06 Oct For the Good of the People

Posted at 11:00h in Uncategorized by CreepypastaStories.com 0 Comments

📅 Published on October 6, 2024

“For the Good of the People”

Written by Jay Adair
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 8 minutes

Rating: 10.00/10. From 4 votes.

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“Think they’re gonna hear us c-c-c-coming?”

“You’re the loudest of us all, Joe, dragging that bum leg of yours.”

Joe tried to keep the volume down — it seemed deafening in the quiet night air -– but he continued to kick up gravel as he hobbled down the dirt road, struggling to keep up with the mob. They were seventeen-strong, so it was probable that their approach would not go unnoticed. The rest of the group didn’t seem concerned; they had bellies full of whiskey and violence in their eyes.

Their implements of destruction were varied: shovels, pitchforks, knives, shotguns. Father Farrell had abstained from the earlier nerve-strengthening festivities, but he was in tow nonetheless with an axe slung over his shoulder. Like the others, he believed with all of his heart that the Laveau family was a plague on their community. Tonight, the Society for Peace and Justice — as they had labeled themselves earlier that evening — would cure that plague.

After much discussion, the Society had declared the Laveau family to be witches. The unease of the townspeople began shortly after the Laveau family moved to town, and old Mrs. Murray claimed that she had known them almost 30 years prior, in the 1860s. The issue was, not only had they gone by another name at that time, but more importantly, they all looked exactly the same then as they did at present.

They had made a deal with the devil, she claimed, in exchange for immortality.

Mrs. Murray also claimed that the family needed to perform certain deeds and rituals to preserve this sinister agreement. This fueled rumors of the family’s acts of sabotage to other farms and their theft of property from neighbors. The entire Laveau clan wore odd, dark clothing, and they never attended Sunday mass. Some said that they chanted wicked devotions to Satan throughout the night and used Satan’s dark powers to curse other farmers. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that their arrival to town just one year prior had coincided with the worst crop loss in the town’s history.

Joe was a simple man, and he nodded and tagged along that night without voicing an opinion on the matter. However, Joe did not exude the confidence of the other men. His heart had been beating furiously against his ribcage, and sweat had been dripping into his bloodshot eyes for hours prior to their departure for the farm. When the candles in the windows of the Laveau farmhouse came into view, Joe’s stomach turned, and a hush fell over the group.

The men spread out as planned when they got to the yard. Joe approached a small side window with O’Sullivan and Father Farrell. Their spy had informed them that this window led to the kitchen.

Joe crouched outside the window and waited, his head flying this way and that, spooked by every shadow. A moment later, they heard Reilly’s chirping sound from the opposite side of the house. This was the signal to go. Father Farrell jumped up and thrust the end of his axe through the window, smashing it to bits. O’Sullivan jumped through the window without hesitation. Father Farrell’s pants became entangled on jagged shards of glass around the window frame, obscuring Joe’s view into the kitchen. Joe heard what sounded like a chair tumbling over and heard a voice:

“What is the meaning of—”

BLAAAAAAAAAMMM!

The blare and the flash from O’Sullivan’s shotgun almost made Joe tumble back onto the grass. After Father Farrell untangled himself, Joe crawled through the window and almost fell flat on his face immediately as his boots slid on the slick floor. He looked down to see the remains of what must have been Will Laveau. Most of his face was missing, his skull in chunks all over the kitchen floor. The dead man’s body twitched, as if making an effort to fight off his attackers.

Joe crumpled, gagging. He tried to catch his breath while the audio of the macabre scene in the surrounding rooms faded in and out, his senses overwhelmed and failing him. The determined footfalls of heavy boots echoed throughout the house and seemed to surround Joe. Intermittent screams from members of the Laveau family infested his ears like leeches as he bore earwitness to their slayings.

There were eight family members, and by the sheer volume of the shrieking and shouting, Joe figured most of them had already been hunted down in those initial few moments as he pathetically crouched in the kitchen.

A man burst through the door into the kitchen, shakily flinging the barrel of his gun towards Joe. Joe peddled backward into the pantry, knocking shelves of jarred fruits onto the floor.

“Joe! What the hell are you doing in here?” It was Reilly.

“Jus…just l-l-l-lookin’ for them. The last ones,” Joe stammered.

“Check the back rooms. Now!” Reilly grabbed Joe by the collar and shoved him into a small side hallway before marching off towards the front of the house.

Sweat dripped from Joe’s brow as he crept through the dark, narrow hallway. He wanted to run, to slip off into the fields and abandon the scene while the others were distracted, but he had nowhere to go. He relied on the people in this town and he relied on his farm. He hadn’t been eager to go to the farmhouse but he had aimed to choose the side of the Lord, like Father Farrell told him he was doing. Though this didn’t seem too godly to him.

He noticed a small, narrow staircase at the very end of the hall. Doubting that any of the men had even noticed it, he realized that it might present an opportunity to hide out. He would feign a search and come back down to the main floor once all of the vicious noise had died out.

Clambering up the staircase on all fours, Joe stepped into what he assumed would be an attic, but was surprised to see an expansive bedroom. He was even more surprised to see a member of the Laveau family sitting cross-legged at the far end of the room, her dark silhouette lit by a single candle directly behind her.

This was the teenage daughter, Angelica, Joe realized. Despite the chaos below, Angelica sat, unflinching, in her stained white sleep dress, her head down and long, greasy black hair obscuring her face. Did she realize what was going on right below her?

