Nekked 2: A Rougarou in Boots

I hope you’ll understand that, for the sake of good conscious (as well as the fact that I bruise quite easily), I cannot in good faith divulge the names of the people involved in this next incident. I thought about using the names of the Musketeers but for some reason that didn’t quite fit. So I decided to go with Larry, Curly and Moe…which means, under these circumstances, you may call me Shemp.

It was the last day on shift for three of my co-workers, two of which (Larry and Moe) were moving on to investigative positions within the department with the third (Curly) being promoted to Sergeant and taking over as the assistant shift supervisor on another rotation. I was the “gung-ho” and newest member of our Department’s Special Operations Response Team, of which the other three guys were also a part, but I would stay on with Patrol for a few months longer as one of our team’s representatives in the field.

During out tour together, our group prided ourselves with the knowledge that because of the aggressive outlook towards proactive police work we shared, the four of us pretty much had the streets on lockdown while we were on duty. But in our blind admiration for our own uncanny abilities, we had forgotten to take into consideration the legend of “The Rougarou”.

For those of you who don’t know, tales of the Rougarou, or Loup Garou as it is sometimes known, have been handed down in Cajun folklore for generations. The creature is described as having a human body and the head of a wolf and it is said that it prowls the swamps of Louisiana in it‘s eternal quest to slake its insatiable thirst for human blood. In the one documented sighting I know of…ahem...it also has an affinity for shrimp boots. In other words, it’s a coon-ass werewolf.

As all stories like this one are prone to begin, the day had gone off without a hitch. And as cops are apt to do, we had spent the day ribbing each other about the fate of sappy GI’s in every other war movie when it’s their last day “in country”. Perhaps those jests were a premonition on our collective part or possibly the universe was providing an omen of things to come, either way, our failure to read the signs of our seemingly innocent joviality would be the first of many faults we exhibited on that day.

The call came in fifteen minutes before shift change and it was a hot one. The district deputy, dispatched to what he thought was the standard, run-of-the-mill disturbance (anybody on the job who’s worth their salt can tell you, there is no such thing), had run into “a situation”. What I remember of the actual high pitched request for assistance sounded something like a recording played in fast forward. So, after waiting for our cool-headed dispatcher to decipher and repeat his interpretation of the frantic call for help, we learned that an unidentified subject was chasing neighborhood kids around with a tire tool in one hand and his pecker in the other…or maybe it was the other way around.

A perverted, pecker pulling, pedophile pursuing prepubescent persons in progress? As a group of knuckle dragging special operations types, that sounded right up our alley and so…we were off!

Setting our Crown-Victorias to warp speed, we began our fifteen mile trek across the Mississippi River towards the rural portion of our Parish. Time ceased as we passed through the Code-2 wormhole phenomenon most cops experience when too far away to help a comrade in need and we drove with clenched teeth and white knuckles in anticipation of things to come.

Finally, after decelerating out of light speed we arrived on scene where the initially dispatched officer reported directly to the senior member of our group (Moe) who also happened to be our SWAT Team Leader. The deputy explained in a Mickey Mouse on Red-bull voice that the suspect had retreated into his home where it sounded like he was barricading the windows and doors.

Our eyes gleamed collectively and I saw the lupine grins of my compadres as I felt the involuntary twitch of my own smirk beginning to spread. A barricaded subject? Ho-ho, this was our bread and butter baby. Apparently this guy had no clue what shift was on but we were about to show him.

We set about prepping our gear and began to gather information on the suspect: approximate age, height, gender, but that’s when the deputy faltered and advised us that, other than gender (of which was fully erect), he couldn’t really explain what it was that he saw. Then, with an extended and shaking digit, he pointed us to a copse of trees set back some distance off the country lane and explained that the offender’s lair lay within.

A sense of unease fell upon our group. While none of us wanted to admit it out of a legitimate fear of immediate and certain ridicule, the thought of pursuing an unidentified suspect with any number of unknowns involved was a tactical no-no. We needed cold hard facts to formulate the proper plan. We needed to follow protocol and call for the rest of the team. We needed a schematic of the residence drawn to scale with all possible points of entrance and egress along with any potentially fatal funneling point. We… oh, fuck it. Let’s go.

