Rougarou - The Crossroads

Out of the blood reeds, down in the Bayou comes The Rougarou… and he’s coming for you.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:07Glynn Washington?

  I turned the curse into a spell. But what I spoke, bound me as well.

• 0:19Glynn Washington?

  You've almost reached the crossroads from Spooked.

• 0:23Glynn Washington?

  Stay tuned.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Why have so many crop circles appeared around Britain? How did thousands of people demonstrate powers of telepathy? Can the dead suck the life from the living? Join me, Tim Harford, for a trip into the paranormal throughout Halloween month on Cautionary Tales. Listen to Cautionary Tales on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:00Glynn Washington?

  Every thirty years, they rebuilt their altar, the temple they call the Round. And there they danced and sanctified a child as their new Messiah. I knew nothing of their scripture, except that they were witches that dealt in magic and blood and spirits. But witches that paid good coin.

• 1:24Glynn Washington?

  Still, I refused their entreaty to build the Round. "Choose another," I told the elder, my head bowed low. When they came to ask again, it was not the crone who knocked, nor her soldiers, but a woman torn from dream.

• 1:48Glynn Washington?

  A beauty made of song, I felt every eye in the village burn with envy and fear as I invited her inside. Her smell was like moonflower, her smile happy memories. I bade her sit and pretended I would not instantly do anything she asked of me.

• 2:10Glynn Washington?

  She accepted tea and said simply that it was foretold that I was the one. The one. And that anything I desired was mine to ask, anything. But I must build the temple. Anything. She said meaningfully. I am no innocent, but I swear to you now, I did not touch her, I did not. I simply agreed. I know their ways. That he who builds the temple participates in their rites. I understand. The temple plans had come from an unholy hand.

• 2:55Glynn Washington?

  I appreciate that messiahs are born from sacrifice. But none of this was my affair. I worked like a fever with stone and chisel, hammer and claw, to inscribe the lines of power from the scroll into the altar. Before the final inscription, I asked what the charred symbols meant, the crossed line. She said it, like describing the weather. The altar, of course, requires the builder's blood. My blood. You ask too much, far too much.

• 3:39Glynn Washington?

  And as if waking from a dream, I put down my tools and walked away. She followed me, no witch. No, I will not bind myself to this coven, not even for such as you. But you are the one, she whispered. I will dance.

• 4:04Glynn Washington?

  That night, I thought it a dream when she came to me.

• 4:09Glynn Washington?

  Her hot breath on my neck, the delicious pain when she bit into my throat. I pushed her away then, "No witch, my blood is my own."

• 4:22Glynn Washington?

  She pulled away then. Hurt splashed across her face and like smoke, she vanished. My mother's echo. "Be careful who you love. Don't break young girls' hearts." The next day, she did not come to the temple, nor the next. For forty days and forty nights, I searched, but who could stand when she's in demand?

• 4:50Glynn Washington?

  I saw her then. In our family's courtyard, with my own mother, whose face shone with joy and surprise. "Why did you not tell me?" She said, laughing.

• 5:03Glynn Washington?

  I looked, first the woman's flashing eyes, then the bundle clutched in my mother's arms. "My first grandchild."

• 5:15Glynn Washington?

  I fell back, confused.

• 5:20Glynn Washington?

  Lifted the blanket from the baby's face, and my own eyes blinked back at me. "No, no, no, no, no, no. Mother.

• 5:29Glynn Washington?

  This child is not my son." "What? Look at him. Would you deny your own child?" The gleam of triumph in the woman's eyes. "What magic is this? She is not my lover. She is a witch from the forest who chanced that I am the one. But this child is not my son."

• 5:58Glynn Washington?

  My mother spat in my face then. "I warned you about young girls' hearts," she hissed. "Be careful what you do, lest your lies become the truth."

• 6:11Glynn Washington?

  Then she turned and walked with the baby and the mother inside the courtyard, leaving me locked outside.

• 6:21Glynn Washington?

  For forty days, the village treated the child as sacred, fed him, blessed him, prepared him. On the fortieth night, they brought him to the round.

• 6:31Glynn Washington?

  The witch waited at the altar, my mother beside her, weeping, knowing the whole village watching.

• 6:43Glynn Washington?

  "Your blood," the witch said simply.

• 6:48Glynn Washington?

  She held out a blade, "The child, or you."

• 6:57Glynn Washington?

