by catt dahman
“Crippled. What I gone do? Carve her de wooden peg leg?” Amadee shook his head. This man didn’t understand how Amadee had let her go, in his heart and mind, when she lost her leg.
“You’d rather her die?”
“Iffin it be her time,” Amadee grumbled.
“I am a medic, and I guarantee when I post pictures of that pretty girl and say she needs help, people are going to send money and get her a prosthetic leg. They will send money and all kinds of things to help her.”
Amadee looked at Curry, eyes narrowed, “Pictures of her crippled-up gone get money sent? And dis things we need?” Images of money danced in his head now.
“People will want her to live in a clean houseboat or such and have nice things. I can assure you it will happen.”
“Wel, den. I got a power saw dat’ll do a fine job. You get ready, and we’ll do dis.” Amadee went to get his power saw to run off the small generator, and he grinned widely. He was going to be rich. The medical team looked shocked at his change of attitude, but then they had been equally as shocked at his callousness.
They stared at one another with disbelief.
Once Lougenia was asleep, Curry used the tool to saw off her leg above the knee, carefully leaving tissue and skin to cover the stump. Blood and bone shards went all over, but at this point, Curry was immune to the horror and only wanted to get this girl out alive and find her a better parent. He stitched carefully with Mona relieving him and working for a while as well. In time, they had the girl stitched, clean, and bandaged properly. The bleeding was stopped.
The surgery was crude and like torture, but her blood pressure was stable again quickly for the first time.
Curry checked Frank’s hand and grimaced but said it was cared for well and all he could offer were painkillers and some supplies, saying the man needed a hand surgeon. If it went bad, the hand would have to be removed.
“I see how to do it now, and if it needs be, I can do it. I wish you’d take him, too.”
“I am not leaving,” Frank said.
“It would be better if you did,” Curry looked over the occupants of the boat. He didn’t like these people at all. It wasn’t that he was profiling them as he had friends who were Cajuns and lived in the swamps. It was these swampers in particular he didn’t like.
Candy Lynn had finally stopped bleeding, was talking, and looked fine; the baby was healthy and in great health. The medical team complimented Abagail again for delivering the baby and caring for the pair.
“She had the good hips for babies,” Abagail smiled, “you all looked drained. I know this was hard work and mentally tiring. I know how I been feeling, too.”
Amadee shrugged, “Some food is what de needs.”
They ate an early meal, serving their guests.
“How do you have fresh meat?” Curry asked. He expected them to be almost starving for protein and at best, have mushy vegetables, canned meat, and rice, but instead, they had excellent food.
Amadee laughed, “It tastes fresh, don’t it? My Leonie cooks something fine, and she done make dis salt pork and smoked, dried pork taste just as fresh as can be. We had a lot stocked here.”
Putting down their plates, Curry and Larry traded glances and didn’t eat anything more than the cornbread, and they cast odd looks at everyone. Something about the man bothered them anyway: he was cruel and uncaring, but he was also a lair. This wasn’t anything smoked or dried.
They decided to take Lougenia and Eloi with them to get them back to where more medical treatment was available. Eloi wasn’t better, but he wasn’t worse which was a change, and both patients were stable enough to be moved. It was laborious to move both and get them comfortable in one of the boats and get information exchanged and everyone settled. Beau and Virgil got bottled water and jerky for the rescuers to take in case they were detained for any reason.
Buford noticed two of the men were gone and not part of the activity on the boats. He decided to go searching. Being curious and suspicious had saved his life more times than he could count.
“What are you doing?” Buford walked inside and found Larry and Curry searching through cabinets. He closed the door behind himself, bitter and angry at the turn of events.
A jar sat on the counter, and Larry pointed at it and glared, “I know damned well that ain’t pork in that jar. We came back to figure it out. What the hell you been rendering here?” Both men were red-faced with anger and scowled at Buford.
“Alligator, frog, fish, and critters we find floating. We found de hog and some chickens drowned.” Buford lied. He tried to look relaxed and unconcerned.
