Chapter Text
July 12th, 2003
For the first time in a very long while, Will Graham feels calm.
Nothing compares to the smell of the bayou, the lilies, the earth, and the water, it all creates a unique, nostalgic fragrance that curls around his heart and lulls his mind to a peaceful place. His little campsite in the woods is close to the creek so he doesn’t have far to go if he needs food, and being so off the grid is just what he’s needed.
After eight grueling months of nearly nonstop working in NOPD’s homicide division, Will finally decided it was time to take a vacation. His captain had more or less begged him to take a holiday after seeing the bags under his eyes, so Will packed his stuff and got in the car the first moment he could. Sure, he’s in the swamps, but that’s part of the charm.
With his tent propped up and his fishing gear ready for the morning, Will gets his camping mat set up outside in the sun, changes into his comfy lounge clothes, and sprawls out unceremoniously under the rays like a cat. He hadn’t planned much for his first day. Enjoy the heat, enjoy the sun, and fucking relax.
As the forest around him echoes with the sounds of life and the sun beats down on his face, he smiles to himself. Enjoy the heat, enjoy the sun, fucking relax. Sounds like a good fucking plan.
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July 13th, 2003 — 9:14 PM
It’s warm enough that Will doesn’t really need a fire, but he built one anyway just for the light and comfort of the hearth. He sits in the little chair he’s brought with him and lounges peacefully. Will can’t actually think of the last time he allowed himself to relax like this. He’s not really good at relaxing. His mind is often too loud and filled with horrible things that every time he shuts his eyes it’s like he’s stepped onto an active minefield.
This is nice though. Really nice.
He would have enjoyed this time better with a dog (or several), but his shitty apartment in the city doesn’t allow pets. He’d love a dog. He should really move out of the city. He’s not suited for the constant hustle and bustle, the traffic, and the crowded streets. Will likes quietness.
Behind him, the sound of something rustling through the underbrush startles him out of his thoughts and he turns towards the noise. He scans the forest, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness as he searches for the source.
Nothing.
Wearily, Will shifts back around in his seat, but he doesn’t close his eyes.
Louisiana isn’t known for large animals in the swamps, besides alligators, but whatever made the noise was definitely not that.
Will takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out. “Calm down. Don’t freak yourself out.” He orders.
He’s fine. Everything is fine.
Will tries to relax by keeping his eyes on the fire, but he can’t shake the feeling that something is watching him.
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July 13th, 2003, 11:36 PM
It’s the looming dread that wakes him from a dead sleep. Will opens his eyes to the blackness of the forest; the fire long since dead, and though he’s certain he’s alone in the clearing, there is a presence around him, floating through the trees on the edges of his sanctuary, just out of sight.
Will is not alone in the woods.
His heart is already hammering against his ribs, echoing in his ears and making it impossible to figure out what sounds are only in his head and what he’s actually hearing, so he does the only thing he can do.
Very, very slowly and as silently as he can, Will shifts his body out of the chair to a crouched position. He winces when the cheap metal of the chair grinds out a protest, but he keeps going.
Behind the treeline to his left, something moves.
Will whips around to face that direction, moving closer to the shotgun he brought with him for safety, and tucks it safely in his arms, ready to shoot.
From out of the trees to his right comes a deep, rumbling growl. A warning.
Will feels the blood drain from his face as he whips around again and aims for the tree line. He’s shaking now and the gun is unsteady. He swears under his breath, trying to breathe, trying to calm himself, trying to fucking see.
The rustling gets louder and suddenly the growl is coming from behind him and he follows the sound with his rifle. He’s being circled, he realizes, and the circle is becoming smaller and smaller as whatever animal this is plays its games. Will is good at games.
Another loud, deep snarl from in front of him sounds off, and Will takes his opportunity.
He raises the rifle, listens to his Captain’s voice as he aims, and he fires. Then, he runs in the opposite direction.
He hit something, whatever it is, if the loud bellowing is anything to go by, but Will doesn’t look back to whatever it is because he feels the thundering of the ground beneath his boots as the now-enraged beast takes off behind him.
Will runs as fast as his legs will carry him. His muscles and lungs are burning so hot it feels like he has ice crystals in his body, but when he stumbles he slams the palm of his hand into the earth to release some of the violence squirming behind his teeth and forces himself to keep going. He hears the creature behind him, large and charging at him, fueled by the chase, and he chooses to zig-zag his movements to throw it off.
He doesn’t look back at what it is.
He runs and runs and runs, keeping a hold on his gun as he retreats. He isn’t going down without a fight.
But unfortunately, the universe is cruel, and in the darkness he can’t quite see where he’s going. Will’s foot makes contact with a tree root and with a cry of fear, he’s sent sprawled on his belly and the gun slides away from him.
