Billy: A Tale Of Unrelenting Terror (2 page)

He glanced toward the lifeless body of his daughter stretched out on the bed. “Lillian, what you done to us,
peeshwank
?”

“Don’t be blamin’ da girl or da baby. It your doin’. You be da only monster here,” Dorcelia replied accusingly.

“Bwaaa waaaa bwaaa,” the newborn cried.

Poppie was at a loss for words. He looked down at the deformed creature in his wife’s arms with disgust before turning away in silence.

He knew his wife was right. The creature was a curse from God for his unspeakable sin. He refused to acknowledge that it was merely a baby. If he admitted that to himself, he would be forced to concede that it was his child. He was the monster’s father.

No, he refused to do that. It wasn’t a baby at all; it was a curse. It was an unholy creature, a demon child, a little monster. The Cajuns had a name for such a beast –
bebette

Chapter Two

Billy

“
B
waaaa baaa aaa,” the infant cried, its mournful screams ignored by the others in the small cabin.

“I can’t take dat caterwaulin’ no more,” Poppie shouted above the din.

Dorcelia turned from her household duties and reluctantly walked over to the crying child. Once in her arms, the baby’s screams became less fierce as he pressed his misshapen face into his grandmother’s chest. Dorcelia never quite got over her feelings of disgust at the child’s distorted appearance, but suppressed her misgivings for the sake of her family’s tranquility.

Ever since the boy’s birth and his mother’s subsequent demise, turmoil had reigned in the household. The child’s beastly appearance only heightened his unwelcome arrival into the family. His very presence was believed to be a punishment from God for the sins that created him.

The boy’s mother, only a child herself, had not survived long enough to witness what she had wrought. Dorcelia was eternally grateful her daughter had been spared this knowledge. She felt that the girl had already suffered enough in her short life.

“Bwaaa baaa aaa,” the infant’s pitiful cries echoed around the room.

“That
bebette
sounds like da Devil himself,” Poppie continued in his rant. “Should’ve buried him with his mama.”

“
Mais, jamais d’la vie
! Don’t you ever talk about my poor child like dat again, you
bon rien
!” Dorcelia shot back. “Dat
peeshwank
done no t’ing wrong. It was you brought shame on us. Now my beautiful baby girl lay hidden in dem swamps forever, wit’ no one to know she ever lived.”

“She better off and you know it, woman!” Poppie shot back at his increasingly belligerent wife. “She played a part in dat shame, same as you. Don’t be playin’ all holy now,
bonne a rienne
. Girl in a better place now; no one gonna find her where she at. At least she can rest in peace, not like da rest of us with that demon child at our feet.”

“Bwaaa baaa baaa!” the little child screamed in response to the increasing tension around him.

“It sounds like a goat,” Justin interjected in an attempt to disrupt his parents' ensuing melee.

“A demented, evil goat,” T-Roy added with a grin.

Justin and T-Roy were the remaining children in the St. Pierre household. T-Roy was the oldest and the most like his daddy. A bully in the making and ignorant to boot, T-Roy idolized the patriarch of the clan and had every indication of becoming just like him. Once grown, it was only assumed he would have a swamp cabin of his own tucked away amongst the cypress trees, complete with a wife and offspring he could abuse to his heart’s content. Justin was the younger of the two and kept quiet most of the time, with the rare exceptions when he should have remained silent the most.

The two brothers performed their sadistic father’s every command without question. This included wrapping the bloody corpse of their older sister in an old sheet and assisting in her secret burial deep in the swamp.

The burial place was as secluded as could be – a creepy location only fit for demonic spirits and ghostly entities that haunt the netherworld. An old, overgrown plantation that had sunk into the surrounding marshland long before the Civil War,
Lost Bayou Plantation
was
almost unrecognizable as a man-made structure after being swallowed up by the stagnant waters and ravaged by the relenting passage of time. It was doubtful even the few inhabitants of the secluded region knew of its existence, which made it the perfect place to bury the family’s deepest and darkest secrets.