After sneaking a peek inside the wooded area, I saw what I assume had once been a single story house designed, like a good many of homes down here, on a raised foundation. Vines covered the entire structure and the ceiling was caved in from an oak tree branch that had fallen sometime in the early Paleozoic Age. The window panes were broken and their frames were boarded up. But there was definitely someone inside as I could hear the frantic “thump, thump, thump” of our suspect hammering nails into one of the two, surprisingly sturdy, doors leading into the hovel.

The plan was simple, Moe, slight of frame but as wiry and tenacious as a junkyard rat-terrier, would utilize a Taser to incapacitate and subdue the suspect. Curly, an expert marksman and D-cell flashlight aficionado (see “Things that go Thwack in the Night” by Graham Saturley), would act as his cover with a “less-lethal” shotgun loaded with bean-bag rounds. Larry, the largest of our group who was the size of a professional football player and had a penchant (and damn near the ability) for pulling people’s arms off and beating them into submission with their own appendages would be “hands on”. As far as me, well, with my particular set of skills, I had the distinct privilege of both “hands on” duty as well as providing lethal cover, should it get to that point.

But first we had to get inside. Not a problem, we had made four man entries all the time and we knew just what to do. I would create a diversion on one side of the house to draw the suspect away from his impromptu carpentry project as the other members of the team mounted the front porch, breached the door with a ram, zapped the bad guy and, in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn, we would all go grab a bite to eat.

Easy enough, right? Ever hear of Murphy’s law?

The diversion went off with a “bang” as one of the two concussion grenades I carried sailed in a perfect arc and landed exactly as planned… that was about the extent of things that went right.

I double-timed around the corner, expecting to fall into my position at the back of the stack as the other guys made entry ahead of me. What I encountered was something quite different. Curly was off the porch, his shotgun cradled in his arms and yelling encouragement to Moe who had the front half his body inside the top portion of the front entrance while Larry chopped on the middle of the door with a battering ram less than eight inches from Moe’s head. (The underlying issue was that our suspect had obviously never read our SOP for breeching doors and instead of the typical deadbolt midway up the door like we were used to, he had opted to secure the bottom with what I can only assume were three foot long railroad spikes. This in turn allowed for only a partial opening and one hell of a stonewall.)

With every one of Larry’s strikes, Moe was slammed with the rebounding door and he grimaced in both aggravation and in pain. Apparently, when the grenade went off, the omniscient thing inside was not fooled by our ruse and did not move from behind the cover of the partially breached door where he began swinging wildly through the gap and striking Moe about the head and shoulders. Moe, in turn, had reached through the opening and fired off a shot with the Taser, striking his target who retreated further back in the house, ripping the probes from his body in the process. My God, what kind of creature were we facing? No mere mortal could resist the power of a 50,000 volt ride of the lightning.

Moe then wrenched himself out of the doorway, but I could tell by his face that his brief encounter with the beast within had changed him. He had the look of a man who has seen something he instantly wished he had not, and he stood there, a crazed grin snaking across his face and gibbering like a mad man as he loaded another cartridge into the Taser.

I stood there stunned for a heartbeat thinking, “I don’t remember going over this in training”, but then instincts took over and I did what came naturally. I ran. No, not away… give me some credit here. I ran full on at the door, striking it with one shoulder, prying my body into the gap and yelling “over me” at the top of my lungs. Which the team promptly did, crushing fingers and limbs in the process; but, as trampled as I was, I felt like Gunny freakin’ Janson taking on the Kaiser single handedly at Belleau Woods.

With the rending of nails from doorframe, I pulled myself up and out of the doorway, hearing the second “pop” and “sizzle” of the Taser as Moe fired again in the poorly lit room beyond. I then heard Moe yell “Shit”, (which is never a good sign during a tactical situation), as he fell through the rotten, raised floor up to his groin. An unearthly scream of defiance which sounded horribly like “They’re in!” echoed through the house as the, as far as I was still concerned, unseen wild-man turned and fled. Once again, the Taser had failed us.

But training, and a strong desire to shoot something, took over and Curly didn’t skip a beat as he fired off a round. He was rewarded by the resounding “thwack” of a bean bag projectile hitting its target at 250 feet per second. But, in the dim light, I could tell by the look on Curly’s face that his shot did not have the desired results. So, of course, he fired once again; with the same ineffective results.

