede
’ if one ever was. He possessed," Poppie stated. "You say he not just some wild beast, but he ain’t human, either."

"He’s our punishment for what you done; for what we done," Dorcelia countered.

"And what about dat line man? Who gonna answer for dat?" Poppie asked.

"I don’t know,
cher
. Maybe we gotta do some t’ing, but we can’t just kill ‘em," Dorcelia said.

"For true! Don’t know if we even can. More likely, he get da better of us now," said Poppie. "But we gotta do some t’ing, and we gotta do it quick."

Chapter Five

Nine-One-One

"
N
ine-one-one, how may I help you?"

"Yeah, I’m calling to report something I found in the marsh."

Manny’s phone crackled and popped like an old phonograph that was playing a worn-out and often abused record from the distant past. He knew the reception was always spotty at best out here in God’s country, and he didn’t want to lose the signal before he could complete the message.

"Please state your name and location, sir."

"My name is Manny Duplantis, and I’m out in the swamp off Bayou Pigeon Road."

The woman’s voice on the other end sputtered in and out, and Manny knew that the operator probably had as much difficulty hearing him as he had understanding her.

"Damn Cingular!" he muttered with disgust and sighed in frustration.

Manny had trouble getting a quality signal out in the swamp regardless of the carrier he used, but he had to direct his anger somewhere. It had been a long day. Once the unintelligible ramblings from the operator subsided, Manny figured that it was his turn to respond. Taking a big breath, he tried again.

"I am off Bayou Pigeon Road. My name is Manny Duplantis, and I work for Louisiana Gas."

He paused to see if the voice on the other end successfully received his communication.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Duplantis. How may I help you today?" the serious, but pleasantly feminine, voice responded in a brief moment of clear reception.

Manny tried to picture the disembodied voice on the other end and could only come up with a young, college-age hottie in scant lingerie sporting an ample bosom and pouty lips. He knew that his prediction was probably one hundred and eighty degrees off, but, when afforded the opportunity, Manny always preferred to envision his female associates in the same manner. I really need to get a hobby, he thought to himself before returning his focus to the task at hand.

"Like I said, I think I saw something floating in the marsh."

"What did you see, Mr. Duplantis?"

"It looked like a person; well, a body, at least."

The unexpected sight had been quite disturbing. Manny was just trying to wrap things up for the day and get out of the desolate area before nightfall when he spotted the object. He figured that he probably would’ve missed it altogether if he hadn’t been forced to stop to inspect his tires after running over a wayward alligator corpse on his way up the
bayou
. His tires proved to be in satisfactory condition though his nerves were now a bit frayed.

Manny felt uncomfortable out in the swamp alone, even after all the years he had worked out there. The terrain was treacherous and the area filled with all kinds of nasty varmints that showed no fear of human encroachment. As far as the cold-blooded hunters of the swamp were concerned, the only thing Manny represented was lunch.

"Can you give me your exact location on Bayou Pigeon Road, sir?" the voice inquired, crackling again with the poor reception.

"No, ma’am, I can’t. Just send someone down here. I am sure you won’t miss me and my truck. And hurry please, it’ll be dark soon."

Manny waited for a response, but none came. He realized that his call had been dropped and quickly tried to call back to no avail.

"Damn Cingular!" he cursed again. Lately, the phrase earned its place at the top of his swear list.

He did his best to be a good employee of Louisiana Gas as well as a fine, upstanding citizen, but hanging out in the Atchafalaya Basin after sundown was asking too much. Manny walked back to his truck and opened the door, tossing his useless cellular phone on the dashboard and taking a seat. He contemplated leaving some kind of note at the site and heading toward civilization, but thought better of it, so he impatiently waited. At least a half-an-hour passed before he rethought his position. It was beginning to get dark, and he knew it would be difficult driving out on the narrow dirt road once night fell.

Manny decided that he would put a safety cone in the middle of the road and another one as close to the body as he could so that the authorities could retrieve it and do whatever it was that they did when unpleasant things like this occurred. Climbing out of his truck, he grabbed two of the orange cones from the back and walked back to where he made the gruesome discovery. He set the first cone down unceremoniously in the middle of the shell road and carefully walked over to the edge of the marsh.

Manny scanned the brackish water, but couldn’t see the offending object in the failing light.

"Just perfect," he muttered in frustration.

He briefly considered trekking back to the truck and grabbing his flashlight, but changed his mind. Instead, he carefully set the second cone down at his feet and began to turn around when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. Startled, he jumped and turned his head quickly to the side, but nothing moved. Relieved, Manny let out a breath and chuckled nervously to himself. It was then that he spotted the object floating just under the surface of the murky water at his feet.

Chapter Six

Prey

"
T
en-four, on my way," Dean uttered into his radio before returning the receiver to its perch along the dashboard.

Deputy Arceneaux drew the lucky straw on this assignment since he was closest to the reported location. He figured it was more than likely to be yet another bullshit call about a floating body that didn’t pan out. At least, he hoped it would be. Every once in awhile, an occasional carcass would materialize out of the swamp, although the majority of these cases tended to be an accidental drowning devoid of criminal mischief. The end result was always the same for the first officer at the scene – endless paperwork.

