Fantasy American Nightmare - The Manifest Disaster

[MasterWaffles]

John Carter Abett was at the prime of his youth, age twenty-three, about six foot with curly short black hair, abnormally long arms for his height, green eyes, and built like a bison - hairy and muscular. At the best of times, he was one of the finest Texas Rangers of his day; until he had to abandon his home and fled to the East. At the worst of times, which is to say most of the time these days, he is usually drunk and will almost always resort to violence.

On this particular night in late September, eighteen-fifty-nine, John was losing badly at a game of cards at a bar called The Tipsy Stool in the heart of Montezuma, Georgia. It was one of the few places in town that still let him in. Unfortunately for him he had just lost the rest of his money and was about to get banned from this one too.

“Bastard!” one of these gentlemen by the name of Warden yelled out as the heavy oak table knocked him to the floor. “I’m gunna fuckin kill you, John!”

Fortunately for John, there was a pile of gold coins and paper notes on the table and as they flew into the air, everyone in the place broke out into a bar fight scrambling to get their hands on some gold. Escape was not Johns's normal style, however, Warden owned the bank in town and happened to also know a lot of people he could hire to kill him. Taking as much money off the ground as he could swipe at he immediately started for the door, throwing and taking several punches as he went.

Outside, John knew what to do; get the hell out of Montezuma. Problem was, he had already downed a full bottle of the Tipsy Stool’s strongest imported rum and could barely think straight, let alone run. In the middle of the road a little way up he saw two people making love. The woman was screaming and as his inebriated mind slowly worked out what was going on he stumbled his way towards the scene.

“Hey!” John shouted at the huddled pair “Get off her!”

The one on top slowly looked up at him, face covered in blood, eyes wide and unblinking, mouth oozing a combination of drool and viscera. In the dim light of dusk, John swore the man looked like he had been partially scalped or possibly his scalp had been chewed on not cut off. The figure under him was no longer screaming, but clearly dead and oozing a lot of blood. The figure rose without taking his eyes off John or saying a word. Sobering up quick, John turned and darted back towards the bar.

He remembered his predicament inside and went down the back alleyway, turning to look at his pursuer. It seemed to hear the commotion going on inside and didn't see as John round the corner and trip over a pile of lumber that had been stacked there.

“John where’d you go!” he heard Warden shout at he door, followed by a round from his six-shooter. “Who the fuck r’ you sonny and why are . . .” followed by a few more shots and “get away from me!” and the rest of the six bullets.

John got up and peeked around the corner to see the creature, now with four new bullet holes in its chest and one in its neck, on top of the screaming man ripping into his flesh with its’ teeth. John also noticed the woman walking with a limp down the road missing a large portion of her neck. John thought he must be in this alley passed out drunk dreaming all of this; there was no way either of those two should be alive. He turned and went more cautiously down the alley.

Montezuma, which sat along a big river called Flint, was one of the first cities founded in Georgia and it had the luxury of being quite large and well established. Near the bar, there was a large general store John went in to buy generally all he needed while in town; it was called Morts. Morts was closed, but John knew he needed supplies to get out of town immediately so he broke down the front door and grabbed a sack to fill with just what he needed. He left the two gold coins and wad of bills on the counter then headed out, unsure if it was enough to pay for what he took.

John decided to exit town immediately to the West, to avoid any more of those hellish creatures in town to the East. Plus, he knew what was out that way, Columbus, a town that didn’t want him back any more than he wanted to go back.

 

[Bloodshed]

Marcus: "Run boy, run!" Five miles. "Run I'm uncultured, run." Ten miles. "Them hounds still smell that blood boy." Fifteen miles. Marcus sprinted throughout the night in the gelid heat of Georgia. Despite his physical exhaustion, his heart drove him to keep on running. He'd never made it this far from the plantation before. This was his tenth time running from the plantation. He'd tried it once every year since his fifteenth birthday. Each year, the beatings got longer, the days became harder. The work became more brutal. Each year, he became less human to those around him. His ankles were scarred with the teeth of rabid dogs, his back torn and lashed from a lifetime of whippings. His wide frame was that of a tank, lats stretching out like wings as he flew, tree trunks stretching from his torso slammed into the ground with every step he propelled himself forward with. 6'4 and 255 lbs. There was no stealth in his run, only a desire to get free of his home. All he knew how to do was run.

Alongside Marcus, two other men ran alongside him: Dwayne and Tony. They must have been half his size, little shrimps in his shadow, but they belonged to Marcus. They were his brothers, his boys, his heart. They were his until the day that he died. Dwayne was but a boy of eighteen years old. It was his first run, but boy, he was quick. Faster than Marcus ever was. He dipped and dived through the swampland, ducking under tree and over hill as if he'd made this exact run a thousand times before. He was Marcus's blood brother. Their parents were sold away when they were young for "being rebellious I'm uncultured" to quote Mr. Abberdean. They were all that each other had. Now, Tony... Tony was different. He was only thirteen years old, and he had no relation to anybody here besides those he formed. Tony was born with a deformed leg. He was a house slave; no use in the field because he couldn't work. For this, he took his beatings in house instead. His beatings were amusement in the house. His stutter only made things worse. He was the easy target, and, for that reason, he became Marcus's. The tank became his protector, and tonight, Marcus made Tony a free man for the first time in his life. Despite the limp, Marcus interlocked his arm with Tony's to help him keep pace, picking him up each time he fell. It was a family.

