(The following was
recovered from the journal of a 19th century correspondent sent to
investigate claims of supernatural phenomena in the Louisiana Bayou. Only fragments of his journals were
recovered, and he was never seen nor heard from again, although local lore
holds that he was transformed into what they refer to as a “witness” of a
figure known as The Great Willie Young, and has been granted immortality so
that he may travel through the cosmos, documenting the trials and travails of
Mr. Young. No one knows his identity in
the present, but it has been said that he enjoys long walks on the beach,
Patrick Swayze movies, huffing ether and, of course, his benefactor and dread
lord, The Great Willie Young.)
I have been in the camp of the one the locals call “Guillaume
le Magnifique” for several weeks now, and it is only recently that the Great
and Mysterious master of the bayou has taken me into his confidence. I suspect that he feels he can make use of me
in his dealings with the outside world, critical at this juncture since he
finds himself warring with the local magistrates, a collective of plantation
owners and cruel slave traders who have seem to have taken his destruction as
their primary goal.
However, it seems that recently something has occurred to
disrupt their obsession. Citizens of New
Orleans have been seen streaming into the bayou for the better part of a week,
frightened, carrying little but the clothes on their own backs, weeping and
quaking with fear, as if they had witnessed the Holy Ghost itself. The Great One has in his infinite kindness
taken each and every frightened and downtrodden soul into his care, and behind
closed doors he visits with each of them, where his men claim that he peers
into their souls and renders Final Judgment.
There is some evidence to support this as at least one newcomer was
strung up by his own entrails and hung from a tree just outside of the
encampment. The smell was something
fierce, but just last night there was a strange glow. I dismissed this glow as swamp gas, but the
next morning the body was gone and the people spoke in open awe of the Glory of
the Great One. More than one of the
frightened refugees muttered darkly that he had consumed the body, and that
they had seen him howling at the moon and fornicating with strange beasts, but
this smacks of dumb superstition born of fear of the unknown, and I take no
heed of it.
The Great One tells me himself that the locals have been
frightened by some new demon, a strange beast that shapeshifts from a human form
into a strange figure who murders his victims with an odd confection of spiced
bread and cheese, either suffocating them or slowly clogging their arteries in
a most diabolical fashion. This morning,
an envoy from the city’s leaders even arrived, putting aside their war with The
Great One to ask his help in dealing with this new menace. The audacity itself speaks to the state of
their savage desperation, and they met all morning with The Great One behind
closed doors. I was allowed to sit
quietly and observe and record the proceedings.
A man named Henri LaSalle explained that a rich
industrialist had recently moved to the outskirts of the city to look after his
shipping interests, and almost immediately bodies began to be found, slain in
the cruel fashion previously mentioned.
The city’s leaders at first assumed that it was the work of mere
vampyres, common in the area, but soon they were forced to admit that it was
something far more grievous – it would seem that they claim to have discovered
that this unnamed industrialist can change himself into something hideous and
terrible, a fell beast by the name of The Noid.
Monsieur LaSalle explained this situation to The Great
Willie Young and beseeched him to put aside their vast differences for a time
so that they could work together to defeat this hideous new monstrosity. But The Great One dismissed Monsier LaSalle
with the following: “No Noid ever called me a nigga.” The man, left dumbstruck, was then led out of
the room by The Great One’s men, and his screams echoed through the remainder
of the morning into the afternoon. I
must say, his wails soured lunch considerably, but they died away soon after
and The Great One seems pleased with his decision.
(Several pages of the
journal are unfortunately missing, but the account picks up several days later
with the following.)
More have gone missing in the last day, and only hours ago
one of The Great One’s lieutenants, a man by the name of Burleson, was found
wandering aimlessly in the marsh, his arms mangled and destroyed. It would seem that The Noid lured him into
the marsh late at night, with ambiguous promises of delightful cheeses and fine
bread, topped with savory meats, only to viciously attack him and leave him for
dead. It is only with some luck that a
new arrival to camp, a Haitian bounty hunter by the name of Delmas, who claims
he has devoted much of his life to hunting The Noid, found Burleson with the
help of his pet alligator, who he keeps on a chain and walks like a bloodhound
dog.
This incident enraged The Great One to the point of action,
as he has gathered together hunting parties to deal with The Noid. The two chief parties are to be led by the
Haitian Delmas and The Great One himself, respectively. I have been asked to accompany The Great One,
which I take as a great honor, and…
(Again, several pages
of the account have gone missing. We
pick up the story here…)
The wails in the bayou are terrible, the sound of men dying
of heart disease and indigestion mingled with the terrible laughter of The
Noid. Burleson has accompanied us from
his sickbed, a cot which is carried around by recent arrivals from New Orleans,
who have vowed to work for The Great One as penance for their prior misdeeds,
although I suspect that they will turn on him the moment he defeats the scourge
of The Noid. I further suspect that he
knows this himself and I will likely bear witness to a terrible bloodletting
when this has reached its inevitable end.
