From Lazy Masquerade's American Horror Road Trip, 23/4/2019

I live in a small town that sits along Bayou Teche, a huge body of water that stretches on for 125 miles in the heart of Cajun country. Where we're from, there's a little-known urban legend. Only folks who live around the Bayou seem to know about it and, even then, only in certain circles. I only came to learn about it after I had an encounter with this thing myself. I'll get straight to it.

I was out walking with a couple friends of mine a few years back. One of those boring summer afternoons where you don't have anything to do but wander around aimlessly. Out of nowhere all the sounds around me stopped. All I could hear was an eerie loud breathing filling the air. It wasn't my breathing, nor the breathing of my friends. It was coming from elsewhere. But it was loud and it was prominent and it was literally the only thing I could hear.

"Do you guys hear that?" I asked my friends. Well, I think I asked. I could feel the words escape my mouth, come out my throat, but I couldn't hear them. I couldn't hear what my friends were saying back to me either. Their lips were moving but all I could hear was that damn breathing. No birds or rustling or footsteps or any other natural sounds at all. It was surreal. "Hold up," I said - tried to say - and motioned for my friends to wait for me. I then moved towards where I thought the breathing was coming from, behind a few trees next to the bayou. As I got closer, the sound of the breathing became louder and louder. I knew what curiosity did to the cat, but nonetheless I followed that damn breathing to its source. It's hard to explain why, I just felt compelled to. It was like a magnet, drawing me in. The weird part was the different sound of each breath - they were more like gasps, if that makes sense. Like the person was struggling to breathe. They were all different from each other too, as if every breath was coming from a different set of lungs.

I continued on to where I thought it was coming from. I came to a break in the foliage. There, thirty feet ahead of me, sitting on the edge of the Bayou, was a man. He was wearing a Western-style hat and a brown leather jacket. That's about all I could make out, seeing how his back was turned to me as he looked out across the muddy water. He was completely motionless, like he was really focused on something, but there was no doubt in my mind that the breathing was coming from him. Despite the weirdness of the situation, it didn't seem scary to me. I felt calm and serene. For whatever reason, I thought about approaching him. I managed to shake that thought out of my head and instead called out with a soundless "hey."

Only the man's head moved. It slowly turned around to face me. His skin was the same shade as the leather of his jacket and he looked to be half decayed. He had no lips, no eyes, just exposed teeth and two huge black holes. After staring at me for a few seconds, the man began to stand up. All sounds came back to me in that instant. As I looked into those dark pits in his face, my sense of calm disappeared. Now all i was filled with was dread. I bolted and ran back to my friends, told them we needed to leave immediately and explained everything on the way. Most of them told me I was crazy but one of them told me to come talk with his grandparents.

You see, the folks whose families have lived around Bayou Teche for generations, they know about the man. I've heard several names floating around for him. Swamp Man. The Cajun Devil. But most just call him the Bayou Man. They say he's like a siren. That he travels around the circumference of Bayou Teche on a continuous loop and draws people away from their friends and families and brings them out to him. Then he lures them to the water's edge and holds them under the muddy water until they expire. He leaves them at the bottom of the Bayou for the gators. His weird breathing, they say, is made out of the final gasps of each of the people he's ended.

"You can sleep tight now," they all tell me. "The Bayou Man will only try to get you one time. You got lucky." I guess I did. I'm glad I didn't fall for his trick.

Fra Lazy Masquerades American Horror Road Trip, 23/4/2019

Jeg bor i en lille by i udkanten af Bayou Teche, hvilket er et kæmpe vådområde, der strækker sig over 200 km, lige i hjertet af Cajun-land. Der, hvor jeg kommer fra, er der en næsten ukendt legende. Kun folk, der bor omkring Bayouen, lader til at kende til den, og selv dér er det kun i bestemte omgangskredse. Jeg lærte først om det, efter jeg selv mødte den her ting. Lad os bare springe lige ud i det...

