Uncle Gary's Campfire Stories: Bayou Zombie Werewolves

by Visada, J. L. M.

  “I read the report Dave…they were talking about an infection or something prior to that. Something that made people aggressive and dangerous…I thought maybe it was just some sort of prank, but now…”

  Dave stepped over a partially eaten arm, “I don’t see what any of that has to do with why we’re here. A man threatened the president. Our job is to investigate the threat, and report back to our superiors.”

  Leon rolled his eyes, “Man…you are dense sometime. Don’t you think the guy might have just said that stuff so that we’d have to come out and investigate?”

  “It doesn’t matter why he did it. What matters is that he threatened the president of the United States. It is our duty to find this Coonass Mullins and make sure he doesn’t pose any actual threat to our president.” Dave moved through the jail. They checked all the dead bodies. After exploring the jail the men went back out to their car. “Well…nothing to see here.”

  “Nothing to see? So all those half-eaten bodies back there are what…decoration?” Leon snapped. Dave ignored the man and slipped into the car. Leon grumbled about the man’s stupidity and stomped his way over to passenger side of the vehicle. He flopped into the passenger seat, “So explain to me how in the hell there isn’t anything to see here.”

  “We weren’t sent to investigate dead bodies. We were sent to investigate the threats made by Coonass Mullins. These dead bodies are the jurisdiction of the local authorities.” Dave said matter-of-factly.

  “So the possibility that they made the threat because the CDC operator was an insufferable dick that wouldn’t pull his head out of his ass long enough to get the Louisiana National Guard out here to help like the sheriff doesn’t matter at all to you huh?” Leon asked.

  “What another agency chooses to do or not do is not our business. We have our own job to do.” Dave answered as he turned on the radio.

  “This is KLFB radio. Louisiana’s most trusted channel for news and weather. It’s 6:28 p.m. and I’m Ray Chartreuse for Where Y’at Louisiana. Bringing all the news and weather for Louisianians by Louisianians. Here’s today’s news. LSU campus has been put on lockdown as Baton Rouge police have been in a firefight with an unnamed terrorist organization. Unconfirmed reports have casualties at approximately two thousand students. Police Chief Earl Manley was quoted earlier today as saying that the suspects are an unknown domestic terrorist cell. Later today there were several reports and video from local news showing Chief Earl Manley shooting a six year old boy before turning the gun on the cameraman and reporter. Witnesses say Chief Manley then began eating the cameraman’s brain. Since then the Baton Rouge police department has been unable to comment.” Ray Chartreuse’s voice was calm and soothing considering the current topic. The radio host then began discussing the local weather.

  Leon turned off the radio, “Jesus…what’s this world coming to? Maybe we should head to Baton Rouge. This can’t just be a coincidence.”

  “I don’t see any connection.”

  “Really…really…REALLY?” Leon said incredulously. “The sheriff of this Parish calls in saying the people are going crazy, and it’s spreading. Baton Rouge has people going crazy. You don’t see a connection?”

  Dave muttered under his breath and then said, “Of course I see a connection between the sheriff and Baton Rouge. What I don’t see is a connection between that and our case. If they are crazy locals then they are a problem for the FBI and the local police. If they are foreign terrorists pretending to be crazy locals then that’s a problem for the NSA and the CIA. None of that is our problem. So unless these crazy backwoods fucks start threatening the president like Coonass Mullins, or unless they start counterfeiting money, then it really isn’t our problem. Jesus…you’re four hours from retirement and you still haven’t figured out what your job actually is? The problems of a bunch of inbreeders killing one another when they aren’t fucking sheep really doesn’t concern us…JESUS!”

  Leon glared at the man, “No wonder nobody wants to work with you. They could probably use our help, and you’re talking about whether we have jurisdiction, and another thing…”

  Dave just kept driving. He’d learned to ignore the man’s rants. It kept him from punching the man in the mouth. He would have filed a complaint, but after the fifth complaint he filed on a coworker the head department informed him that all future complaints would result in negative reviews on his annual evaluations. It didn’t seem fair to Dave, but he didn’t really have a lot of options.

