Booger Eating Bastards, A Non Politically Correct Novella of Horror (2 of 6)

Booger Eating Bastards

It was March of the great year 1882. The hills around Marquand were trying to fully thaw

out from the long winter, but Mother Nature was having none of that foolishness. Winter

would quickly go away though in the next few days. Bo Stodgson, short for Beauregard, was

the engineer of a passenger train pulling eight passenger cars and a caboose, containing 170

people, most moving between Memphis, TN and St. Louis, MO. His son, Buehller Stodgson,

known as “Big Dork,” to most who knew him, was the engineer of a freight train which was

pulling 15 cars of mostly tree logs and some other assorted items. Both worked a section of

track that brought them to Marquand, MO every week at nearly the same time each week. The

railroad had brought prosperity to the local communities but it could and often did bring

tragedy to people who did not stay alert along the train tracks. Bo was supposed to wait at a

town called Bessville until Big Dork passed in his train, then he could continue on his trek. After

the Bessville train station, which had room for two trains to park or pass each other, there was

only one set of tracks between Bessville and Marquand, which also had room for two trains.

The one set of tracks was due to funding and the fact that the tracks went through some rough

and wild territory. If there was a real need, the railroad companies would have widened the

system, as they did many other places, it just was not needed around Marquand.

Since Bo was running ahead of schedule, he decided he would surprise his son and meet him

in Marquand. The father and son, and thus their trains, ultimately met in a manner neither

hoped nor imagined would happen, just outside of Marquand. The horrific crash killed all of

the passengers on board both trains. Bo was the only one to survive the wreck. For his

troubles, Bo received third degree burns to his hands and arms. Bo received these burns as he

tried to pull Big Dork out of the flaming wreckage. Bo survived what would forever be known in

the area as the Great Marquand Train Wreck. Maybe the history books will properly distinguish

who is the true Big Dork with the cause of this great train wreck. I am not certain and will not

even attempt to lay blame but some scholarly historian train snob will lay blame eventually.

Everyone should always remember though, hindsight is almost always 20/20.

The sounds of the two trains colliding brought the townspeople of Marquand running to

witness the wreckage and to offer assistance to the wounded. Many died on impact and many

others died as the townspeople arrived. Some of the locals, who were known to be inbred,

having sexual relations with their sisters, uncles, aunts, grandparents and even their own

mothers and fathers, came out to see what they could scavenge from the wrecked trains. It

was reported some were seen dragging what was thought to be dead bodies from the crash,

into the surrounding woods.

‐‐‐

On the exact same day as the great train wreck, Jesse Woodson James and his “gang” were

just outside of Marquand, on the other side of the town, along the same railroad tracks. They

were at a place the locals called Rock Cut, because the rock had literally been cut away and

blown up to allow passage of the one lane railroad tracks along the Castor River bed. The Rock Cut was about 50 feet above the water and was about 10 feet wide. The tracks were high

enough above the river to allow the trains to pass during the flood season. A person has to

imagine a steep mountainside with a train track cut into the side, and then a 50 feet drop off

down to the water and a 100 feet or so straight up slope to the top of the hill the tracks were

cut into. Jesse was sitting in a smaller cut in the rock that had been unnaturally formed during

an explosion. The rest of Jesses gang (known collectively as the James Gang, you may have

heard of them), were in similar situations along the stretch of railroad track. The original plan

was, when the passenger train rode along this stretch, the gang would jump on board and rob it

as it was on its way out of town. Since the train was just leaving Marquand, it would not have a

lot of speed built up just yet, so the James Gang members could drop onto the train from their

hiding places and board it to rob it of whatever valuables it may be transporting without many

hassles. The gang would also rob the passengers of whatever valuables they may be transporting if time and circumstances permitted. After the robbery, the gang would jump off

the train, walk back toward Marquand, obtain their horses and ride out of town before anyone

even knew the train had been robbed.

The gang members heard and then saw the freight train pass from the opposite direction.

The train was supposed to be coming from the other direction, so this was odd to say the least.