The ground beneath him trembles with the weight of the approaching monster and Will scrambles for his gun. He flips himself over onto his back and takes aim, but his heart seizes up with terror.
Light from the full moon is pouring down making eerie white-blue pools on the earth, illuminating the beast that stalks him as it steps into the light. It is large, bipedal, and covered in thick black fur while saliva drips from its open maw. Deep brown eyes that seem to glow pierce through his resolve. This isn’t possible. This cannot be real.
Oh, but it is. Will can feel it in his heart that he isn’t hallucinating or dreaming. Will Graham is a Louisiana native, even if he didn’t spend all of his life here. He knows what stories parents tell their children to keep them in line. He knows what scary things lurk in the nightmares of the people in the bayou, although these fears remain dormant when our eyes are open because they cannot possibly happen in the real world.
How could he have gotten it so wrong?
He aims his weapon at the beast’s head. “You don’t scare me.” He says, his voice tense and shaking, but still bold and confident. “I know what you are.”
The Rougarou growls, then throws its large head back to howl at the moon. It chills his blood, but he takes the distraction.
Will fires off another round, just to see the bullet disappear into the wolf’s flesh. It won’t be a fatal shot, but it’ll slow the creature down. It howls in pain as blood trickles from the wound and it’s sent fumbling backward, and Will takes the opportunity to sprint again.
Come on, come on, come ON! Will pushes himself as fast as he can as the Rougarou recovers from its wound. He tears through the trees, the vines, thorns, and stray branches cutting into his palms deep enough to draw blood. Panic grips his heart tight. In legend, Rougarou can smell blood.
Will tries a new tactic then, swerving quickly to the side and doubling back towards his campsite. The creature, taken by surprise, slides and skids across the damp forest floor, and Will doesn’t look back to see how far away it is, he just keeps running. If he can just get to his truck, he’ll be safe. Heart pounding, sweat dripping down his back and temples, Will pushes himself to keep running even when his lungs feel like they’re coated in iron.
In the distance, he can see the river. He’s close to his campsite, but he has no idea how far. In the back of his mind, he has the idea to plunge into the river to erase the blood smell from his skin. Even if he were there for only a few seconds to cross it, it could work, he would just need to keep his gun above the water. He jerks to the left again, ready to leap into the water.
Everything happens very quickly after that.
There is a searing, white-hot pain in his left side as the creature grabs hold of him, but with teeth or claws, Will can’t tell because he’s too busy screaming. The wound is agony, and the shotgun falls from his hand and disappears somewhere below him. Will’s feet have been lifted from the ground, and it isn’t until he hits the ground again that he realizes the Rougarou has thrown him.
He lies there for a second as pain circulates through his entire body. His eyes are blurred by tears and whatever air was left in his lungs from the running was knocked out of him upon hitting the ground. He turns his head to the sound of snarling.
The Rougarou rises itself to its full height, throws its head back with a howl that reverberates off of the trees, and strikes terror into Will’s pounding heart. Horrifically, Will can feel every emotion that the creature feels towards him, and his mind is burning with the repetitive thoughts of HuntEatKill.
The Rougarou takes a large, but slow step toward him. It’s playing with him.
Something thick and warm is thrumming through Will’s veins. It feels like he’s been hit with morphine, and panic wells up inside him again. Don’t go to sleep, don’t go to sleep, don’t…
The Rougarou snarls, baring its large teeth.
“Help! Someone help me!” Will screams as loud as his voice will allow him under the fog of whatever is pushing its way into his skull.
The Rougarou takes another step, crouching for the kill.
Will turns to his other side and his spirits lift when he sees that the shotgun is only a few feet from him. He just needs to hurry.
He frantically army crawls forward just as the beast begins to charge. His fingers curl around the barrel as the sound of his blood rushing through his veins becomes deafeningly loud and his vision begins to darken around the edges.
He isn’t going to make it. He’s going to die.
Will flips himself over. The beast lunges. The gun goes off. White lights explode behind Will’s eyelids, then everything fades to black.
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July 21st, 2003 — 9:30 AM
Will feels hazy as he slowly comes back to consciousness. His body feels heavy and weighted down, and as his senses come back online, he notices that he’s soaking wet and cold. His eyes fly open as he sits up with a gasp and begins patting down his body, counting limbs, fingers, and toes as he goes.
He’s so frantic that it even takes him a moment to realize that he’s completely naked, and even longer to realize that he’s in the middle of his campsite, just outside his tent. His entire body is a canvas of bruises and cuts that have since stopped bleeding.
Everything comes back to him in that instant; the beast in the woods, the never-ending chase, the pain as it picked him up in its…
Frantically, Will looks down at his left side where the beast wounded him, expecting to see blood, but instead, he finds several tiny but vicious marks all in an oval-shaped pattern. Oh, God. He thinks, swallowing hard. It bit him. The creature bit him.