For et par år siden var jeg ude at gå med et par venner. Det var en af de dér langtrukne sommerdage, hvor man ikke har noget bedre at lave end at vandre formålsløst rundt. Med et forsvinder alle lydene omkring mig. Det eneste jeg kunne høre var en klam og højlydt vejrtrækning, som fyldte alt. Det var ikke min egen vejrtrækning eller mine venners. Den kom et andet sted fra. Men den var høj og markant og det var den eneste ting jeg kunne høre.

"Hey, kan i høre det?" spurgte jeg mine venner. Eller, jeg tror jeg spurgte. Jeg kunne mærke ordene forlade min mund, komme ud af min strube, men jeg kunne ikke høre dem. Jeg kunne heller ikke ikke høre hvad mine venner svarede. Deres læber bevægede sig, men det eneste jeg kunne høre var den forbandede vejrtrækning. Ingen fugle eller raslen i bladende eller fodtrin eller nogle som helst andre naturlige lyde. Det var syret. "Vent lidt," sagde jeg - prøvede at sige - og gjorde tegn til at mine venner skulle blive og vente på mig. Så bevægede jeg mig i den retning, hvor jeg troede vejrtrækningen kom fra, bag ved et par træer nede ved bayouen. Efterhånden som jeg nærmede mig, blev åndedragene mere og mere højlydte. Et sted i baghovedet tænkte jeg, at af skade bliver man klog, men sjældent rig, og alligevel fulgte jeg den forbandede vejrtrækning til sin kilde. Det er svært at forklare hvorfor. Jeg følte med næsten tvunget til det. Det var som en magnet der drog mig nærmere. Det mærkeligste er, at hvert åndedrag havde en ny lyd - de var mere som gisp, hvis det giver mening. Som om personen kæmpede for at få vejret. Hver indånding var anderledes end den forrige, som om hvert åndedrag kom fra et nyt par lunger.

Jeg fortsatte i den retning, jeg troede det kom fra. Bevoksningen tyndede ud. Og dér, 10 meter foran mig, på bredden af bayouen, sad en mand. Han var klædt i en Western-hat og en brun læderjakke. Det var alt jeg kunne se, da han sad med ryggen til mig, blikket rettet ud over det mudrede vand. Han sad bomstille, som om han fokuserede på noget, og jeg var ikke et sekund i tvivl om at vejrtrækningen kom fra ham. På trods af hvor underlig hele situationen var, var det ikke rigtig skræmmende. Jeg følte mig afslappet og fredfyldt. Og af en eller anden grund overvejede jeg at gå tættere på ham. Det lykkedes for mig at ryste den tanke væk, og i stedet kaldte jeg på ham med et lydløst "hey."

Kun mandens hoved bevægede sig. Det drejede langsomt rundt indtil vi var ansigt til ansigt. Hans hud var samme farve som hans læderjakke og han så halvt fordærvet ud. Han havde ingen læber og ingen øjne, kun bare tænder og to store tomme huler. Han stirrede på mig et par sekunder inden han rejste sig op. I samme øjeblik vendte alle lydene tilbage. Som jeg stirrede ind i de tomme øjenhuler forsvandt min afslappethed og jeg blev i stedet grebet af frygt. Jeg satte i løb og spænede tilbage til mine venner, sagde at vi var nødt til at komme væk herfra og fortalte dem alting på vejen. De fleste troede jeg var tosset, men én af dem sagde jeg burde komme forbi og snakke med hans bedsteforældre.

Ser du, folk, hvis familier har boet omkring Bayou Teche i generationer, de kender til manden. Jeg har hørt flere forskellige navne. Sumpmanden. Cajun-djævlen. Men de fleste kalder ham Bayou-manden. De siger at han er som en sirene. At han rejser langs bredden af Bayou Teche i en uendelig cirkel og lokker folk væk fra deres venner og familier og ud til ham. Så leder han dem ned til bredden og holder deres hoveder under det mudrede vand indtil de drukner. Han efterlader dem på bunden af bayouen, til alligatorerne. Det siges af hans underlige vejrtrækning består af de sidste gisp fra hans ofre.

"Du kan sove trygt nu," siger de alle sammen til mig. "Bayou-manden vil kun prøve at få fat på dig én gang. Du var heldig." Det var jeg vel. Jeg er glad for, jeg ikke faldt for hans trick.