I once asked The Great One why he had a problem with the people of New
Orleans and he said to me “First of all, they some racist motherfuckers. I don’t truck with no cocksuckers who think
it’s okay to keep slaves. Shit, my daddy
taught me that, before he was killed by some redcoat coward while he was a cheetah. Second, they follow some
heathen named Brees, a white boy with a mark on his face that clearly indicates
that he is of the devil. Now, I been
accused of being the devil once or twice in my time – which is all the time,
incidentally – but let me tell you, motherfuckers don’t know what they’re
talking about. I tangled with the real
devil once, looked a lot like every other white boy I know, only he had that
same mark on his face, but that’s a story for another time…”
Shook, I let the matter drop. But as I mentioned previously, Burleson was
with us, and from his cot he grimly told us all he knew about The Noid, which
unfortunately wasn’t much since the attack occurred late at night and there are
those that say that Burleson was actually drunk when it occurred, but those are
terrible rumors, spread by mean spirited cowards who have never come face to
face with true evil or late night munchies themselves. Still, The Great One seems to have learned
something about The Noid from Burleson, as the beast’s cries and laughter seem
to be drawing nearer with each passing moment.
Burleson, meanwhile, just lies on his cot and weeps, lapping soup from a
bowl like a dog, flapping around what is left of his ruined limbs, moaning
about how he cannot even pleasure himself anymore. It is a terrible way to live.
(Yet again, several
pages have gone missing, but we continue the story nonetheless.)
It is terrible. It
has been three days since we found Delmas’ pet alligator with its snout stuffed
with cheese. The poor beast died of
asphyxiation and an exploded stomach, and The Noid left behind a trail of
viscous goo, although it is possible that this was merely the unfortunate
product of one of Burleson’s terrible nocturnal emissions, which have become
all too commonplace since he became incapable of self-pleasure. The Great One briefly mentioned the
possibility that someone “take care of” Burleson, but he didn’t specify what
that meant and none of the party seemed eager to find out, and so he let the
matter drop.
Just yesterday, we found Delmas clinging to a giant log in
the middle of a swamp. It would seem
that he had come up lame following one on one battle with The Noid. Through tears, he explained that he
challenged The Noid to a duel following the death of his beloved gator, but
during the battle he was attacked by a rival of his, a fellow bounty hunter by
the name of Sims, a colorful figure who traveled in a wagon that doubled as a
veritable zoo. The fiend let loose his
menagerie on Delmas, who did his best to fight off various lizards and even a
giant bird who flew off with his pants, before being bested by a monkey he
claims was possessed of “retard strength.”
He says that both Sims and the monkey ran off into the bayou, in hot
pursuit of The Noid, leaving Delmas lying limp with what he calls a “pulled
hammy,” which he assures us is a common – and incredibly frustrating – malady.
(More pages
missing. Story continues…)
The Noid has been cornered!
We followed a trail of cheese after discovering the dead bodies of both
Sims and his poor monkey. It would seem
that the duo managed to wound The Noid in their struggle before succumbing to
his terrible evils. The beast sits now
in a tree, and has taken – perhaps unsurprisingly – to cowardice, taking its
human form to beg for its pathetic life.
It has offered The Great One gold, land and titles, and when The Great
One asked its name, the fiend merely replied “I used to be king, before the
Caesar won the hearts of the people. He
seemed a meager foe, a… Little Caesar if you will, but he was old and crafty,
and had deep pockets, and soon his wares were common in all the land, from
quaint homes to the arenas of combat, while I was forced to consort with The
Devil himself, that marked bastard, in order to survive. It was he who did this to me, who changed me
into this… this… thing known as The Noid.
I… I… was once a man. Remember me
for who I was, for founding strict Catholic universities and for hyper-conservatism. Damn you, Ilitch!”
Even as I write, The Great One has fixed an arrow on the
pathetic creature, and… lo! He has let
the arrow fly with the splendor reflective of His majesty!
The Noid has been shot from his tree, and now lies dying at
The Great One’s feet. It is a hideous
creature, trapped somewhere between its human form and the monster it was
forced to become. Oh, but it looks as if
the beast would speak!
“Remember me… as… a… man.
I was… once… great. I… was… once…”
And with that, the beast has perished. The Great One now stands above his fallen
enemy, shaking his head. “It don’t
matter what you once was, bro, ‘cause you dead now, Homie.”
(Sadly, the remainder
of the journal was badly worn, and was largely illegible save for scattered
sentences referring to Burleson’s ejaculate, and a brief paragraph detailing a
visit from an ancient and mysterious friend of The Great Willie Young known
only as Wu Pei. And so ends yet another
tale of The Great Willie Young.)
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