Tag: writers

Upon occasion, I am fortunate enough to fight alongside exceptional men.

Today was such a day.

I had heard rumor of an ogre operating in Louisiana, and it was an unpleasant bit of information to receive. Whether it was true or not, I didn’t know. What I did know was that whatever was propagating the rumor was going to be difficult to deal with. Ogres are a nasty, brutish breed, and for one of them to be blamed meant there was a significant among of carnage.

When I arrived in the area the rumors had originated from, I discovered a group of New York Zouaves who had been sent along by their commander. The Zouaves were transplanted Frenchmen, and they knew, without a doubt, that it was an ogre they were hunting. The Secesh had somehow managed to import one from Breton, and they had set the damned thing loose.

There were twenty-one of us altogether, and we tracked the ogre down to a plantation that had been abandoned. We learned from an escaped slave that the ogre had eaten most of the plantation’s slave population, although a few had been fortunate enough to make it into the swamps. With his hunger far from sated, the ogre had made his way to various Federal encampments, eating his full of pickets and sentries at night, and the wounded and dead from various battles.

The ogre was, according to the former slave, still in the plantation manor, but he would be leaving close to sundown. We gave the man as much food as he could carry and made our way to the house.

We took up stations around the house, and then one of the Zouaves raced forward and set the damned place afire. Within moments, the ogre came barreling out a broken wall, and the fight was on.

While the fight did not go as well as we all would have liked, it was not as terrible as it could have been. We only lost twelve men killed and two wounded. I cut the ogres head off, and as I write this, I have it boiling down in the biggest damned kettle I could find.

The Zouaves will send it home to New York City, and hang it in their local church.

#horror #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #paranormal

George Custer and I never agreed on much. I felt him too much the fool and too reckless when it came to his men’s lives. I especially disagreed with his keeping a dog.

I didn’t think he was good enough for a dog.

After a short argument about the merits of certain tactics, an argument for which he threatened to have me horsewhipped, I decided he most certainly didn’t deserve his dog. I stole the dog away, which was nothing difficult considering the man, and the dog and I went about our business.

I traveled to Virginia with Henry, which was what I decided to name the dog, and sooner than I expected, Henry proved his worth.

We had made camp in a small section of woodland in a copse of trees. I didn’t make a fire since I wasn’t sure how many Secesh were in the area. We ate our rations cold, and then the dog and I hunkered down to sleep.

Henry heard them before I did, and it was his low growl, which brought me awake, weapon in hand.

The creatures which attacked us had once been men, but they had died at least a year earlier. They were the undead, and they were hungry.

As the dead closed in on us, Henry continued barking, a beautiful sound that distracted the damned things and afforded me the opportunity to shoot them down. While they don’t move fast, more than a handful can overcome you with their numbers.

Before the morning came, I had emptied my Colts three times apiece, and the Spencer twice.

But all the dead were destroyed.

Henry and I broke camp and made our way to someplace safer, and one that stank less. With the dog trotting at my side, I smiled.

I think, when we reach a town, I’ll send a letter of thanks to Custer for giving me such an excellent traveling companion.

#horror #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #paranormal

I was in Red River Parish, searching for a creature feeding on both the living and the dead.

There had been eyewitnesses to both types of attacks, and all agreed that the assailant had resembled a wolf standing on its hindquarters. This being Louisiana, I felt certain I was searching for a Rougarou, and I had little time to spare.

I’ve only hunted a Rougarou once before, and that was long before the start of the nineteenth century. That Rougarou had been an old woman, and she’d nearly feasted on me that night. It was luck more than skill which had saved my skin.

After almost a week, I found the Rougarou. He was a Secesh infantryman, attached to a unit sent out as skirmishers on most days and as pickets every night. I tracked him from his camp, wondering if he was feeding on the dead and the living because there was no other food, or if by preference.

It was, I soon discovered, out of preference.

I watched him bypass several flocks of sheep, a few dozen cows, and two chicken coops, the hens screaming as he walked past them.

Close to midnight, he stopped and took shelter, and I followed suit. The wind hadn’t shifted, so I knew he hadn’t caught my scent. But something had attracted his attention. Soon, I saw it was a young boy hurrying along a narrow trail, and I knew I couldn’t wait.

As the Rougarou stood, I put a round from my Spencer through him. The shot dropped him and sent the boy running.

