Game 13 - Dogwill Hunting

[slug]

Dateline April 1928

Mutant Swamp Hounds

Lincoln Hills Society of the Insane Unexplained

Members
Dr Dave Newell (Oskar)
David Mortenson - Engineer (Zarniwoop)
Harry Took - PI (Armored Smiler)
Meredith Sinclair - Lecturer (DeeBee)
Luther Maguire - writer (Slug)
Robert McNabb - Artist (EvilGinger)

The Lincoln Hills society get in touch with our intrepid group and ask whether we want to take a trip down to Louisiana to investigate some disappearances of some Cajun folk.  A small reward is on offer ($200) and the intriguing byline in the newspaper article saying that strange lights were seen in the bayou around the time these people disappeared.
We take the train down to N'Awlins, Meredith preferring not to fly and change trains to Houma.  We speak to the Deputy as the Sheriff is down in Montegut where the three people had disappeared.  He speaks disparagingly of the Cajun folk.  We rent a car and drive down to Montegut and head straight to the Sheriff to get more information.  
He confirms that three people have disappeared, they are recent cajun migrants to the area displaced by the Mississippi flooding.  We get more details and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the type (two men, one woman, different ages) or date of disappearance (first one 33 days ago, most recent 18 days ago).  The party decide to head up to the Mangrove Trading Post where we might be able to talk to some of their kinfolk or other cajuns.
We get a whiff of grain alcohol but cannot see any.  There is some gumbo bubbling away and we partake of a meal while asking questions of the storekeep and a couple of locals, one is a brother of one of the miising people and the other is the husband of the missing woman.  At some point in the talking there is mention of the Witch Man who lives in the swamp, at this point the crickets stop chirping and the other locals start to leave.  No-one will give us any further information, they seem mighty afraid of this character. We rent some boats from the store.
We head back into town and are on our way to a hotel when we nearly crash the car as a man runs into the road followed by two massive weird looking dogs.  Some of us freeze in shock from the combined effects of the near miss and the sight of the two fearful animals.  Meredith is one of the first to draw their gun a get a round off.  The hounds tear out the throat of the man and rip off a hand.  Our bullets bounce off the beasts and they run away.  We check n the man who is rapidly dying, our doctor can do nothing.  The sheriff turns up and takes charge of the situation.  We follow the tracks of the dogs back down the road, our meagre skills made easier by a fresh trail of blood and drool, the tracks veer off the road and into the swamp.  We continue our course looking at the original tracks made by the man and soon come across a car in a ditch with damage to the roof and windshield, no doubt made by the big hounds.  Looking through the car uncovers a hotel room key in Houma and a road map with some areas circled.  Going back to the sheriff we inform him of the car and he says that the man was a Treasury Agent, no doubt looking for illegal stills.  We bid our farewells and head back to Houma booking into the same hotal as we have a room key for.  During the night we investigate the room and find little.  
The next morning we head back into Montegut and start investigating the circled areas, we draw a blank on the first property but do come across some wildcat oil drillers.  Moving on we strike out on a few more leads before approaching another property and hear an argument in progress, we sneak in for a better listen and it seems that a child has been kidnapped.  We make our presence known and one child babbles out that his sister was taken by the Witch Man with two big fierce dogs.  We say that we can help and try to reassure them.
Loading up the two boats we set off into the swamp after driving as far as we can into the swamp in the general direction we have been given.  We quietly steer our first boat into the dock near a decrepit house with woodshed attached.  Robert and Meredith go over to the woodshed while Luther mooches around the boathouse by the dock, unfortunately nearly treading on a zombie.  Several shotgun blasts later and the creature is dispatched.  A high pitched whistle is heard and soon after shots fired from the house.  The remainder of the party beach their boat and join the melee.  Luther switches to his rifle and covers the house.  Meredith gets into the woodshed and finds the missing girl in shackles.  Harry takes a nasty bite from ne of the dogs that appear but with plenty of gunfire they drive the hounds off.  Some very old man with a shotgun pops around the side of the house and lets fly then appears on the roof and fires at Luther who returns the favor striking him square in the chest with his thirty ought six.  We investigate the area after everything has quietened down and see the old man has died from the bullet wound and subsequent fall from the roof.  Around his neck is a whistle.  We wrap his corpse in a tarpaulin and load up the boats, as we are doing this hear four large bangs, sounding not unlike four tyres bursting.  Paddling back to the causeway where we left the car find it with four burst tyres, no doubt the work of the swamp hounds who took some damage from the bullets but seem to regenerate it quickly.
We are forced to paddle back to town with the light fading and a frightened child and corpse in the boats.  The wound on Harrys arm is beginning to go mouldy and he looks worried.  We hear howls and with a fog forming start to get lost.  It is not long before we are trying to push away from a shallow island when the dogs appear trough the gloom and knock Robert out of the boat, the other dog tips Luther out of the boat and the creatures try to shepherd Robert away from the rest of the group.  Through much look we manage to shoot and kill one of the creatures, we drive off the other dog and continue our paddling with a wounded Robert and feverish Harry.  Finally with the first glimpse of dawn we arrive in on the edge of town and trudge to the sheriffs office.  More bad news awaits us as the second dog leaps at us from the darkness of the office.  We blow this creature away and rush the sheriff, Robert and Harry to the hospital.
Meredith, the Doc and Luther head back to the Witch Mans hut and find some arcane writings and a weird oily patch of water with an engraved momolith.  Meredith takes a sample of the water and some of it drips onto her hand causing the same reaction as the dogs bite but a lot faster.  Another quick trip to the hospital and it seems like we have wrapped up al the loose ends.