They'd been running for about two or three days at this point. There was no rest. It must have been two or three in the morning. Then, they heard it: the sound of the hounds as they howled. Horrific screeches looking to tear into some dark flesh this night. It was a violent call that Marcus did not intend to answer. The three men quickened their pace, and BOOM! The shotgun went off. They'd caught the scent. In the distance, Marcus could see the lights of Montezuma. The smuggler was their. He'd promised to help get Marcus out. BOOM! another blast of the gun went off as buckshot flew by the three brothers. Marcus turned to see five men approaching, lanterns torching the underbrush about fifty yards back. "I see you boys!" Mr. Abberdean's call was torturous, and the fear swept into their hearts. They could not make it. No matter what. They were doomed to fail. Mr. Abberdean cackled with that of existential glee as each of their hearts began to sink into the Georgia mud.

Marcus took a sharp left turn and dove into the underbrush with Tony. Thorns slashed into his side as he did so, blood dripping to infuriate the hounds even more. Hidden from the lights for now, he paused to let Tony get a rest before they were caught. Dwayne screamed. Shit. The hounds must have gotten him. He screamed louder and louder, and Mr. Abberdean went silent. Dwayne's screams stopped suddenly. Two shotgun shells rang out into the night, and the hounds yelped horrifically. Mr. Abberdean mimicked Dwayne's screams, "Get the fuck away from me! Get the fuck away!" From their hidden place in the brush, Marcus and Tony saw the lights go out in the night and heard Mr. Abberdean's voice fade away into absolute nothingness. Marcus turned to Tony and shushed him, sneaking out as he could to get a glimpse when he tripped over a corpse. In the moonlight, he saw it. It was the lower half of one of the hounds, torn in half and tossed aside. It's plasma pooled on the ground as it intestines squiggled into the shape of a deformed S.

Marcus's breathing intensified when the brush around him began to burn. The lanterns started a small fire in the region which illuminated the ghostly figures that stood over Dwayne's and Mr. Abberdean's bodies. The figure over Dwayne wore a suit and tie with its right arm dangling off of its tendons. A hole sat directly in the middle of his chest as if an explosion had torn through its physique. Tears streamed down Marcus's face as he held back a scream. The figure over Abberdean's body was that of a small child, missing its left arm and half of it's scalp. It's clothes were painted red as it sank its teeth into the slave owner's neck. Marcus sank back into the brush, scooping up Tony in his arms. He whispered to his foster brother "Close your eyes son. You don't want to see this." Tony dug his face into Marcus's broad shoulder as Marcus began to bulldoze his way through the brush. Behind him, he heard those beasts let out a bloodcurdling screech. His speed increased, and he thought that he outpaced the monsters. Perhaps they were too busy tearing apart his brother's chest cavity to care. With that, a piece of Marcus died. He'd tell Tony about it later, but, for now, he had made it far enough. He'd outrun the plantation. Now, he needed to make his contact in Montezuma. From there, he's head West towards Columbus or California. Someplace far from here. He needed to.

Then, a wrinkle in the plan. He saw the sly figure of a youthful white man in the distance. Marcus stood in the center of the road, clutching his fetal crippled brother in his arms. He knew that the man would have had to see him now. No choice. Marcus would have to beg for mercy or hopefully get by the man. He needed to get to his contact. When Marcus got closer, he could see shaped begin to form. He was muscular, hairy, with abnormally long arms. Marcus prayed that he would let him by, but who was he kidding... Marcus was a runaway slave in Georgia. Chances are that he'd be returned to the plantation tonight. Maybe the man had bigger fish to fry elsewhere. Maybe, he'd seen the monsters too.

 

[MasterWaffles]

John Carter Abbett, September 28, 1859
Travel in the wetlands of Georgia was perilous enough in daylight; there was plenty enough to kill quickly as there was to kill a man nice and slow. Ravenous animals where no match for Johns's knife, but the bugs were poisonous and/or carried sickness. John knew fire was the only defense against this threat, but John also knew from tracking down criminals that it was easy to spot in the night. He didn’t want those creatures he saw in town to spot him as he crept through the marsh in the night holding a clear beacon.

Looking around, he pulled out his knife and made a plan. He spotted enough good straight branches and saplings to make torch shafts, and a crop of cattails growing in a shallow marsh that would burn at length. As he started cutting into a nice sized sapling, he heard people arguing behind some thorny brush nearby. As he snapped the sapling from the ground there was a loud ‘BOOM!’ and John fell on his ass. He quickly got up and went to the cattails to cut down a few stocks, then planted the top of the sapling into the wet ground. He cut a cross notch in the flat end down about a quarter of the stick. There was a bright light that could only mean a lot of fire coming from the direction of the ordeal. He stuffed a cattail in the split and poured on a little moonshine from his flask.

Standing in the muck with his newly crafted torch John stared at the brush where he heard some shuffling and saw two people emerge. They were immediately recognizable as slaves that had obviously escaped, and given the ordeal, he guessed their owners were close by. For a moment John simply stared at them as they stared back. He decided after a few moments, not hearing any more shouting that maybe he was wrong. Worse, maybe they’d just escaped those creatures as he had and those screams were not from anger.
John picked his torch out of the ground and walked over to the men, extending a hand he asked simply “What happened?”

Lurking behind the brush, these creatures of the night could smell the blood that escaped them. After they had drained the easy prey, their leader heald the assault party back and allowed these newest cursed a taste of fresh blood. Their leader could smell the blood scent thick in the air and it knew there must be a much larger gathering nearby; another town full of fresh warm food. He commanded his small gathering of carefully selected to follow him around the brush and into the town for more. Through the brush, Mr. Aberdene and his men got up, still drained of blood, and crawled through the underbrush smelling blood.