“Is that so? Well, that ain’t frog, fish, or gator. If you been eating what drowned in that water, you’d be sick because that water has sewage; and dead, decomposing humans and animals in it; and oil, and all kinds of chemicals. You’d be on your deathbed with an E. Coli infection. And there’s lead and arsenic in the water and leprospirosis.
“Leposprial what?”
“Leprospirosis, which is caused by rat urine,” Curry said, “rat piss.”
“Dat Mike fellow done got some people sick with something making ‘em shit blood.”
“E. Coli,” Curry repeated, “but that isn’t important. I mean it is, but right now, we have bigger fish to fry. The fact is you have human remains in this jar. What the hell is going on here?” Both men had vomited in the sink already.
“Humans?” Buford pretended shock.
“Yep.”
“Who would have done dat?”
“That’s what we want to know.”
“Guess it was a bad move to have de doctors come on de boat,” Buford said. He halfway turned, grabbed a marble lazy Susan and swung it into Curry’s head. Ghislaine and Tammany had come up behind the men, and Tammany now squatted and battered Curry’s head quickly with a paper weight she had grabbed from her room; it was the pretty one, cracked, but with butterflies inside.
Larry opened his mouth to yell and started to run, but Ghislaine launched herself onto his back, raking his eyes with her nails. Disoriented, the man turned in circles, and Buford managed to hit him with the Lazy Susan as well. Buford ordered Tammany to bolt the door and Ghislaine to run get Amadee and Virgil.
Virgil was never much help and avoided the meat, but he wouldn’t allow his family to be caught. He wouldn’t have to kill, so Virgil should be okay with this.
Buford peeked in, but Candy Lynn was napping; only the baby turned her head. He and Tammany pulled Curry partly down the hallway and waited. Amadee and Virgil came in and grabbed the man and carried him out the back door quietly so as not to awaken Candy Lynn.
She was the only Audette who didn’t know or participate in the tradition. Virgil didn’t participate in killing or eating if he could avoid it, but he knew too much. “How could you do this? They’re gonna be missed, idiot Buford,” Virgil complained to Amadee.
“We’ll be find out if we don’t do dis now.”
“I’m not doing it.”
Amadee glanced at Virgil, “Den, I will kill dem all, let the rest die, and then beat your mama until she blows blood outta her nose. Maybe, I let Buford have dat pretty Marie he done like to look at.”
Virgil weighed his options and knew if he tried anything now, they might kill him as well and then his mother. Marie. No, he had to wait.
Amadee and Virgil carted the second man outside, hiding both, stuffing them into the back storage area, taking out a few things to make room. Cans of gasoline and boxes were be placed on the back deck.
Buford hid the jar again and unlocked the door, whispering quickly to Virgil and Amadee what had happened. Virgil looked ready to scream, “You can’t go killing people at random if at all, you idiot. Don’t you think they’ll be missed and you’ll be caught?”
“We was already caught as soon as they went out there flapping de gums.”
Amadee tapped his head, “I ain’t lived dis long by being a fool. I know what we do now.” Amadee sent Buford out to the deck again to make a
djustments that he ordered, and he walked back to the house and to the tied boats.
“We’re ready to go,” Mona said, “we need to get them to the doctors.”
Amadee asked if they had seen the sharks, trying to waste a little time.
One of the men, Ned, said they hadn’t the whole time they were looking for people, but since coming here, he had seen the fins rise several times and wondered what was going on until Mike explained. “I’ve heard of sharks coming into bad flood waters, but hunting here? In one spot this long? Sounds crazy. I don’t think it’s natural.”
“Male̕diction. A curse. Dere be a cunja on us here. A bad spell. We needs to find out the cunja and stop it,” Amadee said. While he spoke, Buford came to whisper in Leonie’s ear, and she excused herself to check on Candy Lynn.
“Well,” Ned said, “maybe we’ll be safe once we leave here and get them to the doctors.” The sharks, swamp people, and foul scents were getting to him. He felt mildly ill. The talk of curses and evil spells was far too much to listen to.
“I know it de cunja workin’ here, but where do de evil abide?”