I have been told that even before their bravest warriors took the field of battle, ancient Anglo-Saxon “berserkers” were released to cut a swath through enemy lines. I don’t know if Moe’s Irish heritage somehow channeled one of these fearsome shield gnawers on that day or if it was just a lust for the bust, I cannot say. I do know, however, that before Curly’s shotgun dropped for the second time, Moe ran ahead and, once again, fell through the floor and out of my line of sight.

In his defense, where there should have been solid footing, there was only empty cans spanning the entire area where the floor of the adjoining room should have been. And while I understand that it is common practice for some authors out there to take certain liberties when searching for metaphors to explain their literary visions, let me assure you, I am in no way exaggerating when I say that Moe was completely submerged in a sea of aluminum. It seemed that our Wildman was as wily as he was resistant to pain, for the only path across the adjoining room was a narrow 2x6 plank, obviously rigged as a snare to thwart the advances of adrenaline charged and heavy booted SWAT team members.

Seeing our leader go down, Larry leapt in after him and bogged down instantly as the cans around his thighs threatened to suck him under in a rip-curl of recyclable refuse. I too jumped in, but unlike Larry who was built more like a finely tuned performance vehicle, I am more of a bulldozer and with my lower center of gravity I plowed my way to the middle of the room.

To my left, I watched as Curly stepped one foot gingerly onto the plank and maintained long cover across the room, giving me a look out the corner of his eyes that I read instantly; he only had one more less lethal round left. If his next shot failed to do its job, the next person to shoot would be me…and they don’t make a .45 caliber bean-bag.

Then, directly in front of me, Moe resurfaced, gasping for breath as he spat out pop tops and a mixture of stale beer and soda-pop. He had managed to swim submerged across the room and was now behind the pile of broken furniture blocking our access to the next hallway. Larry was growling and still fighting against the cylindrical tide, creating a six foot wave in the corner of the room which threatened to break at any minute. Curly was patient as he looked over the sights of his readied weapon…

For the life of me I couldn’t shake the feeling. It was all so familiar, like some surreal déjà vu that’s not just a little off, but completely “out there”. And then it came to me; we had somehow slipped from our universe and into the trash compactor scene in Star Wars…Larry was Chewbacca gargling at the air, Curly was Han Solo blasting away, Moe was Luke Skywalker after the monster drug him under. So that would make me…
Okay, bad analogy. But now that I had a point of reference to go off of, I could deal with the situation at hand. So I breathed a sigh of relief, fixed my cinnamon bun braids and knew that, at least for the time being we were all okay.

And then the Rougarou emerged from behind our only point of cover. He was short and sinewy with a broad face and maniacal eyes with black pupils set into pools of dark crimson. His mouth was drawn back in a snarl and, though I could not quite tell from my vantage point, I knew that cavernous maw held four inch long fangs dripping with some acidic and poisonous secretion. Curly, black hair stuck out at angles that would make Paul Mitchell cringe in terror, and that was just across his bared chest and leathery arms. The stuff on his head looked like a cross between a mop used to tar a roof and clumps of steel wool with large chunks of it missing. But it was what he held in clawed hands that made my skin crawl.

You remember those tacky chairs from the eighties? You know what I’m talking about, trendy chrome and wood with wicker lattice work woven in intricate hexagonal patterns between the frames of the back rest and seat? Well, you remember how they had those curvy metal legs that looked like a question mark? That’s what he had…But in his hands it might of as well been Death’s Scythe and it was the perfect shape to swing over the pile of crap in front of us. Which of course he did, narrowly missing planting the edge of it in Moe’s head by fractions of an inch.

Moe was oblivious as to how close he had come to having his head caved in as he was busy ducking out of the way of the assault. When the were-man reared back to swing again, I reached out, grabbed Moe by the collar and tried to drag him back. That’s when he spun around, slapped at me several times like he was some chick in a fight and squealed, “Aaaah, don’t push me.”

Seriously.

I heard the shotgun go off again and heard Curly say, “I’m out.” Behind me Larry was still bellowing in Wookie and then Moe ordered me to, “Shoot him. Shoot him.”

Shoot him? From where? I couldn’t even see the son of a bitch. But I had to do something. I vaguely remember hearing the words “Flash-bang”, but if I popped it off where I was, I stood the chance of blinding us all. That wouldn’t be any good at all.