  “You aren’t listening to a word I’m saying are you?” Leon yelled.

  “If it doesn’t have anything to do with the case we’re on then no.” Dave snapped.

  Leon grumbled for a while. He wanted to really smack the younger man upside his head, but instead he just kept reminding himself that he only had one more week to go. The muttering man sitting beside Dave had him so distracted that he didn’t see the little white armadillo trying to cross the road.

  *Thump-thump*

  “Holy Shit!” Jessup screamed as he watched the black Ford Taurus roll over the Digger. The tiny armadillo rolled across the ground and came to a stop at the edge of the road. Jessup ran over to the little armadillo. “Are you okay?”

  “Do I look like I’m okay? What the fuck was that?” Digger screamed inside Jessup’s head.

  Jessup looked down. Digger’s body was crushed. Blood oozed out of the armadillos mouth. One of his eyes was missing, and an ear was completely torn off. Jessup tried to peel the armadillo off the road, but his guts were already stuck to the pavement, and his spine was peeking out through the damaged shell. “You don’t look so good man.”

  “No shit!” Digger screamed. “What the hell was that?”

  “You didn’t see the car?” Jessup asked.

  “See? I didn’t see shit. That was a car? You people should put bells on those things or something. Now point me in the direction of that motherfucker. It’s time for them to face the wrathful revenge of the ‘dillo!”

  “The wrathful revenge of the dildo?” Jessup snickered.

  “’Dillo! ‘Dillo! You asshole!” Digger snapped. “Now point me in the right direction.”

  “You need some anger management or something.” Jessup grumbled as he pointed the armadillo in the direction of the Secret Service agents. “There…go get yourself some ‘dillo revenge…you grumpy little shit.”

  The armadillo started dragging himself down the road with his front two legs. “You know…you could try being just a little bit supportive. I might not be quite so grumpy if you weren’t such a dumbass…maybe warn me next time there’s one of those car thingies.”

  “Fine.” Jessup groaned as he watched the armadillo waddle down the road. Digger wasn’t going fast. One of his legs was broken and twisted the wrong direction, and his tail was hanging on by just a thread of skin. Jessup grinned, “Hey Digger?”

  “Yes Jessup the Asshole?”

  “Car.”

  *Thump-thump*

  “You motherfucker!” Digger screamed as he rolled and bounced down the road.

  “You didn’t see that car either did you?” Jessup asked. “What are you blind?”

  “No I didn’t see that fucking car you asshole!” Digger was pissed. The anger started the change. Muscles and bones lengthened and thickened. His shell grew more dense as his fur tore its way through his skin. He kept growing until he grew to the size of a large dog. Digger’s body was healed, and he began running down the road in earnest. “Revenge!” The little armadillo wasn’t so little anymore. He was bigger, and stronger. His pink nose twitched as he chased after the scent of the second car that ran him over. Clawed feet churned like mad as he reached seventy miles an hour. The claws clicked as they scraped across the pavement, and his two large fangs sounded like nails on a chalkboard as they dragged across the road.

  “What about me?” Jessup screamed.

  “Keep heading to your house. I’ll follow your scent and catch up with you!” Digger screamed into the man’s
head. “Revenge!” Digger howled.

  A little squirrel bounded merrily across the road. “Ten points!” Remy Lemeux cackled as he veered the big tire on his old Chevy pickup towards the squirrel.

  *Thump-thump*

  “Damn! He’s still twitching…five point deduction.” Remy laughed as he took a celebratory swig from his beer. “So far it’s Remy forty-five…Mother Nature zero.” He turned the beer bottle up one more time, but there were only a few drops left. Remy saw a black Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road with two men in suits trying to change a tire. He looked at the empty bottle, “You were a good little soldier. Your service will be remembered. I wish you well on all your future endeavors.” He drove past the black Ford Taurus parked on the side of the road and lobbed the empty bottle over the top of his pickup. The brown bottle spun and twisted through the air until it crashed through the rear window of the car. “Steee-rike!” Remy howled. “That’s what you get for driving a piece of shit Ford…found on road dead!” The two men in suits screamed and yelled, but Remy was already too far away to hear them.