To the few outsiders who even knew of Lillian’s existence, her absence could be explained without further inquiry. The entire clan just refused to discuss it, with the only exception being a vague suggestion of sinful promiscuity on the girl’s part and subsequent banishment to live with distant relatives. Of course, these insinuations only fueled rumors of an unwanted pregnancy and involvement with an unnamed male companion, with whom she’d run off. The silence about the girl’s whereabouts which the St. Pierre household practiced surely pointed to a shameful outcome and successfully squashed anyone from pressing the matter further.

“Bwaaaa  aaaa aaaa!”

“
Oooo yee
! Shut dat t’ing up!” Poppie started in again. “It gives me da
freesons
.”

“
Zeerahb
, that t’ing is disgusting,” T-Roy added.

“He’s not a t’ing; he’s a child,” Dorcelia corrected them. “Your child,
bon rien
.”

“You watch now, woman, before I pass a slap at your sassy mouth,” Poppie spat back at his wife. “It’s not a child; it a monster – spawn of Satan. I make no claim to it. You listen to me. We need to put it out in da swamp and let da Devil take it back to da hell it come from.”

“You do no t’ing of the kind. God himself pass punishment on da lot of us for Lillian. We gonna bear dis cross, or He doom us all forever to dat hell you goin’ on about.”

“We end up in dat hell already wit dat t’ing here. It gonna grow and den what? Little monster gonna be a big monster, and we all gonna regret it.”

“Bwaaaa aaaa aaaaa!”

“Ech! Dat goat child give me da
mal au couer!
I’m gonna ‘tro up,” T-Roy joked.

“Dat ‘goat child’ is your brother, T,” Dorcelia turned her gaze to her eldest.

“It ain’t no St. Pierre,” Poppie exclaimed. “I ain’t givin’ dat t’ing my name.”

“It ain’t got a name at all,” Justin observed.

“It ain’t an it; it’s a he. And he gettin’ a name or I’s namin’ him after you,” Dorcelia looked directly at her husband.

“
Beck moi tchew
, kiss my ass, woman! You ain’t givin’ it my name. You must be
bracque
!”

“Baaaaa aaaa aaaa!”

“Sounds like a goat ta me. We should name dat t’ing Billy,” said T-Roy.

“
Ga-lee
! Billy it ‘tis,” Poppie laughed, pleased with the joke.

Dorcelia fumed, but kept quiet. Even a name given in jest was better than no name at all. Billy wasn’t so bad. She could accept that. A name meant recognition. With a name, the child was no longer a thing, but a person.

Dorcelia knew that the child would never be accepted into the family. He was a symbol of their shame, an unwelcome entity to be hidden from the world. That part would be easy. No one outside of the immediate family knew of the child’s existence, and as much as they all could help it, no one ever would.

There was no certificate of birth for the child, just as there was no acknowledgment of death for his mother. The sad, little, unwanted creature would be banished from the outside world and forced to grow up surrounded by those who despised him. But, if Dorcelia had anything to do with it, he would at least have a chance to live. It was a chance denied to her own daughter by her father’s perversion and her own apathy. Dorcelia believed it to be their only chance at redemption and salvation, and she was determined to see it through.

“Bwaaaa aaaaa aaaa!”

“It’s okay,
p’tit boug
. It gonna be alright,” Dorcelia whispered to the distraught child in her arms. “You be strong little one. Celia’s gonna make sure Billy gets his chance one day.”

She rocked the sobbing infant until his cries faded, and he drifted off to sleep. The little boy was disgusting to look at, she conceded, but he needed her more than ever. Dorcelia’s resolve to protect the child from the abuse he was sure to be subjected to would never waver, even if deep inside she wondered if her good-for-nothing husband’s dire predictions might have merit.

As if Poppie could read his wife’s thoughts, he muttered once more, just loud enough for her to hear, “You let dat t’ing grow up, we all gonna regret it one day.”

Chapter Three

Caimon Grand Papere

T
he St. Pierres played their cards close to their chests. They only ran into their scarce neighbors on occasion and almost never at their own home. The cabin in which they lived sat on wooden pilings long driven into the murky waters that surrounded them. They lived without a telephone and without electricity. A small hand-cranked pump supplied them with the only water supply not teaming with vermin, both seen and unseen. There was some muddy ground scattered about their property, though even this was generally only accessible when the water level was cooperating.