“Indeed,” Ned remarked.
Leonie, no actress, tried her best to look flustered as she pulled at her hair and ran to the house and boats and up the jerry-rigged incline they used now that the water had gone down a little. “Amadee, Amadee, oh, Lord, something happened. I saw it out the back…it’s them…the doctor and the other man, Larry. Hurry.”
Several people ran to the back deck. Leonie kept yelling and waving her arms as she tried to act how she was supposed to in order to suit Amadee. She was actually in shock at the events, so it wasn’t quite as hard to act horrified as she led them to the back of the big houseboat.
Buford wasn’t in sight, but he had carefully chopped just one limb off Curry, wrapped it so the blood didn’t drop, closed, locked the storage room, and tossed the arm over board after Leonie went running and screaming and he heard people coming. He slipped back inside the houseboat proper, ran down the hallway, slid out the door at the front, and ran back behind the rest, along the deck, hoping the sharks didn’t eat the arm.
They did seem to prefer live people to scraps but still ate what was in the water. Stupid fish were undependable.
Buford had also done one more thing to set the stage.
Damn, but getting meat was some hard work, and a man had to be clever, he thought.
Amadee pretended to be shocked. Ned looked over the deck, puzzled.
“They was leaning down, and I ‘spect looking at the sharks; sorry fish were just swimming right close back here all afternoon, and then they fell. Larry and Curry both fell.”
“Fell?” Ned ran over with another man and saw the railing, wooden slats that were broken like twigs in one spot. “I don’t see them. Were they here?”
“Yes. Right by…oh the railing is broke,” Leonie yelled.
Amadee peered over, “They’re gone. Leonie, dey fell here? Are you sure, woman? Dere’s none of de men. Where are de? Think.”
“I saw them fall,” Leonie said, lying well, “I came running the second I saw them fall.”
Ned looked in the water and closed his eyes a second as he groaned.
“What is it?” Amadee asked peering at the water.
“All that trash…filthy water….”
Amadee pointed, “Oh my, is dat a arm dere?”
Ned looked and sighed, “It is. I know the watch. That’s Curry.”
“Oh my, dis is bad. All my fault for havin’ a boat to break and let dem fall in with de sharks. I could just shoot myself, me. Dis all my doings. De curse be on me, it is.”
“No, Amadee, you didn’t cause it. It was an accident,” Ned consoled him. He felt sick. It was a horrible accident but made no better by the poor swamp man trying to blame himself.
“I feel de pain of losing dem fine men. Dey just fell in and was et up.” Amadee dramatically raised an arm to his face, as if hiding his face. “I’d soon jump in and search….”
“No,” Ned ordered, “it’s not your fault.”
“Right where the others fell off isn’t it?” Mike asked, frowning.
“True dat, it’s cunja fer sure. Miss Abagail might be able to remove the spell as she be a healer woman from a long line of de magic.” They scanned the water, everyone gazing out to look for any sign of the men, hoping they might be alive, or that one might be, but there was no one in the water. There was only the arm floating away on the current. Amadee kept up blabbing about magic and curses to distract Mike and Ned.
“This is a sad day,” Ned said, returning to his boat, telling Amadee not to worry, and assuring him it wasn’t his fault and he was blameless. “We have to get these wounded to medical help now.”
“Just saves the little ones. Let de curse be lifted,” Amadee moaned.
Leonie had to struggle to keep from rolling her eyes. Amadee was taking so many chances, and he loved the kill, but he was going to get caught if he didn’t stop this. Virgil clasped her hand, and he shook with anger at his stepfamily.
Ned and the other three left the smaller boat, saying the survivors might need it and they’d get it later. Worried about the two children that were aboard, saddened about losing Curry and Larry, and worn down by the heat, horror, and smells, the people on the boat felt exhausted and depressed. They waved sadly, skirted the fins angrily, and motored away, towards help.
The four would-be rescuers and their passengers never made it out of the swamps and flooded areas.
Eloi died shortly after they left. The infection was in his blood, and his heart simply stopped not ten minutes after the boat left the houseboat and his family.