  “I hate this town…I hate this state…I hate these people…I hate everything about this.” Dave screamed as he stomped both feet and threw the lug wrench down the road at the rapidly shrinking Chevy pickup. “These fucking Cajuns just piss me off.”

  “Jesus dude…don’t pop a blood vessel. What’s got you so twisted?” Leon said as he walked down the road after the wrench.

  “I just can’t take these Cajuns anymore. I hate the swamps. Mosquitos keep eating me, there’s so many fucking raccoons we might as well rename this shithole Raccoon City, and if I hear one more jackass chanting Who Dat I think I’ll blow my fucking brains out.” Dave leaned against the car.

  “Man it isn’t that bad. The people are nice, there’s great fishing, and you can’t say they don’t know how to party. Besides, raccoons are kind of cute.” Leon smiled.

  “Fuck raccoons, fuck fishing, and fuck you!”

  Leon looked back at the man and then shrugged. There was no point in arguing. He was going to believe what he believed no matter what. He picked up the lug wrench and started walking back when he saw something moving down the road. It was too fast to be an animal, but it was the size of a large dog, and had poofy fur that went everywhere like a giant afro. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Dave wouldn’t have looked up if not for the alarm in the other man’s voice. He saw it as well. It had two creepy pink eyes and a pink nose that poked out of the giant white puffball, “Holy shit!” He didn’t even think twice. The man pulled out his Five-seven pistol and started firing rounds into it. “Don’t just stand there you old fucker…shoot that thing!” He screamed.

  Leon drew his Sig Sauer P229 and began firing. Bullets from both guns found their mark in the head and body. Chunks of Digger were blown off, and regrew almost immediately. Twice legs were hit, and the armadillo ran on bloody stumps as the legs regrew back. Leon emptied his entire magazine into the armadillo. It didn’t even slow him down. “Oh shit!” Leon tried to move out of the way, but Digger just veered a little left or right depending on where Leon tried to move. It was clear the armadillo had his sights set on the man. With no more bullets, Leon dropped his gun and lifted the lug wrench in a last ditch effort at self-defense. He screamed and tried to hit the armadillo with the wrench, but the armadillo leapt at the man’s stomach at the last possible second. The lug wrench missed completely, and the armadillo blew through the man’s stomach at seventy miles per hour. A trail of blood and internal organs followed the now bloody puffball as he kept running down the road after the Chevy pickup.

  Leon’s legs wouldn’t support him, and he collapsed on the ground in a heap. Dave ran over to him and turned him over. The younger man lifted the older man up, “Oh man this is fucked up.”

  “One day! One fucking day! Of all the shitty ways to die…I have to die like a fucked up movie stereotype! This is bullshit.” Leon spat as blood bubbled up out of his mouth. He was bleeding out pretty badly. Both men knew he wouldn’t make it. “Tell my wife I love her. Fuck even that sounds like I’m stuck in an eighties action movie…goddammit!”

  Dave nodded, “I’ll make sure Jillian…Mrs. Redfield knows, and man…I’m sorry.”

  Leon went limp. Dave laid him down gently and stood up. He went to the radio in his car, but it was out of range. With no other alternative he called it in on his cell phone. He gave his superior the details, and then hung up. There wasn’t much left to do but wait the next few hours out for investigators to arrive. He dialed Jill Redfield, “Hey babe…remember how you were wondering how to break our affair to your husband without having him take everything in a divorce…yeah that’s really not so much of a problem now.”

  They talked for a while, and he spared her most of the details. By the time they got off the phone Jill was already trying to find a travel agent to book them both a romantic weekend getaway. Dave grinned and looked at his former partner’s limp body and laughed, “Well Leon…it looks like my weekend just got better. Jill and me are gonna hump like teenagers this weekend, but we’ll be back in plenty of time to bury your old, withered ass.”

  “Here he is…I found him!” An old man said as he stepped around a building. “I knew if we followed the gunfire we’d find someone.” He started using his walker to slowly make his way towards Dave.