Then Angelica spoke. The voice seemed to surround Joe, and he wasn’t sure that it was coming through the mess of dark hair at first. It sounded like a warped combination of the high-pitched voice of a young girl and the raspy and rumbling voice of an enraged, colossal man.

“You evil men. How dare you enter our home and place judgment upon us?”

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Joe stammered. “I never meant—-“

“Instead of blaming us for your many problems, perhaps you should all turn to a mirror.” She stood up slowly on bare feet and started taking slow steps towards Joe.

“You are oppressors of the oppressed,” she continued. “You all lie, cheat, and steal. You all avert your eyes to the crimes of others to protect your positions in this horrific community.”

“L-l-l-little miss, uh, hand to heart, I never wanted to hurt nobody.” Joe tried to back away as Angelica moved closer, but he felt paralyzed, as if his boots were made of concrete.

“You put the blame on our family. But I will show you the truth, simpleton. You will see what you and your people have done.”

Angelica’s head flew upright, and she bared her teeth as she jumped at Joe from across the room, flying at him with tremendous speed.

Her hands cracked into Joe’s temple, and he fell to the dusty floor.

And there was darkness.

* * * * * *

“Wake up! Joe! Come on, you bastard, wake up!”

A violent scene came into view as Joe slowly opened his eyes. He flung his head back in a futile attempt to escape the heat coming from the burning farmhouse. In doing so, he saw that he was being dragged by the arms away from the fire by O’Sullivan.

Joe began flailing his arms wildly and O’Sullivan let him go, dropping down to the grass, exhausted. Joe scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled back further to escape the intense fire.

“You stupid ass, you almost got yourself killed!” O’Sullivan screamed. “You were damn lucky I saw you up there when we were lighting it up!”

They must have killed them all, including Angelica, Joe realized. He turned to see the members of the Society for Peace and Justice spread out across the lawn, most soaked in the blood of the Laveau family. He saw a range of emotions from the group; some smiled and laughed, some looked somber, and a few looked bloodthirsty and ready to move on to another family home for more carnage.

Without warning, Joe felt an urge to speak, and he did so more clearly and confidently than he ever had in his entire life.

“I have seen your misdeeds, as clearly as I see you all now. The sins against God were not committed by this poor family, but by you.”

The men stood, mouths agape. Most couldn’t recall ever hearing Joe string together a proper sentence, so his words astonished them to silence.

“You accuse this family of crimes only to conceal your own wrongdoings. Like Patrick here.” Joe pointed an accusatory finger and strode towards the young man. “I know it was you who torched O’Sullivan’s barn. You were angry and felt that he didn’t pay you enough for those deliveries.”

O’Sullivan raised an eyebrow towards Patrick. “That true, son?”

“He’s just talking is all, no way I done that,” Patrick replied. The men shifted uneasily. Joe was a simpleton, but he was not a liar.

“It is too bad that we can’t know for sure, huh O’Sullivan?” Joe continued. “If only someone were there to witness the crime. Like maybe your wife? She should have been there, right? Did you ever wonder why she was nowhere to be found when you heard about the fire and rushed home from the pub? Her explanation about running errands never really made sense. I suppose she didn’t have much time to get her story straight when she was busy keeping the sheets warm in Reilly’s bed!”

O’Sullivan furrowed his brow. “How did you know about…what is this?” He trailed off and started pacing. Then he cocked his gun and lowered the barrel at Reilly.

“You son of a bitch!” he spat.

The men grabbed O’Sullivan. Reilly tried to grab at his gun. As the men struggled with each other, Joe strode between them, loudly listing off the other men’s transgressions one after another; theft, sabotage, violence, rape. As the crimes grew in number, the men grew angrier and more violent. With weapons already stained with the blood of the Laveau family, the men turned on each other, and the front lawn of the farmhouse became a battleground. Joe sauntered the perimeter, casually stating crime after crime until he was silenced by a knife to the back.

* * * * * *

Head throbbing and heavy, Joe fought to open his eyes and focus. He didn’t have the strength to lift himself up, so he lay on the grass and stared at the farmhouse, still burning, though with less intensity now.

Something moved in front of him, completely blocking his view of the farmhouse. A dirty white dress. Tangled black hair tickled Joe’s face as Angelica bent down to get closer.

She whispered to him, her voice now lacking any signs of aggression or abnormality. Joe heard only the soft, sweet voice of a young girl.

“Good work, Simple Joe. All of them, dead and gone,” she said.

Several pairs of boots fell in behind Angelica. Joe looked around her and was shocked to see the other members of the Laveau family, mutilated but alive. It appeared their bodies were repairing themselves. Even Will Laveau, whose face had been in pieces on the kitchen floor just a short time before, was standing, staring down at Will as his face gradually melded back together.

“Your friends were right, Joe. We are different,” Angelica said. “But we never made a deal with the devil. We’ve just always been like this. We’ve been moving around for centuries and thought this was a good town with good folks. I guess we were wrong.” She looked around at the gruesome scene. “Looks like you’ll have to explain yourself here, Joe. Good luck.”

Angelica turned with her family. Joe lay motionless, watching them as they slowly disappeared into the neighboring cornfield.

Joe’s enhanced intellect faded as the family vanished from view. His thoughts transformed from clear and solid into the jumbled and confused mush they were when he had arrived at the farm earlier that night.

Stumbling to his feet, Joe started the long walk back toward town, trying to think of what to tell everyone as the corpses rotted and the farm smoldered behind him.