There was no telling how many people disappeared in the swamp over the years. The Atchafalaya Basin is comprised of over a million acres of sparsely populated marshland prone to flooding and home to a vast array of wildlife, much of which is considerably inhospitable to human beings. People came up missing from time to time throughout the area, so it was only natural that one would be found every now and then.

The deputy hoped that it would turn out to be a false alarm. Many times, people found ‘things’ in the swamp they couldn’t recognize. Much in the way one attributes unexplained lights in the sky to unidentified flying objects; floating objects in the dark, scary swamp are seen as dead human bodies. Sometimes these are indeed bodies, though rarely human. Of course, there are always the exceptions, thought Dean.

The deputy drove cautiously down Bayou Pigeon Road, keeping his eyes peeled. It was almost completely dark outside and, even with his headlights shining down the narrow road in front of him, the way was treacherous. He occasionally stopped and swung his spotlight around to get a glimpse into the wetlands on either side of the road, but only the gloomy darkness greeted him.

A green, glowing fog made his surroundings surreal, like something out of a bad horror movie. Even after a lifetime of living near the swamp, Dean always felt a chill run up his spine at the strange phenomenon. He learned long ago that it was a by-product of the large amount of methane gas produced by the decaying vegetation and putrid waters of which the swamp was comprised. Scientific explanations did little to quell the feelings of dread the spectacle caused in him, particularly when the explanations involved rotting dead things.

After inching his car around a deceased alligator, the deputy spotted a Louisiana Gas truck up the road. Just past the abandoned vehicle, he saw a solitary orange traffic cone perched in the center of the passageway. He pulled up alongside the gas truck and parked.

Deputy Arceneaux stepped out of his vehicle and shone his police-issued spotlight into the driver’s side window. The truck was empty, so he crept up toward the traffic cone in the street. The deputy spotted another cone lying on its side at the side of the road, almost in the marsh. He cautiously approached the site, swinging his light slowly side-to-side in an attempt to examine his surroundings in the dark. The truck’s inhabitant was nowhere in sight.

Dean looked at the fallen cone at his feet. He could see some tracks in the mud, but was unable to determine if they belonged to the missing workman or one of the unsavory denizens that inhabited the swamp. The deputy shone his flashlight over the water to see if anything lurked under the dark surface, but all was quiet. If it weren’t for the truck and two cones, he might have passed the site up altogether.

"Weird," Dean whispered to himself in the dark.

He felt an uneasy sensation sweep over him and shuddered. For some reason, he had the disturbing feeling that something was watching him from the shadowy wetlands. The deputy backed away slowly and began to turn when he saw the unmistakable signs of something gone horribly wrong.

Blood was splattered on the reeds to the side of the road – a lot of it. Dean swallowed hard and shone his light back into the dark swamp beyond the Spanish moss hanging from the cypress trees that surrounded him. The blood trail disappeared into the mist toward the unseen eyes that he could feel peering at him from the blackness.

By the time the sun rose over the horizon, the entire area on Bayou Pigeon Road was alive with activity. The State Police, Search and Rescue Units, and even some boys from the Wildlife and Fisheries Division had descended on the desolate location to aid in the investigation, all under the watchful eye of Sheriff Bobby Galliano.

Just as Deputy Arceneaux had reported, an abandoned truck was found parked in the middle of the narrow roadway a few yards from an orange traffic cone standing tall in the middle of the road and another toward the edge of the marsh tipped on its side. Steps from the fallen cone, a blood trail led into the overgrown marsh at the edge of the roadway. No further signs of the missing man could be found.

The area was now partitioned off, and men were assigned to search different quadrants in the hope of picking up whatever trail they might find. By the amount of blood splattered along the roadside, it was doubtful to those present that they would find anything but a mangled corpse.

"Damndest thing ever," Galliano said to no one in particular. "Surely there must be something left of the poor bastard."

"That’s what I was thinking," Dean agreed. "I got here pretty quick after the call came out. I’m sure whatever grabbed him took off in a hurry when I pulled up, thank God. Still, I don’t see how there’d be no sign of the body."

Sheriff Galliano grunted and scanned the horizon. Some local fishermen had shown up and were carefully guiding their boats under the supervision of the Wildlife and Fisheries authorities. Many of the men were carrying long metal poles that they used to poke and prod around in the murky water, hoping to snag onto something and jar it loose toward the surface. Particular attention was paid to the immediate section of marsh covered in dried blood. Despite the dozens of men actively engaged in the task, no sign of the missing man could be found.

"Do you think we should find a few divers to go down and look?" asked one of the State Troopers.

Dean almost laughed at the absurd suggestion before catching himself and turning away. Galliano stared at the man with an expression that was a combination of amazement and contempt, shaking his head. A few of the local fishermen close enough to have heard the comment laughed and muttered a few choice comments in Cajun French under their breath.

"Be my guest," Galliano finally suggested, "if you think you gonna find someone dumb enough to do that. Course, I don’t know how they gonna see anything in that filthy swamp-water anyhow, but I’m sure you thought of that before you opened your mouth."

The trooper blushed with embarrassment and returned to the search with his head down and his eyes averted. Bobby hated being so hard on the man. After all, he was only there to help, but the last thing they all needed at this point was everyone jumping in with one ridiculous idea after another. It was becoming evident that their search was going to be in vain. The gas man was going to join the unfortunate oil worker on the list of missing persons that was beginning to grow.