But the bite seems to have already healed over, which should be impossible.
How is this possible? Where is it? Why didn’t it kill me?
Will searches the ground around him, but finds no evidence of the beast from the previous night. Not even a hint of fur.
Thunder rolls above his head with the threat of a storm, and Will decides he doesn’t care enough to find out.
Swiftly and with trembling hands, Will dresses, packs up his things, and climbs into his truck. He can spend the rest of his vacation in his apartment where no nightmarish cryptids can get him.
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Over the next few weeks, Will tries to rationalize with himself. If it weren’t for the healed wound on his side, he would have dismissed the whole event and checked himself into the nearest loony bin, but the bite mark mocks him every time he stands in front of his bathroom mirror, not allowing him to let go of that night.
The biggest mystery of all is what happened after it jumped him. Will spends night after night lying in his bed remembering all that he can, but when he gets to the moment that the creature lunges and Will’s body went limp with what he assumes now was pain or exhaustion, to the time the next morning when he came to, naked and covered in filth, there’s nothing. It’s like when you have a tooth pulled and you keep running your tongue over the gap in your mouth because something is missing.
But, try as he might, no memories come to him. Everything is just… blank.
He tries telling himself that he imagined the creature, that what attacked him was nothing more than a regular, run-of-the-mill wolf, and he had been so frightened that his overactive imagination turned a perfectly normal animal into a nightmare. Children do that all of the time; it isn’t impossible to think that his brain could do the same.
He still doesn’t know where his clothes went, what happened, or where the creature disappeared to after it got him. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. Maybe it’s better that way.
So, Will Graham returns to work once his vacation is up, and he tries to put the whole incident out of his mind.
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August 12, 2003 — 7:15 PM
Will knew he was sick when he woke up this morning. His body ached with fever and fatigue, there were bags under his eyes, and his skin still feels too tight around his body, like a new shirt thrown in the dryer by mistake. But, he’s used to feeling under the weather, so he got up as usual, got ready, and went to work.
Now, sitting at his desk, he regrets it.
Tiredly, he rubs his hands over his face, trying to force himself to wake up. He’s been reading and re-reading the same line in a report for the last ten minutes and he still has no fucking clue what it says.
“Graham?”
Will looks up to see his Sergeant, an older black woman named Cecile, standing in front of his desk, watching him with a look of concern. “Ma’am?” He replies.
Cecile looks him up and down. “You look like shit. You feeling okay?” She reaches out and puts a motherly hand on his forehead, which he jerks away from. Her hands are freezing. She looks stunned, but she doesn’t comment on it. “You definitely have a fever. Why’d you come in?”
“I… I don’t know.” He says, rubbing at his eyes again. “I hope it’s not contagious.”
“Let’s hope not.” She answers, not unkindly. “Go home, honey. If you’re feeling better tomorrow, you can come back in, but I can’t have you here looking like this.”
Will wants to argue that he’s fine, but even as he’s thinking about it, he knows he isn’t. Something is definitely not right. He nods and gets up to grab his coat. “I’m sorry.”
Cecile gives him a pointed look. “No use apologizin’. Now go home and rest.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
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The longer the night goes on, the hotter the fever burns. Will lies in bed, stripped down to nothing but his boxers, right in front of his shitty floor fan, but no matter what he tries, he can’t get cool.
There’s something else too; something new he’s never felt before.
There’s an ache in his teeth. A hollow, never-ending ache that feels nothing like tooth pain should. It travels to his throat and down to his stomach that feels empty and unsatisfied. Everything hurts. Everything burns.
Will sits up with a pathetic whimper and tries to wipe the sweat from his face. He needs to eat something. He swings his legs over the bed and shakily gets to his feet.
His cabinets aren’t bare. He has a good supply of snacks and meals that are ready to cook, but none of them sound good. It won’t help his hunger. He needs something more. Something… fresh.
Against his better judgment, Will dresses with shaking hands, then grabs his keys and heads out of his apartment.
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Will approaches a food truck first. He has his hoodie pulled up over his head to hide his feverish face, but the rain coming down in drizzles has everyone sheltered in some way. It’s perfect. He doesn’t stand out.
Or, at least, he’s trying not to.
There’s a pair of tourists in front of him, two middle-aged drunken Midwesterners not dressed for the weather at all. The wife is prattling on to the poor man behind the counter about everything from their hotel to their son at UCLA to “wish we had known it would rain so much, but oh Gosh the food is delicious, you should hear my husband he does this amazing accent, he sounds just like you!”
And then of course the husband has to try and Will is practically bouncing on his heels as the fever makes his resolve start to crumble and he imagines slamming both of their flushed faces into the side of the truck. People would probably applaud.
He tastes blood in his throat and realizes his tooth has caught his lip somehow.