Privacy was assured by the sheer remoteness of the location, the camouflage of moss-covered cypress trees surrounding them, and the large population of dangerous predators lurking about. The family possessed two
pirogues
, which are best described as small, wooden, canoe-like boats popular with the Cajuns who inhabit the vast wetlands of southern Louisiana. An old, rusted airboat was at their disposal – at least when it was working. More often than not it wasn’t. An automobile was a luxury the family couldn’t afford and had no real use for, since the only way to get anywhere near their home was with both a boat and a keen sense of direction.

Any potential visitors to the St. Pierre home better have an invitation if they valued their lives. The entire family was heavily armed and had no qualms about using their weapons under any circumstances. There were reasons they lived apart from the world around them, reasons they preferred to keep to themselves. The Landry family was the closest thing they had to neighbors, and even they were skittish about encroaching on the St. Pierre clan unnecessarily.

Jean and Earline Landry had three children – Luann, the eldest and only girl, and Robert and Tre, her younger brothers. By comparison to their reclusive neighbors, the Landrys were a little better off and considerably more sociable. They lived on a patch of solid land, enjoyed the benefits of electricity and telecommunications, and possessed an automobile along with the obligatory watercraft.

Earline was the closest thing that Dorcelia had to a friend and the only access the St. Pierres had to the outside world. It was Earline that ensured that Jean would ferry them over to St. Gabriel’s for Sunday Mass and assist in acquiring whatever supplies they could manage to pick up in town.

It was common for the Landrys to quietly contribute toward their neighbor’s necessities since what little Dorcelia brought with her was never quite enough to acquire even the most basic of supplies. The St. Pierres had no knowledge of the costs of things in the world around them, but would have baulked at the very thought of charity. The entire clan, Dorcelia included, would have preferred starvation over charity, and the Landry family kept to themselves what assistance they provided.

Years had passed since Lillian died and little Billy entered their lives. His father remained cruel and hostile toward him, berating him at every opportunity and kicking him as a habit when he was underfoot. His brothers taunted him unmercifully and terrorized him for their own sadistic amusement, much to the approval of their heartless father. It was only his grandmother who showed him any kindness at all, and even this was lacking in enthusiasm.

Billy was a cross for her to bear, a penance that she was burdened with for her family’s wicked ways. Billy was a reminder of the family’s shame. Billy was told over and over again who and what he was. He was told by his father and he was told by his brothers. Even the only person in the world that showed him any kindness told him without using any words at all just what he was. Billy was a monster.

His unsettling appearance increased in severity as he grew. His malformed face gave him a menacing look. Dark red eyes gazed out at the world from the shadows of prominent brows, glowing with an internal fire as if from the pit of Hell itself. The rest of his face was relatively flat, the bottom half dominated by a wide mouth that bore jagged, pointed teeth reminiscent of the nocturnal predators that lurked under the swamp waters that surrounded them.

Billy’s arms were muscular and, even at a young age, his upper torso gained an almost unnatural strength. His chest was wide and his lungs were able to hold enough air to allow him to stay underwater and undetected for endless minutes. Each of his hands had six long, thick fingers with nails ending in sharp points, making his grasp nearly impossible to escape.

Although his legs were almost frog-like in form and curved so much that they often appeared folded underneath him, they were powerful. His wide feet looked even wider because each had six webbed toes that ended in claw-like points, enabling him to both swim and climb through the soft marshlands at an alarming speed. His unkempt hair and skin looked almost like scales; dried mud and Spanish moss clung to his matted hair, camouflaging his presence in the dense foliage of his environment.

Shunned by his father and siblings, Billy was often forced to fend for himself. When he was six years old, T-Roy pushed him head-first into the murky water of the
bayou
in an attempt to drown him. Billy quickly learned how to swim. When he was eight years old, his father and two brothers left him behind on a small patch of ground just before sunset. The water rose around him and Billy taught himself how to use his claw-like hands and feet to scramble up into the trees.