  “There’s nothing to see here. Go back inside.” Dave yelled to the old man, but the old man kept coming. A few seconds later almost three dozen elderly men and women rounded the corner. Some of them had canes, some had walkers, some were in wheelchairs, and a couple were even riding their Rascal electric scooters. “Seriously…time to go back to the old folks home people. This is a crime scene, and you can’t be here.”

  It was the old people at the back of the crowd that caused Dave to realize this wasn’t just a normal group of old geezers. The ones at the back were crawling across the ground. Their bodies were twisted and mangled as if someone had run them over with a car. Some of them had blood running down their face and chest, and Dave was pretty sure that it wasn’t their blood. He pointed his pistol and then remembered he was out of bullets. Dave turned and ran back to the Taurus hoping he’d be able to get a new magazine out of the glove box. He reached for the door, and a walker imbedded into the side of the car. “Oh shit!” Dave screamed as he turned and ran down the road.

  A few of the zombies stopped to eat Leon, but the rest of the elderly zombies shambled off after Dave. He ran towards a strip mall and then ducked into a plant nursery to try and hide from his pursuers. The elderly wandered in and began to spread out through the building in search of the man. An old woman found him hiding behind some Black Eyed Susans. “Are you my grandson?” She asked. Bloody chunks of meat were stuck in her false teeth.

  “N-n-n-no.” Dave answered quietly.

  “Have I eaten you yet?” She asked with a smile that said she wasn’t quite operating with all her mental faculties.

  “Y-y-y-y-yes?” Dave answered.

  “Are you sure?” She asked suspiciously.

  “Y-yes, and you thought I was delicious.” He responded.

  “Okay.” The old woman then turned and walked off. Dave sighed in relief, but he knew he couldn’t hide there anymore. If she found him then the others would find him as well. He only had one option. He was going to have to fight his way out. Unfortunately the only thing he had available to use as a weapon was the hundreds of flowers in their ceramic flower pots. Anything that might have been really useful was on an aisle at the other side of the store. He picked up a ceramic flower pot and aimed for the old woman’s head.

  It crashed against the back of her skull, and the old woman fell limp on the floor. The ceramic was heavy and hard enough that it caved her skull in before shattering in a cloud of soil. The Blackberry Lilly fell to the ground beside her. The sound of the shattered flower pot got the attention of every zombie in the place. They turned and began navigating their way towards Dave. Me
anwhile Dave was already picking up another flower pot to throw.

  It became a war of attrition as the elderly zombies were bombarded by one flower pot after another. Dave Wesker was running out of plants to fight off the zombies with, and meanwhile they just kept coming. The man screamed and threw an ivy plant an old woman. It hit her in the mouth, and her false teeth fell out in pieces. “Those were my good teeth!” She screamed as bits of acrylic fell from her mouth.

  “It’s okay Bessie…I liked you better without them.” Her husband said as he pulled up closer in his wheelchair. “Less drag.”

  “Oh you dirty old fool…he knocks my teeth out and you start thinking about blowjobs. I don’t know why I even put up with you Donald Joseph Keen.” Bessie grumbled at her husband. “Now are you gonna help me get him, are you just gonna sit there and be lazy all day?”

  Donald Keen muttered under his breath and moved around his wife. “Fifty-three years of marriage and you still can’t stop nagging…you know if I killed you when we were young I’d be free by now. Of course then I’d miss Tuesday nights.”

  “Tuesday nights…that’s all you care about is Tuesday nights. You dirty old coot. I should have listened to my mother and married Earl Rogers. Now there was a man that knew how to treat a lady.” Bessie snapped.

  Donald laughed, “Well he sure as hell should know how to treat a lady. He wanted to be one since he was eight…the little poof.”

  “He was not gay! He was sensitive.” Bessie yelled.

  “Oh please…I bet his butt whistles during a stiff wind by now.” Donald responded.

  Bessie glared at her husband, “You’re just jealous. You never had his style…his class…his…”

  “Willingness to take it in the ass?” Donald said in an effort to finish her sentence.

  Bessie gasped, “You take that back right now!”

  “I will not…he was a poof back then, and I’m sure he’s still a poof now if he’s even alive.” Donald yelled.