  I knew he was not mine. I also knew she made no idle threats.

• 7:06Glynn Washington?

  I took the knife then, slashed the flesh of my palm and let my blood feed the hungry altar my own hands had built. The stone drank. The lines of the round began to glow, the witch smiled.

• 7:23Glynn Washington?

  The child's eyes opened, my eyes, I understood then.

• 7:31Glynn Washington?

  This was always the bargain.

• 7:35Glynn Washington?

  The witch turned to the crowd. I felt my strength fail.

• 7:41Glynn Washington?

  My life soaking into the stone, rain began to fall. My mother wailed, I swayed hollow. And as I staggered, the floor started to pulse, a heartbeat of stone and blood. Then, she stepped into the rhythm.

• 8:02Glynn Washington?

  Bare feet shining red, the villager stamped with her keeping time. Faces blank, eyes shining, she pressed close to me then.

• 8:13Glynn Washington?

  Her breath, hot against my ear.

• 8:20Glynn Washington?

  "You are the one," she whispered.

• 8:25Glynn Washington?

  And laughing, she danced on the floor in the round.

• 8:46Glynn Washington?

  Spooked, the final episode of The Crossroads starts now.

• 9:18Glynn Washington?

  See, some people carry marks, whether they know it or not. We're headed to the bayous of South Louisiana. A place where stories get passed down from one generation to the next about good and evil, about life and death, and the beings who walk between both worlds. Our story begins in 1979, in the fall. The days are getting shorter, the air a bit cooler, and the veil a little thinner.

• 9:55Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 10:07Glynn Washington?

  This episode is sponsored by Vinted. Imagine opening my closet, looking for a shirt, and I see that jacket. That jacket, that jacket I got for that party I never went to three years ago. That jacket, it's still there, it's still mocking me. Well, it was still there. Because then I stopped and I reached for my phone. Because Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where you can sell clothes that you no longer wear. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. Once an item sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. And Vinted has no seller fees. Meaning you keep every dollar you earn.

• 10:49Glynn Washington?

  And I could get a little more room in my closet, you know, for that next jacket. Give your clothes a second life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing. No seller fees, so you keep everything you earn.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  My name is Beldrin Forrest. I was born in Chauvin, Louisiana. We're surrounded by swamp lands and marsh. Any further south than us, you would be in the water.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  We lived in, I guess I'm gonna call them some shacks. But to us, that was really nice houses because that's all we had. We didn't know anything different. So we was satisfied with what we had. And to us, our way of living was you go catch fish, you go hunt animals, you grew your vegetables.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  You didn't mingle with a whole lot of outside people because we wouldn't go to town.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  To us, if you went to town, that was like taking a vacation.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  I think I was eight or nine years old. For Christmas, I got a pellet rifle. I was so excited because now I could actually do hunting myself. Because all my older siblings could hunt and I was the only one that couldn't hunt. I used to take a slingshot and try to shoot stuff. But it was hard to kill things with slingshots because you had to be really close. And once I got my pellet rifle, well then I was able to go out and I could, I could actually get food for the family. So I would hunt rabbits, I would hunt neutral, stuff that wouldn't move very fast, raccoons, small birds.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  When I made 13, then I got my shotgun. It was nothing for me to go and hunt by myself.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  I felt like I belonged in the woods.

• 14:17Speaker 02

  I would go in the woods by myself and I'd climb the trees and I'd listen to the birds. That was my sanctuary, that was my place to go and relax.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  One day I came home from school and a coal front had hit, so it was pretty nippy. And my dog, she was a red bone, but we called her Misty. She was ready to hunt as soon as the coal front would hit. So when I got home, as soon as I came into the yard, my dog jumped the fence and got out of her pen and came running to me. In the excitement, I just went inside, dropped my school bag down, grabbed my shotgun, changed my clothes, headed out the door. Me and the dog took off.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  We're going into the woods, not realizing that the day before was Halloween. I was raised Catholic, and in a Catholic society, there's two days out of the year that is held sacred. That's All Souls and All Saints Day. That's the two days that follow Halloween. Halloween, everybody thinks it's the time to go party and have bonfires and stuff,

• 15:48Speaker 02

  but back in the day, people would prepare for the coming of the spirits. The next two days is when the spirits could come back and walk the earth. And my mom had told me to never kill any animals on those two days. Because when the spirits were on the earth, you wouldn't draw blood and take a spirit.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  But when you're growing up, a lot of times, what your parents say, you hear it, you take it in, but you don't live by it until something happens that causes you to remember what your parents said.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Me and the dog was walking.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  And she's full of energy. And I was excited myself.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  And the coolness was in the air. And there's a lot of underbrush. Like thorns, blackberry vines.

