Abominations of Desire

by Vince Liaguno

  Rafe straddled a bar stool, and Tom sat down next to him. A tired-looking woman with long gray hair pulled back into a pony-tail came through a swinging door behind the bar. She was wearing a purple TIGER NATION T-shirt that clung tightly to her sagging breasts, and a worn pair of jeans. Her wrinkled face broke into a smile when she saw Rafe.

  “Rafe!” She leaned over the bar and kissed his cheek. “You could have called, let me know you were coming.” She spoke in the same sing-song way the old woman on the boat had, but Tom could understand her perfectly. Her delight faded a bit. “You’re here because of the rougarou, aren’t you? I heard Dante was calling in the FBI.” She shook her head. “I kind of hoped he’d change his mind.”

  Rafe nodded. “Mama, this is my partner, Tom Washburn. Tom, this is my mama, Camille Fontenot.”

  Tom shook the veiny hand she offered him. “Pleasure, ma’am.”

  “You can call me Cammie like everyone else does,” she answered. “You boys hungry? You look hungry.” She gave Tom a wink.

  “I’ll have a catfish plate,” Rafe replied. “Tom?”

  “The same, and a beer.” Tom answered. Rafe gave him a funny look, but Tom didn’t care. I’ve been on duty since eight this morning and it’s almost eight fucking pm. I can have a goddamned beer if I want one. If they want to fucking fire me it’s fine with me.

  “I’ll have a beer, too,” Rafe said, and after his mother had gone back through the swinging door to put their orders in, whispered out of the side of his mouth, “No one needs to know about the beers, right?”

  Tom rolled his eyes. “As long as we don’t get drunk, it don’t matter.” But getting drunk does sound awful damned good. He pushed that thought right out of his mind. Getting drunk meant waking up with a hangover and not remembering the night before. He’d had enough of those nights after getting to New Orleans—and he hadn’t had a drink in almost a year. But one beer wouldn’t hurt anything.

  Just one.

  “What do you know, Mama?” Rafe asked as she placed two bottles of Abita Amber in front of them. “What have you heard?”

  She leaned on her elbows. “Everyone around town’s going nuts. Clete over at the hardware store sold out of ammunition today before lunch time, ‘swhat he said when he stopped in this afternoon—which is just stupid, you know. No bullet ain’t ever killed a rougarou before, you know, the damned fools.”

  It took all of Tom’s self-control not to laugh out loud.

  “You need silver.” She shook her head. She reached underneath the bar and placed a worn cigar box on top. She flipped it open, and Tom blinked a couple of times, not believing what he was seeing.

  “Are those—“ his voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

  “Silver bullets, yup.” She closed the top and put the box back where she’d gotten it from. “Haven’t had call to use them in a few years. My daddy made them when I was a girl.”

  “You’ve used them before?” Tom took a swig from his beer. He couldn’t have heard that right.

  “Of course I’ve used them before.” She made a face at him, and looked at her son. “Where’d you find this one?”

  Her tone was so contemptuous and condescending he felt his face beginning to flush with anger. He took another drink of his beer rather than saying something he’d undoubtedly regret.

  In fact, I may just finish this beer and have another one, he thought.

  “Mama.” Rafe warned, giving his partner a conciliatory smile. “Like I told you before, Tom, around here we take rougarous seriously.”

  “You don’t and you wind up dead.” Cammie said grimly. “So you go right ahead and make fun, Agent Tom.” She folded her arms. “You won’t be making fun when the rougarou’s taking your leg off you for a midnight snack.”

  “So, just how exactly does someone become a rougarou, anyway?” Tom tried to sound as serious as he could, but didn’t think he succeeded.

  Cammie looked at him long and hard before she answered. “You can get infected—if you’re attacked by one and it doesn’t kill you, next full moon—BAM. You turn. Or if one has a child—that child has about a fifty percent chance of being normal.” She shrugged. “Me, I say kill the kid. Why take the chance?”

