Handwritten letter from H. Justin Pierce, c/o New England Opera Lovers' Society; Wednesday 17 December, close to Midnight, somewhere north of Lake Verret, Assumption Parish, Louisiana.  Continued...

...Our victory ensured (take note, people: Cultists Nil, Federal Bureau of Investigation Nine), we proceed to scavenge whatever we can. We're in the middle of a discussion about which of the boats (cabin cruiser or skimmer) will serve us best to get out of this mess. I argue that we should hurry, as the Reverend's send-off napalm display will probably draw in the other boats. Then a big, black, ropy tentacle shoots out of the lake and grabs Frost. We all turn around to see what is happening. I'm not afraid to admit that I started screaming, but at least I'm coherent. Kind of. Wilmot just curls up into a fetal ball, and Chief breaks into a sprint. Amazing speed for such a fat, excuse me, BIG man.

I can hardly bring myself to write about it, but this may be of interest to Brooks, so... The... creature... was an enormous withering mass, formed out of ropy black tentacles, with great puckered mouths that drip sickly green goo interspersed between the tentacles.  As I said, I screamed my lungs out, and I discharged my weapon, purely on reflex. Unfortunately that weapon happened to be a crossbow loaded with an explosive bolt. It hit the monster, hardly made a dent, but also caught Frost in the blast. All of a sudden, I have visions of Martikian, Alice, and the Shog. I scream at Wilmot, who snaps out of it, and picks up the AK, as I pick up the Stoner. The monster wades on land, more tree-like limbs shooting after Chief. We got a clear sight on it now - overall, it was around 30 feet tall, and roughly resembled a tree in silhouette, with seemingly split trunks (hooved legs), and the upper body formed by braids of the ropy tentacles. I can only presume that it came at the call of the Reverend, and was now completely free of any control. Wilmot and I start pumping three-round bursts into the thing. I am still lucid enough to realize that full auto has a good chance of peppering Frost before it gets the monster. The beast drags Frost into one of its mouths and starts biting down, and Frostie stops moving, even as the thing starts munching on him. Wilmot and I keep pouring lead into it, while it keeps biting down on Frost. Each shot does not seem to affect it, we're just chipping at it. I do not know if one of us got a lucky shot, or whether the thing was brought down like a bees swarm can bring down a cow, but it does. It keels over, and we extract Frost, who's unconscious.

Chief calms down, comes back, and tends to Frost's wounds, using his Loa gizmo. He keeps mumbling about how the drums keep him sane. I see Wilmot nodding absentmindedly, seemingly in agreement. I have no idea what they are talking about.  Have they snapped? Are they having auditory hallucinations now? The mere sight of these things does strange things to a man's mind. I think of Martikian again, and the episode in the bookstore... Ah well, as such things go, hearing some drums is not all that bad.

We decide that enough is enough. We get on the skimmer, on the general assumption that it might be slower that the cruiser, but it will allows us to pass boglands and even some dry land. So we head off. Chief's in the driver's seat, Frost is lying in front, as comfortable as we can make him, Wilmot and I are in the bow, keeping our eyes open as well as we can. The rain is getting worse.

We head onto the lake, navigating by one of the portable GPS systems, and manually flipping through the CB channels, in the hope of picking up some chatter. Any chatter will do. The GPS nav is going quite nicely, until I take a look at it, and see it puts us on dry land. Where we are definitely not. Chief brings the skimmer to a dead stop, while we get out the other two receivers. They all put us in different spots, and seem to be scrolling slowly. In other words, if I had pissed into the water and set our course by whichever way the wind blows my golden shower, we'd be just as well off. Of course, then a round ricochets off the skimmer's hull, and we hear the distant sound of a shot. Sniper. Big gun, 50 cal most likely. Thermal sights probably, and a pretty good marksman to even hit the boat in this kind of visibility. Time to go. I tell Chief to head full throttle in the opposite direction of the shot, nevermind noise. Stealth is highly overrated right now. I keep an eye out back, while Wilmot tries to scout ahead with the IR scope on the crossbow.

Our channel surfing yields contact. But not good news. The Sheriff is calling, and he's calling me. I won't bother anyone with the exchange of pleasantries, but he knows we're on the loose (must have been the sniper), and he gives us an ultimatum. Be in White Town by 2 AM, or Sommers will suffer. And yes, he does have her, and she sounds more scared than I'd ever heard her. For a second, I thought about asking the Sheriff whether the first time he banged his sister, it felt awkward, or just natural, for the ten seconds it must have lasted. But I remembered that he shot me in the shoulder the last time I enquired about his relationship with his sister. He'd probably do a lot worse to Sommers, and I can't have that. I just hang up on him.

After around a quarter of an hour (my best guess - time tends to shift in strange ways when you're full of adrenaline), we approach land. Not only is there land, there's also a fire. Chief brings her in slowly, and Wilmot and I disembark (he gracefully, I - not so much) and head inland to see what is what. I told Wilmot that if it's the Right Dishonorable Society of Pervert Manhunters, there's going to be no arrests, no warnings, no howdy, no hey what's up - they fucked with us, we will fuck them up. But they're not. In some ways, it's worse. It's a lady ranger, with five southern belle biology students, out for a night to experience the wildlife of the Louisiana Bayous. Six more potential victims for us to worry about. It takes some fast talking, but the facts came out quickly enough. Ranger Pigeon (unfortunate name) has a ranger outpost about half an hour's walk from here, where there's a radio, some weapons, and a boat, which they used to get here. She also knows the location of White Town. It's decision time - I tell Wilmot to go and get Frost and Chief and bring them here, along with whatever gear we can carry, and have the Ranger Pigeon lead us and her chicklets to the outpost. We might be able to raise Hamblin on the radio.

Things were looking a bit brighter. When we reached the outpost, it turned out to be ransacked. Radio smashed, generator smashed, weapon cabinet smashed (weapons gone), no nothing. Some food, a flare gun or two, and some ustensils. Like the pencil and paper I'm using right now. with the CB we got from the opponents, we're getting some distant chatter from trucks, probably traffic on the interstate that's to the north, but we dare not call for help. With our luck, somebody just called the local Sheriff's department, and then... The current plan is for Pigeon and her chicklets to march south, to the lake (it's relatively straight going, and for us to head back to the skimmer and head for White Town. At least, based on some of the maps that were left behind, we now have an idea what to look for. I will also ask Pigeon to seek out Hamblin and give him this letter.

Signed,

H. Justin Pierce