Date: Fri, 21 Jul 95 00:00:33 CDT
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Joel Walker <JWALKER@ua1vm.ua.edu>
Subject: FFFFriday Follies: A Old Tale of the Deep South
A Old Tale from the Deep South
It was a dark and stormy night. The strobing flashes of lightening
darkened the already deepening shadows inside the old Volkswagen camper.
The flames of the small campfire flickered, like the tongue of a snake,
as the soft moaning of the wind increased. The trees bent over the
campsite, their arms draped in Spanish Moss, like old scarecrows in the
tattered remnants of clothing long gone out of style.
The little camper rocked slightly in the wind. The old fellow at the
gas station this afternoon hadn't mentioned any storm. He only spoke
about how this campground was haunted by the spirit of Jean Pierre
Bapaume, one of the original explorers of this area, who accompanied
Iberville on his trek through the swamps of Louisiana, Mississippi,
and lower Alabama. Somehow the story doesn't seem quite so laughable
out here in the dark.
What was it he said? Bapaume had been hung by the others from one of
these very trees, and swore vengenance on any who dared seek refuge
here. The old fellow never did say exactly what it was Bapaume had
done to deserve hanging.
I looked at my watch. It was late, nearly midnight. I hadn't realized
it was so late ... the sky seemed strangely light, almost like twilight.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an armadillo walk out of
the bushes along the road and head straight for the fire and me.
I threw a rock in its direction, but it kept coming. As it reached the
light of the fire, its eyes glowed greenish-yellow, and their gaze
seemed to be fixed on me.
"Are you to be here when Jean comes?" The voice startled me, a high-
pitched squeaking voice, with a terrible accent. I stood up from my
lawn chair and looked around, wishing I had brought some sort of
weapon. There was no one there. Only the armadillo and myself. Then
the armadillo stood on its hind legs, looked straight at me, and the
voice again said, "Are you to be here when Jean comes?" It was the
armadillo speaking.
I stared at him for a few seconds, then decided the storm and the
beer were playing tricks on my mind. I threw a beer can and hit the
armadillo directly in the snout ... he vanished. No smoke. No noise.
No nothing. He just wasn't there. The beer can went right though him
... or rather, when he had been ... and rattled down the dirt road.
Now I was sweating. I got the flashlight and walked around the campfire,
shining the light on the dirt, looking for tracks of some sort. There
was nothing there. No sign that anything had walked over that
ground in the last two hundred years. I did not like this turn of
events. I looked at my watch. It was exactly midnight. The wind was
now only a soft whisper in the trees.
I turned off the flashlight and started to walk back to the camper,
when I noticed a rather large possum, sprawled out in my lawnchair, like
some bloated lifeguard at the beach. His eyes were glowing red in the
firelight, but they flickered somehow, as if glowing from within
instead of reflecting the light of the campfire.
"Are you to be here when Jean comes?" The voice was deeper than before,
but the accent was just as bad. It was definitely the possum speaking,
I could see his mouth move as he struggled with the English words. And
he shifted his weight in the chair as he gestured with one of his
forelegs.
He apparently took my shocked demeanor to be misunderstanding, so he
repeated his sentence, pausing slowly at each word, and speaking louder
than before. I swallowed, and replied, "What do you mean?"
"I just want to know if you will still be here when Jean comes", he
croaked. "Jean do not like people to camp here. Jean do not like people
at all." As he said this, a twisted sneer of a smile played upon his
features. If a possum can smile, that is.
Geez, I thought, now I'm talking to possums in the swamps of Alabama!
How old was that beer!?? I picked up a stick and walked around the
campfire, intending to defend my lawnchair, when the possum just faded
out of view. He hadn't run away, or even moved, he just faded out of
sight. I carefully felt all over the chair, but there was no warmth,
no smell, no hair, no nothing. Only me, the crackling of the fire, and
the whispering of the wind.
"Are you be here for Jean?" This voice was deep, very deep. My spine
grew goosebumps the size of golfballs. The voice was behind me, on the
other side of the fire. I looked at the windows of the camper, to see
any reflection of what was speaking, but there was nothing there.
I turned slowly and looked behind me.
An alligator, about ten feet long, was lying on his side, picking his
teeth with a claw. He looked at me with bright blue-green eyes that
seemed to steal all your willpower to resist. I looked away quickly
and stared at the fire. The gator raised up on his rear legs, and sort
of sat there, using his tail as a prop. His pale white belly glistened
in the firelight.
"I mean," he said, "Do you stay here til Jean comes?"
"Man, if you ain't Jean, I'm GONE!!!!" I shouted over my shoulder as
the Land Speed Record was broken by a 1971 Volkwagen Campmobile.
I don't drink much anymore. I don't camp at places without at least
three other campers there ahead of me. And I NEVER stay up past ten
o'clock.