• 17:06Speaker 02

  And in the wintertime, the sun sets a little bit early, so the sun started going down.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  I must have walked at least three miles. We hadn't even seen a squirrel to shoot. Not even a bird. It's like, my god, I said, everything's gone.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  It seemed very odd.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Usually, the beginning of the hunting season, that's when you get most of your animals. And there's always frogs, lizards, a mouse. It's gonna run from your feet as you're walking in the grass. So when you're walking, there's always something that's gonna rustle in the leaves.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  But it was dead quiet.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  It kinda threw me off. It made it felt weird, like I was not where I was supposed to be.

• 18:02Speaker 02

  My dog started to notice too, I guess, because normally, she was out running, ahead of me, running all over the place. But here, she stayed at my feet. She followed me, step for step.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  So I told the dog, I said, "Well, we're gonna walk back on the headlands to go back home." Because it was prime feeding grounds for the rabbits. Especially in the late evenings, the rabbits always came out on that headland.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  Now, the headlands, they had this grass, it kinda looks like an okra plant. But we call them bloodreeds. I'm not sure what the real name of them is. But when you cut them with a knife, their sap is red. So we call them bloodreeds. And these things grow real tall all summer. So about this time, they're about 15 foot tall. And we're walking along, and it makes a wall right along where the grass was cut. So I was following along the edge of that grass. And up ahead, I could see a rabbit.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  So I told the dog, I said, "Stick down." I said, "That rabbit's gonna see you, it's gonna run." So we kept sneaking up, sneaking up, sneaking up, sneaking up. I'd take real close to those blood reeds so that way the rabbit wouldn't see me. And when I picked up the gun and I started eyeing the rabbit to shoot, as I was pulling to aim,

• 19:32Speaker 02

  these blood reeds started vibrating,

• 19:36Speaker 02

  like they were trembling.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  It was loud, very loud.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  So I looked at the grass and the whole levee, the whole side was shaking, like something was shaking each one of these grass. But the wind was not moving. This was a calm, quiet, not even a bird making a sound day.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  So I looked up a little bit. The rabbit was probably about,

• 20:14Speaker 02

  maybe sixty feet from me.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  And in between me and the rabbit, the blood reeds opened up.

• 20:24Speaker 02

  And there was a hand, like a human hand, but it had like big claws sticking out of his fingers. And it wrapped the blood reeds and pulled them back.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  This foot stepped out.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  But it was a dog foot.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  When that thing stepped out of the grass and I could see his entire body, immediately, my heart just, it like stopped.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  I could feel the blood just drop out of my face.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  This thing was at least nine to 10 foot tall. It had human form.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  But his body was covered in fur.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  And it was dark. Couldn't tell if it was brown or black, but it was a dark colored shade.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  And his face,

• 21:27Speaker 02

  it was like a long dog face.

• 21:31Speaker 02

  The eyes were red. And it had long fangs, like a wolf fangs.

• 21:38Speaker 02

  The size of his hands and his teeth

• 21:44Speaker 02

  could shred me like a popsicle.

• 21:48Speaker 02

  And it wasn't wearing a shirt, but it had a pants that was shredded like to pieces.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  And I'm just looking at this thing. I'm frozen.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  I could hear my heart in my ears. And my brain is saying, "Run." But my feet is like, "Uh-uh, we ain't going there. I can't move."

• 22:14Speaker 02

  And then it just turned his head towards me real slow.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  And it looked at me.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  It was drooling.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  And it gave me a long growl, like from way down deep.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  Kind of like thunder that's off in the distance. And it just carried.

• 22:45Speaker 02

  When it did that, I knew that this thing was not gonna be playing.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  And that's when my feet said, "Okay, time to go." And I bolted.

• 22:59Speaker 02

  I cleared that ditch with one jump and was running through the briars.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  I could feel the vines and the thorns catching me as I was running.

• 23:14Speaker 02

  It was ripping my flesh away, but I could hear this thing right behind me.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Each footstep sounded like it would get closer and closer to me.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  When his foot hit the ground, you'd hear that low rumble, that growl.