After Curly’s last shot, the Rougarou had backed up into the last of two rooms. I could hear his rummaging about, screaming the eerie words “They’re in. They’re in.” as he scrambled around apparently looking for some other piece of Hell’s furnishing with which he would end us all.

Refuse to the left of me, and no where for me to advance without exposing myself. The room was beginning to spin. Think Graham, think. What is it you do best?

I break stuff...

I looked at the wall to my right and saw sheet rock and I knew what I had to do. Unfortunately, this was an old house made long before sheet rock was invented and what I drove my hand through repeatedly was lathe and plaster, which is considerably more dense and I don‘t suggest you try it. But, it made no difference as I felt no pain as my own blessed, rage took over and I became a one man wrecking crew, creating a hole in the wall through which I spotted my target who, of course, was bare assed naked. That is, except for a pair of white, rubber boots.

But I had no time to ponder the presence of this odd footwear. Pulling the remaining grenade from my thigh holster, I yanked and twisted the pin, remembering to squeeze the spoon tightly lest I blow my own hand off. Peering through the hole I said, “Hey”, and saw the figure turn towards me. I then said, “Catch”, and tossed the device right at him.

I guess maybe in that instant he must have regressed to a happier, simpler time; playing fetch with fellow were-children as a breeze wafted the scent of Magnolias and decomposing human carcasses through the sultry, swamp air because he did… Catch it that is.

Right there in the ol’ pocket ol’ boyo. The look on his face was an almost comical state of startled bemusement as he realized what he was holding, but by that time it was too late. The grenade went off in his hands and I felt the concussion through the wall before being rewarded with a mouthful of powdered plaster dust. My ears ringing, I cleared my eyes and looked up to see Curly toss his weapon aside and Larry pulling himself out of the cans and into the hallway. Moe was right behind them and I staggered after him, bringing up the rear.

The Rougarou had staggered towards the pallet he used as a bed, I assume at the urge of some primordial instinct to find security. My companions were closing in on him, cornering him there in that sad little room where they prepared to restrain and take him into custody. That’s when Moe jumped back as if bitten by a snake and said, “What the hell is THAT?”.

At hearing Moe’s tone, Curly and Larry followed suit and jerked far enough away for me to see. What That was, to this day I still do not know the clinical term, but what it looked like was a midget’s head being squeezed in a figure four leg lock, the offending “smack-down” being performed by the Rowdy Rougarou upon himself… and by himself, I mean his own testicles. It seemed our werewolf suffered from elephantiasis of the nuts as well as lycanthropy. No wonder he was so...wait for it...testes.

After restraining and leading our captive in a perp walk (and what we would later refer to as our walk of shame) back to our awaiting patrol cars, we were met by an extremely perturbed SWAT Team Commander who was accompanied by a relative of the Rougarou. Granted there was no family resemblance, but based on the circumstances we could only take the guy at his word. I mean, who would lie about something like that?

It turns out that our “monster” was a Vietnam Veteran suffering from a severe case of PTSD on top of an addiction to crack cocaine and prone to violent bouts of paranoia, which might explain all the “They’re in” chatter in response to our explosive entry. It would also have been a nice bit of information to have had prior to our making his acquaintance.

No one knows exactly what happened to the Rougarou after that day. I heard they admitted him to the VA hospital for a spell where he was diagnosised with cancer and later released to his family and allowed to return to a real home to die with some air of dignity. Beyond that, I cannot say.

Afterwards, I heard a collection of accounts from other deputies who had run across the old crazy guy who collected cans on the West-bank of the Parish. Some believed he had bags of money hidden in the old house and most said that he only came out at night. I even heard that some years before, the old bugger had fired a shotgun of his own at a crop duster that had inadvertently buzzed the airspace above his shack. (Granted, in his state of undress, it would have been kind of hard for him to conceal a shot gun; but that still might have been a nice tidbit of information to have had before entering his domain.)

I was surprised when, some months later, I overheard an officer claiming to have caught a glimpse of something in his headlights as it ran across the river road. He described it to those who listened as being almost human, but being he could not locate any indication that anyone had passed through the tall grass along the river levee, he admitted that it might have been a lack of sleep playing tricks on his eyes; but a part of me knew that the sighting was true.

But no matter which account you might hear in regards to the Rougarou of St. John, the one thing that remains consistent between the tellers of said tales is that he is always quite nekked…except, of course, for his white, rubber, shrimp boots.