The bayous of Louisiana aren’t for the faint of heart, only the most skilled and fine-tuned locals can survive what southern nature serves up. Couple that with a monster of indescribable proportions and you now have a community enveloped in terror.
The early weeks of 1912 brought bearable temperatures and the prospects of a wonderful new year, however the residents elation would be short lived. The first sign that there was something amiss were the disappearances. Now having said that over the years a number of people had wandered too far off the main road and had succumbed to the unstable bayou. While these first disappearances were tragic, they weren’t exactly unheard of.
However, there was something just not sitting right with the residents; a few of these people that had gone missing were actually skilled survivors having spent their entire lives in the swamps, hunting and farming and surviving. Still, tragedies happen so panic hadn’t set in. Yet.
However, when the bodies surfaced, not in a ditch or a stream or half eaten in the swamp, but instead in their homes, that was a game changer. It took authorities a little while to even figure out exactly how many people had been killed due to the copious amount of dismembered body parts. Once the pieces of the grisly jigsaw puzzle were put back together, five people were dead. Someone, or something had walked into their home and slaughtered them with an extremely sharp instrument of death.
Not giving the first incident time to be absorbed into the terrified minds of the residents, it happened again. This time about 20 miles down the road in the next town over. Then two weeks after that, 40 miles further it happened again. What really seemed to stump investigators and townsfolk alike was the lack of blood at the scenes.
How could bodies be completely dismembered but the scene be lacking rivers of blood?
It’s no secret that Louisiana is steeped in mystery. Voodoo, witchcraft, dark arts and all fashions of beliefs flow through the region like the winds of a gulf coast storm. One of those beliefs is also one of the most terrifying. Vampires.
Coming off the tail end of the immensely successful book titled, Dracula, by the incredible Bram Stoker, the world was gripped with a new found fear of vampires. Could it be? Could there be a blood thirsty monster on the loose? It certainly seemed that way.
The police and other members of law enforcement worked around the clock to try and bring a stop to these heinous murders. Scores of people were arrested by ultimately released due to lack of evidence, only reinforcing that the individual they sought was one of an undead nature.
After more innocent victims turned up dismembered and drained of their blood, a very popular local Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Henry Jante answered the cries of help from his congregation. Meeting with a longtime acquaintance, a local Voo Doo priest by the name of Moses Amashan, the two decided that should the slim chance a real vampire be on the loose, they must join forces to beat it. Thus a rather unlikely team was born.
Amashan was fearful he wouldn’t be able to compel any spirit to fight the greatly feared vampire, so insisted on carrying a wooden stake with him for the duration of their hunt. Jante agreed. The two men marked the murders on map and began to follow the route they believed the killer was taking. As it turned out, the route followed the local railway. Believing the killer may actually be employed by the railway made sense to the men. It would allow the assailant to travel virtually undetected by day and night, and cover great distances quickly.
According to the map, the town of Cheneyville appeared to be next on the hit list, or the location of the vampire’s lair as it had yet to be targeted. The men claimed a bench at the train station, and night after night they closely monitored the comings and goings of all the station employees.
After a week and nearly giving up, the two priests spotted a man neither had ever seen before. He was ghostly pale with fire ginger hair, and while his clothing was pristine, there was a peculiar accessory on his shirt. Blood droplets.
The men immediately set out to learn more about the bloodied stranger. Now here’s where the story gets weird. According to certain newspaper archives and stories recounted generations later, the priests turned into quite the pair of Van Helsings.
The story goes, on their quest to learn the identity of the lead vampire several minions were killed at the hands of the priests. Finally, after several days, one of the so called minions broke and told the vampire hunters the name location of his master. Auguste Delagrange.
The very next night, the unusual team of slayers made their way to a small and very isolated shack in the middle of the bayou. Unfortunately for Moses Amashan who suffered from a rare disorder that kept him in a wheelchair most of the time, tonight would not be a good night for him, medically speaking. Fr. Henry Jante had pushed his friend for near an hour down a long and isolated dirt road and through the uneven and very unforgiving Louisiana vegetation.
At last reaching the isolated shack that was the home of Delagrange, Jante was exhausted but left with no choice but to enter into the shack alone. Fortunately for him, Auguste Delagrange was found sleeping on a cot, presumably weak from lack of feeding. Propped up in the corner of the shack was a very sharp and very blood stained ax.
Without a second’s hesitation, Jante raised the teams only weapon over his head, a carved wooden stake, and drove it through the heart of the sleeping demon. Jante claims that Delagrange made not a sound, but only opened his eyes wide and looked into the face of his killer before fading into Hell.
After the death of Delagrange the killings stopped, confirming the right beast had been slayed. No more was written of Jante and Amashan and their heroism is all but forgotten. The skeletal remains of the vampire Delagrange can be viewed to this day at The Vampire Museum on the outskirts of the French Quarter in New Orleans.
As a lifelong fan of the vampire, I so desperately want to believe that Auguste Delagrange was a bonafide blood sucking monster, but in reality I believe he was nothing more than a demented serial killer. Either way, I pray peace for the victims of his heinous crimes, and kudos to the brave acts of a most peculiar team of do gooders.
When Kristi isn’t writing for NewzBreaker, she writes supernatural suspense novels having three currently published. If you would like to check out any of her books they can be found online and at other major retailers like Books a Million and Amazon. Never one to rest, she also paints/designs shoes and items for the home. Check out her eBay store, Watered Down Vodka and her FB page.
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