I hunkered down close to where he was, and I waited, rifle and Colts at the ready.

The hours passed slowly, but my focus never wavered.

As dawn broke upon us, I saw the Secesh laying on his back, mouth agape. He was in a pose which certainly would have fooled anyone, had they not known what he was.

I did know.

Standing, I put two more slugs into his head, strode forward, and set his body on fire. As he sat up, screaming, I emptied the Colts into his chest, then the Spencer. By that time, the flames had taken their toll on his flesh.

I used his bayonet to cut off his head, and I kicked it, watching the skull burn as it bounced along the road.

#horror #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #paranormal

Help Support Cross, Massachusetts!

Hello! I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please consider putting a dollar in the pot. 🙂 Every little bit helps, and each dollar allows me to spend more time creating posts and stories for you to read. Thank you for your support!

$1.00

The striga was hunting the pickets.

When I arrived at the unit, I learned from Captain Henry Dobson that he had lost seven pickets in as many nights. He had tried doubling up the men, but it was always the same. Whoever was the younger would be taken and found drained of blood in the morning.

There was no chance the dead men could come back. Captain Dobson was a great many things, as the saying goes, but a fool was not one of them. He had the bodies destroyed and sent a letter of regret to the soldiers’ families, informing them that their loved ones had died in battle.

He wanted it to stop.

Captain Dobson had heard of my exploits, and so he had sent for me. Unlike other men, he did not balk at my youthful appearance, nor doubt that I could carry out the task. When he asked me what I would need, I replied, “Nothing.”

I left immediately and inspected the places where the men had been slain. The striga was either careless or simply didn’t care. Regardless as to the reason, there was a slim trail, easily visible in the daylight to any who might have looked in the trees.

A half-mile later, the trail dropped from the pines to the ground, and I tracked the striga back to a small graveyard in an abandoned town. It took me almost an hour to find the grave, a great construct of marble and granite. Within it, according to the engravings, was Enoch Hatch, who had died only a few years earlier.

While I wondered how he had subsisted prior to the start of the war of the rebellion, I removed my haversack and went about the business of constructing an explosive. I had taken the precaution of bringing gunpowder and fuses, as well as a few other sundries for this particular hunt.

The sun was still high when I set the charge against the sarcophagus and then took refuge behind a nearby headstone.

A few moments later, the entire cemetery shook, and pieces of marble hurtled past.

The striga screamed as sunlight burned him, and a moment later, he exploded.

With my ears ringing and my head pounding, I sat on the edge of his sarcophagus and enjoyed the sun.

#horror #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #paranormal

Help Support Cross, Massachusetts!

Hello! I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, please consider putting a dollar in the pot. 🙂 Every little bit helps, and each dollar allows me to spend more time creating posts and stories for you to read. Thank you for your support!

$1.00

We were twenty strong when they came spilling out of the buildings around us, and we were not nearly enough.

At first, the goblins seemed far more intent upon the destruction of the abandoned town than they were of us. In fact, I am not certain they even saw us. Perhaps, they might not have noticed us at all.

I’ll never know.

One of our number, a young and foolhardy captain who had made his bones serving alongside Captain Custer, raised his rifle and fired, killing one of the small, gray creatures.

It was the worst idea he had, and the last as well.

A number of goblins broke off their destruction and attacked. The captain was among the first to fall, but he was not the last.

The men’s shots were true, and their years in battle kept them focused, unshaken even by the minuscule monstrosities we faced. They chose their targets, they reloaded their weapons, and in the end, our guns were useless.

There wasn’t enough time to reload, not when there were dozens of the damned goblins swarming over us.

I am uncertain as to how much time passed. I know only that soon I stood alone, splattered in the blood of friends and the ichor of the enemy. At least thirty of the goblins remained, but they kept their distance, eyeing me warily. I had no compulsion about killing them, and there was a large pile of their corpses around me.

In silence, the goblins dragged off my dead, bringing the corpses into their warrens beneath the town.

There was nothing I could do. Not then.

When I was alone, with nothing save bloody smears to remind me of my comrades, I cleaned off my Colts, reloaded them, and dug out my matches.

Somewhere in the town there would be lamp oil, and soon I would burn the goblins out.

#horror #monsters #supernatural #skulls #death #fear #evil #horrorobsessed #scary #paranormal