  She can’t be serious, she’s gotta be yanking my chain, Tom thought, finishing off the beer and putting the bottle back down. Without asking, Cammie put another down in front of him and smiled. “Let me go check on your food,” she said before disappearing through the swinging door.

  When the door stopped swinging, Tom turned to his partner. “You seriously believe all this bullshit. That old woman on the houseboat, your mother—all of this you really believe.”

  “You’re not from here, Tom.” Rafe replied. “I’ve seen things—things there’s no real explanation for.” He shook his head. “What do you want me to say, man?”

  “Is that why you brought me to this place?” He burped into his hand. The headache was gone, and he was feeling a little on the tipsy side—which didn’t make any sense. Sure, it’s been over a year but one beer shouldn’t be getting me drunk. “So your mom can convince me this ‘gator man’ thing is real? And why’d the sheriff call us in anyway, if everyone in this place knows about this shit?”

  “Dante’s not from around here—I’m betting no one had a chance to talk to him before he called our office.” Rafe shrugged. “He’s only had the job a couple of years. He wasn’t here the last time—“

  “The last time someone turned into an alligator and started eating people?”

  “Was five years ago.” Cammie said as she slid two oversized plates overflowing with fried catfish, French fries, hush puppies, and cole slaw in front of them. She smiled. “Killed Frannie Thibodeaux and her baby boy first—wasn’t much left of them when they were found—and got Jack Tyson, too.” She pointed her index finger at him, and cocked her thumb, making a clicking sound. “I got the bastard myself, didn’t I, Rafe?”

  Tom put a piece of catfish in his mouth and inwardly moaned with pleasure. He wasn’t a fan of Southern food as a rule—he didn’t understand the need to batter and deep fry everything, including pickles—but this was without question the best fried catfish he’d ever tasted. It didn’t taste greasy in the least. “This is good,” he said, washing it down with some more beer. Cammie was still looking at him. “So, you killed the rougarou?” He asked, keeping his face blank.

  She nodded. “The strain runs in a branch of the Robideau family. That one was Ricky.” She shook her head. “Ricky was the last of that branch, though. I don’t know who this one could be.”

  Tom popped another piece of catfish in his mouth. This one tasted even better than the last one, which he hadn’t thought possible. He was famished, and started shoveling the food in his mouth. He took another swallow of beer. “What do you mean, the last one?”

  “The last Robideau rougarou.” She took his empty bottle and opened another one, setting it down in front of him. “His branch of the family had the strain. He was the last of them. And he’s dead. And he didn’t have no kids.”

  “Didn’t have much of a chance,” Rafe shrugged. “He was only seventeen.”

  “Seventeen?” Tom was about to pop a hush puppy into his mouth but stopped.

  Seventeen.

  He pushed the memories down as they threatened to come out again, threatened to push their way into his consciousness. He’d put that behind him, for all the good it had done. His career was already ruined.

  “We don’t care what you do in your private life, Tom,” he could hear his supervisor saying again, “really, we don’t. It’s not the Bureau’s concern who you fuck. But this time? This time you really screwed up.”

  He’d known his career was over when he’d seen the pictures that corrupt murdering son of a bitch had emailed him. Him in bed with the boy, his face as clear as it was in his badge photo. The boy’s driver’s license, showing a date of birth that clearly marked him as underage, under the age of consent, which
made it statutory rape at the very least.

  He’d been set-up, and he’d fallen for it. The boy—Lance was what he’d called himself, although his driver’s license clearly showed his name to be Joseph Ripley—had said he was twenty-one, and who checks ID on a potential sex partner?

  And the case had been blown—for a while, anyway—and his career was over, which was why he was stuck in this backwater burb eating catfish and listening to insane rednecks talking about a man who could turn himself into some kind of strange alligator-man hybrid.

  He took another swig from his beer.

