Field Log — Terminals & Truths
DATE: 10/31/2224
Location: Lafayette Medical Center — Terminal Wing / Night Watch
After the morning read, Clancy and I sat at one of the hospital terminals. The glow from the screen made our faces look older. I asked him to retell the tale the Enclave fed him about RedWolf—the rumor, the myth, the headline version the boys in uniform passed along to scare recruits or make them into ghosts.
He told it straight: the toned-down Enclave legend—Rougarou as monster, lone wolf terror of the bayou, a cautionary story used to keep kids inside on Mardi Gras and soldiers steady at night. He said it like he believed the scare, the pageant of fear that kept people moving in lines.
I let him finish. Then I leaned forward, low and careful, and began to speak—not the enshrouded version, but the truth I carry.
“Listen close,” I said. Clancy sat down, silent and focused.
This is the truth of RedWolf — Ray Marcel Sr., my great-grandfather.
He was born to Choctaw natives in New Orleans. The Marcel family were keepers—undertakers, caretakers of funerary rites. Ray’s father was an undertaker; as a boy Ray walked the burial grounds with him, lighting fires after dusk to keep the wolves from digging graves open. That work taught him the language of the dark...how to read scent and shadow and the lean of wind.
On the midnight of Lundi Gras—the Monday before Mardi Gras—Tanti held a bayou ceremony. The wolves came down to the water and wrecked her altar. Folks scattered, the ritual broken, and she accused Ray of summoning them. In the shouting she threw salt in his eyes and branded him with a prophecy: “I’ve seen you call them—now you are one of them.”
At midnight, Ray changed. Eyes glowed. He became the Rougarou.
Tanti gave him a choice wrapped in a curse: the beast could be tamed, but not without a price. He had to respect the Lenten season—abstain. If the cycle was broken, the transformation would come and not yield. She boiled an elixir in a black bottle and told him it would wear off in one hundred days. Ray drank it and returned to man. He begged to live a normal life. Tanti warned him: if he broke the waiting, the curse would hitch to his bloodline—those who celebrated Mardi Gras and then ate on the fast of Ash Wednesday would carry the bane.
The tall tales about him hunting people? Exaggeration. Ray Marcel Sr. was loved in his community. When the Rougarou came on, he retreated—no harm intended—because instinct drives the body away from kin. His Choctaw family saw it differently: their totem had awakened. It was part curse, part sacred burden. They treated it as heritage, not horror.
I told Clancy this quietly, letting the history settle in the terminal’s light.
He blinked slow. “You’re—your family—this is real?” he asked, the soldier in him trying to measure myth against the man.
“Yes,” I said. “Deeper than the stories you heard. But that’s where the thread begins. If the records survived, if the University archives weren’t gutted, there should be trace—deeds, obituaries, parish notes—things the institutions kept even when people forgot their names. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette will be my next stop. There may be family files, local registries, damage reports—everything that tells what happened after Hurricane Kendra and after the bombs.”
Ray Marcel Sr., Choctaw funerary records—probability of recovery: moderate.” He projected a tiny holo index of search terms onto the terminal.
Clancy swallowed, fingers tight around his Root Beer. “Do you have it in you, Chief? To go back in there and pull that up? Pull family out from dust?”
I looked at him and felt the weight of the name like an old coin warm in my palm. “Yes,” I said. “The Rougarou line runs deep. Or it did. If it’s still written down, I’ll find it. If it’s not—then I’ll make sure the story is brought back right. Either way, I go. I’ll audit the terminals, the libraries, the parish notes. We’ll find what we can for the Deans and for my line. Then we decide how to use it.”
Clancy nodded. He listened like a man learning what courage looks like when it isn’t loud.
We logged the plan into the Pip-Boy: University archive sweep, priority: Marcel family records, hospital transfer lists (2077), parish registries, post-Kendra damage reports. Pinball cached the queries. The Railroad keeps freight of memory—maps, names, promises. We start collecting.
Night fell on the terminal wing. Somewhere in the hospital the Brotherhood moved like a tide. We moved quieter: prep tools, check weapons, confirm exit routes. The university was the next liminal edge to cross. We’d follow the tracks, read the signs, and see what history still had breath in it.
Clancy spoke, soft now. “If you find something… will you tell me? About him—about Ray?”
I raked my fingers through my hair and smiled without humor. “When I can. The truth’s heavier than a story, son. You’ll know it when I bring it back.”
Pinball chimed, almost playful. “Data integrity protocols engaged. Moral uplift potential: high.”
Larry shuffled paper in his pack somewhere behind us; the Swindler stayed mostly silent, watching the door. He heard the plan and maybe, for once, listened.
We saved the terminal logs, shut the screens, and moved out to ready the convoy. The University waits. The tracks call.
— The Big Chief
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