Enter Lafayette

Date: 10.24.2224
Location: Red Rocket Truck Stop, Lafayette Outskirts

We’ve been trekking east on the South Pacific Railroad line, following the tracks in search of a station
worth calling shelter. The rail carried us through bayous turned hostile—Bayou Queue de Tortue, which swelled over its banks near Duson, and Indian Bayou, cutting deep through Sadou with stagnant water black as oil. Each crossing stank of rot and chemicals, the kind that eats at boots and lungs alike.

Passing through Scott, Louisiana, the path grew worse. The air hummed with giant wasps and carrion flies, swarming so thick it felt like the sky itself was buzzing. Every step forward was a fight, but forward was the only direction.

When our coordinates pushed us closer to Lafayette, the ground itself broke apart. Whole sections of housing had collapsed into what was once the Coutee Mine. Before the war, Coutee was a shallow industrial strip mine, gouged open for gravel and shale. Post-war rains turned it into a cauldron. The pit filled, bled into creeks, and eroded outward until the waterways became toxic channels, cutting through neighborhoods and swallowing streets. The locals call it the “river,” but it’s a mine-turned-grave, a poisoned artery feeding into Lafayette’s ruins.

At the lip of this erosion, we found a surprise: a functioning Red Rocket Truck Stop. Not just a ruin—a hub still alive. Workbenches, a power armor station, and, strangest of all, a staff. A ghoul family, led by one who introduced himself in a softened Cajun French: Jean Dean. He explained they once lived in historic Freetown until it burned. Now they keep this truck stop alive at the edge of the Coutee, their lives tied to imported water from New Orleans.

Jean welcomed us, though his eyes narrowed when he saw Larry. Called him “The Swindler.” Apparently, Larry left a mark here before. I didn’t deny it. Truth doesn’t vanish because you look away.

Jean asked about Pinball, curious about the machine’s gait and function. I told him it's story, and for a moment the man looked… human again. But then he tested Clancy. Said the streets beyond crawled with feral ghouls, “not like me or my family—different, gone.”

Clancy stiffened, his prejudice showing raw. To him, ghoul meant mutant, and mutant meant threat. He didn’t hide it. Jean watched him closely, measuring how a soldier handles truth he doesn’t want to face. The apprentice isn’t ready. Not yet.

Inside, the truck stop smelled faintly of old oil and scorched metal, but it was refuge. Jean carries his burden with a high-powered shotgun and a stubborn will, though he admits the hardest part of ghoul life is the waiting—never knowing if today is the day your mind rots and you slip feral.

Then the skies tore open. Vertibirds. Three of them, engines cutting the silence, Brotherhood insignia flashing as they rained fire on distant ruins. Larry screamed about supermutants; Jean corrected him with a weary sigh. “That’s the Brotherhood. They don’t come for you until they’ve decided you’re already gone.”

I’ve promised Jean and his family that while I’m here, their shelter stands. Tonight, we rest. Tomorrow, the tracks lead deeper into Lafayette, and every step forward must be chosen, not stumbled.

—The Big Chief