• 23:32Speaker 02

  And it sounded like he was right behind me.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  But I never, never looked back behind me. I just knew if I stopped or if I hesitated to look behind me, this thing was gonna have me.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  I'm running as fast as I can and I kept looking ahead to try and find a way to lose this thing. Make it lose its footing or find a small hole to crawl through where he can't fit.

• 24:05Speaker 02

  But it's like this thing just was right on me the whole time and I couldn't do nothing about it.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck and I could feel this rumble, this growl, just in my bones.

• 24:22Speaker 02

  In my mind, I kept playing it over and over again. This thing's gonna get me. This thing's gonna get me.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  At some point, I got near the edge of the woods and when I saw the briar started to thin out a little bit, I ran even faster because then I could step quicker.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  And as I broke through the clearing to get by my house, it stopped.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  It stayed in the woods, but I kept running. And as I got to the house, I slowed down a little bit, but I was panting. I was out of breath. And when I looked down at my arms and my clothes was all scratched up, like all torn, my arms were bleeding. And when I got to the porch, my dog was already on the porch.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Evidently, she got out of the wood before me.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  I'm shaking and I realized I ran so fast, I ran clean out of one of my boots.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  I took my other boot off and I went inside.

• 25:37Speaker 02

  My mama was sitting in her chair. And when I went through that door, she looked at me. And she said, "You saw it, huh?"

• 25:46Speaker 02

  She just knew, because of the condition I was in. I just shook my head and said, "Yes, ma'am." It was understood that it was the Rougarou.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  As a child, I was told that the Rougarou was watching you. And that when you do something wrong, the Rougarou was gonna get you.

• 26:12Speaker 02

  I've heard of people dying in a deer stand or in the marsh. Their eyes and their mouth was wide open. That's how they found them. Like they were scared to death.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  The way that it was handed down in legend, the Rougarou was this guy that had a curse put on him.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  A lady near New Orleans in the 1800s, she used to practice witchcraft.

• 27:14Speaker 02

  She had summoned a demon to possess somebody. When the demon took over the person's body, he could go back and forth and shape-shift whenever it felt that it was needed.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  My mom, she just said, "You saw it, didn't you?" But she didn't ask me what I saw. And then she asked me, "Did you draw his blood?" Because legend had it that if you saw a rugaru, and you drew his blood,

• 27:55Speaker 02

  his spirit was released from the curse. But if you spoke of it, what you saw, before a year and a day, your spirit then accepted the curse, and you became the rugaru.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  So, my mom asked me, "Did I draw his blood?" And I shook my head, "No." But my mama didn't want to take a chance. She told me, "Do not speak of it for a year and a day." Because she didn't want me to turn into the rugaru.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  She said, "Get cleaned up." So I went, took my shower, got out, we ate supper. But the whole time, I could, I could visualize that thing was just gonna rip me to shreds. I was trying to eat, but my hand was shaking still. My mama, she could tell that I was still shook up. She made us a cup of coffee. She said, "Sit down, we're gonna talk."

• 29:04Speaker 02

  She starts telling me the story of when she was younger, that they had a snowstorm, and it don't normally snow down here in South Louisiana, but they had a snowstorm that had came in. It was in the evening, and a little girl was playing near the wood line.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  She got turned around when the snow hit. So, she wandered into the woods instead of out of the woods, because she couldn't tell with the snow.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  So everybody else started looking for her.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  As they were looking, the lanterns kept blowing out and it was getting dark and the storm wasn't letting up. So they just knew that they had to come in because they was gonna die in the cold.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  They said that they were just gonna go back and look for the little girl the next day.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  They was searching for a body.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  They crossed the clearing and in the middle of the clearing, it had a big oak tree. And one of the men went by the oak tree. And when he got there, he hollered for everybody to come.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  The little girl was laying underneath the oak tree in a circle with no snow.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  The little girl was still alive.

• 30:29Speaker 02

  She told him when the storm hit, a big bear caught her and he curled up with her. And the whole time, the snow was gone.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  He stayed with her.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  I get emotional every time I tell this because that little girl was my aunt, my mom's sister.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  My mom, she said, "It's okay. It didn't hurt you." But she said, "It's trying to teach you a lesson."