Shortly after, they heard the trains collide on the other side of Marquand, followed by a large

black cloud of smoke. Jesse’s first thought was to go to the wreck site and see what they could

steal but quickly decided against that idea. The whole town of Marquand was between the

gang and the trains and they were strangers. Jesse quickly called off the robbery and the gang

members went their separate ways. Jesse would be killed in the next month and the gang

would never fully ride together again. No one, to my recollection, ever pondered why the

freight train had not stopped in Marquand on its way through town.

‐‐‐

The most powerful earthquakes in the history of the United States continue to happen along

the New Madrid Fault. The worst ones recorded were in 1811 and 1812. Those earthquakes

were reportedly felt more than 1,000 miles away. Scientists assure us that one day we will

once again see very powerful earthquakes along the New Madrid fault. It is only a question of

when it will happen. Today, the New Madrid fault zone covers portions of Illinois, Indiana,

Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi. However, a major earthquake of

magnitude 8.0 or greater would likely have a dramatic effect all the way along the Mississippi

River valley, from the Great Lakes all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

Accounts of the 1812 quake vary since there were no measuring instruments at the time, but

most geologists say evidence shows it was at least a magnitude 8 earthquake, and possibly a 9

or higher. The shaking was so intense that church bells started ringing as far away as Boston,

MA and New York City, NY. Chimneys toppled from the Deep South to Canada, and President

James Madison reportedly was awakened by the violent shaking as he slept in the White House River to flow backwards for a time.

The fault line is located in the southern and Midwestern United States, stretching to the

southwest from the small town of New Madrid, MO, thus the name of the fault.

Marquand was located about 40 miles from New Madrid, though most of the town’s

residents had never really heard of the New Madrid Fault. Some say, those two trains collided

with such force, that the entire Earth shook and reawakened that fault line, just a little bit.

Others say a piece of the trains flew through the air and struck some part of the Earth so hard it

moved. What actually happened to free the Booger Eating Bastards that day, was a little of

both theories. When the trains collided, it did shake the Earth and pieces did fly in all

directions. People still find pieces of the trains in the area to this day. A piece of the passenger

train flew through the air and struck a boulder. While the Earth was shaking from the collision,

a combination of the two factors moved that same boulder that sealing up an old cave believed

to have been sealed since the first redskins had hunted the area. The boulder rolled into the

Castor River below causing a big splash that no one really noticed, though the splash did put

out part of the train fire. Where the boulder had sat, there was now an opening directly into

the ground.

A little grey hand popped out of this opening and grabbed the side of the hole and started

pulling the rest of the creature’s body out. As it got about 2/3 of the way out, the dirt gave way

and the creature tumbled backwards into the hole, landing on other creatures below it, causing

them some concern due to the height of the fall.

Another one of the timid creature’s crawled up and poked its head out of the hole. The

creature looked around and noted the excitement going on down the railroad tracks, though

they didn’t know they were called railroad tracks. People would work for months, through the

summer and into the fall, cleaning up the great Marquand train wreck. The creature saw some

humans scurrying away and wondered if possibly they, the humans, had caused this carnage.

Another creature pulled himself up and out of the hole and then they all started scurrying up

toward the light.

The creatures “came from nowhere and yet they came from everywhere.” They had not

always been in the darkness, they came out as they needed to hunt and fish. As such, the light

did not harm their eyes and humankind was not unusual to them. It is still unknown why on

this instance the creatures decided to interact fully with humankind and it is also unknown if

there are more of these creatures or are they only from the Marquand area. The redskins had

attempted to lock them into their underground lair at some point in time. No one knew this

but we, the dear readers, have to assume it was for a reason. The creatures themselves were “mostly” humanoid. They stood about four and a half feet tall, they had five fingers and toes and they wore thongs and furs to cover their modest bodies, probably modeled after the redskins from the past. The thongs and furs were more for padding on the hard ground than for cover and concealment or “private parts.” The creature’s skin was mostly gray and black colored and would be considered “mottled.” They had two arms and legs, as stated, “mostly” humanoid. The creatures eyes looked kind of like a lizards eyes, being dark and a little bulbous and about twice as large as a human eyes though the eyes were in the same location as a human’s eyes. They had no eyelids to speak of. Their nose was generally two holes in their skull and their teeth and mouth were mostly humanoid. The creatures tongue was about twice to three times as long as a humans tongue, though much thinner. The creatures were vegetarians, eating fruit and vegetables and roots.