When the sun climbs down the last moss covered cypress,

The swamp becomes a place where you don't want to be. You find yourself in a world where the predator rules. Stalking their prey, you can only catch glimpses of shadows lurking amongst the palmettos or slivering through the murky waters between the cypress knees.

As your eyes start to adjust to the dusk, you start to see images of what appear to be upright walking animals, but just as you focus on them they dart behind the tupelo gum, or duck under a stump of an ancient tree which had been shattered years ago by a summer lightning storm.

You remember the tale from grandpa Ponthieux, told to you 1/2 in English and 1/2 in French, of the shadow people, glimpses of images, native people from the past who stuck around to protect the land, and this keeps your heart from racing. You hear a splash, then a scream; imagination once again starts to take over. Was that an animal or human, then a deep bellow echoing through the trees. Trying to keep your head together, you blow it off as an old gator calling out or just frogs singing to a mate, but in the back of your mind are the tales of voodoo rituals. You say to yourself," I know those aren’t drums.

As you work your way out of the waist-deep water, you find the high ground, thick with vines and cypress knees you notice everywhere you look eyes are peering back at you.

Is this the swamp monster described to you by Smokey Crabtree, or could it be Loup garou that creature the old Cajun was talking about, having four inch claws and two and a half inch fangs both designed to tear flesh from bone.

Using the moonlight as a guide to outline the edge of the tree line and it's reflection in the water between patches of the duck weed, you press on trying to stay on the high ridge that acts as a natural levee for the small bayou.

In the distance, bouncing off the tree trunks are flashes of light, like invaders from another planet, you feel a great sigh of relief, it's the road. You know you have escaped the wrath of your imagination, the jaws of death and will always remember the eerie rush of the SWAMP AT NIGHT.

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