  “It’s better to get them when they’re young,” Cammie opened a beer for herself. “Before they get a chance to breed and spread the contagion to another generation.” She winked at him. “Ricky Robideau was one good looking boy—he had to beat girls away from him with a baseball bat. Even being what he was, girls would have spread their legs for him, gotten themselves knocked up and had his babies.” She sighed. “His daddy was the same way—probably where this one came from—who knows who all his daddy knocked up?”

  “You don’t know they carry the infection till they turn seventeen,” Rafe added. “So, some boy who just turned seventeen must be the one. This is his first full moon as a rougarou.”

  Tom put his last hush puppy in his mouth. Everyone in this town is crazy, he thought, including my partner. He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. “So, what do we do?” He managed to keep his voice professional. “How long does the full moon last?”

  “Tonight and tomorrow.” Cammie’s voice was grim. She glanced at her own watch. “Too late for you boys to head back to New Orleans anyway. You just spend the night on the houseboat.” She shrugged. “There are some folks out in the swamp looking for him.” She took another slug of her beer and winked. “I don’t imagine the FBI wants to be involved in this, do you, Rafe?”

  Rafe laughed, giving Tom a meaningful glance. “No, probably best not to.”

  “We can drive back to New Orleans— “

  Rafe cut him off. “We wouldn’t get back until midnight at the earliest anyway. If the hunters catch and kill the rougarou tonight, we can file a report in the morning when we get back. Besides, the houseboat’s pretty comfortable.”

  Tom started to protest but yawned instead.

  “Looks like he’s asleep on his feet,” Cammie said with a laugh. “It’s okay, Tom. Nothing like a good meal and a couple of beers to put a man to sleep.”

  It was starting to sprinkle as they got back into the car. “You okay, man?” Rafe asked as he put the car into gear.

  “Just sleepy,” Tom muttered as the car pulled back out onto the road. He could barely keep his eyes open as the car moved through the small town. His eyes closed and his head fell against the window—but his eyes opened when the car came to a stop.

  “Here we are,” Rafe said, killing the ignition.

  Tom opened the car door and got out, stifling yet another yawn. Rafe had pulled the car into a covered carport, and the rain was pouring down on the tin roof. A yellow light mounted on the back of the carport shone down across a sloping lawn, showing a tired-looking houseboat floating on the black waters of the bayou. Tom struggled to keep his eyes open as he followed Rafe down the sloping lawn and climbed up on the back deck of the houseboat. Rafe unlocked the door and turned on the lights.

  The interior of the houseboat lit up, and the cold air inside made Tom almost cry with relief. He sank down into a chair and mopped the wet off his forehead.

  Rafe opened a door on the other side of the living room. “This is where you can sleep,” he said. “This is the bathroom,” he rapped his knuckles on another door. He walked back over to the door to the back deck. “I’m going to go out and keep an eye on the hunters, make sure the damned fools don’t shoot each other.” He shook his head.

  Tom didn’t argue with him, didn’t raise a question. Once he heard Rafe’s footsteps recede along the dock, he walked back over to the bedroom door and glanced in. It was simple: a single bed, a table, a small dresser.

  A pack of Marlboros and a lighter sat on the table.

  He swallowed. Surely one cigarette wouldn’t hurt anything?

  He stepped back out onto the back deck, and lit the cigarette. The rain was coming down even harder now than it had been, drumming on the roof of the houseboat. He sat down in one of the deck chairs and stared across the bayou. The rain was limiting the visibility the yellow light was throwing—and he saw, or rather sensed, something on the opposite shore move.

  He turned his head as a young man moved into the cone of light.

  He couldn’t make out his face clearly, but he had dark hair, and was wearing a pair of jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt. Tom opened his mouth to call out to him, but no sound came out of his throat as the young man kicked off his shoes and started unbuttoning his shirt. He watched as the young man shrugged his shoulders and the shirt fell. His skin—his body—looked carved from marble. The shoulders were broad and muscular, the chest muscles thick and strong, the stomach ridged and planed, the stunning torso was hairless, the skin of the arms darker until it reached the whiteness of the biceps.