Eventually, thank fuck, the tourists move out of his way, and Will almost drops to his knees in thanks. He’s so fucking hungry.
“Give me whatever is the most food.” He says.
The man behind the counter just nods at him, probably recognizing him from one of his previous trips so he doesn’t question Will’s choice, and he even manages to get Will’s order out before the fucking tourists, who give him a vaguely dirty look as he brushes past them.
Will makes a beeline for his apartment, but about a minute into the walk, his stomach can’t take it and he ducks into a nearby alley, takes out the plastic fork from the take-out bag, and begins shoveling food into his mouth like he’s never eaten in his life.
It’s delicious, of course, it is, spicy and tender and juicy, and Will finishes the entire box in under two minutes. He’s still hungry.
God, what’s wrong with me?
His body is warmed from fever and meat, but he’s hungry and unsatisfied. He needs more.
Something warm. Something fresh. Something… alive.
Will lets out a gasp as the weight of his thoughts send him reeling back against the filthy brick wall. His heart is beating rapidly and his breath is coming in short, frantic pants. He shakes his head, trying to clear the thoughts of blood and flesh and bone from his mind, but it doesn’t help. His stomach is growling in protest, echoing the call to devour.
He scrambles to get to his feet, but suddenly catches a glimpse of his reflection in the puddle beside him and his blood turns to ice.
It’s Will’s face in the reflection, but it’s certainly not his eyes that he’s looking into. His irises are almost glowing, brightening the blue to an alarming degree.
What’s happening to me?
It has to be the fever. He’s hallucinating, he’s sick and out of his mind. That’s all this is. It has to be.
Footsteps echo behind him and Will clumsily gets to his feet. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this.
“Hey, gorgeous, come back and join the party!” A drunken, happy, British female voice calls out to him.
Go away. Go away, go away, go away. He leans back against the brick wall with his back to her so that she can’t see his face.
She doesn’t go away. She continues to approach him. “You alright, love? Did you drink too much?”
Will groans. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
The woman doesn’t leave. He hears the shift of clothing as her scent gets closer; alcohol and perfume and cigarette smoke, and then as her hand moves to touch his shoulder, he’s overwhelmed with the ache in his teeth and the scent of her skin and fleshbloodbonesmeat…
Will jerks away from her touch with a gag.
The woman gasps. “Oh! Poor thing, here, you stay right here, don’t move, I’ll get you some water.” Then she turns and jogs in the opposite direction, taking the scent of her along.
Will gasps for breath, hoping the dingy smell of the alleyway will clear his lungs, but it ultimately does not. He looks down at the puddle and still sees the fiery blue of his eyes reflecting back at him. His stomach snarls with hunger and a sudden animalistic growl startles him. It takes him a moment to realize the noise came from his own mouth.
Something is very, very wrong.
He has to get out of here.
Summoning all of his strength, Will pushes off of the wall, adjusts the hood around his head to further cover his face, then quickly slips unnoticed out of the alleyway. He doesn’t have a destination in mind. He lets his legs take him far away.
Will Graham walks and walks until the lights and noises from the city have faded out of sight and earshot, and he trudges deep into the woods. His skin is slick with sweat that’s dampening his hair and tangling it in his eyes. His clothes are soaked in it too, either that or rainwater. His skin is burning hot and the more he walks, the more tired he feels.
His skin no longer feels like his. It’s like there’s something else trying to claw its way through to the surface. It hurts. His teeth continue to ache with hunger.
Oddly, despite how disoriented he is, his senses are very sharp. Everything is brighter and clearer, and he can hear everything. Little animals skittering around on the damp forest floor, the brush of rain and wind against the leaves… and the sound of distant crying.
He is a police officer still, despite how sick he must feel.
As he gets closer to the source of the noise, the smell of fear and sex cloud the air. A low growl is building in Will’s throat. He knows what he’s stumbled upon.
He takes cover behind a large set of bushes when he sees them.
A middle-aged man has a young woman pinned to the ground, one hand on her belly, one hand clamped over her mouth and he’s ripping at her clothes in an obscene attempt at removing them. The girl is whimpering and crying, pleading for help. Will feels her fear, feels his satisfaction at having a victim underneath him again…
Everything around him turns to silence except for the sound of his blood pulsing behind his ears. A loud, nightmarish growl rips up from behind his teeth, making the man pause out of fear as he whips toward the sound. The only thing running through Will’s mind is HuntEatKill.
Something is coming.
With screaming noise and clarity, Will Graham finally knows what.
He doesn’t feel afraid.
He charges, his sights fixed on the man just as his clothes and skin are ripped apart. He lands on the ground on four legs, and with a scream of pure terror, the man abandons his almost-victim on the ground and takes off into the trees.
Will follows.
The pig doesn’t get very far.
His blood tastes like victory.