Morning broke over Bayou Mounds with headlines soaked in fear.
Twenty-three dead at a downtown nightclub — no suspects, no survivors, just theories that didn’t make sense. Some called it a cult. Others blamed the “wild dogs.”
Derek didn’t believe either.
He’d seen too much, heard too many roars in the night to write it off as a coincidence. His mother’s unexplained absences, her sweat-soaked robe, the way her eyes glowed under certain lights — none of it lined up. And when she came home that morning, silent and trembling, he knew the distance between them had grown into something unnatural.
He tried to reach her.
But by the time he did, it was already too late to pretend she was still the same woman who raised him.
That’s when the warning came — not from her, but from someone else. Someone he once trusted.
The message was simple: stay out of it.
But Derek was done running from shadows. He started digging through old papers, old rooms, and things a son was never meant to find. What he uncovered painted a different picture of Bayou Mounds altogether: one built on secrecy, symbols, and an expanding circle of names.
And somewhere out there, someone was watching him do it.
When the sun finally set, something inside that quiet little house broke wide open — leaving Derek with a choice between truth and survival.
Read the Full Chapter
The night Bayou Mounds stopped pretending normal life still existed has arrived.
Discover what Derek finds — and what awakens in the dark — in Chapter Five: “Warning Shots.”
Please read it now for free on Substack and follow Bayou Blood: The Awakening as the truth finally claws its way to the surface.