  In spite of himself, Tom felt himself growing aroused.

  He watched as the young man undid his jeans, sliding them off effortlessly. He was wearing nothing underneath. His legs were also muscular and white.

  And he was aroused.

  His hard cock was long and thick, framed by a thick bush of pubic hair. The young man’s right hand grasped it, began sliding up and down its enormous length.

  Tom’s own hand went down to the crotch of his pants, involuntarily. How long has it been, he asked himself, swallowing, unable to take his eyes away from the thing of beauty on the opposite shore of the bayou, trying to remember.

  He couldn’t.

  The young man tilted his head back, raising his arms and his chest as though worshipping the cleansing rains washing over his naked body.

  And he began to change.

  As if on cue, the deck light went out.

  Despite the gloom, Tom could still see the young man, and wasn’t sure what was happening on the opposite shore. The skin over the young man’s stomach muscles began rippling slowly, like waves washing ashore. The ripples began spreading over the rest of his body after a few moments, the skin on his muscular chest, shoulders, arms and legs moving up and down. A cry, barely audible over the raindrops beating down on the roof of the houseboat, escaped his lips as his skin began to darken and thicken.

  This can’t be happening, Tom thought, I’m drunk or I’m dreaming or both.

  The young man’s head bent forward, and he looked across through the darkness at Tom, who took a step backward. The young man’s eyes, which he hadn’t been able to see before, began glowing, radiating a bright yellowish color. The yellow shone through the darkness like a flare.

  He can see me, Tom thought madly, taking another step backwards, reaching behind him for the doorknob.

  Yet despite his terror, he was still aroused.

  Even as his hand finally found the doorknob, grasping it with his sweaty palm, he somehow couldn’t bring himself to turn it and escape inside.

  And he couldn’t take his eyes off the young man as he continued changing.

  His darkening skin became scaly, his legs and arms thicker and stronger and even more muscular than they had been. His smooth stomach now rippled with sharply defined muscle. A tail began to grow from behind him, thick and strong and scaled. And his face—

  That was the worst part of it all.

  It began to elongate from the center, the chin and the forehead spreading backwards as the nose lengthened into a snout. The teeth grew longer and into sharp points. The eyes continued glowing. Another cry tore from his mouth as lightning forked through the sky, lighting up the area around the bayou.

  His erection had also gotten impossibly long and thick.

  Despite the terror pulsing through his veins with every thundering beat of h
is heart, Tom felt desire.

  As the thunder roared, so close the houseboat shook, an image flashed through his mind, of the—the thing holding him down, pressing his legs apart as he climbed on top, the thick cock probing for entry.

  Tom couldn’t take his eyes away from those glowing yellow eyes.

  He started unbuttoning his own shirt with his free hand, the right still grasping the doorknob behind him. The wind picked up, spraying his bare chest with the warm rain. The wetness felt good on his hot skin.

  Across the bayou, the creature reached down and grasped his erection with his left hand. With his right hand, he pointed at Tom.

  Tom licked his lips, and took a deep breath. Get inside, his mind screamed, get your cell phone and get Rafe and the rest of those crazy coon-asses over here with their silver fucking bullets, before it’s too late…

  He didn’t move.

  The young man stepped into the bayou water, and submerged until all that was visible was his long head, the glowing yellow eyes, and the ears.

  He began to glide through the water.

  Towards the houseboat.

  The glowing yellow light of its eyes reflected on the water.

  The spell broken, Tom managed to get the door open and slammed it shut behind him, turning the deadbolt while trying to catch his breath.

  Seconds later, the houseboat shifted in the water, as though something of great weight had climbed onto the back deck.

  Tom backed up through the living area, and grabbed his gun. His hands shook as he aimed at the door.

  The knob slowly turned.

  He could hear his heart beating as the door started to rattle.

  He swallowed.