DATE: 10/31/2224
Location: Lafayette Sector
Tonight is Halloween, though the Wasteland doesn’t recognize the date. Out here, there are no costumes, no sugar, no laughter echoing down the streets. Only survival. Shadows move with teeth and claws, steel and rot. Yet the date carries weight, and for a fleeting moment, I let myself drift into memory.
In the old world, Halloween was a ritual of joy and risk, a delicate dance of innocence and consequence. Streets were alive—lights glowing like beacons against the early fall dusk, laughter rising like smoke from every block. Children raced from house to house, pillowcases swinging heavy with candy, dreaming of Captain Cosmo, Silver Shroud, heroes that shielded them from the night. I was one of them. Weeks of planning went into costumes, each year a choice between the Silver Shroud’s vigilance and Captain Cosmo’s daring.
Candy was more than sugar. Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, Dandy Boy Apples, and the occasional Captain Cosmos’ Space Treat were morsels of freedom. Every bite was childhood, every wrapper a small treasure. But danger lurked then too—not monsters in the streets, but people. Parents checked candy. Every wrapper, every corner, examined for tampering. Even joy carried caution. Survival wasn’t new; it was practiced early.
Fall festivals and school gatherings were the heart of the season. Music spilling over the block, bobbing for apples, laughter, cakewalks, spinning rides—all under string lights. Pumpkins glowed, yes, but they framed something larger: family, community, shared rituals. Even in mirth, lessons lingered joy
alongside consequence.
Larry Breaux doesn’t get it. Last night, he asked questions, wide-eyed. “The Shroud?” he said. “You mean… you actually pretended to be him?”
I nodded. “Someone had to watch the shadows while we ran the streets. Someone had to keep the balance.”
His excitement felt absurd against the darkness, but he listens. Even in the Wasteland, the Shroud survives—in memory, in story, in the spirit of vigilance.
Clancy walks beside me as the night stretches. “Back in the Enclave,” he says, voice low, “they told stories… about a werewolf. Called him RedWolf. Stalked the swamps, cursed soul.”
I glance down at my hands, my fingers tracing the worn edges of my gloves. The words strike chords in me, older than Lafayette, older than the Enclave.
“Not a werewolf,” I correct. “Rougarou.”
“Rougarou,” I repeat. “Cajun. Old. Not just a beast, but a man—caught between worlds. Punishment, consequence, spirit unsettled. Some say for breaking Lent, others for sins too heavy to carry. Half-man, half-beast—but mostly… the weight of reckoning.”
Clancy frowns. “So… not just a creature that tears people apart?”
“No. People fear him because he reflects what they might become. Broken covenant, twisted choices. Not predator, not prey—lesson and mirror.”Larry chuckles from behind, nervously, shaking his head. “Boogeymen, fall festivals, Rougarou… man, Halloween sounds like a whole different world.”
I smile, eyes scanning the darkened streets. “It was. A world with laughter, candy, faith, and shadows. We carried joy in our pillowcases, and fear walked beside us. That was the balance. Here, that balance is gone. Teeth and steel replace candlelight and sugar. But the memory… the memory is our inheritance. Like candy wrapped in foil, preserved against time. Even here, I walk with the Rougarou—not as prey, not as hunter, but as heir.”
The contrast is sharp, the past so warm, the present so cold...but it fuels me. Memory becomes covenant, and covenant becomes resolve. Out here in Lafayette, among ruins, ferals, and roving Vertibirds, it is the spirit of the Rougarou..and the Silver Shroud..that reminds me why I survive, why I protect, and why I keep moving forward.
Even tonight, Halloween is remembered, and in that remembering, I find purpose.
—The Big Chief
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