While going too fast among the shallower parts nearer to help, Ned steered the boat over a shed just below the surface that latched onto the hull and held it fast. All six (one dead) flew out of the boat and hit the bricked side of a big three- story house that peeked two stories above the water that Ned had been staring at instead of watching the water and slowing down.
Ned’s two male friends broke their bones and crushed their skulls against the brick but didn’t suffer long. Ned flew through a window left unbroken by the winds and was torn to ribbons; he bled out half way into the house, speared by a jagged shard of glass that held him tightly. Unfortunately, he suffered several long minutes as the cuts bled in time to his heartbeat, but then he grew sleepy and passed away easily.
Mona hit the water, but had the misfortune of landing in debris; she hit her head and slipped unconscious into the water and drowned, weakly flailing and gulping the nauseating water. Lougenia hit the same debris, opened up her recent surgery and bled slowly into the water. She died of blood loss, shock, and hypothermia. She was one child who had suffered a lot.
With this, two more of the Audette line was lost, and no one was told there were survivors waiting for help.
At the houseboat, the group was quiet, and most went off in pairs or trios to sit, cry, or talk, depressed and disheartened. After everyone was abed and asleep, Buford, Amadee, Leonie, Tammany, and Ghislaine cut up the bodies of the Curry and Larry.
Three things were most interesting about this evening.
First, Larry wasn’t dead and had tried to fight back but was no match for Buford. For eight hours, he had stayed in the locked box with no water and little fresh air, smelling a dead man, and injured himself while trying to find a way out. He was too weak to even beat on the side of the box.
His vision stayed doubled in the dark, his head throbbed, and he vomited often.
The first cut of the axe sent him fighting for his life, but it was of no use. He had suffered many hours to meet an end that was disgusting, painful, and barbaric. He wasn’t cognitive enough to think about fighting back as more than a natural survival reaction.
The Audettes took a lot of lean meat and slid the bones and head into the water for the sharks (after carving off the cheeks and removing the tongue because those were tasty parts). Amadee, despite everything, kind of en
joyed having the fish there since they so easily disposed of the leftovers. Without them, he couldn’t have kept up the tradition of feeding his family, which mattered a great deal to him.
The second interesting event was when Trish got up to get a drink, leaving her mother sleeping; Buford saw her. After a little small talk, he asked her to look at something outside, saying he thought a storm was coming. She looked at the bright moon and said he was crazy and was imagining things. Angry that she had come out to the back deck and thinking he got her back here to make a move on her, she pushed him away and tried to get by, “You are an ass, Buford Audette, and you can guess again because it sure isn’t going to happen. No kisses.”
He chuckled, “Don’t want a kiss.”
Buford hit her in the stomach, and air whooshed out. She couldn’t breathe or speak. Using rags (not clean), he stuffed one in her mouth and tied it tightly and then dragged her to the back. Leonie and the girls had gone in to sleep, so it was just Amadee and Buford.
“I’se gotta a hankering something fierce,” Buford said. He rubbed his crotch. All the killing and blood, taking chances and high anxiety levels left him sexually insatiable.
“Well, she be a good lookin’ gal, and dey is rare indeed. She shore treated our Candy Lynn poorly,” Amadee said, “I say she’ll make a good pot roast, ooohh—eeehhh.”
Trish blinked.
“You believed yer brother Landry just fall off the back, and de fish done got him? And et him up? Naw, Girly, you and me and all, we done et him up with potatoes and carrots in dat good stew.”
Trish’s eyes bulged. She gagged.
“Dat puke will choke ya, girl. Done do dat.”
Trish felt tears covering her cheeks. Cannibals? Murderers? And she was next? It wasn’t fair.
To her ultimate horror, Buford didn’t begin carving her with the sharp knife he produced; he cut away her clothing and tossed it to the water. She lay nude before him, shaking, but not fighting because when she did, he hit her, and it hurt. She wanted to scream as he raped her. He pinched and hurt her badly. Amadee took a turn, and he liked to slap her breasts. She thought this would go on for hours.