LOUISIANA SWAMP MONSTER
Darnell, Kevin, and Kyle entered high school in Baton Rouge without a single characteristic among them that had any chance of attracting a girl. In the three categories that mattered – sports, looks, and money – they were a complete washout. They might have had better luck if the little money they could get their hands on were spent on something like a haircut or a nice pair of jeans. But Darnell, Kevin, and Kyle were classic outdoors men, which left little time for grooming, playing football, or making sure they didn’t show up for school smelling like fish.
Which is why Kevin was so angry as he sat alone on a rowboat in the swamp the three boys has been frequenting since the fifth grade. They’d been only ten years old when they’d found the rusted-out piece of junk tangled in the brush, half full of dirt, along the edge of the swamp. Catching fish had become their obsession thereafter – they were always on the hunt for the legendary catfish that was said to swim these waters.
It was late August now, prime fishing season, and the first weekend following the start of high school. The swamp was 1 hot and goopy, which always proved the best time to lay into a really big bass or, better yet, a bowfin. Bowfins were big and mean. If you could get one on the line, they’d drag the boat around the swamp, and the guys would go nuts with laughter.
“Get it in! Don’t pull too hard! Row! Row!”
It was the best.
At least, that’s what Kevin thought. But now, as he sat alone on the crummy boat, hot and sweaty on a Friday afternoon, he thought back to the things his friends had said at school earlier in the day.
“Look, Kevin, we’re in high school now,” Darnell had said.
Kevin caught a distinct whiff of aftershave as his buddy put an arm around him. Then Darnell immediately backed off, as if something gross about Kevin might have gotten stuck to his arm.
“I know,” Kevin said, confused and a little bit annoyed. “It’s not like I’m an idiot. I can see we’re in high school. What’s your point?”
Kyle cut right to the chase.
“Darnell and I feel it might be time to lay off fishing for a while.”
Kevin’s jaw dropped. He took a good look at Kyle – and realized to his astonishment that his fellow Swamper was wearing a polo shirt.
“Don’t tell me you spent our bait money on clothes. We needed that bait!”
Kyle looked at the ground, but Darnell came to his rescue.
“Come on, Kevin. You gotta admit, it’s getting a little lame going out there all the time. It was fun when we were kids, but dang, we need to grow up sometime.”
“Grow up? Grow up?!” Kevin yelled. He was creating a scene; people were starting to stare as they walked by. “You guys are ditching me, is that it?”
“Dude, calm down,” Kyle said, “It’s not that big a deal. And besides, there’s a football game tonight. We kinda thought it might be fun to check it out.”
“Football game?!” Kevin said. “Have you gone insane? We don’t do football games. We catch giant catfish!”
That was it. Kevin had gone too far. His best friends both backed away as nearby students started laughing and whispering. Kevin had become radioactive. He looked down at his shirt, saw that it was old and crummy. He saw the stains on his pants from who knew how many fish he’d caught. Had he washed those jeans lately? He didn’t think so.
“You guys, please,” Kevin said, bringing his voice down. “Just tonight, one more trip out there. You’ll see. It’ll be amazing, I promise.”
But Darnell and Kyle were already walking away.
“Don’t go out there alone,” Kyle said. “You know what they say.”
“And don’t put your arm in the water,” Darnell added. “I know you want to, but don’t. Not worth it, bro.”
Now, as Kevin sat on the boat alone, staring out into the flat water and the moss-covered trees beyond, he remembered how he’d felt. Both of his friends had ditched him. They’d left him standing there all alone, without a chance in the world of fitting in with anyone else. Kevin had drifted through the rest of the day, plotting ways to convince his friends to visit the swamp with him. But deep down, he knew the truth: Darnell and Kyle were already too far gone. High school had stolen them. They wanted to fit in, find girlfriends, maybe even go out for sports. The whole thing made Kevin sick to his stomach.
“What a couple of losers,” he said quietly as he sat on the boat. Then he yelled it, really loudly, over the long, empty expanse of swamp water.
“What a couple of LOSERS!”
He knew it was a bad idea to draw attention like that. Screaming meant everything within a hundred-yard radius knew he was there. Throughout the marsh and the underbrush and the old trees, there was a real threat. Gators. And something else, something they’d talked about many times when they’d sat on the very boat he was on now. The Louisiana Swamp Monster. It was said to roam the deepest part of the waters: half human, half gator or something worse. They’d look out over the water sometimes and know, deep in their bones, that the monster was staring up at them, watching them from below.
Together, when there were three of them, they were able to overcome their fear. That was partly because the legend included some very specific details, such as:
- The swamp monster was like a person, only it was slimy and green, with sharp claws and razor teeth.
- It never came completely out of the water, and it rarely even showed its hands (which were gruesome).
- The swamp monster was highly secretive. It would never reveal itself to more than one person.
“Even if it got one of us,” they would reason when the sun started to go down, “the other two would get away. Or at least one of us would make it out alive. And we’d tell. Someone would know. That’s why it leaves us alone.”
This all made sense, but even still, they kept a baseball bat and a wooden spear they’d made out of a broomstick in the boat, just in case. If the dreaded swamp monster did attack them, they weren’t giving up without a fight. Kevin thought about the swamp monster now as he sat on the boat, not catching anything. The fishing was lousy, which only made him angrier.
“Go ahead, show yourself,” Kevin said, taunting the swamp monster – which he knew deep down was only a story, anyway. “Go on! I don’t even care anymore!”
In the quiet that followed, Kevin had a sudden idea. Maybe it was his dark mood. Maybe it was how badly he wanted to show up at school the next day with the biggest catfish his friends had ever seen and yell, “See what happened while you were at a stupid football game? World record catch! Ha!”
It didn’t cross Kevin’s mind that walking into a high school with a giant fish might solidify his status as weird, unpopular, and smelly. No, all he knew was that Darnell and Kyle wouldn’t be able to hide how excited they were. Everyone would see his two friends were Swampers, just like him. Which was why Kevin did something really, really stupid.
Catfish were crafty. It could be hard to tell if one was on your line – especially one of the big ones. But they loved the smell of WD- 40 more than anything else. If you sprayed your arm with WD-40 and put your hand in the water as deep as you could, and just let it hang there, you’d know if there was a catfish nearby. You’d feel its big, gummy lips touch your fingers. You’d feel your hand being slurped on. And then BANG! You could grab the catfish by the lip and haul it right into the boat, where it would flop around in all its four-foot glory!
There were risks, for sure.
What if a gator or a snapping turtle found your hand first? It could happen.
But far more dangerous than that would be the swamp monster, because the last part of the legend was the scariest. If you find yourself alone in the swamp, do not under any circumstances put your hand in the water. It will sense your fear. It will know you are alone. You won’t leave the swamp alive. These were very specific details of the legend. Details that no high school freshman, for any reason, should test.
If only Kevin hadn’t felt for sure a giant catfish was waiting right under the boat. Maybe he wouldn’t have sprayed his entire arm with WD-40.
Maybe he wouldn’t have put his hand in the water.