• 31:06Speaker 02

  It's like a light switch went off inside me. Because hearing the story, I knew that the rugaru wasn't just a bad spirit. Sometimes it did things to help people when they was in trouble.

• 31:24Speaker 02

  That it wasn't just out to hurt people, that sometimes it did good things.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Because why else would the rugaru help a little girl? She wasn't really doing anything bad. She was just playing by the woods and got lost.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  And looking back, my little short legs could never have outrun that thing. He could have caught me before I got off the levee. Plucked me off the ground because I'm just a little bitty squirt. Could have shredded me up and spit out the bones.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  But it didn't. It just chased me and it scared the living hell out of me. Why would it have done that? To me, this thing was stopping me from doing something wrong. That's the only thing I could see. But what would have happened if I'd have shot that rabbit? I don't know. My mama said, "Say your prayers and go to bed." So I said my prayers and I asked God to forgive me. I was scratched up and shook up, but I was alive.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  And when I laid down, I felt peace. I did not go back hunting for the rest of that year in them woods. I live in the same house. I'm still in the same place. I didn't go anywhere. Today, when I go in them woods, I feel this thing. I can still feel that groan, that growl, the vibrations that I felt that day when I walk in them woods.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  And since then, I do my best to treat others correctly. Because I know at any given time, this thing can come back. It might not be as happy an ending if it comes back.

• 33:47Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, thank you, Beldron, for sharing your story with the Spookin' Spooksters. We know you want to know more, even though Beldron survived his run-in with the Rougarou. Not everyone is so lucky. So if you're finding yourself in southeast Louisiana around this time of year, please do not go alone into the marsh. Instead, head over to the Rugeru Fest. It's an event that our friend Beldron helped get started and it takes place in Houma, Louisiana every October. More information in our show notes. This story was scouted by Evan Stern. The original score is by Doug Stewart. It was produced by Zoe Frigno.

• 34:39Glynn Washington?

  This is the end of the crossroads. We've chased monsters, seen demons, faced madness, but do not mourn. Do not despair spooksters. Our quest continues. If you yourself face the dark shadow, let me know. Spooked at snapjudgment.org because there's nothing better than a spooked story from a spooked listener. Spooked at snapjudgment.org. And yes, Snap Judgment, the podcast, our good twin podcast, has amazing stories from the bright light of day.

• 35:17Glynn Washington?

  Spook lives at the intersection of hope and of fear. The Spooked Underground Catacombs lie deep beneath KQED in San Francisco. Do not seek to find this place, lest this place seek to find you.

• 35:36Glynn Washington?

  As oligarchy creates machinery to steal your very thoughts, we make this declaration to the wind and to the lawyers that absolutely know Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. The Crossroads is brought to you by the Spooked team, who all know that fire is hot, except for Mr. Mark Ristich, who insists on testing it each and every time on Team Spooked. The union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIL Local 51, and...

• 36:17Glynn Washington?

  There's David Kim, Louis Ferrigno, Eric Yanez, Taylor Decott, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Elliot Lightfoot, Suzy Chu, Evan Stern, Eves Jeffcoat, Ishel Lopez, Jack Darrell, Doug Stewart. The Spook theme song is by Pat Massey Miller. So is this open. But my name's Clint Washington. And what scares me is monsters, yes, but a particular type of monster. Zombies, vampires, weird creatures. Not because of who they are.

• 37:01Glynn Washington?

  Now, I can fight monsters because of what they do. They infect, one bite, one scratch, and now you are them. Communities, families turn on each other, abandon who they were, what they believed. And yes, yes, I've seen that in my own family, my own communities, people, turning people. I've known my whole life, people I've known to be wholesome, to be caring, people whom I love, turn. And casually insist to me, "Why?

• 37:45Glynn Washington?

  It is good to lock children in cages. How? It is okay to hunt our neighbors." They shout that hunger and sickness is the fault of the hungry and the sick. And that they are them. And we are us. And I wonder, where was the bite that made the change, the transformation? And whore of whores, are they still there? Inside, trapped, afraid, waiting for the song to call them back out from the darkness. What can save them? What can save us? I don't know.

• 38:31Glynn Washington?

  I don't, but even in despair,

• 38:35Glynn Washington?

  even in sorrow, I am certain that the only thing we can do

• 38:40Glynn Washington?

  is to never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever, both for them and for us, never, ever, ever,

• 38:50Glynn Washington?

  turn out the lights.